ORDER ONLY: Private message to Charlie Weasley and Sally-Anne Perks

[alt_alice]

We're working through some logistics today at Grimmauld. You both have a knack for finding structural weaknesses, and would find it difficult to get away and join us.

I'm hoping you'll be able to share some additional thoughts you have now that you've had time to chew it over a bit, so we can consider them during our planning phase. And Sally-Anne, feel free to ask your fellows at school to weigh in too -- this message is not meant to be exclusionary, it's meant to narrow our focus a bit.

Comments

[alt_charlie]

You're right, I have been thinking about it. Still haven't come up with anything to suggest, though. (And ta for the compliment. I don't think I'm anything special, though, I just look at it like a chess problem to solve and then try to find all the possible moves.)

Are we trying to free those particular poor buggers women and children in there, or are we trying to make it so Strangeweale can't keep doing whatever he's doing to others in the future? Because I hate to say it, but we might not be able to do both, not at once. And just destroying the machine won't work to stop him, just slow him down a bit. We've already seen that.

Relying on Polyjuice is dangerous, since there might be protections in place. Sending Tonks is dangerous, too, because if there's anything in there that would finger her as a metamorphmagus, they'd show straight up at her door -- I don't remember, is she the only metamorph around these days? At very least she's the only one working for the Ministry, unless they've got somebody tucked away down there nobody knows about. And if they find her, they find Laszlo's, and from there to a lot of others. Not that I think sending Tonks is a bad idea, just something to think about.

Also, I bet they all know each other down there, so trying to impersonate someone specific -- no matter how you do it -- will be risky. I wonder if Snape might be the answer there, he could read someone's mind to figure out what the right thing to say in a situation would be.

What if we took out Strangeweale first, while he was outside the Ministry -- made it look like an accident, or the work of some random thief or something? Or even took him into custody, then sent someone in polyjuiced as him -- but that would still be risky, since I bet he's spent a lot of time with those people and they'd spot anything out of the ordinary. Although if he's in charge of the project, well, the Protectorate doesn't exactly teach people to question their bosses.

Actually. You know. We have a few Legilimens on hand. We should arrange for one of them to be in the same room as Strangeweale in advance, and see if they can get anything from him. Toss an Obliviate after and it shouldn't alert him.

Private message to Alice

[alt_charlie]

Also, while I have you: What you said to Bill was very kind.

I just hope he listens. The self-loathing can't be helping his current situation.

Re: Private message to Alice

[alt_alice]

It was true, love. Every word of it.

[alt_alice]

If we have to destroy the machine, that means infiltrating the Department of Mysteries one way or another. While we're there, it's worth trying for a rescue.

Polyjuice is a risk. If we question him extensively, we might be able to determine whether we can go that route or not, given his knowledge of security procedures.

I agree that we'd have to be careful about Tonks because she's one of our members living in the open, so it'd be risky to Laszlo's and Remus as well. What do you think might tip people off that she was a metamorphmagus? Would sensors be able to detect her? There are so few of her kind, I'm not sure they would've accounted for it. It's still worth thinking through.

If he appears to destroy the machine and himself in the process, that might be a cleaner story with less loose ends. We could have him leave a suicide note. And that would create enough confusion to get the victims out, possibly.

[alt_sally_anne]

Well she'd want to pick her appearance very carefully. She ought to look sixteen but only just, so that anyone who got away and told MLE what happened later would think, 'well, I thought she was sixteen but obviously she was just very young looking.'

That's a good argument for having her be a muggleborn and Imperiusing Strangeweale. Because if she impersonated Strangeweale and they DO have a way of detecting polyjuice they'll know that either the polyjuice detection didn't work OR the person was a metamorphmagus and then she'll be in terrible trouble.

[alt_alice]

That's a very good point, Sally-Anne -- to make her look young enough to qualify for the machine at first glance, but edging older so that people wouldn't jump to the conclusion it was a metamorphmagus.

I'm hoping that if we do things right, it'll be unclear enough as to what happened so that fingers might not point to the 'victim' in the first place -- we may be able to set Strangeweale up for a fall that places the blame on him.

[alt_sally_anne]

I'd rather rescue everyone.

But, if we stalk and pick off every person who works in the Department of Mysteries I don't know if anyone would be left who would even know what the machine did. Strangeweale and all his assistants. And then no one from the Order would have to go into Mysteries.

I mean Draco says his father doesn't like Strangeweale and doesn't have any idea what he's up to. And really, if he's not telling Mr Malfoy about it that probably means not very many people do know.

