Dark Gods In The Blood
Chapter Twenty-Three
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A/N: None for this
chapter. 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 Twenty-Three
Kurtz
discoursed. A voice!
It rang deep to the very
It survived his strength to hide in the magnificent folds
eloquence the barren darkness of his heart.
Oh, he
struggled!
Heart of Darkness
“Conium maculatum
room and seated herself at their usual table.
Snape blinked.
“You heard me,” she
said. “Conium maculatum
hemlock.** That’s how he did it.”
Rolling his eyes, Snape
picked a piece of invisible lint off his shirtsleeve. “Narratives are generally most intelligible when presented in a
linear fashion, Granger.”
With a little huff,
Hermione scooted her chair back from the table, rose, and began to pace.
have taken a few minutes for him to realize ...”
“Granger ...”
“And if he’s Flooed
Shacklebolt already, I’m certain he got ...”
Snape cleared his
throat. “Erm ... Granger ...?”
Spinning on her heel, she
ignored him again. “But he could have
sent for Albus and that might’ve --”
“Granger!” he actually
shouted, trying to attract her attention.
Frowning, she paused just
long enough to regard him with obvious confusion -- in truth, she’d been so
consumed with her thoughts that she’d quite forgotten his presence.
“Would you care to
explain yourself or should I simply save myself the agony and leave?” he asked
with narrowed eyes.
“Won’t your Cuthrell do
something particularly awful to you for that?” she countered.
Shoulders stiffening,
something in his eyes flashed at her.
“I find myself perilously close to not caring about the consequences,
Miss Granger.”
“Oh, well ...” Hermione
said grudgingly. “It’s quite simple,
really. There’s been another murder
that’s definitely been connected to Harry’s death.” She paused for effect.
Of course there was not
one. “And ...?” he asked with a quirked
eyebrow, seemingly unimpressed.
“Well, it seems that the
Aurors finally conceded defeat and allowed a Muggle doctor to come in and do an
official autopsy.”
“Autopsy?” he echoed,
uncertainty clear in his voice.
Internally, she delighted
in the fact that for once, she knew about something Snape didn’t, but she kept
her external composure. “They analyze
bodies after death in an effort to determine just what happened.
He smiled thinly.
“And I read through the
file, and I just knew that you should
see it ...” she said, trailing off in her excitement.
“You
in Ministry windows?”
Hermione couldn’t resist
herself this time and broke into a wide smile.
“Of course not. Ron said that he
thought I should take a look at it, just to see what I thought.
you, Ron asked Kingsley Shacklebolt and he said it would be fine.
idea. But the hospital wouldn’t let me
bring it in directly, of course -- Cuthrell has to approve it.”
Snape snorted.
“But there’s a note on
top of the file -- he’s got to contact Shacklebolt before he can turn my
request down, so that Kingsley can explain the circumstances.”
“I’m sure Cuthrell will
find a way to protect my frail sensibilities,” he said dryly.
Biting down on a giggle,
Hermione sat back down at the table.
“Well, the good thing is that our conversations aren’t monitored, so I
can tell you a fair amount about it.”
He looked at her
expectantly, silently.
“As I said, it appears as
if the victim -- his name was Desmond, by the by ... Marcus Desmond, aged
twenty-four -- had ingested a near fatal dose of hemlock not an hour prior to
death.”
“Hemlock ...” Snape mused
aloud. “That hardly seems
accidental. Not such a volatile herb.”
She shrugged.
associated with hemlock -- Socrates and all that. So I did a bit of research, and it turns out, actually, that a
fair number of people eat hemlock quite by accident. It bears more than a passing resemblance to parsley leaves, and
its seeds rather look like anise seeds.
But the time span isn’t right for an accident.yes"> Time of death was put around four o’clock in the afternoon, and
if he’d eaten it by mistake, one would think it would have been at a meal.”
“So he was poisoned?”
“Oh, no,” she said,
turning a bit green ‘round the gills.
“Official cause of death, according to the report, was shock brought on
by rapid blood loss. He was more than
alive when the killer began cutting.
