Whatever It Takes

Phantom Keeper

Rating: R
Genres: Drama, Mystery
Relationships: Draco & Ginny
Book: Draco & Ginny, Books 1 - 7
Published: 01/09/2009
Last Updated: 05/09/2009
Status: in_progress

Ginny gets in over her head when she's unsatisfied by Auror Malfoy's handling on the serial killings that have been sweeping through women her age after one of her close friends is killed. She takes it upon herself to find the killer, never expecting to be putting herself in his sights.

Chapters

1. Prologue

2. One

1. Prologue

It was much like any other crime scene from the last three months. Young woman, between the ages of twenty-five and twenty-seven years, pureblood or half-blood, murdered through Muggle means in her own home. No detection of spells used to break into the residence, or that anything had been used on the women to render them incapacitated while they were killed.

It puzzled even the best of Aurors. Especially the head on the case, Draco Malfoy. In his two years as an Auror and the four years of training before that, he’d seen several murders that used Muggle weapons -- guns were the preferred for those looking to fly under the radar on their crimes -- but this was erratic.

Her body was prone, pale against the maroon and lime green polka dot carpet. She was in her night clothing, putting the time of death within the last several hours. He imagined that if he brushed her flesh with his, she’d still be moderately warm. Her pale blonde hair was spread out around her and the pattern suggested it was deliberate.

“Oi, Creevey!” Draco called out to the crime scene photographer. “Make sure to take a picture of her hair.”

Colin Creevey, first year photographer for the Auror department, ambled up with his camera and an anxiously excited smile spreading his face inappropriately. “Think it was deliberate, boss?”

Draco knew that Colin was excited for the opportunity, but he couldn’t help the modicum of disgust that twisted his face at the boy smiling above the dead body of one of his schoolmates. “Have some respect, Creevey. Wipe that smile off your face before I do it for you.”

Draco stepped carefully around the body, still amused at the modified repellant spell that was placed on everyone’s shoes before entering the crime scene. It would keep evidence off their feet, but acted as if their feet were non-corporeal, passing through the carpet and possible evidence, so that it wasn’t tracked up on their shoe patterns. As her eyes stared blankly at the ceiling, Draco felt pity for the woman. She never had a chance. So naïve, she never prepared herself for something like this.

Draco looked at her outrageous four poster bed. It was pink and full of frills, with Kneazels printed onto the bedspread. When he looked up, he smiled ruefully at the disco ball hanging above. She’d been one of a kind.

“Sir?” A perimeter securer stepped into the room, “We have an issue at the line. She’s demanding to speak with the Head Auror.”

Draco felt impatience seeping through him at having been interrupted during his flow within the crime scene. As he began his trek to head outside, he took one more look around. There were no other disturbances, nothing missing aside from the woman’s life. There was nothing in the hallway, the staircase had been illuminated with a spell to find finger prints that were foreign. There was no trace of another human being having been in the house.

The outside was pandemonium. Reporters from all the popular Wizarding outlets, domestic and international, were crowding behind the pulsing green line stating that it was a crime scene and investigating Aurors were present inside. He immediately looked to where there was a woman raging, her voice octaves higher than even animals would be able to register.

He sauntered over, his deep breath coming out in a sigh as he took in the three men restraining the hysterical woman. A fourth was off on the sidelines holding the heel of his palm to his eye.

“Where is she?! Why won’t you just tell me where she is? Let go of me, you bloody bastard!”

Great. Draco wished more than anything he’d sent out Longbottom instead, or even Blaise. He didn’t do well with the victim’s families or friends. He wasn’t a compassionate enough person to understand their grief and sorrow; not a gentleman enough to hold the weeping women as they cried to Merlin why their friend or relative had been stolen.

Her hair whipped violently as she tossed against the men forcibly restraining her and his stomach dropped out from his stomach, ricocheting up into his throat and then back in a stunning imitation of a Muggle rollercoaster. Red hair in connection to the women inside the house behind him could only mean one thing. A Weasley. Ginny Weasley to be exact. A bloody harpy if he ever met one.

Draco cleared his throat deliberately, and watched with masked amusement as the three Watchers paled simultaneously. The way they were handling the Weaslette was against the code for the Survivors, a law passed after the Final Battle. People in their grief during the war had lashed out and caused violence against officials. The law had been passed after a grieving father ended up in St Mungo’s after a spell gone awry put him in a Sleeping Beauty state for several months. It’d caused outrage among the public and demanded something be done about it. The Auror in question was let go and the Minister created the law saying that no harm was to come to Survivors and they were not to be denied information they sought. Although, immediate blood family were technically supposed to be given the information before family friends and Ginny Weasley fell in the latter category.

