Peter Wimsey And The Poisoner Of Azkaban

[sonetka]

This came about as the result of a late night gchat session with rhysiana in which we touched on the evergreen subject of just how terrible Peter's proposal is in Strong Poison and how if he just happened to live in another fictional universe he'd probably have wanted a Time Turner or three to go back and fix it. The resulting fic mutated a bit along the

Comments

[nineveh_uk]

Poor Harriet! Life in Azkaban might seem an even worse prospect than death in Holloway. But on the plus side, Peter hasn't screwed up the relationship by proposing to her, and I'm sure that he will remember and start his investigation.

[sonetka]

Lack of death penalty is definitely to Harriet's advantage, even if the Dementors aren't. (I can't quite figure out how that works in the wizarding world; obviously Nick was beheaded but that was centuries ago, and if Grindelwald got life imprisonment for whatever vaguely delineated but obviously horrible deeds, then clearly some random one-off poisoner wasn't going to be getting the DP sixteen years earlier. Opinion doesn't change *that* fast. On the other hand, Grindelwald apparently didn't get the Dementor's kiss and yet in the HP books they're shown as willing to give that to much more low-level criminals, so maybe it depends on how good your wizarding defense lawyer is

[nineveh_uk]

I suppose you could make an argument that technically Grindelwald got life imprisonment and no Dementor's Kiss under a different country's judicial system*, so it can't be directly inferred what wizarding Britain would do. Or possibly Dumbledore made a deal as part of defeating him in the same place, since regardless of their personal relationship, having lots of time to think about and repent of your mis-deeds seems Dumbledore's style. I really must re-read the HP books. Perhaps next time I'm off sick!

Freddy Arbuthnot would fit right in to the Ministry of Magic.

[sonetka]

True, that -- British wizards seem to be pretty quick to use the Dementor's Kiss but that may be a harsher penalty which was instituted during the panic when Voldemort was running amok the first time. For my purposes I decided that if Grindelwald was allowed to keep his senses, Harriet probably would be as well.

Freddie would, I think, be sharper than about 90% of the Ministry officials we see. castiron suggested that Miss Climpson might have some real mediumistic talent as well (though of course her family wouldn't have let her go to Hogwarts) and I can see Annie Wilson having a similar undeveloped talent which emerges when she's feeling very strongly about something, hence the Shrewsbury Poltergeist.

[a_t_rain]

Will there be more, I hope? Because this is kind of weirdly awesome.

[sonetka]

I don't know if I could sustain it for very long, especially since the solution is pretty much the real one -- she was framed by Urquhart, who had found out about the wizarding world and made sure to procure a poison which they would assume a Muggle couldn't get. With so many Muggle-born wizards running around I simply can't believe the Statute of Secrecy is as effective as all that, and Philip was probably doing everything but wearing a sandwich board announcing it.

[castiron]

Now I have the mental image of Miss Climpson turning out to be a real medium -- her father's opinions on education of girls and magic's place in a Christian life didn't allow for sending her to Hogwarts, and she's never had a wand, but the seances turn out to produce information she didn't expect to be able to get....

[sonetka]

Definitely! Maybe she's even another descendant of Cassandra Trelawney and has a wild talent that pops up occasionally. (Maybe that really was George Washington butting in after all :)). I think Annie Wilson would be a good candidate as well -- her family keeps her at home and she buys into the whole "good girls should support their men and nothing else" ideology, but when she gets angry enough, things happen. She can't completely control it but she can do it. When Harriet arrives at Shrewsbury to investigate the Poltergeist, she realizes instantly that this is a magical problem and her chief challenge is to investigate it as such and somehow suss out who the secret witch is without alerting anyone else to exactly what it is she's looking for.