Disclaimer: I own neither CSI nor Harry Potter. This makes me very sad, but alas, this is the way of life.

A/N: I know this update is long in coming, and that The Edge of the World isn't finished to boot, but, well, here's chapter one! Oh, just to let everyone know, this takes place during season four of CSI, after the episode Butterflied and before Bloodlines. Enjoy! Oh, by the way, many thanks to Samdum the Bouncing Hobbit for beta-ing this chapter for me!

Chapter One: Just a Night in Vegas- 2004

It seemed as if Sara Sidle had only been able to watch twenty minutes at most of a Discovery Science Channel special when she heard the familiar ring of her cell phone. She could feel her frustration growing; she didn't need to look at her caller ID to know who was calling. It was her first night off in over two weeks due to a triple homicide in Henderson.

It wasn't that she had anything better to do; usually she would have worked overtime in a heartbeat. It was just the fact that surviving on a couple hours of sleep everyday was beginning to take its toll. Last night when they had finally cracked the case and organized the last bit of evidence, Sara was more than grateful to have the next night off, unlike some of the poor others like Nick and Greg. Now, it was close to midnight, and after sleeping for far longer than she normally let herself, making herself a package of vegetarian Ramen, and finally settling down into the depths of her sofa for a night of doing absolutely nothing, her phone was ringing. Did it ever end?

"Sidle."

"Sara, it's Grissom." Well, no surprise there. "We have a family of five dead in their room at the Mirage, and I need your help to process their hotel room."

"What about Nick and Greg? I thought they were working tonight."

"I let them go home about an hour ago. It seemed quiet then, and they both seemed like the only thing on their minds was sleep. I could use a fresh pair of eyes." Sara sighed and closed her eyes. Why her? Why not Catherine or Warrick? She put in more overtime than the rest of the night shift, and yet Grissom chose her to go process a scene tonight.

"Okay, I'll be there as soon as possible, "said Sara, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice.

"Try to hurry. I have a bad feeling the press is going to be all over us with five dead bodies on our hands." Sara slowly shut her phone, and, closing her eyes, leaned her head back on her sofa for about thirty seconds before forcing herself up.

She slowly walked over from her living room to her apartment's small bathroom. It almost killed her to strip down out of her tee shirt and sweatpants. Due to the power of modern technology, even an apartment in the middle of the desert could become cold with air conditioning. However, when she stepped into the almost scalding water in her shower, she immediately lost her regrets about removing her clothes.

As she started to work her shampoo into her hair, she could feel her anger towards her boss running steadily down the drain with the soapy water. That's the way it always seemed to happen with him. Anyone else and she would most likely hold the grudge, but with Gil Grissom she had always felt differently, willingly or not.And in more than that one way, too . . .

Sara huffed out loud, and rinsed her hair harder than was necessary. You have to stop thinking about him like that . . . it's not healthy, and you know you're not worth the risk to him. He said it himself to Dr. Lurie. You have to stop, Sara. However much she would have preferred otherwise, it was just as hard to do as time went on, and that in itself proved to be the one thing she could not forgive Gil Grissom for.

Finishing her shower, it didn't take her long to finish getting ready, and as she climbed into her Prius, she thought back to the case that was making her leave her home on her night off. A family of five, Grissom had said. What a shame. Even though she had seen more than her share of death in her life, it always made her feel unsettled when it happened, especially in such a tragic way. He hadn't said if it was murder, but it seemed likely, with the deaths limited to one family in the same room, but then again, assumptions could lead to dangerous places. Curiosity filled her with numerous questions, ones she hopefully would be able to work out in the next few

nights, if things went well.

It did not take her long to drive from her apartment to the Strip, and when she came close to the Mirage, she rolled her eyes in frustration. She had forgotten what Grissom had said about the media coming, and now she wished she had really had sped through getting ready. Damn reporters . . . don't they have anything better to with their lives than spread the misery of the world onto everyone else and make themselves look glamorous in the process? If they really had any idea about the lives and deaths of some of these victims, then they might have a bit more sympathy. They really have no idea . . .

