Who: Luna Lovegood and (by proxy) her (npc) confidential informant What: Dropping a clue. Into what? Let's find out. When: Friday morning, before sunrise Where: It starts and ends at Luna's house and detours a bit in the middle. Rating:: Low.
Luna was accustomed to owls tapping at her window. The Quibbler did a lot of its business by owl, after all. But the freelancers and advertisers usually only sent post during business hours. Owl post at this hour meant either a tip or a crisis.
She opened the window to let the owl in. There was only a tiny scrap of parchment tied to its leg. Luna sighed with relief. A tip, then.
The note was in familiar handwriting. All it said was Under the bench.
It wasn't a surprise that her primary Ministry informant was falling back on one of the drop sites they had discussed. With the Addison murder investigation still ongoing, and with Luna still under suspicion, she wouldn't be surprised if the DMLE were secretly reading her owls.
She put on some casual clothes and left the house. Once she was safely away from her father's hearing range -- there was no reason to wake him for this -- she pulled out her wand and Apparated away.
-
The park was in Muggle London, and the gates were locked at night, which made it ideal as a nighttime drop site. In daylight, the area was a lovely, shady place surrounded by large, leafy trees. At night, it was an expanse of forbidding shadows. She didn't want to cast Lumos and possibly draw attention from whatever Muggle surveillance was in place, so she stood still for a minute to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. When at last she had her bearings, she made her way to one of the benches.
Luna approached the bench in question and tapped it with her wand, whispering an Unsticking Charm. The almost silent flutter of paper hitting the ground was her reward. She bent down and took the envelope in hand, and then there was a quiet pop and the park was empty once agan.
-
Back in her room, Luna re-lit her candle. She tapped the envelope with her wand and whispered their prearranged password before breaking the seal. The note inside was simple and to the point, in direct contrast to the lengths her informant had to go to.
They searched Addison's house. Heard them talking about finding a copy of Ron Weasley's Auror performance records there. Don't know exactly why, or what they plan to do with it.
She stared at the note, looked away, looked back at the note. The words were still there.
It was still early enough that she could fit a short article about this into the magazine. But something was holding her back.
Part of it was the network conversation she'd had with Morag Macdougal last week. While she didn't mind the idea of being held to preserve the anonymity of her sources, she was sorely afraid of what even a temporary imprisonment would do to her father. And then there was the fact that this was Ron the tip was about, and that nothing good could happen to Ron if this knowledge became public.
Luna didn't realize how long she had been sitting at her desk until she felt sunbeams on her face. It was time to make her choice.
The candle on her desk may have gone short in the night, but it still burned, and it was easy for her to hold the note in the flame until there was nothing left but ash.