Omni (omni_sama) wrote in lupin_snape, @ 2011-10-14 21:28:00 |
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Current mood: | discontent |
Entry tags: | fic: pg |
Fic: As a Raven's Wing (4/?; pg)
Title:As a Raven's Wing
Chapter: 4: "Boggart"
Author: Omni (rip_von_christ on lj)
Rating: PG (for this chapter...later chapters will vary)
Warnings: Can be considered crack (though not the whacky sort), blatant and not-so-blatant comic book knock-offs, unbetaed
Prompts: Batman, costumes (by zhyn and azurerosa in chat, respectively)
Summary: Munin is a mysterious figure. A brilliant mind, he assists the Aurors on occasion, especially when dealing with the odder cases. No one knows who he really is, though. They only know him as the man in black flowing robes and a raven mask.
Word Count: 1,700+
Note: Magical AU. Pretty much take the HP world, but remove the actual HP stories and replace them with tales like you'd see in the pages of a comic book.
No art this time, sorry. :( I will try to get the comic page drawn for this chapter up soonish.
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
“Watching…watching…no no no. Don’t open, no, open…open no…no…”
Lucius Malfoy was awake.
He had been rambling for nearly an hour. Ten hours ago, he had opened his eyes and stared silently at the ceiling. His wife and son were called in, and they had stood at his bedside, grasping his hands and encouraging him to react in some way. Nearly three hours after he had woken, his trance-like staring was interrupted by a fit of hysterical screams. It was so bad that Narcissa and Draco were forced to leave his side, and the healers had to sedate him once more.
He slept for about six hours, and then slowly blinked his eyes open. Severus was there at his side, waiting, watching. There was no screaming. No trance. Words poured from his lips, even as his eyes stared at something behind Severus that wasn’t actually there. For an hour, Severus had been listening to the rambling, hoping it would provide some sort of clue. The trouble was discerning the difference between what he’d seen that was real and what was a product of the hysteria.
“Don’t open what?” Severus asked, studying his friend’s ice blue eyes.
“Wardrobe.”
Severus blinked and sat up in his chair. “Why, Lucius? What’s inside the wardrobe?”
“Terror…fears… No noooo. Don’t let it out, no!”
“I won’t let it out, Lucius, but you must tell me what it is.”
“Eyes. Glowing. Red coals in a void. Shadows slithering. Dark. So dark. Cold.”
Narrowing his eyes, Severus leaned in closer to better hear the muttering. “Something with red eyes? What is it, Lucius? What did you see?”
For a second, Lucius seemed to actually focus on Severus’ face. “Boggart.” Then he was staring away again, watching things move about that only he could see.
Severus frowned as he tried to recall all he knew of boggarts. As far as he knew, no one had ever seen the creature’s true form, yet Lucius seemed to be trying to describe what it had looked like. There was also the puzzle concerning Lucius’ current state of madness, which didn’t seem quite right for the average boggart attack. Besides, if it had indeed been a boggart, Lucius was certainly quick and powerful enough to be able to defend himself against such a low-level pest.
There was no helping it; he was going to have to consult an expert.
_________________
“Just a moment!” Lupin called from the other side of his door. There was much rustling about and clinking, and then he was pulling the weathered wood open with apologies dripping from his lips. “Sorry it took so long; I had to straighten up a bit. Made something of a mess while preparing din—er…” He blinked into the darkness at his doorstep, wondering if he was the victim of a prank.
“May I come in?”
The quiet voice startled him, and he whipped his head towards the source. Munin stepped from a particularly thick shadow, head refusing to be held any other way but high.
Lupin blinked again, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was witnessing. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d come through the front door, let alone knock.”
Smirking, Munin cocked his head like the bird he represented. “It would be rude otherwise, would it not.”
Unable to help himself, Lupin laughed. “Yes, yes I suppose you’re right. Come on in, then.” He held open the door for the shrouded man, and then followed him inside. “Can I offer you anything? Tea?”
“No, thank you. This is not a social call.” Munin moved about, inspecting all the knickknacks and framed images.
“Pity.” It did not escape Munin’s notice how Lupin’s eyes roamed over his person. “So, to what do I owe this pleasure, then?”
Finally turning his full attention to the scarred man, Munin got down to business. “What do you know about boggarts?”
Lupin frowned in confusion, then hummed in thought. “About as much as anyone, I suppose. Fairly common household pests, take on the form of your greatest fear, repelled by riddikulus.”
“Does anyone know what they look like? Their true forms?”
“That’s an odd question.” Lupin eyed him as if their positions were reversed, and he were the detective. “Not so far as I know. Why do you ask?”
Disappointed, Munin returned to his casual examination of Lupin’s small home. “You were the best expert on dark creatures I could find.” There was a photo of a young Lupin with three other boys. The boy with pale eyes was laughing and giving Lupin a playful shove, while the one with the glasses pretended to scold them and the round-faced one smothered a giggle. Munin held back a frown in order to mask his familiarity with the boys.
Though, he did wonder what Lupin must think of his friends now. Sirius Black, Bellatrix’s cousin and the pale-eyed boy, had come to be known as the Prankster. The selfish, thoughtless pranks of his youth had snowballed into deadly displays of sociopathy. The round-faced one, Peter Pettigrew, had long ago been killed by Death Mask for his wavering loyalty. He had died with the word “rat” carved across his chest. That Pettigrew had been in the process of making a deal with the Ministry did not, however, change the fact that he had murdered dozens of muggles in the name of Death Mask’s cause. Only James Potter, the bespeckled one, had grown to live a respectable, law-abiding life. Munin credited this to the influence of James’ wife, Lily.
