Murder at Malfoy Manor

They screamed as the shot ricocheted off the stone walls. Pansy fell to the ground, covering her head as pieces of rock flew at them.

"Stop shooting!" Neville yelled, as another shot rang out. The bullet hit his hand and he dropped the flashlight, cursing as it rolled away.

"I can't take it! I can't take it!" Pansy was saying over and over. Her hands were over her ears and she was rocking back and forth.

***

"Was that Neville?" Ginny asked, finding Harry arm in the dark and making him lower the gun.

"Neville?" Harry shouted into the tunnel.

Neville's voice came back to them, "Yes, it's me! I think I've been shot!"

"Stay where you are!" Draco yelled. "We're coming in!"

Everyone headed for the light, Draco still carrying an unconscious Hermione. They walked quickly, Ginny leading and Harry bringing up the rear, walking backward with the gun out in front of him. He backed out of the opening and then shut the painting behind him.

Pansy was still huddled on the ground, muttering gibberish like a lunatic. Neville was holding the flashlight in one hand; the other was hanging limply at his side, dripping blood.

"My god! I've shot you! Are you okay?" Harry said, snatching the flashlight from Neville's hand. He examined the wound. "It went right through your damn hand!" Harry's stomach lurched. "Someone get me something to wrap his hand!"

Everyone looked around; the men were all shirtless and wore only pajama bottoms and either slippers or bare feet. Hermione was out cold and Pansy was beyond help.

"Ginny! I need your nightgown or your knickers- something!" Harry could visualize the shocked and defiant look on his wife's face. "Please, Ginny! He's bleeding to death!"

"Oh, fine!" she snapped and after a second of struggle, Harry was handed Ginny's nightgown. "I'm going back to the other room where we left Ron!" She pushed past Harry.

"You're not going anywhere!"

"Well, I'm not going to stand here in my bra and knickers, it's drafty! I'm going to find something to put on."

"Let's all go, Granger here is getting heavier by the minute."
***

"Oh, fucking hell!" Draco said. "What happened here?" He laid Hermione down on the cleanest spot he could find on the bed.

Harry was shining the flashlight around the room and they were all shocked at the amount of blood splatter and the broken glass. "Where is Ron?" Harry asked, turning to Pansy.

She was sobbing into her hands. "I..."

"Where is Ron, Pansy?" Harry asked again. "You came through here to get to the secret passage. You had to have seen him! Now tell me where the bloody hell he is!" He grabbed her and shook the shit out of her.

"He's dead! He's dead! Dead, dead DEAD!" Pansy screamed. "And we're next! We're all going to die!" Suddenly her head was knocked backwards as Harry slapped her hard across the face.

"Get a hold of yourself! Now is not the time to get hysterical!" Harry shouted in her face. He pushed Pansy away and turned to Neville. "What happened?"

"We were just about to go down the stairs to the kitchens like you wanted, when we heard sounds coming from this room." Neville gulped, remembering the paralyzing fear he felt. "We- I opened the door after a few minutes and saw..." He was on the verge of cracking up like Pansy, he just knew it! "There was blood everywhere!"

Harry looked over at Ginny, her wide terrified eyes glowing in the bright beam from the flashlight. "Did... did you see Ron?" he asked Neville.

"Nnnoo. He wasn't here. All we saw was blood and then the lights went out."

"Where did the flashlight come from?" Draco asked.

"The dog brought it to us. We thought he was the murderer! He jumped on Pansy and she knocked the mirror off the wall..."

Draco raised his eyebrows. "How the hell did the dog know to bring it to you? Seems a little strange, doesn't it?"

"Everything around here seems strange, Malfoy!" Ginny snapped. "He's your dog isn't he? Didn't you teach him to fetch your slippers and stuff?" She was standing there trying as best as she could to cover her breasts and knickers, shivering from cold.

Draco was about to answer with a smart ass retort when Hermione started moaning. He rushed over to the bed. "Hermione?" He helped her to sit up, gently holding her so she would fall over.

"What happened?" she asked, her hand feeling the large goose egg on the back of her head.

"You slipped in the dark and hit your head," Harry said. "Malfoy carried you back down the secret passage." He noticed that they were holding hands and looking at one another rather intimately. "Ron- your husband," he said, emphasizing the word 'husband', is apparently missing."

"Missing?" Hermione asked. She gasped in shock as Harry shown the light around the room, illuminating all the crimson splatters and deep sticky pools of blood. "My god! what happened in here?"

