Not Quite the Great Work

This is FUBAR. Magnusson drew runes for me. Thorn and hail and need; but after, the sun. Changes will come, for the better; but how shall we pay for them? Mathers saw her runes and he was genuinely shocked; he agreed to go and speak with Madam Stuart, who has been unwilling to share her insights with me.

I am now expecting giants in the woods outside. We know--Dracaena knows, and warned me--that von Thorwald has their loyalty. And the Thorn is their rune. Finndo is still her friend, thank God.

Kyteler has given the order to evacuate. If he can't get me a train then we'll have to retune the gates we use for supply deliveries; we should be able to do that before midnight, and the War Bureau will just have to sort it out once the children arrive in Londinium; we won't have the time or energy to send them each to their individual homes. I was going to order the future Mrs Rosenthal to do that, as it should be easy work for her; but Miss Peverell says she'd be wasted there and that she can do that while Juliana works with Piccard and Gardiner.

I don't want Juliana working outside. If something happens to her we have lost half our posterity. We have only two queens and I do not believe that Charis will grow a crown to replace her if she is lost; queens do not share Charis' inclinations. I could never love Florian more than I do, but I could wish he were a girl. And Juliana of course sees only her work; and Rosenthal is practically an idiot savant. Which is nothing that hasn't been said of me, but I always knew Dracaena didn't love me as I loved her. Miss Peverell thinks she can't do it, and I haven't the head for the maths. I still want Juliana inside. Maybe she can learn to use the orrery. It responded to me; but she has Arabella's blood and gifts.

Chattox and Forrester and van Rensselaer and Polly and Nutter and Mablin and Prewett and Madam Potter have all been sent for, and we will plan.

Also, that woman Walsingham is still here, and with a crisis like this approaching, I can't honestly say that we don't need all the help we can get. The Ziteks are here as well. I never knew them or their father, but Chattox trusts them.

* I shouldn't have expected Dracaena to send anyone back. She probably sent Kyteler back only because his father insisted. She is in many things predictable and I am surprised even to have the Company boys, Katya included.

* Warren Greenwood is a puzzle that I am not sure I can solve. He is very upset; I can see it, which means that he is not as different from his sister as he says he is. On a whim I asked him if he had not had any communication at all with his ancestors, and he ran. Later today, when he is calmer, I will send Kyteler after him. Kyteler can parley with Estrid Farryll; he can certainly get the truth out of Warren Greenwood.

* Estrid Farryll will someday be a great queen. I even think she may forgive me my omissions. I am very glad that she and her sisters are gone.

* Dolores Umbridge is infuriating, but she is not entirely wrong. There are masters I serve over and above the Ministry; but they are the Land and its Queen, and I do not understand how they can think her disloyal when she cannot run away, and our enemies can never let her or her children survive. Still, I will be happy when I do not have to deal with Miss Umbridge every day.

* God grant that Dracaena gets what she can from the Governors. I will give her the evidence she needs, but too many of the Governors are Gabrielle's. The stones themselves are uneasy. Miss Peverell senses something, but she cannot feel it as I do. Something is coming and I do not know if we can be ready in time. I can say nothing to the Governors of this, for they will never hear it, and if we fail, they will say that we knew, and we planned to fail. All that I can do is tell both my commander and my queen.

* Potter and McGonagall have taken over the drills, with Miss Peverell's assistance in setting up routes of evacuation. Let the Gryffindors do what they do best.

Binns is dead. I am saddened for Michaela’s sake but this is a blessing for everyone else; he is where he wanted to be, and his students are out of danger—at least from him. Dippet is mad. This has never been more apparent. He cannot see the adults before him, only the children we once were; what he said about Dracaena made me see sparks.

I know Polly doesn’t want to get along without the elves; they’ve been in the orrery. I went to the orrery to immerse myself in useful work, which I might have found settling, but they’ve done something down there which has deranged the sensory mechanism and destroyed the calibration on one of the lesser engines. It’ll take me the better part of a week to repair it. I don’t know what else they might have done if I hadn’t got there when I did. They didn’t obey me, but I was born in the Bois des Malfées and I know how to handle such creatures.

