Order Only: Private message to Justin, Ron, and Sally-Anne

[alt_harry]

Justin -- did you find Susan? Can she get you the cage?

Comments

[alt_justin]

Harry,

No, we went to Professor Grubbly-Plank's office but she didn't have anything suitable there.

I didn't want her to get any more curious, what, so I simply told her it wasn't anything urgent.

Good thing you gave me the cloak to get back to you tonight, old man. I'm going out to the shed to get what we need.

I say, did you decide whether to tell Sirius and Mr Lupin, after all?

-Justin

[alt_harry]

I still think we should wait.

We're not saying we'll never tell them. We're just taking a day or two to think about it.

[alt_sally_anne]

He is NOT coming back to Slytherin House.

ABSOLUTELY NOT. Oh my god. All those years he's been sleeping

[alt_ron]

No. He's coming to Gryffindor. To our room. Even if we have to keep him petrified.

[alt_sally_anne]

Anyway he's still offering to take an Unbreakable Vow. Do you think it'll be enough to have him swear not to betray us? If we're too specific he might be able to find a loophole but if we're too general it might kill him when we don't mean it to.

I mean it's true he's overheard everything for years and years and if he WANTED to betray us he could have done it years ago. So there's that.

But I still don't trust him.

[alt_ron]

Look, mate. I don't see that he's all that trustworthy. I mean, he says he was a double agent?

That, right there. Not a good reason to take him at his word and not check facts.

[alt_sally_anne]

That works. If Justin can bring back the cage. Tell Seamus that Pyewacket was trying to eat him.

Pansy's going to have to have a talk with Pyewacket. He's never even BLINKED at Sebastian.

[alt_ron]

Yeah, he didn't want to because it was safer to stay hidden, but now we know about him, he could come to a different conclusion next time he runs the arithmancy on what's in his self-interest.

[alt_harry]

I think we should check facts. But we can start by getting some more of the story, rather than saying, 'oh hey, Sirius and Mr Lupin, Sally-Anne's rat says he's an old mate of yours.' If he's right they'd storm the school to try to kill him.

I mean -- Sirius can be impulsive. I don't want him coming here after Sebastian because he might not get back out.

[alt_justin]

Ron,

I agree. I mean to say, I can imagine he might well be right that the Order wouldn't accept him back with open arms, what, but I do believe Sirius and Mr Lupin could be convinced to listen to him before they act rashly.

He did seem utterly convinced they'd simply kill him, though.

Another thing, that story.... Well, I say, he was jolly well quick to tell us all about it. We barely had to ask any questions. I'm not sure if that argues in his favour or against him.

-Justin

[alt_sally_anne]

Well, the bit with the locket made sense.

I mean I don't know if it was true, but I certainly don't have any OTHER explanation for how it got into my bag. Pansy swears it wasn't her and I know it wasn't me. And Peeves doesn't muck about in Slytherin House, he's too scared of the Baron.

So other pieces of it might be true, too. It's true he might not have been able to go back because he'd have been followed, and it's true Albus Dumbledore comes up with some really strange plans (did I tell you what my Mum said about the baby?) and it's true he bit Letchley.

Anyway Hydra's a double agent. And you trust her. Right?

[alt_ron]

I'm just saying that you can't take what he says at face value. Any of it. He could have done the bit with the Locket but for reasons of his own. Like maybe it was working on him and he was afraid of it and wanted you to find out about it. Not because he wanted to help save Pansy.

And I trust Dumbledore not to come barging in here to kill him. So we could just start with telling him. Or with Mr Lupin. We don't actually have to tell Sirius straight off.

[alt_justin]

Sally-Anne,

If he really had been sent as a double agent, though, wouldn't at least someone in the Order have mentioned that at some point?

I've got the cage, at any rate. I'll be back in a few minutes, if I don't have any trouble.

-Justin

[alt_ron]

Yeah. She definitely needs to sort out what sort of Kneazle lets an animagus shack up in a girls' dormitory for years.

Pyewacket's got a lot to answer for.

[alt_harry]

Maybe they'd have mentioned it. But there's stuff they just forget to tell us.

Besides, maybe they didn't all know. They didn't have the lock back then and I think most of the people in the Order didn't really know what was going on at any given time.

[alt_sally_anne]

I trust Dumbledore not to come barging in here to kill him but I don't necessarily trust him to tell us the truth (or all of the bits of it we'd consider important, at least).

I've been thinking it might make sense to ask the animagi what sorts of effects it might have if you were transformed for a really long time. Because if he really was a double agent, it might come out in that conversation, right?

[alt_sally_anne]

I mean he's also right that the adults leave us out of things. And don't always answer us straight, even now. And definitely don't like filling us in on mistakes they've made.

So I think it probably does make sense to take a day or two and at least see what we can find out about what he told us.

