[sept mp] Something Wrong with the Village [edith]

A sunset was always a beautiful sight. Whether it overlooked a stone-lined cityscape, snow-peaked mountains, or white-sand shorelines, the warm glow was a comforting presence, a constant no matter where Jonathan Sr was in the world. Even now, amid the stone-coated roofings and dusty haze of Ibadan, getting to see the sky blaze before nightfall allowed him a familiar sense of home.

But even if Jon Sr liked to find at least one piece of common ground in every new situation he faced, he had to admit there were plenty of recent developments that did were not the norm. Or, to be more exact, they were of a norm that Jon Sr wished to never return to.

And so here he was, inviting a Prophet reporter and former Ministry employee for press rounds after his W9 meetings. The goal was to bring more empathetic views to the British Ministry and curtail whatever outsize influence Nils was trying to establish. Jon Sr and his team had done their homework prior, piecing together what he could of Ms Holthouse to gauge how well or poorly this would unfold. Honestly, Shacklebolt was supposed to be the one doing this. The Minister was the face of government, but he hadn’t given any formal press releases to counteract the growing gossip of Britain’s competence at magical governance. That reticence was becoming a troublesome liability, and so Jon Sr was compelled to start cleaning this mess.

He tore his gaze from the sky before looking straight on, confirming he was at the establishment he agreed to meet Ms Holthouse. It was a well-worn place, unpretentious and inviting. He made a mental note to thank his assistant later for finding these places that gave him reprieve from the stuffy meeting halls that screamed Ministry. It wasn’t that Jon Sr disliked places that emphasised tradition and solemnity, but they were lately becoming an all too-painful reminder that the traditions of wizarding culture were not always the best foundations.

He entered in, with the interior walls painted a burnt orange that felt like a minimalist rendition of the sunset outside. The bottles that lined the back shelves, many familiar and some unknown, guaranteed that, however this night would end, he’d at least get one good drink.

The pub wasn’t busy, but the two areas of lounge seats were taken. He generally disliked the bar, having a rotating motley crew shouting out drinks and interrupting conversations, or eavesdroppers who couldn’t help but lean in for any bit of gossip. But aside from one patron in the far corner, Jon Sr supposed it’d be fine to have an interview there.

He sauntered toward the barman, scanning the shelves for his first pick of poison. Jon Sr arched his brow when he spotted at a certain crystalline decanter of scotch. Whoever owned this apparent hole in the wall must also have a whole lot of galleons. The barman approached him for his order, to which Jon Sr pointed at the bottle of 1937 Mac an t-Saoir, leading to a brief, whispered exchange between the two before the barman retrieved it and poured him a dram.

He swirled the glass, letting the sweet aromas calm his nerves. His mind, meanwhile, ran through the talking points crafted by his assistants and consultants from Magic Public Information Services. Jon Sr hated being scripted, as if he were some puppet to echo mindless political spin.

His brows furrowed, agitated by this entire ordeal. He took a sip of his scotch, letting it sit on his tongue for a moment. The finish was exquisite, and on any other day, Jon Sr would have had a most pleasant happy hour. But right now, his brows remained furrowed, and grew more agitated as he waited for Ms Holthouse.

He looked at his drink again, growled, and dunked his head back and gulped the dram in one go. The barman had noticed, his eyes widening, seemingly insulted at Jon Sr’s ill treatment of such a rare and fine whisky. The barman came over, but before he could say a word, the Emerson patriarch beat him to it.

‘Ah, damn it all to hell. Just get me a bloody shot of whatever bottom barrel scotch you’ve got. Yep, that’s right lad, just grab that dusty bottle you’ve got there, don’t skimp on the pour, and yes, cheers!...Oh, Merlin’s beard that tastes like hot trash. Proper dreadful--what? No no, don’t put it away, pour me another, and--ah!’

Jon Sr turned and smiled at Edith’s entrance. ‘Look at her face, Enofe! That’s a face that says she is far too sober to put up with today. Add a glass for the lass, would you please? Ms Holthouse I presume? Would you mind exchanging a handshake for a shot? ’

@Edith Holthouse

Edith might not have known what it was, exactly, that she was doing with the column, but at least now she knew what she wasn’t doing. She had put her name on her column because it had felt necessary, but now her name was being attached to everything with even the most remote resemblance to anti-Ministry sentiment. That wasn’t what it was about, was it? Shouldn’t she be the one deciding what it was about? She hadn’t said anything about Shacklebolt -- yeah, sure, he was the face of the Ministry, but she had met him, what, once, twice? -- and didn’t blame everything on him.

It wasn’t Shacklebolt’s Ministry that had started Edith’s journey to this point; it was You-Know-Who’s, his followers’, the Death Eaters’ that were apparently getting out of Azkaban now and agreeing with things that Edith had written. Things were happening quickly now -- relations with Sweden had been ‘repaired’ at the exact same moment that Sweden's new policies were touted as promoting equality in the very paper that paid her salary.

