Dark Gods in the Blood

A Prologue of Sorts

They love nature in so far as, for them, she calls to 'the dark

gods in the blood'; not although, but because, sex and

hunger and sheer power there operate without pity and

shame.

-- CS Lewis, The Four Loves

Harry Potter was dead.

It was unthinkable. Two days before he was to pass his thirty-second birthday, one of the greatest heroes of our century breathed his last.

So young, people said as they read his obituary. So young and so brave.

He had survived so much. Survived and triumphed in the end.

A mere child of seventeen -- not even due to take his NEWTs for another three weeks -- had returned to the school from which he'd been abducted not quite twenty-four hours before. Bruised and battered -- on the brink of death himself -- Harry Potter had dragged the cold, solemn corpse of his greatest foe through the doors of the Great Hall and deposited the body unceremoniously at Albus Dumbledore's feet before collapsing himself.

Not only had he escaped his nemesis, as he had so many times before, the exhausted young Harry Potter had finally managed the impossible -- the utter, wrenching victory over one of the most evil men that had ever lived.

At seventeen.

There was weeping in the streets and a celebration in every house. And their hero just having presented them with freedom from at least one of the monsters haunting their nightmares, the wizarding community finally granted him his fondest wish.

They left him to his own devices.

Well, more or less.

There were always the few who would recognize the young wizard as he lived his small life. Recognize him and approach him, more often than not. Some would thank him and might even shed a couple tears as they wrapped their arms impulsively around his shoulders. A few daring souls would present him with their children, christened Harry in the aftermath of the wonderful Harry Potter's triumph. Mostly boys, of course, but several girls as well.

He never complained, though, tolerating these few meetings with equanimity. In reply, the public permitted his relative privacy.

His wedding, to a pretty, unassuming Beauxbatons witch he'd met through a mutual acquaintance, was quiet and only attended by those invited. Even the birth of his son Nicholas went unmolested by the public eye, as did the birth of his second child -- a daughter called Alice.

By all accounts, Harry Potter had exactly the life he wanted to live.

And now, inexplicably dead.

The funeral details were kept as classified as the most damning of state secrets. His widow and half-orphans, immediately whisked to Hogwarts under the care of Albus Dumbledore himself, were kept cloistered and as comforted as the circumstances could allow.

There, with the assistance of Harry Potter's stolid best friend, Ron Weasley, the funeral was quietly planned, the arrangements for both a service and a burial were made. A baffling request from Harry Potter's Muggle aunt was made for a genuine Muggle funeral service and not denied. Dumbledore and Harry Potter's widow found themselves quite unable to refuse Petunia Dursley's obviously tearstained letter, although they did wonder to themselves why she felt such a thing necessary.

The great Albus Dumbledore, headmaster of Hogwarts and mentor to the now-late Harry Potter, announced to the Daily Prophet in front of the Minister of Magic himself that he was intending to give Harry Potter's eulogy. A shaky Ron Weasley, pale and uncharacteristically quiet as he sat at Dumbledore's side in the same meeting, indicated that he had turned down the offer himself. Dumbledore also added that he would allow the eulogy to be printed in the newspapers, but that the Potter funeral was to be otherwise completely private.

This last, announced in a tone that brooked absolutely no argument, was an attempt to save Harry Potter in death from the martyrdom he'd tried so desperately to avoid in his life. Public orations of grief usually only serve to resurrect saints, after all.

That did not, of course, keep the requests for details from trickling hesitantly in. A few owls from officials at the Ministry, tentatively arguing that Harry Potter's funeral was a matter of public interest and thus the public should be represented. These owls were, naturally, coldly ignored and went largely unanswered, although Ron Weasley shot off a fiery letter to the Minister of Magic's own pompous request. A copy of said request was later printed, side-by-side, with Weasley's rebuttal on the front page of the Quibbler, although many people believed that those couldn't possibly be the actual documents.

And so it came to pass that no one knew where the funeral was to take place, save the closest of family and friends. No one even knew where Harry Potter's grave was to be.

Out of respect for their hero, the public allowed this silence to be maintained. As the day of the funeral drew ever closer -- a week after Harry Potter's startling death, a mere five days after he would have celebrated his thirty-second year of life -- several people were spotted in the streets with suspiciously glistening eyes, in bars sullenly nursing their drinks.

Murmurs rose in the streets, in the bars full of people drinking to forget.

The courageous, glorious Harry Potter, Boy Hero and Kind Savior didn't simply die all of a sudden at such a young age. Especially not, as the Daily Prophet had phrased it, "at home." And certainly not now -- a young man with a budding family and a promising future. He hadn't been in the public eye for more than a decade. Frankly, it made no sense.

The whispers intensified.

Murder.

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