Dark Gods In The Blood
Chapter Thirteen
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A/N: The story is
going to pick up a bit of pace from here on out, as the characters have been
(mostly) properly introduced by this point.
By this, I suppose I mean to say that the mystery part is really
beginning in earnest. 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 their sources.
Dark Gods in the Blood
by: Hayseed (
Chapter Thirteen
No
fear can stand up to hunger, no patience can wear it out,
is; and as to
beliefs, and what you may call principles, they
are less
than chaff in a breeze.
Heart of Darkness
The office was rather
quieter than usual today. It always
was, after a funeral.
Summerford had been
young. Hadn’t even had his bootlaces
for a year. Ron smiled down at the file
he’d been absently perusing. Bit silly
that, really.
The final examination for
admission to the Aurory was an obstacle course of sorts.
wizards,’ rampaging through some Muggle town (mid-sized, usually, although Ron
knew that Kingsley’s final had been administered in Islington), and the hapless
trainee would have to bring them in.
They were not permitted the standard Auror kit -- this was
and their wits.
According to the story,
one poor Auror (nameless, as legends tend to be, although Ron had heard
mutterings around office water coolers offering names anywhere from the
ruthless old seventeenth century ‘witch-hunter’ Matthew Hopkins**, notorious
for his brutal pursuit of Dark wizards, to the slightly more modern --
though no less infamous -- Alastor Moody) managed to break his wand in the duel
with his instructors. But the ow,
ow,
whoever he really was, recovered nicely and wound up dragging his instructors
back to the Aurory, bloodied and their hands neatly bound with his bootlaces.
Thus, every Auror, upon
his graduation, was awarded a pair of bootlaces, charmed to be
Unbreakable. Use every possible
resource at hand, was the lesson to be taken
from this slightly ridiculous ritual.
Ron let his eyes flicker
down to his own laces, whimsically spelled to a bright red instead of the
standard-issue black. “Red hair and red
shoes,” one of his mates had grumbled.
“Could you make yourself any more obvious a target, Weasley?”
Kingsley had given
Summerford’s bootlaces to his wife, enormously pregnant with their first child,
as she stood graveside. A single tear
had fallen down her cheek, he remembered, as she cradled the small box in her
hand. Ron hoped fervently that she
didn’t put them in some silly box somewhere, that Summerford’s child would wear
those laces as he or she fell out of trees and ran down to the lake at
Hogwarts. Good laces for a kid,
really. Completely indestructible --
not a flame or a blade in the world could make so much as a dent in them.
Blinking as his eyes
began suspiciously stinging, Ron jerked his mind away from the image of that
tear on William Summerford’s wife’s face and tried to focus on the file under
his nose. An untamed werewolf in
Albania.
Only one team needed to
take care of it -- he wrote the number ‘thirty-eight’ on the cover of the
folder and tapped it once with his wand.
Immediately, the file disappeared, ostensibly sent to Higgins and Lee,
team number thirty-eight. Byungki had
of the country, Ron remembered distantly.
Well, now he had his chance. And
Hera Higgins could probably keep him from too much trouble.
Byungki Lee was one of
the more impetuous Aurors in the Ministry.
At twenty-five, he’d already been brought before the Wizengamot four
times for inappropriate conduct and threat of Muggle exposure.
woman, Hera kept Byungki on a fairly tight leash. She was able to use his intensity and creative approach to
situations to its maximum effect, efficiently checking his tendency toward
leaping without first looking. The
number of Oblivate teams sent in after Byungki’s missions now was actually less
than half of what it used to be, thanks
to Hera.
Anotfilefile, another
assignment. A Muggle in Cheshire,
watching a local wizarding family far
too closely. This was actually rather misallocated
-- there was an entire department for Muggle relations that had nothing to do
with the Aurory -- but the family in question belonged to one Robert Wheeler,
whose mother happened to be Cornelius Fudge’s sister.
Ah ... politics.
With a wry grin, Ron sent
the file to team number forty-two.
Tonks would probably get a kick out of this one.
home on fire. When no one was there, of
course. But all the same ...
His mind now more or less
focused on his work, he let time slip away, head bent over his desk, scratching
notes on parchment and tapping files with his wand.
was standing beside his desk had to clear their throat several times before Ron
even knew they were there.
Startled, his head jerked
up and he regarded his guest with surprise.
“Françoise?” he asked, floored.
“What are you doing here?”
Françoise smiled at his
obvious confusion. “I couldn’t stand to
stay in that house for another second,”
she said breezily. “So I’m here to take
you out for lunch. My treat.
“Lunch?” he asked,
bewilderment deepening significantly.
“What time is it?”