Never mind that they had moved her column from the opinions section to the political section without asking her, giving her a new editor without any prior notice, the same editor that had called Purcell ‘modest’ in the same breath that she had called Edith ‘exquisite’. And if one more person called her ‘Miss Holthouse’...

Christ, she just wanted people to know they weren’t dealing with all of this alone. It was supposed to be hopeful. Her story was supposed to make her more credible, to say that she could write about other peoples’ struggles because she had some of her own. She wasn’t some student radical complaining about her narrative not going to plan. She had been pretty sure that up until a point, no one had said anything about how fucked up everything had been, and she thought that had been a good idea to change that.

Clearly, it had been going so well.

She was already in Nigeria, not for any official reason; Elias was attending the conference and Edith liked free trips to places; she tried not to think too much about how the invitation was probably because it would be harder to worry about her if she was closeby. Her reason for being there wasn’t important, not really, but already being there was probably the only reason Edith had agreed to meet with such a senior official of the British Ministry.

Of course, it probably would have served her well to adjust her watch for the time change. Edith pushed the door open to the bar forty minutes late, but only five minutes after she had realized her mistake. She went over her main talking point one last time in her head: there was absolutely no guarantee that any part of this conversation would be published, because it was clear that was what he was going for. She didn’t have a chance to get any word out, instead staring at the man with wide eyes as he delivered his ‘greeting’.

“Er,” she started, forgetting what she had been about to tell him. “Yes,” she said instead, answering both his questions with one word. She very much wanted a drink and she was, in fact, Ms Holthouse. “Edith, please.” She quickly wiped the sweat from her palm -- it was pretty humid out and she was pretty English -- and shook his hand, hoping she had relaxed her expression into something vaguely friendly.

Edith settled onto a barstool and glanced down at the glass of whisky she was handed. Smarter women would question drinks she hadn’t seen poured, but she was already in a place with nine Ministries worth of ‘important’ people in it, so what the hell. She hesitated, glass in hand, for just a second, before knocking it back and placing it loudly back on the bar. She waited a beat as it hit her, shaking her head clear before looking back at the man. “So.”

‘So, indeed!’ He took the proffered hand, hiding his mental reaction of touching clammy sweat, and offered her a glass in return.

Jon Sr was glad that Ms Holthouse—Edith—was quick to take him up on the drink. Have at least one common ground. He repeated the mantra in his head.

Enofe the barman was still there to get their main drink order. With the healthy dram he had before, and the two cheap shots he just had, Jon Sr was in a much brighter mood than when he’d been waiting. Or at least his inhibitions were lowered enough for him to maintain this unusually candid air to someone he didn't know. He pointed back at the Mac an t-Saoir, and seeing Enofe’s pouting face, Jon Sr placed his right hand over his heart.

‘I’ll be a better boy about it this time, promise! But a stiff pour, please.’

His sipping drink in hand, he turned and studied Edith for a moment, as he figured out his next approach. He knew the basics of her—her age, her year in Hogwarts, her personnel record in the Ministry, including the fact her name was one of several that had been in the Dome. Snooping into the lives of people was par for the course, and while doing so was preferable to going blindly into these meetings, Jon Sr was aware of the arrogance of it all, that he and his team could supposedly reduce a person to numbers and adjectives, metrics and reaction matrices to manipulate any usable situation to further an agenda. But here she was, in person. An actual person. Her garb wasn’t formal. It didn't even look ironed and steamed for that matter. He wasn’t quite sure if it was entirely clean and just simply well-worn, either. Her glasses seemed to swallow her petite face, the proportions making her somewhat bug-like. But what sort of bug she was most like, he’d yet to determine.

His mind went to his scripted introduction, the one he’d rehearsed over and over with his team. But now that he had his chance, what was the message he wished to share?

‘I think I’ve seen you around the housing complexes for all the W9 delegations,’ he began, going off-script. ‘And during some of the lunch and dinner functions. Hope you’re at least enjoying the meals. The events themselves can be rather dull, but as a political writer, perhaps some of the goings on may have held some interest for you.’

The Prophet was more often than not a source of hypocrisy and headaches. And for all its uproar over the instability and turnover of Ministry leadership, the paper itself changed staff faster than couples did in speed dating. Edith Holthouse did not strike him as a political wonk. At the risk of being arrogantly dismissive, the only wonky thing about her were her glasses, which Jon Sr felt an urge to bring up and have her straighten.

‘You’ve become a pain in the arse for everybody who thinks they’re anybody,’ he noted, doing way with the formalities, with no malice in his voice, just curious bemusement. To that, he raised his glass at her and took a sip. ‘And for everyone thinking you’re just some nobody with a quill, you’ve become quite the somebody. So!’ he emphasised, repeating her initial word to him. ‘I suppose I should be the one honoured to be graced by your choosing to meet me.’ He winked, and took another sip.

Setting his sifter down, he fished into his waistcoat to pull out his pocketwatch, opening the clasp and setting it on the bar. There was nothing outstanding about it, with a simple watch face and the metal having acquired a patina from its years of use. But on the inside of the cover was an enamelled photograph of a two young couples. There was no movement, but there was colour—a Muggle photograph—though the once technicolour hues had dulled with time.

