A/N: Welcome, my friends, to chapter 14! Otherwise known as The Interrogation of Zacharias Smith and Justin Finch-Fletchley.

Cue the ominous music, cue the drama, cue the suspicion. All right. Let's do this thing. But before we do, look! A despondent book quote!

"What loneliness is more lonely than distrust?"
-George Eliot, Middlemarch


ALL BUT DEATH

XIV

MORE LONELY THAN DISTRUST

"He's dead," Dean repeated blankly, staring at them with unfocused eyes. "Are you sure?"

Ron and Harry exchanged a look. "Er, pretty sure, Dean, yeah," the redhead confirmed.

"Which of them was it?" Padma whispered, clutching at Parvati's hand fearfully. "Which of them did it?"

"That means we can leave now, right?" Michael cut in before Harry could explain that they still had no idea which of the two Hufflepuffs had actually killed Kevin. "I mean, it could only have been Justin or Zacharias. It shouldn't be too hard to figure it out with only two suspects."

"And that means that we can finally make whoever was doing this let us out of this damned house," Anthony added in a grim voice, a hard look on his face.

"Which of them was it?" Seamus wondered, repeating Padma's earlier question. "My money's on Smith. That prat definitely wouldn't hesitate to stab a friend in the back."

The statement made Harry wince internally, wondering if Seamus had any idea how close to the truth of Kevin's murder he had inadvertently come to.

Hermione sighed. "I'm afraid it's not that simple."

"What isn't?" Anthony asked, that same hard look still on his face. "Getting them to let us out of here? Just tell us where they are, Hermione, and we'll make them."

"We still don't have a clear idea of the guilty one," she admitted. "There are a few…complications with this latest attack."

"What does it matter then?" Anthony said, waving one hand impatiently. "Why are we even assuming that it was only one of them? It was probably both of them!"

Harry and Ron exchanged another look, and Harry could see that Ron was thinking the same thing he was. What if Anthony was right? What if it had been both of them? They had been operating under the assumption that it was only one person committing the murders, but what if that assumption was wrong? What if Zacharias and Justin had somehow been working together? It would certainly make it much easier, after all, to commit a series of murders with help.

But it didn't explain who the fingerprint belonged to.

"So what's the plan now then?" Dean asked, folding his arms. "I mean, you said you have the two of them locked up somewhere, right?" He waited until Hermione nodded. "So what's your plan for figuring out which of them did it?"

"What are the complications?" Michael wondered, glancing between the Gryffindors. "You said there were complications. What are they?"

Hermione sighed again. "I'd prefer not to go into them at the moment, at least until we can get a clearer idea of the situation. Just give us some more time to think through it all, and I promise you we'll explain everything."

"Not good enough," Anthony argued. "You can't withhold answers from us that directly affect our bloody lives, Granger! We're in this situation just as deeply as you lot are, and we deserve to know what's actually happening!"

"Yes," she responded, settling on her back foot as she gazed at the man with a calm, unflappable look. "You are. We are all in the same situation. But this became an Auror investigation the moment the first murder happened, Anthony, and I'm afraid that you don't have either the training or the experience to be a part of the actual investigation."

"So you're saying that you four get to control the entire situation and all of our lives just because you're fucking Aurors?" he demanded, earning a glare from Ron.

"Yeah," the redhead said sarcastically, "because that's so different from the outside world, isn't it? Aurors controlling crime scenes? We may be stuck in this house, Anthony, but that doesn't mean the laws change."

Anthony glared back at him. "They do when all of our lives are at stake!"

"No," Ron said in a hard voice, "they don't. Just because we're trapped here doesn't mean we're not all still under Ministry law."

"You never answered Dean's question," Parvati interrupted, shooting Anthony an odd look. "What is your plan now? How do you plan to go about figuring out which of them it was?"

"Did any of you hear anything last night?" Harry asked, ignoring the questions for the moment. They needed as clear a picture of the previous night as they could get before deciding on a course of action. "Anything at all? Did anybody hear anything in the corridor? Anybody running down the hallway?"