March 15, 1984

The thing she remembered most about That Night (because in her mind it had always seemed important enough to be capitalized) was how quiet it was afterwards. There were no guests That Night, but that wasn't too unusual anymore. For the past few years the visitors to their oceanside bedandbreakfast had been sparse. Her father blamed this on a poor economy and high gas prices keeping people at home, but everyone else knew that people were just going elsewhere. The reason behind that was known, but no one ever talked about it.

Over those past few years, John Sidle's alcoholism had gradually developed into a dark secret which nobody, absolutely nobody, was to admit was scaring away customers. Around the time of That Night, the Sidle family had perhaps an average of ten guests per month at their Sunny Garden Bed and Breakfast. These were the ones who had the misfortune to not be warned by locals ahead of time. After That Night, though, there were never any more visitors to add their noise to the nights.

On That Night, fifteen-year-old David Sidle also became a part of that silence. On most nights, except on the rare occasions that there were guests, David would turn up his stereo at 8:00; not overpoweringly loud, but enough so that you couldn't hear what was going on outside of his room. Some nights, he would just tune in to one of the local stations out of San Francisco, but more often than not it was his own heavy rock albums. Sara was never able to figure out where he had gotten all of them; it seemed like she never heard the same one twice, or maybe that was because the wall between their bedrooms muffled the sound too much. Whatever the case, she had always been grateful for the distraction it gave her, her own security blanket of Led Zeppelin and AC/DC. Her brother, however, did not turn on his stereo at all on That Night.

The one element, though, that was the underlying cause of the rest, was the most noticeable. The night had begun with its usual procession of noise which Sara always had observed from up in her room. Water running in the sink while her mother did dishes, the television blaring the commentary of a basketball game from the living room, and then the angry cries and screams that usually followed when her parents went into their bedroom. And then . . . they changed. They had switched, her mother and her father.

Their home was frozen in this state, it seemed, for Sara, at least, until morning. No one moved, no one spoke out. Nothingness choked the air, and while twelve-year-old Sara lay awake under the covers, her body and mind were also cursed into the immobility that had consumed them all.

--+--+--+--+--

"Sara, there's a free place to park right near the building in the rear," said Captain Jim Brass, who had made his way up to Sara's car while her mind had been elsewhere. She focused her mind back onto the present matter and turned to Brass.

"Thanks, I owe you one. Any luck with finding witnesses?"

"There were people on both sides of their room and across the hall, but no one heard anything. I'm still trying to get lucky with passerby around the exact TOD."

"Five people were murdered and no one heard anything? Seems strange."

"Hey, not part of the job description. Call me when you find something. Grissom's already at the scene. Room 217." With a good luck and a wave, Sara left Brass and drove around the large expanse of the hotel and into a back parking lot. She smiled slightly when she saw that there was indeed a spot reserved, just as Brass had said. Not wanting to leave Grissom waiting on a high profile case, she grabbed her kit from the backseat and began to make her way up to the hotel. It wasn't her first case at the Mirage, and she knew fairly well where she was going. When Sara arrived at the entrance to the room, the cop by the door smiled and lifted the tape for her to go under. With a quick thanks, she stooped and made her way in.

With the number of different cases Sara had witnessed through her years as a CSI, she thought she would have learned one of the important rules as an investigator, andthat is to never make assumptions. She had expected blood, overturned furniture, the smell of gunpowder in the air, but not what she did, in fact, see. The body of a man, perhaps in his mid-thirties, lay sprawled out on the carpet between the two double beds, which might not have been too unusual if it hadn't been for the expression of surprise across his face. Her eyes moved up to the bed closest to the windows. A woman, roughly the same age as the man on the floor, lay with her eyes shut, her arms still around two young children. One, an infant (and a girl, by the looks of the pink onesie), looked only to be peacefully sleeping, while the preschool-age boy had his face pressed against the bosom of the woman, his thumb still in his mouth.

