Lou was relieved that the boy vouched for his innocence, and that the other man seemed to take that at face value — but his relief was short-lived as the man mentioned the aurors. He should have been expecting that, of course, because that was the only logical response when a law-abiding citizen discovered a dead body. Lou wasn't a law-abiding citizen, however, and hadn't been for over a decade. He was also dead, as far as the aurors knew, and he had no desire to disillusion them tonight. There was a chance, of course, that whichever aurors summoned to the scene would be of a younger generation than the ones that Lou had worked with in his former life, but he wasn't willing to gamble his life (literally) on that chance. He was only in his thirties, after all, and while aurors did have a fair amount of injury-related turnover, it wasn't at all unreasonable to assume most of those he'd trained with prior to his death would still be actively employed.

What could he say to excuse himself, though, without drawing suspicion? He could just disapparate, since neither the child nor the man knew his name, but that would almost certainly result in the aurors trying to track him down as the potential murderer. Anything he said to try and get away from the scene before they arrived would likely just increase the amount of suspicion the other man placed on him, and he had already demonstrated that he was more than willing to believe that Lou was the culprit in the just-completed crime.

"Of course," Lou agreed hollowly, his mind still racing to try and figure a way out of this predicament. With a glance at the child, he suggested hesitantly, "Perhaps one of us could wait here for them, and one could see the boy safely home?" Lou didn't care which he was — if the other man went off with the child, he could just leave the scene before the aurors arrived. It wasn't ideal, but it also didn't seem certain to guarantee his untimely death, as waiting for them to arrive would.