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𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐔𝐏 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐋𝐄𝐄𝐏𝐘 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐂𝐇𝐄𝐒 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐈𝐙𝐀𝐑𝐃𝐒 awoke to the smell of bacon wafting through the dining room and almost in unison, their eyes all flashed open.

"Good morning," Thomas greeted the group from the doorway with a pan of searing bacon in his hand.

"Did you make...breakfast?" Luc asked in disbelief as he pushed himself up onto his elbows.

"Of course, we've all got to have a full stomach if we're going to crack the case of our host," Thomas answered. "Miss Peacock and Colonel Mustard, if you don't mind moving from the table, I can begin to bring out the rest of the food."

Willow and Madelynn pushed themselves off the table and into chairs and in the quick movement, Madelynn accidentally kicked Jesse, who was still asleep in his blanket fort.

"Ow!" a shout came from beneath the table.

"Sorry," Madelynn said sheepishly, lifting up a corner of the blanket to stick her head inside and offer Jesse an apologetic smile.

After everybody was seated around the table, including Jesse, Thomas began to bring out the food. Eggs, bacon, ham, toast, beans, grilled tomatoes, sausage, hash browns, waffles, pancakes...a whole feast. A collective gurgle worked from one stomach to the next as the hungry witches and wizards stared at the food in front of them.

"Where did all of this even come from?" Penny asked between bites of a pancake.

"I found it in the kitchen this morning after I woke up," Thomas answered from his seat at the head of the table. Mr. Boddy was curled up on his lap, fast asleep. "The letter I received said that food would be provided."

"How kind of our host," Jackson retorted with a roll of her eyes. "They locked us inside for a weekend-long murder fest, but hey, at least we won't starve ourselves."

"Speaking of death..." Jesse mentioned. "Is there a corpse in the parlour or did I dream that all up?"

A moment of silence filled the room as everyone collectively remembered the events of the previous night before silverware clattered to the table as they all rushed across the foyer to the parlour. Thomas made it first, creating a traffic jam after he stopped cold in the doorway. Willow, Madelynn, Penny, Luc, Jackson, and Jesse all struggled for a chance to see around Thomas.

"What is it, Mr. Wadsworth?" Willow asked as she attempted to balance herself on her tiptoes in order to see what had stopped Thomas in his tracks.

"The-the body," Thomas stammered, wide-eyed. "It-it's gone!"

Sick of being stuck behind all the tall people, Penny dropped to the floor and crawled between everyone's legs until she was at the forefront of the group. Her eyes also widened as they settled upon the empty couch where they had set the boy's body the night before. "How is that possible?" she muttered.

"Maybe it was all just a dream..." Jesse gasped. Luc immediately smacked him on the shoulder.

"Are we sure that he was really dead?" Madelynn asked.

"I think it's pretty hard to survive a knife jammed into your back," Luc retorted with a roll of his eyes.

"Maybe he's a zombie..." Jesse gasped again and was once more smacked on the shoulder by Luc.

"Well, we need to find him, wherever or whatever he is," Penny announced to the group.

"We should split up and search the Shack," Thomas suggested. "We're all locked in so he's got to be here somewhere."

"Fine," Willow agreed. "But only if I'm not paired up with Mr. Green."

"Are you forgetting that you also had a connection to the body?" Luc huffed as he turned to face Willow with crossed arms.

"Yeah, but you seem more murder-y," Willow retorted.

"I've got an idea! I'll be right back," Thomas announced before rushing across the foyer and into the kitchen. He came back out a minute later with a bundle of toothpicks in his hand and one-by-one, he began to carefully snap the toothpicks into various lengths.

"We'll draw for partners," Thomas explained as he shuffled the broken toothpicks into a seemingly even pile in his fist. "Shortest with shortest, longest with longest, etcetera. There's an odd number of us, so I'll join the group of whoever pulls the shortest toothpicks."

After everybody had grabbed a toothpick from Thomas, they began to compare with each other until the teams were set. Madelynn and Jesse were together, while Thomas joined Jackson and Penny's team. Willow groaned when she realized that her toothpick was the same length as Luc's.

"Look who got stuck with the 'murder-y' partner," Luc said with a smile, making Willow roll her eyes in response.

"All right, each team will take their own floors," Thomas instructed the group after they had shuffled into their pairs. "Miss Scarlet, Miss White, and I will search the basement and the first floor. Miss Peacock and Mr. Green will search the second and third floor, and Colonel Mustard and Professor Plum will take the attic."

A chorus of unenthusiastic agreements echoed around the foyer as each team set out for their designated spots.