The group paused as they exchanged glances with one another.

"No," Michael shrugged, sounding uneasy. "I didn't. Padma?"

She shook her head. "I mean, the house creaks quite a bit, but other than that, I don't think I heard anything strange."

"What about you, Anthony?" Parvati turned to him. "You were the one sat up all night."

At the statement, Anthony flushed with what appeared to be annoyance, shooting Parvati a stinging look, and Harry wondered what that meant. Had he not wanted her to tell the Aurors that Anthony had been the only person awake all night?

"Anthony?" Hermione asked, one eyebrow raised. Everyone turned to stare at him, and Harry wondered if the man was even aware of how hard he was glaring back at them all.

"No," he said shortly. "I didn't hear a thing."

Harry narrowed his eyes, wondering why the man was suddenly so tense. He held himself tightly, mouth carved in a thin line as he glared back at the brunet, and Harry wondered how big of a row it would start if he were to demand to check Anthony's wand.

"I think you lot should stay here for now," Harry said slowly, wanting to speak with Ron and Hermione without the others listening in and throwing their opinions around. "Just until we're done analyzing this latest attack."

The outrage was immediate.

"You can't keep us here!" Anthony shouted.

"We can help!" Michael argued, crossing his arms.

"Are you locking us inside?" Padma asked fearfully, clutching at Michael's arm.

"Please, Harry, don't leave us behind!" Parvati pleaded, stumbling several steps closer to him. Her eyes were large and terrified, and Harry ignored the others as he addressed her.

"We'll be back soon," he said softly, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. The instant he touched her, she reached up to cover his hand with hers, stepping even closer until she was only inches away.

"Why do we have to stay here?" she whispered, shooting scared eyes around the room. "Why can't we come with you? I thought you said we were safer in a group!"

"And you will be," he reasoned. "You'll be in a group, Parvati, we're not leaving you here all alone. You'll be with the others. But we need to go finish looking over everything and talking with Justin and Zacharias. You lot will be perfectly safe in here, I promise."

Anthony scoffed, clearly not believing a word Harry was saying.

"Don't leave us alone, Harry," she begged, clutching at his shirt. "Please, I don't want one of us to be next!"

"It's okay, Parvati," Michael said, helping Padma pull her gently away from Harry. "We know now that it was either Justin or Zacharias, and they're both locked up. We'll be fine in here."

"Do you promise?" she asked, speaking to Harry. She was looking into his eyes without blinking, and Harry tried not to look away. "Do you promise we'll be okay?"

He hesitated, unsure if he should or was even able to promise such a thing. Yes, he thought that the guilty one must clearly be either Justin or Zacharias since they were the only ones in the room during Kevin's murder, but he was still somewhat unwilling to promise in such absolute words that everybody else would be fine. After all, there was still Stephen to consider. He was still somewhere in the house, and Harry wondered if perhaps Stephen was working with one of the others. Perhaps he had been working with Justin or Zacharias; maybe it was even all three of them.

Harry had no idea of anything anymore; he wasn't certain of a single thing.

"You'll be safe here," he said quietly. "You lot just stay as a group, yeah? We'll be back soon."

Parvati nodded and sighed, continuing to stare at Harry for several more seconds before looking away.

"Are you sure you four don't need any help?" Michael asked in a low voice, glancing around. "Surely there's something we could do."

"Yeah, there is," Neville said, keeping his voice just as quiet. "Stay here and look after everyone. Make sure Padma and Parvati are safe."

Michael frowned, nodding as he glanced back at Padma and Parvati, who were whispering to one another near the far wall. "Of course," he agreed.

"They'll be fine," Anthony cut in, eyeing Parvati with a look so intense that it made Harry uncomfortable.

What did that look mean?

"All right then," Ron said, swinging his arms. "We'll go now. You lot ward the room behind us, yeah?"

Michael and Anthony both agreed, appearing solemn as the door was shut behind the four Gryffindors. Harry watched a tremor of magic zip around the doorframe before the hallway fell into silence.

