"Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies." ― Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights

ALL BUT DEATH

XIII

TREACHERY AND VIOLENCE

"Kevin is dead," Zacharias repeated, sounding numb. "He...he's dead."

"Tell me what happened," Harry ordered, attempting to find a balance in his voice between gentle and commanding.

"He's dead…" Zacharias looked blank. "I—I woke up a few minutes ago, and…and he…h-he—"

"Take me to him," Harry said, pulling the door open and gesturing for Smith to lead the way. Turning back to the Slytherins, he found every face pale and serious as they gazed at him. "Stay here," Harry instructed, "and lock the door behind me." Without waiting for an argument, Harry shut the door behind himself.

Out in the corridor, Zacharias stood in a daze, eyes wide and vacant. "Which way, Zacharias?" Harry asked softly, nodding when Smith pointed in a direction. Harry sent a quick Patronus to Hermione and Ron, grateful when it took them less than a minute to appear in the hallway from the room next to Draco's.

"What happened?" Hermione asked calmly, stepping close to Smith. Her tone was even but Harry could sense worry and fear radiating off her in waves.

"It was him," Zacharias said in the same hollow voice. "It was Justin."

"Did you see Justin kill him?" Harry asked, prodding Zacharias in the direction he had pointed out.

"What?" Zacharias said, the single word strangely vacant.

"Did you see Justin attack him?" Harry repeated, wondering if they should give the man some sort of potion for his shock.

Zacharias shook his head. "No, but it—it had to be him. It wasn't me, I didn't do it! I swear to god, Potter, I didn't touch him!"

"Tell us what happened, Zacharias," Neville said quietly, bringing up the rear with Ron.

"We fell asleep late," Zacharias began, sounding as though he was speaking to himself. "We were up late. I didn't hear a single sound. I don't remember waking up during the night. But I woke up a few minutes ago, and…"

"Where is Justin now?" Hermione asked, keeping her question soft.

"I Stunned him," Zacharias responded, sounding surprised with himself. "I woke up and there was blood everywhere, a-and Justin was asleep right next to him, and I just—I Stunned him. I Stunned my own friend."

"It's okay, Zacharias," Hermione soothed, but Harry wasn't certain if Smith could even hear her through his shock. "It's okay."

"Did any of you leave the room last night?" Harry asked, narrowing his eyes as he remembered the attempt to break into Draco's bedroom only hours before. "At all, Zacharias, for any reason?"

Smith shook his head slowly. "No," he said, sounding oddly puzzled.

Harry nodded tightly, shooting Hermione a meaningful look, one that Zacharias was too far gone to notice.

"It's there," Zacharias said blankly, pointing to a shut door several meters away. "He's in there."

"Okay," Harry nodded. "Stay here. Neville," he leaned around Smith to speak to the other man, "will you stay here with him?"

"Course," Neville nodded.

Gesturing to Ron to follow him and Hermione, Harry walked slowly to the door, reluctant to open it and see whatever was waiting for them on the other side. Taking a deep breath, Harry grasped the handle and turned, allowing the door to swing inward with a loud creak. And even though Harry knew that whatever was on the other side of that door would be horrifying, he couldn't help but gasp and take an automatic step back.

Three Transfigured mattresses were scattered throughout the spacious bedroom they had chosen, and Harry spared a second to wonder why none of them had taken the large bed to sleep in before deciding in the next moment that it didn't matter. Because there, on the mattress in the very center of the room, was Kevin, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling with empty eyes. The mattress he was on was soaked in blood, everything around him stained crimson. There was a pool of sticky liquid surrounding him like a puddle, and Harry couldn't help but notice that it still looked slick and wet to the touch. His skin was painted red, the same color that decorated the dark wood of the floor beneath him in thick, sticky splashes. Harry stepped closer, unable to look away from the horrible sight.

He was so busy looking at the blood and the emptiness of Kevin's eyes that it took him longer than it should to notice the knife.

"Hermione," he breathed sharply, stepping forward. On the floor next to the red mattress, lying in the spreading pool of blood, was a large kitchen knife, the blade stained a brown, rusty color.

"A knife?" Ron asked, eyes narrowed as he stepped up beside Harry. "He used a knife? There haven't been any signs of an actual weapon outside of a wand being used. Why would the killer change it up now and use a knife instead?"

"I'm not sure," Hermione said softly, speaking to herself. "Why this one, of all the murders so far? Why now use a Muggle weapon?"

"Are there any traces of magic on him at all, Hermione?" Harry wondered, glancing at her as she pulled out her wand with a frown.

