Author's note: This was written for the In Another Life fest hosted by the fabulous InDreams and Kyonomiko. This has been the best fest I've ever participated in and I think you'll immensely enjoy all of the entries!
The biggest thank you to TheMourningMadam who took so much time to comb through this piece and beta read it. She also corrected a lot of inconsistencies I was unfamiliar with. The morgue drawer was kept for dramatic effect, but let's be honest. They're unrealistic as fuck. TMM helped me when I was unable to write the conflict...so what I'm telling you the chapter 5 draft was a hot mess before she looked at it. Thank you for all you did!
Warnings: Depictions of Violence. Animal Death. Serial Killers and subsequent murders.
Feedback would be incredibly appreciated!
Iron? Iron.
Chapter One
A young, curly-haired brunette sat behind her desk, her ankles crossed over one another. The building had fallen silent hours earlier, and Kingsley had insisted she go home, but there was a mountain of paperwork on her desk to be sorted and filed. Sleep can wait. Tomorrow was Saturday, and though she wouldn't dream of having a lie in, she told her boss she would.
On her desk sat the files of the recent autopsies. A slow smile curled across her face when she nearly jumped out of her seat when the phone rang, ripping her out of her thoughts of the possible weapon that would have caused the blunt force trauma of the photo in front of her. Ripping the corded phone from the receiver, she held it up with her shoulder. "Hello?"
"Hermione!" Her mother sounded joyfully pissed, her speech slurring as she yelled her name. "Why are you still at work? When you last visited me, you promised me that you would take some time off."
"Mother." Hermione pinched the bridge of her nose. "Do you remember I told you in my last email two of my co-workers transferred to other morgues? I'm the only competent pathologist here now. Taking time off is the last thing on my mind."
Her mother heaved a sigh on the other side of the line. "You mean to tell me you are still at work at eleven o'clock at night," she paused, and Hermione could imagine her mother to be glancing at her watch, "staring at corpses?" her voice had escalated into a shriek, Hermione sighed and hung up.
No, her mother would not be happy when she spoke to her next, but she couldn't get a blasted thing done with her admonishment. She sighed, flipping the file open once more. She'd spent all day trying to figure it out, even calling Harry in so he could look - maybe there had been an object around the homeless man which could have caused the crushing of his skull, and the high impact blood spatter. A gasp tore from her mouth when she noticed a mark similar to another she swore she had seen recently.
Leaning back in her office chair while it creaked, her eyes widened. There on a magnified picture of the inner thigh, was what appeared to be a bite mark. Impossible. Where there should have been one row of teeth, there were three, both on the bottom and top. Of course, it wasn't a bite impression at all, but that of an instrument.
"Fuck!" she growled, dropping the manilla file on her desk. Hermione stood quickly, banging her knee against the metal underside of her desk. Grabbing her white coat, and sliding her arms through it, Hermione removed her gold bracelet, leaving it to lay haphazardly on her desk. Her heels clicking against the tile, she hurried down the flight of stairs at the end of the room and made her way into the examination room. A familiar chill greeted her, a shiver slithering down her spine as she donned gloves before yanking all of the files Seamus Finnigan had processed before his transfer.
She found the one she had been searching for: Charity Burbage. The woman had been a professor, only thirty-three, and there were notations made that a struggle was evident. Her nails had been ragged and chipped - only that didn't fit, considering the woman never went a week without a manicure. Hermione wildly flipped the pages, stopping only when she found a picture of Burbage's inner thigh.
Her eyes widened, her heartbeat impossibly slowing, and she snapped the file shut. "Same bloody bite mark." Silently, she reminded herself that it wasn't a bite mark; no human, or animal had sets of teeth like the ones pictures. Certainly not any animals that could be located in London. She walked to the wall of steel doors, reaching forward, matching the tag with the paperwork.
She needed to see the impression with her own eyes before she raised a metaphorical alarm, and called everyone she knew. Hermione slid the door open, tucking the file beneath her arm before she unzipped the bag and peered inside. "Bloody…"
London has a serial killer.
The police called Seamus and conducted an interview with him before they came to find her. Technically, it couldn't be classified as a serial killer until there were three deaths, which was the imaginary line in the sand.
Hermione hadn't slept. She hadn't been home to shower or change her clothes. Brewing a cup of coffee, she sat at her desk until sunlight trickled through the windows. Knowing she wouldn't be able to call for second opinions until at least eight o'clock that morning, she had spent the night searching through records.
In another borough of London, she learned there had been a similar death. In surrounding towns, much, much smaller towns, there disappearances had been reported at an alarming rate. Though she was no police officer, she was a valuable resource to them. Hermione lost count of the times Harry or Ron came to her when something didn't make sense.
