Jennifer Burke (jenniferplease) wrote in breaking_point, @ 2009-09-19 22:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | *complete, 2024 09, dead character: jennifer |
RP: Research and Discovery
Who: Jennifer Burke, mentions of Octavius (Mal) MacGregor
Where: Burke House, East Dulwich
When: September 19, 2024 - late evening
Rating/Warnings: Language
Summary: Following Ronan's advice, Jennifer researches their kind - and makes a decision
Status: Complete
Before Voldemort returning, before the Decrees issued by the Minister, Jennifer had been going over Ronan's advice since the last full moon. His words had run continuously through her head.
There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of what they give us.
Even before the full moon, he had encouraged her to do research on their kind. Something which she hadn't necessary been forbidden to do by her father, but his word had been law in her secluded little world for so long. Even after death, Caractacus Burke's influence on his daughter was great. She had only gone to the Ministry when she had to, in order to settle the affairs of his estate. Yet, most of that had been through the barristers that had his will, and even the transfer of ownership of Borgin & Burkes had been done efficiently and without attending the Ministry herself.
You should speak to people, do your own research. That's what I did.
Jennifer still didn't trust the Werewolf Support Services program at the Ministry, no matter what Ronan told her. She didn't trust them not to try and influence her to register and give over her anonymity within the wizarding world - or at least her status as a werewolf. At least she could hide that as well as she could, for as long as she could. She and her father had done so for fifteen years as it was.
She knew there was a Library at the Ministry, that held the laws to which a witch - or werewolf - like her had to abide. Laws of their world, including what could happen to a person like her. Her father warned her time and time again that the Ministry would try to take away what was rightfully hers should they discover her condition and not be registered. And if she did register, they would target her. The Ministry could not be trusted, even if a Malfoy was in charge. Now, so much was not making sense after meeting Ronan that Jennifer couldn't resist finding things out finally for herself.
The man that answered her owl agreed to meet her at the Library and pull the research that she desired. When she arrived at the Ministry, she wore her customary veil to hide the scars that marred the one side of her face. The man who called himself 'Mal' had looked at her strangely when she walked into the quietest section of the Ministry, the room smelling of old books and parchment. Jennifer was used to that look, but she kept her face partially hidden. She told him that she was a reporter, working on a story about werewolves. The librarian seemed polite enough, though his demeanor she decided was sour.
Finding a secluded corner within the library, Jennifer poured over books of all sizes and ages on laws that governed her kind and magical creatures. She didn't write anything down, just simply read. Perhaps it was for the fact that she wasn't writing that kept bringing Mal over once in a while, asking if she needed anything further - or simply being quiet while he filed books away by hand (which thinking back, Jennifer realized he could have done by magic).
Perhaps if he had known who she was, he would have spared her the knowledge in that library. Spared her the burning, rawness she felt while she was reading - while her whole belief system based on fear was crumbling away with turned pages and black lettering. As it was, Jennifer was just another witch - until during the last of Mal's passes he had found the woman with her face in her hands and her shoulders shaking as she cried.
Jennifer had been startled when she felt the warm hand on her shoulder, gasping loudly and looking up with a tear streamed face. Mal had looked down at her with compassion, as her veil fell away to reveal the scars on her cheek.
'You could have said as much' he had told her gruffly, handing her a handkerchief to wipe her face and blow her nose. He had sat down beside her, folding the open book closed. 'You don't need to hide it. Your condition. It is nothing to be ashamed of."
Jennifer pleaded for him not to send her to the Werewolf Support Services department and her request had been so full of anguish that Mal could only stare at her for several minutes as the witch tried to compose herself. She shook her head, her hair hanging in her face when he asked if she had been registered. Again, when he bluntly asked if she took the potion, at which point he pressed a finger down onto the table in front of her and told her that she 'must', or she put people's lives in danger.
"If I do, they will know how long I have been a werewolf and then there will be questions. Many questions. Questions that do not deserve answering, for simply I have never harmed anyone," Jennifer said to the wizard, her eyes fierce. She was then told that he could help her - that she didn't have to register if she was that worried. That there were ways to get the potion, if she let him.
And for the second time in her life, Jennifer agreed to take a potion that would manage her condition. After the first time, the potion that Ronan had given her after finding her so broken following the last full moon, Jennifer had been half-way there to asking for help. Now, with the help being offered again she was prepared to take it. 'Give me after the weekend' Mal had told her, and he would contact her. She believed him.
The moon was waxing in the night sky as Jennifer was sitting in the study at Burke House. Earlier that day she had bought a bottle of wine - something which she had never had before. Jennifer hadn't even known what to get, and just let the witch behind the counter at the shop select something. The wine was a dark red, almost black as Jennifer drank in front of the fire. She had three glasses already, and though alcohol was new to her system she was not yet drunk. Only angry.
"You lied to me," she told the fire, too angry for tears now. Jennifer imagined her father's face in the flames - the flesh burning from his skull as she glared. "You lied about everything."
Draining the wine left in her glass, she took the bottle and left the study - walking up the creaky old stairs to the upper level of the house. Her bedroom had always been on the main floor - a small room next to the secondary bathroom. Her father had occupied the second level and as it was deemed his 'private space', Jennifer had only gone up there during her housework. After his death, she still had issues with going upstairs - but not tonight.
In his bedroom, still kept clean and just the way that he had left it when he had died years ago, Jennifer stood. She swigged from the bottle of wine, directly from opening to her lips, and wiped the wine that dribbled free off her chin with the back of her hand. Her father's bedroom window faced the back garden and when she tugged up the window the cold, autumn air rushed in - cooling her flushed face. And then she began to pick things up from around the room.
The pillows from his bed - the expensive ones stuffed with goosedown - went out the window first and then the bed linens. The curtains had gotten in the way with those, and Jennifer took those down next with a brutal tugging of her hands on the velvet fabric. She shoved those out the window where they fell onto the grass below. A hairbrush and aftershave; contents spilled out from a bedside table drawer that Jennifer didn't bother to look into. Clothing - jumpers and trousers and socks and suspenders from the dresser, and expensive tweed jackets from the closet. Shoes. Anything her hand touched got tossed out the window, and then the empty wine bottle that crashed on a garden stone.
If Jennifer had been outside of her body, she would have heard the wolfish growls coming from her throat as she tore apart her father's bedroom. Her hair flew around her as she practically ran down the stairs again, and then out to the back garden where the mess lay all around. In a moment of clarity, she had grabbed the matches from the mantle above the fireplace.
"Lies! All lies, you fucking bastard!" Jennifer screamed, not caring who heard her as she piled everything by hand into a heap in the middle of the lawn. She swore and cried out her growing hatred to the man who was supposed to love her and teach her, but instead had punished her for living while her mother had died. And in the end, Jennifer stood in front of the large pile with hands shaking from fury as she tried to light a match. Again. And again. And again.
It was as if her father's spirit refused to let his things be burned in such a despicable manner, and Jennifer took out her wand which she hardly used unless she was cooking. She couldn't even light a candle with her weak magic, but all the angry energy inside of her caused a large fireball to erupt from her wand as she yelled incendio!.
And when everything had been burned to ash hours later, Jennifer curled up on the sofa in the study - and with her anger temporarily extinguished, she slept.