if one of them is dead.

chapter twelve.

Severus.

Severus told Dumbledore he needed to be the one to do the interrogations. He told himself that this was not his way of coping. But it was. Otherwise he would probably be in his office loosing his fucking mind.

Dumbledore had told him that they could get someone else to do it.

"No," Severus had said, "I need to do this. She's my daughter. I need to find out who did this to her."

"We will find out what happened, I assure you, Severus," Dumbledore had said.

So, if Dumbledore was as trustworthy as they got, why didn't Severus completely believe him? Maybe it was the gut feeling that, even though she was gone, something out of this world happened to her. It wasn't as if an animal had killed her in the night. It was murder. So, who would have done such a thing?

Severus was determined to find out if it ended him.

And oh what he would have to tell her muggle friends back at home.

The questions were all the same. He went by houses. He questioned every little fucker in the school. He started with the Slytherins. They were his house, but they were also Lilith's house. And even though Severus didn't think any of them could bring themselves to kill his daughter, he wasn't taking any chances.

First years went first, and Severus had to refrain from smacking half of them. Children truly were very, very annoying.

The second years weren't much help either. Some of them knew Lilith from their previous year when she would help them settle in, or help them with the other houses bashing them for being sorted in to Slytherin.

The third years were just as stuck up as Severus remembered Draco being in third year. He did smack one of them, and the kid looked baffled. They weren't any help either.

Fourth years either didn't seem to care or were so worried about what happened that they shook themselves into not being able to come up with actual words.

Fifth years were better, but still no help.

Seventh years talked to him about her and Warrington's relationship the previous year. It was hard getting into the castle these days, so if Warrington wanted to do anything to her, he was shit out of luck.

Which brought him back to the fact that it was indeed very hard to get in and out of the grounds, much less the castle itself. Lilith had her ways, but she never left the grounds. She always stayed inside those limits. But she never could keep still. Doing anything and everything with her friends over the summer really screwed with her being able to sit still for more than thirty minutes. She was always shifting, always fidgeting. Never sitting still like she used to.

It was weird, but he never thought anything of it. It probably had nothing to do with it. That's how teenagers sometimes were. They got fidgety over little or big things. It depends on the person, but Severus knew Lilith. He knew that it wasn't that big of a deal, her fidgeting.

Since it was so hard to get into the grounds, it had to be someone in the castle. There was no way someone from the outside could have gotten in, much less killed her. And you can't apparate in or out of the grounds, so there was that.

He saved the sixth years for last. They were her year. They knew her more than the other years, and they spent the last few months closer to her than anyone else. Which wasn't necessarily a good thing. It mean there were more suspects to have to look into.

Not to mention the whole Warrington break up thing. With that, Pansy Parkinson ditched Lilith for the other girls that weren't fans of Lilith in the first place. Then there was the whole Mattheo-throwing-his-drink-on-a-girl for being a bitch to Lilith. And the whole Lilith-starting-a-fight-with-a-girl. He didn't know why either of these occurred, he was just skeptical of who it could possibly be. Could it have been some of them?