AMELIA: SAVE THE SECRET KEEPER, SAVE THE WORLD. (meliorate) wrote in blurred_lines, @ 2009-03-10 23:42:00 |
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The cold that smothered the Scottish Highlands was very, very slowly starting to recede as spring approached, and for that, Alice was eternally grateful. Though technically, it didn't matter much whether they were fighting Death Eaters in the desert or the tundra, but she was looking forward to the appearance of spring flowers, warmer days, and how quickly, once spring had arrived, the baby would be coming. It was impossible to hide the fact that she was pregnant now, and she felt awkward as she walked through the camp at Gairloch, wishing that they were all back at the Ministry, which, in her memory, seemed like a warm, safe haven compared to the uncertainty of braving the wilderness and status at terrorists. Tired even though she had barely exerted herself, she lowered herself down onto one of the stumps around the camp and sighed heavily, wishing that there was something she could do to make herself feel more useful. Much like Alice, Amelia often found herself wishing that things could go back to the way they were before the Ministry had been invaded. Even the annoyances and fear she'd experienced before would be a far better alternative than the confusion and constant paranoia she dealt with now. She often felt as though she were an island - that there was no one she could truly trust at the camp. Her suspicions that there had been a leak in the DMLE had been confirmed and now she was almost certain that there was one among them at the camp as well. She had been taking a walk when she saw Alice sit down on the stump. She'd always liked Alice, but she wasn't entirely sure how much she could trust her after learning that she had been involved with the vigilantes. She'd spent so long considering them just another enemy that now, when she herself could be considered a vigilante, she was having trouble reconciling the news. "How are you feeling?" Amelia said, approaching her. Alice was pulled out of her thoughts (though they were not particularly deep) by Amelia's question and looked up, smoothing her blonde locks over her shoulders. How was she feeling? Sad, confused, beaten down. The Order had lost yet another member to the Death Eaters. Soon, there would be none of them left to do the mourning, and all would be lost. They were out-numbered and out-smarted. It was times like this that Alice wondered if there was any point to continuing the fight aside from nursing her own conscience. Physically, she was tired and achy, but it wasn't so bad, and, rather than delve into the myriad troubles on her mind, she answered with them, as was her custom anymore. "Tired and a bit achy, but otherwise doing well. Are you finding living here easier?" she asked. Amelia gave a noncommittal shrug, taking a seat on a stump a few feet away. "I'm not sure it will ever get easier, but at least I've gotten used to it." She glanced at the other woman, her eyes lingering over her stomach. She couldn't imagine being in Alice's position - this would be the last time or place she'd want to carry out a pregnancy, as much as she eventually wished for it. Peace would have to come first. "I wanted to ask you about something, if you have a moment." Alice raised an eyebrow, almost imperceptibly. She was used to being asked questions about various goings-on, but usually they came from the Order, and Amelia was close to Rufus, and presumably, she would ask him about any Gairloch business first. So she was curious as to what Amelia was going to ask, so she said, "Go ahead. I'm not very busy right now." Those words indicated her underlying restlessness. She was used to having something more to do, and on top of the loss of the Ministry and her pregnancy, there was now very little that she could, aside from organise. "I didn't know about the leak in the DMLE," she said, leaning forward and resting her elbows on her knees. "I think most of us assumed that there probably was one, but we didn't really have any definitive evidence. I've been thinking about it a lot - whoever the leak was then could have had something to do with Edgar's --" She shook her head. Even if it had been almost a year, it still wasn't something about which Amelia found herself speaking aloud very often. "Do you think that whoever it might have been could be acting as an informant here?" Ah, yes, the leak. How much, exactly, could Alice say without revealing her position as a vigilante (assuming she didn't already know from Rufus)? She pursed her lips for a moment, contemplating what to say. The idea of the leak was very troubling, very troubling indeed, and though she trusted everyone at Gairloch (well, aside from Pepper), she had her worries that the leak had not gone away, that it had followed them there, even though they presumably would have wanted to stay in the new Ministry, having won. "I hope not," came her reply, Alice's voice slightly on edge. "I like to think that I could trust everyone here, but I thought the same of the Ministry, too." "I'd like to think I could trust everyone here, too," Amelia said. "But unfortunately, I