#ends abruptly

Plenty of RA missions involve going under cover for information. Dressing pretty, playing nice with nobles or notorious pirates and other criminals for the sake of gathering info. But another good source is often the help.

You're the handservant of some week-long event's host. You are expected to answer directly to your Master, but do plenty in terms of serving guests as well. Quiet, composed, sharp-eyed and with open ears. You know quite a bit of illicit information regarding the operations of your "employer" (a generous title. You aren't enslaved, but freedom isn't exactly reachable either).

As such, you are someone on the list, for lack of better words. Your proximity to this noble makes your information valuable. They immediately set themselves apart from other guests- mostly just by being so nice. Not just to you, but to the other servants as well. It's not just about thanking you when you bring champagne or food around, but actually being willing to converse.

They don't spring things on you immediately. They can't just drop "hi, we're from the RA. Tell us your secrets and then come with us." They gotta test the waters first, and all that. Your proximity is a blessing and a curse, they need to tread carefully and gauge your loyalty before suggesting anything.

Your first one-on-one encounter is with Sabo. He's snooping around the servant's quarters when you enter, but he's charming and charismatic enough to play it off. "Ah, this is embarrassing," he chuckles, rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, I was looking for my partner, and I've gotten myself horribly turned around." You're understandably nervous, but the blonde gentleman has a way of putting you at ease. He makes pleasant conversation as you guide him back, and his red-headed partner yanks the flesh of his cheek as she thanks you for rescuing her idiot. It's a rather uncouth action that takes you by surprise, a peel of laughter bubbling out of your mouth. You cover your mouth, apologize, and excuse yourself.

That same night, you catch some of the lower ranked servants speaking together in the kitchens. You hear a little bit about an offer, a chance to leave, before they see you and go completely quiet. You smile, and mime zipping your mouth shut. You hope it works out for them.

You don't know it yet, but obviously it was the revolutionaries that made them an offer. The fact that you didn't rat them out is a point in your favor.

There are a few more encounters. Koala seeks you out, seeing if she can get anything from you under the guise of sharing gossip. But while you do share trivial dramas and laugh at her insights, you're unfortunately tight-lipped. You do however, lead her out to the gardens when she asks if there's a place she can get some air. You find yourself talking more than you thought, telling her about each of the plants found there, and lead her to a little corner where you'd planted a small patch of assorted herbs for tea.

It's pleasant. You're cute, and passionate about your plants. She sympathizes when you talk about asking your master if they'd consider setting up an Apiary, but of course such a thing wasn't approved. Too unsightly, and nobody wants anything to do with insects.

It comes to a head when on one of the last nights, you're sent to your masters quarters to fetch something. And the window overlooking the gardens lays open. You freeze. There's no way you or any of the other servants left it open, you think, and that pause is all it takes- Koala slips behind you and presses a cloth to your face, muttering apologies.

They both like you, they do. But if there's a risk of you giving them away, they can't allow it, and they don't want you to be punished either. So, you get carried off into the night. Sabo teases Koala a little bit, saying that of the two of them she's not the one he'd expect to abduct you. She tells him to shut up.

     I was born and raised in California, and have occasionally been on International flights… and by occasionally, I mean once. This summer my family and I flew to Hong Kong to visit relatives. It was July, so it was humid and hot. Fortunately, buildings were air conditioned and life was similar to how it was in the States. However, transportation was more efficient, there were fewer homeless on the street, and everyone was friendlier. One night, my family and I went to eat dinner with my mom’s sister’s sister-in-law and her family. We went to a classy restaurant. My mom’s sister’s sister-in-law’s son arrived later. We really hit it off; he went to an international school, so he spoke English… American English to be exact. His father and mother both went to school in the UK. Eventually the table conversation turned to education: high school, college and beyond. His parents pushed him to go to University in the UK, where it would be cheaper. He wanted to go to Pepperdine, in Southern California. He claimed that he would fit in better because of his American accent, whereas in the UK, they would taunt him for speaking American English. I agreed with him, and added that there were more choices in the States, but the price would be pretty high considering he would be an international student. His dad then argued that schools in America were unsafe, he pointed to the school shootings. His dad called the attention of my dad to explain a school shooting. My dad replied, “Which one?” and at that point I had my epiphany. America really isn’t a very safe place. There have been so many shootings, so many school shootings. In the past 23 years, there have been more than a 120 school shootings. The Columbine High School Massacre, Westside Middle School Massacre, Lindhurst High School Shooting, Virginia Tech Massacre, Red Lake Massacre, Amish school shooting, Northern Illinois University Shooting, Sandy Hook Elementary School Shooting, Chardon High School Shooting are just a few. Inadequate teachings, domestic violence, ignored mental illness and firearm exposure have all led to school shootings. The reason these things are a problem? The American government isn’t doing much against them. They’re mainly fixed on bettering the military and developing more powerful weapons.

