Bill Weasley

You'd better not have been trying out that flying motorbike.


Want to come outside to see the fireworks, so I can relieve my mind that you're still in one piece? It's nice and cool out here on the terrace.

Justin's funeral was cobbled together in a hurry, and a bit disjointed if any snobs are inclined to be picky, maybe, but it was absolutely heartfelt so nobody gave a damn. Ron gave the eulogy, and he did Justin proud. Hydra held up--well, I've never actually seen her cry before, but she did manage to keep her head held high. Stuck close to Tonks and Sirius.

Ginny came...she actually sat next to Mum and me, and she didn't say much more than 'hi,' but she gave Mum a big hug afterward. Merlin, I was so relieved.

I think it's going to be all right.

Charlie...

If we're lucky, this may be just about the last battle. It would be so effing stupid for me to fall now, when the end is in sight, but what almost happened to Rachel last night scared the shite out me, and I'm not going to ignore the possibility. I sat with her all day, until the funeral, and she's hurting badly, and obviously, wracked by guilt over Justin.

If I don't make it back--obviously, I'm going to do everything I can to try--but if I don't...

I know you'll step in as head of the family, and you'll probably do a better job of it than I did after Dad died. But especially, please watch over Rachel for me. I'm going to write her a letter, and I hope I'll be back tonight and can rip it up, but if I don't make it back, I'm rather afraid for her mental state. She has told me she didn't expect to survive the war, and I don't--I don't want her to be tempted to take steps to make her assumptions true.

You've been the best brother I could have ever had. The very best. Fred and George are good for making me laugh, and for stretching my ingenuity, and for taking the starch and piss out of me, and Ron's great at reminding me not to get too full of myself. Percy, I guess, was an object lesson, and Ginny, oh, I guess she taught me a lot about the mysteries of the female mind. Made it easier when I got married, you know?

But you: you've stuck with me and never given up on me when I was at my very worst. You held up the mirror in my face when nobody else would to remind me what we had to do to live up to what Dad taught us. Thanks for the chess and the late night beers and Firewhiskey, and the fishing, and the Quidditch drills and all the rest.

If the Weasley luck holds, I'll see you tomorrow morning and you can tease me all you like about being a sentimental idiot.

But if it doesn't, I'll see you some day on the other side.

He's still not wanting other visitors for now. I mean, that's how he's feeling today; who knows about tomorrow. But he's here, and he's getting better every day. And he's in the best possible hands.

Just try to be patient, okay?

Charlie,

I've hated that clock, sometimes. Hated the way that Mum watches it like a dragon clutching when any of us are in danger, which has been happening bloody too frequently for my liking. But I almost cried when Mum came back from the Burrow and told me that your clock hand hadn't fallen off, that you were still alive.

Now I want the hand to move from 'Mortal Peril' to 'Hospital.' And then to 'Home.' As soon as possible.

D We've had people looking for you, and we know you've been spotted at St Mungo's. I am so desperately sorry that we can't be there with you, and I am sorry you're hurt and probably scared. If you're even awake.

If they find you

I'm just going to hang on to the hope that you're going to make it, and make your way back to us. If you were able to hang on to your journal, and you recover enough to read this, we'll be waiting to hear from you. But if you're too hurt to write, I hope I can comfort you that everyone is accounted for. We had losses, yes, but you saved a lot of lives last night, Charlie, and we're all proud of you.

That bastard Dolohov is dead. My brilliant wife managed to take him out on the battlefield.

We're all doing okay. Worried about you, of course, and bloody hell, we'll be glad if we hear back from you, but all is well. Siz's group has accomplished their mission, without a casualty, except for one of the enemy who blundered into the middle of things, so that's good news, too.

Come back to us, dammit, little brother. We've lost too many people, and I won't lose you, too. Adam needs you, and Tonks needs you, and Dree and Em need you, and Mum and your siblings need you--even Ginny, and she'll realise it again someday--and your dragons need you. And I need you so I can kick your arse in chess.

And I love you. Write back if you possibly can.

Turn on WWN now.

