I solemnly swear that I am up to no good - bracelets

[alt_hermione]

I've been thinking rather alot, and I've been wondering, do you all think that it would be all right for me to tell the tiniest bit to the people who gave me and Terry our wands??

I don't mean I'd tell any names or anything. It's only that I'd really like to be able to tell them we've got a way of hiding things, and keeping them safe on us, and using them. And I don't think they'll pry too much and anyway I can just not tell them. But I feel guilty not making sure they know everything is safe and that we have friends here, and I just can't see how else I can re-assure them...

Comments

[alt_sally_anne]

You're not going to tell them about the ISS lock, right? Just that you have friends at the school who are helping you hide the wands?

They won't be angry that you told anyone about the wands, will they?

[alt_hermione]

Right. I don't think they'll be angry - but I won't tell them anything in specific!

[alt_neville]

YOU'VE got a wand, too?! Terry didn't say that. He just said that you should get a bracelet too so that it'd look it matched his. That's fantastic!

Do YOU know who these people are? It doesn't sound like Terry does.

Wait. Don't answer that if you can't. I guess secrets can go both ways. Well, if you do know them, you must be the best judge of what to tell them.

I don't suppose they'd believe that you thought up and made the bracelets yourself, you and Terry?

[alt_gredforge]

That might be a bit much for them to swallow. It's pretty advanced charm work, if we do say so ourselves.

[alt_neville]

Well, I don't suppose you'd want to lie anyway to people who've given you your own wand, anyway.

I dunno, Hermione. That's a tough question.

I agree with Sally-Anne. It might prove to them that you're taking the responsibility of having the wands seriously, which might make them feel better about giving it to you. But the less you can tell them about us, the safer we'd be.

[alt_lee]

Why would we be afraid to let 'em know we're helping hide the wands if they're providing them in the first place?

[alt_neville]

Well, yeah, that's a good point.

I just don't want them to know about the lock. I mean, what if someone on THEIR side gets caught?

[alt_sally_anne]

Exactly.

It's fine if you want to tell them about the bracelets and the charms on the bracelets, I think, unless Fred and George mind since they did the charmwork on the bead. The bracelets are easy to make and any other muggleborns who gets wands will likely need a way to hide them.

But definitely don't tell them our names.

[alt_sally_anne]

As soon as Terry said Hermione needed a bracelet too I thought she must also have a wand.

[alt_terry]

And I thought I was being so sly with my excuse about why she needed one, too.

Guess a Ravenclaw can't hope to out-sly a Slytherin.

[alt_sally_anne]

Oh you've got potential as far as the slyness goes. It's just that

Well Hermione HAD to be involved. Because if you'd gotten a wand from someone you didn't know, you'd think it was a trap from Carrow. And it sounded like you didn't know where they came from, exactly, and so the ONLY thing that made sense was that Hermione gave it to you and while I think Hermione likes you a lot I don't think the wand would be yours to keep and hide unless there were two. If it were a shared wand, Hermione would be keeping it because there's no chance she'd ever be taken by Carrow.

And I'd already thought part of that through, so once you said that she needed a bracelet, it didn't matter what reason you gave.

[alt_terry]

Wow.

Um, yeah.

[alt_gredforge]

One good reason to tell them would be that maybe they could use the information for other people. If they're smuggling wands, well, you and Terry won't be the only customers. But yeah, if you can keep our names out of it, or the information about our lock, that might be best.

Congratulations on the wand, Hermione. That's brilliant. We'll have to charm the bead on your bracelet, too.

[alt_gredforge]

Another wand for Gryffindor is always a good thing!

[alt_sally_anne]

Is Hermione a Gryffindor?

Figures.

[alt_sally_anne]

I thought you had charmed the bead on her bracelet.

[alt_gredforge]

It's taken care of now, yeah.

[alt_terry]

You say 'tell them.' Like you're speaking to them? Like they're people here at Hogwarts? Or are you passing written message? If it's written, I hope it's coded or something. Because that would be dangerous, too.

