Chapter 15

Unprecedented Turn Of Events

(And Renée)

"Rose? What is it? I can't talk right now—"

"Uncle Harry, please! I'll only be a moment—"

"Can this wait, I've got places to be—"

"Please listen to me, I swear I'll only take a moment!"

Harry stared up at her through the embers, his lips pressed together in annoyance. He finally nodded once and Rose instantly relaxed.

"I heard that Mister Wernicks…" she trailed off, unable to bring herself to say the words out loud.

Harry sighed. "Who told you?"

"I don't think that matters at the moment. Can you tell me anything about it? I hear it's suicide."

"It might be," Harry replied vaguely, glancing to the side as though to make sure no one was listening. "But we can't be sure yet. I'm heading to the scene right now—"

"May I come along? I promise I'll stay out of the way."

"Rose," Harry said through gritted teeth and she knew he was trying very hard not to snap at her.

"He worked under me for the past half decade, uncle. I may be of some use."

Harry regarded her with a strained expression and after an uncomfortably long pause, finally nodded once very begrudgingly. "But I shall have you leave even at the slightest incidence that arises concern. You have exactly five minutes."

"Of course," she agreed and he inclined his head and disappeared from the fire. She took a deep breath and held it, closing her eyes and immediately seeing Wernicks' horrified expression of utter hopelessness as she told him he was fired, appear on the back of her eyelids. She sighed long and deep, standing up slowly and dusting her jeans.

She stepped into her most comfortable pair of slip-on shoes, tied her hair loosely to one side and pulled on a jacket, stuffing her wand into the back pocket of her jeans and tucking it securely under her shirt. She walked down the stairs to where her parents were sitting out on the balcony – her mother reading while her father skimmed the Daily Prophet.

"I'm going to see Uncle Harry," she said breathlessly, touching them both on the shoulder and climbing down the two wooden steps that opened out to the garden.

"Harry? This early? Is something the matter?"

Rose looked back at her mother and offered her a small smile. "Nothing for concern. Just following up on something."

Hermione didn't look the least bit convinced and even Ron was starting to look curious, so she stepped backwards quickly, and then spinning on the spot, Apparated.

She stumbled when she came to a stop, reaching out and grabbing onto the first thing within arm's reach – which turned out to be an Auror fully clad in some crackly material that looked weirdly like Muggles plastic.

"Sorry," she said awkwardly, backing away and turning around, her eyes scanning the small white house for her uncle. She stepped around two Aurors kneeling down on the grass, busy scrutinising a leaf in one's hands, as she climbed the porch steps and entered through the front door. She nodded to the two Aurors stationed slightly inside and walked swiftly past, using their momentary confusion to her advantage. She luckily spotter her uncle before the two caught up with her.

"Uncle!" she said more loudly than she had intended to, making the three Aurors bending down beside Harry jump and goggle at her.

"Rose," Harry replied mildly and she smiled sheepishly at him, throwing apologetic looks to the trio.

"Is that where you found him?" she asked, jerking her chin towards the knobby, human-shaped outline glowing on the wooden floor where the carpet had been rolled back.

"Yeah," Harry replied, stepping aside to let two of the three Aurors bustle past, a small baggie clutched tightly in one's hands.

"Felix," Harry said and the Auror who was still squatting on the floor raised his head. "I'm sure you know my niece, Rose?"

"'Course, who doesn'?" he answered with a wide grin, standing up and extending a gloved hand to her. "Felix Creekmore at your service, m' lady."

"Creekmore?" Rose asked curiously, shaking the man's hand.

"Ah, I see that you know me gran'pappy, eh? Quite a crazy fellow that one," Felix replied with a jovial chuckle, tucking his thumb in his belt. Rose smiled back, slightly confused as to how this man, who had just been frowning down at a crime scene with the utmost concentration, could suddenly turn into a happy-go-lucky, next-door-neighbour sort of person in the next instant.

"Felix, care to enlighten Rose here on the proceedings? I'm going to go see if Moose tripped on any leads," Harry said, clapping the younger man on his shoulder.

"Aye sir," Felix replied with a tip of his imaginary hat.

"Moose?" Rose asked with raised eyebrows, her curiosity getting the better of her.

Felix laughed and moved aside, giving her space so she could stand in the center of the room. "Laxus Moseby. He's the in-charge on this case. Righ' big clumsy oaf, he is, trippin' over his own feet if there's nothin' to trip him."