"I s'pose we should go then," he said, feeling strangely hollow as he wondered what they were meant to do now. What else could they examine about the crime scene that they hadn't already discovered?

"What do you think we should do first?" Ron asked, leading the way back toward the rooms they had locked Zacharias and Justin in.

"I think we should speak to them again," Hermione sighed, "starting with Zacharias."

"What if it really is both of them?" Harry said quietly, trying to ignore the shadows clinging to the edges of the corridor. Lord, was there ever a time of day when there weren't shadows sticking to everything in sight in this house?

"It's a definite possibility," Hermione admitted, twirling a lock of hair around one finger idly. "Although, that still doesn't really explain the evidence we've found."

"What if one of them is working with Stephen?" Harry said slowly, his mind swirling with doubts and accusations. "What if that's how they did it, Hermione? What if that's how Stephen got into the room? What if they've been working together the whole time? It could even be both of the Hufflepuffs and Stephen!"

"What, you think they've been playing us?" Ron raised one orange eyebrow. "You think that's why they started blaming each other pretty much right away?"

"They didn't even try blaming anybody else," Harry shrugged. "Maybe that's why Zacharias keeps pointing fingers at almost every other person the way he has been. Maybe it's just an effort to keep those same fingers pointed off himself."

"Not the most subtle way to claim innocence," Hermione mused, tapping her bottom lip thoughtfully.

Ron gave her a flat look. "Subtle? Zacharias? You say that like it's possible for those two words to ever be used in the same sentence."

Hermione cracked a reluctant smile, the expression vanishing in the very next second.

"But why would they be doing this?" Neville wondered, and Harry glanced over, having nearly forgotten the man was still there.

"Well," he shrugged, scratching his shoulder, "Zacharias hates the Slytherins. Like, loathes them. He told me that the only reason he even came to this party in the first place was to watch them grovel for everyone's forgiveness. What if this is some backward way of getting revenge on them? What if all he's doing is trying to set them up to make them look guilty?"

Neville frowned. "Bit extreme for a form of revenge, though, isn't it? I mean, these aren't just strangers being killed off, these are our classmates."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, "most of whom have always disliked Zacharias. He's never been popular. He's never really even had any friends. Not that I ever noticed, at least. I really don't think there's anybody in this house that he truly cares about outside of himself."

"No arguing with that," Ron nodded. "That's a git that seems to get off on pushing people's buttons. I can't see how any of what Harry's said is less of a motivation than anyone else in this house would have. I mean, someone is killing us all off. And Zacharias definitely seems to be the least stable person here, so…I agree with Hermione about starting with him."

"I'm not quite sure it's that simple though," Hermione pointed out, biting her lip. "We're missing something important. There are still too many unanswered questions."

"Well," Ron said with a shrug, "let's go get those answers then."

oOo

"Have you four finally come to let me out?" Zacharias grumbled the moment the door was opened. He was sat near a window along the far wall, gazing up at the cement-colored sky. "I'm assuming that you finally figured out that it was Justin who was doing it all."

"We're here to speak with you," Hermione corrected, shutting the door behind the Gryffindors.

Zacharias glared. "Speak to me about giving back my wand and letting me out of this fucking godforsaken room you mean, right, Granger?"

"Not quite," she said crisply, crossing her arms as she surveyed him. "We need to hear what happened again, Zacharias. Everything that happened. Every single tiny little detail of last night and this morning."

Somehow, his glare sharpened even more. "It was Justin. Justin killed Kevin. That's what happened, Granger, that's all you need to know!"

"Yes, we've heard. We've also heard him say the exact same thing about you. I would like to get both versions of the previous night laid out as clearly as possible. So we've decided to start with you."

"Yeah, the innocent one," he muttered, sinking further into his chair with a disgruntled air.

Hermione raised one eyebrow. "Let's hear the story of your innocence, then."