Ginny's being interviewed.

It isn't good.

Bugger.

Whatever choices you've made, or even whatever actions you've taken or words you've spoken because you had no choice, we know they're the right ones. Because they're yours.

I love you. We all love you.

Right.

We've still heard nothing further on Ginny's fate. I've been mulling over making this journal entry all day, and it makes me rather sick to write this down, and I'm sorry, but I think we're going to need to talk about it. Bluntly. Make some plans, so we'll be ready to respond to whatever happens next.

My first desire and priority, as a member of the Weasley family, is to rescue Ginny if at all possible. If not now, later. If that's not possible, and I realise it may not be, I want to give her as much support as we can, whatever way we can. Through surreptitious means, if we can manage it, without endangering either our personnel or our sources. Through the journals, doing what we can to give her hope and courage, despite the fact that Bellatrix will be privy to anything she reads there. Through any other avenue we can figure out.

At the same time, I want to protect this process we're undergoing, to rebuild Albion. I want us to continue to work on winning hearts and minds, to convince both magical and non-magical folk not to be frightened of us, to protect the people for whom we have accepted responsibility. To behave in an ethical manner, as much as we can, so it makes an actual difference to people which side succeeds in winning this war.

Bellatrix Lestrange, obviously, wants to scuttle both these hopes. Getting her claws into Ginny has opened several opportunities for her, and she won't hesitate to use them. Assuming Ginny isn't already gone--I'm sorry, Mum, but it has to be faced--Bellatrix won't hesitate to use this development in any way she can to thwart our goals, whether by killing or capturing any of us who attempt a rescue, getting the people of Albion to turn against us, or egging us into fighting with each other.

Last night Rachel outlined for Mum some of the ways she thought they may try to use Ginny. There are at least three possibilities, frankly, all of them ugly, and they will require different responses. (It may be that Bellatrix will pull something even more diabolical out of her arse that hasn't even occurred to us yet, and we'll be scrambling to catch up, but for now let's start here.) Personally, I think that Bella won't keep the fact that they're holding Ginny a secret. It makes me almost physically ill, as I said, to actually put this down into words, but capturing my baby sister is a public relations coup for our enemies, and I expect them to do their best to exploit it.

One: Ginny could be put up for a show trial, maybe even publicly killed, as a warning example to anyone else thinking of resisting them.

Two, she can be kept as an unwilling hostage, and they'll use the fact that they have her in their clutches to influence our movements or decisions.

Or three, she can be kept as a hostage but presented as someone who's seen the light and returned to the pureblood fold, ostensibly joining them willingly. I don't think that we can discount that third possibility, as it would obviously suit Bella's purposes beautifully and at the same time be a huge blow to us. We know perfectly well that they have no scruples whatsoever about lying the press.

In all three of these scenarios, I imagine they will try to strip her of any information they can gain from her regarding our tactics, our security procedures, our plans, our allies, or anything else that Bellatrix thinks she can learn.

I want us to spend some time thinking about how we can respond to or counter each one of these possibilities. (Even better, I would strongly like to get out of the role that Bellatrix seems determined to stick us in, to be reactive rather than active.) Again, I hate this like poison, but it must be said: whatever we decide to do and however we choose to respond to the situation publicly should probably be coordinated between the family, the Order leadership, and our communications/press staff.

If Ginny is allowed to read any private messages we send to her, obviously they can't be kept private from her captors. Despite this, it's my personal opinion that we should still write to her, but we should be cautious about what we say to her, and those messages should be kept on a private lock. Bella may legilimise my sister's mind but I'll be damned if I'm going to give the bitch any opportunity to chime in with helpful written comments to what I might say to Ginny.

I'm going to suggest a meeting tomorrow morning after breakfast to discuss these issues. We can convene in the work room just off Mum's quarters. I understand that not everyone may be able to make it, but leave a written comment if there is anything you want us to consider. It's probably going to be an ongoing conversation.

Thanks.