Elves should never be allowed near delicate artificery, even to clean; the way they do it is inherently deranging to complex reality-based systems. There have been orders in place for some time that they are not allowed into those rooms without myself or Miss Peverell.

This was deliberate sabotage. Nobby Pringle has got to go now. We can survive on porridge for a while if we have to. Polly believes the students will be troublesome, but the Muggleborns are already used to austerities, and no-one can possibly think, given shortages, that rationing is far away. Dippet has had over one hundred years to get used to the service he now expects. He will break before the sixteen-year-olds do.

* Dippet
* DUMBLEDORE -->Mendizabal
* Bettony
* Binns
* Scalara
* Pringle (2)

Woke up this morning hours before dawn. Still disturbed about Miss Rochford, for while I have no love for traitors (nor anyone who wishes harm to our Lady), she is still a child, and Dumbledore is still Dumbledore. I remember how he dealt with our Lady; no-one will ever forget it. There was a meeting. Polly said she’d write him. I don’t know if even she can reach him. I’m just about ready to clear out another floor of the dungeon and let Gryffindor and Ravenclaw share it; I wouldn’t want the Ravenclaws either, and putting Gryffindor under Slytherin’s roof would surely lead to fatalities. Whatever woke up in the bowels of the Snake Pit, it’s not gone to sleep.

The last person to see Barlowe alive was Nobby Pringle. Flint found some books in his rooms that shouldn’t have been there. Nobby shouldn’t have been there either, and I never said anything because I didn’t want Apollyon to know it—he’s mad as a dozen hatters, but he loves her, and she doesn’t know about manticores. I don’t know why she married Pringle, except maybe she does like vicious beasts after all, come to think. But the Pringles, that’s bad. He was one of Potter’s spectacular failures. Dippet gave him the job out of pity. But he still knows the castle better than I do, even if he’s not seen the plans and he doesn’t know how her guts work.

I’m going to see her today, even though she hasn’t written to tell me so. She went back to Nicodemo. I don’t know why I’m surprised. Nobody else is, and when I think about it, I’m not either; I just wish that I were. He’d better make her happy. I should admit it: I could only ever make her less sad.

First time in years I haven’t hated to leave her for Hogwarts. Not that I want to leave her, but…she’ll be all right, now, whether or not I’m there with her. The orrery is still moving smoothly. She’s a lot like the orrery actually. Just have to know how to gentle them.

Someone was in here, but didn’t get into the orrery. Cassandra. I don’t trust that woman. She’s always been two, Cassandra and Jennie, but there’s another thing there that’s not either. That’s what bared the leg at me when I was working with the orrery before.

Students back soon. There are students I like but teaching itself is a bother; I do it for the castle, and for Kyteler who saved her when I couldn’t, and Britannia. He can afford to risk me now—half my work was always looking after her—but I’ve got the orrery moving, the gears turning, and the experiments I’ve done these past weeks can’t be repeated with the children here. We shouldn’t have children here anyway during a war. I’m still not sure I know what this place would do if it really woke up. It listens to some more than others. It listens to Dumbledore, that isn’t good, he has more layers than Jennie-Cassandra.

Dippet set me to changing the dorms around. I’m not a bloody housekeeper, but Dumbledore volunteered and that won't do, especially not with Miss Emily’s lot. Castle is groaning; she just doesn’t like it. Something woke up in the Snake Pit that shouldn’t have, and somehow the bottom of the Snake Pit and the second-floor girls’ loo are connected. They weren’t before, but the castle wants it that way. I don’t like it. Should tell Dippet to set a guard on that loo. But he won’t, and he will tell Dumbledore, so perhaps better not. I should write her a letter. Maybe she knows what loves pipes. Salazar loved her greatest-of-greats.

The orrery is moving smoothly now.

Last night, when I took the readings, I felt her run her fingers through my hair, and then I heard her laugh; I couldn't see her, but most people don't see her, anyway.

I wasn't surprised to get Kyteler's note.