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𝐀 𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐋𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐄𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐇𝐔𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐍 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐀𝐈𝐑 as the witches and wizards watched each other closely to see who would make the first move. It was Willow. She rushed towards Thomas, swinging the lead pipe at him but Thomas was able to side-step right before it made contact. The weight of the pipe sent Willow flying past Thomas and into the china cabinet behind him, the antique dishes shattering around her in a cloud of dust. The aftermath left a pattern of crimson cuts adorning Willow's exposed skin and a steady stream of blood flowing down her forehead from where she struck the wooden corner.

Next was Madelynn, who snuck up on Thomas from behind while he was distracted watching Willow. She just about sent the dagger gripped firmly in her hands straight through Thomas's shoulder, but Thomas caught sight of her at the last second and dropped to the ground. Unable to stop herself in time, Madelynn tripped over Thomas and fell to the ground, the dagger thrusting itself into her gut and spilling her blood all over the dining room floor.

"Oh shit!" Thomas yelped at the sight, but he didn't have time to focus on Madelynn for too long because Jesse was quickly upon him. Jesse wrapped his arms around Thomas, choking him with the candlestick which he had pressed firmly against Thomas's throat. Thomas's hands gripped tightly onto Jesse's, trying to pry the the candlestick away from him, but Jesse was stronger than Thomas anticipated. Spots danced in front of his vision, jumping in the air, cartwheeling, spinning, pirouetting, as Thomas struggled for breath. With each passing second, the darkness pulled him deeper, but before he could fall completely, a blurry shape appeared before him.

Within seconds, the pressure at Thomas's neck was gone, the candlestick dropping to a clatter on the ground. The spots in Thomas's eyes slowly disappeared but spots still filled Thomas's vision; little red spots that coated the walls and the figure before him, who Thomas now recognized as Luc. Thomas turned to escape and came face-to-face with Jesse, or rather face-to-partial-face, as a bright red axe was sticking out of Jesse's head, embedded all the way through to the bridge of his nose. Thomas screamed as Jesse's body collapsed to the floor like a felled tree, the axe following him all the way down.

Thomas hazarded a glance over his shoulder at Luc, who wore a manic grin, before catapulting himself over Jesse's body and out of the dining room. Thomas immediately rushed to the front door, his hands latching onto the handle and pulling with all his strength. He didn't care what was on the other side as long as he could get to it, but the door refused to let him through. He darted around the foyer as he willed his hurried thoughts to slow down enough to form a plan, but Luc's sudden appearance in the entrance to the dining room threw Thomas's thoughts into a further frenzy.

"Come on, Wadsworth, you're ruining all the fun," Luc called after Thomas as he slowly meandered towards him, the red axe, now redder with Jesse's blood, dragging on the floor behind him.

"So sorry about that," Thomas replied, not even bothering to look back at Luc as he rushed up the stairs. He made it to the fifth step when he realized his mistake; in the commotion of the dining room, he hadn't noticed that Penny and Jackson had slipped away. Now Penny stood five steps above him, the rope pulled taut in her hands.

Thomas turned to flee back down to the foyer when something wrapped around his neck and dropped him on his back. Penny had lassoed Thomas like he was cattle. And in a sense, he was; moments from the slaughter. Thomas's legs flailed as Penny pulled tight.

Thomas watched helplessly as Luc approached him from the bottom of the stairs, the same manic smile still cemented on his face. The last thing Thomas saw before he pressed his eyes shut was Luc heaving the axe over his head. A crack echoed around the foyer once the axe made contact with its intended target.

"Ah, ah, ah, Miss White," Luc tutted. "The kill is mine."

Thomas peeled his eyes open to find that Luc had brought the axe down on the rope rather than his chest. His relief at not being split in two and being able to breathe again came out of him in a high-pitched laugh as his hands fluttered over his body.

"Fuck you, Green," Penny retorted with a fierce scowl.

Thomas's relief at still being alive was short-lived, however, because when he looked back to Luc, the axe was once more over his head. Thomas braced himself, sure that this was the end. And it was, just not for him.

Luc stood frozen with the axe held high above his head until a thin line of blood dribbled over his lower lip and he crashed face-first to the stairs right below Thomas. Thomas curled his feet up towards his body when he noticed the garden shears planted firmly in Luc's back and a new person standing in Luc's place: Jackson.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS HAPPENING?" Thomas shouted, moreso to the universe than to his deranged companions.

"Scarlet," Penny seethed, glaring down at Jackson.

"White," Jackson retorted with equal disdain.

The two stared at each other for an uncomfortably long time, with Thomas silently watching in between, before they made a move. Penny lunged for the axe in Luc's hands and Jackson lunged for the garden shears in Luc's back. In the commotion, Thomas clambered over the bannister and dropped five feet to the ground below, landing on his back and knocking the wind out of himself.

