Dark Gods in the Blood

Chapter Twenty-Eight

I had no particular desire to enlighten them, but I had some

difficulty in restraining myself from laughing in their faces,

so full of stupid importance. I dare say I was not very well

at that time.

-- Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness

Hermione couldn't tell whether Kingsley was angry or relieved. Possibly, it was some esoteric mixture of the two.

"So what you're telling me is that you two ran across this ... Stan Walker completely independently of each other?" he was asking, confusion written across his face.

"Yes," she said, exchanging a look with Severus. He had a patch of pink, new skin running down his throat -- her fingers itched to touch it, to reassure herself yet again that he was unharmed.

Severus had lost consciousness there in Walker's flat. Afraid he was dying, she'd searched the room for her wand, turning Walker's body into a Portkey and sending them all to St. Mungo's. Her broken wrist had been repaired before she could blink and the scratches on her face had nearly completely faded -- a single red mark ran the length of her left cheekbone, but the mediwitch who'd taken care of the healing assured her it would fade within the month. Severus had taken a bit longer to heal -- a concussion combined with severe blood loss meant that he'd spent the day after their little adventure floating in and out of consciousness, groggy and irritable.

Hermione had not been able to bring herself to leave his bedside. She assumed St. Mungo's had informed Perkins of the whereabouts of their runaway, and possibly Albus Dumbledore as well, who had sent an owl to St. Mungo's just that morning, and so when Severus woke up, she'd been the only person in his room. Once he had improved sufficiently, they took a Portkey to the Aurory and went straight to Kingsley Shacklebolt's office for debriefing.

Walker, of course, was taking up a shelf in St. Mungo's morgue. Hermione wondered briefly who would come to claim the body but soon found herself not caring.

"And you," Kingsley said, turning to look at Severus fully. "Why aren't you at Perkins? Did they release you?"

"Not exactly," he replied, plucking anxiously at one of the sleeves of the robe St. Mungo's had given him upon his release. "But I received an owl from Albus today. He said he's prepared to make the necessary arrangements."

Sighing, Kingsley collapsed into his desk chair so that he could glare at them both equally. "You two have put me in one hell of a tight spot. I've got at least four dead wizards, a dead killer, an escaped lunatic, and a civilian who put a knife in the killer's heart. The press is at my throat."

Severus winced involuntarily and Hermione put a hand absently on his arm.

"Don't get me wrong," he continued in a mild voice. "I'm glad you took Walker out, as far as that goes. But I don't even know why he did what we think he did. We need to go over everything again, I think. Starting with you, Professor. Er, Snape, that is."

"Miss Granger came to tell me that she was going to visit the Bridell house about seventy-two hours ago," Severus said, repeating his narrative for what was either the third or fourth time that day. "I urged her not to go."

"Why?" Kingsley asked abruptly.

With a shrug, Severus shifted in his chair, clearly uncomfortable. "In the first place, I thought it was unnecessary. But mostly, I had a bad feeling about it. I thought something would go wrong if she went."

"A bad feeling?" he echoed, tone derisive.

Severus held his gaze unflinchingly. "That evening, I decided to leave Perkins. My thought was to try and find Miss Granger, but I'm perfectly willing to admit that I hadn't thought my plan through completely."

Hermione suppressed a smile while Kingsley snorted outright. Severus shook his head self-deprecatingly and continued. "I spent the night walking, and the next day, after I found appropriate attire, I went into York, trying to find some information on Miss Granger's whereabouts. Specifically, I walked into a pub and asked for directions to the Bridell house."

"Which is actually in Sheffield, and not York."

He glared at Kingsley, but there was little behind it. "I didn't know that at the time. When I went back to the lavatory to wash up, Walker followed me and hit me in the head. I came to tied up in his bedroom. After determining that I wasn't a Muggle, Walker started to ... erm ..."

"You can skip over that," he said kindly.

