Arriving at work, Draco was relieved when he didn't receive a pile of sympathetic looks and remarks from his colleagues. The few people he spoke to on the way to the conference room they were using made polite conversation, but there was no mention of the fact one his best friends was dead and he was part of the team investigating the death. When Draco entered the conference room to find Harry and Ron already present, he was pleased when the two former Gryffindors greeted him like normal. He could see the questions in both men's eyes, but he appreciated that they didn't feel the need to check he was okay.
"Thanks for yesterday," Draco said to Harry as he took off his jacket and placed it over the back of his chair. "I appreciated the time off."
"You would have done the same if the positions had been reversed," Harry replied.
Draco nodded as he turned his attention to the new look board Ron was creating. With the two deaths now connected, pictures of both Ernie and Greg were on the board. The suspect list was now also empty with the elimination of Susan and Ernie's wife. Even if there was any doubt that either woman had killed Ernie, there was no doubt involving their lack of connection to Greg's death. As far as Draco knew his friend hadn't seen Susan since school, not that he would have known her even if he had seen her, and he'd never met Ernie's wife.
"We're just waiting for Hermione," Ron explained as Draco poured himself a cup of coffee. "I think she was getting the results of a few tests before heading up here."
"What sort of tests?" Draco asked as he sat down at the table.
"She was double checking the poison was the same in both cases," Harry answered. "You know what Hermione's like, she likes to double check things. Even though her initial tests showed it was the same poison, she's not taking any chances."
"It's the best thing to do Harry," Ron said, taking his own seat at the table. "With multiple tests it's harder for a lawyer to argue there's been a mistake. When we make an arrest we don't want them to escape a jail sentence on a technicality."
Harry and Draco nodded their agreement. The last thing either of them wanted was for the killer to escape justice because their investigation hadn't been thorough enough.
"Sorry I'm late," Hermione announced as she entered the room carrying a file with her.
"You're not late, you're right on time," Ron said as he jumped up to grab a coffee for his best friend.
Hermione smiled gratefully at Ron as he placed a cup of coffee in front of her as she took her seat at the table. "Thanks. I'm sure before we begin you want confirmation that we're dealing with one case. I can do that immediately, the second test results have come back and confirmed we're dealing with the exact same poison."
"We expected that, but at least now we're a hundred percent sure," Harry said. "Thanks Hermione."
"Do you have anything else about the poison that might help us?" Draco asked, deliberately not thinking about the previous night with the brunette witch. Right now his priority was solving the case and Hermione was merely his work colleague. "Weren't you looking into where you could get it from?"
"I was, but that wasn't successful," Hermione answered. "I spoke to several potion makers and they all said the same thing, using aconite and hemlock in the same concoction isn't done. None of them would dream of mixing the two poisons. You could check on the black market to see if they sell anything like this, but my money is on the killer making the poison themselves."
"Why wouldn't you mix the two poisons?" Ron questioned.
"There's no need," Hermione said with a shrug. "Both aconite and hemlock are extremely dangerous on their own. Mixing the two together is unnecessary."
"The killer doesn't think so," Harry pointed out. "Does that mean they're not very good at potions, and don't realise just how deadly the two ingredients are separately?"
"You don't need to be good at potions to know that," Draco argued. "Aconite was one of the first things we learnt about in first year potions, it's extremely basic knowledge to know that's its dangerous. The same with hemlock, we learnt about it in first year Herbology and again it's basic knowledge that it's very dangerous."
"So why use them both together?" Ron questioned.
"To make sure they got the job done," Hermione suggested. "I've analysed the potion used, and in both cases it was extremely strong. Ernie may have died quicker than Greg, but both deaths were exceptionally quick to occur. Whoever did this wanted a fast death."
"Because they wanted to stick around to watch," Draco muttered in disgust.
"How do you figure that?" Ron asked.
"If all they wanted to do was kill, they didn't have to use such lethal amounts of the poison. One scratch of her nails would have poisoned Macmillan, only it would have taken longer to enter his bloodstream and kill him. The same goes with Greg," Draco explained. "They could have used a lesser dose of poison in the massage oil and it would have still worked its way into his system and killed him."
"Maybe the killer didn't want to risk either Ernie or Greg getting to a hospital and getting an antidote," Harry suggested.
"I can't speak for Macmillan, but I doubt Greg would have known he was suffering from the effects of hemlock and aconite poisoning," Draco said. "He wouldn't have known to get to a healer."
"I doubt Ernie would have either," Hermione added. "If the poison had taken longer to work, the pair would have suffered from stomach cramps and loss of breath. They could have easily attributed the symptoms to a general illness. Besides, if they had gone to the hospital I would seriously doubt any healer could have correctly diagnosed their condition. When I got the first tests results back on Ernie, I ran them three times because I couldn't believe I was seeing both aconite and hemlock present in the poison. No healer would suspect a poison combining the two."
