Halloween Arrangements Ⅷ

With cold flat eyes, Madam O'Germanova reaches inside and removes a sharp, pointed volcanic glass blade. The carpet bag falls onto the floor as she raises the blade high and slits her wrist vertically rather than horizontally. "Blood of my blood hear my call," Madam O'Germanova chanted in the old tongue. "That which is freely given must be paid for and that which has been requested must be procured."

The blood drops that fall onto the floor are sucked hungrily by the dry earth and seemly evaporate, before forming dark streaks of runes that move and dart to the dazed figure of the boy, the sacrifice. The dark streaks envelope him seamlessly and like a chain drag him forward. The enthralled boy step by step moves forward with clouded eyes unable to see that which lay before him.

"Blood of my blood heed my call," Madam O'Germanova chanted in the old tongue. "On the night of the new moon when no light abounds and no line divides the darkness and we, deliver unto us the mysteries of the beyond to show us that which lays before us."

The boy step by step moves forward to his unknown demise while Madam O'Germanova continues her chant. At long last, the boy halts before the old soothsayer as the dark streaks of withering runes encircle his feet as if to hold him fast to the ground. Madam O'Germanova's lips tremble before she forces herself to harden her heart and recall the face of her own family.

Lifting the blade high Madam O'Germanova says, "Blood of my blood, heed my call, that which has been requested must be procured. Accept this humble sacrifice and deliver us that which we seek. Sacrificium et incipit!"

Madam O'Germanova plunges her blade into the chest of the living sacrifice. The boy opens his mouth to scream, but the streaks of runes plunge over to his mouth to keep him silent and hold him still. Streaks of dark wetness drip down the chest and clothes of the sacrifice as Madam O'Germanova bit by bit slit the chest open from top to bottom as the heavy, sickly metallic-like scent of iron fills the air.

The enchantment upon the boy is broken by the sheer agony of what is being done to the living victim. Thorfinn Rowle awakens from his dream to only find himself in a horrifying nightmare. He could not understand how he had come to be here as he had been on his way to the dining hall within Drumstrang for dinner.

Thorfinn Rowle's eyes widen with terror as he stares down at the sharp-pointed, volcanic glass blade that is held in the spotted hand of the crone that cuts into him. Sheer agony streaks through him as he tries to scream and screams wildly in his throat unable to move. Tears of agony well up in his eyes, but he is unable to wipe them as they streak down his face. What had he done to deserve such a thing?!

Inch by inch the blade slits him wide open as Thorfinn Rowle can only observe with dreadful inhuman terror and pain. The crone finally ceases to cut him and for just a moment, he thinks it is all a trick of his mind until the crone plunges her gnarled hand into his bowls. White-hot agony shoots across his vision, but he cannot move, scream, all he can do is feel. It hurt so much; it hurts!!! When would it all end?! He just wanted to wake up and find that this was all a terrible dream!

Madam O'Germanova's hand trembled as she slowly pulled out the entrails of the still-living boy. She would have at least ended his pain and terror with a mercy killing, but she could not with Anthropomancy, the reading would become compromised. The boy's innards are wet, slippery as she slowly begins to study them bit by bit.

By the time, Madam O'Germanova has begun to remove the liver, the boy weakly breathes. Soon his pain would end, but not yet. The only thing that she could do was quickly study the liver and remove the boy's heart in one go to end his agony. And so, she did.

When Madam O'Germanova finally cut into the boy's heart, a relieved expression appeared on the boy's face as if all his agony had at long last come to an end. She held his softening heart in one hand, before gently with dyed crimson hands closing his tear-stricken eyes. She left behind small crimson thumbprints that leaked a few drops of blood that dripped down his face as though as tears.

Madam O'Germanova struggled to control her emotions lest she crushes the boy's heart from her pent-up rage. She should not have done this. It had not been worth the price she had paid. Death would have been better, and now she would live with this sin until the end of her days and beyond.

Madam O'Germanova's voice cracked as she ended the ceremony. "Blood of my blood hear my call that which has been requested has been procured. Let the future rest, let thy eyes close, and seal that which has been opened. Rest, and sleep until ye are called once more." The rune script fades away as the corpse of the sacrifice gently is laid onto the cold, bare ground.

Madam O'Germanova gently bends down and returns the cut-out heart into the cooling chest cavity, before raising her yellow-tinted gaze. Her body trembled from rage, but she managed to steadily say, "The boy's entrails split into three. Three paths lay before thee, destiny, similitude, and aversion. The first path is smooth and guarantees thy success; the second promises twists and turns and even failures, yet success is achieved in the end; and the last is aversion, success, and failure intertwined returning to the natural order."

"What do you mean by that soothsayer?" The stone masked Zeus demanded an explanation.

"That which I said, stranger, the natural end of all things, Death," Madam O'Germanova darkly said with a thinly veiled sneer.

The stone masked Zeus seems to shake with rage, before coldly hissing, "Continue, Gypsy."

"As you wish," Madam O'Germanova smirked, before raising three bloodied fingers in the air. "The liver held three cuts, three exist touched by Death, the broken serpent, the roused lion, and the runespoor with three faces."

"Three not one?" The stone masked Zeus sharply inquired further.

"As I have already said, stranger, three exist, three touched by Death," Madam O'Germanova answered with barely hidden vile glee. "Do ye not like the answers which have been given, stranger?"

"Do not try my patience, Gypsy!" The stone masked Zeus roared impatiently, before growling, "And what of the heart, soothsayer! What did it say?"

"The forsaken will gather anew for Fate continues to weave her tapestry," Madam O'Germanova murmured. "Destiny has yet to be firmly written in the stars."

"Good then is a mere foreshadowing of what may come to be," the stone masked Zeus murmured to himself. They would have to move their plans forward, but all remained within their calculations. However, those touched by Death were capable of destroying them, they must be found and destroyed. The broken serpent was easy enough to deduce, their puppet. The roused lion, no doubt, Albus Dumbledore. And the runspoor with three faces could be only one of two, Reginald Prince or Gellert Grindelwald. Either way, all would die to ensure their life.

As one mind, the hooded figures begin to apparate away leaving only the stone masked Zeus behind. "Farwell, Soothsayer until we meet again," the stone masked figure cruelly jested.

"Wait," Madam O'Germanova called out with hard eyes. "The boy what is his name?"

"Thorfinn Rowle if you must know," the stone masked figure scoffed loudly before he apparated away, they all did. There was a loud echoing wave of popping sounds until silence reigned and left Madam O'Germanova alone.

Madam O'Germanova began to violently tremble, before falling onto the cold, dirt ground kneeling before the cooling corpse. Her dyed crimson-stained, drying hands shake fiercely as tears of pain and rage drip down her face. It had been countless years since she wept and yet she wept over the body of an unknown youth. She could not return the youth's body to his kin lest she reveals herself. She could only return home with the body and bury him alongside her own. Her family for as long as they existed would care for this unknown boy as their own. In repayment and atonement for her sin that much she promised.

Drying her tears with her shawl, Madam O'Germanova crept to her feet. With care, she gathered the boy and placed him within the confines of the wagon, before snapping shut the carpet bag, and hurled it into the back of the wagon. She did not even wipe her hands clean of the drying blood, before setting off into the night. The sooner, she returned to her family, the sooner she could atone for her crime. It was all that she could do, but that much she would do.