“Malfoy!” The voice went down now, growling instead of shrieking as she stilled against the men. “What’s going on here? Why won’t anyone tell me anything?” Ginny stepped up to him, glaring up with fearful eyes as if she already knew and fully expected that he was about to crush her world.

“The family hasn’t been notified…” Draco tried to struggle through the words as he watched her face slowly sink into a blank expression. “I’m sorry.”

“No…” Her voice was a mere whisper as she shook her head against the words penetrating her brain. “No, no! Just tell me. Is she at St Mungo’s? What happened?”

He prepared himself to give the monotone response that they were trained to give at the academy, “Ms. Weasley, I’m sorry to inform you that Luna Lovegood was murdered at 10:13, evening time.”

Her face contorted into pain with each syllable, her body caving in on itself as she bent at the waist to release a loud sob. It was only a matter of moments before her grief caused her knees to buckle and she sank to the ground.

Draco stood with her sobbing at his feet, unsure what to do with a grieving female. Especially one who had just found out her best friend had been murdered. He couldn’t imagine what her reaction would be when she found out that Luna was fourth in line of a serial killer’s spree. Pansy Parkinson, Hannah Abbott, Lavender Brown, and now, Luna Lovegood.

----------------------

This story is complete! I’ll be posting chapters every other day or daily, depending on my schedule (my sister lives here with her newborn twins! It sucks up a lot of time!). There’s the prologue and then 8 chapters.

Hope you enjoy! This will be a dramatic mystery with romance thrown in. Some of it’s gonna be fast paced because this was entered in something that had a word limit of 25,000 words, and as is, I pushed the limit towards that.

I hope you enjoy this enough to review, or follow/alert the story :D Have a great day, thanks for reading the prologue.

2. One

Hysteria he could understand, but the eventual calm, the silence that overcame a person after their life was torn apart; he didn’t understand or know how to handle.

Ginny Weasley sat in the ‘comfortable’ chair at his desk, her face stoic as the tear tracks dried to streak her flushed face. He didn’t even think she knew she was crying as he set a paper cup of water in front of her. She didn’t show any sign that she saw him, let alone the water.

“What happened?” Her voice was hoarse from the sobs that he imagined had left her throat raw with their volume and velocity.

“She was killed…”

“No. Details. I want to know what happened to her.” Ginny looked at her hands, her brow furrowing once more as she struggled to brace herself against the harsh truths.

“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Ms. Weasley.” Draco tried to tell her, thinking of how he’d not been able to locate Luna’s father even yet to tell him about his daughter.

“I’m…” Her voice caught, forcing her to clear her throat. “I’m all she had. Her father died three years ago. I was helping her run the Quibbler and I was her roommate until a couple weeks ago. I moved in with a friend last minute after Luna and I had a terrible row.”

Draco picked up on the grief and guilt coating her tone. “Miss Weasley, this isn’t your fault,” he said, and she turned her head in a fluid movement, looking at him pleadingly. He remembered her from school. Particularly his fifth year when she hexed him something awful and it was disconcerting to see her so broken, even under the circumstances. He imagined she’d have been angry, boasting about revenge and calling her horde of brothers to back her up. Not meekly sitting in a poorly cushioned metal chair, cradling the paper cup between her shaking hands.

“She was strangled.” He paused at the grieved squeak she released from low in her throat, “We think it’s possible it’s part of a Muggle-style killing spree. A serial murderer. Pansy Parkinson was killed three months ago. She was stabbed thirty-seven times and we determined within several days that it wasn’t a spell that caused the wounds. Five weeks later, Hannah Abbott was suffocated with her pillow. Six weeks later, Lavender Brown was shot to death in her shower.”

Ginny folded in again, her head dropping between her knees as her fingers laced together around her neck. Gasping breaths echoed in the small, quiet room. “Why haven’t you caught him?” she questioned, her voice muffled from her position.

“Murders using Muggle weapons aren’t common in the Wizarding world. They’re also nearly impossible to track, seeing as the killer would have to go into the Muggle world to buy the weaponry. The gun, for example. There is literally no magic left behind at the scenes to trace the crimes.” Draco explained, remaining detached as he imagined a shadowy figure sulking through Muggle London, searching for a miscreant who sold illegal weapons to people interested in using them on other humans.

“Why doesn’t the press know about this? Why haven’t we heard anything about a serial killer going after young women?” Ginny felt rage replacing her grief, a denial tool she knew but welcomed against the all consuming pain that had settled in her chest.

