A/N: Omg it's so hard to choose introductory quotes sometimes! Aah!
Buuut I finally did, so here it is right now!
"His was not the hatred that arises suddenly like a storm and as suddenly abates. It was, once the initial shock of anger and pain was over, a calculated thing that grew in a bloodless way."—Mervyn Peak, Titus Groan
ALL BUT DEATH
IX
IN A BLOODLESS WAY
Not Draco! Please not Draco! Harry thought to himself as he tore from the room, following the sound of the echoed shrieks ringing off the walls. Logically, he knew that Draco was barricaded in his bedroom behind layers of magic, but there was an uneasy feeling that had settled deep in Harry's gut telling him that the Slytherins were not safe.
"Where's it coming from?!" Ron's voice shouted behind him.
"Further up ahead!" Harry yelled. The screaming had stopped but Harry thought he could hear sobbing coming from somewhere along the darkened corridor. Oh god, who was it this time? Who had been killed?
Forcing his legs to move faster, Harry sprinted past the empty doorways and the watchful shadows, doing his best to ignore the way they all seemed to be looking at him with wide, gaping eyes. Every shadow in the corridor seemed to turn to follow him with sightless stares as he ran past, feeling the silent gazes of the portraits scrape his skin with black fingernails. He could hear the blood rushing in his ears, feel the adrenaline surging through his veins as his heart hammered in his chest. Over the ringing in his ears, he could hear wailing and sobbing up ahead.
Then, suddenly, everything went quiet. Without warning, the cries were cut off, leaving the corridor in deafening silence. Harry instantly slowed, tightening his hold on his wand and moving forward with caution. Beside him, he could hear Hermione and Ron taking careful steps as their breathing gradually evened.
Everything was quiet; nothing made a sound. The shadows had gone still and silent. The only thing Harry could hear was the stuttered beats of his own heart thumping against his chest.
"Harry," Hermione said quietly, reaching out to pull him to a stop. She gestured up ahead with her chin, and Harry's head snapped in that direction, noting instantly what Hermione was looking at. A door farther down the corridor was open, the interior dark, but Harry could just make out what appeared to be an unmoving foot extending past the threshold and into the hall.
The three of them reached the door and paused, gazing down at the still foot for a moment before Harry pushed the door the rest of the way open. It swung inward with a loud creeeak, sending icy chills shooting down his spine at the ominous sound. The room inside was pitch-black, and not even the grey light seeping in from the corridor was enough to tell who the foot belonged to.
"Lumos," Ron murmured, and the three of them gasped as the body came into sight.
Susan Bones was lying dead on the floor.
oOo
"Susan," Harry whispered, gazing down at her cold blank face in horror. Her eyes were glassy and half-open, peering up at the ceiling with a vacancy that made Harry shiver. Her body was stretched out on the ground, limbs akimbo and auburn hair spread out over the icy tile of the floor like a copper puddle. Her skin looked unnaturally frozen and pale, the light from Ron's wand casting her face at haunting angles and making her appear skeletal and gaunt. The sight sent another shiver racing down Harry's spine. What the hell had happened to her? Why was she alone? Where were Lisa and Stephen?
"Who screamed?" Ron said suddenly, eyes darting around the three of them. "I don't see any blood or any broken bones or any sign that she was attacked openly. So why would she be screaming like that? And why was she crying? Why would she—" a sudden gasp from Ron cut off his own words as he lifted his wand higher, stepping farther into the room, and Hermione automatically added light from her own wand as well, sending the glowing ball up to hover near the ceiling and illuminate everything in flickering shadows, ones that appeared to twitch and jolt and watch the three of them from every darkened corner.
Stepping carefully over Susan's body, Harry felt his stomach drop as his eyes swept around the room before locking on the far wall. How had it taken them all so long to notice the bathtub? Harry hadn't even noticed at first that it was a bathroom they were standing in. How had it taken them all so long to notice the second body?
Several feet away, an old-fashioned clawfoot tub sat atop matching white tiles, tucked into a corner of the room across from a snow-colored sink with large brass taps. But none of that was what had drawn their attention.
