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Lightning War: a secret history
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| Owl from Kat Lovegood to Lucius Malfoy, dated 12 September 1942 |
[10 Mar 2008|12:55pm] |
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Warded as well as she can manage, in reply to his owl.
The letter is accompanied by a parcel containing three chocolate frogs, charmed by Kat's prefect Ianthe Pritchard in order to survive the flight intact and edible.
Dear Malfoy,
I'm really really sorry about your brother. I'm not good at saying the right thing all the time, but I hope he gets better really soon and then he stays put and everything is right in the end. Is your Mamma able to let you stay until he gets better? I don't understand this school, but you should be able to stay because he's your brother and you love him. I wish I was there so I could try to say this better. And so you would have someone to talk to.
Nothing else terrible has happened here this weekend, but all the house elves stopped doing what most people told them. I heard Maeve Pritchard talking about how her house is going to run better when she's Lady Something. I think too many people have heard about the guano already, my sister Annie told almost every volunteer at the hospital. Otherwise I bet the prefect Miss Pritchard wouldn't say a thing if I put some in her sister's bed.
I have put three chocolate frogs in that I saved up, so your brother can have them. It is exactly the opposite of your present for Bilius because it sounds like he is exactly the opposite kind of brother. Miss Pritchard charmed them for me, it needs to be taken off before they are eaten, she said that you would probably find the charm very easy to lift and I think she even meant it.
From,
Kat
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| Letter from Leó Szilárd to Chris Howe, delivered 12 September 1942... |
[10 Mar 2008|12:08am] |
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8 September 1942
To: Doctor Christina Howe
You will probably not be surprised to learn that your application to work with us–despite its being tagged with my personal recommendation–has been misfiled into the group of secretarial candidates, no doubt by someone who stopped reading at your name and never got to your qualifications. You have heard my lecture on such bureaucratic short-sightedness often enough to guess what I have said to them about that.
I hope that you have not been discouraged by the length of time that has gone by without any word from us. It would not surprise me that you have found some other position, even one that might come close to being as vital to the war effort as this one. But if you have not, or if your current position is not taking advantage of your abilities, please let me know and I will personally deliver your records to the appropriate people–whoever they may happen to be this week.
Sincerely,
Leó Szilárd
P.S. If you have found a position which does not have bureaucratic incompetence, I'd love to hear about it. I sometimes think such a thing is impossible.
P.P.S. Please forgive the formality. I wanted to make it clear that I recognise your qualifications, even if other people have overlooked them.
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| Owl from Jack Randall to Delilah Patil, 12 Sept 1942... |
[09 Mar 2008|11:10pm] |
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Though securely warded, the wards show signs of being hastily applied:
Dear Lilah,
I'm terribly sorry, but I won't be able to make it on Sunday. I've just run into an old friend who had news of the person we discussed yesterday - seems he might not be dead after all.
I've met Alvaro Benedetto's daughter, by the way, and judging by the way people were talking you may be wrong about there being nothing unusual about her.
I'm sure you have lots of questions but at this point so do I. I hope to have more answers by the time I see you again.
Yours,
Jack
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| Owl from Minerva McGonagall to Charis Malfoy, dated 12 September 1942 |
[10 Mar 2008|02:30pm] |
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Moderately warded
Dear Charis,
I suppose this is a bit silly, like as not the owl will have to turn around halfway through the delivery and chase you back to school, but we've hardly had a chance to talk about anything other than discipline and drills lately and the same will probably be true when you get back. Everything at school... is just as topsy-turvey today as it has been the rest of the week, I had best not include more in a letter, but perhaps things are settling down. As much as they can. The Woods' party — well, from what I heard, I was only there briefly — was a good start. Would you believe that everyone really was walking back to the castle for curfew? Perhaps sense is becoming contagious. Nonsense certainly has been recently.
But enough of that, or so I always hope. Surely there is life outside of prefecthood (and the Squad), very occasionally. And so, if possible, I would very much like your company on the next Hogsmeade weekend.