She stepped as close to the body as possible without getting her feet in the puddle of blood seeping from the crimson mattress, casting several spells over the corpse of a man that Harry had barely known. He had never really spoken to Kevin before; he didn't even know what type of person Kevin was. He had always been quiet and kept to himself, lingering just on the edges of Harry's adolescence. He had always been a face with no voice attached, hardly even a name. Harry was finally starting to realize how little he knew about the people he had spent six consecutive years of school around. He had seen these people almost every single day for years and he knew so little about them; he wasn't even sure if he would be able to place Kevin's voice without looking at the man as he spoke. How was it taking such horrible tragedy to make Harry realize how little he had reached out to the people around him? Was Harry a hard person to get close to?

"There are definite traces of magic," Hermione said in a low voice, looking up from Kevin's unmoving frame. "But I'm afraid I can't tell what spells they are."

"Can you tell how long he's been dead?" Ron wondered, frowning down at the man on the floor, and Harry wondered what he was thinking.

"The blood is still wet," Hermione answered, passing her wand over Kevin's body with a murmured spell. "And his core temperature is just under thirty-six degrees Celsius."

Ron wrinkled his nose. "What does that mean?"

"It means," Hermione said grimly, "that he's barely in the first stage of decomposition yet. This happened recently. Very recently. Based on the temperature, I would put the time of death at around ninety minutes, maybe two hours ago."

"And do you think it really was Justin?" Harry asked her in a low voice.

She shot a wary look over shoulder; the doorway was empty. "You suspect Zacharias."

Harry shrugged. "I just don't want to dismiss him as an option. There were only two other people in this room last night."

"I agree," she sighed, shoulders slumping. "We can't simply dismiss him."

"First one to find the body and all that…" Ron trailed off, "usually the first person we focus on in a murder case."

Harry nodded tightly. "I s'pose we should wake Justin up, hear what he has to say first. And then we can speak to Zacharias."

"Wait," Hermione said, holding up one hand. She walked over to Justin and stared down at him with searching eyes before plucking up the wand half-tucked beneath his body. Placing the tip of her own wand against his, she cast a priori, frowning when it revealed that the last spell cast had been a cleaning charm. What did that mean?

"Do you really think he would kill his own friend and then stay behind and fall asleep?" Ron said skeptically. "I mean, that's a bit dim even for Justin."

"Someone was out in the hallway last night," Harry told them, speaking quietly. "Wandering around in the corridor. Someone tried to break into Draco's bedroom during the night."

Both Hermione's and Ron's gazes snapped onto him. "Do you know who it was?" Ron asked, glancing at Justin.

Harry shook his head. "No. By the time I took the wards down and got into the hallway, they were gone. I heard someone running and chased them, but they got away. A door slammed, but I'm still not sure if they had actually gone into a room or if they simply wanted to make me think they did."

"Well, I'm glad you're all right," Hermione said in concern, reaching out to touch him lightly on the arm.

"You should have woken us," Ron frowned. "We could have searched for whoever it was as a group."

"Bit pointless in a house this size," Harry said, sounding distant. "And by the time I woke you lot up and we got organized, they could have been anywhere in the house."

The words made Ron frown even harder.

"That begs the question, however," Hermione said softly, "of just who they were attempting to break into the room for. The Slytherins, or you, Harry."

"Me?" Harry wondered in the same distant voice.

"Yes," she nodded. "You haven't exactly been makings friends by defending the Slytherins. Maybe whoever it was thought that the easiest way to get rid of them would be to get rid of you first."

"Bit bold, though, isn't it?" Ron said. "Trying to break into a locked room with an Auror and five other people inside."

"Maybe it wasn't even about breaking in," Harry began slowly, staring into the distance. "Maybe it was about fear. Maybe whoever it was did it to scare us, trying to let us know that they know where we are. Where the Slytherins are. Maybe it was never about getting inside."

Hermione twirled a curl around one finger absently, a thoughtful look on her face. "But I thought that only Zacharias knows where Malfoy's room is."

"Yeah," Harry affirmed. "As far as I know, he's the only one who does."

"And nobody tried to break into our room last night," Hermione mused, speaking to the far wall, "which means they weren't just trying random doors. They knew exactly which room to go to."

"I don't like this, Hermione," Harry whispered. "Not a single thing is making sense. Nothing is adding up."

"I think it's time to talk to Justin," she decided. "And then we can speak to Zacharias."

Nodding, Harry raised his wand and cast an Ennervate on the man, watching as his eyelids fluttered before flickering open. At the sight of the three Gryffindors standing over him, Justin gasped, sitting up and scrambling away on his hands and feet.

