Order Only: The Ministry and Owls, plus Rookwood

[alt_bill]

Two things: first I want to report that the Minister of Magic is being flooded with owls from parents demanding that the MLE take over the investigation of the latest incident at Hogwarts. Apparently, Fudge is not particularly appreciating the complaints. The order came down from Senior Undersecretary Umbridge that any owl used to deliver one of these complaints should be promptly confiscated from its owner by the Ministry, with the excuse that the Ministry needs the owl's services 'for the duration of the crisis.' Dolores Umbridge failed to consider, however, that her title does not impress most owls. They'll only work for someone other than their owners if the owners expressly gives permission for them to be lent out to somebody else. The Ministry owl handlers suffered some bad pecking and talon scratch attacks while the owls made this clear to them.

Secondly, and this is big. Two members of my analysis team, Aloysius Archer and Tabitha Dames, have been cross-indexing Lucius Malfoy's journal posts (especially any mention of the movements of Augustus Rookwood) with the camp security log-book entries and the reports of epidemic outbreaks. The evidence can't be ignored. The pattern of outbreaks following Rookwood's visits to the camps is more than a statistical probability, it's a dead certainty.

On October 5, Malfoy told Regulus in a comment that Shroton and Ampfield were selected as 'test sites.' The LP inspected the camps on October 14, and that's rare. There's a whole lot of other corroberating evidence that they presented to me, and I can go over it with you, Dad, if you like.

I've gone and pulled what budgetary parchment work that I can. Of course, Rookwood works with the Department of Mysteries, and so those budget spreadsheets never see the light of day. BUT I did find a few mentions of mysterious requisitions in the budget for the Department of Squib Affairs, with Rookwood's initials.

I don't know what Rookwood's up to, but if Archer and Dames are right, I'm very much afraid that the evidence is damning.

Somehow, the Ministry of Magic, specifically the Department of Mysteries, is behind the cause of the epidemic.

Comments

[alt_bill]

Look at that passing comment Lucius Malfoy made in his latest journal entry. Something about Rookwood again, and some trials he's doing.

[alt_kingsley]

But surely if they were behind all this, they would have caught on by now?

[alt_bill]

Aloysius is guessing that whatever Rookwood did, maybe now he's trying to undo it. Maybe that's what these trials that Malfoy mentions are about.

[alt_molly]

But St Mungo's! Surely if the Ministry knew anything about what was causing the epidemic, they would have let the healers know?

[alt_arthur]

Not if they were too busy covering up their own bloody arses. Maybe that was part of what all that sacking and reshuffling was about last month.

[alt_molly]

Oh, Arthur, how dreadful. Are you all right?

[alt_bill]

I don't think he really is, Mum. I told him he should take the afternoon off.

[alt_arthur]

I thought I could go back this afternoon, but you're right, Bill, I really can't. I was on my way back to my office, but I had to duck into the loo, and I just--

Merlin. All those people. All those children.

Molly, I'm sending a note back to my office giving them an excuse, and I'm heading home. Warrington can bloody well get out this afternoon's reports without me.

[alt_poppy]

Indeed.

I've been thinking about this. I believe that Rookwood must have hoped the St Mungo's researchers would identify the disease and find a cure without ever needing to know the details of its source or contributing factors. His department and his overseers must have hoped it could all be resolved without anything pointing back at them.

And I can't help thinking, too, that they behaved as though they expected there would be no danger to the St Mungo's crews that were in the camps dealing directly with the disease.


There's something in that.