Who was on duty?

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 91923

Annemehr:
<snip> I'm not at all sure that there was a guard from the Order there
at night anymore. Their cover was blown with Voldemort and nearly with
the MoM, too. First Sturgis Podmore was presumably Imperioed into
trying to steal the prophecy for Voldemort, and later Arthur Weasley
was attacked by the Volde!Snake, which could see through the
invisibility cloak, by the way. I think that's why Dumbledore was so
adamant that Harry learn Occlumency -- because he could no longer
prevent Harry's entry into the DoM by stationing a guard there.

Honey:
I think that the Order is still guarding the door of the Dept of
Mysteries. After the meeting in the Hog's Head, Sirius appears in the
Gryffindor Common Room fire to pass on Molly's warning to Ron and her
advice to Harry and Hermione, saying, "She would have written all this
to you, but if the owl had been intercepted you'd all have been in
real trouble, and she can't say it for herself because she's on duty
tonight."(OOP am ed p.371)
 
I can't prove that "on duty" is "guard duty", but what other OOP
activities are scheduled? This occurs, of course, before the snake
attack on Mr. Weasley, and Annemehr is quite right that the attack
could have led to termination of the MOM guard position. On the other
hand, the snake attack may have confirmed to Dumbledore that LV was
scouting the DoM in order to plan an attack there, and may have caused
the OOP to double its guards at the DoM. Sorry, inadequate canon for
this question, but I'd like to know if we've lost one of the Order,
even if it's a minor one.


Carol:
I agree with annemehr that the Order must have stopped guarding the
door after Arthur was bitten by the snake (though I thought the cloak
had slipped; I'm not sure that Volde!snake could see through it).

As for the other members of the Order, I think we'd have been told if
anything happened to them, just as we hear about Sturgis Podmore (who
should show up again in Book 6 to tell his side of the story) and poor
Bode (who, I realize, was an Unspeakable, not an Order member. Things
didn't Bode well for him, did they?) Ahem.

Anyway, we meet several Order members in OoP chapter three, "The
Advance Guard," who never appear again in that book: Elphias Doge,
Emmeline Vance, and Hestia Jones. We're also reintroduced to Dedalus
Diggle, who has been mentioned in passing in more than one book, IIRC:
Harry meets him twice in SS/PS and McGonagall suspects him of setting
off fireworks (or wand sparks?) to celebrate the defeat of Voldemort
in SS/PS chapter one. It's clear (to me) that Dedalus Diggle has some
important role to play in either Book 6 or Book 7 or we wouldn't have
been introduced to him so early and so often.

As for the other three, I wonder why we never see them at 12 Grimmauld
Place and what they've been up to during the timeframe of OoP. The
advance guard seems to me to be a lot larger than necessary just to
escort Harry to headquarters, especially since he's camouflaged by a
disillusionment charm. Why not just Mad-Eye, Lupin, Tonks, Sturgis
Podmore, and Kingsley Shacklebolt--the members who have a role to play
in OoP? I think it's because JKR used that chapter to introduce the
Order members whom we (and Harry) haven't met (or "properly met," in
Mad-Eye's case). As I said, I don't think they've been "lost" (killed
by LV or his DEs) or we'd have heard about it, but there must be a
reason for their inclusion in that chapter. They must be more than
just names. Am I overlooking a reference to one or more of them?

Carol, with apologies for the somewhat incoherent post