Chapter Ten: "And So Death Claimed The Second Brother For His Own"

She had never held much stock in the Tale of the Three Brothers as truth, not even after the Battle of Hogwarts, when Potter proved that the Elder Wand, at least, existed- but she was inclined to think that the three most important men in her life strongly resembled the Brothers.

She gazed down at the corpse that had once been Eogan, laying on a slab in the heart of the Ministry Offices. The body showed signs of a struggle, but there hadn't been much of one. Eogan was weak, with his illness. He was slower than he used to be; there had been a moment the other day when she spoke to him and he asked who she was, then promptly remembered before she had had time even to blink. He hadn't had time to react to whomever it was who had crept into her flat, somehow disabling the Intruder Charms and the Anti-Apparition Jinx that was modified to allow only herself, Eogan, and Blaise to Apparate directly into the apartment. He hadn't had time to fight as he was stabbed viciously, over and over, in the heart mostly, killing him in the first blow and then done afterwards probably for some sort of vengeance.

She stared at the body without showing any sign of emotion. The killer had also gouged Eogan's already-sightless eyes from his head. The eyes had been found ground into the side of the bed that was Eogan's, whereas his body had been on the couch. And on the walls of her flat, written in blood, were the words, she is mine, she has always been mine, too bright for you to see, you were blinded by her beauty.

"I just-" Harry Potter stared at her. His eyes were too green, she decided, too sharp. She appreciated that sharpness when he collected himself from his disgust at whomever the murderer was and said, "Do you know anyone who would have had a grudge against your husband? Possibly a romantic interest in you?"

Yes. "No," said Story. Her voice was perfectly calm. There was no quaver. No tears. She looked at the body again, oddly grateful that it was mutilated beyond recognition. If she had been able to see any of Eogan in it, it would have been more painful. "There are many men with a romantic interest in me, of that I entertain no doubt, but I don't know of any of them who would do this."

Lies, shrieked her brain. Lies, Story, you are telling a tale, a Storyteller indeed, you know exactly who has done this and he has said why, so many times, and it was stupid of you not to see it coming, not to protect against him.

"There's little we can do with identification, because there were no magical traces, there were no witnesses and all fluids containing memory were removed. We think that the killer took them with him."

"Why would he do something like that?" asked Story.

Potter swallowed, and glanced around at the other Aurors in the room, his face looking guilty. None of them seemed to want to speak. It was, eventually, Bill Weasley who spoke, even though he was not an Auror. "It was probably for something along the lines of experiencing what your boyfriend had experienced, with you." He cleared his throat. "If the killer has a Pensieve, he can relive memories of your boyfriend with you in them. It may be sexual."

"Assuming that the murderer has a romantic interest in me that would be a sensible hypothesis," said Story. The logic was undeniable. Somewhere the killer was watching, every time she kissed Eogan, every time they held hands or smiled or touched. It did not disturb her. It ought to have disturbed her.

Especially when she was sure she knew who did it.

"Is that all?" she asked the Aurors.

"Yes," said Harry. "We're sorry for your loss, Miss Greengrass."

"Thank you for your condolences," said Story, knowing how cold her voice sounded. Cold was easy.

As she left, Bill Weasley caught up to her. "Are you sure you don't know who it is?" he said, his voice a little harsh. His scars looked livid. Story knew the full moon was close.

"I have no idea who could have done it," said Story blandly, and she left him standing there, staring after her suspiciously.

She took the public exit from the Ministry. People stared at her as she walked through the main hallway; she went up past the Muggles and made her way to a safe point before Disapparating back to her flat.

She found herself the subject of a dozen pointed wands, Aurors in their green-trimmed uniforms examining her flat for further evidence.

"Miss, we're right in the middle of this," said one of them gently.

"I'm sorry," said Story. She blinked, and to her relief she could feel tears starting to come, not for Eogan but at her embarrassment. "I wasn't thinking. I- er-"

"It's okay," one of them interrupted. She knew that voice. Two years older than her, awkward, bumbling- Neville Longbottom. "Perfectly understandable, ma'am. Do you have somewhere else you can stay while we sort this out?"

"She can stay with me," said Blaise, at that moment popping his head in the door. "I live in the flat just below, and I've got a couch."

Story nodded, looking at nobody. If she didn't see anyone's eyes, maybe she wouldn't cry.

"May I get some things from my room?" she said quietly.

"Certainly, if you'll allow an Auror to supervise you," said Longbottom. "We can't let you take anything without our knowledge. Would you prefer a female Auror?"

"It doesn't matter," she said brusquely, and strode past the staring Aurors and the tape to enter her bedroom.

She did not look at the bed- she had already seen that, and she didn't want to see it again. She would have nightmares, as it was. She went to the closet, and heard Auror Longbottom, behind her, inhale quietly as she opened it. She pulled out several outfits at random; she could get others from the leftovers at Leeds, and she could probably find something in Blaise's closet in case of an emergency.

