Dark Gods in the Blood

Chapter Ten

What more did I want? What I really wanted was rivets, by

heaven! Rivets. To get on with the work -- to stop the hole.

Rivets I wanted. There were cases of them down at the coast

-- cases -- piled up -- burst -- split!

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

"How was the match?" Ron asked Ginny as he took Alice into his arms.

She shrugged. "We lost. Miserably. But on the other hand, Alice saw the Snitch in about five minutes and Nicholas decided to speak again. So, it was an interesting day, if nothing else. How was work?"

"It was work," he replied noncommittally.

Hermione watched the siblings shift on their feet, watched the awkwardness mount. Fortunately, Nicholas seemed to note her discomfort. "Do you know how to play Soulblade**?" he asked, giving her robe a good tug.

"Soulblade?" she echoed, drawing a blank.

"It's pretty good," he said, shrugging. "Even though it's really old. My papa got it for me to play on my Playstation. Wanna play? I'll even let you have first pick," he offered graciously, slipping his hand into hers.

Continuing to listen to Ginny and Ron make idle, uncomfortable chat on the front step of Françoise Potter's home, she decided it would be infinitely better to discover what on Earth Nicholas was talking about. She dimly recalled Harry mentioning a 'Playstation' when they were children and thought she remembered that it was a video game system of some sort.

The last video game Hermione had played was probably back in about 1988 -- her father loved the old Pac-Man arcade game and would often challenge her to a head-to-head match. That was before she went off to Hogwarts, of course.

She distantly wondered if Harry had done the same with Nicholas and his Playstation.

But he was still tugging on her hand, so she offered him a smile and stepped into the house.

A Playstation was apparently a square little machine made of mostly black plastic. He hit a few buttons expertly and a tray spat out of the front. A couple more button taps later and Hermione found him thrusting a controller into her hand. "You'll figure the controls out," he told her as he flipped on the television. "They're not hard."

Fifteen minutes later, Hermione had decided that they were actually rather difficult. She found herself squinting at the animated character she'd chosen, sitting cross-legged on the floor beside Nicholas, frantically mashing the first buttons that came to her fingertips. "And you find this entertaining?" she asked as he 'killed' her yet again.

"Sure," he said shortly, skillfully hitting about six buttons at once so that his character executed a hopelessly complex maneuver. "But it takes a bit to get used to the moves."

"I can tell," she replied, deciding she'd never let herself be manipulated into this again if she had anything to say about it.

A male laugh echoed behind her. "Ah," Ron said, coming into the room -- he'd apparently put Alice to bed as she was nowhere in sight. "I see he's found someone else to trounce at that Muggle thing."

"I'm ... having fun," she said, knowing her tone was sadly lacking. Nicholas gave a little crow of triumph as her character fell seemingly unconscious (or dead) yet again. "Well ..." she conceded.

"Nicholas," Ron said, tapping the boy once on the top of his head. "Your mum wants you in bed. If you're not upstairs brushing your teeth in five minutes, I shudder to think of the consequences."

"One more," he said, not taking his eyes off the screen.

Ron sighed. "No."

"Yes," Nicholas replied defiantly.

Apparently unwilling to push, Ron threw his hands up in the air. "Fine," he said. "But it's your hide when your mum comes in."

"Where's Ginny?" Hermione asked, suppressing a small grin as Nicholas shut off the Playstation obediently and began fiddling with the cords.

"Went home," he replied. "It's been a long day, you know."

"Good night, Uncle Ron," Nicholas said, moving away from the television.

Ron's expression softened. "'Night, Nicholas."

The boy stopped beside Hermione, who was still sitting on the floor, and studied her intently. In a gesture so brief she barely had time to register it, he threw his arms around her neck and squeezed. "'Night, Hermione," he muttered, all but running out of the room.

She stared after him wonderingly.

"I think he likes you," Ron said dryly, holding out a hand to help her to her feet.

Standing, she shrugged slightly. "He just beat me at a video game twenty-four times in a row. I earned a hug."

He continued to look at the doorway Nicholas passed through rather thoughtfully. "It's good to hear his voice again."

"I can imagine," she replied. "Well ... I suppose I ought to be getting back to the hotel," she continued, feeling the abrupt subject shift acutely.

"Hermione, I wish you'd just stay in my damned flat," he said with a harsh exhalation. "Hell, if you want, I'm sure Françoise would love to have you stay here. The sofa is awfully comfortable."

"Speaking of ..." she said, hoping to shift the subject again. "Where is Françoise, anyway?"

He frowned "Asleep, I'd imagine. It is, after all, past eleven o'clock. That match ran rather late. But don't think you're getting out of it that quickly."