"What the hell?" he asked blankly, staring at them in confusion. "What the hell are you three—" His words broke off as he glanced over and caught sight of Kevin; his face paled as he sucked in a sharp breath. "Kevin?" he breathed, his eyes filling with horror. "Kevin, what the—Kevin!" he cried, throwing himself forward. His hands landed in the pool of drying blood and he jerked back with a horrified look on his face, staring down at his glistening red palms in growing fear. "What happened?" he whispered, looking up to the three Gryffindors in terrified bewilderment.

"We were hoping you could tell us," Harry said, studying the man. He wasn't sure what to make of Justin's reaction; his terror seemed genuine but so had Zacharias's, and they had been the only two in the room last night to make it to the morning. Was that why Kevin had been killed and not Zacharias, so there would be another person to shift the blame? Out of the two of them, Harry knew that everyone was far more likely to see Zacharias as the guilty one over someone like Kevin. But why would either of them kill Kevin in such an obvious and traceable way? Even if one of them was kept alive to shift the blame, that still put half an enormous arrow shining above the real killer's head.

Unless it wasn't either of them, Harry thought to himself. He wanted to sigh at his own lack of answers. Nothing was making sense and he was sick of the circles his mind kept running in. They needed to speak to Justin, and then Zacharias, and then they could go speak to the others. Harry wasn't sure how any of the Ravenclaws and the other Gryffindors could have left the room they were all staying in without at least one other person in the room being made aware.

"Me?" Justin squeaked, eyebrows rising as the panic on his face began to grow. "Fuck, you don't think that I did this, do you? I swear, Harry, it wasn't me!"

"Tell us what you remember of last night," Hermione said, but Justin ignored the question as he glanced around.

"Where's Zacharias?" he demanded, voice trembling. "Where is he? Is he—is he okay?"

The three Gryffindors exchanged a glance. "He's out in the hall," Ron finally said, crossing his arms over his chest and widening his stance by a fraction, and Harry wondered if he was using an interrogation posture on purpose.

"So he knows?" Now Justin sounded confused. "But…why wouldn't he have woken me? Why the hell did he let me continue to sleep beside a dead fucking body?" His eyes suddenly widened as anger sparked across his face. "He thinks it's me, doesn't he?" His words were low and dangerous, every syllable practically hissed. "That fucking bastard thinks I'm the one who did this." Without warning, Justin leapt to his feet, fists clenched as he stormed past the Gryffindors and into the corridor, the three of them hurrying after him. "You fucking bastard!" he screamed, attempting to shove past Neville, who had automatically stepped between the two Hufflepuffs. "You fucking coward, Zacharias!"

"At least I'm not a murderer!" Smith spat, looking furious. "You piece of shit, Justin, I knew I should never have trusted you!"

"Fuck you!" Justin shouted. "You practically begged me and Kevin to spend the night with your sorry arse! You fucking forced us into a bloody corner! And now you're going to stand here and blame me for your disgusting actions?!"

"I didn't touch him!" Smith roared. "And you were the only other person in that room! If it wasn't me, then it had to be you!"

"Why the hell would I have killed Kevin?" the other man yelled, raising his fists, and Harry and Ron quickly stepped in to help Neville restrain him. "Especially over you?! You lying fucking piece of filth! If I were the murderer, it would have been you in that room on that mattress, not him!"

"Stop it!" Hermione snapped, glaring at the two men. "We will sort this out! But I will not stand by and watch the two of you come to blows before we get even a single answer out of either of you!"

"What do you mean the both of us?" Smith sneered, shooting Justin a disgusted look. "I already told you, it wasn't me. Why the hell would I have gone to Potter if I were the guilty one?"

"Obviously to make yourself look innocent," Justin responded immediately, face red with rage. "You killed him and now you're fucking trying to frame me for it!"

"I said stop it!" Several sparks flew from Hermione's wand as she brandished it in warning. "We will speak to the both of you in turn. And we will do so without screaming threats and accusations at one another!"

Justin turned to her with an ugly look on his face. "My friend is dead," he said quietly, voice quivering with anger, "and you want me to calmly defend myself against the accusation that I was the one who did it?"

"Yes," Ron responded in a voice just as low. "That's exactly what we're expecting."

"We'll put the two of you in separate rooms for now," Hermione said, "and speak to the both of you in turn."

The two men immediately began to protest.

"It wasn't me—"

"Fuck that—"

"Now!" Ron snapped, glaring at the Hufflepuffs. "Neville, you take Justin to that room," he pointed to a door across the hall, "and I'll take Smith to this one." He jerked his chin to another door on the opposite side of the corridor.

