Chapter Three
The next day we were all sitting in the battered old armchairs in the corner of the library. Madam Pince was stalking the Restricted Section so for a few moments we were alone.
"Ok." I said, closing my Ancients Runes book and fixing Sherlock with a shrewd gaze. "Ok, you've been dying to tell us all day, what does Kelly's missing ring have to do with anything?"
Sherlock took his time, dotting an i in his essay and turning the page of his book. But eventually he looked up at us and began talking like we had been in the middle of a lengthy discussion.
"Kelly Trent wore rings on every finger but one, she took it off and planted it on her killer."
"She might just have lost it!" said John in exasperation but Sherlock shook his head.
"The skin was red and swollen around the area where the ring used to sit so she had it before she put on weight and didn't remove it very often, so clearly a dear possession. She deliberately took it off to lead us to her killer. What do we know about Kelly Trent may I ask?"
We glanced at each other and he rolled his eyes.
"Come on! Data, I can't make bricks without clay. Tell me what you knew about Kelly Trent."
"Well…" I began slowly, thinking. "She was in sixth year, Hufflepuff, uh…"
"Yes yes we know this from yesterday!" Sherlock said, clicking his fingers impatiently. "What else?"
"She was muggleborn but raised in care." Lilly jumped in. "Not a very happy childhood I don't think, and then there was that horrible boyfriend of hers."
"What boyfriend?" Sherlock asked looking distracted and Lilly and I raised our eyebrows.
"Don't you keep up with gossip in this place?" I asked smugly. "Kelly and Mark Davis have been going out for two years now! And he's the biggest control freak you ever met, he's in our house, total twat."
"Ah…" said Sherlock, closing his eyes as if he'd just realised something. "Of course, unhappy relationship, hence the weight gain. And that meant she had a string of lovers."
"So you do keep up with gossip." Lilly said.
"No, just a deduction. So possessive boyfriend, unhappy background, certainly seems like a mix for suicide."
"But you think it was murder." I said and then something popped into my head, something that had escaped my notice for weeks.
"Carl Powers!" I cried, making John and Lilly jump.
"Sorry?" said John in puzzlement.
"Carl Powers!" I repeated, staring at Sherlock. "You said, ages ago, you said he'd been murdered."
"Of course he was, but the Ministry put it down to suicide." said Sherlock, going back to his essay. I shook my head tiredly.
"I'm not even going to ask how you know that." I sighed. "So you think there's a connection between Kelly and Carl?"
"They both were murdered but their deaths were put down to suicide." Sherlock shrugged. "But other than that I see nothing that connects the two victims."
"They both liked to stick their noses in other people's business." Lilly snorted. "Not like you mind, more like cheap gossip."
"Are you four still talking about that then?" asked Mr Potter as he stepped out from behind a bookshelf. Lilly looked mortified.
"Dad! We were just - " she began but Mr Potter put up a hand.
"Relax Lilly, this isn't nearly as bad as what we got up to at school."
He dropped into the seat beside his daughter looking exhausted. Sherlock was eyeing him with a calculating expression.
"Have you found Rachel?" he asked and Potter shook his head.
"No, Kelly had no family and we can't find a record of either of her parents. None of her friends are called Rachel, or anyone who might have a connection to her."
Sherlock's eyes narrowed and I sat back in disappointment. Potter was looking at Sherlock with an odd expression, it was almost like amusement.
"Professor McGonagall has been telling me all about you lot." he suddenly chuckled, nodding at Sherlock. "You're a bit of a wild card aren't you? Too clever for your own good according to half the Law Enforcement Squad."
"Well half the Law Enforcement Squad are too stupid for their own good." Sherlock sighed, flicking through his textbook boredly. Potter gestured at John.
"And I hear you've already got one foot in the door of St Mungo's. They'll be glad to have you they're short on staff."
"Well I – I still haven't decided yet." John said awkwardly. Finally Potter turned to me.
"And you're Bill's protégée, he's promised to give you a reference at Gringotts hasn't he."
"Um, yes sir."
Potter nodded and contemplated each of us thoughtfully for a while before saying,
"Now look you lot, I know Slughorn warned you off and Lilly, your mother told me to warn you off too, but personally I think Hogwarts is well due a new crew of misfits."
We gaped at him in shock (all expect Sherlock who sighed yet again and didn't lift his eyes from his work) and Potter smiled.
"Don't do anything dangerous of course, but put your heads together and you might just be able to solve this for me. The case has officially been closed but I'd like to hear from you if you come up with anything."
