Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Blood. Stench. Gore. Death.
Those were the words that were currently running through Rose's mind. She had seen more death than she would have liked to in her seventeen years, but this death was indubitably the worst.
Everyone was sitting in the ball room in their fancy dresses and dress suits. They hadn't been allowed to leave for security reasons. They had all had to sit through the Auror investigation as the hanging body was being processed.
Uncle Harry had just recently cleared the body for removal, but the blood on the floor and the stench of decaying flesh was still strong. After a series of complex tests, it was confirmed that the hanging body was that of Nigel Wolpert. His remains needed to be processed, and then he would need to be returned to his grieving family.
Uncle Harry and Rose's father were currently analyzing the blood on the ground to see if it was from only Nigel, or multiple different victims. James and Teddy were talking to the new Aurors and the trainees at the scene. Rose could make out Hadrian in the group that was receiving instructions.
Rose was alerted to someone's presence by the feel of Scorpius's hand tightening on her shoulder. Rose looked up to see Hadrian approaching with a voice recorder. He had come to take their statements.
Rose felt Scorpius's hand move from her shoulder to her waist as he instinctively pulled her closer. If Hadrian had noticed, he didn't acknowledge it. He was there for professional reasons only.
"I know I'm probably one of the last people you want to see now, but I need to take your statements. The quicker we get through this the quicker we'll be out of each other's lives," Hadrian said. He was mindful of the fact that they both needed space right now. The only way they'd be able to interact at all would be professionally.
"I thought you said that the trainees didn't handle the high profile cases," Rose said as Hadrian got his equipment ready.
"You could say that training has been cut short. We've been in training for over a year. Initiation was going to happen after the New Year. I guess everything got moved up due to the circumstances tonight. Everyone who would have been initiated after New Year's was called in with direct orders from Harry and Ron. This is our first assignment as real Aurors," Hadrian said as he finished getting ready. "Who wants to go first?"
"I guess I will. I just want to get this over with," Rose said. The smell was starting to make her sick. She knew why they weren't allowed to leave, but it was still horrible all the same.
"OK. Let's start from the beginning. From the moment you stepped foot into the Manor tonight," Hadrian said as he readied his finger on the 'record' button.
Rose took a deep breath before she began to recount what had been a truly magical night before the body was discovered.
FLASHBACK
Lily and Rose were getting ready at her house. Hugo, Hermione, and Dad Ron gone to the Manor to get ready and to bring their stuff to their respective rooms. Lily and Rose arrived half an hour late. Lily had explained that it was always good to be fashionably late to these events.
Lily and Rose apparated in front of the Manor gates, where they were checked by wards and by guards before they were let inside. The first thing they did was walk to the ball room. Lily had to hold Rose up because she hadn't gotten a hang of walking in the ridiculous pair of heels Lily had picked out for her. Rose recalled how she had almost broken her ankle apparating Lily and herself to the Manor.
Lily went in first since her name was before Rose's in the alphabet. Rose entered next. The first thing Rose did was dance with Scorpius. They danced for a bit before being interrupted by Rose's father. He wanted to talk to Rose.
At one point during Rose and Ron's conversation, Rose recalled how she may or may not have shouted a bit too loudly, which may or may not have prompted her mother to come over and try and find and lecture them. Rose's father and she both decided to go their separate ways after that point.
After that Rose explained that she went to find Scorpius, who had just finished a conversation with his father. After that both of them decided to dance again. Rose lost track of how long they danced for, but after getting tired of that they decided to go and get something to eat and drink and just talk.
Rose didn't see anything, but she heard the first scream. She recognized it as Lily's. Scorpius and Rose immediately rushed towards where they thought they heard the scream come from.
There was already a circle of people surrounding the chandelier. They were all looking up. Rose decided to look up to see what they were all staring at and promptly wished that had not been the case. It was one of the worst things she had ever seen in her life.
It was then that Rose saw the body. It was stripped of all its flesh, so that the muscles and intestines were on full display. The eyes were propped open, and the mouth was frozen in a scream of terror. There was blood pooled at the bottom.
There was a message written in blood. It said, 'This is what is left of Nigel Wolpert. You have been warned. The storm is fast approaching, and the sky will be raining blood.' It was signed with the Brotherhood's insignia.
Then all chaos broke out. Rose's uncle and father pushed their way to the front of the scene and began performing complicated spells while Teddy and James simultaneously tried to keep everyone back.