Severus coughed. "We were interrupted by a knock at the door. Fortunately, I could catch enough of the conversation to hear that it was Miss Granger in the flat. So when Walker ducked back into the room to grab his knife, I was able to alert her to the danger.

"A scuffle ensued. I saw that at one point, Walker had her wand in his hand. When he tried to Stupefy her, though, it didn't work -- I can only assume that Miss Granger's wand was damaged somehow. She managed to subdue him with a knife, then. I passed out soon after and woke up in St. Mungo's."

"And that's all?" Kingsley asked. "All you remember, at least?"

Nodding, Severus studied his fingernails intently.

"What about you, then, Granger?" He turned to Hermione. "A few days ago, you asked me about the victims having carpentry work done. When I contacted both Mrs. Desmond and Mrs. Bones, they admitted to having some woodwork done in the past couple of years, but neither could remember the name of the carpenter."

"I imagine they could probably identify his photograph," she said grimly. "But no ... I spoke with Françoise Potter and she was able to give me Walker's name. Incidentally, so was Alisander Weaver's widow. I Flooed her on a hunch and she confirmed my suspicions. I went back to the Bridells' neighborhood and knocked on a few doors. Their next-door neighbor gave me Walker's Yorkshire address.

"You're telling me I have five dead wizards on my hands, then?" Kingsley asked despondently.

"Possibly more," she replied. "I couldn't reach Mrs. Cooke, but I've always suspected that her husband was one of Walker's victims."

"Anyway ..." he said, prompting her to continue.

Shrugging, she allowed her eyes to wander the room, coming to rest on a random blank spot on Kingsley's desk blotter. "I went over to Walker's flat. I know, Kingsley," she said to his open mouth. "I should have notified the Aurory, but I wasn't planning on going after him right then. I just thought I should make sure before I gave you his name. But I must have said something to tip him off ..." she trailed off. "I heard Snape call my name from another room," she continued more firmly. "So when he came back into the room, I tried to hex him.

"He ducked my Stunner. Ducked it and came right toward me. His knife caught my cheek and I'm pretty sure I dropped my wand. But I got his knife away from him and kicked it across the room. It landed in the doorway of the room Snape was in. When I went after it, I guess he went after my wand.

"And for the record, Kingsley, my wand isn't broken. It simply didn't work when Walker tried to Stun me. So he threw it away and decided to take a more direct approach. That's when he broke my wrist, and I dropped the knife." She blushed a bit. "I know some self-defense -- I've been trained a bit over the past few years -- that's how I got it away from him the first time, but he was just too big. Once he started hitting me, I couldn't get away.

"Fortunately, though, the lamp fell over and in all that, I managed to slip out of his grip and get away. As I did, I found the knife again. Good thing I was crawling, really, else I would have stepped on it instead of just cutting my hand with it and we probably wouldn't be here talking to you. Either of us.

"I watched Walker. There was just enough light for me to make him out. So when he turned his back, I jumped on him. He was too surprised to try to disarm me again, and I just lashed out -- it was instinct, mostly." She fell quiet, remembering the sickening give as the knife slid in between Stan Walker's ribs, the hot rush of his blood on her hands, the look of betrayal in his eyes as he realized what she'd done.

She'd killed a man.

A serial killer, possibly, but a man, to be sure.

Gritting her teeth, she continued, wanting nothing more than to finish. "I untied Snape as best as I could and got him to St. Mungo's -- he was in a bad way. And that's when I Flooed you."

Kingsley looked distinctly unhappy. "The Ministry's going to be out for my blood. I put a civilian into the hands of a monster. Two of them, actually."

"Well ..." she said, swallowing and trying to look cheerful. "We're both alive."

"Believe it or not, Granger, that's rather beside the point."

Severus was impassive. "Albus will vouch for you, I'm sure, Shacklebolt. I wouldn't worry overmuch."

"I'm not worried, Snape," he retorted with a small frown. "But I do feel rather guilty. Allow me to wallow for just a minute."

Whatever he was going to say next was interrupted by a sharp rap on the door.

