The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition

Title: Tracing the Untraceable Path

Team: Falmouth Falcons

Position: Keeper - Grey - Write about something untraceable.

Warnings: Warning for murder, hinted at character death and actual character death, and a slight bit out of character. Muggle/Detective!AU.

Word Count: 1062

I hope you all enjoy Tracing the Untraceable Path.

"I promise you," the voice of a young-sounding man reached Harry's ears as he walked down the hall. "I swear I don't know how I got there."

The young man in question - Dennis Creevey - had never shown a history of psychological problems. He had never been known to be a violent young man, either. Harry remembered him from school. He had always been such a kind boy, and if anyone was to be in any sort of trouble Harry would have bet on the boy's older brother, Colin.

Harry stared down at the file he'd been given at headquarters. The gruesome crime scene loomed large from the picture he held in his grasp. He could almost smell the horrible stench of it, and for a moment gagged before continuing down the hall to the grey cell in which Dennis Creevey was being held for questioning.

"Hello, Dennis," Harry said, putting on a friendly smile and trying to scrub the memory of the crime scene photo out of his mind.

"Harry!" Dennis cried happily, feeling a swell of happiness that someone who knew him had been given the case. "Harry, you have to tell them I didn't do it."

"Are you telling me that Mr Thomas just dropped dead of his own accord?" asked the guard who'd let Harry in, shaking his head. "I suppose next you're going to tell us that he also just randomly fell ap—"

"But I swear on all that is holy in this world that I didn't do it," Dennis cried, looking pleadingly at Harry. "You have to believe me, Harry."

This had not been the first time that Harry had heard this argument. The prior two cases had suspects who had said the same thing. One person claiming innocence for a crime like that was a coincidence. Two or more was something else entirely. But what Harry couldn't get his head around was—

"Dennis," Harry said, motioning for the guard to exit the room, "take a seat."

Dennis looked like he was about to say something, but then looked down at his feet. He must not have realized that he had gotten up from his seat. Sitting back down, Dennis looked imploringly over the table at Harry.

"I want you to answer my questions as honestly as you can, Dennis," Harry said, watching as the young man put his head in his hands. The tiny blond man's mood seemed as grey as the walls that surrounded them.

"Okay," Dennis answered, nodding.

"What do you remember about last night?"

Dennis shook his head. "I don't remember anything at all," he replied, looking at Harry's steepled fingers. "I can remember everything until the point of time when the crime I'm being held for was committed."

"That sounds a bit convenient, don't you think, Dennis?"

Dennis shook his head vehemently as Harry placed the folder on the table between them. He opened the file and watched as Dennis started to wretch.

"Don't you think if someone had done something like that they would remember it?" Dennis asked, choking back a wave of bile that had started to rise in the back of his throat.

"Not if they were tryin—"

"Listen to yourself, Harry," Dennis shouted, slamming his fists on the table between them. "Who in their right mind would plan something like that and then try and get away with it?"

"Someone who thinks he or she is clever," Harry stated, watching Dennis for any sign that he could be capable of such a thing.

"We've known each other since secondary school, right?"

Harry nodded. "I don't understand what that has to do with the crime that you are being charged with, Dennis."

"In all that time that we've known each other, have I ever seemed to be cold and calculating?"

Harry shook his head.

"Have I ever seemed like a person that was capable of doing that?" He nodded towards the crime scene photo. The grizzly mess caused the bile to rise in both of their throats this time.

"People change, Dennis," Harry said, hating the sound of the phrase even more than he'd ever hated any other phrase. His superiors had said the same thing when Luna Lovegood had been charged with the death of Oliver Wood.

"People don't change like that overnight though, do they?"

Harry had to give him that. People didn't change like that overnight. It happened gradually. Like a slope. And, yet, there was this strange niggling feeling at the back of his mind. The victims and culprits had all been members of Harry's friend group or schoolmates. First Cho Chang and Marietta Edgecombe. Then Luna and Oliver. And now Dennis and Dean. What was the connection? What was happening? What had come over his friends to make them suddenly turn into—

It was as if a pale, grey curtain had been pulled over his eyes. He could see the frightened look on Dennis's face and he could hear the younger man's words, but it felt as though he was watching a scene from a horror movie unfold by his own hands.

"I'm sorry, Dennis," a cold voice echoed from Harry's throat, "but we can't have you blowing our cover, now can we?"

He could feel himself flying over the table and as his hands wrapped around Dennis's neck he knew no more, except for the greyness.

Harry looked at Dennis's unblinking, unseeing eyes as he got up from his seat at the table. He didn't remember doing anything in order for Dennis to end up dead. But something had for sure happened and he was going to figure it out if it was the last thing he did.

"I will avenge you, Dennis," he told the young man's body as he knocked on the door.

The guard opened the door and allowed Harry to exit. He could hear a maliciously cold chuckle in the back of his mind. A chuckle that brought shivers down his spine. Perhaps he should take a vacation after this case is finished. That would take his mind off everything. But first, he had to figure this out and trace the untraceable path.

As he exited the building into the dim, grey sunlight of another dreary day, the dark one hidden safely in the back of his mind began to plot once more.

And Harry was none the wiser.

I hope you all enjoyed Tracing the Untraceable Path. I would like to take this time to thank all of the people who beta-read this for me. It truly means a lot that you would help me out like this. So, thank you all very much.