Rose could vaguely hear Uncle Harry yelling at Mr. Malfoy, and then yelling out a string of profanities. Rose thought he said something about the wards not being right? They were working just fine when Rose arrived with Lily, and Rose had thought they were some of the last people to arrive.
END FLASHBACK
"I don't know if that was any help," Rose said apologetically as she finished her monologue.
"It actually does help. We know that the wards were working at around 9 o'clock. So that means someone altered them a little after nine up until now. That means that whoever did this got in and out in a little under two hours. This gives a timeline to work with," Hadrian said as he double checked to make sure he had his recording.
"Is it my turn?" Scorpius asked as Hadrian turned towards him.
"I'm afraid so," Hadrian said as he began to record.
"I was at the Manor all day. I live here after all. My mother was in one of her moods again, and my father was locked in his study. I decided to spend the day with my grandmother. She wanted to work in her greenhouse..."
Rose started to tune Scorpius out. It wasn't that she didn't want to hear about his day... She was just so tired. She needed some shut-eye. Rose yawned as her head hit Scorpius's shoulder.
The last thing she remembered before falling into an exhausted sleep was Scorpius's arm pulling her closer into his warm embrace.
Melissa waded through the rain storm as she made her way to the meeting. She hated the rain, but right now it reflected her mood. She had seen her first dead body today. It had been horrible, and not at all as she had expected.
Her job had been to be stationed a half a mile away from Malfoy Manor, and to enter with the body once the coast was clear because she still had some access to the wards.
Granted, the Malfoys had changed them after Scorpius broke up with her, but some of the more ancient wards still recognized her as being 'with a Malfoy,' even though she wasn't.
That was how she had managed to get in. It had been almost too simple. A complex illusion charm, some confunduses, and then viola. She was able to skip in virtually undetected.
Her presence would probably have only seemed like an overly large animal entering the premises. Besides, it was Christmas Eve. The likeliness of anyone in the Malfoy family paying attention to the wards was pretty much at zero.
They had really gone soft on security after Lucius's imprisonment. Oh well. Their mistakes were the Brotherhood's gain. And it had been a great victory. Only at what cost?
Melissa wasn't entirely sure she was comfortable with what had happened at the Manor. Sure she hadn't actually killed or tortured the man, or even stripped his skin off. No, she just had to magically prop him up under a heavy, timed illusion charm, and magically write the message in blood that would only turn visible once the body became visible. Her job had been relatively easy, but that didn't mean she had to like it...
After everything had been set in place, Melissa had to sneak back out of the Manor. If she was caught, she would most likely be forced to take Veritaserum. That would be extremely dangerous.
Getting in was easy, but getting out was hard. The wards seemed extra strong on the way out. Either they had found out about her presence and had put up more defenses, or Mrs. Malfoy had strengthened the wards to prevent Scorpius from sneaking out in the middle of the night.
Melissa had to snort at that. Scorpius was too much of a good kid to do something as rebellious as sneaking out of the house. Besides, now that he was seventeen he could apparate in and out of any place in the house whenever he chose.
Melissa had to tweak the wards a bit to get herself out before the body revealed itself. She had only just made it in time. Minutes after she had gotten out of the Manor, the wards had been tripled and strengthened. She could feel the force of them a half mile away.
She dreaded this meeting. She knew that Bernard would be gloating and having a toast to the Brotherhood's success at ridding the world of yet another pointless reminder of darker times, and then beginning to plan his next attack or murder.
Yes, Melissa considered what happened to Nigel murder. Bernard called it purifying, but it was still murder. When Melissa said she had wanted revenge on Rose Weasley and all of her friends, she had been thinking along the lines of social ruin and total humiliation. Murder was a bit too far.
Not that she could voice her concerns. When she had brought up the question of torture, Bernard had twisted everything around so that it seemed like she was naïve and stupid for even asking such a question. Torture wasn't torture. It was a way of extracting potentially dangerous information, or some other crap along those lines.
Whatever. Melissa didn't buy that. She knew she was a manipulative bitch, and perhaps not totally right in the head, but she wasn't a psychopath. That much she knew.
Melissa drew her coat tighter around herself has she reached up to knock on the door. An eyeball peered out after a few seconds, and then the door opened to let her in.
Melissa shuddered as the warm air hit her. Although it was warmer in southern France than it had been in England, it was still ridiculously cold out. The warm air only served as a temporary relief. What lay in the next room was anything but warm.
