"You've a new mustache."
Severus awoke with a sharp inhale through the nose, blearily pressing himself up from the table at his window. Once again, he'd fallen asleep writing. For the last three days he'd kept a strict schedule of productivity, filling box after box with various potions and tinctures. After much fussing from the attendants, the sallow man had agreed to have a nap midday to cope with the extra strain he'd put on his body because of it. They never said he had to be in his bed, though.
"Did you need… something?" Severus yawned, rolling his shoulders to stretch out a painful crick in his neck from the uncomfortable doze.
Madam McNair swept her healer's jacket to one side so that she might sit opposite her patient without wrinkling her uniform. Before indulging in Severus' curiosities, however, she summoned a damp cloth and a mirror so that he could tidy the smears of ink on his face. He accepted the tokens wordlessly and cleared his throat to dislodge the hoarseness born of his slumber. By now, things which would have previously been an embarrassment paled in comparison to things he'd been made to endure. It held no more bother than someone mentioning a leaf caught in his hair or an untied shoe lace.
"You ought to nap somewhere besides on top of these parchments." she sighed, gently capping the ink well. "We've been sent a request to release our responsibility of you for the day. It seems your presence is required at the Ministry of Magic. Don't panic." she added. "Someone with a desk job in Magical Law Enforcement claims to be a former student of yours."
He squinted, scrubbing away the last of the dried ink and thoroughly pinking his skin from the effort of it. For a long time, he'd been very out of touch with the goings-on of the Ministry, save for whenever someone came by for his statements for wartime records. Nobody came to mind. Without any idea of whom she might be referring to, Severus settled the healer with a questioning expression. He knew it couldn't be Potter, or she'd have led with that. Draco held a position, but it seemed unlikely that he would send for him through the Ministry channels.
"Hermione something or other." Madam McNair replied with a small shake of her head.
"Granger? What does she want with me?" Severus inquired, tossing the wash rag aside with mild annoyance at the small shadow of stain still clinging to his skin.
Madam McNair simply pushed over an envelope, still sealed, and rose out of her seat to leave. Whatever was inside had kept its privacy intact.
"I haven't a clue. But I'll call for a carriage while you read. It will be ready to go when you are prepared." she called over her shoulder. "Do try not to overdo it while you're out."
What a bother. Severus leaned back in his seat, pinching the bridge of his crooked nose. As much as he didn't want to abandon his projects, it would be unwise to avoid a summons from a Ministry official, and he was certain that Granger would exploit every letter of the laws to get him there if she really had to. Thorough, that one. He broke the seal in exasperation and jerked the folds of letter out smooth to read over the feminine penmanship. It was short and simple. That was surprising. He'd fully expected an agonizingly long, brain gratingly detailed list of reasons for his forced appearance.
Professor,
We find ourselves in need of a Dark Arts expert. Please come to the Ministry immediately to discuss a very serious issue with myself and the head of the Department of Mysteries.
Regards,
Hermione Granger-Weasley
She still addressed him as professor. Old habit, he supposed. Perhaps a ploy to give a placating sense of authority to him. It didn't matter. He gingerly changed into a set of black robes he'd been provided for off-site activities, and looked across the room to view himself standing, if only for a few seconds, in the mirror. It didn't take long for the muscles to give out to send him wobbling back to a sitting position, but it was better than nothing. They were still working on that. Even so, it was a huge confidence booster that he could do such a thing if needed. He felt less like a cripple and more like a person leaving out to give his expertise. Maybe this could be a good thing. The more networking he did, the better. Recently, he'd taken up potion making in mass quantities for use at Hogwarts and Saint Mungos to rebuild the savings he'd steadily been draining from with so many years in the care of medi-witches and wizards. The Snape vault was not run dry of funds, but he always sought to keep a comfortable amount aside on the off chance that he actually wanted to retire in peace. At the moment, it laid somewhat uncomfortable. With that in mind, he closed up the boxes and labeled them for delivery. He could finish the other orders when he returned.
Silently, he wheeled himself to the front of the building to the waiting carriage and accepted the help of the driver to clamber inside. As they rumbled along the cobbled streets, he looked down at the summons once more, willing it to disclose more information. It did not. He could not see a pattern in the words to detect a coded message. Years of experience had taught him to be wary of the seemingly simple.
