Chapter Text
Hermione Granger had seen a lot of things during her time with the Homicide Investigation Department of the DMLE but never had she ever seen anything quite like this.
“Talk to me, what am I looking at?” She questioned, her eyes focused not on the body lying on the living-room table but rather in the apartment that surrounded it.
“Victim is Grace Petrovi, 25, American half-blood witch trained at Ilvermorny. The apartment is her’s shared with a…” Hermione turned to face her briefer, his eyes were turned to a small pad of paper he held in hand, squinting to make out the sprawling writing. “A… Helene Moritart… also American. Both women are a part of the Magical Law Mastery program at Imperial University. Neighbors called in a noise complaint and when she didn’t answer the door the building manager used the key and found her like this. At first, the muggles were going to handle it but one of the detectives recognized that the petals are stuck to her with a sticking charm. We were called in less than 30 minutes after.”
“Hmm. Nice place.” Hermione glanced around once again, the high ceilings and large windows alone looked they would hike the apartment’s rent far past what a Mastery student could afford.
“Daddy’s money is my guess.” Hermione looked across the kitchen table to see Harry appear from what she assumed was the apartment’s kitchen. “According to ministry records Grace is the daughter of a muggle multi-millionaire and a pure-blood heiress.”
Hermione looked back to the young woman, her stomach twisting nervously as she tugged on a pair of latex gloves. “There’s no signs of struggle that I can see.” She leaned down to be able to examine Grace’s bare neck closer for signs of bruising or bondage. “She knew her killer. How long has she been dead?” She asked as Devon Taylor, the forensic’s medical examiner for the case, stepped away from the body.
“Hard to say.”
“Why?”
“Normally, I would be able to do my initial spell work here and then take the body back to the morgue for more hands-on testing but Auror Potter requested I not do anything to tamper with the positioning of the flowers until you gave me the go-ahead.”
“Thank you, Taylor. Just a few minutes more and then you should be good to go.”
“Do you think it was a florist who killed her?” Harry asked nodding towards Grace’s cold body. Any other time Hermione would have shut down his idea but with this case well… it had the potential to be true. Grace had been found lying on her living room table naked but covered in… well covered from her collarbone to midthigh by deep scarlet petals. Her eyes were what unnerved Hermione the most, each eye had been covered by a single ginormous sunflower.
“Does this scene seem familiar to anyone else?” Hermione asked as she stepped back so the crime scene photographer could take his final photos. The silence that followed her question was enough of an answer for her. “Seriously? No one?”
“Should it?”
“I’ve read about this before.” Hermione nodded her permission to Taylor as he stepped forward, wand raised.
“Really? What is it, some kind of ancient ritual?” Harry asked, coming to stand beside her.
“No, nothing like that. It wasn’t even in a magical book, it was in a muggle one.” She turned to face her best friend of nearly two decades waiting for him to show some kind of realization. “It’s from Flowers for Your Grave.”
“The murder-mystery book? Mione, I thought you stopped reading those.”
“I never said I was stopping for good.” Hermione turned away to watch Taylor’s elegant spellwork work its way down Grace’s body. “But this,” she gestured to the general crime scene, “is identical to the murder in that book. I’d even bet that those petals are ranunculus petals.”
Taylor, who had been listening to their exchange glanced down to the notes being taken down by his enchanted quill.
“Sorry, Granger they’re actually rose petals.”
“Still… this is the work of a copycat.”
“Or the author,” Harry suggested. “Perhaps he got fed up with writing out murders and has turned to performing them instead.”
“It’s possible but we both know that a theory is not exactly enough to arrest Castle. For now, let's stick to finding him for questioning. Before him though, I need you to track down the roommate and some contact information for Grace’s next-of-kin.” Hermione began to walk away her mind already whirling through her initial information coming up with theories and next steps.
“What about the author?”
“Once, Taylor can give us a kill-time window we’ll bring him in for questioning. Richard Castle is a muggle as far as I know so we may need to get a fast-tracked statute release on him. Harry could you—”
“—on it.”
“I’ll update Thompson and then rendevous with Taylor for the initials. Let’s meet at say,” Hermione checked her watch stifling a groan when she saw how late it already was. “8?”
“I’ll have something for you by then. Ron should be done canvasing by then as well, hopefully, one of the neighbors saw or heard something to lead us in the right direction.”