don't. After the attack at the library, it seemed as though they were far too well-prepared. It could be a coincidence, of course. Rufus seems to think that it's because they have people everywhere now who can act whenever they need them to, which is most likely true. But if that's the case, I think it would make sense for them to have some one here as well." "If a person had spent that long working under a cover and gaining peoples' trusts, I doubt that he or she would be relieved of their work when the rest of us left to form a resistance --" Or whatever it was that they were doing here. Guerrilla tactics had never seemed like the most ethical or effective thing, as far as she was concerned. The thought had occurred to Alice as well. There were so few of them left at Gairloch now that the leak's job seemed easy. They all trusted each other and yet they were still being picked off one by one. "I'm sure they want to keep tabs on us in some way," she said, though whether or not that meant that the informant had come with them to Gairloch, she couldn't say. "Unsettling as it is, we can only hope that the Death Eaters were doing patrols that night. I'd prefer that to having an informant here." Amelia nodded. She had considered other, less panicking explanations before, but the soreness from past betrayals weighed too heavily in her mind to set aside her suspicion. It seemed too careless to ignore the possibility simply because she wanted to believe that she could trust everyone. After all, it had been proven to her in the last few weeks that even those she felt she could trust had their own secrets. "I know," she said, hesitant to continue, "that you have been involved with the vigilantes. I don't-- I just want to know if I can trust you. Are we really on the same side?" Alice flinched at the mention of the vigilantes, and then a pang of regret surged through her -- not that she was involved in the Order, but that they had ever been foolish enough to include Pepper. She was tired of having to justify her decisions to others, but Amelia deserved an explanation just as much as anyone else did. "So Rufus told you," she said after a long pause. Alice had to resist the urge to say that of course they were on the same side, but she thought that sounded patronising and simplistic. "We are on the same side. We're working to bring down He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, all of us, aren't we? Fighting Death Eaters. We're all in the same boat now, anyway." She gave a humourless laugh. She wished they weren't. Things had seemed so much better when they had the Ministry. "The vigilantes," she attempted to explain, "Are not against the Ministry, or what we are here, what used to be the Ministry. They are just well-meaning people who are willing to sacrifice their lives because they want to make a difference and not everyone can become an Auror after school." It was going to take some time for Amelia to fully accept that they were, in fact, on the same side now - not that they were ever technically against each other, but ideologically, it was far easier to be against vigilantism and the complications it caused when she wasn't somehow a part of it. She was relieved, anyway, to hear Alice say that they were fighting toward a common end. "I guess you're right," she said. "Can I ask you another question?" This seemed too easy. Most of the former DMLE still distrusted the Order, and she almost couldn't blame them. After all, they had caused the DMLE enough trouble in the past few years, and Alice knew that Amelia had her suspicions... But she had a feeling that the question was leading somewhere, so she said, a bit cautiously, "Of course you can." "I have had some suspicions regarding Pepper for some time now. He hasn't seemed completely trustworthy, in my opinion, in some time, and now that Millicent is gone, I'm worried that there is no one here from whom he will willingly taken orders." Amelia paused, stopping herself from continuing on about it. "Was he involved with the vigilantes as well? Or the Death Eaters, as far as you know? When I suggested the former, he laughed at me. Rather rudely, in fact." It was extremely difficult for Alice not to laugh at Amelia's question about Pepper. Oh, Pepper. She wished she could be finished with him, never see his square-jawed face or hear his name again, but unfortunately, they had both been thrust into Gairloch together, and she would have to continue to deal with him. "Pepper?" she asked. "I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, and since it's all out in the open now, I'll tell you why." How best to explain? The entire story was rather a long one, one that she didn't want to have to relay simply because it was a painstaking one and always left her somewhat irritable. "Pepper expressed a desire to join us after the Prewetts were murdered. He was friends with them." She felt a pang of guilt for outing them, even though they were dead, lest Amelia think less of them. "We allowed it, and it should have, in retrospect, been against his better judgment. He was also investigating us at the time, but we thought, rather foolishly, it would be helpful to have him on our