Dark Gods In The Blood
Chapter Twenty-Seven
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A/N: Two
things. First of all, I was looking at
my posting timeline and decided I’d rather put up the last chapter on Sunday
than Monday (blasted real life interfering ...), so I’m actually breaking my
own rule and doing a double posting today (April Fools’).
usual, then.
And secondly, there appears to have been a bit of confusion
on the last two chapters, so allow me to clarify things a bit.
concurrent as far as the timeline is concerned -- Severus goes about his day in
the nuthouse while Hermione is investigating the scene and dragging Ron out
of hiding. So no one is looking for
Severus in Chapter 26 for the simple fact that he hasn’t left yet.
This chapter, then, is the next day.
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 chapteadieadings are properly
credited to their sources.
Dark Gods in the Blood
by: Hayseed (
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I
understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not
enough to embrace
universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the
hearts that
beat in the darkness. He had summed up
-- he
ll>
had
judged. ‘The horror!’
Heart of Darkness
Severus almost felt
guilty as he crouched in the bushes, squinting off into the distance, trying to
determine whether or not the woman who’d been out in her backyard two hours ago
hanging wet laundry would be back any time soon.
It barely mattered,
though. His clearly hospital-issue
scrubs were doubly cursed, being both incredibly incriminating and not nearly
enough clothing for the chilly weatho:p>o:p>
He’d spent the night
mostly walking, keeping as far away from the roads as he dared.
waned and day broke, Severus realized hs ins infernally cold and wet and
hungry.
The hunger he could do
little about until he found Granger -- he had no money and he wasn’t about to
go begging. But cold and wet he could
fix.
And that was why he’d
spent the better part of the morning hiding out in what was looking more and
more like a Muggle neighborhood, watching a woman do her laundry and trying to find
some suitable clothing.
Unable to bear it any
longer, Severus broke cover and dashed into the yard, snatching a pair of
trousers and a long-sleeved shirt made of some light, fleecy sort of material
he’d never seen before. He paused long
enough to give a pair of boxer shorts hanging on the line a longing look but
decided in the end that he didn’t think he could bear the idea of wearing
underclothing that had once belonged to someone else. This was as much as he dared to take from a single clothesline
anyway -- Severus ran as fast as he could, back into a more secluded, woodsy
area.
He tossed the scrub
bottoms away with relish as he changed his clothes, although the denim that the
Muggle dungarees were made from was rather rough as he pulled the trousers over
his legs and up his hips. But they fit
very loosely, so he didn’t give it much thought.
On an impulse, he saved
the shirt he’d been wearing, though, choosing to simply put the fleecy shirt on
over his scrub top. While his trousers
had gotten quite mud covered through the night of wandering, his shirt had
remained fairly clean and Severus figured that he could use the extra layer of
warmth.
But his toes were still
suspiciously numb. Every now and again,
through the night, he would stop to examine his feet closely -- he was unsure
how cold he had to get before frostbite set in, although he was beginning to
suspect it was not nearly cold enough yet, only being November and all.
A few backyards away from
the one he’d just liberated an outfit from, Severus spied a muddied pair of
boots lying haphazardly on the patio.
He watched the windows for a good half-an-hour, eventually deciding that
the house was unoccupied. Two minutes
and a fast dash later, he was shoving his feet into slightly-too-large boots
and lacing them tightly about his ankles.
His toes tingled as warmth slowly returned.
Fairly certain that he
now more closely resembled a relatively harmless eccentric wanderer than an
escaped mental patient, Severus began walking down the road itself, keeping his
expression neutral as he headed further into town. He needed directions.
Granger had mentioned
that the latest murder -- what had the victims’ name been? -- had been
somewhere in Yorkshire, although she hadn’t specified the exact name of the
town. But Severus figured that, with
one of the victims being a Muggle, news would have spread a bit.
man and his wife were murdered in their own home. There would have been some mention of it in the Muggle papers, at
the very least.
He saw a pub a few
hundred meters away, slightly dingy and worn looking, and decided that it would
be as good a place to start as any. He
quickened his pace.
Bridell, he thought
suddenly. That
Repeating it over and
over in his mind, holding on to it like a lifeline as he mentally rehearsed
what he would say, Severus pushed open the pub door and stepped inside,
welcoming the rush of warm air that hit his face.
The barman quirked an
eyebrow at his admittedly probably haggard appearance.
suspicion in his carefully cheerful voice.
Severus coughed slightly
and tried to look apologetic. “I ...
erm, yes. I confess I’m rather
lost. I Portke -- uh, I drove down here
to meet a friend. We’re consulting on a
murder case, you see. The Bridell case.
address. Do you ...?”
He noticed that several
heads in the bar whirled around to stare at him when he said Bridell
particular, belonging to an unkempt man with scraggly, long hair wearing a
gaudy plaid shirt, caught his attention.
