ballad of big nothing [closed]

This was different, right? It felt the same, but it was different.

She had to tell herself that, anyway. This was different. This wasn’t a DA meeting. It was just a coincidence that people she was expecting to show up in a matter of minutes probably still held onto their DA galleons like she did. It was just her meeting up with some other student radicals. If she put a name on it, then it just made everything more real, right? She didn’t want it to be real. Then again, if none of this was real or really mattered, then it was all one hell of a coincidence.

Edith supposed she was checking in to see if they felt the same way; it wasn’t like she was asking everyone; she certainly hadn’t kept in contact with enough people to even come close to that. There was no point in trying to talk to just anyone, anyway. Her column had, at least, given her a good starting point; she had interviewed a fair number of people by now, and since that column, she had some more people reach out to her. Well, she had a lot of people contact her, but a surprising majority of them hadn’t outright wanted her to jump out the window.

She sniffed before taking another swallow of her beer, glancing up at the sound of the door being slammed open again. She was only expecting a few people, and the bar’s new entrants did not fit the bill. Shifting the end of her sleeve, Edith took a look at her watch. She had been intentionally early, which had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now it was just making her nervous. She had a copy of the paper rolled up in her backpack, but she was sure she wouldn’t need it; in her letters she had asked if they had seen the news and if they wanted to talk a bit; responses were a little varied but all had the same gist: of course they had seen it, and yes talking was the least they could do.

Her name being in that interview -- and the thought that her name had been spoken by a Death Eater -- was nothing less than disconcerting. She hadn’t been trying to start something with that column; she remembered her words better than anyone. Hadn’t she just admitted that now it felt like people were expecting something, some big thing -- there had been a joke about overthrowing the MInistry -- and then days later, all of this. Yikes.

The door slammed again and Edith looked up, not realizing that she had been staring into the empty booth across from her for the past few minutes. “Hey.” She made a small wave and a smaller smile. “Er, thanks for coming, I think.”

Daily news sometimes crossed his path at work, but Dean only got the Sunday Prophet these days. After all the corruption he’d seen the paper go through he was sort of loath to give them any money at all. They’d sort of started to shape up, though, and he couldn’t very well just read the Quibbler. He had a fondness for that particular publication, of course—and he wanted to support the Lovegoods. But they’d taken advantage of peacetime to do what they did best: accuse government figures of being two stacked goblins in disguise and print recipes for questionable blends of tea. Dean wasn’t dumb enough anymore to live in a Muggle building without legitimate news.

This wasn’t the first time the British government had disappointed him, nor the British media. But he’d had a bit more faith in these ones. Shacklebolt—Dean knew Kingsley, he was no Fudge. He’d never have let anyone bully him into releasing a convicted murderer, much less one that still openly stood by his Death Eater past. Not unless there was something else worrying at play.

He poked his head in to Edith’s chosen venue and gave her a small wave in reply. She had wanted to meet at a Muggle bar. Obviously smarter than a wizard one, it felt like—the worst that could come from being overheard was strange looks. Dean felt nervous all the same. Hush-hush meetings had been exciting when they were fifteen and new to resistance. Now all of them were weighed down with the memory of last time, it was sinister from the start. (God, he hoped this wasn’t a start of anything.)

“Muffliato,” mumbled Dean with a subtle flick of his wand behind the card of special cocktails. A spell Ron had taught him years ago in a pub sort of like this one.

He looked across the table at Edith, and then back toward the door. No one else he recognized was here. He’d given Seamus the address, at least, but knew his friend would take care to show up a few minutes late. Seamus hadn’t spoken to Edith in four or five years if ever, and Dean was happy to come first and act as a buffer. But whoever was doing the gathering, he’d known Seamus would have taken it as a personal betrayal if Dean hadn’t called to tell him immediately. He also knew Seamus sure as shit wasn’t reading the paper.

“Who all’s coming?” asked Dean. He knew Edith hadn’t been in close contact with many of the others either, even less so than Seamus. She only had his address because of his interview. Dean doubted many of the rest of them were in her social circle.

