so for the misc quest to go kill hagraven petra. i didn't release Melka from her cage and proceeded up the tower and killed petra. the quest didnt complete so i went back down and released melka. after she walks past the swinging axes, she stops. goes back through the swinging axes then comes back, and stops either at the door just before petra, or right after the axes.

this bug is rather funny; so i was wondering is there a way to fix this, make the quest go away (fail it)? i tried killing melka but i still have quest.

I had a similar experience. I did not release Melka but accepted the quest. Then I went and killed Petra, and came back and let Melka out of her cage and killed her too. The quest is still marked as open in my quest log, but I would think it should either be marked as failed or completed.

Yes, the same here, both are dead but the quest is still active. What can be done?

I had a similar issue. The quest was forced on me just by entering the room and I didn't want to release Melka. After I killed Petra the quest was still stuck in my journal.

To solve it I had to release Melka and follow her up to the room with Petra's corpse. I opened the console, clicked Petra's corpse, then entered resurrect, disable and then enable, and then killed Petra again. That solved the quest and got it out of my journal.