alt_luna | Does anyone have an owl they can lend me?

All the school owls are gone because the Ministry is using them, and I don't have one of my own.

I really want to send an owl to my father.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

alt_percy

I'd be happy to lend you Hermes, Luna.

From:

alt_lana

Kind as it is, Weasley, your offer is unwise.

Sending an owl from Hogwarts to a halfblood patient quarantined at St Mungo's could expose us all to the disease. The Ministry have not taken such considerable measures to protect us from exposure only to have you throw it all away on such a gallant, but rash gesture as this.

From:

alt_percy

Your concern is noted, and I will certainly take it under advisement. I do not regret the gesture, but anyway it is moot. Hermes returned this afternoon with the letter undelivered. Apparently Mr Lovegood is not receiving any mail. Most unusual, but perhaps the Ministry's protections caused this to occur.

(I do hope you and the rest of the Ravenclaw prefects will speak kindly to Luna, as she is in your House. She seemed quite distressed at breakfast, and I take a particular friendly interest in her, as our families are quite close.)

From:

alt_percy

Perhaps we should discuss policies concerning personal owls and communications to and fro between students and their families at the Prefects meeting tonight. Will you add it to the agenda, please?

Also, perhaps we might ask for students who are willing to volunteer the services of their personal owls to the use of the Ministry during this time? What do you think?

From:

alt_lana

Weasley.

Your owl has made a round trip to St Mungo's today?

From:

alt_percy

Well, a round trip was attempted, but apparently not accomplished. As I said, the letter was returned undelivered. Very unusual. Hermes is ordinarily quite reliable.

Would you like me to ask Madam Pomfrey to see if St Mungo's is routinely screening and refusing all owl posts? I don't recall that being one of Mr Selwyn's announcements, however.

From:

alt_lana

Someone at the hospital presumably dealt with the owl, Weasley. That means it was potentially exposed.

I believe the situation is in flux at the moment, and the Ministry is responding with new restrictions as necessary. What is most clear is their desire to protect this school from any exposure to the disease. We don't want them deciding it's necessary to ban all owl traffic in and out of here, though this stunt may have exactly that effect.

Yes, do please follow up with Madam Pomfrey. We will want that information when we discuss the issue. In fact, you might ask whether she would be able to attend a portion of our meeting; her input would be helpful. We can rearrange the docket as needed to accommodate her schedule.

From:

alt_percy

I would be happy to speak to Madam Pomfrey before dinner, and hopefully she will be able to check with St Mungo's and provide that information for us at tonight's meeting.

From:

alt_luna

Thank you for lending me Hermes anyway Percy. It was very nice of you and I'm sorry if it caused any trouble.

From:

alt_lana

Lovegood. I understand your concern for your father. You must see, however, that if you were to find anyone who would lend their personal owl for this purpose, you would be compromising the health of every person in this school should that owl return with the infection.

In fact, I shouldn't be surprised if the owl were forbidden to return, and that would be a heavy price for the person who lent you the bird.

From:

alt_luna

Well, of course I don't want to endanger anyone, but what halfblood patient are you talking about? I said I want to send the owl to my father. There's no danger he has the disease. And Mrs Weasley said he didn't. The Ministry says purebloods can't catch it anyway, doesn't it?

From:

alt_molly

Oh, dear. I don't particularly want to get mixed up in the middle of this. But I'm sure she's wondering why I haven't gotten back to her about visiting her father. I don't know what on earth to say to her.

From:

alt_molly

Poppy . . . do advise me. Do you think we should tell her what we suspect? That Xeno's not sick, but possibly being held because of his editorial? I certainly can't tell her that through the journals, but perhaps you (or Minerva) could find some way to convey the news to her? I think either prospect (that he's sick with this disease OR possibly under arrest, or at least detained for the editorial) would distress her, but Luna has always seemed to me to prefer knowing the truth. She bore up quite bravely when Xeno got in all that hot water last year, when the Quibbler was reorganised, and he did make a point of keeping her entirely informed about what was going on at the time, as if she were quite a bit older.

From:

alt_poppy

I'm not in a position to speak with her unless I have Minerva's authorisation, and then I could not tell her anything I'm not officially in a position to know. I suppose I could tell her that things at St Mungo's are a bit topsy-turvy and that they are forced to take precautions that in other circumstances would seem unnecessary. I could suggest to her that they have, perhaps, over-reacted and quarantined him just to be extra, extra certain that no one leaves St Mungo's with the disease and blames the Healing staff there with insufficient caution. I don't wish to lie to her, but I really can't share my suspicions with her, either.

Perhaps Minerva will have a better suggestion.

From:

alt_molly

There's also the issue here that the Ministry is apparently trying to smear Xeno as a half-blood--a rumour that now the Head Girl is apparently working to spread further, I'm not pleased to see. Not that I consider half-blood status a smear, of course, but it may make things quite difficult for Luna with her housemates. How can such an errant lie be countered?

