Part IV

After some quick spell work to tidy up their wrecked flat, Teddy tucked Victoire into bed, still unconscious, and began to work through some paperwork to keep himself busy until she woke up.

He took another gulp or two of the pain potion to try and calm his nerves and would have taken a dose of the replenishing tonic if his hands hadn't been so shaky. The bottle bobbled as he tried to pick it up and it tumbled over onto the floor, shattering in a spill of liquid and red glass, and Teddy covered his face with his hands. He was almost out of dreamless sleep potion and he wasn't quite sure how he was going to survive without it.

The sound of someone knocking on the front door drifted through the flat and Teddy was surprised to find Victoire's younger brother, Dominique, waiting when the door opened.

Glad he had straightened the apartment after Victoire's jealous tirade, Teddy invited him inside.

"How are you?" he asked, a bit unsure as to why Dom would have stopped by. While they got along, he and Dom had never been particularly close. Teddy had always gotten the feeling that Dominique didn't like him that much.

Skipping the pleasantries, he held up what looked like a casserole, saying, "Mum wanted me to drop this off. She's sure you're probably not eating enough and says it isn't good for your health."

Dom had always looked more like Uncle Bill than Aunt Fleur, with his flaming red hair down to his shoulders and his thin face, but even so, he was still perfectly, almost painfully good-looking in the way that seemed to be unique to part Veela.

He scratched the back of his neck awkwardly. "Mum – you should go and visit her sometime. She's always thought of you as another son and I think she misses you."

"Yeah, it has been a while," Teddy said distractedly, staring at the papers piled on the table in front of him and thinking of the murder case. "Work has been keeping me really busy. I'll see if I have time this week."

Shrugging, Dom moved towards the door to leave. He paused with his hand on the handle, seeming on the verge of saying something, but looked unsure.

After a moment he seemed to come to a decision. Looking back at Teddy, his eyes the same deep, deep blue as his older sisters, he asked, "Why didn't you go to Victoire's funeral?"

Looking over Dom's shoulder, Teddy could see Victoire's shadowed silhouette in the door of the bedroom staring at him with strangely bright, unblinking eyes and the way the darkness played across the angles of her face chilled him to the bone.

How could he have gone and stood in front of her body, still and pale and cold.

Empty.

Just a shade, a fraction of his Victoire, the woman he had known so intimately that she had been like part of him. Without having seen that, Teddy could believe that she was still here.

It was her hand he had held as he Apparated out of the fire. He was supposed to have saved her.

"She wouldn't have wanted me there."

And as Dom sighed resignedly and said his goodbyes, Teddy thought he saw Victoire nod as her mouth spread into a smile.

The news that Charlotte had been found dead the next morning was a little hard to absorb.

Owen had owled in sick and so it was Teddy that Carl had called in to his makeshift morgue to take a look at her and another body that had been discovered.

"I haven't had time to write out an official autopsy for either of the bodies, but I thought you should see this."

Carl slid on his gloves again, the smacking sound of the latex making Teddy nauseated, and looked almost sympathetic. Gesturing to the smaller of the two sheet-covered bodies, he said, "I know she worked in your office. I'm sorry about what happened. But first, the man…"

He trailed off, looking both disturbed and excited all at once and Teddy remembered why Carl freaked him out so much. "You should take a look. Here."

He shoved a pair of gloves at Teddy and pulled back the sheet. "You didn't see the guy from before, but I think you'll be able to see what I'm talking about anyway."

Teddy took a deep breath, bracing himself, and looked. It wasn't so bad since he had known what to expect, but even so, something seemed off. The hole was there, like the report from before had said, right in the center of the ribcage, but the edges of it –

"It's all jagged. I thought last time they were all clean cuts."

"They were. That's why I called you." He drew the sheet back over the man and went over to what Teddy thought was Charlotte's body. "You and your partner think that that Muggle woman and the man from before were killed by the same person, don't you? Look at this."

Teddy glanced down, doing his best to ignore Charlotte's face and saw the gash that ran across her throat. Shuddering, he looked away and Carl said, "I don't think either of these were done with a blade."

The murders from before had clearly been committed with a weapon and a certain level of finesse, but these…

"You don't mean…"

"This is what it was like that time in Japan."

Teddy felt his stomach turn as he remembered the picture of the Veela in the book, all talons and beady eyes, and thought of Victoire's skin, broken as if it was going to burst into feathers, her head thrown back as she screamed in pain while her fingernails dug deep cuts into her palms.

Carl looked at him grimly. "I think this was done with claws."

That night Teddy dreamed he was walking down an alleyway towards a dark shape. The closer he got, the clearer the outline became. It was a person, a woman, bent over something, but she seemed strange, like her skin was patterned and lumpy, almost furry, and the sounds she was making were far from human, clicking and rustling around the mass on the ground before her.

Teddy stepped closer, eyes straining to see in the dark and there was a flash of silver up ahead. He stumbled, accidentally kicking a rock, and the noise echoed loudly against the brick of the alleyway.

