Blood Magic

Murders and Memories

After he left Lupin's office, Harry went straight to bed, and he slept late into Sunday morning. He woke with his mouth dry and a strange unfocused feeling. He decided to assume both were side effects of the potion, and memorize them for faking later. This, unfortunately, kept him focused on his discomfort. He spent what was left of the morning regarding his untouched assignments with dismay, but not feeling up to starting any of them.

He went down to lunch as early as possible. He felt better after the first glass of pumpkin juice, and normal by time he had finished a few slices of bread. Of course, he realized, he still had unstarted assignments in both his Monday morning classes, Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts. If he'd gone down to the kitchen when he woke, he might have made some progress by now, he thought glumly.

"Harry?"

Ron was standing on the far side of the table. Harry felt himself blushing when he met his friend's eyes. Does he have any idea how gone I was last night?

"Uh... hi." Harry thought frantically. "Sit with me?"

Ron bit his lip. "Yeah," he said. He slid into the seat across from Harry. "Feeling better?"

"Yeah, thanks."

An awkward silence descended.

"Is ... is Hermione really mad at me?" Harry tried. Ron nodded. Harry looked down at his plate. "Find out anything more about Augustus?"

Ron looked confused for a moment before replying, "Maitland? No, we both had too much schoolwork we hadn't touched. We're supposed to go back to it after lunch. Want to come and sit with us?"

"I guess I could. Will Hermione let me?"

"She might."

An hour later, Harry found himself sitting in the archive room of the Hogwarts library, trying to research a Potions essay while Hermione and Ron checked the indexed pages of January and February issues of the Daily Prophet. Ron occasionally spoke to him. Hermione was pretending he didn't exist.

Halfway through March, Hermione gasped.

"What?" Harry said, forgetting that he wasn't interested.

"He was a Death Eater!" Hermione replied, obviously forgetting that Harry didn't exist.

"Well, I knew that!" The words were out before Harry could stop them, and Hermione looked up at him with deep reproach.

"He can't have been!" Ron exclaimed. "I mean, he was a Gryffindor!"

Harry's incredulity met Hermione's exasperation, and they shared a brief moment of connection.

"Ron, does the name 'Peter Pettigrew' mean anything to you?" Harry said sharply.

"Well, yeah but he was... he was weak, or something. This guy seems...."

"Peter was a whiny sycophant who liked watching his clever, powerful friends bully people, and Voldemort was even more clever and powerful than Sirius and James, and far more of a bully," Harry said coldly. Hermione goggled at his description of the Marauders. Harry pressed on before she could say anything. "I suspect Augustus was a true believer, proud to be protecting the wizarding world from the Muggle menace."

"By murdering children?" Hermione said sharply.

Harry closed his eyes. "Extra points," he said dully.

"What?"

Harry opened his eyes again. "Ja-- Forget it! I heard some of them -- the Death Eaters -- scored kills. I don't know if it's true. The person who told me didn't know either -- just stupid gossip." He looked nervously at Hermione. "Can I see it?"

"Wait," Hermione said. Harry waited while she read. Finally, she pushed the open volume across the table to him. Harry bent over the article, and Ron leaned in beside him. A photograph showed a country cottage with the Dark Mark hanging over it. Two hysterical children were being restrained by men with Ministry badges. One of them was holding on to the reins of a winged horse, despite the efforts of another Ministry man to prise them from his fingers. A covered lump that may have been a body lay behind them. Another was being carried off on a stretcher. To the side, a portrait of a handsome, blond man looked disinterestedly to the side. Beneath that, a heavy-built, cheerful-looking woman looked straight forward out of her portrait and nodded. Beneath the three pictures, a headline blared:

DE Maitland Kills Auror Taylor, Children; Dies

Auror Gwendolyn Taylor and two of her four children were murdered early this morning in a suspected Death Eater attack. Their apparent killer, Augustus Maitland (son of Marcus Maitland and Precious Brown) was in turn trampled to death by the family's Granian after being petrified by Taylor's oldest child, thirteen-year-old Samantha. Taylor's Muggle husband, the stated reason for her target status, was away on business at the time of the attack.

Though several of the Maitlands have been accused of ties to You-Know-Who, the discovery of the Dark Mark on Augustus Maitland's body came as a surprise to Ministry officials. Mr. Marcus Maitland, a prominent member of the Wizengamot, stated that he was shocked to be told his son....

