A/N: Here we are—Chapter Four, as promised. Enjoy!

"Every murderer is probably somebody's old friend."

--Agatha Christie

Chapter Four:The Knife

"Pansy!" Hermione and Ginny shouted. Ginny and Hermione hurdled into Pansy's room, and looked around for the shrieking girl. Pansy was sitting on her bed, holding a gold-plated hairbrush.

"What's wrong?!" Draco shouted, entering the room moments later.

"Is it the murderer?" Hermione asked.

"It's… ahhh!" Pansy shrieked. She pointed at the wall opposite her bed, where a spider, just big enough for Pansy to see from her bed, was crawling up the wall. Two bodies backed away, and Ron wrapped his arms around his wife as he did so.

"Are you serious?" Malfoy asked darkly. He pulled out his gun, aimed at the wall, and shot. The wall crumpled to pieces around the bullet, and a dead spider fell to the floor.

"Draco!" Hermione shouted. She took the gun from him and examined it. "Now there are only two bullets left!"

"What?"

"This isn't like a wand! You can't just fire at will; you need bullets, and this only has two left!"

"This is cheap!" Draco said, throwing the gun into the hallway. There was another loud bang, and everybody jumped.

"One," Ginny said, but Hermione threw up her hands.

"That wasn't a gun. That was…"

"It must have been Theo's room… we… have to go find him," Pansy shuddered.

"Go for it, Parkinson," Harry said bitterly. "I'm staying here."

"I'm going," Ginny said, stomping out of the room and picking up the gun. Hermione hastened to follow her, and Pansy, throwing one strained look at Draco, darted out of the room as well. Draco followed her cautiously, leaving Ron and Harry staring at each other.

"Let's go, mate," Ron said. "I don't reckon we could beat a murderer."

"Yeah, 'cause killing Voldemort was so hard," Harry said sarcastically. Ron shot him a quizzical look, and Harry sighed. "Let's just go," he said, following the other guests down the staircase.

"I think it came from over here…" Ginny said, pointing down a hallway. Sure enough, they could tell they'd reached Theo's room when they saw blood running down the hallway. They followed the trail of blood, much to Ron's disgust, into the room where Theodore Nott was laying, cut apart and mangled, on the floor.

"Who the fuck is that barbaric?" Neville said, staring down at the sight before him.

"It's disgusting."

"I… can't believe anyone here would do that," Hermione said shakily. She walked carefully to the body laying on the floor.

"Don't touch him!" Ginny shrieked. "We don't know how he died."

"Yes we do, are you daft?" Draco asked, shoving Ginny aside. "He clearly got cut to bits!"

"That could've been after he was killed. Besides…" Ginny said, but she was cut off.

"Who had the dagger?!" Neville shouted suddenly.

"It was…" Pansy began, her gaze drifting between the people in the room. "Ginny."

"Ginny, you…" Harry began, stepping away from her quickly and slipping in a pool of blood. "You killed him! Just like all the other men!"

"I… I…" Ginny felt around in her pockets. Her vision became hazy; she couldn't seem to remember how she'd lost the dagger. "I don't know where the dagger went."

"Right there!" Neville pointed into the bloody mass that was Theodore Nott. Embedded in his heart was Ginny's silver dagger. Her mouth went dry.

"I didn't!" Ginny shouted at once. "I never! I must have put it down, somewhere!"

"It wouldn't be the first time you brutally murdered a man," Draco said, glaring contemptuously at Ginny. Harry's gaze immediately drifted back at Theo.

"Is that what you did to all of them? How would you have known that he wasn't just cut to bits? You said it yourself!" Harry accused. "You said that it could've been after he died."

"She didn't…" Hermione said quietly. All eyes turned to her. "I was with her all evening. She couldn't have done it; I was with her."

"Are you sure you're not just defending her?" Ron asked snidely.

"Yes, Ronald, I'm certain."

"Then who was it?"

"It couldn't be anyone here. Nobody here is that disgusting," Draco said angrily. "There must be someone else in the house."

"Wouldn't you know?" Ginny asked.

"Why would I know?"