Her mother's face was drawn when Ari Apparated to Exeter on September 1st, a copy of the Sunday Prophet clenched in her hand, the first thing her Portkey-lagged self had seen in the afternoon when she finally woke up after crashing after a harrowing trip from California. To her credit, Eliza Laurier had never verbally questioned her family's Ministry employment, despite her own harrowing ordeals during the last year of the war. Ari had always thought that she assumed, because of them, perhaps, that the Ministry was more stymied in good intentions than intentionally and pervasively maintaining an anti-Muggleborn status quo; or perhaps she just recognized her middle child's impulse to protect. For her part, Ariana had read Edith's columns with a growing sense of unease. Ari knew in her bones that there were people like their department Head, Jocasta, who had chosen their vocation to serve and protect. There was no doubt that the last year of training had sharpened her skills to do just that; but she was the child of her father, a protest resigner during the war. Was it worth remaining in such an institution when all of them appeared to be crumbling into immorality?

'Don't believe everything you read in the Prophet,' her mother had always said, looking over her young shoulder at articles slandering this or that politician's magical abilities or sexual morality or prognosticating a catastrophe. This, though, was not about incorrect facts or tabloid sensationalism. This was about a voice: not only that one of the most infamous living Death Eaters had been released not four years after the Battle of Hogwarts, but that he was given a major platform by the acting editor of the newspaper, a sympathetic interview emphasizing his modesty and slight ideological differences. What was the point of it all--what was the point of them dying for this--if four years after they had demanded his head for his luridly described crimes the public was not rioting in the streets at his release, drinking his words instead from this rag? Student radicals. Her blood had burned in her veins upon reading that, flashes of green and falling children overwhelming her vision. Ari did not bring up the war in any way but casually or matter-of-factly if she could not help it. Now she wanted more than her mother's or Edith's stories of survival. She wanted to draw out her memories of the war and plunge every last wizard in Britain into them. Maybe then they would understand. But she couldn't even really make Prosper understand...

She had calmed down enough, pushed by her mother's somber and careful tones, by the time Edith's letter had arrived, to not immediately want the head of everyone involved any longer. 'Death isn't the answer,' she had said, the look in her eyes far away. 'Martyrdom just makes more.' Eliza had glanced at her, then, and then the pocket in which she knew she always kept her wand. 'Some battles need to be fought in other ways,' was her restrained comment before excusing herself for an interview. She just seemed tired, and that made Ari scared. She had flopped down on her childhood bed then, having missed her father and sister's departure to King's Cross by a few hours, and wondered what she was doing; she'd owled in 'sick' for half the week, avoiding the Ministry and the Aurors she didn't know if she could trust. When Edith's letter arrived to London the next week, her reply was restrained and serious; she felt as thought she was searching for some kind of resolution, unsure that she would ever come to one.

Ari had never been to a Muggle bar, but in drinking, at least, it was evident that Muggles and wizards were not so different. She glanced around uncertainly, looking for Edith's glasses, before spotting her sitting across from a young man she had never met but recognized as Dean Thomas. "Hey, Edith," she said quietly, sliding in next to her and then glancing awkwardly across at Dean. "Um. I'm Ariana," she said, sticking out a hand and racking her brains with a way to introduce herself. "I was in Dennis's year," she settled on. He had mentioned spending time with him over the previous Christmas, so it was probably the closest connection she had to him. "My mum's been compiling stories of," she paused, glancing around, unsure if people could hear, "people like her and Edith," she offered, explaining the connection. She turned in Edith's direction, her expression dark. "I thought she'd be as furious as I was, you know, but she just sounded...resigned."

It hadn’t been, have you read the Prophet? when Dean had called him, it’d been read the Prophet. Seamus, who hadn’t read the Prophet since before he’d left for America-- probably since before even that-- had gone into the kitchen to ask his mam if she had it on hand, and her expression at that told him almost more than Dean had.

She must be worried about all this, too, he realised. He wondered what she’d said to his dad, whether his dad knew or understood any of it.