The woman's head snapped up at the sound and Teddy recoiled, catching sight of her eyes. They were swollen, glittering and jet-black, and the skin of her face was broken, like shattered pieces of glass, into a fan of gray feathers. The rest of the features though, the nose, the silver hair, the long neck, looked like Victoire's. She stood up from her crouch to face him, and he saw that her mouth, her chin and the whole front of her white dress were all covered with blood.

"Victoire – " he started, trying to back away as she moved towards him. For a moment he thought she might smile at him, but when her lips opened, it was to reveal a set of fangs, impossibly long and dripping scarlet. She reached out, fingers too long and thin to be fingers, but not quite claws either, and clutched at his shirt, pulling him towards her.

"Teddy," she said, and it was almost a hiss, something animal and terrifying. Her fingers scraped the skin of his throat and he cried out in pain, feeling the blood as it welled out of the scratches. She pressed her mouth to the cuts, licking the blood away, and her tongue felt strange and rough, almost like a cat's. "You're mine forever."

Gasping, Teddy sat bolt upright in bed, hand clutching at his throat as if to make sure it was still intact, and he tried to remember how to breathe again.

The dream had felt so real it had his skin crawling and his stomach heaving.

During the day, in the coroner's office, at the Aurors, he had hardly let himself consider the possibility, but here, in the pitch black of his bedroom with only the sound of his own breathing for company, the idea seemed almost too real to ignore.

Grabbing a random potion bottle off of the bedside table, he settled back into the covers and swallowed as much of the liquid as possible. When nothing happened, he reached for another vial.

And then another.

Something, anything to push the thought that Victoire, his Victoire, might have something to do with these murders out of his mind.

Instead of sleeping, Teddy ended up at the office and the whole place was empty in the night. He sat at his and Owen's desk, feet propped up, swirling a cup of coffee around and around until it was stone cold and undrinkable. The potions hadn't had the desired effect. If anything, they had just made him think more, and Teddy found his thoughts running in circles like the liquid in the cup.

Around four o'clock, the Floo in the corner lit up and Twilby appeared in a blaze of emerald fire. Brushing the soot off his shoulders, Twilby adjusted his glasses and caught sight of Teddy.

"Lupin, what are you doing here?"

"Working late, trying to crack a case." It wasn't completely a lie and Teddy shrugged. "You?"

"Another breaking-and-entering report from Knockturn Alley. I thought I should go investigate sooner rather than later."

"Breaking-and-entering? In Knockturn Alley?" Teddy sat up, remembering what Owen had said about the pentagon, the ritual, Sorcery.

"Yes, two reports in just a few weeks. I hope this time I can nip it in the bud. Though I can tell you, my wife isn't happy I had to leave so suddenly in the middle of the night. She – "

"Let me go for you."

"What?"

"I'll go instead. You can head back home to your wife. I've got nothing better to do."

Twilby looked longing at the fireplace. "Well, if you're sure."

He told Teddy the address, jotting it down on a scrap of parchment for him, and disappeared back into the Floo with a pinch of powder. After he left, Teddy grabbed his cloak, putting out his desk light, and made his way over to the Auror's special Apparation point.

Knockturn Alley was empty when he appeared in the shadows and Teddy chanced a look up into the building he had ended up in front of. It was obviously an abandoned store, like so many in this Alley had ended up after the war, and he couldn't make out the name on the old sign that dangled by a single chain over the doorway because it was so covered with grime.

He opened the door, careful to make as little noise as possible, and stepped inside. His footsteps raised little puffs of dust from the floorboards and he thought from the glittering of hundreds of abandoned bottles that this must have been an Apothecary before it was left vacant.

There was a flight of stairs at the other end of the room and Teddy picked his way through the maze of bottles as quietly as possible. Testing the steps and climbing up them, he heard the boards from the floor above move as though there was someone walking across them. The door at the top of the flight was slightly ajar, a sliver of light peeking out from around the edges and he looked through the gap.

There was a man in the room, dressed in dark robes that brought out the black in his hair. He was standing in front of a table, fiddling with something, and barely paused when Teddy eased open the door.

"Mr. Lupin. I wondered if you might join me here tonight."

The pentagon Owen had mentioned before had already been carved into the floor, the ugly runes scrawled around its edges making Teddy's skin crawl as he tried to read them.

"How nice that you came when everything was prepared. Now you'll be able to watch."

He turned and Teddy could see that he was an older man, probably in his fifties, with dark hair and manic eyes.

"Watch? What are you planning on doing?"

"My dear boy, I thought you figured it out. I know the books the Ministry has on the subject of Sorcery are limited, but I would have at least expected an Auror to recognize attempted necromancy when they saw it."

Teddy swallowed the scared lump in his throat. Necromancy? "Who exactly are you planning on bringing back from the dead? That's impossible, you know."

"You're right, it is. But it is possible to speak with the dead, and there are some things I very much wish to know that only the deceased can tell me."

