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alt_lupin at 02:40pm on 05/01/2013
alt_lupin at 02:40pm on 05/01/2013MEETING MINUTES
Members Absent: Arabella Scrim
REVIEW OF PREVIOUS MEETING MINUTES:
We decided to hold off on reviewing those, lest we start arguing about Milland before we reached that point in the agenda.
TREASURER'S REPORT:
Bleak, what with Molly no longer running the barter network. We're also facing food shortages at Moddey, especially if we add more people to our safe houses. Sirius noted that Laszlo's is getting more into black market trading, because it's far more lucrative, which raised concerns about security...we were impatient to get to the main agenda, agreed to have a longer discussion of finances later, and never came back to it because we ran out of time. However: food. Likely to become a problem this winter.
AGENDA:
1. Official welcome to Nick Towler.
We started things on a bit of a high note. Many of us had not previously met Nick, who was recruited into the Order by Arthur Weasley and took his Oath from him at the Burrow, with Molly and Bill as witnesses. Nick also noted that he had maneuvered into position to continue Arthur's work with the camps. He doesn't yet have the knowledge of personalities among camp administrators (who will turn a blind eye to what, who can be bribed, etc.) that Arthur had, but he should at least be able to get information as needed to schedule camp trips, arrange documents. etc. when we are going in to find babies (or members of Ridley's network).
2. Dark wizards doing dark wizardry.
We moved on to the rite that Bill observed. Quite a few members of the Order arrived early, either to view the memory or to wait while others did so. (Those waiting were encouraged to do so in the kitchen, where Kreacher grudgingly provided tea and biscuits.) After the viewing, people were encouraged to make some notes privately and allow their stomachs to settle, and then we had Kreacher bring around some tea and toast. Poppy attempted to dissuade Minerva from viewing the memory, but Minerva was insistent; as the lone Order member who is also on the Council, there was no way to know without watching whether there were details that she alone would be able to interpret. (Mac pointed out that he was also a Council member, and not all that long ago, but... well, Minerva did view it, in the end.)
At the actual meeting, we hashed through what we observed, as we were able to add quite a bit of detail to Bill's initial observations.
When Bill arrived at the site, he smelled smoke. Pomona recognised it as juniper smoke. She also spotted the seed pods of a plant called Irish Ladies'-Tresses, which are found in sand-dune pastures. That narrows the location down a bit, though not to the degree we'd have liked.
'Rudy' recognised the two dark-haired strangers as Kathleen O'Connor (Seamus's mother, as Bill had ascertained) and her oldest brother, Feagh O'Connor. He added that while the family as a whole runs things in Ireland, Feagh is the senior member of the family these days and the one who's nominally in charge. He doesn't get on particularly well with the Council; they consider him loyal but not particularly reliable, and they recognise that he doesn't always share their priorities.
Several potions were used over the course of the rite. Sirius transformed while in the memory and observed in dog form, and was able to smell that both Dolohov and Seamus Finnigan's hands had a particular scent -- he could pick out the smells of verbena, aconite, and belladonna. Severus grew quite interested in that, during the discussion, and asked whether Sirius had also smelled rosemary. Sirius said he hadn't. Severus asked if he was sure, which nearly degenerated into an argument right there (rosemary, Sirius pointed out, is a rather easy smell to pick out even in human form -- so yes, he was sure.) They did establish that he had caught a faint whiff of oleander. Severus said that this strongly suggested that Dolohov had anointed himself and the boy with a potion sometimes called callis, which is used to ease the passage of power from one to another in a rite like this. Seamus was the one required to commit the murder, but the actual act of power here -- whatever it was they did -- was accomplished by Dolohov.
Rookwood brought two phials for the ritual. Poppy confirmed that one held human blood, and the other didn't. Charlie thought the other was dragon's blood: it was in the sort of phial that one uses for dragon's blood, and had the right viscosity and colour. Albus also got a look at that phial and agreed with his assessment.
Crouch laid out leaves in a circle; Pomona said the leaves were a mix of holly, oak, and aspen. (We really weren't sure, going through everything, what would eventually prove useful, so I wrote it all down. Well, apparently I missed the ingredients to the variant of the calming draught.)
