Rabbit: May 1971
Title: Rabbit
Chapter Number/Title: May 1971: Death (51/100) [[ Previous | Next]]
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1310
Workshop?: Suggestions welcome.
May 12, 1971
Death
Rabastan scratched the number 13 onto his parchment. But when he glanced up at his tutor, no encouraging smile came. He crossed it out, and reviewed his steps. Something was distracting him, making him slip up on easy questions.
“Mister Greengrass?” he asked, holding the tip of his quill so that it hovered just over the inkpot.
“Yes, Rabastan?”
“What does it mean, Death-Eater?”
That had not been the question the tutor had expected. He sat back and blinked. “Well, according to the Prophet, it’s a … well, they’re a... new group. Outside of the law, it seems.”
“Yes, I saw that. But what does it mean? I mean, how do you eat death?”
Peter shrugged. “I’m not sure, myself. Perhaps… well,” he fielded, “what do we do when we eat?”
Rabastan sighed. He should have expected Mister Greengrass to turn the question back on him, like always. “Eating… I eat when I’m hungry, or when something’s delicious.”
“And why is that?”
“Well. When it’s delicious, because it’s delicious! Hunger, though, if you’re hungry you can’t do very much. Like when I’m hungry during lessons and I cannot think because I just need a pie or a soufflé or…” His stomach whined. “And if you don’t eat forever, you die.”
“Exactly. We eat because food nourishes us, gives us the energy to carry on with everything we do. It’s essential to survival. Eating is to take in, to consume, and grow from nourishment.”
“So… a Death Eater would live off death?” Rabastan attempted to piece together. “You’d have to kill a lot of people if you got your strength from other people dying.”
His tutor’s dark eyes lingered on the door to the library. “It’s one possibility,” he said.
“Sounds like vampires, really. But maybe,” Rabastan suggested, the gears of his brain now turning far more actively than they had been while working on his mathematics, “maybe it’s like how a dragon eats sheep, because greater and stronger animals eat smaller and weaker animals. Eating is conquering, sort of. So they’re better than Death. They’re defeating it.”
“That could be.”
“Or maybe they eat death, and you are what you eat, so they are death itself.”
“I suppose that’s an option too.”
“Hm. Still sounds kind of silly.” His tutor laughed. The pupil set down his quill, giving up his attempt at unraveling the aggravating equation. “Do you think they’re good?”
Peter Greengrass smoothed one of his bushy eyebrows as he thought. He was far out of his comfort zone now. And Rabastan knew that, to an extent, but he also knew that the point of a tutor was to help him learn - especially to learn things that his parents were not likely to tell him. When Rabastan had seen the Prophet headline and asked about the group over breakfast, his father had given a look that could have frozen the wide and salty Mediterranean Sea. Maman had been forced to swoop in and strike up a conversation on flowers.
“I’ve heard differing opinions,” Peter finally responded. “The latest Lycomedes letter to the Prophet suggested that, whatever else we may think, the group is an unsurprising reaction to the poor governance and policies of the past generation. He wrote a sentence that had quite the ring to it - that he would be thankful if these Death Eaters were the alarum-bell that awakened us to a new day, or… something like that.”
Rabastan chewed his lip. The Son of Lycomedes, he was fairly sure, was one of Liam Avery’s aliases. It wasn’t public information, exactly, but he had seen more than one person stop Liam to praise a Lycomedes opinion piece. And that idea-it sounded rather familiar to Rabastan. “The dawn of a new era,” he said.
“Yes!” said Peter, surprised. “That was it, exactly. Did you read it?”
Mental papers were sliding into mental files, and old memories being pulled out for review and comparison. Uncle Liam, the fog rolling, his excitement after a long meeting, and the same language he then used in his piece. Liam had told them a new era was on the rise. Had Liam also rung the alarum-bell himself? Was this the first step in the plans his father had been making with Mr. Avery and Mr. Rosier and their friends for so many years? Was this meant to be a trigger to launch the overhaul of the Ministry that Sirius had overheard talk of? Rabastan had a million questions, and there was no one who would answer a single one.
“Er - yeah, I must have read it,” Rabastan lied.