‘That’s my wife there,’ he pointed at the stern looking woman next to his younger portrait. ‘Muggleborn. Sorted into Slytherin of all places, too! She survived that, and the first War. We thought after things would be different. For a time, it had…’

He picked up the pocketwatch and swung it, watching its movement matching the seconds it counted.

‘We thought our world was swinging forward, that in the years on, our relief turned to complacency. Made us blind to the pendulum swinging backward, and you’re quite aware of how that had turned.’ He set the watch back down and sighed. ‘With the Second War, forced to run again, she chose to flee our world altogether when it ended. To her, us meeting was the only good thing that magic brought into her life. Everything else was a nightmare. Now she's living the dream, working with spiders I think. Making money with Interwebs.’

He pointed to the other couple now. ‘But my brother and sister-in-law. No chance to make that choice. Blasted to pieces in Hogsmeade because she, too, committed the crime of simply being muggleborn.’

He paused then, finding his mouth suddenly dry, while his eyes becoming unexpectedly wet. He cleared his throat, and took another sip.

‘So,’ he began with again. ‘So tell your stories, Edith. Make them listen, and kick ‘em in the arse if you have to. Because the pendulum seems to be swinging back again, with Nils, Gaius, your lovely editor, this whole summit. If you’d be so kind, help an old man from reliving an age of horrors for a third time.’

It was a lot, he knew. And she was young. Painfully young...Perhaps this had been a mistake. Another unfair burden for someone who should be living her youth as carefree as she could. He sighed, and raised his glass again.

‘It is a big ask. So, if you can’t,’ he said kindly, offering an out. ‘At least have another drink with me.’

Edith pushed her sleeves up and ordered a beer, something bitter, and watched with interest the exchange about the Scotch. She didn’t ask for details, didn’t question his tastes, didn’t mock how posh he sounded. This was her professional demeanor, after all. She angled toward him with drink in hand, resting her forearm on the bar and repeating her “So,” from before.

She nodded as Jon started again; she had been around. She supposed she should be more worried that people were noticing her, was probably supposed to be a bit more careful than wander around because she was bored. At the mention of the meals, Edith shrugged, burying her obvious distaste for everything in a large swallow of beer -- would it really kill them to serve chips even just one time? -- and doing her best to stay focused. She couldn’t focus on the title he gave her: political writer.

It was still so unsettling. It wasn’t just the column’s move to the political section; even before her name had been on it she had felt it. She wasn’t any more used to it now, that any word said against the one institution in this world automatically made her a person of interest. Still, she didn’t want to cause any sort of revolution. Writing was supposed to make her feel better, so not alone; it had backfired on one account, and two guesses to pick which one.

But political writer aside, no. She wasn’t interested in this. Or, she was, and was trying not to lean in the feeling that the air was thick with familiarity.

You’ve become a pain in the arse. Edith couldn’t hide her smile at that, at least. This didn’t automatically make this conversation one she wanted to be having, but it was something. The toast to her was a plus, too, though she remained still. “So,” she repeated, aware that she had yet to really say anything else. She didn’t like being a somebody, but she didn’t think he’d understand -- why else would she have bothered to put her name on the column if not to gain some sort of fame or recognition? She didn’t think he’d believe her, at any rate, and why should he?

Edith shifted almost uncomfortably, relaxing only when it was apparent he had been reaching for his watch; she was too apprehensive to question the fact that it was a pocketwatch. She leaned forward the slightest bit take a look as he began talking about the photos, her expression softening at that one particular word: muggleborn. Is that why they had picked him to talk to her? To convince her that they weren’t so unalike, so that she’d be more receptive to whatever the Ministry had to say?

She kept listening anyway, though her resolve to not really want to talk to him was ebbing away. Swallowing hard, she nodded. She was very aware of it, had been right in the middle of it; she did her best to steer her mind away from thinking how helpful it would be for other people to know about this. Edith felt herself relax, not having to hear about another tragedy. It was easier to focus on the positives there, rather than let her thoughts try to draw any parallels between his wife and herself: muggleborn women needing to drop everything -- and everyone -- just to stay alive. She was far too sober to deal with those thoughts even sort of appropriately.

But his brother and sister-in-law. Edith glanced down at the photos again, but it was for a brief second before she caught Emerson’s eye again. Shit. She sniffed and turned farther toward him, abandoning her glass to fold her hands together in her lap. So, he said again, and she nodded. There was still a small part of her that thought this was a whole thing just to get her to listen, but there was a much bigger part that was dumb enough to listen anyways.

Her eyebrows shot up; he wasn’t telling her to stop writing, wasn’t trying to get her to align her views with what the Ministry was trying to achieve. This wasn’t exactly helping though, was it? No pressure or anything. Nils, Gaius, her editor -- she’d come back to that soon -- and a request to not let this happen a third time. She blew air through pursed lips as she picked up her glass again; she drained half and lowered the glass to her lap, shaking her head. “So you,” she started, not sure where she was heading with her question.

“Third time?”