Order of the Phoenix
Date: 5 January 1996
Location: 12 Grimmauld
Members Present: Sirius Black, Minerva McGonagall, Poppy Pomfrey, Pomona Sprout, Alice Longbottom, Frank Longbottom, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Molly Weasley, Dora Tonks, Charlie Weasley, Bill Weasley, Lee Jordan, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore, Walden Macnair, Remus Lupin, Hermione Granger, Dorcas Meadows, Caradoc Dearborn, Stephen McGivern, Terry Boot, Nick Towler, Rhymes with Rudy.
Date: 5 January 1996
Location: 12 Grimmauld
Members Present: Sirius Black, Minerva McGonagall, Poppy Pomfrey, Pomona Sprout, Alice Longbottom, Frank Longbottom, Fred Weasley, George Weasley, Molly Weasley, Dora Tonks, Charlie Weasley, Bill Weasley, Lee Jordan, Kingsley Shacklebolt, Severus Snape, Albus Dumbledore, Walden Macnair, Remus Lupin, Hermione Granger, Dorcas Meadows, Caradoc Dearborn, Stephen McGivern, Terry Boot, Nick Towler, Rhymes with Rudy.
Members Absent: Arabella Scrim
REVIEW OF PREVIOUS MEETING MINUTES:
We decided to hold off on reviewing those, lest we start arguing about Milland before we reached that point in the agenda.
TREASURER'S REPORT:
Bleak, what with Molly no longer running the barter network. We're also facing food shortages at Moddey, especially if we add more people to our safe houses. Sirius noted that Laszlo's is getting more into black market trading, because it's far more lucrative, which raised concerns about security...we were impatient to get to the main agenda, agreed to have a longer discussion of finances later, and never came back to it because we ran out of time. However: food. Likely to become a problem this winter.
AGENDA:
1. Official welcome to Nick Towler.
We started things on a bit of a high note. Many of us had not previously met Nick, who was recruited into the Order by Arthur Weasley and took his Oath from him at the Burrow, with Molly and Bill as witnesses. Nick also noted that he had maneuvered into position to continue Arthur's work with the camps. He doesn't yet have the knowledge of personalities among camp administrators (who will turn a blind eye to what, who can be bribed, etc.) that Arthur had, but he should at least be able to get information as needed to schedule camp trips, arrange documents. etc. when we are going in to find babies (or members of Ridley's network).
2. Dark wizards doing dark wizardry.
We moved on to the rite that Bill observed. Quite a few members of the Order arrived early, either to view the memory or to wait while others did so. (Those waiting were encouraged to do so in the kitchen, where Kreacher grudgingly provided tea and biscuits.) After the viewing, people were encouraged to make some notes privately and allow their stomachs to settle, and then we had Kreacher bring around some tea and toast. Poppy attempted to dissuade Minerva from viewing the memory, but Minerva was insistent; as the lone Order member who is also on the Council, there was no way to know without watching whether there were details that she alone would be able to interpret. (Mac pointed out that he was also a Council member, and not all that long ago, but... well, Minerva did view it, in the end.)
At the actual meeting, we hashed through what we observed, as we were able to add quite a bit of detail to Bill's initial observations.
When Bill arrived at the site, he smelled smoke. Pomona recognised it as juniper smoke. She also spotted the seed pods of a plant called Irish Ladies'-Tresses, which are found in sand-dune pastures. That narrows the location down a bit, though not to the degree we'd have liked.
'Rudy' recognised the two dark-haired strangers as Kathleen O'Connor (Seamus's mother, as Bill had ascertained) and her oldest brother, Feagh O'Connor. He added that while the family as a whole runs things in Ireland, Feagh is the senior member of the family these days and the one who's nominally in charge. He doesn't get on particularly well with the Council; they consider him loyal but not particularly reliable, and they recognise that he doesn't always share their priorities.
Several potions were used over the course of the rite. Sirius transformed while in the memory and observed in dog form, and was able to smell that both Dolohov and Seamus Finnigan's hands had a particular scent -- he could pick out the smells of verbena, aconite, and belladonna. Severus grew quite interested in that, during the discussion, and asked whether Sirius had also smelled rosemary. Sirius said he hadn't. Severus asked if he was sure, which nearly degenerated into an argument right there (rosemary, Sirius pointed out, is a rather easy smell to pick out even in human form -- so yes, he was sure.) They did establish that he had caught a faint whiff of oleander. Severus said that this strongly suggested that Dolohov had anointed himself and the boy with a potion sometimes called callis, which is used to ease the passage of power from one to another in a rite like this. Seamus was the one required to commit the murder, but the actual act of power here -- whatever it was they did -- was accomplished by Dolohov.
