Harry Potter, Hermione Granger and Tom Riddle/Voldemort: 020. Colourless
Title: Corpse
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 020. Colourless
Word Count: 945
Summary: The skin of the corpse was even paler than when he was alive. Combined with the black robes he was still wearing, if Hermione had wanted, she could almost convince herself that she was watching a black and white movie. A black and white horror movie.
Disclaimer: Everything from the Potterverse belongs to J.K. Rowling and I am not making any profit from this.
Betas: None. Be afraid. Very afraid.
~-0-~
Corpse
The door to the chamber slammed shut behind her.
Usually, Hermione Jean Granger liked silence, since it gives her the space to think. However, the quietness in here was always unsettling.
She recomposed herself, squaring her shoulders and willing the gooseflesh that had risen since the moment she entered the chamber to subside. Once that was accomplished, she stepped forward resolutely, until she was standing right in front of the bed situated in the middle of the room.
It was a plain bed, ones you would find in any hospital with white bed covers spread across a single size mattress. What made it different was the stretch of many buttons lined on the side, each with a different function. However, most wizards and witches probably wouldn't notice the buttons because their attention would, most likely, be caught by the occupant lying on top of the bed.
The skin of the corpse was even paler than when he was alive. Combined with the black robes he was still wearing, if Hermione had wanted, she could almost convince herself that she was watching a black and white movie.
A black and white horror movie.
Strictly speaking, after the first couple of times she'd been here, his features no longer frightened her. It might be jarring at first when being exposed to someone without a nose, eyebrows, and lips. But after the initial shock passed, she realized that his other features weren't as distorted as she had first thought they were. As childish as it was, she'd tried to imagine him with the features he had magicked away, and she realized that she could almost understand why he was considered good-looking when he was younger.
Well, he would've been a hell of a lot better looking to her and the rest of the people working at the Ministry if his corpse would just rot away like any normal dead bodies out there.
Merlin forbid Lord Voldemort's corpse to be like any other normal dead body, Hermione thought with a roll of her eyes.
After the final battle at Hogwarts, everyone had thought that that would be the end. After all, Voldemort had dropped dead in front of them. Hell, even Hermione, Ron, and Harry had thought that that would be the end.
That was until Hermione started to work at the Ministry as an Unspeakable and found out that his corpse was still kept in one of the many chambers of the Department of Mysteries.
Even today, she felt that she deserved an award for her ability to not tell her two best friends that Voldemort's corpse was still around. Or maybe one to compliment her for not screaming at Ministry officials for keeping something so important to themselves.
For some reason, the Ministry couldn't dispose of it. They'd tried different methods, even some of the shadier spells, but none of them worked. It was as if Voldemort had some kind of super ward on it to prevent people from destroying his body.
At the beginning, the people at the Ministry had been afraid that he might awake again. However, after ten years of inactivity, though they still remained cautious, "braver" individuals were sent to investigate why the corpse of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wasn't rotting and how.
"Braver" because people being sent there didn't necessarily want to go; they were sent there because they were bloody Unspeakables. And because they were Unspeakables, they weren't permitted to even talk about what they were working on at work.
Heaving a sigh, Hermione clicked on one of the many buttons to lower the wards the Ministry had placed around him and picked up the clipboard.
As her eyes skimmed over the things written on it, a sudden movement caught her attention.
Her head immediately whipped towards the corpse as her heart suddenly started pounding harder than usual. She swallowed hard as she pulled out her wand. Her hands slightly shaking, she cast a spell over the body. Seconds later, statistics floated upwards in a puff of smoke, giving her proof that he was still dead.
Slowly, her breathing and heartbeat returned to normal as she pocketed her wand again. It must have been the trick of the light. She gazed at the corpse again, making sure that it was still the black and white picture she had been seeing every single day and there was no specks of red anywhere. It was, after all, common to falsely see things from one's peripheral vision.
However, the other side of her mind, the instinctual side of it, refused to let her calm down, even as her eyes returned to the clipboard. Unconsciously, her eyes still drifted back to the corpse, and more than once, she'd thought about alerting one of her co-workers, but then thought better of it. If she'd told them about it, they would, most likely, run the same test she did, see the statistics, and then come to the conclusion that Hermione Granger was breaking down from the stress.
She would never hear the end of it, and the last thing she needed was more gossip in her life. Years and years of the newspapers speculating her relationship with Harry, Ginny, and Ron had been more than enough for her.
Shaking her head, she forced herself to concentrate on what was written on the clipboard.
All of a sudden, she saw it again.
Her eyes snapped upwards. Her body froze when she realized it hadn't been the trick of light before and somehow the spell for statistics malfunctioned or it just somehow didn't work on him.
For she was now staring right into the blood-red eyes of the somehow revived Lord Voldemort.