Zacharias ground his teeth. "I already told you," he said tightly. "We went to the room. We set up for the night. I fell asleep. Justin killed Kevin. When I woke up, Kevin was dead and Justin was there. I Stunned him and went to find Potter. He called you three. I showed you where the body was. You stupidly made the mistake of locking me up instead of hexing Justin like you should have. Now you're here, still blaming me for something I didn't fucking do. End of fucking story."

"Who chose the room?" Hermione asked, staring down at him with an unreadable expression.

At the question, a bewildered look slipped across Zacharias's face. "Who picked the room? I don't really think it was so much a decision as one of us just pointed to it and said 'wanna sleep there?' and the others agreed."

"And who was the one who pointed to it?" she continued calmly.

An uncomfortable look crossed the man's face. "Justin."

"Okay," Hermione said, pulling out her notepad and biro before beginning to scribble something into it. "Justin picked the room. Are you sure?"

"Yes," Zacharias snapped. "Of course I'm sure. I was there."

"And how long did it take the three of you to find a room?"

"I dunno," Zacharias growled, "I wasn't timing it. We were walking around for a while before Justin pointed to the room."

"And nobody left at all during the night?"

"Of course not," he replied in the same impatient tone. "Why would anybody have left?"

"So," Harry interrupted, frowning down at the man, "if I were to tell you that somebody tried to break into Draco's room last night and that you're the only one who knows where it is, what would you say?"

Zacharias gaped at him. "But—but I didn't!" he protested shrilly. "I didn't try to break in there! I never left the room last night!"

Harry said nothing. He stared at the other man with one eyebrow raised until Zacharias was squirming in his seat and was unable to look Harry in the eye.

"It wasn't me, Potter!"

"Bit convenient though, isn't it, Smith?" Ron spoke up, standing with his arms crossed and his feet apart. "You already admitted that there was a window of you being the only one awake in the room."

"I never said that!"

"You did," Hermione corrected. "You said that you woke up, noticed Kevin's body, and immediately Stunned a sleeping Justin. What time would you say that was around?"

The more she spoke, the more horrified Smith's expression became. "It was only a minute or two before I found Potter!"

"And what time would you say that was around?"

"I dunno, ask him!" Zacharias said angrily.

"We're asking you," Hermione said in the same calm voice.

"I don't know!" he said, the three words as sharp as ice. "Early!"

Hermione raised one eyebrow. "So you're unable to give us any sort of time frame?"

"I don't know!" Zacharias shouted. "It was fucking early! What the fuck is so important about the time anyway?! Kevin died! Justin killed him! Why are you lot focusing on the most unimportant details?!"

"No detail in an investigation is unimportant," Hermione told him. "Especially the time frame."

"Well," Zacharias began, the single word drenched in sarcasm, "I'm so sorry I didn't immediately check the fucking time the second I saw Kevin's dead fucking body lying next to me! Next time one of my friends gets murdered, I'll be sure to look at my watch first!"

"Okay," Ron shrugged. "So, you can't give us a time frame for when you discovered the body, and there's nobody to corroborate any sort of alibi for you. You say you didn't leave the room, but not a single person in this house can actually verify that. And you say that you didn't Stun Justin until this morning, right before you left to go find Harry, but again, not a single person can verify that. For all we know, he'd been Stunned for hours when we found him. And somebody was definitely in the hallway last night. Somebody definitely tried to break into Malfoy's room. And you're the only person who knows where it is.

"I gotta say, Smith," Ron continued, "none of this is really looking too great for you."

Zacharias stared at him, breathing heavily. His eyes were large and round and his mouth gaped open. "But it wasn't me," he whispered, lips barely moving. "It wasn't me."

"Did you hear anything during the night?" Harry asked. "Anything at all. Any sounds from the hallway. Anything in your room."

"No!" Zacharias shook his head fiercely. "No, I didn't hear a thing! I mean, I think I would remember if I heard someone running through the hallway in the middle of the night, right?"