As if the world were topsy-turvy , nothing about this case made sense. Hermione spent the witching hour on the internet, chugging an entire pot of coffee. No animal could possibly make these marks.
A disheveled Harry Potter threw the door open at 7:59, Kingsley Shacklebolt and Mad-Eye Moody hot on his heels. He took in the sight of her hunched over her desk. "Blimey, have you slept?"
Hermione shook her head and swallowed, gathering all of her notes, and condensing them into a very thin file. There wasn't much to go on at all. "I found other deaths, other disappearances that match the ages, and background of the current victims. I was collecting it for our interview."
Moody nodded, his good eye sliding over the file in her hands. "Let's go then. We'd like to bring you down to the police department to ask you some questions."
Kingsley nodded, sighing. "Go with them. I assume you've done about all you can here."
"Yes, sir," she agreed, grabbing her wool coat and slipping her arms into the sleeves while her boss held it out for her. Hermione followed Harry and Moody to the exit on the side of the building. Outside, a thin layer of snow blanketed the ground. Eyes wide as she wrapped her coat around her, she asked, "When did it start snowing?"
"Early this morning." Harry held her door open for her, putting his hand on top of her head out of habit so she wouldn't bump it against the top of the vehicle. Her friend slid into the driver's seat, pulling away from the curb. "Tell us what you found."
"It's not every night I get a call at midnight saying we have a serial killer." Moody said gruffly, stretching his hand behind the head rest and taking the envelope from her. "Gods, I thought you only had the night to put this together."
Harry snorted. "Our Hermione is brilliant." he bragged, turning to grin at her as he took the next turn. "Pathologist or not, she has a degree in criminal justice and psychology."
She shrugged, not liking the spotlight one bit. While she prided herself on intelligence and education, it was uncouth to draw attention to it. "Sir, my notes could be absolutely flawed." Doubtful. "There isn't much to go on. In my initial findings of Dolores Umbridge - page eight if you please - I believed she had been bludgeoned to death."
"And now?" Moody rumbled, his one eye narrowing on her in the rear view mirror.
Hermione shook her head. "False original findings; it was only a theory at the time. She bled to death after her femoral artery was torn open, much like Charity Burbage - page four." Leaning forward, Hermione flipped through the pages until she found her written notes on page two. "It was strange because, while I found missing persons in the same age range…" she murmured, "I acted on a hunch, expanding the area I searched within."
The way Moody shouted "Dear Gods!" had Harry slamming on the breaks.
"What?" he snapped, waving at an elderly woman who'd laid her hand on her horn and wasn't letting up. "Fuck, don't keep me out of the loop like —"
Moody took a deep breath, and Hermione took the plunge. "I found five more victims within England, same mark, or signature." Uncovering it had thrown her for a jarring moment, and she quickly realized that time was of the essence. While she was not law enforcement, she worked hand-in-hand with them. "If it's acceptable, I would like to call pathologists from those regions as soon as I can."
Harry knew her personal policy of stepping on toes, and he leveled with her. "You never want to help."
"I'm a pathologist, not an officer, but I can help." she argued. "Whoever—" whatever, she thought morbidly, "—is not going to stop unless we catch them." It.
The next week moved swiftly for Hermione.
She returned to the morgue, and each day felt like she was waiting for another body to be wheeled in, though she fought such a pessimistic outlook. It wasn't her job to interview the family members of the victims, nor was it her job to scour the internet for more clues. It was a mystery; she happened to like mysteries, but she was discovering that she preferred fiction to reality.
On a Saturday, two weeks after the earth shattering epiphany, one week after the equally unnerving press conference to alert the public, the mayhem had evaporated. She still saw the headlines whenever she went for her morning runs: LONDON POLICE HITTING DEAD ENDS. It gnawed at her.
Harry sent her information when he could; since it was usually abysmal, she knew he was holding back some. He had a life at home to attend to - a pregnant wife, and two children.
Hermione reassured herself time and again - knowing there was a madman on the loose made her look over her shoulder. She'd stopped running at night and early mornings altogether, and when she did venture out for a run, she kept only one earbud in, always vigilantly listening with her other ear. Self-preservation , that's all it was. She was just following Moody's instructions to the public from the morning conference, one that had aired before the morning dew had dried.
Constant vigilance. Women are at risk more so than men.
It made her stomach churn to go to the grocer alone. She lived alone and her mum and dad had already asked her to stay with them until the killer was caught. Considering there were no leads, Hermione could feel her hope dwindling and the fear setting in.
