The Case in which We got Entangled

Summary: Post!DH, before DC/CC, when a stranger came to town no-one knew just how tangled Ran and Shinichi would get in his past and present. Especially when they found him at a crime scene; murder clearly written across his body. Character Death!

Disclaimer: mah, I don't own anything you might recognise

Prologue

There was something heavy pounding away in his head and his mouth felt dry like he had been drowned in the desert. He groaned when something heavy dropped across his legs but everything else about his body felt just about as heavy so he remained where he was. There wasn't really a reason for him to move until he could make sense of his thoughts. What had he been doing before waking up… apart from sleeping of course? He… and there was… and then…

"Hmm." Can't remember a thing…

So he remained lying on the floor, breathing in the scent of a slightly damp carpet while he waited for his thoughts to clear and his body to regain feeling. Just as the tingling in his fingers started a door clicked open and a person entered the room before they gave a horrified scream. Every instinct started to scream for him to move, move, move. But he couldn't and that frightened him; frustrated him to the point of heart-hammering agony.

He groaned when someone checked his pulse and winched when the person shouted about him being still alive. "No need to shout," he slurred drunkenly, finally being able to move his body again when the feeling returned to his limbs. He blinked rapidly when he tried to open his eyes without being blinded by the light of the room. "Of course I'm still…" There was someone there, right across his legs. Blonde, pain skin, wearing a black three-piece suit and his pale grey eyes were staring unseeing up at the ceiling. The man looked familiar but somehow he just couldn't remember.

"Draco! No, Draco!" a woman wailed in the doorway, her attempts to enter the room blocked by a larger, coloured man. The man stared straight at him, malice clear in his brown eyes yet his face remained blank. It sends shivers down his spine. Two more young women stood right behind the wailing woman; they were whispering to each other, frowning behind their hands. One more man stood next to them and silently scolded them, startling the two women into silence. Apart from the dark skinned man everyone seemed to ignore him so he had enough time to re-examine the man who lay dead in the room.

Or he wanted to at least but was interrupted once more, this time by the sound of running footsteps. A youth of Asian descent, dark hair, pale skin and sharp eyes that seemed to sparkle blue in the light of this mystery. The youth quickly looked around the room before moving to stand closer to the corpse. "My friend is calling the police and will be back shortly," he said with a heavy accent but in perfect English. After that he made his way to the corpse and checked for a pulse. It seemed strange – couldn't he see the bullet hole on the blonde's forehead or the blood pooling out from the exit wound? – but the youth seemed to know what he was doing so there was no need to question it.

For a moment the youth's eyes met his and he was instantly drawn in by something; a knowing that shouldn't be in eyes so young. Something stirred inside of him, like he knew just what was going on with the youth. Mysteries were all fine and good, but when it involved dead people it suddenly became so much more than a game.

But these were just feelings and couldn't possibly help at a time like this. So he settled for surveying the room he was in. It seemed a standard apartment, barely lived in yet messy as if there had been a fight recently. A low table with a semi-comfortable wing-backed chair stood opposite a small television set and a bookcase. Dining table and two chairs close to the entrance to the kitchen and two doors, one for the bathroom and the other for the bedroom – both open to reveal the mess inside.

Movement caught his eye and he turned to stare at his own reaction, eyes widening when he didn't recognise what he was seeing. Dark green eyes bordering black and medium brown hair, stylishly messy yet flattened with drying blood. When he reached up a hand to check for injuries he came to the conclusion that it was not his own. With a frightened glance at the corpse that was still lying by his feet, he came to one certainty – that blood was not his own.

Was that relief…?

There didn't seem to be anything else wrong with him. No further wounds or bruises which seemed strange as he was passed out on the floor. His mouth was dry – really could do with a glass of water – and he was a little dizzy, so was it because he had too much to drink? But would that lead to paralysis? He hadn't been able to move at all; not until that person checked his pulse to feel if he was still alive. But it wasn't like someone could cure paralysis with a single touch, now was it? It was almost like…

"Magic."

He chuckled right after he had muttered the word. That just couldn't be possible, right?

"Shinichi Kudou, detective," the youth said suddenly from where he was on the other side of the room. "May I ask your name and your relation to the victim?"

