Dark Gods in the Blood

Chapter Twenty-Two

Believe me or not, his intelligence was perfectly clear --

concentrated, it is true, upon himself with horrible intensity,

yet clear; ... But his soul was mad. Being alone in the

wilderness, it had looked within itself and, by heavens! I tell

you, it had gone mad.

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

"I can't believe I'm actually listening to this," Kingsley sighed.

Ron tried to smile and propped his feet casually on the top of his desk, leaning back in his chair. "That'll teach you to try to filch paper clips from my desk."

"Not helpful, Weasley," he snapped. "And as for you ..."

She accepted the mild rebuke with a nod. "With all due respect, Auror Shacklebolt," Hermione said meekly -- Ron didn't believe her act for so much as a second. Ah ... here it came. Her face hardened. "I think there are factors in this case that have not been properly --"

Kingsley was mad. Angrier than Ron had ever seen him before, and he'd attended the meeting when Byungki Lee had actually admitted to dragging a vampire out into daylight and staking him on the sidewalk outside Harrod's in front of no less than five hundred Muggles. His hands were making disturbing, writhing motions, and Ron rather thought he might be envisioning Hermione's neck between them. A vein was pulsing in his temple.

"Granger," Kingsley said quietly, evenly, clenching his jaw. "Do not tell me how to do my job."

She flinched as he spat at her but managed to hold her ground, proving to Ron that the Gryffindor line between bravery and stupidity was thin, indeed. "I don't mean to --"

"Bullshit!" he exploded, finally losing his careful composure. "You're suggesting that you, Hermione Granger, whose credentials, incidentally, come to a screeching halt at the unimpressive age of seventeen, know better than no less than thirty professionally trained investigators. I should have you locked up!"

"Just think about it, Hermione," Ron said cheerfully, able to bear Kingsley's wrath as long as it remained safely directed at someone else. "You and Snape could have matching straitjackets."

Sourly, he glowered at Ron. "Weasley!" Kingsley barked. "Kill the peanut gallery."

He stiffened in his chair, removing his feet from the desk as if burnt. "Dead and buried, sir!" he said, resisting the urge to salute Kingsley in a remarkable show of self-preservation. He wasn't really in the mood to be hexed today.

And Hermione leapt back into the fray -- Ron wondered if maybe she really did have a bit of a death wish. "I never meant to imply such a thing, Auror Shacklebolt," she said primly. Ron had a dizzying flashback to an adolescent Hermione, hands neatly arranged on the tabletop in front of her, as she recited the correct answer to whatever question their professor had posed with that self-satisfied look in her eyes. "But even you must admit that --"

"I must admit nothing!" he shouted. "There's not a single shred of evidence to support what you're telling me. It makes about as much sense as trying to tell me that You-Know-Who has managed to come back from the dead somehow and killed those two poor --"

She cleared her throat.

His glare deepened. "And we come back to the main point, then, don't we?"

"Look," she began sternly. "I'm willing to admit that I don't know for certain whether or not either Weaver or Cooke were also victims of the same killer, although the circumstantial evidence is rather --"

"Granger!"

She frowned at Kingsley, who was, by this time, almost literally quivering with rage. Ron decided in that moment that he wouldn't speak again until this matter was settled one way or another unless he had no choice. "My point, Auror Shacklebolt," Hermione said, switching gears fluidly, "is that you have no way of knowing how many victims there have actually been since St. Mungo's does not notify you of potential incidents. If the Aurory is not contacted, how are you to account for this?"

Eyebrows lifting as if of their own accord, Kingsley appeared to genuinely give it some thought before he answered. "We are always notified about deaths involving prominent --"

Ron couldn't help it -- after all, he'd been a Gryffindor himself all those years ago. "Oh, come off it, Kingsley. St. Mungo's never called us about Bones -- the Minister's secretary is the one who sent the owl on that one, after his mother herself contacted Fudge."

"You see!" Hermione cried triumphantly -- Kingsley's glare was pure poison.

After a long pause, however, he sighed and threw his hands up in the air. "All right," he said. "So ... big surprise -- the system's not foolproof. That doesn't mean your serial killer idea isn't anything but damned nonsense."

"But it's possible," she pressed.

"So's a Galleon landing face-up a thousand tosses in a row," Kingsley retorted, calming visibly now that he was regaining the upper hand. "But you don't see me taking bets, do you?"

Her brow furrowed.

