Arthur Weasley (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alt_arthur) wrote2011-02-23 09:32 am
alt_arthur) wrote2011-02-23 09:32 am
Order Only: We have a situation here
Frank and I arrived at Maldon to speak with Bellatrix Peploe's parents, and I'm afraid things went downhill quite rapidly. As in, Frank has both parents in a petrificus totalus and is continuing to plead with them while I'm writing this.
I think it's quite safe to say they didn't pick the name `Bellatrix' because they're interested in astronomy.
They support the regime 1000%. We've seen all sorts of reactions when telling parents that their child has magic, but this one we've never witnessed before. When informed that Bellatrix was a witch, the father astounded us by immediately attacking his wife. In fact, he tried to choke the life out of her, all the while yelling that she must have been the one to 'steal the magic.' We were so surprised that we fumbled with our wands for a moment before blasting them apart, but fortunately we stopped him before he managed to crush her larynx.
Our usual script, of course, is completely out the window at this point. They aren't going to give us permission to take her. In fact, I'm afraid that unless we separate the father and the mother (by which I mean I'll have to arrange to have them assigned to different work camps), he'll just attack her again once we're out of sight--unless we memory charm them to forget our visit altogether. But if we leave the baby with them, little Bellatrix is doomed to be outed as a mudblood eventually. If I send off the mother by herself with the baby, what's to prevent her from hurting the child, once Bellatrix's magic manifests? And if we don't bring her to Moddey Dhoo, what do we do about the Book?
Frank is arguing privately to me that we have to take the baby and memory charm the parents so they think she has died.
Can anyone come up with a better idea?
I think it's quite safe to say they didn't pick the name `Bellatrix' because they're interested in astronomy.
They support the regime 1000%. We've seen all sorts of reactions when telling parents that their child has magic, but this one we've never witnessed before. When informed that Bellatrix was a witch, the father astounded us by immediately attacking his wife. In fact, he tried to choke the life out of her, all the while yelling that she must have been the one to 'steal the magic.' We were so surprised that we fumbled with our wands for a moment before blasting them apart, but fortunately we stopped him before he managed to crush her larynx.
Our usual script, of course, is completely out the window at this point. They aren't going to give us permission to take her. In fact, I'm afraid that unless we separate the father and the mother (by which I mean I'll have to arrange to have them assigned to different work camps), he'll just attack her again once we're out of sight--unless we memory charm them to forget our visit altogether. But if we leave the baby with them, little Bellatrix is doomed to be outed as a mudblood eventually. If I send off the mother by herself with the baby, what's to prevent her from hurting the child, once Bellatrix's magic manifests? And if we don't bring her to Moddey Dhoo, what do we do about the Book?
Frank is arguing privately to me that we have to take the baby and memory charm the parents so they think she has died.
Can anyone come up with a better idea?
no subject
I don't entirely agree that this situation was different from the others in theory, but I was not present, so I cannot judge the pressures Arthur and Frank faced in the moment, nor can I evaluate, except from their description (which was offered for our advice), the danger posed by the father to the mother and perhaps to the child.
I do think this episode shows that we need to re-evaluate our methods for springing this information on unsuspecting parents. I don't believe we've any right to assume that the father would have reacted violently in other circumstances, at least not without giving him the opportunity to show himself responsive to a better-gauged approach.
Perhaps it wasn't possible today to have handled things differently, but I agree with you that we now have an opportunity to learn and prepare and to respond better ourselves to nasty shocks when they spring up against us.