Chapter 11
He missed.
He fucking missed.
The demon was right in front of him, and he missed.
He barely remembered Dean speaking to the woman and her child after they got out, everything after that crucial mistake was a blur. Getting in the car, Dean telling Harry what happened, Dean slamming on the gas to get back to Bobby’s.
What finally got his attention was Dean’s finally successful attempt to call John.
“Dad!”
Dean grimaced, “Where is he?”
Harry perked up from where he had been half-heartedly reading.
“They’ve got Dad.”
“Meg? What’d she say?”
“I just told you.”
“Who’s Meg?”
“A demon, she- she tried to trick us a while back. Acted like she was good. We need to find him.”
“Dean, if they have him- is he even alive?”
“He is. They would trade him, right? For the Colt?”
“Wouldn’t they have offered during the call? Dean-”
“He’s alive, Sam.”
“We need to find the demon. He’s still out there.”
Dean looked at him like he was crazy.
“We need to find Dad!”
“What about the people we know are still alive, the people that are in danger!” He gave a subtle shift to Harry, another person who was targeted by the demon when he was young, a potential victim.
“Dad is not dead! We- we need to save him. He’ll be with the demon, right? We can kill him then.”
Sam could tell he wasn’t going to get through to Dean, so he left it at that.
_____
Remus had successfully convinced the newly reconnected Order of the Phoenix that no, Harry didn’t need four different bodyguards to watch him as he got on the train. So, it was just him and his ‘dog’ that saw him off.
He grabbed the kids’ shoulder, and spoke quietly, “I didn’t- I didn’t mean to tell you to isolate yourself, okay? It’s- even if it hurts, its better that it happened, right? That you had the time you did.”
He faced that same stony exterior, this time it had a small smile, like the kid was placating him.
“Yes Remus, I know.”
_____
Bobby’s looked exactly the same.
Dean didn’t know what he had expected.
After completing the expected tests to make sure they were who they said they were, they were allowed in.
“Do you know where dad is?”
_____
“Harry James Potter! You said you would tell us! You said!” She was beyond angry, left to stew the entire break, the dance with Krum her only distraction. The letters she had sent him only seemed to work in getting her anger out for a short time.
“I can’t believe-”
“Then stop.”
She froze, confused.
“What?”
“Stop hounding me. It’s not going to change anything; I’m not going to risk you telling a teacher what I’m going to do. So don’t expect me to tell you everything.”
“You- You asshole!” She didn’t realize she started crying until she felt the wetness of her cheeks. “I- I have taken care of you this whole bloody year! I have sacrificed my fucking time to help YOU in YOUR tournament, helped you when you were sad because I care for you! And you cant do one bloody thing for me?!”
He stood there. He didn’t even change that stupid blank expression.
“You can take your fucking grief and keep it to yourself! I’m done!”
She turned and she felt her face burn. The hallway was full of students, she didn’t take the time to pick out specific individuals, rushing off down it with her stupid tears still pouring out of her.
She didn’t stop till she felt someone pull her into a hug.
“Ron?” She let out a sniffle, “Why are you here?”
His voice sounded like he thought the question was inherently stupid, “You’re bloody sad! Of course I came.”
Another burst of tears came, but she fought through them and spoke, voice slightly muffled into Ron’s chest, “Why didn’t you stay with Harry?”
“He’s being a wanker. I’ll talk to him after he apologizes to you.”
She always thought that Ron was less a real friend, and more a friend of proximity, the fact that Harry was both of their best friends making them have to be friends. Her grip on Ron tightened.
_____
The barking startled Harry out of his reading. Not that he was learning much, the important books right now, the demonology ones, were being hoarded by his brothers and Bobby, so he’d been relegated to the rest of the, the one he had landed in was on poltergeists. They were nothing like Peeves.
Bobby pushed himself up, and made his way to the window, calling out “Rumsfeld!”
At that moment the front was kicked open and a brunet woman in all leather walked in.
Before Harry could react, Dean had already jumped up and rushed, who he was assuming was Meg, earning a kick to the chest much too strong for a person or Meg’s size to deliver.
“No more crap, okay?”
Sam stepped in front of him, Dean looked like he wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.
“I want the Colt, Sam -the real Colt- right now.”
A small movement of Sam’s hand signaled him to begin moving left. They were going to make a break for it through the back door.
“We don’t have it on us. We buried it.”
“Didn’t I say ‘no more crap’? I swear- after everything I heard about you Winchesters, I got to tell you, I’m a little underwhelmed. First Johnny tries to pawn off a fake gun, and then he leaves the real gun with you two chuckleheads. Lackluster, men. I mean, did you really think I wouldn’t find you?”