"It's far more likely that Potter and Bones were targeted by some fledgling movement -- maybe even a Death Eater offshoot. Oh, don't give me that look, Granger," he said witheringly, passing a hand tiredly over his bald head. "I know it couldn't have been a Death Eater -- I've known that for a good while. It's young Ronald over there that's needed so much convincing."

Ron found himself blushing hotly as Hermione gave him a querying sort of look. "Really?" she asked dryly.

Anger now nearly completely dissipated, Kingsley chuckled lightly. "But," he began, stressing the single syllable. "We've been getting reports over the past -- oh, I don't know -- five years or so. Mostly kid stuff -- pureblood propaganda in Hogwarts common rooms, graffiti on Ministry buildings, that sort of thing. We haven't ever made any formal arrests, but I highly suspect we've been dealing with a series of small-time organizations, put together by mostly youths. Maybe even the children of some of the old Death Eaters. Some of them were stripped of their fortunes, you know, and all of them that we could lay our hands on went to Azkaban. At least a few of their kids have got to resent that. I personally think that one of these groups got off its feet well enough to go for our victims."

Keeping his expression carefully neutral, Ron tried to gauge Hermione's reaction. He'd heard this all before, of course. It was the best thing they'd managed to come up with. He also thought it rather bright of Kingsley to present it to her as a personal theory rather than the official hypothesis -- it was far more likely that Hermione could consider it objectively if it came from Kingsley himself. While Ron knew all about psychological tactics, he was generally too distracted to bother with applying them. He had caused more than one suspect to clam up in the interrogation room by inadvertently blurting out some of the cards that the more skilled interviewers generally preferred to keep close to the chest.

And indeed, Hermione was quiet, studious looking. After a few moments, a question dawned in her eyes. "Why haven't they come forward?"

Kingsley blinked. "Pardon?"

"It's been more than two months," she said thoughtfully. "Wouldn't you think that if Harry's death had been politically motivated, someone would have tried to use it as a rallying point? So ... why hasn't your mystery organization stepped up and taken the credit?"

"Public sentiment," Ron said in a bland voice. "Think of the cry of outrage that would rise up if a group announced that they'd had a hand in eliminating the savior of the wizarding world."

"And that's another thing," she said, turning to him. "If you're both right and it's some little group that I've never heard of jockeying for power, then the order doesn't make sense."

It was Ron's turn to be confused, but Kingsley's to answer. "I don't follow, Granger."

"Harry first and then Alistair Bones?" She shook her head minutely. "Bones seems to be a sort of secondary target in your scenario, possibly even a simple personal vendetta. So why not take care of him first? Harry's death will raise eyebrows no matter what, so why risk the authorities seeing the connection? I seriously doubt, if Bones had died first and Harry second, that you'd be treating the cases as one. No one would have noticed the similarities in the deaths."

"She's right," Ron grudgingly conceded. "The cases would have been given completely different priorities and assigned to different Aurors. We probably never would have found a link between them."

Kingsley scratched at the back of his neck. "I don't like it," he said. "I just don't."

"Please, Auror Shacklebolt," Hermione said. "I'm not asking you to drop everything else -- just to consider this as a possibility."

He scowled. "I'll think about it."

She smiled up at him gratefully. "That's all I can ask, sir. Good morning. And I guess I'll see you later, Ron."

"Bye, Butterfly!" he called as she walked out of his office and down the hall.

He and Kingsley studied each other for a moment. "Well ..." Kingsley eventually said. "What do you think?"

With a sigh, Ron shrugged. "Hermione's always had this uncanny, obnoxious way of mostly being right. When she's wrong, it's usually only because there was some extra factor that she had no way of knowing about. I don't know if I agree with her or not, but I'd keep an eye out all the same."

Kingsley looked utterly defeated. Covering his face with a hand, his voice was muffled as he spoke. "Weasley, go away."

"But, sir," Ron protested good-naturedly. "This is my office."

-- -- -- -- --

"Come on!" Ron called down the hallway. "Bedtime for sleepy little girls!"

A little voice floated to his ears. "Not tired."

"Oh, I bet you are," he replied cheerfully. "And I intend to put you to bed whether you want it or not."

The voice was plaintive. "Five more minutes, Unca Ron?"

He laughed at the attempt. "Not even five more seconds, Alice my dear." Creeping through the hall, he saw her long before she saw him, sitting in the doorway of Nicholas' bedroom and failing miserably at stifling a yawn.

Shrieking as she found herself swept into his embrace, Alice pounded at his shoulder with her little fists. "No fair, Unca Ron! No fair!"

