Violet Slughorn (laodicean) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-02-15 23:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | violet slughorn |
WHO: Violet Slughorn & her house elf Spritzy
WHAT: Violet tampers with the Ministry IDs
WHEN: February 7th evening & February 8th during the day
WHERE: Violet’s flat & the Ministry
WARNINGS: None
The system was well and truly broken. It had been dying slowly but surely since August when the Death Eaters took power, and the Ministry had its flaws before that. The night that Gawain Robards died, democracy died with him. While Violet had only said a few words to him - a passing hello in the Ministry halls now and then, and wishing him success in dealing with the sword golems - she respected him immensely for what he tried to do and what he stood for. He ran a respectable campaign for his Wizengamot seat and tried to work within the system to oppose the Death Eaters rather than to resort to vigilantism. He’d been a beacon of hope for people. And he died for it. Fear was a powerful motivator. When even trained Aurors and Hitwizards couldn’t stand up to Death Eaters beyond insulting them on the journals, what hope did other people have? Violet was not strong, nor was she especially brave unless her desire for knowledge overruled her desire for safety. However, Violet was intelligent and subtle. She was also sick of being afraid. The code to tamper with the Ministry’s ability to track purchases was originally thought up for selfish reasons, and abandoned before she worked all the bugs out once Dante agreed to buy morning sickness potion for her. Gawain Robards’ death was exactly the incentive she needed to dive back into that project wholeheartedly. In the past two nights, she’d developed an algorithm using arithmancy that would make the purchase tracking useless because it would replace it all with fake data. The key was slipping it into the MRC office without getting caught. “Spritzy,” she called, “I need your help.” The house elf was at Violet’s side in an instant, sporting one of the tiger print towels she’d given him. “Yes, Miss Vi?” “I need you to visit the Ministry office tomorrow and take Mr. Orvil Scabior’s Ministry ID.” Spritzy gasped, looking deeply concerned. “You is going to get in trouble, Miss Vi!” “You didn’t let me finish,” Violet replied. “I only need it for a little while and then I want you to leave it on the floor of the men’s bathroom closest to the MRC so it will seem like he just dropped it there.” The house tilted his head in clear confusion. “Spritzy can do that, Miss Vi, but what do you need it for?” “As the myth goes, the ten year long Trojan war ended when the Greek soldiers constructed a wooden horse and hid some men inside. The Trojans brought the horse in to be an offering to the goddess Athena, and the Greek soldiers inside slipped out in the night to open the gates for the rest of their comrades, who had only pretended to leave. I wrote an algorithm to stop the Ministry IDs from tracking people’s purchases. Think of Mr. Scabior’s ID as the horse, and my algorithm as those first few soldiers who opened the gate.” --- The following day, Violet ate the lunch Spritzy brought her at her desk and had a stream of cute cat videos on Wiztube playing as she modified Scabior’s ID. When she was done, she passed it to her loyal house elf, along with a couple of notes for friends working in the Ministry. It didn’t take long for him to return. “Spritzy has made the deliveries, Miss Vi. Do you need anything else?” Violet smiled. “Not for now, Spritzy. You did a great job. Thanks for the delicious lunch today. Go home and relax for a few hours.” It was a small thing. It would allow people some privacy in their purchases, nothing more. It was a beginning. Perhaps others would do more, or perhaps she’d have to carefully plan for more modifications in the future, to allow for greater freedom and privacy for everyone. For now, it was the beginning of doing her part to make the world a better place for her child to grow up in. |