Order Only: Blackmail

[alt_hermione]

Parkinson and Perks went and had tea with Professor Sinistra today. She told them the girl who accused Professor Lestrange is Cassie Calderwood. Calderwood's a Slytherin and she was caught last year harassing Professors Lestrange and Sinistra because she was obsessed with him. So it fits, but I guess the accusation is that he was with her willingly, knowing how she felt about him, while he was supposed to be with Professor Sinistra. Only Professor Sinistra said she thought it wasn't him, really, that she saw the memory that they have and she doesn't think it was him at all. And that she believes him when he says it wasn't.

I think it's good that Mr Snape Obliviated her, though, after he and Madam Pomfrey and Professor Sprout talked to her. Because from the sound of it she's not very good at keeping secrets--or I suppose I ought to say that she can keep them but she has no kind of dragon poker face. Sally-Anne just mentioned Cassie's name on a hunch and her expression gave it right away.

So maybe we shouldn't consider her as an Order member, if she gets scared too easily. And anyway she's still planning to marry him, even though he's a Councilwizard (and I know you'll all say he's dangerous and he is but he's also good to Harry, really, but anyway--) Although Pansy and Sally-Anne said that she's planning to help the students, by leaving notes for them to find and use, but that's not the same kind of thing, and anyway that's to stop Madam Umbridge and not the Council.

The thing is that we can't really do anything with that, can we? I mean if we tell the papers, they won't print it, and if they do, then Professor Sinistra will know that Pansy and Sally-Anne must have told someone, even if they didn't go to the magazines themselves or anything. So I'm not sure what good it does us but that's what Madam Umbridge has that's keeping the Councilwizards from getting rid of her.

Comments

[alt_frank]

if they can be careful about it, snape and dumbledore might be able to look at the memories, which is a start.

short of killing her, this looks like our next best bet to getting her out of Hogwarts. so it's worth a try.

[alt_pomona]

Oh, bugger. Hermione, I should probably have - make that surely should have - been more open when we talked on Monday. Aurora did confirm for me who the accusations came from some weeks ago, but in a way that made confirming it for others complicated, especially given the very delicate nature of the accusation.

In the interest of full disclosure, then, I suppose I should add a few more things. The attacks on her last year - and they were just on her - were progressively more dangerous. While they did very little actual harm, it was only through rather obsessive care on her part.

She's mentioned since that it left rather a mark - Alice, Frank, Kingsley, you all have mentioned at one point or another an unending vigilance that disturbs sleep and solace - that has gotten worse again since Miss Calderwood returned to school. Coupled, I think, with a fear that she will overreact to some innocent matter without thinking, and regret the result. (Topics I am sure she cannot get much advice about in other places, mind you. I cannot imagine that either Rabastan or Antonin Dolohov have much truck with that kind of worry.)

On her belief that her Raz is innocent - well. I suppose one could believe it's her lying to herself (or to others). What she said to me is that he would have to hate her a very great deal to do that particular thing to her that way. I must agree - whatever else one may think of either of them, I don't think that particular kind of sadism is an issue. (That Umbridge picked that as an accusation - well, the woman has a knack for finding the worst possible point in one's defences.)

All of that said, I'm honestly very surprised that Miss Perks and Miss Parkinson got that much out of her, though if it took her by surprise, well. (Poppy, did she tell you any of it, before you were banished? I thnk she only told me because she needed to ask someone else, another badger, about part of her reaction.)

As to the papers, no. You all remember that horrid story last summer? She became exceedingly certain that the unlamented Stint had more than a bit to do with that, and we all know what happened to him. (Not that that was the leading reason people might wish him gone, mind.) I do not think it is worth the risk. It does puzzle me that Umbridge has kept the accusations so private, too, and without knowing the reason for that, a more public forcing of her hand may have unexpected implications.

As to the larger question, well. I am not making any kind of plea for her, just remembering her comments about not knowing there was any option other than the more radical and violent groups. We have given Aurora no reason - well, no reason that she remembers - to show her hand in the larger landscape.

[alt_poppy]

No, she didn't share the substance of the accusation with me, and I did not press her to. Perhaps that was a failure on my part, but one doesn't wish to seem avid for the details of another's private matters. I would like to think I gave her a comfortable opening to tell me, but she preferred not.