Sweet, considerate Lily…
Death Mask had murdered them late one Halloween night, nineteen years ago, leaving nothing but a spell-scarred house and a screaming toddler.
“That was from a long time ago,” he heard Lupin say over his shoulder. Only then did he realize that he’d been staring overly long at the photo. The little Sirius Black made a rude gesture at him, but Munin refused to rise to the bait.
“Would you be able to accompany me for a short while?” he asked, ignoring any mention of the photo or the people in it. “I’d like to show you where the incidents took place, and get your opinion as to whether or not you believe they could have been caused by a boggart.”
When he turned to face Lupin, the man seemed stunned. It lasted only for a moment, and then Lupin was nodding and smiling and his eyes were twinkling in that way Munin couldn’t help but find endearing. He approached the man, mentally berating his heart for its sudden increase in tempo. “You’ll need to hold on to me as I transport us,” he said to explain his sudden proximity.
Lupin’s smile tilted sideways a bit. “You sure you want to get so close? Seemed like you were in quite the hurry to get away from me last time.”
Munin slipped an arm around Lupin’s waist, pulling him firmly to his side. “Nothing personal. Neither that time nor now.”
Smile now looking a touch bitter, Lupin laughed under his breath. “Of course. Must remain strictly professional, mustn’t we?”
Without answering, Munin pulled them through a shadow.
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As Lupin inspected the wardrobe, Munin took the opportunity to reexamine the scene. They were in Parkinson’s house. Luckily, his family was still choosing to stay elsewhere. He didn’t blame them, considering the terrifying state in which the man had been found.
“There was a thin layer of residue inside the wardrobe,” he said as he moved towards a painting he only just noticed as being askew.
Lupin made an inquiring grunt, the sound possessing a hollowed quality as it echoed back from where he had his head stuck in the furniture. “I don’t see any residue,” that muffled voice observed.
“Nor would you.” Munin carefully pressed at the frame of the painting, pivoting it up and to the side. “I removed it for testing. Same with the traces I found on the floor.” A concealing charm was barely latching on to a large square section of the wall beneath where the painting should hang. It tried to maintain the same ivory hues of the wall, but kept blinking away to reveal a black metal safe. Munin gave a gentle tug to the handle, and the safe’s door swung open with ease, breaking through the flickering spell. Empty.
“Testing?” When it sounded as though Lupin was about to turn back his way, Munin quickly set everything to rights and directed his attention to an innocuous paperweight. “I happen to know an amazing Potions Master,” continued Lupin as he abandoned the wardrobe in favor of drawing nearer to Munin. “If you’d like, I could take him the samples, and he could test them. I assure you, he’s quite credible and trustworthy. Even works at Hogwarts.”
Just as with the photograph, Munin kept his face blank. “I assume you mean Severus Snape?” At Lupin’s eager nod, Munin shook his head. “No need. That is who I already had in mind to test the samples. I know him well, and we’ve worked together on many cases. The samples are already safe with him.”
Lupin looked more disappointed than shocked, his shoulders drooping and his eyes wandering the room aimlessly. “Ah. Well. That’s good, then. In any case, I’m not sure if this is a boggart or not. As far as I know, boggarts don’t excrete any sort of residue. Now, there have been documented cases where someone has suffered a heart attack due to fright, but those cases usually have a pre-existing history of heart problems. Did Parkinson have heart problems, do you know?”
“None documented. Though the man had been rather negligent in his annual visits to the healer, so there’s honestly no telling.”
“Hmm,” Lupin agreed, moving around the room and inspecting random items. “Plus the man was on the heavy side. I imagine that couldn’t have been good for his health.”
“That doesn’t, however, explain what happened to Malfoy.” Munin frowned and felt the itch to return to Lucius’ chambers to see if there was evidence of theft there as well. He didn’t want to bring Lupin, though. That felt like a breach of trust in his friendship with the injured man.
Lupin returned to the wardrobe and stared inside as if some new answer would materialize and present itself. “You’re right. What happened to him is odd indeed. I’ll do some research and see if there have been any documented cases of boggarts driving their victims mad. Perhaps, if the fear was bad enough, it would cause some sort of mental trauma?”
“It’s possible.” Munin was starting to suspect that this had less and less to do with an actual boggart, but he was unwilling to shut off any possibility just yet. “Thank you for your time. I’ll return you home now, if you need?”
At this, Lupin turned a grin his way. “You’ll not hear me turn down an opportunity to experience your very unique way of travel. Really, I simply must work out how you do that; it’s fascinating.”
Munin’s frown deepened. He’d forgotten that Remus Lupin was a very capable wizard in his own right, and thus could very likely figure out the magic behind his shadow walking. That simply could not be allowed. “On second thought, perhaps it would be best if you apparate home yourself. I just remembered that I must check in on Snape’s progress.”
It was obvious Lupin was skeptical of his excuse, but he offered up a dimpled though somewhat lopsided smile. “Of course. You’ve quite an important investigation to manage. No time to be sidetracked.”
“Exactly.” Just as Munin was wondering if he should at least take Lupin outside the auror-constructed wards, the werewolf was spinning in place and vanishing with a faint pop.
Munin allowed himself another moment to memorize the room, then slipped away into a shadow. He hadn’t been entirely lying when he said that he needed to check on Snape’s progress. Back in his labs, he had another analysis potion brewing. It should be nearly ready for testing. With any luck, this one would yield more useful results than the last.
A boggart.
The residue simply had to have something to do with inducing fear. Knowing that, he had a far better idea of what components to look for in his testing.
He’d crack this case, yet. For any potential future victims, and for his friend. For Lucius.
____________________
To be continued...
Chapter 5