Nearing on forty minutes later, the carriage came to a jerking halt. Severus tucked the paper away into his pocket and shakily descended the single step down to his waiting wheelchair, fingers braced tight against an iron hand-hold. His knuckles were white with the effort of it. The bustling interior of the Ministry afforded plenty of distractions to keep prying or pitying eyes away from him as he traversed the annoyingly familiar territory. All too often in the months following the conclusion of the second wizarding war he'd been forced to bear testimony over and over. No easy feat when you'd barely healed from a torn throat.
"Professor. Good to see you… mobile." Hermione greeted him with a practiced formal politeness at the entrance to the Department of Mysteries and gestured him inside. "Harry mentioned that you were looking well."
The young woman began to reach out to push the chair herself in an effort to assist, but then thought better of it when she saw the way her former instructor's back stiffened. He did not want help. She refixed her posture and led the way through the dimly lit corridors until they came upon a door draped in iron chains. She carefully unlocked them and opened the door just enough to allow entry before fastening identical chains on the inside.
Severus felt his heart still in his chest. He opened his mouth to demand an explanation at the imprisonment, but closed it once his darting eyes settled upon a wooden chest sitting alone on a table in the center of the stone room.
"Recently, we became aware that the residents of Wiltshire have not been dying." Hermione explained, striding over to the box and easing the lid open.
"That is… disagreeable for the Ministry?" Severus probed. "I suppose the death tally is too low?"
Hermione made an exasperated noise and dragged her frazzled hair up into a bun to clear it out of the way as she continued. A thick dossier was passed over to Severus. He looked over it with quiet scrutiny.
"To be specific, people have fallen off seven story houses, been impaled by falling decorative statues, suffered all sorts of accidents that should have been fatal, but yet every single person has survived. In the last three years, not a single death has been reported. Muggles and wizards have both been spared. It's too heavily populated of an area for that sort of statistic, so we went looking for a reason. We found… this… buried in the center of Stonehenge. Since its removal, the death toll has picked up, save for a select few people who should have expired by now." she gently levitated a small doll out into the open for Severus to see. "It's a cursed item as far as we can tell, but what sort of curse keeps such a broad expanse of individuals alive? I'm on loan to the Department of Mysteries until the matter is resolved, but my research has turned up nothing. I thought perhaps you could offer some insight."
After reaching out with his own wand to take the doll in closer for inspection, Severus remained quiet. He turned it every which way, sucking in a long breath when he spied a small hinge in the jaw. As Hermione turned to fetch her research notes from the desk drawer, he gently pried it open with the tip of his wand and floated out a small piece of parchment, which unraveled before his eyes.
"It isn't cursed. It's a vessel." Severus worked out slowly. "There is powerful binding magic in Stonehenge."
"A vessel?" Hermione repeated. "A vessel for what?"
"As near as I can gather, some sort of reaper, or a psychopomp perhaps. Seems a bit poetic that someone has trapped it within a mourning effigy doll." he commented, eyes widening slightly as he read over the familiar scrawling on the parchment.
Severus discreetly tucked it into his pocket before the young woman returned to his side with her additional notes.
"You're saying that someone had the intention of capturing Death itself?" she frowned, furrowing her brows in confusion. "What, to keep mastery of who would be doomed to die?"
"More probably to keep someone alive. It seems unlikely that the base figure of Death could be captured, but one of his grunt reapers or ferrymen would not be out of the question if someone had the right… persuasions." Severus supposed.
"What would be the dangers of letting it free at this point? I would imagine that it would be vengeful."
"That seems an obvious deduction, Granger. The person who bound it in the first place would need to take back the enchantment and try to appease it somehow."
"Granger-Weasley," Hermione corrected, earning a roll of Severus' dark eyes to show that it hardly mattered to him. "Regardless, Wiltshire houses a huge population. How would we even know who to begin questioning?"
Severus floated the doll back to its resting place and delicately folded his hands in his lap. He gave a dismissive shrug as if to say he didn't know. There was someone he needed to question before he could be of any further assistance. The name written on the parchment gave him all the clue he needed to proceed:
Astoria Malfoy.
A/N: Thanks much for all the patience and kind words during my absence. As a thank you, I've posted chapters two days in a row. Quite a lot has happened to stall the progression of writing (both good and bad), but I should be back to posting more regularly now. I would say that the story is about 2/3 of the way finished, but that is subject to change. I've just finished participating in G.I.S.H.W.H.E.S., and now that my brain has had a chance to settle down from all the silly, I think I can be a little more productive in writing. Again, thank you very much for your patience!