From:

alt_mcgonagall

I do believe that that will suffice. I cannot imagine telling the child more.

From:

alt_lana

Has no one notified you?

I'm on my way to the Common Room now, Lovegood. Meet me there, please.

From:

alt_luna

Now? But Transfiguration class isn't even over yet. I don't think that Professor Carrow would like it if I left in the middle of class. Can you come meet me there to tell him, if I have permission to leave?

From:

alt_lana

If you are in lessons still, you oughtn't be reading your journal.

Meet me in the Common Room after Transfiguration, obviously.

From:

alt_sally_anne

I think they're lying about Luna's father.

I think this disease is just as dangerous to purebloods as it is to halfbloods but until someone like Mr Malfoy or Mr Selwyn gets it they're just going to say 'oh, what a shame! he must have been a halfblood after all!' every time someone takes ill. Who wasn't registered as a halfblood already I mean.

Good on your brother for letting her use his owl. I hope her father is alright.

From:

alt_ron

You're dead right. The thing is, everyone thinks Mr Lovegood's cracked, so they'll believe any mad thing the Ministry want to say about him. And nothing he or Luna or anybody else says on his side will make any difference at all.

But, y'know, I think there's something really odd going on. Did you see what my Mum wrote to Luna the other day? She told her it *wasn't* the muggle disease, and she swore to her it wasn't. She wouldn't have done that if she'd thought there was any chance he did have it. And, okay. I know my Mum isn't a Healer, but she knows a lot about stuff like that. I mean, she has to with all of us. Otherwise, she'd have been taking someone to hospital every other day.

Besides. She'd never lie to Luna. She just wouldn't.

From:

alt_sally_anne

Well why do you think he had to go to St Mungo's then?

From:

alt_sally_anne

I mean I think you're right your mum wouldn't swear it wasn't the disease if it wasn't. But he might have gotten sick after they got there, and anyway why else would she have taken him?

From:

alt_neville

I just went back and looked at that journal entry again.

She didn't actually say he was sick. It said he was 'under the weather.'

Could that mean that he wasn't sick, but somehow hurt instead? Like an accident, I mean? And maybe he got hurt in some way that she didn't want to say in the journals? I wondered, because she said she'd send Luna an owl. Like why couldn't she say it right there, if it was okay for everybody to see?

Not sure what that means, though.

From:

alt_sally_anne

Huh.

Maybe he got hurt making something the Ministry wouldn't approve of. ~~Like that car~~ Or doing something kind of illegal.

From:

alt_neville

She wouldn't lie? You're sure, if she thought it would make Luna less afraid?

From:

alt_gredforge

Mum said 'pinkie swear.' She would never EVER lie with a pinkie swear.

From:

alt_neville

Lying that he's a half-blood, you mean? Or lying about him having the muggle paralysis?

I don't have any idea whether he's could have been a half-blood without even knowing it. I suppose that's the sort of thing that could take anyone by surprise...I mean, who ever really knows all the secrets there might be in a family? As to whether he's really sick with the paralysis--well, Mrs Weasley said to Luna that it wasn't it, when she sent him to St Mungo's. I dunno, d'ye think she could have been fibbing a little, just to keep Lovegood from getting too scared? I don't really know her well enough to say.

(Did you hear Lavender Brown going on and on about Lovegood at dinner, Ron? About how she always should have suspected Luna was that sort, with the odd way she acts all the time. I thought for a moment there that Ginny was going to hit her.)

From:

alt_sally_anne

Lying that he's a half-blood. I don't know why they'd lie about him having the muggle paralysis. I mean he's a pureblood and EVERYONE knows he's a pureblood and surely we're not the only ones reading Mr Selwyn's announcements and thinking they're lying and this means really purebloods can get it. If he didn't even have it then why would they say he did?

Did Finnigan say anything to Brown? I mean he's a halfblood too even if Patil fancies him.

From:

alt_neville

He wasn't sitting nearby. Luckily. That would have started a brawl at the Gryffindor table for sure, and not even Professor Lockhart could have ignored that.

From:

alt_ron

Lavender's the one who acts like an eejit all the time if you ask me. I mean, okay, yeah. Luna's daft. But I'd take her any day over Lavyloo if I had to choose one of them to share a train compartment with or something.

From:

alt_sally_anne

I am trying to think of anyone I would LESS want to share a train compartment with than Lavender Brown.

Oh I thought of one: Lana Sandoval. But in our year, I think Lav is the bottom of the barrel. I mean Patil is horrid but at least she's clever enough to have interesting things to say.

From:

alt_ron

I don't really see that Patil's being clever makes her better. It just makes her more foul.

From:

alt_sally_anne

It doesn't make her better but it makes her more interesting company if I were going to be stuck with her in a train compartment.

Brown is just as foul AND she's dull.