Rating: PG-13
Prompt: 020. Colourless
Word Count: 945
Summary: The skin of the corpse was even paler than when he was alive. Combined with the black robes he was still wearing, if Hermione had wanted, she could almost convince herself that she was watching a black and white movie. A black and white horror movie.
Disclaimer: Everything from the Potterverse belongs to J.K. Rowling and I am not making any profit from this.
Betas: None. Be afraid. Very afraid.
~-0-~
Corpse
The door to the chamber slammed shut behind her.
Usually, Hermione Jean Granger liked silence, since it gives her the space to think. However, the quietness in here was always unsettling.
She recomposed herself, squaring her shoulders and willing the gooseflesh that had risen since the moment she entered the chamber to subside. Once that was accomplished, she stepped forward resolutely, until she was standing right in front of the bed situated in the middle of the room.
It was a plain bed, ones you would find in any hospital with white bed covers spread across a single size mattress. What made it different was the stretch of many buttons lined on the side, each with a different function. However, most wizards and witches probably wouldn't notice the buttons because their attention would, most likely, be caught by the occupant lying on top of the bed.
The skin of the corpse was even paler than when he was alive. Combined with the black robes he was still wearing, if Hermione had wanted, she could almost convince herself that she was watching a black and white movie.
A black and white horror movie.
Strictly speaking, after the first couple of times she'd been here, his features no longer frightened her. It might be jarring at first when being exposed to someone without a nose, eyebrows, and lips. But after the initial shock passed, she realized that his other features weren't as distorted as she had first thought they were. As childish as it was, she'd tried to imagine him with the features he had magicked away, and she realized that she could almost understand why he was considered good-looking when he was younger.
Well, he would've been a hell of a lot better looking to her and the rest of the people working at the Ministry if his corpse would just rot away like any normal dead bodies out there.
Merlin forbid Lord Voldemort's corpse to be like any other normal dead body, Hermione thought with a roll of her eyes.
After the final battle at Hogwarts, everyone had thought that that would be the end. After all, Voldemort had dropped dead in front of them. Hell, even Hermione, Ron, and Harry had thought that that would be the end.
That was until Hermione started to work at the Ministry as an Unspeakable and found out that his corpse was still kept in one of the many chambers of the Department of Mysteries.
Even today, she felt that she deserved an award for her ability to not tell her two best friends that Voldemort's corpse was still around. Or maybe one to compliment her for not screaming at Ministry officials for keeping something so important to themselves.
For some reason, the Ministry couldn't dispose of it. They'd tried different methods, even some of the shadier spells, but none of them worked. It was as if Voldemort had some kind of super ward on it to prevent people from destroying his body.
At the beginning, the people at the Ministry had been afraid that he might awake again. However, after ten years of inactivity, though they still remained cautious, "braver" individuals were sent to investigate why the corpse of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named wasn't rotting and how.
"Braver" because people being sent there didn't necessarily want to go; they were sent there because they were bloody Unspeakables. And because they were Unspeakables, they weren't permitted to even talk about what they were working on at work.
Heaving a sigh, Hermione clicked on one of the many buttons to lower the wards the Ministry had placed around him and picked up the clipboard.
As her eyes skimmed over the things written on it, a sudden movement caught her attention.
Her head immediately whipped towards the corpse as her heart suddenly started pounding harder than usual. She swallowed hard as she pulled out her wand. Her hands slightly shaking, she cast a spell over the body. Seconds later, statistics floated upwards in a puff of smoke, giving her proof that he was still dead.
Slowly, her breathing and heartbeat returned to normal as she pocketed her wand again. It must have been the trick of the light. She gazed at the corpse again, making sure that it was still the black and white picture she had been seeing every single day and there was no specks of red anywhere. It was, after all, common to falsely see things from one's peripheral vision.
However, the other side of her mind, the instinctual side of it, refused to let her calm down, even as her eyes returned to the clipboard. Unconsciously, her eyes still drifted back to the corpse, and more than once, she'd thought about alerting one of her co-workers, but then thought better of it. If she'd told them about it, they would, most likely, run the same test she did, see the statistics, and then come to the conclusion that Hermione Granger was breaking down from the stress.
She would never hear the end of it, and the last thing she needed was more gossip in her life. Years and years of the newspapers speculating her relationship with Harry, Ginny, and Ron had been more than enough for her.
Shaking her head, she forced herself to concentrate on what was written on the clipboard.
All of a sudden, she saw it again.
Her eyes snapped upwards. Her body froze when she realized it hadn't been the trick of light before and somehow the spell for statistics malfunctioned or it just somehow didn't work on him.
For she was now staring right into the blood-red eyes of the somehow revived Lord Voldemort.