She had hovered a few feet away as he read the paper slowly at the kitchen table, finding the articles that looked most relevant and tracing his way through them with his finger. It had felt condescending-- like he couldn’t be left alone to read the paper-- but he’d gotten it once he started reading. He’d finished the paper and pushed it away in disgust, and she’d offered to talk about it. He’d asked if she had the one from last week.

He’d been this side of the Atlantic again for about two weeks now, so it wasn’t such a crime to not be caught up on the news, but he felt idiotic for it. As much as he distrusted the Prophet, he should have at least been paying attention, right?

His mam thought he was visiting Dean, right now. Technically, it wasn’t a lie, although he always thought she could tell when he wasn’t being totally honest. He showed up late-- Dean had mentioned this as being hosted by Edith Holthouse, who Seamus could not remember ever speaking to, and did not want to be alone with-- and spotted Dean first, sitting with two faintly familiar women. He remembered them both from school, thought that one of them must have been in the DA in his seventh year. She was an adult now, which baffled him a little.

He made his way to their little gathering, sat next to Dean across from the others. Edith had to be the one with the glasses, he thought she’d definitely been a Gryffindor when he had, but he couldn’t remember the other girl’s name, even though she definitely looked familiar up close. “Er, Seamus,” he said, and held out one hand to shake. “Dean asked me here.”

He assumed that Dean wouldn’t have invited him if he hadn’t checked that it was okay, first, but he worried anyway that it was some kind of breach of conduct. Probably everybody else here was more familiar with each other than he was with any of them save Dean. He scratched his nose surreptitiously and glanced sideways at Dean-- he’d been told this was just a meeting to talk about current events, but meeting in a Muggle bar, spreading news through word of mouth, suggested to him that they were being secretive, and he wasn’t sure what to make of that yet.

Edith followed Dean’s gaze with her own, glancing at the door -- not opening -- then back to Dean. Who was coming? “Er, well you,” she ran down the very short list in her head. “Angelina Johnson,” a year ahead of her and not someone she thought really needed any explaining, “And Ariana Laurier.” She was younger, and probably did need explaining; she hadn’t been in the DA with them the first time around, and Edith had known her mum before she knew Ariana, but she really didn’t have the energy to explain much of anything -- other than the reason they were sitting across from each other again.

“I’m not keeping up with a lot of people,” she added, though she didn’t know if she could count her new relationships with Angelina and Ariana ‘keeping up’ as much as ‘not totally cutting them from everything’. A few other former DA -- though again she reminded herself this wasn’t a DA meeting -- members had reached out since going public with her column, but no one had been more on Edith’s mind than these three. She wasn’t going to question it.

She turned her pint glass around in its spot on the table, only glancing up again at the repeated sound of the door slamming shut. She lifted her hand in another small little wave before scooting over, pushing her backpack into the wall to afford them as much personal space as possible. “Hey,” she said again, grateful that Ariana took care of her own introductions; having formally invited everyone for a chat was as official as Edith really wanted these proceedings to be.

Ariana mentioned Dennis, and her eyes flicked back to Dean, finally remembering that Dean had been the one to tell Dennis that she had been writing the anonymous column. Dennis was probably the one exception to Edith’s earlier reasoning, that only three people had been on her mind for this little rendezvous. He had been on her mind -- of course he had -- but whatever sort of tentative friendship they had now felt too fragile to start including other people in it. She hadn’t wanted to tell him about this for that reason, she reassured herself, and not because she was almost certain he wouldn’t have wanted to come, anyway.

The tension in Edith’s dissipated at Ari’s next comment, her expression blanking out. “Really?” It wasn’t like she had been expecting Ariana to show up equipped with something reassuring from her mother, but it would have been nice to have anything at all. “Christ.” She turned back to Dean, trying to offer some sort of background information but most likely failing spectacularly. “Ari’s mum is the one who introduced me to my editor at the paper.” She paused for a second before backtracking. “Or, my old editor. Before things were political.” She blinked a few times, trying not to focus too much on the word -- but that was part of the reason they were here now, wasn’t it? It was all becoming political again.

