Thursday 15 October 2020

In which the narrator comes to understand that he has fallen in the esteem of his trusted counsel.

"There is nothing left to be done. Until something happens, there is nothing more I can do for you." Ms Mbewe swept the rolls of parchment containing her case notes into her briefcase and shut the lid with a final-sounding click.

"Are you sure?" I said uncertainly. "I thought it seemed as though things were really kicking off..."

"It does, rather, doesn't it?" said Ms Mbewe crisply. "You may trust that I will be available should you need me, but for the immediate future I will be spending some time with my family."

"Your family?" I said. It hadn't occurred to me that she would have one.

"Yes, my family, Mr Nott."

"Wait, are you quitting?"

"No," Ms Mbewe said. "As I said, I will return as and when you need me."

"Are you annoyed with me?"

"Mr Nott, we both know the Dark Lord may be returning and that changes to the past could cause any one of us to disappear without warning. Right now I need to be with my husband and children."

What's the point? I thought. If they disappear you won't know any differently. If they don't, then it won't matter, will it?

"You didn't answer my question," I said.

"Would the answer matter to you?"

"I guess," I said. "I mean, I wouldn't have asked if I didn't care."

"Do you care because you want to change, or are you just afraid how I feel might affect the way I represent you? Because if it's the latter, I can assure you that this is not the case."

"Do you think I need to change?"

"I wouldn't say anyone needs to change," Ms Mbewe said. "We all have our flaws."

"I know what everyone thinks of me," I snapped. Since my last arrest, I'd read numerous vicious articles published about me, I'd had abuse shouted at me and been spat at in the street, and most of my friendships had dwindled and dropped away. Blaise refused to meet me unless it was in secret, as he was afraid of the consequences of being seen with me for his political career if it came out in the papers and as a result I barely saw him. He probably wouldn't even risk that now. Daphne would see me occasionally, but I got the impression that her husband (a Hufflepuff) thoroughly disliked me, and this seemed to preclude more frequent meetings. And of course Draco had shut me out entirely since Azkaban for reasons that had never been quite clear to me. "You do know I'm a complete fucking social pariah, right?"

"And what have you done about that?"

"What can I do?"

"Well, for a start, you could at least try not to prove them right."

"I didn't choose to have a Death Eater father," I said.

"There's plenty you did choose," Ms Mbewe said, eyeing me steadily. "You made a Time-Turner."

"I didn't make my choices in a vacuum," I said.

"Nobody is saying that you did," Ms Mbewe said, with irritating serenity. "We were merely talking about your own responsibility for the situation we now find ourselves in. You do understand that the world as we know it may end as a result of your actions?"

"My money's as good as anyone else's, isn't it?" I said angrily. "You might have as much contempt for me as everyone else does, but I'm paying you! You're no better than me!"

"Calm down, Mr Nott," said Ms Mbewe peacefully. "I'm not saying this because I think I'm better than you. Self-reflection might be helpful to you... but if you're not ready... if you're only interested in justifying yourself... let's not waste our time."

"None of this would have happened if Potter hadn't taken the Time-Turner," I pointed out.

"Perhaps," Ms Mbewe replied. "But perhaps not. Someone probably would have got hold of it sooner or later."

"I don't think so."

Ms Mbewe looked at me pityingly. "You aren't in control of this, Mr Nott. You aren't in control of anything. You can't even control your own magic." I looked up sharply.

"That was different," I said. "I was depressed..."

"You think you have control over that? Maybe you tell yourself that you do, because you're scared to think otherwise. But what's to stop it coming back, and your magic waning, like it did before?"

"I'm stronger now," I said. "I fought it off once before."

"And the twenty years during which it nearly beat you?"

"I didn't know what I was doing."

"I suggest that you still don't," Ms Mbewe said. "Dark wizards, you're all the same. Blinkered. Arrogant. You think you have this special understanding of the world, that makes you different. You never see how weak you are. Where you're weak."

"I overcame it," I said. "I'm not weak. And I'm not a Dark wizard."

"You poor fool. Anyone can leverage that Time-Turner against you now. Against the whole world."

She picked up her briefcase and marched over to the cell door without another word to me, without even a backwards glance. The guard closed door the behind her with a dreary thunk.