As he laid there heaving, trying to catch his breath again, he missed out on the fight ensuing on the stairs, though he could still hear the grunts and screams. When he was finally able to push himself back to his feet he was met with the aftermath; Penny splayed out on the stairs next to Luc, Jackson standing victorious over her kills with a splatter of blood across her mouth and cheeks like a big, red smile.

"And then there were two," Jackson said, holding the bloody garden shears firmly in her grip.

Thomas stared down at his empty hands and gulped.

"Now, hold on...we can talk this through..." Thomas began as he slowly backed farther into the foyer. With each word Thomas spoke, Jackson took another step down the stairs. "There's no need for violence..."

"Last man standing," Jackson replied, still steady on her path. "Sorry, I misspoke. Last woman standing."

Thomas was quickly running out of two things: space behind him and hope. That is, until he took the next step and felt something underneath his foot. He was terrified to take his eyes off Jackson for even a second but he risked a glance and was immediately rewarded.

"Okay, you're right," Thomas said, slowly lowering himself to the ground. "You're clearly the winner here so I'll just wave my white flag now."

Jackson's scarlet smile widened. She was now directly in front of him, the sharp silver shears glinting under the golden light. "Any last words?"

Thomas looked down so that his face was no longer visible to Jackson. "Just one," he said, his hand groping for the item he had stepped on. Once in hand, he pointed it at Jackson, looking her in the eyes as he shouted, "Expelliarmus!"

The garden shears went flying out of Jackson's hands, lodging themselves into one of the walls. Her look of surprise quickly turned to anger once she recognized the object in Thomas's hand: his wand.

Jackson took a step towards Thomas but before she could attack, Thomas uttered another spell, "Petrificus totalus!" Jackson's arms and legs snapped together, her unblinking eyes boring into Thomas before she dropped to the ground.

A large breath of relief released itself from Thomas' lungs, though he still kept his distance from Jackson just to be safe. The curse wouldn't last long but it'd hopefully give him enough time to figure out what he was going to do next. Or so he thought.

"Well done, Wadsworth," a voice came from behind Thomas. Thomas instinctively froze, almost as if he had been cursed too. Besides himself and Jackson, there was nobody left...except the host.

Thomas turned to meet the person who had brought them all together, but the person wasn't really a person. At least not presently.

"Mr. Boddy," Thomas smiled in relief. "Or should I say, Allistair Sharp?"

Despite being frozen, Jackson could still see and hear everything around her and while it didn't look it, she was completely shocked to watch what happened next.

Mr. Boddy's spine and limbs elongated, stretching from paws into hands and feet, his fur and tail replaced with flesh. Where once sat a black cat, now stood a man in black robes. From what Jackson could see under the hood that covered the man's head and cast a shadow upon his face, the man's hair was the same color as Mr. Boddy's fur and fell to his shoulders in mangled knots. His eyes were the same golden yellow, his pupils more ovular than circular, like his cat counterpart. The gray skin on his face looked like it was shrink-wrapped to his skull, his sharp cheek bones threatening to cut through. A fleeting thought passed through Jackson's mind that she had just met Death.

"Did you really have to make them go after me?" Thomas asked the man with a scowl after the transformation was complete. His heart was still drumming in his chest from his countless near-death experiences.

"You were the one encouraging them to work together to figure out my identity," Allistair reminded him, his raspy voice cutting through the dense air. "Besides, I got you your wand in time."

"I couldn't have them figuring me out," Thomas replied with a shrug and a smile. "Misdirection, my friend. Whose idea was it to use the potion, animate the inferi, and create the giant squid illusion, after all?"

"You locked the weapons in the trunk. That was not part of the plan."

"I may have improvised a bit, to make people think they were safe and cause suspicion. It worked, didn't it?"

Allistair didn't respond because it was at this moment that he noticed Jackson.

"Looks like we have our winner," Allistair said as he approached Jackson with a smile full of crooked black teeth. Jackson strained against the curse, trying to distance herself from his reach, but she still remained frozen. "Here, allow me. Finite incantatum!"

Upon the spell being cast, the feeling in Jackson's limbs returned and she quickly pushed herself to her feet. "Who the fuck are you and what the fuck is going on?" she demanded with furrowed brows and a tight frown, her fists curled at her sides.

"Congratulations on making it to the end, Miss Scarlet," Allistair replied. The clapping of his hands echoed through the foyer like thunder. "You put up quite the fight."

"Yeah, well that wasn't entirely me, now was it?" Jackson retorted with a sneer. Whatever force had invaded her mind was now gone and her senses returned, along with some foggy memories. Her eyes glanced towards the bloody scene on the stairs and in the dining room and her stomach dropped. She hadn't known Willow, Madelynn, Jesse, Luc, and Penny very long, but in the short time that they had been trapped together in the Shrieking Shack, she had come to consider them as friends. And now they were dead and their blood was on her hands.

Allistair chuckled. "Alas, I did have to use the Imperius Curse to get things moving along again after things got off track." Allistair glanced over to Thomas as he said this and Thomas rolled his eyes in response. "But I'd say that everything ended splendidly."