Just as Harry had positioned himself to be able correctly to get a quick start, Dean stood behind her.
“I’d look up before you start talking about stupidity.”
Both Harry and Meg looked up at the same time, there, right above her was a pentagram, a devil’s trap.
_____
Ron missed Harry. He was his best friend, the guy that would take as many chess loses as Ron wanted just because he needed someone to practice on, even if that someone wasn’t- er- very good.
That didn’t change the fact that Harry hadn’t apologized to Hermione yet, though he was sure he would eventually. So, he wouldn’t talk to him, he was serious about his vow of silence.
When he would usually partner with Harry, he instead chose Hermione. It wasn’t as bad as he had thought; though he liked her, certainly, he had made sure to keep a respectable distance away from her during classes to avoid being talked down to. In reality, she was still a little blunt, but sometime over the years it had transformed to a more ‘I want you to know this’ then a ‘See! I’m smart, why don’t you want to be friend with me?’ He was even starting to get what she was saying! That’s not to say he was stupid, like he knew Percy thought, he got through his exams just fine, maybe even a little above average due to Hermione’s insistence that they study at least a few hours a week, but now he felt himself actually, maybe, liking it? That’s not to say he would crack open a book to learn, but listening to Hermione gush about the wide range of acid based carnivorous magical plants, that was something that he could do.
He tried to ignore how Harry was always either working alone, or partnered with Neville and speaking as little as possible.
_____
“Where’s our father, Meg?” The women- demon, laughed. Not in a way he had expected, not the cackling laughter of a maniac, or evil chortles of a megalomaniac, but the laughter of a normal woman who just heard a funny joke. If you could ignore the ropes binding her to the chair, the salt lining the floor beneath and singing her bare feet, she would be indistinguishable from a human.
“You didn’t ask very nice.” “Where’s our father, bitch?”
“Jeez. You kiss your mother with that mouth? Oh wait, I forgot, you don’t.”
Dean lunged at her, putting his hands on the chair arms, not even eliciting a flinch from the monster.
“You think this is a frigging game? Where is he?! What did you do to him?”
“He died screaming like a little bitch. I killed him myself.”
Dean launched a punch at her pace, the crack of her nose breaking hitting Harry’s ears. A look at Sam told him he wanted to do the same.
“That’s kind of a turn on- you hitting a girl.”
“You’re no girl.”
Her nose, now that he got a look at it, looked like it had never been so much as scratched, like the crack he knew he heard was just his imagination.
“You gonna cry? Daddy finally not coming home?”
Seeing that Dean was getting ready to slam his fist into her again, Bobby interrupted, “Dean, you got to be careful with her. Don’t hurt her.”
“Why?” His face was still angry, only lessened when looking at Bobby marginally.
“Because she really is a girl, that’s why.”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s possessed. That’s a human possessed by a demon. Can’t you tell?”
Dean turned back to the woman, “Are you trying to tell me there’s an innocent girl trapped somewhere in there?”
Bobby nodded, though Harry doubted Dean saw it.
“That’s actually good news.”
_____
The letter he had convinced Harry to send him a week into the semester, and every two weeks after that, did little to block the worried thoughts bubbling up.
While it went into great detail about all the fun he was having with his friends, especially detailing about how Neville ‘really wasn’t that bad’, something about it was setting his senses off.
Sirius seemed to be delighted reading it.
Maybe it was just the upcoming full moon.
_____
“Are you gonna read me a story?” Came Meg’s taunting voice.
“Something like that. Hit it, Sam.”
The ancient book that Bobby had said some Christian monks had painstakingly created held in Sam’s hands, he began to read, “Regna terrae, cantate deo, psallite domino…”
“An exorcism? Are you serious?”
“Oh, we’re going for it, baby – head spinning, projectile vomiting, the whole nine yards.”
“…tribuite virtutem deo.”
Meg flinched in pain, making Harry wince in sympathy. Somewhere under the façade of a monster was an innocent woman. Both Sam and Harry looked at Dean, who’s face hardened and made a motion to continue.
“I’m gonna to kill you. I’m gonna rip the bones from your body.” The joking tone left, leaving dead serious in its wake.
“No, you’re gonna burn in hell. Unless you tell us where our Dad is. Well, at least you’ll get a nice tan.”
“Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica potestas, omnis incuriso infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, onmis congregatio et secta diabolica....”
The spasming and shaking grew in intensity and severity, like she was being simaultaniously shocked and poked by a thousand needles, feet trying to find stable ground below her as if the pain of the salt was so little in comparison that she couldn’t even feel it. Harry forced himself to continue looking; somewhere under there was a person.
“He begged for his life with tears in his eyes. He begged to see his sons one last time. That’s when I slit his throat.”
