Private message to Antonin Dolohov

[alt_sinistra]

Tosha Antonin Former Headmaster Tosha

We still have missing students.

I We want to make sure there's no one hurt in the castle. Find them before more of them die.

What location spell would you recommend? Something that will tell us if they're in the castle or grounds. I don't care where they are if they've found other places to be.

We've clothing, bedding. Sometimes hair on a brush. Sometimes a bloodlocked container. I've handwriting samples for everyone.

Comments

[alt_antonin]

Gods of all my forbears, you would find the one thing that would make me help you, damn you.

How many missing?

As you're not likely to offer me amnesty to come use the methods I have available to me -- nor, I'm afraid, would I be able to take it if you did -- the second-best option would be to find one of the seventh-year students and ask them to use Whitfield's Pendulum. If they need a reminder, I taught it ... last month, or possibly at the end of March, it all blurs together. Tie a length of string or yarn, precisely seventeen inches long, to a silver ring that has been dipped in vigorously boiling water for ninety-one seconds, then thread what you have of the missing person through the ring and speak the incantation; the ring will be pulled in the direction of the person from whom the sample was taken.

Hair or blood will always work, unless the person who is missing has taken steps to protect against sympathetic magic. If you don't have either, clothing or bedding may work if you tear a strip of the cloth from the portion that had the most skin contact for the longest time and use that. I've never heard of it working with handwritten items -- paper does not hold the right impressions. It has a range of about a quarter-mile; if you don't get a response, either the person you are looking for has warded against sympathetic magic or they are not within range.

[alt_antonin]

And tell my students

Tell them Harry died well. That I had a plan to get him out of there, and he told me not to do anything to stop what would happen, because it was what he needed to do.

And that Voldemort died screaming

[alt_sinistra]

Right.

Tosha. Would you be willing to officially resign the Headship? I don't know, write a note.

We think the castle might respond better to Septima if you do. The elves say the castle's unwilling to give up her greatest treasures, the students, while things are uncertain. (Well, the 'her' is me, you know how I feel about the place.)

[alt_sinistra]

To answer what you haven't asked because despite everything you probably deserve to know. Even if I want to strangle you right now. Still. Bloody-minded obstructionist snake.

They asked me to join them last summer. After Raz. They'd been thinking about it a long time, I guess. Years. And I'd seen and heard some things and didn't tell anyone.

I think a lot about what would have been different if Raz had still been alive. He'd had doubts, because of the ritual, after the third task. We'd started talking a little about it, when

We didn't get that choice. And we'd probably both be dead now, without having helped much. So.

It was a lot easier once I found out Harry was part of it. You know my loyalty's been to the school and her students, all along. How could you let it come to this?

I don't think I ever actually lied to you. I tried not to. I just didn't tell you things. And you didn't ask, after the point when I would have had to lie.