"For pity's sake, Ron --"

"No," he exclaimed, raising a single hand to still her protests. "I won't have it. If I have to go to your hotel and tell them that you're a convict on the run with a nasty drug habit and a propensity for lighting fires to get you thrown out, I'll do it in a heartbeat. The flat is yours and I'll not hear another word on the matter. You can move in tomorrow morning. In fact," he said, offering her a devilish grin, "I'll help you move your stuff."

She sighed, thoroughly exasperated. "I've only got one bag."

An eyebrow raised. "You've been here for more than a month."

"It's a big bag," she said, arms crossed over her chest. "Ron, you're being a real pig about this."

"That's me," he replied cheerfully. "So ... I've heard all about Ginny's day. What about yours?" he drawled.

Shrugging a single shoulder, she sat down in an armchair. "Not much more to tell than Ginny, probably. I will say that Nicholas Potter is a startling little fellow, though."

He cocked his head questioningly. "How so?"

"Does ... does he have the Sight?" she asked hesitantly.

Ron's face split into a grin. "I thought you didn't believe in Divination," he said, sitting in kind and crossing his leg over his knee.

She scowled. "Shut up. And besides ... I never said I didn't believe in Divination," she said, shades of her childhood haughtiness creeping back into her voice. "I just don't think it's all that common. Not true Sight, at least."

Sobering, Ron looked over at her earnestly. "Why do you ask, then?"

"He ... said he had a dream about me. Before that night. You remember -- when he --"

"I remember," he interrupted, a distant expression in his eyes. "So was that why he --?"

"So it seems," she replied, finding that her hands did not seem to fit properly in her lap at the moment. "Although it was a rather drastic response, if he only had the one dream. I just wanted to know if it had happened before."

Ron put his hands behind his head, thoughtful. "Not to my knowledge," he said. "Although it may be as simple as Nicholas didn't tell anyone. He's a rather closed-mouthed lad, even ... before everything. I think ..." He trailed off, looking rather haunted.

"What?" she asked, worried and fascinated.

"I think he saw Harry," he said. "That day. I don't think we got him out of the room fast enough."

Hermione's eyes widened and then narrowed as she pondered the implications of what Ron had just said. "Ron?"

He hummed interrogatively.

"What happened?" she asked dully, staring resolutely at the carpet, tracing the pattern with her eyes. "What happened to Harry?

So intent was her gaze on the floor that Hermione was actually startled to look up and see Ron's face not six inches from her own, blue eyes grim and dull. "Hermione," he said very quietly, putting his hands over hers. "Hermione, I don't think you want to hear about it."

"Of course I don't," she snapped. "But I need to, Ron."

He sat back on his heels, hands hanging limply between his knees. "It's bad, Hermione. And it's not ..." He looked up at her and she realized he was near tears. "I've never seen anything like it," he whispered. "I've seen body parts fly across the field in a firefight, I've seen men screaming as they burn alive, but I've never seen anything so ... malignant."

A chill ran down her spine. "Ron ..."

Tears ran down his cheeks freely. "I was there that morning," he began. "Harry and I were thinking about knocking off work and going to the Chudley match that afternoon -- he had tickets, you see. Françoise and the kids were off doing Merlin knows what."

She was silent, patiently waiting for him to tell the story in his own fashion.

"But I had to work. So I took off, about eight in the morning. I thought ..." He paused to gulp in air. "I thought I would skive off about two so we could catch the game. So I came up to the door. But the door was already open. Alice was sitting on the stoop, holding her doll and crying. She didn't ... I don't think she knew ...

"And then I saw -- God -- I saw it," he cried, putting his head in his hands. His knees apparently gave out and he crumpled to the floor, legs curled underneath him. "Françoise ... Françoise was standing there. Her mouth was open and her tears ... but she wasn't talking. And Nicholas." His voice steadied minutely. "I got Nicholas out of the room. Didn't know, but I think he saw ..."

Hermione hated herself as she watched Ron crinto his hands. She hated what she was about to do but knew she couldn't bear not doing it. "Ron ... what did he see?"

"All the blood," Ron nearly wailed. "Harry -- Harry was there on the table. The goddamned kitchen table. And the blood ran down, dripped off ... He was fucking butchered, Hermione. Gutted like a fish."

She put a hand to her mouth, eyes wide and face white. "Ron, what do you --?"

He cut her off. "I mean just that. Laid open like a fucking Muggle autopsy. And I saw the look on his face, Hermione. The expression in his eyes. Whoever did that to him, did it while he was alive." The tears continued to run, dripping off his chin and wetting his shirt.