"I hate to tell you this, little girl," he said with a grin, "but nothing in this life is fair. Not even the things you think ought to be. Actually, I'd say that those things are usually the most unfair of all."

Through his speech, he was walking back to Alice's room. Alice was apparently too confused by his uncharacteristically adult discourse on the nature of justice to protest the journey much. Upon reaching her door, however, she did put up a few token struggles, prodding again at his arms with something like hope in her eyes. "Brush teeth, Unca Ron."

He smirked down at her. "We already did that. Remember? Nicholas squirted toothpaste on your shirt."

"Oh ..." She was quiet for a moment, thoughtful as she allowed Ron to place her in her crib. Actually, Alice was almost too big for a crib, but Ron rather suspected that Françoise would prefer to prolong the inevitable and keep her little girl a baby as long as she could. "Story, Unca Ron?"

"I shouldn't," he told her teasingly. "You've got to be exhausted. Your mum said you two spent the whole afternoon at the park, running around."

"Not tired," she pouted. "Story"

Sighing exaggeratedly, Ron pretended to concede the point as if he hadn't intended to tell her a story all along. "Well, all right. But you've got to be a good, quiet little girl and promise not to interrupt me. Okay?"

With a grin and a nod, Alice plopped down and pulled her little blanket obediently up to her chin, blue eyes sparkling up at him. "Okay."

Ron seated himself in a large rocking chair near her crib and put his hands behind his head, lacing his fingers together as he thought. "Well then ... a story for Alice. What sort of story would you like to hear? A funny story, or a scary story, or maybe a good, old-fashioned adventure tale ..."

"Story," she agreed.

He laughed again. "All right, then, I'll pick. Maybe ... a fairy tale of sorts? I remember your papa used to tell Nicholas stories about us when we were kids, but I doubt you'd be interested in the sorts of stories that Nicholas likes. How's this, then? Once upon a time, there was a castle. And in this castle, there lived a prince. He wasn't your typical prince, you know -- he wore glasses and he wasn't particularly dashing, but who is when they're eleven anyway? And he wasn't the only prince living in the castle, but he was the most loved. How'm I doing so far, little girl?"

Yawning, she gave him a sweet smile.

"I'll take that as a good sign. Anyway ... the prince had many friends, since he was so beloved, but his closest companion was his squire. The prince and the squire had many adventures together in the castle, especially given that they were so young. And one day I'll tell you about all of them, but tonight I'd like to tell you about one in particular.

"There was a very dangerous man living at the castle with the prince and his squire -- he used to be a king, you see -- a very cruel one at that. But one day many, many years ago, when the prince was just a baby, he worked a magic spell and took away the evil king's crown." Ron studied Alice closely -- he didn't want to scare her, after all -- and tried to keep his voice as quiet and soothing as possible. "And so the cruel king was very angry -- he went into exile for many years -- and when he found his way back to the castle, he decided that he needed to hurt the prince, to pay him back for what he'd done as a small child.

"So he convinced his servant to do something very bad. He let a troll into the castle. Do you know what a troll is, Alice?"

Alice shook her head and stuck her thumb in her mouth. "No, Unca Ron. What that?" she asked around her thumb.

Gently, Ron reached in between the bars and pulled her hand away. "Don't do that, Alice -- it's a bad habit." She blew a soft raspberry up at him and he grinned. "Anyway. A troll is a creature that lives in the woods, mostly. They're very tall and not very bright, so they're very good at hurting people without meaning to. So when the servant put the troll in the castle, it became very angry and confused, which meant that it did not care who it hurt.

"Even though the prince and his squire were still young boys, they knew they couldn't just sit idly by and watch the troll wreak havoc in the castle. So as soon as their nurse's attention wavered, they slipped away, through the halls, to find the troll. The squire was armed only with a stout staff, and the prince only had his little dagger.

"And sure enough, they found the troll. It did not take long -- trolls are very loud creatures, and it was very put out, indeed. The servant had confined it to a small room, and so it made a lot of noise as it tried to escape. I know for a fact that the little squire was terrified as he approached the little room. But the prince tried to reassure him. 'Don't be afraid, my squire,' the prince said. 'Surely, the just will prevail.'

"So the squire steeled his heart and walked into the little room ahead of his prince, holding his staff very tightly out in front of him, wishing that he had a better weapon."

Alice's eyelids fluttered, signaling that she was very near sleep indeed, but Ron was interested enough in his own tale that he continued anyway.

