Order Only: Private message to Auror H Finch-Fletchley

[alt_rachel]

I noticed that Barty Crouch wrote to you last night. He's been doing that a fair amount, hasn't he? What's his angle? I'll be in my office later if you want to come by to talk in person.

Comments

[alt_hydra]

I wish I could tell you. I mean, I wish I could say that he's just berating me and issuing threats, but it's more complicated than that.

Sometimes he offers mocking and scathing critique, but other times he speaks as if he were still training me - or wishes he were. He fires questions at me in that manner he has, as if I were still obligated to answer. And then he likes to get personal. Even sexual. Which he never, ever did before.

But mostly I'm worried because the things he wrote to me last night implied that he's taken the opportunity to watch me. So either he has done, or wants me to think he has.

[alt_rachel]

Do you think he has, or do you think he's bluffing?

Did you ever read sexual attraction from him, when you were working together? If you didn't, that suggests that it's purely because he thinks it might upset or disgust you.

[alt_hydra]

That's what I thought about all night.

I think he has watched me. And he wants me to know it, and know that I didn't sense him there.

And no, I never picked up on actual attraction. I mean, everyone has sexual thoughts about everyone - you have no idea - but that's not the same thing as projecting genuine attraction and desire. I suppose sometimes after a vigorous sparring session he would be thinking very lascivious thoughts about Daphne, but they were definitely about her.

I'll admit the first time he wrote something suggestive, it upset me. It felt like a violation, somehow. Which is maybe what it was intended as.

But last night I told him that I knew he was doing it to embarrass me or perplex me and that it wasn't going to work.

Mostly I hate that this is all happening over the journals. I'd know so much more if it were in person.

[alt_rachel]

Well, if we capture him alive you're going to be the one questioning him. And then you'll know all you need to know.

I think that's very unlikely, though.

In fact -- if you catch him watching you and he's within wand range, or if you have some other opportunity to kill him, I want you to take it.

[alt_hydra]

Why wouldn't I?

[alt_rachel]

Well, there might be people in the Order who'd prefer to see him tried. I just wanted to remove any ambiguity.

[alt_hydra]

Oh, I thought maybe you wondered if I had mixed feelings about doing the deed myself. I don't. Though mostly I just don't want him to kill me first.

[alt_rachel]

I would expect you to have some mixed feelings, frankly, but not enough to make you hesitate, given everything.

[alt_hydra]

Not so much as I would have once had.

He's made it evident that he no longer has any respect for me, why should I have any for him?

[alt_rachel]

Right.

Dolohov is more complicated. I'm not sure how to handle that one. Unless he's responding to all the people writing to him with threats and sexual innuendo, which seems unlikely.

[alt_hydra]

Dolohov is reluctant to let go of the people he's collected, I imagine. He doesn't want to admit that he had poor judgment in selecting them.

And some of the people he's collected don't want to be let go of. Some of them more than others.

[alt_rachel]

I hate to ask you to spy on our own people.

But if you'd like to expand on that, I'm all ears.

[alt_hydra]

I mean, I'd rather not tell you what Justin's thoughts on the matter are. I'm sure he'll tell you himself, if you ask.

Sally Anne's glad she'll never be put into a position where she might have to kill Dolohov, because she really wouldn't want to. And she's also thought about what it was like when he almost killed her, and she really doesn't want a repeat of that, either.

Siz - well, I don't see her a lot, but I know that misses him sometimes and sees him as having been an honestly good friend to her. She's also angry at him for letting everything happen, but then she wants to keep talking to him, too. To me she seems sympathetic to the way that Death Eaters were brought up in their families, and then sort of seduced and brought into the fold (as she sees it), and she hopes that Dolohov will recognise how his thinking's been warped by others for a long time now.

[alt_rachel]

I'll ask Justin myself, though probably in person.

Aurora -- well, she has a task that should keep her well out of Dolohov's orbit. I find it ironic she'd excuse him based on his family history. You, Draco, Pansy and Sirius had every reason to be drawn into that fold, but made your own choices. Not to mention he's not even English -- he chose to join the Protectorate based on ideology, not because he was born to a family full of pureblood snobs, got Sorted into Slytherin, and recruited by his housemates, like you could say, I guess, about Raz.

I guess I worry a bit about some of Dolohov's friends in the Order slipping a bit. Not actively helping him, but giving things away without realising it. They wouldn't be the first.

[alt_hydra]

Me, Draco, Pansy, and Sirius might also give her the notion or hope that he could be convinced to 'see the light,' so to speak.

I for one don't really care what happens with him. He's just one person. We should concern ourselves with reaching out to everyone else.