Dark Gods In The Blood
Chapter Twenty-Five
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A/N: Continuing to
bite my tongue frantically! But we’re
getting very close to the end, so I can probably hang on.
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-Five
He
cried in a whisper at some image, at some vision -- he
cried out
twice, a cry that was no more than a breath -- ‘The
horror!
“I think this is a
terrible idea,” Severus said flatly.
“Besides, you don’t even know if it’s related.”
“But it’s a good
opportunity,” Granger protested. “The
crime scene is virtually untouched,
according to Kingsley, other than the removal of the bodies.
blood loss. They even recovered a
teacup from the scene that had crushed hemlock mixed in with the tealeaves in
the bottom. It’s got
He frowned.
“The wife,” she
confirmed, glancing down at the parchment in her hand -- it appeared to be an
informal letter of sorts. “She was
found in a different room than the husband.”
“And how did she die?” he
pressed.
Granger blew out a sigh,
clearly frustrated. “All right,” she
conceded. “A fairly routine, although
rather grisly, stabbing. Not exactly to
the letter, I’ll admit.”
“And what was the other
thing you told me about her?” Severus asked, wanting to push her past her
limit.
But Granger wasn’t having
it. “She was a Muggle,” she replied
demurely.
Pouncing triumphantly,
Severus pulled out all the stops. “A
Muggle,” he cried, waving his hand through the air to emphasize his point.
manner. What makes you think this is a
related case? Your victims were on the
verge of a divorce, even -- not quite the picturesque lifestyle of the previous
ones.”
With a vicious glare, she
crumpled the parchment in between her fingers. “But how many wizards do you know about that
have been ritually hacked open that haven’t
been related to this case?”
He opened his mouth to
respond, but she cut him off.
“Right -- none.”
“That wasn’t what I was
going to say,” he retorted mildly.
Rolling her eyes, Granger
sighed again. “I don’t understand you,
Snape. I’d think you would be
interested in gathering evidence. We don’t
have all that much, you know.”
“Exactly,” he said.
that makes him less predictable.”
“We know enough,” she
argued. “Almost definitely male,
probably single, of larger than average build and quite strong.
carry out these killings with a certain ... dispassion.”
“What about this one,
though?” Severus asked, feeling oddly desperate. “Two victims?
Granger shrugged.
the middle of it and surprised him.”
“Which means he might be
running scared,” he said. “And what’s
more, we know he’s escalating.” Granger
had introduced this particular context of the word into his vocabulary several
days ago, and Severus found it echoing round and round his skull -- escalating,
escalating, the killer is escalating.
weeks.”
“I still don’t see your
point, Snape.” Her tone was impatient and
grated in his ears.
“My point, Granger,” he
began distastefully, “is that there’s something that isn’t sitting right.
“Only something?” she
asked with a snort.
Frowning, he closed the
case file. “I don’t think you should go
up there, Granger.”
“Why not?”
He clenched his hands
into fists in his lap. “I don’t know
“It’s not even that far
away -- just the other side of the county -- I barely even need a Portkey.
here and be home in time for supper.”
Her voice dripped saccharine condescension. “Would you like me to come back here and check in with you when
I’m through?”
Severus slammed his body
back in his chair, nearly overturning it in his irritation.
“Obviously you do,
though,” she said dryly.
“No ...” he drawled.
and so I prefer to wash my hands of the entire situation.”
Jerkily, Granger collected
her papers and files together into a single, sloppy pile and swept the whole
mess into her arms. “Fine,” she said
tightly, turning and striding toward the door.
“I will say good day to you, then, Snape.”
He winced as the door
slammed loudly, the sound of metal against metal ringing throughout the room.
-- -- -- --
Severus was playing chess
with Old Jack again. Over the past few
weeks, they’d played often. Most
usually, Old Jack thoroughly trounced him, but today, Severus rather thought he
had a chance at beating the batty old codger.
Jack showed no sign of noticing Severus’ queen slip closer and closer to
a critical position, so he tried to keep his expression bland, face tipping
toward the board.
They did not speak as
they played. Although when Old Jack won
(usually), he would generally cry “Mate!” with exuberance if they were alone in
the room. Actually, as Severus thought
about it, typically, they did not even ask each other to play -- there were
just days when one of them went into the game room and patiently waited for the
other.
