Chapter 2
Gwynn wasted no time in examining the outside of the compartment. She did not know if the girl was dead or merely unconscious, but she knew that foul play must have been involved. “ All you need to do is look at the manner of the incident… ” she vaguely thought
Malfoy lingered a few paces away from his fellow prefect, trying to figure out what she was playing at. He wasn’t sure what she was doing. He had half a mind to think that the scene before them had frightened her and sent her into a nervous episode, but her face was composed and her breathing was even. She was the epitome of cool and collected.
“Man the door, will you? Make sure everyone stays in their compartments.” Gwynn said to Draco, opening the door to the dead (probably) girl’s compartment.
“Excuse me?”
“Problem?”
“Yes, in matter of fact, there is. Shouldn’t we get an adult?”
Gwynn seemed to ponder this for a moment before shaking her head. If this was a crime scene (and she expected it was) the adults would not know what to do with it and would more than likely tamper with valuable evidence.
Draco groaned in exasperation, but gestured for Gwynn to go in as he stood in front of the door.
“There better be a good reason for this.”
Malfoy couldn’t help but be curious about what Gwynn was doing and kept looking over his shoulder. He was surprised when he watched her pulled out her compact.
“Now is surely not the time to powder your nose, Adler.”
“I need silence, Malfoy,” she replied, “I won’t be able to think properly if you keep blabbing your mouth.”
Gwynn took her compact and lowered it just under the girl’s nose. The mirror, as was anticipated, did not fog up.
“She’s not breathing and,” Gwynn moved to check her pulse, “I can’t detect a heartbeat.”
“Now we should really get an adult.”
Gwynn shushed Malfoy and casted a spell on herself.
“Nullum relinquam marcam.”
“I’ve never heard of that spell before.” Malfoy says, eyes narrowed. He is now standing in the compartment with Gwynn, his curiosity getting the better of him.
“That’s because I made it up. It will ensure that I don’t mess with the crime scene.”
“You… made it up?”
Gwynn sighed, it really wasn’t that hard of a concept to comprehend.
“Most spells are in Latin, have you noticed? You know enough Latin and creating new spells is easy.”
Malfoy mumbled something about nobody liking show offs, which caused Gwynn to have to hide her laughter with a cough.
Gwynn scanned the compartment and dropped to her knees when she noticed a peculiar scratch on the floor. Mord , it read, painstakingly scratched into the wood flooring of the compartment. Where had she heard that word before? The girl’s nails were bloodied and chipped. Gwynn realized this was familiar to a case she once read about. Guessing the cause of death, she leant down to smell the girl’s mouth and caught a whiff of almonds. Cyanide. Whoever did this must have cast a silencing spell, preventing the victim from screaming. She reached in her pocket and pulled out her pen. She carried one around because she found writing with quills inconvenient and quarrelsome. She uncapped the pen and ran the tip under the girl’s fingernails, collecting the skin cells. Gwynn hoped they’d be the skin cells of the murderer. She hoped the girl fought and that her attacker would bare the scars dealt by her hands for the rest of his life. She then capped her pen, making a note to properly examine it under a microscope as soon as she got the materials to do so. She then thought back to the cause of death and the note engraved into the floor.
“Just like A Study in Scarlet.” Gwynn said to herself.
“A study in what now?”
“Never mind that, the game, Malfoy is afoot. This girl has been murdered.”
Malfoy stepped back in surprise. “How could you possibly know that? What game?”
“Look at the scratches on the floor.”
“That could be her suicide note.”
“Really, Malfoy, I thought you were smarter than this. Making these marks would have hurt, It would have taken time. She’s trying to tell us something. No, this is no suicide, but that’s exactly what the Ministry will chalk it up as.” Gwynn replied, now on her hands and knees, looking under the seat and spotting a glinting object. Upon further investigation she realizes it is a bracelet, a bracelet that she has seen before.
“Recognize this?” Gwynn holds the bracelet out for Malfoy to inspect.