Kingsley asked Severus if he knew how to brew this potion; Severus said that of course he did but added that it is used very nearly exclusively in the sort of rituals that the Order finds distasteful. Such as this one.
The potion that Rosier handed to Kathleen O'Connor proved a bit of a puzzle. It was in a flask made of aluminium, disguising both the odor from Sirius (all he could smell was the metal) and the colour from Severus. Poppy, however, recognised the effects: it was a strong calming draught. (She also managed to hear what Rosier said to her -- he didn't force her to drink, but encouraged her to do so. The precise line Poppy quoted was, 'Don't you wish to make this as easy on your son as possible.')
Severus speculated that this was a variant on the Draught of Peace that uses -- oh, he told us the variation but I didn't write it all down. At any rate, many calming draughts have ingredients that can interfere with the magics of this sort of business, but there's one that doesn't, and in fact it's been widely used over the centuries for more or less this purpose. Sometimes the sacrificial victim must be fully conscious and terrified, but clearly in this case it was not necessary. Bill looked like he was going to say something and then decided to excuse himself, briefly, instead.
Crouch laid out leaves in a circle; Pomona said the leaves were a mix of holly, oak, and aspen. (We really weren't sure, going through everything, what would eventually prove useful, so I wrote it all down. Well, apparently I missed the ingredients to the variant of the calming draught.)
Bill provided us with several good looks at the stars. Even the NEWT astronomers in the group couldn't manage the calculations to find the location, however. Aurora Sinistra certainly could manage it; alternately, Dumbledore listed off four others he thought could do it. He wasn't sure where they were these days. Dora noted that one of the four he listed currently works for the Department of Mysteries and can be presumed even less trustworthy than Aurora. She asked if Poppy and Pomona could ask Aurora to look at just a snippet of the memory, and possibly obliviate her after. Unfortunately, half the group glanced at Bill when she said that and he had to leave the room again to collect himself. The discussion was shelved: we decided we'd continue it in the journals and move on.
The third rune on the knife, the one that Bill didn't recognise -- Sirius and Albus both recognised it. It's very obscure and means 'Blood of the Isle' or in some contexts 'the Blood Royal.' Kingsley asked if that referred to the Royal family, the muggle Royal family, and Sirius confirmed that it did. Albus had also gone for a really close look at the phials of blood, when Rookwood took them out, and noted that one of them had the same rune carved in wax on the cap -- so, perhaps part of the ritual involved spilling blood from the House of Windsor.
That spun off into an interesting conversation about how much they might have stored. They executed the Royal Family rather publicly in 1984, on the first 'Freedom From Tyranny' Day. Severus started trying to calculate how much blood they might have stored, based on average blood volume for adults and children, and Sirius pointed out with some irritation that unless we knew what they were using it for it hardly mattered how much they'd started with. Anyway. It's a shame we don't have a spy in the Department of Mysteries, and for the love of Merlin and Morganna no one repeat that line to the Junior Auxiliary.
Albus also noted that our suspicion that this business had to do with the wards was correct. This was a warding ritual, an ancient one; he recognised pieces of what they were doing from the research he'd done, and he thought this was a smaller-scale rite than whatever they'd done to create the ward around the Protectorate. This one, he thought, was designed to bind the Irish muggles to Irish soil. What it would do to any Irish muggles currently on English soil... well, he didn't think it would kill them, at least. And he thought it was tied in to the main wards, though when pressed for details he got obscure, then quiet.
Sirius recognised Dolohov's incantation as being in Arabic but he couldn't tell us what Dolohov was saying, just that it was in Arabic. He did catch a few phrases that were repeated multiple times: one was 'blood calls to blood,' one was 'power of blood,' and he also picked out a few kinship terms mixed in (mother, son, brother, and sister, at various points). Frank agreed regarding the Arabic, and was able to write down a segment of it phonetically; if we can find a trustworthy speaker of Arabic, we could get a more complete translation.