She piled the clothes into a satchel, stood up, and turned. Auror Longbottom was purposefully not staring at her or at the open drawer that had been pulled out onto the floor. Story knew that that drawer was her underwear drawer, and she also knew that the contents had been gone through, and the racier pieces stolen by the killer. She ignored the remaining underwear on the floor and left the room.

Blaise made her a cup of chicken broth and himself a sandwich. She sipped at the broth, but it burned her tongue. She did not look at Blaise, though she knew he was looking at her, watchful, wary.

Finally she said, still not looking at him, "Do you have any alcohol?"

"Don't get drunk today, sweetie," said Blaise. "You have a funeral to arrange."

Story dropped her cup of broth on herself; the hot liquid hissed as it soaked through her clothes.

Blaise sighed and dried her off with a wave of his wand, then uttered another spell to heal the burns from the broth. "You heard me," he said, though she had said nothing. "Eogan's mother lives in Australia, and his father's dead, remember? You're here, and you're the closest thing the poor boy has to family."

"I don't-" She shuddered. "I can't-"

"You've done much harder and much worse," said Blaise soberly. "Did your parents ever meet him?"

She nodded. "Mum loved him."

"Ask them to help you," said Blaise. "Call his mum, call your mum before the Daily Prophet makes a mess of it and kills you off instead."

"None of this matters," she said quietly.

Blaise looked at her, then sighed. "What do you know? Clearly there's something on your mind, Toria."

"I know who killed him."

"Yeah, well it's not difficult to figure, is it? Vaguely psychotic wizard, cold-blooded enough to kill but warm-blooded enough to only do it as a crime of passion, one with an unrequited obsession with you-"

"Don't," she said quickly, "don't tell the Aurors."

He went still. "Why the hell not, Toria? What possible reason could you give for protecting that bastard?"

"It's not a reason," said Story. "It's blackmail. I have something I can use against him."

"You can't blackmail him with it unless you've got proof," said Blaise, interested.

She stood up and squared her shoulders. "I'm going to get some."

He stared at her, then laughed. It was mocking. "Clever, do right what he wants you to do in your grief. You really have gone around the bend."

"Blaise, shut up. I went into my room and got some clothes, but I noticed that someone, probably the killed, had gone through my underwear drawer."

"Charming."

"Isn't it just? But I glanced at it, and I've taken enough of the more creative stuff home from work to know that a few of them are missing."

"Creative stuff? What would Astoria Virginity Greengrass want with lingerie?"

"It was," said Story, her neck heating up, "taken in preparation for what I hoped would be Eogan and I living together. I never used any of it. And now it's gone. And if I go to-" She stuttered over that name in her mind. "-his place and find it there, then I'll know he did it and I can blackmail him with it."

Blaise shook his head. "You're stark raving mad."

"I know." She sighed. "Help me dress to impress? I want Nott to be distracted, but impressed."

"Slutty business-witch it is," said Blaise. "What did you bring down from the closet? Oh, thank Merlin, this was the outfit of yours I had in mind- but you didn't bring the jacket-"

Story changed into an outfit that Blaise selected. He did her hair and makeup and even painted her nails a dark olive green. Story shivered; the colors matched her dress, but they were almost the color of the killer's eyes. Eyes she knew well, from long, intensely embarrassing stares.

"Reminds me of Hogwarts," commented Blaise, as he finished with her pinky nail. "The same hue as N- his eyes when he was trying to undress you with them."

"Thank you for not saying his name, and the mental images you just gave me aren't helping," said Story. Blaise dried her nails with a flick of his wand. "Thanks for this."

"I'm going to come with you and linger around the corner at the Leaky Cauldron," said Blaise. "Longbottom's girlfriend is the barkeeper and she'll know to contact the Aurors if I tell her you're in trouble."

Story shook her head. "I have to go alone," she said.

"You really are crazy," said Blaise.

"If I don't go alone he'll know," said Story. "He knew how to get into the apartment. He'll know if I bring anyone."

Blaise hesitated. "Send a Patronus if you can," he said eventually, "but if not, then there's this." He handed her a dull bronze chain with a small pendant on it. She examined it. The pendant was a chunk of raw peridot. She put it around her neck; the stone hung just above her breasts like a cross of some kind. "Break it and I'll know and I'll find you."

Story nodded. She took a deep breath. Blaise surveyed her, then nodded. "Slutty business-witch. Not slutty enough to be harassed for streetwalking, but just enough that you look wicked."

"Wickedness is what I'm about to confront," said Story.

She Disapparated.

She and Blaise and Eogan had gone to visit him once; he lived in a tiny, wretchedly ugly flat near the entryway of Diagon Alley. Now she stood in the street, a few buildings away from the Muggle entrance of The Leaky Cauldron, and went to the apartment building.

She pressed the buzzer for his apartment.

"Hello?"

"Theo, it's Astoria. Can I come in?"

There was a pause, and then Nott's voice said eagerly, "Sure."

The door popped open, and she walked in. Her heels, olive green and silver, clicked on the tile as she walked past the office of the Muggle landlord and went upstairs to Nott's flat.

She knocked on his door. He opened it, a grin on his face. "It's great to see you, Astoria! How are you?"