“That’s Pansy’s. Wait- you can’t possibly think that she had anything to do with this.”
Gwynn shook her head. A quick, short movement, as if she were annoyed that Malfoy was not catching on to what she was implying. “No, Malfoy, I do not think she could commit murder. She could, however, have witnessed one.” Then, after a pause she added, almost as if to herself, “She may have made my time at Hogwarts living hell, but she is not capable of murder.”
Draco stared at Gwynn, befuddled. He of course knew of Pansy’s taunts, hell, he even found amusement from them at times, but he never knew the extent that Pansy had gone to make Gwynn miserable. But Draco realized that even if he had known, he wouldn’t have done a thing. That was all before his family's banishment, before his father went to prison. He shouldn’t care about how Gwynn has been treated. He doesn’t. He can’t.
“This bracelet, at the very least, tells us who was here before the murder.” Gwynn states, breaking Draco out of his thoughts. “Is it reasonable to say that if Pansy was here, Crabbe and Goyle were as well?”
“Yes, Blaise was probably here too.
This seemed to confuse Gwynn. “Zabini? Then why wasn’t he with them when he passed by our compartment?”
Malfoy shrugged, he didn’t want Gwynn to know how much it hurt when his friends, or should he say ex-friends, passed by him without saying hello. He hasn’t spoken a word to any of them since he was exiled. Draco didn’t realize how much he valued his friends until they stopped talking to him.
Gwynn glanced around the compartment and noticed a lone strand of hair that she had almost missed. She quickly grabbed her pocket-sized copy of Crime and Punishment and sandwiched the hair in between the pages. She would examine it later. She searched through the girl’s pockets and discovered that there was no wand. Gwynn scans the compartment to see if it had fallen out during the struggle, her eyes stop their sweep once they reach the scratches on the floor. “ Mord, how peculiar. What could it mean? ” Once satisfied with her work she straightened to her full height and marched into the hallway, Malfoy following after. Suddenly Gwynn turned on her heel and gripped the collar of Malfoy’s shirt, pulling him down to her level.
“Listen to me,” She said in a low voice. One that, if he was being completely honest, both excited and frightened him, “You cannot tell anyone that we were in there. If the Ministry finds out we were snooping around their crime scene they’ll blame the whole thing on us. I can solve this thing better than they can, but don’t think for a second that they won’t place the blame on us instead of investigating properly. They’re lazy and will do anything they can to get out of doing paperwork. Do you understand?”
Normally, Draco would not stand someone speaking to him in this manner, let alone a muggleborn, but he found himself too stunned to argue. Slowly, without breaking eye contact, he nodded. He saw how Gwynn worked and believed her words. After all, didn’t the Ministry deny that Voldemort was back simply because they did not want to deal with the people of the Wizarding World’s panic?
Pleased with Malfoy’s lack of resistance, Gwynn released Draco’s collar and smoothed it down. “Follow my lead and don’t get us caught.” She turned from Draco looking down the length of the corridor and began to shout. “SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP US! WE NEED A MEDIC!”
Malfoy was taken aback by how effective this method of hers turned out to be. Almost immediately the trolley cart witch had come to comfort Gwynn, who had become hysterical. Draco wasn’t entirely sure what he should be doing, knowing that he could never be as believable as Gwynn was. So he decided his best reaction should be no reaction. He would pretend to go into shock.
He stared blankly ahead as Gwynn tearfully explained to a professor how she and him had found the girl unconscious during their turn patrolling the train. Harry Potter had shown up at some point, trying to ask Gwynn what had happened. “He can’t bear the thought of not being involved in the action .” Malfoy thought bitterly. He couldn’t help the surge of pleasure he felt when Gwynn completely ignored his questions.
“I am way too dehydrated for this ,” Gwynn thought, already feeling a headache coming on. She kept up the damsel in distress act on for a good 10 minutes before she finally deemed it safe enough to stop her tears. She had to admit, Malfoy did better than she thought he would. He was uncharacteristically quiet and kept his face blank.
