"No, I don't mean that," he agrees. "But I can keep it buttoned when she moans over the young idiot, because I understand how he was broken." Barty was about two years younger than Severus, for the record, and had the soul of a crochety fifty-year-old sadist. "I don't think I could have kept silent if she'd wailed over the father as well." Shortly, because he's spoken about Evan before so rarely, "He had the misfortune to be captured before many others, and was not only put in Azkaban but 'interrogated' at Crouch's orders. Moody wasn't exactly gentle, but I can't see him flaying a man alive twice with a dementor standing at his shoulder."
Severus looks deeply gratified to hear his opinion finally echoed by... well, anyone, really. "Because he's a Black. They're all like that to their enemies, but I got on well with most of them, and since I knew their good sides, I could see what he was like when he wasn't being arrogant and insane. Potter was terrible for him, I think. Besides, well..." this is a little embarrassing, so he mutters a bit as he says, "Narcissa took me to the Tapestry once and made a reasonably good case for the Princes being a bar-sinister breakaway from the Nigellus branch."
He frowns, and admits, "I don't know. Rodolphus can be managed, if you know his buttons. Lucius does. I don't think Lucius wants war again, but he'll bend to the prevailing wind and, well, he's made swiss-cheese out of the Ministry before. In the short term, though, I'm more concerned about grudges re-surfacing, and war-patterns re-emerging by sheer exposure to personalities."
"Oh, I never got invited to the dinners," he says on a single breath of quiet laughter. "Can you imagine? But I could certainly have killed him when I found out that he'd put them in place as well as stopping the practices of putting first-years in study groups, having House-wide gatherings on Friday and Sunday nights, making it mandatory for students to see Poppy at the beginning of each term, the Hogsmeade scavenger hunts, and the Tutoring List. Lazy bastard. I don't know what he meant by it, stopping everything that encouraged safety and House unity. I suppose we're supposed to blame Riddle's influence," he concludes sourly.
And I'm sure he was never encouraged to go seek fun with mortals. ;) What I meant by peaceful, though, is that it was a rare occasion that Dolphin would see Xel's head and react with an antimacassar rather than grabby hands and a 'SHINY!!!'
Hee! He asks plaintively if he can't at least fantasize. I'm game if someone thinks of a scenario that makes sense... out for the weekend now, btw. Hope you're back settled in by the time I get back...