Chapter 37 – Far Too Awful
Blaise Zabini, the second year Slytherin student, who had initially disappeared with Ron Weasley more than two weeks before Christmas, was undeniably, horribly, and irrevocably dead.
Severus stood before the boy's remains in a back cornered off portion of the infirmary. The child's desiccated remains had been found on the castle grounds by Hagrid, just outside of the apparition point.
Poppy had contacted him early that morning to come and identify the body. Her face had been white as chalk, her eyes unblinking as she had harshly warned him against bringing Lee with him.
He had been able to see that merely from her face, but he did not educate her about that, not at a time as horrendous as this.
Severus had left the boy with Minerva back in his quarters; initially thinking him barely awake, yet the child had come and hugged him tightly on the way out the door with an admonishment to be careful. On any other day, Minerva would have likely looked amusingly on at that scene, but that morning she had only nodded her head at him, silently echoing the boy's sentiments.
And now he was standing here, in front of a boy who had been the same age and year as his son.
Severus allowed his eyes to travel slowly over the child's body, mentally cataloguing each detail fastidiously. When he reached Zabini's mid-section and groin, his insides began twisting painfully as his eyes and brain fought to make sense out of the mutilated scraps still present on the skeletal frame.
There was a vast gaping maw where the boy's anal cavity had once existed. It was large enough to put both of his fists into, side-by-side. Peering closer, Severus was able to see pieces of Zabini's spine, as well as the graying shriveled edges of intestines and perhaps part of a kidney.
Opposite that were the boy's sexual organs—or at least what was left of them, he dimly thought.
One of the similarities that were shared between Zabini and Weasley was the overwhelming number of bite marks—human bite marks—that littered every crevice and space large enough to fit one's mouth into.
Zabini's penis and testicles seemed to have been especially targeted by the most vicious of the masticators. Yes, masticators plural, because as Severus could easily tell, even most of the neighboring sets of teeth marks had clearly been made by different voracious entities.
He wanted to hope that the bites had taken place after the boy had died, but the evidence was in disagreement with his wishes. Not only were many of the tooth indentations swollen and dark with bruising, a sure sign that they had occurred during the child's living hours, but also there was the undeniable fact that Ron Weasley's body had been similarly covered in an equally brutal manner.
Severus's sharp hearing picked up the clear pattern of Poppy's footsteps, and he turned to see her still white face appear around the edge of the guarded curtains. She walked slowly towards him, walking delicately as to not make any unnecessary sounds against the harsh dullness of gloom surrounding the torturous death of Blaise Zabini.
"Has his mother been notified yet?" Severus asked in a strained voice.
"The aurors have not yet been able to locate her. It's possible that she is just out of the house or perhaps out of town completely. They've only been looking for two hours."
Severus nodded absently. He knew that Zabini's mother had often left the boy alone for weeks at a time as she just seemed to disappear into the darkness surrounding the underbelly of the magical society. There was no telling what her reaction might be upon learning of her son's death, provided they managed to find her at all.
If she had known anything about this, it would be the perfect opportunity to just leave town and start over somewhere else, he thought, knowing the idea to be more realistic than cynical.
He crossed his arms, raising a hand up to rub against his face agitatedly.
Poppy remained silent beside him, her eyes settling on the boy who was never going to become thirteen; the boy who would never need another haircut or new shoes; the boy who would never know what it was like to have one of those infamous teenage growth spurts, fall in love, or even find something to devote the rest of his life to. This boy would never get his apparition license or experience what life was like beyond just one's school years.
Rather, this boy knew what it was to be hideously mistreated, tortured, brutalized and then dumped like garbage, out for the world to see without hope of maintaining any last scraps of his long forgotten dignity.
"Are you going to be able to do an autopsy?" Severus asked her softly, breaking the morbid silence between the two of them.
"Typically I would need the parent's agreement, but given the unusual circumstances of this case, coupled with the guardian's subsequent disappearance, it is likely that I will have full legal rights to proceed by the end of tomorrow, if not sooner." She said wearily.
Severus nodded; his eyes unfocused as he sought to make sense out the situation.
"And the Weasley boy? What is his status?"
"Alive," Poppy said grimly, causing Severus to turn and actually look at her.
"I was under the impression that having the presence of his mother there was beginning to turn the tide," Severus said cautiously.
"It was," Poppy said tersely.
"What happened?" Severus asked softly.
"I believe that he had a very violent flashback to something previously unrecalled," she said darkly. "When he began screaming, there was something in his eyes and demeanor that suggested he was witnessing something very powerful and frightening that he had formerly been unable to mentally process. He worked himself into convulsions, until vomiting severely enough to require heavy sedation while we tried to rehydrate his body, as well as calm his central nervous system. It was almost as though his subconscious had initiated the purging in hopes of moving past the very disturbing experiences he undoubtedly been forced to go through."
Severus moved his hand over his eyes for a moment, trying to imagine the magnitude of something that disturbing, but his mind kept moving back to thoughts of Lee asking them both if Ron was going to die.