“We didn’t put together a serial killer until Lavender Brown. We knew that the knife used was Muggle because it didn’t leave any minute traces of magic in the wounds, but the suffocation didn’t even come to me until I got the Brown case, and searched between the time of Parkinson and Brown’s deaths to see if there were anything else that matched the MO,” Draco explained the case much as he would to his superior officer, Kingsley Shacklebolt. Professionally detached with a hint of disinterest.

“If you’d told the press about this, we could’ve printed advisements for women! Luna might still…” Her anger suddenly drained from her along with all color from her face, “The Quibbler is actually mildly respectable now, since I’ve had input. People would’ve believed it. Even if the Prophet had it first. It might be a gossip rag now, but people still believe…”

“Ms. Weasley…”

“Stop calling me that. Drop the Ms, and give me some form of normalcy right now. Please.” She could handle the prat from school who had made her and her brother’s lives hell, but not his detached nature when talking about murder. Ron had been an Auror before Rose was born, she got it. She understood it was a way to retain sanity, but she couldn’t deal with it in the face of losing hers.

“I’m not going to tear you down to make you feel better, Ms Weasley. Your friend was just murdered. Your grief is natural, your search for normalcy is as well. You might remember me from school as an arrogant bastard, but I’m not entirely heartless,” Draco said as he stood, hands in the pockets of his slacks. “Go home, cry until you throw up. Grieve. I’ll find bastard who’s doing this, and I’ll stop him. I can promise you that.”

------------------------------

Two weeks. Two bloody weeks and all was supposedly ‘back to normal’. She couldn’t understand it, as she sat in her new office. The people -- her employees -- were milling around, conversing about the next issue. It was like they’d already forgotten about Luna. Her funeral had only been a week ago, but it seemed like a lifetime ago for Ginny.

The Prophet had been the first to report Luna’s death in a tasteless summary of ‘Looney Lovegood’s’ life. Outraged, Ginny stood up all night putting together a two page spread detailing Luna’s loves, hobbies, eccentricities and life story for the Quibbler. Her paper, now it would seem. Luna hadn’t believed in a ‘will’. She’d simply left it verbally in a magical oath that her Earthly belongings would be divided between Ginny and Neville Longbottom, who Luna had secretly held a torch for since they had carried on an hours long conversation about creatures known as Gulping Plimpy, whatever they were. Neville politely declined anything that Ginny tried to offer him, including the house that she’d never be able to sleep in again.

Ginny knew that Neville was part of the investigation, working closely with Draco Malfoy, and yet, neither had any new information about the cases. She also knew that Neville was being considered for removal from the case due to his personal connections to three of the victims -- he’d been friends with Hannah at school, was in the same house as Lavender, and was still close to Luna -- but Ginny knew that Draco Malfoy wasn’t considered being taken off the case, even though Pansy had been his girlfriend throughout school.

“Miss Weasley,” a nervous voice asked from the doorway, “Mister Colin Creevey is here to see you.”

“Thank you, please send him in.” She wasn’t going to get used to the ‘Miss Weasley’ from the staff now. Luna had simply been Luna, but she wasn’t in a constant dreamlike state, so people probably expected she required more professionalism. How she wished she were simply ‘Ginny’ again to these people.

“Ginny!” Colin Creevey seemed infallible. Voldemort could show up on his doorstep promising a slow and painful death, and Colin would invite him in for tea and crumpets. She didn’t know whether to be grateful that there was still some optimism left in people, or if she hated that he could walk into the office that was once Luna’s with such a bright outlook on life.

“Hullo, Colin. Please have a seat.”

“I can’t stay, have to get back to the Ministry, but…” He seemed overly cautious, looking over his shoulder as if he expected Aurors to pop out and arrest him at any second. “I brought what you asked for. I could get fired for this.”

Ginny felt hope spring within her chest as she stood and closed the door to the office. When she turned around, Colin was holding a magical flash card. She snatched it from his hands, and rushed to sit back down.

“Make sure to destroy it afterwards. If anyone gets their hands on that, I can be thrown in Azkaban,” Colin pleaded, fright twisting his face as he mentioned the prison that held Death Eaters of past.

Ginny felt guilt rising quickly within her. She was asking so much from Colin and had nothing to give back. “Thank you, Colin. I just need to see if I can do something. No one will ever find out.”

Taking that as a dismissal, Colin left with a small nod as if he understood what she was doing. Once she was alone, the door closed and blinds snapped shut, Ginny took a deep breath. Was she ready for this?