"I think we need a team name," Jesse informed Madelynn as they climbed the stairs up to the attic.

"Sure, got any ideas?" Madelynn asked.

"Well, we're both Hufflepuffs..." Jesse pointed out. "We could be the Huffle-Puffins...or the Huffle-Puff-Puff-Passes..."

"How about the Badgers?" Madelynn offered, not quite so keen on Jesse's suggestions.

"Yeah, that's a lot better, let's go with that one," Jesse agreed.

Once they reached the top of the stairs, they both found themselves stuck to the top step as they stared at the hatch above their heads.

"Ladies first?" Jesse gulped with a nervous smile.

Madelynn rolled her eyes and pushed past him to grab onto the rope that hung from the hatch. With a hearty pull, and a lot of dust, the hatch popped open and a ladder unfolded at their feet. Madelynn glanced back at Jesse before hesitantly setting her foot on the first step and hoisting herself up towards the attic.

Jesse anxiously watched from the bottom of the ladder as more and more of Madelynn's body disappeared into the attic. His hand slowly reached out for the ladder to follow after when Madelynn's head popped back into view and startled him backwards.

"We're going to need a light," Madelynn informed him. "Grab one of the torches off the wall."

Jesse obliged and returned momentarily with a torch in hand. He passed it up to Madelynn, who once more disappeared from view. A soft light spilled from the attic and glowed upon the top steps of the ladder, inviting Jesse to join. Taking a deep breath, Jesse squeezed his eyes shut and climbed the ladder up into the unknown.

When he finally reached the top, he willed his eyes to open and was met with a cavernous space filled with all manners of odd items scattered in random piles around him. Madelynn had already made it halfway across the attic and was waving the torch around to get a better look at the strange collection of books, toys, furniture, papers, and paintings.

"Look at this," Madelynn called out to Jesse as she pulled a dusty, leather-bound book from the top of a haphazard pile of boxes.

Jesse cautiously stepped around the precarious piles until he was able to reach Madelynn. "1628," Jesse whispered as he read the date embossed on the cover.

"It's almost like the Room of Requirement," Madelynn said, setting down the book to pick up a new one that was dated "1417". "I wonder what else is up here."

"Hopefully not a dead body," Jesse muttered.

Madelynn swept the torch across the seemingly endless space, allowing the light to dance across the rafters as she surveyed the rest of the attic. She stopped when she came to a large item covered in a canvas leaning up against a wall in the corner. Drawn to it, Madelynn made her way across the attic, nearly tripping over objects on her way as her eyes remained glued to it.

"What is that?" Jesse asked, slowly following behind her. The rectangular object towered over them, nearly twice their height and width.

Madelynn carefully tugged at a corner of the canvas, stepping back to allow the fabric to fall to the floor and reveal what it was hiding.

"Whoa..." Jesse mumbled once the bulk of the fabric had gathered at their feet.

A life-like painting of the foyer of the Shrieking Shack stood before them, the front door situated dead-center. Only this version depicted the Shrieking Shack as they had initially imagined it; dead and decaying. Any color that had once been in the canvas had bled away, leaving only grays and blacks. Large cracks ripped through the door and along the walls in the painting as thick vines crept through.

Madelynn reached out to touch the painting and was surprised when her fingers passed through it like a ghost. Looking to Jesse with a shocked expression, Madelynn said, "I think this is a door...or a portal or something..."

"If that's a door..." Jesse began, an equally shocked expression smeared across his face. "Then where does it lead?"

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"Would you hurry up already?" Luc called over his shoulder to Willow, who was lingering a few steps behind him.

Willow picked up her pace, but she was still careful to match Luc's steps. Any time Luc slowed down, Willow slowed down too.

"What, are you afraid that I'm going to stab you in the back?" Luc scoffed once he realized what Willow was doing. He quickly came to a stop and Willow did the same, albeit a few steps later.

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm afraid of," Willow answered with a serious tone and an equally serious expression.

"You need to learn to take more risks, Peacock," Luc laughed, resuming his pace. "Then maybe you wouldn't be only second-string."

Willow scowled but resumed her pace as well. "I'll have you know that I prefer to be second-string. Sometimes it's better to watch and learn than it is to be a show-off."

Luc rolled his eyes and chuckled to himself as he came to the first door on the second floor. "Whatever floats your boat, princess," Luc responded. He opened the door and began to enter when he stopped as Willow followed after. "Are you going to follow me into every single room?"

"That was the plan," Willow answered.