"Detective?"

"Pansy Parkinson, Draco's girlfriend," the girl who was sitting on the floor wailed, but at her confession one of the girls in the back snorted.

"You weren't fooling anyone Pansy," the one of the left said with a flick of her hair. "Aurora Peters, colleague and friend."

"Belladonna Tomson, partner and friend," the blonde next to her said with a faint smile. The young man who had scolded them before gave them a fond smile and a little shake of the head. She gave him a cheeky smile before turning to look at the young detective who was watching their interactions with a passive face.

"Peter Robin," the young man by the two girls introduced himself as. "Partner and friend; same as Bella here. I just came for the food."

"Don't forget the company," the tanned man kneeling by Pansy said. "Blaise Zabini, former classmate and friend of the deceased. I only know Aurora through Pansy who is also a former classmate of mine."

"That's not a very nice thing to say, Blaise," Peter said with a wide smile. It seemed a little creepy at best but Blaise didn't look fazed by it. "You should know all of us by now."

Blaise stared impassively at the other man for some time but Peter's smile didn't falter. It was only when another group of people rushed towards them that they broke their gazes. A girl – the same age as the young detective – came rushing into the room. She froze at the sight of the corpse before being startled out of it by Shinichi. They rattled off in a language he didn't understand but seeing as they were both Asian it wasn't that surprising. The girl brought with her two officers in uniform and an older man along with a woman. The two officers started taking instructions from the man while the woman greeted Kudou with a smile.

"Ah Kudou," the man greeted with a smile. "It seems whenever we meet there is a corpse. Try not to make this a habit."

"I'll try my best Inspector Richards," Shinichi replied with a smile of his own. So the youth had been known to the police after all. Not that he had doubted Shinichi when the young detective had started processing the room so effectively. It was just his age that had thrown him off, but then hadn't he seen young detectives of a kind before? When he was in school he had been hunting down mysteries of his own, hadn't he? Had he?

He looked back at the mirror, still confused by the image he saw. His hair, hadn't it been black before? And his eyes were too dark, no longer obscured by glasses. That's it! And the man on the floor was… "Draco Malfoy," he muttered soft enough for only the dead guy to hear.

"Did you remember something?" Shinichi asked, crouching down in front of him with that intense look in his eyes like he was trying to piece a puzzle together.

"The dead guy," he answered, his brown eyes trailing back to the blonde sprawled on the floor. "His name was Draco Malfoy. I remembered being annoyed with him, hating him."

The young detective hummed thoughtfully. "That gives you a motive at least. What else?"

"M-motive?" he stuttered, snapping his gaze back to the young man crouched in front of him. "You think I killed him?"

"You don't think you killed the victim?" Shinichi asked, his voice betraying a little bit of doubt. "The murder weapon is right beside you -" it was true, there was a gun right beside him "- and you were found in the same room moment after the victim was killed. It looks a bit suspicious doesn't it?"

So it did. "B-but Draco was lying across my legs," he cried out. "I felt him fall!"

"Did you now?" inspector Richards interrupted. The older man gave him a once over, glancing at the gun lying close beside him, before subtly moving himself between the gun and the brunette. "Tell me, what was your connection to the victim?"

What was his connection to Draco Malfoy? When he tried to remember all he could feel was a deep rooted hatred, something which had been there for a very long time. Exasperation, annoyance, a knowing that they would never really get along. And yet there was acceptance, a grudging respect that helped them work together.

"We've known each other for a long time," he muttered softly staring down at the blonde with a neutral expression. "I could almost say that we grew up together but that's not quite it. I've worked with him before."

Something inside of his brain seemed to shift and move, casting a light in his fuzzy state of mind. "I hated that arrogant arse. Always complaining about this and that; always making my job a little bit harder. And the endless whining about the tiny details, like the job wasn't hard enough."

"And what kind of a job was that?" the inspector interrupted, breaking his train of thought.

He blinked and felt the fuzziness return with a vengeance. "I don't know," he admitted, flinching a little when a sharp pain echoed through his head.

"It's no use inspector Richards," Shinichi said. "It's clear this man has amnesia."

