Sirius Black

Charlie, take extreme caution when you go speak to the centaurs again. As you may have gleaned from other journals at Hogwarts, one of the young women in Voldemort's ridiculous competition went and ran afoul of them over the weekend.

Pansy, Draco, Hydra, Ron and I went into the forest shortly after the Quidditch match (as soon as Draco and Ron were ready, that is). We found Hagrid without too much incident. (Allie, he says he's willing to take on jobs for us, if we want him. He can leave the forest without being noticed and I trust his ability to travel overland undiscovered, as well. I'm just not certain what you might want him to do.)

Hagrid knew of a spider that had recently met with an accident and took us to the spot. Luckily, the rest of the creature's clan hadn't finished devouring him, so there were pieces left for us to harvest. We'd just finished there and were collecting some less impressive findings for Ron and Pansy when two 7th-year Slytherins came crashing through the trees. They seemed to be in the middle of an urgent discussion. I changed back to Padfoot as soon as we heard them, so they never saw me as anything but a dog - but beyond that, they were far too preoccupied to worry much about proper introductions. As soon as they saw Hydra, they begged her to help find where their friend had gone. Between Draco and Hagrid, they were able to get the young wizard to start at the beginning and tell them what had happened: They were looking for creatures and found the centaurs. Three of them - two girls, one boy - but this is the couple who are expecting. The young witch's pregnancy is starting to show a bit. The centaurs must have seen that, as well, or smelled it. They let her alone and abducted the other young woman. It seems they spared the bloke because of his bravery in protecting the pregnant girl - Lizzie Stevens, I think that is.

Anyway, they escaped with only minor harm done but their friend was in the hands of the centaurs. They asked Hydra to find her 'by tracking her thoughts' - as if that's possible, but that's neither here nor there. Hagrid said he knew where they'd likely have taken her and led us in that direction. When we got there, he told everyone else to stay well out of the way and went in alone. He even left Fang behind, leaving me to stay close to the big girls' blouse. (He took a lot of convincing to stay put and protect the others but I got him to understand eventually.)

Well. We waited for probably twenty minutes. It was getting quite dark. Then Hagrid came out of the grove, crossbow on his back and Miss Montgomery in his arms, in quite bad shape. He carried her to the edge of the forest and then Vaisey and Ron took her from there, though she was well nervous of males, but she bore up in order to get to Poppy.

In the hospital wing, Poppy removed the memory of Hagrid, Fang and the other black dog who was with them, so all they'll remember is that they ran into Pansy, Draco, Hydra and Ron, and together they convinced the centaurs to get her back.

I don't know how long she was in their possession but she was clearly the worse for it. I can't imagine your negotiations will be any easier as a result. Hagrid did tell me that it's better to go sooner rather than late, however, since the longer we wait to tender our regrets over the incident, the more the centaurs will misinterpret our silence. You know how they get.

And I highly recommend that you take Hagrid with you when you do go. He has better luck with them than anyone I've known and he'll be able to straighten out any selective memory they might have over this encounter.

Poppy, if you can get to Moddey: We were successful but Fu's injured. Frank and Kingsley got a field dressing on him, enough so he can travel.

We got the shipment of potion but there was something else on the train. Heavily guarded. Resulted in a longer firefight than we anticipated.

Also, there was another car of Muggles being transported to farm country. We let them out and I've stayed behind to help get them to several of Beth's safe houses.

But this ... device - Circe, you could feel the magic emanating off it. Clearly something they didn't want getting into the wrong hands. Fu was so captivated by it that he didn't notice the guard wasn't quite knocked out. I think he'll be all right but we'd all feel more comfortable if a Healer looked him over.

Sorry, puppy. I had to dash out in response to Snape's distress call. He and Poppy took it upon themselves to confront Minerva and--well, Snape came back to find her drunk and transformed to her cat form.

You remember that time that James transformed when he was already too drunk to stand?

Well. The thing is that a stag's a much larger creature than a cat but neither one was made to process alcohol.

Anyway, he needed me to intervene with the Hominem Reddulio but we all decided someone better stay and keep an eye on her while he and Poppy start work on a potion. I gather it's some tricky business (and not a few of the ingredients were only just brought to us in the solstice run. Seems you're not the only one who corresponded with Aleks separately). They'll be at it for a while.

Oh, and he's got a shopping list. He might turn up at Doughty Conduit around closing time to raid the private stockroom, now that Aleks' latest shipment has been stowed. Myrrh resin and a particular strain of cardamom and - oh, whatever else he was saying. Wasn't really listening. Anyway, I think we have the cardamom but I'm not sure if we realised it was meant for him, so it might actually have made its way to the shelves.

He wants to run some sort of test on it when it gets here. But now that I think about it, I heard Aleks say something about not being able to get the myrrh resin at a decent price and I had no idea what he was on about at the time - turns out it's for Snape. Maybe we can send Ellie out to beg some from another apothecary.

Well. If you've already transformed, you'll not see this until morning, anyway, but I should be home by then and I'll see you when you wake up.

And if you haven't, I'll be home as soon as I can. Perhaps we'll be lucky and you'll skip a month?

Merciful Morgana, he's growling that this is taking too long. ('Stop writing sweet nothings, Black. I need an extra pair of hands.' Hmph. I ought to bring one or two of those new albums back with me tomorrow and torture him while I'm cat-sitting!)

Because I know you're all wondering.

Thought I caught a scent of Stint yesterday right as Poppy had made her camp and was bent over her notes. Tracked it for a while; had to break off when I heard a crew of two wizards over a ridge about two kilometres north of Poppy's campsite.

They were repairing boundary wards to some kind of game preserve. The first cautioned his partner that a bugbear has been snuffing about a stand of trees right near that spot and they needed to make sure it was secure before the weekend.

Then the other one said something that made my blood pressure rise: They're expecting a 'shipment' of Muggles from the Chester camp - and I gathered it was for the same 'hunting party' they were supposedly preparing for.

Makes me wonder how secure the wards really are and if there's a way to leave a weakness. But there's no guarantee it'd work. And then how in Morgana's name would we get word to the Muggles where the breach is or how to get through it?

Anyway.

I doubled back along the scent trail but it was fading. It occurred to me that it might have been a day or two old, which I like in some ways less than if he'd been skulking about directly.

Poppy, was your campsite already on marked on your route or did you select it on your own? What I mean is, did someone tell you that's the spot you needed to reach?

There's been no sign of him returning today, at least. And I've not picked up any other traces of his stench.

Pomona's asked me to go and check after this Stint character. I'm off, then.

Remus, maybe Wednesday you can talk to Terry about how he's been lately? You're better at that sort of thing than I am, anyway. I wonder if it's anything to do with the rest of that lot's problems at the CCF?

Well, anyway. I'm not sure I'll be back by then but if I'm not, might be a good opportunity for a heart-to-heart.

And if Ellie starts fussing over Sinbad not being about ... well, I don't think we ought to tell her until after that Ministry check-in coming up (four months, already?) but maybe after that, we could sit her down and explain.