Of all the people to tell him whether his brother would live or die, his father ought to be the last person in the world whom he readily believed considering his exposed track record on that topic, but the answer he got was conveniently the one Theo wanted to hear and so it was that he chose to believe it as firm fact.
"I happened to walk past him in the atrium," Theo began, finally starting to relax a little. "I confronted him and he said he was-" He suddenly cut himself off and his mind reached a dreadful conclusion. If he told his father that Lou had been trying to turn himself in - which he already had but he'd hardly been descriptive - then he might decide to take some unsavory action to protect the family reputation. Would he try to banish Lou to a foreign country as he had wanted to initially?
Theo's initial concerns about his brother handing himself over were more to do with what the Ministry might do to him, but now he was seeing a bigger picture where the greatest threat to Lou's liberty might be, once again, their father. He looked down at his sleeping brother and wondered what he'd want their father to know. Probably none of it but it was too late for that. "That he was there to hand himself over as a werewolf and I said I didn't think that was a good idea and then I tried to apparate him back here so he wouldn't be seen and he got hurt so I fetched you and now he's no longer bleeding to death." He couldn't take back the part about Lou handing himself in so there was no point trying to lie about that, but maybe if he downplayed how stubborn Lou had been, his father wouldn't consider him a threat.
"I happened to walk past him in the atrium," Theo began, finally starting to relax a little. "I confronted him and he said he was-" He suddenly cut himself off and his mind reached a dreadful conclusion. If he told his father that Lou had been trying to turn himself in - which he already had but he'd hardly been descriptive - then he might decide to take some unsavory action to protect the family reputation. Would he try to banish Lou to a foreign country as he had wanted to initially?
Theo's initial concerns about his brother handing himself over were more to do with what the Ministry might do to him, but now he was seeing a bigger picture where the greatest threat to Lou's liberty might be, once again, their father. He looked down at his sleeping brother and wondered what he'd want their father to know. Probably none of it but it was too late for that. "That he was there to hand himself over as a werewolf and I said I didn't think that was a good idea and then I tried to apparate him back here so he wouldn't be seen and he got hurt so I fetched you and now he's no longer bleeding to death." He couldn't take back the part about Lou handing himself in so there was no point trying to lie about that, but maybe if he downplayed how stubborn Lou had been, his father wouldn't consider him a threat.
