Sirius Black sighed as he looked up at the smoldering apartment building. The smoke rose into the dawn sky as firefighters finally began to leave for the day, their job finished for now. Outside, people sat on the grass or on the sidewalk, some of them were huddled together while others stared blankly up at their home, some were talking excitedly over their cellphones, not bothering to even take a breath as they explained what happened to the other person on the line. Caution tape was placed all around the building in order to keep people from contaminating the crime scene.
Of course, that didn't stop the vultures from swooping in and trying to scramble for whatever scraps they could get. One of his least favorite vultures leapt out of her news van and stuck a microphone in his face,
"Mr. Black, I'm Rita Skeeter with the Daily Prophet," The woman said as she flashed her business card at him, "I was wondering if you could give me a statement about what happened at the apartment."
He took a step back and sighed, really why was he the one who had to deal with this? He glanced down at his watch and couldn't help but feel a little irritated. Remus and James should have shown up by now, they were better at handling nosy reporters like Skeeter than he was.
"Actually, ma'am we can't discuss about the incident yet."
Lo and behold, James Potter had arrived in all his glory. His best friend pushed his glasses up his nose as he gave Skeeter one of his biggest smiles, "I'm sorry but until the chief gives us the okay, we can't talk about it." James said.
"So get lost." Sirius thought to himself. Skeeter pursed her lips and stormed back to her news van, no doubt preparing to write an article about the injustices she suffered at the hands of the police. Sirius sighed in relief,
"Thanks for showing up when you did," he told James, "Seriously I was this close to blowing up at her."
"No problem," James winked at him. "Sorry I was late, traffic was insane at Phoenix avenue, Remus is probably going to be late too."
"Eh, it's fine, anyway are you ready to head into the crime scene?"
"Yeah, let's go, Snape isn't going to wait for us forever."
Sirius sighed again, dealing with both Snape and Skeeter on the same day would be sure to give him a headache. As the crossed over the police tape the climbed up the stairs to the victim's room on the fifth floor of the apartment. The lower floors had made it out of the fire unscathed, the firefighters had arrived before the fire could engulf the entire apartment. The third, fourth, and fifth floor were the extent that the fire had reached, and luckily there had been only one casualty. Well, luckily wasn't the word people would use to describe a death, but he'd take one dead body over dozens of dead bodies.
As they climbed up the steps, the scorch marks on the walls got larger, Sirius wiped his hands on his jeans after touching the guard rail, soot had already begun to settle on the stairs, coating his shoes in the dusty material. Eventually they reached the fifth floor and entered the victim's room, room 5666, Snape was busy writing things on a large clipboard he held in his hands but stopped when he heard the two of them walk into the room.
"Potter. Black." Snape said in a clipped tone as he went back to writing on his clipboard, "You certainly took your time getting here."
Sirius was about to snipe back at Snape, but James put a hand on his shoulder and shook his head. Sirius sighed, and James spoke up,
"So, Snape, what have you found out so far?" he asked.
"Not too much I'm afraid," Snape said as he flipped through his clipboard, "The victim's name was Qunirus Quirell, he was a teacher at Hogwarts Academy."
"The cause of death were fatal stabbings to the chest and the neck, the victim also showed signs of trauma-specifically on the head."
"Wait, so the fire wasn't what killed him?" Sirius asked in surprise. When the firefighters had reported that there was a dead body on the fifth floor, he had assumed the fire was what did him in. But for the guy to get murdered right before the fire...wait before the fire? If that was the case, then it was possible that the culprit had started the fire in order to cover up their tracks.
"Did anyone see anything?" James asked.
Snape shook his head in frustration, "No, no one saw anything, they were all too focused on escaping with their lives."
"How about the cameras they've got set up in here?" Sirius asked.
"No, the cameras on the fifth to third floors were destroyed during the fire, and the cameras on the second and first floor shorted out."
Sirius sighed, "So basically we've got nothing,"
Snape smirked, and Sirius felt annoyed, whenever Snape smirked like that it was usually when he knew something you didn't and was going to lord it over you for all time.
"While it's true that the cameras inside the building were destroyed, the cameras outside are still intact." Snape said. "Unfortunately, the victim and culprit can't be seen, at the time the curtains were in front of the window, but we can hear them talking."
"And that's the only evidence we have right now...huh?" James suddenly bent down next to the body.
Sirius blinked in confusion, "Hey what are you doing?"
James stood back up, holding a golden locket that was miraculously still intact. He pried open the locket and a single sheet of paper stuffed into the locket floated onto the ground which read,
"Three times I strike,
In the dead of the night,
And my bounty rises through the floor,
When I kill four or more,
The blues tries to find,
But they can't solve the crime,
What am I?"
