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.

We spent a quiet day today and put together a picnic tea party in the sitting room, with Moony ensconced on the sofa and Bea happily climbing all over him to celebrate that she's 18 months old now (and that in itself is somewhat unbelievable!). But taking a lazy day like this seems to lead to thinking about all the balls we currently have in the air.

Kingsley, don't take our silence here as disapproval of the decision to call an end to the Players. Today aside, it's usually fairly busy round here. But your choice is a brave thing in its way and as Frank says, it's not the end, just a new chapter.

Arthur: Well done, mate, on Terry's file. It's good to know it can be done, particularly if we work with Beth on more smuggling of people as well as goods.

Bill, happy birthday! Believe it or not it does get more fun as you go along (I never thought it would do, either).

Molly, any luck with Mrs Perks? It's only three weeks now until the solstice so if we're going to get her a place on the boat we need to get moving.

Minerva: The Book? How many do we have adding up?

Alice, I've been thinking about the list of topics you mentioned from the meeting at Moddey when our people came back from Ireland. And we've been chatting about them, off and on, but with no firm conclusions. I do think that our success has to lie on these multiple trajectories, even if it keeps us all fragmented. We have to be able to keep moving forward on a number of fronts, and not put all our ashwinder eggs in one fire - in case something goes wrong, like in Ireland.

Still thinking about what that means.

I've been tromping about as Padfoot for most of the day but I just chanced transforming to catch up on the journals, in case Stint has been spotted anywhere (not here, by the way, it's all clear).

Have you noticed some of the traffic from Rosier, Rookwood and Crouch? Private Messages to 'Toshenka.'

That can only be one person, surely? It's not Karkaroff. And how many others of Eastern European descent were there in Voldemort's close circle?

Arthur, have you heard from Minerva about it? Tell me you've kept Molly from going round the twist that he's back.