Private message to Lucius Malfoy and Barty Crouch Jr

[alt_selwyn]

Lucius, good news and bad news.

The good news is, we've definitely found our girl. Margaret Wynn, age twenty, worked as a tea-trolley witch at St Mungo's, which is how she knew Charlotte Smythe had been brought in. She apparated to Smythe's house and broke in specifically to get the journal -- we think she'd probably planned on this for a while, and had been watching for a patient who met certain criteria (Smythe lived alone, had no close neighbors, would be laid up for at least two days, and didn't use her journal much).

Miss Wynn was quite forthcoming under interrogation -- but she'd been careful to avoid learning anything of true use to us. She says she's part of an organised group but doesn't actually know any names because they always used code names. Moreover, they always kept their faces partly covered so she can't give us any detailed descriptions though she did give us a lengthy description of the scar on the hand of one of the men she met with, so we have that much. I believe some of Barty's people are continuing to question her but no one really believes she's holding out on us, not at this point. For the last hour or two she's been throwing out every scrap of detail she can think of in the hopes it will satisfy the interrogators.

The worst of it -- the truly unfortunate news -- is that as soon as she made that entry, she left the journal at a drop site. She told us the location, and it's clearly a spot that could be used to conceal something like a journal, but of course it's not there now. Barty's arranged surveillance but any group paranoid enough to use code names is unlikely to send people back to a compromised drop site. So they still have the journal. There's no way to switch them off, or Black's babblings would have been rather less of a problem.

Which reminds me, I hesitate to mention this but she insists -- insists -- that Sirius Black is alive. That he was seen in-country, no less, and that 'everyone' knows the body displayed was a fake. She doesn't claim to have seen him herself, and she's now gone back on the claim and says that she's sure we're right, she'd believed lies, etc, but then that's to be expected under the circumstances. I wonder if perhaps there's an individual with a close enough resemblance to be impersonating him?

Comments

[alt_lucius]

Indeed.

So forthcoming? I don't doubt Truncheon's skills but I wonder if she broke so easily because she was meant to do. Particularly given her conviction about Black. (There could be at least one candidate to impersonate him, of course - except that we are confident he is gone as well.) Might it be that she was given information to feed to us?

Barty, I assume you are looking into her affiliations? Relations? School friends? Corroboration of her sympathies or a reason for her to have co-operated on this ... suicide mission ... may be needed.

Dominic, your thoughts about the sort of statement to issue? I can put this first on my agenda with Fudge to-morrow morning.

[alt_selwyn]

Mmm, you think she was a plant? If she was, I doubt she realised it, and I would have thought they'd have fed her some false information for her to spill.

She's a recent Hogwarts graduate. Ravenclaw House, I think. Barty's got someone on it. She's the same class as Barty's foster sister, Narcissa's niece, but I believe that young lady was in Hufflepuff, wasn't she? Anyway Barty's got someone checking on her friends and acquaintances.

As far as statements go, probably best at this point to say we caught the person who made the statement and she's made a full confession, and leave it at that. It would be nice to say she was working alone, but we'll look like fools if someone else writes in Charlotte's diary an hour later.

[alt_lucius]

I think if they were certain she'd be caught so quickly - and break so quickly and thoroughly - that they may have used her simply to test our efficiency. I'm sure she believes her information to be genuine. Legilimency confirms that her memories have not suffered tampering?

[alt_selwyn]

Truncheon doesn't think she's been tampered with. What do you think, Barty? Should we call in Mrs Lestrange before Miss Wynn is sent to Azkaban?

[alt_crouch_jr]

I agree that she's not been altered, but I see no hurry to shift her, either.

Let her rest the night, and then let's see what Bellatrix makes of her. It's amazing the water she can wring from even the driest stones, and the wet ones like this always have something left to yield Bellatrix for her trouble.

[alt_selwyn]

If you think there's an advantage to having Miss Wynn make a public statement, incidentally, I'm confident she'd be willing. I'm not sure what it would be best to have her say -- perhaps that she was misled by an older man? It could be the two of them, working together, and further posts could be blamed on him. She was young and naive and he used her, etc.

[alt_lucius]

That might be useful. An older accomplice also gives the opportunity to describe that scar you mention. Perhaps someone will recognise it.

I'm not sure that her statement would gain anything - there are merits, of course, but flaws as well. We wouldn't want anyone to gain sympathy for her.

May be simpler to have her sign something we can issue out. That would expedite her transfer to Azkaban, if we've learned all we're likely to learn.

[alt_selwyn]

That's a good point about the scar, though despite her, hmm, extensive and highly motivated detail, it didn't actually sound all that distinctive.

She'll sign whatever we put in front of her, and you're likely correct. A weeping twenty-year-old lass is a rather pitiful sight, no matter how misguided she started out.

[alt_crouch_jr]

As it happens, two of the trainees were her year in school. They've been immensely helpful, both in our questioning of her and in our efforts to trace her connections.

I imagine we'll spend several days interviewing persons of interest to this investigation. That has its uses even where it produces no new information.