"I've been feeling better," she said, a little grimly. "Eogan's dead."

The shock was very well faked, but she knew he was lying by the lack of tension in his backwards step of shock. "Merlin. Come in. I'll make you a cup of tea."

She went in. The apartment was clean, at least, but it was still squalid. There were only three rooms; a living room with a kitchenette, a bedroom, and a miniscule bathroom. She sat on the sagging couch, breathing quietly, her hand clenched around her wand in the pocket of her trenchcoat. She wished she had thought to bring something like Veritaserum, but those sorts of potions were only issued for and by the Ministry and the Hogwarts staff. She wasn't entirely sure that it was legal, either.

He made her the tea, although he did not have any. He had a glass bottle with some sort of amber liquid in it; drunk before supper, thought Story scornfully, was really not very dignified.

"He was dying," she said, her voice trembling. "Who would have killed him like that? It was horrible, and they think I have something to do with it."

"They think you killed him?" said Nott, his voice dark.

She shook her head. "They know I didn't kill him- I was at work. Someone who's obsessed with me. They wrote about me on the wall- with his blood." She shuddered, and was rewarded by seeing him flinch. "I came to you because Blaise wasn't home and I didn't want to go to Mother's."

He moved to sit next to her on the couch, slinging an arm around her shoulders as she buried her face in her hands and cried real tears. She did not cry for Eogan. She cried for the good person that Theodore Nott was once. Now he was a murderer, and he was probably going to try and take advantage of her in her grief.

"He was already dying," she whispered, her voice heavy with tears. "He was going to be dead by June."

His hand tensed on her back. "What was-"

"I sent a letter to the Prophet," said Story. "Cancer."

Which you knew.

"I'm so sorry," he murmured.

She looked up at him; the dark-green eyes told her nothing. But suddenly he frowned at her.

"You're wearing makeup."

It was a mistake. She tried to shrug it off impatiently. "I'm a model, Theo, I wear makeup every now and then. It's probably wrecked, damn it."

"Cast a Patronus Charm," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"How do I know you're not some Auror in a Polyjuice, come to question the mysterious friend, fresh from Azkaban, about the sudden death of Eogan Southers?"

He was good- he was very good. But Story knew the truth.

She tried to think of something happy- something happy enough to let her cast a Patronus- but then she thought of Eogan, and his silver pine marten, staunchly defending The Three Broomsticks, and the tears dripped and she couldn't do it.

This had been a stupid idea. She should have just Stunned him the moment he opened the door and used a Memory Charm. She could still do that, but she found that she didn't want to.

She took another sip of tea, and then she realized that there was something off about the tea. She didn't usually have so much sugar.

She sipped again, wondering when Nott would remember that she was immune to Love Potions. She had found this out when she had swallowed one at the age of three. She had suffered no ill side effects from it.

He was staring at her, still frustrated, and then a sudden angry glittering filled the green eyes and he said flatly, "Do you think I killed him, then?"

"Theo! Why would I think such a- Immobilius!"

He froze in place.

She stood up, regarded him levelly. "Why would I think such a thing," she repeated, the tears drying on her face as she spoke, "when I already know it?"

There was a long silence. "Accio," she said, not willing to say the word lingerie in front of Nott.

The offending garments zoomed out from the bedroom. Story caught them without looking and stuffed them into the pockets of her trench coat.

"I'm not telling the Aurors," she said flatly. "I certainly won't stop them if they're led to you. I would find a certain poetic justice in that. But this is a warning, Theodore Nott. You are to forget me. You are to forget I ever existed. If I play some role in your sick fantasies, then I don't care so long as it stays in your life, not mine. If you ever speak to me again, if you ever so much as say hello to me, I will go to the Aurors and tell them what I have found and allow them access to my memory of this. You will go straight back to Azkaban and you will not return. Do you understand me?"

He could not speak or nod, under the Freezing Charm, and she did not want to hear his voice. She did not want to look at him either. Instead, she raised her wand to her temple and pulled out a strand of memory with it, gleaming silver and drifting like a fine hair before she caught it with a small glass phial.

"You want to know how I feel about you?" she said contemptuously, setting the phial on the table. "These are my memories of you and how I feel about you. Feel free to peruse them at your leisure. Accio Eogan's Memory."

Another glass phial floated from the door of Nott's bedroom. She caught that too, staring at the silver glow of it, all she had left of Eogan, before she tucked it into her pocket. "I'll leave you to it," she said quietly, and left his flat. He was still frozen on the couch.

She couldn't Disapparate in the state she was in; her knees started shaking the moment Nott's door closed behind her. She made it as far as the Leaky Cauldron before she reached for the pendant and yanked it, breaking the chain.

Moments later there was a crack like a gunshot in the alley between The Leaky Cauldron and the next Muggle building, and Blaise strode out of it, his face grim. When he saw Story standing alone and unharmed he relaxed.

"I can't Apparate," she informed him. Her voice didn't shake, though her knees were still doing so. "I may faint."

She didn't remember much after that until Blaise set her down on a familiar couch, and she curled up and fell asleep.