Private message to Bill Weasley

[alt_rachel]

So I heard your (youngest) brother had a brush with MLE this week! Not the bad sort of brush, though. I saw the internal memo but it left out all the really interesting details, of course, like what he was doing there. Is the foster kid his girlfriend? Or were the Strettons trying to save money on security by hiring a kid still in school?

They did well getting the Enforcers when they did. The thieves were a nasty bunch. Did Ronald tell you one of them was a rogue werewolf?

Comments

[alt_bill]

I'm sorry not to have replied to you sooner. It's my sister's birthday today, and I took my siblings present shopping for her, and then we had our family celebration tonight. I haven't had a moment for my journal until now.

Yes, I heard all about it from Ron. I'm pretty sure I got the full gist of what happened, too. Sometimes we prefer not to tell our Mum things if they're a bit too...exciting, given a choice, but there really wasn't a choice in this case, since an MLE Enforcer actually brought Ron home. And once Mum gets her hooks into us and demands point blank to know what happened, we never lie to her. Nobody would dare try.

I think if Ron were younger, he might try self-aggrandising a bit more, but if anything I think he underplayed things a bit. He was helping Sally-Anne Perks patrol their boundaries, which is something that MLE recently started requiring farms to do--no idea why. (And yes, Sally-Anne Perks is his girlfriend. I think they like the excuse to spend time together). They spotted the miscreants trying to slip into a field and came down to investigate, but there were more of them than Ron or Sally-Anne realised, and so the strangers got the jump on them. Ron was a bit embarrassed about that. They argued a bit about what to do with the two of them. Yes, Ron was aware that one was a werewolf--or at least claimed to be--because he made some rather ugly and graphic threats. But eventually, Ron pulled out a distraction, and Sally-Anne seized the opportunity to uncork the patronus alarm for MLE, and your people arrived to save their arses.

Thank you to your department, by the way. I certainly appreciate getting my brother back in one piece.

Ron was a bit worried about how Mum would react to all this, but we all agreed that they handled themselves as well as anyone could have possibly expected. I'm quite proud of him, myself.

[alt_rachel]

Oh, happy birthday to your sister. I'm glad you were busy with family things, and not spending the weekend polishing Corax Mulciber's office furniture or anything along those lines.

Anyway, since you learned the Cruciatus Curse recently, I thought I'd note that Perks used it for one of its lesser-known applications -- that's how she opened the bottle. She told the Enforcers she was hoping to give MLE an opportunity to surprise the intruders, and if she broke the bottle they'd know to flee. (I've heard of that trick but I've never seen it done. You risk breaking the bottle, and usually when you're trying to open a bottle of wine you are HOLDING it and can use a cork-pulling charm or something else more practical.)

[alt_bill]

Wait--what? You mean Cruciatus takes the cork out of a bottle?

Huh. That was clever. Dead clever, really. Especially if you're worrying at the time about being chomped by a werewolf. I wonder how on earth Perks knew about that.

[alt_bill]

I wonder if she might have heard about it through CCF, actually. Ron always says that they do try to train them to think quickly on their feet.

[alt_rachel]

That's a good question. It's not in the report, but like I said, they do leave out all sorts of interesting details.

[alt_rachel]

At any rate, the werewolf will definitely not be chomping anyone in the future.

[alt_bill]

I hope that will help stave off a nightmare or two for Sally-Anne.

Pulled all his teeth or something, did they?

And what happened to the rest of them?

[alt_rachel]

Most of them are going to Azkaban.

The werewolf got the killing curse.

[alt_bill]

I see.

Yes. Definitely no more chomping.