To: Dermus Dryskull, Lt-Col Unspeakable
From: Badger Tumbledown, Unspeakable
Subject: Latest Chi Scroll: Malfoy, L.: Demise of
Dear Sir
Upon reconnoitre of the situation many factors made solid conclusions impossible to achieve. I found the remaining participant, a Professor Severus Snape (about whom I have amassed quite a dossier), resident of the area, to be particularly recalcitrant to the point of churlishness. When I advised him that co-operating with me was in the best interests of the wider community, he had the effrontery to stare at me down his nose and inform me that my idea of community was not his. Keeping in mind my suspicions of his involvement with the Death Eaters, I decided not to continue with this in view of my personal safety (see scroll Chi-beta-7-7-35: Snape, S, evidence of being a Death Eater). I then tried to persuade him that as he was a respected pillar of the community it was his duty to help. When he stopped laughing he told me he still couldn't help.
At this point his wife tried to give me another cup of tea. My nerves were already twanging thanks to the thirty-seven cups of undiluted caffeine she had already forced upon me and Snape was giving me looks that might have been easily interpreted as murderous every time she came near me, so I excused myself and went out to look for evidence and a toilet.
By using some spells for elementals that I have modified according to the book of spells left to me by my father (as you know, he was abducted by elves – see scroll Chi-alpha-0-0-19: Tumbledown, B. Snr, disappearance of) and using one of the only remaining pictures of a divination curler remaining after the Great Ortho-Spell Purge of '81 (Scroll Chi-kappa-6-8-3) I was able to isolate the fragments of what appears to have been an amulet for the control of an ortho-elemental. The charred wooden shards, when pieced back together, resemble the flower edelweiss. By dint of careful searching in the area I was able to find tiny pieces of shell. I believe these shell fragments to have come from the egg of the purportedly extinct Ice-Dragon.
I also believe Severus Snape to be hiding much more than he is letting on. I went back to confront him about it and showed him the wooden amulet. He first accused me of having carved it myself and then announced that he would prove that the eggshell was nothing more than the shell of the Antipodean Opaleye, a local species of dragon, and proceeded to demonstrate this by dropping the pieces into a cauldron with a solution that turned green. To my mind this proved nothing, and merely served to destroy the evidence. When I pointed this out to him, he folded his arms and glared at me, taking me right back to my Hogwarts Potions classes. I was surprised when he did not take points off Hufflepuff for my impudence. Then I remembered that I am one of the forces that protects this world and straightened my spine and told him he had only succeeded in obfuscating my investigation.
At this point he commended me for having read a thesaurus between leaving Hogwarts and the present date, and suggested I leave before he made me spell some of the long words I had been using.
I told him that the truth was out there and he couldn't hide it forever.
Raising one eyebrow, he replied, "The truth? You can't handle the truth."
I told him that I rather thought I could, thank you very much, to which he said I was boring him and his dinner was ready, so if I didn't leave he'd set one of the local elementals (scroll Chi-gamma-6-6-88, Taniwha) on me.
By the nasty way he was flaring his nostrils I deemed a retreat to be wise at this point.
I am requesting resources to reopen Ministerial enquiries into his:
- teaching methods
- personal habits
- close acquaintances suspected of being Death Eaters
- close acquaintances convicted of being Death Eaters
- providing elementals illegal magical powers
- extracurricular research
- ties to Voldemort
- parentage and genetic non-human heritage
- corruption of Muggles
- Potions developed by him that may have application as addictive narcotics
- the rumour of his patent on Fizzing Whizbees
- undue and uncalled for use of sarcasm in a classroom setting that can result in an unnamed student requiring therapy later on in life for emotional scarring
- the way socks keep disappearing from the Hogwarts laundry. Elves can't be responsible for taking ALL the socks people keep losing.
I remain
Yours
Badger Tumbledown
