WHO: Donnie Abercrombie & Aidan O'Shea. WHEN: 2005, 2013, today, 23 August. SUMMARY: Donnie and Aidan through the ages. WARNINGS: Language?
2005.
Donnie peered closely at the notebook computer sitting on the floor between them. It looked normal enough, but then again, lots of things with the word "dark" attached to them looked normal enough. This was the best one I could get for the price, he'd repeatedly disclaimed earlier - just in case, you know, the whole experiment failed.
"I replaced every other word in Galvin's Charms essay with 'fuck' and he just noticed, so he'll be gone at least an hour, and Tav's doing some Quidditch thing, so…" Donnie waggled his eyebrows, and pressed the power button. "If BludgerBot1216 didn't fuck us over, this should take us straight to the Dark Winternet." Here, he paused for dramatic effect. This was a very serious moment, and he wanted to give it the respect it deserved.
Aidan paused his not at all anxious panicking around the dorm to glance over at the notebook, half-expecting it to start emitting jets of malicious red light. But he felt a flicker of excitement as he watched it boot up — a flicker that was almost enough to stamp out his trepidation. Still, his Prefect badge felt heavy on his chest as he glanced back toward the door, half-expecting Minerva McGonagall to materialize at any moment, armed with a Disappointed Look and a round of detentions.
This would probably be fine.
But Aidan couldn’t help himself: “You know we shouldn’t be doing this,” he cautioned as strode back toward Donnie, flopping down beside the other boy on his bed. “What’s even on the Dark Winternet?”
"Yeah, that's the point," Donnie said, rolling his eyes. "You only feel guilty cos you're wearing that badge, which totally proves my point that the whole Prefect thing is a farce." He turned back to the notebook, watching as it whirred to life. The desktop was blank, save for an icon of a chocolate frog in the top right corner.
He reached around Aidan to grab a piece of paper from his nightstand. "I dunno actually, but I've got a list of websites we're supposed to look at. I heard you can hire an assassin to kill someone with Unforgivables!" He paused. "We're not going to do that, obviously."
Mild horror passed over Aidan’s face at the thought of it, blue eyes wide before he shook his head furiously. “Don’t even joke about something like that.” A beat. “Well, maybe one of the Slytherins… no, that was a joke,” he added. Just in case the Dark Winternet would take his joke as any other than a joke and direct them right to Wizard Mafia hitmen.
He inched closer to Donnie, tilting forward to get a good look at the scrap of paper clutched in his hand. “Drugs? We shouldn’t look at anything with drugs.” Aidan glanced up at Donnie, biting his lip. “But aside from that, I’ll defer to your expertise.”
"The term 'drugs' is very arbitrary, you know. Did you ever think about that? Old wizards used to put dragon's horn in everything! Besides if I wanted to buy drugs I'd just do it behind that big -- " Donnie stopped, remembering in an instant the Prefect's badge that his friend wore. That thing really was always getting in the way of their adventures. Aidan cocked an eyebrow. "Never mind!"
He turned back to the computer screen, and clicked the chocolate frog. The screen popped open and there it was...the whole of the Winternet's seedy underbelly, right there in front of them.
* * * *
2013.
"No, and I mean it this time. We can't hack into the Wizengamot website," Aidan said hotly. He had invited Donnie over for a calm, civilized discussion why Lizard Brain absolutely could not hack into the Wizengamot website. He'd prepared a series of well thought out bullet points in his head, some of which had been scrawled onto the piece of parchment balled up in his hand.
The calm, civilized discussion had quickly devolved into an argument. Donnie Abercrombie didn't do calm.
"I won't be a part of it," he continued. Aidan stopped his furious pacing around his very cramped studio apartment to glare at Donnie, though the glare held no real spite to it.
"That is cowardice," Donnie spat back, arms crossed over his chest. He was leaning against a wall, though moments before he'd been pacing just as furiously. "The Ministry is at least four years behind in everything as it is. Their tech is so outdated, we'd be in and out in minutes! What, you're going to be happy hacking into people's Hooters until we die? We finally have a chance to do something!" He uncrossed his arms and reached into his pocket, producing his phone.
