Chapter 7
The Second Death
"I wonder if Sirius is right about You-Know-Who coming to power again?" Ron was asking Harry. They were sitting in the common room discusing what had happened in the Shrieking Shack to Hermione. It was still early morning, so many of the students were still asleep.
"Of course it is true. Where were you all of last year? By the time You-Know-Who has come to full power, he will probably be able to take over the world," Hermione sighed. "There may be nothing that can stop him."
Harry suddenly snapped his fingers. "I wonder if my dad was the reason AJ told us to get out of the Shrieking Shack last time?"
Ron shook his head sadly. "Harry, Sirius and I didn't see your dad."
"Well, maybe you have to be related to the person. I mean, AJ could have seen her dead sister, AFIN," Harry argued.
"But why would these ghosts be visiting us?" Hermione asked.
Ron shrugged. "They could be trying to help us."
Harry scratched his head. "But that still doesn't explain how AJ got a hold of the map. Also, who said AFIN was killed by Voldemort? For all we know it could have been a car accident that killed her."
Hermione looked at Harry weirdly. "What do you mean? AJ couldn't have gotten the map. I had it that night."
"You did?" Ron asked, sounding quite shocked.
Hermione nodded. "Yeah."
Harry looked at them. "Maybe she just had an old piece of parchment. I mean, we never really did look at it."
"So does anyone know who the new potions teacher will be?" Hermione asked, trying to change the subject.
"No idea, and I have a feeling that I don't want to know who it is," Ron quickly replied.
"Oh well. We've got today and tomorrow until we have to get back to school," Harry mumbled.
"Yes, this will probably make a good subject for Rita Skeeter to do," Hermoine growled.
"But I thought you had caught her?" Harry asked.
Hermione's eyes suddenly turned to stone. "Yeah, but then my dear old twin sister, Cory, let her out."
"Rita Skeeter is back in business?" George asked as Fred and he walked into the common room.
"Yep," Harry, Hermione, and Ron said together.
"Oh, crap," The twins said in unison.
"I wonder how much stuff she will have on Harry?" Fred asked as he sat in one of the chairs.
Harry glared at the ceiling. "Too much."
Ron chuckled at Harry.
Hermione looked over at George, who was being awfully quiet. "What's up?"
"Nothing!" George quickly said. Too quickly in fact.
Fred smiled evilly. "Oh, he just asked a girl out."
The group stared at Fred and George. "Who?"
The gin on Fred's face got even bigger. "A.J."
Hermione gasped."She said no, didn't she?"
"Hey! Quit discussing my love life!" George bellowed.
Harry smiled at him. "So you ARE going out with her!"
George's face suddenly went beet red. "So?"
"I'm leaving," Harry yelled to the group as he left the common room. "Geez, I sure do hope Rita Skeeter finds someone else to report," he mumbled to himself, once outside the common room.
*~*~*~*~*~*
"Hey Weasley! Is your girlfriend going to pass out? We need to make sure that we are following behind her with a mattress in case she faints!"
George sat down by Fred, Harry, Ron, and Hermione. "Slimy Slytherin gits. Although, I do wonder what they are talking about?"
"Weasley, you may want to read this," Malfoy snared, throwing a copy of the Daily Prophet in front of the George. George picked it up and began to it.
The Next Harry Potter?
A.J. Solo, a shy Hogwarts seventh year, could actually become the next Harry Potter, writes Rita Skeeter. Over the course of the school year, young A.J. has passed out several times, claiming that she has been having mysterious dreams. "She is probably desperate for attention," Draco Malfoy, a fifth year, said during an interview. "It's quite amazing what some people will do for attention." The dreams are almost certainly fake, for A.J. has not spoken once to Madam Pomfrey, the school nurse, about them. "I bet she just doesn't want to get caught," said fifth year Pansy Parkison, Draco's girlfriend. Wether it is a lie or not, Dumbledore may want to keep an eye on A.J., who is know going out with George Weasley.
"But...but, I'm going out with Malfoy!" Hermione stuttered after she had finished reading her copy of the Daily Prophet.
