alt_fen | (no subject)

So much plot!

I am very worried for Pomona, especially since they've closed the floos. And I'm wondering what, if any, connection this questioning has to Linus' research. Anyone have any thoughts what it could have been about?

Meanwhile, I return to F5 obsessively...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

teceler

I remember Doholov a while back was talking about throwing his statistics about movements and stuff with Minerva at Linus. I'm not sure if it's that, but considering how long Linus is implied to have been working on this and the level of anonymization...

From:

stormyhearted

Mm, definitely. I was wondering if it might include tracking PMs.

From:

teceler

If it does, they have to be getting some really strange results there.

...Also, I'm kind of wondering, if they've uncovered Siz's involvement, what is going though Doholov's head at the moment.

From:

stormyhearted

Well, that just went from bad to worse.

I would suspect he's frustrated with himself for failing, once again, to see a traitor right under his nose.

From:

kiya

We are going to be getting some amazing strikethroughs from Dolohov in the future, and I am looking forward to them!

From:

stormyhearted

Me too! I wonder if he'll kill her himself, or let Bella go first to try to get information? Assuming Siz doesn't get out.

I am also concerned what's going to happen when several staff members vanish on information on Hydra had.

From:

keshwyn

I want to know why Bellatrix had Hydra do the message in the first place? Obviously, her journal works - why not write to Hopkirk directly...?

From:

stormyhearted

Maybe to avoid alerting anyone immediately? I mean, it wouldn't be hard to see Bella's note to Hydra and then Hydra's to Mafalda, but if people are just looking at Bella's, they might not suspect MLE was on the way.

From:

kiya

I suspect - aside from Player Arrangement For Plot - her logic is that The Opposition might have noticed Pomona has been detained and be monitoring her journal for communications with MLE?

Mind, 'to Hydra' and then Hydra immediately writing MLE is not much of a deflection.

From:

keshwyn

I'm just hoping it's not a test of Hydra...

From:

kiya

If Cedric runs - and I don't know how to judge whether or not he will because Huff to Huff head of house? Not an easy loyalty call even if he knows there's nothing he can do - she has cover.

Even if Cedric dies doing something loyal, she potentially has cover, because obviously Dolohov's clerk is in prime position to be passing warnings using whatever communication methods that clearly the Opposition has in this case, and Doing Something Loyal and getting himself killed may be proof of involvement beyond other things.

... alternately, Hydra was asked to pass on the message because Cedric was already compromised and couldn't be sent to do it himself, which would be even less suspicious, in which case he's already dead.

From:

keshwyn

Yeah, I'd just thought of the fact that Cedric might be plausible deniability, and was going to edit my comment accordingly. You beat me to it. :)

From:

kiya

Mind, Tosha's clerk being among the Hogwarts staff who disappear makes me suspect that Tosha might wind up having a Bad Day.

... a worse day.

... Tosha's day, very complicated at this point.

... I want more strikethroughs.

From:

kiya

... yeah, that's not going to make his relationship with Savitha any friendlier, is it?

From:

keshwyn

I love Savitha, she has STYLE.

From:

kiya

And a rather excessive level of glee in entrails.

(The impression I got from when she was rhapsodising over killing Flitwick was that Tosha lightly skipped over any response to that part with a sort of careful, "Really, my dear sister-in-arms, that sort of thing is just... tacky.")

From:

keshwyn

One can be a Drag Queen in a Walmart Parking Lot in central Texas and still have style. One's style might be...questionable in the locale, but one still has it.

I prefer Tosha's style, but Savitha's no slouch. (Amycus Carrow? Had no style.)

From:

stormyhearted

Yeah. That must be a thoroughly awkward situation for the enforcers. I would not want to be the one assigned to keep her from going anywhere.

From:

kiya

Her and Lana.

From:

stormyhearted

Indeed.

Do we think Pomona is dead yet? I'm wondering if this'll be Dumbledore's reveal, swooping in to save her. That is a strike-through I want to see.

From:

teceler

It's sounding like she's still alive at the moment.

I'm... wondering if they tried to clear Cedric yet, or if he was already gone, or if that's what Doholov is doing the moment.

(That (Dumbledore) would be a rather fun thing to see reactions to, yes)

From:

janeite

I'm kind of looking forward to the fallout of Bella legilimizing Lana & learning that Lana is trying to have Rod's baby (that's how I'm reading this anyways). Having a mistress is one thing. Having a child (that he'll want to legitimize) with said mistress is another.

From: (Anonymous)

"But Ma'am *Auror Lestrange* said *ALL* staff were to be detained."

From:

teceler

I feel like -- dramatically, if he's going to do something about all those things he's been striking out, now is a good time.

I'm not sure if he will, but.

From:

kiya

On a slightly whimsical note, how many Gryffindors are going to post their 'I HAVE MY WAND OUT!' userpics tonight?

(Plus Cedric.)

From:

kiya

Breathe, Molly. If you need something practical to do to settle your nerves, GO BUILD A BIGGER CLOCK.

From:

teceler

...that... is actually a good idea and if it is possible she should do that. When she doesn't need to be watching the existing clock, probably, because paranoia.

