Grim Truth: 94/2/9
Sep. 2nd, 2011 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_sirius posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
alternity2 September, 1994
Greetings, British Wizarding World!
And here you thought you were done with me. Well, with the Prophet seeing fit to splash my face in the papers again, I thought it only proper to set some rumours to rest. Yes. I’m not actually dead.
Cousin Bellatrix: Surprise! Guess you were more off your aim than you thought. (Oh, and just in case you’d like to claim I’m an impostor: I remember what hat came out of the Christmas cracker you pulled at your fifteenth (my seventh) birthday party. Do you?)
But you know, alive - and dead - and alive again, I still get my share of mail. Things like, ‘Your sainted mother turns in her grave every day just knowing she spawned you’ (clearly written by someone who never met my mother) and ‘You’re nothing more than a pustulent Pogrebin. I am sending you a curse by parcel post.’ And other invectives far more interesting but less printable here. Most of the time, though, it doesn’t really bother me, I have to admit. Because I used to read the Letters to the Editor long before I was an outlaw, and people don’t change much, no matter who’s in charge.
I did get one letter yesterday, just after the announcement of my resurrection, that troubled me very much.
It said: ‘You needn’t worry about my bothering you anymore if you’re the sort of person who sets off a bomb in a crowd.’
It said a deal else, as well, including very grim and very true things about what bombs do when they’re ignited among mobs. Especially when heavy objects fall (or threaten to fall) on helpless people below. More eloquently than I could hope to argue here, in point of fact.
As it happens, I do know what bombs do and I didn’t need this week to remind me. Monday was not the first mass conflation I’ve seen, I’m sorry to say. I had the ill fortune to be in Barcelona in 1987, when Basques killed 21 people with a bomb fitted into a car. I’ve seen more footage of the effects of Muggle warfare than my young correspondent has ever or I hope will ever see. I was at the Cup, as well, but not to set off any weapons, Muggle or wizard-made, and certainly not to harm innocent spectators.
Let’s make no mistake about that: The majority of people who died or nearly died at the Cup were not guests at the match. It was Muggleborn servants, penned up below the Lord Pretender’s viewing stands, who took the brunt of the blast, and were largely left to their fate by their wizarding ‘masters.’ Yes, I was there, but I chose to risk revealing myself in order to help them escape their deathtrap. And then there were the Muggles in the camp nearby, and we all know who’s responsible for their injuries and their deaths, even if we’ll never be able to trace all the wands.
There are a number of groups (the last count I heard was 23) claiming some responsibility for the device that detonated at the Cup. I’ve seen the article trying to blame the Irish Muggle Army; I’ve read the sickening claims that the DogStar Company have made; I’ve even heard tell that the Crimson Company is using Malfoy’s condition as a recruiting slogan.
I’ve got one thing to say about all that: Claim what you like, but leave my name off it. During the time I’ve been ‘dead’ you seem to have forgotten what I wrote back when I was alive. So let me remind you what I really support and what I don’t. Free the people who should never have been enslaved in the first place. Depose the puppets you have given control over your society, your livelihoods and even your very thoughts. Do it without taking more lives in the bargain.
It occurs to me that it’s amazing what a large group of people can do when they’ve the luxury of hiding behind the mask of the faceless mob. If you’d turned your wands in the other direction that night, what a difference it might have made.
Greetings, British Wizarding World!
And here you thought you were done with me. Well, with the Prophet seeing fit to splash my face in the papers again, I thought it only proper to set some rumours to rest. Yes. I’m not actually dead.
Cousin Bellatrix: Surprise! Guess you were more off your aim than you thought. (Oh, and just in case you’d like to claim I’m an impostor: I remember what hat came out of the Christmas cracker you pulled at your fifteenth (my seventh) birthday party. Do you?)
But you know, alive - and dead - and alive again, I still get my share of mail. Things like, ‘Your sainted mother turns in her grave every day just knowing she spawned you’ (clearly written by someone who never met my mother) and ‘You’re nothing more than a pustulent Pogrebin. I am sending you a curse by parcel post.’ And other invectives far more interesting but less printable here. Most of the time, though, it doesn’t really bother me, I have to admit. Because I used to read the Letters to the Editor long before I was an outlaw, and people don’t change much, no matter who’s in charge.
I did get one letter yesterday, just after the announcement of my resurrection, that troubled me very much.
It said: ‘You needn’t worry about my bothering you anymore if you’re the sort of person who sets off a bomb in a crowd.’
It said a deal else, as well, including very grim and very true things about what bombs do when they’re ignited among mobs. Especially when heavy objects fall (or threaten to fall) on helpless people below. More eloquently than I could hope to argue here, in point of fact.
As it happens, I do know what bombs do and I didn’t need this week to remind me. Monday was not the first mass conflation I’ve seen, I’m sorry to say. I had the ill fortune to be in Barcelona in 1987, when Basques killed 21 people with a bomb fitted into a car. I’ve seen more footage of the effects of Muggle warfare than my young correspondent has ever or I hope will ever see. I was at the Cup, as well, but not to set off any weapons, Muggle or wizard-made, and certainly not to harm innocent spectators.