“Then you must have also read Hugh Potter’s counter?”
“Um.” Rabastan was completely unprepared for that question. “There’s a counter?”
Peter sighed. “Rabastan, when gathering information and forming opinions, it is always good to know both arguments. Even if you’ve made up your mind, it’s helpful to know the other side of the story.”
“I know that,” Rabastan spat, a bit more bratty than he had meant. “I just didn’t know someone had written a reply to Lycomedes, is all.”
“Yes. He argued that regardless of the politics of the matter and any needed reforms, violence and lawlessness have no place in Wizarding society.”
Rabastan was not a fan of lawlessness. Nor violence, really. But if Uncle Liam had spoken in defense of these people, Rabastan felt he ought to defend them as well. He picked at his cuticles, thought through his words, and then spoke.
“Law is good,” he said. “And lawlessness is bad. But... if the laws are bad… then maybe lawlessness can be good. Or at least not all bad. A little bit good.”
Peter Greengrass raised his eyebrows - one a bit more unruly than the other, now.
“I mean,” Rabastan continued, “lawlessness is bad, it is. But sometimes bad things happen to make good things. Like when I was ill and Maman gave me a horrible foul-tasting potion. Drinking the potion was horrible. But it was from a Healer, and it made me feel better, so it was good in the end. If the Death Eaters are destroying death, they could be doing good in the end.”
“And how do you weigh the current bad against the future good?”
Rabastan stared ahead. “Well. People who know more can do a better job at that. So I trusted Maman and the Healer, even though if it were just up to me there’s no way I’d drink a nasty thing like that. But they knew the amount of bad was small and the amount of good was big, and I had to trust them.”
The tutor nodded slowly.
“But you’re older. You know more than me,” Rabastan stated. “What do you think?”
A knowing smile creeped across Peter’s long face. “I think you’ve managed a spectacular diversion from your maths, and these are questions better suited for your brother.”
His brother! Mister Greengrass was much older than Rodolphus, but he was right. If anyone would know what was good or bad, it was Rodolphus. Rabastan smiled back, taking the defeat with grace, filing away the question for next time he saw his brother. “Sorry for the diversion.”
“Quite all right. But you still need to solve for x. Pen on parchment, come now.”
The quill was tapped twice into the ink and then set to the parchment, as instructed. “Mister Greengrass?” he said, with only a flicker of hesitation before continuing with his work.
“Yes, Rabastan?”
“I’m glad to have had you as my tutor. I’ll miss our lessons, when I go to school.”
“Maths, first.”
Rabastan smiled and finished out the problem, once again arriving at the final answer of 13. So much for second-guessing.
Chapter Number/Title: May 1971: Death (51/100) [[ Previous | Next]]
Rating: PG
Word Count: 1310
Workshop?: Suggestions welcome.
May 12, 1971
Death
Rabastan scratched the number 13 onto his parchment. But when he glanced up at his tutor, no encouraging smile came. He crossed it out, and reviewed his steps. Something was distracting him, making him slip up on easy questions.
“Mister Greengrass?” he asked, holding the tip of his quill so that it hovered just over the inkpot.
“Yes, Rabastan?”
“What does it mean, Death-Eater?”
That had not been the question the tutor had expected. He sat back and blinked. “Well, according to the Prophet, it’s a … well, they’re a... new group. Outside of the law, it seems.”
“Yes, I saw that. But what does it mean? I mean, how do you eat death?”
Peter shrugged. “I’m not sure, myself. Perhaps… well,” he fielded, “what do we do when we eat?”
Rabastan sighed. He should have expected Mister Greengrass to turn the question back on him, like always. “Eating… I eat when I’m hungry, or when something’s delicious.”
“And why is that?”
“Well. When it’s delicious, because it’s delicious! Hunger, though, if you’re hungry you can’t do very much. Like when I’m hungry during lessons and I cannot think because I just need a pie or a soufflé or…” His stomach whined. “And if you don’t eat forever, you die.”
“Exactly. We eat because food nourishes us, gives us the energy to carry on with everything we do. It’s essential to survival. Eating is to take in, to consume, and grow from nourishment.”
