your disobedient servant, fabian prewett (disobedient) wrote in raveled, @ 2017-08-21 12:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! decade: 1970s, fabian prewett, lucretia black prewett |
WHO: Lucretia Black Prewett and Fabian Prewett
WHAT: Politics and paperwork
WHEN: 1979, following on their last visit
WHERE: Prewett House
WARNINGS: Subversion and frank talk?
It took Fabian a couple of days to hit on the right note for the thank-you for the sake, which he ultimately decided was no acknowledgement at all of the idea that his aunt had been drunk (and in her own opinion clearly maudlin, though Fabian's experience with grief was such that he hadn't found Lucretia to be so). The note ended with an offer to help her order and put away more of the papers, given that he had a proper grasp on the filing system her brother had used. The fact that the papers themselves were professionally fascinating to a solicitor was something Fabian glossed on the grounds that Lucretia was not ignorant or stupid enough to miss it. That there was as much to be gleaned from her own reminiscences of the youth of the Blacks also went without saying. Fabian had chosen to keep his own politics and his change of heart opaque for obvious reasons; now that he was actually a vigilante, doubly so. But even if there had been no opportunity to learn potentially useful information about Orion Black's youthful dealings and the circles they'd been moving in--chances to identify Death Eaters through connections they weren't otherwise aware of--Fabian would have been fascinated to hear Lucretia's stories. They were a view on a world that was rapidly vanishing. Even if You Know Who won, Fabian was well aware that the world the Death Eaters were making would look nothing like the world that had existed before them. Not that Fabian thought they were trying to rebuild some mythical golden age. Their golden age would involve them being on top, and with You Know Who over them, Fabian suspected their triumph would be far less than they imagined. He wondered whether Lucretia thought and felt the same. It was a pleasant surprise when the return owl invited Fabian for tea. He shifted his schedule, a perk of legal work, and presented himself at Prewett House at the appointed hour, dressed in sober clothes, but not excessively so. There was the hint of luxury in his brocaded waistcoat, even if it was subdued, not shiny, and he'd gone back to his favourite cufflinks with the serpents. Fabian is what he is and they might as well all know it, except for the parts he's lying about between the lines. *** The house elf showed Fabian through to the garden terrace (which was as close as Lucretia was allowed to get to the plants on account of her remarkable ability to kill them), where his aunt was holding a delicate cup of proper English tea in one hand, that day’s edition of the Daily Prophet in the other hand, and a derisive look on her face. Honestly. She couldn’t decide what was worse: The editorializing or the bad reporting. Why she even bothered, she didn’t know. After the elf cleared its throat, Lucretia set the paper on the table and looked up, her grey eyes meeting her nephew’s, “Hello, Fabian.” She greeted him, “I believe I remember how you take your tea.” Of course she did. In contrast to her nephew, Lucretia was dressed rather casually, though that was symbolic in and of itself. She’d demonstrated over the years that she was well aware of the rules, and now Lucretia was demonstrating she was in a position where she didn’t need to impress anyone. “Most of my brother’s things are in the fourth bedroom.” Lucretia mentioned, “We had to move them after your uncle tripped and was almost turned into a newt.” She’d forgotten about that one. Well, nothing that could be helped, really. But unlike her cousin, Lucretia preferred her husband in human form, thank you. “How are you and Gideon? Have there been any interesting developments in your lives?” She asked, not expecting a real answer. Nobody told their older relatives the truth. But as lying was a life skill, it never hurt to give them a chance to practice. *** Fabian's feeling about lying was that the best lies carried a strong admixture of the truth. Since he carried the weight of so many lies due to his work with the Order, he told the truth where he could. It make keeping his stories straight so much simpler. "Nothing worth talking about really. Of course you're aware of the Parkinson wedding this weekend, even if you've got an excuse not to go. I don't, so I'm off to do a round of dancing and being eyed up by eligible girls and their mums who will be dreadfully disappointed when they realise I'm not Gideon--who