Drifting closer to the tub in horror, Harry heard a slapping sound beneath his foot and glanced down to see a large pool of water spread across the floor, creeping closer to Susan's unmoving body with every ripple that Harry's footsteps spread across its surface with a wet, audible sound. Lifting his own wand, Harry cast a Lumos as well and took a breath before peering down at the bathtub. It was full of water, nearly spilling over the lip of the white porcelain. The face of the water was completely still and unmoving, not a single swell rippling across its surface; it was as still as death, as unmoving as a stone, and just as silent and motionless as the unstirring body of Lisa Turpin lying at the very bottom, gazing up at him with wide, empty eyes, hollow and blank, not a single flicker of life within them. She looked waxy and somehow false, somehow wrong, as though her body had never been alive and was now something fake only pretending to have existed as a real person.
How could this be Lisa? How could Lisa be dead? She was still fully clothed; she had clearly not gone into the bathtub of her own free will.
And where the fuck was Stephen?
"Lisa," Hermione breathed somewhere behind Harry, and he half-turned his head to glance at her.
"Lisa and Susan," he said quietly, looking back down at Lisa's pale face, appearing ghostly and eerie buried beneath a wall of water. He couldn't help but be reminded of visiting the black lake with Dumbledore and seeing dead faces peering up at him through the still water.
The memory made him shudder.
"Two more," Ron said as he stepped close as well. "Two more now dead. Where the hell is Stephen?"
"That makes three of his partners who've now died," Harry said listlessly. "That's too many to be ignored. One is chance, two is coincidence, but three…three is a pattern. Three is on purpose."
"Unless someone is targeting him on purpose to make him look guilty," Hermione mused, staring down at Lisa with a sad expression.
"No, Harry's right," Ron said in a hard voice. "It can't be coincidence or random chance. We need to find Stephen. We need to check his wand. We need to put him somewhere where he can't do this again!"
"Yes, we certainly do need to find him," Hermione began, hesitating for a moment, "and speak to him at length. But what if…"
"What if what?" Ron asked in a voice as soft and unforgiving as a stone, eyes narrowed as he glanced between Susan on the floor and Lisa in the bathtub.
"Well, for one, you're assuming he's still alive," Hermione pointed out. "He could also be dead. But I worry even more if he's guilty."
"What?" Ron asked incredulously. "Why would you worry more? That would mean we found the one doing this! That would be a good thing, Hermione!"
"Yes, I agree," she nodded. "And I want to find the guilty one, I really, really do. But I worry what the others will do once they actually have a target for their rage and grief."
"They'll do what he deserves," Ron growled. "How many of us has he killed already, Hermione? And you're worried about his life?!"
"Not his," she sighed. "What if the reveal of the murderer sets off a spark that begins an entire flame of violence? What if some of the others decide to turn on each other as a result? You have to admit that trust within this group has been strained to the breaking point. Stephen has friends here. What if everyone decides they can't trust their friends? What if they all decide they can't trust a single person here? I don't know, there's just a part of me that worries that once there's a clear target in sight, every one of us will allow fear and anger to take control in our attempts to reach that target. That's something that wouldn't turn out well for a single one of us."
"So what are you saying, though, Hermione?" Harry said, quiet words seeming to bounce off the tiled floor and echo around the room. "Are you saying we shouldn't do anything about it if he is the guilty one?"
"No, of course not," she replied. "We absolutely need to do something about it. I'm just not sure of the best way to handle this. Because if we announce to everyone else that he's guilty, that may just cause an upset that we won't be able to control. But if we simply lock him somewhere and don't tell the others where he is, then they may just go through us to get to him. Everyone here is terrified for their lives. And there's nothing more dangerous than a person backed into a corner by fear. I just…I'm just worried."
"Well, I think we should find him first," Ron said firmly. "We should find him and talk to him and then decide what to do."
"Yes," she agreed. "Yes, the best thing for now would be to find him as quickly as we can."
"Let's go then." But despite Harry's words, he was not able to tear his eyes from Lisa's face or lift his feet from the floor, almost as though it was not water coating the tile but glue, sticking his shoes to the floor and holding him trapped. Lisa's mouth was slightly open, but not a single bubble or hint of air escaped through it. Harry wondered if she had been drowned in the tub or killed beforehand, in the same way as Susan. Had she been forced into the tub before dying or had she fallen in afterward? Had her corpse been pushed in by whoever had done this? And had they filled the tub with the purpose of killing her in it, or had she filled it with the intention to bathe?
Fuck, Harry needed answers. They needed to find Stephen. He needed to track down Stephen and get his answers and then he needed to run to Malfoy's bedroom to make sure the man was all right.