(I know, I know, you said you couldn't say anything more when you gave me the wand.

But the curiosity is just about killing me.)

[alt_neville]

Me too!

[alt_terry]

You'll be sure to pass along 'thanks' from me, Hermione, right? Whatever you decide. Tell them I can already do Wingardium Leviosa.

I just wish so much I could thank them myself.

[alt_sally_anne]

Good on you! That's faster than Pansy or Blaise learned it. (Or Milli or Vince or Greg but that's not nearly as impressive.)

[alt_terry]

Thanks!

[alt_sally_anne]

This group has to have someone at Hogwarts or they wouldn't have been able to get the wands to Hermione, and she wouldn't have known she could trust them.

[alt_terry]

If it is someone at Hogwarts and I had to guess anyone...I think I'd guess Madam Pomfrey? She's never treated me like, well, like a mudblood. In fact, she's been ever so kind to me, and willing to teach me stuff that I guess, strictly speaking, she's not supposed to. And I know she just hates Master. I've seen the way she presses her lips together when she doesn't like things that some people say. She has all sorts of stuff that's sent to her directly to supply the Hospital Wing, which might be a good way to get in smuggled things, like wands.

I'm not asking you if she's the one, Hermione. And I swear I'll never breathe it to anyone who's not on this lock.

[alt_sally_anne]

Alright, I have been trying and trying and TRYING not to think about this because I really think it's a bad idea to talk about it much but yes, Madam Pomfrey was one of my guesses, too.

Although if there's one person I'm almost certain is involved in this group, it's Mrs Weasley.

First, because she passes messages between me and my parents, and it's not even because I asked her, the first time. And she's done it several times and she's so -- CASUAL, I guess, like this is no big deal. It IS a big deal, not just to me, I mean she could get in real trouble. And she had Ginny and Luna read subversive books, when she was teaching them and she raised the sort of people who would invent a whole hidden invisible code for Terry and who would risk their lives trying to save him from Carrow.

But also -- I realised that maybe that is why she was SO upset this fall after the house was searched. Because this -- THIS -- if they found out that she was in a group that was giving wands to mudbloods -- everyone in your family would be sent to the camps.

Muggleborns, I mean. I'm sorry.

Anyway, she's not at the school, so she's not the one who gave Hermione the wands, but I would just about stake my life that she's in this group or something like it and I didn't want to say anything but

well, I want her to stay safe. I couldn't decide if she would be safer if I didn't say anything so the rest of you didn't know (unless you thought it out for yourselves) or if I did (so you could all be extra careful). But anyway she's your mum, Fred and George and Ron. And it felt odd feeling so certain and you not knowing.

[alt_ron]

Um. I'm not saying you're wrong or anything. But d'you think this means everyone in Mum's barter network's part of some smuggling group that's giving wands to Muggleborns? Cause I don't. I mean some of those people are just daft and others are, well, not the sort of people who'd do anything to help anybody but other purebloods.

You know, I wonder about Mr Dawlish. You know, what got him sacked from MLE? He seems like he's really all right, y'know? I don't think he's very happy about having to work here, but he's the right sort, maybe. I dunno. I guess maybe Hermione and Terry would know better about that than I would. How does he treat you? Dawlish, I mean.

And what about Mr Lupin? Don't you think he might have been one? I don't know if there's a big group, though. I mean all working together, or maybe it's just that there are people who don't agree with what the Protector wants and who don't think Muggleborn people should have had their wands snapped.

I dunno.

[alt_sally_anne]

Oh, no, I don't think the whole barter network is in, definitely not. For one thing it would be mad to associate with each other like that, it would make it too easy for MLE to catch all of you if they caught one of you. Also wasn't Mr Lovegood in that network? He sounded a bit daft, not like someone you'd want in a group that's supposed to stay secret.

I don't know about Mr Dawlish. If he IS in it must have been a disappointment to them when he got sacked. Imagine having someone who's actually infiltrated the MLE.

[alt_gredforge]

We're rather taken with the idea of our dear old Mum as a figure of intrigue and espionage. Wonder if she dreams up smuggling plots while she's serving up the potatoes.

