we will rise.
Edgar is three years old and the laws of physics and gravity or the honey on toast he’d just eaten are no match for his father’s excitement. He squeals as he is hoisted high into the air, bubbling with delighted laughter that refuses to be tempered as he is tossed high into the air and caught again, once, twice and again until his mother insists they stop, darling, you’ll make him sick and the breakfast table rattles, threatening to spill pumpkin juice onto the tablecloth, when he accidentally kicks it on a too low descent.
“This is a very important day, Ed, do you know why?” His head shakes, wide-eyed and transfixed because his father’s attention has always been a magnetic force, “Diggory got five O’s on his owls,” his father tells him and Edgar doesn’t understand a word of what it means but the pride radiating off of his father feels like sunlight, something that Edgar wants to bask in, so he nods intently, seriously, to show his father that he’s got his listening ears on, “What do you think, Eddie — is your big brother going to be Minister of Magic some day?”
He stares, because he knows that the Minister of Magic is a very important job, he’s the man that everyone in his Mum’s office who pinches his nose or compliments his rain boots when he gets trotted in every other week or his Dad’s office who ask him to recite every former Minister he knows aspires to be and Diggory — an expert in all things that matter in Edgar’s eyes like reaching the biscuit tin and not telling on him immediately when he finds hungry kittens prowling the back garden and invites them in, of helping him cradle the baby birds who’d attempted to fly and only fallen and nurse them back to health — seems like the perfect candidate.
“Yes,” he insists, beaming and bright eyed, “Yes, yes, yes, yes.”
The soaring feeling in his stomach as he is tossed high into the air again, infinitely trusting that he would never be allowed to fall, assures him he got the right answer.
(Edgar pulls six O’s out of the bag when his OWLs come around, but it isn’t nearly enough to wash away the memory of Diggory packing his bags at eighteen and never once looking back.)
—
He’s fifteen and he’s listened to Barney expand at length on the endlessly entangled complications and dynamics of such a massive family that Edgar can’t imagine how they all fit inside the same house. He thinks of his own home, of him and Amelia and the long stretches of time where only a nanny charmed the housework done and tried to keep them in line, of Diggory (who they don’t talk about anymore and the looming shadow he left in his wake) and he tries to explain what it’s like to be a Bones.
His Uncle Peter had once said that their family is the backbone of the Ministry.
It’s always said with that self-deprecating huff of laughter that is never quite as self-deprecating as it seems. Their legacy lives inside the Ministry’s walls, an armoury dedicated to protecting and serving. He is the ribcage, enclosed around the heart, she is the spine, keeping them standing. She is the arms and he is the legs and Uncle Peter is the thickest skull you’ll ever find but what it comes down to is this.
To be a Bones is to be extraordinary. It is to endure. It is to work. It is to protect and serve and never, ever falter. It is to stand your ground and not pack your bags and disappear into the wind.
Ambition is not the sole province of snakes after all.
When the time comes and he sits in front of Minerva Mcgonagall and she asks him; what do you want to be? He knows he wants to be a great many things. He wants to be kind against all odds, he wants to help wherever he can, he wants to see his family make it through the war and he wants to see his own children some day, bask in the endless sunlight of their father’s affection.
His answer, however, is already determined:
“I want to be the Minister of Magic.”
It is one of the few times in his entire schooling career that he sees her stern demeanour break, replaced by a wry tightlipped smile as she replies (tinged with something knowing), “Of course you do.”
—
The Atrium, Ministry of Magic. 7.27am 22 February, 1982.
The Atrium is abuzz with excitement, the blasé chatter of reporters and photographers who have become accustomed to press conferences being called. They’re a dime a dozen in the wake of the Minister’s death and funeral, an endless pantomime of speeches regarding loss and another blow to the cracking foundations of their community and endless questions of how did they move forward from here.
Edgar hasn’t been nervous about giving a speech in years, not standing in front of the Minister’s casket nor speaking to reporters after the nightmare at New Year’s Eve.
This is a leap into the unknown, throwing himself into the air with the understanding that there would be nobody there to catch him.
To fly or to fall.
“Good morning everyone, I’m sure you’re all desperate for a cup of tea so I won’t keep you long,” the small crowd of curious onlookers and reporters perk up at the first signs of activity and Edgar smiles — a wide genuine flash of teeth and dimples because his father had once told him that a smile was a weapon and you must always keep it sharp, but his is one that curls like a cats, like he knows a secret that keeps the world bright behind his eyes. He knows the value of a little theatrics, of the way the rising sunlight sweeps in through the windows on this side of the atrium at this time of morning, burnishing the brass fountain gold and how the soft trickle of water provides a gently rhythm to his words, how his voice will echo in the dome and the sunshine yellow of his tie will focus attention. “I have brought you here to officially declare my candidacy for the Minister of Magic.”
There’s a ripple of noise that spreads through the crowd, not surprise (Rita had made sure of that all those weeks ago) but of curiosity, he had stalled to announce for five long days after the Minister’s funeral. Weeks after rumors had first begun and Edgar can see it on their faces, the doubts — he is too young, is he ready, can see the echo of her mother’s frown as she asked, ‘Oh darling, don’t you want to wait a few years?’. He isn’t quite willing to gamble their communities future on whether or not his prospects would be better with a few more wrinkles to show for his years.
“I know,” he agreed, watching the tide of curiosity spread across their faces, reading the crowds attention as the jingle of nerves in his hands settled, his heartbeat slowing, a wry twitch at the corner of his lips as his confidence settled easing through his limbs, “My father gave me that exact same expression when I first sat him down to tell him that I planned to run and he told me, ‘Ed, you’re a bit young to be chasing grey hairs already, don’t you think?’ Over the past few weeks as I debated this decision I’ve heard the question of are you ready more times than I can count — are you too young, too inexperienced — and I suppose, in another world, another time, that might be true, but in the world we live in, we, the young and the inexperienced as you would have us, have borne the weight of the world already. We, the youth, fight every day.”
“You see, in our world, we are afraid. For years fear has governed our lives, crept into our homes and our hearts, it has brought with it grief and hatred and despair. This world has become a battlefield and every day we fight to hold onto the things we hold dear. This war that we fight is not just on our streets, it’s in our heads and in our hearts: it asks us, again and again, are we worthy of our place in the world? Will it be us, our family next? Should we stay silent or should we stand up and risk that we make ourselves a target. ”
The crowd was growing, the first burnished gleams of sunlight spilling through the glass of atrium and illuminating the fountain and the marble but there’s an earnestness to the words he says, in the self-deprecating laugh as he admits, “What you should probably know about my family is that we’ve never been very good at staying quiet.”
“They say that courage is not the absence of fear, it is feeling fear and taking action anyway and today, I ask you to have courage, my friends, to have courage and take a chance on rebuilding our nation to a future that we can all believe in, where our worth is not determined by our blood but instead by our merit. I give you my pledge today — not to stay silent when the words are difficult to say, not to stay still but to take action and to lead you, if you will put your faith in me. We will not submit to the fearmongering of our enemies, we will rise and we will rebuild — our homes, our schools and our government.”
“I ask you, today, to have heart and believe that together, we can make a difference.”
He isn’t sure if the roaring in his ears is his own heartbeat or applause, but he raises a hand, beaming at the cameras as flashes pop and flare.
To fly or to fall, it all started with a leap of faith.