side. When Millicent Bagnold eventually pressed him for information about us, he told her everything that he knew, including the identities of those of us in the DMLE." Bitterness was creeping into her tone, showing Alice's feelings of personal betrayal by Pepper. He had not just sold out the Order, he had sold out her, and that made her even angrier. "Knowing, of course, that the information could cost us our jobs and possibly land us in Azkaban. Pepper, as far as I am concerned, is not trustworthy. Not now, with Millicent dead. He does what best suits him at the time being, with no concern as to how it affects others. He would have run to the Death Eaters if he thought it would spare him and his mentor." It took Amelia several moments to process all that Alice had told her. It was shocking to her that the Prewetts - who she had viewed as family - had been involved in the vigilantes' activities. She had never suspected, nor has she ever suspected Frank and Alice. How many others were there? Had she been interacting with them all this time without even knowing? Part of her felt vindicated by all that Alice had revealed - she had been right not to trust Pepper, clearly. And yet another part of her grew cold with fear. If Pepper had betrayed a group once, it wasn't an unfair assumption that he could very possibly do it again. Most of those at the camp were wanted fugitives as far as the Ministry was concerned - would Pepper turn them in for a reward, even if he had said that he didn't care about money? Would he turn them in as part of a deal, one in which he might benefit in the new regime for turning over their enemies? She was sure of it, now. If he had the chance, he would. There was no way she could trust him. When she spoke again, it was in a whisper, her voice uneven. "That's exactly what I thought - that he just did what benefited him the most at any given time. I think he's just an opportunist." She paused to take a deep breath, willing away any panic she was beginning to feel. "You didn't lose your jobs, though...and what about the rest of them? Did Millicent know about everyone?" "Millicent knew everything," Alice responded with a sigh, and it was true. She had known everything, something that had always made Alice extremely uncomfortable. If she and Frank were to have fallen out of favour... that would be the end. And now this was the same situation with Rufus, though, albeit, Pepper did not have the sway over Rufus that he had over Millicent. "She didn't fire us because, well, we're outnumbered, aren't we? We need as many of us as we can get. Now even more so. Sometimes I wonder if that's why Rufus won't let Pepper go. He's an opportunist and untrustworthy. Merlin only knows what he'd do under torture." "I don't like to consider it," Amelia said, wringing her hands in an attempt to assuage her nerves. "But I think it would be better to have fewer of those we are absolutely sure we can trust than many whose allegiance is questionable. I admit, I have often wondered why Rufus keeps Pepper around. He was the first person I spoke with when I began to suspect that something was amiss. Until now, I thought that he might just think I was being needlessly paranoid. As much as I hate knowing that I'm right in this situation, I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way." Perhaps it was a little bit sick of Alice to feel vindicated by Amelia's agreement that Pepper was not to be trusted, and to be glad that the conversation had turned in a direction so that they were bonding over distrust of him instead of arguing about vigilantes, who was on what side, and other things that were ultimately unhelpful. (Some might argue that suspecting Pepper was not helpful either, but after he had sold her out, he had lost Alice's trust, and the matter was that simple.) "I only hope that a misjudgment where Pepper is concerned won't ruin us all," Alice said simply, with a heavy sigh. She was tired, and beginning to feel cold. She once again found herself longing for the DMLE offices at the Ministry. It seemed like a paradise compared to this. "We have so much to do, and so few of us. We can't afford for anyone else to be killed." "We can't," Amelia agreed. She, too, was beginning to feel colder as the sun dipped below the highest trees. She fell silent in thought for a moment before turning back to Alice. "If I may ask just one more question, and you don't have to answer if you are not comfortable doing so, but are there many of you - the vigilantes - or are they as outnumbered as we are?" "Our numbers are dwindling, too," Alice said, thinking of how many Order members they had lost just since the new year. Dorcas, Dedalus, Meaghan, and now Remus... "It feels as though they're picking us off one by one." She repressed any comments about how hopeless it felt, how it felt as though they would never win, not when they were dropping like flies and more people seemed to be on the side of the Death Eaters every day. "But it won't last long. Their democratic elections and rehabilitation are all a facade, and very soon, it will come to light, and the people will be outraged." And it was true, or, at least, that was what Alice told herself. |