“Bridell?” the barkeep
repeated slowly. “Sounds kinda
familiar. Oi, James, didn’t your cousin
Eleanor marry a fellow named Bridell all those years back?”
The man in plaid nodded,
still shooting Severus a wary look.
“She did. Mum got a call
yesterday -- both she and her husband were found dead.
skeptically. “You don’t look much like
a policeman to me.”
“Oh, I’m not,” he replied
smoothly, having already anticipated this question. “A private consultant, more like. My friend and I were called in to take a look at the case.
--”
James, plaid-clad cousin
to the late Eleanor Bridell, cut him off with a laugh.
Sheffield. That’s a good sixty
kilometers southwest of here, at least.”
Severus’ heart faltered
at the prospect of walking sixty kilometers.
Maybe he could take a Portkey -- he knew there was an official site not
too far away from York. But he smiled
thinly anyway. “Thank you very much,”
he told a still dubious James before turning to the barkeep yet again.
like to wash up. Where are ...?”
“Down that hallway, next
to the back exit,” he said briskly, wiping a mug off with a white rag.
Nodding in gratitude,
Severus walked down the hallway to the men’s lavatory, eager to wash off the
grime from his night wanderings.
As he looked at his
reflection in the mirror, he realized he looked far better than he had a right
to. His hair looked as if it hadn’t seen
a comb in a week at least, and he had a smudge of dirt on his left cheek, but
otherwise Severus looked fairly respectable.
He ran the water hot, lathering up his grubby hands with something very
like elation.
He was so intent on his
hands, in fact, that he didn’t see the man sneaking up behind him until it was
too late. One flash of an enormous
reflection in the mirror, and Severus felt something heavy slam into the back
of his head, right before everything went black.
-- -- -- --
As Severus swam toward
consciousness, his only thought was that somehow the orderlies from Perkins had
caught up with him. They’d found him
and taken him back and that was why he couldn’t move his arms or legs -- he was
Bound to his bed.
He groaned and gave his
restraints a tug, feeling rope rasp roughly against his bare wrists and
ankles. Possibly not the hospital,
then.
“Ah ...” an amused voice
said. “You’re awake, then.”
His eyes shot open --
that didn’t sound like any orderly he recognized. This was definitely not
the hospital.
A huge bear of a man
smiled serenely down on him -- he had to be six-foot-five if he was an
inch. Severus felt very small in his
presence. Very small and very fragile.
“I’therther sorry about having
to hit you back in the bar there,” the man continued, still sounding as if he
was inwardly laughing at some joke that Severus didn’t understand.
come along with me voluntarily.” He
pushed a long strand of blond hair that had escaped his ponytail out of his
eyes.
Severus stared up at his
captor in horrified fascination. There
was ... something glinting out of his
light eyes. Something off-kilter
somehow. Something that made Severus’
gut clench. “Who’re ...?” he asked
faintly, feeling his breath hitch in his throat.
Again, the man smiled --
only this time, it had a decidedly sinister cast, his teeth flashing in the
artificial light of the room. Severus
wondered where they were. “My name is
Stan,” he said placidly. “And you are
...?”
“Where am I?” he asked,
throat dry at the thought of being held prisoner by this too-calm man.
The man -- Stan -- sighed
and Severus detected a hint of impatience.
“My flat,” he answered after a slight pause. “I’ve only had it for a few months, so I’m afraid it’s still
rather impersonal looking. You’ll
forgive me if I don’t offer you the grand tour.”
“Why did you bring me
here?” The feeling of wrongness
“All in good time, my new
friend,” Stan chuckled. “All in good
time. First, I have a few questions I
need you to answer.”
Some of Severus’ fear was
slowly turning to confusion. “Will you
untie me?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.
“Later,” Stan said
firmly.
His mind whirled.
untie me first,” he argued.
“You will
mild voice. “Or I’ll have to hurt
you. And don’t think for a moment that
I won’t.”
Severus did not speak, anxiety
rising again.
“Right,” Stan said,
sitting down in a chair beside the bed Severus was tied to.
murder. Tell me, my new friend, do you
work with Scotland Yard?”
Deciding that honesty
would not get him into any worse trouble than he was already in, he spoke as
freely as he dared to this smiling man with the disconcerting eyes.
I’m not affiliated with any Mug -- with any official agency.”
Stan’s smile now had a
shark-like quality to it. “That word,
the one that you cut off. It wouldn’t
happen to be Muggle, would it?”
Inwardly, he swore,
keeping silent and daring his captor with his eyes to follow through on his
threat.
“My, my,” he chuckled.
“No!” Severus protested
quickly, wondering how this ... this Muggle knew the word.
“Then tell me,” Stan
said, voice dripping kindness like honey.
