Dark Gods In The Blood
Chapter Twenty-Eight
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A/N: In which all questions
are answered. Well ... some of them, at
any .
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-Eight
I
had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some
laughing in their faces,
stupid importance. I dare say I was not
very well
at that time.
Heart of Darkness
Hermione couldn’t tell
whether Kingsley was angry or relieved.
Possibly, it was some esoteric mixture of the two.
“So what you’re telling
me is that you two ran across this ... Stan Walker completely independently of
each other?” he was asking, confusion written across his face.
“Yes,” she said,
exchanging a look with Severus. He had
a patch of pink, new skin running down his throat -- her fingers itched to
touch it, to reassure herself yet again that he was unharmed.
Severus had lost
consciousness there in Walker’s flat.
Afraid he was dying, she’d searched the room for her wand, turning
Walker’s body into a Portkey and sending them all to St. Mungo’s.
she could blink and the scratches on her face had nearly completely faded -- a
single red mark ran the length of her left cheekbone, but the mediwitch who’d
taken care of the healing assured her it would fade within the month.
concussion combined with severe blood loss meant that he’d spent the day after
their little adventure floating in and out of consciousness, groggy and
irritable.
Hermione had not been
able to bring herself to leave his bedside.
She assumed St. Mungo’s had informed Perkins of the whereabouts of their
runaway, and possibly Albus Dumbledore as well, who had sent an owl to St.
Mungo’s just that morning, and so when Severus woke up, she’d been the only
person in his room. Once he had
improved sufficiently, they took a Portkey to the Aurory and went straight to
Kingsley Shacklebolt’s office for debriefing.
Walker, of course, was
taking up a shelf in St. Mungo’s morgue.
Hermione wondered briefly who would come to claim the body but soon
found herself not caring.
“And you,” Kingsley said,
turning to look at Severus fully. “Why
aren’t you at Perkins? Did they release
you?”
“Not exactly,” he
replied, plucking anxiously at one of the sleeves of the robe St. Mungo’s had
given him upon his release. “But I
received an owl from Albus today. He
said he’s prepared to make the necessary arrangements.”
Sighing, Kingsley
collapsed into his desk chair so that he could glare at them both equally.
spot. I’ve got at least four dead
wizards, a dead killer, an escaped lunatic, and a civilian who put a knife in
the killer’s heart. The press is at my
throat.”
Severus winced
involuntarily and Hermione put a hand absently on his arm.
“Don’t get me wrong,” he continued
in a mild voice. “I’m glad you took
Walker out, as far as that goes. But I
don’t even know why
“Miss Granger came to
tell me that she was going to visit the Bridell house about seventy-two hours
ago,” Severus said, repeating his narrative for what was either the third or
fourth time that day. “I urged her not
to go.”
“Why?” Kingsley asked
abruptly.
With a shrug, Severus
shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable.
“In the first place, I thought it was unnecessary.
went.”
“A bad feeling?” he
echoed, tone derisive.
Severus held his gaze
unflinchingly. “That evening, I decided
to leave Perkins. My thought was to try
and find Miss Granger, but I’m perfectly willing to admit that I hadn’t thought
my plan through completely.”
Hermione suppressed a
smile while Kingsley snorted outright.
Severus shook his head self-deprecatingly and continued.
day, after I found appropriate attire, I went into York, trying to find some
information on Miss Granger’s whereabouts.
Specifically, I walked into a pub and asked for directions to the
Bridell house.”
“Which is actually in
Sheffield, and not York.”
He glared at Kingsley,
but there was little behind it. “I
didn’t know that at the time. When I
went back to the lavatory to wash up, Walker followed me and hit me in the
head. I came to tied up in his
bedroom. After determining that I
wasn’t a Muggle, Walker started to ... erm ...”
“You can skip over that,”
he said kindly.
Severus coughed.
door. Fortunately, I could catch enough
of the conversation to hear that it was Miss Granger in the flat.
grab his knife, I was able to alert her to the danger.
“A scuffle ensued.
in his hand. When he tried to Stupefy
her, though, it didn’t work -- I can only assume that Miss Granger’s wand was
damaged somehow. She managed to subdue
him with a knife, then. I passed out
soon after and woke up in St. Mungo’s.”
“And that’s all?”
Kingsley asked. “All you remember, at
least?”
Nodding, Severus studied
his fingernails intently.
“What about you, then,
Granger?” He turned to Hermione.
victims having carpentry work done. When
I contacted both Mrs. Desmond and Mrs. Bones, they admitted to having some
woodwork done in the past couple of years, but neither could remember the name
of the carpenter.”