[alt_alice]

I think that might be a reasonable fall-back, in case we are utterly unable to gain access.

[alt_sally_anne]

Well I spent some time last night trying to think about the options for getting in and whether you were overlooking any and here's every option I could think of (including some you already thought of but I wanted to list them all out together).

1. Impersonate Strangeweale (either polyjuice, or Tonks).

2. Impersonate someone who's lower down (like, one of the assistants) because they might be under less scrutiny but have the same access.

3. Imperius Strangeweale and have him come with a 'muggleborn' who's actually an Order member.

4. That person could be Tonks, could be using polyjuice, or could be an actual young person. I'll note that of the young people, some of us have been to Mysteries before and Hydra can read people's minds without using her wand which might be extremely useful for getting in and out safely BUT she definitely needs another person with her if she's doing that so it would have to be two muggleborns or else a muggleborn and an assistant. (You should try to find out, when Strangeweale snatched people from the camps whether he came himself or if he sent someone because if someone else took them to Mysteries then that's the person you'd want to Imperius.)

5. Arrange for someone to get a job working for Mysteries. Unfortunately I doubt they'd hire either Bill or Nick.

6. See if Pansy can get a tour again. They gave her a tour once. Or a summer internship but I don't want to wait until next summer. But if we wound up waiting anyway it wouldn't be a bad idea.

7. Arrange for someone to pose as a muggleborn of the right age and have them get transferred into Mysteries but make sure they had a wand and a portkey. That one's pretty risky but I was going for every idea I could think of.

8. Brute force. The Mysteries staff aren't really expecting to be attacked and might not defend themselves effectively. Especially if you went at night and made it really fast.

9. That might work better if something else was happening, like if you arranged for a camp uprising so all the Councilwizards were busy. (Or not. They'd be busy but they'd also be awake and out for blood and it wouldn't take them long to get there.)

10. Harry's cloak.

11. Some other spell for invisibility and just sneak in.

12. Is there anyone who can do an animagus transformation into something really small because maybe they could sneak in that way. Or, they could be backup if someone is impersonating Strangeweale because they could ride along in that person's pocket.

13. A really good notice-me-not charm and dress someone up like they work in Mysteries.

14. Find out if there's anyone else who goes into Mysteries like does someone come in to clean the loo or sell them tea and sandwiches, because those people tend not to get noticed and someone could slip in pretending to be one of them.

15. Cast confundus on a bunch of Ministry employees (real ones) so they keep getting lost and wind up in Mysteries and the people in Mysteries get sort of used to lost people showing up there sometimes, and then have Bill and Nick and Tonks all go down there to scope it out and pretend they were confunded. That one's kind of risky.

[alt_sally_anne]

Okay Ron pointed out we don't know where the muggleborns and babies are and they might be nowhere near the Ministry.

We didn't exactly see a creche down there when we were running around, and they locked Arista up in someone's office.

So for sure that's something to find out, right? Because it might be somewhere that's a lot easier to break people out from. Maybe.

[alt_alice]

Yes, I can see how that might change things. If we get our hands on Strangeweale and it turns out they're being held in a more accessible place, I'd rather rescue them and then get Strangeweale and his assistants out of the picture than attempt to infiltrate the Department of Mysteries.

[alt_sally_anne]

Okay I suggested this over on the other entry but I wanted to put it here too.

Tonks says that the cleaning in Mysteries is done by elves. So, Imperius someone in Mysteries and have them give clothes to all the elves who work down there. That's actually useful in all sorts of ways. First they'll be desperate to hire people and they might take anyone whose been at the Ministry for a while and has a clean record, so it would be an excellent time to get Tonks in. But even if they DON'T hire Tonks because she's a half-blood, it'll create all sorts of confusion which is to our advantage. There will be lots of new people messing about and it'll be the perfect time to test out polyjuice and anything else we want to do without setting them off.

[alt_alice]

I think confusion and diversion would be best served after Tonks and Strangeweale enter the Department. If done before, it could lead to unexpected increases in security or other changes we couldn't anticipate.

[alt_sally_anne]

But, if we got rid of all the House Elves they'd need human cleaners, and Tonks might be able to get in and scope things out that way.

[alt_alice]

They might. It's not a sure thing, however.

And if we suddenly get rid of the house-elves, that might make the Department of Mysteries suspicious of a potential attack, leading to changes in their security protocol.

[alt_alice]

They might just simply do without until they can replace them with other house elves, or Muggleborn servants they can house in the department permanently, for instance.

If they're as paranoid as I think they are, they'd be fairly reticent to allow in personnel without clearance.