Practical Politics Emily Douglas looked over the piles of papers spread out in front of her youngest daughter and shook her head. Alicia’s high heeled shoes were tipped over beside the couch and her dark hair was making its way out of her updo, but she was still wearing the same uncomfortable business attire she had been in all day, giving Emily the idea she was getting a glimpse of what the future would look like.
“You’re heading for a nervous breakdown by the time you’re nineteen,” she predicted.
“No, I’m not,” Alicia said absently. She looked up, her usually bright eyes slightly blurred. “Where’s – oh, it’s gone over there. Could you pass me that teapot, please, Momma?” Emily obliged, and while Alicia made a face at what ended up in the bottom of her cup, she drank it down very quickly, then blinked several times before adjusting her position and rubbing her lower back.
“What is all of this, anyway?” Emily asked, sitting down in one of the chairs which Alicia had not yet allowed her work to creep into.
“I’m reviewing my intelligence on the other departments,” Alicia explained. “I’ve got to have all this memorized by Monday morning, because we’re going to go straight into the negotiation period once we get to the second session. My main problem is organizing the Quidditch World Cup, but I’m going to have to argue with Creatures about the placement of a new pitch versus the placement of a new creature preserve, so I’m hoping I can figure out some way to shove dealing with the importation of mascots onto International Relations without alienating Grant or Jasper – the heads of those departments,” she clarified, no doubt knowing that Emily would not have caught on to who everyone was yet. “I’m thinking about trying to split Muggle-repelling charms between my department, Magical Defense, and Catastrophes, too,” she added. “But there could be other repercussions to that, so I’m not sure, I guess I’ll decide when I get there….”
“I still say you’re taking all of this far too seriously,” Jeremy said, having entered the room and evidently heard much of what Alicia said without either of them noticing.
Alicia flushed. “It would be a waste of time to be frivolous,” she said.
“Oh, certainly take it seriously enough when you’re there,” he said. “But I promise you, in the real world, the politicians don't put in this much effort. The great families make the decisions and give the politicians lines to keep them arguing too much to get in the way. The only thing the Council's good for is putting a good face on things for the Muggleborns and dealing with the occasional rogue dragon, and the latter could certainly be handled privately.”
Alicia laughed. “And when the great families decide they’ve had enough of at least pretending to respect anyone else’s rights? And everyone else just goes crazy in self-defense from there?” she asked. “Though I guess mere anarchy could have its compensations until the International Confederation task force got here to wipe us all out. I always thought human sacrifice sounded fun.”
“Alicia!” Emily sputtered, shocked. “Really!”
Alicia laughed more easily this time, then stood up and leaned over to kiss Emily on the cheek. “Sorry, Momma. Aladren humor,” she said, then sat back down. “And hyperbole." She mock-glared at her stepfather. "I was trying to make a point.”
“That really was a bit much,” Emily protested. “Of course the government has a purpose, but I like to think we’re civilized enough these days not to need it for preventing that.”
“Only because it spent a long time very deliberately suppressing it to get the idea out of people’s heads,” Alicia shrugged. “And that kind of thing hasn’t been wiped out everywhere even now. America’s just very modern, even among the old families.” Her lip curled slightly. “Those which even are ‘old families,’ anyway,” she said. “Most people didn’t cross the whole ocean for the view, not back then.”
Emily looked at her daughter, having one of those odd, disquieting moments which had started to occur more and more often over the past year, moments when she realized that Alicia was not a little girl anymore. She remembered being sixteen herself and not too content with the social order, but it still seemed strange and unnatural to her as an adult that a sixteen-year-old should have thought long and deeply about the conceits of those who claimed pure blood and respectability generations past what American records could or would support.
Of course, Alicia had her reasons. That, though, was not something Emily liked to think about.
“Mind what you say,” Jeremy chided her. “Outside Aladren, it’s bank accounts that count for evidence.”
A muscle twitched in Alicia’s cheek, but she inclined her head calmly enough, acknowledging a point even as Emily frowned at Jeremy, not liking him to talk so cynically to the children. It might be true, but it was not a truth that Isaac and Alicia, anyway, really needed to know yet. “I never forget it,” said Alicia quietly. “But,” she continued, more strongly, “this all really doesn’t have a lot to do with how I’m going to get a nature preserve moved, so I’m going to get back to work now, if that's all right.”