Sirius Black

Curtis Reinman should be happily ensconced at Moddey.

We talked about going yesterday, but then Dora pointed out that today's Molly's birthday - Happy Birthday, Molly! - and decided it might be preferrable to wait until today, so that she could bring a new addition with her to introduce at Molly's birthday supper.

So once Dora woke up this afternoon, she and I went to Ely to collect Curtis Reinman.

It went so quickly that we decided to take a little side jaunt, out to Walsingham to see if we could close in on that device thing.

No guards this time, but it's certainly got about half a dozen different kinds of ward on it. We didn't get too close - you could feel the repelling charms - but we did cast a number of spells to try to determine what sorts of protections were on it.

Besides the repellent, there's an Impervius to protect it from the weather, there's a stablising charm on the base of the menhir and then, the worst one: There's a spell that burns anything attempting to go through it. (I threw a rock and it went through but was considerably charred when it landed.) We could tell there were another few spells as well but couldn't figure out just what without potentially tripping the wards we could detect.

But there's another thing. Dora reported last time that it's on a node of a ley line. There was a sort of ... energy ... emanating from the ring on the top. It radiated in two directions - sort of like a beam of light that gets sent through a focusing lens. I almost felt like we could mount brooms and follow the line. Not the ley line itself, but the energy passing through the ring. (It was running almost exactly northwest-southeast, by the way, almost parallel to the coastline.) So we went north a little bit from the plinth and ... well, there's no other way to put it: Things got rather odd.

Simple spells wouldn't work properly. Complicated spells worked too well. Curtis started kicking and fussing and we noticed that the trees were unusually lush for an area so close to the sea. (Also we both felt considerably twitchy and with Curtis crying, we figured we'd better retreat before someone heard him.)

Still, I think someone should definitely try flying north along that line of vibration and see where it goes.

I wish I could report the same success with Richard Marshall as Molly's with Ifan Powys but we'll have to come back another day. Soon, since his mother admitted that he's shown his magic. She was protecting him from the 'black wands' by swapping him round with other babies about the same age. Apparently a few of the mums in Hartlepool have taken to this method to avoid their children being detected or snatched. If strangers are in camp, they make sure the sprog goes to another family until the strangers move on to a different target; then they switch back.

By the time Dora and I finished straightening out that confusion, Mrs Marshall didn't have time to get her son back from his sitters before she had to report to her work assignment. And since Mr Marshall was out of the camp on a labour detail, she wasn't keen to let us go and get the boy before they could both say their goodbyes. She's willing to talk to her husband, though, so the next time we go we should be able to rescue him.

I left her with a few buttons to pass out. She suggested that if we're planning to come, we ought to signal them through the buttons first, so they can be sure to have him ready to go.

Bill, do you think we could reassign the paperwork for Wednesday? Is that too soon? The quicker we get him, the better.