Chapter 17
Obviously, there was no possible way to talk to Luna while they were still at Hogwarts. After the whole ordeal with Scorpius being able to leave the castle grounds without anyone knowing from the kitchens, all flow networks in the school had been shut down except for the one in the Headmaster's office. So now Rose couldn't even leave the school from her room. Talking directly to Luna was out of the question, seeing how they couldn't get to her. Instead, Lily and Rose wrote Luna a letter.
"What should we say?" Lily asked while Rose sat down at a desk in the room.
"How should I know?" Rose say equally clueless. "Do we want to confront her in a letter?"
"What are we even confronting her on?" Lily said skeptically. "Blackmailing my mum? My mum was one of her best friends. Why would she blackmail her?"
"Maybe it's not Luna, but someone close to Luna," Rose thought out loud. "Who is close to Luna that would hate both the Potters and the Malfoys?" She looked at Lily.
"Don't look at me," she said. "I don't know a thing that would be helpful. Let's just send her a letter asking about my mum, and see if she has anything to say."
"Okay," Rose replied. "I'll write."
[-**-]
After finishing the letter, Rose and Lily sent it off immediately using Lily's owl.
"Let's hope that Luna gets this and replies quickly," Rose commented as the owl flew away. "We did tell her to hurry and respond."
"So now what do we do?" Lily asked her older cousin. "Sit her and wait?"
"No," Rose replied. "We should get some leads of our own. Right now the only three people I can think of that have a connection to Luna and your mum is Luna's husband and her sons. We should try to talk to them as well."
"But what if one of them is the blackmailer and the killer?" Lily asked, her eyes filling up with tears. "And we go around asking them if they know anything. Won't they find out that I told you?"
"Lily," Rose said, taking hold of her by her shoulders. "Don't worry about it. I'll do most of the talking and make it discreet."
"Okay," Lily whispered as the tears stopped their flow from her eyes to her cheeks.
After wiping off Lily's tear-stained face and freshening up, the girls made their way down to the Gryffindor common room in hopes of finding Lorcan. Classes had just let out and students were making their way to either their common room or the library. They hoped that Lorcan was going to the former. Not that Rose liked the idea very much.
"As much as you think Lorcan and I are on great speaking terms, we actually aren't," Rose said when Lily exclaimed that they had to talk to Lorcan. Though Rose did see this as their only option, she really didn't want to talk. "That date that we went on was a disaster. A monumental disaster. And may I remind you that after that said date, I ended up sleeping with my ex? Giving my virginity to my ex-boyfriend? Lorcan definitely does not want to talk to me."
Lily rebutted this statement. "That's nonsense. Lorcan will always want to talk to you."
"Not after he tried to kiss me, and I literally went in the other direction."
"But I talked to him after, remember?" Lily said. "And he seemed fine. He explained how you had misinterpreted his advances and wanted to apologize. He said that he thought coming on strong was the best way to go with you. He wants to apologize, Rose," Lily pleaded, sitting up on her heals on the bed. Her puppy-dog face observing Rose's. "At least give him a chance."
"But I don't want to go out with him," Rose exclaimed. "And he should know me better than to try and suck my face off the first chance he gets!" Rose knew she was being selfish. As much as she didn't want to talk to Lorcan, it was a small price to pay in the scheme of things. Lily needed to get this information or else she'll go to jail.
"Do it for me Rose?" Lily pleaded. "We need to solve this in the next two days or else," she paused, looking back at the letter. Then she quoted, "'bad things will start to happen.' Rose, I can't go to jail for this."
Rose couldn't stand looking at her cousin anymore. "You are not going to Azkaban. You will not turn yourself in for a crime you didn't commit, even if that means something bad will happen. We are going to get through this." She stared at Lily with piercing eyes. "Don't fall apart on me."
Lily nodded and got up. Though Rose could see the remains of tears in Lily's eyes, she didn't comment. Rose knew exactly what she was going through. She had gone through this herself when she found out Scorpius had killed his family. Together, they could get through this. They would discover who was behind the Malfoy murder. And who was blackmailing Aunt Ginny. And why Lily was going to take the fall. They would do all that. But first, they had to talk to Lorcan.
[-**-]
It should have been easy once they found Lorcan, but of course, Rose's previous actions can back to haunt her.
"No," he said once Lily and Rose had cornered him. They were correct to assume that he would be in the common room. He was sitting alone at a table in the corner. On the desk, there were newspaper clipping and highlighted marks on them. He seemed to be studying them and looked like he would be for a while.
"But Lorcan," Lily pleaded, her big eyes staring at him. "I thought you said you wanted to talk to Rose. That's what you said the other day."
"I'm not in the mood to talk right now," he retorted, pushing back on the newspapers. "If you would let me get back to my work." He then tried to cover what he was working on with his hands.
"What class is that for?" Rose asked suddenly. She knew Lorcan. She knew he couldn't resist sharing his knowledge with anyone. If that at least got him talking, that would be good. "Is it a new assignment?"
"No."
His one word answer puzzled her. Normally, he would love to share with her what he was working on. What he was doing must not have been for school if he was being so secretive about it. This peaked Rose's interests. Now she had to find out what he was doing. His one word answer would not dissuade her. She tried again. "If you need some help on it, I could help you."
"And why do you think I would want help from you?" Lorcan's head whipped around so he was staring right at her.
