I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_ron]

Pans, we're all right. Sally Anne, too, I mean. Only, she's still got MLE there at the Strettons, so she probably won't be able to write for a while.

She's not going to be in trouble, though.

The Strettons are a whole other story. It's not going to go well for them, I don't think. At all.

They were growing some secret crops in the middle of their fields. From what the enforcers said, I think it's something that you need to brew Veritaserum or potions like that. Truth serums, y'know. They called it Diviner's Mint, and I guess those plants are worth a load of galleons.

That's what they were after, anywiz. They had special kit--silk sacks and special gloves and silver blades to harvest the stuff. Guess you have to cut it on the night after new moon. Or maybe they just picked tonight because it's going to be so dark. I'm not sure. Pans, do you know?

Anywiz. We're fine.


Though it was kind of dicey for a while there.

Comments

[alt_pansy]

Good.

[alt_pansy]

She'd better not get in ANY trouble from the Strettons.

Idiots.

[alt_sally_anne]

The Enforcers haven't left yet. They had Mr Stretton in the kitchen and Mrs Stretton in the office and Jeremy in the parlour.

So they're really not going to be in a good position to give me trouble for a while. Tomorrow or the next day, anyway.

[alt_pansy]

Ugh.

I suppose they'd rather that nasty werewolf stole all their plants and did whatever he wanted with you and Ron instead.

[alt_sally_anne]

If they could throw me to MLE in trade for them not being in trouble, they'd do it so fast I'd never know what hit me.

[alt_ron]

Yeah, well. That's not going to happen.

[alt_sally_anne]

Fortunately for me I can't think of ANY way that they can plausibly turn this into my fault.

Did you see what Ms Tonks asked over on my entry, about what we'd do differently? I don't even know what to tell her. But I don't want to admit I can't come up with a better idea.

[alt_sally_anne]

I mean it really shouldn't be harder to come up with a better idea than, 'go down and snoop, get taken prisoner, have to call MLE Enforcers to safe you' but I keep going through the other options and while they'd have all been better IN THIS INSTANCE that's because we know who those people were, now.

We could have pretended not to see anything and kept going. But it might have been a really dreadful group like Dogstar up to something awful.
We could have called MLE right off. But it might have been a group like Beth's network.

I mean we went down for a closer look which is the only sensible option, you know? It would have been better if they hadn't caught us but we WERE being careful.

[alt_pansy]

Well, and if you hadn't done anything and the mint had ended up missing, you might've got in serious trouble with the Strettons.

[alt_ron]

That's a very good point.

[alt_sally_anne]

Probably not, though, because they couldn't very well tell me, 'because you were careless someone broke in and stole a rare plant we weren't supposed to be growing!'

Besides, if the robbers had been a little more careful I wouldn't have seen them, for real, you know?

[alt_pansy]

True.

Well, they could just say that someone stole their tomatoes or something.

[alt_ron]

Wow.

Thanks for giving us time to think it all over and know what we did even!

Tell her you don't think you'll know how to answer that until tomorrow at least. Or just don't tell her anything.

I mean.

Well, I've been reading what they all said to us after you asked if it was them. And they all said we shouldn't go too close and shouldn't let them see us.

So that's what she wants you to say. That we should've sat around and waited til they told us what to do, and then we should've done that.

[alt_sally_anne]

Well I can keep talking over here and they won't see.

For all they know I've gone to bed.

So I definitely don't have to answer at least until tomorrow.

[alt_sally_anne]

But LET ME JUST ADD that if they want us to sit around waiting for them to tell us what to do before we do anything they need to use the bloody Notificio spell like all of us do so they can ANSWER US when we ask them questions.

[alt_ron]

Too right.

I mean, It's not like we didn't wait for them! We did wait to see what they'd say, but then we had to go.

[alt_pansy]

You do have to use special cauldrons to brew Verisatum in, because it doesn't work well with some metals. And you can only brew it certain times of the month. So that makes sense.

[alt_ron]

I knew you'd know.