"Enter," Kingsley called.

A neat young man with distinctly Asian features poked his head into the room. "Just finished up the analysis on Walker, sir. We're still working on his flat, though," he said.

"Excellent," he replied. "What've you got?"

The man grinned broadly. "Believe it or not, sir, Walker was a pureblood. Full name, Constantius Octavian Walker -- his father was old Augustus Walker, the alchemist, and his mother was Flavia Oublion. You remember the Oublion family, right? Not so many of them as there used to be, but still a good old name. Stan Walker's birth was recorded at St. Mungo's on April 6, 1975."

"The wand didn't work ..." Hermione mused thoughtfully.

"Walker was a Squib," Severus said, completing her thought. "I wonder what made him think he could cast a spell as complicated as a Stunner."

"For that matter," she said, "how did he know about the spell, if he didn't go to Hogwarts?"

Kingsley was unimpressed. "What else, Lee? You still look insufferable."

The young Auror continued to smile. "His mum -- Flavia. She's still alive."

-- -- -- -- --

"Yes?" a cracked old voice asked through a small gap in the door. "What do you want?"

"Are you Flavia Walker?" Kingsley asked politely, keeping a respectful distance.

Hermione had insisted that she and Severus accompany Kingsley to the interview with Walker's mother. After all, they'd been the ones to ...

Last see her son alive.

The door opened another inch. "I am," the voice quavered. "What do you want?" she repeated. Hermione thought she could see a suspicious eye peering outward.

"We'd like to ask you a few questions, Mrs. Walker," Kingsley replied, still quiet and respectful. "About your son."

The eye clouded. "I have no son."

Hermione bit her lip.

"Constantius Walker," he said, glancing down at the file in his hands. "You're registered as his mother in St. Mungo's files. We need to speak to you about him."

"I have no son," she said again. "Good day to you."

Reaching out a large hand, Kingsley kept Flavia Walker from closing the door completely. "Madam, I'm afraid I must insist. You see, my name is Kingsley Shacklebolt, Head of the Aurory. Your son Constantius is a suspect in several murder cases we've been working on and I need to speak with you. I can return later with an official order if you'd like."

She thought she heard the old woman behind the door sigh before it swung open. "All right," Flavia Walker said grudgingly. "Won't you come in?" she asked flatly.

The Walker mansion was completely devoid of warmth, either emotional or physical. Marble arches and scowling portraits loomed menacingly overhead and Hermione shivered, pulling her cloak more tightly about her shoulders. It came much closer to resembling a mausoleum in her mind than a home.

And Mrs. Walker went admirably well with her house. A tiny, shriveled old woman with a decided scowl seemingly permanently etched on her brow, her elegant, probably once-tailored, clothing hung off her frame and her hands curled arthritically under the weight of all of her jewelry.

They followed the imperious woman through several hallways, each as impersonal and imposing as the last. Finally, they came to a formal parlor, complete with antique sofas and delicate end tables. Hermione was unwilling to sit down until she saw Kingsley perch hesitantly in a wing chair, obviously upholstered in silk. Severus practically squashed himself into her side on the sofa, their shoulders and elbows bumping together awkwardly. It was oddly comforting, actually.

"I did give birth to a boy some years ago," Mrs. Walker announced, sitting primly on the chair nearest the fireplace, full of gently glowing embers. Hermione longed to reach out with a poker and stoke the fire -- maybe it would heat up the chilly room -- but decided that her efforts would be definitely unwelcome.

"In 1975," Kingsley said, once again glancing downward at the paperwork in his hands.

"It would have been about then, yes," she confirmed, a faraway look in her eye. "But I do not think about it much. The boy was an utter disappointment."

"Disappointment?" he echoed in an effort to draw her out.

She huffed. "We tried everything, my husband and I. But the boy simply had no natural ability. We brought in the best tutors, bought him the finest books, nothing."

"So your son was a Squib?"

