ORDER ONLY: Private Message to Charlie

[alt_nymphadora]

Oh, luv.

Is today better?

I was glued to my journal last night, and knew that nothing I could say would make a jot of difference, but I hope you know I was with all of you. I'm sorry for what happened with the man who was Kissed, but all of you were brilliant.

It's been a hard few weeks, hasn't it? I find myself getting teary eyed and sweeping Bea up and hugging her til she wriggles at the oddest moments. And Bap is doing somersaults and flips like no-one else, too.

I'm so bloody grateful they're both hidden. They won't be forced to march in a parade with werewolves, or sing those awful songs, or watch people barely older than they are kill other people for sport ever. Or, in Bea's case, ever again, although she was too young to remember, really. Still. Having her in those stands during the Frost Faire nearly made me break in half.

I don't know how Molly, Alice, and Frank are still standing.

I don't.

And it's so deeply selfish of me, but I'm glad they won't be going anywhere near Hogwarts unless we've won.

Comments

[alt_nymphadora]

And it's human to have a case of the what-ifs after. When you're good at chess, I'd imagine it's hard to avoid.

Still. What you lot did was enormous. I know, there'll be other more enormous things yet to do, but it was damn impressive.

[alt_charlie]

It's weird, I just told Ron, the day before, that when you're playing chess you have to make sacrifices. Remember, he said that Desai set it up so he found 'evidence' I was selling things on the black market, and waited to see if Ron would turn me in? I told Ron that if that sort of thing ever came up for real, I wanted him to go ahead and denounce me as fast and as hard as he could, do anything he needed to keep his cover, because winning this war is more important than any one person and him with the Aurors is going to be damn helpful in the future.

And if you look at it that way, I shouldn't be upset, because showing people that the Protectorate is not all-powerful is an important thing to do, and losing one person in the middle of all that is just collateral damage. But then I think, well, the real reason for all this was to save Lucius sodding Malfoy, and making a public demonstration of the Protectorate's weaknesses was just a side benefit, and I don't know if that counts as important. And then I remember that no, we have Bellatrix Lestrange's hair now, and that might wind up strategically critical in the future. And and and.

I don't know. I think I'll eventually come around to, this was an important thing to do and one fuckup in the process is understandable and it's a miracle there weren't more. But I think it'll take me a bit to get there emotionally, not just intellectually.

[alt_nymphadora]

And it was to keep Rachel safe.

And even though it was supposed to be one person, we blew a hole in the side of that prison and marched out twenty-eight more than we needed.

It's messy, and it often seems like we're in the sort of place where we're just running around reacting to what someone else has done, and it's utter chaos, but we are building to something.

At least I'd like to think we are. More than we were before.

You can probably see it more than I can, though.

[alt_nymphadora]

And after yesterday...

I'd been chewing over the idea that we'd stand up and everyone around us would work as hard as they could to fight against us. Against change. That we'd be five or ten years too late, and everyone would be too used to all of this to want anything different, and to give it up.

I don't think that'd happen any more, though.

[alt_charlie]

I really don't think so, no.

I mean. Look at the Jr Aux and their friends. I have to say, I never would have imagined Draco Malfoy and Hydra Lestrange as part of us, and yet they took a good look at the system they were being raised to have power in and said "that's bollocks" and threw in with us. And if they can do it, loads more can. And have, really -- how many of our latest new recruits have come out of people who were raised with this, and have never really known anything else?

Five years ago I think we would have had a problem. But now, the only people who'll step up and say that His Noselessness has the right end of the stick are the people who want a part of the stick for themselves.