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Chapter Fourteen The Blood Skull

When Ginny woke up the next morning, her bed empty, and went downstairs for breakfast, Ron thrust The Daily Profit into her face. Ginny grabbed it and looked at Lucius Malfoy's picture, scowling at her and every now and then glaring maliciously.

"The news is out," Draco said, somewhat cheerfully, from the kitchen table.

Ginny read the article quickly.

Sometime late last night on the outskirts of London, Auror Mark Bastinson woke up to screaming from the house next door, the home of Bill and Cindy Jackson. He quickly contacted the Ministry when the screaming did not cease, and hurried over to his neighbors.

Three men from the Ministry arrived and went into the house where the shouting was reported. They found the entire Jackson family, including three kids between the ages of five and thirteen, murdered. When they tried to find Bastinson, they ended up in the back of the house, and found once well-respected Lucius Malfoy standing over Mark Bastinson's body. Malfoy then made one remark: "I am Salazar Slytherin, and I will kill more innocents." Then, he Apparated before the three men could do any more.

It went on to say how the Ministry had covered up Lucius's escape from Azkaban and how crazy he was about claiming to be Slytherin. Ginny got bored of it after the fourth paragraph and dropped the paper to the table.

"How come you never told me it was Lucius who was trying to kill you?" Mrs. Weasley asked her, looking up from the breakfast she was making.

Ginny shrugged and slid into the seat beside Draco.

"I'm going to the library this afternoon," Hermione announced.

"What for?" Mrs. Weasley asked.

Hermione opened her mouth to reply, but Ron jumped in. "Mum, you know about Hermione and libraries. Why else would she go if not to check out a book on A Thousand and One Ways to Transfigure Cotton Balls?"

Everyone laughed but Hermione, who huffed and crossed her arms.

After lunch that afternoon, Hermione came back with her arms full of heavy books. Ginny was keeping her mother occupied in the kitchen so she wouldn't see the books on Dark Magic, and then joined everyone in her room as soon as she could get away.

They all sat on the floor around the books. "I checked out every one that I thought would come in handy," Hermione said. "So I guess we should start learning, shouldn't we?"

And so they did. Hermione was the unofficial teacher because she understood what most of the spells said. Stopping only for dinner, they worked well into the night. Finally, at midnight, Ron was the first to suggest they stop.

"I'm exhausted," he complained.

"Poor baby," Draco sneered.

"Besides," Ron continued, shooting him a death look, "we've learned a lot today. Can't we finish it tomorrow?"

The next day there was another report of attack, once again done by Lucius Malfoy.

The autopsy on the Jacksons' bodies revealed use of extreme magic, magic that only few could master. People were beginning to wonder if maybe Lucius really was possessed by Salazar Slytherin.

As the days went by, Ginny began to look forward to returning to Hogwarts. At least there I'll be safe, she thought. I won't have to worry about Slytherin popping up from nowhere and killing me.

Five days before they were to return to school, Mr. Weasley came home from London. Over dinner he explained the situation with Lucius. Nearly twenty people were dead because of him, and now the Ministry was getting desperate.

"They have no doubt that Lucius is Slytherin," Mr. Weasley said. "It's not really my department, but I've heard that they know all they have to do is manage to get Slytherin's spirit out of Malfoy – er, I mean Lucius – and then he will be harmless again, and they can throw him in Azkaban once more."

"How can they get the spirit out?" Ginny wondered.

"Well, there are Dementors," Mr. Weasley said wearily. "But they have to catch him first. They're beginning to think it's unlikely, so they've thought of an alternate way. They'll use something called the Blood Skull. It's a human skull made out of dark red crystal. Very valuable and it can suck the soul out of anyone, sort of like a Dementor. But they can charm it so it'll only suck the life out of who they want it to. They just leave it in the room where they predict the person will be, and when that person comes they won't have a soul for much longer. They don't want anyone to know about it, of course, because then Slytherin will be careful of where he goes in case the Blood Skull will be there. But practically everyone at the Ministry knows about it."

"Well, then why don't they just use it?" Harry asked.

"There's just a little problem with that," Mr. Weasley replied. "They don't know where it is."

"What?" Ron said.

"They can't find it," he said. "The last time it was spotted was in 1587, during one of the Goblin Wars. Many witnesses say that the world seemed to open up and the Blood Skull fell into it. Now, that's probably just superstition because the world doesn't just open up. Besides, people have been digging for it for centuries and haven't found it yet. So more than likely it was hidden by someone somewhere."

"Perfect," Ginny cried. "The only way to stop this is to catch Slytherin and put a Dementor on him? No way anyone's going to be able to do that."

"He's too powerful," Draco put in quietly.

Mr. Weasley shrugged. "That's just what I've been hearing. One thing's for sure, though, the Blood Skull is real. And that's probably the best bet on stopping Slytherin from killing anymore."

A/N: Sorry this chapter was so short, but I'll be sure to have the next one out soon!!!! Please review and thanks to all those who did!