Mac, Severus, and Albus all recognised the rune that was marked on Kathleen's hands. It's a rune that invokes dark power, and draws on the powers loosed with blood-letting and murder. Mac told us that he's been to a few rituals, though none quite like this. The rune in question is used fairly regularly. Sometimes it's just traced with a wand or even a finger; if you draw it in blood, that increases the power. Particular sorts of blood increase the power further, and drawing it in blood on the body of someone about to be sacrificed, well, yes. That cranks it up by quite a lot. Mac asked us if we really wanted to know all the different ways that the power of that rune could be invoked to a higher or lower degree. He added that he'd seen some and heard about others. And the he started to say something about a knife and then backed off and asked for the children to leave the room if we were really going to get into it. And Bill went white as a sheet, and Molly asked if we could please not get into this unless it was really necessary, and we decided to move on.
Mac suggested he tell us what he'd noticed in this ritual, instead. He'd paid a fair amount of attention to what interactions people were having with the Lord Protector. The most noticeable was that he was not pleased with Lucius Malfoy. Malfoy was present, and assisting, but uncomfortable with something. Mac thought that the boy's involvement made him uncomfortable, probably because he's of an age with Draco, and this was bolstered by the fact that Malfoy made an effort not to look at Seamus. After the rite, while most of the observers were apparating away, the Lord Protector spoke to Malfoy -- Mac couldn't make out precisely what he said, but it was clearly a taunt. From what he could get, he thought Malfoy had disliked the LP's proposal that Seamus wield the wand or, if necessary, the knife. Sirius leaned forward and said he'd smelled something odd on Malfoy -- fear, or discomfort, or possibly something else. It had changed during the ritual, though.
From other things Mac heard, or gathered generally, there was some sort of altercation among the Death Eaters in the immediate aftermath of Arthur's death. Everyone looked at Minerva, and she elaborated: that evening, the Lord Protector summoned the Council, and demanded that those who were married bring their wives. (Apparently fiancees were exempted; Aurora Sinistra wasn't there.) To punish Yaxley (for failing to stop IMA, presumably), Voldemort demanded that Lucius Malfoy cruciate Bettina Yaxley. He then cast some sort of curse on a bracelet she was wearing: while she wears the bracelet, which she herself cannot remove, she will feel the pain of cruciatus if she picks up her wand.
Why? Minerva hadn't told us about this before, for reasons -- well, the report on her condition was later. At any rate, though, she wasn't sure why the Lord Protector turned his wrath on his Council in quite that fashion, but noted she thinks some of them are having their loyalty tested to the breaking point.
Charlie and Kingsley said that if that's the case, surely we can turn this to our advantage. Minerva shrugged and said that was a nice idea, but she was the last one who could afford to feel out the rest for disloyalty. And in fact if anyone approached her, it might be a test, one that she couldn't afford to fail -- so she needed to do what she could to discourage that sort of approach. Fortunately, her drinking is well known on the council. She noted with some acerbic humour that Dominic Selwyn used to send her Firewhiskey for Christmas, but chose this year to send her fruit. So. Anyone wishing to express concerns about what Our Lord intends to do to His Most Loyal Servants next...will probably express them to someone more reliable. Though probably not Bellatrix Lestrange or Barty Crouch. (No, Sirius, I'm still not calling him Farty the Grouch in the official minutes, and that's not what I wrote, either, you're misreading my handwriting.)
Other than Malfoy...Mac said that Selwyn looked thoroughly unsettled, Rosier had the look of a man who'd stuck his neck out and wasn't yet sure what price he'd be paying for it, and Dolohov looked like he thought he had something to prove. And Bella was clearly furious to be on wand-carrying duty. Oh, and he's seen the business with having everyone hand over their wand before. I'd assumed it was to protect the Lord Protector from Bill, but no. It's more that this ritual had an ingredient that couldn't readily be replaced (that would be Kathleen O'Connor) and thus it was critically important that no one bollocks it up by casting an ill-timed spell.