"So he could have committed the murder and conveniently forgot about it?" the older inspector said as he squinted his eyes to stare in annoyance at his suspect.

Shinichi shook his head. "That's just not possi-"

"What are you saying?" Pansy cried out from the doorway where she had straightened to cling to Blaise's jacket. "The murder weapon is right there, isn't it? It's that thing that killed my Draco and he was in the room this whole time!"

He paled at the thought of being put in jail for something he wasn't even sure he had done. Sure he probably had hated this Draco fellow, but would he have really hated the guy enough to kill him? And what was his reason for killing him now? Clearly they had known one another for a long time – or at least that's what it felt like to him. So it seemed strange that he would suddenly decide to kill the fellow now. But then something must have happened that drove him to kill Draco. Or at least that's what he suspected, because it didn't feel like he had actually killed the blonde. So what had happened to him that led him to this situation?

"I'm afraid this isn't looking good, boya," the female inspector said as she wandered over to his side.

"I'm 23 ya know," he said out of reflex, blinking in confusion to turn his thoughts inward. That felt about right. He did look young enough, so 23 could actually be his real age.

The woman chuckled. "Are you sure about that? You look around 18 to me."

He huffed and crossed his arms across his chest in true teenager fashion, sticking out his tongue at the woman for good measure. She laughed loudly until something clearly caught her eye. "Can you stick out your tongue a little further for me? Check this out boss."

"Is there some-"

"Shut it and just do it already," the lady said and he couldn't help but obey instantly.

The inspector squinted at his tongue with interest and slight confusion. "I guess it would be useless to ask if you remember drinking or eating anything before you blacked out."

"Even if he did have something to drink that made him pass out or lose his memory, it wouldn't have caused complete amnesia like this person seems to have," Shinichi concluded.

"I still can't rule him off my suspect list though," the inspector said.

He sighed dejectedly. "I guess so."

"To be honest there is enough evidence to suggest he didn't do it," Shinichi said pensively and he looked around the room again. It seemed like the young detective was trying to figure something out but was actually stuck on some things.

"It must be hard trying to find evidence that doesn't exist," Blaise said suddenly distancing himself from Pansy with a sneer.

"What are you saying?" Pansy screeched causing most of the men in the room to flinch. "It's clear that guy killed Draco. Why else would he have been inside of this room?"

"Maybe it's because this is his room," Peter said with a sneer and he rolled his eyes at the girl. "The stranger here would be all of us in that case. Unless you're saying you actually know him?"

"He's got odd taste though, don't you think?" Belladonna said.

Aurora nodded. "Definitely odd. I mean who would match that chair with this apartment? And who would only buy one chair and leave the rest as it is? This place may be messy but the mess seems mostly scattered clothes. Everything else is in bins."

"It's almost as if someone was looking for something," Shinichi concluded with a pensive look before turning his eyes to the gun, now bagged and tagged lying on a table for evidence. Suddenly he smirked before making his way to the body again. The young detective crouched down beside the victim's head and leaned to look closer at the bullet wound. Suddenly, and with unwavering hand, Shinichi touched the wound.

Yeah, he really didn't feel like looking what the young detective was doing. He was about to stand up – feeling a little tired of sitting on the floor all this time – when Shinichi exclaimed that he finally understood. Something was rushing in his ears and just as the young detective started to explain the trick used, the still nameless man fell unconscious once more.

…

When he woke up, he was in hospital. There was no paralysis this time, but he still felt dizzy like he had been drinking too much before. He groaned softly when he tried to remember what happened before he fell unconscious again and found that he could remember this time around. Something akin to relief filled him and he was about to get out of the bed when he spotted a certain someone's staring at him from across the room.

"It seems your disguise has faded away," Shinichi said with a slight frown as his friend Ran stared at the man on the bed with interest. "I've never seen a disguise like that before."

"It's magic," the now raven head said with a grin, his green eyes twinkling in the sharp hospital room. "Harry James Potter, chemistry student and freelance inventor. Nice to meet you."

…

And that's how it happened.

A/N: so, who is the killer and how did they do it? What will the future bring? The next update may take long, but I will try my best.