Dark Gods In The Blood
Chapter Ten
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A/N: Warning -- this
chapter is the first one in the story that has what I’d consider questionable
content. A fairly graphic description
of a murder scene is contained within (but it’s as tasteful as I could make it ...).
interpretations of Nicholas’ dream and I’m biting down on my lip hard to
keep from giving away pertinent plot info because I’m so happy that I’ve got
people wondering about what’s going to happen next. As always, thanks for reading!
Summary: A wandering
student comes home, a broken man pays his penance, and a gruesome murder is
both more and less than it seems. Some
paths to self-discovery have more twists and turns than others.
Rating: R, for
intermittent dark themes, violence, and language
Disclaimer: Nothing
you read here (save the plot and bits of the text itself) belongs to me.
property of JK Rowling and Warner Bros. (and someone else, probably, but not
me). All chapter headings are properly
credited to thsoursources.
Dark Gods in the Blood
by: Hayseed (
Chapter Ten
What
more did I want? What I really wanted
was rivets, by
Rivets. To get on with the work
-- to stop the hole.
wanted. There were cases of them down
at the coast
-- cases --
piled up -- burst -- split!
-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of
Darkness
“How was the match?” Ron asked Ginny as he took Alice into his arms.
She shrugged. “We lost.
But on the other hand, Alice saw the Snitch in about five minutes and
Nicholas decided to speak again. So, it
was an interesting day, if nothing
else. How was work?”
“It was work,” he replied noncommittally.
Hermione watched the siblings shift on their feet, watched the
awkwardness mount. Fortunately,
Nicholas seemed to note her discomfort.
“Do you know how to play Soulblade**?” he asked, giving her robe a good
tug.
“Soulblade?” she echoed, drawing a blank.
“It’s pretty good,” he said, shrugging. “Even though it’s really old.
My papa got it for me to play on my Playstation.
I’ll even let you have first pick,” he offered graciously, slipping his
hand into hers.
Continuing to listen to Ginny and Ron make idle, uncomfortable chat on
the front step of Françoise Potter’s home, she decided it would be infinitely
better to discover what on Earth Nicholas was talking about.
‘Playstation’ when they were children and thought she remembered that it was a
video game system of some sort.
The last video game Hermione had played was probably back in about 1988
-- her father loved the old Pac-Man arcade game and would often challenge her
to a head-to-head match. That was
before she went off to Hogwarts, of course.
She distantly wondered if Harry had done the same with Nicholas and his
Playstation.
But he was still tugging on her hand, so she offered him a smile and
stepped into the house.
A Playstation was apparently a square little machine made of mostly
black plastic. He hit a few buttons
expertly and a tray spat out of the front.
A couple more button taps later and Hermione found him thrusting a
controller into her hand. “You’ll
figure the controls out,” he told her as he flipped on the television.
Fifteen minutes later, Hermione had decided that they were actually
rather difficult. She found herself
squinting at the animated character she’d chosen, sitting cross-legged on the
floor beside Nicholas, frantically mashing the first buttons that came to her
fingertips. “And you find this
entertaining?” she asked as he ‘killed’ her yet again.
“Sure,” he said shortly, skillfully hitting about six buttons at once
so that his character executed a hopelessly complex maneuver.
moves.”
“I can tell,” she replied, deciding she’d never let herself be
manipulated into this again if she had anything to say about it.
A male laugh echoed behind her.
“Ah,” Ron said, coming into the room -- he’d apparently put Alice to bed
as she was nowhere in sight. “I see
he’s found someone else to trounce at that Muggle thing.”
“I’m ... having fun,” she said, knowing her tone was sadly
lacking. Nicholas gave a little crow of
triumph as her character fell seemingly unconscious (or dead) yet again.
“Nicholas,” Ron said, tapping the boy once on the top of his head.
in five minutes, I shudder to think of the consequences.”
“One more,” he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.
Ron sighed. “No.”
“Yes,” Nicholas replied defiantly.
Apparently unwilling to push, Ron threw his hands up in the air.
<:p>
“Where’s Ginny?” Hermione asked, suppressing a small grin as Nicholas
shut off the Playstation obediently and began fiddling with the cords.
“Went home,” he replied. “It’s
been a long day, you know.”
“Good night, Uncle Ron,” Nicholas said, moving away from the
television.
Ron’s expression softened.
“’Night, Nicholas.”
The boy stopped beside Hermione, who was still sitting on the floor,
and studied her intently. In a gesture
so brief she barely had time to register it, he threw his arms around her neck
and squeezed. “’Night, Hermione,” he
muttered, all but running out of the room.
She stared after him wonderingly.
“I think he likes you,” Ron said dryly, holding out a hand to help her
to her feet.