Mac then asked if Minerva had spotted anything he'd missed. She was silent for a good fifteen seconds and then turned to Moody Rudy and said, 'Finnigan's the name of the boy's muggle father. I asked about that, when he was first enrolled -- why Seamus Finnigan, and not Seamus O'Connor. It was his uncle's decision, made at the time that they took his blood for this godforsaken business. To remind his mother, always, that Seamus was a stain, an embarrassment, a liability, and possibly -- in the end -- a sacrifice. His father's name was Sean Finnigan. Do you know if he's still alive?'
Rudy looked thoughtful, and thought about it for a few minutes, and then said that he thought so. In hiding, somewhere. He'd heard rumours....maybe.
And Minerva turned to the rest of us and said that she'd seen enough that she knew how we could undo every bit of magic done that afternoon, if Rudy's Irish friends could find us Sean Finnigan. But, she added when everyone got excited, there was a catch. It would require his death.
Rudy said that he believed the man to be a member of IMA, and he might come voluntarily and die voluntarily, if it would serve his people to do so. Frank asked how we'd ever get him here; Alice said that maybe these wards, like the others, would go down at Solstice; Minerva said that the ward wouldn't bind him anyway, because of his blood connexion to Seamus. Finding him would be the difficulty; bringing him to England would be straightforward.
Terry asked which Order member would kill him, then, if we were going to replicate the dark rite, because that's what we were contemplating here, wasn't it? Bill objected, forcefully, to that idea. There followed a short, uncomfortable discussion. Let me see if I have the points correct:
1. None of us wish to commit cold-blooded murder.
2. However, if Dark Arts would bring down all the wards, not merely the one that restricts Ireland, some of us would consider countenancing it.
3. Particularly if the sacrificial victim were a volunteer. Minerva said that if her death were required to free us all from the wards, she would certainly offer it.
4. Somehow, that didn't make anyone any more comfortable with it. (And it wouldn't be her, in any case.)
5. Mac shrugged and said he'd do the rite, if it came to that.
6. Several people were getting clearly upset by now.
Dora broke in and asked whether Minerva was absolutely certain that there was NO way to undo the rite that didn't require someone's death. Minerva sighed heavily and said that no, she wasn't absolutely certain, she wasn't an expert on the Dark Arts or Our Lords' rituals and the mysteries surrounding them. That philosophically it is believed generally that one can always counter Dark with Light, and that in doing so a death would obviously not be required. But to counter death with life, a number of the pieces would be needed alive. And in the case of the British Royal Family... see above about 'Freedom Day.'
Sirius noted that the British royal family had an absurdly long line of succession traced out, and some of the Princes escaped. Minerva didn't think that would work, because the rune refers to the Blood of the Isle -- if you've fled, you're 'blood of the bloody continent, then, I suppose.' Albus said that he could give a more complete answer to this question as while on the continent, he met with Andrew, the nearest surviving member of the British Royal family, who was out of the country when the wards were put into place. In a sense, he is the King of the United Kingdoms of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (quite a mouthful, that) because he became such on the death of his mother, his older brother, and his nephew. However, he doesn't go by 'King' as he said that if you've fled into exile, you've abdicated, and he made a sarcastic remark about someone named 'Cyril the First.' Despite this, he willingly donated a number of phials of blood to Albus, and Albus has done quite a bit of experimentation since returning to the Protectorate to see if there's a way to break or even weaken the wards with blood from the House of Windsor. However, he has concluded that the wards of the conquerers will always hold against anything he could concoct from the blood of an exiled prince.
A countering non-Dark rite would also require a dragon. Charlie blinked and said surely that could be arranged... It would also be thoroughly complex in a way that a countering Dark rite would not. A countering Dark rite would be simple. But bloody. We'd need Sean Finnigan, either way. Rudy said he'd see what he could find out.
At this point, we broke for lunch (to avoid another argument) and resolved that everything else would need to be expedited.
3. Astronomers.
We'd already discussed this a bit; we went round again over sandwiches and shelved it again. We don't know if we can trust Aurora Sinistra. We'll look into the names provided by Dumbledore and see if any of them seem more promising.
4. Report on Minerva's condition.
Poppy stated that Minerva was being treated with the Contravinum potion. Stephen had heard of it and noted that it was potentially fatal. Severus said yes, it's fatal if it's misbrewed, which it will not be. It's taken weekly and requires three days to brew; Severus will be doing this on an ongoing basis but has also stockpiled a number of doses and says it stores reasonably well. Poppy said she's storing it with the two precious phials of Cinnabaris Vitalis she has thanks to Charlie's generosity.
