Harry Potter Murder Mystery By Lauren Hillman

Chapter Three ~ The Finding of Donald Newt Stilkinson

...but they knew they had to find her! So began the shoving and falling of everybody scrambling to find Ginny. Suddenly, the candles re-lighted and everybody could see where they were.
Fred and George were tangled into a heap, Neville was holding Hermione by the hair, and Ron was standing right next to Ginny without even knowing it. Ginny was clawing at her attacker frantically. Everyone surrounded the pair to find out who this person was. It was Malfoy.
"Malfoy?!" exclaimed Ron. "What are you doing attacking my sister?"
"Attacking? What do you mean attacking? I was just looking for someone. I got lost when the lights went out and just happened to run into this...filth."
"Don't call my sister filth, you bloody son of a..." snarled Ron.
"Ron! That's enough!" interrupted Hermione. "Now, what we need to do is stay together and find out what's going on." Reluctantly Hermione shoved the pieces of parchment towards Malfoy and explained what was going on.
"Either you cooperate and stay with us, or we send you off on your own to die," said Fred triumphantly. He loved this ability to lord over Malfoy.
Malfoy began to tremble at this and nodded his head slightly. "What was that?" asked Fred.
"Alright, alright I'll stay with you," whimpered Malfoy.
"Lucky us," said Ron under his breath.
Hermione sighed and said to the group in an undertone, "As much as I hate Malfoy, I think we should just be fair and not try to push him around so much. We don't want to stoop to his level or anything right?"

The group was silent. Of course they wanted to push him around, regardless if they were acting like jerks or not.
"Fine. Whatever. Let's just go try to find and teacher and figure this out," said Hermione.
So the group trudged down the halls. When they reached a staircase that was near the library, the candles extinguished again.
"Not again!" sighed Ginny. "This is a tad annoying, if I do say so myself."
Once again it was Neville who was the bringer of bad news. He had tripped and fallen over something that felt like a big bag. He crouched down low to figure out what it was when he stopped. He felt something cold and sticky. He began to tremble.
"G-g-guys?" he whimpered.
"What is it Neville?" asked Ginny.
"Um, I think there's something on the floor."
Everybody stopped, and Harry could distinctly hear the panicked cries of Malfoy, the coward.
Suddenly the lights went on again, to Ginny's huffing in the background.
"Um, I think you were right Neville," said Hermione in a shrill voice.
The group turned around and saw what it was. Ginny screamed. Fred and George jumped back with a cry of alarm. Neville slumped to the ground in a faint. Malfoy screamed and ran away. Harry and Ron, being our heroes!!, strode forward to the dead body on the ground. There was blood coming from the head. But besides that there were no further signs of injury.
There was a book bag on the ground next to the boy. The boy looked young, maybe a second year, and had light brown hair. He was wearing the Hufflepuff crest on his robes.
Harry opened the bag and looked inside. There were several books, and inside was the name of the boy. He was Donald Newt Stilkinson. Lying on the ground, a few feet away, was a wand.
"Yes!" said Harry. Everyone looked curiously at him. He got up and grabbed the wand.
"Now we at least have some kind of defense, or at least a light for if the candles go out again," said Harry.
"Which they probably will," snarled Ginny.
"What are we going to do about this Donald kid?" asked Fred in a sad voice.
Harry looked up. "I don't know. Do you think the Avada Kedavra curse was used on him? Because if it was, it means that we're dealing with a pretty dark wizard." At the mention of dark wizard, everyone looked towards Malfoy, who was crouching in a corner.
"Anyway, it probably wasn't. See the blood around the head? He must have been hit with something," suggested Hermione.
"Not necessarily. He might have fallen down the stairs and then been hit with the curse," said Harry.
"That's a good point. But I guess we'll never know, will we?" Hermione sighed and choked back tears.
Ginny said under her breath, "Some Christmas this has turned out to be." And it seems she spoke for everyone when she said that.

*~Chapter Four Coming Soon. Will write more if I get some reviews! Thanks, Lauren~*