#iustusetpeccator

@thewrongsorts & @iustusetpeccator

How I feel about this character

10/10 in this house we fuckin’ stan.

Listen six-year-old Brigh was at the height of her shark phase, and this dude’s solution to “swim to the bottom of a lake” was “turn into a fucking sHARK”????? I lost my absolute shit, let me tell u that.

Also he’s a mensch and I love him, I just love him.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Ehhh? Nothing comes to mind tbh.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

It’s obviously Fleur, what a wasted opportunity they barely ever interact, I just love the idea of these two very very different, big over-achievers also having a surprising lot in common and bonding and growing together and —

My unpopular opinion about this character

¯\_( ‘ ‘ )_/¯

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

More friendly interactions with the other Champions!

She’s been at his desk for AGES now, the ticking of the clock ear-piercingly LOUD as reality seemed to blend with nightmares. She was quiet, yes, hands gripping the cup of coffee someone had given her, despite the fact that it had gone cold. 

Petunia had left about an hour ago, after bitterly giving her statement to a dozen ministry officials and getting special permission to NOT have her memories erased. During that time, she repeatedly told anyone who would listen that Lily was NOT welcome to live with her. 

 And so, a tiny witch from the department of underage wizardry was here, trying to find her a place to LIVE during the summer, at least. She’d gotten permission from Dumbledore to return to school early, before winter holidays were over; she was scheduled to leave in the afternoon.  

“How’d you get those scars?” she asked the gruff auror who was apparently in charge of her case (perhaps he was in charge of everything, she didn’t know). Alastor Moody -- she’d heard the name, read it in the papers. He was a famous dark wizard catcher he was; one of the BEST. 

She pulled up the blanket they’d given her around her shoulders a bit more -- she was meant to be asleep in an empty office, a cot set up for her inside. Truthfully, she hadn’t left Moody’s side since she’d seen him at her home, since she watched her parents being floated out with sheets covering them, since the blazing green skull hung over her house, an omen of DEATH.

“Do you have to go to every muggleborn’s house who’s been attacked?” Questions tumbled from trembling lips -- she wanted to CRY, but she had to be STRONG. Questions were a distraction, since no one in this office’d give her any sherry. 

“Why is the coffee here rubbish? Have you killed a man before? No -- you definitely have. Do you like Quidditch? What’s the penalty for killing a man? Are you going to kill whoever did this? Can you?” 

Gideon was nearly trembling with pride and more than a little fear. He’d been found acceptable on first reaching out to contact the Death Eaters, and after making the demanded efforts to prove himself, had been offered the ultimate token of loyalty - to be marked as one of the Dark Lord’s inner circle.

And so he’d come to the old house he’d been instructed to, masked and cloaked - he’d learned very quickly that they were expected to conceal their identities so as to avert potential betrayal - one cold, cloudy night. He hadn’t expected there to be witnesses, or at least not many, but when he was finally admitted there seemed to be more than a dozen people there waiting for him.

A thrill ran down his spine at the approving look he received from their leader, and his heart pounded faster as he stepped forward and knelt at an unspoken signal. This was it, This was where he was truly going to begin his rise as an honoured follower of a great wizard, someone with real vision for their kind.

His voice remained steady, though with a suppressed pride running through it, as he swore to be loyal and faithful, to serve without question and do whatever was asked in the name of their cause.

Then he held up his left arm so that the inner forearm was exposed, and braced. He’d been warned that this would hurt.

A strangled gasp of pain echoed from behind his mask as the brand seared into his skin, and his hand clenched tightly enough the knuckles turned white, but he didn’t flinch and he didn’t make any other sound.

And then it was over. He was officially a Death Eater, and as some of the others moved in to congratulate him, he couldn’t feel more proud.

Kreacher is highly unpleasant.  Most everyone is keen to just ignore his existence.  Barty, however, adores the hideous and crotchety thing in all of his grumbly glory.  In a sense, he’s a relic of the past, and Barty feels a great sentimentality for him.  The feeling is mutual, and the house elf tends to gravitate to him when he’s present, despite their personalities not being the most complementary at times.  In fact, they’re incredibly incompatible together, and it’s a testament to their allegiance toward the memory of Regulus.

“Pick a card.”  Barty has some playing cards out, and this is certain to not go well.  Muggle items aren’t the kind of thing that should be in the house of Black.  “Any card.  And don’t show me what it is you pull, Kreacher.”