I am now being distracted by wondering if she could do that. Thank you.

Edit: Okay. Good. That's... still people to worry about, but less.

Edited Date: 2014-12-13 04:05 am (UTC)

From:

kiya

I thiiiink in canon she built it? (At least I recall seeing, years ago, someone pointing out in response to someone saying the Molly/Bella duel was implausible that Molly is a fucking charms genius, look at her, she has multiple knitting projects going at once plus all her other domestic stuff flying around PLUS THE CLOCK. The twins clearly take after her.)

ISTR there was something in Alternity about it being an heirloom somewhere along the line, so perhaps in Alternity she just modified it, but even so.

(The Order really needs more sensible people running things who think of this stuff.)

From: (Anonymous)

ok, Poppy has checked in, and it is way past my bedtime. I don't think I can wait for Cedric.

great job players - this is the first time I've been on at the right time to join the f5ing

qwerty88

From:

kiya

Not to be missed: Siz responding to Dolohov.

He's worked up such a head of fury at her for her decisions and she's so knifetwistingly kind, in the 'no, really, did you forget that badgers come with claws and are actually badasses?' sort of way.

From:

stinaleigh

And then in his crossed out part to Barty, he says he cannot disagree with anything she says. <3

From:

kiya

OH THE GLORIOUS ELISIONS.

C'mon Tosha, next you've got to fully realise that your loyal commitment to truth in accountancy cost you the majority of your competent staff, so you may hold Hogwarts but you're going to have a wee bit of trouble actually getting anyone taught....

This is the Protectorate. As Bella could gleefully tell you, at the bottom of every rabbit hole is a traitor.

From:

stinaleigh

His oath to the LP will determine his afterlife? Oh, Tosha, what did you swear? I would think that you would realize that everything you are doing now is worse than forswearing *him*.

From:

kiya

He has been orbiting around his vows for a while; he had a bit in a previous round of elisions of "Is it really breaking them if he broke them first?"

I'm not sure he's quite worked his way around to "I made the vow on the basis of a promise he never intended to fulfil, and was deceived" which might give him at least some religious peace with the matter.

Though I suspect some of his angst on that part is the usual human doublethink two-step to justify the sunk cost fallacy: he has to either keep doing what he's doing or fully face up to the fact that umpty-lump years ago he did something really really stupid and also evil. (Which, I suspect, also weighs against him in the afterlife calculations just a leeeeeetle bit, though I suspect the "stupid" part may well bother Tosha more than the "evil" part.)

From:

stormyhearted

I'd love to know the specifics of the vows, personally (if they have been shared before they have completely escaped my memory.) I'm wondering if, in a time of sudden need, Tosha might switch his allegiance to Harry, a not inappropriate substitution as he's ostensibly the LP's heir.

From:

kiya

... that's an interesting question, regarding the specifics. Hmmm.

... ... I just realised something.

* Tosha is thinking about his lifedebt to Poppy.
* Tosha knows that Poppy is with the Order now.
* Tosha knows that his life was saved with a cinnabaris draught.

THIS MEANS:

* Tosha may eventually work around to realising that not only was his life saved, but it may have come about because of Poppy's access to Order resources. Because dragon's blood, hard to come by.

(It doesn't even necessarily risk implicating Charlie if he gets here - and I expect he might get here when he starts thinking through how this adjusts what he knows about the world - because obviously the Order would want into the dragon blood black market and would get some of that into Poppy's hands.)

So while we're thinking of things that will make Dolohov's head explode....

From:

stormyhearted

Ahhh that's awesome.

It'll be interesting to watch. It'll also be interesting if he ends up in their debt again (in a sideways sort of way) if they break out Lucius, and also if they grab Narcissa- his brother will be safe, and both of them will be out of the LP's reach. The traitors he's been working to stamp out will have done the very things he wants to do and can't!

From:

kiya

Dear Tosha: you are alive because Poppy is a) a traitor and b) takes her vows as seriously as you take yours, it's just that hers are the Healers' Oath and yours are the Sociopathic Madman's Minion.

As the internets say, "Think about your life. Think about your choices."

Somewhere in here he's going to have to hit the point of trying to figure out how they knew they needed to run, too, as they obviously booked it before MLE showed up rather than as a reaction to seeing the Enforcers. As obviously they don't run on the basis of 'One of us is being questioned' because that has happened before and it would not make for a very effective traitor organisation.

He's going to tease out that the Order is actually rather effective in various directions the more he gnaws on it, and the question will be what he does about that.

(And if they break out Lucius, do they tell him to better watch him spin? Hmmmm.)

From:

stormyhearted

Telling him could be used as a bargaining tool, perhaps, particularly if one of the Juniors gets themselves into hot water (or near enough to it.) Of course, they already have Cedric, and I'd suspect Siz knows Tosha's feelings of responsibility there.

From:

stormyhearted

On a completely different note, I dearly hope Sue's offhand remark about Madam Toad is not an omen of things to come. (Where did her plate end up? I know Minerva had it, but surely MLE confiscated her things when she went traitor? (Dear Brain, why can't you hold on to details anymore?))