Nodding, Neville stepped up beside Justin and gestured for him to walk before him. Justin glared at them all but marched off to the room Ron had pointed to, his back ramrod straight.

"Question me all you bloody like," Zacharias snarled, "but you won't find anything because I didn't fucking do it."

Ron said nothing, staring at him in stony silence until Zacharias finally huffed and walked over to the room. Once inside, Hermione locked the door with several sharp flicks of her wand.

"Do you really think it was one of them, Hermione?" Harry asked quietly, glancing around to make sure nobody had heard the shouting and come to investigate. The corridor was empty.

"Who else would it be though?" Ron wondered. "I mean, Smith was right. They were the only other two in the room."

"We still have no idea where Stephen is," Harry pointed out, feeling discomfort swirl through his gut at the reminder. What if that's who he had chased through the corridor last night? What if Stephen had somehow broken into the room the Hufflepuffs were in while all three men were sleeping? What if he had Disillusioned himself before hiding away in that room all night, waiting for them to fall asleep? What if the three Hufflepuffs had inadvertently warded the real killer inside with them? It would have been so easy for him to escape the room after Zacharias had Stunned Justin and fled to find Harry.

Hermione sighed. "Honestly, at this point, I have no idea what to think. At the moment, all three men are as equally likely a suspect."

"Is there any way to check the room for any traces of magic that don't belong to Justin or Zach?" Ron asked Hermione, who frowned.

"Yes, but unfortunately I can't read magical signatures," she admitted. "Or trace the source. And Malfoy's house is so drenched in magic that I think there would simply be too much to sift through."

"What about the knife?" Harry wondered. "Is there any way to pull any sort of trace off of that?"

At the question, Hermione's expression turned frustrated. "Not that I know of. Not if it was used by hand with no magic. Wizards don't exactly have a database to check fingerprints against."

"Is that something we can do here though?" Harry asked her. "Could we pull whatever fingerprints we can get off the knife, then compare that with Justin and Zach's fingerprints?"

Hermione frowned as she thought it over. "I'm not sure," she confessed. "I suppose it's worth a try, but I honestly am not sure if it will actually yield any results."

"Worth a try, at least," Ron shrugged. "Do you two want to go check out the crime scene a bit more, or just get right into the interrogations?"

Hermione rolled her shoulders, attempting to shake the stiffness from her muscles. "I think if we're going to give the fingerprints a try, we should go pull those first. Then we get the samples from Justin and Zacharias when we speak to them."

Nodding, the two men turned back to the room they had come from, following Hermione back inside. Harry tried not to stare too directly at the body and the still puddle of thick blood surrounding it, but it was impossible not to. There were angry slashes up and down Kevin's torso. His chest was soaked in crimson from several deep cuts sliced across the clothed flesh covering his heart, the fabric of his shirt a red so dark it was nearly black. His eyes were glassy and vacant, half-open as they gazed up at the ceiling. His hands were curled loosely where they lay, one arm flung out, only inches from the knife, and Harry wondered why whoever had killed him had thrown down the weapon after they were done. Why not take it with them? The only reason that Harry could think was that whoever had done it had wanted them to find it, but why? Was Stephen simply toying with them? What was the end game of it all? That was the question that Harry desperately needed an answer to. Why was whoever behind this doing it all? What was the goal? Would the doors to the house only open when everybody inside was dead? Would they only unlock when there was nobody and nothing left to walk through them into freedom?

"So how do we do this?" Ron wondered, tilting his head as he peered at the knife before studying the tip of his own index finger. "Is that really how Muggles catch criminals, using fingerprints? I mean, how do you see them? Just looks like a normal finger to me. Are they not all the same?"

Hermione frowned. "No, every fingerprint is unique. We'll need some sort of loose powder. Harry, will you see if you can summon some Spellotape?" Pulling out her own wand, Hermione walked to a desk along the wall and picked up a quill, staring down at it before placing the tip of her wand against its feathers and Transfiguring it into a brush, reminding Harry of the ones that he'd seen girls use to apply makeup. Hermione frowned again and Vanished the whole thing, starting fresh with a new quill and finally nodding down at it in satisfaction.

Turning from her, Harry raised his wand and summoned the tape, surprised when a thick roll slapped into his hand only moments later. He tossed it up in the air and caught it one-handed, stepping close enough to Hermione to set it down on the desk beside her, watching in interest as she flicked her wand in the air and murmured a spell, catching a small tin in her palm a moment later and looking somewhat relieved.

"Talcum powder," she explained. "I figured Malfoy would have some in his potions lab. I'm hoping that it'll be fine enough to work for this."

