The Language of Dust
Summary: The war is over but evidence remains that could alert the muggle world if found. Severus Snape is sent by Dumbledore to secure the very delicate evidence, both of them unaware that an amateur archaeologist has just stumbled upon it unwittingly. Can the evidence be silenced or is it too late?
Disclaimer: My name is Lily Webb. Go figure.
A/N: I've been bitten by a plot-bunny, or hippogriff, as it were. I normally stick to the fascinating, but oh-so-tedious world of Ardaverse (Tolkien), but here's a foray into Harry Potter, for anyone who cares. The first chapter is short, so as not to overwhelm the introductory storyline.
Thanks to my lovely gals, Daisy Princess and Galorin, who've been great supporters and encouragers of my neurotic writings for some time now. Check out their stories in my favorites section!
P.S. I love constructive criticism. Really I do. twitch twitch
Chapter One- No Rest for the Weary
The room was dank and repressive. The faint light coming through the windows only served to illuminate the timeless deposits of dust and grime that had accumulated over the ages in this cell-like room. In the corner, hidden behind a tall shelf laden with various boxes and bins, was a shadowed figure, hunched over a table. The light from the filthy window did not molest her solitary nook. Rather, a lone bulb hung pensively from the ceiling, suspended by a long wire that was simply begging to be severed and relieved of its piteous duty. The bulb spat out a harsh light upon the stagnant figure below it. The sand colored head hung low on tense shoulders, hovering over the table like a parishioner paying penance at an alter. And then suddenly, the specter stirred.
Panic illuminated the sage colored eyes as they first perceived the warning signs of the terrible and destructive force that was about to ruin hours of painstaking work. The spasm started in her nose and moved quickly down her throat and into the very pit of her belly. Her jaw locked and her muscles instinctively tightened as she fought the terrifying and yet all-to-familiar invasion of her body. The white rubber gloves on her quivering hands were covered in dirt, laden with ancient microbes and spores, invisible forms of teeming life, spreading from the latex to her skin, her nose, her eyes, her throat.
Damnit.
Sam barely had time to curse her sensitivity to the stale air in the dark and musty room before half of the soil sample that she was currently dividing was blown by a great gust of air and strewn across her laboratory table.
"Ahhh-hu-hu-hu-ah-choo!"
Sam was still doubled over when she heard snickering laughter coming from directly behind her, the dry and wheezing noise immediately betraying its source, prompting Sam to both glare and grin at the same time.
"Duncan," Sam took a deep breath, regaining her homeostasis as best she could before continuing in her most grown-up voice, "This is not funny! I've been working on these samples all day, and now…well, look!"
Duncan nodded his head and held his hands up in submission. "I apologize dearie. S'just that this happens 'bout every week, and yeh still haven't taken my advice. Yeh can do things the hard way, or yeh can just drop yer pride and take the demmed pills."
"And become and verified zombie? Rather not, thanks Duncan." Sam's words was clipped and dry.
The white-haired man just nodded his head as if he had heard exactly what he had expected, and indeed he had. He and Sam and been having this…conversation, as it were, ever since she had arrived from New Mexico, eager to begin her internship at the state-run museum in Glasgow, Scotland.
Sam rolled her eyes as she received his well-aimed 'yer-a-helpless-lass-who-should-have-stayed-in-the-dessert' look. "If it weren't so damned damp in here, the mold growing on these walls wouldn't be thriving like termites in a John Wayne movie!"
Duncan cocked an eyebrow. "I won't even ask, lass." He meandered past her and began brushing the scattered soil samples into a collective pile. Sam could smell the cigar smoke he seemed to bath in each morning, and to her utter disconcertment, she found herself taking an enormous lungful of the tainted air and then grinning foolishly.
Duncan chuckled with his back turned to her, "Yeh feeling homesick, dearie? Miss yer old man?"
"A bit, I guess. My Dad and I are close, but we've never been buddies." Sam shrugged. "Besides, he doesn't smoke."
"Well, yeh can sniff me anytime yeh like, just don't let me be the reason for another disaster like this." Duncan waved his hand at the mess of soil littering her workspace. "I'll not be on the receiving end of yer bloody Irish temper."
"My ancestors are Welch, Duncan, not Irish."
"Ah, well, you could've fooled me with those green eyes and pretty freckles. Red hair doesn't help your cause either."
"It's not red! It only looks red when the sun hits it, not that there is any sun in this blasted bog you call Scotland." Sam moved beside the aging Scotsman and began bagging the dirt that he had swept into a pile.
"Where's this lot from anyway? I'll get another sample from the storeroom and prep it for yeh." Sam looked down and cracked her knuckles nervously, ignoring Duncan's imploring gaze. Duncan sighed dramatically. "Ai, lass, don't tell me yer still messin' about with that reject sample?"
Sam blushed but managed to look indignant. "Duncan, don't you dare try to tell me that it isn't at least a bit odd! And I still can't believe that you would just close the pits back up and move on! Seems like obstruction of justice, if you ask me!"
"Justice?" Duncan bellowed, though his eyes belied none of the rage that his voice implied. "And is it justice when the state comes swarmin' in and disturbing our hard work just fer a couple'a forgotten family plots? There's plenty of historical sites fer the government goonies to be diggin' up without disturbin' mine!"