“Only one way to find out, Gin-bug,” she muttered to herself, smiling at the advice her father had given to her when she was six, and concerned that the boys wouldn’t let her join their Quidditch game (they hadn’t, saying she was too young even though Ron was playing and he was only a year older than her).

Activating the card was simple, it was the holographic imagery that sprung to life in a three dimensional recreation of Pansy Parkinson’s crime scene that made her stomach jerk. Hannah’s was a little better, as it appeared she was simply sleeping on her bed. Lavender’s was as bad as Pansy’s, if not worse with the blood staining the shower stall in high arcs. Caught up in the multiple pictures and angles, she wasn’t prepared for Luna.

A distressed moan was trapped behind her lips as she bit down on them while tears sprang to her eyes. She looked peaceful. Her hair fanned out around her head with her hands resting on her stomach. She breezed through the photos, trying to detach from the emotions that threatened to swallow her whole. When she finished with Luna, they automatically went back to the beginning.

About to shut down the flashcard, something caught Ginny’s eye about Pansy’s pictures. Her hands were folded across her stomach in the same fashion as Luna’s. Going through Hannah and Lavender’s, she found the same thing. And upon second look at Luna’s hands, she noticed one very important detail.

“Her mother’s ring.”

------------------------------

“Did Pansy wear jewelry?” Ginny called out, still several feet away from Draco, but she couldn’t keep it inside. She’d been anxious to ask the question from the second she shut off the flashcard, stuffed it in her pocket and grabbed her wand.

“Nice to see you again, Ms. Weasley,” Draco said sarcastically as he stepped away from the coffee pot and towards the general direction of his office.

“Luna’s ring wasn’t in her list of possessions.” It wasn’t entirely a lie, it hadn’t been. But that also wasn’t how she’d figured out about the ring. “It was her mother’s, she only took it off to shower. She was paranoid about it going down drains.”

He was impressed with her strides, easily keeping up with his as he entered his office five paces ahead of her. “Maybe she took a shower that night,” he excused away. In fact, he was quite sure she hadn’t but having not known her, the ring hadn’t come up in his thoughts as something to look for, naturally.

“Your report stated that the shower was bone dry. You checked there because Lavender was found in her shower. Just like you checked the kitchen because Pansy was killed in hers.”

“How in the hell would you know about that?” Draco’s face tinged with anger as he planted closed fists down on his desk. Things like that had been kept from the press and the Survivors.

“I’m the press, Mister Malfoy. You’re not the only one with sources in valuable places.” Ginny mimicked his position, glaring intensely at the former nemesis to her family. “I will use each and every one of them until the well is dry in order to find out the truth here. Not for the bloody paper, but for my best friend.”

He scrutinized her, staring deeply into her eyes as if the answer to his unanswered question would flash through them like a neon sign. “It was Longbottom, wasn’t it?”

“No!” she responded immediately, offended for her friend. “I haven’t spoke to Neville since… last week.” She couldn’t voice aloud certain words like ‘funeral’ or ‘murder’. “Luna’s ring was missing. That means whoever did it, took it.”

“You don’t know that, Weasley.” His patience was spread thin after this morning’s meeting in which Kingsley had all but told him that if this case wasn’t wrapped up soon, he’d be replaced by a more ‘competent’ Auror, and demoted to desk duty for however long the investigation continues to remain open. “It might have been inside her jewelry box.”

“Well, go look!”

The muscle in his jaw throbbed as he clenched his teeth to painful proportions. “Ms. Weasley, you are not an Auror. You are not an investigative journalist with permission from the Ministry to aide the investigation. You are a Survivor. While I have to maintain a special sense of decorum because of that fact, as per the law passed after the war, it does not mean that I am above losing my temper, which I am this close to doing.”

“Well.” Ginny straightened up, her glare never faltering in intensity. “If the so called Aurors around here can’t catch this guy after three months, maybe fresh eyes are what’s needed around here.”

“Weasley, I’m warning you.” Draco rounded his desk to stand close, loftily intimidating the intrepid brat. “I have the right to detain anyone for up to a seventy-two hour period if I feel they’re interfering in an ongoing case, or if I feel they’re inclined to put their life in harm’s way.”

“Careful, Malfoy. One might think you care.”

“Only about my career. And my life. I don’t need your twelve brothers coming after me with pitchforks and torches because you decide to poke your nose where it ought not be.” With one last disdainful up and down look of her, he turned towards his desk in a dismissal, heading back to sit in his chair.