"We have a special opportunity for you, a gift, you might say," Thomas added, moving to stand beside Allistair. "We've been watching you, all of you, for a long time."

"Why?" Jackson asked, her brows furrowing in confusion. 

"Recruitment, of course," Allistair answered, his dark eyes gleaming.

"What are you, Death Eaters or something?" A look of disgust washed over Jackson's face at the mention of Death Eaters.

Thomas glanced over to Allistair with a smile. "Or something," he responded.

"Think of us as Death Eaters but without the blood purity," Allistair explained. "We believe that all witches and wizards are superior to muggles, regardless of how much magic they have in their blood."

"I've always known that I was superior to my muggle parents," Thomas continued. "But the Death Eaters would never accept a muggle-born like me or a half-blood like Allistair among their ranks. We're not pure enough for them, so fuck them. We've created a group with a mindset like ours full of pure-bloods, half-bloods, and muggle-borns, and we're excited to include another muggle-born such as yourself."

Jackson nearly choked on her own words in disbelief. "Me? Join you? You've got to be fucking joking."

"We understand that this is all very...sudden..." Allistair replied. "When I first found Thomas, or Wadsworth, as you know him, it took him some time to come to terms with it, but now he's masterminding operations such as this one. Operations where we infiltrate Hogwarts to keep eyes and ears out for potential recruits."

"I don't know what you were seeing or hearing but I am not a 'potential recruit'."

"Of course you are, you passed the test."

"What test?"

Allistair chuckled and Thomas joined in. "I thought you would have figured it out by now," Allistair answered. "This whole weekend was a test to determine which one of you has what it takes to join us."

"And what is that?"

"A secret that you'd do anything to protect."

Jackson's fists once more clenched and her eyes burned with rage. "We've already established that that wasn't me."

"You're right, I did use the Imperius Curse on you but I didn't instruct you to kill them," Allistair replied with a sly smile. Jackson cocked her head in confusion. "I instructed you to protect your secret from the others. It was you who determined what that entailed. We need someone like that in our ranks; someone who will do what it takes, someone who will keep a secret no matter the cost."

"N-no," Jackson stammered, the color completely draining from her face. She stumbled as she took a step backwards, nearly collapsing to the ground. "No, you're lying."

"We know everyone's secrets, including yours. We know that Luc Darcey, also known as Mr. Green, cursed the Ravenclaw keeper's broom during a quidditch match, resulting in the boy falling and nearly dying. We know that Madelynn Lewin, who you called Colonel Mustard, smuggled illegal dragons into Hogwarts for trade. We know that Willow Murphy, or Miss Peacock as you knew her, has an uncle in Azkaban who is a Death Eater. We know that Jesse Miller, also known as Professor Plum, overheard a group of Death Eater students discussing plans to infiltrate Hogwarts and never reported them. We know that Penny Tanaka, or Miss White, stole homework and test answers from professors to sell to other students under the moniker, Tabby Cat."

With each revelation, Jackson felt her breathing shallow and her heart rate increase.

"And lastly, we know that you, Jackson Serdeys, poisoned your mother's muggle boyfriend with malevolent mixture in an attempt to kill him," Allistair informed Jackson as he took a step towards her.

"He's an abusive asshole, I was just trying to save my mom!" Jackson cried, her voice wobbling and tears streaming down her face.

"Was that the only reason?"

"Y-yes, of course!" Jackson responded, though she hesitated. Allistair didn't push the point but the content look on his face informed Jackson that he noticed.

"We also know that the Gryffindor student you found in the parlour was the one to brew and sell you the potion," Allistair continued. He took another step closer.

"Is she really dead?" Jackson sobbed, her watery eyes staring up into the darkness of Allistair's hood. "A-are they all really dead?"

"Of course," Allistair answered. "She was the only other person who knew. We took care of her for you, just as we did for the others, and now your secret is truly safe. We hope you can do the same for us."

"And if I don't?" Jackson snapped, the last bit of her anger pushing through her tears, but her shaking limbs betrayed her; she was terrified of the answer.

"Then we'll do whatever it takes to protect our secret," Thomas answered. She hadn't even noticed him move, but now he was standing beside Allistair again, almost like they were conjoined.

"So what do you say, Jackson Serdeys?" Allistair asked, the lights in the foyer blinking around them in sync. With each flicker, the Shrieking Shack returned to its decrepit state of darkness and decay. "Will you join us?"

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A/N: You guys guessed it, the cat did it! But this is just one ending...there will be others...

So sorry for the delayed update again (she says for the millionth time), I went a little too crazy with the story so it took me a while to connect all the dots for the endings haha. But now that I'm done with grad school I'll be able to update more frequently! I'm thinking another two, maybe three, alternate endings? Thanks again for reading applying and reading along, I've had a lot of fun with these characters!

(Also sorry for killing them all, but I promise they'll all return in the next chapter!)