[alt_ron]

Well, that's a reason we should at least ask Dumbledore or Mr Lupin.

I think Sally Anne's right. We could just ask them about animagi who stay transformed. Or we could decide on one of the things he's claiming and just ask them about that piece of it without saying why we're curious.

I mean, we could ask in a way that doesn't start with us saying, "We found this bloke Peter Pettigrew, and he's been hiding out as a transformed animagus for years here at Hogwarts, and now he wants us to hide him."

[alt_sally_anne]

Are people okay with it if I tell Pansy?

I mean really I HAVE to tell Pansy. She's going to want to know where Sebastian's gone off to and I'm not going to tell her that her own Kneazle was trying to eat Sebastian.

I'm not sure if Daphne ought t

[alt_ron]

Yeah. But.

I don't want us waiting a day or two and letting him do a runner on us while we're here keeping his secret from them. Y'know?

[alt_harry]

Yeah. Well. I can ask Sirius and Mr Lupin about Peter. Because all three of them were mates with my father. And I can ask them what all happened during the betrayal and pretend I'm just thinking about my friends at Hogwarts and how I can't imagine anyone betraying us so what does he think happened and so on.

And you could ask them about animagi who stay transformed for ages. I mean, are you going to tell them all about what happened before Sally-Anne hit Sebastian with that spell?

[alt_ron]

Start by telling Pans. And then see what happens with Daphne? I mean, maybe she doesn't need to know since it's so completely disgusting.

[alt_harry]

Well the cage should keep him put, right? We'll just make sure we're both there when you feed him.

[alt_ron]

Which part?

[alt_harry]

Yeah, I agree with Ron.

Pansy deserves to know.

Daphne also deserves to know but maybe not first thing. Or if she'd really rather not know.

[alt_ron]

Um. Okay. So I just thought of another thing.

We know Dolohov's got a device that lets him know where people are in the castle. We don't really know how it works, but it belonged to Dumbledore. Before. And I know Dumbledore was worried about it once he found out Dolohov'd got hold of it.

I think that whatever it is, it hasn't told him that Peter Pettigrew's been in the castle all this time. It must hide Animagi. Actually, I know it does. That's why Dumbledore had me going around the castle doing things for him on the sly, because there were places he didn't want Dolohov knowing he'd gone, but I could go and Dolohov wouldn't know it.

But we had Sebastian detransformed for, I don't know, an hour or more. What if Dolohov knows? I mean, I don't think he'd have come down and asked us about it, necessarily. And he couldn't have got into the room, anyway. But if he did see... that makes this whole thing a different kind of game.

[alt_harry]

Well, the room's sort of special. So maybe he won't know? I don't think he knows everything about everyone all the time, at least.

If he does know Peter Pettigrew was in the castle, that won't tell him he's a rat. So I think he'll assume he sneaked in and then out again for some reason. If a lot of MLE suddenly turn up, I guess we'll know he knows.

[alt_ron]

Yeah, that's a good idea.

[alt_harry]

You know, testing out what happened when Sally-Anne transformed you.

How did that go?

[alt_ron]

Yeah, well. Let's hope they don't turn up wanting to know why you, Justin, me and Sally Anne were all in a room with Pettigrew for an hour on Wednesday evening.

I mean, there's nothing we can really do about it if he did see, but we should know it's possible and be prepared for surprises, I guess.

And it's completely possible the thing just tells him about people he asks it about. It's not too likely he was wanting to know if Peter Pettigrew, who's supposed to be dead, just happened to be hanging about the castle today.

[alt_ron]

Eh.

It was really queer, being transformed into other things. I think we did a tortoise, a worm, a beetle, a rabbit, a cat, and a thing she'd read about in books called a... I don't remember what it's called, but it's got skin that's a hard shell, like armour. An armourdello. Something like that. Totally odd. It's got little feet. And it likes to dig. Oh, and the last thing was a pony.

Anywiz, she did fine. She's got the hang of the spell now. And I found out that I can be turned into other things and that it's really, really uncomfortable. I mean, I didn't break anything, but I do feel like I've been run over by a carriage and six horses.

We also found out I can make myself turn from some of those animals into my Animagus form, but I couldn't do it from all of them. I don't know whether it's really because some of them are just harder to get loose from. When I was a worm, I was well and truly stuck. I remember what it felt like, but I don't think I was able to think at all while I was transformed.

I only thought I was going to slip snakewise once, and it didn't happen. That was with the tortoise, and that was the first one. And I couldn't turn back from the beetle or the rabbit, either. But maybe it was more to do with how well she really cast the spell, y'know? Not because of something particular about those creatures or how they relate to my animagus form.

So I reckon I'll be all right if Glozeman makes me 'volunteer' next lesson, and Sally Anne will be fine no matter what he asks her to cast.