'>
He liked it this
way. His newfound relationship with Old
Jack -- he hesitated to actually label it a friendship
Granger -- there was far too much sniping and bitterness passing between them
to settle into the quiet camaraderie that he and Old Jack shared as they slid
chess pieces back and forth across a board.
Severus was two moves
away. His queen was nearly in place and
his rook had been where it needed to be for five moves at least.
won.
“Mate,” Old Jack said
mildly, nudging a bishop halfway across the board.
Blinking, Severus stared
at the board, stared at his poor king, irrefutably in checkmate, surrounded on
all sides by menacing white pieces.
When did that happen?
“Too busy attacking to
bother defending, are we, laddie?” he asked cheerfully.
Severus glowered.
“I don’t know ...” Jack
said in a mocking, thoughtful sort of voice.
“I have a pressing social engagement later.”
He quirked an eyebrow,
silently asking a question.
Sighing, Old Jack began setting
up the chessboard again. “Haircuts,
today. Remember?”
“Actually ...”
sly grin. “They’ve let me slip past the
last three times.” His bangs now hung
resolutely in his eyes, and the hair on the back of his head more than flowed
past his collar.
“I’d noticed,” he
replied. “Do you want black again?”
“You do equally well with
white or black,” he said with only a small sigh. “But I suppose ... as the board is already arranged this way.”
Jack prodded a pawn
forward. “I would have thought they
would Bind you to a chair and do it anyway.”
He picked up a knight and
regarded it briefly before moving it into position. “I thought so too,” he agreed.
“But I went to my room right after luncheon instead of the common rooms,
and no one came looking for me.”
“I doubt you’ll be so
lucky this time,” he said. “Not being
in your room and all. And you’re
looking rather ragged anyway, boyo.
Could do with a bit of a trim.”
Severus fell silent,
preferring to concentrate on the game.
Jack followed suit. At least an
hour passed.
His strategy was
unraveling yet again when they both started at a sharp rapping noise coming
from the doorway. Glancing up, he saw a
nurse hovering beside the door with a cheerful smile. “Time for your haircuts,” she said brightly.
Obediently, Old Jack
stood and moved toward the door, but Severus stayed firmly in his seat.
“Severus ...” she said, a
warning glinting in her tone.
“I’d rather not,” he
replied placidly, trying to see how far he could push it.
Not far, apparently.
pointing at his chest. “Severus,” she
said again.
“And how is this supposed
to improve my mental well-being?” he asked, not really expecting an answer.
“You need to be in the
best physical condition we can keep you in, Severus,” she said, neat and prim,
wand not wavering.
He held his ground.
the staff. She would probably Stupefy him
any time now. Jack grinned at him from
over the nurse’s shoulder.
But she chose to continue
to reason with him instead. “Short hair
is easier to maintain -- you wouldn’t want lice, now, would you, Severus?”
“All in all,” he said in
a perversely decisive tone, “I’d rather keep my hair the way it is.
it clean in its current state.”
Still, she did not hex
him. Idly, he wondered why.
“Severus,” she eventually
began. “To be honest, I don’t see why
you should have to have a haircut if you don’t want to -- but I’m going to have
to check with Dr. Cuthrell first.”
She must have read the
amazement in his eyes because she continued to speak, flashing him another one
of those syrupy smiles the nurses here were so good at.
“You see, Severus?
He made a face at her,
but she let it slide, turning and walking out of the room.
mind a haircut -- and left Severus alone, wondering what had just happened.
-- -- -- --
“You know, Severus,”
Albus said thoughtfully, “if you wanted me to visit more often, you could have
just asked.”
He rolled his eyes at the
insinuation but chose to remain silent.
Cuthrell was in the room.
“I’m sorry to have called
you down here yet again, Professor,” Cuthrell apologized insincerely, “but I
feel that we need to have a meeting about Severus’ treatment.”
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“We seem to have a lot of
those,” Albus said. “Especially
lately.”
The sarcasm was lost on
Cuthrell, who simply plodded forward.
“I feel that I have been fairly indulgent up to this point.
unsuccessful, but I have tried to adhere to your requests and keep him off
medication. And I stepped aside and allowed
these ludicrous visits from Hermione Granger at your behest.