“Why?”  Kreacher doesn’t hide his chronically frustrated tone.  He does as asked, however.  After all, he is a house elf, and Barty is the most deserving of his servitude out of anyone here, in his opinion.  He inspects his card.

“It’s muggle magic.”

“WHAT!”  How Barty thought he could do this without causing a scene is a mystery, and Kreacher’s squawking has probably caught the attention of anyone within Grimmauld.  “Muggles have no magics, no magics is what makes them mudbloods.”

What follows is the playing out of a card trick.  I learned it from my friend Adnan during schooling, Barty explains.  Him’s the mudblood you fraternized with, Kreacher replies.  Please don’t call him that, Barty says.  The back and forth and back and forth continues throughout until Barty does the infamous and very cliche (to anyone familiar with muggle culture) line of “Is this your card?”

“No!  No, Master Crouch, you pull a NASTY TRICK on Kreacher!  This is not magic, Kreacher knew it, mudbloods don’t have magic...”  

“It’s magic to them, not us.  It’s MUGGLE magic, not real magic.”  As Barty’s saying this, Kreacher recoils and gives the kind of groan someone might cry upon hearing a terrible, no-good pun.  It seems Barty has a knack for upsetting house elves with his antics because, for the second time in recent history, he has sent one stomping off and grumbling out of incredible distaste for his decorum.

“Lying, deceitful, disrespectful BOY.”  If Kreacher and Winky agree on anything, it’s that Barty is terribly childish and not at all well-mannered, in their eyes, for what the Crouch heir should be like.  And maybe that sort of thing would have bothered Barty when he was younger, but it’s one of the anxieties that he has managed to squash in adulthood.

“So it was your card, then?”

“Are you /trying/ to get yourself killed?!”

“Are you threatening me, Auror Longbottom?” Rita shot back, her eyes narrowing dangerously as the acid green quill trembled in the air before starting to move furiously against the pad floating by her side. High-level Auror Neville Longbottom threatens harmless, brilliant journalist for asking difficult questions of the Ministry, it scribbled in seconds, pausing to wait for any developments, its pointy tip aimed menacingly at Neville.

“All I wanted to know was why, even after everything that happened during the wars, we are still not allowed to know what goes on in the Department of Mysteries. The public has a right to the truth, and I won’t rest until the Ministry embraces a policy of full transparency in all matters.”

“Well if we let everyone know what was in there, it wouldn’t exactly be the Department of Mysteries anymore, would it?” Neville shot back. Rita’s quill didn’t scare him, and neither did she. The worst she could was spread nasty rumors about him, and he’d developed too thick a skin for that.

“Your magic is very oppressive.”

“Really? I’ve been told my magic is quite… stylish actually. So I’m going to assume you mean wizardkind as a whole, and not me personally,” Kingsley quipped back, smiling broadly at the other man. He did understand the underlying point, though, or so he hoped—the Ministry, and wizardkind overall, was overly reliant on magic to the exclusion of all other possible solutions. (Either that, or someone had just jinxed one of Bishop’s belongings, and/or his office, and he was pissed off.)

But assuming the former, Kingsley of course couldn’t hope to correct something so hard-wired over the course of one term as Minister for Magic. He could certainly try, though—starting with the Ministry, which he did have some control over. “I have a few ideas of my own about how to tackle the issue, but I’d like to know what you think first.”

Oh. Bishop had already been planning his apology -- he hadn’t meant to make such a careless and rude remark, especially in front of the Minister, of all people, but it seemed the man wasn’t even upset. Quite the opposite, in fact.

“Well... for one thing, there’s a, uh... a pervasive hatred, for all things muggle. If it doesn’t have magic, or it goes against the status quo, it must be wrong. Even when it’s a better idea than anything wizards have come up with. I know that’s not something you can just snap your fingers and alter the mindset of the whole world, but -- if change doesn’t start at the Ministry, where will it ever start?”

Beni still barely understood what was happening. Over the past year, she’d given up on ever seeing the school she’d been promised a place at... but now the kind old woman had returned for her. She’d glimpsed a castle in the distance, and asked if that was the school. “Yes, that is Hogwarts,” McGonagall had confirmed. “But as school isn’t in session, we are making arrangements for you to spend the rest of the summer here, in Hogsmeade.”

Hogsmeade. What an odd name. She obediently kept walking, curious eyes darting to everything nearby.

McGonagall led the way into one of the buildings; the sign above the door read The Three Broomsticks. Inside was dark, warm, and cozy. People ate, drank, and laughed, hardly paying the newcomers any mind.