      On the return trip from Hong Kong, to the States, I noticed how much more lax the airport security was. You put all your contents in a tray, and move it through a metal detector. You don’t even have to take off your shoes. Then you walk through a metal detector. That’s it. But in the States, the security was much… tighter. Electronics had to be separated from your bag, you had to step through a metal detector, remove your shoes to be scanned. If you were unlucky, you had to be pat down. Well, that was before they installed that cylindrical tube that scanned your whole body while you stood spread eagle link an idiot in your socks and t shirt. The Hong Kong airport security shrugs when you ask them a question but they smile friendly when you smile at them. Although I've never tried it, I bet if you smiled at US airport security, they'd take you to a back room and interrogate you maybe to a full body search, because, or course, if you smile, you're hiding explosives and not because you're trying to be polite.      I asked my dad why they seemed so easy going and so carefree, compared to US security. He smartly replied,"Well who has something against China?" My first thought was North Korea, but then I realized that they're allies with China... I thought about it some more and realized that was why security was so tight in the states. It's because they've got issues with so many people, so many countries. It's because the States are sticking its metaphorical nose into everyone else's business for the "good of the people". Blowing things up with advanced military weapons is definitely for the good of the people.

                                         *****************      When looking at stereotypes of countries and their people, we don't have a very good image. Canadians are stereotyped to be nice, hockey loving moose people with maple syrup scented rainbow money.  The Chinese are stereotyped to be Communists who are good at math and playing the piano; they also eat anything that moves. Americans are collectively viewed as a Southern white male with a beer belly and a mullet, firing a shot gun with one hand and chugging a can of beer with the other. He'd be wearing a greasy wife beater and there would probably be a confederate flag flying the in background. A military jet would fly across the sky writing FREEDOM in all capital letters. This image of America shows a white man, even though there are so many different people, people of color, in our country. This makes me question American diversity. Are we, people of color, so insignificant that we aren't recognized as Americans? Is our diversity so unimportant that other people don't view us as Americans? Do people really only see America as made up of only fat white males who are against abortion rights and gay marriage? Sadly, even as an American, that's how I see America. Well at least how it is run. Given how these white males have mistreated minority groups (blacks, native Americans, Chinese, homosexuals and queer groups and everyone not of English descent) diversity seems to me synonymous with oppression. Oh, you're different, so let's massacre your kind and deny you an rights a human being should have. Sure, we're mostly past racial discrimination now, but there are still gender discrimination and uneven wages, the government protects rapists and the rich. Guns aren't very well regulated and licenses seem to be simple to acquire. It's strange that to buy a gun in Alabama, all you have to do is go into a gun shop and buy one. No need for a license. To legally buy a car, one must have a driver's license. To obtain a driver's license, you must complete a course and take a seemingly countless number of tests. If there are this many things that a potential driver has got to do to stop unsafe people from buying 4000 pound hunk of metal that is capable of moving at extreme speeds, then there should be this many or more things potential gun users have to do before getting and using a gun.

                                     ***************************

She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t even attempt to breathe; she couldn’t even think. Subconsciously, she was aware of her surroundings: of Elias’ hand on her back and Sirius gripping her forearms. James was saying something in the background, but it no longer mattered what he said. What anyone said.

Because Mary Macdonald was dead.