Edith looked up again -- the door, again -- but she turned back when it was obviously not Angelina. She was mid-swallow when the pub’s new patron joined them anyway, and it took her a minute to attach the name to the face. She replaced her glass on the table and reached for his hand. “Edith,” she offered, glancing to Dean and wondering why she had convinced herself that it hadn’t been necessary to remind them to not spread any word of anything -- had she just assumed it was common sense? -- but he was already here and Edith was too tired to argue.

“Right well, basically.” Edith paused to take another long swallow of her beer, pushing off her next sentence as long as possible, which really only amounted to about five seconds. She kept her hands on the glass, focusing on it rather than any of the occupants of their table. “I’m not really sure what’s going on but I really, really don’t like it.” She nearly snorted as she remembered one line in particular: “Gaius Purcell is ‘optimistic for our future’ and the ‘new generation’ and she turned around and called him inspiring.” She didn’t mention her new editor by name, was trying to put off helping everyone make that connection for as long as possible. “She basically told him she had her vote for Minister.”

Edith’s social circle turned out to be as inexplicable as Dean had expected. “Angelina?” he repeated. “And...” He was saved the embarrassment of asking who Ariana Laurier was by her arrival.

She was a slight brown-haired girl that he was able to recognize only after knowing that he should. Hufflepuff, or Ravenclaw, maybe. And young—far too young for the DA, he’d have thought—but Dean often had to remind himself that Dumbledore’s Army had grown significantly in his absence. “Hi,” said Dean, shaking her hand politely. She provided a reference for him: Dennis’s year. It made Dean cringe to imagine Dennis hearing his thoughts on her age.

Dean wondered if Dennis kept up with the news. It wasn’t as if he would know, anymore.

Edith explained their relationship, at least a little. “Was it not always political?” asked Dean, genuinely curious. Even if Edith had just been trying to remind everyone what had happened so recently when they seemed to have forgotten, that itself was an indirect attack on the administration that had allowed them to. Her actual intentions had seemed to be much more direct from the start. But as he thought on it, he sort of understood. Compared to now, when he imagined a month or two ago it felt like there had been nothing to oppose.

Dean glanced up as the door jingled and caught Seamus’s entrance over Ariana’s shoulder. He gave his friend a tight-lipped little grimace of greeting. As he shifted aside for Seamus to sit, Dean noticed Edith’s blank face watching him join their group and realized with a sinking heart that he’d forgot to mention it. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I was gonna tell you. Just— couldn’t leave him out of it, and I guess I figured it couldn’t hurt.” He remembered, stomach flopping awkwardly, that he’d spilled Edith’s secrets before. She must have really cut herself off, he thought. If he was one of the best people she could think to summon here.

He had considered writing a number more people, in truth. Harry, obviously, Hermione, of course, Luna, who had an in with a subversive newspaper, all of whom he expected were roiling with fury. He wouldn’t have been surprised if they were having their own meeting. He hoped they were. Dean trusted Harry Potter far more than he trusted himself to make anything happen.  But he’d put the temptation to invite them, or even discuss it with Edith, aside at least until he figured out what was going on. With Seamus there was no such choice.

Edith called them to order, or, sort of. Dean sort of wished he’d brought a copy of the paper to annotate or something, mark all the worrying words or references he wanted gone over. But for now, he could just give Edith his biggest question. He leaned forward over the waxy tablecloth, brow furrowed. “So—who the fuck is Melissa Knox?”

The coin felt warm against her skin even though it's been years since it did.

At one point, Angelina thought for sure she'd lost her DA coin, something quite alarming to her, since she was pretty sure she was one of the only people who can't quite seem to move on from the past. Not from the war, but from her years in Hogwarts as a student. It didn't really matter that she was a successful Quidditch player now, she still held on to bits and pieces from when she was a schoolgirl; her Quidditch Captain badge, old Gryffindor jumpers threadbare from use, her first jar of broom polish, now empty, samples of the first ever products Fred and George had rolled out for testing... Sometimes she could hardly believe that seven years of her life could fit neatly into one tiny drawer, at least the bits worth remembering.

