Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to JK Rowling
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She was watching him again. He knew that even before he opened his eyes. It seemed like every morning he would wake up and she'd be there, just watching him sleep. It was a very satisfying way to wake up.
He wanted to lie there. He knew that she loved watching him like this... at peace. But he couldn't contain himself any longer. He just couldn't resist looking at her.
He opened his eyes, but she wasn't there.
Harry snapped up out of the bed, looking around for his girlfriend, but there was no sign of her.
It took him a few moments to remember where he was. Everything that had happened.
He lay back down on the bed, pulling a pillow close to his chest and hugging it tightly. She was gone. She was dead.
For a long time he clung to the pillow. He would not cry. Not yet.
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When Shacklebolt had found out Vaisey was helping Harry in the investigation he had apparently been delighted. As Ron was still on leave, he even had Vaisey transferred to the cubicle next to Harry's to assist in the process.
Harry, however, did not think this was a particularly good thing. Vaisey seemed to think of him as one of the prime suspects. So he kept a fairly close eye on Harry to check for anything "suspicious," but Harry was, by nature, a fairly secretive person. He did not appreciate Vaisey's head appearing over the walls of the cubicle...
Especially when the cubicle in question happened to contain a toilet.
"Right, this is getting us nowhere," Harry said, finally giving up on analysing statements taking from the other residents of the building. "No one heard or saw anything. Obviously they weren't stupid enough not to use Silencing Charms."
"So, what do we try then?" Vaisey asked.
"We'll check out the flat again. Maybe the team missed something."
Vaisey raised an eyebrow. "The team are a group of people trained to find evidence. What are they going to miss that you, a combat Auror with only basic detective skills, will find?"
"Hey, I've been cracking mysteries since my first year at Hogwarts," Harry pointed out.
"Yeah, because you had Granger. All you and Weasley would have had to do was stand about scratching your own hairy arses and leave all the actual thinking to the Mud-."
"If you dare call my best friend what I think you're going to call her I'll kill you right here," Harry snapped. "And I am your superior here, Vaisey. If I say we're going to Ginny's flat, then we're fucking well going to Ginny's flat."
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Vaisey had not made it three steps into the flat before he had to turn around and vomit in one of the bins. Harry felt a little queasy as well. Apparently, there hadn't been time to properly clean it. There was still quite a lot of blood over where the sofas were, particularly on the formerly cream-coloured pouffe.
Harry suddenly felt overwhelmed with emotion. This was where Ginny had lived out her last days. Harry had never known about Malfoy. He wondered if Ginny had thought it had been worth it, before she died. Had it been worth dating Malfoy, and being disowned by her entire family? And had it been what had eventually got her killed?
No, that was a dangerous line of thought. He was here as a professional.
"I'll start having a look around," Harry said to Vaisey, who was still hunched over a wicker bin. "You join me when your stomach settles." Vaisey gave him a thumbs up, but he didn't look up from the bin.
Harry's first idea was to check the living room itself. There was the cream sofa and pouffe, pointed at a Muggle television set. The power was on, so, unless one of the team that had investigated the flat had stopped to watch television, that meant that Ginny and Malfoy could have been watching television when their attackers burst in.
Harry had not thought to check the mode of entry. He didn't remember it being in the report, but he'd come, over time, to assume that Alohamora would open most doors. He walked over to the door, checking it for any signs of damage.
Malfoy was from quite an old family. It wouldn't be a complete stretch that he might know a few old warding spells he could put on his door to prevent any unwanted visitors. Harry whipped his own wand out to run it across the area. It hummed a lime green.
"What's with the door?" Vaisey asked.
"Scanning for magic," Harry said. "Actually, for old wards. Bill Weasley used to be a Curse-Breaker. He taught me a few spells for detecting traps and such."
"And?"
"Well, there were definitely a few spells on this door, but they're been completely removed."
"Well, if you knew the counter-curse..."
"No, to know the counter-curse you would need to know what the curse was in the first place. The only way you'd know that was if you knew the victim or-."
"Or if you'd been taught how to detect curses by a Curse-Breaker," Vaisey finished. Harry scowled at him.
"You go back to your bin. I'll keep looking around."
He tried the kitchen next. He really didn't expect to find anything, since the attack seemed to be confined to the living room. A few dirty dishes in the sink, and the milk in the fridge had gone off, but other than that everything seemed normal.
He wandered back through to the living room, only to notice that Vaisey had apparently made his way into the bedroom.
"Vaisey, what are you doing?" Harry called.
"Come check this out! Weasley has some fucking sweet underwear!"
Harry had his wand out in a flash, and stormed into the room fully prepared to go to Azkaban for what he was about to do to Vaisey when he stopped. Sitting right on top of the dresser where Vaisey was now engrossed was a small box. Harry stepped forward slowly. As he reached for the box he startled Vaisey, who leapt back and scurried over behind the bed.
Harry picked up the box and looked inside. It was an engagement ring.
Malfoy had been going to propose.
Harry dropped down beside the dresser, pulled his legs up to his chest as he looked at the ring. It was a bit smaller than the one he had bought. He had stayed awake and wondered how his life would have gone had he asked Ginny to marry him before that argument.
And, would she have married Malfoy, had she asked now?
Harry's head dropped to onto his knees. It wasn't fair. Ginny and Malfoy probably had their fair share of enemies, but Harry still could not for the life of him imagine who could have come in and murder two lovers like this. And he had absolutely no evidence. It wasn't like the Death Eaters, who usually left a big skull floating above their victims. These attackers had left no traces of fingerprints, or hair, or...
Wait a minute.
Hair?
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