She wasn’t ready. She’d been preparing herself (or at least trying to prepare herself) to receive bad news ever since their group had decided to join the Order. But they weren’t even proper members yet; they were still just technically a bunch of misfit kids.

“Put a lid on it, McKinnon,” Auror Moody growled, sparing the stricken girl little more than a passing glare. “People are dying everywhere. No point in getting bent out of shape about one death.”

“Moody,” James almost implored, shaking his head. “Give her a minute, yeah?”

“She won’t have a minute in the field,” the gruff older wizard snapped, growing more annoyed by the minute. If Marlene had cared to even look at him (she was still staring blankly at the wall ahead of her, hardly daring to believe what she’d just been told), she would’ve noticed the impatient look on his face and the harsh lines of his mouth. But she still couldn’t bring herself to look at anything but that stark white piece of wall.

“Marlene,” Sirius asked gently, kneeling down in front of her. “Marlene, listen to me. Don’t start blanking out on me now, okay? We still need you.”

That was the first thing Marlene became aware of – Sirius’ eyes. He’d always been able to spew bullshit about anything and everything, but she’d long ago discovered that you could read him by his eyes. And while he may have looked calm on the outside (as he tried to pull her back from the edge), his eyes showed fear, and anger, and sorrow. And this, and only this, brought her back to reality. “I need to be alone,” she whispered, her voice raw and rough, eyes never leaving Sirius’ face. She could see them all moving out of the corner of her eye: Lily and James were the first to depart, followed by Moody and the others (Emmeline, maybe? She saw a flash of blonde). Even Elias, with one final kiss to the top of her head, left the room. With a sigh, Sirius went to push himself off of the floor from his position crouched in front of her, but Marlene rested a hand on his arm.

“Not you,” she whispered. “Sirius, please don’t leave me.”

“Right here, Marls.” He reached out and enveloped her in a hug, pulling her from the armchair with almost unbelievable ease and pulling her as close as he could. She pressed her face into his chest and let the sobs take over. Gut-wrenching, tearless sobs that consumed her entire body and broke her heart; she wasn’t even aware she was capable of making that noise.

How could Mary be dead? Mary Macdonald, one of her best friends since age eleven. Mary Macdonald, the girl who had survived dating Barty Crouch Jr and attacks from Mulciber and Bellatrix Black and all of the other nutcases they’d gone to school with and had gone on to become Death Eaters. Mary was one of the strongest witches she’d ever known, and it just didn’t make sense.

“Who killed her?” she finally asked, when the sobbing subsided and she could finally speak again. Though, her voice was barely more than a whisper; she’d worn her throat out from the screaming and the sobbing.

Sirius pulled back a little, a frown flashing across his face. “Marls… I don’t think… It’s not the time…”

“Tell me,” she nearly growled, eyes flashing. If one of her best friends was dead, she deserved to know who had actually done the deed. Marlene fully intended on hunting down whatever son of a bitch had cast the curse and giving them the same. She didn’t care if murder was wrong; she wasn’t thinking straight.

She wanted Mary back, and since she couldn’t have that, she wanted the next best thing: revenge.

“She did.”

The silence was almost deafening. She’d done it herself? Mary had killed herself? No. “You’re lying,” she whispered, pulling back from him harshly. “Mary would never. If she survived a relationship with Crouch without offing herself, she’d never do it. Why are you lying to me?!”

“I’m not.” Even under her slightly murderous gaze and her raised, raspy voice, Sirius didn’t waver. It was something she would thank him for later. “She didn’t… it’s complicated, Marlene.”

“Then explain it.”

Instead of offering her further words, trying and failing to reason with a slightly-mental Marlene, Sirius merely offered her a small scrap of paper. She snatched it from him, something she would feel awful for if she’d been in her right mind. She glared at him one final time before glancing down at the parchment.

Mary Macdonald no longer exists. She hasn’t, not for a while. Not alone. You see, below this sweet, innocent little exterior lies a snake waiting to strike. A viper, if you will. It was long ago awoken and has been gradually getting stronger and stronger ever since.

Hello, dears. I am Katherine.