As it turned out, the galleon was over at her parents' house with the rest of her stuff that wasn't worth remembering as much. She had no idea how it got mixed up in there, but it was all she could do to press a quick kiss on her mum's cheek before stuffing the coin in her coat pocket, along with Edith's letter, and apparating out of their family home.

Edith had indicated that the bar they were meeting at would be in a muggle part of the city, and with her long coat, boots, and beret, Angelina felt like she blended in quite well with the other passersby milling around. She knew she was probably late, but still she walked at an easy pace, not in a hurry to get there. She wasn't sure who was going to turn up, but how long had it been since she'd seen those once-familiar faces? Five, six years? Perhaps even longer, perhaps never. After all, a lot of the children she remembered have all grown up during the war, and she wasn't sure how much of their past selves were left for her to recognise.

It's not like the thought of re-grouping the DA never crossed her mind, but under what pretense would she have had to organise a meeting? Going to the Hogs Head for a drink while the rest of the community seemed like it was trying its hardest to forget what divided the country didn't seem particularly uplifting. Everyone was either too involved in their loss or too quick to sever it. Angelina thought of her National team robes and smiled; it seemed like she belonged to the latter.

Double-checking she had the address right—she was so used to the comparitive precision of the Floo and apparating—she pushed her way into the fairly empty bar, enjoying the way her heels clicked on the black-and-white tiled floors and nary a head turning at the sight of Angelina Johnson, Quidditch star.

Almost immediately, Angelina spotted Dean, and she guessed that the slightly confused looking young man beside him was Seamus. They never were too far apart from each other. Momentarily, she felt her heart swell with affection. These were no longer the boys who sulked when they didn't make it through the Quidditch tryouts, but it was good to see that the boys in them weren't completely lost.  The smile that made its way onto her face dimmed somewhat when she got close enough to hear Edith speak; I’m not really sure what’s going on but I really, really don’t like it.

"Hullo," her smile unwavering as she gestured at the younger looking girl next to Edith to squeeze in so she could take a seat, "it has been a while, hasn't it?" Angelina didn't bother introducing herself; she wasn't trying to be pig-headed but she was sure everyone at the booth would know who she was. At least, they should. Last she checked, Seeker Weekly hadn't suffered a dip in sales despite everything that had been going on recently in the Ministry. "Honestly I have no idea where Melissa Knox came from or who she is, but she seems about as pleasant as Hagrid's rock cakes. I guess anything is making it into print these days." Angelina raised an eyebrow, "I didn't know we were supposed to feel sorry for convicted murderers for surviving Azkaban."

Ari only shrugged in response to Edith's interjection. She wished she had something more to offer, but she felt more powerless now than she had as a fifteen-year-old. Then, if she had been powerless to affect the grand scheme of things, there had at least been the small sphere of Hogwarts for her to impact--refusing the Carrows, protecting underclassmen. Now she was at the Ministry, but it wasn't as if they were consulting trainee Aurors before releasing criminals. Given what they'd done, they probably weren't consulting real Aurors either--either that, or everyone in this room had been just as dumb for following Harry Potter as Dennis could make their younger selves sound in the space of two sentences. "She said something about some battles needing to be fought in other ways, but if there's a media war I think we're losing it." Between Skeeter's book about the dome and this new editor-in-chief, everything had taken a turn to the decidedly-unsympathetic-to-student-radicals.

She recognized Seamus Finnigan when he walked in--unlike Dean and Edith, he'd still been at Hogwarts her fourth year when she'd joined the DA--but evidently he didn't recognize her. "Ari," she replied instead, sparing herself the inevitable embarrassment of attempting to jog his memory. There was a moment of awkwardness as Dean attempted to explain his presence, but they all had more pressing things to think about. Edith took a long swallow of beer, which made Ari wish she had a drink in her hand too. Not for the alcohol, exactly, although at this point maybe it wouldn't hurt.