“It’s five, you arrogant prig. Or have you forgotten that I lost one during the war? Or that you almost killed another before that, your actions nearly costing me a second in your oh-so-productive sixth year?” Even as she glared at him through narrow eyes, she noticed his shoulders tense at his mistake or maybe it was rage as his past was brought back to light. “Think before you speak. Kingsley is a close personal friend of my family.”

Before he could even think to retort or retract what he had stupidly said, the door slammed shut.

------------------------------

She knew what she was doing was technically considered fraudulent, but she was Ron Weasley’s kid sister, once-reporter for the Prophet, and now the Quibbler. It was almost second nature to break the law in order to get the story. Especially when the story was her best friend’s murder.

“I have a signed form saying that I’m permitted access into the crime scene.” Ginny produced the form to the guard standing on the doorstep of Luna’s house. A chill swept around her as she thought that the killer stood exactly where she had once. Shaking the thought, she remembered the form. Malfoy hadn’t been paying attention when she swiped the form and shrank it, draining a lot of her magic to perform the spell wandless. It’d been when he was trying to control his temper, eyes closed and body tight as he tried to ignore her bringing up his past. It was something he’d already signed, and that’s all she needed to know. The rest of it, she wiped with a high level, complicated spell thought up by her jokester brothers, and refilled it with what she needed.

The Watcher seemed to look over the form with indifference. “I’ll need to confirm this with Auror Malfoy.”

Ginny expected this and released a chuckle. “Good luck with that. He’s turned off his Floo, something about taking some personal time to go over the files. Said no interruptions or their job is his.” This seemed to cause the Watcher to blanch. “If you really want to interrupt Malfoy with something as trivial as this, go ahead, but I know two things; if I don’t go in there, he’s going to come after your job, and if you go to confirm something like this with him, he’s going to come after your job. Major lose-lose, if you ask me, especially for you.”

The options seemed to weigh heavily on the man as he looked between her and the form. “Alright, but make it quick in case Auror Malfoy decides he wants a second glance himself.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll never know I was here,” Ginny promised with a small smirk. To anyone that knew her, they’d know that she was about to do something that would get her into immense amounts of trouble with Aurors, or worse, her mother; but to the Auror, it seemed like she was just sharing a joke with him.

It was exactly as it had been a month ago when she’d last been within the walls of the home. Now she felt the residual effects of death. The stale smell, buzzing silence. Life was gone from this place. She felt every emotion choking her as she slowly climbed the stairs, imagining a black shadow the step ahead of her. His frame bulky, but his steps oddly silent on the wood that creaked every third step.

He was on the landing now, Luna’s singing off key in her room about Blibbering Humdingers. He’s pulling on gloves, doesn’t want to leave fingerprints behind. Ginny walked ahead of him into the room, looking over her shoulder hesitantly, but the second she stepped over the threshold from the hallway to Luna’s bedroom, she felt something invade her. Another presence.

“Hullo,” Ginny’s voice said, although it was warped, Luna’s dreamy whisper twisting her voice. “Ginny no longer lives here.”

“She’ll come later.” His voice was distorted, like in those Muggle movies where men kidnapped young girls, and made a call that demanded ransom that Harry made the Weasley’s watch once.

Ginny couldn’t move, and she believed it was Luna’s naivety in her spirit that wouldn’t turn from the spot even though the air in the room was threatening.

His hands grasped her neck, the air slowly leaving Ginny’s body. She tried to shake the image, tried to break away and breathe as the urge became great. She felt her body suspend backwards, as if she was falling, but it was too controlled. It only took a split second as stars burst in front of her eyes to realize this was him laying Luna down on the ground.

“It’d be better if this was Ginny, but you’ll do. You were on my list, as well.” A flash of white showed up on the shadow, and Ginny knew he was smiling as he switched to choking the life from her with one hand. His other slipped down, and Ginny immediately felt revolted at the automatic thought that entered her mind, but it stopped at her wrist, or Luna’s wrist. As he lifted her hand, she noted on her finger was Luna’s ring. She felt the lightest pressure slide up her finger as the ring was pulled off.

“I’ll cherish this,” he mocked as the life began to pass from Ginny.

------------------------------

Sorry for the late upload! My sister is living with my family again, with her 18 month old daughter and 2 week old twin sons! I’ve been taking the late night shift of helping feed, change and take care of them. It’s monopolized my time and I completely forgot to upload this.

The chapters pretty much stay this length, maybe a little longer, from now on. I tried purposely to at least reach 5 pages in Works Word while writing the new chapters :) I’ll have the next chapter up in a couple of days, I promise!