"The troll had made a great mess of things. There was water spilt all over the room and chunks of rock from where he had taken his gigantic club to the walls in his frustration. The squire actually found himself feeling pity for the poor beast. But the prince had none of it -- he just clenched his dagger all the more tightly and said, 'There -- look! A girl!'

"For undeniably, there was a wet figure, hunched at the troll's feet, obviously as terrified as anyone else. Her long hair, ragged and unkempt, told her to be a girl. 'Please!' she begged the troll. 'Please, don't hurt me!'

"'We'll help you,' the prince cried, brandishing his knife. The squire held his pole up in the air and gave a loud shout, charging at the troll with all his might. And then --"

But Ron's tale was interrupted as another voice floated into the room. "She's dead asleep, Ron," Françoise whispered.

"I like the sound of my own voice," he replied with a smile. "But I'd hate to talk her awake again." As he stood, he brushed a gentle hand over Alice's forehead, smoothing back her blonde curls. "Sleep well little Looking-Glass girl."

Françoise closed the door carefully as he exited. "I overheard parts of your bedtime story," she said.

He tried not to blush. "I was speaking off the cuff ..."

"I wonder, Ron," she said, giving him a calculating sort of look, "why on Earth did you cast yourself as a squire?"

"It seemed to fit," he said uncomfortably.

"It would have worked just as well to tell a story about two princes, you know," she replied quietly.

Shrugging, he walked down the hallway, toward the stairs. "Stories work better when there's only one hero."

He felt Françoise's eyes on the back of his head as he descended the staircase but did not turn around, not wanting to see the pity he knew he would read in her gaze.

-- -- -- -- --

"You should have seen them," Ron said with a small chuckle, "glowering at each other. I don't know many people that have the guts to shout at Kingsley Shacklebolt."

She returned his laugh. "You do."

"Not when there's any danger of him yelling back," he replied ruefully.

The moment had passed and they were now seated comfortably in the den -- Françoise in one of her wing chairs with a glass of something primly on her knee, and Ron splayed comfortably on the sofa, one foot hanging over the opposite arm and the other propped lazily on the coffee table. She'd frowned at his socked foot sitting on her neatly polished table but said nothing in the end, probably correctly deciding that it would only egg him on if she did.

"So what was the outcome, then?" she asked, taking a sip of her drink.

He shrugged. "Inconclusive, really. I'd say that Kingsley's beginning to come 'round to Hermione's way of thinking, but wild hippogriffs couldn't drag it out of him." He folded his hands under his head as he spoke. "I don't know. I hope to erlin that Hermione is very wrong. It's just that she's not wrong often."

"That was a long time ago, Ron," Françoise told him in a calm voice. "I imagine Hermione has changed a lot."

"Not as much as you'd think," he replied. "At least, I don't see it. I look at her and I see the same fresh-faced girl from school. All curiosity and innocence. She makes me wish for things, you see."

Françoise's face split into a wide grin. "Why, Ronald Weasley, I do believe that was the closest thing to a profession of love I've ever heard come out of your mouth."

Grimacing, he stared up at the ceiling, the featureless white plaster a perfect mirror for his thoughts. "Nah," he said dismissively. "Once, when we were kids, I fancied myself in love with Hermione, but only for a moment, when I thought I had to either be in love with her or lose her entirely. I don't think I've ever really been in love with anyone."

There was a rustle as she apparently shifted in her seat. "Oh, Ron," she sighed. "That might be the saddest thing I've ever heard."

"You poor, sheltered little thing," Ron said playfully. "What? When would I have fallen passionately in love, Françoise?"

"Well, you should, then," she said decisively, ice rattling in her glass. "At your earliest opportunity."

He laughed. "I'll take your opinion into consideration."

And they fell silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Ron was beginning to debate whether or not he should go on ahead up to his room for the night when the fire flared up, signaling an incoming Floo.

"What the ...?" Françoise trailed off. "It's past midnight. Who would be calling at this hour?"

"I don't know," he began. "It could be ... oh ..." he sighed as a head appeared in the fireplace. "Good evening, Kingsley. Couldn't sleep, could you?"

"Very funny, Ron," Kingsley's head said expressionlessly. "I'm laughing on the inside, I assure you."

Françoise looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Erm ... should I ...?"

"Don't bother," Kingsley sighed. "I'm just calling to tell Weasley there to get his skinny ass over here pronto."

"There are small children running around here somewhere who don't need to be subjected to such vulgarity, Shacklebolt," Ron said testily.

