Order Only: Progress

[alt_sirius]

Ellie's asleep so I can risk changing back for a few hours.

Poppy: I've been thinking about your report on Barty Crouch, Sr. What in Merlin's name was he doing at Hogwarts? Has anyone figured that out?

And Kingsley, Molly: I don't think I've any good advice for you. You seem to be doing well enough with them. Keep at it, I suppose, until he can decide what's best for him and the boy.

I thought I'd let everyone know: I watched Ellie read my Grim Truth today. She waited until Remus was in the front of the shop and Dora was upstairs. She was in the kitchen to put together tea and as she was waiting for the kettle, she took a long, guilty look out at the shop, to make sure Remus wasn't going to come back soon. She pulled out her journal and flipped to my pages.

I know it was mine, in fact, because she pointed it out to Sinbad. 'Don't tell,' she said, 'No one's supposed to read his. He's meant to be bad. But he's not.'

She reads quite slowly and occasionally I could see her lips move. I think she had to re-read some of the sentences to make sense of them. (Perhaps I ought to think about writing to a lower comprehension level.) But something I wrote made her blink away tears. I didn't think it was that awful, personally.

She stopped herself crying, though, and put the journal away and fussed about with the tea. 'Honour the lost,' she said under her breath, 'by fulfilling a better purpose.' Then she patted Sinbad on the head. 'Right now my better purpose is Mr Ponds' tea, innit?' and that's when she put the tray together for you, Moony.

I wonder if she knew someone in the camps who'd been part of DogStar.

Comments

[alt_arthur]

I imagine that must have been very satisfying, Sirius. To actually see someone in your intended audience responding to your writing that way.

I'm pleased to hear that there seems to be some of the potential we hoped for in Ellie, and that you're seeing signs that she's certainly not swallowing all of the regime's propaganda. Time will tell if she can gradually be trusted enough that you can be more honest and open with her.

[alt_gredforge]

That's right! We never mentioned it, but Terry just lived for your Grim Truth posts. And he wrote back to you, too, commenting on the posts using our Lock, even though he knew you'd never be able to read it. But he still needed to write it, to tell you he believed you, and he'd give anything to be able to tell you how much your words meant to him. We think they really helped him hang on during the worst days.

And he's just one person. There are countless others like him, no doubt.

[alt_sirius]

Ta, lads.

By the way, do you happen to know if the letter I sent for him made it through?

(And have I met that little scops owl before? He seemed familiar.)

[alt_alice]

I wish I'd been able to spend more time getting to know her, but she took quite a shine to Will.

I wonder. Did she have any younger siblings, do you know?

[alt_sirius]

No idea. Maybe Dora can find out.