"Let's go," he repeated grimly, forcing his numbed feet from the wet floor with a loud squelching sound that seemed to ring from every surface, reminding Harry of the sound something made when pulled from thick mud, even though it was nothing but a thin layer of clear water beneath his feet. "Let's go."
oOo
"Harry!" a woman's voice said, the single word sounding to be a strange mixture of fear and relief.
Before Harry could respond, a warm body was suddenly wrapped around him, and he gazed down at dark hair in surprise. Parvati seemed to have thrown herself into his arms, and he blinked for several moments before patting her awkwardly on the shoulder.
"Er, it's okay," he said uncertainly, shooting Ron and Hermione a helpless look over Parvati's shoulder.
"We heard screaming," she explained, pulling back even to look him in the eyes. "And then it just stopped! What happened? Who was it? God, I'm so glad you're okay!"
Taking a bigger step back, Harry began to scan the small parlor they had found them in to see who was present. From what he could tell, the only five in there were the other four Gryffindors and Padma. Where was everyone else?
"Where is everyone?" Ron wondered, eyes narrowed as he glanced around. "Why is it only the five of you lot in here?"
"Everyone else is in the snooker room," Neville explained, leaning forward on the sofa he was sat on. "But none of the girls wanted to go, so Seamus, Dean, and I stayed behind with them. Lisa wanted a bath, though, while the bathrooms were empty, so Susan went with her."
At the somber, uneasy glance Harry, Ron, and Hermione all shared between themselves, Neville visibly tensed. "Oh, god," he breathed. "What happened to them? Which of them was it?"
Hermione took a deep breath. "It was both of them," she said softly. "We found both of them in a bathroom a bit farther down the hall."
"Both of them?" Padma asked weakly. "Both of them died? There've never been two people killed at the same time. It's always been one at a time. They c-can't both be dead! That isn't fair! They weren't alone!"
"Fuck," Seamus swore. "Fuck! I knew we should have gone! But—"
"But they wanted to bathe," Dean said in a subdued voice. "And they insisted they would be okay…the loo they were headed to isn't far…"
"We should have gone with them," Padma sniffed, swiping at her glistening eyes. "Parvati and I could have gone in the bathroom with them. We could've been there—we should've—"
"It might not have made a difference other than your lives being lost as well," Hermione said kindly, but Harry could hear something deeper beneath her words. "They had somehow been cornered in a bathroom. And we're not sure if they had been attacked just as they were entering or if whoever had done it had gotten inside after they had locked it. We just don't know enough right now to be able to do more than speculate."
"Please tell me you have at least some idea of who might be doing this," Parvati pleaded, stepping forward to clutch at Harry's collar with desperate fingers. "Please! Please, I can't—" she paused to weep against Harry's shoulder, "I can't take this anymore! I can't handle constantly wondering who's going to be next! I can't handle the feeling that it's going to be me or Padma! I can't handle feeling like—" she broke off with a gasp, her breath quickening as she grasped at Harry's shirt with panicked hands.
Placing the tip of his wand between her shoulder blades, Harry murmured a spell, forcing her lungs to fill with air. She released it a moment later with a quiet gasp, and he did it again and again until her breathing had normalized and her frantic fingers had softened in the fabric of his shirt.
"It's okay, Parvati," he whispered, knowing that the situation was anything but okay. Parvati was right to panic. "It'll be okay. You and Padma are still alive, you're still okay."
"Yeah, Parvati," Seamus said from the sofa, "we're all still here."
"Seamus and I won't let you and Padma out of our sights," Dean promised. "We swear it."
"Not even to let you girls take a wee, no matter how much you insist on going alone," Seamus added before frowning. "Erm, sorry actually, that sounded a lot more comforting and a lot less creepy in my head."
Parvati snorted, tears still streaming down her cheeks. "But when do you not sound creepy, Seamus?" she responded weakly.
"Yeah, why change now?" Dean joked, but his eyes were red and his voice was scratchy and Harry could see how desperately everybody was trying to hold themselves together.
"I won't try so hard to censor myself, then," Seamus replied, attempting to force his mouth into a strange semblance of a smile.
"As if you've ever done that either," Dean said in a blank voice.
"It'll be okay," Harry repeated, leading Parvati over to the sofa to sit between Dean and Padma. "I want all of you lot to stay in here together, okay? We need to go find the others."
"Okay," Neville nodded. "Send me a Patronus if you need backup, yeah?"
"Right," Harry nodded. "None of you leave this room, understood? Not even as a group. Hermione will ward the door behind us. We should be back soon."