5. Order Co-Head nominations and voting.
Everyone was given ballots. On the first round, Alice Longbottom had the largest number of votes, but not a majority. I was second (probably because no one's considered that you don't have to take the notes if you're the Co-Head), then Dora. Frank, Kingsley, and Albus also each got at least one vote.
On the second round, Alice was duly elected as Order Co-Head. Congratulations and good luck, Alice. (You'll need it.)
6. The Jr. Auxiliary
So apparently Ron Weasley approached Molly yesterday saying that he wants to join. And apparently this caused a bit of a scene, which Bill felt he needed to formally apologise for (for his words and actions, letting us all down, etc., etc., etc.)
At this point, we need to accept that our existence is not a secret from them; our membership is not a secret from them; and our projects are not a secret from them. Hermione's outburst notwithstanding, we're damn lucky that no one in the MLE has been placed to find any of this out. The question is what changes, if we admit them. And what it changes, right now, is their ability to read the Order lock.
And this is almost certainly not a good time to put them on the Order lock. First, there's Minerva, who is their Headmistress and whose condition is not a secret to the Order. Second, there's Seamus Finnigan, who is Ron and Neville's roommate -- Ron and Neville have faithfully kept the secrets they've been entrusted with (or figured out!) but concealing from your roommate that you know him to be guilty of matricide requires not merely discretion but a certain amount of acting ability. The Twins pointed out that Ron was cast as the lead in the school play. This didn't quite reassure any of us.
Moreover, winter holidays are nearly over. To discuss this properly we would also need to discuss it with them, not merely about them, and there simply isn't time before they go back to school. And we didn't wish to delegate that entire business to Minerva, Pomona, Poppy, and Severus. Sirius suggested spring hols. Molly and Pomona raised the objection that this would be directly before OWLs for a large number of our juniors, and for some of them it would be an extremely high-stakes test. (Not that Poppy is concerned that Miss Perks or Mr Finch-Fletchley will fail their exams as poor Thomas Capper did, but she suggested it would be in their interests to have distractions minimised directly before they sits the exam. And since new Order members can read back through ALL the old Order posts, offering up some deeply fascinating endless new reading material right before exams... well.)
Charlie suggested that we wait until summer, then have the Twins organise a meeting at the Burrow, where for once we can surprise them.
I asked Hermione what she thought about this. Hermione said that the Juniors discussed this last night and have decided that they're going to think about things they can do on their own and if the Order wants to recruit them, they should stop insulting them with disingenuous offers like forging work and recognise their very real talents. She added that she worked with several together to make the galleons, for instance.
That actually sounded fine to us; if they want to work on projects like the communication coins, that seems relatively harmless and Hermione can pass along their useful ideas.
7. Security Procedures.
This led into a discussion of security procedures. Frank wanted to bring this up (for Nick and other newer Order members) and mentioned that Moddey Dhoo regularly has drills to evacuate the island -- with a limited number of adults who can apparate and lots and lots of babies, drills are essential to make sure no one gets left behind. He went over the safehouses, reminding everyone that 12GP is under the Fidelius so it will work as a safehouse only for current Order members. He noted that Hermione, Neville, and Evelyn have portkeys to go to a safehouse in an emergency, but not Ron or any of the other Juniors. Molly got rather upset by this, saying that there's no way to ensure that a safehouse stays safe. Frank pointed out that the point of having a portkey is for a true catastrophe -- the sort where there are no guarantees, only options that give you a chance.
Molly stepped out for a moment to collect herself and Charlie said that he thinks the real problem is that giving a portkey to Ron meant not giving a portkey to Percy -- or even Ginny.
When Molly came back, I suggested that we outfit all the Juniors with portkeys. Hermione will tell us how many (ten, she said, not counting the ones who already had portkeys) and we'll arrange to send them all to a single safehouse. What we'll do with them once they're there -- Hydra Lestrange, especially! -- well, we'll think about that, but in the meantime they deserve that much protection from us. (Frank noted that the safehouses are severely understocked due to the food shortages. This will be less of a problem after spring, at least.)