Laughing, she gave his
shoulder a little pat. “It’s past noon,
Ron. Nearly one, actually.
“Not as such,” he said,
stretching in his chair. “But
time-consuming, it seems. So ... lunch,
you say. And your treat?”
“No lobster, mind,” she
replied with another laugh. “Now come
on -- I’m starving!”
tugged at his arm.
Shaking his head at her
antics, Ron allowed himself to be pulled to his feet. “All right, all right,” he grumbled playfully.
“It’s a surprise,” she
said, holding out a rather dulled Sickle that Ron knew she used for a makeshift
Portkey when the occasion called for it.
He took his cloak in one
hand and laid a pointer finger on the Sickle with the other.
his stomach flip inside out as the Portkey pulled them forward.
-- -- -- --
“This
his tone. “Fortescue’s
“I thought it would be a
surprise,” Françoise replied demurely, voice quavering with suppressed
mirth. “I can see by your reaction that
I was correct.”
He placed his hands on
his hips and cocked his head at her.
“Merlin’s ass, Françoise,” he exclaimed unthinkingly.
for luncheon? I thought you were a
responsible parent or some such thing.”
Her nose turned upward
and her reply was decidedly snobbish.
“If you had ever bothered to notice,
Mister Weasley, you would see that right beside the huge ice cream parlor is a
restaurant. Fionn Fortescue went into
business next door to his brother many years before either of us had been
born.”
“Okay, Miss
I-Know-More-Than-You,” he said sarcastically.
Indeed, now that he came to look more closely, there was a sign clearly
advertising, Fortescue’s Sandwiches and Soups -- Homemade.
done with your lecture ...”
“Should we eat inside our
outside?” she asked, not bothering to respond to his derision.
Ron perked up.
“I thought
sniff. “It puts me in mind of those
dreadful Muggle cafés you like to patronize.
The difference, of course, being that Fionn’s sandwiches are absolutely
wonderful.”
Wrinkling his nose at
her, he pulled out a chair at a nearby table.
“Boy, one measly little case of food poisoning and it puts you off an
entire genre of cuisine. Don’t you have
any
“I am the mother of two
rather rambunctious children,” she replied primly, handing him a menu out of
what seemed to be nowhere. “They’ve sapped
it out of me.”
With a start, he laid the
menu on the table. “Erm ... Françoise?”
She hummed, not looking
up.
“Where are
beginning to dawn in his mind.
“Shouldn’t you --?”
1'>
Finally catching a glimpse
of his expression, she began to giggle.
“Oh, Ron,” she sighed, oddly reminiscent of Hermione as an exasperated
child. Oh, Ron
hands on her hips and hair flying every possible direction.
The panic was now nearly
in full blossom. “Françoise?”
“What?” she managed
between chuckles. “What sort of mother
do you think I am, Ronald Weasley?”
He did have the sense to
blush at that. “I --”
“Don’t you remember?” she
asked. “Nicholas started back at school
today. We talked about it last night,
as well as at breakfast. It’s only
three weeks into the semester, so he should be fine. And I went in to speak with his teacher this morning when I
dropped him off -- she’s aware of the situation. And as for Alice, I left her with Petunia before I came to your
office -- I thought it would be nice to have a meal with some conversation with
polysyllable words.”
Blowing out a breath,
Ron’s expression was growing more chagrined by the second.
forget about Nicholas. It’s just
...” He floundered, unable to
articulate his thou
o:p>
“I know,” she said
kindly. “It’s been ... difficult.”
ruefully. “Consider, Ron, that it took
you the better part of a half-hour to notice that the children weren’t here.”
He couldn’t think of
anything to say to that.
-- -- -- --
Their orders were brought
to their table by a round little man, red-cheeked and beaming.
nose. “I knew I recognized that order
from a mile away -- I just had to bring
it out myself.”
Smiling, she stood,
wrapping her arms around fellfellow, who was barely at her eyelevel.
you?”
Ron was dumbfounded.
“Fionn Fortescue, at your
service, my lad,” the man -- Fionn -- said brightly. “And unless I miss my guess, you must be Ronald Weasley.” He
plaRon’Ron’s plate on the table.
Still rather taken aback,
Ron’s only response was a tentative nod.
“I’ve heard a lot about
you, young man,” Fionn continued, pulling up a chair of his own.
Albus and wee Françoise here. I hope
you two don’t mind if an old man joins you for a bit. I’ve been meaning to owl you, Françoise.
She shrugged and picked
up a chip, chewing on it pensively.
“One day at a time, Fionn.
That’s all I can ask.”
Fionn’s words finally
managed to penetrate the baffled fog that was currently Ron’s brain.
you?” He left his real question -- how
do I not know you?