“I imagine they could
probably identify his photograph,” she said grimly. “But no ... I spoke with Françoise Potter and she was able to
give me Walker’s name. Incidentally, so
was Alisander Weaver’s widow. I Flooed
her on a hunch and she confirmed my suspicions. I went back to the Bridells’ neighborhood and knocked on a few
doors. Their next-door neighbor gave me
Walker’s Yorkshire address.
“You’re telling me I have
five dead wizards on my hands, then?” Kingsley asked despondently.
“Possibly more,” she
replied. “I couldn’t reach Mrs. Cooke,
but I’ve always suspected that her husband was one of Walker’s victims.”
“Anyway ...” he said,
prompting her to continue.
Shrugging, she allowed
her eyes to wander the room, coming to rest on a random blank spot on
Kingsley’s desk blotter. “I went over
to Walker’s flat. I know, Kingsley,”
she said to his open mouth. “I should
have notified the Aurory, but I wasn’t planning on going after him right
then. I just thought I should make sure
before I gave you his name. But I must
have said something to tip him off ...” she trailed off.
room,” she continued more firmly. “So
when he came back into the room, I tried to hex him.
“He ducked my
Stunner. Ducked it and came right
toward me. His knife caught my cheek
and I’m pretty sure I dropped my wand.
But I got his knife away from him and kicked it across the room.
was in. When I went after it, I guess
he went after my wand.
“And for the record,
Kingsley, my wand isn’t broken. It
simply didn’t work when Walker tried to Stun me. So he threw it away and decided to take a more direct
approach. That’s when he broke my
wrist, and I dropped the knife.” She
blushed a bit. “I know some
self-defense -- I’ve been trained a bit over the past few years -- that’s how I
got it away from him the first time, but he was just too big.
away.
“Fortunately, though, the
lamp fell over and in all that, I managed to slip out of his grip and get
away. As I did, I found the knife
again. Good thing I was crawling,
really, else I would have stepped on it instead of just cutting my hand with it
and we probably wouldn’t be here talking to you. Either of us.
“I watched Walker.
him out. So when he turned his back, I
jumped on him. He was too surprised to
try to disarm me again, and I just lashed out -- it was instinct, mostly.”
hot rush of his blood on her hands, the look of betrayal in his eyes as he
realized what she’d done.
She’d killed a man.
A serial killer,
possibly, but a man, to be sure.
Gritting her teeth, she
continued, wanting nothing more than to finish. “I untied Snape as best as I could and got him to St. Mungo’s --
he was in a bad way. And that’s when I
Flooed you.”
Kingsley looked
distinctly unhappy. “The Ministry’s
going to be out for my blood.
Two of them, actually.”
“Well ...” she said,
swallowing and trying to look cheerful.
“We’re both alive.”
“Believe it or not,
Granger, that’s rather beside the point.”
Severus was
impassive. “Albus will vouch for you,
I’m sure, Shacklebolt. I wouldn’t worry
overmuch.”
“I’m not worried, Snape,”
he retorted with a small frown. “But I
do feel rather guilty. Allow me to
wallow for just a minute.”
Whatever he was going to
say next was interrupted by a sharp rap on the door.
“Enter,” Kingsley called.
A neat young man with
distinctly Asian features poked his head into the room.
sir. We’re still working on his flat,
though,” he said.
“Excellent,” he
replied. “What’ve you got?”
The man grinned
broadly. “Believe it or not, sir,
Walker was a pureblood. Full name,
Constantius Octavian Walker -- his father was old Augustus Walker, the
alchemist, and his mother was Flavia Oublion.
You remember the Oublion family, right?
Not so many of them as there used to be, but still a good old name.
Mungo’s on April 6, 1975.”
“The wand didn’t work
...” Hermione mused thoughtfully.
“er wer was a Squib,”
Severus said, completing her thought.
“I wonder what made him think he could cast a spell as complicated as a
Stunner.”
“For that matter,” she
said, “how did he know about the spell,
if he didn’t go to Hogwarts?”
Kingsley was
unimpressed. “What else, Lee?
The young Auror continued
to smile. “His mum -- Flavia.
-- -- -- --
“Yes?” a cracked old
voice asked through a small gap in the door.
“What do you want?”
“Are you Flavia Walker?”
Kingsley asked politely, keeping a respectful distance.
Hermione had insisted that
she and Severus accompany Kingsley to the interview with Walker’s mother.
Last see her son alive.
The door opened another
inch. “I am,” the voice quavered.
eye peering outward.
“We’d like to ask you a
few questions, Mrs. Walker,” Kingsley replied, still quiet and respectful.
The eye clouded.
Hermione bit her lip.
“Constantius Walker,” he
said, glancing down at the file in his hands.
“You’re registered as his mother in St. Mungo’s files.
“I have no son,” she said
again. “Good day to you.”