"Would there be an antidote for the two combined?" Harry asked.
"I'm guessing a bezoar would work since it's supposed to be a universal antidote, but I wouldn't like to bet on it," Hermione answered. "I'm going to start working on an antidote, just in case this escalates."
"Let's hope it doesn't," Harry murmured, even though all four of them in the room knew there could be more victims if they didn't solve the case quickly. "But on that note, I think we need to try and get some focus on the case. How do Ernie Macmillan and Gregory Goyle connect to one another?"
"From what I've learnt so far, they don't," Ron answered as all attention turned to him. It was his job to dig into the victims lives and find a connection between the two. "Obviously there's the fact they went to Hogwarts at the same time and were in the same year, but even that is a very basic connection. One was a Slytherin, one was a Hufflepuff. One was a prefect and one of the top students, the other barely scraped through lessons. From what I can remember from school the pair barely knew one another."
"They didn't," Draco agreed. "I could probably count on one hand the number of times Greg would have even spoken to Macmillan. You all know that inter-house friendships barely existed in Hogwarts, especially with us Slytherins. We stuck together and had very little to do with the other houses."
"Exactly." Ron nodded in agreement with Draco's assessment of the situation. "Unfortunately, that tenuous connection is the only one I can make. Since school, I can find nothing at all to link them together. Ernie got a job at his future father-in-law's company a few months after leaving school. Back then he shared a flat with Justin and Zacharias, until he got involved with the boss's daughter. From there Ernie got married and moved into the house in Surrey with his wife. He excelled at work, and his friends consisted of former Hufflepuffs he went to school with and his work colleagues. Even socially, I can't find any evidence he would have ran into Goyle."
"What about Goyle?" Harry asked. "What was his life like after school?"
"It took him longer to get a job, but that was because he was looking after his mother. She had a heart attack when his father got sent to Azkaban," Ron explained. "Once she was on the mend, Greg got a job with a building firm up in Scotland. He moved up to Edinburgh, and he's been there ever since. He never married, but over the years he's had a few girlfriends. He'd risen up the ranks in his job and he was a construction supervisor with the building firm. Like Ernie, his friends consisted of the people he worked with and the people he was friends with at school. Of course, I've had more time to look into Ernie's life, but I'm fairly confident that more digging in Greg's won't reveal a connection."
"Even so, find out everything you can," Harry said to his friend.
"Of course," Ron replied with a nod. If there was a connection apart from Hogwarts, he'd find it.
"Do we know anything about Greg's last hours?" Draco asked. He knew Harry had been planning on going to speak to some of Greg's friends the previous afternoon.
"It's a similar story to Ernie," Harry replied. "Greg had gone for a drink with some friends from work. According to his friends, a witch approached him and began chatting him up. Greg seemed taken with the witch, so they left him to it."
"Let's guess, she was an attractive brunette witch with a large cleavage," Draco grumbled.
"And stunning legs," Harry added. "One of the blokes mentioned she had long, tanned legs. She was also apparently wearing a very short, very tight dress."
"It sounds like the same witch," Draco remarked. "And it definitely sounds like she targeted Greg. She approached him, she picked him out."
"It could still be random," Harry said, making sure they covered all options. "She could just be picking random men up in bars and Ernie and Greg got unlucky."
"If she was picking up random men, why go for ones that were out with friends?" Ron questioned. "If all she wanted was a man to kill, she could target wizards who are drinking alone. By picking up someone with friends, she risks the friends being able to give a description of her."
"You think she deliberately targeted Ernie and Greg?" Harry asked his friend. He respected Ron's opinion and knew that his friend was pretty good and reading people's reasons for doing things.
"I do," Ron replied. "I just think that if it was random, she could have chosen easier targets. Although the fact she's not bothered about people giving a description of her is worrying."
"It is," Harry agreed.
Harry and Ron had already spoken about the fact they had a description of the suspected killer from two different sets of people and that they matched perfectly. In their opinion it meant the killer was using spells or potions to change her appearance, or even more worryingly she wasn't worried about being caught. A killer who wasn't worried about being caught was a dangerous species, so they were both hoping for the former explanation being the reason the descriptions of the killer matched.
With Ron planning on digging into the lives of the two victims, Harry and Draco decided to revisit each crime scene, as well as paying visits to the two bars where the victims met their killer. Hermione meanwhile had some other work to do, as well as trying to find an antidote to the double strength poison. Arranging to stay in touch if they found something, the meeting broke up and the foursome headed off to continue their work of trying to catch the killer before she struck again.