Hermione added that quite a lot of them want to learn Occlumency. That brought up the question of distracting them from exams, again (also, isn't the point of giving them portkeys that they can escape if they're about to be questioned by someone like Bellatrix? If they've studied occlumency, will this make them overconfident and more prone to take chances?) No clear conclusion was reached.
Frank also wanted to talk about Ireland, and whether there was any way to secure Muggle camp occupants during conflicts. He threw out the idea of a Fidelius, but those are both time-consuming and extremely complex. We discussed a few ideas, but found no solution.
8. Matters at Hogwarts: Milland; Dolores Umbridge; the spy.
Milland: still in a dungeon.
Dolores Umbridge: still utterly loathesome.
The spy: Poppy and Pomona remain convinced it was probably Rolanda Hooch, but they have no new evidence for us. However, the good news is that there is no new evidence -- no one reports signs of anyone obviously skulking. Which raises the question of why, but we're leaving that for later discussion in the journals. Severus agreed with their assessment, but added he's seen nothing suspicious from Hooch except that she seems to actually like Umbridge's company.
There was more discussion of Milland, too, but it was as fruitless as the last three times.
There was more discussion of Milland, too, but it was as fruitless as the last three times.
8. Projects in progress: Arthur's work; Albus on research; Sirius on Laszlo's; Tonks on Beth; Tonks and Frank on Ridley; Kingsley on network; Hermione on Galleon Project
Nick had covered Arthur's work; Albus had discussed his research. Sirius had already mentioned Laszlo's was branching out into true black marketeering. Tonks said that we'd had some ongoing dealings with Beth and promised a fuller update in the journals. Tonks and Frank are making slow but respectable progress with Ridley's contacts. Kingsley said he'd report in the journals. Hermione showed us all her galleon, but I couldn't read the text, it was too bloody small. Apparently teenagers have better eyes than old people. (Dora, could you read it?)
9. Any other new business that occurs to anyone to bring up.
It being Rudy's birthday, Dora moved to sing to him. Dorcas seconded. Rudy attempted a motion to bring this to a vote, possibly even a show of hands, but the motion failed and we sang him 'Happy Birthday.'
ADJOURNMENT
It being at this point ten minutes to The Weasleys Need To Leave o'clock, we adjourned. And thank goodness, because my hand is cramping. Quibbling about what I forgot can be added in the comments (as if I could stop you lot).
(no subject)
and here's to my al.
(no subject)
And thank you to everyone for giving me your trust. I will do my utmost to keep it.
Private Message to Remus
I certainly wasn't expecting that.
I'll have you know that I voted for you, love. Both times. I'll have to come by for tea in the next few days to talk, as I know I can depend on your advice and steadiness.
Re: Private Message to Remus
You'll have to muddle through without a secretary, but that would probably be less of an issue.
Re: Private Message to Remus
What's done is done.
Just know that I trust you with all my soul, and that I'll be depending on your help to steer this ship of fools.
Re: Private Message to Remus
Private message to Mrs Longbottom
But I'm truly glad you'll be leading us.
Wish I could tell Neville and Evelyn. They'd be right proud if they knew.
(no subject)
So I'm belated at this, but I wanted to say that if anyone had to step in Dad's shoes, I'm glad it's someone who I know will carry on his vision for the Order.
(no subject)
Kidding.
Really it said something like 'Hogwarts used to have muggleborn students. Not long ago. Who's stealing magic from whom?' Rather nice, that.
And the ones before said things like 'Meet at the lake at 5' and 'Test, test, testy-test-test'.
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
For the rest of you, I realised there's a piece about Aurora I don't know that we've mentioned, and I can't decide what it means.
Did you know - besides Poppy, that is - that she didn't tell anyone about her engagement, excepting her own parents and Narcissa Malfoy (whose advice she needed) between when her Raz asked her and when they got formal permission from his lord and master?
Better than a fortnight between the two and she saw me at Lana Sandoval and Ned Pennifold's wedding in the midst. (Irma guessed something might be up, but I honestly had no idea.) And they kept it from his family and friends, as well.
Anyway. It says something about her ability to keep a confidence with the right incentive, though it's the issue of whether she'd be able to keep it from her Raz that's still the question. Or whether she'd be willing to for us.
(no subject)
(no subject)
You and others can speak for yourselves here. And she can't. Nor, for that matter, can he.