Order Only

[alt_hydra]

I don't know if any of you working for MLE have heard what I have, but I haven't seen it mentioned by anyone yet. I reckon I might as well write up a report.

Crouch and my mother led a field mission to root out a number of Dogstar cells. It started Wednesday night and went til early Saturday morning. They were highly successful, making a number of significant captures. Including Ridley.

Who is dead, I'm afraid. You don't want to know how.

Apparently the Lord Protector is tremendously pleased. I guess it's made up, a bit, for what happened at Dover.

Comments

[alt_ron]

They killed Ridley? Whoa.

Only, it seemed like she'd as many lives as a cat.

[alt_draco]

"Don't want to know how" - why? Is there something worse than Black's Curse?

[alt_hydra]

She was flayed alive. An inch at a time, or something.

[alt_poppy]

I don't suppose there's any chance Crouch was boasting about something that's not certain?

Under the circumstances, I would rather like to know what he said about how they killed her.

[alt_ron]

Alright. Yeah, I could've done without knowing that.

Anyone care to practise their Obliviation skills this afternoon?

[alt_hydra]

Flayed slowly, to see if she'd talk. I don't think that she did, though.

Private message to Ron

[alt_hydra]

Be glad none of us were invited along.

Also, be glad he didn't order you to stay in the salle last night and join in.

[alt_poppy]

Oh, bless.

Are you able to see Crouch's thoughts at all? He wasn't merely boasting, I suppose?

Re: Private message to Ron

[alt_ron]

Yeah, I saw him as I was leaving.

Wasn't even tempted to hang about.

Bad, was it?

[alt_hydra]

I saw the parts that he described to me, yes, as he was describing them. It wasn't just a boast. He's not the type for boasting, anyway.

Re: Private message to Ron

[alt_hydra]

He was intense, I guess. Wound up on surplus magic.

Re: Private message to Ron

[alt_ron]

You all right, then?

[alt_poppy]

No, I don't suppose he is.

More's the pity.

Re: Private message to Ron

[alt_hydra]

I am now, yes. He fixed the damage he did.

It just didn't seem like he was training me. He just wanted to fight, and he was coming at me like I was his enemy.

Which isn't a useless thing to have experienced, given the circumstances.

I'm not sure if I should tell Justin, though. He already hates Barty so much, and this wouldn't help matters. And there's nothing he or I can do about it, either.

Re: Private message to Ron

[alt_ron]

No, I don't reckon there is. Short of taking a shot at him the next time they're in a room together.

Which would be suicidal and a waste of one of the Order's best wands.

So-

Well, I can't say whether you ought to tell him or not, but I won't.

Re: Private message to Ron

[alt_hydra]

Well it's over and done with now, anyway. And I'm fine.

[alt_rachel]

Bugger.

I hadn't heard. That means that either they got my contact, or my contact's reluctant to contact me for fear of pointing them my way when they do get him.

Private message to Hydra

[alt_rachel]

What I want to know is why she didn't kill herself -- whether she didn't have the means because she trusted in her inner strength that completely, or if they found some way of preventing her from using it. Do you know? It might have been the former; she'd withstood MLE interrogation before.

Private message to Alice Longbottom

[alt_rachel]

I want to see if Johnny's okay. (He was my Dogstar contact.) If he is, I want to offer him shelter in an Order Safehouse.

I can't promise you he's the sort of person you'll like very much but I can promise you he will not betray the Order.

If he's caught he'll do his damnedest not to betray me, or any of the others he passes messages for, but no guarantees.

Re: Private message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

I didn't ask, but I wouldn't bet against them being prepared for suicide and having a prevention method in place.

Re: Private message to Alice Longbottom

[alt_alice]

That would be acceptable, yes. Thank you for running it by me. Be very, very careful.

Re: Private message to Hydra

[alt_rachel]

I'm sure they're prepared for poisons.

I have a phrase I've taken an Unbreakable Vow not to say. If they want me to give them information, they have to let me speak aloud, since they can't legilimise me. I haven't been able to come up with any way they could keep me from using it and force me to divulge information, though they could keep me from talking and torture me to madness out of spite. And might do so.

If they do -- please tell only Alice and Remus what actually happened to me? Tell the rest my method worked. If you don't mind.

Re: Private message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

They might have just done it out of spite. Or for fun.

The Unbreakable Vow is a good idea. I might need to set that up for myself, since I'm not wearing my ring anymore. I can't afford for Mummy to somehow notice it and connect it to Draco's and Hermione's.

And yes, of course I'll tell them.

Re: Private message to Hydra

[alt_rachel]

The Unbreakable Vow is an excellent option for an animagus or for someone who is exceptionally good at occluding.

For average occlumency skill, they'll just seal your mouth and read what they want out of your head once they've broken through your shields, if they've any inkling of what you're planning. I suppose in my case they might assume I'm just occluding and wait for me to break. There really aren't any guarantees.

Re: Private message to Hydra

[alt_hydra]

I've tested people with different levels of occluding skills. With average levels you can tell the person is occluding; at higher levels you can't, because high-level occlumens can make it seem they're not occluding even when they are (though serious interrogation will get through that, eventually). However, with a natural occlumens (a category that I include animagi in) it's like coming up against a buffer of white noise, and there's no way to get rid of it.

I'm not sure if my mother has encountered this phenomenon enough times to have made the connection between natural occlumency and animagi. Possibly she has put this together since discovering that Sirius is an animagi. Or, she might experience the buffer in a totally different way. I don't know that all legilimency works the same, necessarily. And there are natural occlumens who aren't animagi at all, even though they are very rare (and are usually also legilimens, like me). Jason Montague, for example - do you know if he's an animagi? Because if he's not, it might be due to his very small degree of natural legilimency that I can't read him at all. I can't read any of the ghosts in the castle, either. Though I suppose that might be because they're dead.

Re: Private message to Hydra

[alt_rachel]

I am fairly certain Jason is not an animagus. Because if he were, he'd have told Mafalda (while she was still alive) in a bid to get moved out of MEU and into something he finds more appealing.

It is dimly possible he turns into something like entirely impractical, like a giraffe, or something humiliatingly cute, like a koala bear, and so he's kept it a secret. But my guess is not.

[alt_kingsley]

I'm glad that you weren't called out for that.

That's hard news about Ridley. There was no love lost between her and the rest of us when we were guarding her, but she was one tough woman. And she hated the regime as much as any of us.

As cruel as she could sometimes be, she didn't deserve to die like that. No one does.