Order Only: Ifan Powys is at Moddey Dhoo
Oct. 20th, 2013 07:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_mollyKingsley isn't back yet, however. We were separated at the target town, and I'll confess I'm a wee bit worried. Even though of all of us Kingsley can certainly take care of himself. He did have plenty of Polyjuice.
I contacted him yesterday and asked if we could go out to try for a baby today (this parchment work the Magical Commerce Committee is demanding of me is driving me mad. Five generations of proven pureblood ancestry is required...if you submit it in parchment form, each name needs a contemporaneous verification signature from the Ministry. Oh, but look, there IS an easier method for meeting this requirement. You only have to submit to them your original family genealogy tapestry, as long as it is at least two hundred years old!)
Anyway. We arrived at Llanfyllin, in Powys this morning. In this area, the people are permitted to live in the town itself, rather than having been herded out to an ugly, hastily built barracks camp. The residents are carefully overseen by Protectorate administration, however, who have offices overlooking the town square, and they are no less slaves than anywhere else in the Protectorate: the value and profit of muggle work is entirely due to the state. It was rather strange to see a place that looks like the old United Kingdom we knew, with flower boxes, and quaint little quiet streets, and a holy venerated well (St. Myllin's well, on the outskirts of town). Yet the people here are in the same stranglehold as everywhere else in the Protectorate, the same hopelessness in their eyes.
We have evidence that the button network is reaching here, however. When we met little Ifan's parents, they were extremely tense at first. But Kingsley remained his imperturbably calm self and launched into his usual speech. Then I explained the sketches, and about the rings we would give them, and the mother gave a huge sigh of relief and said to her husband, 'Oh, the good ones, then!'
This was surprising, and prompted a little more conversation. The button network has been spreading word that strangers who come following our procedures are to be trusted. But they warn of bad ones, too, who mustn't be trusted. 'The black wands,' the husband said soberly. 'They take the mother and the child both. They don't make it a choice, either. They come by once a month. Usually on a Sunday.
Kingsley and I exchanged a look, and we hurried the rest a little. Death certificate, confunding the local official. The poor mother wept over her sweet son quite awhile, and insisted on tenderly wrapping him in a handmade blanket before they stepped back and let us go.
We were heading for the outskirts of town so we could safely apparate away, when Kingsley seized my arm. 'Look,' he whispered in my ear.
I looked and felt my heart drop to my toes. 'Black wands? Is that them?' There were two wizards and a witch wearing elaborately tooled black leather wand holsters, and it was immediately evident that the town people were afraid of them. A woman looked out her window, and then hurried to open her door and whisk away her daughter, who had been shelling nuts in a bowl on the front step.
'Get the child out of here,' Kingsley breathed. 'I'm going to follow them, see what I can learn.'
I wanted to argue, but he was senior, and goodness knows he knows more than any of us about doing undetectable surveillance.
So I quietly Ifan whisked back to the Sanctuary. A very dear boy he is, if a trifle skinny. He will need feeding up. But at least he will have the beautiful blanket his mama gave him. And he will be free.
I won't head home for the Burrow until Kingsley has checked in.
I contacted him yesterday and asked if we could go out to try for a baby today (this parchment work the Magical Commerce Committee is demanding of me is driving me mad. Five generations of proven pureblood ancestry is required...if you submit it in parchment form, each name needs a contemporaneous verification signature from the Ministry. Oh, but look, there IS an easier method for meeting this requirement. You only have to submit to them your original family genealogy tapestry, as long as it is at least two hundred years old!)
Anyway. We arrived at Llanfyllin, in Powys this morning. In this area, the people are permitted to live in the town itself, rather than having been herded out to an ugly, hastily built barracks camp. The residents are carefully overseen by Protectorate administration, however, who have offices overlooking the town square, and they are no less slaves than anywhere else in the Protectorate: the value and profit of muggle work is entirely due to the state. It was rather strange to see a place that looks like the old United Kingdom we knew, with flower boxes, and quaint little quiet streets, and a holy venerated well (St. Myllin's well, on the outskirts of town). Yet the people here are in the same stranglehold as everywhere else in the Protectorate, the same hopelessness in their eyes.
We have evidence that the button network is reaching here, however. When we met little Ifan's parents, they were extremely tense at first. But Kingsley remained his imperturbably calm self and launched into his usual speech. Then I explained the sketches, and about the rings we would give them, and the mother gave a huge sigh of relief and said to her husband, 'Oh, the good ones, then!'
This was surprising, and prompted a little more conversation. The button network has been spreading word that strangers who come following our procedures are to be trusted. But they warn of bad ones, too, who mustn't be trusted. 'The black wands,' the husband said soberly. 'They take the mother and the child both. They don't make it a choice, either. They come by once a month. Usually on a Sunday.
Kingsley and I exchanged a look, and we hurried the rest a little. Death certificate, confunding the local official. The poor mother wept over her sweet son quite awhile, and insisted on tenderly wrapping him in a handmade blanket before they stepped back and let us go.
We were heading for the outskirts of town so we could safely apparate away, when Kingsley seized my arm. 'Look,' he whispered in my ear.
I looked and felt my heart drop to my toes. 'Black wands? Is that them?' There were two wizards and a witch wearing elaborately tooled black leather wand holsters, and it was immediately evident that the town people were afraid of them. A woman looked out her window, and then hurried to open her door and whisk away her daughter, who had been shelling nuts in a bowl on the front step.
'Get the child out of here,' Kingsley breathed. 'I'm going to follow them, see what I can learn.'
I wanted to argue, but he was senior, and goodness knows he knows more than any of us about doing undetectable surveillance.
So I quietly Ifan whisked back to the Sanctuary. A very dear boy he is, if a trifle skinny. He will need feeding up. But at least he will have the beautiful blanket his mama gave him. And he will be free.
I won't head home for the Burrow until Kingsley has checked in.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-21 01:49 am (UTC)Kingsley'll be all right.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-10-21 04:54 am (UTC)Took him a while -- he spent some time tracking down the young women he could find at the camp who had been interviewed by the black wands. One was pregnant -- a few months along. Kingsley didn't have adequate cover or paperwork to slip her out this time around, so he warned her to keep a low profile. He's headed to Sherwood next to check in with Davidson about possibly seeing what they could do. I'm hoping that we'll have the Strangeweale issue sorted out before she becomes a target, but at least she's aware.
We don't have full identification on any of the crew, but Kingsley heard two last names: Murrow and Peters.