A professor told Draco to escort Gwynn back to their compartment, saying, much to Gwynn’s annoyance, “She is in no condition to be alone right now.” And so Malfoy smugly walked with her, mockingly offering her words of comfort. It was incredibly hard for Gwynn not to smack him, but she kept up her act. She may have also accidentally stepped on his foot a few times with all of her staggering, but who’s to say?
Malfoy and Gwynn changed into their robes and prepared to exit the train. Gwynn was thinking a mile a minute, assessing the crime scene in her mind (for she made sure she remembered every last detail of it) and sorting out what was evidence and what was not. She decided that she couldn’t rule anything out until she interrogated the suspects. How she would get them to talk, she did not know. Why would they tell her anything? They don’t even like her.
Gwynn’s eyes shifted up to Malfoy’s unusually quiet form. He had his legs curled up underneath him, gazing out the window, lost in thought. He surely wouldn’t help her, would he? Did she even want his help? No, she decided, she did not, but what other choice did she have? “You’ll think of something, you always do. If you ask for his advice and he accepts you’ll only be subjecting yourself to his degradation for the foreseeable future. It isn’t worth it. ” And so Gwynn turned her attention back to the crime scene, making sure she didn’t miss a single detail.
Malfoy watched Gwynn from the corner of his eye. He knew she was smart, smarter than him, and he was known for being cunning. She had a glazed over look in her eyes and was hardly moving. She seemed to be lost in her thoughts. Malfoy couldn’t help but wonder how her brain worked. He wanted to rack her brain and see just how she viewed the world, and how much of it she knew. He stopped that thought before it could properly form. That could never happen. Not with Gwynn’s lineage. She may be smarter than him, but she was still inferior. Draco realized he was almost trying to convince himself of this.
Gwynn had had enough of being in this small space with Draco Malfoy, and so when the train came to a full stop she eagerly stood up and headed toward the exit.
Gwynn got in a carriage with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. Harry kept pestering her for answers on the girl, who’s name turned out to be Samantha Day. Hermione told Harry to leave Gwynn alone and so Harry begrudgingly relented. He was sure to get answers eventually.
Gwynn gazed up at Hogwarts. The forest surrounding them was dark and foreboding. There was rumored to be centaurs in the woods, but Gwynn did not know if these rumors held any truth. The light that the castle was emitting was warm and inviting, making all the students eager to get inside. She glanced at the many lanterned carriages ahead and behind her and noticed the comfortable hush that had befallen them. Yes, they were all eager to get home. “Home,” thought Gwynn, “How peculiar.” She realized that despite all of the torment the other Slytherin girls had put her through, Hogwarts would always be home to her. This made her strangely emotional. This was her first sanctuary.
Draco was always relieved when the school year started and he was able to return to Hogwarts. He, for one, got to get away from his father, and by extension the feeling of insignificance he felt in his presence. His father barely warranted the name. Not once in all of Draco’s (admittedly lonely) life had Lucius ever even hinted at liking Draco. Draco suspected that he tolerated him for his mother’s sake, and if it were not for her his world would be even more bleak than it already was.
Draco felt disconnected from reality as he considered the new school year. Who was he now that he had no statis? His whole identity was built around his reputation, and now, it seemed, he had none, or at least not one that he was proud of. His hatred for muggleborns seemed unfounded without the support of Crabbe and Goyle. He was no longer affiliated with the Death Eaters, so being contrarian seemed pointless. What was the point of hating someone if no one agreed? What’s the point when it makes you the obvious villain? Draco had played with the idea of being the bad guy for quite some time, though he’d never admit it. He even found himself playing into the role. Harry was the hero and Draco was the one to be defeated. This irked him. Harry may be the hero, but Draco would be victorious, even if that means being the person everyone thinks him to be.
