The Hogwarts Murders – Vol. 2

She had been chasing after him for quite some time now; maybe this was the day that he would finally notice her. Hopefully he would give her that killer look that always made her melt and her heart speed up, because she really needed it - even if there was loathe hidden in those deep, icy eyes. Everything had become dreary and meaningless after Hermione's unfortunate death. She really needed the comfort of intimacy right now. It did not really matter if the second party was with her because he liked her or found her attractive, as long as she had someone near her.

Someone who could warm her.

Soothe her.

Fill her.

She stalked down the stairs to the dungeons, hoping to find her secret love there. It would be too difficult to get inside the Slytherin common room, so she did not even intend to try that alternative. She just had to wait outside for him to show.

Not many minutes passed before footsteps approached her from behind. Startled, but also anticipating, she swirled around to find a hated pair of cold silvery eyes staring down at her. "And what do you think you're doing here?" the Prefect asked in an authoritative, but indesputably unpleasant tone.

She staggered backwards a few feet, desperately searching for words. Malfoy had always intimidated her, and the immense hatred that she felt for him did not amount to the fear that he awakened in her. If anyone at Hogwarts deserved respect for being dangerous, it was Draco.

"Well, aren't you going to answer?" he pressed impatiently. "Ten points from Gryffindor for ignoring a Prefect."

"But... but..." She still could not seem to find the words that she wanted to say.

Malfoy raised one eyebrow in disbelief. "You trying to say something, slut?"

She jerked as if hit in the face. Her eyes filled with tears. "No, I was just... I was just... Why did you take those points? I hadn't... I hadn't done anything..."

"Really? Another ten points for being snotty, then. Now sod off, Gryffindors have no business here." He passed her on his way to the common room. And when the hidden door opened...

There he was. Standing in the middle of a spacious room, gesturing wildly. Blaise Zabini. She needed him. She wanted him. Desperate to look into his eyes, to touch him, maybe be held, influenced her into doing something incredibly stupid. She pushed by the rightfully startled Draco Malfoy and ran up to the equally dumbstruck Zabini and threw herself around his neck. "Please, take me to your room," she hissed in his ear, feeling him jerk next to her, a short-lived tremour of hesitance passing through his wonderfully muscular and powerful body. She felt all the other Slytherins' stares burn into her nape, but she cared as little about that as she cared about her sweet Blaise being a Slytherin - an enemy.

When he finally regained his senses, he pushed her away violently.

She fell to the cold, hard stone floor, crying out in pain. Then she looked up into his eyes. So cold... so cold... but yet so sexy.

"How dare you?" he shrieked, furious.

She just stared at him.

Never wanted to break eye-contact.

"I just wanted you to disgrace me," she said coolly, suddenly utterly fearless and bold. She was ready to go to any extent to get him where she wanted him. Inside. Now. For ever. "It doesn't matter what anyone does to me anymore, not since Hermione's death. I died with her. Disgrace me, Blaise. Please. It'd give you something to brag about to the others. Please, just disgrace me. I need you to disgrace me."

There was a moment of evident hesitation, then Zabini nodded. "What the Hell do you think you're doing?" Malfoy yelled from behind her. "You can't just take a Gryffindor up to your room, Zabini!"

Zabini glared at him intimidatingly. "No? Watch me."

She felt a sick satisfaction when he helped her back up on her feet and started to escort her to his dorm. She did not protest when the brute violated her and filled her with pain so excruciating, she had never felt anything like it; she screamed with dark, sick pleasure, because this was what she wanted. What she had wanted for two whole months now.

"Now get the Hell out of here," he said when he was finished.

It was as if someone had stuck a knife in her heart. "Get out?" she repeated. "But I thought... If I..."

Blaise laughed scornfully. "You really thought I'd keep you? That I'd somehow find it in my heart to be affectionate towards a bloody Gryffindor? Hardly! Now get out of my sight, bitch."

When she realised that he was not going to welcome her in his life, she felt fury rise inside her; a fury so black that it completely filled her body and soul. Without thinking she called upon the first blunt object in her sight - a toy bludger - and made it pound down on him over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over...

...until there was nothing left of his face to be recognised as that of Blaise Zabini. Long before she stopped, long before she realised what she had done, long before the wand fell out of her blood-sprayed hand, Blaise Zabini took his last breath and left the face of the Earth. Shocked by her monstrous act, she fell back. But it did not take long before a pleased smile came to her lips. She had done it. She had actually done it. Went through with something greater.

She had rid the world of a future Death Eater, she was sure of it. Yes, this had been an act of goodness, no doubt about it.

Immensely pleased with herself, she exited Zabini's dorm and walked back through the Slythering common room. They were all looking at her. All eyes. All ears. "Did you get yourself a good disgraceing, Weasley?" Pansy called out to her, laughing hysterically.

But then they noticed the blood stains on her shirt and jumper, on her skirt, and fell silent as one. "What did you do?" Marcus Flint asked slightly anxiously.

Ginny Weasley stopped dead in front of the sorry lot. With a cruel, emotionless grin on her face, she said:

"I disgraced him."