The Missing Marauder: A Harry Potter FanFiction

Chapter 15

"Please, Lily?" Alice pleaded as she and Lily hurried up the flight of stairs to the seventh floor platform, "Please, please, please tell me what Frank told you!"  

"I don't want to," Lily said, "I don't even know if it's true, and it's about a very close friend, and I just don't want to help this disgusting rumor spread."  

"Who?" Alice asked, "Who is it about?"  

"Why would I tell you?" Lily demanded, "You'll just go flying to her and beg to know what it's about."  

"Oh, come on, Lil, just tell me," Alice persisted, "I promise I won't tell anybody, because nobody will tell me."  

Lily sighed, looked around, and snatched her friend's arm, muttering the password to get into the common room. Pulling her onto the couch, she glanced around once more, before leaning in close to Alice.  

"I'm telling you this in the utmost confidence," she whispered, "Frank told me, that Bertram told him, that Edon told him, that Arabella told her, that Jade told her, Felicity told Hazel, who was told by Frita who overheard Trinity Balmer-"  

"That Slytherin girl?" Alice wondered aloud.  

"Yeah, her," Lily replied, "Anyway, she was talking to Persephone, Jesse, and Claudia about how Regulus Black saw Rabastan Lestrange and..."  

She stopped unsurely.  

"Who?" Alice demanded, "Rabastan Lestrange and who? Lily, who was Rabastan Lestrange seen with?"  

"Rowan," Lily whispered, just as a group of boys had walked in, laughing loudly and pushing each other around, "Regulus apparently saw them embracing or something."  

"What?" Alice asked incredulously, "That's not possible. Rowan absolutely despises him!"  

"I know," Lily said, "That's why I didn't want to tell you. It's absolutely ridiculous. Rowan wouldn't do that."  

"Wouldn't do what?" a tired voice asked, and Lily turned around in her seat to see Remus Lupin standing over them. "Hey, Evans."  

"Remus," she greeted, "Nothing, it's got nothing to do with you."  

"If it has something to do with Rowan," he said, "Than it has something to do with Sirius. And anything that has to do with any of my friends has to do with me, as well. So, what wouldn't Rowan do, exactly?"  

Lily didn't want to tell him, and she was determined not to, knowing he'd run off and tell Black, which would then ruin their relationship, and it would be her fault.  

So she didn't tell him.  

Alice did.  

She was speaking incredibly fast with her eyes closed extremely tight and her fists clenching to the extent of her knuckles turning white. "Regulus Black saw Rowan and Rabastan hugging romantic-like and told the chattiest girl in the entire school and now everybody else knows about it except for me but now I do and it's so shocking and ridiculous but oh-so-true."  

Remus went pale. "What...what did you just say?"  

Alice groaned dramatically and took a deep breath to say it all over again, but Remus just put out a hand to stop her and said, "I know what you said. I heard you loud and clear. But I don't understand. Are you trying to tell me...that Rowan is cheating?"  

"Cheating?" Sirius asked suddenly, making everybody jump. No one had seen him walk up behind his friend. "Rowan's not a cheater."  

Nobody replied. They all stared around at each other, suddenly very deathly, deathly pale. "I knew I shouldn't have mentioned it..." Lily muttered, trying to make it quiet enough only Alice heard, but Sirius apparently heard it, too.