Chapter 134: August 25, 1994: Tetani Nervum

[The chapter is edited by my Editor: Alan_Loo/AlanL]

A man dressed in Death Eater garb ran through the field while occasionally looking at his back in fear and terror. His breathing was laboured from sprinting. He was not used to running, but the threat of pain and possible death was a great motivator. He peered forward at the almost dark night. The moon was the only light source. He ran towards the forest that he could see in the distance. The thought of using a Lumos to spread some light in the misty fields didn't even crack into his mind because of the danger it could bring him.

'I just need to get to the forest,' thought the man. 'I shall be safe then... safe from that demon.'

Today, he had entered the campsite with a prim-perfect Death Eater uniform that he hadn't worn in a decade, but now that same uniform had tears and burns. It was ripped in some places and caked with blood from the wounds that were below it.

'It wasn't supposed to go like this.'

They only wanted to get drunk and have some fun with the muggle and the muggleborn. They craved to bathe in the glory they had before they had been crushed all those years ago by the Light faction. Then, they were forced to hide their injured pride and live their lives without the power that they had when the Dark Lord was with them.

Not all Death Eaters were as rich as the likes of Malfoy and couldn't strut around like nothing happened after their reign broke. Many of them had to keep their heads down and act carefully as the Light faction built their power. With James Potter in a leading position, he and a group of light-aligned Aurors started to get particularly interested in their dealings.

Today was supposed to be a day where they could blow off steam. To show their power and superiority to foreigners and the British wizarding society. It was an audience that they wouldn't be able to have even when their Lord was alive, and they wanted to make good use of it.

Everything had begun smoothly as they captured the muggle family and played with them while defacing the hideous muggle tents that everybody had set up to 'blend in.' Just the sight of wizards trying to pretend as muggles made their stomachs turn, and they wanted nothing more than to destroy the disgusting things that were beneath them.

But then 'it' arrived. He and his companion weren't sure if it was even human. I didn't sound like a human, and its actions and magic were feral. Its spells were powerful, viscous with magic, and every attack that came their way was aimed as if trying to obliterate them.

He wasn't used to facing dark spells; it had been years since they had faced attacks like these. During their Lord's rise to power, the Aurors were authorized to use the Unforgivable Curses on suspects, but after that, he hadn't faced a single dark spell in his life. He recalled the stories of Aurors casting Cruciatus Curse on them and the rare Killing Curse, but nothing like the spells he had witnessed today.

Bone breakers, flesh stripping spells or blood boiling curses... and he could go on. He had seen horrifying spells of dark magic. The Cruciatus Curse only gave them the screams, but these showed them real pain and horror.

The Death Eater finally saw a ghostly blue of the forest in front of him, and hope returned to him. 'I can finally apparate,' he thought. Facing those horrifying curses, everyone had the thought of apparating away from the danger. But every time they could muster enough concentration to safely launch an apparition -which was hard considering the sheer horror gore around them- the demon would hit them with a dark spell.

The group realised that they wouldn't have a chance to apparate if they stayed together because the demon would easily target them. So everyone ran in different directions; every person for themselves. He remembered the screams of his friends when he turned his back. He had to hold back the impulse to stop and see what had happened, but he didn't dare.

The heaving and huffing Death Eater was a stone's throw distance away from the forest, but then, he felt an explosive force down on his legs and was sent flying away. He rolled on the ground like a broken doll, and his heart thumped in terror.

'No! I'm close,' thought the man. 'I can make it. I just need to take a few steps. I will be safe.'

The tenacity in the face of death was an impressive force. The Death Eater could see the forest, and all his being was focused on getting to it. He ignored the fact that a spell had hit him and got up... only to collapse back on the ground.

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"Huh?"

He hadn't collapsed because of an attack. He had fallen because his left foot hadn't pushed him off the ground. He tried again, but he missed, and the left foot didn't make it to the ground again. The man hastily looked at his left foot to see what the problem was and saw an ankle-less stump in place of his foot.

The world started to blur and spin as a guttural scream escaped the man. "My leeeegg! No, my leg!" The pain that came when he realised he had lost his leg made the man more and more desperate. He clutched his paining leg with one hand and started to drag himself to the forest. His mind was filled with getting to the forest so that he could live.

Then he felt something grip his right leg, and his heart inside his chest dropped low; for a couple of seconds, the man thought that his heart had stopped beating. Everything went silent for a split-second before reality set on him, and at the same time, his body was pulled back by whatever was clutching his right leg.

"NoooOOoooOoOOoo! LET ME GOOOO! ForgIve meEeEEe!"