Scattered nods were his only response, and he turned to Ron and Hermione with a grim expression. They followed silently as he led them from the room, pausing long enough for Hermione to ward the door before they began to head down the corridor toward the snooker room in the opposite end of the Manor.
"So this means that we can definitely cross that lot in there off the list of suspects then, yeah?" Ron wondered, his voice a hard contrast to the soft sounds of footsteps against the floor beneath them.
"We can't eliminate anybody until we talk to the other group," Hermione said simply. "As well as the Slytherins. We need to find out the exact whereabouts of every single person in this house before we can determine anything."
"Let's just focus on Stephen for now," said Harry, one hand closed tightly around the handle of his wand.
"Which one is the snooker room?" Hermione asked, frowning at the sea of closed doors stretching before them.
"We're nearly there," Harry answered quietly. "It's that one up ahead, on the left." From behind the door Harry had indicated, he could hear the muffled sounds of voices and the sharp clack of cue balls smacking together. The three of them clenched their wands tighter and stood to the side of the door as Harry tested the locked knob before rapping his knuckles against the wood, hoping no panicked spells would be fired at them. "Hey, it's Harry, Ron, and Hermione," he called. "Unlock the door, please."
There was no response.
Harry knocked louder. "Open the door! It's Harry!"
Still nothing; the voices did not fade, the cue balls did not stop clacking.
Hermione moved back as she frowned at the doorway, gesturing for Harry and Ron to step aside. The moment they did, she cast a series of spells, frown deepening as the lock clicked open and the door swung inward. The entire room went silent as they turned as one to face the three Gryffindors, and Harry saw more than one wand being hastily lowered at the sight of them.
"Oi, what're you lot here for?" Michael asked curiously. "You here for a game?"
"Don't fucking bother," Smith muttered, "Corner fucking cheats."
"And Smith fucking sucks," Michael shot back, "so feel free to play him if you want an easy win."
Stepping fully into the room, Harry stared around in bewilderment. Why was everyone so calm? Why were they still in the middle of a game? Why had nobody reacted to the sounds of Lisa and Susan being murdered? Granted, they were at the other end of the long hallway, but to not have heard anything…?
"Where are Stephen and Anthony?" Hermione asked sharply, eyes narrowed.
"Er, they went to the loo," Michael answered in confusion.
"How long have they been gone?" she pressed, ducking back out of the room to glance up and down the hallway before reentering and closing the door behind her.
"Um…few minutes, I suppose," Michael answered uncomfortably, and Harry saw Entwhistle and Smith exchange a look. "They're probably just lost though; it takes a bloody year to find a toilet 'round here."
"How long have all of you been in here?" Hermione continued, whipping out her tiny notebook and her biro and beginning to scribble furiously across a fresh page.
"What happened?" Zacharias demanded with a glare.
"Who else has left this room besides Stephen and Anthony?" Harry cut in, glaring right back at Zacharias. Lord, how he disliked and distrusted that man.
"Nobody," Justin shrugged uneasily. "Just them two."
"And exactly how long have the two of them been gone?" Hermione asked again, looking at each of the men in the room in turn. "I need an exact amount of time."
"…just a few minutes," Michael repeated. "I dunno for sure. Why do you need to know? Did something happen to them?" By the time he was finished speaking, his words were drenched in fear. "Oh god, should we have all gone with them? But they didn't go off alone! There were two of them! What happened to them?!"
The three Gryffindors exchanged a heavy glance, one that seemed to make the panic in the room grow more tangible.
"They're not the ones that something happened to—" Ron began, but Hermione interrupted him.
"Why was there a silencing ward placed on this room?" The question earned several looks of confusion. "We knocked twice and asked you to unlock the door," she explained, tucking a curl behind one ear and settling her weight on her back foot as she surveyed the four men. "But when none of you responded the second time, it struck me that you couldn't hear us. We could hear you, but you couldn't hear us, which is not the easiest of spells to cast. The magical locks placed on the door were actually easier to dismantle than the silencing ward. Who cast it?"
"What are you talking about?" Justin finally asked, gazing at her in bewilderment. "None of us cast a silencing ward on the door. We cast a few locking spells, but that was it."
"And those were placed both before and after Stephen and Anthony left the room?" Hermione asked him, one eyebrow raised.
Justin and Entwhistle glanced at one another, but it was Zacharias who spoke. "Those two were the ones who locked it after themselves, so they could let themselves back in once they got back."
The three Gryffindors exchanged another loaded look. "And you're absolutely sure that they were the only two to leave this room once the six of you came here?" Hermione inquired, biro zipping across the pages of her notebook.
