Order Only - finally, my report

The chills have finally subsided, and so I am back on the journals. It has not been an easy week.

As you may have presumed, my Lord was not very well pleased with me. Perhaps you have heard that he summoned those of us within his entourage to conference before allowing the Beauxbatons and Durmstrang factions in. He was extremely wroth, and no, I do not think it ridiculous or over-emphatic to use the ridiculous term "wroth." His anger took the form of the Cruciatus curse. After expending his energy on me, he moved on to Lucius, with considerably less verve. I am only thankful that he Cruciated me first: I had some time to gather myself before the foreign representatives were summoned.

I was instructed to pass the punishment on to Professor Acton, whose 'incapability of following simple orders has proven that she is unworthy to receive chastisement from the wand of our Lord.'

The French were most diplomatic, though I could not blame them if they had not been. Froissart in particular seemed to look to Lucius for guidance, which is no surprise; the rest were sweet as shortbread. Well -- I do not suppose that they believe the story that Diggory or his people rigged the Goblet, but they kept up the polite fiction and behaved as though the Lord Protector's meddling could never possibly cross their minds.

The Durmstrang party were not nearly so polite. Oh, Karkaroff -- a former Death Eater, you realise -- made some half-hearted attempts to restrain them, but overall they were posturing. Some war hawks in that party, I imagine -- though what they hope to gain by it, I have no idea. 'How do we know the whole tournament won't be rigged,' one of them asked straight out. 'Looks good for the Lord Protector's boy to win, doesn't it?'

I have not the faintest idea how the Dark Lord restrained himself when he heard that, but he did, somehow; I suppose he had exercised himself enough by punishing me. He allowed someone else to respond, someone I don't know from the Department of Magical Games and Sports: 'How do we know you didn't rig it to spit out young Marvolo's name? Quite a dangerous thing for him to do, to compete.' That shut them up immediately. Now we know how far their posturing goes: not far.

I managed to pull myself through the meeting, which the Dark Lord expected me to preside over, to the Great Hall for announcements, and back to my chamber before I fell apart. Since I have been nursing myself and sleeping. I emerged once to chastise Acton. It was not pleasant.

Even less pleasant, however, is the other news I have. I fear that Mr Milland, the new caretaker, is spying on me. I have caught him about several times with his nose where he isn't wanted, and then he was summoned to the conference along with the Ministry and Death Eaters -- at first I believed it was to give his testimony about whether the Goblet had been tampered with, but he was conferring quite closely with someone in the aftermath of my punishment. I could not see well enough to say who, or what they were saying, but I have encountered him in conference with a Ministry official (I presume) before; I have never seen his face. (Cats' vision is not nearly as good as some say.)

Unfortunately, I have no idea how to best proceed with Milland -- only worries.