Chapter 13
Hermione was a little embarrassed to admit it, but Harry was her first friend. Ever. And that meant he was important to her. So, she approached him and asked if he knew what the second task was and what his plans for it were.
He brushed her off.
She tried again, refusing to let him push her away until she was sure he wasn’t about to die.
That time she was flat out ignored.
She cornered him in one of the secret passages that she had memorized from the Marauder’s Map, she knew he would take it because it was the best one for leaving the astronomy tower while avoiding the most people.
He said to her face that he didn’t need her help.
That was it.
She was done trying.
That apology had to be amazing.
So, with mild anxiety, she watched the water in front of her, half expecting to never catch sight of Harry returning to the surface.
_____
He finally had a moment to breath.
They did it. They really did. Caleb’s cabin was quiet. He carefully didn’t think about why that was, about how many of his dad’s friends they would need to burn after this. That didn’t matter right now. The fact is, they got dad. It worried him a little just how easy it was, but that was simple to ignore.
Sam and Harry sat on the coach, the coffee table the only thing blocking Dean from protecting them if the need arises, he was sat on a sofa chair, same as dad, all the furniture generally facing the fireplace.
His dad looked terrible, only a little better then he was when they first pulled him out of that god forbidden box. Sam had refused to get any further before testing dad with holy water which, as he had thought, didn’t work.
It was Dad alright.
“You did good.”
Shock shot through him.
“What?”
“I’m proud of you. You know, Sam and I, we can get pretty obsessed. But you, you watch out for this family. You always have.”
“Thanks…”
The wind began beating against the window, lights flashing. Dad moved the window, looking for a moment before announcing, “It found us. It’s here.”
“The demon?” Sam questioned.
“Sam, Harry, lines of salt in front of every window, every door.”
“I already did it.” Harry informed him, Dean could hear the need to be acknowledged by his father in the words. To be cared for.
“Well, check it, okay?”
“Okay.” For once, Sam listened to his father without question, dragging Harry along with him, leaving Dean and his dad alone.
“Dean, you got the gun?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it to me.”
Dean withdrew the gun, that heaviness that went beyond the physical seemed even heavier in his grip.
“I need it. Hurry.”
“Why?”
“I have the best shot. This is important, we only have one chance.”
He looked down, the gleaming metal and shining wood, the intricate carvings and etchings.
“Son, please.”
That, that made him sure. He took a step back from his father, then another.
“Give me the gun. What are you doing, Dean?”
“He would have never.”
“What?”
“I screwed up. I should’ve killed the demon back in Salvation, not let it get away. Dad would have never missed that.”
He raised the gun, instinctively holding it exactly as the man in front of him had taught. He wouldn’t miss.
“You’re not my dad.”
At the demon’s- the Yello-Eyed Demon’s look of feigned confusion, he spoke, “I know my dad better than anyone. And you ain’t him.”
“What the hell’s gotten into you?”
“I could ask you the same thing, though it’d be a bit more literal. Stay back.”
“Dean? What the hell’s going on?” Sam’s voice surprised him, but he didn’t stop staring down the thing in his father’s body for a moment.
“Your brother’s lost his mind.”
“He’s not Dad.”
“What?” Sam hadn’t disregarded him as crazy immediately. Good.
“I think he’s possessed. I think he’s been possessed since we rescued him.”
“Don’t listen to him, Sammy.”
“Dean, how do you know?”
“He’s… he’s different.”
“You know, we don’t have time for this. Sam, you wanna kill this demon, you’ve gotta trust me.”
Dean couldn’t say the words. That the demon pretending to be him had shown more pride in him then John had since the first encounter with the Shtriga. Sam looked back and forth between his him and the Yellow-Eyed Demon
“Sam?”
Sam looked again, as if reading their faces would tell him anymore then their words.
He moved to his side. Harry did the same.
The demon wearing their father looked at all three of it’s host’s children.
“Fine. You’re both so sure, go ahead. Kill me.”
It looked down and waited.
