Order Only: Private Message to Frank Longbottom and Arthur Weasley

[alt_poppy]

Well.

The two of you have just made your tasks far simpler in future, haven't you? No need to fuss with the parents after this. You can just pop in and snatch babies from their mothers' arms and justify it as 'best for the babies'.

Because a fourteen year old has told you that's what she'd do.

Very ethical of you.

Congratulations.

What, may I ask, did you do to the parents? Did you wipe their minds clean of any remembrance of the child and of their lives for the past several months? Perhaps that's a pattern for future missions: you could make the camp population feel much better by wiping their minds of any recollection of what they've suffered. Because Merlin knows you know better than they what's good for them.

Comments

[alt_poppy]

But then, oh, Arthur. Doesn't that negate the magic of the portraits you give those children. If the parents believe the child dead, the binding magic couldn't work, could it? Besides, it requires the parents' participation to make the imagine in the first place, doesn't it?

How very sad.

But I suppose, really, it's a small thing. And yet, such a nice small thing, I've always thought, in the midst of all the sadness.

[alt_arthur]

You're correct, confound it, and that's another reason to feel sick about the whole thing. Bellatrix won't have the portrait of her parents, and she won't have the ring that binds her to them. The ring that every other child at the sanctuary has, that we hope could reunite the children with families if all our hopes are fulfilled and all this cruelty is over.

And that will be our punishment, I suppose: that one day we'll have to face her and tell her why.

Bloody hell. Don't you dare make the mistake of thinking this was somehow easy for us to do, or that we made this decision in some sort of cavalier fashion. I am sure Frank and I will agonise over this for a long, long time.

[alt_poppy]

I'd forgotten the ring.

No, Arthur. I know you're agonised about it. I owe you the same apology I've made Frank: I let my anger get away from me and spoke to you in ways I shouldn't have. I am sorry.