“Tell me, my new friend, why on Earth are you here in Yorkshire asking
about a dead wizard and his dead wife?
Interest, perhaps?”
Wizard, he heard echo
through his head.
This Stan was no Muggle.
And it fell into
place.
Severus’ eyes
widened. “You!” he cried, struggling
against his bonds anew. “You’re him!”
The smile was gone.
“You killed them,” he
breathed. “Harry Potter, Alistair
Bones, Marcus Desmond, the Bridells.
You’re the killer!”
Stan was on him in an
instant, hovering so closely Severus could smell his acrid breath.
apple. “I wish you hadn’t said that, my
friend,” he said sadly, eyes still flat and disconcerting.
“Use?” Severus repeated,
resisting the urge to swallow against the sharp edge jabbing into his throat
with all his might.
“You are a wizard, aren’t
you?” Stan asked. “You must be,” he
answered himself. “The only ones to get
into the Muggle papers were the Bridells.
So you must be. Tell me!”
deeply.
He did not speak, eyes
wide with absolute terror. Even
Voldemort, crazed with power and Dark magic, had never scared him to this
point.
“I will kill you either
way,” Stan said matter-of-factly.
Severus tried to draw
away, tried to press bodybody down into the hard mattress as far as he
could. There was a brief flash of pain
in his throat and he knew that Stan’s knife had pierced the skin.
The smile was back, feral
and hungry. “So be it.”
He bit back a scream as
the knife dug into his throat yet again, dragging downward in an agonizingly
slow fashion.
He had endured the
Cruciatus curse at the hands of Voldemort himself. He had pulled ten men out of a burning house as his own robes
charred and smoldered about his shoulders.
He would not scream.
He did not want to die
this way, he realized as silent tears ran down his cheeks.
The knife continued,
pulling at his skin gradually. Severus
felt the hot blood running down his chest and tried to hold on to
consciousness.
“You aren’t like the
otherStanStan muttered as he went about his work. “But you’ll do fine, I think.
In fact --”
The knife came to an
abrupt halt as a loud knocking sound echoed through the room.
caught in a bizarre tableau.
Swiftly, not speaking,
Stan stood and walked out of the room, carefully sitting his knife on the
bureau beside the doorway.
Severus felt
unconsciousness looming on the edges of his vision, the blackness a welcome
void, free of the numbing fire blossoming in his chest.
Blood pooled in the
hollow of his throat as he strained to stay away, to listen to the conversation
he heard in the other room.
A door opened.
“Hallo?” a female asked
hesitantly. “Stan Walker?”
“Good afternoon.”
his bedroom, sticking a knife into someone.
“What can I do for you?”
“I got your name from a
friend,” she replied. “Françoise
Potter. You did some woodwork for her
about a year ago?”
“Potter ...” he repeated
thoughtfully. “The name is
familiar. I seem to recall ...”
“A particularly lovely
chair rail,” the woman prompted. “Hand
carved.” Her voice sounded suspiciously
fami to to Severus.
“Ah, yes,” Stan
said. “I remember now.
“And you also did some
work for several of my other friends.
Alisander Weaver, Marcus Desmond, Romulus Cooke.”
His voice waspicspicious
now. “Yes.”
“I wanted to speak with
you about it.” Severus did
“It’s strange, you see, but they’re all --”
Stan sounded distinctly
nervous as he interrupted the woman.
“Won’t you please come in to discuss this, Ms --?”
“Granger,” she supplied.
Granger!
footsteps. His breathing, already
labored, threatened to stop entirely.
“Would you like some tea,
Ms. Granger?” Stan asked politely amidst the small scuffling noises.
indeed.
The footsteps
ceased. “Oh, no, thank you,” she said,
sounding almost startled. “I won’t take
up much of your time.”
He tried to make a
sound. A shout, a cough, anything
And her danger.
“Tell me, Mr. Walker,”
she continued, “have you been in contact with the Potters lately?
months or so?”
Severus could hear the
smile in his voice. “Now that I think
about it, I was in their area a couple of months back,” Stan said in an
innocent tone that raised hairs on the back of Severus’ neck.
sure my work has been satisfactory.”
I’ll bet you do, Severus
thought, giving the ropes another agonizing wrench in a futile effort to free
himself. He could feel the skin at his
wrists tearing.
“Did you speak with
them?” she pressed. “The Potters, I
mean.”
“Are you certain
countered.
A feminine clearing of
the throat and a nearly inaudible rustle.
Severus hoped Stan wasn’t picking up on Granger’s impatience as easily
as he himself was. Damn her
sort of alert. As easy to read
as a sodding Quidditch magazine -- the little fool was going to get herself
corrected herself -- Severus wondered if Stan caught it.
cabinetry a few months ago.”
