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Dark Gods In The Blood	By : Hayseed Category: Harry Potter > General > General Views: 3951 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 22
- 23
- 24
A/N: None for this
chapter. Thanks for reading!

Summary: A wandering
student comes home, a broken man pays his penance, and a gruesome murder is
both more and less than it seems. Some
paths to self-discovery have more twists and turns than others.

Rating: R, for
intermittent dark themes, violence, and language

Disclaimer: Nothing
you read here (save the plot and bits of the text itself) belongs to me. Harry Potter and his cronies are the
property of JK Rowling and Warner Bros. (and someone else, probably, but not
me). All chapter headings are properly
credited to their sources.

Dark Gods in the Blood

by: Hayseed (hayseed_42@hotmail.com)

Chapter Twenty-Two

Believe
me or not, his intelligence warfecrfectly 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.�

pan>

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.an>

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.�

�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 couay oay 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 becauherehere 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.�

>

--
-- -- -- -:p>

�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 jce tce 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 Fran�oise 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.
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Dark Gods In The Blood