"Good timing." Sara jumped slightly at the sound of Grissom's welcome. He was crouched down on the floor between the wall and the bed, examining something past her sight. She walked a few paces forward, and saw what she thought to be the fifth victim. It was a girl, six or seven at the most, whose long, dirty blonde hair fell over the ratty teddy bear now only held loosely in her arms. Her legs were folded up against her chest, and her entire body leaned up on the bed as if to make herself seem smaller. Her eyes were shut, as if she had been dreading what had come. Sara finally looked away from the bodies and at her boss.

"What do we know?"

"They were found about an hour and a half ago. A call came in to room service at 8:00. It was brought down at 8:20, and as no one had answered the door, the employee left their order by the door. An hour later, he came back to see if they were done, found the trays untouched, and knocked again. He did this a few more times, and then called management. Calls were made to the room, and weren't answered. Finally, around eleven, security got a keycard, and opened the room up. They were found like this." His voice was quiet and only half there, as if his mind was trying to process everything around him.

"Has he been questioned yet?"

"I gave his name to Brass just now. He should be taking his account soon." Grissom's eyes darted away from Sara and back over to the girl on the floor. Shivers went up Sara's spine, but she couldn't place why they had come.

"Were the bodies moved?"

"Management and the paramedics say they didn't touch them other than to take a pulse."

"ID?" Sara asked, trying to get the last of the obvious questions out of the way.

"The Bones family from Birmingham, England; apparently, on a family vacation." Sara raised her eyebrows.

"This is going to end up messy, then, with the international factor."

"The sooner we take care of this, the better," Grissom replied. "The man is 33-year-old Edgar Bones, according to the hotel records, and his 32-year-old wife, Isadora. The children are Laurel, six; Malcolm, four; and Elyse, six months." He continued to look away from Sara and at the children. Grissom was far from the type of person to become emotionally connected with victims, and yet Sara thought she heard a hint of emotion in his voice.

"Anything probative?" Sara asked while pulling on a pair of gloves from her kit, now laying open on the floor.

Grissom gave a small shrug. "Fingerprints, but in a hotel room . . . we'll just have to try to eliminate the family and staff. Slow, but that's all we can do. You can start with Edgar." He paused, and then said, "Catherine should be here soon to help us out; she had to drop off Lindsey at her sister's house."

"I thought with such a high-profile case, everyone would be here."

"Warrick just left for vacation. I thought I'd give Nick and Greg a few hours before I brought them in." Sara nodded, the explanation satisfactory, and walked back over to the middle of the room. As she looked over the body of the late Edgar Bones, she could only guess as to what the COD could be. Poison? Suffocation? Whatever it was, it was quick . . .

Looking over the body, there was nothing immediately suspicious. He was a clean, healthy looking man, though she could notice one or two grey hairs peeking out of his scalp. Her eyes followed the course of his body downward, nothing standing out.

Wait . . . Sara leaned down closer to the man's right pocket. After she quickly removed her camera from its case and snapped a picture, Sara carefully pulled on the object in the pocket. Taking another picture now that it was free, she then tried to observe her discovery. What had once been a slender and finely polished piece of wood was uncleanly snapped in two, and was just barely connected. Around one of the halves was rolled a small piece of old, thick paper. Parchment, Sara guessed. Using two pairs of forceps as to cause as little damage to the paper, she slowly unrolled it. There, in formal, black lettering, was, in Sara's mind, a chillingly clear message

"Grissom, I think I found something. Our killer left behind a note." He popped his head up to face her.

"Are you sure it's from the killer?"

"Come her and take a look." In a few seconds, Grissom came over to kneel next to Sara.

"An eye for an eye," he read aloud. "Someone had a grudge." He thought for a moment, and then added, "Check Isadora's pockets."

Taking the step over to the bed, Sara saw the lump in the right pocket. Trying not to disturb Malcolm's body, she removed a similar piece of wood, also broken. This one, however, was darker, and only slightly longer. An identical piece of parchment, though, was present.

"What does it say?"

"What goes around, comes around," Sara read. "Looks like the same handwriting. I just wish I knew the significance of the broken wood."

