I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up To No Good

[alt_justin]

Hello, friends,

How was the New London trip, what?

I say, CCF is coming up rather quickly, isn't it? Remy and I have gone swimming twice this week but I think overall I'm still well unprepared for whatever they're going to throw at us. Have you lot had any hints at all, as you've been counselling?

The Jugsons took me out to another party this afternoon. This one was at the Derwent home and Ron, your sister was there as well. Did you know she would be going?

The Derwents are rather nice although they seem to be the sort with loads of well boring acquaintances. There were a number of people our age, though, which made the time pass more quickly.

I've been terribly occupied all summer long and yet, I suppose it sounds a bit rich to say, but, I do miss home. Dijon, I should say. Only in little things, what? Like the fresh bread our cook made every other day or the chimes on the clock in my mother's salon. My old bed and the books I left behind. The view from my window onto the Rue de Talant. I miss television commercials and believe me, I never thought I should miss those in the slightest!

You've every right to tell me it serves me right, what? Still. I'm sure I shall snap out of it once we're all together again at the CCF exercises. Something about the party this afternoon made me think of home, I think.

Well, enough of that. Sally-Anne, you'd said you were going to write more to us, about visiting your mother? Do you think she's going to join forces with Mrs Weasley and Madam Pomfrey and become a three-witch crime-fighting squadron, what?

How is everyone else enjoying their holidays?

-Justin

Comments

[alt_sally_anne]

Well -- maybe, come to think of it.

I'd thought before that maybe when I finished at Hogwarts, as long as I was very discreet I could visit with her more regularly. And that's only three years away, you know?

But if she leaves the Protectorate -- there won't be any way, unless until things change a LOT. Which surely will be more than three years.

[alt_hydra]

I don't know much about how the Protectorate took over. Not much from the perspective of the old Ministry, I mean, but I've been trying to read and find out more. It seems, though, that when they took over the Protectorate changed things a LOT in a fairly short amount of time. They changed everything else before they changed most peoples minds. So, I wonder if it would be as hard to change things back as people think.

In twenty or thirty years it will be a lot harder. There will be less people who remember what muggles were like before they were in camps. The kids at Hogwarts, there might not even be any halfbloods. There's fewer in the younger years already. I wonder if the people in the wand-smugglers ever think about that. About how time might be running out.

[alt_sally_anne]

That's a really unnerving thought, Hydra.

You're right, though. I mean, I don't remember anything else, ever, but it was changing when I was a baby and I'm not THAT old. And I've heard older people (like Mrs Weasley, but she's not the only one) slip up and call the Cardinal Curses the Unforgivables. And my mum went to Hogwarts just like any other Witch, she was even a Prefect. And she had some of the same professors we have, when she was there, like Professor Slughorn and Professor Sprout (and the Headmistress, for Transfiguration).

I don't know what it would take to change it back. I mean there are people who'd like to, and I don't think it's just the Wand Smugglers. But they're all frightened. It's hard to know if there are enough people who want to change things to ever make it happen.

Although it wasn't that many people, when it was the Council and the Lord Protector against the rest of the Wizarding World. And they managed.

[alt_hydra]

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be unnerving.

I'm only thinking of people like me, who were raised similarly. I've looked through what was written under the lock and I see how everyone felt sorry for me, and what they thought of Mummy. But when I was younger I just thought that was how all Mothers were. Aunt Narcissa was kind, but Mummy would always say that she was really just weak, and also secretly cruel because her kindness was just a trick to make me feel sorry for myself. She showed me the Black family tree and where all the traitors had their names burned off, and made it sound as if people who were traitors were horrible monsters from fairy books who were fated to face justice in the end. And she was so strong and sure of herself, and hardly anyone ever contradicted her, so I believed everything she said.

It's probably an extreme example, I suppose. I think most people just like to carry on and forget about the way England used to be, because if they remembered, they would feel a lot of guilt. So they don't say anything to their children that would go against what the Protectorate says, because that would be like remembering.

And no, it didn't take that many people to topple the old Ministry, but they were all people who were ready to die, and were ready to kill. Well, all except the Lord Protector, he wasn't ready to die. So he found a lot of people who would do it for him.