is, and don't tell Mum, please, almost certainly trying to get out of going because he's less fond of them than I am." He politely refrained from pointing out that Lucretia's excuse, and Ignatius', spared them the looks that amounted to an early fitting of their coffins by the same girls and mothers. They both knew it, so why belabour the unpleasant facts of life? "Has the evening edition of the Daily Fishwrap been particularly ridiculous? I read the morning edition so I missed any new statements from the Bagnold Ministry." *** “I can imagine,” Lucretia said, taking another drink of her tea, “When we were younger, we used to joke that the boys just ought to wear their prospective inheritance on a sign around their necks, and the girls should just go nude.” It would have made everything more honest. Lucretia paused, “Don’t tell your parents I said that either.” “I think Cygnus and Druella were the only ones that liked the whole thing.” She mused. The fact that so many of her relatives were gone just made her think of them more. Their lives, and whether or not the choices that had been made were good ones, were a frequent topic of thought for Lucretia recently, “Orion hated people.” She said, knowing that almost everyone knew that already, “Alphard liked the wine and nothing else, and Walburga and I detested being treated like we had nothing between our ears.” She shook her head, ridding herself of the memories, “My apologies. I sound like an old woman. ‘Back in my day…’” Lucretia smiled, “Well, I hope the two of you do something enjoyable this week as well.” The woman snorted at the paper on the table, “Oh, the usual rubbish. Stay the course, heads in the sand, Crouch trying to sound intimidating. Maybe if they put more time and energy into intelligence gathering and less into signalling how virtuous they are, they’d be getting somewhere. They couldn’t find a broom in a broom closet with an Accio spell.” *** Fabian could hardly disagree with that last, so he nodded. It was a good subject and Lucretia had indicated it was time to change. The only problem with setting Fabian off on his list of grievances against the Aurors, or at least the senior management of the Aurors, was that they might be there all night. Instead, he took a slightly different tack. "Rumour has it that there's agitation in the Wizengamot--agitation Crouch is listening to--to give the Aurors the right to use Unforgivables." Really, he had no idea what Lucretia thought about that, but she ought to have an opinion one way or another. One of the many stories about the Blacks of her generation was that they'd all been raised with Dark Arts in their mothers' milk. Fabian had no idea whether it was true, wild stories from Sirius notwithstanding, and anyroad, Lucretia was hardly Walburga. There were limits past which even Fabian could not push himself, and Walburga Black was one of them. *** “Oh, Merlin, that’s a horrible idea,” Lucretia said, rolling her eyes, “For a whole host of reasons. Of course, anyone who brings them up will end up under suspicion.” Since understanding why it was such a bad idea required some understanding of the Dark Arts to begin with. She set down the tea cup with a deceptively delicate clink and an annoyed look on her face. “In theory,” The woman added the words though they both knew she was speaking from experience, “The reasons the Dark Arts are so dangerous is because of what they can do to the caster, not the victims. Take the Killing Curse, for example,” Lucretia’s voice slipped into the tone she used in her history speeches, “There are numerous ways to kill someone with magic, and they end up just as dead. The Killing Curse is a problem not just because you have to mean it, as the government says. That is true, of course, but casting it also feels very, very good. So the desire to kill, hurt, or control others is married with a positive result.” “Combining that feedback cycle with the Aurors’ self-righteousness, the lack of oversight, and their lack of education into the Dark Arts is ripe for abuse.” She finally picked up the tea cup again with a sigh, “And nevermind that history teaches governments rarely relinquish powers willingly. If they do win, who’s to say they will step back?” Which was why she was so anti-authoritarian, “An Auror force with carte blanche to use the Imperius Curse and a population which mostly cannot defend against it should be of concern to anyone with half a brain. Which sadly doesn’t include most of the Wizengamot.” *** Fabian had been aware of the first of Lucretia's two reasons; it was something he'd learned in Auror training. But the second he hadn't known, and it troubled him deeply. Less for himself, because