its-hogwartsahistory: thelethifoldwitch: In the Departments of Mysteries are children who are not p
In the Departments of Mysteries are children who are not precisely children.
The world is not and has never been kind to squibs. Blamed for misfortune, charged with ill-luck, barred from the family and driven into a world about which they know even less then the magical they were born from.
They are made easy targets.
The children watch nothingness with blank silver eyes. Sit and eat the food pressed on them, drink the drinks they are given, and sink themselves into silvered baths when told.
They are always added to.
Where werewolves might be simply collected through those arrested simply under suspicion, Squibs could be convinced into service, asked for one thing in exchange for what they so often wanted: a place in the magical world. Some families willingly gave their children, glad to be rid of their stain, and passed their poor magicless offspring into the cruel hands of the Department of Mysteries.
The experiments they were subjected to varied. Werewolves were usually tested for resistance to things, time after time used to try to prove that they were not human even when the moon was not full.
Squibs were studied to try to explain why magic did not touch some who by all rights it should have. Some were dissected, some were simply poked and prodded. Some were vivisected and some… some were surplus to requirements.
(What happened to them was worst)
What, asked some members of the Department of Mysteries, happens if you feed them to Dementors - are they less satisfying for their lack of magic?
Excerpt from File 415:
Children 3 through 13 were exposed to Dementors today, in Room 25. In Room 24 an equal number of Dementors were presented with 5 werewolves, and in Room 23 an equal number of Dementors were presented with 5 magical prisoners, in various states of health.
In Room 22 triple the number of Dementors were presented with 3 Squib children, 5 werewolves and 5 magical prisoners.
Question: Do Dementors prefer magical prey over mundane?
Answer: All Subjects successfully Kissed. Dementors in Room 22 expressed no preference over prey.
(Answer: No.)
What, asked some members of the Department of Mysteries, happens if you use their limbs to replace lost ones of our own? Can they channel magic?
Excerpt from File 129-2:
Child 129 (Alfred Burke) has had to have arm prosthetic refitted. Previous one destroyed with Fiendfyre during Experiment 217. Original arm still functioning perfectly well as wand arm replacement for Unspeakable I. Dyll.
(Answer: Yes.)
What, asked some members of the Department of Mysteries, happens if you take a young enough mind, and fill it with memories not it’s own?
(That… That is this story.)
They could not precisely do it. Memory could not be so easily transferred back into a mind, it was a shape of the past, a series of moments fossilized in the amber of magic, anchored into place and reality by the focus of the mind that was present. But all the same, the Unspeakables, the Langues-du-plomb, the Mugon-sha, all those from all the Mysterious places, they wondered.
No one recorded who the first was, who drowned a Squib girl - not quite five years old - in a vat of memories that had yet to be sorted.
When she rose out of it, pulled by a disgusted intern, her eyes glowed silver rather than the brown and blue hazel they had been. Her face showed none of the pain-dulled boredom. Her face… it showed nothing at all.
“Celia?” Asked the intern who pulled her out.
Celia blinked. “Celia,” She said. “Celia Drummond, born 13th March 1956, in Bulstrode Place, to Cuthbert Bulstrode and Maledisant Bulstrode nee Selwyn-Gaunt, of the Northumbrian Selwyn-Gaunts. Drummond surname given to her on realisation of Squib status. Subject to Experiment 652. Result: Negative. Subject to Experiment 313. Result: Positive. Subject to -”
She continued on, blankly, into space, repeating words from a record seen by an archivist who put her memories into the vat only a week before, as the intern ran to tell the others.
Three more children were submitted to the vats, until the vats were emptied. Keywords were given to them, and the memories recalled, recited perfectly be it of a document, of an event, of an experiment.
Alfred Burke spoke without emotion of when his arm was removed, and when his prosthetic was burned.
Celia Drummond spoke without emotion of the experiments she was subjected to.
Attis Marchmond spoke without emotion of their sisters death, after being Kissed, when they had screamed at her removal on the day.
They exist, in all Mysteries now. Children which are not children, the eternal, living archives of the worst secrets of the Departments of Mysteries.
(This is also a notice to say that THIS BLOG IS NOT DEAD. I am presently - when not working on my other blogs - going through the fic recs sent in and sorting them into a coherent system so they are easier to navigate when the link for that goes up.)
That’s so amazing and so much fic inspiration that I’m needing to calm down I’M SO TEMPTED
If you want to use ideas from this feel free! Provided credit is given I am 100% a-ok with people borrowing ideas from this post and others on the blog for fic inspiration.
Mon, 29 Jan 2018 15:56:17