"Have you considered moving him to St. Mungo's?" He asked gently. "I am aware that he is a Hogwarts student, but it seems likely that with their larger staff and broader range of experience, we may not be able to give him all that is needed here." He said, laying a hand on her shoulder.
"Believe me, it is that thought alone that has been sitting at the forefront of my mind ever since the boy's unprecedented arrival in Minerva's classroom. Unfortunately, Molly is quite right in suggesting that if we send him to St. Mungo's, then the Daily Prophet will likely begin making up their own stories about the child, as well as his father's place of employment. Besides, with our newest situation here," she glanced pointedly at the bed where Zabini's body lay, "rumors will begin to get out of control, severely undermining our ability to make decisions. And as much as I currently do not like having Dumbledore in charge, I would much prefer him than having someone, like say Lucius Malfoy, in command of this school."
Malfoy, Severus thought with another gut rippling sensation. Malfoy's son was still missing, and in the light of Weasley and Zabini, the other boy's absence suddenly seemed that much more ominous.
"I need to go check in with my son," Severus said after another moment of thought.
"You may use the floo here if you would like," she said to his already retreating back.
"No, I believe I need the time to think, but thank you," he said, turning back to look solemnly into her still calm face.
…
Lee stared at the empty fireplace, wishing that Severus would go ahead and come back. He knew that Professor McGonagall was watching him, even though she was using the pretense of reading a novel to hide the action.
He could have escaped her eyes by going back into his room, but he was fairly certain that she would eventually come after him to talk about something, just to put her mind at ease about his safety.
It was easier to just sit on the floor and let her stare.
She could be staring at Lillian.
True, Lillian was curled partially around his neck and shoulder, after claiming that it was one of the warmest spots on him. He didn't mind. It was a lot better than McGonagall's staring.
He wished that he hadn't gotten caught up with all of his homework so early. It was still more than a week until the Spring term and he was already prepared for it to start.
And yet, not, his mind whispered at him.
He had gotten permission to wear the blue spikes in his hair on the first day back to classes. Severus had said that he could even wear them for the first week back, provided that they were not a distraction to anyone else—like Severus.
He wasn't worried about his hair, and he was getting used to the reception to his new glasses and hair. No, mostly he was wondering how his classmates would react upon finding out about his new adoption status.
He wasn't ashamed of Severus, far from it in fact, but he had a feeling that some of the others would not feel as warmly towards his new situation as say, McGonagall or Poppy had.
He wondered what had happened to Draco Malfoy. Severus had told him that Lucius didn't know his whereabouts, but Lucius wasn't exactly the model father either. He still remembered that when Lucius's kissed his son, not only had the man been naked, but there had also been tongue involved. It was one of the reoccurring images in his nightmares. In fact, anything with Lucius's tongue had wandered through his dream world at least once, if not several times more.
If there was such a thing as justice in the world, then what Hermione had done to him should at least partially count. When he thought about something like that happening to Lucius in a crowd full of witnesses, he felt a thrill go through him at the idea.
Witnesses, witnesses, something was tugging at his brain trying to make a connection.
"JIMMY!" He thought as the light suddenly came on, nearly blinding his inner synapses with the intensity of the thought.
"Hey there little dude," the castle said a moment later.
"I gotta ask you something. After Severus took Draco Malfoy to the infirmary, what happened after that?"
"Draco, he's the little pale boy who hurt Ron and Hermione, right?"
"Woah woah, that's the right person, but what did he do to Ron?" Lee asked, suddenly feeling his head pounding.
"Aww dang." Jimmy said, annoyed at himself. "I didn't want to be the one to tell you. I thought your friend would have told you," Jimmy said remorsefully.
"What? Please tell me. He can't tell anyone anything right now; you know better than I do, right?" He pleaded.
He heard Jimmy sigh; an idea he had found odd until Jimmy had pointed out that if a castle could smirk, and a castle could shrug, then a castle could sigh too.
"That little blond haired guy, he sent them goons of his ahead with Hermione, and then he raped Ron there in the hallway and left him there bleeding. Severus found him later and saved him, but he promised him that he'd not say anything without your friend's direct permission. That's why I figured that your friend would have told you, 'cause I knew your dad wouldn't break a promise like that." Jimmy explained sadly.
He felt coldness seeping through his bones at the information that Ron hadn't been able to trust him with.
"Ron saw Lucius hurt me, but he didn't think I was a good enough friend to tell about what Draco did to him???" He said, bowing his head and fighting the urge to cry.
"Don't think of it like that little dude. He wouldn't have told anyone. He never even told your dad who had hurt him, even though I think Severus had a pretty good idea. Ron even said something like he'd cut out his own tongue before telling anyone his attacker's identity."
"Aren't you a witness though, Jimmy?" Lee asked plaintively.
"Aw, my opinion doesn't count for much little dude. I am an 'inanimate object,' or so the bylaws say anyways. They don't think of me as a very legit witness, since I'm not human."
