Agents At Hogwarts

Stressing Over Nothing

Alfred would never be able to stress this enough, it was totally Arthur's fault. Now he was in Slytherin once more and  couldn't even begin to believe that the ward testings were still a thing! He had done it once before and swore he would never voluntarily do it again. Arthur sooooo owed him big time for all of this.
"So... you want me to stand in the middle of an unknown rune circle and it'll start to glow and show you some of my memories. The worst memories I have, right? Like the ones that cause me pain?" Alfred made his questions sound like whining just to annoy the Head of Slytherin. His mental shields were never higher than at this very moment. Snape glared at him while the other former Slytherin professors watched in amusement.
"Just step into the circle. It is relatively painless. I assure you that, due to your age and background, it is highly unlikely that your memories are as gruesome  as others. After the visions, it will do a health scan with magic that even you cannot trick as you did in the Hospital Wing." Alfred suppressed the urge to punch the man at the way he spoke as if he was some teenager. Sure, he looked 15 but he was over 300 years old.
"I am, I was a soldier. I've been to hell and came home. I've killed, injured, and tortured people. I have been a POW, starved, whipped, branded, and suffered things you cannot even begin to comprehend. I know for a fact that I have pretty screwed up memories that make men go insane. You sure you actually want to see them?" Alfred knew that Snape was close to just stunning and shoving him into  the circle.
Instead of being stunned, he was shoved into the circle, trapped by the wards and ruins that were glowing a brilliant green. The castle wouldn't let him out. He started to throw anti-containment spells and anti- fortress spells with as much magic as he could. With each failed spell, He began to feel his panic building. His magic colliding with the green magic surrounding him was a spactacular sight to behold. His magestic eagle wings appeared upon his back in his panic. He slipped further and further into his panic the more the runes started to appear on his wrists, ankles, and pinning his wings. The runes became extremely tight, his hands forced to his sides and a single rune flew at his back, forcing him to the ground. The force of the fall broke one of his wings with a loud snap but he didn't react to the pain. He continued to yell many ancient spells to try to break the bonds but was trapped on the floor. He continued to struggle, knowing that a gas would be released in less then a minute that would cause him to become limp but remain on the edge of consciousness. He no longer used magic due to his time running out so he started to beg but even now he was too disoriented to know where he was.
"Let me out! Damn it! Please let me go! I, I don't know what you want but I won't let you get it! Get away! Get away!!" There was a small hissing sound as a small burst of a colored gas released infront of his face. Alfred's body went limp and his eyes were only half opened. He was in a daze as the first few memories started to play. A small boy waiting by a door for his father to return, a boy being burned for accidental magic by many people, a lonely child lost in a forest being taken by blurred figures and tied to a pole and left to die, countless war scenes, plagues, all consuming fires, and terrible bloodshed that no person should ever be witnessed to. An abandoned child clinging to every hope of being loved.  A teenager being tortured for no other reason than for fighting for his country in both the magical and muggle ways. A traumatized teenager returning from war to an empty home only wishing to be forgiven by the family he missed. The last memory was Alfred sobbing as he held a pistol to his head before tossing it to the ground and curling into himself. After the last memory that the magic of Salazar deamed important was shown, the light faded and Alfred had a single tear fall down his cheek from the side that was resting on the dungeon floor. He could not find the strength to fight or even move as the magic started a scan. The runes disappeared but the scan results had yet to be revealed as it would take two hours. The effects of the gas would, at the earliest, take a day to wear off. Severus knelt by the American and started to splint the broken wing.
"I assume that that is why Magical America is such a closely guarded secret. It's because they die so young." Sinestra whispered as Severus scooped the barely conscious American up and gently placed him on the sofa. The professors had seen many wars and a child scared to ask his father for forgiveness. All the Slytherin teachers had an idea of what Alfred, and Arthur by extension, was and were determined to tell no one as it could jepridize the whole world. They believed the two to be immortal guardians not nations.