Order Only: Analysis

[alt_kingsley]

Scott is getting restless. Which is good, I suppose, a sign that he's past the first numb shock and grief. He's a healthy young man who has been cut off from his entire life, forced to stay indoors for his own safety, day after day. While in charge of a squirrely three year old. Molly's been wonderful, but she can't stay here all the time. So he's a little more willing to give some thought to the future.

I gingerly broached the subject of France with him. For about a day, I think he was really tempted, and had in fact almost talked himself into going along with the idea. Now, however, he has argued himself back out of it. The lure of freedom from fear, to make his own life, is certainly strong, but he loves his country, and he just can't bring himself to leave it. And then there are his memories of Norma, and the hopes they had for their son. The two of them did talk frankly about the possibility that she might be taken or killed, which I am sure is more than many couples in their situation did. She was a realist, Scott said, but she had a lot of hope that the work she did would make life better for the people she knew, and even many she would never meet. I think that Scott feels that his wife gave her life so that Rory could grow up in a free country, and so he owes it to her to stay.

We've been going through his recollections to see if there is anything we can piece together about the way Dogstar operated, but we haven't come up with very much. There was the occasional mention of functionaries that give us teasing glimpses: the 'conduit,' the 'personnel directors, the 'Alpha' (does that mean there were Betas?) and, of course, the members of Norma's cell. Scott gleaned a little about them, just from cryptic remarks that she let fall occasionally. Of course, it doesn't tell us much more about her cell than what we read in the Prophet.

I've been thinking: Scott didn't manage to pick up very much, and he lived with her. Yet the Prophet trumpeted multiple arrests that have brought down swaths of the network (note that they don't go out on a limb and say whether everyone has been arrested). Surely they weren't able to turn that many people who were fanatical enough to take vows to swallow poison in order to achieve that many arrests.

So it had to have been polyjuice. It must have been. Turn one key person, and you can insinuate your own right into the cogs of the operation, and then you can gather incriminating data on the hapless people around you.

Maybe the question is: are there still polyjuiced agents out there? And where are they infiltrating? Do we have ringers working their way into Sherwood even as we speak? Or Merlin help us, is there anything that could turn their sights on us?

Comments

[alt_bill]

Are you trying to give me nightmares?

[alt_kingsley]

No, that's just an added side benefit.

[alt_molly]

If he's thinking of staying, has there been much thought about where?

[alt_kingsley]

Sherwood, maybe, if we can cover any information he might have that would make him a good point person for trying to pick up the threads of camp networks. But maybe he won't have anything like that.

And then there's the boy. Scott's worried about the feasibility of such a young one roughing it in the woods. Besides the difficulty of just keeping him fed, sheltered and warm, there's the danger he presents. A three year old doesn't always understand the vital importance of 'quiet' and 'hide.'

Or Rory might go to Moddey Dhoo, if there's any more room to squeeze him into one of the nurseries, and Scott to Sherwood, I suppose. But I'm not sure if Scott can bear to be separated from him, frankly. The boy is all he has left of Norma.

[alt_alice]

If he's not willing to go to France, we'd make room, Kingsley.

For both of them.

[alt_kingsley]

Thanks, Alice. It will probably relieve his mind.

He may make it his base, with regular sortees out to Sherwood.

Frank, do you need us to follow some sort of protocol to interview him, or introduce him to Arabella or anything?

[alt_frank]

I can bring arabella up to the safehouse to talk with him in person this afternoon. she's concerned about whether he's in it for the long haul, and for the right reasons, and needs to talk to him herself.

and we'd need to have a meeting of adults at moddey, just to make sure we're on the same page. many here don't care for dogstar at all, but we've been working through it and I think we'll get a thumbs up to bring them down as soon as tomorrow morning.

[alt_frank]

makes sense to me.

better put polyjuice protocols into effect just in case, and let sherwood know.

sirius, remus, tonks, you might want to pass word to beth.

[alt_poppy]

I agree, absolutely, Frank.

[alt_sirius]

I was thinking the same thing myself, Frank.

Everyone remember their secret questions and answers from last time? Some of us will need new ones, of course.