C-4

Sectumsempra

Once back at Hogwarts Hermione and Luke went to their separate rooms and Hermione sat in her personal common room and pondered Draco. Maybe she should write Harry and ask if he had heard anything about what was going on in America. Maybe he would have some insight.

"No. I'm going to leave it alone. Draco isn't stupid he'll go to someone if he needs help. Won't he? But really who uses sectumsempra? Who would use that spell? It's horrible. Evil. Vile. Painful. How does this person even know about it? No one outside of Hogwarts students or old students or The Order knows that spell. I don't get it. Harry found it in Snape's old potions book but he got rid of the book. The members of the Order knew about it because of Harry and because Snape was a member of the Order. Snape might have told some of the death eaters when he was on their side, they might know it. What had Draco told his friend about me? Why was he in there? Why do I care? He did look nice. He's really attractive. I guess he's always been attractive. Why does Draco have an American friend? Did we come to a mutual understanding in there? Was Luke trying to flirt with me? Oh goodness I hope he doesn't think that was a date. No, he can't think that was a date. I've got to stop thinking. I need to relax. Wait, why do I think that Malfoy is attractive? What's going on? I also need to stop having these conversations aloud to my self, people might think I've gone mad."

Hermione's thoughts were running 1000 miles a minute. She really needed to get out. She decided to head to find Ginny, it was a Thursday and Ginny was already finished with practiced. She went to the Gryffindor common room to find Ginny and some other girls in her year reading a magazine about some new hot quidditch player from Egypt. He was attractive, dang. He was super attractive. Hermione sat down with the younger girls and drowned her thoughts in the super hot Egyptian. After they had their fill of Mr. Egypt Ginny came back to Hermione's room and they made hot chocolate and talked about school, the boys, N.E.W.T.s, and even quidditch. Hermione still didn't understand that game. She didn't get why everyone loved it so, it terrified her. She would rather face Voldemort again than play that game.

At the same time Luke was in his room thinking about Hermione. He was trying to sort out his feelings about her. She was very smart, beautiful, famous, could carry on an intelligent conversation, and apparently wasn't into him. He wasn't sure if she was into Draco but that git had a better chance than he did at the moment. Maybe if he let Harry and Ron know that Hermione was interested in Draco. But she might not be and then he would be starting stuff that didn't need to be started. Maybe he'd just let it play out and see where it went. He really wasn't even sure if he liked Hermione or just liked the idea of her. She might be too independent and set in her ways for him. She was a muggle born what would Malfoy want with a muggle born, anyways? What had he said that caught her interest? He wished he had been able to hear.

Draco was at home talking things over with Roddy. He had written down every name he could think of; dead, alive, in Azkaban, on the run.

Harry Potter* Snape* Ron Weasely*

Hermione Granger* Dumbledore* Arthur Weasley*

Molly Weasley* Tonks* Lupin*

Moody* Voldemort Bellatrix

Lucius Narcissa McGonagall*

Fred Weasley* George Weasley* Ginny Weasley*

Charlie Weasley* Bill Weasley* Percy Weasley*

Pettigrew Dolohov Slughorn

Jugson V. Crabbe G. Goyle

Blaise Pansy Daphne

He bolded the ones that were still alive and not in jail. He underlines those that were in jail. The rest were dead. Those that had stars were members of the Order.

They weren't coming up with anyone. He couldn't think of any other death eaters that would know the spell. He couldn't think of anyone that had recently gone to America and would do this. No one that he knew of had left England, much less gone to America, well minus Potter and Weasel, but they were doing auror stuff and were with other aurors. Plus, Potter and Weasel would never kill anyone unless it was extremely necessary. He didn't like them, actually he down right despised them, but they weren't murders. They had a hard enough time killing people when they were trying to obliterate them much less randomly. He understood not wanting to kill. He hated the idea. In all reality it made him sick to think about it.

Roddy understood and didn't pry. Roddy knew that Draco would talk about everything in his own time. It was pointless to try to weasel it out of him. He would just clam up and it would take him longer to talk. He could tell Draco was close to wanting to talk about it. This stuff going on in America was effecting him and opening up wounds that had not fully healed yet. He knew that he was the only person that Draco would talk to as well. He didn't have any other true friends. Sure in Hogwarts he had followers but not really friends-maybe Blaise and Theo, maybe. He had Pansy who just wanted in his pants. Draco wasn't interested in Pansy, even when she threw herself at him he turned her down. She wasn't the type of person that Draco wanted to be with. He would have to talk about it eventually, and Roddy would listen when he was ready.

"Maybe this guy will stop." Draco mused to himself. " He isn't killing for any real reason, is he?"

"It doesn't appear there is any reason behind his madness, we haven't been able to piece it together if there is. We can hope he'll stop, but there are some sick people in the world that will kill just for the thrill of it. It appears that is what he is doing. These people aren't connected in any way except the fact they are wizards. They don't know any of the same people, don't have the same professions, no family that is related as far back as we can trace. They don't have any physical similarities, there is not any kind of sexual abuse. They are just left for dead. We are finding them in different places too, and it doesn't appeared they are killed at the same time of day," replied Roddy with a mixture of anger and sadness.

"I'm scared for my friends and my family. My girlfriend and her family. It's not like we can even really protect ourselves besides staying at our houses and putting up heavy duty wards. It's not like us to not be hospitable but we are afraid to be right now because of this killer. We have a larger wizarding population in America and we are much more spread out and it's making our normal way of life difficult. Because of magic we can live far from one another and still apperate to where we need be in a matter of seconds so there are witches and wizards in all 50 states. Sure, we have large wizarding communities in most of the major muggle cities but we also have a lot of smaller communities in small towns all throughout America. Many of these communities are very small and aren't well known. We can't figure out how this fellow is finding them."

"This is all very disturbing. I do have to say I'm worried about what's going on over there. Is there any way you can get a list of all the wizards that are in America that went to Hogwarts, were a member of either of the Orders, knew Snape and his family, or were a known death eater, even if they defected?" Draco asked.

"I've thought of that, but there are so many different ways and places that they can get into our country. They could have come in from many different countries, which would make it even harder. I know we have to register portkeys when travel from one country to another, but ever since the defeat of Voldemort they've been much easier to come by and wealthy families who travel a lot have been able to get portkeys that allow them to travel to wherever whenever they want too and they don't have to preregister. It is something I will contact our ministry about and make sure I get all the information I can."

"Once you get a list of all the wizards that aren't from American then I can help you go through it. Maybe there will be name on there that will stick out to me that I can't think of now. When did these murders start? Let's make a timeline and I need a map, I don't know where all these places are. America is frickin' huge. I'm sounding like freaking Granger over here with all this timeline map crap. When do you plan on going back?" Draco said all at once and without really breathing.

Roddy laughed and said, "You need a drink, buddy. Where's your firewhiskey? You are going to tell me what happened with Granger today, I saw you."

Draco pointed to a hutch in the corner but said nothing about his other comment. Roddy grabbed two glasses and poured some firewhiskey. He handed a glass to Draco then walked out of room and into the guest bedroom and grabbed a file and walked back. Roddy opened the file and spread it over the coffee table. Draco and Roddy went over and over everything Roddy had until way after their firewhiskey had run out. He wanted to ask about Hermione again, but decided against it. Again, Draco would talk when he was ready.