"But I don't think these are historical graves, Duncan! The skeletons might seem old enough, but the soil and the organisms tell a different tale entirely. These graves aren't more than a decade old! They aren't marked on any of the counties cemetery maps either, and so far I haven't been able to find any records of any family settlements or land rites anywhere near here!"
Duncan nodded but his pursed lips told Sam that she hadn't moved him a bit with her passionate rant. "Tis an odd thing, I'll agree, but we're looking for ancient migrant subsistence patterns out there, not bodies of any sort, and if the government comes disturbin' us, we'll be delayed for years until they're either finished, or until we can get the paperwork together for another site. I'll not postpone this any longer than I've already had too."
Sam sighed in resignation. "I'm not proposing that we tell the authorities-- I don't want our dig shut down any more than you do, but if I promise to do it on my own time, and with the proper methods and discretion, can I continue my research on my own?"
Duncan narrowed his eyes and cleared his throat. "I'll not say yes or no, dearie. Yeh do what yeh want, but t'won't be my arse on the line if yer caught. I've been an archaeologist far too long to be changin' my profession now, yeh hear?"
Sam nodded and winked conspiratorially, which only earned her a grunt and jerk of the head from Duncan, indicating that he wanted her to hightail it out of the lab and go home for the night, before he presumably changed his mind.
X-X-X
Sam caught the trolley from the museum and arrived back at her meager flat just as the sun was slipping past the horizon, leaving the thick air chill and heavy. Sam was only assigned lab hours until mid-afternoon, but she found herself in the museum collections area more and more as of late, possibly as a remedy for her boredom and loneliness.
Not that she'd rather be anywhere but where she was at the moment, and as an anthropology student in New Mexico she was no better off. She was as reclusive in the dessert as she was in this strange land, only here, she had more of an excuse, being acquainted with practically nobody outside of the museum.
In her three months in Scotland, her recreational conversations had been limited to the eccentric saleswoman in the consignment shop downstairs from her flat, and the grocer who kept her supplied with a constant stash of Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Cream, a commodity that the Scottish apparently didn't fancy so well.
Sam didn't mind the isolation; she hadn't chosen to study dead people on a whim, it suited her reserved personality perfectly. Facts and evidence, that's all she was concerned with, really. If she wanted drama she's go to the movies. Otherwise she preferred her life cut and dry.
X-X-X
"Dumbledore, I respect your wisdom and experience, but I really must protest!" Snape's usually calm and emotionless voice was, at the moment, tinged with a fair amount of desperation. "The war is over! This sort of meddling is extravagant and repulsive, and I won't be a part of it!"
Dumbledore's face reflected a sincere and earnest interest in what was being said, but as Snape looked into the old man's eyes, he knew his battle was lost. As his head dropped into his hands, his long fingers massaging his scalp at the hairline, all of the dark haired man's dignity seemed forsaken. "Dumbledore, I beg you…" he said in a faint voice, so reticent that it could hardly be heard above the ticking of the clock in the Headmaster's office.
"My boy, why so lost?" Dumbledore always seemed to be reciting poetry, the simplest of phrases issuing out of his mouth with melody and purpose. "It's a very small task that I ask of you, yet a small task that I would leave to no other."
"They were my colleagues, Dumbledore." At the raising of the old man's eyebrows, Snape clarified, "Until you spirited me away and gave me shelter, they were my peers. I've spent years trying to forget them; trying to forget my betrayal of them, my hatred of them. Now you want me to dig them up?"
Dumbledore nodded in understanding. "They are dead. Their malice and affiliations can haunt you no longer. Unfortunately however, were they to be discovered by any non-magical folk, questions would surely be raised. Now, my sources tell me that there are even now expeditions being undertaken in the area that we suspect as the grave site. We have no time to waste, and you are the only one I would trust with such a delicate and important matter. The old fools at the ministry would just as soon incinerate them than move them."
"And why not?" Snape bellowed, wincing momentarily at the pitch of his own voice. "Why not destroy any remnants of their vile existence?"
Dumbledore put a hand on Snape's knee and leaned forward. "Because they were victims of Voldemort's lies and malice as much as you were, as I was, as any person who felt of his influence was."
Snape snorted but remained silent for a moment, continuing only when his voice had regained its monotonous quality. "So we're to hold a ceremony for them, then? Honor their lives and service to the community?"
"No, Severus, nothing so pragmatic. I wish to study their remains to see what, if any influence the Dark Mark may have had on them physically. After our research is finished, we will bury them in simple graves, marked so that their family members, if they have any surviving, may visit them and mourn their loss. Even Death Eaters have mourners."
Snape rolled his eyes but did not argue. "I assume you will be sending someone with me who knows something about locator charms? I'm certainly not going to waste my time searching all over a hillside."
"Moody will go with you. He'll likely not even need a locator charm, dependant of course on how deeply the bodies are buried."
"Can't be buried too deeply, if you ask me," Snape muttered.
Dumbledore smile knowingly and stood to escort Severus out of his office. "I appreciate your diligence in this my boy. The Order may be on a hiatus of sorts, but we still have some loose ends to tie up, and your knowledge and expertise are invaluable."
Severus took a deep breath and nodded his head curtly before retreating from his benefactor's office. No rest for the weary, he thought in an uncharacteristically self-pitying moment as swept off to his dungeons.
X-X-X
So? How was my Scottish accent? I hope it wasn't to distracting. My Department Head in archaeology and anthropology is named Duncan, so I'd like to thank the codger for lending me his name.