Melissa blinked as her eyes adjusted to the low lights of the library. She could make out a whole bunch of people in various chairs and on various couches. They seemed to be appear relatively happy. Except happy wasn't the right word. Maybe smug was a better fit?
"Ah, Melissa, so happy you could join us. You did an excellent job. Nearly perfect execution," Bernard said as he swirled his blood red wine around in his glass.
"Thanks," Melissa said uncertainly. She didn't like the way Bernard was looking at her. It was like he was the hunter and she was the prey.
"Care to tell me what went wrong?" Bernard asked as he took a sip.
"What do you mean?" Melissa asked. Bernard did not like mistakes.
"Your presence was detected. You didn't dismantle the wards correctly on your way back out of the Manor. If Potter is smart enough, and I know he is, he will be able to figure out that the person who got in must have had some ties to the Malfoy family or had been considered to be with a Malfoy at some point in time. Who does that leave, Melissa? Lucius is dead, by our doing of course, and everyone else in the Malfoy family is accounted for. They have solid alibies, as do everyone else at the party. Potter is going to go digging to see who had connections to the Malfoy family. Whose name is going to be one of the first to pop up? Yours! It doesn't take a genius to figure out you were the only other one who could have gotten in. Once they figure that out, they'll figure out that you were the mole! You have become useless to us! Your mediocrity and carelessness has set us back months! We had planned another attack before New Year's, and you were our ticket in! Now that plan is ruined! You have become a liability now," Bernard said as he slammed his glass down and stalked over to her.
Melissa backed away in fear. She had never seen Bernard this angry before. "Wh-what are you going to do?" Melissa asked as she reached for her wand that wasn't there.
Bernard was twirling Melissa's wand around in his hands. "When will you learn? I am ten times smarter and more powerful than you are. You wouldn't be able to best me in a duel even if you tried," Bernard said as he snapped Melissa's wand in half over his knee.
Melissa could only watch helplessly as the remnants of her wand fell to the floor at Bernard's feet. She was toast. She couldn't protect herself, and no one else seemed to want to risk their necks for her safety.
"Your punishment is necessary Melissa. I need to use you as an example to ensure future compliance, and as a way to avoid future mistakes. Try not to take it personally," Bernard said as a purple flamed vulture shot out of his wand towards Melissa.
Melissa felt an excruciating pain, heard a high pitched scream of agony, and then heard and felt nothing else.
Harry Potter was stumped, and he was in Malfoy's personal study. This day just went from weird and horrible to totally bizarre and awkward. He was trying to concentrate on the facts, but that was extremely hard to do considering Ron was snooping around rather noisily.
"Weasley! Would you stop touching my stuff! I can assure you that you wouldn't find any Dark Magic, or anything that could potentially incriminate myself or my family!" Draco snapped irritably. He knew Ron was just doing his job, but it seemed like Ron was enjoying his job too much at the moment.
Ron was about to retort when he was cut off by a tired Harry. "Ron. He's right. Hermione confirmed that Draco was with her for the better part of the evening on the back balcony. There's no way you can be in two places at once (well, at least not now that all of the Time-Turners were destroyed), and you've checked under that jar three times already! If there was something to find, you would have already found it! Now please come over here, I need your help," Harry said as Ron grudgingly put down the jar he was holding and took his spot next to Harry.
"What do you see Ron?" Harry asked as he looked at all the information they had on the case.
"I see a bunch of notes and dates. It's all jumbled up," Ron said as he squinted and tilted his head.
"Exactly! These dates mean something, I know they do! I just can't seem to see what they're trying to tell me..." Harry said as he too stared at the dates.
By this time, Draco had made his way over from where he was moodily standing by the wall to look at the dates too. Although he thought of himself as smarter than the Dynamic Duo, he too was stumped by the dates, which seemed pretty random.
"AAHHHAAA!" Ron suddenly said as he stared at the dates. His sudden exclamation caused both Draco and Harry to jump.
"What is it Ron?!" Harry asked half amused and half annoyed.
"These dates aren't random Harry. Most of them match up to the Hogsmeade visits at Hogwarts! One of the major attacks was at Hogsmeade during a school trip! You know how we suspected there was a mole? Well these dates support that theory," Ron said excitedly as he ruffled through his briefcase for something.
"Here it is!" Ron said proudly as he held up all the dates of the Hogsmeade trips. We got these at the beginning of the year. I always keep them in case I need them! I guess it's a good thing I did!" Ron said as he started cross referencing the dates and then applying them to a map of England.
