addiction - draco malfoy

fifty two

another assembly was called the morning of the second day back, and i didn't bother with the optimism this time. if they had found the killer over the holidays, they would have told us the first day back, and i had mentally prepared myself for them to announce another body had been found. i chose to just appreciate instead that it hadn't been emma, lily or draco. i probably looked like a psychopath when chaos broke out amongst the hall and i was standing there unfazed, but i didn't have the energy to care. i kept thinking about what draco had said, how the murderer would be no match for a spirit user. maybe if i convinced draco to let me use drugs one last time, i could hang around on the edge of the school and kind of bait the murderer out? i wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea, but i was tired of living in constant fear that it was going to be someone i cared about next.

i followed the lines to class, falling into step with emma and lily. they were both crying, but i didn't have the energy to join in or comfort them. we arrived at class in seconds, but nothing much happened. we were given some questions from a textbook by mcgonagall, but nobody much bothered and she clearly figured that we all had a valid excuse for not trying. it was kind of hard to concentrate on school work when you were worried you were going to be some kind of psycho serial killers next victim.

the body was found the same way as the last one, brutally stabbed, but so much to the point that they'd continued stabbing after the victim was already dead. unidentifiable, again, which kind of reinforced my idea that the murderer was only stabbing them to disfigure the bodies. the question was, why? who would bother killing all these people, if they didn't want us to know who was dead. without the identity of the victims being obvious, there was no clear motive, which made me think the motive was obviously attached to the killer. clearly, if someone found out the motive, it would immediately highlight the killer, or else why else would the killer go to such trouble to disguise it? what i didn't understand though, was how a motive could effect that many people. there was a total of seven bodies found now, and that was a lot of people to justify the deaths of. maybe the school was right, and these were rage motivated attacks. maybe i was just overthinking it, but i couldn't shake the idea that something didn't add up.

i met up with emma and lily again after class, dragging them off to sneak into the kitchen to make milkshakes. i figured they needed a distraction. despite that though, i couldn't stop myself from asking them what they thought as i perched on a kitchen counter. lily and emma were smushing up fruit, but i was instead mulling over my thoughts. 'so what do you think? are you guys buying the rage story?' i asked.
'i guess' lily shrugged 'why wouldn't i be? i can't see what reason they have to lie'.
'i don't know' i sighed 'i just feel like somethings off. what do you think em?'
'i don't wanna talk about it elizabeth' emma frowned 'it's morbid. whoever's doing this is sick, i doubt they even have a motive'.
'they must have a motive' i reasoned 'i think if somebody was unstable enough to go around killing people for the sheer shits and giggles, they'd be quite an obvious candidate'.
'elizabeth. i. don't. want. to. talk. about. it' emma huffed. 'i know' i held my hands up 'i was just saying. it's kind of weird'.
'oh for fucks sake' she snapped 'i'm going back to the dorm'.

i blinked at the door she'd just slammed out of, swinging slightly still. it wasn't like emma to just fly off the handle. 'oops' i said sheepishly.
'it's okay. she's kind of touchy at the minute' lily sighed, rubbing her hands down the front of her uniform and discarding the fruit 'i'll go after her'.

i smiled weakly at her as she left, presumably following emma back up towards the dorms. that was by far the weirdest thing to happen today, easily topping the assembly this morning.