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.

To be honest, it's not MLE and the Council that worry me.

It's all those members of the Jr Aux who were at the Burrow.

Did you hear them all greet Pomona, Kingsley? Sounded like a primary school class.

I smelled Justin soon as he arrived; tried to get out of sight in a hurry but I can't be sure whether or not he saw me. The problem was that every time I moved away from him, I came near to being spotted by Pansy Parkinson.

And Kingsley, was it me or was Mac staring at the young woman who came with Justin, the one carrying the hamper? Poor girl looked like she hadn't an idea how best to make herself useful. I think she wound up in the kitchen most of the afternoon. Maybe we ought to ask what was so fascinating? Don't know if he'll take that as teasing about his tastes or what.

Alice, you and Frank had gone but you ought to know that Neville and Evelyn both came by Floo, mid-afternoon or so. Then all of them - Pansy, Justin, Hydra, Ron, Sally-Anne, your two - went up to Fred and George's room. Can't be good, whatever that means (though the twins were seen going up and down the stairs from time to time. Nicked a platter of sandwiches on their way back up, too).

Mordred, it's nearly time to go. Look, I know we said we'd let things alone and they can figure it out in their own time but .... I just think that time is coming much sooner than any of us planned.