"Yes," Zacharias huffed. "We're fucking sure, Granger."
"And why did the six of you decide to split from the group and come here?" she asked coolly.
"Um, maybe because it was dead boring in there and we wanted something to actually do?" Smith drawled sarcastically, rolling his eyes. At the tone, Ron glared and took a threatening step forward, but Hermione laid a hand on his arm to halt his procession.
"We told you not to split from the group," she said in an even frostier voice.
"No," Smith muttered, speaking down to the floor rather than the burning glare Ron was fixing him with. "You told us not to go off alone. And nobody has. There were six of us here and you've already said that nothing's happened, so what's the big deal about us choosing to find something to keep us from dying of boredom? Stephen and Anthony didn't go off alone, they're fine."
"I believe that Ron said they weren't the ones that something had happened to, not that nothing had happened," Hermione said quietly, and at the words, Harry felt the full attention of every person in the room snap onto her; even the air had sharpened in response.
"Who?" Michael whispered, stepping away from the snooker table. "Who was it this time?"
"It was Lisa and Susan," Harry answered, and Harry saw Entwhistle take a staggering step backward in response.
"Susan?" he breathed, eyes widened in horror. "Susan is dead?"
"Both of them are dead?" Smith asked sharply.
"Yes," Hermione said to both questions. "We heard screaming and found the two of them in a bathroom."
"But…we didn't hear any screaming," Michael said slowly, confusion and upset warring in his voice. "So, you're saying that whoever killed them…cast a silencing spell around this room first so we wouldn't hear them?"
"Oh please, we already know who it was!" Zacharias snapped. "The answer couldn't be any more obvious!"
"Smith—" Harry began, already knowing what Zacharias was going to say, but the other man only raised his voice and continued speaking.
"It was clearly the Slytherins! Every time they disappear somewhere together, somebody ends up dead! The only reason nobody died last night was because Potter was awake all night making sure none of them moved! But the second he turns his back, they're at it again! Why do you keep blaming everybody but them?!" Everybody turned to Harry to await his answer.
But he didn't have one.
He wasn't sure why it was the Slytherins that he was defending the most, other than his gut telling him that he was the only thing stopping them from being torn apart by a fearful mob. And no matter what anybody else thought, he didn't believe they were the guilty ones, despite not knowing the reasons behind that belief. And Harry knew who Smith was really blaming—he was blaming Malfoy. He wanted Malfoy to pay for every drop of blood that had been spilled in his home, even though Harry knew that Malfoy was not the guilty one. For one thing, he had been with Harry during Terry's murder and speaking to Harry during Hannah's. And for another thing, Harry had seen his face when he found out about Mandy's murder, which had taken place in a room that he and all the other Slytherins had been locked out of.
No, Harry knew they were not the ones to blame.
"None of them were in that room when Mandy was killed," he said quietly. "Malfoy was with me the entire time Terry had been missing. If they wanted us all dead, they would have killed us all the first night, not locked themselves up here with us to risk being torn apart by anyone who suspected them."
"Yeah, unless this is all some sick game to them!" Zacharias glared. "They're probably getting off on this! And all you're doing is helping them to continue!"
"And all you're doing is inciting panic and spreading fear," Harry said quietly. "All you've done this entire time is instigate, Smith, and try to turn everyone on everybody else. You're more of a danger than all of them combined."
"And you're an idiot if you think you can actually trust them!" Zacharias snapped.
"I trust them a hell of a lot more than I'll ever trust you," Harry responded coldly.
"Just knock it off already, Smith," Michael interrupted, shooting Zacharias a hard stare. "Harry's right, all you're doing is making everything worse."
"Yeah," Ron cut in, "for once in your life, Smith, just keep your fat mouth shut."
"Come on," Harry said to the others, turning away from the irritating blond. "We're going back to meet up with the others."
Nodding, they all set down the snooker cues they were gripping in tense hands and began to follow the three Gryffindors from the room. A tug on Harry's sleeve, however, made him stop, and he allowed the others to stride ahead as he glanced back at Michael Corner curiously.
"Harry," Michael said in a low voice, glancing around himself, "I need to tell you something. I would've mentioned it in the room but I found it strange that neither of them told you themselves."
"What is it?" Harry wondered, speaking softly as he too shot a glance around the hallway. The others were still in sight but did not appear close enough to overhear them.
