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mrsprongs · 7 months

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Ghostface (Part I)

Ghostface has come to Hogwarts

Warnings: Death/Violence, Slightly abusive relationship dynamic, dumbledore

The rusted hinges of the kitchen door creaked loudly, the sound echoing around the deserted room as a shadowy figure moved like smoke between the towers of pots and pans. The figure tentatively reached into a cupboard, feeling around between the cobwebs and cutlery until their fingers closed around a glossy bar. The moonlight, a ghostly glow that seeped through the cracked and crusted window, revealed the item to be a chocolate, picked from a secret stash. There was a crinkle as the figure, a red-haired girl with a chubby face and wide eyes, slowly unwrapped the sinful treat and took a large bite from the centre. She chewed, swallowed, and turned to leave the room when she was blocked by a swathe of black velvet. She froze, her eyes wide and uncomprehending, like a startled fawn caught in a burst of light. Her eyes flicked upwards to lay upon a bone white mask, concealing all features of what appeared to be a person standing in front of her. Its hollow eye sockets and sinister grin, seemingly both lifeless and malevolent, sent an icy tremor of terror over the girl.

‘Hello Susan.’ A ominous and inhuman voice crackled out from behind the ghost-like visage. A tiny squeak escaped her chocolate-smeared lips as she instinctively took a small step backwards.

‘H-hello, can I help you?’ She stuttered, her whole body trembling.

‘Do you like chocolate, Susan?’ The hooded man asked, towering over her as he got closer and closer. She nodded meekly, looking down at the melting confectionary grasped in her hand like a weapon. ‘How about we play a game, and the winner gets as much chocolate as they want?’ The voice continued, sounding almost like a recording playing from a speaker. Instantly, Susan’s pupils dilated with a rapacious craving. ‘Alright then, the rules are simple: I ask you a question and if you get it right, you win. How does that sound?’ As if in response, Susan’s stomach gurgled with excitement. ‘Who is the King of the magical world?’ Susan’s mouth dropped open and she wore an uncertain expression as she searched for words that weren’t coming. ‘What a pity, Susan. I guess you lose.’ In one fell swoop, the hooded figure picked up a glistening meat cleaver from the wooden bench beside them and slammed it between her neck and shoulder. He watched as she curmbled to the floor in agony, her scream harmonising with the sound of bone cracking and skin splitting. He calmly raised the blade again and brought it down on her other shoulder, as if he was knighting her. Chilling screams sprung from her throat as blood began to fill her throat and spill from the corners of her gluttonous mouth. He waited for a second, watching her writhe in agony before soaking the floor in crimson as he separated her head from her neck, her eyes holding the same stunned expression as before, unblinking. He dropped the bloodied meat cleaver into the sink along with the dozens of other dirty dishes piled high before disappearing into the darkness, leaving the gruesome scene.

The Hufflepuff common room was in a state of emergency to say the least. The anguished screams that erupted from the kitchen in the dead of night alerted a few concerned houselves who stumbled upon the brutal beheading. Absolute chaos ensued, fear and hysteria palpable in the air. Professors struggled desperately to maintain some semblance of order amidst the mayhem as pyjama clad teenagers pushed and shoved to get a glimpse. Eventually, a body was carried out on a stretcher, blanketed by a white sheet yet still undeniably the corpse of a certain sixth year.

‘She must not have had her wand on her.’

‘She could’ve, she was never very good at defensive magic.’ Hushed whispers floated throughout the school. Classes were cancelled and the flow of time seemed to fracture as seconds felt like minutes felt like hours. Parents were contacted and promises to find the culprit were made in the week that followed, doing nothing to alleviate everyone’s concern. Y/N Y/L/N was standing over Dumbledore’s left shoulder as he riffled through the mountains of paperwork and letters his desk had become buried under.

‘Tell me, Y/N, who do you think is behind this?’ The question caught the girl off-guard as she struggled to comprehend the enormity of what he was asking.

‘Well, Susan wasn’t someone I could imagine getting on anyone’s bad side per se.’

‘So where was the motive?’

‘It’s hard to say. However, the choice of weapon suggests it was a spur of the moment decision to kill her.’

‘Perhaps they had planned to use a knife from the kitchen.’

‘Perhaps, but they wouldn’t be very smart. There’s no guarantee of a suitable knife being accessible. And if the assailant could easily grab a knife, why couldn’t Susan? It doesn’t seem well planned out from my point of view.’ Dumbledore nodded slowly, mulling over the possibilities.

‘Are you saying we have a psychopath in our midsts? Or someone with a short temper?’

‘I’m not sure, sir. Maybe they wanted to kill just for the sake of killing, and Susan seemed an easy target. Or maybe something else happened. But for her to be killed in such a brutal way, the person must be sick in the mind.’

‘And you're sure it wouldn’t be an outside party.’

‘No, I’m not sure, but it would be particularly odd for someone to go to the trouble of sneaking into Hogwarts for the sole purpose of killing one young girl.’

Y/N Y/L/N was, potentially, Dumbledore’s most trusted advisor. Yes, she was a student, and therefore her “professional” relationship with him was strictly confidential, yet he had never met someone with sounder judgement and astuter perceptiveness than her. After she had left his office that particular evening, he thought about how she would one day make a great headmaster of Hogwarts, or a fantastic minister of magic, although at this rate the ministry seemed to be dissolving at an alarming rate. She was his eyes and ears throughout Hogwarts, helping him keep on top of everything, spying on everyone for him. Spy, he thought, would also be an appropriate profession for the young Ravenclaw. This is why Y/N felt awful at lying to his face about the murder of Susan Bones, but it was for his own good she consoled herself. If she told him what she truly suspected, Hogwarts would be thrown into turmoil. She had to be sure.

Sometimes it felt like Y/N was friends with everyone but she didn’t have any friends. An interesting, and painful, paradox to be certain. However, the being friends with everyone part did come in handy a lot of the time. It only took a couple hours for Y/N to have gathered a slew of new evidence. According to one of Susan’s roommates, a bespectacled, five foot nothing girl, Susan was often found in the kitchen, keeping secret stashes of the candy from her aunt away from the prying fingers of her fellow students. Y/N already knew of Susan’s affiliation with Dumbledore’s army the previous year, something she had abstained from joining, and knew of her family's ties to the ministry, including how almost all of them were killed by Voldemort during the first wizarding war as a result of that. Y/N interviewed, or more correctly, interrogated the houselves who were awoken by the screams, however they insisted they neither saw nor heard anyone leaving the premises.

‘Useless creatures.’ She mumbled to herself as she traipsed up the winding staircase of the Ravenclaw tower.

Anthony was waiting for Y/N in her dorm, a rather unpleasant surprise for the exhausted girl.

‘Lila let me in.’ He explained when he caught sight of her furrowed brows. ‘I thought we could have a nice evening together.’ He wiggled his own eyebrows suggestively.

‘I actually have a lot of potions work I need to catch up on.’ She replied, walking over to her desk and picking up her unfinished essay as if to prove it. “Sorry.” She watched his hands clenched into fists on his knees as stared at her, his gaze unrelenting.

‘Nothing I ever do is good enough for you, is it?’ He said, blowing out his breath in exasperation.

‘Can we not-’

‘No.’ He said abruptly, pushing himself up so he towered above her, ‘I want to do this. Why can’t we have one nice night together, hmm?’ Y/N thought to herself about how they always do this. It’s not her fault they can’t have “one nice night”.

‘Fine’ she relented, placing her papers back down, ‘what do you want to do?’

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