I'm sorry I didn't wake up before you left the bed this morning. I was burning the midnight candle toiling over interviews and personnel lists, and I didn't want to wake you when I came in last night because I knew you were so tired from the night before and--

Some day we'll manage to catch up with each other and have an actual conversation.

Wake me up if you finish with Snowdonia in time to make it back sometime tonight, all right? Even if it's the wee hours. I might be sitting up with Mum rather late. She happened to hear Alice tell Frank about tonight's mission, and it made her start thinking about Percy, you see, and that's been rather difficult. But I'm sure I won't be up as late tonight as you.

I love you. I heard Frank say today that you're doing a bang-up job at least. It'd be nice to see you so I can bask in some of that reflected glory.

Have your wakefulness potions crashed you yet? Mine just did. Maybe you get issued a more powerful sort with MLE than Poppy's willing to hand out.

I think I had at least an hour more sleep two days ago than you did, though. You had one and I had two, right?

I know you're running flat out, just like I am. But if you crash into a wall and want a soft landing, I'm kipped in the storage closet of the Transformation classroom. There's probably room for two to squeeze in here.

I'll understand if you can't, of course, but just wanted to let you know the opportunity is available. For maybe the next four hours, if I'm lucky.

Just sleep. Bloody hell, I can't even think of anything more athletic at the moment.

Alice and Remus:

One of the last things I did before leaving the Ministry was to grab a copy of the most recently updated Ministry personnel roster and another of the list of all the camps and their administrators.

I've spent the afternoon marking them both up to give you my quick gut-level reaction. I have tried to add illustrative notations about the ones I've had personal dealings with, to give you some context (précis accounts of memorable conversations, sympathies revealed by actions at work, who they're dating and why, and anything else that quickly rose to my mind as being germane).

Now, obviously we have to first stabilise things and root out the remainder of the DE and obviously we are not going to make all the decisions on running the country--other allied organisations, muggles, squibs, goblins, etcetera, etcetera, must have their say and will be part of the new provisional government. But I hoped it would be helpful if I gave you a rough (very rough) sort of my impressions of the people who have been running the country, as we are going to need a lot of help, and some of them whom we have reason to think are sympathetic to our goals must be included. We're going to fall flat on our faces if we don't get more people sharing the work.

Marked '1': the ones who, in my best judgement, are most sympathetic to the Order's values and would give us the most value and the least grief if we turn to them for assistance.

Marked '2': are the ones for whom I don't have a very developed impression, or my interactions with them are mixed. Not quite as strong candidates. See my notes for further details.

Marked '3': definitely not. Have proven themselves convincingly committed to the old Protectorate ideals, cruel, incompetent, strong family ties to DE and who have made it clear that they share their relatives' loyalty to the Protectorate (I'm thinking of Draco and Sirius here: I'm not ruling out people simply because they have relatives who served the Protectorate with zeal).

Marked 'DK': Do not know them, have never worked with them, have not heard anything about them.

I suggest having Rachel, Ron, Justin, Hydra, Jeremy, Nick and Tonks take a pass over the Ministry list as well (or anyone else I'm missing) who has had experience with Ministry personnel. I would expect Draco's insights be particularly helpful too, if he knows them from Lucius' and Narcissa's entertainments, or if he can add insights from any remarks Lucius made about various people. And you will want Rachel and her newly minted Aurors (very welcome news) to give the final word on vetting anyone amongst the MLE and Enforcers.

As for the Camp Administrators--given the uprisings over the past forty-eight hours, many of these names may have changed. And Kingsl bloody hell, Frank and Tonks and Remus may be able to recount more information about these people, from their encounters with them in rescuing muggleborn children. Certainly Davidson will have a great deal to add in terms of information, too, as well as our contacts on the button network.

I'll bring the list to Alice tonight; as I said, anyone else who has information to add, feel free to check with Alice and Remus to review the rosters. I've used duplio to make a number of extra copies so that we can be swift about our evaluations.

Alice, Remus, tell me how I might help you best now.

Afterthought: oh, and I can go back to the Ministry and pull any individual's performance reviews if we want further information. They may be very helpful.