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[alt_sirius]

Weasleys: How are you all? Poppy said she brought your potion yesterday, Bill. Courage, mate. We'll be a little busy tonight but come by the garden if you're in the mood for company, you and Charlie. Molly, you'd be welcome, too. Dora'd love to show you all she's done with the place.


Next: As far as that meeting Remus asked us all about, it's going to be a couple of days, at least. Well, more than a couple. Bill's busy tonight, of course, and so are Moony and I, and the weekend's a terrible time to leave Ellie alone at Laszlo's Unlimited.

But it's also going to be a while before Minerva's up to it.

We've been at her New London house since last night - Poppy and Severus and I, that is. They tried to intervene in her drinking for good and all and ... it didn't go as they'd hoped.

So, they've spent the last night using slower methods to purge her system, but in the meantime, they plan to brew what amounts to a highly complex potion, which I gather they've not tried before because it could have disastrous results. I guess we've reached the point where the risk is worth it.

Dora, when you can free Ellie or yourself, we need someone to go round the apothecary's on Camden Road. The one near Holloway? I'm reasonably certain they'll have the ingredients our shop hasn't got. I've got a list I can give you. (If buying them doesn't work, then Poppy might have to try to sweet-talk Horace into fetching the items from the Potioneers' Guild and we'd really rather not have to go that route.)

Anyway. With all that in mind, I propose postponing our gathering until after the 1^st. Other than that I'm not fussed about the date, so if anyone else has a preference, let's hear it. (Hermione, that includes you, kiddo.)

Oh, and if anyone else would care to come take a shift, particularly this evening, I'd be grateful.

Comments

[alt_pomona]

Bad to worse. Do you need another pair of hands, Sirius? I can find some excuse to be away from the castle. (Not that there's many here, either.)

On tonight, I was going to write. I woke up this morning dreaming of a conversation I'd had with Aurora, about one of her exam questions, something about having students calculate their location from the position of the stars. I gather it's fiddly work - that most people, even astronomers, don't touch it after their exams - but could that be of use, somehow?

As to the gathering, between the 1st and the 5th would be fine for me, the children will come back on the 6th.

[alt_bill]

That's...an intriguing suggestion, about the stars, Pomona. How would that work, exactly?

It probably would be excessively useful to go back and check the site of the rite afterwards, to see if we could gather any more clues.

[alt_pomona]

Goodness. The part I do remember clearly is that it's what's used for locational magics, that's why they teach it.

She said something about precision mattering, that that's where most of the errors are. It's something about measuring the angle from where you are to a given point in the heavens (more than one is much better). And you need to know the time, as precisely as you can. You can use any number of stars, or planets, or even the sun or moon, but obviously, you need to know what you're looking at.

Or - I gather it's something where you can sort out the missing piece if you have two of the others: time, angle, and location. Because now I think about it, she was very proud of working out a piece for the punishment for that duelling club, to limit the area affected, and she had the time and the location there, and worked out the angles.

Only, blast. I do remember her saying it's a fairly uncommon skill. There's a few people in the Floo Network office who use it regularly. She does, an astronomer friend of hers, from her year. Maybe a dozen others, in all the Protectorate. (Well, as she said, it's "tedious, fiddly, and not that interesting for most people.")

But maybe if you had a clear memory of it, and we could show it to someone who could work things out, it might be enough?

[alt_bill]

Yeah...my NEWTs astronomy class is beginning to come back to me, now.

The potion should help, with getting a clear memory. I hope. I think I have to note the time, particularly. Which might be a bit of a problem, since I won't be wearing a watch. I'm not allowed to bring metal. But if I take particular note of the time when I leave for the rite, and then make a point of looking up and noticing the constellations right when I arrive...yeah. That might do it.

That is, of course, as long as they come to fetch me at night, which is what I'm hoping for. And there's not too much cloud cover.

Very good suggestion, Pomona. I should put it into action. Thanks.

[alt_pomona]

Most welcome, and may it be of use. Seems like, even if it's not perfectly precise, it might give us enough of an idea to scout further?

[alt_bill]

I'll do another visual check of the sky right when it's time to leave and then note the time when I get back, and that'll give us another point of reference.