Harry's eyes instantly narrowed. "Running?" he asked, copying Ron's interrogation stance. "We said that somebody was out in the hallway, not that they were running. If you didn't hear anything, how do you know they were running?"

At the question, Zacharias's eyes grew so large Harry was worried for a moment that they might pop out of his head. "I-I don't! I don't know! I didn't hear anything! I-it was a figure of speech, Potter! That's all! I didn't mean it literally!"

"You know the funny thing, Zacharias," Harry said casually, his tone a direct contrast to his tense posture, "is that Draco's bedroom isn't even close to here. It's on the opposite end of the house, in fact. But whoever tried to break in there last night ran this way. In this direction. Toward the room you were in."

"It wasn't me!" he squeaked, shrinking back in his chair. "It wasn't fucking me!"

"An even funnier thing," Harry continued, "is that there was an actual weapon used this time. A kitchen knife. And, please correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't you one of the ones to help clean up after dinner last night and put the dishes away?"

Zacharias's mouth was hanging open, but it didn't appear as though he was breathing at all.

"Answer the question, Zacharias," Neville prodded quietly.

"Y-yes," the man breathed, finally exhaling. "B-but I didn't take anything! I didn't take a knife!"

"But is there anybody who can verify that?" Ron asked.

Zacharias said nothing.

"Okay," Hermione sighed. "So you have no alibi for the previous night at all. And nobody to confirm anything you've said so far. I'm sorry, Zacharias," she sighed again, "but I think you'll be stuck in this room for some time. We need to speak with Justin now."

"You'll see," Zacharias said desperately, fists clenched. "You'll see when you speak to him! He's the guilty one, not me! I didn't touch Kevin! I didn't do a thing to him! I never touched that knife and I never hurt Kevin!"

The Gryffindors exchanged a weighted glance.

"Well," Hermione said slowly, pausing to scribble something down in her notepad. "That's the thing, Zacharias. We're not entirely sure you didn't touch that knife."

"What?" The fear in his eyes lessened somewhat as confusion swirled their depths. "what does that mean? No, I didn't! I never touched it! I didn't even notice it!"

"One of your fingerprints was found on the handle," Harry said quietly, watching the man carefully for a reaction. He exchanged a glance with Ron, who nodded in encouragement. Harry knew that technically, it was perfectly within the law for him to lie to a suspect during an interrogation, but he never felt comfortable doing so. Now, however, he was desperate enough to resort to such things if it would produce results.

In that very same second, Zacharias's face drained of color. "You're lying," he whispered. "You have to be lying. That's not true. None of that is true. I—it—you're lying!" Without warning, he jumped to his feet, screaming. "You're fucking lying, Potter! All of you! That's not true! You're trying to pin this whole thing on me! I DIDN'T FUCKING KILL HIM!"

"All we said was that your fingerprint was on the knife," Harry told him, tightening his grip on his wand.

"BUT IT WASN'T! IT FUCKING WASN'T! STOP FUCKING LYING TO ME!"

"Zacharias!" Hermione said sharply, but the man either ignored her or did not hear.

"IT WASN'T ME! IT WASN'T ME! I DIDN'T FUCKING TOUCH HIM!" he screamed, picking up a lamp from a nearby table and hurling it against the far wall. The sound of it shattering had Ron's head snapping in that direction, but Harry didn't take his eyes from Zacharias.

"Zacharias!" he barked, trying to sound commanding without sounding too confrontational. It was a fine line to balance. "Calm down!"

"FUCK YOU!"

With a grim expression, Hermione flicked her wand in his direction, sighing to herself as Zacharias paused mid-rant before crumpling to the floor, eyes sliding shut.

"Well," Ron said uncertainly, sounding surprised. "I told you lot that he was the most unstable one here."

"I don't really think anybody disagreed with you," Harry said mildly, staring down at Smith's unconscious form. "He went straight to fury. You know what this reminded me of?"

Ron leveled him with a serious look. "The Fairburn case?"

Harry nodded. "Almost the exact same responses."