Mrs. Walker stiffened immediately. "He was born of two of the finest pureblooded families. It was unthinkable. And my husband and I, we kept trying. For years. He couldn't even throw off the simplest of hexes."

Severus' eyes darkened as she spoke. "Hexes?" he asked her carefully.

Apparently startled at hearing his voice, she turned to study him. "Who are you?" she asked bluntly.

"One of my associates," Kingsley said, stepping back into the conversation.

She unbent slightly. "Well, of course, hexes. We had to try and draw the boy's magic out. Every day, we coaxed him. Nothing too dangerous, mind. Augustus never pushed him down more than two flights of stairs in one day. And we always fixed the broken bones right away."

Something in Hermione's stomach clenched at the innocent, matter-of-fact note in this woman's voice. She and her husband had tortured their poor son to bring out his nonexistent magic.

By the looks on Kingsley and Severus' faces, they'd reached the same conclusion.

But Mrs. Walker continued, unfazed by the expressions of disgust directed at her. "When he didn't receive a Hogwarts letter, we assumed the worst and took the necessary steps."

"The necessary steps?" Kingsley prompted, not even bothering to hide his revulsion.

Her eyes were wide and guileless. "Well, he had to live in the Muggle world, didn't he? So we sent him to one of those ... what are they? One of those Muggle orphanages. Oh, he cried a bit, but it was all for the best, really. Augustus and I tried to have more children, but it just wasn't possible."

Thank God, she thought, exchanging a glance with Severus and seeing that his thoughts clearly mirrored her own.

"Mrs. Walker ..." Kingsley began, apparently unable to determine exactly how to continue. "Mrs. Walker ... your son is responsible for the deaths of at least five upstanding young wizards over the past three months, nearly all of them prominent, respectable citizens. Do you understand me, Mrs. Walker? Your son was a murderer. In fact, he tried to kill both of my associates here before he himself was killed."

She looked mildly perturbed. "The boy is dead?" she asked calmly.

Kingsley jerked his head in a nod.

"I always knew no good would come of him," Mrs. Walker finally said. "All of our best efforts wasted on a useless Squib."

-- -- -- -- --

"You mean you didn't find any, erm, suspicious pieces of, well, um ...?" Hermione asked the young Auror in charge of processing Walker's flat -- whose name she'd learned was Byungki -- with a tinge of desperation in her voice. "The coroner said --"

"I know," Byungki Lee replied with a small gesture of distaste. "I read them, too. But no. The flat came up mostly clean. We found his tools, of course. A set of hedge clippers that were, uh, obviously used in, well, you know. It was clean enough that it took one of those Muggle fellows Mr. Weasley had sent over to find the residue. And we're pretty sure that the dried parsley on the shelf over there isn't parsley, if I read the report correctly. Got to do some more tests, though, just to be sure. And back in the bedroom closet, he had a collection of knives that would have impressed even batty old Rodolphus Lestrange, from what I've heard, and this." He held out a large book, bound in black leather.

She took it out of his hands and held it gingerly. "What is it?"

"His journal, we think," he said. "It's pretty garbled. Lots of rubbish about 'gaining power' and the 'true path,' whatever that means. Auror Shacklebolt wants to go over it in detail, and we're going to get a copy over to the Muggle force for study as well. It's going to take some time before we know entirely what Walker was about."

"Isn't it obvious?" Severus asked snidely, ducking into the flat's small kitchen and glaring at a suddenly meek Lee. "Walker must have been obsessed with becoming a wizard. And he thought he'd stumbled across a way to do it."

"By killing real wizards?" Lee asked, clearly skeptical.

Hermione could tell Severus was restraining himself with some effort. "In most ancient cultures, hunters believed that they absorbed the spiritual strength of the animal they killed. I believe that for many, that idea carried over to battle as well. Is it farfetched, then, Auror Lee, for Walker to have believed that he gained the strength of the wizards he killed?"

Muttering something unintelligible, Lee skulked out of the room.

With a roll of his eyes, Severus shook his head.