But I have a theory about the hemlock ...”
He threw his hands up and
gave her a mocking scowl. “Of course
you do,” he sighed. “I wager, Granger,
that you spend large parts of the day coming up with various theories.”
Hermione wondered at her sudden
urge to stick her tongue out at him, as if it was Ron Weasley baiting her
rather than Snape. “Anyway ...” she
said sternly. “In my reading, I noticed
that the onset of symptoms is rather swift -- nausea and irritation of the
mouth and throat and salivation are the first observed, but all of these are so
innocuous that they probably wouldn’t be associated with anything too
After a while, though, respiratory functions become impaired, and the
victim experiences total paralysis, complete with loss of speech.”
When she paused to
breathe, Snape shot her a nasty look.
“Has anyone ever pointed out that listening to you is exactly like
listening to someone read a textbook?”
But she could see the interested glint in his eyes that belied his words
and so continued.
“Total
voice.’ “Wouldn’t it be possible that
meant magical paralysis as well? After
all, the disorientation associated with hemlock would certainly slow anyone’s
reaction time, magical or Muggle.”
Realization dawned on
Snape’s face, and Hermione struggled to contain her delight.
around wandless protective magic.”
“Possibly,” she said
calmly. “It’s just a theory, of
course.”
“And no one would have
noticed it before because their intent would usually have been to simply poison
their target. Besides, we’ve gotten so
used to dealing with wandless magic that no one’s bothered to make an attempt on
someone’s life using Muggle means for centuries. Not since the Killing Cu
was
was perfected.” His words came more
rapidly and his face slowly lost its usual grim cast. “Granger, do you --?”
She nodded.
administered the poison, waited for the onset of paralysis, and then
“Does the Aurory know
about this?” he asked, unheard of excitement shining in his eyes.
Shrugging, Hermione
allowed some of her own excitement to show.
“They have the same file I do, of course, but ...”
His reply was cut off as
the door slammed open and Cuthrell stood in the doorway, radiating fury.
Snape’s face hardened
into his customary scowl, but Hermione kept her expression carefully
neutral. “Dr. Cuthrell,” she said
pleasantly, standing to greet him. “I
confess, I was expecting you.”
“I demand
waving the manila folder in the air.
“I’m sorry,” she replied
in that same pleasant tone. “That
information is restricted -- only Kingsley Shacklebolt, Ron Weasley, myself,
and Severus Snape have access to that particular folder.
he’ll be able --”
Snarling, Cuthrell took a
couple of instinctual steps into the room, toward Hermione, and she barely
noticed Snape rising to his feet and advancing toward her himself.
indeed contacted your Kingsley Shacklebolt, and he patiently fed me a line of
bullshit about Severus and murders and Harry bloody Potter.
nonsense, I don’t want to know, but, Granger, you are undermining my patient’s
therapy and I will not have it any longer!”
Hermione found herself
absolutely gobsmacked when Snape spoke up.
“Three weeks ago, you allowed Albus to bring me a newspaper,” he said in
a bland, complacent voice that she never in a million years would have believed
him capable of.
“That is completely beside
the point,” Cuthrell snapped, not bothering to put on his usual condescending
manner to address his patient. “I will not
Granger here hasn’t slipped something forbidden into this folder?”
“That is doubtful, Jake,”
said a congenial voice from the doorway.
Cuthrell spun around to
face a mildly bemused Albus Dumbledore.
“Er ... um ... Professor Dumbledore,” he stuttered.
“Young Auror Shacklebolt
notified m you your reticence to allow Hermione here to show her file to
Severus,” he replied agreeably enough.
“And so I thought it might be prudent for me to make an appearance, only
as Severus’ legal guardian, of course.”
Cuthrell paled.
Dumbledore gave him a
little smile and Hermione noticed absently that his eyes were sparkling with
more than his usual amount of mischievousness.
“May I?” He held out a hand.
Cuthrell’s pallor took on
a decidedly green cast. “Certainly,
Professor.” And he placed the file
grudgingly into Dumbledore’s outstretched hand.
