May 22, 1997

I had never visited the holding cells beneath the Ministry before. They were dark and musky, the cold was bone penetrating and made me wish I were anywhere else.

Elihu shivered next to me as we followed the guard deeper down the row of cells. He introduced himself as Barney Bacon, an older man with a generally happy disposition, who also happened to be massive and intimidating as a way to balance out the forces of the universe that governed how scary a person was supposed to be in passing. He was not chatty, but he did smile a lot.

I was down here as a favor to Elihu, he needed an extra pair of hands to do his preferred shorthand for him while he interviewed an incarcerated American who was accused of murder and he wanted his hands free in case he tried to do anything. I knew something was off about this interview, I had read some of Elihu's books on international law and from my understanding of what I had read, we had no jurisdiction or grounds to move the accused to MACUSA custody in any capacity of my understanding and I was not sure why we should in any case.

It was after hours at the Ministry, I should have gone home thirty minutes ago, but the Ministry pushed the accused American's move to Azkaban back a day so Elihu could talk to him and not have to go to the Azkaban interview rooms to do so.

Really, having interview rooms at a dementor prison was so stupid, I was not going to justify it with a long observation.

"I thought the laws about people being arrested by foreign governments did not require this kind of intervention? No special treatment, just making sure they're not treated worse than the other prisoners?"

Elihu glanced at the guard's back before speaking. "Generally yes, that is correct. I'm here to check his well being and because I have an interest in what brought Whitlock to this point. Also, there has been a longstanding… disagreement on the ethical use of prisoners being exposed to dementors as a punishment. While Americans are not paragons in handling prisoners or their punishment under the law, we don't generally like turning our prisoners into snacks. Even with the dementors gone, I would like to try and get the accused back to the states to serve his punishment instead so we don't have to get the International Confederation involved. We have a precedent for it, but it's complicated, there's a lot of dealing with the Law Enforcement Office and a few other departments to make that happen."

Bacon spoke up, "I dunno, without the dementors it's almost like you're letting the crooks off scot-free, isn't it? No one wants to reoffend with the threat of dementors hanging over them."

Elihu's mouth pinched into a thin line, his brow knitting together in a ferocious glare. "You do realize that your Ministry never truly controlled the dementors right? They cannot control something that has decided to sample the various flavors of the British soul buffet! That Voldemort-"

Bacon gasped, clutching his chest and stumbled over a slightly raised stone in the floor.

"Get a grip, man! The Chief Death Eater is the closest to holding a leash on those monsters!"

Bacon gave Elihu a look before he opened the iron door to a room that showed the accused through iron bars and thick glass that divided us. I noted the small table and the four chairs that lined the wall.

"Tell me about the security," Elihu's voice was pleasant and amiable as he looked at Barney Bacon with a grim expression. "Also, are there any restrictions on me?"

"No restrictions, Representative," Bacon rumbled. "You can go into the room with the accused, he's chained to the chair and wandless. You can conduct your interview through the bars here if you prefer, that's a preferred option for some folks, you can see him but he can't see you."

"And you?"

Bacon shrugged, "I can stay here out of sight, or I can go in with you. Your choice, this is your show. If you think your team is sufficient, my office is across the hall and I need to finish some paperwork."

"That's fine." Elihu fixed his glasses and sighed, "Audrey, you stay here and take notes. I'll go in and talk to him."

I nodded slowly and readied my parchment book, setting my quills and inkwell on the table in front of me as I did my best to not think about it being Alex being threatened with Azkaban instead.

I took a deep breath as Elihu left me in the observation room. This would be fine.

Elihu stepped into the room with a bright smile and closed the door behind him before taking the empty seat across from the accused, Marcel Whitlock.

I had a vague recollection of Whitlock, aside from what I read about him in the paper, he was a couple years ahead of me in school, a Thunderbird graduate. He was a young man with a plain, nondescript face. He looked like most people I passed in the street. Average build, his nose was strong in a way that helped add dimension to his round face. His brown hair fell over his forehead and made him look younger than his twenty-one years.