"What the hell does that have to do with fingerprints?" Ron asked behind them, and they both turned to find him standing with his arms folded and nose wrinkled. "And why do you need Spellotape? How do you two even know how to do this? The Ministry doesn't bloody well fingerprint anybody."

"We learned it from telly, I suppose," Harry replied lightly, shrugging. "There are only about a million and one Muggle crime shows always on television."

Ron rolled his eyes. "Of course it was from the tolly. With how much murder goes on in those things, I'm not surprised they're constantly having to check weapons for fingerprints."

Harry shrugged again without replying as Hermione led the way back to the knife, bending down and dipping the brush in the small tin of powder, shaking any extra powder loose before looking down at the knife and hesitating.

"Can you Levitate it for me, Ron?" she asked, glancing up at him.

Nodding, he pulled out his wand and Levitated the stained knife into the air, holding it still as Hermione lightly brushed one side of the handle with the powder before gesturing to Harry. Understanding the cue, he broke off a piece of tape and bent down next to her, carefully molding it to the powdered side of the handle before slowly peeling it off.

"The parchment on the desk," she said. "Spell it black and put the tape on it sticky-side down."

Rising to his feet, Harry did as she said, frowning as he stared down at the results. There were possible fingerprints, but they were smudged and overlapping, and Harry wasn't certain how much help they would be. He turned as his name was called, retracing his steps to repeat the process with the tape on the other side of the handle before pressing it flat against the black parchment and inhaling sharply. There was a definite fingerprint there, and Harry wondered if they really would be able to match it up to either Justin or Zacharias.

"We've got one," he told the others, turning the parchment to show them.

"Bloody hell, it really did work," Ron said in surprise, sounding impressed. "And here I thought that everything on the tolly box was all bollocks and bloodshed."

Ignoring him, Hermione pushed herself to her feet with a sigh. "Well then, I suppose we had better go speak to them now."

"I vote we start with Justin," Ron said as he also stood. "Mostly because he's not Zacharias."

"What if this fingerprint doesn't match either of them?" Harry wondered quietly, copying the other two and standing as well.

"I don't know," Hermione said simply. "I honestly am at a loss for what to do here, Harry. I've never imagined being in this type of situation before."

"What do we do if the fingerprint does match one of them?" Ron asked in a similar tone to Harry's. "What do we do when we finally find out who's behind this?"

Neither of them responded for a very long time.

"I'm even less sure about that one," Hermione whispered. "I'm terrified of what the others will do to whoever it is. We can arrest them, but I doubt that the law will hold much weight in here. Not while we're locked away from the rest of the world like this. Our first priority upon finding the culprit will be to get them to release us from the house, but I really doubt that they'll comply as readily as we would like them to."

"Maybe Draco has Veriteserum in his lab," Harry said helplessly, knowing that Hermione was right. They could catch the killer, but how would they convince him to let them all free? They still had no idea how they were all being held inside the house, and whoever was doing it certainly had no reason to just give in upon being asked. They wouldn't torture them for the answer, and their usual interrogation techniques wouldn't be guaranteed to work without the full weight of the law backing them. Harry supposed the only thing that might convince them would be the threat of the others finding the guilty person and tearing them to pieces in retribution.

On the other hand, however, maybe the killer would decide the game was over upon being caught and give up without resistance.

But Harry knew that was wishful thinking—nothing was ever so easy.

"Let's worry about it if and when it happens," Hermione finally decided, plucking the parchment from Harry's hands to study it. "We should speak to Justin and Zacharias first, and then we can discuss where to go from there."

Ron and Harry nodded, the three of them turning from the sight of Kevin's mangled corpse on the ground, exiting the room and shutting it behind them with a soft click before Hermione sealed it shut.

"So," she said, rolling her shoulders, "Justin first then."

oOo

"I didn't do it." The words fell from Justin's lips the moment the three Gryffindors entered the room he was being held in.

Hermione held up one hand to silence him. "Just tell us what happened last night, Justin."

"Nothing!" Justin exclaimed, and Harry watched a bead of sweat roll down his temple. Justin wiped it away with a grimace of annoyance before noticing that Harry was watching him, and he automatically dropped his hand to his lap. "We found a room, talked for a bit, then we went to bed!"

"Who fell asleep first?" she continued, pulling out her tiny notepad and Muggle biro and beginning to jot his words down.

"I'm not sure," Justin admitted. "I think it took all of us a few hours to actually fall asleep. But Zacharias was definitely still awake when I fell asleep," he added defensively. "I know that I fell asleep before him."

"And did you wake up at all during the night?" Hermione asked, gazing at Justin calmly. "At any point, for any reason?"