Chuckling, the man patted
Ron’s hand with something very like affection.
“As I have said -- I’m Fionn Fortescue.
Albus I know because we went to Hogwarts together, many years ago.
tutored me in Transfigurations and I showed him how to sneak into the
kitchens.”
Ron goggled, trying to
picture an adolescent Albus Dumbledore standing in the Hogwarts kitchens,
askingse ese elves for handouts, and utterly failing. “Really?” he managed, picking up a quarter of his sandwich.
“Really,” Fionn
said. “I suppose, though, that Albus
would prefer I not share such things with his young protégés, as our old
boyhood escapades go a long way toward dispelling the aura of greatness he
seems to work so hard to cultivate.”
Françoise snorted and
took a sip of her water. “He does a
good job of dispelling it himself.
Lemon drops, indeed.”
“I think you and I ought
to have more chats, Mr. Fortescue,” Ron said with a straight face, polishing
off the bit of sandwich in his hand.
“Oall all me Fionn, boy,”
he replied, waving a hand blithely through the air. “Neither my brother nor myself have ever stood on much
ceremony. The only ‘Mr. Fortescue’ we
ever knew about was our father. And he
was a right stiff sort of fellow.”
“So you are
Françoise glowered at
Ron. “I already told
“Given that you never
bothered to inform me that you have more than a passing acquaintance with him,
I think I’m in my right to question everything you’ve said up to this point,”
he retorted.
Fionn chortled.
my brother’s little shop, you see. In
fact,” he said with a decidedly Dumbledorean twinkle in his eye, “many of them
don’t even know that I’m here.”
Ron shot Françoise a
victorious look as if to say, See?
I’m not the only one.
choosing instead to change the subject.
“Given that, then,” he said, “how is it that you two seem to know each
other so well?”
Twinkling further, Fionn
gave Françoise a fond look. “Through my
brother and her father, actually,” he admitted. “Florian was introduced to Christophe at some party or another
not long after Christophe had come to England.
Christophe happened to mention that his little girl was in need of an
English tutor -- they spoke French at home, you see, but he was determined that
his daughter was not going to be lacking in any quality.
Twenties and even did a short stint at Beauxbatons in the Fifties -- Herbology
for a couple semesters while the actual professor was on sabbatical.”
Ron looked back and forth
between the pair disbelievingly. “So
... you were her tutor?”
“For about three years,”
he replied. “Françoise has always been
a quick study, but I suppose you already knew that. But she always came to see me during her summers and we’ve kept
up through owls. I must admit, though,
that while she brought her little boy by a few years back, she still
daughter. Albus assures me that your
girl is a right scamp, though, Françoise.”
With a wry smile and a
short nod, Françoise chuckled. “She is,
I admit,” she conceded with a faux sigh.
“A regular little devil. But she’s
got all the men in her life effectively twisted ‘round her little finger.
with him -- her precious ‘Bus.’” Her
smile became more genuine as Fionn laughed heartily. “And Harry just dotes ...”
Trailing off, Françoise’s face became a mask of misery and she lowered
her gaze to her plate.
Immediately concerned,
Fionn put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
“I am sorry, child,” he said
quietly.
Uncomfortable, Ron began
eating in earnest, filling his mouth with food in an effort to avoid the
temptation to speak.
“So am I,” she responded
automatically. After a pause, her tone
was more sincere. “I’m sorry,” she
apologized. “It’s kind of automatic,
you know? I know you mean it, Fionn.”
His face was kind.
it takes much more to offend me.”
“It’s just ...”
forgotten. “I’m usually fine.
can do this. I can ... continue.
... it’s too real. I don’t know.”
untouched. “I have no more tears left,
Fionn,” she whispered, finally meeting his eyes. “What’s wrong with me?”
It took him a few beats
of silence to formulate a reply. Ron
chewed mightily on the last few mouthfuls of his sandwich, not knowing what to
say to such a question. Eventually,
however, Fionn seemed to find a response.
“Nothing’s wrong with you, Françoise,” he said thoughtfully.
about it. But take a tiny bit of wisdom
from this old man -- while your pain may never pass entirely, it will
You will come through this tragedy and you will be stronger for
it.” One last comforting pat and Fionn
sat back in his chair, releasing her from his touch.
The three of them sat
there, in the bright sunshine, the warmth of the air a testament to the
presence of summer and the chill in the breeze evidence of its passing.
Françoise pick at her food and wondering what he could do for it.
For her.
He met Fionn’s eyes
suddenly and did not like the question he saw there. Mostly because it was one that he didn’t know the answer to
himself.
