InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "orly"

Bellatrix Black (bleedingpure) wrote in lockewood,
@ 2010-09-24 11:25:00

Entry tags:

bellatrix black, gellert grindelwald

Who: Bellatrix Black and Gellert Grindelwald
What: Therapy
Where: Bella’s office
When: Friday morning
Status: Incomplete

This was more than a little ridiculous, the mere notion of therapy. However, after flipping through a few books, just for the sake of indulging Rita’s daft little fantasy, Bellatrix had come of a realisation about therapy: people would come and whine about their troubles, and then await her instructions for how to better themselves. So perhaps Rita wasn’t so addled after all. It would mean knowledge and leverage on every individual in Lockewood. She would know precisely who all she had to contend with, to deal with. It would mean knowing every family, every little weak spot. It would mean safety, for her and for Rodolphus and her family. With so many of their secrets laid bare to public consumption, she’d have been a fool to not note the disadvantage, the need for counterweight.

It had taken four days and every bit of parchment in that awful girl’s house, but she’d developed a cypher that she felt comfortable with, at least for the moment. Sitting in her filing cabinet, locked in the drawer of her desk with a few of the darker wards she knew, was now a file on every single person in Lockewood, each with preliminary notes, things she already knew. The list of Lockewood’s inhabitants had been provided for her, and as she understood it, everyone would eventually have to come see her. Well, either her, or the warden. It made sense then, she supposed, to begin with him.

Gellert Grindelwald. Curious. And fascinating, naturally. Though clearly, the man had his delusions. Bella’s father, apart from the natural condemnation of someone naive enough to think that muggleborns could ever live peaceably in an equal society, had generally approved of the man who’d been put down only a few years before her birth. There were comparisons drawn, of course, between Grindelwald and the Dark Lord. The muggle death toll, of course, was something to be commended.

Bella opened the folder on Gellert, which contained no more than a few coded notes. She always did prefer being prepared, and some information hadn’t been difficult to glean at all. How young he was. That business with the Potter boy. She rather thought that she liked him already.

Psychotherapy.

The attempt by a professional significantly less intelligent than Gellert himself to understand and analyse his mind.

Gellert had been to a psychiatrist four times previously, not counting the evaluations before his memory, when he had been labeled a prodigy. His first real encounter with a therapist had been as a child, when his parents wished to have him examined after he had killed and dissected the family cat and left parts of its corpse on his tutour’s desk. The doctor had diagnosed him with “moral insanity” and cautioned Gellert’s parents to be aware of what would likely be a life-long propensity toward violence and aggression. Two had been at Durmstrang, with the second being ordered by the headmaster to determine if he was sane enough to stand trial. The most recent had been brief, an evaluation of Gellert’s mental faculties as a prerequisite for taking office, should his campaign for election as Chancellor prove successful.

Only the first time, had his examiner ever seen close to the truth of Gellert Grindelwald. All the others had seen was what Gellert allowed them to see; careful constructions of a sane man with typical mental features not counting an extreme intelligence, any irregularities being small ones hardly indicative of extensive pathology.

This would be the same, of course. Gellert had taught himself enough of psychology to compete with even the experts in their own field, and he knew how to manipulate people’s desires. The frustration was simply in the waste of his time.

Gellert knocked on the door to the office of the town ‘therapist’ and took a step back, slipping his hands into his pockets, affecting a casual stance as he waited for her to open the door.

It was then, especially, that Bellatrix missed having an elf. Although it was no inconvenience, really, opening the door herself, she couldn’t help but feel it lacked an air of legitimacy-- not an air legitimacy with regard to this ‘profession,’ there certainly was none. Personal legitimacy. However, to her great dismay, there seemed to be absolutely no elves of any kind in Lockewood.

When she pulled open the door, however, the thought was discarded. Her brow lifted in pleasant surprise. Oh, the majority of the pictures of Gindelwald were from the thirties and forties, but as soon as she saw him, some dim memory, blurry at best, arose-- a picture of him, just as he was before her, behind a podium, before a nearly rabid crowd. It had escaped her, in her musings, just how young he’d been when he was elected. How charming. His overly charitable, sentimental ideologies aside, of course. Heads of State did have to be somewhat indulged.

“Mr. Grindelwald,” she greeted, her chin lifting just a bit. For sake of hospitality, she tacked on, “Guten Tag,” before turning to lead him back into the neatly arranged room. A desk, with its back against the wall, stood before a small seating area furnished with a couch that faced two arm chairs. “Do come in; and thank you so much for taking the time out of your schedule to stop by.”

Not, of course, that he had a choice. And there was something perhaps a bit satisfying in that. Oh, he might be incarcerated at the moment, but he’d once been Chancellor of Magic. And now here he was, obligated to pay her a little visit. Her annoyance with Rita seemed to be waning, a little in spite of herself.

Gellert’s brow twitched upward at the German greeting, though he made no comment on it. So this was Skeeter’s idea of a psychotherapist. Well, she was certainly making good progress; the ingratiating tone, referring to him as Mr. Grindelwald, the correct pronunciation of his surname, even the arrangement of the room were all features he had seen exhibited by the psychiatrists Gellert had seen over the course of his childhood and campaign. She was trying to build rapport. He wondered just how much this Miss Black had read of the psychiatry textbooks in Lockewood’s bookstore. Certainly not enough to rival his own knowledge, accumulated over years rather than days.

“Of course,” Gellert said, stepping into the room. So neither of them were going to acknowledge the element of coercion inherent to this meeting, were they? That was fine with him; perhaps it made Miss Black feel more secure in her position, as if people were lining up outside her door to benefit from her expertise.

Gellert sat down on the sofa, crossing his legs neatly at the knees and locking his fingers together. “So, how have you enjoyed your transition to Lockewood thus far, Miss Black?” he inquired, meeting her gaze with his usually cold eyes set into a warmer, more cordial tone. She was clearly pureblood; he could tell as much by the way she bore herself, and the precise order to her workspace and her dress. Perhaps there was even more to her interaction with him than mere rapport; it could be that she or her predecessors had supported his cause. She could be an invaluable source of information.

Civility, Bella had come to realise, was a rare commodity in Lockewood-- though from a politician, she didn’t truly find it surprising. And while she may have derived inspiration for the design of her office from a few photographs, Bella’s appreciation for the implementation of therapy could have been somewhat charitably regarded as vague. The tenets she understood readily enough as she read them, but that did little to inform therapeutic practice. To her, it mostly just seemed like having a conversation, which were by their very nature, two sided.

“Very little,” she said, letting her annoyance shine through. “It seems as though most of the people here are absolutely ridiculous, and the ‘future’ they all talk about-- were not for a few choice comforts, I’d have no doubt done something quite... regrettable.”

And the idea of that had a slight curl teasing at her mouth. As much as she loathed the sense of exposure, the degree of awareness and certainty so many people seemed to have about her life, who she was, and what she was capable of, it did afford a bit of leeway with regard to candor. Around someone like Gellert Grindelwald, she didn’t feel the need for much obfuscation. They might have ideological disagreements, but plenty of people regarded the Dark Lord as Grindelwald’s more sinister successor. Keeping company with the one surely qualified her to entertain the other.

“And you?” she returned. “I understand you’ve been here for some time.” Truth be told, she couldn’t help wondering if she ought to be surprised that Lockewood wasn’t under his thumb already, given his penchant for legitimised mechanics of control.