The next day being Saturday, Snape had plenty of opportunity to speak to the principal players. He started easy with the Durmstrang classmates. Nobody knew where Mr. Danchev had been the night before, and but nobody had found it particularly odd that he hadn't been at dinner.

"Well, he'd had a hard day," one Durmstrang student hedged in his heavily accented English.

"You mean he'd been caned that morning?" Snape asked, gratified as the teen's eyes widened in surprise.

"You know about that?" he asked.

"Tell me what you know about it, Mr. Lindgren," Snape encouraged.

"You should ask Krum about it," the boy answered, looking away. "But I can tell you it was given to him by Karkaroff."

"Do you know what his infraction was?" Snape pressed.

"No," he answered truthfully. "But it had to have hurt. Karkaroff has a strong arm, even a few strokes are brutal, let alone ten."

"Was Krum a friend of Mr. Danchev?"

The boy snorted. "Mir was his keeper," he explained. "His job was to keep him from embarrassing Bulgaria. They weren't friends; Mir was following orders."

"Did Krum dislike Mr. Danchev?" Snape asked, surprised.

"Of course," the boy answered. "Would you like your father's fist over your life? The whip he used to bring you to heel?"

"I would not," Snape answered thoughtfully. "I might try to get rid of him."

The boy snorted. "They have said that the English want to make this our problem, as if a Durmstrang person hurt Mir. We know the truth."

"And what is the truth?" Snape asked.

"England is unstable," he answered. "Though your ministry denies it, we know that there are forces afoot. And those forces benefit from disrupting this competition, do they not? My father always says that to find the guilty, you need to find the benefit."

"Your father is a wise man, Mr. Lindgren," Snape told him, nodding. "Let me know if there's anything else you want us to know."

. . .

Snape decided to talk to Karkaroff next, and to offer his help. His old acquaintance should be well and truly panicking by now, worried about the political forces back home. He was already nearly in a constant state of panic as his dark mark had grown darker during the year, and Snape had discussed it several times with him.

"Good evening," Snape greeted him as he entered his chamber. Snape felt the floor shift subtly under his feet, reminding him that though this room was as large as the chamber he had at Hogwarts they were in fact on a boat.

"My friend," Karkaroff returned, looking somewhat relieved to see Snape. "I'm so glad you have come. You have always had a mind for these things."

"What happened?" Snape asked, in a friendly and guileless voice.

"Who would have thought someone would kill poor Mir?"

"I heard you had decidedly less sympathy for the lad earlier today," Snape answered, accepting the vodka that Karkaroff offered him.

Karkaroff shrugged. "I caned the boy, if that's what you mean."

"Why?"

"Infraction," Karkaroff answered. "He overstepped himself with Krum. He didn't protest the punishment."

"The English might look at your treatment of the boy being somewhat to blame," Snape explained to him. "Perhaps it was suicide?"

"Durmstrang students are not like your weak English mushrooms," Karkaroff scoffed. "The boy knew he had done wrong and accepted the punishment for it. He was not upset."

"Perhaps Krum . . .?"

"No," Karkaroff replied. "Not Krum. Oh, he looks all tough and like he's going to eat a baby for breakfast, but he is not that way. He is a good boy, kind even. I have had to toughen him up."

"Can you thing of anybody from Durmstrang that would have hurt the boy?" Snape asked. "Grudges, perhaps?"

"Not a one," Karkaroff told him. "I think it must be an English wizard that would do this thing. Nobody from Durmstrang did. Or perhaps the French – poison is a woman's weapon, yes?"

"Yes," Snape confirmed. He knew better than to batter the iron occlumency shields that Karkaroff possessed, but he couldn't tell if the man was being honest or not. There was something just a little off about him, but he couldn't place it.

"Do you know anything that could help me find the killer?" Snape asked, his voice soft and hypnotic. Snape used his occlumency just to push a little, knowing anything more would produce defenses.

Karkaroff hesitated, and then shook his head. "I fear that it is nothing."

