Barty Crouch Jr.

Lucius. The intel from Magical Commerce re. Maule served us well: we've been watching for permit requests, Bankside and in Blackfriars. You'll be interested to hear that a veritable avalanche of parchment hit in various offices today: requests to level, gut, alter, and redesign existing structures; requests for permission to build on vacant properties; requests for reissuance of deeds and for recertification to allow alterations in the approved use of existing structures; petitions for blanket writs disallowing any complaints by owners or tenants of adjoining properties; requests for blanket approval of all magical enhancements--external or internal--of buildings, soil, surface, and clearance above the properties for no less than ninety-nine years regardless of any subsequent transfer of ownership; a petition for unlimited permission for any and all magical transactions that might be used in the pursuit of commerce conducted in premises--existing or subsequently constructed--at any of the properties; and, finally, a request to MLE for a security sweep and certification at several, but not all, of the properties owned by the petitioner, Sebastian Maule of Austin Friars, New London.

All that in one morning. It must have taken a platoon of owls to deliver all that parchment.

Needless to say, he has our attention.

Brilliant weekend, by the way. I was only sorry to have missed the moment of your surprise.

I heard Mulciber tell Maebh that he thought it the most challenging hunt he'd attempted since the war. It certainly pleased her to hear he thought so.

Jugson no doubt thought so, too. He's lucky he rallied in time to save himself--from humiliation if not from death. I wasn't on the scene when it began, but from my vantage as I entered the clearing, it appeared that he had a very close brush with disaster.