Interlude: The Liberator's Fourth Letter

September 30th, 1996

Dear Minister Scrimgeour:

I ask that you forgive me for sending this letter at a time when the whole of the British wizarding world is abroil with the rebellion of Harry vates. I know you are busy. However, my parents are distracted along with all those other false fools who pretend to have Declared for Light when they have really only Declared for peace and safety. This means they have let more information than usual slip to me, and I have been able to send this owl off much sooner than I might have been able to otherwise.

The more my parents talk about Falco Parkinson, the more concerned I am. He does not seem to have the constraints that Albus Dumbledore had. As mad as he was at the end, the Light Lord had at least lived in our world and knew much about the political and emotional currents running through it. Falco Parkinson has not lived in our world. He retreated. I have researched such retreats before this, when I first became curious about Lords and Ladies of great power. Going into the "paths," as the books call them, is always bad. It detaches a wizard from what it means to be human. He thinks in terms of ideals. He regards other people as pieces on a chessboard.

This was not seen as such a bad thing in older centuries, because many wizards thought of magical creatures, or Muggles, in the same way. But when these Lords and Ladies began to treat other wizards as chess pieces, then wars started, because our proud people do not like to be so disregarded. Lords and Ladies were gradually urged to stay part of the world and not retreat into the paths, and many did.

Falco Parkinson is never recorded as Declaring for either Dark or Light. Why my parents are clinging so fervently to him, I do not know. I think only his connection with Albus Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix reassures them.

We are dealing with an opponent who considers none of us real in any important sense, Minister. We are dealing with an opponent who considers us small beads to slide along a scale, so that he might bring it into balance.

And who will determine that balance? Why, he will, of course.

We must have freedom—both from Falco Parkinson, and from the people who would ride on his talons as the only route to regaining what they have rightfully lost.

Yours,

The Liberator.