Dark Gods in the Blood

Chapter Seven

'In the interior you will no doubt meet Mr. Kurtz.' On my

asking who Mr. Kurtz was, he said he was a first class agent;

and seeing my disappointment at this information, he added

slowly, laying down his pen, 'He is a very remarkable

person ... '

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Ron couldn't believe that she'd gone to see Snape again. It had been strange enough the first time, but the second time was completely inexplicable.

Apparently he'd yelled at her, which had caused his therapist to go into a frenzy and ask Hermione to help him figure out Snape. She'd threatened the fellow and gone back to talk to Snape again.

While Ron's opinion as to the general sanity of the entire female gender had shifted minutely through the years, he was still convinced that Hermione Granger at least was completely 'round the bend. At least some things never changed.

He pulled his mind back to reality long enough to register the fact that baby Alice was currently shoving a box under his nose with a pout on her little face. "Piggy!" she cried, giving the bright box a wave for good measure. "Watch piggy, Unca Ron!"

Sighing, he plucked the box out of her chubby fingers, wincing at the slick feel of what Harry said the Muggles called 'plastic.' Ron had never gotten used to the Muggle technologies that Harry (and probably Hermione, too, although Ron had never asked outright) was accustomed to. He also didn't understand why Harry had thought it necessary to bring his children up with a foot in both worlds, living in a Muggle-built home just outside of a town that was less than half wizarding. Nicholas attended a Muggle school, even.

"For culture," Harry had always said when Ron made some distasteful gesture toward whatever new Muggle toy Harry brought home. Something called a 'comp-tor' for Harry's office, a machine that washed clothes for Françoise that she spent more time complaining about than actually using. The latest of Harry's mad Muggle purchases had been a toy of some sort that had Nicholas thoroughly excited. A 'station-player' or some such nonsense. Ron knew it hooked into the television and Nicholas could play games with it, and that was about as far as it went. Harry had spent literal hours with his son, battling animated monsters and laughing at the fun of it.

And so it was that he regarded the shiny disk that Alice wanted him to put into the machine that made talking pictures with nothing short of abject fear. He finally worried it out of its case, realizing in the last few moments that if he pushed a button, the disk released itself. Unfortunately, though, Ron could not immediately see how he was to put it into the machine. He dimly recalled a little tray to put the disk in from last time (shiny side down, Harry had said with laughter in his tone), but it was nowhere to be found onthe machine's front.

Ron sighed, knowing he was bested. "Hey, Nicholas?" he called, turning toward the staircase. "Can you come down for a minute? I need your help."

After a few painful moments, the boy appeared on the stairs, giving Ron a quizzical look.

"The PVC machine," he explained. "The one that makes movies. Do you know how to work it? Alice wants to watch that one about the pig she likes so much. You know ... Babe."

Wordlessly, Nicholas came down the stairs and plucked the disk out of Ron's surprised hand. He deftly punched a few buttons on the front of the machine, causing it to spit out the tray Ron recalled, and inserted the disk, pushing a few more buttons for good measure. Work apparently done, he turned away from the machine and was halfway up the stairs again before it occurred to Ron to call out.

"D'you want to watch it with her?" he asked hurriedly. "Only your mum asked me to bring in the laundry as well and I can't be in two places at once."

"Pig!" Alice shouted as the screen flashed up some ridiculously singing mice. Nicholas appeared to be engaged in a mental debate. "Piggy, Nic'las!" she said, crawling up the stairs to tug at her brother's shirttail.

With a decidedly reluctant look, he made his way back down the stairs, sister carefully in tow. Once they were seated on the sofa, quietly watching the television, Ron slipped out of the room and out the back door.

He and Nicholas had never gotten along spectacularly. Probably more through Ron's fault than Nicholas', of course. There was just something about the boy, always had been. Something ... disconcerting. Sometimes he had a way of looking right through you, as if he could see just how insignificant you were. It was difficult to befriend that.

That didn't mean Ron hadn't tried to overcome his disinclination. Quite the contrary -- he'd made an effort to try and get along with Nicholas. And sometimes it worked. Sometimes they could pretend. But with Harry out of the picture, without the potential for the hurt that he always thought Harry would feel if he realized his best friend and his son did not get along, Ron didn't feel the need to pretend that Nicholas' glares weren't disconcerting. So in the end, he preferred just to leave the child alone. His latest goal was to keep his life as pleasant as possible in the face of his grief, after all, and glowering seven-year-olds just weren't part of that picture.