He counted on his fingers, "The life-blood of a woman, the heart of a man removed while it was still beating; these are crude ingredients, to be sure, but I think they will be the most effective. Everything must be just right for the ritual to work. I found that out the hard way."

Teddy had some many questions he wanted to ask he had to fight to find his words for a moment. "The Muggle woman from before and the one you murdered last night – they looked alike. Did that have anything to do with it?"

"No, that was just for me. Something pretty to look at." The man's teeth were disgusting and yellowed as he leered. "The filthy Muggle one was nice enough, but the one last night… she was gorgeous. I was almost sorry I killed her. She was nearly as pretty as that little girlfriend of yours. I heard she died in the fire, by the way. Shame."

Teddy's throat seemed to squeeze shut. He knew about Victoire. How long had he been watching him? Watching them together?

"St. Mungo's. The fire. Was that you?"

He nodded, seeming pleased with himself. "You were getting too close, with the report your partner found about the building a few weeks ago, your meeting with the coroner. I wanted to destroy the evidence and warn you off. That's why I broke into your flat."

"…You?" His insides seemed to go cold. This man had been inside his home.

"You trashed my apartment?"

He smiled slyly. "You didn't get my note?"

Teddy remembered the slip of parchment that had been in front of the doorway that night, with his name crossed out, and the more Teddy thought about it, the more the red ink in his memory looked like blood.

"I see you did." He twirled the knife in his hand between his fingers. "I wasn't positive you would show up tonight, otherwise I would have waited and used you, but I thought I would use someone else, just to be safe."

"Use me? You mean for whatever ritual you're playing at?"

"Playing at? This isn't a game." His eyes glowed manically and he went back to fiddling with the objects on the table compulsively, arranging and rearranging them. "It would have worked last time, if that woman hadn't been a Muggle. The blood has to be magical for my message to go through."

He lifted up the vial from the table and the blood inside of it looked impossibly dark red in the torchlight.

"You actually think you can speak to the dead or something? Are you crazy?" Teddy raised his wand, palm sweaty with nerves. "Put your hands where I can see them."

The man laughed and it was a strange rasping sound. Teddy tightened his grip and said, "Do it, or I'll have to take you in by force."

"Pumping yourself full of potions to make yourself forget what happened with that man in the alleyway. As if you could take anyone against their will. You haven't been in your right mind for weeks."

"Turn around and show me your hands! I'm warning you. I'll do it."

"I'd like to see you try," the man hissed and whirled towards him, knife in hand.

Before he could even think, Teddy's wand arm lashed out and he shouted, "Avada Kedavra!"

The green light exploded like lightening as man's body dropped to the floor like a stone, the life going out of him, and the knife skittered harmlessly across the floorboards with a clatter.

Teddy's wand fell from his shaking fingers and he gasped for air.

"Impressive, Teddy. I didn't know you had it in you." Victoire's voice came out of the shadows and Teddy felt his heart stutter. He saw her outline, eyes shining out of the darkness like a cat's, unblinking and almost too large for her face. "Cold-blooded killing."

She stepped out into the torchlight and touched the man's body gingery with a slippered foot. He remained motionless and she amended, "In the name of justice, of course. It's becoming a bit of a pattern for you though, isn't it?"

"You're not even real. I know that now." He grabbed his hair, pulling at it so hard his eyes blurred with tears. "Why do you keep tormenting me?"

Victoire continued as though he hadn't spoken. "This, the man in the alley last week…" She tilted her face towards him. "Me."

"You?"

"If you had just come home that night like you said you would, I might not have gone in to work, and then I wouldn't have been caught in the fire.

"It was your hand I held as I died."

He fiddled with the bandage he still wore on his shoulder, peeling part of it away to look at the angry red scar that the burn had left. Even if he couldn't see, he knew that the mark spread over his shoulder down on top of his heart.

"You let me die, Teddy."

The words sunk in as she stared at him and the emptiness in her eyes began to fill up his chest, eating away at his insides like acid.

"You know, for a while, I almost thought it might be you. That you had become an animal, feeding off men's hearts like the old stories say. Before I realized you were gone and that I was making it all up. "

And the whole thing was so like his dream that Teddy wasn't surprised to see that as he spoke, Victoire's eyes had become wide and black, like a bird's, and the skin of her face and arms was spreading, breaking, into a beak and feathers on top of more feathers. Her talon hands reached for him, grasping at his injured shoulder as huge wings burst from her back.

"No, Teddy," she said, the horrible shattering animal sounds coming from her beaked mouth like before, and her talons dug into the scar painfully, right above his heart. "The only heart I ever wanted… was yours."

Teddy looked at her face for one last moment, watching as all the traces of the woman he had loved disappeared inside the viciousness of the animal, and then closed his eyes.

He had never told her how much he loved her. All she had ever wanted was his heart, and this was justice.

He remembered the dream, Victoire hissing "you're mine forever" and tearing at his throat, but instead he heard her let out a bird-like scream, filled with blood lust. There was a harsh rustling, like a million feathers cutting through the air, and Teddy threw open his arms, exposing his chest, and offered his heart to her claws.