Order Only: Private message to Padfoot and Tonks

[alt_lupin]

How's Bea doing today, Padfoot? Still treating you as the public enemy you are?

The shop's a madhouse. I've never seen such a run on spices. It's a shame we won't be getting a Solstice delivery, we could mark everything up and people would still buy. (I doubled prices on the nutmeg already and no one's flinched.)

Comments

[alt_sirius]

Either I'm forgiven or she's decided that if this is the way it's going to be for the foreseeable future, she'd better make the best of it.

She's even gone for a nap without an argument. We'll see how long that lasts.

I've been thinking about the Solstice run, whether it's even worth trying to throw something together. Suspect not, not until we've got those stones round the border sorted out. It's put a crimp in my Christmas shopping, too, I'm afraid.

Anyway. Back to Albia.

You'll never believe it but ... I couldn't find anything in the library on the compulsion spells. So I asked the portrait of Mother.

I'll spare you the invective and lecture I had to endure. But she eventually admitted that she kept a Guide to Pure Parenting in the second drawer of her bureau in the drawing room.

So I've been trying to read it.

[alt_lupin]

You asked the PORTRAIT? You really must have been desperate

How drastic are the spells? I mean to say -- does it straight out tell you to use the Imperius curse? Or are there milder compulsions, at least?

Do you remember any of them being used on you?

[alt_sirius]

It was a moment of weakness I'm sure I'll regret for a long time to come.

There aren't too many spells, per se. Most of it's utter bollocks about discipline that I remember quite vividly.

But one or two of them do sound horrifyingly familiar. (They also fit with what the portrait said - shrieked - about my failings coming home to roost.) The 'Discretion Charm' is underlined; description says it's to 'keep little mouths closed from embarrassing the family!'

In the entry on 'Impulse Control Charms' there's a short section on side effects. Mother wrote in the margin on a few of them ('R' and 'S'). I can only assume that means we exhibited those symptoms.

Do you really think this is the answer?

[alt_lupin]

I think we've got two choices. One is using that spell. The other is keeping Bea shut away from anyone not in the Order.

Which do you think would be worse?

[alt_sirius]

It would only be for two three or four -

Yeah. Yeah, maybe you're right.

I'll try it this afternoon and she how she tolerates it. Probably need a proper test, though.

[alt_lupin]

What sort of test do you have in mind?

[alt_sirius]

Well, first I want to make sure it won't give her the collywobbles.

But then, we'll have to try it on her in circumstances where she might actually try telling someone the dog is really named Sirius, or whatever else we're prohibiting her from saying. Or doing, come to that.

So eventually we'll have to create those circumstances, encourage her to tell the very thing we don't want her to tell, and then let her feel punished for doing what we've asked.

[alt_lupin]

Does it punish her, or prevent her?

I suppose from her perspective there's not much difference.

[alt_lupin]

I was four, when I got bitten.

I understood I couldn't tell people I was a werewolf, but there were all sorts of things I didn't quite realise were dead giveaways. After we had to move, that first time, my mother -- well. After that, I was better about not talking about it.

I don't like that solution. But we've a good deal more at stake here than my parents did.

[alt_lupin]

Also, I'd set aside spices for gift baskets for Order members.

I'm thinking now, maybe I should raid those baskets and mark all the prices WAY up. The Order could use the dosh, you know? What do you think? (Tonks?)

[alt_sirius]

Poppy and Pomonoa and Molly are the only ones I can think of who'd be likely to use loads of spices. I say give them a more modest selection and sell the rest.

[alt_lupin]

I'm marking new prices on the everyday stuff and keeping the really rare stuff behind the counter in the hopes of getting outrageous offers from the truly desperate. (Of GALLEONS. Get your mind out of the gutter.)

We can give everyone Exploding Snap cards, instead. Or Chocolate Frogs.

[alt_sirius]

Right. I mean if it's outrageous offers you're looking for, I can supply those!