"I see," Rose replied distractedly, her eyes having spotted a broken glass paperweight lying beside the table. "What's this?"

"Some Muggle rubbish tha' his wife apparently forced him to buy her when they'd gone a visitin' the in-laws. Must've fallen over when the fellows moved the body."

"So it's not…" she trailed off, gesturing with her hands.

Felix raised his eyebrows at her. "Is not what he used to kill himself? Nay, not at all. No blood trace."

"He really did kill himself, then?"

The blond glanced towards the door where the duo stationed there were glaring at them and turning away from them, said in a low voice, "Keep this just between the two o' us, miss, bu' I suspect it may've been a homicide."

"He was murdered?" Rose squeaked and Felix narrowed his eyes at her in warning. She ducked her head and tucked her hair behind her ear, moving around the table and squatting beside the broken shards of glass. "What makes you say that?"

"Well, for starters, he was under house arrest. Although he didn't seem like a threat, he wasn' exactly being very compliant either, so we decided to keep him under constant watch until he cracked. We thought we'd gotten to him, when his wife suddenly popped up outta nowhere. The Auror who was assigned to watch him took a good ten minutes to get rid of her and by the time he turned around, Wernicks was lying on the floor, dead.

"Of course, Will panicked and tried to resuscitate him and everythin', but had no luck with that. The ol' man had properly kicked the bucket, he had. So Will contacted us immediately and four of us – me included – headed over to sweep the scene for clues."

"Wait, an Auror was in the house when he died? How is that possible? Wouldn't he have heard Wernicks try to kill himself?"

"That's the thing, miss," Felix said, his voice dropping to take on a disturbingly horror-themed tone, "Will swears he didn' hear nothin' and he even offered to drink Veritaserum to prove his innocence."

"But if Will – is it – didn't kill Wernicks, and the latter killed himself, then why is this a crime scene at all? And why is there a suspicion of murder?"

"Like I said, miss, we haven' found a single clue yet. We've been lookin' for a good twelve hours now, but there's absolutely nothin' here tha' would support either assumption."

Rose looked up at Felix, startled. "Wait, you've found absolutely nothing?"

"Tha's right."

"But—that's impossible! If he used a spell and somehow muffled it so Will wouldn't hear, then that would make sense, right?"

"Not even the faintest Spell Trace on the body," Felix replied, his voice almost bored.

"Then—then what about a potion? Or a powder, or a plant, or something?"

"Nope, nein, non," Felix answered, running a hand through his hair and smiling mysteriously at Rose. "We didn' find a single trace of any substance – liquid, solid or gaseous, for that matter – on or in the body."

"But," Rose said, dumbfounded. "That means he just… dropped dead?"

Felix shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine, miss."

"Don't tell me you haven't any idea at all?" she asked him incredulously, completely unconvinced that a trained Auror was telling her that his guess regarding the death of a man was as good as hers.

"Well, some of us are guessin' seein' his wife was shock enough to stop his heart, which is probably the closest we're gonna get to a reasonable explanation if we don' find anythin' in the next twelve hours."

"You'll stop the investigation if you can't find anything in half a day? Isn't that too little time? What if there's something you've missed or overlooked—"

"Well I won't be doin' anythin' more than following orders," Felix told her with an indulgent smile. "You seem quite perturbed by this, miss. Was he someone you knew personally?"

"Not personally, no," she sighed, massaging her temple.

"A business acquaintance, then?"

"He used to work for me," she replied tiredly, already feeling claustrophobic.

"Ah, tha's right, you fired him a while back, din'tchu?"

"I did," she admitted, looking down at the broken paperweight one last time. "If you'll excuse me," she said to Felix with a smile and he inclined his head. She stepped around the glowing silhouette and almost ran out the door, feeling the two Aurors' intense gazes on her.

She found her uncle behind the house, talking with a thoroughly harassed looking Auror she surmised was probably Will.

"Found anything that might facilitate the investigation?" Harry asked her with an amused twinkle in his tired eyes.

"Actually, I find that I'm more confused now than I was before I came here," she replied evenly, smiling when Will looked at her. "You must be William. Hi, I'm Rose."

She held her arm out to him and he took it, shaking it once. "I'll go see if there's anything I missed, sir," he told Harry quietly and bowing his head, walked around Rose.

"He's unnaturally disturbed by this whole thing, isn't he?" she asked thoughtfully, watching Will stop and talk to an older Auror.

