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"I have always been scared of you,
With your Lutwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat moustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer- man, panzer-man, O You-
Not god but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you."
From "DADDY" by Sylvia Plath*********************
Faith stood in the centre of her room and looked around. After last night she had more or less come to terms with the fact that she was stuck here, at least for the next few months. Which meant the décor of this room was going to change.
First the huge sappy paintings of vases of flowers were going, she could send for one of her own seascapes to replace it. She was also going to get rid of the talking mirror. Although, to be fair, it had been less of a problem since she had held up her boot, pointed out that she had had at least twenty one years of bad luck, wasn't optimistic about the next seven, so exactly how strong was its desire to talk?
She actually felt better since she banished the ugly goblets to the top of the wardrobe and started drinking from her own glasses. Or the bottle.
But she knew that 'better' is very a relative term. She turned towards the table and extracted a magazine from the papery chaos that always followed her everywhere.
This months addition of "Dark Defences" had turned up today. It was the glossy (New and Updated!!!) defence magazine. Very respected. Accused of dumbing down in recent years, but still the crucial text for all those who worked with curses.
And, amidst the adverts for strengthening potions, new reports of Death Eater activity and Auror recruitment campaigns, was a report entitled, Rhys Llewllyn: A Retrospective.
Of course Faith knew it was fairly inevitable. He was the only person to ever really come close to making a breakthrough on the Cruciatus curse. It was inevitable someone would exhume him, if even a school girl could make the connection… She curled up in the armchair in the huge bay window, and began to read.
The article put a fairly positive spin on Rhys's work, but to her relief, had acknowledged what every other critic had. Repeatedly casting Cruciatus on someone does not make them resist it. There was a gaping hole in the research. Some suspected, but had never managed to prove, that Rhys had managed to fill it.
Faith looked at the photographs. There were two, the main one was very large, and of the Bastard collecting some prize. The other was more painful. Over the side column of his biography there was a picture of the three of them. Faith's younger self was leaping around in it, waving and smiling hyperactively. Her mother was holding her shoulder and smiling, in a mix of pride and exhaustion. Rhys was standing beside them in his fine purple and gold Ministry robes.
She remembered that photograph being taken. So much time had been spent taming her hair, cleaning chocolate off her mouth, banishing grass stains from her white robe, that she had thought the day was all about her.
There had been strawberry ice cream.
There had been a nice lady who smelt like vanilla.
She couldn't remember what her father had done to lead to the photograph.
She had been five.
There had been strawberry ice cream.
One month later her mother had been raped and tortured by Death Eaters.
Faith had had to replace her mother in her father's affections. She had effectively become her father's wife, confidant and companion.
She slammed the magazine shut and felt it flutter though her fingers to the floor. She slugged back some whisky and tried to get back her rusty breathing.
She had to lose this sensitivity. Especially if he was going to be dredged up again. Faith drummed her fingers against the wood, the same endlessly repeated pattern over and over again. She sipped more whisky and tried to think clearly.
The article had not called for more investigation into Rhys's work. It had not requested that his notes be made public.
It was subtler than that.
Just reminded people about him. She knew more articles would appear by Christmas. Articles that would be far more vehement in their calls for his work and findings.
She stood up and pressed her forehead against the window frame. It was three o'clock and completely deserted outside, the students were still in lessons. The trees hung limply in the heat. No breeze moved the air around. Nothing shifted in the parched grass.
But the oily clouds in the sky were getting bigger. They were slinking between the mountains and creeping over the trees. It reminded Faith of some medical slides she had been shown once. A malignant virus spreading through the clean blood stream.
Faith looked down at her knuckles. They were clenched and white, and as she uncurled her fists she saw little bloody half moons where her nails had dug into her palms. No one could get at Rhys's notes. They had been buried in the family vault since his death. She faced the encroaching clouds. Despite this it would probably be safer to bring them here.
Then no one would ever find them.