Order Only: Private Message to Ron and Sally-Anne

[alt_justin]

Hallo,

Look, I don't wish to seem insensitive, as I'm sure Mr Longbottom feels well shocked to suddenly lose his magic.

But, I say. The looks on your faces as we were reading that.... Well, I mean to say. It's not that terrible, is it?

He's alive, he's otherwise in good health, it sounds, and...well, millions--make that billions--of Muggles live without magic every day. They never even miss it.

Is there something I'm missing? Why does everyone seem to think it means his usefulness is at an end?

I'm quite earnest, I should add. I can tell you all think it's a dashed catastrophe but I'm at a loss as to just why.

-Justin

P.S. Do you think Harry and Hermione will finish with Cedric soon?

-J

Comments

[alt_ron]

Muggles don't miss it, I guess, because they never had it. But if you have it and lose it...

I just-

You really think you'd be fine with not having your magic any more? Forever?

[alt_justin]

My magic kept me locked in the house for the first nine years of my life, old man. I'm not saying it wouldn't be a hardship, a bally great hardship if you like, but if it's a choice between dying and never performing another magical spell, it's no contest.

-Justin

[alt_sally_anne]

Well if I had to choose between being a muggle, and being a witch who was locked in a house forever, and I could be a muggle in FRANCE and not here, I'd be a muggle. And I'd go to muggle Healer school and be a doctor.

But Mr Longbottom isn't a muggle in France, he's HERE. Where if you're a muggle you can get locked in a camp.

[alt_justin]

Yes, but if Mr Longbottom's caught he's not going to a camp.

Which is undoubtedly a blow to the Order, as well, since he can't help on missions the way he did, I agree.

I understand that it's a form of...of becoming a cripple, what. The point is that cripples--the handicapped--they do learn how to compensate for their lost faculties.

And I do see that he'll have to learn new skills but it's not as if his training is useless. He has hand-to-hand combat skill, skills as a strategist, tactical planning, survival--jolly well loads of ways he's still productive.

Naturally he needs to adjust to the blow. However, I can't see how it does him any good to amplify the damage to the point where he feels it's insurmountable.

-J

[alt_sally_anne]

Well it's not as if I'm saying to HIM, 'oh how HORRIBLE. Don't you wish you'd died, instead?'

I mean, my Mum lived for years and years without a wand and not being able to do most sorts of magic. She could use runes, on the sly, and she had a bit of natural magic that wasn't spellwork, more like what little kids do. It was better than being dead but it was utterly frustrating and there were things she NEVER learned to do the muggle way -- even though she'd lived as a muggle (a slightly odd muggle) for the first eleven years of her life!

[alt_justin]

No, of course not.

But you're all thinking it's a fate worse than death and that sort of mentality spills out. It must do.

I've been learning magic for five years. I've found it breaks down into two categories: There are spells that create effects which Muggles can't do yet and there are spells that are, essentially, short-cuts to the Muggle method. That's an over-simplification, what, but it makes the point, I think. There are other ways to do nearly any task. Where wizards have spells, Muggles invent machines, what.

And the things they can't yet do are probably only a matter of time. Magic does achieve wonderful things and makes life easier, in some ways.

But it seems to me that this...attitude.... It rather strikes at the heart of everything the Order profess to believe. If the Order really believe that Muggles are not second-class to wizards, then living as a Muggle ought not to have such a stigma as you and Ron and--well, everyone else--are attaching to it.

Perhaps we ought to make everyone with a wand live without magic for a year after they finish school, once the war's won. That way they'd appreciate the immense gift it is but they would also realise it's not the bally old end of the world to get by without it, what.

-J

[alt_sally_anne]

Yes but we don't have any of those machines here. We don't have aeroplanes or autos, we have floo and brooms and flying carpets and apparation. We don't have muggle medicines or vaxines, we have Healers. We don't have all the other things muggles use to do the things we do with magic so Mr Longbottom doesn't have access to any of them.

If you want me to try to live for a year without magic I think I could manage and it would be interesting and fun if I were in France where I could drive an auto or fly an aeroplane or go to a doctor -- well, actually, if I were ill I'd still want to go to a Healer. But I know how to plant a garden and weed it and harvest the food and cook it. But I'd bloody well want to be using a proper muggle stove to cook it, not a fire I had to build out of logs I had to cut down with an ax. I'd want to have water that came out of a faucet and not water I had to carry up from a stream in a bucket and I'd want a way to heat it up for baths because cold baths are horrid.