"Yeah, I bet," Harry muttered. "No idea what half of Hogwarts had known years earlier...." He caught himself. Maybe the man had had no idea. He suspected he might know more about many of his classmates than their parents did. He had known more about Fred and George's sixth and seventh year activities than Mr. and Mrs. Weasley had, and the elder Weasleys were both intelligent and caring. He had no idea if Marcus Maitland had been either.

After that, the article went into the details of the murders, which left Harry feeling slightly sick. The youngest child had been with his mother and was killed with her. The oldest two had told their younger sister to run, while the boy had tried to summon their Granian. Augustus had hit the fleeing child with the Killing Curse when she was halfway across the garden, and her older sister had fired a Petrification Hex at the source of the green light. There was some suspicion that the boy may have intentionally had the horse trample the petrified attacker, though the children claimed the Granian attacked spontaneously. Quoted experts on Granian behavior took both sides of the issue.

Finally, the article ended. Harry put the collection aside, determined not to look at the obituary of Auror Gwendolyn Taylor, or the article on her Muggle husband.

"What do you think?" Ron pressed.

Harry couldn't think of anything to say. He had plenty of thoughts, all racing uneasily around in his head: That was what Augustus did -- what did my father do? Why was he alone? Was he supposed to have a partner? Was it Severus? Was he alone because of the game? Was there a game? Did they get extra points for full families? Did he really feel he was doing the right thing? Did Severus mourn him?

"I just..." Ron slouched down to rest his chin on his clasped hands. "I don't understand."

Harry shook his head and tried to sort something out of the muddle of his thoughts. "Death Eaters usually work in pairs or groups, don't they? Where was his partner?"

Ron grabbed his wrist and Harry found himself looking into a disbelieving stare. "What?!" Ron demanded.

Harry scowled. "Look, Ron, it was horrible, and sick, and all that, and what can I say? Those poor kids, having to watch their mother and younger brother and sister die, and to be killers themselves, at thirteen and eleven. But it was a typical attack, except for one thing -- Maitland didn't have backup, and that's odd."

Ron shook his head slightly. "I'm not sure it was, back then."

"It was! Remember what your father said, after the World Cup -- "Death Eaters hunt like wolves?"

"Why did Snape have us look this up, though?" Hermione complained. "There must be something else...."

"No," Harry said emphatically. "This is it. He just knew that Ron -- and he was addressing Ron, recall -- didn't believe he couldn't trust a fellow Gryffindor. Probably there was more to it than that -- times that Snape couldn't trust Maitland, because Maitland had that honor thing going -- but they're nothing you'll find in the paper, I'm sure." He met Hermione's eyes, then Ron's. Still holding Ron's gaze, he said:

"Augustus Maitland was a Gryffindor. Augustus Maitland was a Death Eater, who murdered for Voldemort. That is all you need to know." Harry shuddered. "No -- more than that. You cannot assume by other houses, either -- a Slytherin might be your ally, a Hufflepuff might stand by you to the death." He frowned. "A Ravenclaw might cry on you at every opportunity."

Hermione choked and covered her mouth. Harry flashed her an uneasy smile. She looked down and pretended to be engrossed in her reading.

Harry went back to his Potions essay. Now and then, Ron or Hermione would comment on some information on Augustus which one of them had found. Hermione did not speak to Harry of her own accord, but she did not return to ignoring his existence. He finished his Potions essay and started on his Defense Against the Dark Arts work.

"Supper?" Ron asked, looking at Hermione, then Harry. Both nodded, and they went down to dinner together.

Ron sat between Hermione and Harry, but none of them talked, much. Harry was relieved when Teresa sat on his other side. They talked about Quidditch for most of the meal. He decided, again, that she was a good kid.

After supper, Harry, Ron and Hermione went back to the library. Harry resumed work on his Defense Against the Dark Arts essay, and Ron and Hermione went back to looking at news articles. Eventually, they got bored of that.

"Shall we look at the photographs, again?" Hermione suggested. "We might be able to find out if he and Professor Snape were friends."

Harry clamped his mouth shut. He heard Ron answer reluctantly:

"I suppose. Look, we're not going to be able to spend as much time on this as we have done...."

