Order Only: Private Message to Remus

Right, I'm just putting this here because I dunno where else to put it. And I'm too knackered to look anywhere else

Rejected Rationales (by Mssrs Moony and Padfoot):

• The truth (we wanted to give Alecto more of what Frank and I gave her brother to get the castle's secret out of her)
• We were running low on Wolfsbane and thought we'd get more direct from Snivellus
• We just started to head north ....
• We ran out of Firewhiskey and decided to raid Minerva's cupboard
• Hagrid reported something dangerous in Hogwarts
• Hagrid heard that a copy of Harry's prophecy was hidden in the Divination classroom
• We came to beg Pomona's forgiveness (despite doing nothing wrong)
• We got tired and thought to kip in Gryffindor Tower
• We brought Bea (and ourselves) for Poppy's checkup
• We thought we'd get her pre-Sorted
• We wanted to have a good look at the book (since Minerva's been so behind on it) - I still do like that one
• 'No one expects the Spanish Inquisition!'
• We wanted to snoop through the Astronomy professor's office
• We were arranging a welcome back for Hermione

Am I forgetting any? We still don't have a good one, but like you said, virtually any excuse is going to go over better than the truth.

I'm -- 

That last Apparation was

Well. It was worth it but I don't think we ought to do anything else like that again soon, yeah?

Better pick up some buns for breakfast. For you two, anyway. I'll stick to the ginger tea stuff.

Order Only: Mysteries

Listen. Remus and I took ourselves on a jaunt last night.

We thought, with the school pretty nearly empty, we could dash in and hide a book in the library stacks. Then when they're back, Fred and George could 'find' the book and use it to work on Occlumency. And boys, if you happened to share some of it with your other friends, well, that would be just fine.

We got up to Hogwarts and used the second-floor tunnel (the one that opens up under the portrait of Maghnus the Munificent) and we were on our way to the library when we saw a door about to open. So we hid.

I'm still not sure I want to contemplate why a witch would be leaving your quarters, Snape, at that hour. But off she went and she wasn't even retching. So maybe you weren't in and she was trying to spy on you. Or 'Milland' as the case may be.

Well, obviously we had to follow her to find out her game. We kept a safe distance and she led us into an office - Alecto Carrow's, but it wasn't Alecto Carrow we were following. But she let herself in and immediately got on the Floo to make a call.

We had to lurk in the corridor - in fact the one time Remus tried creeping closer he nearly got caught - so we could only catch a few phrases. They were dead interesting phrases, though:

'I need more time' (for what?)
'You've no idea the paranoia around here'
'They all support Minerva even if she's a drunkard' (Sorry, Minerva!)
'No, I don't know who's poisoned Alecto' (emphasis mine)


So. Yes, we did something on our own; it was dangerous; we're well chagrined we didn't seek permission or let anyone know. We thought you'd all rather maintain plausible deniability.

The important thing is: You've got a spy at Hogwarts. A female, anyway. Doing something to undermine you, Minerva.

And someone's poisoning Alecto Carrow. Is it too much to hope they'll succeed? Kill the Secret Keeper and that ends the Fidelius. We could get to Terry.

Of course, perhaps whomever's working on her is thinking just that. But who? DogStar? Not sure they'd care about one little muggleborn teenager. Crimson Company? They have a completely different agenda, it's all about reassignment of wealth with them. Merlin knows the Carrows have enough enemies between them, it could be anyone.

And I also find it singularly interesting that our resident spy at Hogwarts, the one who went there on his own authority precisely because he could be so useful, either didn't know any of this - or didn't bother to tell us. Which was it, Severus?