He could imagine it, the loud noise rattling his ear drums, his grip and stance would lessen the kickback, but he would still feel it, the blood spreading outward from his dad’s chest as he lay there still. Maybe the demon would even scream. Meg had.
He couldn’t do it.
“I thought so.”
The demon looked back up, eyes consumed in a sickly yellow.
Sam lunged forward, only to be easily thrown backward into a wall, Dean and Harry quickly following him, as if gravity and flipped 90 degrees.
John picked up the fallen Colt.
“What a pain in the ass this thing’s been.”
“It’s you!”
“But the holy water?”
“Sammy boy, you really think something like that works on something like me?”
“I’m gonna kill you!”
“Oh, that’d be a neat trick. In fact,” He dropped the gun almost carelessly on the table, “here, show your father and the bastard what exactly you can do.” He turned his father’s face towards Harry, instinctively making Dean tense.
“And it’s not just visions!”
A long moment passed. Nothing.
“Well, this is fun.” He began a casual walk to the window beside Dean, “I could’ve killed you a hundred times today, but this......” It released a long, satisfied sigh, “this is worth the wait.”
John looks over at him.
“Your Dad- he’s in here with me. Trapped inside his own meat suit. Say ‘hi’ Johnny boy. Get a good, long look at your baby boys. I’m gonna tear them apart. Your gonna taste the iron in their blood.”
His struggling did nothing.
“Let him go, or I swear to God-”
“What? What are you and God gonna do? You see, as far as I’m concerned, this is justice. You know that little exorcism of yours? That was my daughter.”
“Who, Meg?”
“The very same.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“What? You’re the only one that can have a family? You destroyed daughter. How would you feel if I killed your family? Oh, that’s right. I forgot. I did. Still, two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“I wanna know why. Why’d you do it?” Sam demanded.
“You mean why did I kill Mommy and pretty, little Jess?”
“Yeah.” Sam gritted out.
Those putrid yellow eyes turned back to him, “You know, I never told you this, but Sam was going to ask her to marry him.”
No.
“Been shopping for rings and everything.”
God, no.
“You want to know why I killed them? Because they got in the way.”
“In the way of what?”
“My plans for you, Sammy. You... and all the children like you.”
He couldn’t stand this. Sam- Sam wasn’t like him. He couldn’t shut off his emotions when he needed to like he could.
“Listen, you mind just getting this over with, huh? Cause I really can’t stand the monologuing.”
“Funny, but that’s all part of your M.O., isn’t it? Masks all that nasty pain, masks the truth.”
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?”
“You know, you fight, and you fight for this family, but the truth is they don’t need you. Not like you need them. Sam- he’s clearly John’s favorite. Even when they fight, it’s more concern than he’s ever shown you. The bastard hasn’t even had the time to really get to know you, has he? Seen what made you so insignificant.”
“Diffindo!”
A small cut sliced into his dad’s face, barely a drop of blood escaping before it healed over.
The demon’s eyes widened a bit, then as it brought its’ hand up to wipe the blood away a mad grin split its’ face.
“Little bastards got bite! Didn’t know you were one of them. That does make it interesting, doesn’t it?”
Right now, Dean didn’t care to know how Harry had just done that, all he knew was the demon couldn’t be looking at his little brother with that grin.
A glob of spit landed right on his father’s chest.
He barely got a flare of satisfaction before a scream burst from his lips unwillingly.
“Dean! No!”
It felt as if a thousand cuts had spontaneously opened on his chest, salt and lemon juice rubbed into them with sand paper. He forced his mouth shut and looked forward, the demon returning its gaze.
“Dad! Dad, don’t you let it kill me!”
For a moment, Dean though he saw his dad, and then it smiled.
The pain forced the screaming out, no matter the fact that Dean had been prepared for it.
“Dean!”
His back burned that same agony, forming a symphony of pain. He couldn’t take it.
“Dad, please.”
His vision went black.
-----
“Stop.” He got out. The words so much quieter then the shouting they had been in his head.
Control was ripped from him again, vision once again in shades of that sickly yellow.
Sam had lunged and grabbed the Colt, now aiming it at them, him and the demon.