Without a shred of care, the man was dragged away from the forest. His left leg, which no longer had anything below the ankle, brutally met the ground as the open wound was caked with dirt. The Death Eater thrashed, clutched the grass with his hands, and tried everything to stop being dragged away from the forest; alas, nothing worked, and soon the forest only seemed a blur in the darkness.

The man eventually stopped struggling and clutched his wand tight in his hand. If he couldn't escape, then he wasn't going down without a fight. If today was the day he died, then he was going to take the demon with him.

As he continued to get dragged, his body froze when he heard screams. Screams of asking someone to stop, painful moans of apologies and dreadful cries of misery. His relatively shallow breathing returned to its previous laboured state.

The dragging came to a sudden stop, and the man found himself between two other bodies that he recognised as being Death Eaters that had joined the march today. He shivered as he watched that one of them had his entire right leg missing while the other one had deep gashes all across his body.

His attention was pulled from the horrifying scene when he felt a chill on his leg and saw that his ankle-less stump was now covered in ice... just like everyone else's injuries were. His body tensed as the ice was too cold, and it stung like needles being dug into his flesh. Even a single twitch on his leg would send shock and pain across his leg.

"Oh, servants of the Dark Lord. Your glory is forgotten, just like a mere memory," The man heard the distorted voice of the demon as he fought through the pain. "You, who hold yourselves as superior, are now laying down in the mud. You, who committed abominations at this festivity and in the past, are now paying the price."

The demon —Quinn— looked at the man that he had just dragged to this place, and with a wave, stripped the Death Eater's wand out of hand. He caught the Death Eater's wand and clenched his fist to snap the wand in half. The now useless pieces of wood were dropped near a pile of similarly snapped wands.

"Is this the audacity from an order fallen a decade past," he spoke, his voice distorted. "You mongrels played with the weak and covered under the strong... Today, you shall feel what is to be unfortunate. Today will be the day that shall haunt you. You shall remember it as the day that you lost the one thing that made you special."

Quinn took a deep breath and focused his magic; he ignored the wails and screams from the almost fifteen people lying around him. They were the people that Quinn had managed to catch and injure enough so they weren't in condition to run away.

A ghastly reddish-black spell resembling soot and haze emanated from Quinn's entire body and slowly wafted down towards the ground. The Death Eater, who had been only hearing the distorted voice of the demon, watched as a reddish-black smoke slowly started to build on the ground, originating from the center of the circle they were all lying in.

Those who could witness through the pain had their eyes stuck on the reddish-black smokey unknown that was rolling down in small waves, and as it moved towards them with deathly silence, their senses screamed that this was something dangerous and deadly. They could feel that this was a magic of the darkest kinds, something that oozed evil.

Soon the fifteen people were covered in the reddish-black mist. Quinn looked up at the sky and reinforced his decision about what he was going to do. He closed his eyes and recalled the young child who had gone unconscious, yet the scum continued to spin him like a toy top. The rage returned, and with it, his decision solidified as if it was stone.

"Tetani Nervum." Quinn breathed out, and even though he only used nonverbal spells, this was special. He whispered the words that disappeared among the terrified Death Eaters, who broke the silence of the night.

"I curse you with a body that shall betray you. "

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The reddish-black mist agitated as it started to radiate in an ominous blood-red light, and with that began the horrifying screams.

"I curse you to a life with magic that shall be near, yet far from you."

The Death Eaters' entire bodies spasmed uncontrollably. Then, the blood-red mist glowed brighter. The spasms grew wilder.

"I curse you with the constant reminder that you are no longer better..."

An uncontrollable pain flowed through their nerves and, along with it, came an unbearable burning feeling.

Quinn looked up at the sky and whispered ever so slightly, "I curse you ."

The mist shone once with a short bright burst of blood-red. Then, it vanished in the breeze of the cold night.

'So this is how it feels, huh,' thought Quinn, staring at the circle of spasming bodies.

The curse, Tetani Nervum, had been a spell of his. It had been a curse he had created last year. By utilising his recently gained knowledge of healing magic and human anatomy and combining it with some really questionable knowledge he had found in the Room Of Requirement and his own personal library, Quinn had been able to create a really 'dark' spell. He had only a few, though.

Tetani Nervum had been inspired by the well-known disease Tetanus. Tetanus is a bacterial infection characterized by muscle spasms that could range anywhere from light tremors to spasms severe enough to fracture bones. Other symptoms of Tetanus included fever, sweating, headaches, trouble swallowing, high blood pressure, and a fast heart rate. But for his spell, Quinn had focused on the spasms that tortured the infected.