With a start, Hermione’s
jaw dropps Dus Dumbledore casually opened the file and began leafing through
the pages, expressionless. “But ...”
she stammered. “But ... you ... I mean
...”
“Yes, my dear?” he asked,
taking his attention away from the file long enough to raise an eyebrow at her.
Unwilling to ask in front
of a still-sickly looking Cuthrell, Hermione remained silent.
After a few eternal
moments, Dumbledore snapped the folder shut and held it out to Hermione.
Jake,” he said, still keeping his voice light and amiable, but this time, there
was a sharp edge to it. “No crowbars or
wands in sight.”
“As if it would make a
damn bit of difference,” Snape grumbled, causing Hermione to start with
surprise again.
Cuthrell swallowed
uncomfortably, and she could tell that he wished he were anywhere but
here. “Well, then,” he said.
myself of any --”
“Yes, yes,” Dumbledore
interrupted, finally allowing some of his impatience to bleed into his
tone. “If Severus does anything
inappropriate as a result of viewing Hermione’s files, you’re not held liable
in any way.” The sparkle in his eyes
was gone, replaced by a flat fury that made Hermione understand completely when
Cuthrell just nodded feebly and ran out of the room.
“Thank you, Professor
Dumbledore, sir,” she said politely as soon as Cuthrell was out of sight.
“Any time, Hermione,” he
replied in a quiet voice. “Kingsley has
brought me up to speed on the situation.
And as much as I would like to stay and chat with you two, I’m afraid I
must get back to school. I was actually
in the middle of handling an incident involving Peeves, an unfortunately large
bottle of mustard, and a couple of Ravenclaws.
Madam Pomfrey is probably getting quite testy waiting for me, so I must
bid you good day, Severus.
Hermione.” With one last nod, he
Disapparated, leaving Hermione and Snape to regard each other warily.
“Mustard?” Snape echoed,
glancing about the empty room. “It
sounds as if Peeves is slipping.”
“Or the house elves have
become less trusting,” she contributed absently, still fingering the folder in
her hands.
Giving her a disbelieving
look, Snape snorted.
Hermione recovered
herself at the sound. “Well ... let’s
get to it, shall we?” Tossing the
folder onte tae table, she sat down and looked up at him expectantly.
As he seated himself, a
thought struck her.
“Erm ... I guess I ought
to warn you ...” she began haltingly.
“There are photographs. Muggle,
thankfully, so it’s not as bad as it could be.”
“I don’t follow,” he
said, wariness edging his voice.
“They’re fairly ...
graph she she said, nervously swallowing.
“I couldn’t ... I mean ...”
He flipped the folder
open in response to her stumbling and his eyes rounded.
“You see?”
Snape reached out a
single finger and ran it across the glossy paper, hesitation clearly mixed with
disgust. “What the fuck sort of monster
would do --?”
Her mouth was dry.
things got shuffled ...”
“I have it,” he said,
extracting a single sheet of paper from the jumble. “Or, part of it, at least.”
Hermione allowed him to
peruse the file in silence.
Occasionally he would swear, but otherwise, he did not speak
either. A single picture had slipped
out of the pile and Hermione found her eyes drawn to it.
Marcus Desmond, aged
twenty-four, loving husband and father of one, lay spread-eagled on an autopsy
table, his insides on display for all to see.
But from Ron’s description, the doctor had not made that particular
incision -- Desmond had undergone half of an autopsy prior to death.
While a half-hearted
attempt had clearly been made to clean up Desmond’s body, blood still spotted
the white skin, standing out as brilliant red droplets on a stark canvas.
completely, but no doubt, they would try.
Scouring Charms, Magical Stain-Removers, even good old-fashioned Muggle
elbow grease. But they would always
know it had been there, could probably always point to the exact location of
every single spot.
Someone had thankfully
allowed Desmond’s eyes to slip closed, but Hermione found herself able to
vividly imagine the look of terror that his eyelids hid.
grimace, revealing even, white teeth, and the set of his jaw indicated to
Hermione that if he’d been able to, he would have died with a scream.
