Title: Death, love and all that's in between.

Rating: R purely to be on the safe side.

Summary: The critics acclaim 'a masterpiece' 'a diamond in the rough' ' history in the making' and 'a totally cool story dude!' Come one, come all to see mystery, intrigue, murder, romance and a whole lot of luvin'. A must read for people looking for a Draco/Virginia romance with an edge … a deadly edge. (Ie: deaths abound … a wonderful 'whodunit' that could put Agatha Christie to shame I tell you!)

Email/Feedback: All reviews, flames (which will be used to heat my cold Chinese take-out) comments etc can be sent to: nupilstar@hotmail.com … or can be told in a wonderful review. And hell I know I have the appetite of a medium sized killer whale so feed feed feed me!

Disclaimer: {My own standard disclaimer} I own all the good parts! (You have to search for them for awhile) Oh except the marvellous characters, they belong to Rowling, as you know. I just manipulate them to my whims.

Notes: After :). For now: Enjoy the start of this epic (okay I wouldn't go that far to deem it an 'epic', shall we all settle for 'thing'? Great!) :)!

Death, love and all that's in between.

# # #

Look at her laughing, what a sickening sight. Old pug-face deserves to be put out of her misery.

She wont stand in my way, I will get the power I deserve … she will pay for her useless torment; they will all pay one by one, all that have caused me suffering.

My revenge. Sweet as the honey from the bees. It will be mine!

# # #

' … And Pansy Flint-Parkinson of the Flint-Parkinson estate was found dead early this morning. A young witch found her body not far from Madam Malkins at Diagon Alley. Aurors are investigating into what seems to be an attempted suicide. Her position as Editor…' Virginia groaned and slammed the muggle contraption off, it had been hooked up to Wizard wireless, her fathers twenty-seventh birthday present for her.

She blinked away her sleep and crawled to the bathroom of her muggle London flat to jump into the shower. Twenty minutes later she was dressed casually in muggle clothes and simple black robe in hand when she spotted her daily edition of the Daily Prophet sitting at the window sill. The headline caught her interest.

PANSY FLINT-PARKINSON … DEAD.

She scanned the article and raised her eyebrows, she decided to hurry on to work; now what would happen to Parkinson's job as editor? Who would get it?

* * * * *

"Oh my, Ginny! Isn't it awful!!" cried Amber in half true shock, half false sadness. Amber; Ginnys best friend. It had taken her awhile to feel comfortable with people, and Amber was one of the few people she felt she could open up to, outside the family.

"About Pansy, I know, I know! What happened?" Virginia asked incredulously at her office, as Art and layout director of Witch Weekly.

"No-one knows, they say it was a suicide … but old pug-face killing herself? I mean really, she was happy with life, she had us, her minions to order around when she wanted a power-trip, Flint and her were planning on having kids … she had enough money … I just can't think of a plausible reason"

"This is big, oh dear, we have to cover this in this weeks issue. Ahhh it'll never get done in time. How's the family holding up?"

"Flint? They say his distraught … who cares? Oh and the new editor is being posted up in ½ hour!" Amber's eyes twinkled "I know she passed away like only ten hours ago, but wouldn't it be great if one of us got her office? I mean she had a view of all of Diagon Alley and anything in a 20km radius!"

"Oh that'd be cool, imagine the great meetings and luncheons we can have, so pug-face is gone eh? Ever so cool!" Ginnys eye twinkled with amusement.

Half hour later

"Oh my, Ginny! Can you believe it?? … ME!"

"I can, I can Amber, you deserve it"

"Oh this is so cool, but I didn't expect me to get it, I always thought old pug-face hated me"

"Amber, you deserve it, you'll make a fantastic editor … but … how longs the position for?"

"Aaah see now I recall why you're my best friend, you always remember everything for me. Yeah I leave for Italy and then on to America just a little over 3 months, but until then, I get the office!"

"Oooh … um, do you know who you'll –"

"Naturally I'd give the job to you silly, do you need to ask? Now come on we have one of our biggest issues to get out 'Tribute to pug-face'"

* * * * *

Harry groaned and moped his way through his daily misery that was life. He looked at the pale and very dead late Mrs Flint-Parkinson. Sure he hadn't liked her in school, sure he hadn't liked her after school, sure she gave Rita Skeeter a run for her articles and sure she was just downright irritating. But no one deserved this on them, particularly when she wasn't evil, just a tittering twit.

His job as auror had him working with some of the most horrendous cases, but that was the other oddity of this death. It was hideous or horrendous. She was just dead, no sick sadist marking. Just cold dead flesh. And it was a death, not a suicide as these idiots claimed. He shook his head at the other idiotic Aurors, why would someone committing suicide have trace of Be-Lexium potion in their lungs? A well-known slow-acting 'killing' potion, rather the fumes … vapours were the 'killing' part.