"No idea," Draco answered, shrugging his shoulders. "Longbottom and Pansy found it like this. Blood everywhere and Weasley's missing in action."

Hermione looked over at Pansy, who was huddled in a chair sobbing quietly, her legs pulled up in front of her, her hair hanging in her face. "What's wrong with her?"

"She's lost her friggin' mind, and I for one am getting extremely annoyed by her constant screaming, crying and nonsensical insane mumbling," Draco said. "Someone should put her out of her misery."

Pansy's head snapped up and she glared at Draco with burning hatred. "You'd like that wouldn't you?" she said. "You've already gotten rid of Weasley and now you want me dead!" She stood up, her face contorted angrily. "This is all some sick twisted plot of yours to get us all out of the way so that you can have your precious Granger!"

"If I wanted to kill you, Pansy, I could have done it on numerous occasions," Draco spat. "Many times I took the pillow from under my head and held it over your's, wanting so damn badly to smother the life out of you while you were sleeping- but I didn't!"

"I'm not going to sit here and listen to your fucking lies, Draco! I KNOW you're behind this," Pansy said, standing up on shaky legs. She looked for all the world like a clown who had just had a small bomb go off in its face. "I'm not going to just stand around and have some murderer kill me!" She snatched the flashlight from Harry's hand and pushed her way from the room, plunging them once again into darkness.

They heard her sobbing all the way down the hall and then the sound of a door slamming.

"Someone should go after her," Neville said, meaning someone that was not him. He was cradling his wounded hand and swaying dangerously on his feet.

"I'll go," Ginny said. "I need to find something to wear anyway."

"Ginny, there is no damn way I'm letting you out of my site. You're staying right here," Harry said, considering the case closed.

"You can't tell me what to do, Harry. You're not my father! Hell, I'm not even sure I want you to be my husband anymore!" She pushed past him and felt her way to the door.

"Ginny..."

"I'm going, Harry. End of story." She fumbled her way into the hall and slowly made her way towards the door she thought belonged to the room Pansy had been staying in.

"Does it hurt, Potter?" Draco asked with a chuckle.

"Does what hurt?" Harry asked, annoyed.

"When you're wife walks all over you, of course!" He laughed harder. "I always thought she was the manliest of all the Weasley's. Perhaps that why you married her- because she was manly."

"Just shut up, Malfoy before I kick your ass."

"Did you say 'kiss my ass'?" Draco asked pretending to be flattered. "Because I'm sorry to have to tell you that you're coming no where near my glorious posterior, Potter."

"Like I would EVER touch your nasty ass with my lips, Malfoy!"

"Oh, but you'd love to touch something else, now wouldn't you, you f..."

"God damn it!" Hermione shouted. "I've had enough of your bickering! Draco, why is it that you always have to start something? Does it make you feel superior to put others down?" She cut him off as he started to answer. "Because all it does it make you look and sound like an idiot. You are not twelve anymore, so act like a damn grown man for once!"

Harry was laughing in the darkness, ecstatic that Draco got told off. That happiness was short lived, however when her anger turned towards him.

"And you, Harry!" Hermione said. "We are in a life and death situation here!"

"I know that!"

"You do?" she asked. "Then why are you wasting time trading insults with Malfoy when you should be helping me think of a way to get us all out of here?"

"He pissed me off!"

"He..."

There was a loud thud as something heavy hit the floor. Tiny shards of broken glass flew up and landed in their hair.

"I think Longbottom just passed out," Draco said.

***

Pansy walked quickly across the room, the beam of light dancing wildly on the floor and walls. She found the door to the bathroom and shut it loudly behind her. Aiming the light on the huge mirror on the opposite side of the room, she moaned loudly when she caught site of what she looked like. As a child, she had never been very attractive, guys ignored her and she knew other girls made fun of her 'pug-like' looks. As soon as she was old enough, she headed straight for the best cosmetic surgeon she could afford.

It worked. Her face and body were transformed into something that made men stand up and take notice. Finally she was sexy and irresistible. Finally she could get the one man she had wanted her entire life: Draco Malfoy.

She had never been very smart and now she realized brains didn't really matter to men- it was tits, asses and cunts that mattered, and she learned how to work them all. Batting her eyelashes timidly, licking her lips seductively, swaying her hips in a way that screamed 'come fuck me!', this is what she mastered and this was how she got what she wanted.

Draco fell for her and so did plenty of other men. She had learned that looks were everything- now her looks were a kin to a troll in drag. "I look like shit!" she said, grabbing her purse off the shelf and digging around inside. Taking all of her cosmetics out and lining them up, including a small crystal bottle she thought was perfume. She then turned the tap on high. She cupped her hands under the warm stream and splashed her her face. It was puffy and sore from crying and her nose was still a little stuffed up.