Harry and Draco exchanged looks. While Ron's strokes of brilliance weren't a surprise to Harry (how else would Ron have become Deputy Head of the Auror Office?), they certainly were to Draco. Harry looked smug while Draco looked like everything he knew in life was suddenly proven wrong.
All three men drew their wands at the knock at the door, only to lower them when they saw it was their respective wives.
"The kids are all in their rooms. We just wanted to see how you were doing, and help in any way we can," Ginny whispered as she, Hermione, and Astoria entered the room.
"We don't have to whisper Gin. The kids are all probably still awake, and this Manor is huge. The chances of them hearing us is slim to none," Harry teased gently.
"Old habits die hard I guess. They all seemed younger tonight for some reason. But I guess seeing a gruesome death can make anyone feel younger," Ginny said angrily.
Hermione nodded. "I thought we fought that war to keep our children safe, and so they could live their lives without the shadow of death leaning over them!" Hermione added.
"What are you working on?" Astoria asked Ron, who had gone back to transcribing the dates.
"I've managed to link many of the dates to Hogsmeade trips. This supports our theory that there was a mole in Hogwarts. Most likely another student. Now I'm trying to see if the mole could have been the one who got into the Manor tonight..." Ron said as he glared at the dates and the map.
"Ron, that's brilliant!" Hermione said as she walked over to see what her husband had accomplished.
"But no one has ever really been to the Manor except for Rose, Albus, and the rest of your family. No one else would be even close enough to be considered a Malfoy or as 'being with a Malfoy'," Astoria said.
"Tori, I think you're forgetting about Massey. Remember how Scorpius brought her home for that disastrous dinner?" Draco asked.
Astoria screwed up her nose in confusion before realizing that her husband was actually talking about Scorpius's ex-girlfriend Melissa. "Melissa? You think she could be behind all of this? She may not have been the nicest girl, but do you think she could have murdered someone?" Astoria asked concerned.
"All evidence points to multiple killers. The torture these people used was way more advanced than anything any seventh year would know. Chances are that someone else tortured and killed Wolpert, and had Melissa dump the body since she had partial access to the wards," Harry said.
"What do we know about Melissa? Why would she get involved with the Brotherhood?" Ron asked.
"Well, did Scorpius and Melissa have a bad breakup?" Hermione asked.
Draco cringed. "Scorpius wrote home about how Melissa had cheated on him with Hadrian while pretending to be Rose in order to hurt Rose and make their own relationship stronger. A load of crack, as Scorpius described it. He asked me to use all my power as a Malfoy to destroy Melissa and her family if she so much as breathed a word about what had transpired to anyone. The only ones to know of this were Albus, Hadrian, Scorpius, and Melissa," Draco finished to the astonished looks from Harry, Ron, and Astoria.
Hermione and Ginny however, had already heard the story from Rose, who had heard from Albus.
"HE DID WHAT?! MIONE! DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THIS? YOU DID! I CAN TELL BY THE LOOK ON YOUR FACE! AND YOU STILL LET ME LET THAT CHEATER GO OUT WITH MY LITTLE GIRL?!" Ron yelled.
His yelling was only rivaled by Astoria's. "DRACO MALFOY! HOW COULD YOU NOT TELL ME THIS?! BETTER YET, WHEN I GET MY HANDS ON SCORPIUS! WHY WOULDN'T HE TELL ME?! I'M HIS MOTHER!" Astoria screamed. She was a bit hurt and insulted that neither her son nor husband had clued her in on how bad the breakup had been.
"Now isn't the time. We need to focus on Melissa. Would she have wanted revenge?" Harry asked.
"Most likely. She reminded me so much of Pansy Parkinson. One of Melissa's best friends is Daisy Parkinson, Pansy's daughter. They are also both close to William Nott. I'd check them both out," Draco said.
Harry nodded. "We will look into them, but I think we need to find Melissa first," Harry said as everyone else nodded in agreement.
Harry was about to say something else, but he was interrupted by the arrival of Dean Thomas's Patronus. "Harry, we have a body. Said her name was Melissa, and that she needed to talk to Harry Potter. She had third degree magical burns over 85% of her body. We don't know if she'll make it. You better come quickly," Dean's echoing voice said as his Patronus dissipated.
Harry exchanged glances and nods with Ron. "Well, we found Melissa," Ron said rather unnecessarily.
"Yes, but here's hoping we're not too late," Harry said before he and Ron apparated to St. Mungo's.
Will Melissa die? Keep reading to find out!
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