"I don't blame him, really. His family moved away before the War and he only just passed his Auror training. This was only supposed to be a Pro Bono assignment that went horribly wrong. Not to mention the fact that the man died under his watch – anyone would be shaken up by that."

"Yeah," Rose said softly, staring at the wilting flowers and cracked pots lined around the house. She suddenly frowned and noticing her gaze, Harry turned to look.

"Ah, that. Apparently he and his wife were in the middle of a long and tedious divorce. Another reason why we have chance to suspect that his death can go either way."

"You're buying into the whole 'he died from the shock of seeing his wife' story?" Rose asked in disbelief, turning to stare up at her uncle.

Harry laughed sheepishly and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I wouldn't blame him if he had. That woman is a terror."

"That bad?"

"Worse," he replied with a wry smile. Rose was just about to say something when Harry's name was called and he raised a hand to signal that he was coming.

"Rosie, there's nothing for you here. Why don't you go back home and get some sleep? You look like you're the one on whose watch Wernicks died."

"Please do not ever say that again," she said acridly and he chuckled, patting her head.

"Go home, love. Rest assured that I shall get to the bottom of this even if there's no bottom to get to."

She looked up into her uncle's kind emerald eyes and nodded slightly, his large palm warm atop her head. "Thank you," she choked and he smiled, patting her hair one last time before walking away.

"Give your parents my love!" he called over his shoulder with a wave as she spun on the spot and Dispparated in a swirl of dried leaves and mud.

When she woke up, it was to the familiar sound of Renée's obnoxiously obtrusive voice and her cold finger poking incessantly at Rose's cheek as she chanted, "Wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up wake up—"

"Shut up, I'm awake!"

"Oh, good," Renée said pompously, sitting back and fluffing her hair. "I was worried you'd passed on like our dear friend."

"Is Scorpius bloody advertising his death?" Rose groused, kicking Renée off the bed as she put her feet down.

"It's a good thing you wear indoor footwear," Renée commented, staring at Rose's feet as she dusted nonexistent dirt off her skinny pants.

"Why are you here?" Rose groaned, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and giving her friend a once over. "And why in Merlin's name are you dressed like that?"

"How rude!" Renée replied crossly, putting her weight on one leg so she could kick Rose with the other. "Do not admonish my superior fashion sense, you peasant!"

"Right, sorry," Rose said with a roll of her eyes, standing up to wash her face. Renée followed into the cozy bathroom, looking at her own reflection over Rose's shoulder.

"Hm, maybe I over did it a little bit with the lipstick. Only a little," she clarified adamantly as Rose gave her a look in the mirror.

As she dried her face, she glanced at Renée's fancy stilettoes, embroidered blouse and high waist pants, coupled with a simple gold chain-link necklace and matching gold earrings, watch and bracelet – not to mention the dull ochre coat that hung casually from her shoulders and the unnecessary pair of sunglasses perched atop her head.

"You can admire my extraordinary beauty once we get you out of those ridiculous clothes," Renée chirped, showing off her manicured nails and jiggling her matching purse.

Rose rolled her eyes. "Forgive this peasant as she does not have the Galleons or the need to purchase showy clothes and accessories."

"Nonsense," Renée quipped, rummaging through the unnecessarily large wardrobe beside the wall-length windows. "Do not blame your inferior taste in fashion on your abundantly brimming wallet or your pigheaded attitude toward sophistication."

Rose made a face and mouthed at her reflection in the dressing mirror as Renée made an approving sound and threw half a dozen clothes on the bed.

"Here, try these on," she ordered, motioning to the clothes that looked highly inappropriate even for whatever she had planned for the two of them.

"Do I have to?" Rose whined, picking up the tight looking pencil skirt that had an outrageously high slit at the back. "What is this horrid looking thing and what did you bribe me with to buy this?" she demanded, frowning suspiciously at the rest of the clothes the brunette had laid out.

"Why I am friends with you is beyond me," Renée said as she picked up a shimmering, sleeveless, bronze top and held it against Rose. "My goodness, you should be glad that I decided to be. You'll look ravishing in this."

Rose pulled a face and slumped her shoulder, opening her mouth and running her tongue across her upper teeth. She watched with satisfaction as Renée's eyes widened in horror.

"Stop that this instant, you crude woman!"

"If I'm so crude, why are you my friend?" Rose asked cheerily, making a fish mouth and waggling her eyebrows.