Justin shook his head fiercely. "No! I swear! I didn't hear anything! Zach must've cast a Silencing Charm over the two of them before he killed him!"

"Did he," Hermione mused, voice flat as she continued to scribble across the pages of her notepad, and Harry wondered what she was writing.

"You have to believe me, Hermione, it wasn't me!" Justin cried, voice turning shrill and panicked. "I would never do that to Kevin!"

"We'll need your finger, Justin," she replied, glancing at him.

"My finger?" he sounded alarmed as he cradled both hands against his chest protectively. "Why? What are you going to do to it?"

"It won't hurt," she told him, "we're simply going to take a copy of your fingerprint."

"Fingerprint?" Justin echoed, appearing lost. "Why?"

"Because," Ron cut in, eyeing Justin cautiously, "Kevin was killed with a Muggle weapon."

Justin's eyes widened until they were as round as Galleons. "And you think just because I'm Muggleborn that I was the one who must have done it?!"

"Of course not," Hermione said in a cool voice. "But we managed to lift a fingerprint from the handle of the weapon, and we would like to compare it to yours. If you're as innocent as you say you are, then you have nothing to fear, yes?"

Justin hesitated, appearing uncertain. After long moments of the man silently warring with himself, he stretched out one hand with cautious reluctance.

"Do we need the chalk for this?" Ron asked quietly, tilting his head as he stared at Justin's proffered hand.

"No," Hermione said, "but we will need ink."

Nodding in understanding, Ron marched to the door and opened it, Summoning a small pot of ink. He handed it to Hermione, who stepped close to Justin and dipped his finger in it, holding the digit over the vial and allowing any extra ink to drip off before dabbing at it until all that remained was a light layer of black. She then placed that fingertip against a fresh page of her notepad, pressing it flat and rolling it from side to side before releasing him.

"Well?" Justin demanded, snatching back his hand the moment she let go. "Look at it. I already know it's not going to match."

Without responding, Hermione glanced between the black parchment and the tiny notepad, mouth tightening. She studied it in silence for several minutes. "I need to speak to the three of you in the hallway," she finally said, glancing between Harry, Ron, and Neville. "Justin, I would like you to stay here for now."

"What?!" he shrieked, sounding panicked. "What the hell does that mean?! That's not my fucking fingerprint you found! I know it isn't!"

"Stay here," Hermione ordered, gesturing for the three Aurors to follow her from the room.

"What is it, Hermione? What did you find? Do the fingerprints match?" Harry asked immediately the second the door was closed behind them. Hermione took a moment to seal it before turning to the three men.

She stared between them with a complicated look. "No," she finally said, "it didn't match." The three men exchanged a confused look.

"No?" Ron wondered, sounding confused. "Wouldn't that be a good thing, though? That means that Zacharias definitely did it."

Hermione sighed. "Well, I honestly can't tell with the partials, they're far too unclear to be certain of anything. But it doesn't match the whole print we have."

"What does that mean?" Harry asked slowly, struggling to understand. "It could match one of the partials, but not the whole one?"

She nodded, looking frustrated. "Yes. With the way this latest murder was committed, I don't want to rule out the possibility until we know beyond a shadow of a doubt."

"But what does that mean?" Ron cut in, sounding just as frustrated as Hermione appeared. "How could he possibly match a partial but not the whole?"

"I don't know," she said quietly, looking back at the room they had just exited. "But I think we should speak to Zacharias before coming to any conclusions."

All four of them frowned as they glanced between the rooms the two men were being kept in. Harry wanted to rub at his temples or tear at his hair; nothing was making sense. Every new thing they learned only made him more and more confused. He knew they needed to speak to Zach, but a large part of him was reluctant to, terrified that it would only serve to deepen his confusion instead of answering any of his questions.

"Let's go then," he sighed, stepping forward to lead them to the room Smith had been locked in. He stood by as Hermione dismantled the wards, spelling the door open and stepping inside. He heard the others step in behind him, all four of them staring as one at Zacharias Smith, who was standing near the window. At the sound of the door opening, he turned and glared at the Gryffindors, vicious loathing marring his face.

"Well?" he demanded. "Have you finally come to let me out of here then?"

"We came to speak to you," Hermione corrected, and the glare on Zacharias's face sharpened as Neville closed the door.

His eyes narrowed. "Why? You spoke to Justin, you must know by now that it was him. So what the hell do you have to speak to me about?"

"We would like you to tell us what happened last night," Hermione said calmly, flicking to a fresh page in her notepad and clicking the biro open in expectation.

"I already told you what happened," he snapped. "We found a room, we fell asleep, I woke up and Kevin was dead. Justin did it. End of fucking story."