Let’s make no mistake about that: The majority of people who died or nearly died at the Cup were not guests at the match. It was Muggleborn servants, penned up below the Lord Pretender’s viewing stands, who took the brunt of the blast, and were largely left to their fate by their wizarding ‘masters.’ Yes, I was there, but I chose to risk revealing myself in order to help them escape their deathtrap. And then there were the Muggles in the camp nearby, and we all know who’s responsible for their injuries and their deaths, even if we’ll never be able to trace all the wands.
There are a number of groups (the last count I heard was 23) claiming some responsibility for the device that detonated at the Cup. I’ve seen the article trying to blame the Irish Muggle Army; I’ve read the sickening claims that the DogStar Company have made; I’ve even heard tell that the Crimson Company is using Malfoy’s condition as a recruiting slogan.
I’ve got one thing to say about all that: Claim what you like, but leave my name off it. During the time I’ve been ‘dead’ you seem to have forgotten what I wrote back when I was alive. So let me remind you what I really support and what I don’t. Free the people who should never have been enslaved in the first place. Depose the puppets you have given control over your society, your livelihoods and even your very thoughts. Do it without taking more lives in the bargain.
It occurs to me that it’s amazing what a large group of people can do when they’ve the luxury of hiding behind the mask of the faceless mob. If you’d turned your wands in the other direction that night, what a difference it might have made.
I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good
Date: 2011-09-02 04:57 pm (UTC)So how about we ask him questions and you pass them along. Then can you pass along his answers back to us? I realise it may take awhile, and he maybe can't answer all of them publicly...
Dear Sirius
I don't believe you had anything to do with what happened at the World Cup. But I must admit I'm curious about why you were there at all. (Aside from watching Quidditch, of course. It just seems incredibly dangerous. and I don't want you to get caught!)
What happened to the muggleborns who disappeared? They didn't all die, did they?
Is there any way we can help you? (Well, maybe not me, because I'm stuck here with the git. But people in general.)
That's all except that...it just made me really really happy to open up my journal and see a Grim Truth again.
It also made the git just furious. Which makes it even more special.
Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good
Date: 2011-09-02 05:15 pm (UTC)We're pleased as punch to see you popping up on our journals again. Well done, sir. You've managed to pull off one of the best pranks in the history of the Protectorate (of course, that's not saying too much because in general the Protectorate has a lousy sense of humour).
We have some suspicions about the identity of some of the people you have helping you. But we're not going to ask, both because if we reckon that if we asked we'd be sent about our business because you probably figure we're too young to know. And anyway, we don't want to get anyone in trouble if we've guessed wrong.
If we knew what you were up to, we'd have an idea if there was anything we could do to help. We understand why you're a bit shy to report on your whereabouts and all that. But we're following your exploits with interest.
Deep interest.
Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good
Date: 2011-09-02 05:34 pm (UTC)...it was mine.
I was just so angry about what happened, and about all the people that were hurt, and thinking that he could've done it made me all twisted up inside. Because there are people who think that what they believe gives them the right to kill other people just to make a point or show their power. And I didn't think he was that sort of person, and the thought that he might be made me ill. Made me think that I'd been mistaken about a lot of things. And that frightened me.
I'm not stupid enough to take everything he says at face value. But this does make me think more and more that I was right, and that he wasn't the sort that would kill people to make his point.
He gets awfully sideways when answering questions. Like with this one. I didn't get a reply owl, but he puts it right in the middle of his Grim Truth. Most of the time, he doesn't answer me at all. It might be different with Hermione, though.
But I'll bet a galleon that even if he doesn't answer them, he'll read them.
Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good
Date: 2011-09-02 05:37 pm (UTC)Is there a way through the wards? I know someone who might like to leave the Protectorate. I don't think anyone would notice if she were gone. Can you tell me how you got here from France?
Re: I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good
Date: 2011-09-04 01:44 am (UTC)Except. I want to know what it's like outside the Protectorate. What's it like in France? I wanted to ask that Justin bloke, but of course, I couldn't really because it's not the sort of thing you can ask about where everyone will see. And I don't know him well enough to know if he'd have told me off for being a traitor. Even if I'd met him and could've asked him in person. But I want to know. What's it like other places? Is it better or worse for wizards? I mean. What's it like to have to keep it a secret you're a wizard? And what's it like to live in a place where Muggles aren't slaves, but live all around, and control laws and things that wizards have to fit in with even if wizards have their own laws, too? And, well. What would happen here if you found a way to kill the Protector and get rid of the people who, y'know, serve him? What would that take? Blowing people up? Fighting battles? What's your plan? And if you did it, what would be left? For the people who are still alive afterwards, I mean.
I Solemnly Swear That I Am Up to No Good
Date: 2011-09-03 01:38 am (UTC)Like...how do you know my parents? (Because I know he does, because they sent him a birth announcement for my little brother.) Do you just know them, or do you work with them, somehow? Helping muggleborns, or smuggling wands, or doing both? Or something else entirely?