The motivation behind Tetani Nervum had been to disable the target's body. The bacteria that caused Tetanus functioned by creating toxins that interfered with motor neurons. This interfered with the regular muscle contractions. Quinn also targeted the motor neurons in the nerves but replaced the bacteria with magic. The nervous system would continuously interfere with muscle contractions and would cause the body to spasm. As long as the curse was active, the target wouldn't be able to move a single muscle in their body. Their entire nervous system would be out of their own control and at mercy of Quinn's magic.

But the sole function of Tetani Nervum wasn't replicating Tetanus spasms. The spasms were just the carrier of the actual damage of the spell. The real aim of Tetani Nervum came from the word 'Nervum', which was the Latin word for 'nerves'. While Tetanus spasms ran rampant, the curse would dig through the nervous system and severely damage it.

And just like most of the 'dark' curses, Tetani Nervum had the added feature of being resistant to healing magic. If the target was brought to the hospital, the medi-healers would immediately notice the signs of wounds caused by 'dark' curses. Besides that, Tetani Nervum was a new curse that had been created from the knowledge of different magical cultures, which meant that the medi-healers would have a tough time even knowing where to start. Meaning that the nerves affected by the corrosive magic would be... lost and not able to function.

Quinn looked at the piles of bodies. More specifically, their arms and hands. He had snapped their wands and disabled their hands and arms. To wand users who relied on the external focus meant that they would no longer be able to draw on magic, practically turning them into squibs. They still had their magic but no way to access it.

But unlike Quinn, these Death Eaters had been using wands for decades which meant wands had integrated themselves into their magic system. Consequently, if you took the focus from them, they would be useless.

"... I believe that people are capable of change," said Quinn. He didn't care whether his victims were listening to him or not. "Perhaps I'll come back to you to see if you have repented. Understand the severity of your actions and the consequences of decisions. If that day I see that you have truly repented, then your hands and, thus, your magic, shall be returned. That day, you will be reborn. I hope you have a better life then."

Tetani Nervum had been Quinn's creation, which meant that he also knew how to cure it. He could reverse the effects and free them from the curse. Quinn had already peaked inside their minds to note their names. If one day, these people changed for the better, he would undo the curse.

Quinn stood up straight. His work was done. Other than these Death Eaters, all of the others had already fled. Quinn had considered putting an anti-apparition ward around the campsite, but that would mean that bystanders wouldn't be able to apparate out.

'These are enough,' thought Quinn. 'These many will be enough to instill fear.'

Quinn was about to apparate out of the campsite, but he stopped to look at the left to see a blue spell-light zapping towards him. Quinn tilted his head, and just before the blue spell-light reached Quinn, it crashed into an orange translucent magic shield. The blue spell tried to pierce through the orange obstacle, but all of its effects were for naught as it couldn't get past. It fizzled away as the magic ran out.

'Reducto,' thought Quinn, and as the shield turned down, he saw the offender who launched a spell at him and surprisingly, but not shockingly, saw Sirius Black with his wand pointing at him. Quinn noticed that Sirius's eyes were moving between him and behind him.

"... Hmm?"

Quinn's eyes gleamed in understanding as he turned the magic back up, which was the right decision as another spell assaulted his shield. The only difference was that it was aimed at his back. Quinn turned around to see James Potter also pointing his wand at him.

'Ah, they were checking,' Quinn deduced. He was invisible, and the first spell from Sirius was to see if there was anyone in his place. The second spell from James was one to take him down after confirmation.

"You... the one who's there, immediately surrender," shouted Sirius.

"Drop the disillusionment and throw your wand away," yelled James. "Nobody needs to get..." James looked at the pile of bodies. "... more injured."

"It seems I have overstayed my welcome," whispered Quinn and errantly waved his hand for a layer of ice forming a dome around him. It was just thick enough to bear the force of one spell and it gave just enough time for Quinn to apparate.

And with a pop, Quinn was gone. Not even a second after, the ice dome was shredded into shards by the combined efforts of James and Sirius.

A/N:

How was it? My first 'dark' spell. Tetani Nervum. I always wanted to make a spell inspired by something medical, and this spell came out.

You all heard Quinn's motivation to create the spell. Let's talk about mine. I simply want Quinn's first kill to be... special... and not some rando Death Eaters. But, I wanted Quinn to gain a method to disable people without killing them.

When Quinn does kills someone, I want to add some drama, emotion, struggle, hesitation, and other stuff to mark it as a monumental point in Quinn's life.

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Quinn West - Spell creator - "Need to use weird English..."

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