Murder at Malfoy Manor

"Look at all the damn blood!" Pansy said, her face had drained of all color, and her arms were wrapped around her stomach as if trying to hold her dinner inside.

"Someone cut him down," Ginny moaned.

"Are you crazy? I'm not touching the body!" Draco said. "That's evidence."

"Well, we can't just leave him swinging there like that!" Ginny said, looking around for a chair to stand on. She pulled the wooden chair away from the writing desk. "Harry, help me." She balanced on her tip toes. "Take him by the legs and lift him up so that I can get the rope from around his neck."

"Ginny," Harry said, grabbing Blaise's legs. "Maybe Malfoy's right. The body is evidence and I don't think we should be touching it."

Ginny ignored him and continued struggling to get the rope off. "I can't get it. He's too heavy."

"Here," Neville said, bending over and retrieving something shiny from the floor. "Cut him down with this."

It was the knife Harry had received earlier as a gift. It was sticky with blood and the blade was oddly bent.

"Damn it Longbottom!" Draco said. "That's probably the murder weapon and now your fingerprints are all over it!"

"Neville dropped it on the floor and wiped his hands on his pants. "Sssorry!" He stuttered. "I didn't think..."

"You never do, do you?" Malfoy said, rolling his eyes. "You have got to be the dumbest fucking man I've ever met!"

"Shut up, Draco," Pansy said.

"All of you shut up!" Ginny said, sawing at the rope. It suddenly snapped and Blaise's body came tumbling down on top of Harry, who fell to the floor.

"Get him off me!" Harry moaned, kicking and pushing the heavy body. "I'm suffocating!"

Hermione and Neville rushed to his aid. They rolled Blaise off and he landed with a loud thump on the floor next to a hyperventilating Harry.

"Are you al..." Hermione started to say. She caught something out of the corner of her eye. "The revolver!" she said and crawled over to the bed.

"Don't touch it!" Draco warned.

"Hand me a pillow case," Hermione said. Draco stripped one off a fluffy pillow and handed it to her.

"Be careful," he said. "It might go off."

Hermione gently wrapped her hand in the silky black material and slowly lifted the gun from under the bed. She turned and sat, her back against the brass frame, the revolver lying in her lap cradled in the pillow case. "Who wants it?"

Somewhere in the distance was a low rumble of thunder as another storm approached. Harry picked it up and looked it over. "The safety is off and," He checked the chamber. "Two shots have been fired."

"There were only five bullets, remember?" Hermione asked, rubbing her temples. "Are you saying there are only three left?" Her head was throbbing and why did she suddenly smell flowers? Was she loosing her mind?

"Yes. So we can plainly see that one shot hit... hit Zabini in the head." Harry gulped, closed his eyes, took a huge breath and managed to get himself under control. "Either he fired at the killer or he has been shot more than once."

Every one slowly turned their heads, and looked at the poor bloody body of Blaise lying face down on the hard wood floor.

"Well, I'm not checking!" Pansy said, shaking her head violently. "No way!"

"Malfoy?" Harry asked. "He was your friend."

Draco did not want to examine a dead person, but seeing as everyone else were pussies, he had no choice. "Fine, whatever." He tried to act as though it were no big deal, but as he turned Blaise over and saw that his brains were leaking through the hole in his head, he almost shit his pants.

"Er... hand me something so I get some of this blood off," he said, praying that the contents of his stomach stayed where they belonged. Hermione tossed him the other pillow case. The blood was starting to coagulate, making it difficult to wipe away. It was only smearing. "So far all I see are knife wounds. They're on his chest and his legs." They were very deep and he supposed the blade was bent from hitting bone.

Draco turned the body back over. "There is nothing on this side. The wounds are only on the front." He lifted the rope from his neck. It had been looped so tightly that it had cut into his skin. He cleared the bloody mess from Blaise's purplish blue face. His eyes were protruding almost comically, and his tongue was almost bitten in half.

"Who the hell would do this?" Pansy asked. "It's overkill!"

"Well, Potter had the knife, didn't he?" Draco asked.

"Are you accusing me of doing this?" Harry motioned towards the mutilated corpse. "I have no idea how that dagger got in here! I left it on the night stand next to the bed."

"You were all alone, Potter. You could have snuck out of your room, went down the hall, killed Blaise and then made your way through the secret passage and into your wife's room."

"That's right!" Pansy interjected. "Ginny said the intruder was caressing her and who the hell would do that other than her husband?"

"I DID NOT KILL ANYONE!" Harry said angrily. "While I was in the bathroom, anyone could have come in and taken that knife." He glared at Draco hatefully. "And you, Malfoy, had that gun! Maybe you killed him!"

"Ah!" Draco said, shaking his head and waving his finger. "I was with Hermione the whole time and besides, Blaise took the gun from me right before he went into his room."

Everyone looked at Hermione for confirmation. "It's true. Blaise wanted the gun for protection because he knew someone wanted to kill him." She watched Harry wipe off the revolver and put it in the waistband of his pajamas. "Draco never left the room, it wasn't him."

Harry's face seemed to go slack. "Then who could it be? I have a hard time believing that ANY of us could be capable of something this violent."

Draco laid the body gently back onto the floor, retrieved the sheet from the bed and covered him up. "Let's have a look around the room, shall we? Maybe we can find some clues."