"Smith said that nobody had left the room except for Stephen and Anthony once we got here," Michael began, sounding troubled, "and that's true, nobody did. But Justin and Zacharias weren't with us when we went to the snooker room. They came after."
"How much longer after?" Harry asked sharply. What did that mean that they had met up with the others after? Where had they been?
"Not too long after," Michael said, "less than a quarter of an hour."
Still long enough to kill someone, Harry thought with sudden bubbling anger, willing himself to dismiss the suspicion until he had a chance to talk everything over with Ron and Hermione. "Right," he said finally, beginning to stride down the corridor once more, and Michael automatically fell into step beside him. "Thanks for letting me know, Michael."
"Why do you think they didn't say anything?" Michael frowned. "What does that mean that neither of them wanted to tell you that?"
"I'm not sure yet," Harry answered honestly. "But the fact that they didn't say anything I think is the most telling thing about it."
Michael nodded, a thoughtful, troubled look on his face. "I want to find Anthony," he said in a quiet voice. "They really have been gone far too long and I'm worried."
"We'll find him," Harry promised. "We'll find him and Stephen." And once we do, we might actually get some answers.
oOo
Everybody was silent by the time Harry and Michael made it to the room the group was crowded in. He glanced around, noting that Stephen and Anthony were not present. Where the hell were they?
"I already split us into groups," Hermione told the two men. "We're going to separate into two groups and each comb a wing for Stephen and Anthony."
"I'm going to make sure the others are still okay," Harry said, noting the narrowing of Zacharias's eyes.
"You can't go alone—" Hermione began, but Harry cut her off.
"They don't trust anybody else. I'll be fine, Hermione, I promise." It wasn't a promise that he was entirely certain he could keep since he knew for a fact how little regard death had for promises and that a spoken vow would not stop death from claiming him if it came down to it. But he was determined all the same to find the Slytherins and make sure they were all right.
She stared at him for an entire age. "All right," she finally said in a soft voice. "I trust you to be able to handle yourself."
Harry nodded as he stepped back into the hallway, jerking his head in a small gesture to Ron, who followed him from the room. Taking several steps away from the door, he cast a privacy spell around the two of them.
"What is it?" Ron wondered, staring around the hallway as though the answer was spelled out on a wall somewhere.
"Keep an eye on Justin and Zacharias," Harry warned in a low voice. "Michael just told me that they weren't with the group when they first went to the snooker room. He said they showed up later."
Ron's eyes widened slightly. "Well, look at the both of them failing to mention that back there."
"I know," Harry agreed. "Michael told me afterward because he thought it was suspicious that they didn't tell us themselves."
"And didn't you say that Smith was wandering about on his own earlier today?" Ron asked, tilting his head in thought.
"Yeah, he was upstairs…" Harry trailed off before finding himself suddenly gripped by panic. "He knows where the Slytherins are, Ron, he followed me to find out! What if that's where Justin and Zacharias were? Oh, fuck! Stay with Hermione!" Turning, he began to sprint in the direction of the stairs, feeling his heart hammer fiercely in his chest. Were the Slytherins okay? What if Justin and Zacharias had succeeded in breaking into the room?
But no, Harry tried to reassure himself. They wouldn't attack so openly like that, not if they were the ones behind all the murders. And even if they had, they would be outnumbered five to two. The Slytherins were fine, they were all fine. Harry would go upstairs and find them all safe and alive.
Please god, let them all be fine.
Taking the stairs two at a time, Harry ran down the hallway toward Malfoy's bedroom, repeating they're fine, they're fine, they're fine to himself in a constant echo of assurance that wasn't as assuring as Harry would have liked.
Finally, after what felt like a year, Harry arrived at Draco's doorway, forcing himself to knock calmly rather than pounding on it with a fist like he wanted to. He had no desire to panic any of them or be immediately hexed by making them think it was an enemy outside the door.
"Draco!" he called, knocking louder. "Draco, it's me, open the door! Er, quidditch!"
Several moments passed before he heard a lock click open and saw the door swing inward to reveal a rather ashen-faced Draco Malfoy. "What happened?" he demanded immediately, grabbing Harry by the collar and hauling him into the room. "We thought we heard screaming. Who was it?" Blaise hurried over to shut the door behind Harry before beginning to ward it rather impressively.
"It was Lisa and Susan," he told them in a soft voice.
"Somebody killed Bones?" Nott said, sitting up on the sofa he had been reclining on. "But that's like killing a bunny rabbit. She might be the most harmless person I think I've ever met."