Of course, if pushed, Ron would have to admit that this desire unfortunately included the inclusion of one rather cheerful, slightly cynical young man whose life had become so entwined with Ron's own that he found himself unable to leave the fellow's widow and children alone, spending day after day, week after week, with them. On the particularly bad days, Ron could not bring himself to believe that Harry wasn't at work. That he wouldn't come stumbling in, late, laughing and bearing prototypes of his latest creations to put into his kids' outstretched hands.

Nicholas' glares were, if nothing else, a good reminder to Ron that this was not going to happen. That Harry was gone.

Dead.

Harry was dead.

He still had not repeated it enough. Harry's ghost still flickered through his mind, invading his thoughts, pervading his dreams, waking and sleeping. It sat on Nicholas' features, on Alice's ... hell, even on Françoise's. Harry's wife, Ron still thought of her. Harry's wife -- not just Françoise.

Maybe if he stayed long enough, maybe if heepeated his mantra enough, Harry would stay dead. Harry's face would rest in Ron's mind and not on his son's brow. Françoise's smile would once again reach her eyes and not just sit on her face with nowhere to go.

With a soft snort, Ron began unpinning a sheet from the clothesline and folding it awkwardly. He had no place to be questioning Hermione's motives, then. If he was staying with the Potters to kill a man that had died more than a month ago, he had no right to ask Hermione why she felt the urge to visit Snape not once, but twice.

But still ...

Snape used to make her cry, Ron remembered. Before he knew what Snape was, just the mention of the man's name used to make his temper simmer. All he thought ofwere the tears coursing down his friend's face as the man snapped at her one too many times, said one too many unforgivable things. Her appearance, her mind, her behavior, nothing was sacrosanct. All through Hogwarts, if asked, Ron would have said that Snape may have enjoyed tormenting Harry Potter the most, but Hermione Granger was an unfortunately close second.

And she went to visit him in the loony bin. When no one else apparently would.

It boggled the mind.

Of course, Ron told himself as he finished the bedclothes and began folding one of Nicholas' Muggle t-shirts, Snape rather boggled the mind himself. What was it he heard people say? A puzzle wrapped in an enigma.

Severus Snape made children cry, had the temperament of a rabid, starving weasel, and the all the appeal of a train wreck. But he also pulled people out of burning buildings, seemed to be inhumanly loyal to Albus Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix, and in general sacrificed himself continually on the altar of Good, until it had consumed him completely.

No wonder he went nutters.

Ron began pulling Françoise's unmentionables off the clothesline, quickly dropping them, unfolded, into a separate basket he'd grabbed just for this purpose. He would do anything for Harry's widow ... except fold her knickers. That was an issue she could handle on her own, not to mention one that Ron didn't want to consider, even for a seond.

Pushing this thought out of his head as quickly as he could, his previous musings inevitably returned.

There was one thing he hadn't told Hermione about Snape. Something he always wanted to keep to himself.

Harry didn't know. Harry wouldn't have understood. He couldn't make his peace with Snape like Ron could -- he hadn't seen the man in action, wand held outstretched, throwing curses like one possessed, fighting -- always fighting -- the Enemy. The Death Eaters.

Snape had come to see Ron in the hospital one day.

He'd been at St. Mungo's for so long. The doctors searched and searched for an answer to his injury. Maybe this charm, this potion. Every day, enduring strange side effects and horrible tastes. They kept him in St. Mungo's for more than three weeks. Monitoring, they said.

But Snape showed up one day.

He must have asked Dumbledore about it. Harry hadn't been able to come and see Ron that day, and his mother was off, visiting Bill and his newest son. Ron was all alone.

And then Snape was there, standing unbelievably awkwardly in the doorway, nose wrinkled at the medicinal smell that permeated St. Mungo's from basement to attic. "Weasley," he'd said, with an even more uncomfortable nod.

Ron hadn't believed, until that exact moment, that the self-assured, temperamental Snape could be awkward. "Professor Snape," he'd replied cautiously.

His head was bandaged that day -- the charm one of the nurses had been instructed to cast had left his eye oozing blood disturbingly, and so it was wrapped up, in hopes of staunching the slow, steady flow. So he had a rather lopsided perspective of Snape approaching the bed, moving jerkily, as if under the control of a puppeteer. He did not speak.

"How are you, sir?" Ron remembered himself saying inanely. "I hear we've been having rather nice weather as of late, and ..." He also recalled trailing off at the admittedly hazy view of Snape's withering look.

"I'm not a professor any more," he said abruptly. "Your address was incorrect, then, Weasley."

"May I ask what you are up to these days, then?"

"You may not," Snape retorted sharply. Ron remembered he looked rather tired. "You are recovering, Weasley?"

