Well...Glad ppl liked Chapter Four, I needed to get out my anger at some stupid evil dumb blondes I kno (no offense to other blondes out there), so I killed the bitchy person...here's chapter five. I can't believe I'm actually writing so much in this story. I haven't gotten this far in a story (w/ an actual semblance of a plot) since 7th grade. Wow...yay!! And the fan art link I put on to last chapter didn't seem to work, cuz I guess FFnet doesn't allow it. If you really wanna see it, go to my profile by clicking on my name and click on the link there. Once you get to the site, click on the number three, which is the fan section and go to fan art. Scroll to the bottom and it's the middle on in the second to last row. Wow...I'm out of breath, that must be the most long-winded and specific directions I've ever given in my life...'cept for the time with that lady and the streets...yeah...*shifty eyes*
Anyway, so read and review ppl, read and review!
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Chapter Five : : Sirius
"What do you mean? You killed Marie?" Sirius sand down beside Steorra, "You can't have."
Steorra looked up at Sirius. Blood had gathered at the corners of her eyes, and had started streaming down her face, making it look as if she had blood tears. "I hated her so much, and I killed her," Steorra gave a dry sob, "I didn't even know why I hated her so much...and yet i still killed her."
"You didn't kill her," Sirius said in what he thought was a reassuring tone, "I mean...you can't have. No student could have done this..." Sirius flinched as a drop of blood landed on his nose.
"But my hands, look at my hands," Steorra held out her hands to Sirius, "they're bloody, stained with her blood."
"Star, get a hold of yourself," James said, "they're bloody because you've been under that body for god knows how long and the blood's getting all over you."
"Yes. James is right, you know," Lily said and tried to drag Steorra away from the body. She wouldn't budge.
All of Gryffindor House was out here now, and buzzed with confusion. "Had Steorra really done it?" "She seems like a murderer..." "No she doesn't..." "Always thought there was something fishy about her..."
someone had called the teachers, and Professor McGonagall and Professor Dumbledore forced a path through the crowd.
Professor McGonagall gasped, "What is this, Dumbledore? What happened? Who could have done this?"
Professor Dumbledore inspected it silently for a moment, poked and prodded at the corpse with his want and his bow knotted in question as if expecting something to happen, but it didn't. At last, he spoke. At last, he spoke.
"Go back to bed, and do not speak of this to anyone. Sirius, come with me."
The Gryffindors climbed back into the tower, and it now seemed as if no one would be asleep tonight. The bizarre murder would be topic of conversation for perhaps years to come. Lily, James, Remus, and Peter had to combine their strength to budge Steorra from place, and literally drag her back to the common room. Sirius was left alone in the corridor with Professor Dumbledore.
"Follow me," Dumbledore said and led Sirius down to the first floor. They passed the Great Hall and rounded a corner. There stood an extremely ugly gargoyle statue, leering suspiciously at them.
"Jellybeans," Professor Dumbledore said. The gargoyle sprang to one side and the wall behind it split into two halves, revealing a spiraling staircase, reminding Sirius of those moving stairs in muggle shops, estavators or something. Sirius and Dumbledore stepped onto it and the the walls slid back into place as they were moved upward.
They arrived in a large room laden with countless interesting objects on the shelves that surrounded the room. An old, ornate desk sat in the middle and atop a perch next to the desk, was a phoenix. Sirius stared at it. He'd never seen a phoenix before and it seemed to be the most beautiful creature that ever lived. Its feathers were bright orange and looked so soft. Its long tail swept magnificently to the ground. The phoenix emitted an aura that seemed to say "untouchable."
"I see you like Fawkes," Dumbledore said quietly behind him. Sirius nearly jumped as he had forgotten that Dumbledore was there. "Sit down," Dumbledore motioned to the leather armchair before his desk.
Sirius took the seat and looked at Dumbledore, who seemed to be wording what he was going to say.
"Sirius," he began, "Did Miss Ming say anything about the murder?"
"Well, yeah. She said that she did it, but it can't be her because I've seen someone murdered the same way and Star was only ten back then," Sirius answered.
Dumbledor seemed startled by this revelation, "You mean...you've seen someone's body cut up like Miss Hallicomb's?"
Sirius nodded.
"Who was it?"
"Mrs. Cutthrell, she was a family friend," Sirius said.
Dubledore took a while to comprehend this, "And how did you feel towards her?"
"Hatred and enmity," Sirius was surprised he answered so cleanly and without thinking.
"And Miss Hallicomb?"
Sirius thought for a while. How exactly did he feel for Marie? There was definitely the physical attraction, but mentally? Sirius wasn't quite sure. She was annoying at times. She didn't know when to shut up. She was horrible to pretty much everyone. She was a snob in general. Then, it clicked. Sirius felt the same way about Marie just as he felt for Mrs. Cutthrell, perhaps even more so.
Dumbledore seemed to register the stricken look on Sirius face and said, "No, I highly doubt that you are the murderer of either one of those two. I don't think it was performed by any magic, for no spell, curse, hex, charm, or jinx has been invented yet to commit such a deed."
