I would change for you, but babe,

I think we should use me as bait. like we did with Dedalus. I can write something inflammatory and piss everyone off, and then we can wait until someone tries to take me out and capture some of those motherfuckers again. They're coming for us anyway. They're going to keep picking us off one by one until we're all dead and buried. Why don't we just bring the fucking fight to them? They already know where i live. They already know where I work. I'm sure they already suspect me. It's just a matter of time, and i might as well move myself up their list of priorities. If you don't want to help me that's fine, i'll just do it myself. at least I'll know they're coming.

I'm tired of waiting. Reasonable doubt, chain of custody, none of it matters. I don't care if they lock me up. I have literally NOTHING left to lose. I want to know who killed the Prewetts and the McKinnons. And I want to kill them myself, or I want to die trying.

Happy Birthday, Podmore. Enjoy it while you can, old boy. At the rate you're going, it'll more than likely be your last. Honestly, it's nothing short of a miracle that you're here at all.

Speaking of, I'm going to need to find a new place ASAP. Even though I've lived here for almost 15 years, and it's the only thing I've got that even resembles a home. The Death Eaters clearly know who I am and where I live. Staying will just put me and my remaining family in danger. I probably shouldn't tell them where I'm going, either. It's only a matter of time before the Death Eaters start picking off whole families, and it's been selfish of me to maintain what little contact I have with them. I don't know.

I read once that the man who wrote that old muggle hymn, "It Is Well With My Soul," did so only after he lost his family when the boat that was carrying his wife and four young children sank en route to Europe. How anyone could do something like that - turn that experience into something creative and positive - is fucking mystifying. I don't even understand how he kept himself from just... giving up right there. Merlin knows it's all I want to what I would probably do in his position.


I wonder how pathetic it would be, on a scale from 1 to 10, for me to use some warming charms on a stuffed robot dog and transfigure it to cuddle act like a real boy. I've already conceded the point that love and sex appear to be mutually exclusive in my relationships. May as well carry that to its logical extreme and pygmalion myself a friend who can't die and desert me. A robot dog is less sad than a cat, right?

Hi, my name is Sturgis Podmore. You may remember me from that time you arrested me. That's-- never mind about that. I was just-- Someone has murdered one of my best friends and left her bleeding on my door step. There's a dark mark over my house. I tried to revive her, but someone's cut her throat and... I tried everything. I'm sorry. I moved her. I know I shouldn't have moved her, but -- I can show you where she was. Please send help.

MOODY, ALICE, FRANK -- SOMEONE -- I need help. Fuck, someone, please answer. Fucking fuck. I don't -- someone just knocked on my door, and when I answered it -- I looked out of the little, the looking thing on a door, the tiny little window thing where you see people, I can't think what it's called. I looked, and I thought there was no one there, but then I opened the door, and -- She's -- It's Marlene. Someone took her, and they hurt her, and they left her on my doorstep in the middle of the fucking night. And there's-- a dark mark over the house.

Please, I tried to revive her, but there's no pulse. It's her neck, it's cut just like Fabian's, and I -- I don't know what to do. I brought her inside. I don't think I was supposed to disturb her, but I couldn't just leave her. Please.

Someone should tell Robbie. Someone should tell the DMLE.

[ WARDED TO MARLENE MCKINNON-PREWETT ]

This might be completely weird and out of place, but I honestly don't know any better, and I've been thinking about it for a while, so I thought I would ask. Merlin, this sounds like it's going to be the prelude to some sort of really creepy, fucked up question. it's not. Well, not in a normal way. Or a not-normal way, I guess. It's not the fucked up sort of creepy way that people might assume it was if they didn't know that it wasn't creepy or fucked up in the way that it's not fucked up and creepy. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. Fuck why am I still even talking. Take my quill away from me, please.

I was thinking about going to the cemetery and visiting their graves. I haven't seen them since the funeral, you know. And I was wondering if -- maybe you wanted to go with me. Put some flowers on the graves. Make sure they know we're still thinking about them. You don't have to if you don't want to, though. Don't feel obligated, or anything. I've just been having a hard time these last few days and-- You're welcome to come if you'd like.