Blinking at the subject change, Ron's words were slow and approaching slurry. "I would be," he said in a dark sort of tone. "If the bloody doctors didn't insist on hexing me daily. They think they can find a cure ..." There was only a trace of bitterness in his tone if he recalled.

"A cure?" he asked, in possibly the politest voice Ron ever recalled Snape using.

"For my eyes," he explained. "My peripheral vision on my left side is nearly gone. If I wasn't an Auror, they'd have released me two weeks ago, but the Ministry is pushing for my restoration. I'm useless to them now unless the mediwizards can patch me up."

"Useless," Snape repeated and for a moment, Ron had thought he was going to say something truly poisonous. "I hesitate to endorse the Ministry condemning anyone as useless," he'd continued in a dry tone, "especially given its history."

He remembered being absolutely stunned. Albus had told him before that Snape had a sense of humor, but he'd never thought he would have any occasion to be witness to it. "Erm ... yes ..." he finally said, unable to come up with anything else.

And that had been it. Snape stood, made a dismissive sort of grunt, and walked out of the room, leaving Ron to stare after him.

It had been one of the strangest conversations Ron had ever had. And, oddly enough, one of the most comforting.

It had also been the last time Ron had ever laid eyes on Severus Snape. Eight months later, once he'd cobbled himself together enough to make it to an Order meeting, Snape had been conspicuously absent and Dumbledore made his little announcement.

"Severus will no longer be joining us," he'd said, his usually twinkling eyes dulled. "He is under treatment up in Yorkshire and it is likely that he will be there for quite some time."

No one had to ask. Everyone knew that the only place offering 'treatment' in York was Perkins -- the mad house. The only wizarding mental hospital in Britain, as a matter of fact, and one of the more prestigious ones in the world.

Harry had smiled. Pushed his glasses up on his nose, shot Ron a look that smacked of victory, and smiled.

And Ron had tried to feel the same way. Tried to muster up all of that old anger. Thought of Snape's scowls and Hermione's tears.

But then he felt Snape's oddly rough hands on his shoulders, tearing a burning shirt off his back, calloused fingers slapping over his face, trying to hold back the blood. Heard Snape's grunt as he heaved a semi-conscious Ron over his shoulders and walked out of the crumbling building. The smell of Snape's sweat, and the smoke, and the blood washed over Ron in that one nauseating instant and he wanted to hit Harry.

Harry, who'd been allowed to bow out of the fight. Harry, who had fulfilled his destiny in childhood and was now able to live a life of his own choosing. Harry, who sat at Dumbledore's right hand during Order meetings even though he didn't understand the real mission at hand. "Voldemort's gone," Harry used to say, "Voldemort's gone and we're free to live in peace."

He thought they were warmongers. Looking for shadows in the sunshine.

Harry didn't understand.

And in that moment, Ron knew he and Snape somehow understood what Harry could not. They could see the darkness even through the light.

But the next moment brought a familiar feeling on its heels -- shame. Shame and guilt and self-castigation.

Harry was Ron's best friend. They had passed through fire for one another time and time again. How could Ron accuse Harry, the friendliest person he knew, of poor camaraderie and claim that Snape -- Snape, of all people -- understood true brotherhood?

Ron loved Harry.

And so he smiled gently at his friend's smirk, indulgently, as a father smiles at a wayward son. Harry could afford to hate Snape -- he'd certainly earned the luxury. If Ron did not -- could not -- well, then, he had his own reasons.

The moment passed entirely, then, and Ron thought little of it afterward. A fleeting impulse upon being reinstated at work and saddled to a desk went relatively unnoticed. Ron had the Portkey schedule in hand, staring at the line reading 11:45, Yorkshire.

He could go and come back at lunch and no one would even notice. Snape had visited him, after all, be it for reasons unknown. Certainly Ron had the same privilege.

The urge faded even as he continued to look down at the page before his eyes. Why would he want to go visit Snape? Really ... Harry would give him hell if he found out. Besides, they probably wouldn't even let him in the door. He had no real relationship to the man, after all.

Until Hermione had brought Snape up three weeks ago in Françoise's parlor, Ron had barely given him a second thought since he'd successfully talked himself out of that one visit.

And now he stood out in the middle of the Potters' backyard, holding a miniature set of wizarding robes (Nicholas', by the look of it) and regarding them as he was contemplating the nature of the very fabric of the universe itself.

"Bloody hell," Ron grumbled to himself, tossing the robes into the basket. What was he doing out here? The dry laundry was off the line and while he had no real urge to watch that talking pig film with the kids, it would certainly be better than standing outside, thinking about a fellow he'd known in what felt like another lifetime.