Total paralysis, she
thought.
They’d been completely
helpless in that moment. Desmond,
Bones, perhaps Weaver, and maybe Cooke, and ... Harry.
All able-bodied men, full
of the vigor of youth, rendered to powerless children in their last
minutes. As some monster hacked into
...
Unable to bear it,
Hermione closed her eyes, hoping Snape would move the picture.
“Three things,” he said,
voice sounding impossibly loud to her ears as he spoke into the silence.
“What?” she asked, opening
her eyes and finding the folder blissfully closed, all pictures concealed
within its depths.
“Three things,” S
sa
said again, and she noticed a bleakness in his gaze that hadn’t been there for
a while. “One of them, I’m sure you
already know.”
She shifted in her chair.
“Firstly, which as I’ve
said, I’m sure you guessed already, the victims must have known the
killer. All of them.”
“I suspected as much,”
she replied. “But I couldn’t prove
it. Not even to myself.”
“It’s not in the file,” he
said in the closest thing to a kind voice she’d ever heard him use.
have been administered through food somehow, and you’re right -- the time of
death and the stomach contents suggest that the victim ate long before the
hemlock was ingested. Which means that
the killer got him to take it independently -- it couldn’t have been smuggled
into the house. The victim was tricked
into taking it of his own accord.”
“That makes sense,” she
agreed cautiously. “But you said there
were two other things.”
“I did,” he said with a
curt nod. “Did you happen to notice,
Miss Granger, the coroner’s notation about heart weight and condition?”
“Normal condition,” she
said, parroting what she remembered of the report. “Save for a piece severed off the left ventricle.
could have happened by --”
“Knives generally are not
strong enough to split the ribcage,” he interrupted. “The killer had to be trying to get at the heart specifically.
pliers.”
“Well ...” Hermione said
thoughtfully. “I was skimming one
particular book ...”
Snape’s lips curled into
a definite sneer. “That
Flourish and Blotts.”
Huffing, she tried to
mask her frustration and was sure that she failed. “Arthur Weasley got them for me -- well, for Ron, really, but
Ron’s not usually one for books -- from a friend of his who works in Muggle law
enforcement. The same one who helped
him arrange the autopsy, actually. But
as I was saying ... in thok, ok, it said that some killers have been known to
take ... I think the book called them trophies, but I think it meant like a ... memento of sorts.
like that.”
“You’re rambling, Granger
...”
“I am not
“I remember in one of the cases the book described, the killer took ...
well, body parts. Like fingers and toes
and such.”
His nose wrinkled and
Hermione was rather amazed when it occurred to her that she’d actually managed
to disgust Severus Snape. “You’re
joking.”
“He kept them in his
freezer,” she replied.
Staring at her for a
moment, his nostrils flared in shock.
“You’re not joking, are you?”
She shrugged.
trophy?” Her stomach twisted as she
considered the implications -- that meant that somewhere out there, there was a
little piece of Harry Potter, socked away in some madman’s ...
“I feel nauseous,” she
muttered.
To his credit, Snape
looked rather green himself.
With a sigh, Hermione
yanked her mind forcibly away from the subject and tried to give him a
smile. “You have a third point?”
her tone begged. Anything but
this.
Clearing his throat, he
accepted the segue with unease. “Uh ...
yes ... that is ... I saw in one of the ...”
She watched him shuffle
back through the papers with something very like amazement.
Posture easing back into
his usual slump, he extracted a single photo from the file and pushed it toward
her. “Look at that ... what do you
see?”
First and foremost, she
did not want to see anything. It was a
close shot of the victim’s -- she tried desperately to think of Desmond as the
victim, not Marcus Desmond, loving husband and
father of onetorstorso. Or what was
left of it, at least. “It’s his chest,”
she said unnecessarily.
“There’s a notation in
the report that caught my interest,” Snape said. “And it’s actually quite clear in this picture.
the initial cut started at the base of the throat and went downward.”