Harry looked at the group. "Shoot, I didn't even know about the dreams."
George shook his head. "Neither did I, until now that is."
Ron glared at Hermione. "And you said Cory released that Skeeter cow?"
Hermione's face went red. "Well, it was really my fault. I had left the jar on the kitchen table, and Cory let her out. She's always had a little thing with seeing a living creature locked away."
"I wonder how many other rumors will be buzzing around the school by next week?" Fred asked as A.J. walked into the Great Hall talking to a Hufflepuff seventh year. She looked as though she could kill.
"She has probably seen the Prophet," George said to no one in general.
"Gosh, you think?" Harry replied sarcastically.
"You're going to just love our new potions teacher," Fred said, grinning evilly.
"This CAN'T be good," Ron said as he started walking out of the Great Hall to Potions Call. Harry and Hermione looked at each other, and then went running after Ron.
*~*~*~*~*~*
"You wench! You broke my wand!" A.J.'s father yelled.
AFIN stood her ground, barely breathing. "So?" she said icily.
He pulled out a gun. "I need my wand. I can't use guns to kill everyone, know can I?"
"Sure you can," AFIN replied.
"You wench!" He screamed as he threw he across the room.
"What the heck is going on?" A.J. demanded. She was out of breath for she had just ran from her bedroom.
"None of your business," their father growled.
"It is too my business. She's my friggin' sister," A.J. yelled.
AFIN glanced over to A.J. "Let me deal with this!" she mouthed as A.J. shook her head stubbornly.
The man turned around to face AFIN and pulled the trigger on the gun. The bullet went so fast that AFIN didn't have time to duck before it lodged itself into her head.
"AFIN, NO!! How could you?" A.J. yelled, weeping uncontrollably.
He smiled and threw the gun onto the table. "Simple, she broke my wand."
A.J. slowly lost vision as her tears spilt out. "You monster! You complete monster!" she yelled as she ran toward her room, leaving her father smiling happily to himself.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Maret stood outside the castle letting the breeze flow through her golden hair. She looked into the starry sky, which, for the first time since she could remember, was cloudless. She screamed as a person grabbed her roughly from behind. The person was wearing all black, including a face mask, so it was impossible to tell who it was.
The stranger suddenly pulled a dagger from their cloak and started thrusting the dagger repeatedly into Maret's chest as she screamed in pain. As Maret felt to the ground, dead, the killer bent over her, stood back up, licked their dagger clean, and put it back into their cloak. Their suddenly started making a run back up to the castle. There was no doubt about it, the killer was a student.
*~*~*~*~*~*
"We need to talk," Cho Chang said to Hermione and Pansy Parkison in the Great Hall the next day. Cho happened to be looking quite lethal at the moment.
"What?!" Pansy demanded.
"What the heck is going on with you two and Draco? He's going out with me," Cho said.
Hermione's eyes suddenly widened. "No, I'm going out with him."
"We better figure this out fast, mudbloods," Pansy snarled.
Cho slapped Pansy. "Don't you EVER call me that again, you slimy piece of Slytherin filth!"
Pansy stood from her chair. She had grown quite a bit over the year, and was now taller than Cho. "Excuse me, but MY boyfriend is coming to see me," she said as she walked off.
Cho glared down at Hermione. "It wasn't my fault. He just asked me out. I honestly had no idea about any of this," Hermione stammered.
Cho slowly nodded, but still gave Hermione a very icy look. "Fine," she mumbled as she walked away. Almost as soon as she had left, A.J. came and sat by Hermione.
"This is just what I think, but don't trust Cho," A.J. said, keeping her voice down.
"Why?" Hermione asked.
"Something isn't right with that girl. I have a feeling she is plotting something."
Hermoine looked at her skeptically. "What makes you say that?"
"I've been watching her sneak around the castle at night," A.J. said.
"And why exactly are you telling me this?"
"Because, you're going out with Malfoy."
"Who said I could even trust you?" Hermione asked.
A.J. shook her head as she stood from the table. " No one, you will just have to trust yourself. I'm warning you, trust no one....NO ONE."
