Title: Repercussions of Guilt

Author: Calex

Rating: R for some…violence issues

Disclaimer: Not mine, all JK Rowling's. No copyright infringement intended, no profit sought to be made.

Feedback: Sure.

It was going to be one of those nights, he could already tell. He seemed to have an instinct of these things. Bad things happened and he could feel it in his bones. It was what made him so good, his intuition, his gut feeling. And, of course, personal experience. He had a lot of that, many of them hands on. It was the reason why so many distrusted him, why so man disliked, hell, hated him. Some were jealous by his innate sixth sense, it was what made him the best, the sharpest. The secret weapon of the Ministry of Magic. Ah yes, there was that. Did he get pleasure out of hearing that? A kind of sadistic pleasure that shivered through him, went in his bones and made that sharp-as-a-knife smile curve at his lips? Probably. He enjoyed that kind of thing, it was part of the reason why some people called his humour "dark". He scared them…. And he relished that knowledge along with cursing it. He didn't care for the company of other people, it wasn't his style. But that didn't mean their rejection didn't give him a pang. He'd gotten over that, of course. He was naturally a loner, he'd never fit into a particular group, before. It was easy, he supposed. Easy to stand back, detached, because things didn't suit him. Some said he began a group of his very own. ah yes. His lips curved in that sharp smile, the one that didn't quite reach his eyes. He'd formed a group of people like him, once firmly in a particular group, then discarding it, or been discarded by it. Some were what he called "friends", although that group was miniscule to non-existent.

They were the black sheep of both groups, beginning from rich, influential families, then rejecting those ideals and got disinherited. Most of them landed on their feet, although more than a few didn't, and suffered for it. They were the backbone of the ministry's defence, the roots. Those that travelled underground and in the dark while letting people like Potter, Weasley and Granger get the limelight. They didn't care, didn't do their job for the fame. It was unclear what their motives were, although it was most probably revenge. People were wary of them for that very reason, for after all, they were Slytherins. Again, that strange smile. What a joke. Slytherin had nothing to do with it, although perhaps Slytherin was the only house that had equipped all it's occupants in the art of deception and intrigue and taught it until it was an art form. It was a useful tool, and all of them, all in his little "group" used it with no holds barred. They were the front line, it could be said, the infiltrators. Those in his group… none were known, truly. Their identities were kept secret, for their protection and ministry benefit. But they were the best damned task force the ministry had and could have. And he was head of it.

There was a new case, murders. Brutal murders of young girls from the ages 15 to 19, a butchering of poor, small and helpless bodies. He didn't have a good feeling about this case, it was too messy, far too messy. The Death Eaters preferred clean deaths, they never used their hands if they could help it. These girl had not only been raped, they were beaten, they were cut, they had several body parts cut off of their person, blinded, bled and finally strangled. It was gory, to say the lest. Draco walked away from the window, his hands linked behind his back. He walked towards his working table, a small frown creasing his forehead as he stared at the file lying opened, there. There was s detailed account, written very clinically, professionally and there were pictures. He happened to know that the man who had written the cool report had thrown up when he saw the damage and heard the full diagnosis. No one in his group, did. Not a single one. They had seen things like this happen in torture chambers… though none admittedly seen it done seemingly without reason or in open air and public. Not a single one liked what that entailed.

He looked at the picture of the girl, a before and after. The expression on his face didn't change, not even a twitch of an eyelid. He released his hands and picked up the file, reading it silently to himself:

Name : Lucy Hannah Wood

Age : 16 years old

School: Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Parents names-

Mother: Hannah Lucille Wood nee Abbott

Father: Oliver Thomas Wood

Prognosis:

The victim sustained several bruises on her face, a split lip, broken collar bone and several broken ribs (5). Signs of sexual violations are noted and there is a tearing at the anal and vaginal areas. Her clitoris has been removed (perhaps with something sharp like a muggle knife), along with the fourth finger of her left hand (wedding finger), her left ear and right breast. Her tongue, by comparison, seems to have been torn out as the wound seems rather ragged. Eyes seem to have been gouged out by a blunt tool (fingers? Although there are no fingerprints, stray hair or clothing material or an access of semen). Furthermore, a bruise along the throat of the victim shows that the victim must have been strangulated to death and from the state of the wounds, she stayed alive through the torture.

