alt_hermione | Order Only: Private Message to Draco

What's your timetable for the week? I know you told me before but I didn't write it down and now I've forgotten. (And don't worry, Healer Deverill says that it's probably not related to the curse or the trauma, it's not a sign that my memory's gone off or that there's any long-term impact on my recall skills. Just that I've got a lot of things to think about and I still get tired easily, and memory's one of the things that's impacted when one's overtired.)

Anyway, I talked to Professor Slughorn and to Master Gimlet and I'm going back into the field this week. Well, tomorrow, most likely. The thing is that the process has been going all right without me--I mean, Pansy and the others are all doing fine--but I reviewed some of the field notes from the most recent sites and they're not at all precise enough. Plus the production rates are slightly lower than my notes from before the attack on Fradswell.

So I think if I get back to it, we can put everything back on track and I can collect better observations. Also Master Gimlet and I think we can detect a slight migration in the potion, based on the recovery times listed by the field teams, and I've got to figure out which process is being short-cut, or altered, or whatever it is, before it has an adverse effect.

But I wanted to let you know, and to make sure I'm around the next time you've got a free evening, or day, or anything.

I'll be glad when this business is over and I can move on to something else. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's getting tired of making the same potion over and over, but being away from it for a few days really made me start thinking about all the other projects we I have to take on.

How about you? I expect you're already tired of mixing drinks and serving wretched Death Eaters and their mates.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

alt_draco

I've got Thursday and Sunday off. Well, so long as Pugh doesn't try to get me to cover for him again. He's got that new PSS nonsense as an excuse to rearrange everything at the last minute.

And yes, everything here is very monotonous and dull, not that different from making the same potion again and again. I learn some little things here and there, but so far nothing really useful for us. I'm thinking of talking to Rachel about whether or not this is worth keeping as a full time assignment. Perhaps if I was a legilimens it would be, but I'm not.

Then again, it's only been a few weeks.

Do you still want to visit Strathglass? If you feel up to it, that is?

From:

alt_hermione

I feel all right, it's just that I have to rest frequently. And technically I'm not supposed to Apparate, really, for another week or so. But we're going broomback so it'll be fine.

I suppose you've got a tough balance to achieve. You want to impersonate Faust in a way that's believable, of course, but you need to be interested enough that people start telling you more than the average bartender. Could you slip something in the drinks now and then? Not every drink and not every time, but something to make people more talkative around you?

From:

alt_draco

Yes, we are. Sunday? Or we can play it by ear.

Hm, that's an idea. Obviously if I were to be caught it'd be disastrous, but I don't think I would be. Sunrise Cordial? Ha.

Did Shilly come find you yet?

From:

alt_hermione

Sunday's ought to be fine. I'll just make sure I'm not needed.

Sunrise Cordial, but only if a drop or two wouldn't change the flavour of the other drinks. A drop of veritaserum might do it without overdoing it, either. I can probably find the ingredients between the Hogwarts stores and the potions greenhouses at Birnham. It takes a while to brew but I could work on it for you.

Shilly--no, why? What are you up to?

From:

alt_draco

Veritaserum, really? You know, I rather like being acquainted with a journeywoman of your calibre. Meanwhile, I'll see if I can find some Sunrise Cordial.

She's dawdling, then. Overly influenced by my parents and the other elves, I suppose. But she should be there soon.

From:

alt_hermione

TOAST?

What on earth...?

Aren't flowers more traditional?

From:

alt_draco

You insisted to me that you loved toast!

But I'll get flowers too if you prefer.

From:

alt_hermione

What? When?

I mean...toast is excellent, especially on an upset tummy. But love's a strong word for it.

I did? Did I say anything else daft like 'I want a pet firecrab' or 'It's a lovely day for sailing in an umbrella?'

From:

alt_draco

Go back and read what you wrote, toast-lover. You were going on and on about it.

From:

alt_hermione

I just read it.

Draco...you know how I was saying, in that entry, that I was trying to remember something?

From:

alt_draco

Yeah, sure. A dream, wasn't it?

From:

alt_hermione

Yes, but it wasn't a dream.

Are you alone? I mean, are you where anyone will see you reading your journal?

From:

alt_draco

No, I'm at Russell's flat. Worked first shift today.

From:

alt_hermione

Oh. Good.

Because I do remember. It wasn't a dream. It was a message.

That's why I included Harry on the PM address, why I was so confused about him. It was a message from Harry.

Do you want me to tell you or would you rather wait and hear it in person?

From:

alt_draco

~~Another~~

In person, of course. Though I'm knackered and not sure I'd make the Apparation without splinching.

If you're all right with telling me here, that'll do.

From:

alt_hermione

All right. Let me see....

Well, I saw him. I mean, he was there and he was whole and he didn't seem hurt or unhappy. He was smiling. And he said to tell you.... Oh, it's so strange, but he said to tell you that Pansy and Sally-Anne both know the spell for making perfect toast. And that you could ask them to show you.

Actually, I know it, too, but it didn't occur to me that you might not.

But that's why I was thinking about toast so much, I think. So that I'd remember to tell you.

Isn't that curious?

Maybe it really was just a dream. But it's a funny sort of dream. It's not as if he and I ever discussed the finer points of crisped bread before.

Maybe I shouldn't have told you.

From:

alt_draco

It wasn't a dream.

I know it wasn't a dream.

I wrote a PM to myself a few weeks ago. But I was actually writing to Harry. The first thing I wrote was:

I'm writing this over cold tea and burnt toast. I've got better at not burning toast, but there's still a learning curve, apparently. This is what comes of having house elves wait on you your whole posh bloody life, and then having Snape do all the cooking after you exchange that posh life for another. It's not such a big deal, though. It's just toast.

From:

alt_hermione

REALLY?

Oh, my goodness, that's--that's amazing!

I wonder how.... Do you think...do you think only wizards can--can communicate like that?

I suppose it must be, or Muggles wouldn't spend so much time trying to make contact.

Oh, no, but--You don't think that means he's stuck somewhere? In limbo?

From:

alt_draco

We have ghosts and portraits for that, but not many end up a ghost, and portraits aren't really the same thing as the real person.

So maybe only Harry can. Otherwise, we'd have heard of others.

You saw Dolohov wrote a few days ago? He wrote with a message from Harry. It said Stop worrying about me; I'm fine, and I'm waiting for you. We'll definitely see each other again, although there's no rush.

That might have been in response to what I wrote to Harry in my PM to myself, but it reminded me more of something I said to Finnigan. He'd written to me in some attempt to get under my skin, I guess. Which was impossible at that particular point because I was about as low as I've ever been.

Anyway, what I said to Seamus was: I worry that he didn't go to that place at all. He didn't die a normal death - his soul was ripped from his body using dark magic. Maybe his soul is out there somewhere, still being ripped apart. Maybe it never stops.

I worry that if Harry did move into a different place, a better place, then that's not the same place I'll go when I die.

So.

I think he's trying to tell us that he's all right.