"Pansy?" Came Ginny's voice through the door. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, Weasley, just leave me alone!" She glanced over at the flickering flashlight. "Just fucking great! The damn thing's dying!"

She located her face cleanser in the semi-darkness and scrubbed the smeared mascara and lipstick from her face and neck. After drying off and brushing her hair, she put on a fresh layer of makeup and looked herself over in the mirror. "That's more like it!" She had to squint in the growing darkness because the flashlight was now almost totally dead.

"Pansy?"

"I said to leave me the hell alone, Weasley! I hate you and you hate me, so stop pretending that you're so damn concerned about me!"

"I was only trying to help!" Ginny said from the other side of the door. "You ungrateful fucking cow," she added under her breath.

Pansy sniffed her armpits and decided she smelled like a monkey cage on a sweltering August afternoon. "I don't need your help or the help of those bumbling morons you call friends." She reached for the crystal vial and uncorked it. "I'm going to find my own way out of here." She poured some of it into her palm and smoothed it over her neck and wrists. "And I'm not going to get help either. All of you can rot in this fucking house for all I care!"

Ginny leaned on the door, rolling her eyes. After fumbling around it what she thought must be the closet; she had managed to find herself some clothes to wear; although it was dark, so she could be wearing dookie brown pants and a green and red polka dot shirt for all she knew. "Pansy..." Was all she got out before the screams tore through the air and almost made her eardrums explode.

***

"What now?" Draco asked, sighing disgustedly. "With her is always drama, drama, drama!"

"She probably just saw a spider or something," Harry said, not believing a word of what he just said. He knew in his gut that something was terribly wrong and as soon as Ginny's scream joined Pansy's, he bolted up and fled the pitch black room as fast as he could. "Stay with Neville!" he shouted over his shoulder.

Draco and Hermione sat there on the cold, bloody, glass littered floor, listening to the screaming. Neville still hadn't moved and Hermione found herself feeling for his pulse just to make sure he was still alive.

"What do you think is happening?" Hermione asked, inching closer to Draco and she felt his arms wrap protectively around her. She laid her head on his shoulder, loving how his smooth skin felt under her cheek.

"I don't know, Hermione, but I have a feeling it's not something good."

***

"Ginny?" Harry said, wondering if she could hear him over the extremely loud beating of his heart- or the intense painful cries from Pansy. "Ginny!"

"In here!" Ginny said, her voice had a scratchy sound to it. Harry supposed it was from screaming.

A hand came out of the dark and Harry gasped as took hold of his arm. He instinctively knew by the soft touch that it was Ginny. "What's wrong? What's happened?" Pansy's screams abruptly came to a halt and the silence that followed was deafening.

***

"She's stopped," Draco said. "I wonder what happened to make her stop screaming?" He hoped it wasn't that she had died. Yes, he hated her with a passion and fantasized more than once about that very thing- but really, he didn't want her to end up murdered.

"Should we go and see what's going on?" Hermione asked.

"What about Longbottom?" Draco asked. "We can't just leave him here. What if the killer comes back and finds him?"

Hermione knew he was right; they couldn't just leave him lying there alone like some sort of sacrifice. "Maybe we can carry him?"

Draco opened his mouth to answer and then snapped it shut, his arms tightened around Hermione. "Do you hear something? Something like footsteps?"

Hermione's eyes widened in fright. "Maybe it's Harry," she said, but just then they heard him screaming obscenities from the room down the hall as he tried to break the bathroom door down.

"Maybe not," Draco whispered. "Quick!" He stood up and grabbed Neville's arms. "Take hold of his legs, we need to hide him."

"Hide him where, exactly?" Hermione asked, as the footsteps came closer down the hall. Since the floor was hardwood, they could hear the clicking as clear as day and it reminded Hermione crazily of a pair of black pumps she had worn to a Ministry function last summer. The heels were way too tall and they killed her feet. By the end of the night, her feet had swollen up like fat sausages. She remembered how the hells clicked against the polished marble floor, and it sounded almost the same.

"Help me shove him under the bed!" Draco said, as they felt their way across the room. In the distance, they heard the sound of breaking wood and Harry's triumphant laugh.

"Shove him under the bed? Draco, Hermione said in disgust, "we can't treat him that way!"

"Now is not the time to argue about whether or not it's ethical to cram an unconscious bleeding man under a four poster bed! The killer is coming and we need to hide!"

