On slow nights such as these, Daniel had a habit of calling his friends in other police departments across Britain. Mostly because he knew they’d be awake, doing the same thing he was, twiddling their thumbs, itching for something to do. Most of them were surprised with how quiet London was, and while Daniel agreed, he was also relieved. For once it wasn’t his city falling apart; it was someone else’s turn. That, in itself, was not the usual attitude Daniel held, but at the moment, on the end of a long shift, he couldn’t help himself. Many of his mates worked in smaller departments, and there were rarely any firearms specialists among them, so really, what he was doing, was for as much the citizen’s benefit as his own.
No matter what though, he was focused on his work. Even with his mates, there was no sports talk. Daniel was dedicated to his job, and so were his friends, and when a call came in about a man dead in Godric’s Hollow, Daniel worked his way into the team being sent to look at the body. The pretense for that, of course, was Daniel’s experience as a regular police officer, and his extra skills in carrying a gun. Technically it wasn’t something that should be happening often. But a death in a small, quiet neighborhood with no previous record of any sort of violence, it concerned his higher ups after they heard the news as well.
He drove quickly, while still managing to obey all traffic laws. Daniel had been to a few deaths before at a scene. A few suicides, some naturals, and two murders. England was usually a peaceful country in terms of murders. They were certainly no United States in that regard, but they were not wiped clean of the atrocities of human beings.
It was pitch black as Daniel’s police car reached the sectioned off scene. Apparently someone had stumbled upon the John Doe’s body as he had been walking by, not seeing it because of the time of night. Daniel quickly wanted to ask that witness questions, already wondering why the hell someone would be wandering around at this time of night, even in a small town like this.
Daniel walked forward, showing his badge to another officer on scene, making sure everyone knew he wasn’t a fake. Other officers on scene were already documenting, and the medical examiner was there as well, trying to figure out time of death, and what killed the man with not a mark on him.
That was the interesting part. The victim was young. Around his own age, if Daniel had to reckon, and he was in pristine condition. There was no knife wound. No gun shot. Nothing. With gloves on, Daniel watched as they combed the lifeless body, searching for answers, and coming up with nothing except a ‘We’ll see after we’ve opened him up, and run his blood’. Still—it was all weird. The location. The circumstance in how they found the body. The body itself.
Daniel felt for his gun, touching it with the tips of his fingers in a soothing caress. He knew everything about the gun he carried. He knew how much it weighed, the length of the barrel, how much pressure was necessary to pull the trigger, how many bullets it could hold, which direction he had to compensate for—everything. Yet, with all of that knowledge, he knew nothing of the body in front of him. A person without a name. He could measure the height of the man, the distance between his eyes, and yet that wouldn’t matter in the end, because in the end, the man could not be comparable to the gun. The gun wasn’t dead. It was cold, but not dead.
“I hope he isn’t a John Doe for long,” Daniel spoke, his voice rising above all the working noise. Keeping quiet didn’t seem to be an option, and suddenly he thought only of his parents, and their involvement in World War 2, and the feeling both of them must have felt every time they found a man dead. The only difference was, unless they were a civilian, those men had dog tags. Identification. They were not merely faces, but faces with names.
And those names had answers, instead of a million more questions, such as, how did a twenty something year old, healthy man, wind up dead in Godric’s Hollow?
Hestia had always hated the sight of herself in her healing robes, but it had begun to become unbearable. As if the eye popping lime wasn’t difficult enough to stomach, there was now pouch at her mid drift that seemed to swallow her whole. As she stared into the full length mirror in the break room at St. Mungo’s, she pulled at her cheeks, as if she could stretch the tired flesh out the way her wand had done to the polyester cloaking the near invisible bump beneath her ribs. The bags beneath her eyes were striking, particularly against the glow of her skin. She took solace in the fact that she looked more like a jaundice patient than a pregnant healer, but only a little.
After all, people were starting to talk.
She ignored the whispers she thought she heard, the glances she felt for a second too long on the back of her head, as she shuffled out of the hospital, her knuckles white around the brown leather strap of her bulging purse. Her co-workers had been kind, never mentioning the appointments they knew she had kept with the obstetric healers. They poked at her private business with polite subtlety, asking how her mother was, wondering if they were adjusting to life with a baby now that it was just the two of them at home. They pretended not to know that she was no longer seeing Remus, never overstepping the boundary she placed between herself and their questions with great emphasis whenever he came up in conversation. Hestia was far more comfortable knowing they were speculating behind her back than she would have been in any conversation.
Thinking of Remus was hardly any easier than putting on her work clothes. Hestia knew, undoubtedly, that he was responsible for the still (thankfully) indistinguishable bump. She also knew that his involvement with what wriggled beneath it would be minimal-- by her own choice rather than his. She remembered too clearly how sure he had been that he would never be a father; that he never could be. Even more sharply, Hestia remembered how quickly things had gone awry. So long as Remus was running around underground, putting himself in more danger and trouble than it was worth, she was certain he would be right. He never could be a father; at least, not like that.
Though Hestia knew she was right, the realization wasn’t any less painful. She winced on her way out of St. Mungo’s, pausing to shield her eyes from the sun with one hand and massage her lower back with the other. Where could she go today to avoid her restless mother, who wasn’t afraid to ask the questions her fellow healers kept sealed behind their lips? To distract herself from the painful thoughts that infringed on her mind with increasing frequency? With hardly a clue as to the answer, Hestia left the hospital, turning in a new direction as she reached the end of the street.
Did you? I don't think I saw you there. When was that? And why, if I may ask. C.M.B.
About a week and a half ago. I don’t think you were working. You can ask. Never been to one, wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Thought yours was as good a place as any, given the possibility you might have been there.