he had no intention of going any darker than he already had, which wasn't much as these things go, than for people he'd known and liked and even admired whom he suspected were now Death Eaters. No wonder they went deeper and deeper and didn't want to stop if that were true. "And if the other side wins, which isn't out of the question, they'll certainly never hand that power back. As things stand, they'll corrupt the inner workings of the Auror office and just make it easier for the Death Eaters. Well done, Crouch." Fabian rolled his own eyes at that. "Especially since, depending on how you count things, anyone who duels is dabbling in Dark arts. I'd never considered it but there's a rush you get when you duel, if you like that kind of thing. I suppose that's the taste that hooks you if you're interested in going further in Dark magic." *** “If the Death Eaters win, Wizarding Britain will fall apart.” Lucretia said bluntly, “It will go from hunting Muggles and Muggleborns to Halfbloods and then the ‘wrong’ kinds of Purists and so-on. After indulging themselves for so long, they’re not going to exercise self-control for something as petty as national stability.” Lucretia was many things, but she wasn’t ignorant of history or foolish enough not to realize that once a group was given power, they’d turn on former allies to keep it. “Oh, but the official line is that there is no conceivable way that the Auror office could be compromised. Certainly infiltrating enemy forces hasn’t been a tactic for thousands of years or anything.” Lucretia said drily, but then she nodded. “There are similarities, yes.” She agreed, “Any sort of power can cause that reaction. The Dark Arts are insidious because the ones you like the most are, like other magic, the ones that speak to you. You want to listen. I’ve heard,” Lucretia started the sentence with another hedge that wasn’t a hedge, “That those gifted with curses akin to the Imperius will always look at situations that go poorly and think ‘I could fix this’. Or ‘just a small change and they’d all get along’.” Of course she’d considered it over the years. How couldn’t she? “With Aurors, the dangers will likely be more of the ‘they deserved to die’ sort of justification, or ‘justice is showing them what they did’ sort.” Lucretia sighed, “And in certain cases that might be true. But it does tend to erase any nuance, which is not good in terms of the nation’s ability to go forward.” *** "Crouch wouldn't know nuance if it bit him in the--" Fabian thought better of the company he was in and finished "--ear. I spent three years with the Aurors and I've seen what they're like. It's a spread, just as it is with any other group. Some are good, some are indifferent, some are terrible in exactly the way you say. Crouch is elevating the third group--the "you deserved to die" group--because they come closer to achieving his goals, which are to mostly to make himself Minister on the back of this war." He was outright scowling now; his opinion of Crouch was well known inside the Order but not so much outside it, and this might be the first that Lucretia had heard of it. That he'd left the Aurors after the incident was known, but why had never been clear outside his immediate family; Crouch hadn't been all of it but he had been a large part of it. *** Ear. Yes. Of course. Lucretia smiled slightly. “I believe you. He hasn’t exactly been subtle about his desire to become Minister. Something which, in my opinion, would be a disaster for this country. He wants power, he wants to be correct, he doesn’t want to actually govern.” Merlin forbid they expect their government to govern. Apparently that was asking too much, “Frankly if Charis had taught him anything he’d probably be a Dark Wizard himself.” And have jumped off the slippery slope a long time ago and gotten himself killed or imprisoned. Therefore rendering this a non-issue. Oh well. “I wouldn’t be half surprised if he tries to charge me with something. He doesn’t like my paying the fines and bails of people he’s unjustly had arrested for some reason.” Her mouth twitched into a smile as she took a sip of tea, “I never knew that advocating for freedom of the press made one a Death Eater, but I do hope I get one of those fancy masks in the post.” *** "Rumour has it you're not allowed to say no, so maybe not." Fabian, unlike Lucretia, was a prime recruit for the cause. While he was personally certain from his Order involvement that the Death Eaters, like the Order, took women into their ranks, Lucretia didn't seem the sort. In fact, if her recent behaviour was any gauge, she'd probably enrage the Death Eaters and end up as much a target for them as Crouch