And history hides the lies of our civil wars
*On the day of registration every queue is a cacophony of talk, but not a single person has anything to say. Twenty-six different lines of witches and wizards and families, separated from their neighbours and friends by nothing more than alphabetical order and thick purple velvet ropes, talk amongst themselves about anything but what they are there to do today. From children hardly old enough to own their first wand to the ancient and dusty faces of great-grandparents dressed in equally dusty fine robes for the occasion, it is almost an unspoken agreement among them all that they will wait positively, willingly, and without a word of dissatisfaction until their name is called and they can have their turn at having what's left of their privacy taken from them. Beyond the weather and the weekend and the carefully disguised admission of wartime fears that have become so unremarkable and widespread in the past several months, not a single person Moody's new eye swivels over to watch seems to be able to speak about the reality they are all experiencing.
Fake calm hangs over the twisting maze of roped-off lines like a fog. The few people who do seem to share his feelings on the matter are keeping their heads down - for the moment. Their grim expressions and clenched jaws are more than enough for Moody to spot them, those willing to be unwilling. Just by their faces alone, he knows what their thinking, and what they're all planning to do or not to do when they reach the front of their line. The Weasley's controlled regret speaks volumes, but not as much as the tension of an attack dog in Sirius' shoulders over in B, or the skewed priorities taking over the Potter section of the line, with husband in the Minister's office and wife the patron saint of both muggleborns and stray Death Eaters.
Moody closes his eyes briefly against a looming headache, a wasted effort as his new eye continues to feed visuals into his head though the wall of his skull and skin regardless. It's a dizzying state of constant vigil the Crouch boy's attack has left him to, and his bright blue gaze is impossible to stop using in such a crowd as this, with the entire wizarding population there to study. But his headache doesn't come from the racing of his ocular replacement, but rather from the exertion it takes to merely stand here and participate in the most sickening display of control he's seen come out of the Minister's office since Crouch Sr. had managed to get his ass behind the most important desk in the country.
M-line shuffles forward.
One of the pair of security guards holds up a hand in silent greeting as Moody comes to the head of his line, but the attendant barely looks up as he rattles off his spiel, asking if Moody agrees to the additions and regulations that will be applied to his wand forthwith, and waits for the clatter of Moody's wand being surrendered into the receptacle. Not far behind him in the lines, the eyes of the Order find him through the crowd, and his eye does a loop-the-loop round the back of his head to get a last look at all their faces. The determination has been worried out of some of them, but not all. This is as much a personal decision as it is a tactical one, but even if every last one of them had lost their mustered courage today, Moody would still have cleared his thought as he does now, and given the first real answer the Ministry has heard in quite some time.*
I don't.
Fake calm hangs over the twisting maze of roped-off lines like a fog. The few people who do seem to share his feelings on the matter are keeping their heads down - for the moment. Their grim expressions and clenched jaws are more than enough for Moody to spot them, those willing to be unwilling. Just by their faces alone, he knows what their thinking, and what they're all planning to do or not to do when they reach the front of their line. The Weasley's controlled regret speaks volumes, but not as much as the tension of an attack dog in Sirius' shoulders over in B, or the skewed priorities taking over the Potter section of the line, with husband in the Minister's office and wife the patron saint of both muggleborns and stray Death Eaters.
Moody closes his eyes briefly against a looming headache, a wasted effort as his new eye continues to feed visuals into his head though the wall of his skull and skin regardless. It's a dizzying state of constant vigil the Crouch boy's attack has left him to, and his bright blue gaze is impossible to stop using in such a crowd as this, with the entire wizarding population there to study. But his headache doesn't come from the racing of his ocular replacement, but rather from the exertion it takes to merely stand here and participate in the most sickening display of control he's seen come out of the Minister's office since Crouch Sr. had managed to get his ass behind the most important desk in the country.
M-line shuffles forward.
One of the pair of security guards holds up a hand in silent greeting as Moody comes to the head of his line, but the attendant barely looks up as he rattles off his spiel, asking if Moody agrees to the additions and regulations that will be applied to his wand forthwith, and waits for the clatter of Moody's wand being surrendered into the receptacle. Not far behind him in the lines, the eyes of the Order find him through the crowd, and his eye does a loop-the-loop round the back of his head to get a last look at all their faces. The determination has been worried out of some of them, but not all. This is as much a personal decision as it is a tactical one, but even if every last one of them had lost their mustered courage today, Moody would still have cleared his thought as he does now, and given the first real answer the Ministry has heard in quite some time.*
I don't.