Reaching over to slap his arm lightly, Françoise smiled up at him. "Don't be such a hypocrite, Ron."

"I can tell when I'm no wanted," he groused, struggling to rise from the sofa and only managing to bang his knee against the coffee table twice as he stood. "All right, Shacklebolt. Get your head out of Françoise's fireplace and I'll come through."

As soon as Kingsley's head disappeared, Ron gathered up a handful of Floo powder and turned to Françoise with an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, Françoise, but you've got to --"

"I know," she said briskly. "Secret Auror codes and whatnot. I'll just go check on the kids one last time before I turn in, then, shall I?"

His smile was sad. "Good night, Françoise."

"'Night, Ron."

-- -- -- -- --

The first person Ron ran into as he stepped out of his office, still slightly dizzy from the Floo, came as a complete surprise. "Dad?" he said incredulously. "What are you doing all the way over here?"

Arthur Weasley gave his son a somber smile. "Kingsley needed to see me. Actually, I was just on my way out, but I'm glad I ran into you. It's been a good while since I've seen you, you know."

"I've been meaning to drop by," he said, feeling only slightly guilty, "but with everything ..."

"I know, son," Arthur said with a small shrug. "But your mother and I would like to see you every now and again. Not too often, mind. But I swear, I've spent more time around Nicholas and Alice Potter lately than you."

"I'll come by soon, Dad," Ron told him. "I promise."

Smiling again, Arthur continued down the hall. "I might just hold you to that."

"Weasley!" came an errant shout from the opposite direction as Ron watched his father leave the Aurory.

Sighing, he followed the sound into Kingsley's office. "And how are you this fine evening, Shacklebolt?"

With only a slight roll of the eyes, Kingsley motioned for him to sit. "Shut up, Weasley."

Ron sat down, then, obediently holding his tongue and waiting for his boss to speak.

It did not take long. "There's been another one," he said without preamble. "Marcus Desmond, aged twenty-four. Happily married father -- single daughter, two years old. St. Mungo's sent us an owl not twelve hours ago."

Trying to connect the name to someone important in his mind, Ron failed miserably. "The name doesn't ring any bells."

"That's because it shouldn't," Kingsley replied, impatience only a slight edge in his voice. "Desmond worked at Gringotts, strictly entry-level stuff. He doesn't appear to be related to anyone in any particular position of authority."

"Then why --" he began, confused.

Kingsley's face shuttered. "I thought about what Hermione Granger said this morning. And while most of it's utter shit, she did have a point about St. Mungo's. So I sent them an owl, asking them to notify us concerning any untoward cases, with a specific notation about the M.O. we're looking for. Imagine my surprise to get a case file by return owl ..." he said dryly.

"So what do we do --?"

Again, he interrupted him. "I called Arthur in to ask him a favor. He knows a few people in the Muggle government and I was hoping he could arrange for an autopsy to be performed."

"An autopsy?" he asked with raised eyebrows.

"Damn it, Weasley," Kingsley growled. "You and I both know that these deaths are not through any traceable magical means, so we need some other way of gathering evidence. And unless you'd like to train a team of Aurors in the finer points of Muggle crime scene analysis, I suggest we simply find a few trustworthy Muggles and leave it to them. Hopefully, an autopsy will be sufficient. I doubt the crime scene is still uncontaminated by this point."

Ron laughed bitterly.

"What?" he asked icily.

"A while back, Hermione asked me if Aurors used any Muggle methods in their investigations," Ron admitted. "And I told her that it wasn't necessary for us. I'm going to hate telling her that she was right after all."

Kingsley studied him for a moment. "Hey ... Weasley?"

"Yeah?" he grunted.

"You know ..." he began slowly. "There's no way I can bring Granger in in any sort of official capacity, and I still don't think she's entirely right about the killer, but I don't see any harm in giving her access to the files. Limited, of course. You can just let slip what you see fit. But it might be just as easy to let her pursue her ridiculous serial killer theory without us having to waste our resources on it."

With a snort, Ron gave Kingsley a dubious look. "So you want me to bring Hermione up to speed, then?"

"It couldn't hurt," he said painfully. "And especially if what you told me is true and she's passing information on to Severus Snape. Hell, if I thought there was any way the man would talk to me, I'd try to bring him in officially."

Shaking his head, he stood to leave. "You do realize that there'll be no living with her after this?"

"That, Weasley," Kingsley said in a decidedly more cheerful tone, "is, thankfully, none of my concern."

-- -- -- -- --