himself. "I hadn't heard you were paying fines, though. My opinion doesn't count for much, but I'm glad someone is doing it. Crouch needs a lead if not a muzzle on him or he'll end as much of a tyrant as You-Know-Who." A restless urge was on Fabian and he forced himself to stand still; sons of the Sacred Twenty-Eight did not pace in front of their elderly relatives. *** “Yes, that’s very true.” Lucretia sighed, a regretful sound. But what could any of them have done about Regulus? He kept his own council so much… she shook her head slightly and gestured for Fabian to sit, “Sit down, please.” She needed to keep her attention on the nephew present, not lose herself in the numerous ‘what ifs’ lurking in the back of the mind. “But imagine if they could say no. It would do rather a lot of damage to the Dark Lord’s reputation if people thought they could walk away.” Which was likely one reason they were recruiting children, which Lucretia thoroughly disapproved of, “Ironically, the Ministry’s inflexibility is just helping the Death Eaters on that front. If people are recruited and too scared to say no and too scared to ask for help, well…” She trailed off. Fabian would understand what she was saying. The recruited would have no choice but to follow the Dark Lord. She smiled slightly over the edge of her tea cup, “Well, I’m not doing it for attention, but I’m glad you approve. And I agree with you. Frankly, I don’t see much difference between Avada Kedavraing dissidents and sucking out their souls with Dementors in Azkaban. When I was younger, one of my pet conspiracy theories was that the Dark Arts were outlawed because if the people knew what power could do to people, they’d be a lot more attentive to the signs of corruption in their government.” Lucretia shook her head slightly, lost in thought. “And pulling back whomever wins is going to be difficult since the sides are becoming so entrenched. It will be ripe for witch hunts, if you’ll forgive the phrasing, in order to consolidate power.” *** Fabian took the seat opposite Lucretia as he was told to, and found himself nodding along with her conclusions with a surprising amount of agreement. "The stalemate is bad but the victory conditions for either side will be worse. When Crouch wins, and let's say when because the alternative isn't conducive to good digestion, as you say, he's going to go after anyone he thinks was a Death Eater supporter. By which he means anyone who's not falling into line behind him. It's not just that he'll send them to Azkaban. It's that he won't stop long after the last of the actual Death Eaters and their actual supporters are imprisoned or dead. And the odds of the Wizengamot keeping him in line are close to nil. "They're using each other as bogeys to keep their own people in line and to rake in any waverers. Each has their own stick, as it were, but the real stick is what the other side will do to you. Add Dark magic and we're looking at a bloodbath," Fabian finished, feeling thoroughly depressed at the conclusion he'd arrived at. Not that he hadn't already considered this, that it wasn't part of why he was a vigilante, but to hear his aunt's observations marching so close to his own was disturbing. *** “Indeed,” Lucretia agreed, pleased to see that Fabian, at least, could follow her line of thinking without degenerating into name calling or other fallacies. A distressing amount of people in Wizarding Britain appeared to believe there was no nuance to the current situation at all. Lucretia disapproved of Muggles, and was concerned about their influence on wizarding culture. However, causing such a ruckus that they were likely to be noticed by Muggle society, which would in turn make their little squabble into an international incident wasn’t what Lucretia had in mind when she said it needed discussing. “I asked your uncle to relocate given that my views and lack of obsequience are rather unpopular in all corners.” She would be rather upset if somebody harmed Ignatius, “However, he refused to do so.” Ignatius wasn’t half as obstinate as Lucretia’s birth family, but when he’d decided on something, swaying him was impossible. So she’d learned to stop trying. “And it isn’t only the bloodbath that concerns me,” the woman said, returning to Fabian’s words with a worried look on her face, “There’s been at least some discussion on the use of the Killing Curse, but consider what Crouch and the Ministry would do with free license to use the Imperius.” “Anyone who they’d want to confess to a crime, they could make confess. And who would come to the aid of admitted Death Eaters?” She pointed out, “Not to mention any effective resistance would be taken as evidence of