Hermione joined Draco and they succeeded in pushing Neville to safety and then both stood up, not sure of what to do. It was pitch black and they didn't know where to go.

"Wasn't there a closet next to the painting?" Hermione asked, in a panic; the foot steps were now almost right outside the door.

"Hurry!" Draco hissed and yanked her in the direction he hoped was right. He felt his way around the bed, and then bolted across the floor. He reached the closet where he threw himself and Hermione inside and quietly shut the door just as the killer entered the room.

***

"Oh my GOD!" Harry and Ginny said together. They stood huddled in the busted doorway, their mouths hanging open in shock. Pansy lay on the floor, the dim rays from the flashlight beam illuminating her smoking, black body. She looked like she had just been roasted on a spit to be eaten later at a pig roast. Her skin was cracked, and pinkish-colored ooze was dribbling from the wounds. Her eye sockets were a gelatinous yellow mess and her hands were curled into claws, the red polish had bubbled from the heat.
"She looks like she's been cooked alive!" Harry said, taking a few steps forward. He was careful not to touch her body as he picked up the flashlight from the floor. He shone it over her body, slowly, inch by inch. "What the hell could have done this?" He asked. The light suddenly caught the tiny crystal vial that lie on the floor next to Pansy's blackened foot. "Isn't that the gift that the killer gave to you? the Manticore venom? What's it doing here?"

He kicked it a little and some of the venom leaked out onto the floor, where it smoked and burned a hole in the tile floor. "Either she mistakenly put this on, or someone did it for her."

Ginny looked up at his accusing face. "I know what you're thinking. Just say it!"

"You were alone with her, Ginny."

"I can't believe you would even THINK I could ever do this to another human being!"

"Human being? Isn't that a bit of a stretch?" He put the light under his chin and made a goofy face. "Come one Gin! You know I don't think you did this!"

"You're a complete jackass, you know that?" She was trying to sound stern, but she couldn't help but crack a smile. "Seriously, if I didn't do this, then who did?"

"I don't know, but someone planted that Manticore venom. Someone who knew Pansy well enough to know how conceited she is, and that she at some point would want to refresh her makeup.

They both stood there, staring at Pansy's poor burnt body, wondering what kind of monster they were dealing with, and who it could be.

***

"Shh!" Draco whispered, putting his hand over Hermione's mouth, just in case she screamed. He closed his eyes and tried to remain in his right mind. Sweat was rolling down his neck and his soaked bangs were handing annoyingly in his face. His heart was racing and his legs felt weak and rubbery.

He was afraid, and that was nothing new. He fought the urge to fling Hermione away, run from the closet, and fall at the killer's feet... begging for mercy. He was a coward- sad but true. He had always been deathly afraid to stand up for himself or for what he believed in. Time and again he chose the easy path, time and again, he stood by and let the ones he loved be hurt and killed because he was too afraid to make a stand. No more. Tonight he would change. Tonight he would cease to be the coward and stand brave and tall, ready to protect the woman he loved!

He hugged Hermione closer and together they listened as the murderer walked across the floor. Draco reached over and cracked the door open. Hermione stiffened in fear against him.

Hermione caught a whiff of that floral smell again. It was so damn familiar and the reason why was dangling elusively just out of her reach.

The intruder was carrying a candle; its flames danced on the walls, making giant shadows. It was difficult to get a good look at his face because he was turned away, looking at the painting. Draco thought he could see long dark hair, but then again he thought it might just be the shadows. The killer watched the silent woman in the painting play with her necklace and then he placed his fingers under the frame and pulled it open. He stepped into the dark tunnel and closed it behind him with a click.

Draco slowly let go of Hermione's mouth and let out the breath he didn't even know he had been holding. "He's gone."

Hermione collapsed in his arms and started sobbing. "We have to get out of this house! We have to!" She held onto to him for life. "I don't want to die like this!"

He crushed her face into his bare chest, kissing the top of her frizzy head. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm going to get us out of here." He took her face in his hands and wiped her tears with his thumbs. "I will never let anything happen to you. Never."

He leaned in and placed his lips gently on hers, and for the first time, he knew this was where he wanted to be. He felt it in his racing heart and in his fluttering stomach. He loved this woman and he now knew that she loved him back. The second they escaped from this house, he was going to whisk her away to some exotic place, and there they could finally be together- as it should be.

