The chamber beneath the Arcanum had been designed for resurrection.
Cassius had made certain of that.
Over the past several years, the hidden laboratory had slowly transformed from a collection of experimental workbenches into something resembling a fusion of a wizarding ritual chamber and a Muggle medical theatre.
Runes covered the stone floor in concentric circles.
Copper conduits carried ambient magical energy between crystal regulators.
Electrifying was the only word to describe the feeling within the room.
Cassius had simulated an environment similar to centuries ago back when magical energy had permeated the atmosphere more.
Monitoring charms floated beside conventional instruments, their tiny lights blinking steadily as they measured the artificial body's magical circulation.
And in the center of it all... lay Helena Ravenclaw.
Or rather, the body that would become Helena Ravenclaw.
The girl lying upon the table looked peaceful.
Her chest rose and fell with the rhythm of artificial respiration.
Her skin held a healthy warmth.
Beneath the surface, however, there was no soul.
No consciousness.
No memory.
Only an artificial magical core and a network of carefully constructed pathways waiting for someone to inhabit them.
Cassius stood beside the table in dark medical robes, his face partially concealed behind a simple mask.
He checked the final readings.
Magical circulation...
Stable.
Core pressure...
Stable.
Neural response...
None.
Soul occupancy...
None.
He nodded.
"Everything is ready."
Helena slowly drifted around the table, staring down at the body that would become her very own.
"You really did it."
"Not yet. All i've done is create a body that makes what we're planning possible."
Cassius adjusted one of the instruments.
"I suppose we should begin." Helena stated as she floated toward the ritual circle.
Cassius nodded. "Once we start, you cannot leave the circle."
"Understood."
"The ritual will establish a sympathetic connection between your spiritual form and the artificial body's magical core."
"Then?"
"I'll gradually synchronize the two."
Helena looked toward the body.
"And then I possess it."
"Not quite." Cassius corrected her. "If anything you'll become something closer to Peeves in a sense, a poltergeist which is bound to a vessel similar to muggles perception of lichs."
He gestured toward the artificial body.
"The body has no soul. Which makes it like a phylactery that can hold your soul."
Helena's expression softened."That sounds almost poetic."
"I've been spending too much time around Fleur, and the others."
Helena laughed.
Cassius seeing she was now in position, began activating the outermost runes.
One by one, they illuminated.
A faint golden light spread across the chamber.
The artificial magical core inside the body responded.
Its first pulse echoed through the room.
Thump.
Helena stared hard at the body, before her ghostly form shivered ever so slightly, like feeling someone dragging a cold finger up your spine.
Another.
Thump.
Another.
Thump.
"That's..." She whispered.
"Your new heart." Cassius continued working.
The connection was being established.
Her ethereal form was stationary however as each run activated it looked more and more like she was going through an earthquake as her spectral form blurred more and more.
The outer circle of runes ignited.
Then the second.
Then the third.
So much magic was being cycled through this arrayed formation if something truly went wrong, the entire Acranum could be lost in the ensuing destruction of rampant magic.
Helena herself was gritting her teeth in pain, a feeling she hadnt experienced aside from a broken heart in centuries.
"Prepare yourself, the worst is yet to come." Cassius called out, his voice carrying over the endless hum and whine of the machines and formations around them.
Helena gasped as his warning was heard but less than a moment later the situation she was going through changed.
Her translucent body which seemed to be blurring from existence, suddenly stretched toward the artificial vessel.
For an instant, she became little more than a stream of silver-blue energy.
A stream that snaked through the air until it found its mark and dove down the opened mouth of unconcious young girls body.
Cassius watching immediately began chanting.
Not in English.
Not even in Latin.
Instead he was casuing a thrumming bass voice as he spoke our words in draconic, word of power carrying purpose and intent, laced with heavy dense magical intent.
Each syllable reinforcing the connection being made here today.
Spirit.
Core.
Pathways.
Mind.
Memory.
Identity.
Word after word was spoken from his mouth as if being growled out of the maw of a dragon, the silvery-blue stream that was in the air was piece by piece swallowed by the girls body until none of it remained in the air.
"One hundred percent." Cassius muttered out after glancing at one of the screens.
At the same moment the ritual circles erupted, causing a blowback of compressed magic that caused a blast of air to shoot out in all directions, causing the lines and leads to sway.
Then suddenly...
Everything went silent.
The lights faded.
The instruments ceased their rhythm.
Cassius stared at the table.
For several seconds... Nothing happened.
Then one of the girl's fingers moved.
Just a twitch, but it happened again and again.
Until her hand slowly curled into a fist.
Her chest rose in a deep breath.
A real breath, not a mechanically assisted one.
Then her eyes opened.
Grey.
Clear.
And full of the spark of life.
Helena stared at the ceiling.
Then she blinked.
Once.
Twice.
Her head slowly turned.
She looking at her hand.
She flexed her fingers.
Before bringing the arm up, allowing her fingers to touch her face.
Her expression became one of complete astonishment.
"I..." Her voice trembled. "I can feel."
Cassius remained perfectly still watching.
She next touched the table beneath her.
"Cold."
Her fingers moved against the surface.
"Hard, and smooth."
She was seemingly on the edge of having a sort of panic attack or perhaps it was simply sensory overload of being able to feel, smell, and taste for the first times in a thousand years.
She sat upright.
The movement was clumsy, but not all that unexpected since aside from grown muscles stimulated through electrical means, this body had never actually moved before or even used it muscles, its eyes, well its anything for that matter.
Instinct took over as autonomic responses like breathing, blinking, and even swallowing restarted themselves even though the bodies own inhabitant didnt even think such a thing was required anymore.
Cassius watched on, ticking checkboxes as each response was witnessed to make sure the Helena had properly merged in all the ways that were needed.
The last thing he would want is to leave her unattended onto the accidentally stop breathing, or unable to swallow without active thought and drowning her in her own spit.
Helena stared down in disbelief, her new eyes taking in all the things she was seeing for the very first time.
"I'm alive."