“I haven’t had a chance
to getk upk up to Edinburgh,” he said smoothly, probably lying.
be dropping victims’ names. Again,
Severus found himself cursing her blatantly, stupidly obvioaneuaneuvering.
There were more
footsteps. He wondered who was
standing.
“I have a list of names
here,” Granger said, a crumpling papery sort of sound in Severus’ ears
now. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to
...”
“Of course, Ms. Granger,”
Stan was saying, footsteps growing louder.
He must be the one walking
about. “I’ll fetch my records from the
back so that we can go over everything properly.”
A hand reached into the
room and Severus watched it wrap around the knife.
He tensed, gasping.
“Hermione!
the movement strenuously.
“Severus?” he heard her
ask dimly.
clasclass=MsoBodyText2>1'>
Stan’s hand moved swiftly
and the knife flashed in the light.
There were loud scuffling noises.
“Sty
A loud thud.
A male shriek, then.
Granger shouted again,
something unintelligible. And there was
a thunderous crash.
Severus saw the knife
skitter across the doorway, into the room he was currently in.
away from Stan.
And here she came,
crawling on all fours, hair wild and clothes torn. There was blood smeared on her face, but he couldn’t tell if it
was hers.
The blackness was
threatening to take him.
Granger scooped up the
knife, holding it in a trembling hand.
If she noticed his presence, she didn’t show it, attention completely
focused on the doorway.
And then Stan was there,
looming over her, dwarfing her entirely.
Severus saw a wand in his hand and closed his eyes briefly, knowing it
was all over.
In an unpracticed
gesture, Stan brandished the wand at Granger.
“Stupefy!” he shouted.
The wand emitted a few
halfhearted, spluttering sparks and nothing else.
Granger’s eyes widened.
he simply launched himself bodily at her, hand wrapping around her wrist,
twisting it.
With a cry of pain,
Granger dropped the knife.
Spots danced across Severus’
line of sight -- it would not be long now -- and the blood slid down his neck,
wetting the back of his collar.
They rolled around beside
the bed. Too weak to turn his head,
Severus could not see them. But he
heard Granger cry out more than once amid Stan’s grunts.
The lamp fell over with a
smashnoisnoise as they knocked into it in their tussle.
groaned.
With the only significant
source of light gone, Severus could barely see the pair as they continued to
struggle. s"> His eyes rolled briefly back
into his head as he fought the looming unconsciousness.
A shadow stood and
lurched across the room and Severus realized it was Stan, back on his
feet. From the way he was moving, he
rather thought Stan was looking for something.
The knife.
He longed to shout out to
Granger, to try and warn her somehow, wherever she was.
-- the only sound he could make was a gurgling sort of wheeze in the back of
his mouth. Severus’ hands worked
uselessly at his restraints.
The room fell silent, the
only sounds Severus’ labored breathing and Stan’s panting puffs of air as he
scrambled about.
Where was Granger?
Where was Hermione?
It briefly flickered
through Severus’ mind that Stan had managed to take her out as well.
him, grievously injured, perhaps dead.
Stan continued to
scrabble about, ostensibly in search of a weapon.
Severus was going to
die. Alone and in the dark, with a cold
knife pressed against his chest. He
closed his eyes against the rising tears.
“Where are you?” he heard
Stan whisper. “I know you’re here,
pretty little girl. Pretty little one
who knows too much. And I won’t let you
leave. You’re mine now ...”
There was a rustling
noise -- cloth against cloth.
“Come on out,” Stan
continued hoarsely. “Come on, now ...”
Severus’ eyes opened
against his will, straining in the dim light.
There was Stan, off to the right.
In a dark corner, a
shadow moved.
Severus held his breath
and waited.
Stan turned his back on
the corner.
With a terrible scream,
Granger launched herself out of the shadow, right hand raised in the air,
swooping across the room like an avenging angel.
Severus watched in
silent, gurgling horror as she leapt on Stan.
There was another shriek,
distinctly male, as they clattered to the floor. An awful sort of sucking noise.
Silence.
The unconsciousness was
stealing back over Severus when he felt a warm hand touch his cheek
hesitantly. “Severus?” Hermione
whispered.
He pulled against his
ropes once again. “Hermione,” he tried
to say, but it came out rather garbled.
“Oh my God ...” she
breathed, hand moving away from his face.
He felt her tugging on his bonds.
“You’re ... you’re ...”
The ropes loosened and
one of her hands went cautiously to his throat, pressing something soft and
warm against his wound, staunching the blood flow.
Only one of his hands was
free, but he instinctively wrapped it around Hermione’s shoulder, pulling her
toward him in a crushing embrace. She
went willingly, her free hand snaking into his hair comfortingly.
“You’re alive,” she
murmured shakily into his shoulder, halfway draped across his torso.
Alive, Severus thought,
feeling Hermione’s heart beat solidly above his own. Alive.
-- --
-- --