The Fallout by EveryThursday (reposted)

Twenty-Four

Day: 1449; Hour: 16

They find four bodies and a Phoenix locked in what used to be a freezer. Hermione isn't sure if it's a good thing or a bad thing that the freezer wasn't turned on - the Phoenix is alive, but the moment she and Justin open the door, they both vomit. She isn't sure how long the corpses have been rotting, but the stench is so thick she feels sure she will never get it off her skin.

Wrapping an arm around the woman's shoulders, shaking against her arm, Hermione is reminded of Lavender with stark clarity. She breathes in too deeply and gags, rotting flesh, urine, and feces sitting stagnant in her lungs. She keeps it down though, pulling the cap of the marker off with her teeth. She writes P E:CP D:?, for Prisoner Exposed:Corpses Days:Unknown. It is standard to send them to hospital with such information, and Hermione Portkeys the woman out when Justin returns.

"I got the tablecloths - I couldn't find anything else." His voice is mumbled from the arm over his mouth, and Hermione rushes out and away from the freezer to gulp in relatively clean air.

She is glad she hadn't eaten before she left; gagging again at the trail of feces she leaves from her boots. "Oh, God."

Justin knows enough to have looked away, swallowing hard and tossing her a pair of dish-washing gloves. "I don't know if I can do this."

"We have to. Just don't let anything on your skin and don't breathe in. Corpses are cesspools of bacteria."

Justin nods, turning his head away from the sight in front of them. Hermione had only been able to glance when they first opened the door, and that had been enough for her to know they were dead. Bodies bloated, skin rotting, dead. "One at a time? You take one side I take the other, tuck the thing around them, put the Portkey...wherever on them?"

"Yeah, yeah," Hermione agrees, but neither of them move.

"Shit, I can't do this."

"It's a matter of respect, not just for the body but the healers. We also can't send bodies this decomposed unwrapped because--"

"I know, I know. Count of three?" Justin asks, and she grabs the other side of the tablecloth, both of them breathing in deep before running into the room.

They're gasping for breath after the second when she hears retching behind her; Draco is vomiting into the sink, Margarete on her shoes, and Seamus's back disappears around the corner. Hermione watches Draco's shoulders heave for a moment, realizing that it's the first time she has ever seen him react to any death he sees.

There wasn't much in the way of avoiding the natural reaction to the stench though. It is blistering out in the room, filling up the cavities of air with a hot, rotting odor more vile than she can stand. Justin's eyes are pleading for them to finish, so she grabs her side of the cloth again, doing a strange cough/gasp and holding in the oxygen as they run back in.

The rats scatter again, and she avoids looking at the body as much as possible, laying the cloth over it and quickly tucking it from the ankle to the temple. The body squishes in some places and feels like a plastic ball of air in others, but she tries to ignore the feeling, running back out of the freezer.

"I would help, but you guys seem to have a good system going." Margarete ushers from the hall.

"Where are the Portkeys?" Draco's face is twisted up into a grimace but he's still in the room, doing far more than the worthless sack of an Auror named Margarete. Hermione officially does not like the woman.

"Pocket," Hermione pops her hip in his direction, not daring to look at her gloves and what might be on them.

Draco doesn't either, cramming four fingers into her pocket to pull out the bags of Portkeys. "Which one is for the hospital?"