Private Message to Auror Desai and Auror Trainee Sandoval-Pennifold

Nisha --

I understand you are Trainee Sandoval-Pennifold's supervisor, and thus the individual to whom I should direct my praise. (I am copying Trainee Sandoval-Pennifold for her own records and will follow up with a more formal letter of commendation once we are all out of this blasted country, but wished to write this before I forgot.)

I have worked with several of the department's ducklings during this operation and of them, found Sandoval-Pennifold most helpful; I have found very few people who are able to keep up with me and she did a more adequate job than most. I must also salute her ability to think on her feet and to follow my cues, including those so subtle that I had not expected her to pick up on them.

She has a definite flair for interrogation, and her support proved invaluable in discovering the plot to sabotage the IMA's surrender; though she did not have access to the background information that allowed me to piece together the inconsistencies, she was still able both to follow my lead in the interrogation in which those inconsistencies came to light, and to usefully occupy the prisoners while I researched further. Her assistance almost certainly allowed us to discover the treachery more quickly than I might have done alone.

Please accept my commendation for her efforts; her skill does credit to you, to her former mentors, and to the department as a whole.

In service to Our Lord's ideals,
Antonin Nikolaevich

Private Message to Barty

Solnyshko -- if I have not said often enough in the past few days, the ability to work with you again on this campaign has been a delight, and more than a delight. You were brilliant then, but now that you have achieved the full flower of adulthood, I would be surprised were there even a dozen in all the world who could compare. You do me more credit than I could have ever imagined, you know.

(Although -- if I apologise again for the fright I gave you yesterday, will you give over glowering at anyone who so much as looks at me cock-eyed? Truly, dearest, I did not mean to make you worried for my safety, even for an instant; if you maintain this insistence on keeping me within arm's reach, gossip will no doubt have us paired off and procreating within a week!)

Now that matters are marching on towards resolved, I am sleeping in (particularly since the vigours of the last week are catching up with me and taking their toll). You needn't wait on me to continue the final disposition of our remaining prisoners, though please do leave MacDermott for me once I join you; to satisfy my curiosity, there are a few remaining loose ends I should like to tie up before we escort him along to that undiscovered country.

I believe the remainder of our company is planning to depart tomorrow -- well, 'today', as I write this -- but I will likely stay over until Thursday at earliest in hopes I might be of further use, if you do not think I will be in the way. I have another few days of activity in me (though I will no doubt pay for it later) and I have so missed fieldwork.

Affectionately,
T