Yours hopefully,
Minerva
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| Owl (or rather, phoenix) from Albus Dumbledore to Kyteler Dux Bellorum, dated 12 September 1942... |
[09 Mar 2008|05:21pm] |
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Strongly and securely warded; delivered to Malfoy Manor by Fawkes (who is not the least bit pleased about being there):
Dear Sir:
As I am sure you will have heard from Professor Goyle, I have tonight assumed the position of Headmaster at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, pursuant to Armando Dippet's resignation and confirmation by the Hogwarts Board of Governors. (I urge you to bring this matter up to your hostess at once, and to make her understand, if possible, that many of my colleagues with whom she is rather more friendly will be far more obstructive than I.)
I am in complete agreement with your proposition that all students who leave school to fight for Britannia (or to marry someone who is fighting) should have the opportunity to return to school at the end of their service--though the school is not, of course, set up to handle female students who have young children, and pregnant or nursing students may not wish to return without their children.
I also propose to you that we agree to return Aoife Rochford and Eileen McCormack to their families in Eire, predicated on the prompt return of Claudien de Kernoël, alive and unharmed, to British soil. It should be made quite clear to your cousin Aisling that Hogwarts is no longer willing to host these young people, and that they will have to stay at Azkaban Island if M de Kernoël is not returned to us, where they may be subject to divers indignities and privations. I do not of course suggest that the War Bureau is, nor ever has been, inclined to subject its prisoners to outrages--but rather that the Irish believe us to be capable of anything, and given what they have done to some of my Muggleborn students only this summer, perhaps because they are capable of everything themselves.
I am, of course
your most obedient servant
Albus Percival Brian Wulfric Dumbledore (Ipsissimus)
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| Owl from Helena Baddock to Yvon Malfoy, dated 12 September 1942... |
[09 Mar 2008|05:02am] |
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Carefully warded and sealed, on parchment burnt at the edges inside the sealed envelope:
My thoughts are with you; I'd ask if you still remembered the word, but I doubt that you do.
It's not like you ever heard it.
Remember this: he doesn't deserve you.
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| Early Saturday evening, 12 September 1942, at Malfoy Manor in Tintagel... |
[07 Mar 2008|12:38am] |
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( ...I'm the rainbow in the dirt; I am who I was and how much I can hurt, so I will look for you in stories of hurricanes... )
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) 00pritchard, bella_zabini, durmstrangsucks, fata_dracaena, inimperioesse, puella_virtutis, susannah_emily, tactician_raven, thanatopsist and pinup_boy
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| Return owl from Zitekné Zsuzsanna to Marek Červenka, dated 12 September 1942... |
[03 Mar 2008|11:33am] |
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Strongly warded and sealed, in reply to his owl:
Dear Dr Červenka,
Of course we'd love to have supper with you tomorrow. We have been laid up for rather a while so there's not much news. I hope that everything is well with Jenica and Nadya, we have only heard a little from them so of course we are concerned. But we are so behind on correspondence; Vilém has been in hospital; he was badly injured on another job. We are working on two jobs already but of course we will be happy to go to Hogwarts if this becomes necessary and we are always willing to help Jenica and Nadya, not to mention yourself.
I don't know if you recall Király Ilóna, but she is working as a journeyman at Mungo's now. So there is one more person from the old days whom we know to be alive and well. She seems quite anxious, though, not to be too well-known to her colleagues, though I cannot imagine van Rensselaer did not recall her when she was accepted there. Of course we have all done things to survive that we are not proud of, so perhaps it is something like that; nonetheless, if you should call on her she would appreciate discretion. She was kind enough to release Vilém on his own recognisance, at any rate, even though she knows perfectly well what he is like; but she told him she trusted his dislike of hospitals to keep him within the bounds she set for him.
At any rate, I look forward to seeing you soon.
Zsuzsanna
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