And with that he kissed Lilly on the forehead and got up to leave. For the next few days I took Potter's request very seriously and I racked my brains for an answer until Lilly was sick of discussing it. She started accompanying John down to his Quidditch practices and I spent increasingly uncomfortable amounts of time with Sherlock. We didn't talk as such, just sat in the library, occasionally throwing out ideas to one another. Sherlock kept focusing on the missing ring, whilst I was intrigued by who Rachel might be. He seemed convinced that Kelly, a girl who knew how to be cautious because of her many affairs, had deliberately planted the ring on the killer. Somehow this was supposed to lead us to him but I couldn't for the life of me see how, unless he or she was stupid enough to start wearing the ring so that we could conveniently notice it.
The first Quidditch match of the season was upon us before I had time to blink and as always it stirred up much excitement. Well, it did for everyone else, personally I couldn't give a damn if Slytherin were beaten until they cried. Lilly was committing treason this year in supporting Gryffindor for John's sake and as always, Sherlock didn't even seem to notice anything was going on. It seemed odd to me that someone who noticed the tiniest details could be ignorant about something as huge as Quidditch.
"I'm not ignorant I'm just not interested." he said when I asked him about it on the morning of the match. Lilly was going to watch the match but with the rain coming down hard, Sherlock and I were once again heading for the library.
"Do you think we spend too much time in here?" I asked quietly as we took out our books and Madam Pince glared suspiciously at us.
"You do, I share my time between here and the potions lab." Sherlock muttered. "Did I tell you that I discovered that mice continue to create saliva after they die?"
"Ah no, and I have no wish to know either." I said curtly.
Gryffindor won the match by a narrow margin and the usual after match party was scheduled. For the past five years everyone had finally realised that a party was not something to be confined to a single house common room and that the presence of booze transcended all differences. The whole school knew about the party so of course the teachers were clueless. Lilly and I turned up at the Room of Requirement just a few minutes before curfew ended and we were met by a cheery John.
"Shame this place isn't a secret anymore." I said wistfully, glancing around the huge yet cozy room. People from the upper three years were milling around whilst House Elves scurried between everyone's legs baring trays of fire-whisky.
"How about some music!" called some Ravenclaw kid over the heads of the crowd. "Weird Sisters?"
There were groans and laughter and I shouted back,
"Oh yeah, if you feel like stepping back twenty five years! Put something new on!"
Disgruntled, the Ravenclaw stuck on a song popular in the wizarding charts and people started to dance. As I was not yet sufficiently drunk I skirted around in search of something other than whisky. Locating the butterbeer, I made a beeline for it and met Sherlock standing moodily in the corner.
"Isn't it past your bedtime Einstein?" I asked, sipping on my beer and Sherlock smiled sarcastically.
"Hilarious. I see you're really hitting the bottle tonight, do you think you finish the whole drink this time?"
I stuck my tongue out and leant against the wall.
"Anymore thoughts on the Kelly Trent case?" I asked, scanning the room to see where Lilly had got to and spotting her in another corner snogging John. About bloody time, I thought. Sherlock looked disgruntled.
"No, we need more information! That ring, that's the key."
"Why do I feel like we've had this conversation a million times? Forget the ring! The only way to track an object that small is if it had a chip in it or something, and stuff like that doesn't work at Hogwarts! I say we concentrate on Rachel."
Sherlock looked like he wanted to argue but I jabbed him in the ribs and pointed across the room.
"Look! That's Kelly's boyfriend, maybe we should go and talk to him."
Sherlock wrinkled his nose but I dragged him along after me. Davis was sitting at a table alone, surrounded by empty bottles of whisky and he looked up at us blearily.
"What?" he asked aggressively and I felt my mouth grow dry.
"Uh, hi." I said, in a slightly higher voice than usual. "We wanted to ask you about Kelly, we were friends of hers see?"
Davis' eyes filled with tears and he spat,
"Piss off! I don't want to talk about it."
"So Mary's boyfriend is in the hospital wing then?" said Sherlock suddenly and Davis glared at him.
"Oh don't pretend you worked that out, someone told you!"
"Indeed, your deodorant did."
"My deodorant?"
"Yes, it's for men."
"Well of course it is! I'm wearing it!"
"So is Mary." said Sherlock coolly, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder at the girl in question. Davis paled and he didn't look quite so drunk anymore.
"What do you want to know?" he asked shakily.