"I'm Embassy Representative Weathers," he pulled out his own notebook and a fancy No-Maj… pen? I think that was the word. It had a gold tipped nub and no need for an inkwell. "I was told you needed counsel about how the next few weeks are going to go and I am here to provide it. Before we start, can you tell me what happened?"

Whitlock looked at Elihu with a hateful scowl. His chin was set, his eyes were narrow and I felt a chill go up my spine.

"I already told the Aurors. How about you ask them?"

"Aurors have never been noted for being intelligent note taking. I'd rather hear about this from you. Especially if I'm going to end up pleading your case to two governments in some form."

"I don't need the help of some half-blood."

"Alright, what about the service of someone who knows the law and how to keep you from being a snack?"

Whitlock scoffed, "The dementors left Azkaban months ago."

"True, but you're looking at decades in Azkaban, imagine if the dementors make nice with the Ministry and decide to come home to roost?"

Whitlock smiled, "Do you really think any of that would happen? The dementors have chaffed under the Ministry's yoke for decades, they had a weapon they did not know how to deal with that they were too scared of to use properly and now it's under the command of someone who knows what kind of valuable asset they are."

Elihu's face grew stoney, "True, but you're accused of killing an elderly American war veteran on foreign soil, we don't like that. We could leave you here or send you back. It depends on how nice President Graves is feeling that day."

I could never work in law like Elihu did, he was clearly a master of his craft and watching him work to make Whitlock comfortable, a little bit frightened and then play off his arrogance by turns was a masterful example of how dangerous someone could be if they were genuinely charismatic. Elihu asked small questions, made little comments that would get Whitlock to talk more and spew more under the impression that Elihu was a kindred spirit of some sort.

Whitlock spoke, his sentences were quick and I struggled a bit to quickly sort the relevance from the rabble and grew more grateful for my shorthand.

He professed to have no recollection of his supposed crime, but he talked too much for it to be believable. That he recalled being at the scene but it was a blur, a collection of images and he felt as if he were outside of his body when the wizard, William Cromwell was murdered in his little country cottage. He was an elderly wix, about my grandfather's age, who had served in the war against Grindelwald as part of the American troops, he had married an English woman he met during the war and she found him dead on the floor when she came back from visiting her friend in the wizarding village a few miles away.

This was what made this case so unusual, Cromwell was an American citizen, he never relinquished his MUSA passport, he was a duel citizen through marriage. MACUSA really had no real say over what happened to his murderer, but it was of some interest to us because he paid taxes to maintain his citizenship and came to reunions for his old unit every three years. Cromwell had been murdered on foreign soil in the country where he spent most of his time and had a large community of people who cared about him here that he did not have back in America at this point beyond maybe fifteen people. What was Elihu's motive in this? It would be a waste of time for his office to pursue.

I felt like there was something he was not telling me about this. This was the kind of pointlessness Elihu usually elected not to engage in.

"The Dark Lord is the greatest wizard of all time!" Whitlock's voice caught my attention, cutting through the general mindlessness of shorthand. "There is no magic beyond his grasp-!"

Elihu raised an eyebrow and smiled slightly, "Really? You'll rely on dogma to save you over the hard facts of the law I am laying in front of you? Do you want to rot in Azkaban? I could still find grounds to send you back to MACUSA. You are not helping your case."

"Why should I submit to the mercy of a lesser warlock?" The man snapped, "An uppity half-blood like Jack Graves has no right to sit in judgment over the crimes of his betters!"

"Ah, yes, the lack of cousin sex disappointments you."

Elihu! No!

The hand that was not recording notes flew into my forehead with a loud smacking noise.

Whitlock smiled, seemingly amused by the crass of the cuff comment.

Ugh. Men.

"How about you tell me more about that?" Elihu's voice was slow and measured, encouraging and almost fatherly in tone and I could see Whitlock relax in the chair. "I must admit that uppity half-blood is not the usual way one describes President Graves in my experience. Normally descriptions are much ruder."

I was not going to touch that.

"Wizards should not dilute their blood with a lower caste of wix! Their filthy No-Maj blood makes us weak! Mudbloods-!"

I snapped the quill I was holding in two at the word that had just passed the rough man's lips. Disgusting, rancid little rodent!