"If only Scorpius could see you like this," Renée sighed, shaking her head and making a pitiful face. "He would come running to me in an instant."

"You have a fiancé," Rose reminded her as Renée shepherded her off into the bathroom.

"Not yet, I don't. At least, not officially. You better come out in five minutes or I'm breaking down that door!" the brunette called as Rose clicked the bathroom door shut. She held up the skirt and scrunched her nose at it, slipping her comfortable jeans off with a grumble and pulling the cramped garment on while groaning and muttering the entire time. She pulled on the shimmery top, tucked it in, fluffed it so she at least had reasonable breathing space, and stepped out.

Renée clapped her hands in delight and held out the shiny black stilettoes she'd apparently picked – once again – without taking Rose's comfort into consideration in the least. The redhead slipped them on without complaint, used to wearing painful shoes to work, glad for the added height.

"And now for your hair and make-up," Renée sang, pushing the redhead towards the dressing table.

"Noo!" Rose whined in horror, knowing that Renée dressing her up like that could only mean one thing. "Please tell me you're not planning on taking me to one of those outrageous parties hosted by your upper crust fiends!"

"Oh, how you read me like a book. It makes my heart flutter so," Renée said in a giggly voice, slapping Rose's hand when the latter reached up to touch her hair. Rose stuck her lover lip out and sulked the whole half hour Renée had her way with her face and hair and finally opened her eyes when the brunette stepped back with a hum of approval.

"Stand up and take a good look at yourself, because I say woman, you make one fine lady," Renée said ostentatiously, making a mewing sound and clawing at the air.

Rose rolled her eyes and turned to look at her reflection. She blinked long and slow as she gawked at the drop-dead gorgeous woman staring back at her. "I am so going to regret this," she muttered under her breath, even as she looked at herself from different angles.

"I heard that, you ungrateful wench! Well, as long as you accompany me until morning come, you can curse me how much ever you please."

"Wait, we're staying out all night? Renée, don't be ridiculous, your engagement is the day after!"

"Precisely why we are partying the night away and drinking ourselves into oblivion," Renée said happily, dusting her cheeks with gold.

"At least ask Cole to come along, just to be safe."

"What kind of a girl's night out would it be with a man present? You are so silly sometimes, Rose," the brunette said, smacking her lips and turning to offer Rose a genial smile. "Shall we?" she asked, extending her elbow.

"Let's pray dad has a stroke when he sees me and I have to take him to the hospital," Rose muttered in a low voice as she hooked her arm with Renée's and let the other lead her out the room.

"One moment," Renée said, pausing to tug Rose's skirt up several inches. "There, now you look like a partyer and not a diplomat."

"This bloody slit is half way up my arse!" Rose protested in a hurried whisper, hooking her finger under the slit in the skirt and pulling it lower.

"Stop being such a pain or I'm going to accidentally let it slip that Scorpius Malfoy is living with you," Renée warned from the corner of her mouth as she smiled widely and waved at Rose's family as the duo descended the stairs.

"Don't you dare," Rose whispered back hurriedly as Renée dragged her towards where her parents and brother were goggling at them open-mouthed.

"Oh my, Rose darling, where in the world are you off to?" Hermione asked, her voice uncharacteristically high.

"To my pre-engagement party, Mrs Weasley," Renée answered on Rose's behalf, shooting a sly smile at a gawking Hugo – making him almost fall out of his chair.

"Dressed like that?" Ron choked, his eyes staring up and down his daughter. "I didn't know you even owned clothes like that."

"I never wear them," Rose replied quickly, tucking her hair behind her ear uncomfortably and immediately having Renée smack her hand. "That's why I left them behind here."

"I think they look great," Hugo said in awed sort of voice, his eyes never leaving Renée.

"Oh my, how kind of you," Renée replied serenely, batting her eyebrows at Hugo.

"We'll be going then," Rose said hurriedly, dragging the brunette towards the sliding doors.

"When will you be back?" Hermione called after them worriedly.

"Tomorrow!" Rose replied and stood perfectly still as Renée turned on her heel, not wanting to Splinch herself during the Side-along Apparition.

A/n: Hello lovelies! So I missed Renée and am glad to see her sassy self here, aren't you? ;D

Anyway, in case you're curious about Wernicks...well, don't be, is all I am going to say! Hope you enjoyed this chappie because there are only ten more to go!

A penny for your thoughts and a ginormous cookie for your reviews, as always!

Lots of love~