alt_bill | Order Only: Lunch with my MLE contact

First of all:

Draco, Hydra, Pansy and Ron: if there's anything I can to help any of you, I'm more than willing to do so.

With that in mind, I angled for a lunch today with my MLE contact, Rachel Brodie (Lamont). It turns out that she was just as eager to talk with me as I was to speak with her, and so we met in a secure location, out of the Ministry Building. The topic of our conversation was Voldemort's interest in adding new faces to his Council, and that the way he is going about it has taken quite a few people by surprise.

Up until now, the two of us have always managed to avoid any discussion of who, exactly, in my family is with the Order besides me or Dad, but the subject was rather unavoidable this time. Oddly enough, she began by speaking of Percy, and it quickly became clear that she half-assumed that Percy was an Order member, put in place to spy on Lucius Malfoy. Did I think it a good idea for him to join the Council? For her own safety, I couldn't let her continue with that assumption. I told her that no, Percy was eager to prove his loyalty to the Protectorate, and was, in fact, the greatest threat to both me and Dad 'as well as the Order members to whom the two of us were closest.'

Of course, she doesn't know of my ties to any of you but Ron, but she was certainly concerned on Ron's behalf. She was ruthlessly blunt about how dangerous Council membership is, although I'm sure this isn't news to any of you. Voldemort considers the minds of his closest followers to be his personal property to rummage through. What's more, there are those on the Council who could eat a new member alive for lunch and pick their teeth with the bones afterwards. A new initiate might very well be dead within the year.

Ron: she asked how sure I was that you were ignorant of Dad's and my activities. Since you want to be an auror, maybe you've been getting practice by eavesdropping and so on; had I thought of that? Well, I wasn't going to admit that you were already an Order member. I did allow that you probably know enough information that it would be dangerous, but I was sure you wouldn't willingly betray us.

That leaves the problem of unwilling betrayal.

It's her firm opinion that there are really only two realistic options if you are to have any hope of ~~surv~~ being of any use on the Council: either occlumency or mastering the Animagus transformation. Occlumency is easier to learn, but you must have a legilimens you can absolutely trust.

So we talked about the alternative. She asked what your Transfiguration score was on your OWL (it was an 'E,' wasn't it?). If you're good at the subject, you have a better chance. It also helps to have someone in the family who has done it, too.

I asked her how long it took her to master becoming an Animagus, and the answer was not what I'd hoped to hear: it took her two years. She did say one year was spent just reading, and the chief problem was the difficulty of finding decent books on the subject. She brought me the book that had helped her the most, The Naked Mole Rat. Sirius, Minerva, have you ever heard of it? It's quite short, by an American publisher, and it's well thumbed--she warned me that several pages are falling out. She also cautioned me to tell you, 'Don't ever get caught with it.'

Do any of the four of you want to take a look at this book? I'll do whatever needs to be done to hand it off to you quickly. If need be, I suppose I can give it to Fred and George, and they can have Pansy's house elf deliver it.

Or do you plan to pin your hopes on Occlumency?