Elihu continued to smile, outwardly unfazed by the slur.

By the Twelve, Elihu. Let him sit in Azkaban for a few days and correct himself!

The man smiled wolfishly, seeming to revel in the idea of finally speaking freely in this way. "We both know I am not the only one drawn to a real pureblood revolutionary. There are others like me who want something better than the scraps left by thieves of real magic."

"Thieves? I'd hardly call a quarter of our magical population thieves."

"How else would they attain the gift of magic if they have no magical blood? We are the betters of the Seeds who sprout from polluted soil."

Oh now he's just raving. I have better things to do with my time.

"You do realize that most of our acclaimed warlocks from the last fifty years have been half-bloods, right?"

Whitlock continued as if he had not heard Elihu, "I'm told Graves' pretty daughter is here."

Ew.

A chill went up my spine at his tone.

"I wouldn't know, I lost track of her ages ago." Elihu's words were so convincing I almost believed it myself. "Nice girl, I hope she's doing well."

"She turned me down at Ilvermorny, I knew that arranged marriage story was bullshit but people still believed it for some reason."

I swear, people are ridiculous. I would maintain that the arranged marriage story was the best lie for my privacy I ever told in my life. I had a memory of my encounter with Whitlock, he asked me out in what I assumed was a joke, judging by the fact he had never spoken to me before in his life and his laughing friends several yards behind him. I had tried to be nice about it.

I watched Elihu's brow knit together for a moment as if trying to find the right things to say that would move Whitlock back to whatever topic he was really interested in.

"So, was Cromwell a Seed?" Elihu's voice was steady as his fancy pen scratched on the page. "I couldn't find anything definitive on the matter."

"He spoke the name."

"Oh, Voldemort."

Whitlock gave Elihu a nasty look. "That's not a name for lesser wix to utter."

So, Cromwell said Voldemort's name and paid the price by being murdered by a zealot.

"You did this crime under your own power then? This old man insulted your master and you decided he had to pay for the offense? Wipe that smirk off your face." For the first time during the course of this meeting, Elihu's voice took a sharp edge. "You stalked him after he said the name, for how long I don't know, waited until he was alone in the house, because you are not a talented wix, and broke into his house to kill him in cold blood! Tell me I'm wrong."

Whitlock looked at Elihu with no fear in his red rimmed eyes, there was something angry, disturbed and empty behind those eyes that sent a chill through me.

Elihu slammed his hand on the table with such force that the bang echoed through the room and made me jump.

"You were never under the imperius curse, you committed this crime of your own volition!" Elihu stood up. "Best of luck to you in Azkaban, Whitlock. The MACUSA Embassy will check in on you every four months and not spare you a thought in the interim." Elihu gathered his materials. "Guard! We're done here!"

I heard a door open across the hall and the key jiggle in the lock that led to the interview room.

Whitlock shouted obscenities about MACUSA and called Elihu something very racist, as he fought against his chains. Guardsman Bacon looked unfazed by the sudden shift to uncivilized verbage. Elihu held a finger to the window, quietly instructing me to stay where I was. I did as I was bid and watched Bacon haul Whitlock away to the cells that would mark him for transport to Azkaban in the morning.

Elihu sighed and knocked on the door. "Come on!"

I scampered out of the observation room with my quill and inkwell shoved into my pockets and my notes in my outstretched hand to give to Elihu.

"Why do you do this job, Elihu? I would not have stayed as long as you did."

"You would have, because you believe in this job the same way I do." He checked his pocketwatch and sighed before adjusting his glasses. "He was still a prick, don't get me wrong. My point is that you and I believe in something bigger than ourselves, that the government is supposed to serve the people, even when they're assholes."

"It's a responsibility. The jobs are not glorious, but people don't want to do the detail heavy work of governing when they want to do other things."

"Exactly, and some hothead off the street doesn't need to come in out of a stupid lottery to fill a government post and try to handle the Whitlock situation the way I did. Whitlock is a talker, he's dangerous for it and people who don't know how to see purist rhetoric don't need to be in that situation. What did you think?"

