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Bill has just informed me that there is strong reason to believe that Percy Weasley has been killed, presumably while in Snowdonia. The Weasley family has yet to receive official notification, and we still don't know the specific details.

Molly, my dear, I'm so very sorry.

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Seamus Finnigan wrote to me. He was an eyewitness to Percy's death, and I think it disturbed him a lot. I think I better write down exactly what he told me, but I'll leave it up to you both what to tell the Weasleys. It's...it's pretty awful.

So Seamus told me that he went to Snowdonia to hunt, but he was cagey and asked if I knew what was hunted there. I played stupid and guessed Sphinxes or Hypogryffs. He said no, they were hunting muggles. This is what he said:

They arm the muggles with knives because otherwise there'd be no sport in it at all. I rather thought -- honestly there's very little sport in it even WITH knives, except for the tracking. The tracking's quite challenging, because Snowdonia's enormous.

We'd all met up for lunch. Lana Sandoval was there as well, and Ned Pennifold and a few others. After lunch we split up for a while and Percy, well, he found the muggle he'd been tracking and she was a ginger. Looked a bit like Ginny, actually, only older. And Percy just froze.

He crossed something out there; I can't quite make it out. Then he continued:

The muggle saw her chance and brought the knife down before I realised -- you know if I'd been a bit faster I could have got her. Maybe. The thing is, she was so close to Percy I could have hit him, instead. But also I thought, 'what's he waiting for?' -- his wand was in his hand, Nev! Even if he was too squeamish to kill her he could've petrified her or some such. I thought he was going to act, and then it was too late.

Then he crossed something else out. Maybe he started to describe exactly what it looked like but decided it was too gory.

I said it sounded weird, because Percy Weasley always had fast reflexes. He was a champion dueler at the school, y'know? He said that maybe he just hadn't been practising lately.

I asked if anyone else was there. He wrote:

A couple of others saw it happen from a distance, like I did, but no one was right there with him. Cadmus Mulciber was the one who killed the muggle. He was furious. Embarrassed. You don't want to invite someone on a hunt and then have them taken out by the creature you're hunting, you know?

So that's what I was able to get from him. I'll leave it up to you as to what to tell the Weasleys. Don't know if it would help Mrs Weasley or just hurt her more, and I reckon you know her better and are the best ones to decide.

I mean. The part about the woman who looked like Ginny...that was bloody cruel.

I've been assuming since we heard that this was a set-up of some kind, the sort of 'accident' that swiftly gets arranged once someone's made the sort of wide range of homicidal enemies that Percy acquired for himself.

Arranging for red-haired muggle prey would be easy enough, but possibly insufficient, especially given that the muggles are armed with knives against wands. It's possible the hesitation had some outside assistance, though.

I'm not sure we'd want to suggest that to Molly, however. If anything...it might comfort her to believe that Percy would have balked at murder for sport.

Wait, what? The hesitation had...outside assistance?

You're talking Imperius?

I dunno. At least it didn't seem to occur to Seamus...or if it did, he didn't mention it to me. He did seem really puzzled why Percy didn't act, though.

No wonder, though, if the woman looked like Ginny.

Ugh. How horrible.

Yes, Imperius. Though there are any number of other spells that could freeze someone into place for a few seconds.

The muggle with the knife might've had a magical assist, as well. Hard to know.

The odd thing is, he was hunting with Cadmus Mulciber. His sponsor to the Council. Who else was along, Neville, did Finnigan mention?

Well, he mentioned that Lana Sandoval and Ned Pennifold were along on the hunt. And that he was close enough to see what happened, but that no one was right there with him. He said there were 'a couple others' who saw it from a distance, but he didn't say who they were. I didn't think I should press too hard for further details, because I was afraid he would wonder why.

He was quite clear that it was Cadmus Mulciber who killed the muggle.

Perhaps Mulciber thought Percy was too much of a liability.

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