"I know. I think the pictures are only for weekends. Let's look, though. We've got another hour."

"What pictures?" Harry asked.

"Oh -- there are boxes of photographs, in here."

"We found lots of your dad, Harry!" Ron said cheerily. "Come look."

"And one of Professor Lupin kissing another boy," Hermione confided. "When he was a student, I mean -- about our age."

Harry narrowly bit back a question as to who Remus had been kissing. Instead, he said:

"I wonder if he knows that's here. I'd guess not, wouldn't you?" He looked severely at Hermione, who blushed.

"Maybe not. People don't usually look at these, though -- they were almost hidden."

Harry held his hand out.

"Give me the photo. I'll take it to him."

"You can't do that!" Hermione said, shocked. "It's library property!"

"It's Remus. Give it to me."

"He has a point, Hermione," Ron contributed. "I mean, that might be kind of embarrassing for him, especially where he's a professor, and all. Even if it was a girl, it's really not -- I mean, you wouldn't want the younger students seeing that."

"They're just kissing and talking," Hermione protested. She pulled out the picture and showed it to Harry. He took one look at the dark-haired boy behind Remus, and tried to snatch the photograph from her hand. She kept a tight hold on it, though, and he was unwilling to tear it.

"Harry!" she protested.

"Give it to me. I'll take it to Remus."

"At least let me run a Label Charm on it first."

"It's none of your business," Harry flinched at the hysterical tightness in his own voice. Let it go, let it go....

"Oy, mate!" Ron reached over to lay a hand on Harry's arm. "It's not that racy. He may get a bit of ragging over it, but it's only kissing, like Hermione says."

Harry released the photo. Hermione pointed her wand at it and said, "Titilio."

"What does it say?" asked Ron. Hermione held the picture out to him. At the bottom, it was labeled "Sev & Remus."

"Sev?" Ron asked.

Hermione shrugged. "I have no idea."

"Now can I take it to Remus?" Harry pleaded.

Hermione sighed and handed him the picture. "All right."

Remus was slow to answer the door, and he looked more worn than he had the night before. Harry thought the moon must be close.

"Harry?" he asked.

Harry slipped inside and took his Potions text from his bag. "Did you know there were student photographs in the library?" he asked.

"No. Does it matter?"

Harry took the photo out of the book, where he had put it to protect it from bending. "Hermione and Ron found this."

Remus took the photograph and looked at it. A small intake of breath was his first reaction. Harry watched Remus's eyes sadden, even as he smiled slightly.

"He never shows his face, does he?" he said softly.

"Scarcely ever. They didn't figure out who it was, even after the Labeling Charm said 'Sev.'"

"Severus, of course, would object to this far more than I do."

"Yes, but I persuaded them to let me give it to you, and I thought they might ask you about it." Harry smiled wryly. "I'm lying to them about too many things, already -- no need to add unnecessary ones." He met Remus's eyes. "And he'd scream and burn it, or something. It's a nice picture; someone should have it."

"Thank you, Harry."

"No blackmailing him, now."

"Of course not." Remus smiled. "One, I wouldn't be so cruel, and two, I wouldn't dare. Go to bed, now."

Harry could not go to bed -- he had four more inches to do on his essay. When it was very late, and the common room was quiet, Ron came and sat next to him. Harry finished his sentence and looked up.

"Yes?"

"I was thinking about Voldemort," Ron began, "and this trying to live forever thing, and I wondered ... can you transfer your self to another body?"

"Yes," Harry answered. Must he ask this now? It has to be past midnight. "It wouldn't help, though. The receiving body is too strained by it, and will die within a year."

"Oh." Ron looked down. "How do you know these things?"

"It was in some of my law reading. Transference used to be applied in cases where one person had given another a fatal injury. The dying party was sometimes given the body of his killer, so that he would have time to order his affairs. The last use of the practice was in the fifties, I think. Since it had to be done quickly, there were known cases where the killer was wrongly identified, and the practice fell out of favor. The transferred person sometimes goes a bit mad, as well." He looked down at his paper.

"Listen, Ron, could this wait? I don't want to start thinking about more murders, and I need to finish this paper before I go to bed."

"Sure. Um... Thanks." Ron shifted. "Well, good night, then."

"Good night, Ron," Harry said firmly.

Ron left.

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Chapter 43: The Kerner Dark Detector