Colin J. Creevey

Draco laid down the report and picked up the pictures. There were several of the scene of the murder, but there were five of those before the murders had taken place. He studied them, although his eyes remained cool. His thumb ran gently on the image of the laughing blonde girl, whose gorgeous grey blue eyes were sparkling. She was lovely, Draco noted in detachment. She looked a mixture of the shy Ms. Abbott and the apparently "dashing" Mr. Wood. She had Hannah's lovely hair and eyes, but her easy smile was very much her father, along with the lanky frame and the chiselled mouth. she had the winged eyebrows of her mother and the straight nose of her father. She had lots of friends, it seemed. A red haired boy held her in a tight embrace in one picture, and she was dancing with him in another. There she was with three other girls, and the last was of her and her parents. Draco put down all but the first picture and a picture from the murder scene. By comparison, it was almost obscene. He couldn't see the lively, happy girl in the dead one and for that, he was sure he was glad. It made it easier for him to pretend that the mutilated thing wasn't the girl. Then he sighed. It wasn't like him to want to block out the reality of cases. Wasn't like him at all. He figured that if he kept going like this, he would lose his zing. And losing his zing would mean losing the criminal. And that he wasn't prepared to do.

He sat carefully down on the chair behind his neat-as-a-pin desk and linked his fingers together, a frown furrowing his brows. The case was slowly getting personal to him, and that was never good. Damn them, they had to do this… He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. He unlocked that part of his mind and allowed the memory to submerge him, drown him. His hands gripped the edge of the table as he closed his eyes, remembering.

He was 17, on his summer holidays before his 7th year. His father wanted to initiate him. Draco entertained some doubts, before. He didn't know if he wanted the road he had to take. That summer sealed his fate completely. Lucius brought him out into the Malfoy Woods, the dark, lushly covered expense of woods that grew on Malfoy land and that had belonged to them for centuries, leaving it with an impression of having a life of it's very own. Lucius wore a black hood to cover himself, and Draco merely wore plain black robes, but his fair hair remained uncovered for the caress of the moon. It seemed to bring with it a glow in the almost complete darkness and he began to fidget as he waited. Finally, he heard the scream, the shrill, high pitched, painful scream that he still heard in his nightmares. The scream made the hairs on his body stand on end, and goosebumps to cover his skin. He rubbed his hands down his arms, but still that one, wordless scream hung in the air… before it was cut abruptly silent. The silence that followed it was painful and Draco gulped in the air, his heart racing in his ears. He let his hand drift into his pocked to find his wand, only to remember that his father had taken it away from him. Draco shot another look at his father and found the man to have pushed back his hood and a cold smirk to grace his lips. Then he heard the cruel laughter of men who gave chase. He wiped his suddenly damp palms on his robes, his throat painfully dry.

He had a feeling that we wouldn't like this, wouldn't like this one little bit. That was when the girl burst through the line of trees not far from him. His eyes widened as he caught sight of her. she was naked and vulnerable, her skin lined with cuts and bruises. Blood stuck, dried to flesh that was all peaches and cream and accented by freckles. Her left arm seemed to be broken, along with her collar bone, if the swelling was anything to go after, or that little bump on the skin; but she kept on running. Her feet were bleeding, torn from the sharp rocks underfoot and left a trail of muddy red liquid on the bright green grass. Her hair, in all it's tangled disarray, was red. Her panic stricken eyes that raised up to meet his own gaze was cinnamon brown. She ran straight to him and collapsed in his arms, sobbing wildly, chanting "help me" over and over again as her bloodied hands gripped at his expansive clothes. He didn't notice as her knees gave and she collapsed against him and his arms were the only thing that kept her from falling, just stared from her to his smirking father.

"A gift, Draco," the man purred. "We all know how your preference runs towards red heads, these days."

