Lucifer

    Professor Jowett looked at his house, most of them there and looking at him warily. They weren't used to his presence in the common room, and he looked uncharacteristically solemn. "I'm sorry to have to announce this, but Evadne Norton died in the infirmary last night. Anyone who needs to speak to me is welcome to do so. My door is open." Lucius Malfoy had paled, and Rita Skeeter shrieked once before Augustus Rookwood grasped her arm hard. Lacerta Carlisle was weeping. He turned, and left. He needed to look in her room.

    Everything looked normal. She had bought used editions, writing neat notes in a clean script, and he remembered her as a hard worker and good student, if silent. Her griefs and joys she'd kept to herself. She kept her portion of the room the three girls shared neat as well, small desk neatly organized with her notes lying there where she'd been studying yesterday, bedside table with a book and a vial....

    A vial. He went over and picked it up. A commercial headache potion. He recognized it...used it himself sometimes. He'd mention this to the Aurors. They were interviewing Maude Pickering right now about the girl's final moments.

    Check the bin. Notes of when people would be in the library. The name Arthur kept appearing. Best find him and ask him. Rough draft of her transfiguration essay. And two more medication vials. He took them out, and frowned. He needed to ask Keriell, but this looked like maybe it wasn't accident. On to her drawers.

    Spare quills, spare ink. Spare rolls of parchment. A bundle of letters from her parents. One of them looked...off. He drew it out, and looked at it, then, on a hunch, cast a Finite Incantatem at it. It shifted, and revealed itself to be photographs, from the feel of it. He tipped them out, and drew in a shocked breath. Evadne, naked, and a man over her, another in her mouth, a third standing beside the bed, stroking himself. The other pictures were more of the same. He dimly registered four men in all, by differences in form and skin tone. But no faces, no identifying marks, just Evadne, dark eyes alight with lust as she took everything they had to give her. He found himself wanting to burn them, but he put the pictures in his pocket and left. Her parents didn't need to see these. And as unpleasant as it was, the Headmaster did. First though, a stop to see Evander Keriell.

    He was grading written NEWTS, and looked up with a grin when Jowett said, "Do you have a minute?"

    "It's a break from these blasted parchments," he said. "What's up? My sympathies, incidentally...that girl that died was a Slytherin, wasn't she?"

    "Actually, what I wanted to ask you is connected with that. I need to know what was in these vials."

    Keriell raised his brows and stood up, coming around the desk with his usual angular grace. "Let's go into the lab. Where did you find them?"

    "In the waste paper bin in her room," he said. "She shares with two other girls in her year, and each has a small desk and bin so they can work in their rooms. Everything else in the bin was hers."

    "Hmm, yes..." Keriell said, taking the vials. He looked at the label, and smelled them, and stood there a moment. "Well, I can tell you right now what was in them," he said.

    "Oh?"

    "Migraine potion.It's made by Medicamentum Ltd, the big potions outfit. Contains feverfew, musty wheat, rose thorns, in a stabilizing base."

    "I see, so it wouldn't have harmed her to take it."

    "No, and if she had a migraine hit her I would expect to see two doses...one at the start of the attack, the other about an hour later. The only problem is that you can't take it during pregnancy."

    "Why not?"

    "Well, the other commercial use of this ingredient," he tapped the label of one vial, "is to induce labor. How did she die?"

    Jowett stood there as his assumptions reconfigured. "She bled out after miscarrying," he said quietly. "Thanks, Evander," took the vials, and went to find the headmaster.

Arthur heard about it in Potions class. Rita Skeeter was unusually subdued, her red eyes not entirely concealed by her makeup, and all of Slytherin house was acting strangely. He noticed that Evadne wasn't there.

    "Where's Norton?" he asked Terence Nott, his partner. Nott's eyes widened, and he stammered.

    "She....she's dead."

    "What the HELL!" said Arthur, drawing a glare from Professor Keriell. He controlled himself. "What happened?" he demanded in a lower voice.

    "Dunno," said Nott. "She didn't feel well last night, and around eleven or so Rita went and got Madam Pickering and she took her up to the hospital wing. And this morning Jowett came and told us she was gone." He looked shaken.

    Arthur took a deep breath. He could cry later.

    "Lucius," he said, as they all filed out of the classroom. Malfoy stopped and looked at him, one hand on Mulciber's shoulder."I wanted to offer my sympathy."

    'Appreciated," he said, curtly. "But you know, she was just a mudblood."

    Arthur felt as if he'd been slapped. He couldn't say anything, and just watched as Malfoy walked away, his friends surrounding him.

    "The FUCKER," he said aloud.

    "What?" said Gordon Longbottom.

    "He just told me Evadne was just a mudblood."

    "He's a Slytherin," said Longbottom with a shrug. "Come on, I want to get lunch."

    "He was her bloody boyfriend, Gordon!"

    "Oh." The other boy paused and looked after the group of Slytherins. "Then I feel sorry for her. I wonder what happened."

    "I'm going to find out," said Arthur, setting his jaw. He turned towards the hospital wing.