"You fancy yourself a great detective, Malfoy?" Harry asked.

Draco winked at him. "I've been known to have a keen eye for detail and I'm sure with your courage in the face of danger, and Granger's intellect, we can figure out what the hell went on in here."

"Are you saying I can't contribute anything to this little murder mystery?" Pansy huffed.

"No," Draco said, not bothering to even look at her. "You can go down to the kitchens and see if the elves heard or maybe seen anything out of the ordinary."

"I'm not going anywhere alone!"

"I'll go with you, Pansy," Neville said.

Draco chuckled. "Just don't be taking any detours in hall closets to touch each other's special places- if you know what I mean." He gave them a disgusted frown. "Get back up here as quickly as possible, there happens to be a crazed killer on the loose."

Pansy and Neville gave each other nervous glances. Neville took her hand and went to the door. He stopped when he found that it was locked from the inside. "That means the killer had to have used the secret passage, doesn't it?"

"Eureka! You solved the fucking case, Longbottom!" Draco said sarcastically.

Neville, his face red with embarrassment and anger, turned the lock and drug Pansy from the room, slamming the door behind him.

The four left in the room walked around, searching for anything that might shed some light on what had happened.

"Look!" Ginny shouted. "I've found something!"

They rushed over to find her pointing at a place midway up the wall where a bullet was clearly lodged.

"This wall is straight across from the bed and next to the entrance to the passage," Draco said. "Blaise was probably lying in bed when the killer came in."

"He sat up, shot, missed, and then the killer could have pounced on him," Hermione added.

"He wrestled the gun from Zabini, maybe stabbing him in the process." Harry looked over at the bed. "But there wasn't any blood on the bed." He walked across the floor, thinking very hard. "The only blood was directly under the hanging body." He stopped next to the drying pool. "There are a few spatters on the walls with brain matter and tiny splinters of skull, but that's normal."

"The killer might have wrestled the gun from him, maybe knocked him out with the butt or something," Ginny turned to Draco. "Did you notice any other wound to his head other than the gunshot?"

"I really didn't look at his head. His brains were kind of oozing out and..."

Ginny went over, knelt down and looked. "His head is split open in the back. That and the hole in his temple seem to be the only wounds."

"So," Hermione said, pacing, her hands clasped behind her back. "The killer knocked him out and then the evidence would suggest that he was hung first and then sliced up. Am I correct?"

"But then when was he shot?" Draco asked. "It had to have been before he was strung up."

Harry took the revolver from his pants and turned it over and over in his hand, thinking. "He was knocked out, we know that. The strange thing is that he had to have been standing when he was shot because of the height of the spatter."

"You don't suppose that he was forced to shoot himself?" Hermione asked, horrified. "And then the killer strung him up and cut him to ribbons?" She looked around at everyone. "What kind of sick crazy person would do something like that?" She thought she saw Draco flinch a little but perhaps it was just her imagination.

They were all silently contemplating what Blaise must have gone through when there was a flash of lightening and an earsplitting boom of thunder. All the lights in the house suddenly went out, plunging them into total darkness.

***

Neville and Pansy made quickly their way down the hall. They just wanted to get to the kitchens and back up to with everyone else as fast as they could.

"Do you think Malfoy had anything to do with what happened to Blaise?" Neville asked, his voice barely over a whisper. "He's the only one who I think would be capable of doing something like that."

"You heard him, he didn't have the gun. Besides, he would never have the balls to kill anyone." Pansy gave a low chuckle. "Everyone thinks Draco is some hard core bastard but he's really a big coward."

"Did you hear that?" Neville asked, holding out his hand and stopping Pansy.

"I didn't hear anything."

"Shhh... It's coming from in there." He pointed towards Ginny's room. "You don't think the killer..."

There was a thump and a muffled scream. Pansy clutched Neville and they froze, afraid to move a muscle.

"We should really go and check it out," Neville said, trying hard to convince himself that he believed what he said. "We left Ron in there. What if the killer has him?"

"I don't give a flying fuck if Weasley's being butchered by a killer clown right now. I'm not going in there!" She was grasping his arm so tightly that her long red nails were digging into his flesh. "I don't want to die."

Neville was actually a little disgusted that she was such a bloody coward. "Suit yourself, Pansy, but I'm going to have a look. Ron is my friend and I'm sure he'd do the same for me."

"If it makes you feel better, go right ahead and think that. Weasley cares only about himself- and maybe Potter. If you ask me, I've always thought those two were sweet on each other."

"You disappoint me, Pansy."

"Seems I disappoint a lot of people."

Neville rolled his eyes, shook her grip from his arm and slowly and cautiously made his way to the door. He gave Pansy a withering look from over his shoulder as he grasped the door knob, turned it and opened the door a crack.

"Hello?" he called in a shaky voice, sticking his head inside. "OH MY GOD!" he said, flinging the door open wide and rushing inside.

"What? What is it?" Pansy asked on the verge of hysterics. She started forward but stopped. "Neville?" No answer. "NEVILLE!"

"There's blood everywhere!" he said.

"Is it Weasley?" she asked, finally getting up the courage to move towards the room. She walked inside and stopped dead in her tracks. There was blood splashed everywhere; the floor, the walls, the furniture. "It looks like a slaughter house!" She said, turning around and around. "Where is Weasley?"

"I don't..."

Just then the lights went out.