Harry nodded in agreement, throat tight and eyes hot. So many of their friends and classmates were dead, and Harry could not stop it. He could not stop the bloodshed, he could not prevent the death that hung over the entire house like a thunderous storm cloud raining down rage and despair over the Manor, a bloodred storm intent on seeing every single one of them dead.
"Where?" Malfoy asked in a hard voice, and Harry wondered what the man was thinking.
"We found the two of them in a bathroom," the brunet said quietly. "We're still trying to figure out what happened."
"Two at once," Parkinson murmured, appearing shocked. Zabini crossed the room to enfold her in an embrace, one that made Harry's throat tighten even further.
"Please tell me you have some idea of who's doing this," Davis said to him, a pleading edge to her words.
Harry hesitated, unwilling to disclose specifics until he had more concrete proof to offer them. "Some idea," he told her, wishing he could offer them more.
Sighing in resignation, she nodded and turned away, gazing through a large window down at the expansive grounds below, so close and yet so unreachable. The Slytherins fell silent, a silence so loud it seemed to ring from every surface of the room.
A sudden tug on Harry's arm caught his attention and he glanced over his shoulder to find Malfoy staring at him intensely. The moment their eyes met, he pulled Harry over to a distant corner of the large room, throwing up the same tricky silencing spell that he had used in the library, allowing the two of them to hear the room but not allowing the rest of the room to hear them.
"Who?" he said simply, the single word weighted in demand.
Harry sighed, raking an unhappy hand through his hair. He knew that Malfoy would not accept another vague, avoidant answer. "We have our eyes on a few."
"Who?" the blond repeated, stepping closer until the two men were only inches from one another. The proximity gave Harry the strange urge to reach out and touch Draco, just to make certain he was real and whole and safe.
Harry shook his head. "I'll tell you once I start feeling more certain. But until then…" he sighed again. "I just don't want my own personal suspicions to influence anybody into doing anything rash."
Malfoy stared at him in growing frustration. "Potter—"
"I'm glad that you're okay," Harry interrupted, cutting Malfoy off before he could either scold or insult the brunet. "I was worried."
The statement visibly startled Malfoy, who dropped his defensive stance in surprise as he eyed Harry as though attempting to pierce his skin with a stare intense enough to peel back his flesh and uncover the truth hidden beneath. "You were?" He sounded bewildered, almost as though he had never had another person express concern for his well-being.
Harry frowned as he jerked his head in a single nod. He did not want to admit just how worried he really had been, but he was starting to suspect that his concern might have a deeper, undiscovered reason lurking behind it, a reason he knew might just be safer to ignore.
Malfoy fell back half a step as he blinked at Harry, appearing unsure how to respond, and Harry found himself once again wondering what the man was thinking. "Harry…" he said uncertainly.
"We should probably go join the others," Harry said, feeling uncomfortable at the sudden intensity of the moment. "I can practically feel Parkinson burning a hole in the back of my head with her gaze."
One corner of Malfoy's lips twitched upward. "You're not wrong there," he said as he raised his wand to cancel the spell around them.
"So," Zabini drawled as they strode back over to the others, "what secrets were the two of you trading over there that the rest of us can't know about, hmm?"
"Yes, Draco," Nott spoke up from the sofa, "do tell."
"You know how much the four of us love secrets," Parkinson added.
"I know how terrible the four of you are at keeping them," Malfoy muttered.
"Bollocks," Nott said in a bored voice. "None of us have told Potter yet about how much you secretly want to f—"
"Theo!" Draco snapped, face flushing angrily as he shot Harry a quick look out of the corner of his eye. What had Nott been about to say?
"He'll figure it out eventually, Draco," Nott said with his usual air of indifference. "You're not exactly subtle, you know. And whilst no means brilliant, he's not as big an idiot as you liked to pretend he was in school."
"He's also standing right here," Harry interrupted, sounding exasperated. Christ, he hated when people spoke about him while he was standing right next to them. It was something the Dursleys had done constantly throughout his childhood, acting as though he did not have ears and could not understand what they were saying.
"Ignore him, Potter," Draco said smoothly, shooting Nott one last glare before turning from the sofa he was sat on. "Theo doesn't know what he's saying. Ever."
"Don't listen to him, Potter," Nott cut in, waving one hand lazily in Malfoy's direction. "Theo does know what he's saying. Always. Take a moment and think about what I said. It should not take a person of even less than adequate intelligence longer than three seconds to figure out what I meant."
