TEAM 13: THE CAPITOL
Draco : Domitian
Out and About
Draco had had many talents that he was known, praised, and condemned for throughout his time at Hogwarts. His... capacity... as a puppet master was not one of them.
He'd gotten better as he'd gotten older, of course— he'd even managed to manipulate several Death Eaters into unfortunate predicaments without them realizing it— but it was not, had never been, something that came naturally to him.
Outside of his house all of the other students had thought him in charge— even Gryffindors and Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws older than him were absolutely positive that it was he who was calling the shots to almost the entire House behind the scenes, if only because of his name.
This couldn't be further from the truth.
It was accurate that the Malfoy name had power, but only insofar as it was connected to his father. He'd been the man who'd been able to yank the name from relative ignominy with only his superior intellect and easy charisma.
By the end of the September train ride his first year all of the other Slytherins had already sussed out that he had only, if anything, inherited the first.
By the next day's breakfast it was Theodore Nott who clearly held control of the boy's dorm and was second only to Daphne Greengrass out of all the first years.
This power balance changed over time, of course— Theo was usurped by Blaise for a few months in fifth year after his grades had noticeably dropped, and Pansy managed to replace Daphne for exactly two weeks after the latter had been caught in a comprising position with Tracey Davis that same year— only to lose the position all over again after Daphne managed to successfully negotiate a betrothal contract between Draco himself and her little sister and enter herself into a contract with John Harper (who was a second son) which basically amounted to a deal to have two children together, and none with anybody else.
(Interestingly, Harper was found in a similarly compromising position with a male Ravenclaw not one month later.)
Draco had not once been considered.
He'd hated that, at the time, hated how he'd acted as a sort of figurehead to keep everyone outside Slytherin from putting together the true house politics. It had seemed to hurt doubly so because Daphne had been his first crush; before Pansy, well before Astoria (that had only happened about three months into their betrothal, and only lasted twice that long besides), well before any of that he'd had a crush on Daphne.
He supposed, in the end, that the two were related: he had a crush on the girl because she had every single talent and skill his father had tried and failed to instill in him. She could talk anyone she wanted to in circles, easy as breathing, knew how to use every strength, every weakness, every everything to her advantage…
Draco sometimes wondered how many more would have died if he had been more like her, if he had been smarter in how he went after Harry.
If was beyond doubt that there would have been more deaths—unlike him Daphne, no matter the darker leanings of her family, was a truly pragmatic girl and saw no reason to treat muggles, muggleborn, and the like differently—if they were in fact inferior, then they were fail; if they weren't, she'd avoided making undue enemies. This had served her well after the war was officially over—she'd turned up, having fled to France for the duration, and everyone had turned a blind eye to her heritage. They'd had larger problems.
Draco still thought of that first crush sometimes. He'd been drawn to the power, to the control, subtle and never in the forefront but a constant undertone in the daily lives of his Slytherin year.
It had been a power that, at the time, he'd lacked.
It was funny, then, that so much of his work now would depend on him being able to pull strings without anyone catching on.
Making Team 13 reasonably popular had been insanely easy to pull off; he hadn't even needed the reaping to do that, and once the tributes had been chosen the team's already substantial support had skyrocketed.
Other goals were... more problematic.
Domitian watched dispassionately from his seat at the edge of the room as his grand uncle had his monthly meeting with his advisors.
He listened impassively as they described current statistics for various district starvation rates, for infant mortality and maternal mortality and childhood mortality, as they described how a flu epidemic which had begun in District 7 was now sweeping across Districts 9, 6, and 11 and a heat wave was killing off a not insignificant portion of district 12.
He said nothing as President Varus Gaius meted out the absolute minimum amount of aid necessary to keep the districts producing sufficient quantities, and said even less when the good President ordered the arrest of two new dissenters in the Capitol, who had been trying to secretly distribute pamphlets to spread the word about the horrors faced in the districts, apparently unaware of exactly how easy, and frequently, each and every Capitol denizen was tracked.
(He'd found that to be one of the funniest parts of the whole set up, honestly: in the districts an emphasis was made on keeping expenditure low, so surprisingly little was actively monitored so long as everything kept chugging along as it should. In the Capitol, on the other hand, where people might actually have the resources to affect change? Well, you were all too naïve if you didn't think there was a camera in every bathroom.)
"Domitian?" Varus said, turning to him.
"Yes, great uncle?"
"What do you believe should be done?"
A test, then, both on whether or not he'd been paying attention and what his actual response would be.
The problem was in District 9, where they were continuing to experience declining birth rates. In the past 100 years there had only been 16 where the number of people turning eighteen in a given year was notably greater than the number of the total population that died, and the last time was in 80 ADD. Previously the issue had been tackled with endorsement campaigns, encouraging teen pregnancy, redesigning the machines so less people were actually necessary, emphasizing the additional food the tesserae provided, and even increasing what healthcare was provided.
Nothing had worked, not really.
Even other districts where their treatment was arguably worse—Districts 6 and 12, for instance—still had above-replacement rates of reproduction.
According to several studies conducted on the Capitol's behalf by District 3, this was likely because of both the spread-out nature that grain farming demanded and because there was not much variation in the standard of living across the district—there was nothing to hope for, to aspire your children to.
The Capitol didn't want to change either of these facts, finding District 9 to be one of the least rebellious populations in Panem, so that didn't leave many options, and now several of Varus's advisors were suggesting absurd ones, such as spending a truly unbelievable amount of money on artificial insemination or increasing the tesserae offered as a base amount, especially given the district rarely took much beyond that anyway.
President Gaius had been... displeased with all the suggestions so far, so it looked like it was Domitian's time to shine.
(Or, at least, glimmer. A solution that his great uncle would fully agree with would likely be downright impossible, and even if there was one Domitian wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be the one suggesting it—there were problems, after all, with seeming too intelligent.)
"I admit this is nearly as out there as some of what was already suggested, but how about moving over orphanage populations from other districts to 9? Their young age would keep them malleable and allow them to fit in more quickly, and it would be relatively cheap because the Capitol pays for nearly the entirety of District 9 childcare either way."
"Hm..." The president said.
His advisors took that as a sign to begin talking over one another in support or opposition of the idea.
Merlin, he hated them.
Hated this whole place, in fact.
But as a puppet master his skills had only grown—he was the youngest by far to ever sit in on this meeting, and he now knew more about District 6's underground drug railroads, about District 2's ability to directly control the train system, about District 4's radio, about District 7's occasional violently effective mutinies...
He was probably the most informed dissident in the entire country, now. And still everyone around him was none the wiser.