The case had taken place several months earlier. One night, Aldous Fairburn had shown up at the Ministry out of nowhere, wide-eyed and trembling, claiming that someone had broken into his house and killed his wife. The Aurors had immediately rushed over, only to find evidence pointing to Fairburn as the guilty party. The man had sworn up and down that he was innocent, crying and screaming and pleading with them to believe him, until the autopsy had come back with results. Traces of the spell that had been used to slit her throat had been matched up with his magical signature. That combined with the fact that not a single hint of any recent foreign magic could be found anywhere within or around the house sealed the department's conviction that Fairburn had killed his own wife.

When presented with the evidence, Fairburn had screamed and cried and raged, denying that he had any part of it. The more the Aurors pushed for the truth, the more desperate, angry, and hysterical he became, until finally, he sat back in his chair, looked up at them through red puffy eyes, and started laughing, tears still streaming down his cheeks. He laughed and sobbed and howled, beating his fists on the table, even slamming his forehead against the surface several times before suddenly beginning to scream that she had deserved it—she had deserved what he had done to her. Before the confession, several of the Aurors had refused to believe that he was guilty, claiming that anyone so upset about it could never have done such a thing.

Until it had been proven that he had.

The two situations were startlingly similar, and Harry couldn't help but wonder if the outcomes would be similar as well. Maybe that's why a kitchen knife had been used instead of a spell—perhaps Zacharias had been worried about a spell being traced back to him, not even considering the fact that they might be able to pull fingerprints from the handle.

But that still didn't explain the unknown print.

Sighing, Harry Levitated Zacharias onto the bed, gazing down at him with an unreadable expression for several moments before turning back to the others.

"Let's go speak with Justin now then," he said, leading the way from the room.

Once on the other side of the door, Hermione warded it tightly shut before stepping back with a nod. Squaring her shoulders, she led the way to the room Justin was being held in, murmuring a series of spells and nodding to herself as the door swung open. He was standing before them in a flash, wringing his hands and shooting hopeful glances over their shoulders into the hallway.

"Are you letting me out?" he wondered, taking a step closer but halting when Ron put up one hand to stop him.

"Not quite yet," Hermione said, gesturing to him to take a seat in the closest armchair.

Appearing dazed, he stumbled to the chair and sank down into it with a blank look. "But you figured it out, didn't you?" he asked in a numb voice. "You figured out that it wasn't me."

"We need to ask you a few questions," Hermione said, ignoring the statement.

"Questions?" Justin said, speaking in the same hollow voice. "What questions?"

"We need you to explain again everything that happened last night."

"But why?" he breathed, face pale. "I already told you—Zacharias did it. That's what happened."

"We need a clearer picture of the events," Hermione said softly, pulling out her notepad and biro. "Just tell us everything that transpired, Justin."

"I…" His words trailed off as a strange, haunted look crossed his face, the expression vanishing in the very next second. "After dinner, we came upstairs and found a bedroom. We Transfigured mattresses to sleep on because nobody wanted to sleep on the bed. I fell asleep first. Next thing I know, you lot are standing over me and Kevin is dead." His voice broke on the final word, eyes glassy and wide. "That's all I know, Hermione, that's all that happened."

"Who chose the bedroom?"

The question seemed to confuse him, and he blinked at her for several moments. "The bedroom?" he said slowly, thinking back. "It was Zacharias."

"Zacharias?" she asked sharply, scribbling in her notepad. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," he said in a faraway voice. "Yes, it was definitely him."

"Interesting," she murmured to herself, jotting another note down.

"So you didn't hear anything at all last night then, Justin?" Harry cut in, watching the man carefully.

Justin turned that blank look onto Harry. "Hear anything?"

"Yes, anybody walking around, any slamming doors, any suspicious noises, anything."

He blinked at Harry for long moments. "No," he finally said, dropping his gaze. "No, I didn't hear anything."

"Did any of you place a silencing spell on the room after locking yourselves in?"

The question appeared to confuse him. "Silencing spell? No, of course not. Why would we have done that?"