"Besides," he began as he scrolled through the phone, looking for something, "I've already started."
Aidan stared at Donnie as his words crashed down upon him, his shock apparent. But why was he shocked? This was classic Donnie.
“What?” he shouted in disbelief, gesticulating wildly. “My mother works for the Wizengamot. I don’t disagree with you about the Ministry, I don’t.” He shook his head ‘no’, to emphasize this point. “But some things have to be off limits! Maybe if we’d set up some sort of guidelines at the start of all this, this wouldn’t be happening.”
Donnie rolled his eyes. "Do you think Edward Snowden had guidelines? We have to do this. Look!" He held out the phone to Aidan, where he'd pulled up a list of Wizengamot administrative staffers' Gringotts account information. "One of the cursebreakers owed me a favor," he said by way of explanation. "So we've already got the blackmail bit covered. Distract them with threats to their precious Galleons and we'll have access to the site in seconds!"
A heavy silence settled between them as Aidan’s eyes scanned the screen. For one brief moment, his curiosity got the better of him, and he reached out to take the phone from Donnie’s hand. It was a good idea — it was a brilliant idea. He personally knew enough incriminating enough information about other Wizengamot judges to—
The thought elbowed something aside in Aidan’s mind. He took a deep breath and squared his jaw. “This is a terrible idea, Donald,” he said, in his Head Boy voice. “Not with the Wizengamot.” Not with my mother in the Wizengamot went unsaid.
He handed the phone back to Donnie and folded his arms across his chest.
Donnie recognized that tone of voice. He snatched the phone back and shoved it into his pocket, scowling. "Don't call me Donald!" he said hotly. "If you don't want to do it, fine. I'll, I'll...I'll find someone else! One of the programmers I worked with at Hooter, he'd do it, he wouldn't back out because he was afraid." He took a moment to briefly consider what he was about to say next, then zoomed right past any doubts he might have had.
"And I'm thinking maybe we shouldn't do this anymore. Maybe you shouldn't do this anymore."
The most surprising thing about Donnie’s declaration was how unsurprised Aidan found himself by it. It was the inevitable conclusion to his involvement with Lizard Brain, something that was always too Donnie for him to properly mesh with.
But it stung. And like any normal young man who found himself stung by a friend, Aidan decided to sting back. “Oh yeah? Well, I invited you over here today to tell you I’ve accepted a job with WizVis.” An awful smile crawled across his face. “So, I quit.”
I've accepted a job with WizVis. The words certainly stung, especially so soon after Donnie had been unceremoniously booted out of the Hooter offices. "Well, fuck you, then! Enjoy your long, stable career sucking on corporate cocks. You know boards run every 'creative' organisation out there, right? Good luck getting anything progressive done!" He made a dramatic show of pulling his phone back out and deleting Aidan's number, then flipped the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and turned towards the door.
"I'm revoking your access to all the Lizard Brain stuff as soon as I get home. You'd better not change your mind!"
“I won’t,” Aidan hurled back, “because I don’t think hacking into people’s financial information makes me progressive like a complete bastard.”
* * * *
23 AUGUST, 2016.
The bar was a dark hole off of a twisting back alley, the sort of place Aidan would never frequent without a good reason. The stench of stale ale and cigarette smoke hung in the air, clinging to the shabby old furniture and shabby old patrons. It didn’t take long for his eyes to lock onto to Donnie in a booth in the back corner, decked out in all black like he was in Mission: Impossible. Aidan briskly strode toward Donnie without making eye contact with anyone else, as he was convinced everyone here could detect his fear.
He cast a skeptical glance over at the bar as he slid into the booth, which was sticky. He didn’t want to know why.
“Have you brought me here to be killed?” Aidan asked, very seriously. “Dying in England is really low on my to-do list.”