"About Whitlock? He's pathetic, but that doesn't mean he should become a dementor buffet if they return to the prison." There was a question I wanted to ask but could never work it into my conversations with Elihu before now. "Have… have you met other Americans who came to fight for Voldemort? Who believe in this idea of blood supremacy?"

"No, but I'm sure they exist. Whitlock is just the first one stupid enough to get caught. I have no doubt that there are others. I generally don't like the idea of leaving a citizen of Magical America in a country at war with itself and Azkaban has already proven itself fallible. I'm not going to fight too hard to get him into MACUSA's custody right now, Cromwell's wife gets some input on how she wants this to be handled as a courtesy and I have a lot of other things to do. Dealing with Whitlock today gives me enough ground for my concerns that have been growing over this last year. It's the real reason I wanted to talk to him." Elihu took a deep breath. "I want to secure the embassy office. I would like to formally freeze all travel for Americans to Britain until they have been thoroughly vetted for a history of purist leanings and I would like to require the same who are leaving. We don't need the Death Eaters rubbing elbows with our own purist groups. The ones we have now are small and toothless, more focused on doctrine and divinity, and I would like them to stay that way."

"So, Whitlock was an outlier?"

"No, young men are stupid."

"Disparaging your own sex, Elihu?"

"You've worked with Thad-"

"You mean Chad."

Elihu waved his hand dismissively, "Whatever his name is, he's not important and never will be. No conviction or original thoughts to speak of, he'll grow up to be Virtus Party mouthpiece and be very pleased with himself. Anyway, he apparently talked openly to another intern about marrying hoping to marry into a political family." Elihu gave me a look, his mouth pulled back in an amused half smile that suddenly put a lot of my interactions with Chad into perspective.

"Oh. Ew."

"Yeah, that's what I said. Anyway, do you see what I mean? Young men are led around by the idea of what they think a man should be, they think they should be important in the world by virtue of being what they are, pureblood in this case, and that their supposed place in the world is being usurped by Seeds or Muggle-borns, that their family connections and prominence should carry more weight and keep them above the supposed riffraff and not in the trenches with them. It's a weakness of character with a heavy dose of superiority."

I had seen shades of this my whole life, despite my father's many flaws, Jack knew how to buckle down and work to get things done. People respected that. He liked to educate himself on current events and could talk intelligently about a whole host of issues and how the past and history affected the modern day. Jack and Alex were very similar that way. Aside from Jack being Britain's definition of a half-blood, he never showed any inclination if Seeds being lesser, his view always was that magic, no matter where it came from or sprouted, was a gift. That Seeds were special for coming from nonmagical backgrounds and were a symbol of magic's continued strength in the world.

The things that I liked in my father were also what I liked in Percy. A willingness to work hard for everything, he could stand to have a bit more confidence in breaking with the lines he was fed by his supposed betters and managers, but that was something that tended to come with age and experience after someone finds their feet.

Elihu chuckled, "I may have an opening at the embassy in a month or two, Heather wants to go back to the states, her uncle passed away and she's needed at home to help her cousin handle the estate. We need some time to arrange her transfer, since she says it's not an immediate emergency but you'll be the first call I make to fill the post."

"Thank you! I've enjoyed the Ministry, but it's getting…" I struggled to find the right words. "Frustrating."

Elihu snorted. "Very diplomatic."

"Thank you." I looked over at him with a grin. "I do my best."

"You said you're not sure you could do my job, but I say the same about yours. I could not work that closely with those idiots as long as you have. I would have been fired long ago."

It would have been a spectacular firing, I was sure.

"Any other reasons you want to leave?"

"No, nothing at all."


Oo0Oo0


Author's Note: Fun fact, there are points where Elihu sounds a lot like my father, spiritually, the general antagonizing is the same at its core.

I don't imagine the Dementors were a selling point on the international stage with regards to prisoner treatment. I'm sure many other countries would be willing to deal with the bureaucratic mess and negotiate to get their citizens back to their own country to serve their time as part of an agreement. Even with the time it would take to do so.

The Ministry takeover in Deathly Hallows and the turn on Muggleborns always felt very quick, I think some of the sentiment was being vocalized quietly over the months before. Feeding in to those who were susceptible to that kind of rhetoric and propaganda.