His flesh was puppeted, grotesquely pulled on as if the muscles were on strings into the words, “You kill me, you kill Daddy.”
Do it. Sammy. End this.
“I know.”
Pain speared through his calf, pain as if it was bleach spreading through him. He barely realized that he had fallen, cradling his calf to his chest.
He could still feel the rot.
Could still see that sickly yellow threatening to overcome his vision.
-----
“Dad? Dad!?”
“Sammy! It’s still alive. It’s inside me, I can feel it. You shoot me. You shoot me! You shoot me in the heart, son! Do it now!”
The gun felt sweaty in his hand, like it itself was nervous.
“Sam, don’t you do it. Don’t you do it.”
Like it wasn’t sure.
“You’ve gotta hurry! I can’t hold onto it much longer! You shoot me, son! Shoot me! Son, I’m begging you! We can end this here and now! Sammy!”
The choice wasn’t really between revenge and family, was it? The- the children, the children like him, like Harry. If the demon was alive, what would it do to them?
-BOOM-
In a flash it wasn’t John in front of him, but Harry.
A scream that would haunt him split his brother’s mouth, blood pouring from not just the bullet wound in his right arm, but his forehead too, thick dark gushes of blood pumping to beat of the kid’s heart.
Harry fell to his knees, then his side, that scream never ending. Behind him a black mass escaped from John’s mouth and into the dark corners of the room.
He waited for his brother, his only little brother, to stop moving. To die by his hands. But the screaming continued, even when Dean rushed forward and tore off the kid’s right sleeve revealing a wound gushing blood, skin around it not the irritated red he was familiar with but a white, so pure it looked as if it was cleansing him.
“Harry! You’re okay- please. God! You’re okay. You’re not allowed to die.” Dean begged, pushing his whole body weight on the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding.
“Sam! Make a tourniquet!”
Sam jerked to attention and rushed to follow the order, pulling out his belt and making the carefully memorized motions of sliding it around his upper arm and tightening it, it didn’t matter that he should be dead, that there was no way he was still alive. The fact was that he was.
“Dad! The car- it has med kit. Same place as before. Grab it.”
John pushed himself up, body tired from lack of food and the injuries he had endured while being held captive and followed Dean’s order without question.
Harry’s strangled voice came from below him, “Am I dead?”
“You’re okay- kid you’re okay. You aren’t going to be dying anytime soon.”
The second John stumbled back into the room Dean snatched the kit, grabbing the bandages inside without looking with practiced ease. Wrapping it tightly, he continued ramble comforting words to Harry. As if words themselves was all they needed.
-----
First, he felt the rumble of the ground bellow him, then smelt the hot iron scent of blood he had been familiar with for as long as he could remember, an unfamiliar weight wrapping his chest, back and arms.
Why couldn’t he see?
He blinked lazily upward, “Dad?”
“Yeah- kid. Your okay. You got a little banged up, but you heal right up.”
Blinking a few more times, he looked around, the moving car jerked hard as it ran over the rocky road.
“Careful!”
“I can’t control the rockiness of the road, Dean.”
From where he could see, Dean sat in the passenger seat, chest and back layered in uniform bandages. His face was curled in an almost carefree smirk, like he was just teasing.
“Where are we going?” Harry mustered up the strength to mumble out.
“We’re going to an associate of mine’s house.”
“He means Bobby’s, kid.” Came Sam’s voice. He hadn’t realized they knew he was awake.
“We stayed there for most of the summer. Tried to keep Harry out of hunting.” Dean put in.
John seemed to take this in stride.
“The bullet holes were clean enough that we didn’t have to risk the hospital. We- er- aren’t on the best terms with the law right now.”
His sluggish brain finally realized what he was wearing, “Your jacket?”
Dean looked back, head at an awkward angle to not upset his injuries. “You did save the original owner of the jacket’s life. Thought it would only be right that you got the honor of having it.”
Warmth spread through him, though he knew better then to argue with Dean on anything, he felt he needed to, “Dean, are you sure-
A bright light shown through the car’s windows for just a moment before a truck slammed into them.