Suspect Your Elders

File 29

"Don't become a mere record of facts, but try to penetrate the mystery of their origin."
~Ivan Pavlov

._._._._._.

A mind can play tricks on you, that is true. But what if a mind plays it's tricks on you to lead you to the truth? What if it's playing you just to lead you to the truth deep within? Yes, some mind tricks can be nonsense, but they lead you to a bigger picture at times, yes? So that's why James and Lily's minds were playing tricks on them each. Their minds were telling them to pay closer attention to Detective Vero Taapen. What Lily found out could have been just mere coincidence, but how much of a coincidence can it be? Vero's full name rearranged to Snape's full name minus two S's that Lily added. You see, maybe I'm playing the trick of the mind right now on you, maybe I'm tricking you to not know what's true and what's a lie. To make you doubt yourself. To make you have theories. To make you not expect the ending too quick. The ending is for the ending after all, it would be quite uninteresting if you knew the plot by just one sentence. It would be uninteresting if you knew the ending of the story because where would the adventure be in that?

So here's the thing, for whoever is reading this. James Potter and Lily Evans, Detective and Suspect, boyfriend and girlfriend, are at this moment trying to decide separately if the rearrangement was a mere coincidence or is it a lead? Their minds are taking the role of the joker, the tricker, the prankster if you may. It's tricking them, it's joking on them, it's prancing them, but also may lead to the truth with logic on its side. That's just how the brain works, with logic and anxiety by its side.

Lily and James's big question right now was if they could trust their tricking, logical brain.

But the thing both their minds agree on, which is quite obvious, is to not tell Detective Vero Taapen.

._._._._._.

James and Lily were overthinking and doubting (they both thanked their brain for that). But the did get a short break, and that break came in the form of two girls who may be lovers in the future, who knows? Oh, right, I do.

"Hey, can we talk to you two outside?" asked Kaisley Vance.

"Sure," nodded James and Lily.

The four of them walked away from the office and into the files room. There was someone in there, but with one look from James, he left like the speed of lightning.

"I guess that's why we have him," Kaisley thought out loud.

"Excuse me?" asked James.

"One look from you in this building and they are obeying and running like dogs," said Bellatrix, "you gave that guy one look and he left in the speed of lightning."

James shrugged and smirked arrogantly, "perks of being me, I guess."

"Don't go getting arrogant now. I didn't start dating you for that," said Lily, not realizing her last sentence except too late.

"You two are dating!" shrieked both Kaisley and Bellatrix.

"Yeah," nodded James in confirmation.

Kaisley and Bellatrix mimed zipping their lips, "your secret is safe with us."

"We..." tried Lily, but couldn't find the words.

"Lily is a suspect and James is a detective. One of the best not to mention," said Bellatrix, "a forbidden love story."

"It's not forbidden. There is no rule whatsoever saying I can't date a suspect or vice versa. Plus,we knew each other since before... everything," stated James.

"But what if the public knew? Nobody will trust you, one of the best detectives out there, if they knew you were dating Lily Evans, suspect of, Emmeline Vance, brand new famous singer's death. We might know in our guts that Lily is not a suspect, but one word to the public from Rita Skeeter or whomever and they'd believe anything. Gullible morons," said Kaisley.

"She's not wrong," said Lily.

"I got it. No word to the public. When I tell Sirius I'll tie him to a chair or whatever," said James in a "this-is-not-important" voice, waving his hand in a careless manner.

"Right. We wanted to ask you if you found anything? Anything at all?" asked Kaisley, looking hopeful but hopeless at the same time.

James and Lily looked at each other.

"I think we should tell them," said Lily.

"I don't think so," argued back James.

"It could be useful!" argued Lily.

"It could also be an unimportant coincidence!" argued back James.

"We have to tell them," said Lily, calming herself down.

"And what if their minds play tricks on them too? I've noticed, Evans. You've been overthinking the entire day so far."

"And how would you know?" challenged Lily.

"You burrow your eyebrows when you think, especially when you overthink," answered James proudly.

He wasn't wrong. Lily Evans, the beautiful redhead, tends to do that when she thinks. But when she overthinks her eyebrows are closer together than they ever could when she is thinking. Few people notice this trait of hers that she got from both her mother and grandfather and she admired that James noticed the little things about her. This risk doesn't seem so bad to her at this moment.

"Whatever you think we can't handle, we will handle," said Kaisley, "We've been overthinking ever since my sister's murder case started. I don't see a big difference if we over think this."

"The paper," James nodded at last.

Lily pulled out a folded white paper from her pocket, it seemed just like normal paper to the human eye, but we never know what secrets or clues a paper could hide. But we also never know what jokes or useless information a paper can also hold.

Kaisley and Bellatrix moved closer to each other as they read the paper. They were side by side as both their eyes grew wide at information the paper held.

"You sure?" asked Bellatrix looking up at the couple.

"It could be a coincidence," said Kaisley.

"That's what I said!" exclaimed James.

"But what if it's not a coincidence?" asked Lily, making them all doubt and overthink everything all over again.

._._._._._.

Far away, but not so far away there was a man talking into an ear piece. You couldn't see him very clearly because he was wearing a cloak and had his face hidden, which didn't seem weird across all of the other people due to the winter weather.

"They know," said the man into his ear piece.

The response was only a snake sound that didn't seem to affect the man at all.