"How long did it take you to fall asleep last night?" Hermione asked, ignoring his tone.

He shot her a disgusted look. "How the hell should I know?"

"Guess," Ron growled, leveling the Hufflepuff with a glare of his own.

"Hours," Smith shot back. "But I know that they were both still awake by the time I fell asleep. I was the first one asleep."

Ron snorted derisively. "Funny, that's nearly exactly what Justin said, only in his version, he was the first one asleep."

"Well, he's obviously fucking lying!" Smith snarled. "I was the first one asleep and the first one awake, and the very first thing I did after seeing Kevin was find Potter! Why would I do that if I were the one who killed him?"

"Why indeed," Ron muttered, and Harry was worried for a moment that Zacharias's glare might actually injure the redhead.

"We'll need your finger," Hermione cut in, holding up the pot of ink.

"My finger?" Smith echoed, the anger fading from his face to be replaced by bewilderment. "What the fuck do you want with my finger?"

"We need to take a print of it," she told him.

His expression immediately sharpened as the glare sprang back up. "Why?"

"Because she said so," Ron said, taking an aggressive step forward.

"It will only take a second," Hermione said, shooting Ron a warning look. "If you're innocent, Zacharias, then you have nothing to hide."

Angry silence spread around the room as he directed the full force of his glare on her, appearing as though he was going to argue. After long moments, however, he unfolded his arms and raised one hand out toward her, holding himself stiffly. She repeated the same process with him as she had done with Justin, dipping his finger in the onyx ink and transferring his print onto a fresh page of the notepad.

"Well?" he snapped, impatience coloring his tone. "You have the blasted print or whatever you called it. What are you doing with it now?"

Hermione said nothing, comparing the fresh ink staining her notepad with the black parchment in her other hand. Her mouth tightened before she swore softly. "This is not possible," she said in a low voice, glancing up at the other three Gryffindors with troubled eyes.

"Let's speak in the hallway," Harry suggested, feeling uneasy as he looked back at Zacharias. What had Hermione found?

"I'm not staying here!" Smith said angrily, stepping forward to follow them before Hermione froze him in place with a single look.

"Stay here," she said in the same low voice, a threatening edge to her words. "The four of us need to talk."

He opened his mouth to argue but she had already turned her back, leading the other three from the room and back out into the shadowy corridor. She tucked her notepad away to free up her right hand, and Harry watched as she put the wards back in place on the door to keep Smith inside.

"Hermione," Harry said, his entire body tense as he watched her turn to slowly face them. "What did you find?"

She took a deep breath, shaking her head as she said, "It was the same result as Justin's. The fingerprint doesn't belong to him."

"What about the partials?" Ron asked, sounding serious as he stepped in close to peer over her shoulder at the black parchment.

She shook her head again. "It's still unclear," she admitted. "They're far too smudged to be able to tell."

At the words, Harry felt a chill settle over the hallway, sweeping up from the floorboards and making him shiver. The shadows seemed to stretch before his eyes as he watched, becoming twisted, creeping things with sharp claws and needle-like fingers.

"What does that mean?" he asked through numb lips. What the hell did Hermione mean when she said the fingerprint did not belong to either of the Hufflepuffs? It had to belong to them! Who else could it belong to?

"I don't know," she said grimly. "But it's not theirs."

"But what are you saying?" Ron now sounded exasperated. "Are you saying that someone else broke into their room just to kill Kevin?"

"I don't know," she repeated. "It would appear so."

"It has to be Stephen," Harry said. "The unidentified fingerprint. It has to belong to him."

"I think we should speak to the others," Neville said quietly. "Just to make sure that none of them left their room last night."

"Yes," Hermione agreed. "I think we should."

Ron frowned. "But we have no idea where they are."

"Then we find them," she said simply.

"I want to go check on the Slytherins," Harry interrupted, feeling worry squirm through his insides at the thought of something happening to Draco while he wasn't there. He did not feel comfortable with Draco so far away; he did not want Draco out of his sight while Stephen was still creeping around. "I need to make sure they're still okay."

Hermione turned a knowing look on him, making Harry fidget as she stared at him in silence. "Okay," she finally said. "We'll go look for them and send you a Patronus once they're located."

"Okay, thank you," he said in relief.

"You want one of us to come back with you?" Ron asked, gazing around himself with a worried look.

Harry shook his head. "No, I'll be fine."

"Harry, I don't think—"

"I'll be fine, Ron," he interrupted. "I promise. You lot need to go look for the others, make sure they're all right. And I need to go make sure the Slytherins are still okay. After the break-in attempt last night and everything just now with the knife, I just…I won't feel okay until I make sure they're all right."