"Would you say you're a heavy sleeper?" Harry pressed, wondering how it was possible that they had not heard a door slam during the night. Whoever had done it had definitely run in that direction, the Hufflepuffs should have been able to hear it. The doors in the manor were thick and heavy, and Harry remembered the loud slamming of it echoing along the silent corridor.

"I don't know," Justin shrugged, gaze unfocused. "I don't think so."

"You were on clean-up duty last night, were you not?" Hermione interrupted, keeping her voice casual.

"Er, yeah," Justin said, scrunching his nose. "Yeah, I helped clean up after dinner. Why does that matter?"

"Because of the choice of weapon," she said, not even blinking as she stared him down.

The confusion on Justin's face deepened. "The choice of…" his words trailed off before he inhaled sharply. "The knife," he breathed, a panicked look crossing his face. "I didn't touch it, Hermione! I never touched any knives!"

"But you did," Ron said, crossing his arms as he gazed down at Justin with a hard look. "Your fingerprint was found on the handle, Justin."

"No!" he denied, shaking his head fiercely. "No, I didn't! You're lying! You're making that up! You're lying to me just to get me to confess to something I didn't do!"

"Did you leave your room last night?" Harry asked, wondering if the man's reaction would be similar to Zacharias's. "At all, for any reason?"

"No!" Justin shouted, shaking his head even harder. "No, of course not! Why would I have left? I didn't leave and I didn't kill Kevin!"

"How long were the three of you wandering around up here before finding a bedroom?"

"Not very long," Justin said uneasily, shifting in his seat. "We came down this way 'cause Malfoy said to stay out of the other half. We wanted a room more in the back, sort of out of the way. And then Zach pointed to this one."

"Hmm," Hermione hummed, looking down at her notepad as she scribbled into it. "Interesting."

"What?" Justin said immediately. "What's interesting? Why do you keep saying that? What does that mean?"

Hermione didn't respond.

"I didn't kill him!" Justin said desperately, leaning forward in his seat with wide, pleading eyes. "Please! You have to believe me! I never touched that knife!"

"Well," Ron shrugged, "regardless of whether you killed him or not, you did touch the knife."

"No!" he shouted, jumping to his feet. The armchair behind him made a loud scraping sound as it was shoved back from his sudden movement. "I didn't! It wasn't me! I didn't do anything wrong! The only mistake I made was ever feeling sorry for Zacharias fucking Smith! I should have just let that pathetic git spend the night alone!"

"Probably," Ron shrugged in agreement. "Any more questions, Hermione?"

"No," she sighed, glancing down at her notepad. "Not for now, at least. We'll come back later if we think of anything. I'm not sure when we'll have a meal sorted, but someone will bring you something to eat when we do, Justin."

"It wasn't me, Hermione," he whispered, eyes suddenly brimming with desperate tears. "You have to believe me. I didn't do it."

She sighed again. "We'll be back later, Justin."

"Please!" he shrieked, throwing himself to his knees and clutching at her robes. "Please, Hermione! Believe me! I didn't do it! I didn't touch him! I would never have killed Kevin! Especially over Zacharias!"

"We need to look over the crime scene again," she said calmly, removing her robes from his hands as gently as she could. "We'll be back later, Justin."

Dropping his hold on her, he lowered his head to sob openly into his hands, gasping as he rocked himself back and forth.

"We'll get to the bottom of this," she said, a hint of both comfort and warning buried in her words. "I promise."

Without another word, the four Gryffindors swept from the room, the sounds of Justin's sobs still ringing in their ears.

"So," Ron said as Hermione finished sealing the room, "now what?"


A/N: Now what indeed! What did we think of the interrogations? Anything stand out about either of the Hufflepuffs? Don't worry if there's still doubt, we are far from finished with this latest crime scene!

Also, I did complete the outline for the rest of the story (with the exception of the epilogue, which I'm still deciding on) so the chapters should start coming more quickly than they were before. So stay tuned, lovers! The madness will most definitely be continuing :)