“Yes?”
“Look at the base of the
throat, Granger.”
Obediently, Hermione
tried to focus on that particular facet of Desmond’s -- the victim’s
don’t see anything. The beginning of an
incision ...” She gulped.
“Exactly,” he
exclaimed. “There’s only one cut.
the report said. And that means that
the killer was ... skilled.”
“Skilled?” she echoed.
Snape looked vaguely
apologetic -- the expression did not belong anywhere near his face, she
eventually decided. “Well ...
desensitized, then. Not skilled enough
-- the cut gets ragged as it continues down the torso, meaning that he probably
doesn’t cut things open for a living.
But he certainly does it enough that he can make that first cut on the
first try. It’s not ...”
one of his hands move toward his wrist.
“It’s not easy to do.”
She decided not to press
the subject beyond saying, “we know he’s done this three times at least, and
what you’re saying is that he’s probably done it a fair amount more.”
“It would have been helpful
to examine his previous victims,” Snape said, hand drifting away from his wrist
and coming to rest by his side.
She ignored him and began
ticking points off on her fingers, making a mental list of the facts.
is most likely someone that the victims all knew, that he is intelligent enough
to have figured out how to circumvent their wandless magic using poison, and
experienced enough to go about it quite clinically.”
“Don’t forget that,
according to you, he might be crazy enough to take bits along and stick them in
his icebox,” he added, grimacing.
“Right,” she said,
feeling her stomach turn again. “We’ve
mostly got the how, then.
“With the why
Cocking her head,
Hermione studied him with disbelief.
“Yes ...” she said faintly. “The
why. Two whys actually.
two, why did he kill these three in particular?”
“The latter of the two
sounds rather less daunting,” he said.
“Although it’s eluded the
Aurory for close to three months now,” she replied. “A common thread.
Different jobs, different homes, different friends, but they’ve got
something in common.”
“Political affiliations?”
Hermione thought for a
moment. “No ... Harry throws that off
-- according to Ron, he was very careful to remain neutral.”
For once, Snape did not
have anything overly waspish to say, although she was certain he was thinking
it, whatever it was. “Were they all in the
same house at Hogwarts?”
“Bones was in
Hufflepuff,” she replied. “And besides,
if we’re right and there are more victims, I think I know at least two more --
Alisander Weaver and Romulus Cooke. And
Cooke went to Durmstrang.”
1'>
His voice had an unprecedented
note of desperation in it. “Birthdays?”
“July, October, and
February,” she said, defeated.
Snape huffed to himself.
Squinting at the
tabletop, Hermione spoke slowly and carefully.
“Maybe ... I don’t know ... it’s probably stupid, but there’s one
connection that no one’s mentioned.
They’re all wizards.”
She could tell he was
holding back a particularly acidic rejoinder by the pained look on his face.
“And ...” she said, still
thinking hard. “None of them were
particularly old. In fact, all of them
were more or less in their prime, by wizarding standards.
“Perfect lives,” she and
Snape said in unison, faces mirroring their shock.
“Could ... could that be
it?” Hermione asked timidly. “It seems
so ...”
“It’s something, Miss
Granger,” Snape said thoughtfully. “All
of the victims had no other reason to die.
Young, healthy, successful men, and for the most part, lacking enemies,
if you ignore Potter’s past.”
They watched each other
for a moment, neither one showing any particular emotion.
“Well ...” Hermione
eventually said. “Kingsley Shacklebolt
thought I was barking mad before.
-- --
-- --
**Footnote -- All of my
information on poison hemlock is, to the best of my knowledge, correct.
nuances of conium maculatum, there are
various botanical sites on the Web that list more than enough info.
to the fact that it was the poison that Socrates was ordered to swallow in 399
BCE upon his conviction on charges of ‘corrupting the youth of Athens.’
Plato’s Dialogue entitled Phaedo (for
interested parties, the most common translation is Jowett).
and symptoms of hemlock, although one might note the description of full
paralysis.
-- --
-- --