Red Roses {James Potter x OC} | Discontinued |

28

Seventh years were expected to use their free periods (of which usually were many) to study for their NEWTs, or at least catch up with their homework.

But instead the Scooby Gang (as Gavin liked to call them), were all sitting around the room of requirements, watching as Leslie scribbled sentence after sentence with the of words with the occasional drawing on a nearby chalkboard.

"Les." She ignored the call.

"Les." Nothing.

"Leslie!" Finally she stopped writing and turned to face Zoe who was comfortably sat on James' lap, leaning against his chest.

"You know I love you, but I'd much rather be catching up on my Defence Against the Dark Arts homework." Melody raised her hand from her position by Theo as she meant her head against his knees.

"Ditto. Sorry Potter, but your dad is a dick." James shrugged, his chin resting gently against Zoe's shoulder.

"Tell me something I don't know."

"Okay! Fine! I'll be quick.

I needed you all here because Albus and Scorpious were right. I think Lucious Malfoy may have possessed Cedric." Everyone collectively groaned.

"Not this shit again." Melody spoke as she rubbed her face with her hands in order to keep herself awake.

"I know no one wants to go play hero again, but if we started this, we're ending it." Gavin raised his hand as if he was in an actual class, which with Leslie directing, it probably was.

"You sure this isn't just your boredom from not getting laid in the past month?" Leslie sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"As much as I am frustrated, I do think they're right. Just hear me out," She pulled out the book that Scorpious and Albus had brought out to begin explaining their theory, now stain free.

"So I read about the spell, which Al was right about. The body needs to die so the conscience could go into the host body. In theory you could possess an already dead body, but that's a whole other territory that I'm not diving into," She flipped a page, pointing at a paragraph that no one bothered to read knowing that Leslie was going to explain it anyways.

"The symptoms of a possession include: bleeding from eyes, nose, mouth, ears, a pounding headache, stomachache, heart attack, liver failure, and a bunch more that I'm not gonna say. Basically almost everything that Zoe felt, and most importantly what Lucius' body seemed to experience."

"Wait a second you weren't there when we saw the body?" Leslie closed her eyes briefly, a guilty smile showing up on her lips.

"I may or may not have snuck in to the corner's office in the Ministry." Melody immediately pouted, a look of huff flashing across her eyes.

"You went to see dead bodies without me?" Leslie shrugged.

"Sorry, Mel." Ty held a hand up, silencing both as Melody was getting ready to argue again.

"How did you even get in?" Leslie shrugged, gently closing the book she had been using to explain.

"I just said I'm a student at Hogwarts who wants to become an auror and didn't know which body part is the best to hit with a stupefy spell. Which everyone knows is the head, but anyways-"

"Hold up, do you even want to be an auror?"

"No, that's Melody." Melody snorted.

"Maybe when I was in third year, my plan now is to marry rich and live my best life." Zoe high-fived Melody.

"You go girl."

"Guys! Focus!" That immediately silenced them all.

"Thank you, now the corner's report said he died of a heart attack followed by what would've been blood loss if he had managed to last a few more seconds. I have pictures if you-" Theo immediately sprang forward and lowered her hands as she had already reached out to the folder she brought with her to pull out the pictures.

"We believe you." Leslie nodded.

"Right. Okay so I went back and checked Lucius' last trial before being sentenced to Azkaban, and during the trail he said the only regret he had was that he couldn't strengthen the people he loved enough and teach Draco the 'better ways', which is disturbing enough on its own, but again not the point.

I also went was far as to check Lucius' visitor log, it was mostly the Malfoys, except for one who went under the name of Vernon Dursley."

Leslie looked over at James as he snorted, an amused smile reaching his lips.

"You really think my Dad's Wizard hating muggle uncle went to Azkaban to say hello to a wizard?" Leslie sighed.

"That's my point, there's no way he'd do that. So I think it was Cedric under a false name, after all the visit was exactly on his seventeenth birthday which is when he could finally use magic without being tracked by the Ministry."

Finally Leslie turned to the chalkboard behind her, which yet again no one bothered to read.

"Summed up. My theory is, Cedric somehow became friends with Lucius Malfoy, which I suspect is the fact that both their families cast them out, after all Cedric was left for dead and Narcissa Malfoy testified against Lucius' favour.

Then on his seventeenth birthday, Cedric waltzed in to Azkaban under a false name and let Lucius go inside his body so they could both get the revenge they so desperately wanted. Lucius went after Scorpious, his grandson, and Cedric went after Zoe, the crush of the kid who replaced him.

And now, they're both hiding out in Azkaban waiting for something while Lucius uses Cedric as bait for the dementors so he can stay level-headed."

A silence had fallen over everyone, the theory did make sense. Was it a tiny bit far fetched? Possibly. Was it too quick to come to conclusions? Most likely. But seeing their luck the past years, there was nothing they could rule out.

"Question, how did you even get all these logs and stuff?" Leslie shrugged.

"I may or may not have flirted with the guard at the records office, don't tell Fred."

Seventh year was supposed to be the year where you only focus on your future, what you wanna do, who you wanna be with. But the last was catching up to the next generation, and if they weren't careful, they would become it as well.