[alt_sally_anne]

And right, if he's caught they'll just kill him, same as before. Or torture him horribly and then kill him (you know, he probably can't do occlumency anymore, either.) But he won't be sent to a camp.

But I mean if he were in France he could go to a muggle university and do a training course and learn new skills. Here -- well, I guess he could learn from Fu. Or the muggles at Saltash and Aldrich. They do KNOW things, I suppose, and some of them might know the sorts of things Mr Longbottom wants to learn, but it's going to be a good deal harder than being a muggle anywhere else, still.

[alt_ron]

Hm.

Maybe it's different for you, then. Because of the way things were when you were small, I mean. Maybe you feel differently about it than other people would.

I think the thing is, there are things I'd risk dying for, and of course if I'd risk that, I'd risk anything. But... I think if I lost my magic, it wouldn't be long before I'd wish I'd died. Or anywiz, I can imagine that might be what Mr Longbottom's thinking.

[alt_sally_anne]

Well if you've never known anything else I'm sure it's perfectly fine. It's not that I don't think muggles are people, I mean, two of my grandparents were muggles.

But having magic and then losing it

well

I don't know Justin, if you had to pick between a 1 in 10 chance of dying, or a 1 in 2 chance of losing your magic, what would you choose?

[alt_ron]

Only, it doesn't seem as if Mr Longbottom knew that was one of the choices. That's part of what's so-

No, scratch that. What's awful is that he's got squibbed. And it looks like it's permanent.

It's what I said to Sally Anne before: if I knew I was going to die soon, I'd do something that would null my magic. But to end up with a long life and no magic, I don't know.

[alt_justin]

I'd prefer to live without magic, Sally-Anne, if that's the choice. No question about it, what.

If someone told you that you could never again eat another piece of chocolate, as long as you live, or it would kill you, would you be able to deny yourself a bon-bon?

We make adjustments for hardship every day, what. I daresay even without a wand, Mr Longbottom's still 90% better off than most of the muggles in the camps.

-Justin

[alt_sally_anne]

Obviously he's vastly better off than the muggles in camps.

And there are muggles who are useful fighting against the Protectorate, like Fu, because they've spent years and years and years learning things about weapons and explosives and all the rest.

Mr Longbottom spent years and years learning to be an Auror, and that's what he knows how to do, that's where his skills are, that's how he knows how to be USEFUL. He's going to have to start over like he was thirteen and learn entirely new skills just to be able to fight, at all.

[alt_sally_anne]

Oh and Cedric

I don't know. I mean surely they've SHOWN him the wand by now. So he must be asking questions. Or they're asking him questions. What was the signal, again? I was really distracted during that meeting, I hope people didn't notice.

[alt_ron]

They're taking forever.

[alt_sally_anne]

Evelyn looks really upset. I feel like I should say something but I don't know what to say.

I think she didn't know. Neville, either. I mean, until Mrs Longbottom told all of us.

[alt_ron]

I think you're right. Nev's not going to want to talk about it, and Evyls won't want to talk about it with anyone except Nev for a while. At least that's how it goes when it's me. But maybe if you said something, they'd be all right with that.

[alt_sally_anne]

I don't know what to say that would be comforting. I mean I don't want to sound like I think it's worse he lost his magic than he died. Because Justin's right, I mean -- really, it's NOT worse.

But I don't want to be all cheery like it's no big deal either because it IS.

And

I don't know.

[alt_sally_anne]

Okay.

I've been thinking about this and the thing is you're right.

But it's hard for me to think about what it means to live as a muggle, and not think about all the worst parts of my childhood, like when my father would leave us to fend for ourselves and we'd have to carry all the water, and my mum had to chop wood with an ax, and we were always cold and there usually wasn't enough to eat.

Things aren't going to be like that for Mr Longbottom. They didn't HAVE to be like that for us. But especially when I was in the middle of it it was easier to say, 'this is because we don't have proper magic' instead of 'this is because my father is being cruel.' I didn't like to think of it that way, because at least he wasn't sending my mother to the camps.

And really if he HAD sent her to the camps -- she's not young enough that they could have used her in Strangeweale's machine but she's not so old she can't have babies. So she might be in New London, right now, prisoner somewhere and having half-siblings I'd never meet because they were all slated to die horribly.

Anyway. I got my final schedule by owl post the other day, for winter hols. I'm with the Strettons until the 29th and then my father's house for the other week.

I wish I'd turned 17 already.