"Do you lot always speak in such riddles?" Harry sighed, wondering if there would ever come a point in his life where he was not constantly feeling confused at everything that came out of the mouths of the five Slytherins in the room.
"Where's the fun in unambiguity?" Nott drawled. "You're far too candid, Potter. Your everyday conversations must be ever so dull."
Harry rolled his eyes. "My conversations are fine, Nott, thank you."
"You are so very welcome," the man said, and Harry wondered if he had ever heard a more apathetic tone of voice in his entire life.
Parkinson snorted into Zabini's chest, but Harry noticed the way she still clutched at his robes with desperate, frightened fingers.
"So what happens now?" a quiet voice asked, and Harry turned to Davis, who was still staring through the window with a lost expression on her face. "What do we do now?"
"We stay here," Parkinson said immediately. "We stay where it's safe."
"Seconded," Nott said, lying back down and stretching out on the sofa.
"No," Harry shook his head. "You lot need to be part of the decision-making 'round here. And if you do nothing but lock yourselves away out of sight, they may begin to think you really are the ones behind it and actively seek you out."
"They would have to find us first," Nott pointed out.
"Well…" Harry hesitated, unsure if he should reveal that they had already been found.
"What?" Zabini narrowed his eyes.
"They, er, already have," Harry responded uncomfortably. "Smith knows where Draco's bedroom is. He followed us up here earlier and saw which room I came out of."
"Smith?" Zabini asked in a voice like steel. "Smith fucking knows? What the fuck is he following us around for? There's only one reason he would need to know where we are, and that's if he was planning on doing something with the information."
"I think Potter is suggesting we do something about the situation before Smith has a chance to use the information," Nott said.
"No," Harry argued, "he is definitely not suggesting that. I told you because I didn't want to keep something like that from you and so you lot could know to have your guard up around him. But I do not want this situation escalated any further than it already has been."
"He needs to be dealt with now," Zabini disagreed in a hard voice. "Have you not heard how many times he has openly accused and threatened us? We already know that he wishes us harm, Potter. And now you're saying that he's sneaking around by himself just to find out where we are?"
"Look," Harry sighed, wanting to rub his temples, "I told you because it directly affects the lot of you, not so that you could take matters into your own hands. Smith is all talk, you know that."
Zabini raised one eyebrow. "Are you saying that words cannot be just as dangerous as wands?"
"I'm saying that the situation is already dangerous enough without actively seeking out a fight."
"Not even if that fight would prevent our deaths?" Zabini shot back, tightening his hold on Parkinson. "Say what you want about keeping the situation from escalating, but the truth is that someone in this house is killing us off one by one. We don't have the luxury of sitting back and keeping our mouths shut for the sake of peace when any one of us may be the next to die! And out of every single person in this house, Smith is the one I trust the least and the one who hates us the most. And now you're saying that he knows where we are? And that he followed us to find that information out? No, Potter, I refuse to accept that quietly. Just the fact that he was wandering around on his own is suspicious enough to warrant an investigation into his motives, is it not? But to wander around on his own just to find out where the five of us are…" he trailed off, allowing the silence to fill in his missing words.
"I never said that the matter would not be handled," Harry argued. "I just said that I didn't want any of you five taking the matter into your own hands and doing something rash."
"And how exactly will the matter be handled?" Malfoy asked quietly.
Harry stared at him. "I don't have any answers right now," he admitted. "Just give me a chance to speak to Ron and Hermione about everything and we'll decide what to do about him. I'll tell you as soon as we reach a decision, but until then, I'm asking that you refrain from antagonizing anybody in this house. If a fight breaks out and everybody becomes divided, it could be very bad for all of us."
Malfoy and Zabini exchanged a weighted look, and Harry felt something in his chest tighten at their easy ability to hold a silent conversation with one another. "Fine, Potter," Zabini said with narrowed eyes. "We'll wait for the moment and not confront him directly about it. But," he stressed the word, "if he chooses to confront any of us, I won't be held responsible for how I respond. I'm done putting up with his accusations and his prejudices. And if he threatens a single one of us one more time, I will show him that we are not ones to take threats lightly."
"I understand," Harry said simply, expecting nothing less from the man. Zabini nodded as he relaxed his tense posture.
"So now that that's decided," Malfoy said, eyeing Harry in a way that made him feel exposed, "what do we do now?"
A grim expression settled over Harry's face. "Now, we go meet up with the others."
Harry had suspects to question.
TBC