But he remained still, frowning at the grass. A bumblebee was lazily investigating a lone dandelion poking through the green blades.

He wondered if what Hermione saw in Snape was the same thing he saw in Snape. The same reason he almost wanted to see him.

The bumblebee circled the stalk once, twice, three times before hovering near the yellow petals.

He wondered if what they wanted to see was the thing that made Snape save his life.

The dandelion tipped under the bee's slight weight, nodding gently at no one in particular. A breeze lifted one of Alice's little dresses, still damp, perched on the clothesline.

If that was the thing that made Snape save Harry's life all those years ago, time and time again.

The bee, oddly agile, flew up abruptly, through Alice's dress, from skirt to collar, and out of sight, leaving the dandelion to shake its head forlornly in its wake.

Ron blew out an impatient breath and turned to go inside, leaving his thoughts behind, holding one basket above his shoulder and clutching the other at his hip.

A high-pitched, bloodcurdling scream made him drop both baskets, however, spilling all of the clean clothes along the grass. Running toward the house, Ron tripped over one of Alice's little romper suits, leaving a stark grass stain along its pink front. He swore and ignored it, still running.

"Alice!" he bellowed upon reaching the back door and flinging it open. "Nicholas!" Damn it, he thought to himself. They hadn't been out of his sight for more than half an hour.

But the only reply was that same plaintive cry, mixed pain and terror. It chilled Ron to the bone to hear as he flung himself through the kitchen, catching his shin on a chair and his elbow on the doorjamb.

There was blood.

It flowed down Alice's scalp, staining her shirt, staining the floor. Running down her chin, mixed with her tears as she sobbed, looking up at Ron with wide, fearful eyes.

"Oh, baby," Ron cried, dropping to his knees automatically and gathering her into his arms. "You'll be all right ..."

He blotted at the blood carefully with his shirttail, trying to find the source. Continuing to shush the baby, he barely noticed as his own shirt grew steadily wetter, from both her tears and her blood.

"Uncle Ron!" came a shrill, terrified cry. "I'm so ... I didn't mean to ... she fell. She was jumping and I told her not to and she fell! Uncle Ron!"

Alice momentarily forgotten, Ron looked up at a disconsolate Nicholas, tears running down the boy's cheeks. "Nicholas?" he whispered.

"She hit her head!" Nicholas wailed, nearly as hysterical as Alice herself.

"It's all right, Nicholas," Ron found himself saying, outwardly eerily calm as he turned his attentions to Alice's scalp.

The wound was small -- a cut near the crown of her head, little more than an inch long and less than the tip of a quill in breadth.

"Alice, hush," Ron soothed. "It's not that bad ... but your head, well, it bleeds a lot when you hit it. Let me clean you up and get the bleeding stopped and then I'll patch you right up. How does that sound, my girl?"

The sobs were subsiding into sniffles and the panic was ebbing from her eyes as he spoke in that patient, tranquil tone he'd learned worked best when dealing with the very young. Using a bare hand, he wiped most of the blood off her face, while applying gentle pressure to her scalp with the other.

"Uncle Ron ...?" he heard Nicholas ask in a fairly tear-clogged voice.

The bleeding had almost stopped. "Yes, Nicholas?" That same calming tone.

"Is ... is she gonna die?"

Ron's head snapped up as if pulled by a string. "What?" he asked, feeling the blood drain from his face.

"Is Alice gonna die, like Papa?" Nicholas repeated, almost whispering. "There's so much blood ..."

There was a rushing sound in his ears as he stared at the child. Ron couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Nicholas ..."

So the boy had seen, despite their best efforts.

"Nicholas," he said more firmly, steeling himself. "She just fell and cut her head. Come and see for yourself -- it's quite small. If you'd like, you can watch me heal her. It won't take a second."

Swiping tears out of his eyes, Nicholas knelt over his sister, a solemn look on his little face as Ron waved his wand over Alice's head and gently murmured the proper incantation. The boy looked relieved as he saw the wound seal itself.

"There you go, little girl," Ron said, kissing the top of her head and tasting her blood on his lips. "All better now."

She made a hiccupping noise that was at least half a sob. "Unca Ron ..."

"We've got to get you cleaned up," he continued evenly. "You're a right mess, you are."

As he scooped Alice in his arms and made a move toward the nearest bathroom, he felt a hand on his shirt, tugging slightly. He looked down. Nicholas.

"Uncle Ron ..." he said plaintively, echoing his sister. "I'm --" Nicholas stopped, a curious look on his face as he apparently found himself at a loss for words.

Ron shrugged and gave him a careful pat on the shoulder. "Don't worry about it, Nicholas."

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