"The Bones 'broke' something of theirs, most likely, and now things have come full circle. Though what they did break will have to wait until we find out-" Grissom's thoughts on the wood were interrupted by the entrance of another person into the room. Catherine Willows, who was in fact the sort of person to be slightly annoyed at being called in back to work on her night off, looked even more irritated than usual as she ducked under the tape.

"We're out." Grissom looked slightly confused.

"What do you mean 'we're out?' We've only just begun processing."

"The Feds just arrived, and said that they're having their own look at this."

"We've outdone the Feds one time too many to be pushed aside like this! I knew that they'd come in, but they should at least work with us," said Sara, openly upset about being let go so soon.

"You don't think I tried telling them that?" Catherine replied. "They wouldn't hear a word of it. Said the case was too high profile. They're be up in five minutes, and they want us gone by then." Grissom, though obviously not pleased, gathered his equipment and put them back into the case from whence he had only a little while ago taken them. Sara sat brooding for a moment, and finally got up to join her boss when one of his questioning glances came her way. Leaving the evidence they had already gathered on the bedside table, they made their way out in three minutes instead of five, exiting the room, which was as still and eerily discomforting as they had found it.

The three Vegas CSIs had almost reached the end of the hallway when they saw the U. S. government forensic investigators exit an elevator. The woman and two men didn'teven glance over at Sara, Grissom, and Catherine as they walked past to get to room 217.

The short elevator ride was filled with shared feelings of annoyance. Forced from my couch, and when I finally start getting into the case, I'm off to home again. What a wasted night, thought Sara as she leaned up against the back wall of the elevator. Their farewells were short and simple when they reached the ground floor, and the three CSIs made their separate ways into the dark and early morning.

Sara's ride home was uneventful, though her mind was elsewhere. Even though she was off the Bones case and would no longer be doing any more work for it, the evidence and scene kept occupying her thoughts. With only the information she had, she tried to piece together a hypothesis for how the homicide had occurred. Due to the notes left behind they at least knew it wasprobably murder. Other than that, Sara remained somewhat puzzled even as she pulled into her parking place.

Hopefully the Discovery Channel is doing reruns tonight. Her hopes slightly up, she hurried out into her apartment building. The silence hit her as she walked and made her way to the stairwell. Usually filled with screaming kids when she wanted to sleep, the halls were dead at two in the morning. In only a few minutes she came to the door to her own apartment, 221, and in her eagerness to see if her show was on (and to get out of the suddenly-too-quiet hall), she almost didn't notice a small piece of paper stuck to her door. With her key half-turned in the lock, she removed the paper from the door, which looked to be folded in half.

I've paid my bills, kept quiet, never made a mess . . . what's this for? Sara started to unfold the note when she noticed something that made her freeze for a moment. Parchment . . . It's the same type of paper from the hotel room . . . She remained still for a moment, and tried to come to her senses. She was, after all, a scientist. It wasn't that parchment was rare, it just wasn't as commonly used nowadays. I bet if I looked closely, I would see the differences in the paper . . . someone probably made invitations for a kind of party. This settled her down a bit, though there still was a voice that remained that said, who gives out party invitations in the middle of the night? Trying to push that thought aside, she finished unlocking her apartment, and quickly came in (not forgetting to lock the door behind her). Turning on the closest light, she slowly unfolded the paper.

Dear Ms. Sidle, it began, I regret to inform you that there has been a family crisis that I would very much prefer to discuss with you in person. I had been informed that this was your night off and that you would most likely be home and awake. However, I found that this was not so, and I would like to try againto meet with you as soon as possible. Please meet me at ten tomorrow morning in your lobby, and all will be explained. Sincerely, Albus Dumbledore.

It was several minutes before Sara stopped staring at the note with a look of confusion fixed on her face and a feeling dread spreading slowly through her body.

A/N: Well, there's chapter one! Hopefully updates will be quicker! Oh, by the way, there were three little "Easter eggs," so to speak, in here . . . basically, three little things relating to something else. One was to the classics, one was to horror, and the other was to mysteries. Let's see if anyone can find them!