Hermione's soft finger-tips brushed over the hot skin of his bare chest, relishing the way it made him shiver. She had often wondered how it would feel to caress every inch of his naked body and maybe- just maybe- if they managed to get out of this hell hole, she would be able to properly find out. For now, though, she would settle for his smooth hairless chest 'And maybe his bare ass', she thought, sliding her hands down the back of his pajama bottoms, cupping his cheeks and using them to push him further against her.

Draco was a little shocked at her forwardness, but got over it very quickly. He deepened the kiss, his hands twisting in the back of her tangled hair. "I love you..." he whispered into her lips. "So much..."

Hermione responded by breaking the kiss and removing her knickers. "I've wanted to hear those words from you for so long." She wished she could see his eyes as she rested her forehead on his. "Make love to me," she said softly, brushing her hand across his erection. "If we're going to die, I want to die having known the pleasures of the man I've longed for what seems like an eternity..." She could feel his hitching breaths on her face as her hand slid into the front of his pants and released his cock. "I want you, Draco." She kissed his shoulder. "I need you." Now his neck. "I love you..." Her lips found his, crashing down on them passionately.

Draco lifted her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist. Bracing himself against the closet wall, he entered her. They knew they didn't have much time before Harry and Ginny either came back or called for them, so it quick and fierce; his back hitting the wall every time she thrust herself down upon him.

As their pace quickened even more, and she muffled her screams by biting her bottom lip, he told her over and over that he loved her, until, at last, he released inside of her.

"Now I can die happy," she said, as he embraced her, still buried deep inside of her.

"Now I have no need to die," Draco said. "I've already been to heaven." He kissed her once more, and then they heard Ginny yelling for them.

***


"What do we do?" Ginny asked. "Should we get Hermione and Draco down here?"

"I don't know," Harry said, stepping around the body. "Maybe Hermione..." Something caught his eye. The full length mirror on the wall looked odd for some reason. It was rippling like water. He walked over to it and reached out his hand. There was some kind of enchantment on the glass because when he touched it, his hand slipped right through the shiny surface. "Get Hermione and Malfoy down here right now!"

***

Draco and Hermione quickly untangled themselves and managed to exit the closet just as Ginny ran into the room, carrying the flashlight. Its light barely penetrated the darkness and it kept going out and then back on.

"What is it?" Hermione asked a breathless Ginny.

"Is it Pansy?"

Ginny bent over, trying to get her breath. "It... it's..." She took in a huge gulp of air. "Just come on! You need to see this!"

"But what about Neville?" Hermione asked, stopping in her tracks.

Ginny looked around and didn't see him. "Where...?"

"We had to hide him under the bed. The murderer came in and we had to hide!" Hermione said, her eyes wide as she recounted the story to Ginny- minus the closet sex.

Ginny was astonished. "Did you see who it was?"

"No," Draco said with a frown. "His back was turned away. I couldn't get a good look."

"That's too bad," Ginny sighed. "Wait until you see what Harry found!" She grabbed Hermione by the arm.

"But what do we do about Neville?" Hermione asked again.

Ginny looked around. "Leave him. I think he'll be safe as long as he remains hidden."

Hermione looked doubtful. "But..."

"Just come on! Harry's waiting!" She pushed them out the door and they quickly ran down the hall to Pansy's room.

***

The smell hit them as soon as they entered. Draco wrinkled his nose and Hermione covered the lower half of her face with her hand.

"What is that fucking awful smell?" he asked, resisting the urge to vomit.

Ginny took them to the broken bathroom door. "What you're smelling is barbequed Pansy." She motioned towards the still smoldering body on the floor.

Hermione jumped back in shock, a small cry of disgust escaping from her trembling lips. "What happened to her?"

Harry turned around and held out the small vial of Manticore venom. It was swaddled in a hand towel. "Someone saw to it that she used this."

Draco was speechless. This black crispy thing could not be Pansy!

"Was... was this what you wanted to show us?" Hermione asked, tearing her eyes away from the crystal vial.

"No. this is what I wanted to show you." He took the light from Pansy and shined it on the mirror. As they looked on, Harry put his arm through the glass, just like it was water. He then stuck his leg in, and then half of his body was immersed in the rippling surface.

"Where does it go?" Hermione wondered out loud. "Is there something on the other side?"

Harry stuck his head through. "There's another secret passage." He pulled his head and body back and turned to Draco. "Where does this go?"

"I don't know!" Draco said, taken aback. "Why would I know where the hell it goes?"

"This is your house, Malfoy, and I think it's time you told us all of it's secrets. Maybe we can find a way out of here!"

Draco looked confused for a second. "My house? When did I ever say it was MY house?"