Ron stared at him in frustration. "But I still don't think—"

"I'll be okay," Harry cut in, talking over him. "I doubt Stephen's going to make a move so soon. Not after all that shit with Kevin."

"You send us a Patronus, Harry," Hermione said in a low voice, "if there's even the slightest hint of danger."

"Okay," Harry agreed. "I can do that."

"I will kick your arse if anything happens," Ron warned. "And I will say I told you so the entire time I'm doing it."

The corners of Harry's mouth twitched in a ghostly smile. "Fine, deal."

"Good," Ron said gruffly. "Go check on your blasted Slytherins then, you git."

Nodding, Harry turned and strode away, feeling three pairs of eyes on his back as he made his way quickly down the darkened corridor. How was the house so dark at this time of day? It was morning, for Merlin's sake, there should not be so many shadows clinging to the walls! Harry quickened his stride, wishing Apparition was possible within the house. He wanted to have already been back in Draco's bedroom; he did not like being in the hallway by himself, where every surface was drenched in cold darkness and invisible specters. Worry was digging a burning path through his stomach, eating through his guts like acid, an icy hot fear spreading through him as he wondered how the others were doing. Was Draco all right? Maybe Harry shouldn't have been so hasty to leave him behind earlier. But he could hardly have dragged all the Slytherins along to investigate the scene of a murder, could he?

But if anything had happened to Draco while he was gone…

Harry's speed increased as he suddenly wondered if Stephen was using Kevin's murder as some sort of distraction. Maybe he was taking advantage of the time when Harry was investigating the crime scene with the others to break into Draco's room. Maybe last night had only been a test of the wards; maybe the real attempt to break into the room was happening at that very moment. Maybe it had already happened.

Fuck.

Harry sped up until he was practically running. After what felt like an eternity, he finally arrived at Draco's bedroom, panting and out of breath as he banged on the door with one fist.

"Draco!" he called, knocking louder. "It's me! Open up!"

Several moments passed before the door creaked open, Harry all but flinging himself inside before slamming it shut behind himself. He breathed a sigh of relief upon noting that all five of the Slytherins appeared to be okay.

"What the hell happened, Potter?" Zabini demanded. "Was someone chasing you?"

Harry shook his head, still feeling short of breath.

"Harry," Draco said quietly, stepping close enough to touch; Harry frowned at the distance still between them. "What happened?"

Harry opened his mouth before shutting it again, uncertain how to explain anything that they had just learned. He did not think it was something they should be speaking about with any of the others just yet. Not until the four Gryffindors had talked it over some more, at least.

"Nothing," he said, studying Draco's face. "I just needed to make sure that you lot were still okay."

"And give us a heart attack in the process," Nott drawled. "Ta ever so for frightening the pants off us, Potter."

"Yeah," Parkinson agreed. "We're all fine, you didn't need to scare us half to death with that sodding pounding. Next time, Potter, knock like a normal person."

"Right," Harry said, refusing to remove his gaze from Draco, who was slowly flushing under the stare.

"It's like we're not even in the room, isn't it?" Nott said indifferently, drifting away to flop onto the sofa.

Ignoring him, Draco stepped forward to grasp at Harry's wrist with both hands, tugging him to the farthest corner and throwing up a quick privacy ward before giving the brunet a flat look. "What happened?" he asked, leveling Harry with a serious stare.

Harry hesitated, unsure what he should share with Draco.

"Tell me, Potter," Draco ordered in a low voice.

Harry shook his head. "It's nothing, Draco, it's fine. I just wanted to make sure you were all right."

"Harry." The two syllables were soft, matching the gentle touch on his arm as Draco placed one hand on Harry. "Please. I can tell that whatever you learnt from your investigation, it's bad. Don't hide it from me out of some heroically selfish need to protect me. Because whatever you learnt, Harry, was in my home. Entwhistle's death occurred in my home. And I need to know the truth about it."

Sighing reluctantly, Harry nodded before hesitantly beginning to recount the morning, summarizing it quickly. By the time he finished speaking, Draco's mouth was hanging open in horror.

"But none of that makes any sense," he whispered, eyes wide with fear. "None of that makes any sense, Harry."

"I know," Harry said heavily, feeling the same fear on the other man's face settle deep in his own bones. Draco was right. None of it made even an ounce of sense. "I know."

A/N: No answers yet, Harry, but at least the Slytherins are okay!

Any suspects, my darlings? Any suspicions you may be harboring? Any plans for the weekend or stories of drunken shenanigans you wanna tell me about? I am here to listen to it all! :)