The carriage came to a stop and woke Draco from his reverie. All of the students filed through the big oak doors, in a hurry to get to the Great Hall. Candles lit the long stone corridor, throwing shadows upon the wall. Malfoy realized that he had no one to sit with in the Great Hall, and wondered if he could sit with Gwynn. They both were prefects, after all, and surely had things to discuss. Sitting with a Mudblood was better than Potter seeing him sit alone. He looked around to see if he could spot her, but quickly realized this was futile. She wasn’t here. So where was she?
Gwynn opted out of the feast in the Great Hall to go see Myrtle in the girl’s bathroom. She did this often, seeing as she’d rather visit her friend than ignore the glares of the girls from her house. The bathroom remained barely used, making it a perfect hangout spot for Gwynn. This is because in Gwynn’s second year, Ginny Weasley got stuck in the chamber of secrets, whose entrance was in the girl’s bathroom, and was saved by none other than the Harry Potter. He had all of the first years swooning after that stunt. This worked out in Gwynn’s favor because now no one comes near the bathroom.
“Myrtle,” Gwynn called, “It’s Gwynn. You’ll never believe what happened on the train ride here.”
Myrtle knew her friend would be coming back to school today, but still felt a rush of excitement at hearing her voice after not having spoken to her (or anyone else) since June. At the sight of Gwynn, Myrtle wanted nothing more than to give her friend a hug and was sad that this would never be possible. Pushing this sudden rush of sadness aside, she floated over to Gwynn, ready to hear what she had to say. If Gwynn thought something was unexpected, it must have been very unusual.
“A seventh year girl was murdered on the train,” Gwynn said, a glimmer in her eye that probably shouldn’t have been there considering she was talking about the death of one of her schoolmates, “I got there first and had a chance to investigate before the Ministry could mess up the crime scene.”
“I know that look. You’re going to try to solve this case, aren’t you? You don’t trust the Ministry to do their job.”
“Of course I’m going to solve it. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity. How many times do you stumble upon a crime scene?” Gwynn winced when she realized Myrtle had once been the crime scene, “No offense.”
“None taken. What’s your first course of action?”
“Solving this thing is going to take much longer than I’d like, but I need to get some equipment. Do you think my owl will be able to carry Amazon Prime packages? Oh, no matter, I’ll ask to borrow someone else’s to help lessen the load on Dmitri. Anyway, I may need to break into Slughorn’s office in order to get a few things that will help me sort out my possible evidence.”
“Why can’t you just ask him?” Myrtle asked. Surely a student asking for a jar wouldn’t be outlandish.
“I don’t know his character yet. He could get curious and ask what I would need it for. He can’t have his students using his jars to hold Felix Felicis or a love potion. No, he’d have to monitor what I’d take and that puts an unwanted spotlight on me. I need to get it soon. I can’t leave these cells on the tip of my pen forever or this hair wedged in between the pages of my book. I’ll have to study them once I get a microscope. This would all be so much easier if this school actually taught science.”
Gwynn went over the rest of the evidence with Myrtle. Myrtle was a Ravenclaw when she attended Hogwarts and her insight could be valuable. She brought up the strange word written on the floor.
“Mord… is it a secret code? A message written in a different language?”
“That’s it!” Gwynn exclaimed, “Mord is the German word for murder.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“No… it’s not. Surely she wouldn’t spend her final minutes stating the obvious.” Gwynn almost asked Myrtle what she would have written in her final moments, but decided that that was probably in poor taste. Gwynn looked at her watch and guessed that the feast would probably end soon, “I must be off, if I’m not there to escort the first years in time, Malfoy will never let me hear the end of it.”
“Malfoy?” Myrtle knew of Draco, she had had a few… run-ins with him. “I didn’t know you two were friends.”
Gwynn let out a short bitter laugh. “Trust me, we aren’t. He’s just a fellow prefect. See you soon, yeah?” And with that, she was gone, leaving Myrtle to think of all the times that Draco had visited her bathroom.