Standing, she shrugged slightly.
“He just beat me at a video game twenty-four times in a row.
a hug.”
He continued to look at the doorway Nicholas passed through rather
thoughtfully. “It’s good to hear his
voice again.”
“I can imagine,” she replied.
“Well ... I suppose I ought to be getting back to the hotel,” she
continued, feeling the abrupt subject shift acutely.
“Hermione, I wish you’d just stay in my damned flat,” he said with a
harsh exhalation. “Hell, if you want,
I’m sure Françoise would love to have you stay here
awfully crtabrtable.”
“Speaking of ...” she said, hoping to shift the subject again.
He frowned. “Asleep, I’d
imagine. It is, after all, past eleven
o’clock. That match ran rather
late. But don’t think you’re getting
out of it that quickly.”
“For pity’s sake, Ron --”
“No,” he exclaimed, raising a single hand to still her protests.
on the run with a nasty drug habit and a propensity for lighting fires to get
you thrown out, I’ll do it in a heartbeat.
The flat is yours and I’ll not hear another word on the matter.
grin, “I’ll help you move your stuff.”
She sighed, thoroughly exasperated.
“I’ve only got one bag.”
An eyebrow raised. “You’ve been
here for more than a month.”
“It’s a big bag,” she said, arms crossed over her chest.
“That’s me,” he replied cheerfully.
“So ... I’ve heard all about Ginny’s day.What about yours?” he
drawled.
Shrugging a single shoulder, she sat down in an armchair.
probably. I will say that Nicholas
Potter is a startling little fellow, though.”
He cocked his head questioningly.
“How so?”
“Does ... does he have the Sight?” she asked hesitantly.
Ron’s face split into a grin.
“I thought you didn’t believe in Divination,” he said, sitting in kind
and crossing his leg over his knee.
She scowled. “Shut up.
she said, shades of her childhood haughtiness creeping back into her
voice. “I just don’t think it’s all
that common. Not true Sight, at least.”
Sobering, Ron looked over at her earnestly. “Why do you ask, then?”
“He ... said he had a dream about me.
Before thightight.
“I remember,” he interrupted, a distant expression in his eyes.
“So it seems,” she replied, finding that her hands did not seem to fit
properly in her lap at the moment.
“Although it was a rather drastic response, if he only had the one
dream. I just wanted to know if it had
happened before.”
Ron put his hands behind his head, thoughtful.
didn’t tell anyone. He’s a rather
closed-mouthed lad, even ... before everything. I think ...”
“What?” she asked, worried and fascinated.
“I think he saw Harry,” he said.
“That day. I don’t think we got
him out of the room fast enough.”
Hermione’s eyes widened and then narrowed as she pondered the
implications of what Ron had just said.
“Ron?”
He hummed interrogatively.
“What happened?” she asked dully, staring resolutely at the carpet, tracing
the pattern with her eyes. “What
happened to Harry?
So intent was her gaze on the floor that Hermione was actually startled
to look up and see Ron’s face not six inches from her own, blue eyes grim and
dull. “Hermione,” he said very quietly,
putting his hands over hers. “Hermione,
I don’t think you want to hear about it.”
“Of course I don’t,” she snapped.
“But I need to, Ron.”
He sat back on his heels, hands hanging limply between his knees.
whispered. “I’ve seen body parts fly
across the field in a firefight, I’ve seen men screaming as they burn alive,
but I’ve never seen anything so ... malignant.”
A chill ran down her spine.
“Ron ...”
Tears ran down his cheeks freely.
“I was there that morning,” he began.
“Harry and I were thinking about knocking off work and going to the
Chudley match that afternoon -- he had tickets, you see.
knows what.”
She was silent, patiently waiting for him to tell the story in his own
fashion.
“But I had to work. So I took
off, about eight in the morning. I
thought ...” He paused to gulp in air.
could catch the game. So I came up to
the door. But the door was already
open. Alice was sitting on the stoop,
holding her doll and crying. She didn’t
... I don’t think she knew ...
“And then I saw -- God -- I saw it,” he cried, putting his head in his
hands. His knees apparently gave out
and he crumpled to the floor, legs curled underneath him.
wasn’t talking. And Nicholas.”
Hermione hated herself as she watched Ron cry into his hands.
she couldn’t bear not doing it. “Ron
... what did he see?”
“All the blood,” Ron nearly
wailed. “Harry -- Harry was there on
the table. The goddamned kitchen
table. And the blood ran down, dripped
off ... He was fucking butchered,
Hermione. Gutted like a fish.”
She put a hand to her mouth, eyes wide and face white.