Dumbledore, I must insist -- Severus cannot be exempt from hospital policy in
this case. If he is not required to
maintain our usual hygienic standards, then I cannot hold my other patients to
the same level. Exceptions cannot
“I don’t see why not,”
Albus replied mildly. “It is a simple
haircut, Jake. It is not as if I’m
asking you to indulge him in something particularly incendiary.”
“That’s beside the
point!” he cried.
Albus’ eyebrows raised in
surprise. “I rather thought that was
Or was there some reason you called me away from a governors’ meeting
besides Severus’ hair?”
Reddening, Cuthrell began
immediately to backpedal and Severus smirked at his discomfort.
The eyebrows rose
further. “Maybe it is finally time for
me to request that Severus be put under the care of another doctor.
work with him.”
You mean you could have gotten rid of Cuthrell
darkly. Why didn’t you do it
Albus smiled over at him
and Severus had the disconcerting feeling that he knew exactly
Cuthrell’s suddenly pasty face. “That
doesn’t mean I would withdraw my financial support of this fine institution.”
With an audible gulp, he
fumbled for words. “Perhaps ...” he
conceded after a moment of stuttering.
“Perhaps I have taken Severus as far as I can.”
“All right, then,” Albus
said, clasping his hands together and smiling condescendingly at the
doctor. “I’ll arrange for the paperwork
in the morning. Now ... if you don’t
mind, I believe there’s another meeting that I should be taking part in, if
we’re done here.”
“We’re done,” Cuthrell
mumbled. Severus inwardly rejoiced at
the defeat in his eyes.
“Good,” he said, beaming
at them both. “I suppose, then,
Severus, that I’ll probably see you tomorrow.”
With a nod, Albus Disapparated.
Cuthrell turned to a now
bemused Severus. “Well ...” he
sighed. “You finally got your wish,
then. I can’t say I’m unhappy to be rid
of you, either.”
Mockingly, he stuck out
his right hand. “Goodbye, then,
Cuthrell,” he said coldly.
To his surprise, the
doctor took it, giving it a firm shake.
“Goodbye, Severus.”
-- -- -- --
Supper, then, was a
jubilant affair. Severus dug into his potatoes
with something that he dimly remembered was called relish
watery tea didn’t taste as terrible as it usually did.
No more Cuthrell.
No more of his stupid
attempts at slyness, trying to catch Severus out and make him admit feelings that
he had no intention of sharing. No more
therapy sessions under a Body Bind.
Of course, Severus was
not obtuse. He was well aware that he’d
be assigned a new therapist within the week -- possibly even worse than the
hapless Cuthrell had been. But he had a
few months yet before the novelty of whoever it would be could wear off and he
settled into the old bitter hatred -- a few months of grim delight at toying
with them, slowly killing off any innocent desire to save
Rather like what he had
tried to do with Granger.
Except that Granger
hadn’t broken. Quite possibly it was
only because she hadn’t ever had any genuine aspirations of helping him.
had been, it wasn’t that. Otherwise,
her first question probably would have been along the lines of, Why do
you want to die?
What’s more, she probably
would have called him Severus.
With the grand exception
of Albus Dumbledore, everyone else that attempted to address him by his given
name managed to pronounce it with such condescension, with such puerile glee,
that it always sounded like a diminutive to his ears. Perhaps it was so many years as a teacher that had done it --
many of the people now calling him Severus
with such childlike abandon he remembered as fresh-faced, obnoxious brats.
Professor? Who’s in charge of whom,
He wondered what it would
sound like if Granger called him Severus
now.
Possibly not like the
orderlies and doctors, who delighted in the role-reversal and addressed him as
if he was a backward toddler. Now,
Sev-er-us, as if they were about to pry some
dangerous toy out of his grasp.
Or even the professors
he’d worked with at Hogwarts, who still remembered the scraggly eleven-year-old
with his ears sticking out from under the Sorting Hat.
briskly, authoritatively.
And certainly not like
the few Death Eaters who addressed him so familiarly -- that hissing, sibilant
pronunciation that simply made his skin itch with the wrongness
Granger’s Severus
altogether.
He thought back to their
earlier conversation. The stupid girl
was hell-bent on going to the scene of the latest murder.
