Order Only: Private Message to Moony and Dora

[alt_sirius]

Well?

You wanted to see it.

Let's have it. I mean, I see I've been a right git, as she says (well, from her side) but what now?

Is it good or bad that no matter what she quotes (and Dora, that's Uriah Heap, that last bit), all I can hear whenever she starts on lyrics is 'Go Ask Alice' - and no, not just because Allie's usually my first line of defence when it comes to girls. Because I wish it had been on one of the albums she'd nicked. Perhaps I'll send her a copy of Lewis Carroll, as well.

Comments

[alt_nymphadora]

Let her feel part of your pack, Sirius. She wants to belong somewhere.

That's the biggest part of what I get from her letter. She wants you to acknowledge she's one of yours.

[alt_sirius]

One of my what?

It's not as if I've never answered or acknowledged her already.

[alt_nymphadora]

But it is, from her place, especially since you write to other people she knows.

Look, yes. You've sent her messages, but she wanted answers to her questions. Not just a tip of the hat in public.

This is what I see: she's read your Grim Truths and from the beginning she's understood what you were saying. Enough to write you follow up questions. Could you ask for a better reader? Has anyone else been that responsive to them? Has Harry? Not that it's a competition, but she's understood the things you're hoping he'll see that are nonsensical and wrong about the Protectorate. And she's asking you to explain how that can be.

She's asking you to explain because she needs help sorting between what she's been taught and what she sees: she was brought up to have none of those questions. She got the full indoctrination into all the DEs' lies, and she can see that it's all wrong (thanks to you and to her friends), but she needs you to answer her, and I'm going to say it again, I think she needs you to accept her as one of yours. A kindred spirit.

[alt_lupin]

You've never sent her a letter, though. You answer her, but impersonally, in cryptic references in the journals.

Whereas Harry gets real mail. It's not surprising she's a bit put out.

[alt_sirius]

Harry's my godson.

I don't know if I trust her. I don't know if I trust myself to write her. Besides -

No. Nevermind. If I start down that path I'll sound as lugubrious as they always got.

[alt_lupin]

Would it be better if she were taking these questions to HER godfather?

[alt_nymphadora]

There. See? Exactly.

[alt_nymphadora]

And she's Lucius Malfoy's goddaughter (or something very near it if it's not officially so). Wouldn't you like to win her away from him?

You have more than a chance. Honestly, from where I sit, it looks as if she's begging you to please make the play for her. She's yours for the asking.

[alt_sirius]

I don't want Reg's seconds, thanks.

Sorry.

Fine. I'll do it. No, I don't want her running back to him with the tale of a prodigal daughter.

Private message to Padfoot

[alt_lupin]

Regulus had a really ... strange relationship with Pansy.

I don't think she expects you to have that sort of relationship with her, at all.

Re: Private message to Padfoot

[alt_sirius]

Regulus had a Reg relationship with her.

He did what he does. Did. Whatever. You know what I mean. He always had a knack for making himself pathetic. And she's the same.

And look. I know she's not to blame. I know that. And I know that she blamed herself, her 'wrong-headedness,' for the way Voldemort twisted him and forced him further into his own madness. And no, I didn't want to let that stand.

But the truth is she made it worse. She gave him an outlet to indulge all his poetical, Proustian petulance and sink deeper and deeper into self-pity. So much so that he gave up.

Circe. She's a kid. And at the same time she connected to him in a way that - that I couldn't do, Moony. Because I just couldn't stand the self-indulgence. Merlin, I'm getting fed up with myself now for letting myself wallow.

I dunno. I'm not angry with her. I'm just

I don't know.

I'm utter bollocks at this stuff.

[alt_nymphadora]

One of your albums is about Alice in Wonderland? Really?

I bet Bea would love it.

But, actually, you should send it to Pansy, you know. And the book. I think she'd like that.

[alt_sirius]

Hah, no, it's about taking hallucinogenic mushrooms.

But as that's also what Alice in Wonderland is about ....

[alt_lupin]

If it's the song I'm remembering it's not EXACTLY about Alice in Wonderland. It's more about Alice in Wonderland if you read it after taking a large number of mind-altering muggle potions.

Which is not to say Bea wouldn't like it. I can think of several great songs inspired by muggle potioneers that she'd probably like.

[alt_sirius]

We should be starting her on the Warlocks, anyway.

[alt_nymphadora]

Oh, please.

Mr Crouch liked the Warlocks.

Possibly still does. Thankfully I don't have to know.

[alt_sirius]

Listen, you. Everyone likes the Warlocks.

Warlocks, Beatles, Elvis - there are some things that are just universal. You do realise that the Warlocks have covered over 20 Beatles songs in their career? And no one even noticed or cared. They just pretend that it's the other way 'round.

[alt_nymphadora]

All right, you lot. I'm going to leave you to it if you're going to talk music history. Next thing you'll do is use the word 'classic'.

I think anyone who uses that word should automatically lose the debate.


'Night to both of you.

[alt_nymphadora]

And I think it would make you feel better, luv. Which we'd all like.

[alt_sirius]

Suck out the poison, you mean?

Right.

[alt_nymphadora]

That's the very model of an unsavoury metaphor, innit?

[alt_lupin]

I don't like that analogy. It suggests there's something poisonous about this girl, and frankly, she's faithfully kept secrets that would, if discovered, probably get her sent to the camps in spite of her connections.

If Lucius Malfoy found out she'd been protecting the secret of two muggleborns with wands, do you think he'd protect her? His fondness has its limits, I'm sure.

[alt_sirius]

I meant my own poison but you've got a point, Remus.

Allie's always doubted her motives. And I have to say her other letters have come at some incredibly inconvenient times while nonetheless pretty much demanding answers I don't have. So what else could I do besides drop her hints or wink in her direction and hope she'd keep digging on her own? You know as well as I that the answers she wants can't be given, they have to be found.

[alt_lupin]

Well, does Allie have a theory for why she's kept all these things secret, then?

I don't think -- well, maybe she DOES expect answers on a plate. Maybe. But I think if you just -- you could say, in a letter to her, 'I can't give you these answers; I found them on my own, some things you just have to find on your own,' and I think that would be okay, really, because Dora's right. More than answers she wants to feel that she's part of your pack. She wants you to care about her, enough to write.

[alt_lupin]

Her letter more or less confirms what we'd suspected: she's a member of the Junior Auxiliary. Which means she knows about Terry's wand. And Hermione's wand. And since wands do not materialise out of thin air from their component elements, she knows of the existence of the Order of the Phoenix, if not our full list of activities. Her comment about having friends in common with you suggests that as well, and also suggests that Fred and George were not the only ones who suspected that Molly Weasley was in on the secret, and they may have guessed about Poppy, too, or Pomona, or even Minerva.

AND she knows about your canine ways.

And she's kept it all a secret.

I think you should write to her. Frankly, she's well beyond the point where total secrecy is more of a risk because who even knows what she'll stumble on next? But more than that, I think she's earned a bit of credit. She deserves an acknowledgement. (And an apology, because she's right; you shouldn't have told Harry, not without asking her first. Or at least warning her.)