"What ... what do you think he did with the pieces of heart that he took?" she asked quietly, sliding her hand over the journal cover. Hermione opened it impulsively. Angry, black words glared up at her, stark on the white landscape of the page. When Stan Walker had invited her into his flat, his smile had been so warm, so gentle. She'd almost missed his dead, disconcerting eyes, boring knowingly into hers even as his grin charmed her.

I alone know the Way, his journal proclaimed. I have found it and I will use it and the Power will be mine.

The smile of a child, the eyes of a corpse, and the soul of a madman.

Their strength will be my strength. I can feel myself grow more powerful day by day.

Severus looked down his nose at her, a spark of arrogance in his eyes, disrupting her thoughts. "It was also customary for the hunter to consume the heart of the animal," he said in his best, most condescending 'lecture voice.' "The spirit was believed to be contained in the heart, so it was a logical choice, all things considered."

She wrinkled her nose and looked up at him, away from the increasingly disturbing, captivating journal, mind full of his meaning. "You mean ...?"

"Aren't you the one who told me about a particular serial killer that kept his victims' toes in his icebox?" he asked dryly, giving the refrigerator a pointed look.

"But this is different," she protested. "You're suggesting that Walker was a cannibal."

"Not per se," he said, seemingly calm. "Just that he thought it necessary to consume a piece of his victim's heart. Presumably, if he were a cannibal, he would have taken more than he actually did."

Glaring halfheartedly at him, Hermione walked out of the kitchen and through the sitting room. On the way, she laid the journal down on the kitchen table, cover firmly shut. Let Kingsley Shacklebolt and his experts pour over it, she thought, wanting no more part of Constantius Walker.

She hesitated at the entrance to the bedroom, however, remembering what had happened there just the day before with a sickening lurch. Perhaps Walker's ghost was unavoidable, after all.

"You did the right thing," came a voice from over her right shoulder. Apparently, Severus had followed her. "You did the only possible thing, really."

She stared at a large, dark stain on the floor, vivid in the bright lights that the Aurors had set up in order to properly gather evidence. The muscles in his chest had just ... given away under her blade. And that awful sucking sound as he took his last breath. Her eyes closed. "Severus, how many people have...?"

Infuriatingly, he just paused, waiting for her to finish. She could feel his eyes on her cheekbone, on her temporary scar.

With a deep breath, Hermione spoke as quickly as she could, gaze finally lifting to meet his own. "How many people have you had to kill?"

"A few," he said quietly, calm look turning to a penetrating stare.

"With a Muggle weapon?" she pressed.

Was that compassion in his eyes? As she'd never seen such an emotion coming from Severus before, she actually had no idea. "No," he admitted.

Hermione's eyes flicked back to the dark spot. "When I close my eyes, I see his face."

"Not forever," Severus promised in an uncharacteristically gentle voice.

Again, she looked up into his eyes, dragging her focus away from the spot where she'd killed a man in cold blood. They stared at each other for a long moment -- comfort stretching into awkwardness stretching into an inexplicable tension.

It was Severus who looked away first this time, turning his head to glance out the window. Something in his expression shifted. "It's raining," he said quietly.

"It is," she agreed.

Swiftly, he walked out of the room, leaving Hermione to wonder. But she soon caught sight of him through the window, walking out of the building, through the grass.

Severus came to a stop in the middle of the small clearing, standing in what was threatening to become a small downpour. In a gesture that Hermione didn't even begin to understand, Severus spread his arms wide, throwing his head up in the air, mouth falling open to catch the raindrops.

Hermione stood at the window for many minutes, transfixed by the sight of Severus Snape, motionless in the rain, slicking his hair to his forehead, drinking raindrops like a child.

After an indeterminate length of time, she left Constantius Walker's flat behind, left his spirit behind, coming to stand beside Severus, feeling the cold rain trickle down her scalp, down her back, even into her shoes, throwing her head back in kind to drink her fill, feeling comforted by the act, although she did not know why.

-- -- -- -- --