"We study all the time together," Rose replied, a little nervous this time. Lily had told her that he wanted to talk, but it sure didn't look like that. It looked more like he wanted to strangle her. She tried to get a better look at the papers.
Lorcan laughed, but it wasn't a nice laugh. It was a dry and humorless one. The kind of laugh that Scorpius used to make. "That was before."
"Lily told me that you wanted to talk," Rose said, gesturing to Lily.
Up until this point, Lily had be quiet. Now she butted in. "You told us in the Great Hall on Saturday that you wanted to apologize to Rose for your actions. Well, here she is."
"Maybe I wanted to apologize then, but certainly not now. Not after everything that has happened," Lorcan said, facing back to the newspaper-covered table. When he was turned around, Rose was able to see a word: Malfoy. Why would Lorcan be looking at old newspaper clippings about the Malfoys?
"And why's that?" Lily asked, but Rose knew what he was talking about. That sinking feel that had consumed her only days earlier was coming back. This time, there was no stopping it.
"Maybe because she slept with Scorpius Malfoy the same day she had gone out with me! And then he killed his family!" Lorcan exclaimed loudly. Abruptly, all the people in the common room looked at them. Their eyes burned into Rose's head as if they were little daggers.
"Can we talk about this somewhere else?" Rose asked in a quiet voice, still very much aware of everyone's eyes.
"No," Lorcan said. "You wanted to talk here, so I guess we are going to talk. So what do you want to talk about? The fact that you have been stringing me along since Christmas? Or that you hid information from your own father about Malfoy. Hell, you probably did that to protect yourself. You probably helped him yourself, just so you could be together."
Rose placed her head down, acting like she was hiding, but she really placed her eyes at the newspapers. Another few words caught her eye. Potter Divorce. Why would Lorcan be looking at news about the Potters and the Malfoys unless…
"No I don't want to talk anymore," Rose said abruptly, not caring if she was cutting him off. "I guess you'll never know what I had to say." Lorcan stared at her as if she had grown three heads.
"But you-" he started, but Rose cut him off.
"Bye Lorcan," she said. "I hope whatever you're working on is important." Rose took Lily's arm and went out the common room.
[-**-]
"What was that about?" Lily asked once Rose stopped pulling her arm. "We needed to find out if he knew anything about Luna."
"And I did," Rose replied as stepped into an empty classroom near the Great Hall. She wanted this conversation to be private. If the person who wrote the letter to Lily really was watching her, she didn't want to take any chances. "He didn't want to talk to me. We wouldn't have made any progress. Time is not on our side, and we can't afford to waste any of it. Besides, I may have gotten something. Did you see what he was researching?"
Lily shook her head and sat down. "No. I was too busy trying to get him to talk to you. I guess you were right to assume that he didn't want to talk."
"Anyways," Rose said, brushing past what Lily had said, "I did. And you'll never believe what it was."
"What?"
"I don't know how long they date back to, but I definitely saw the Malfoy's name and an article about your parent's divorce," Rose exclaimed. "He wouldn't know that they were involved in the same thing unless he knew something about it."
"But Lorcan?" Lily said skeptically. "This is Lorcan we're talking about. The boy who comes over to our house every summer. The same boy who you went on a date with. Are you sure we aren't jumping to conclusions?"
"No. Lorcan is definitely hiding something and I want to find out what." Rose looked at Lily. She looked so tiny, sitting there. It was hard to believe that she was fifteen. This past year had aged her in ways Rose didn't even want to think about. "So far, this is the only lead we have. We have to follow it. Your life as you know it depends on it."
Lily looked conflicted. "I can't image Lorcan being involved in a plot to ruin my family. I mean, he practically is our family. And what is his connection to the Malfoys?"
"I agree with you on that," Rose said. "Lorcan had been nothing but nice to our family. And so has his parents. As for his connection with the Malfoys, I haven't the faintest idea."
"I can't think of anything," Lily said. "I can't find his connection to the Malfoy's, let alone to Scorpius."
A light bulb went off in Rose's head. "Lorcan doesn't have a direct line to the Malfoys or even to Scorpius. But he has a direct line to someone who has both."
"Who," Lily asked, whipping her hair out of her face.
"His twin brother."
"Lysander?" Lily asked. "How does he fit into this? And what do we even know about him?"
"For starters, he is Scorpius's best friend and has been over to his house numerous times. He would often go over there instead of coming with Luna and Lorcan to our houses." Rose thought back to her childhood. "He wasn't always like that, though. His childhood was hardly different than ours. He and Lorcan were always over to play."
"I remember," Lily said. "It was after we all went to Hogwarts that things began to change. After Lorcan was sorted into Gryffindor and Lysander into Slytherin, Lysander would hardly spend time with us. He spent more time with Scorpius than with Lorcan and us."
"Exactly," Rose butted in. "We all had new friends, but we were still friends with each other. Except for Lysander. Instead of spending time with us, he would go and hang out with Scorpius. I bet that Lorcan got jealous of Scorpius."
"So much so that he wanted to wipe out Scorpius's entire family and destroy my life?" Lily asked. "That just doesn't seem like him."
"I agree with you on that. While he has a motive for killing the Malfoys, he doesn't for your parent's divorce or blaming you."
"Maybe we should talk to Lysander?" Lily suggested. "He may have a clue into his brothers' thinking process. They were best friends after all."
Rose nodded as she opened the door. "I guess that's the next best thing."