Necromancy
Necromancy
We all waited, holding our collective breath, but nothing happened. I was crestfallen. I'd been so sure it would work, and that we'd finally get to see what the curse on my ring could do.
"Well, her hand didn't shrink or fall off or change colour or anything, and she didn't burst into flames" Penny noted studiously. She had a point. Nothing happening might be an indicator that nothing would happen to me if I put the ring on.
But there also wasn't any evidence that suggested the ring wouldn't react completely differently to me, a living person.
"Maybe she's just too dead" I hypothesized. "Maybe the ring knows that there's nothing it can do to a corpse." I continued thoughtfully, pulling the 'Moste Anicent Magicks' book from my purse.
"Samhain, where did you get that book?" Penny asked me, a note of concern in her voice.
"Professor Dumbledore gave it to us, why?" I asked her in return.
"Oh, I read it wrong. The title, and the binding, they look very similar to some books I saw in the Restricted Section of the library at Hogwarts once" she explained. Barnaby and I looked at each other, hadn't Dumbledore said something similar to us?
"Moste Potente Potions by Phineas Bourne and Magick Moste Evile by Godelot are the ones I'm thinking of" Penny recalled thoughtfully. "Those books, I asked Madam Pince about them and all she'd tell me was it was very dark stuff in them. I was pretty curious about the Potions one, for obvious reasons, so the next time I got a note for another book in there I went to take a peek at it but they'd both been removed, do you know who wrote that one?" She asked, pointing at the book.
"No" I admitted. "There's no author name anywhere in it, I checked. The only thing I found was here at the back, M.R.L" I showed it to Penny.
"Hmm, are you sure that book is safe?" Penny asked, sounding worried. "Well, I don't think Dumbledore would have given it to us if he didn't think it was. And who can we trust if not him?" I replied shortly, flipping determinedly back to the second chapter I'd bookmarked that morning.
"The intention behind the creation of the Inferus determines if the spell clouds the soul of the spell caster." I read aloud to my friends what I'd read earlier. "So as long as I don't have dark intentions and give the Inferus evil instructions, it's not technically dark magic. Just powerful" I reasoned.
No one said anything else after that, but the silence in the morgue was coloured by my friends concerned and apprehensive thoughts. I did my best to hold my wards up as I carried the heavy book over to the other corpse, the one who had died from a curse. I'd read that Inferi could only be created from corpses who had been killed by dark magic, so I knew I had only one shot.
Barnaby came over to join me, levitating the ring along with him, he held my hand, giving me his strength as he hovered the ring in the air.
Penny, Chiara and Alexi did not move to join us, but they also didn't leave. They knew what I was about to try, and staying with me, even at a distance was their way of giving me their support, and I was very grateful for it.
I raised my wand in the hand Barnaby wasn't holding, and taking a deep breath I read out the incantation from the book and began tracing a continuous, counterclockwise circle with the tip of my wand on the dead wizards chest.
"Revertere phantasma, expergiscimini cadaver, surge sursus, animo, ludibrio!" I repeated it over and over as I continued to trace the circle.
Barnaby had levitated the ring onto the finger of the corpse while I did my best to work the most difficult piece of magic I'd ever attempted. I was feeling fatigued after only a minute of chanting. Worried I wouldn't be strong enough to finish the spell, I squeezed Barnaby's hand as hard as I could. He squeezed back, just as hard and we watched petrified as the corpse started to stir.
"Holy Hippogriffs!" Chiara yelled from behind us.
I didn't stop chanting, or tracing the circle. I threw every ounce of strength I had into holding my concentration, watching in disbelief as I started to raise the dead.
The Inferus sat up very slowly, and remained in that position. I let go of my concentration and breathlessly stopped chanting, it had worked. Or I thought it had. No one moved a muscle, we barely dared to breathe as we all stared at my Inferus.
Barnaby finally broke the silence by whispering, "What do we do now?"
As if the Inferus had been waiting for someone to speak, it's eyes snapped open. They glowed a grisly, flourescent white in the dimly lit morgue.
"I don't know!" I cried out in panic, just as the Inferus reached out and grabbed Barnaby around the neck. "Crap! Diffindo!" he screamed, bringing his wand down in a slashing motion on it. But the Inferus didn't even flinch as Barnaby's charm cut into its bloodless flesh. Gathering my wits and pointing my wand straight at it's heart I screamed "Relashio!"
The Inferus dropped Barnaby on the cement floor, turning it's hideously blank face towards me and grabbing me with its cold, bloated fingers, one of which was still wearing my engagement ring. I was frozen with fear for one impossibly long second that felt like an eternity, and then the world was turned upside down.
"Confringo!" "Bombarda!" "Incendio!" Three more spells aimed by our friends hit the Inferus with such force the entire building shook. Rocks and rubble rained down on us as we were all thrown backwards through the air from the blasts. I hit the far wall, and felt my wand go sailing out of my hand, but all I could think of in that moment was, "Oh my god, no, Barnaby!" I screamed for him, crawling back towards the flaming crater where the morgue cabinets used to be.
All I could hear was a ringing in my ears, the dust and smoke in the air was so thick I could hardly breathe and couldn't see at all, but finally, I felt Barnaby's arm, laying very still on the floor of the morgue. Please don't be dead, please don't be dead, I silently begged, pulling myself towards him to check if he was breathing.
I felt his chest rise and fall gently. He was alive. He was unconscious, and I had no idea how bad his injuries might be, but he was alive.
"Samhain? Chiara? Hello?? Is anyone there?" Penny called out into the chaos. "I can't see anything, please, someone, say something" she begged, sobbing and coughing.
"We're okay, Alexi and me. We're right here here Penny, follow my voice." Chiara called back.
"Samhain? Barnaby? Where are you guys?" Chiara called again, sounding more panicked.
I choked back a sob and answered her, "We're here. I'm okay, Barnaby is out cold but he's breathing. We have to get out of here, can you find the door to the lift?"
I could hear them fumbling around blindly, then Penny's loud sobs as she reached the other two. Then finally, "I think this is the lift! But the doors are jammed and I don't know where my wand is" Alexi called out. "Does anyone still have their wand?" No one answered, we'd all lost our wands in the explosion. I started groping around on the floor with one hand, the hand that wasn't holding onto Barnaby's motionless arm in a vice grip.
I was terrified that my wand might have been engulfed in the flames and told the others to hold hands in a daisy chain and feel around. Just one wand I pleaded to myself, we only need one wand to get out. After a minute I felt my fingers brush against something that was long and hard and didn't feel like a bit of debris. I snatched it up, running my hand over it I felt the bile rising up in my throat.
I couldn't help it, I leaned away from Barnaby and retched my guts out all over the morgue floor. I was holding the Inferus's severed finger in my hand. And worse, it was the finger my engagement ring had been on, and was still on. Realising I'd touched the ring with my bare hand didn't even give me pause, all I could think about was getting out of the morgue and getting Barnaby and my friends to safety.
I'd never had any luck with wandless magic before, but I'd also never been more desperate. "Lumos Maxima!" I cried, feeling the last of my strength leave me. I saw five dim lights ignite in the darkness before I passed out across Barnaby's chest, still holding tight to him with one hand, and the severed finger wearing my ring with the other.