Harry shook his head in frustration once more; it was like being a muggle cop. He didn't have anything to go on except search every house in wizard and muggle London for ingredients to Be-Lexium.

Where did he go from here?

* * * * *

Ron watched Harry, partner auror and best friend, sigh at the body and wondered if he, like usual knew something no one else picked up. Probably.

Ron had given up his childish jealously, he knew Harry would always be better and that was just the way.

"Wonder why Parkinson wanted to kill herself" he said nonchalantly

"What if it wasn't suicide Ron?"

"What … her wand was right next to her at the exact angle to be if she'd Avada Kedavrad herself, the last spell out of that wand, Parkinson's wand, was the killing curse!"

"Ron, sure her wand was there … but I have this feeling … if you're murdering your self, why would you have deep imprints on the side of your mouth as if something was being clamped down and have traces of Be-Lexium in your lungs? Why would you bother having both in your system? It wasn't a suicide, I can tell you that much."

"Well where do you wanna go from here?"

"Exactly what I've been asking myself dear friend. I just don't know all the charms and spells we've tried have shown us nothing. Nothing, as if the person who did this was never there. We're looking for someone who knows what they're doing and know how to play the game well"

* * * * *

Draco Malfoy. Tall, sexy and made rich by his fathers fortune. Why wouldn't girls flock to him in hordes? He glanced at girl to his right. Semi-attractive he thought but not more then half a teaspoon of sense or brains. Pity.

Another day, another female. Another day, another worried sigh from his mother. Another day, another day to increase his family fortunes through his head for business and real estate. If you wanted the best deal for wizardry property, in all parts of Europe, you came to Draconian Exchanges.

His eye wandered to the Daily Prophet.

PANSY FLINT-PARKINSON … DEAD

He arched a delicate eyebrow. Since Lucuis had plans of the Malfoy-Parkinson estate, Draco hadn't seen much of Pansy. Draco didn't share in Lucuis and Pansy's dreams of a joint estate … he could not by any means imagine sharing a lifetime with that thing! Draco didn't want those plans … Draco found a means of getting away from them. Draco grimaced at memories of his father, always oppressing him and trying to run his life. All the pain to his mother and him. All the suffering. He also remembered all the years of torment of Pansy squealing in his ear and sighed. Were girls really all the same? At twenty-eight, they still acted fifteen? Oh well, old pug-face deserved to be put out of her misery.

Ugh. Time to get in the air he chided himself. He was dressed in a sharp charcoal suit and grinned at his reflection. Yeah you're a handsome devil.

He flicked over the female in his bed and groaned out-loud; he needed to find someone he could actually stand for more then one night.

* * * * *

Virginia waved to her brother and Harry. They didn't notice, she huffed and moved closer and waved again, they still didn't notice. She dropped her arm and walked over to them. Seeing her brother was a rare occurrence, what was he doing here?

"Ron … Harry. Hello!"

"Ginny! Hey, you work here don't you? Oh offcourse, um who's the new editor?" Ginnys fake smile increased at her brother's voice.

"Oh its Amber, she's in Parkinson's old office, why are you here? To interview her about Parkinson?"

"Yeah something like that, mind if we snoop around Ginny?" That was the first time Harry had spoken. She turned and gave him the same 100 wattage fake smile.

"Oh sure, don't mind the work going around … do you need anything?"

"Um actually yeah, Ron you interview Amber and I'll chat with Ginny"

"Right." Ron moved over to the editor's office.

Virginia rolled her eyes behind Harry's back and waited for him to start.

"Hey Ginny, so what are you doing?"

"I'm going through all the wedding celebrations of Parkinson, we're doing a special tribute to our late editor."

"Ah, great, so hows life?"

"Harry you haven't seen me in over ten months, what would you like to know?"

"I just –" But he was cut off as he looked at Amber. Virginia rolled her eyes even more dramatically. Bloody hell this boy was predictable. Fickle as a fly, as a fish, as the bloody wind! Fickle.

"Um right Harry." She paused for a moment… "Harry, I'm off" He didn't even respond. She stalked off.

# # #

A/N: Rightio kids, now that you've had a chance to sample Nupils lack of talent you can all hear what she wanted to say above. First off I have to thank my wonderful Beta, Kimberly Gage who was so prompt with betaing this, and for all her support. Also I want to thank each and every special reviewer from my other short ficlet (Id: 923629). They're: Azalai, Sparkles2510, Wyltk, Neoserendipity, Liz, Ace of Spades and precious Tara! Thankyou all, your words meant a whole lot to me so I guess this piece is dedicated to you!

Also, I'm sorry about this long A/N but there are just some things I want to make clear, there is still more to come … and well there's not a whole lot in this chapter so I totally see if you're all sitting there going "What's there to review?" But I promise more will be coming and the plot will thicken slowly … actually not that slowly but surely! Hope you enjoyed :)!