He cut her off. “I mean
th
that. Laid open like a fucking Muggle
autopsy. And I saw the look on his
face, Hermione. The expression in his
eyes. Whoever did that to him, did it
while he was alive.”
chin and wetting his shirt.
normal'>Feeling her own eyes prickle, she tried to imagine it and felt
something like relief when she realized she couldn’t. “Who would ...?”
Again, he interrupted her question by answering it before she could
even properly formulate it. “We don’t
know,” he said heavily. “Death Eaters,
they think. Some rogue faction we
didn’t manage to track down. But it
doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter?” she echoed, horrified. “Ron, you can’t mean --”
“Of course not!” he cried, some of her own horror reflected in his
eyes. “But they won’t put me on the
case. I’ve begged Kingsley over and
over, but he won’t let me touch it. I’m
‘too close to the victi he he said in a cruel mimicry of whoever it was had
turned him away. “But goddamn it,
Hermione, other than maybe Severus Snape, I know more about Death Eaters than
anyone on the fucking planet!
She realized then that he was angry
far more than he was sad. “Whae
te
they doing, then?”
His hands balled into fists, clenched in his lap.
they do? They’ve got five-year-old
dossiers to work off of and a handful of ridiculously false leads.
need to work on this. They’re still
probably standing around, scratching their asses and trying to figure out if
You-Know-Who was somehow brought back from the dead when what they need to be
doing is a full-blown inquiry into every organization that had a potential
reason for killing Harry.”
“Nicholas told me he worked at Honeydukes,” she said faintly, startled
at her own apparent non sequitur.
Ron swiped at his eyes angrily, nodding a emi emitted fierce
sniffles. “He did.
stuff. You know, like making Peppermint
Toads jump and that sort of thing.
That’s what’s so damn weird -- anyone who wanted Harry out of the way
would have wanted it ten years ago. Why
now? Harry was just a normal chap, with
a normal family. There was just no reason
more.”
“Maybe someone spent ten years planning it,” she ventured
cautiously. “It sounds ... very
deliberate.”
He shook his head. “That’s not
how these fellows work, Hermione. And
besides, they’ve had literally hundreds
of opportunities before. It’s not like
Harry lived his life in secret. Hell,
practically anyone could have just
walked right up to the damn door and Harry probably would have let ‘em
in.” Smiling a bit, Ron lifted his head
to show her his red-rimmed eyes.
“Damned idiot,” he said fondly.
“Too trusting by half.”
With a weak snort, she returned his smile. “Didn’t you say Draco Malfoy attended the funeral?” she asked
thoughtfully.
Ron was silent for a moment.
“Malfoy’s clean,” he said abruptly.
“The department’s kept a file on his family ever since old Lucius went
absolutely bonkers back during our sixth year.
But Malfoy the younger was never a Death Eater, or even really an edge
supporter of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
Just an absolute prat on his own part.
No,” he said in a decisive tone.
“Malfoy wouldn’t have anything to do with such a thing.
settled on.
Thinking about it briefly, Hermione found that she agreed with his
assessment of their old schoolmate.
“Was ... was there any evidence on the scene?” she asked, mind
racing. “Do they --?”
“Evidence?” he repeated. “What
do you mean?”
“Well ... you know,” she said. “Like fingerprints or hairs or something.
killer.” The word felt filthy on her
lips. She should never have had to say
that word in connotation with Harry Potter.
With a wrinkled brow, he studied her carefully.
Incantem.”
“What if ...” she began. “What
if a Muggle was the suspect?”
His gaze was stony. “Muggles
can’t do that to wizards, Hermione.”
“There’s not a spell for such a thing, though,” she said staunchly.
He continued to regard her rather coldly. “I doubt it’s an incantation that can be found in a Hogwarts
textbook, Hermione.”
Bowing her head, she decided to let him break the silence.
fingernails were looking rather grubby and the left sleeve of her robe was
unraveling at the wrist. She carefully
did not think about Harry’s broken body
splayed across a table she’d potentially eaten at.
“How can Françoise stand it?”
she breathed, breaking her own mental rule.
“How can she bear to go into that room?”
“She cries a lot, I think,” Ron replied, softening slightly.
“We ate a meal at that table,” she said quietly.
wasn’t the same table.”
He did not reply.
Hermione smiled wanly at him.
“I think I’m going to throw up.”
-- -- --
--
She did throw up, in fact.
Ron had insisted on fashioning her a Portkey back to the hotel.
Apparate -- she’d splinch herself into a million pieces.
And when did Ron turn into this hard, cold ... well, man
Fucking butchered
She’d seen photographs of surgical procedures -- studied them in some
dreamlike childhood that seemed several lifetimes ago when she’d idly thought
about studying medicine. And her mother
told her once about dissecting humans -- they’d done it in anatomy classes in
university.
And all of a sudden, she could see it.
