Having known the other witch for as long as it properly mattered, Persephone had... overlooked Ivy's intransigence. Ought she have lied, said she was looking for the midwife instead, just to get through the door? No—somehow, Persy thought, the lie would have been harder to overcome.

Ivy was too smart and too stubborn for tricks, and so tricks must be dispensed with.

Persephone chose her words carefully: "You do not know me, but I am a friend. If you let me inside, and assure me that Miss Moony is not at home, I can prove it, but the evidence I will use to do so is not something you wish to be overheard."

The witch was not confident enough in the... specificity of an Unbreakable Vow to risk being overheard anyway. Who knew if willful divulgence was necessary and not just merely saying the wrong thing at the wrong time? She liked being alive, thankyouverymuch.

"I was... I was a friend of Orwell's, too," she offered with some hesitation. It would hammer home, she hoped, the nature of her evidence, but Persy was not altogether certain it would not set Ivy on edge.