Order Only: Private message to Kingsley Shacklebolt

Kingsley:

I found a letter Ron left for me, in all places, in my sock drawer. He wanted to consult with me without bringing Molly into it. My word, I hardly know how to reply to it. Reading it just about broke my heart. I wish I could discuss it with Molly but he specifically asked me not to.

He is quite troubled about some of the things he had to do during the recent CCF retreat, and from his descriptions of the goings on, I don't blame him. He is struggling with the question of whether he should drop out of CCF altogether. They had to do an exercise where they demonstrated directing Muggles to accomplish certain tasks, and he said that the supervisors--particularly that monstrous Umbridge woman--marked the students down who, like him, used 'soft' methods, whereas the ones who used Cruciatus were praised. If he stays in, he fears that they'll expect him to demonstrate more and more curses, maybe Dark ones, maybe even the Unforgiveables, which he knows are wrong (thank goodness), but he doesn't know how he can get out of doing them if he stays. On the other hand, he's afraid to drop out now, for fear he'll get tarred as being 'disloyal.'

Well, of course he doesn't know what to do. It makes my blood boil to think of my son being forced to make despicable choices like that! I go to my job and I do despicable things every day, and I can only bear it with the hope that somehow I'm helping some. And if I work very hard, and our work with the Order prevails, maybe there'll be a chance that my children won't have to do the same. That somehow my work would make the world a better place by the time they've grown enough to lose their innocence.

But they're not even getting a chance to grow up first; their innocence is being purposely stripped away now.

Toward the end of the letter, he wrote:

Dad, do you really think there’s any way things will change? I mean. Would there have to be a war? Or is there a way to make things change by working for the Ministry and, I dunno. Are you making things change? Is someone going to have to kill the Lord Protector? Or would that even make a difference? Because it’s not just him and the Council, but the Minister and his people (like Madam Umbridge) and the Wizengamot, and all of MLE and all the camp enforcers, and loads of other people, too. Whoa. Yeah. See that’s the thing? I don’t see how things are going to change. And I don’t know what I have to do now so I can, well, not be part of doing horrible things I know are wrong.

and a little later in the letter, this:

Is it always wrong to kill? Like if there were a war again, we’d have to fight, right? So is it wrong to use spells that could kill people who are going to kill you if they can do? And then, wouldn’t it be best to know how to use the surest kind of killing spells out there so you don’t just hurt them and give them a chance to get a killing curse off at you?

I read that and I want to tell him about the Order. I want to, so badly, but I know I mustn't. But how can I advise him without telling him, yes, there are some of us who are doing everything we can, working from within, who hope to finish off this rotten, corrupt regime once and for all. Can I advise him to do what he can do from within the CCF programme, if he has no idea of the larger picture? It's like keeping him blindfolded and telling him to find his own way. Preposterous.

Blast. I hardly know why in turn I'm dumping this into your lap. I suppose I just hoped that with your experience training aurors, you might have some ethical advice for me to pass along to him. Minerva has enough burdens now, and you know with her dr she's not coping very well. Frank's a father, too, but he isn't speaking to me at all now what with that business with Neville, and--blast.

I want to take Ron aside sometime in the next few days, perhaps fishing. The traditional Weasley method for heart-to-heart talks. And tell him--Merlin.

What do I tell him?