Oh, Circe. He looked down at the girl in his arms and knew that despite everything he'd done… his father knew. His arms tightened around the girl for a second before he released her and let her fall to the ground with a cry. He faced his father and his eyes were cool, cold. He raised a light blond eyebrow at the man he called father and let his lips curve.

"It's certainly an… interesting gift, sir," he drawled lazily. "What am I supposed to do with her?"

"You?" Lucius laughed and that laugh echoed in his mind and was stored along with everything he classified as "evil". "Your part comes later. Now, all you have to do is watch." And watch he did as his father, Crabbe snr. And MacNair raped and brutalised the girl, watched as they cut off her clitoris, her wedding finger, her ear and her breast. Watched as they gouged out her eyes with their glove covered fingers, digging into the fragile sockets and scooping out the jelly like substance that were her eyes and watched, finally, as they pulled out her tongue and ended all the coherent screaming. She still screamed, she could still scream. Oh, he heard that horrible gurgling scream as he had thrown up everything that he had eaten that day. He had thrown up and in his mind burnt brightly the sound of the horrible, wet, gurgling screams and the glittering smile his father had sent his way when he saw Draco gagging when he no longer had anything to throw up. Finally, his father stood up and cleaned his already clean hands with a white silk handkerchief, then look up and raised an eyebrow at him, challenging him in that quiet tone of his.

"Finish it."

And finish it he did. He moved behind the girl and attempted to snap her neck, but he was weakened by the horror he had been witness to, that night. So he had moved in front of her, straddled her body and wrapped his fingers around the slender column of her throat and squeezed. He squeezed until the horrible screaming stopped, until the body thrashing under his stilled. Still he squeezed, and did not notice the fact that he was alone in the woods, or that the reason why his sight was blurred was because of his tears. He knew that it was a warning, along with the initiation. That night, Draco had burnt his robes and that night, he cut off all ties with 'that man' he had called father. That night he composed a cool letter to the only girl, woman, he had ever loved and told er coldly that it had all been a joke, devised by him as a new year entertainment, as a challenge. Now that she reciprocated his "feelings"… the game was done, over. He didn't let himself think of what hurt he might have caused Ginevra Weasley, because when he closed his eyes to sleep, that night, he saw not the red hair and brown eyes of the girl he loved, but of the girl he had killed and buried with his own two hands, that night. That was nine years ago.

Draco opened his eyes and slowly let the last remnants of the memory slip away. Then he reached under his desk to pull out a beautiful and ornately carved silver bowl filled with some kind of strange silver liquid… like glittering mercury. He picked up his wand and brought it to his head, murmuring some words, then pulled his wand back. A strand of silvery substance, like the one in the bowl, followed the wand, then entered into the bowl. Another memory, cleansed. Hopefully, with the loss of that, he would be able to do his job properly. One more of an endless string of nightmares; it seemed they were recreating his worse moments. Draco smiled, humourlessly. His father was certainly a creative bastard. He sighed, then put the pensieve away. Now, he had a job to do. he closed Lucy's file and placed it with the other, ever growing amount of files. He had a murderer to catch.

The End

AN: Why did I end it there? Because I'm tired. It was meant to be a one shot, and I didn't think I'd be able to hold his mindset as well if I broke it up. And this has the potential to be a WIP, which I just do not need and wrote in the "What I don't want" section of the list I made before writing this for Avanti.

Well, here are her spefs:

Paring: Draco/Ginny (duh)

Genre: Romance/Thriller

Rating: NC-17

Er…. rereads story I don't think I quite got what you wanted, honey. I have a little D/G looks hopeful. So I can tick that off, right? And this is kinda a thriller, right? cough And uh, the NC-17 rating could come from gory-ness and other ick value of the shiver worthy factor. I know it could be R, but I'll just rate it NC-17 for safety, alright? looks innocent I'm sorry I'm missing the romance, but… is sheepish I'll try to write you a little bit of D/G fluff, right? I don't know why, but D/G refuses to be anything but angsty, with me. And I'll give you smut on 10th Muse. Ish, anyway.