"Yes, Aidan, I've finally decided to have you killed," Donnie said, rolling his eyes. "Don't be stupid. This is one of the safest places in London! The walls are so thick there's practically no mobile service." He clasped his hands together in front of him, finding it difficult to contain his excitement. He hadn't really been sure that Aidan was going to show up, and now he was thrilled. After years of hoping that Aidan would give up on his entirely respectable dreams, it was almost like they were on the same team again.
"You wanted to know what organisation I'm working for. I brought you here to tell you." He leaned forward conspiratorially, his voice dropping to a whisper. "Have you heard of the Fellowship of the Occamy?"
Aidan leaned forward, taking a moment to process Donnie’s words. He kept his expression impassive as he shook his head, and his voice also fell to a hush as he replied, “I’ve never heard of it in my life.”
Donnie loved knowing things that other people knew. He was, however, a bit perturbed because it meant that none of those Phoenix Phuckers or whatever that forum was called had posted about it, and no one had been paying attention to his Hoots. He'd have to fix that later.
"The Order isn't working fast enough. We're small, but I think that means we can really get things done." He paused here for dramatic effect. "We even have a spy in the Minister's Office."
There was a thoughtful pause. (During that pause, a man at the bar yelled “Fuck your stale chippies” so loudly Aidan almost started.)
A small part of Aidan wanted to defend the Order — an even smaller part of him was considering taking proper offense on their behalf. But the revelation that Donnie’s vigilante group had a spy in the Minister’s Office was too grand to ignore, so he straightened up and pulled out his phone. He drafted up an encrypted email to himself entitled FOTO and began to type up a couple notes.
“What sort of spy?” he asked, without looking up at Donnie. “Please tell me it’s not the person who delivers Barty Crouch’s takeaway.”
"Of course it's not," Donnie retorted immediately, even as he made a mental note to ask whether or not Bertha delivered Crouch's takeaway. He didn't think that she did. "They've got a direct line into the actual office. We've got access to encrypted radio networks. And with you at WizVis, wow! And we've already got one m -- " He was going to say we've already got one murder attempt under our belt, but realized that diving immediately into systematically offing every Death Eater probably wasn't the best move. "M...my favorite of your siblings on board." He'd let Aidan guess as to which one was the favorite that week.
Donnie sat back in the booth, smiling. He was absolutely certain that 'Minister's Office Spy' was too tempting. And if Aidan knew that it was going to be a family affair…"You can avenge your mother's death. So that at least someone's fucking murder gets avenged."
“What?” Aidan snapped, brow furrowing. “Ronan wouldn’t join a vigilante group, he’d not… ” He trailed off as his train of thought veered violently off course. The last month had sent all of his siblings spiraling in drastic directions. If he was willing to join the Order, maybe Ronan would join some off-brand version. Writers could be so contrary.
“All right, maybe he would,” he admitted, with a look that contained all the spirit of rolling his eyes except for the action itself. But Aidan’s expression sobered as he continued, “It’s not that the idea isn’t appealing. I’m very much on board for avenging her death.” His mouth thinned. “I just need a couple days to think it over, alright?”
Donnie wondered whether he should withhold the information that no, it wasn't Ronan. But this was a delicate situation, one that required as few pranks as possible.
"Merlin, I wish. What a cute vigilante he'd make. I can be persuasive…" He let his voice trail off as he pretended to think deeply about the matter. "I bet he's very flexible." He gave Aidan an exaggerated wink, laughing when he saw the expression on the other man's face. "Anyway, in all seriousness, it's Siobhan. See, she's sensible, and now look! I'll give you three days." He held up three fingers, for emphasis.
"And if you say no I'll have to Obliviate you. You understand, right?"
Aidan looked at him for a long while, eyes narrowed. Siobhan. Before the gala, it would have been the most ludicrous suggestion. Now, though...
“You’re not getting your wand anywhere my brain,” Aidan said at last, though he did nod in understanding. Then, after another surveying look at their surroundings, he jerked his head toward the door. “Now, can we go to a real bar and get a pint?” He smiled. “I’ll tell you what I have planned for tomorrow.”