Feeling her own eyes prickle, she tried to imagine it and felt something like relief when she realized she couldn't. "Who would ...?"

Again, he interrupted her question by answering it before she could even properly formulate it. "We don't know," he said heavily. "Death Eaters, they think. Some rogue faction we didn't manage to track down. But it doesn't matter."

"It doesn't matter?" she echoed, horrified. "Ron, you can't mean --"

"Of course not!" he cried, some of her own horror reflected in his eyes. "But they won't put me on the case. I've begged Kingsley over and over, but he won't let me touch it. I'm 'too close to the victim,'" he said in a cruel mimicry of whoever it was had turned him away. "But goddamn it, Hermione, other than maybe Severus Snape, I know more about Death Eaters than anyone on the fucking planet! And Harry was my best friend!"

She realized then that he was angry far more than he was sad. "What are they doing, then?"

His hands balled into fists, clenched in his lap. "Routine stuff, probably. What can they do? They've got five-year-old dossiers to work off of and a handful of ridiculously false leads. They're pissing in the ocean, Hermione. I need to work on this. They're still probably standing around, scratching their asses and trying to figure out if You-Know-Who was somehow brought back from the dead when what they need to be doing is a full-blown inquiry into every organization that had a potential reason for killing Harry."

"Nicholas told me he worked at Honeydukes," she said faintly, startled at her own apparent non sequitur.

Ron swiped at his eyes angrily, nodding as he emitted fierce sniffles. "He did. He worked on the charms for experimental stuff. You know, like making Peppermint Toads jump and that sort of thing. That's what's so damn weird -- anyone who wanted Harry out of the way would have wanted it ten years ago. Why now? Harry was just a normal chap, with a normal family. There was just no reason. Not any more."

"Maybe someone spent ten years planning it," she ventured cautiously. "It sounds ... very deliberate."

He shook his head. "That's not how these fellows work, Hermione. And besides, they've had literally hundreds of opportunities before. It's not like Harry lived his life in secret. Hell, practically anyone could have just walked right up to the damn door and Harry probably would have let 'em in." Smiling a bit, Ron lifted his head to show her his red-rimmed eyes. "Damned idiot," he said fondly. "Too trusting by half."

With a weak snort, she returned his smile. "Didn't you say Draco Malfoy attended the funeral?" she asked thoughtfully.

Ron was silent for a moment. "Malfoy's clean," he said abruptly. "The department's kept a file on his family ever since old Lucius went absolutely bonkers back during our sixth year. But Malfoy the younger was never a Death Eater, or even really an edge supporter of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Just an absolute prat on his own part. No," he said in a decisive tone. "Malfoy wouldn't have anything to do with such a thing. It would be too ... unsanitary," he finally settled on.

Thinking about it briefly, Hermione found that she agreed with his assessment of their old schoolmate. "Was ... was there any evidence on the scene?" she asked, mind racing. "Do they --?"

"Evidence?" he repeated. "What do you mean?"

"Well ... you know," she said. "Like fingerprints or hairs or something. Something to identify the ... the killer." The word felt filthy on her lips. She should never have had to say that word in connotation with Harry Potter.

With a wrinkled brow, he studied her carefully. "You mean like Muggle police, then," he said. At her hesitantly confirming nod, he continued. "Aurors don't need any of that. All we need is a well-placed Priori Incantem."

"What if ..." she began. "What if a Muggle was the suspect?"

His gaze was stony. "Muggles can't do that to wizards, Hermione."

"There's not a spell for such a thing, though," she said staunchly.

He continued to regard her rather coldly. "I doubt it's an incantation that can be found in a Hogwarts textbook, Hermione."

Bowing her head, she decided to let him break the silence. She noted as she waited patiently that her fingernails were looking rather grubby and the left sleeve of her robe was unraveling at the wrist. She carefully did not think about Harry's broken body splayed across a table she'd potentially eaten at.

Oh, God ...

"How can Françoise stand it?" she breathed, breaking her own mental rule. "How can she bear to go into that room?"

"She cries a lot, I think," Ron replied, softening slightly. "And she has nightmares. At least, I bet she does. Merlin knows I can't get it out of my head, even during my waking moments. It's always right beneath the surface."

"We ate a meal at that table," she said quietly. "Or at least, in that same spot, if it wasn't the same table."

He did not reply.

Hermione smiled wanly at him. "I think I'm going to throw up."

-- -- -- -- --

She did throw up, in fact. Twice.

Ron had insisted on fashioning her a Portkey back to the hotel. According to him, she was in no condition to Apparate -- she'd splinch herself into a million pieces.

And when did Ron turn into this hard, cold ... well, man?

