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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.

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chapter. Thanks for reading.
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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 Seven

pan>pan>

�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 nuggluggle toy Harry brought home. Something called a �comp-tor� for Harry�s
office, a machine that washed clothes for Fran�oise 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. 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.

�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 coned ied 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 leyeseyes 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 of
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.
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- 9
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Dark Gods In The Blood