bait_backup | Come let the truth be shared

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Come let the truth be shared

*With yesterday's Dementor attack still fresh in everyone's mind, the Order assembles quickly and without even a breath of chit-chat, as Moody has been demanding of them for months. This improvement, coupled with copies of the Leisure Centre incident files on the coffee table, is enough to keep the room at large subdued. Most of the victims had been much too young, so many of wizarding Britain's children shuttled off to swimming lessons early Monday mornings without any mandated primary school to attend, and their small bodies lie almost completely still in the water, backs breaching the waterline as their lifeless eyes look down toward their dangling feet. Moody breaks the silence.*

Well. Time's come.

We need to use what we've got and what we know or this'll happen again, just somewhere else. The Death Eaters haven't claimed any of these, Crouch has been pointing fingers at werewolves all along, but no matter who did this, we've got to get everyone's facts on the table, see the big picture to do any good.

No more handling things on your own, or keeping sources secret. Everyone works, everyone reports. Out with it.

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*Fabian mulls it over for about three whole seconds before he nods. He's aware this stance probably isn't popular, but it's potentially a good lead, and he doesn't see the point in dragging it out.*

I still say we do it. If it were any other source we wouldn't be hesitating, right? Regulus put himself in the line of fire, we're not going to be making that worse, necessarily, not if we're careful. You protect your sources, that's how this works.

*Sirius has never appreciated the Prewetts as much as he does right now, whichever one it was that's now agreeing with him.*

Protect our sources whether they like that they're our sources or not.

Exactly. Standard protocol, there's nothing biased about it.

*That's directed more for Moody's benefit, because Fabian can practically feel his hissy fits coming a mile away, after years of working with him.*

And Pettigrew's point just backs it up. If we do this, we do it right. Who do you think he'd open up to, Black?

*Sirius thinks about Regulus for a minute and shakes his head.*

A house-elf? He doesn't trust anyone besides Kreacher and Barty fucking Crouch junior. I've been in touch with him a bit, but he's not reliable or really sensible enough to lean on for that kind of thing.

*Regulus trusts house-elves more than people? Lonely prospect, but Fabian's the last one to start insulting people's brothers. He knows better.*

Fresh out of house-elves, sorry. Anybody got one who's a good liar?

*Gideon's thinking hard, his serious mien and deeply furrowed brow, as always, all that clearly separates him from his twin.*

Or trustworthy enough to ask to lie, more like. Of course they'll obey, but we'd need rather more than that.

*His lip twists, at that. He's made no secret of his opinions on house-elf enslavement but now's not exactly the time.*

*Hestia reenters the room after collecting herself and slinks back into the corner near Lily. The talk of house-elves is somewhat foreign to her, as she never had them growing up; she doesn't really understand the politics of it all. Regulus was a former classmate of hers, but she only ever saw him hanging around Barty Crouch Jr., so this news is of little surprise to her.

Hestia notices one of the twins looking rather serious regarding the house-elf issue and realizes based off his clothing that he was the one who was smiling at her before. Finding his concern for house-elves admirable, Hestia involuntarily blushes and looks down at her feet.*

Would a more confidential way of communicating with Regulus be of some use to getting more information from him? I... I've been working on a runic code for us and perhaps... perhaps he would feel comfortable working with us if he were to feel safe about doing so?

Code. Excellent.

*Fortunately for Gideon, this bit of inane Quidditch-match commentary isn't too loud--immediately, he shuts his mouth and resists the very strong urge to high-five her.*

*Fabian knows that tone. He doesn't comment - code's a great idea, he agrees - but gives Gideon a funny, knowing look, glancing at Hestia curiously*

*Hestia looks about the room at the hesitation and curiosity staring back at her. She swallows thickly and continues, speaking quickly out of nervousness.*

What I'm trying to do is develop a secret form of communication for everyone here to use. Ideally, only those of us in the Order can understand the runes. You won't need to actually be able to read the runes though. They're faux runes, in a sense.

*She pushes off against the wall and grabs a few notebooks from her satchel, flipping through pages to show her research as she talks.*

There's a Disillisionment Charm on the runes to mask the actual messages written. Simply knowing there's a charm, though, will not suffice in understanding it. As it happens, I can encrypt each member of the Order's identification into the runes that act as a security measure, including Regulus. If you pass the Disillusion Charm's security check, you can read and write any message normally and it will convert appropriately.