practicing the Dark Arts, which is still a crime for those of us not in the DMLE.” Lucretia shook her head, “It would make our entire sense of justice into an authoritarian farce.” *** Fabian started to say that there were ways to resist that involved legal means like training in occlumency, but Lucretia was right: that wouldn't matter. Resistance might happen, but it would be futile. And the Order, which was its own form of resistance, was going to get plowed right under with the Death Eaters. He didn't like to think there was someone who'd give them up, but Fabian was practical: under prolonged torture, almost everyone would break. Not "anyone", everyone, including himself and Gideon. A wry smile touched Fabian's lips but didn't make it all the way to his eyes. "I'm not foolish enough to buy all that rot about the independent spirit of the proper British wizard. And assuming that departure is impossible--" it wasn't, not for him, not with a career in international contractual binding, and for a healer of Gideon's calibre, it wouldn't be either "--what do you think is the proper course of action? Because I don't see an obvious way out of the dilemma either." *** “Departure isn’t impossible, strictly speaking…” Lucretia answered, trailing off, “Rather your uncle won’t hear of it.” There weren’t very many ways that Lucretia Prewett betrayed her emotions, but the fond smile that touched her lips and eyes when she mentioned her husband was one of them. If Ignatius wouldn’t leave, she wouldn’t either. But there was the rest of her nephew’s question. What would she do? There were a lot of things she could do, and anytime she dipped her own toes into Dark Magic, her own mind would remind her of them. And it always sounded rather sensible until she remembered that it had an unfortunate tendency to lead to lunacy and unproductive destruction. Still, as a theoretical exercise, there was no harm in answering. “Well, it seems that way if you look at all the players ideologically, since they’re opposed,” She said, “But if you discard that, and I would, since nobody’s going to change their minds on their ideology at this point, then you would need to look at what each group needs to continue and which of those needs are weakest.” “In terms of the Ministry, and the DMLE, if they win they will be the most prominent arm of the government, and governments are limited by the fact that they need to collect revenue from their citizens. To do what he would want to, Mr. Crouch would need to devote rather a lot of the Ministry’s resources to the DMLE, which leaves other departments in a weaker position. And opportunities for that lack to be supplanted with private funding.” She smiled slightly, “So focus on matters like food importation and the keeping of the Statue. Common sense things that have value to everyone. Then use that as leverage.” “So I suppose, right now, I would focus on supplying things the Ministry is neglecting to gain support and eventual leverage from the non-affiliated majority, and work on finding the weak points of and exploiting the social network of the Death Eaters. There are always fractures.” Lucretia took a sip of tea, “Disagreements. Get them fighting each other.” “In addition, I’ve always found it interesting that the Dark Lord goes by a pseudonym.” Lucretia tilted her head, “He needs his followers. Now, Pureblood society cares rather much about who people are, so if he hides himself, there’d be a reason, wouldn’t you think? So I’d also work on figuring out what that reasoning is, and slowly poaching Death Eaters away. Do it on enough fronts, and it would work: Even if He’s adept at mind magic, there’s only 24 hours in a day, only so many minds you CAN read.” She stopped speaking and set the teacup down, “But I’m far from in control of Wizarding Britain.” *** "I daresay things would be going rather differently if you were." Fabian managed to keep his rebellious eyebrows, one of which was threatening to rise toward his hairline, under control. "I have to admit your line of thinking is kinder than mine, and more useful in the present moment. "One of the items on my list is determining how to best discredit Crouch. If he wins, or claims credit for a victory that isn't his, he can't be allowed to ascend to the Minister's office. The fact that he is an actual threat to people with money and power--" like you, Fabian did not say "--helps, but isn't sufficient on its own. He has to be publicly disgraced. It's not out of the question he'll do it to himself, but that's not something one could count on. "It would help if whatever he's smeared for is actually something he did," Fabian added, bringing that train of thought into its