Written
I happen to agree with what was said once by someone now long gone: there is at least something tacky about trading another person’s soul for a reward.
That hasn’t stopped me from making a deal, mind. I have, at various points during my time here aboard the Barge, had a deal to survive my own death, a deal to allow me to return with Martha to her world, a deal which would allow her to come to mine, and no deal at all. More often than not, it has been the latter. The only roadblock was my death, and apparently when I graduated, that was altered in my favor. I didn’t know this until recently, when I asked the Admiral. His reply was essentially “Whoops”, and when I subsequently returned home - home being 2008, Loch Walton, Scotland, where I have a brilliant house with a library which elicited an emasculating squeak from me when I first saw it - I found myself with ten years’ worth of Sunday dinner invitations to the Burrow and one missing Dark Mark. Well done, me.
We’ve found that we can make our own way in most things without asking the Admiral to intervene - which I think is as it should be. (Although, I did use one of the port credit cards to the point of abuse. I highly recommend to everyone who might still have theirs left over from Germany or New York: if you take a holiday from this ship, take the credit card and spend lavishly. I didn’t need it, but I attained a vindictive sense of satisfaction every time I remembered being ripped to shreds by Cenobites or having my head chopped off or spending a weekend as Harry Potter, and was able to drop five hundred pounds of the Admiral’s money on something utterly and completely ostentatious. Retail therapy at its finest.)
All that said and done, when I was assigned Sirius Black, it began to occur to me that I really should ask for a deal. I should try to get something out of it if I’m going to expend actual effort in rehabilitating the man - which I fully intend to do. I’ve been discussing with Martha the idea of asking for her to be a witch, in the absence of anything else I could possibly want. I don’t need superficial things. I don’t need money. I’m in good health. If I want a shop of my own or any other form of occupation, it isn’t something I need to ask from the Admiral. Those are possible things. The Admiral is for impossible things.
There’s probably an ethical and moral dilemma involved in dealing with a near-omnipotent entity to make a muggle not a muggle anymore (not to mention using my enemy’s soul as a bartering chip in the process). Much as I would like to say I’m still on the fence, as it were, about following through with it, I’ve already begun lending her books on Healing and allowing her to help me brew potions. Just the dicing and chopping bits, mind, and not the actual brewing. I think subconsciously I’ve already come to a decision on the matter. That’s ignoring the plethora of laws I’ve broken, but then again, I’ve never particularly cared about the legality of anything I’ve done in the course of my life. Why should I start now?
Of course, it does make things rather problematic for me, in that I’m attempting to impress upon at least one person the importance of following the letter of the law in my world. I’m an enormous hypocrite, but that isn’t surprising at all, is it?
As we’re on the subject of magic:
I was wrong to provide Aleera with a love potion, and I recognise that fact. I made an error in judgment. The accusations that I was a rapist, however, were out of line, and I decided that I would refrain from providing anything of a magical nature to the Barge populace, because, as history is taught to me and mine, Muggles (as with most everyone, but Muggles specifically in this case) tend to blow things out of proportion and I was honestly afraid of being lynched or burned at the stake.
Being called a rapist is both insulting and horrifying, and not only because that potion was, while not harmless, not of the sort which would cause anything but a little simpering and writing of bad poetry. Anyone who behaved otherwise (that is, with violence and force) was already inclined to behave that way. Do you know the sort of stigma which can follow a person throughout their entire lives as a result of that word? Any accusation of sexual abuse, regardless of its veracity, can destroy a life.
[Inserted after his conversation with Rex:]
There ought to be a break here as I move from one topic to the next. I dislike that I was accused of rape, and believe, while responsible for what occurred, that this was an unfair assessment.
Next topic.
[ /Insert]
It still bothers me to this day, and the idea that I am being unfairly judged by my peers is exacerbated when people distrust me simply for the fact that I’m a wizard. You might as well distrust, oh, Ardent for being a dwarf, or the doctors for their occupation.
Did you know I am entirely capable of increasing the food stores? I’ve done it once. Do you remember the blackout, when the heat disappeared and nothing replenished? I could have heated every room and multiplied the food - and thus kept you all alive for as long as necessary. It would have been almost effortless for me. It's child's play.
I wouldn’t have asked for anything in return, because being thanked makes me uncomfortable. I provided aid to the infirmary (I invite you to speculate as to why) and heated my own room. It’s within the capabilities of myself, Lupin, Bellatrix Lestrange, and my own inmate to do so. I chose not to do more because you had all angered me to the point of refusing even the slightest bit of help only a week before.
I currently provide blood replenishing potions and healing elixirs to the infirmary. Go right on and guess why I do that, too. I'll even give you a hint: her name begins with an M and ends with my surname. I am a very biased person and will ignore my own morality for someone who treats me with even the slightest bit of respect and kindness.
I also provide hangover remedies to anyone who asks. I can make truth serums, salves for burns, cures for the common cold, poisons, sleep aids, aphrodisiacs, painkillers, and potions to fix bumps, bruises, scrapes, lacerations, and buck teeth. I spend a week of every month brewing a potion to fix a werewolf.
Would the Barge function without me? Oh, absolutely. Spare me your indignation, because I'm actually not interested in hearing how you think I'm a self-righteous git. I am acknowledging it here and now: You do not need me. The Barge can manage without me. You’ve done so before, and quite admirably.
...
But it wouldn’t be as comfortable.
Here’s the point of it all: It’s within your best interests not to judge others simply because they have magical ability, and not to attempt to rob them of it when they arrive here as inmates. You never know when you might need to rely upon them, and when they might be disinclined to help you because you called them a rapist.
Or robbed them of their magic when they first came aboard as an inmate.
...
I would also like to expand upon what I said in my last entry: I was discussing the reasons I'm a bastard to most of you. Yes, it's true I don't like feeling inferior and I do have abandonment issues, as well as a deep-seated sense of self-loathing.
In many cases, however, I simply hate you. You'll have to sort out for yourselves whether I'm brusque with you because I dislike vulnerability, or whether I think you're a waste of space. If I have never said a kind word to you, or threatened to kill you, or refuse to spend quality time with you, it's probably the latter.
I find it thrilling and amusing that Martha thinks this is an attractive quality in me.
[Warning: Potentially triggering content.]