“Ergo...”
“For your sake, I hope you’re lying. Cause if it’s true, I swear to God, I will march into hell myself and I will slaughter each and every one of you evil sons of bitches, so help me God!”
“Perditionis venenum propinare. Vade, satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae. Hostis humanae salutis.” Winds began to blow and Sam’s voice started becoming almost rhythmic, like he was settling into the well-worn grooves of the many that had spoken those words before him, “Humiliare sub potenti manu dei. Contremisce et effuge. Invocato a nobis sancto et terribile nomine. Quem inferi tremunt...”
Her breathing was hard, as if it was a challenge to catch each and every breath of air.
_____
Returning to eating lunches with the rest of the school felt like a new kind of awful.
But it wasn’t like they could still stay in the boy’s dorm, lest they chance having an awkward meeting with Harry. Though, Ron considered, it wasn’t like Harry was spending any time more than necessary in there.
_____
“Where is he?!”
“Dead!”
_____
She missed Harry.
That didn’t change the fact that he needed to apologize.
_____
“Tell me where he is!”
“He is dead!” The woman’s mouth snarled out.
“No, he’s not! He’s not dead! He can’t be!”
Harry and Sam both looked at Dean in concern, only to be rebuffed.
“What are you looking at? Keep reading.”
“Ab insidis diaboli, libera nos, domine. Ut ecclesiam tuam secura tibi facias, libertate servire, te rogamus, audi nos. (the chair starts to slide around the circle) Ut inimicos sanctae ecclesiae humiliare digneris, to rogamus audi....”
“He will be!”
“What?!”
“He’s not dead. But he will be after what we do to him.” Dean didn’t even look happy at first, like he had accepted that his dad was dead already and that this torture was always going to fail.
“How do we know you’re telling the truth?”
“You don’t.”
“Sam!”
Before Sam could continue again, Meg, almost desperately rushed out, “A building! Okay? A building in Jefferson City.”
“Missouri? Where, where? An address!”
“I don’t know.”
“And the demon – the one we’re looking for - where is it?” Came Sam’s voice.
“I don’t know! I swear! That’s everything. That’s all I know.” She sounded, so… human. Like this was only a normal, human woman pleading her case, and not a demon.
“Finish it.”
“What? I told you the truth!”
“I don’t care.”
_____
Whenever Cedric caught sight of Harry, a pit in stomach seemed to appear. Everyone knew that someone close to Harry had died, if the rumors that Hermione had screamed about it had any truth to it, and that combined with the fact that Cedric he’d never seen him attempt to crack his golden egg to figure out the next challenge, meant that he knew what he must do.
No matter the fact that letting Harry fail might mean that he had a real chance of winning.
_____
“Finish it.”
Sam took a deep breath, and kept going.
“Dominicos sanctae ecclesiae, terogamus audi nos, terribilis deus do sanctuario suo deus israhel. Ipse tribuite virtutem et fortitudinem plebi suae, benedictus deus, gloria patri....”
Meg finally let out a torturous scream, head thrown back in boiling pain, black smoke pouring out of her mouth, dark and almost opaque, it reminded him strongly of how Voldemort looked as a wraith in his first year.
Her head fell forward, an accompanying clot of blood falling from her lips.
Unsure if it was over they paused, only launched back into the present when all at once, the woman’s entire body seemed to crack, blood leaching into her clothes and running down the chair into the salt.
He thought he heard Dean say something to Bobby, then begin cradling the woman- no the body. No one could live after that.
Only- she began to whisper, “Thank you.”
“Shh, shh. Just take it easy, alright?” Came Sam’s desperate voice.
Dean tried to grab her and lift her of the chair to- he assumed put her on the couch, but the sound of bones crunching and her screams of pain stopped them. Dean gently settled her back onto the chair.
“Sorry, sorry. I got you. I got you. It’s okay. It’s okay.”
“A year.”
“What?”
“It’s been a year.”
“Shh, just take it easy.”
“I was awake for all of it- I- I just couldn’t move my own body. The things I did- the things it used me to do- it’s a nightmare.
“Was it telling us the truth about our Dad?”
“Dean!” Sam reprimanded
“We need to know.”
“Yes. But it wants... you to know... that- that they want you to come for him.”
“If Dad’s still alive, none of that matters.”
“Where is the demon we’re looking for?” Sam questioned.
“Not there. Other ones. Awful ones.”
“Where are they keeping our Dad?” Dean’s voice almost wavered, almost showed his desperation.
“By the river. Sunrise.”
“’Sunrise?’ What does that mean?” Deans voice finally tipped into showing the true amount of need he had, “What does that mean?!”