Sirius relaxed somewhat. But the seeds of doubt had been planted in his mind, and already, he could imagine the newspaper headlines: Sirius Black-- Hogwarts student turned grisly murderer.
"Go back to Gryffindor Tower, Sirius," Dumbledore said, "And you would be well advised to not dwell on this matter fro too long."
Sirius nodded dumbly and stepped onto the staircase, which immediately began to spiral downward. He came out from behind the gargoyle and walked, rather worn out to his dormitory.
It was quite a strange thing about teenagers, that they do what authority figures tell them not to do. Such was the case with Sirius, as he paced about the common room when then first rays of Christmas Day shone into the tower. Yet Sirius still thought about the murders and their possible connections as people milled around him in a mad rush to pack away Christmas presents as they made ready to leave on the Hogwarts Express for the winter holidays. By nine that morning, just about everyone was gone, and yet, Sirius still kept on pacing.
"you're going to dig yourself into a trench if you don't stop pacing." Sirius turned around and looked blankly. It was James. "Anyway, Merry Christmas to you too."
"Why aren't you going home for the holidays?" Sirius asked, sitting down on a couch, not realizing just how sore his legs were from nearly five hours of pacing.
"We're going to Aunt Mildred's. He's absolutely too mushy for me to handle. 'Ooh! Jimmy! You've grown so much! You're just too irresistible! Mwa, mwa!'" James mimicked in a squeaky voice, "Besides, Lily's staying." Though James added it as if it were an afterthought, Sirius knew that it was the main reason James stayed.
"Is she still talking to you after you ditched her last night?" Sirius asked in humor.
"Well...probably not. But she's got her hands full with Star, so I'm hoping that she'll forget," James replied.
"What happened to Star?" Sirius suddenly remembered how Star tied in with the whole situation.
"Um...after we dragged her back last night, she tried to kill herself," James left a dramatic pause so Sirius could wider his eyes in disbelief, "And what's more, we all had to take turns watching her, because the minute she's left alone, she'll get a knife and slash herself."
"Why don't you take the knife away?" Sirius said, stating the obvious.
"Oh, believe me, we did. But then she tried to curse herself into oblivion, even tried avada kadavera. Thank god she wasn't strong enough. But I tell ya, she's pretty damn strong. Even if she didn't manage to kill herself, she did manage to knock herself unconscious for a couple of hours," James said.
This was disturbing. Steorra and suicide just didn't match. She'd even said so before that she had too much to do before she died. The fact that he himself may be a murderer was already scary enough by itself, though he had already firmly convinced himself that he was romping on the grounds with Lupin all night and they were nowhere near Gryffindor Tower. But Star? Commit a murder? Even though she fully supported violence as a means of retaliation, she knew where to draw the line, and murder was definitely beyond the line. How could a girl who had mourned the execution of a serial killer and rapist be guilty of homicide? She didn't even believe in it when it was part of the legal system.
"Well, where is star now?' Sirius asked.
"In her dorm," James answered. As Sirius made for the staircase leading to the girl's dormitory, James added, "Oh, and i wouldn't do that if I were you."
"Do what?" Sirius gave him a questioning look.
James shook his head, "Never mind."
Sirius shrugged and took to the steps two at a time. However, before he got to the sixth step, the stairs smoothed out and Sirius toppled over and slid down to the ground.
"You knew about this, didn't you?" Sirius growled.
James was head over heels laughing. "Ahh...you should've seen how magnificently you slid down the stairs." He sobered up a bit after a while, but was still clutching to his side, laughing, as Sirius approached him with a raging look, "Well, I did try to warn you."
The door to the girl's dormitory opened and closed. Out came Lily, leading a pale and sickly looking Steorra down the twisting stairs. Sirius looked at her. the blood had been washed away from the night before. She was in muggle clothes: a black tank- top and jeans. There were ghastly gashes on her arms, all carefully bandaged by Lily's expert hands. They were extremely thick around Steorra's wrist. There was an awful lot of bruising too. Apparently, Steorra had tried to run into things too. Sirius would hate to see the state of the rest of Steorra's body was in.
"Stop staring at me like you're stricken or something," Steorra said in a hoarse voice, "I'll be fine."
"Shouldn't you go and see Madam Pomfrey?" Sirius asked. She certainly seemed to be back to normal. But there was just something that had changed in her, as if she had become a bit sadder, and yet a bit more aggressive.
"No," Steorra replied, "I don't want to be locked up in the infirmary on Christmas Day. I've still got presents to open...and I notice that I haven't gotten one from you yet, Siri."
"So is anyone else hungry, because I sure am," Sirius abruptly changed the subject, "And I smell bacon." He quickly rushed to the portrait hole before Steorra had the time to grab him.
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Yes, I know I went through everything a bit quick, but we don't need pointless bits of fluff and a full psycho-analysis of every character. Character development, who needs it! Psh...
Yeah, anyway, stupid AOL network was apparently busy last night and kicked my out (the indignity of it all!) and I spent like 30 min. fuddling around with the numerous cables that connects the DSL thingie to my computer before figuring out that the network was busy.