*~*~*~*~*~*
"Dumbledore! There's been another student death," Professor McGonagall panted. She had just run from the Hogwarts grounds to Dumbledore's office.
Dumbledore looked up from his work. His eyes expressed how tired he really was. "Who was it?"
"Michelle Raustinberg."
Dumbledore's eyes suddenly widened. "Isn't that the sister of the last girl who died?"
Professor McGonagall sadly nodded her head. "Yes Headmaster."
"Do you have any idea who or what killed this girl?" Dumbledore asked Professor McGonagall as they started quickly walking towards the Hogwarts grounds.
Professor McGonagall shook her head. "It looks like some kind of wild animal got Miss Raustinberg, but she wasn't even found in the Forbidden Forest."
"Where was she found?"
"Right there."
Dumbledore had just opened the doors to the grounds. Not five feet from where he stood was young Maret's body. Maret's body was so badly beaten up that it was hardly recognizable. It was completely mangled, and her face was almost entirely gone. The only way you could possible tell it was Maret was by the golden necklace she was wearing, with her name inscribed on it.
"Well, an animal certainly did get her," Dumbledore observed. "But something else had happened before that. It looks as though she had been stabbed to death."
McGonagall shuddered violently. "Do you think wild animals did everything else to her?"
Dumbledore sadly nodded his head.
*~*~*~*~*~*
"Maret's dead," Harry said, his voice was very hollow. He was sitting in the common room with Hermione and Ron.
Hermione gasped. "How do you know?"
"I heard Professor Dumbledore and Professor McGonagall talking about it, and I haven't seen her all morning."
Hermione shook her head. "Neither have I."
"My main question is, who would want to kill Maret and her twin sister?" Ron said.
Harry shook his head. "I have no idea. Could have been an American hater."
Hermione looked skeptically at Harry. "I think a lot more people would have been killed if that were the case."
Ron nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and it's not like Maret did anything wrong. Well, besides be perfect. She could have been the perfect prefect."
Harry grinned. "But do we know if she had done anything wrong?"
"I never thought of it that way before," Ron mumbled.
"Harry, ignore all of this. It probably has nothing to do with you," Hermione said in a motherly fashion. "If You-Know-Who wanted you bad enough, you'd be dead already."
Harry nodded. "I guess you're right. But what is really starting to creep me out is the fact that I've starting seeing my Mum and Dad more often. They seem to be more solid each time, too."
"You-Know-Who is getting more powerful," said Hermione.
Harry nodded. "Only this time no one will be able to stop him.:
*~*~*~*~*~*
"I thought I told you to go to Hogwarts?" A.J.'s father coldly asked.
"Yeah, but school doesn't start for another two weeks," she replied stiffly.
"Do you think I care?" he roared.
"No," A.J. responded, trembling ever so slightly.
"Do you think I want you in my house?"
She sighed wearily. "Nope."
"Do you think that I even want to look at you?" he said, sounding quite disgusted.
"Then why did you even take me away from my true dad?" she screamed.
"Why do you think?" he asked evilly.
A.J. shrugged helplessly.
"Because I need you to kill him," her father said calmly.
"And what about AFIN? Why did you take her? Wasn't I enough? Or course, you had to go and kill her, didn't you?" A.J. yelled.
"Shut up!" he screamed.
"That's all you care about isn't it? Killing innocent people!"
He smacked A.J. across the face, hard enough to draw blood. "When I say shut up, I MEAN shut up, wench!"
A.J. stared him in the eyes, determined to hold back her tears. "Fine," she yelled as she ran away from him.
*~*~*~*~*~*
Hermione burst into the common room. She was crying and her face was ghostly white.
"Hermione, what's wrong?!" Ron exclaimed as Harry and he jumped up to comfort her.
"I-I saw th-the ghosts of m-my parents!" she said between sobs. "They're dead. You-Know-Who got them!"
"Oh my gosh, Hermione, that's awful! I'm so sorry," Harry said sympathetically. "What about Cory?"
Hermione sniffed. "She's fine."
Harry sat back down. "I guess the killing has finally begun."
*~*~*~*~*~*