She could see Harry, head thrown back, face twisted despite the relaxation of
death, a final image of his killer, his murderer burned into his eyes.
Blood ... there would be blood everywhere.
He had been alive, Ron said.
Alive when the first cut was made.
There would be blood on the ceiling,
splattered all over Françoise’s lovely white kitchen tile work.
the table legs, covering the chairs nearly completely.
And the body. Laid open,
eviscerated for the world to see. Red
and pink and pulsing and -- oh, God -- the blood ...
Hermione dashed to the small lavatory in her hotel room and was sick
for the third time that night.
He probably would have passed out, she told herself as she rested her
forehead against the cool porcelain.
Passed out very quickly.
Hopefully.
She closed her eyes and they opened again nearly immediately as the
image danced in her imagination. The
Harry in her head had died with his eyes wide open, a faintly accusatory look
in them as he stared blankly at her, arms and legs brokenly dangling over the
edges of the table.
You let my papa die
There was nothing left in her belly to throw up.
nausea turning to slow, hot sobs as it quelled.
Her cheeks and eyes burned as Harry glared at her in her head and
Nicholas whispered in her ear.
Frantically, she pressed fists into her eyes, hunched in a little ball
in the middle of her clinical, impersonal hotel lavatory.
Ron had been right. She didn’t
But she had also been right.
She did need to know this.
She needed to know why Harry’s memory would not find peace.
never cease to mourn.
Slowly, infinitely slowly, her sobs abated, turned to shaky
breaths. She was finally able to
stand. Swiping at her admittedly soggy
face, Hermione ran cold water over her hands, splashing some on her still fiery
cheeks.
She looked like hell. Her hair
stood out in every possible direction, her eyes looked wild, and her face was
flushed. She looked quite mad, really.
Hermione bit out a short chuckle, accidentally snorting water up her
nose.
No ... Snape was the mad one in
this entire affair.
And with that, she was suddenly calm.
Able to walk back to her bed and sit down. It was late -- past midnight.
If she had any sense at all, she’d be asleep.
But with the sense of eerie tranquility came a sort of
wakefulness. She felt completely alert
and vaguely restless. Her eyes scanned
the room and came to rest upon a copy of the Daily Prophet, sitting by her
window.
She’d forgotten -- she’d requested a weekly copy upon realizing she’d
be in the country longer than originally anticipated. Hadn’t even given it a glance this morning as she was getting
ready to go.
With nothing else to do, Hermione picked up the newspaper, eyes
flickering past the front page without so much as a pause.
The obituaries were at the back, tucked between wedding announcements
and pages of inane adverts. Mostly old
wizards and witches, survived by leagues of great-grandchildren and the like.
something like relief in their eyes.
She reach och one carefully, simultaneously wondering why she was doing
this and telling herself to stop.
Working her way backward through the paper, Hermione flipped through
Quidditch scores, so-called ‘human interest’ articles, and drabble about
Ministry promotions and the like. Every
so often, a particular article would catch her interest and she would read it,
but she was entirely too fidgety to read the entire paper.
“Auror Death Puzzles Investigators,” one headline read.
lines. “Twenty-three year old William
Summerford was discovered at his home early last evening,” it continued.
ruled out foul play but are reluctant to confirm that rogue Death Eaters could
have been involved. Summerford, as a
field Auror, apparently had many potential enemies and investigators wish to
follow all possible leads. This
reporter would like to convey his heartfelt sympathy to the victim’s wife and
infant daughter in this time of need.”
Shaking her head, she folded the paper. Summerford was only twenty-three. And he left a family behind.
Like Harry.
But unlike Harry, William Summerford worked in a high-risk
environment. Probably had lots of
enemies, lots of people who would have wished him ill.
it was still a horrible tragedy.
Hermione tried to lay in bed once more, pulling the covers up to her
chin. But closing her eyes briefly,
Harry’s face flashed through her mind and she opened them quickly.
She could not do this.
Sitting up in bed, Hermione fumbled for the television remote,
resigning herself to a sleepless night.
Harry was just too close to the surface, his dead eyes accusing her of
crimes she was no longer sure she hadn’t committed.
You let him die
butchered.
-- --
-- --
**Footnote -- Soulblade is an actual game created for the
Playstation. Not sure about the release
date, but it has to be prior to 2000 because that’s when I
set, it is indeed an old game.
idiot savant at Soulblade, but like Hermione, I stopped playing video games
roughly when consoles came out (to illustrate, my favorite game is Galaga) --
my pinball addiction doesn’t count. But
play Soulblade if you get a chance -- it’s fun. If you’re over the legal drinking age in your country, play
Soulblade while intoxicated -- it’s even more fun (if you’re not, pretend I
didn’t just say that).
-- --
-- --