Bellatrix Lestrange

Alert from Jennings: Suspicious canine Animagus at Ponds shop, Doughty Conduit.

I'm leaving Buckingham now. Pull Truncheon, Crannock, Fracas, Beaker, Covington, Zuckerman, Painter, and Boyde.

Advance warning:

Tonight, I will be writing to my sister and her husband in advance of official news. Wright and her team have finished up at the school, and I've been passing my eyes over final reports from Quartermayne, Gibbon, Pugh, and Revanche.

By tomorrow morning, MLE will pull an arrest warrant for Draco. He'll be a wanted fugitive, not a kidnap victim, though I do plan to reassure my sister that MLE will perhaps grant a full pardon in exchange for surrender under veritaserum.

One wonders how a child raised in such an ideologically pure home could be led so tragically astray.

I've seen it before - up close, even. But times were different then. Muggles and mudbloods crowding in on all sides, impossible to escape.

Even by serving us, as our Lord deems right and proper, they can still reach us. Should He feel compelled to exterminate them from our haven, once and for all, I would gladly squash the vermin from His sight.

Now. I anticipate that Lucius and Narcissa will respond with a level of denial and outrage that can only harm their already precarious position. We do not want that further weakened. Be prepared to assist them in keeping their heads.

As the subject did not come under discussion directly last night, I write here to say that your dedication to your pursuits under the service of our Lord is a credit to you. Do not let the heaps of flowers, the pearl-clutching, and the weepy letters to the Prophet allow you to doubt that.

Also. Good to have you back.

Now comes that tedious time wherein the nipper's debut is expected any day now (Sunday, to be more precise) and I've got nothing to do but wait around for it to grace us.

Not true. Plenty to do, including a meeting with Professor Sinistra about the upcoming Youth Protectors League excursion, a face-off (so she thinks) with old Hopkirk, a date with Barty to curse Dawlish's new desk chair, for his desk job, and lastly, supper with Mother to finish arrangements for the naming ceremony.

On that last bit, wonderful news: He has told me that He will likely be able to break His busy schedule and attend the naming ceremony. Praise. The name itself is still undecided. I'm still fond of Ophiuchus, but Rodolphus feels that it will fate him to the nickname of "Opie." The Razzer thinks he ought to be named Rabastan (not likely!), Cissy likes Cygnus, Rodolphus is fond of anything beginning with "R" (perhaps), and Hydra suggested Daniel, which is just plain silly.

I feel very hot and uncomfortable and, worst of all, slow. I think I shall have the mediwitch go fetch me another tonic. Sunday cannot come soon enough.

Nottingham has some truly spectacular architecture, it must be said. Looking at the heavily gothic style, I'd say it bears the mark of Waterhouse, which means that it's Wizard-done. Even better. There's a fair-sized community of half-bloods up here, most of them employed at Bobbin's main factory. Quite a few of the less established ones have flats at the Clifton estate. It's a pretty piece of land, with the Trent River running alongside. The escaped mudbloods must've followed the river all the way from Derby - quite an extraordinary trot by anyone's standards. The fact that Dawlish and Harkiss were searching the river from the east and yet somehow managed to miss them is also extraordinary. Stunningly so.

At the Clifton estate, a young couple by the name of Dames witnessed the elderly Wilbur Thompson admitting the escaped teenagers into his flat. By the time we got there, Thompson was having a grand old time showing the mudbloods how to use his wand to conjure up coloured handkerchiefs and bits of lint from a hat. It was quite reassuring to see how comfortable he was amongst the mudbloods, seeing as he'll be one from now on.

Lance and Carla Dames will generously rewarded, of course, for displaying their loyalty to the Lord and His Protectorate.

I'll be having a chat with Hopkirk this week about running the older Aurors through a more rigorous training programme. The difference between a Dawlish and a Yaxley, or a Harkiss and a Barty, grows more and more troublesome. In any case, I will have her know that tasks will no longer be delegated by seniority, but by my own preferences. I would have liked to have seen the mudbloods try to slip by any of the other Aurors and live to tell the tale. Even me. Though in my case it is high time that I remove myself from active engagements. I can't say I'm entirely happy about it, but His decision is, of course, for the best. I certainly don't want what happened to Yaxley and Marks to happen to me - not now.