Her fingertips pressed down hard on the top of the table at the mention of Purcell's interview and the way that Knox had told him that his presence was sorely needed, although she glanced up and did a double-take, moving in for Angelina Johnson. Angelina was Finn's teammate, not that that had secured her an introduction at any point--and at any rate Freya might have converted to Magpie fandom but Ariana was still loyal to Puddlemere.

In case any of them actually wanted to know where Melissa Knox came from, as opposed to why she was apparently insane, Ari did have something to contribute, and she leaned in as Dean had. "According to what my mum and Ed told me," she'd owled her brother afterwards, given his profession, "Knox got raised to Editor-in-Chief in the summer of '96. And she didn't step down until right before the battle." Her suggestive look indicated exactly what she thought about what that meant--no one had deposed her when the Death Eaters had taken over the Ministry. "Also, Mum had it from Dad that her husband was a Death Eater." Everyone knew everyone at the Ministry, and he'd been some kind of official, so his arrest and death had been common knowledge among other Ministry employees, circulating when people like her father had resumed their jobs after the war. "But I never thought she could be like that in print now, after everything. I hate that they brought you up, Edith. Like you agree with them or something."

“No,” Edith said quickly, defensively. It hadn’t always been political. She didn’t think so, anyway. She had shit to deal with; other people did, too. It’s nice not to feel so alone all the time, she thought distantly. That train of thought didn’t have the opportunity to stick around too long, thankfully. Introductions were quickly out of the way and they got down to business -- or, business, if there was any business, but this was not official -- as Edith shook her head. Who the fuck was Melissa, indeed. “She’s--” she started but stopped just as quickly as Angelina joined them. It was good to see her; she had been busy doing actual adult things (school? work? they weren’t actually friends, were they?) and they had only spoken through letters. Point was: good to see her. Too bad it wasn’t under better circumstances.

Edith grimaced, half from being smushed into the wall and half from the situation at hand. “Yeah,” she agreed; anything was making it into print these days. She was certainly questioning her own writing ability and what it said about it when her column was printed alongside this sort of thing. “Yeah,” she said again when Angelina mentioned how they were supposed to feel sorry for Purcell surviving Azkaban. “Yet when I write about muggleborns doing it, his lot expects me to quit my job.” She didn’t care how hypocritical she might be coming across, lumping in those who had negative opinions of her writing to a death eater, but it was past time for propriety, wasn’t it?

She leaned in as the others did. Ariana knew more about Edith’s boss than Edith did, apparently. She swallowed, but her mouth was dry; editor-in-chief stepping down right before the battle. She didn’t need to figure out Ariana’s expression to let her mind skip ahead a few beats -- Edith was not a huge supporter of anyone who had been in power during the war, either actively participating or just standing by the wayside. Judging by the robes Melissa wore to work, she wasn’t at the paper for any financial needs, so the excuse of supporting a family wouldn’t really sit well with her. Edith picked up her glass and drained it, realizing belatedly that she was the only one drinking, deciding quickly that she didn’t care anymore.

“Her husband was a Death Eater,” she said flatly, as if she wouldn’t believe it until she heard herself say it. The news was worse that way, if that was possible. She managed half a smile, at best, as Ariana mentioned her name being thrown around the interview. “Yeah, because I said something negative about the Ministry, that means I must support its downfall.” She knew the fact that she was a former Ministry employee wasn’t helping the situation, but it was like her column had been nitpicked to death, her words being picked for convenience if it suited. “That’s not what I want, y’know? Just wanted all this to be out there.” She motioned to the world at large.

“If he had been released from jail before I started publishing under my name…” she trailed off, but she knew exactly where she wanted to go with her thought. If the timing had been any different; if death eaters had started obviously roaming free before she had taken whatever sort of stand she had. Sure, he wasn’t ‘allowed’ to come into the country, but if there was a way to bar someone magical from getting somewhere, surely they would have used that against You-Know-Who, right? She shrugged, reluctantly almost. “I feel like if I write anything against Purcell or against her-- it just wouldn’t get published.” Edith bit her lip and looked down into her empty glass. “Dunno how far I can push my luck, now.” She looked up and around the table. “But I don’t know what else to do, either. Feels like it should be something.”