Chapter 322: The Wise Man's Hour [bonus]
At 12 Grimmauld Place, in Orion's study, the letters lay heaped on the desk in stacks.
Every half hour Kreacher brought in another batch, set the newcomers on top, then bent and shuffled out backward.
Orion sorted them.
First stack on the right, the probing ones, polite in wording with meaning underneath, concern on the surface, in truth feeling out where the Black family stood.
Second stack on the right, the friendly ones, warm in tone, returning again and again to the Blacks' long history and the goodwill of former days.
On the left, those speaking up for the Lestranges, only a few, the wording careful, asking no favors, more an attempt to gauge which way the wind blew. How the Blacks meant to handle the matter from here, whether they intended to crush the Lestranges into the ground for good.
A few he set apart on their own, letters that carried nothing sensitive in their phrasing but were, between the lines, fishing for one thing. How last night had truly ended, and whether something from a higher level had stepped in.
These people were fishing for Voldemort.
Orion looked at the few letters at the corner of the desk and tapped the wood twice with a finger.