"I think we'll be able to search much quicker if we check different rooms," Luc informed her. Willow didn't respond, but the uncomfortable look on her face spoke for her. Luc sighed before speaking again. "I promise I won't kill you if you promise you won't kill me."

"That doesn't make me feel much better," Willow said. "But fine."

Willow moved onto the room next to the one Luc was searching, but her eyes continued to glance over her shoulder every so often. She took a deep breath before opening the door in front of her and wrapping her arm around the wall to find a light switch. Once her fingers found the toggle and a soft light filled the space, she slowly pushed herself inside.

Willow was confused to find a large billiards table taking up most of the room. It looked like it was set up for a game, with twenty-one of the balls arranged in a perfect triangle and a cue ball sitting on the opposing end. A rack of cue sticks hung from the wall, which was painted to match the green felt.

While Willow had been exposed to much of the muggle world growing up, she knew that pool wasn't a common magical past-time so it was surprising to find it in the Shrieking Shack. But then again, nothing in the Shrieking Shack had made much sense to Willow since she had arrived. There were torches lining the walls and stairways, but also modern-day electricity wired through every room. The house in itself was its own mystery.

Willow quickly shuffled throughout the room, ducking to check under the billiards table for any signs of the missing body, but it didn't take her long to determine that the boy wasn't there. She turned to leave when she noticed something odd: the door was closed and she didn't remember closing it or hearing it close. Willow's heart began to race as she rushed to escape the room.

With a strong tug, Willow was relieved to find that the door opened with ease, but what she found on the other side was even stranger.

"Mr. Green?" Willow called out down the hallway, sticking her head around the doorframe to look for the lanky Slytherin boy. When she didn't hear a response, she cautiously took a few steps out of the room.

The hallway looked different than she remembered it, painted a deep purple instead of the dark blue she had seen. The paintings adorning the walls were even different, hosting pictures of magical creatures rather than idyllic landscapes.

"Peacock, where are you?" she heard Luc shout for her, although it sounded like it had come from below her...

Willow rushed for the stairs, taking them two steps at a time until she nearly collided with Luc who was waiting for her at the base of the second floor.

"I thought we were going to search the floors together. Why did you go upstairs?" Luc asked with a look of confusion after Willow had regained her footing.

Willow stared at Luc with wide eyes and attempted to catch her breath before answering, "I didn't."

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"My vote is that we search this floor first so that way if we find the body, then we don't need to go back down to that creepy basement," Jackson informed Thomas and Penny, who both nodded in agreement before setting out to explore the rest of the foyer.

"I wonder if these paintings know anything," Penny pondered out loud as she stopped to investigate a painting of a middle-aged woman dressed in an eloquent blue dress hanging from the wall. The woman sat frozen in her spot on a park bench with an assortment of flowers blooming around her, only her eyes moving as they blinked every few seconds.

"Excuse me, miss," Penny addressed the woman in the portrait. "Do you know what happened to the dead boy in the parlour?"

The woman continued to stare past Penny, although her eyes began to blink more frequently and she stirred uncomfortably in her seat.

"Miss, can you hear me?" Penny tried again, but she still got no response.

"It doesn't look like they want to talk," Thomas informed Penny, resting a hand on her shoulder to steer her back towards the rest of the foyer. Penny frowned but followed after.

Meanwhile, Jackson had meandered down towards the farther end of the hall, her eyes caught on the door at the very end. Each door was different from the rest, but this one stood out to Jackson more for some reason. It was painted a deep red and had intricate floral designs carved into the wood.

Jackson's hand instinctively reached out for the round golden knob fastened to the door. Without even realizing it, she twisted it open and felt the air slowly leave her lungs as the door silently swung open.

Jackson's gasp alerted Thomas and Penny to her position at the end of the hall.

"Did you find something?" Thomas called out to Jackson.

When Jackson didn't respond, Thomas and Penny shared a glance before quickly rushing down the hallway towards her.

"I found the body," Jackson said faintly once she was finally able to find her voice again. "But we've got a problem."

"What's the problem?" Penny asked, a look of worry quickly sewing itself across her features.

Jackson stepped aside to allow Penny and Thomas to see into the room. They found the boy's body laying on the floor, but he wasn't alone. Laying next to him was a girl with a large gash on the side of her head. A golden candlestick stained with the girl's blood sat beside her frozen body.

"Now there's two."

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A/N: Hope you guys are having a good week! Just a heads-up I'm going to continue to try to get a chapter out every week, but I may slow down to once every other week depending on how crazy the rest of my semester gets. I can't believe finals are already almost here!

Who do you think the killer is? Do you think they're the same person, or someone different?