ROSIER

8

Brothers
...

With November nearing its end, the final storms rattled through the landscape, not making hold at howling through the halls and knocking dozens of raindrops against the windows.

The closer Saturday came, the more Gwen struggled with finding words to say to her uncle. She believed that starting with the murder or jumping into cold water by mentioning the fight between him and Ivan was not the best way to approach the conversation. If anything, she feared he would run away if she did.

Remus had a great laugh when listening and reading through the plenty of scripts she wrote about it. Apologizing through the hand, he needed to hold it in with when she was about to end their meeting early.

"It's not funny, okay?" Gwen hissed, glaring at the boy next to her. They were seated at the far end of the library, away from any unwanted listeners. "You try to talk to your uncle who could be a potential suspect in a murder case."

"I'm sorry," He bit his lip strongly. His brown eyes teared up slightly from bottling up his amusement. "But why would you spend sixteen pages of conversation just about food? I mean," He chuckled again. "Sorry,"

"Because I haven't seen him in a long time, and maybe we are going to hold some small talk first,"

"Okay, but what about scenario thirty-four? Why is he dancing with Rosmertha all of a sudden?" Gwen ripped the papers out of his hand, safely putting them back into her satchel.

"If you knew him, you wouldn't find this to be unlikely," The blonde buried her face in her palms, groaning in frustration. "I'm being ridiculous."

"Hey, maybe it's just a coincidence. I mean, it was a fight that happened almost ten years ago. People get in fights all the time."

"Then why was the letter ripped out? I mean, who would do that if not to hide something?" She sighed, a gust of tiredness sweeping over her. The girl took another potion from her pocket and drank all of it.

"When was the last time you got any sleep?" Remus questioned, eyeing the empty bottle.

"Why? Worried about me again?" Gwen laughed, feeling her heart rate quicken as it fought the Potion. The truth was, she didn't recall the last time, not counting the short doze that overcame her in History of Magic today. One that quickly ceased when Evan threw a paper ball against her head.

"In your dreams," Remus replied with a snarl, scribbling on the map he made of the current suspects and their connections. "I was just getting lost in the black canyons your eye bags have turned into."

"I did that on purpose," She bumped her knee against his. "It's the newest makeup trend in Paris. Not that you would know, farm boy."

"I'm just glad none of the other girls are following that trend," He replied, showing her the map. "Okay, so currently we know only one connection for sure or at least partly. Ivan and Justus went to school together and had a pretty big fight." Green was assigned to Justus and their connection. "Then we have the killer, who we know Ivan found information on."

"Why did you call him yellow?"

"Because yellow is the colour of betrayal, it's a great codename, and I only had three colours at hand. Anyway, the last one is Big Red - see how well it plays together - she works for the ministry and most likely has an unknown connection to Yellow."

"The problem is, we have no idea who the killer-" She rolled her eyes when Remus raised an eyebrow. "We have no idea who Yellow is."

"It's likely that the man is," Remus raked his head around, his voice lowered so only she would hear. "He who must not be named. I mean the Dark Mark in the sky close to the castle, then a sudden murder, sounds connected."