*She grimaces.*

The thing is, is I can't seem to figure out that encryption, as it's a magic entirely dependent on Arithmancy and… And I haven't been able to solve the issue for weeks.

*Gideon knows enough to keep his mouth shut now--he's already making an ass of himself--but he can't resist shooting her an encouraging look over Lily's shoulder. Besides, Ms. Runic Code Foxy Apparently-a-Genius looks like she could use a bit of moral support.

His next glance is at Fabian, and it says clearer than words: what? she's brainy.*

*Emmeline isn't one to let the smallest details pass her by even when she's inwardly speculating about Regulus Black's motives, as skeptical as Moody on the best possibility being the most likely, and glances over at the Prewetts in vague amusement before turning her attention back to Hestia.*

I think you should work on that with Peter then, since he's working on becoming an Arithmancer.

*He just smirks a bit at Gideon; there will be teasing later, because he has no shame at all. Looking back to Hestia, though, he gives her a reassuring smile.*

*Hestia nods at Emmeline and then Peter, before slinking back into place beside Lily, doing her best to melt into the wall. She can feel both Prewett boys smiling at her, unsure of what to make of it.*

*Perhaps this isn't the right time for flirting, but Lily can't help but shoot Hestia a knowing look. She didn't have to say a word for her message to make itself loud and clear: We'll talk about this later.*

*Peter returns Hestia's nod, a little embarrassed that Emmeline volunteered him before he volunteered himself. He wonders vaguely what issues she might be having with the spellwork. It might have been some part of the encryption process itself, or... well, he'll find out later. She seems to have put a lot of work into the rest of it. It strikes him as just as strange as it always has that while whole branches of magic have evaded him, he swims easily through arithmancy, a field so many wizards' brains shut down before. He tries to convey some sort of reassurance to Hestia with a look.*

*Sirius is still looking stormy and shaking his head.*

That still doesn't solve anything about how we get him on our side, and how we get him sending us messages. We can post along all the owls we want and he'll just hide his head in the sand if he doesn't trust us--or if he doesn't think has has to trust us.

Alright. So which is he more likely to trust, something more anonymous, or a person? You've basically got those options, for letting him in on what we know.

*Remus is still angry, but it seems Sirius has been talked down from actually doing something as idiotic as waltzing Regulus into the middle of an Order meeting. He can deal with the rest, it's not any more than they'd already talked about. There's no point in not contributing just because he's put out with Sirius, he isn't that immature.*

It needn't even be a 'real' person, if we go that route. A thorough enough disguise would work. But it really comes down to you, Sirius, you're the one who knows him well enough to know how to get in with him.

The only way--and I do mean the only way--that I can think of, if we can't get a house-elf or Barty Crouch Junior on our side and helping us, is to scare the living daylights out of him. Not like it's hard. Just tell him we know what he's up to and we'll tell Voldemort or we know what he's up to and we want to help or, I don't know, we have pictures of him in his knickers. He'll faint and obsess and fret and pull out his hair and then owl back something like "I don't know what you're talking about" but he will owl you back.

So...blackmail.

It's not--

*Sirius looks flustered for a second, and then decides to glower at the Prewett, whichever one it is.*

Listen, you want to know how to get him to respond, that's how to get him to respond. Otherwise he'll just ignore it and go all stonefaced like he would with me. But once he's owled you back, you can hand him the code and tell him it's not safe to transmit messages in plain English, and then we can try to get more out of him that explains what I found without worrying about owls getting intercepted.

I get it, Black. It makes sense.

But I'm not sure it's a good idea to hand a known Death Eater our only code. Thoughts, anyone?

*Fabian's gone quite serious, too, and it's a sharp contrast to the joking smiles a moment ago. The way he's watching Sirius now, he looks much more the well-known Auror and less the bloke taking the piss with his brother.*

Make more than one code, with a different enchantment. Fundamentally different, not something they could logically figure out if the first code gets into the wrong hands.

*Hestia grits her teeth at the request, but doesn't want to display anymore lack of confidence tonight. She steps forward and takes a deep breath.*

I can do that. It'll take me a little longer to work out the discrepancies, but I'm sure with Peter's help, it will work.

Excellent. And if we only use Regulus's code specifically for communicating with him, that should keep the rest of it secure, right?

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