Enemies - Fred Weasley X OC

Detective Moony

~Fred~

I flopped my head forwards into my hands. Merlin, it was almost morning - we'd worked through the night.

"Ugh," I groaned, causing Remus to chuckle.

"You can go to sleep if you want, I'll keep going," he said.

I sat back upright and shook my head to try and force the sleep from my eyes.

"Nope. I'm fine. I'm fine."

When I'd arrived at Grimmauld Place to find Remus in the kitchen, I told him everything. Remus didn't seem to have much of a reaction other than calmly taking the compass from me and performing a few spells on it. He couldn't find a fault in the device itself, but he did have hangups about whether them going through the veil rather than dying normally could interfere with it.

We needed to find the name of someone else who went through the veil, to see if it was just a quirk that the compass didn't recognise their death, or something was off about Zephy and Sirius' in particular.

I hadn't expected Remus to be as onboard with the search as he was. But he told me he'd thought their death odd when it happened. 'They didn't go through it. I really thought they didn't.'

He figured that information about the veil would be limited. But if one place might have information on dark magic that draws the point between life and death, it would be Grimmauld Place.

The library was expansive and even though Remus performed a spell that made any book with references to the veil glow - it still surmounted to a hefty number.

I was glad I stayed awake however, because only thirty minutes later Remus gasped. I looked up, suddenly wide awake as he spun the book around to face me.

"Look here: Ex-auror Brain Laughrey was set to trial in 1812 for manslaughter. He propositioned the jury requesting he have death by the veil rather than life in Azkaban. His request was approved and a month later, with three witnesses, he walked through the veil," Remus said, reading from the book.

"Brian Laughrey," I repeated, confirming it with Remus. "Brian Laughrey?"

"Yes," he nodded.

I lifted the compass off the table between us and flipped it open with a click. I whispered the name and watched the compass whirr into action.

In the tantalising seconds it took watching the arrow spin, unsure if it would stop or not, I held my breath. I begged silently, unperturbed in my hope that this man was dead.

The arrow didn't stop turning.

It felt like my heart stopped. I sighed deeply and with it all the anxiousness, all the fear that I was wrong left. As I breathed in again, my elation was insurmountable - like a contained jar of energy was finally opened, and my body tingled with it from the tips of my toes to the ends of my fingers.

I gazed up dazedly at Remus, who's eyes were fixed on the compass as if it were the singular thing in the universe.

"Brian Laughrey is dead," Remus croaked. A laugh escaped me, as mixed emotions bubbled under the surface.

"Brian Laughrey is dead," he repeated.

"Sirius and Zephy are alive," I said, a grin almost splitting my face in two.

"Oh my God."

Remus stood up with a jolt, the chair scraping against the floor. I did the same, rising with the zealous burning of good news. He passed around the table and with an uncharacteristic chuckle he clasped me in a firm hug.