1330 hours, Death Chamber.


"What have we, aha, what have we got today?"

The air in here was cold and stagnant. Yavin was descending the steps down towards the centre, and all around him on the benches there were a few Unspeakables strewn with various tomes or parchment in their laps. Everything was immersed in dark fog. Two older Unspeakables, calm, were bookending a young man at the archway that separates life from death. Unspeakable Tan lifted her head to greet the department head - she was holding her wand upright, having encased their patient in a binding spell.

            "Patient #4 is recovering from sedation and prepared to be roused."

He nodded, coming around to observe the person in question. Dark-haired, tired looking. Gaunt. According to his file he hadn't been eating much at all and his pentral hadn't seemed keen on food at all.  Vile things, pentrals. Clinging to life and causing their hosts to waste away.

"Hm, then, ah, carry on." Yavin made a dismissive gesture, stepping back to find a seat on one of the benches; he spotted a fair head of hair on the second closest row and made a beeline for the trainee. Virgil was tinkering with what looked like a deconstructed Wireless set.

           "What do you hear?" he asked without looking up, a screwdriver in one hand and his wand in the other.

Yavin sat down, crossing his long legs and glancing at the archway. Music. He heard a woman humming sweet music, the way she always did when she was washing the dishes or knitting. The way she always did in his memories. "My late wife," he said in a matter-of-fact tone and turned to the young wizard curiously. "You?"

Virgil was by far the most chipper person in the Death Chamber. He worked away like he wasn't sitting in the stench of lifelessness like the rest of them, like the possibility of Oblivion wasn't only a few steps away. "I'd rather not say," the screwdriver was carefully put down and vivid blue eyes rose to meet Yavin's dark gaze.  "I hope this one goes better than the last."

They both shifted their attention to the centre of the chamber, where light fell from some unseen source to emphasise the proceedings below.

Tan was speaking in low murmurs to Patient #4 as he was released from the binding charm. His immediate reaction was to throw himself backwards but both Unspeakables clasped his arms right away, anticipating the repulsion.

"YOU CAN'T MAKE ME! YOU CAN'T!" a thin, high voice escaped the man, a voice that didn't belong to him. "This isn't bloody fair! You can't MAKE me!!" Petulant and childish and whining, literally kicking away in the emaciated body it zealously possessed.

This pentral obviously belonged to somebody young or somebody who refused to accept what they had tried to explain.

Unspeakable Tan was as unshakeable as she was quiet, however, and lifted her long arms to cast the first of the exorcism charms that would begin the process - the pull of the archway itself would complete the rest. As far as they could tell, it affected a kind of natural gravity on the souls. It beckoned.

A dark red light emitted from Tan's wand and a cast a near-transparent sphere around Patient #4. What was his name? Theodore? Teddy? They tried not to use nicknames, tried not to get attached. Feeling wouldn't help. The red light suddenly turned white, blinding most of those watching. A bright flash caught in Morgenthau's spectacles, behind which he did not blink.

And once the light receded, there was not one but two people between the Unspeakables below. It was only for a second: the luminous shape of a disembodied soul, like a man formed of glowing mist, turning his head towards the archway in search for a siren call that the rest of them could not hear.

When the second was over, the Death Chamber was dark again. Patient #4 dropped like a ragdoll to the floor and Tan was quick to catch him - in her arms instead of with a charm, the back of his neck cradled in the palm of one hand. She looked up and across the room towards the Head of Mysteries. Relief was written in her face.

Yavin was nodding to himself, his brow contracted into a frown. It worked this time, yes. But what about all the patients on whom it didn't work? Would they have to bring out the dementors for them?

"Get him out," he removed his spectacles and rubbed his face tiredly, voice carrying in the overarching silence of the chamber. "Next."