Severus frowned down at
his applesauce, good mood forgotten.
Why should he care?
For that matter, why
would he think there was anything wrong with it?
It was standard procedure
-- Aurors visited the scene of the crime as soon as they could.
short periods of time, so they had to perform their charms as quickly as
possible in order to obtain the maximum amount of evidence.
And since Granger had
gotten it into her head that it was necessary to gather evidence the Muggle
way, it was doubly important that they process the crime scene in a timely
fashion. If the energy from the Killing
Curse dissipated quickly, it was nothing to what a good, stiff wind could do to
disturb hairs and fibers and whatnot.
Severus was admittedly
hazy on how Muggles went about investigating murders and such things.
reach the conclusion ttherthere were usually crafty old ladies involved, armed
with arcane bits of lore and flowered hats, although he wasuresure as to
exactly how the flowered hats factored in to the actual crime-solving
process. And the delinquent usually
made one crucial mistake that the law enforcement agencies were never bright
enough to pick up on.
But Granger seemed to
know enough about it to sound rather confident as she nattered on about
fingerprinting and fluorescent scanning and other such things that Severus had
never heard of. And she certainly had mountains
she owned a flowered hat, but the more he thought about it, the more dubious he
was as to the actual necessity of owning such a thing in hunting down Dark
wizards.
And yet there was
something ...
Some feeling, deep down
in the pit of Severus’ stomach.
Something bad was going
to happen. He felt it.
And the more he turned it
over and over in his mind, trying to quantify it, the more he managed to
convince himself that it was going to happen to Granger.
A bell rang, signaling
the end of supper. Patients began
picking up their trays and heading toward the washers; Severus joined the
throng obediently, absentmindedly.
A thought was tickling in
the back of his skull.
He immediately dismissed
it as irrational, foolish even.
But it persisted.
And so it was that
instead of returning to one of the common rooms, or even to his sleeping
quarters, Severus walked toward the front of the hospital, berating himself for
a fool with every step.
Security at Perkins was
minimal at best. Within its walls, the
doctors and orderlies kept tight control, of course, but the outer rooms were
not closely watched.
After all, only a thrice
cursed, drooling idiot of a patient would try to escape.
Severus tried to stop his
feet.
Only the stupidest of
lunatics would even dream of leaving the asylum.
They kept moving, as if
of their own accord. He was nearly at
the door leading to the visitation room.
As soon as Severus had
been admitted into Perkins -- truth be told, as soon as he’d awakened in the
Hogwarts Infirmary, Petrified and tied to the bedposts, for good measure -- his
magic had been bound. Albus Dumbledore
had actually performed the charm himself.
Severus barely remembered it -- a fuzzy sort of pain amidst hazy
screaming was the closest he could come to genuine recollection.
He currently had the
magical ability of a Squib.
All of Perkins’ patients
did. Binding magic was a standard
procedure. After all, if one became
agitated enough, there was not a cage in the world that would hold him if his
magic was intact. That was why Azkaban
was overrun with dementors -- draining the prisoners’ magic was the only way to
effectively guarantee that no one would escape.
Severus walked through
the visitation room in a daze, hand hesitating only slightly as it grasped the
doorknob that led to the hallway that ultimately went past the reception area.
No wizard in his right
mind would venture out into the world without his magic.
Well ... Severus had an
entire facility full of sane doctors telling him he wasn’t in his right
mind. He pulled the door open and went
through it.
The receptionist wasn’t
at her desk. It was actually late
enough that she might have gone home for the day.
The glass door leading
outside was unlocked, but all the same, Severus’ resolve faded as he laid a
hand on it.
It was dark outside.
Why was he leaving,
anyway? gone to the victims’ house.
What was he doing
Severus’ hand pushed and
the door swung outward.
A blast of cold air shot
through his scrubs, and he shivered.
It was cold.
Well ... of course it was
cold, he berated himself. It was November
The leaves rattled as a
wind blew through them and Severus took a cautious step outside, bare feet
chilling on the concrete beneath his toes.
He was outside
five years since he’d been outside.
Aon aon as this
realization struck him, Severus began to walk more quickly.
in front of Perkiospiospital for the Mentally Challenged.
Severus walked away.
-- --
-- --