Reaching out a large
hand, Kingsley kept Flavia Walker from closing the door completely.
Head of the Aurory. Your son
Constantius is a suspect in several murder cases we’ve been working on and I
need to speak with you. I can return later
with an official order if you’d like.”
She thought she heard the
old woman behind the door sigh before it swung open. “All right,” Flavia Walker said grudgingly.
The Walker mansion was
completely devoid of warmth, either emotional or physical.
menacingly overhead and Hermione shivered, pulling her cloak more tightly about
her shoulders. It came much closer to
resembling a mausoleum in her mind than a home.
cla class=MsoBodyText2>And Mrs. Walker went
admirably well with her house. A tiny,
shriveled old woman with a decided scowl seemingly permanently etched on her
brow, her elegant, probably once-tailored, clothing hung off her frame and her
hands curled arthritically under the weight of all of her jewelry.
They followed the
imperious woman through several hallways, each as impersonal and imposing as
the last. Finally, they came to a
formal parlor, complete with antique sofas and delicate end tables.
saw Kingsley perch hesitantly in a wing chair, obviously upholstered in
silk. Severus practically squashed
himself into her side on the sofa, their shoulders and elbows bumping together
awkwardly. It was oddly comforting,
actually.
“I did give birth to a
boy some years ago,” Mrs. Walker announced, sitting primly on the chair nearest
the fireplace, full of gently glowing embers.
Hermione longed to reach out with a poker and stoke the fire -- maybe it
would heat up the chilly room -- but decided that her efforts would be
definitely unwelcome.
“In 1975,” Kingsley said,
once again glancing downward at the paperwork in his hands.
“It would have been about
then, yes,” she confirmed, aawayaway look in her eye. “But I do not think about it much. The boy was an utter disappointment.”
“Disappointment?” he
echoed in an effort to draw her out.
She huffed.
We brought in the best tutors, bought him the finest books, nothing.”
“So your son was a
Squib?”
Mrs. Walker stiffened
immediately. “He was born of two of the
finest pureblooded families. It was unthinkable
husband and I, we kept trying. For years
even throw off the simplest of hexes.”
Severus’ eyes darkened as
she spoke. “Hexes?” he asked her
carefully.
Apparently startled at
hearing his voice, she turned to study him.
“Who are you?” she asked bluntly.
“One of my associates,”
Kingsley said, stepping back into the conversation.
She unbent slightly.
out. Every day, we coaxed him.
flights of stairs in one day. And we
always fixed the broken bones right away.”
Something in Hermione’s
stomach clenched at the innocent, matter-of-fact note in this woman’s
voice. She and her husband had tortured
By the looks on Kingsley
and Severus’ faces, they’d reached the same conclusion.
But Mrs. Walker
continued, unfazed by the expressions of disgust directed at her.
we assumed the worst and took the necessary steps.”
“The necessary steps?”
Kingsley prompted, not even bothering to hide his revulsion.
Her eyes were wide and
guileless. “Well, he had to live in the
Muggle world, didn’t he? So we sent him
to one of those ... what are they? One
of those Muggle orphanages. Oh, he
cried a bit, but it was all for the best, really. Augustus and I tried to have more children, but it just wasn’t
possible.”
Thank God, she thought,
exchanging a glance with Severus and seeing that his thoughts clearly mirrored
her own.
“Mrs. Walker ...”
Kingsley began, apparently unable to determine exactly how to continue.
the deaths of at least five upstanding young wizards over the past three
months, nearly all of them prominent, respectable citizens.
tried to kill both of my associates here before he himself was killed.”
She looked mildly
perturbed. “The boy is dead?” she asked
calmly.
Kingsley jerked his head
in a nod.
“I always knew no good
would come of him,” Mrs. Walker finally said.
“All of our best efforts wasted on a useless Squib.”
-- -- -- --
“You mean you didn’t find
any, erm, suspicious pieces of, well, um
...?” Hermione asked the young Auror in charge of processing Walker’s flat --
whose name she’d learned was Byungki -- with a tinge of desperation in her
voice. “The cer ser said --”
“I know,” Byungki Lee
replied with a small gesture of distaste.
“I read them, too. But no.
used in, well, you know.
those Muggle fellows Mr. Weasley had sent over to find the residue.
on the shelf over there isn’t parsley,
if I read the report correctly. Got to
do some more tests, though, just to be sure.
And back in the bedroom closet, he had a collection of knives that would
have impressed even batty old Rodolphus Lestrange, from what I’ve heard, and
this.” He held out a large book, bound
in black leather.
She took it out of his
hands and held it gingerly. “What is
it?”
“His journal, we think,”
he said. “It’s pretty garbled.
the ‘true path,’ whatever that means.
