Moonlit Carvings

A forensics assistant met them at the dented wooden doors of the abandoned warehouse. His name was Neil Campbell and Ginny herself had had little contact with him, but had heard lots of hearsay.

Generally held as a womaniser, Neil obviously took a lot of pride in his appearance; his light brown hair was arranged in a typically deliberate 'I just got out of bed' look and Ginny reeled slightly from the overpowering aftershave aroma.

"Hello ladies," he said, winking. "How can I be of service?"

"We're from the PF department. Sent to blueprint the scene." Lilith replied, her eyes on level with Campbell's. Ginny could tell from the occasional flinch of her eyelid that she found Neil rather irritating.

"Potions Forensic eh?" he surveyed them doubtfully. "Can I see some ID please?"

Ginny got hers out, Lilith considerably more reluctantly. The women were two of a kind; usually most female graduates went into secretarial, teaching or nursing jobs. By branching out into science, Ginny and Lilith had broken the mould, so were held in respect by those who knew them, suspicion by those who didn't, and distrust by the elder members of the science department.

"Ok," Neil announced, handing them back. "If you just come this way and I'll give you le tour de la murder scene." The redhead and blonde followed mutely, exchanging looks behind the lab assistant's back.

He led them out a side door onto a small alley with cracked paving stones. "This is where she was actually attacked." Neil pointed to a stain across the wall.

"With a knife?" Ginny exclaimed curiously, going forwards to examine the spattered blood.

"Yes," agreed Campbell. "But we found magical residue inside the warehouse. Crucio," he added to their questioning looks.

"Could we see where the body was found?" Lilith asked whilst Ginny took swabs from the blood on the wall.

"You can, in fact, see the body," replied the assistant. "She hasn't been sent to the morgue yet."

"Isn't that a bit odd?" Ginny inquired, standing up from the wall and surveying the surroundings of the alleyway. Opposite the wall was a dark brown fence reaching at least six and a half feet, there was ivy meshing and tangling across it. She caught a faint glint of silver against the afternoon sun.

"Yes," Campbell was saying. "But the boss didn't want to move her 'til one of the PF's had had a look at her. One of you," he corrected quickly.

"Lil, can you reach up there?" Ginny asked, ignoring the assistant. Lilith stopped glaring at the brown-haired man and turned to where she was pointing. From among the nestled ivy leaves she extracted a glittering ring.

Neil peered curiously over their shoulders as Lilith and Ginny inspected the ring interestedly. Inlaid into the silver was a blood red garnet, shimmering as they watched it, on the inside of the ring were markings that the two girls did not recognise.

"It looks like a signet ring or something," Ginny muttered. She promptly bagged it and turned back to Campbell, finding him watching her inscrutably.

"The body?" Lilith pressed, awkwardly, not missing the unreadable look he gave Ginny.

"Oh yes, of course," he covered quickly. Campbell turned sharply away and led them silently in from the alleyway.

Ginny and Lilith had a silent conversation behind his back that consisted of mouthing and facial contortions.

"And you might be?" The redhead looked up at the most gorgeous man she'd ever seen. He was eyeing her curiously, probably because of her and Lilith's interesting facial gymnastics. Ginny blushed.

"Lilith Sinclair," the blonde replied, calmly holding out a hand. The man shook it politely, darting his eyes to her face only briefly before continuing to stare at Ginny.

Ginny felt herself wilt slightly under his tenuous gaze. "Ginevra Weasley," she said, trying to reproduce the same tone as Lilith.

"Christian Clough." There was a silence while Ginny found herself being swallowed by the depths of brown eyes.

"This is the overseeing officer," Campbell announced, interrupting the redhead's reverie.

There was another pregnant silence while the four youths watched each other.

"So... the body?" Lilith pushed again, trying to keep the impatience out of her voice.

"Oh yes, just this way." Campbell again had an indecipherable look on his features.

"So you're the girls from the PF department?" Clough asked falling in step next to Ginny. "Groppel said you'd not be what we expected."

Ginny felt, rather than saw, Lilith's irritable look. She was surprisingly touchy if anyone so much as implied that they were not able purely because they were girls, the redhead didn't let it get to her as much.

She shrugged in answer. "We usually aren't. But we get the job done." This last was for Lilith's benefit.

"Oh no I wasn't doubting that." He paused, looking at them curiously. At at-least six-foot he managed to look down on them, even Lilith. "We don't usually call in the PF department on these sort of murders you should know."

"So why this time?" asked Ginny.

"This girl was squeaky clean." At her incredulous look he quickly amended. "Apart from the undesirable job, I mean. She had no long running relationships - so no mad exes -; she'd only been a prostitute for under a month, although relatively unknown, she had a solid background of friends and family."

Lilith smirked. "Let me guess? You used to be a profiler."

He didn't acknowledge her, but his cheeks went slightly pink. "We called you in with the hope that you'd find some unique magical DNA, or even the run-of-the-mill stuff, that will actually give us a foundation to work on. At the moment, a schizophrenic three-legged Satsuma could have killed her, and we wouldn't be any the wiser."

Ginny nodded. He sounded sincere, but she couldn't shake the feeling he was hiding something important.

"If you see just here," Neil said abruptly to Lilith. Ginny looked to where they were inspecting. At first all she could make out were shapes, but eventually she realised she was looking at the dead girl's - Cassia's - hair. It stuck out sharply in relation to the floor. Her body was splayed at random angles, all her bones obviously splintered at some point or another. She lay on her front; head down, with one leg bent sharply outwards - at a right angle to her body. Her arms too, were bent backwards in the wrong direction, giving the horrible parody of a rag doll.

"You didn't even turn her over?" Lilith asked. She had always had a much stronger stomach than Ginny had. And the redhead wasn't exactly easily scared.

"The first man who found her did," Campbell replied, his voice slightly hushed. "They had to send him to St Mungo's as he had a mild stroke."

Lilith knelt beside the dead woman, moving her arm to the body's shoulders. Ever so gently she eased it over until it lay flat on it's back.

Ginny fought the urge to gasp, keeping her features as still as she could. Cassia's face was shocking.

Her mouth was open in a silent scream that would never be heard again, the teeth starkly white against the blood that had congealed on her lips. There were furrows in her cheeks where it looked like her nails had ripped in, trying to escape the agony of the Cruciatus Curse Ginny suspected. But by far the worst were her eyes. They were pulled open almost impossibly wide, glassy in death, the whites showing against the vivid green Ginny remembered from the photo.

On her forehead, just beneath the hairline was a black pattern. Ginny leaned closer to see what it actually was. This time she did gasp. There, on Cassia Robert's temple, was a brand that looked terribly like a snake.

A snake that, for a long time, had signified only one thing.

Slytherin.