In case you haven't spotted it

[frozen-jelly.livejournal.com]

Just was re-checking the friends page and realised Arthur's post has a new comment, which goes someway to explain how Minerva managed to keep such a privileged position despite her previosu close links to Dumbledore etc :
http://alt-arthur.livejournal.com/1372.html?thread=8284#t8284

Comments

[wintercreek]

Oh, Minerva.

Thanks for pointing this out - I would have missed it.

[lapin-agile.livejournal.com]

That makes her especially dangerous to have in the Order -- uniquely valuable, of course, but also very dangerous.

In canon, of course, Snape is in the Order despite his Mark, and Rowling goes to great lengths to note that he can only manage this because of his extraordinary skill at (gifts for) Occlumency. I wonder if our Minerva is similarly extraordinary in this regard. If not, she possesses an awful lot of information that will be vulnerable the moment the Lord Protector turns his (almost) unparalleled powers of Legilimency her direction. We haven't yet had any indication that she has any special immunity beyond being tucked away at Hogwarts far from His daily presence. The LP's visit to Hogwarts will be very interesting in this regard.

I have wondered with respect to Bellatrix and the plot line about Aurors being given the authority to use Legilimency to interrogate suspects whether in this AU Legilimency and Occlumency are somewhat less rare than they seem to be in canon. I'm intrigued, too, by the degree to which the game's (former?) Death Eaters are working within the bounded powers of the Ministry rather than using the methods they prefer in canon (particularly the Unforgiveable curses). Why lobby for expansion of interrogation powers over Legilimency? -- Why not ask for authorization to use Crucio? Why ask at all?

My own guess is that we will see this restraint strained and then broken as the game moves forward. I think we are entering this world at a moment when the Lord Protector has recently solidified his hold over all aspects of British wizardom and that we will soon see him and his subordinates expanding his powers, breaking down the last shreds of privacy- and personal-rights, beginning to exercise whim and wrath without worrying about public perception and without regard to "legality." But at this first moment, it's intriguing to see the ways in which they still seem to find it necessary to work around the law, to wheedle authorities like the head of MLE and the members of the Wizengamot, to whinge about what they're not permitted to do.