letter from a. gage to x. lovegood, circa 6.91 (excerpt)
[Excerpt, from the personal files of Alexis Gage, noted liqueur connoisseur, bibliophile, and collector of arcane artefacts, leaked 2005. Letter to X. Lovegood, dated 28?.6.91, Shköder County, Albania. Gage summered at a villa on Lake Shköder from which he oversaw an old-world vineyard and managed a liqueur importation business. The content of his letter mainly explored obscure matters of mutual interest, irrelevant to the current case. Excerpted paragraph discusses meeting with G. Greengrass, verified Department of Mysteries (DoM) Unspeakable. A copy of the letter was presumably mailed to X. Lovegood, a frequent correspondent, in late June 1991.]
[. . .] I mourn little for the impending departure of the Hogwarts dolt, however, for I met a most interesting boy today, an American by the name of Greengrass, Gareth. Gareth – these Americans and their fascination with their lost Gallic origins! Even the wizards among them are at loss with their own natural powers and feel the pull toward the past arcane. This one denies his New World soul and claims to have found the Old, calls himself a Londoner, a Brit, a transplant to his ancestral soil. He was sent of course by the Retainer, as it were – oh, my dear, the impurity of my existence here, if only you knew! What sins have I committed – and for Whom. This boy, Greengrass (greener than grass, I must say, though hardened as the soil beneath its roots) wanted very much to know about the work we’ve done, about the coming Kulshedra and the entity within. I told him of course that all of this was nonsense, that the truth of the matter was that his very own Ministry had infiltrated the Knights to such a degree that they outnumbered the wizarding membership 3:1, that the non-magiques authorities had done the same, that the entire operation was a folly, a ruse, a cantrip for catching le mort. I did not tell him, of course, of the full nature of our presence there. Our presence – perhaps the presence is the proper article. But I’ve already written too much about that which should not even be spoken. All in all I find the boy most intriguing, and I was delighted to learn that he plans to stay. I suppose they do not trust Monsieur Gage. The Gallic fancy does not extend to those stony sons of Saxony [. . .]