"That has got to be one of the stupidest ideas that has ever been put out there, especially in a wizarding world," he decried adamantly.
"Hey, I didn't say that I agreed with the dolts." Jimmy said defensively.
"I'm sorry. I'm just upset," Lee said morosely.
"Do you still want to know what happened to that blond haired guy after he left the infirmary?"
"Sure, why not," he answered glumly.
"It was a weird thing, really," Jimmy said slowly.
"Yeah?"
"Your other little friend, Hermione, was walking down the hall and they started up a conversation."
"Hold on, Hermione voluntarily spoke to Draco Malfoy?" He asked, the words dragging themselves roughly along in his mind.
"Like I said, weird things," Jimmy said with another one of those odd shrugs that Lee could feel more than . . . see.
"Then what?" He asked curiously.
"A door opened in a wall and they went away."
As far as explanations went, he found that one to be pretty far out there.
"What? What do you mean?" Lee asked incredulously.
"I—I don't know what I mean. This is why castles make lousy witnesses. We can't always explain what we see," Jimmy said, sounding somewhat lost.
"Was it a door in one of your walls?" He asked, trying to help his friend identify the problem.
"Yes, but no?" Jimmy asked, sounding more and more perturbed. "I cover a lot of ground. The original plans for my design were lost when the creator died. As far as I can tell, there has never been another person after my creator who had been down every single one of the passageways within my domain. I daren't even say 'within my walls,' because walls are physical, and I'm not entirely so." Jimmy said.
"I take it that you don't talk to a lot of other folks about this sort of thing, right?" Lee asked speculatively.
"When a headmaster binds their will to my will, then they are able to know what I know, as much as their brains will allow. I don't—I've never had to explain something like this before, because I've never had a headmaster as annoyingly disconnected as Dumbledore. In past years, if something of this nature came up, then the headmaster and I would confer, and get two different angles on the same problem. Not only does the headmaster provide another point of view, but since the headmaster is human, more or less, it allows us to look at the problem with two different ways of processing and analyzing data," Jimmy reasoned out to Lee.
"Why do you make it sound like the human brain and your brain are so very different? I thought you said you were created by humans, right?" He asked Jimmy, not really understanding.
"Well, let me try to describe it another way then," Jimmy said thoughtfully. "Basically, humans and magically created inanimate objects, such as me and your little Snitch friend, are from two different cultures. We don't necessarily consider the same things valuable; we don't understand the here and now, or the concepts of time and space, in the same ways. My concept of now is far more vast than yours, little dude."
"I suppose that it's kind of like the differences between me and the Dursleys, right?" He asked carefully.
"Something like that," Jimmy said in amusement. "But if you're trying to imply that I'm anything like the Dursleys—," Jimmy said, cutting off the thought at Lee's wild protesting.
"You better find something to do. Your dad's coming down the hall real slow like. He looks sad," Jimmy said somberly.
"And upset?" He asked worriedly.
"Some, but mostly just really sad and unhappy; it's probably got something to do with what Hagrid found earlier this morning."
"What'd he find?" Lee asked interestedly.
"Nope, sorry little dude. I'm under strict orders from your dad not to tell you anything about this one, at least until he thinks you should know; in which case, he'll likely tell you himself." Jimmy said emphatically.
"I guess I can respect that," Lee said slowly.
"I really don't think you want to know about this one. Here, let me get your little Snitch's attention."
Lee looked up and saw the beautifully constructed Snitch bouncing in the air near him, almost shyly, it seemed.
"Oh, so you do listen to someone, huh little guy?" Lee softly asked the brightly flashing ball, as it carefully wound its way around the boy's head.
It twirled in a pirouette, as though really answering his question.
He reached out his hand to touch it and it bobbed down lower, uncertainly.
"I promise I won't hurt you," Lee said solemnly to the cautious little toy.
Finally it spun itself twice around his shoulders before alighting in Lee's outstretched hand.
"Let's go home," he said in a clear voice to the softly lit ball.
Instantly the little wings started fluttering once more as Lee got to his feet and headed to his room. The little Snitch floated just beside him the entire way, keeping the boy in its sight.
…
From his shoulder, Lillian watched the progression of the hallway until they came to a stop in the boy's room. Then she lay down once more as she realized that the boy was getting ready to take a nap. She watched him close the door and do something to turn off the lights.
As the visual world disappeared completely, she noticed that the little flashing creature that the castle had referred to as a "Snitch" was still moving around the room. As it passed by the cold walls around the exterior of the space, it trailed an almost snakelike aura of light behind it in a most enchanting way.
Soon however, her young master was asleep. He did not even wake when his first-companion-then-parent came into the room a short while after. She watched the man stand and gaze at the boy in silence, before coming over to gently touch his lips to the boy's head.
She could not understand his speech like she could with the boy, but she knew without a doubt that he loved the boy more than words could explain anyway.