I think I received a letter from one of the people responsible for the Prewett murders. The letter appeared to be composed using a dictaquill, and was written as if from the perspective of Fabian Prewett as an inferius. It also mentioned something fairly specific about the injuries they may have sustained.

I am going to send it to you by owl, but I wasn't sure who to send it to, exactly, and I didn't want it to get lost with all of this business with Tinworth. Let me know what I can do.

I think I just got an owl from the people who killed the Prewetts.

If you get an owl and you don't know who it's from, don't open it. Okay? Just... send it to Frank, Alice or Moody.

All right. This isn't funny, kids. SOMEONE has DEFILED the Judemental Frankicorn mural by spellotaping a MARRIAGE CERTIFICATE right next to Frank's head.

Fabian Magnus Prewett and Marlene Rhona.... well, McKinnon-Prewett according to this MURAL DESECRATER slash legal document -- this had better be a fucking joke. And that spellotape better not rip off the fucking paint, because that mural is a masterpiece of classical craftsmanship and modern ingenuity. And because I will be pretty fucking unhappy.

Hey, Prewett.

It's been too long since you and I went out and had a drink. While I realize and understand that this is because you are under safe-house arrest, making your absence from my life both logical and necessary, I was thinking that we should have a drink together anyway. I'll bring a bottle of whisky and a deck of cards, and we can make up stories about the good old days while we figure out if there's such a thing as two-player solitaire. How does that sound?

I rather desperately need a drink, and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one. Assuming nobody has work tomorrow (which would be a Sunday), who's interested in grabbing a pint tonight? We could just meet up at the Leaky Cauldron (which would be the easiest for me) or we could venture elsewhere. There's a short list of places we can't go due to... ongoing bans that apply to myself and/or other members of our organization. But most of the bars in London are still on the table, and don't keep records going far back enough for that to matter.

Show of hands. Who's up for a pint? First round's on me, provided there are few enough of you who come that that's still financially feasible. I'm a writer, not a billionaire. Then we can buy a bottle of something and pour out a bit for the people we've lost, because I'm a little bit pissed right now and I'm feeling rather nostalgic. And I saw a bloke who looked like Benjy this morning while i was walking to work, and it's been fucking with my head all day.

[ WARDED PRIVATE ]

Maybe I need to stop getting my hopes up every time we win one. It always makes it worse when we lose.

It really felt like we were making progress when Pete and I caught Jugson, but it's starting to feel more and more like they're just going to pick us off one by one. The ones they've brought in haven't given up anything, which was probably a bright move on their part. Cut a deal by ratting out any of your fellow death eaters, and you'll be the first to go when they start their next round of gratuitous murders. But it seemed like progress for a minute, anyway, didn't it?

But really, let's take a head count. Benjy's dead, but he died long before they'd made any arrests. If "died" is really the best word for it. Benjy didn't die, he was obliterated. Then there was Dorcas, killed by Voldemort himself during the battle of Hogwarts. And then Dorcas was arrested, and she's going to jail. And now there have been several attempts on Fabian's life, and if anything happens to that stupid git, I don't know what I'm going to do. He's got people - he has a brother and a family and a girlfriend. Most everyone in the Order has people they can fall back on when they start to lose their friends - family they're close to, a wife, old friends who know who they really are. Not me. I'm not close to my family, not even my brother has any idea what I'm up to, and I haven't seen much of Sara since I joined the Order, and she moved to Aberdeen. The Order are like family to me now, and I'm starting to think I might lose every last one of them if I make it to the end.

Without them, it would just be me clinging to the skin of this tiny little world alone, looking for something to dig my nails into to keep from flying off.


So why can't the Death Eaters try killing someone else for a bit? They hate everyone. Surely, it's not still Prewett's turn. Not that they should lash out and retaliate by killing loads of muggle children, as they are wont to do. They should just... lay off for a while. Focus their energies on something else. Gobstones, maybe. Or some of those incredibly horrible and twisted people who are still unaccountably vicars. I don't know.

I think it may be time to discuss what we should do with those particularly endangered members of our community. I don't know what I'm talking about, but there has to be something. Increased security presence? Surveillance detail? Additional wards and enchantments on the safe house or some kind of... extra housing for people whose identities have been compromised?

I don't know. I'm nervous and I'm thinking out loud. Someone articulate this idea into words that form sentences that make logical sense, please.