Sitting at her kitchen island with her laptop opened in front of her, Hermione held a wine glass between her fingers. Her mother was right - she was going to make herself sick if she didn't step away. Hermione's mother was the first, quickly followed by her father, to shout that Hermione would get herself killed if she insisted on chasing murderers. She had no business attempting Harry's job, no matter her credentials.
On that thought, Hermione slammed her work laptop shut, sealing away images of mauled and marred bodies. "I'm going to drive myself mad," she muttered, lifting her glass to her lips. She swallowed the remaining burgundy liquid as she slid off of the stool.
Hermione turned to set the glass in the sink. In her peripheral, she noticed a shadow moving along the sliding glass doors. Figuring it was probably Crooks, she pivoted to the side. Her scream died in her throat.
There, pressed against the glass, was a dark figure silhouetted against the bright moon behind him. It was most certainly a man - his height and broad shoulders a dead giveaway. The wine glass fell from her hands, shattering against the white tile flooring and slivers sliding into the grout. His eyes opened and -
Red? Crimson slits stared back at her. There was a nudge at her feet, and her throat closed up as she glanced down to see her beloved tabby. When she looked up again, the figure was gone. The only thought going through her mind was to call for help - call Harry, call everyone.
The glass of the sliding doors and the window above her sink shattered inwards, Shards of glass slicing into her forearm. A scream finally tore free of her throat as there a shadowy figure stood in her kitchen. Grabbing the knife from the block beside her, she held it in front of her. "Don't come near me," she threatened, waving the butcher knife.
It didn't listen; it took slow, predatory and deliberate steps toward her. Her blood, previously boiling with rage and fear, turned to ice as a smile curled where she imagined his face was. The shadow towered over her, impossibly tall. Hermione fumbled for her mobile, punching the numbers in quick succession. She could barely hear the emergency operator as bile inched its way up her throat.
"I need help; someone has broken into my home." she gasped.
The shadow grew wispy, its smile broadening and there was a low cackle, revealing three rows of teeth in his bottom jaw. She had an inkling that his top jaw mirrored its counterpart. Long, slender, tar-black fingers reached toward her, the nails resembling talons filed into points.
"Ma'am—" the woman continued in her ear, asking her questions.
Her mind was a complete haze - she couldn't remember her own address. She attempted to tighten her grip on the handle of the knife, only to realize it was gone - seemingly into thin air. "What do you want?" she whispered, backing toward the countertop as one nail slid below her eye.
It stung as the skin parted, as if he bore razors for fingers. His smile didn't fit his face, and it didn't reach his eyes. "Hermione…" he growled, and her heart stopped at the low timber. "Do you believe in monsters now?"
Consciousness eluded her as she crumpled to the floor, paralyzed with fear as the pleased cackling echoed in her ears along the dispatch on the other end of the line.
She woke to find herself propped against someone. As it rushed back to her, she shot up, chest heaving as she looked around.
"Woah, calm down. I've got you, Hermione." Harry tugged her back to lay her head in his lap. Upside down from her perspective, his brows were furrowed. "Do you remember anything? What they looked like, maybe? Did they say anything?"
She bit her bottom lip hard. "I...Harry, you'll think I've gone mental." Hermione whispered, looking over to see police officers making their way into her home, some already coming out. "Where is Crookshanks? He was there when…"
Harry smiled. "He's okay. He's refusing to leave Malfoy alone."
She sniggered before her smile fell. "I can't give an accurate report, Harry."
His face darkened, eyes narrowing in frustration. "I don't think I need to tell you that you're currently the best lead we have. I want to find who did this to you."
Her mouth dried as she realized Harry didn't think - at least he didn't yet - this was the work of their serial killer. Of course not, considering she was alive. "It was almost like he wasn't...human." she struggled to get the words out. She didn't want to say aloud that it had been a creature, not a man, but how could she tell the police a shadow stalked through her kitchen and that he had blades for fingers? They'd think her barmy.
"Like he was physically taller, bulkier?" Harry prompted.
She squeezed her eyes shut, shaking her head. It had been lean. "Harry, it felt like something out of a horror movie."
He rubbed her shoulder. "That's understandable; you've been through a traumatic —"
Hermione shook her head."I know, but it was like a monster - a shadow." She braced herself for the criticism and for him to brush off her accusations.
"Have you been drinking?" he tread carefully.
She nodded. "I had a glass of wine, but you know me. It's not enough for me to lose my thoughts. He did say something before I fainted." Harry straightened behind her. "He asked me if I believed in monsters now."
Alright, I am updating this once a day for the next six days. Which means I will be super happy if you review. This is my favorite piece I have ever written