Fucking butchered, she heard him whisper in her brain. Like a fucking autopsy.

She'd seen photographs of surgical procedures -- studied them in some dreamlike childhood that seemed several lifetimes ago when she'd idly thought about studying medicine. And her mother told her once about dissecting humans -- they'd done it in anatomy classes in university.

And all of a sudden, she could see it.

She could see Harry, head thrown back, face twisted despite the relaxation of death, a final image of his killer, his murderer burned into his eyes.

Blood ... there would be blood everywhere.

He had been alive, Ron said. Alive when the first cut was made.

There would be blood on the ceiling, splattered all over Françoise's lovely white kitchen tile work. Dripping down Harry's body, dripping down the table legs, covering the chairs nearly completely. Puddles of blood.

And the body. Laid open, eviscerated for the world to see. Red and pink and pulsing and -- oh, God -- the blood ...

Hermione dashed to the small lavatory in her hotel room and was sick for the third time that night.

He probably would have passed out, she told herself as she rested her forehead against the cool porcelain. Passed out very quickly. Hopefully.

She closed her eyes and they opened again nearly immediately as the image danced in her imagination. The Harry in her head had died with his eyes wide open, a faintly accusatory look in them as he stared blankly at her, arms and legs brokenly dangling over the edges of the table.

You let my papa die, she heard Nicholas say in her head abruptly.

There was nothing left in her belly to throw up. Hermione bent over the toilet, gut heaving, nausea turning to slow, hot sobs as it quelled.

Her cheeks and eyes burned as Harry glared at her in her head and Nicholas whispered in her ear. Frantically, she pressed fists into her eyes, hunched in a little ball in the middle of her clinical, impersonal hotel lavatory.

Ron had been right. She didn't want to know this.

But she had also been right. She did need to know this.

She needed to know why Harry's memory would not find peace. Why his son did not speak and his wife would never cease to mourn.

Slowly, infinitely slowly, her sobs abated, turned to shaky breaths. She was finally able to stand. Swiping at her admittedly soggy face, Hermione ran cold water over her hands, splashing some on her still fiery cheeks.

She looked like hell. Her hair stood out in every possible direction, her eyes looked wild, and her face was flushed. She looked quite mad, really.

Hermione bit out a short chuckle, accidentally snorting water up her nose.

No ... Snape was the mad one in this entire affair.

And with that, she was suddenly calm. Able to walk back to her bed and sit down. It was late -- past midnight. If she had any sense at all, she'd be asleep.

But with the sense of eerie tranquility came a sort of wakefulness. She felt completely alert and vaguely restless. Her eyes scanned the room and came to rest upon a copy of the Daily Prophet, sitting by her window.

She'd forgotten -- she'd requested a weekly copy upon realizing she'd be in the country longer than originally anticipated. Hadn't even given it a glance this morning as she was getting ready to go.

With nothing else to do, Hermione picked up the newspaper, eyes flickering past the front page without so much as a pause.

The obituaries were at the back, tucked between wedding announcements and pages of inane adverts. Mostly old wizards and witches, survived by leagues of great-grandchildren and the like. Their pictures smiled up at her with something like relief in their eyes. She read each one carefully, simultaneously wondering why she was doing this and telling herself to stop.

Working her way backward through the paper, Hermione flipped through Quidditch scores, so-called 'human interest' articles, and drabble about Ministry promotions and the like. Every so often, a particular article would catch her interest and she would read it, but she was entirely too fidgety to read the entire paper.

"Auror Death Puzzles Investigators," one headline read. Interest piqued, she read the first few lines. "Twenty-three year old William Summerford was discovered at his home early last evening," it continued. "Investigating Aurors on the scene have not ruled out foul play but are reluctant to confirm that rogue Death Eaters could have been involved. Summerford, as a field Auror, apparently had many potential enemies and investigators wish to follow all possible leads. This reporter would like to convey his heartfelt sympathy to the victim's wife and infant daughter in this time of need."

Shaking her head, she folded the paper. Summerford was only twenty-three. And he left a family behind.

Like Harry.

But unlike Harry, William Summerford worked in a high-risk environment. Probably had lots of enemies, lots of people who would have wished him ill. It at least made a modicum of sense, even if it was still a horrible tragedy.

Hermione tried to lay in bed once more, pulling the covers up to her chin. But closing her eyes briefly, Harry's face flashed through her mind and she opened them quickly.

She could not do this.

Sitting up in bed, Hermione fumbled for the television remote, resigning herself to a sleepless night. Harry was just too close to the surface, his dead eyes accusing her of crimes she was no longer sure she hadn't committed.

You let him die. Fucking butchered.

-- -- -- -- --