Although you know, Ron, it also puts that Howler she sent you at the beginning of the year in a whole new light. If Perks is right, small wonder she was hacked off that you disappeared for awhile with the Protector's son. If she was hiding stuff like this, an official investigation would have been about the worst thing she could imagine.

[alt_ron]

If she's really a big international spy, you'd think she'd have understood why it was important not to stand around King's Cross waiting for Harry to get killed, yeah? Honestly, if she's all that, then she'd get what happened with the car.

And she might have said if she wanted us to go around acting like Hufflepuffs just so no one ever notices the Weasley family so she won't get caught. I mean, are you lot going to think 'Oooh, we might get Mum in trouble,' if Terry were in danger?

I don't bloody think so.

[alt_terry]

Mr Lupin! Really?

Although--

Don't know if the rest of you lot know this. It happened before some of you got onto the lock. Master told me why Mr Lupin disappeared from Hogwarts. It was because they ordered him to hurt Hermione's parents, and he wouldn't do it. So he did a bunk.

I used to be so scared of him, because Master told me that he'd give me to Mr Lupin to bite me if I didn't mind him. But Mr Lupin wouldn't let himself get used like that. Come to think of it, I haven't heard that there's been any news that he's been arrested or anything like that. And I would think I'd have heard about it from the Headmistress or something if it had happened. You'd think they'd be looking for him pretty hard, because all the rest of the werewolves are in the camps. So maybe he had help getting away.

Hope he's all right, wherever he is.

[alt_sally_anne]

And I will NEVER TELL A SOUL, I'll die first. I mean unless they cruciate me and ask me questions and then I don't know what I'll say but I'll do anything I can not to say anything.

[alt_sally_anne]

I have also been wondering about Professor Sinistra because she's so much more considerate of halfbloods than most of the professors. And Professor Brutka -- I mean, I don't know him well. But he comes from Europe, where things are different. And you know they let him come here because he helped Draco when Draco got lost, but what if Draco only got lost because someone confunded him? What if that was all part of the plan? And that got him here. So he could've carried a private message, you know, from Sirius Black. Maybe even wands.

Anyway. Hermione, just like Terry said I am NOT ASKING and don't tell me.

[alt_ron]

Well, if Brutka went to the trouble to confund Malfoy so he'd get lost, I wish he'd left him to be lost. I mean, it's a pity he brought Malfoy back. He seemed to like it in France well enough, and it'd have been nice if he'd stayed there.

Know what I mean?

[alt_sally_anne]

Well if I'm right then the whole point was to win Lucius Malfoy's trust, it wouldn't have done much good to confund Draco and then kidnap him!

[alt_ron]

Oh, I just meant he should have turned him around towards the far side of Paris and let him wander off. Not kidnap him or anything.

[alt_sally_anne]

You are exasperating.

[alt_ron]

Heh.

I work at it, you know.

[alt_sally_anne]

Well that explains a great deal.

[alt_terry]

Another thing I thought of this morning, Hermione, if you think it'll help to keep them from getting hacked off at you, if they're worried about other people knowing about the wands. After all, it was me who told. Well, not I had a wand, exactly. Lee guessed it, from what I said.

But I asked for help from someone I trusted to keep something important safe and hidden. Don't see how could exactly blame me for that, considering that Master still has a legal hold over me, and that I'm staying in the Headmistress's rooms. But if you made promises of secrecy to anybody, well, you didn't tell anyone you had a wand. And I kept my promise to you: I didn't tell--not exactly. And the only reason I said what I did was to help keep it hidden.

Um, I hope they won't be so hacked off at me that they'll ask for it back...

[alt_sally_anne]

I finished both bracelets last night. Hermione, do you want to meet me tonight in the common room after everyone's gone to bed? I could give you both bracelets and you can give Terry his, that would probably be safest. (I could come to the hospital wing to give Terry his bracelet but someone might notice, which is exactly what we're trying to avoid.)

[alt_hermione]

That sounds good!