Disclaimer: Do I own Zacharias in a top hat? No. More's the pity…
Becki's Note: Thanks to my two reviewers, Aravis Traitre and Lady Pyra. Yes, someone likes my fic! Woohoo! Yay! Doo doo doo…never mind. On with the show…
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'Gin, you ready?' Parvati asked.
'Yep. All set' she grinned back.
'Right. LUNA!' everyone winced as she yelled. 'YOU CAN COME BACK IN NOW!'
There was no answer. Parvati drew a deep breath, but Ernie interrupted before she could finish deafening them.
'Parvati, couldn't you just open the door and tell her to come in?'
Parvati looked rather put out, but said 'Fine. Whatever.'
She strode over to the door and poked her head out.
'Luna, you can come back in now.'
She withdrew her head and strode into the middle of the room, closely followed by Luna.
'Right, everyone.' She beamed. 'Into a circle. Oh, apart from you.' She nodded to Luna. 'You stand in the middle.'
They assembled into something that vaguely resembled a rather-squashed-apple-shaped circle.
'Three, two, one, GO!'
Harry couldn't help thinking that Parvati was taking the infant-school teacher enthusiasm a little too far, but he was distracted by a squeal as Lavender fell to the floor, twitching and moaning. He tried to put thoughts of the Cruciatus curse firmly out of his head, and laughed along with the rest.
'Er, has anyone soundproofed the room?' Hermione asked.
'Why the hell would we want to soundproof the room?' Zacharias Smith sneered.
Next to him, Cho gave a bloodcurdling scream and fell to her knees, an expression of (very realistic) intense pain on her face. He looked up and grimaced. Cho winked at Hermione behind his back.
'Because' she smirked 'I really don't think Professor Flitwick would be too pleased if we made the entire school think there was an axe-wielding murder on the loose, do you?'
He scowled and mumbled something that sounded like 'Whatever, know it all'.
She waved her wand and said a spell Harry didn't recognise (but he almost certainly should have done).
As soon as she had stepped back into the circle, Hermione got the shock of her life as Ron keeled over sideways, landing on her shoulder. She blushed, and shoved him off. He then opened one eye, scowled, and fell over backwards.
Several scream-filled minutes later, only seven people were left: Ginny, Harry, Dean, Hermione, Neville, Hannah Abbot and Padma Patil. Luna turned to glare at each one of them in turn. Surprisingly, she hadn't yet used a single guess to accuse an obviously innocent person of stabbing people in the back with a knife.
'How many guesses do I have?' she asked 'Three?'
Harry nodded, and Padma grinned. She, too, was obviously expecting some far-fetched accusation.
'Right, then I accuse Harry, Neville and Padma. There's obviously a conspiracy going on here.'
Harry tried to hide his laughter, and coughed into his fist.
'Luna, there is only one murderer. That's the rules.'
'Ah,' she said with a sly grin that Harry didn't dare to contemplate the source of. 'But criminals never stick to the rules, do they? That's what makes them criminals!'
Ron sighed.
'Loon- Luna, we are not criminals. We are your friends. This is a game.'
She stamped her foot haughtily, and several people currently lying on the ground, their limbs sticking out at odd angles, sniggered. Harry caught Parvati's gaze, and she rolled her eyes to the ceiling. He grinned.
'Just because I have a salad vegetable dangling from my ear, you think I don't know sarcasm and patronisation when I hear it? Anyway, I accused you. Are you guilty?'
All three of the accused shook their heads, and Ron whispered in Harry's ear when Luna wasn't looking.
'So she has realised it's a vegetable. There I was just thinking she had bad eyesight.'
Harry nearly cracked a rib trying not to burst out laughing. Butterbeer (when drunk in excess) can do that to a guy.
'But you're lying, of course' said Luna. 'After all, why should murderers tell the truth? If you can kill a man without guilt, why should lying be a problem?'
Several more people obviously sighed or rolled their eyes, and Parvati heaved herself to her feet.
'Well, Luna, that's your go gone. Anyone else for a turn? Ginny, you were the murderer. How about you?'
Ginny gulped.
'Well actually, I'm rather tired. How about we just stop playing?'
There were quite a few nods of agreement, which were suddenly halted as Parvati said
'Well, that's okay. I've got loads more games we can play.'
'Er…' Hermione said quickly 'I think Ginny's right. We should be getting to bed. After all, it is lessons tomorrow.'
Parvati looked slightly affronted, but nodded.
'Well, I guess you're right. This was soo much fun, wasn't it?'
No one answered her.
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Lying in his bed an hour later, Harry thought sleepily that maybe Parvati's ideas weren't all bad ones: after all, if Luna had played by the rules, it probably could have been a good game. He turned over, yawned, and began to dream of pumpkin pies, butterbeer, and Zacharias Smith in a top hat. He never did find out why.
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Exactly one week later, Harry, Ron and Hermione were walking out of the library, thoroughly pleased with themselves. They had managed to complete a three foot potions essay in less than 90 minutes. It had to be a world record. Or just the fact that Hermione (for some inexplicable reason) gave them all the answers. Even so, Harry was still down in the dumps. No matter how hard he tried, or what other people did, he couldn't get Sirius' face out of his head. And even then, he couldn't bring to mind the good times; the times they had laughed and joked together. Whenever he began to smile, a laughing Bellatrix Lestrange appeared and made Sirius vanish in a puff of smoke and a flash of green light. It's hard to be cheerful when something like that is etched onto your brain.
Hermione was doing her best to understand, but Ron, as usual, didn't have a clue. Harry wasn't annoyed with him as such; he just grew exasperated at Ron's persistence at trying to cheer Harry up. Hermione had given up long ago, and just listened when Harry talked, and talked when Harry wanted to listen. She was a great help, not only in distracting him, but providing vague amusement when she argued with Ron – their attempts to not become a 'couple' were failing miserably. And humorously.
As they walked down the marble staircase into the entrance hall, a wave of silence greeted them. Harry stopped in his tracks, a wave of nausea hitting him full in the stomach. He looked sideways. Ron and Hermione were wearing similar expressions of apprehensiveness and fear. They could all, without saying a word to each other, tell that something was wrong.
'What the hell?'
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Becki's Note: Sorry I couldn't come up with a better cliffie, but I really couldn't be arsed. REVIEW, o mighty fanfiction readers, REVIEW!!!!!!!!!!!!!