"It is something," Snape assured him. "If your instincts tell you something's off, then something is off."

"It is nothing," Karkaroff repeated, and then looked away. "It is about Alastor Moody. You know how much the man hates me."

"Of course," Snape answered.

"I saw him talking with the boy in the hallway earlier today. They were talking earnestly, but stopped when I came upon them," Karkaroff explained. "As I said, nothing."

"Have you notified the boy's parents yet?" Snape asked.

"I have floo called them," Karkaroff nodded, quaffing his vodka. "They are distraught."

"Naturally," Snape agreed. "I understand that the boy had special . . . obligations to Krum's family."

"Yes, he was their little owl," Karkaroff agreed. "Sending messages either way, making sure that Krum towed the line. That is what got him caned."

"But I thought his job was approved?"

"Yes, but not if done in an unscrupulous manner," Karkaroff explained. "He was found rifling through Krum's things for evidence of wrongdoing. He admitted trying to earn extra credit by finding something incriminating."

"Who caught him rifling?" Snape asked, contemplating.

"Krum himself," Karkaroff answered. "Marched him to me for punishment, too."

"Most boys are loathe to get their classmates in trouble," Snape observed.

"Krum takes his responsibility very seriously," Karkaroff answered. "As well as the honor code. No, the boys know better than rule-breaking around him."

"Then if he was so straight and narrow why did he need a minder?" Snape asked. "Why was Mir there?"

"Honestly, I don't know," Karkaroff answered, eyeing his empty glass and considering another drink. "Krum is exactly what we want at Durmstrang; brave, smart, loyal and fierce with a first-rate pedigree. He has never been in trouble that I am aware of."

"Curious," Snape answered, and set down the glass of vodka, untouched. "Thank you for your time."

"You will turn up the culprit?" Karkaroff asked. "And tell me? Man to man?"

"I will," Snape told him, nodding soberly.

As Snape left and walked back to his quarters, he wondered at what he had found out. He felt sure about crossing Karkaroff off the suspect list, he had just seemed too damn innocent. And there's also just the logistics – why cane a boy you're intending to poison? But there was also something else there, something else that Karkaroff wasn't saying.

Snape returned to his quarters, surprised to find a certain fuzzy-haired witch waiting for him.

"Good afternoon, professor," she greeted him.

"Good afternoon," he replied. "Pray tell me how you are in my private office?"

"We can discuss details later," she brushed it aside. "What have you found out?"

"Let me be very clear, Miss Granger," he intoned, sitting on his chair and leaning back. "I am not your employee, and we are not on some silly show on the telly in which we are an unlikely duo solving crimes, is that clear?"

"Clear," she answered, nodding. "Please?"

"Moonseed poison," he answered with a sigh. "That is the cause of death. Dobby cannot be found, but I am hoping that he can confirm Potter's whereabouts. I have talked to several others trying to ascertain the character and habits of the decedent. I have found several interesting bits, including the fact that Krum had caught Mir going through his things this morning and brought him to Karkaroff for punishment. He was soundly caned."

"Caned?" Hermione paled.

"Not an unusual punishment for Durmstrang," Snape nodded. "Though rarer in Hogwarts. Usually only reserved for the most heinous of crimes, such as cheating, or perhaps theft."

Hermione looked away, not wanting to engage on that particular score. "Shall I research Moonseed then?" she asked.

"I already know what's to be known," Snape sighed.

"Can we detect its residue on people?" she asked. "Like, could we make their hands glow if they handled it?"

"Perhaps," he mused. "I believe it might react to other phosphorescent substances, such as found in some sea creatures."

"I would love to help you," she supplied helpfully.

"Of course you would," he replied, rolling his eyes. "I suppose you can, if you must."

"Harry's in custody," she answered in a smaller voice, and suddenly seemed the child she really was. "I have to be busy."

"Then start straining pickled plankton," Snape sighed. "This potion is going to be tricky."