--
--
Ron could not help but
feel relieved as he Apparated back to his office after lunch.
pleasant interlude had turned abruptly sour and he was glad to be done with it.
Françoise’s eyes as he bade her farewell and avoided Fionn’s entirely as he
shook his hand. “It was a pleasure
meeting you, sir,” he’d said nearly truthfully.
“As you say, my boy,”
Fionn had replied, pumping Ron’s hand up and down enthusiastically.
interesting cases at the Aurory and, in return, I’ll tell you about the time
Albus and I set a boggart on our Divination professor in my fourth year.”
The building was quiet as
Ron walked through the front doors.
Quite uncharacteristic for the Aurory, really -- there was usually some
premises. But everyone he met on the
way to his office seemed to be proceeding from their respective point A’s to
whatever point B’s they were seeking without incident.
his cloak into a vacant chair and sat down.
How unusual -- people generally thought nothing of ransacking someone’s
desktop to find whatever file they thought they were looking for.
But everything was here,
and in the order he’d left it in, to boot.
As if luncheon had never happened, Ron settled in, picked up his quill,
and took up where he’d left off, once again immersing himself completely in his
work.
An indeterminate amount
of time later, he was startled as something bounced off the top of his
head. Glancing down at the floor, he
saw a balled-up wad of parchment that seemed to be the culprit.
“Can I trouble you for a
moment?” someone asked from the doorway.
Ron looked up.
“Come in, Kingsley,” he said, waving an inviting hand at the chair
holding his cloak.
Kingsley Shacklebolt,
Chief Auror at the unprecedented young age of fifty-one (the last chief was
installed at a fairly spry ninety-seven and retired under duress at a hundred
twenty), regarded Ron’s cloak with barely-disguised disdain.
hanging the cloak on a rack meant for just this sort of thing located right by
the door. “You know that, right?”
“Of course,” Ron agreed,
making one last notation in a file before tossing it into a haphazard pile on
the floor. “I’ve got at least three
women telling me so nearly daily. No
... make that four. Alice Potter’s just
mastered the word ‘messy.’”
Almost smiling, Kingsley
crossed one leg neatly over the other as he lounged in Ron’s chair.
With a shrug, he met his
superior’s eyes forthrightly. “As well
as can be expected, Shacklebolt,” he replied.
“Given the circumstances. What
are the circumstances, by the by?”
“Not much has changed,”
Kingsley said tightly. “We’ve got a few
bites on some lower level Death Eaters that were never brought in for
questioning. One in particulas
as
sighted near Potter’s residence not two weeks before the death.”
Ron kept his expression
blank. Death
He realized suddenly that
Kingsley was a coward if he couldn’t name it for what it really was.
Murder.
“Any progress on motive?”
he asked in a careful sort of voice.
Kingsley’s reply held a
warning. “Based on the information
you’ve given us, Weasley, I’d say we’re still at the same point.”
be telling you this, but it was written all
over his face.
But Ron still pushed, heedless
of the older man’s expression. “I still
think I should --”
Leaning forward in his
seat, Kingsley’s sudden fury was nearly a tangible thing.
I could?” More quietly now.
Ron remained silent,
waiting.
His posture was downcast
and defeated. “I can’t
“And you know that. You’re just
too close. How do I know you’re not
going to go vigilante as soon as you’ve got enough facts to find a name?
Opening his mouth, he was
ready to launch a volley of protests but stayed quiet as Kingsley raised a
preemptive hand.
“I’m not talking about
your eye, Weasley. Merlin knows if I
could find a way to put you in the field even with your blind side, I
would. No, Ron.
walking a thin wire, boy.”
He did not bother to deny
it. Both he and Kingsley knew it was
the truth.
“Until I think you can
handle it, Weasley, you’re to stay as far away from the Potter case as I can
keep you,” he said, a final note in his voice.
“And if I decide to let you
in on some of the details, it won’t be in any official capacity.
you’re too close to this one. Don’t
bother arguing with me. My mind is made
up.”
Gritting his teeth, Ron
bit back a dozen potential replies, none of them appropriate for his
chief. “Is there anything else you
wanted?” he finally settled on asking.
Kingsley’s gaze was
knowing as he regarded Ron. “You look
like shit, Weasley. Go home early
today.”
-- --
-- --
**Footnote -- Matthew
Hopkins was, of course, real. He called
himself the ‘Witch-Finder General’ and, according to sources, had anywhere from
200 to 400 ‘witches’ executed during the span of his career, which seems to
have predominantly been the 1640’s. He
remains a controversial character to this day.
I am, naturally, making him an Auror who possibly teetered on the edge
of the Dark arts himself with only the most ironic of intentions.
-- --
-- --