"Malfoy Mansion… your house…?"

"When did I ever say that I lived here?"

"You… were the first one here… this is your house… isn't it?" Hermione asked.

"Ah, the bookworm thinks that because I was the first person here, I must have been the one to throw the party."

"Well then, ferret, whose party is it?" Ginny asked angrily.

"I don't know!" Draco said exasperatedly. "I was simply invited, Weaslebee, just like you."

"Well, I suppose there's only one thing to do…" Harry began. All eyes focused on him. "We need to search the house."

"I'm not walking around the house with anyone! I'll get killed!" Neville said nervously.

"Well, we need to do something. We'll draw straws for who goes with who--we'll also lock the weapons in a cabinet," Harry said defiantly. He dropped his own candlestick onto the ground. Ron dropped the basilisk fang, and Ginny threw down Draco's revolver. Hermione let a length of rope fall before her, and Pansy dropped her tiny candy. Neville finally placed his glass bottle on the floor before them, trembling once again. Draco had hurried to remove the dagger from Theodore's bleeding heart, and when he had done so, threw it across the room to the pile Harry was standing before.

"Wh-what if s-somebody's p-p-paired up with th-the m-murder?" Neville stuttered.

"For lack of a better description, they'll be dead," Ron said bluntly.

"Well... th-then what?" Neville asked.

"At least we'll know who the murderer is," Draco said sheepishly, grinning at everyone. He reached over to Nott's bedside table, where a large jar of matches was perched. He took out seven, and began breaking them into equal lengths. At last, he reached the last match, and sighed. "Someone's walking alone."

"No way will it be me!" Ginny shouted.

"Why not? You killed him in the first place!" Pansy shrieked devilishly.

"We've covered this! I was with her all night!"

"Doing what precisely?" Pansy asked, fuming.

"We were just talking!" Hermione shouted back, outraged.

"Yeah--just plotting to kill us!" Pansy shrieked, livid and horrified.

"Enough!" Malfoy boomed, pushing Pansy away from Hermione. He held out the matches, and everybody picked one. After half a minute, each person was holding a match, and looking nervous. They all hastened to find their respective partners: Pansy and Harry, Neville and Ginny, Draco and Hermione, and Ron was left alone.

"You can come with us," Pansy offered. Harry nodded nervously.

"The more the merrier, after all," He said.

"Well, Nev, you and Gin have the shortest matches, so you search the basement. Harry and Pansy and Ron, you take the attic, and Draco and I will take the ground floor," Hermione dictated.

"First, we ought to lock up these weapons," Ginny said airily, taking the weapons in her arms and proceeding to a large cabinet in the front hall. She opened the cabinet, and shoved the arms uncerimoniously into it, slamming it hard. Then, she took a key off of the top of the cabinet, and locked it securely. "I'll hold on to it, for safe keeping," She said.

"You just killed Theo--you think we want you to have access to all the weapons?" Pansy scoffed.

"Fine! We can throw it... outside."

"Fine!" Everyone shouted at once. Ginny darted to the front door, followed by the others, and opened it angrily. She raised her arm to throw the key, and before her, a small, old man cowered.

"Don't!" He squealed. "Don't hurt me!"

A/N: Sorry about the long update! I've been a bit busy, and on top of that, my computer AP Adapter hasn't been working, so Dell (I hate Dell) had to send me a new one. I've been techno-free for a while! Woo! Haha. Well, in that space, I've written out the rest of this story, in addition to the rest of my other fic Charlotte loves Jake, which I'll be updating later this week, along with Emma's fic, British Girl, which I've beta-d for her. Don't expect it to be marvelous; I wasn't cut out to beta stuff. Haha. Anyway, next update as soon as I get around to typing it out? Review!

Ohh, before I forget. Here's a question you can answer in your review, if you can't think of anything else to put.

If you were an Animagi (like Anamorphs, remember them?) What animal would you choose to change into?

Well, TTFN.
Sinead

P.S. Murder at Malfoy Manor is a great fic. If you're interested (It's rated M, though), I'm pretty positive I favorited-ed it.