Auror Shacklebolt wants to go over it in detail, and we’re going to get
a copy over to the Muggle force for study as well. It’s going to take some time before we know entirely what Walker
was about.”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
Severus asked snidely, ducking into the flat’s small kitchen and glaring at a
suddenly meek Lee. “Walker must have
been obsessed with becoming a wizard. And
he thought he’d stumbled across a way to do it.”
“By killing real
Hermione could tell
Severus was restraining himself with some effort. “In most ancient cultures, hunters believed that they absorbed
the spiritual strength of the animal they killed. I believe that for many, that idea carried over to battle as
well. Is it farfetched, then, Auror
Lee, for Walker to have believed that he gained the strength of the wizards he
killed?”
Muttering something
unintelligible, Lee skulked out of the room.
With a roll of his eyes,
Severus shook his head.
“What ... what do you
think he did with the pieces of heart that he took?” she asked quietly, sliding
her hand over the journal covspanspan style="mso-spacerun: yes">
Hermione opened it impulsively.
Angry, black words glared up at her, stark on the white landscape of the
page. When Stan Walker had invited her
into his flat, his smile had been so warm, so gentle. She’d almost missed his dead, disconcerting eyes, boring
knowingly into hers even as his grin charmed her.
I alone know the Way, his
journal proclaimed. I have found
it and I will use it and the Power will be mine.
The smile of a child, the
eyes of a corpse, and the soul of a madman.
Their strength will be my strength.
day.
Severus looked down his
nose at her, a spark of arrogance in his eyes, disrupting her thoughts.
consume the heart of the animal,” he said in his best, most condescending ‘lecture
voice.’ “The spirit was believed to be
contained in the heart, so it was a logical choice, all things considered.”
She wrinkled her nose and
looked up at him, away from the increasingly disturbing, captivating journal,
mind full of his meaning. “You mean
...?”
“Aren’t you the one who told
me about a particular serial killer that kept his victims’ toes in his icebox?”
he asked dryly, giving the refrigerator a pointed look.
“But this is different,”
she protested. “You’re suggesting that
Walker was a cannibal.”
“Not per se
victim’s heart. Presumably, if he were
a cannibal, he would have taken more than he actually did.”
Glaring halfheartedly at
him, Hermione walked out of the kitchen and through the sitting room. On the way, she laid the journal down on the
kitchen table, cover firmly shut. Let
Kingsley Shacklebolt and his experts pour over it,
she thought, wanting no more part of Constantius Walker.
She hesitated at the
entrance to the bedroom, however, remembering what had happened there just the
day before with a sickening lurch.
Perhaps Walker’s ghost was unavoidable, after all.
“You did the right
thing,” came a voice from over her right shoulder. Apparently, Severus had followed her. “You did the only possible thing, really.”
She stared at a large,
dark stain on the floor, vivid in the bright lights that the Aurors had set up
in order to properly gather evidence.
The muscles in his chest had just ... given away under her blade.
last breath. Her eyes closed.
Infuriatingly, he just
paused, waiting for her to finish. She
could feel his eyes on her cheekbone, on her temporary scar.
With a deep breath,
Hermione spoke as quickly as she could, gaze finally lifting to meet his
own. “How many people have you had to
kill?”
“A few,” he said quietly,
calm look turning to a penetrating stare.
“With a Muggle weapon?”
she pressed.
Was that compassion in
his eyes? As she’d never seen such an
emotion coming from Severus before, she actually had no idea.
Hermione’s eyes ked
ked
back to the dark spot. “When I close my
eyes, I see his face.”
“Not forever,” Severus
promiin ain an uncharacteristically gentle voice.
Again, she looked up into
his eyes, dragging her focus away from the spot where she’d killed a man in
cold blood. They stared at each other
for a long moment -- comfort stretching into awkwardness stretching into an
inexplicable tension.
It was Severus who looked
away first this time, turning his head to glance out the window.
“It is,” she agreed.
tly,tly, he walked out of
the room, leaving Hermione to wonder.
But she soon caught sight of him through the window, walking out of the
building, through the grass.
Severus came to a stop in
the middle of the small clearing, standing in what was threatening to become a
small downpour. In a gesture that
Hermione didn’t even begin to understand, Severus spread his arms wide,
throwing his head up in the air, mouth falling open to catch the raindrops.
Hermione stood at the
window for many minutes, transfixed by the sight of Severus Snape, motionless
in the rain, slicking his hair to his forehead, drinking raindrops like a
child.
After an indeterminate
length of time, she left Constantius Walker’s flat behind, left his spirit
behind, coming to stand beside Severus, feeling the cold rain trickle down her scalp,
down her back, even into her shoes, throwing her head back in kind to drink her
fill, feeling comforted by the act, although she did not know why.
-- --
-- --