terminal station, "but of course that's not absolutely necessary." *** “For a while,” Lucretia agreed, “Then I imagine that I would be as swayed by power as anyone else, though the more time I’ve spent around those who have it, the less I think it’s worth the trouble.” Her brother had only grown progressively more miserable throughout his life, for example. “Discrediting Crouch could work, but only if it was a particular kind of scandal,” The woman said, picking up her nephew’s thoughts and continuing them. It was always nice to see the children had learned something. It made you feel a bit less like you were always beating your head against a wall, “It would need to be directly tied to his methods and prove them ineffective. Discrediting the Dark Lord would be more successful because he’s recruiting on the strength of his personal charisma. Nobody is blindly obedient to and obsessed with Bartemius Crouch,” She snorted slightly in a most unladylike fashion at the idea, “Rather, he’s amassing support using people’s need for safety. In these times, few are going to give up that need, hence why I thought of gaining control of resources for even more vital needs, such as our secrecy or food.” Lucretia tilted her head back and closed her grey eyes, thinking. “In theory,” She said without looking down, “Such a discrediting would be possible given some abilities that I’ve heard exist.” Anybody with half a mind would know that the hedges she used were such, but given the current climate, it was always best to never directly admit certain things. *** "No point in putting all your eggs in one basket," Fabian said by way of agreement with Lucretia's criticism of close focus. He had, after all, said it was one of the items on his list, which was broader than the Order's list, even if they overlapped quite a bit. But Lucretia's last caught his attention. "Do you think so?" he asked after a moment, because if she really was intimating that old man Crouch dabbled in the Dark Arts--that was interesting. And certainly put the push to legalise Unforgivables in a different light. Even if it wasn't true, it was a valuable rumour to start early, in case the Order, or whoever was left when the dust settled, ended up in a facedown with Crouch. *** She nodded in agreement. It was always wise to have a backup plan. Several if you could. Lucretia smiled slightly at her nephew’s question. One of the benefits to her situation was the sheer amount of context she had regarding the lives of almost everybody in Wizarding Britain (except for Muggleborns, and she would freely admit their lack of social context was one reason they disquieted her so much). For instance, she knew enough to know Charis wasn’t half the wilting violet she sometimes pretended to be. “Yes,” Lucretia answered, though she followed it up with a raised eyebrow, “But I don’t think you should think on it too much. I really would prefer if you just stayed away from all this.” Unlike Regulus. “I have a closet solely for my mourning robes, and I don’t want to add to it.” *** Too late, Fabian did not say. He settled instead on, "It's hard for me not to think about it, given how close I came to a career with the Aurors, and the politics that necessarily follow on from that. I can't expect to plant myself in the Wizengamot the way I might have done if I'd ascended through the ranks of the Ministry, but a gentleman still has a duty to wizardkind." Which, curiously, wasn't even a lie; Fabian did feel that responsibility keenly, even if nobody but Gideon and maybe Molly believed it was so. *** Lucretia smiled slightly at her nephew, “If more people remembered that, I doubt we would be in this situation.” Everybody was running around and acting as though only their personal desires mattered, and while Lucretia thought that people’s desires should be considered, they were hardly the only thing that needed to be considered. There was also what was best for society as a whole, “So I will amend my wishes to you exercising cautious judgement in matters that would require your uncle and I to attend your funeral.” She paused. “Or to your being incarcerated.” Since they had been discussing Mr. Crouch, after all. She doubted her words would change his actions one way or another, nobody listened to their elders, but it did at least remind him that she and his uncle were available, should troubles arise. *** "I consider both outcomes to be avoided, so I'll definitely keep it in mind." Fabian's tone was emphatic enough that even if his sincerity could be doubted on the second item, it could hardly be doubted on the first. "And should I find myself in need of--advice--I shall certainly keep you in mind, Aunt." |