“So… a Death Eater would live off death?” Rabastan attempted to piece together. “You’d have to kill a lot of people if you got your strength from other people dying.”
His tutor’s dark eyes lingered on the door to the library. “It’s one possibility,” he said.
“Sounds like vampires, really. But maybe,” Rabastan suggested, the gears of his brain now turning far more actively than they had been while working on his mathematics, “maybe it’s like how a dragon eats sheep, because greater and stronger animals eat smaller and weaker animals. Eating is conquering, sort of. So they’re better than Death. They’re defeating it.”
“That could be.”
“Or maybe they eat death, and you are what you eat, so they are death itself.”
“I suppose that’s an option too.”
“Hm. Still sounds kind of silly.” His tutor laughed. The pupil set down his quill, giving up his attempt at unraveling the aggravating equation. “Do you think they’re good?”
Peter Greengrass smoothed one of his bushy eyebrows as he thought. He was far out of his comfort zone now. And Rabastan knew that, to an extent, but he also knew that the point of a tutor was to help him learn - especially to learn things that his parents were not likely to tell him. When Rabastan had seen the Prophet headline and asked about the group over breakfast, his father had given a look that could have frozen the wide and salty Mediterranean Sea. Maman had been forced to swoop in and strike up a conversation on flowers.
“I’ve heard differing opinions,” Peter finally responded. “The latest Lycomedes letter to the Prophet suggested that, whatever else we may think, the group is an unsurprising reaction to the poor governance and policies of the past generation. He wrote a sentence that had quite the ring to it - that he would be thankful if these Death Eaters were the alarum-bell that awakened us to a new day, or… something like that.”
Rabastan chewed his lip. The Son of Lycomedes, he was fairly sure, was one of Liam Avery’s aliases. It wasn’t public information, exactly, but he had seen more than one person stop Liam to praise a Lycomedes opinion piece. And that idea-it sounded rather familiar to Rabastan. “The dawn of a new era,” he said.
“Yes!” said Peter, surprised. “That was it, exactly. Did you read it?”
Mental papers were sliding into mental files, and old memories being pulled out for review and comparison. Uncle Liam, the fog rolling, his excitement after a long meeting, and the same language he then used in his piece. Liam had told them a new era was on the rise. Had Liam also rung the alarum-bell himself? Was this the first step in the plans his father had been making with Mr. Avery and Mr. Rosier and their friends for so many years? Was this meant to be a trigger to launch the overhaul of the Ministry that Sirius had overheard talk of? Rabastan had a million questions, and there was no one who would answer a single one.
“Er - yeah, I must have read it,” Rabastan lied.
“Then you must have also read Hugh Potter’s counter?”
“Um.” Rabastan was completely unprepared for that question. “There’s a counter?”
Peter sighed. “Rabastan, when gathering information and forming opinions, it is always good to know both arguments. Even if you’ve made up your mind, it’s helpful to know the other side of the story.”
“I know that,” Rabastan spat, a bit more bratty than he had meant. “I just didn’t know someone had written a reply to Lycomedes, is all.”
“Yes. He argued that regardless of the politics of the matter and any needed reforms, violence and lawlessness have no place in Wizarding society.”
Rabastan was not a fan of lawlessness. Nor violence, really. But if Uncle Liam had spoken in defense of these people, Rabastan felt he ought to defend them as well. He picked at his cuticles, thought through his words, and then spoke.
“Law is good,” he said. “And lawlessness is bad. But... if the laws are bad… then maybe lawlessness can be good. Or at least not all bad. A little bit good.”
Peter Greengrass raised his eyebrows - one a bit more unruly than the other, now.
“I mean,” Rabastan continued, “lawlessness is bad, it is. But sometimes bad things happen to make good things. Like when I was ill and Maman gave me a horrible foul-tasting potion. Drinking the potion was horrible. But it was from a Healer, and it made me feel better, so it was good in the end. If the Death Eaters are destroying death, they could be doing good in the end.”
“And how do you weigh the current bad against the future good?”
Rabastan stared ahead. “Well. People who know more can do a better job at that. So I trusted Maman and the Healer, even though if it were just up to me there’s no way I’d drink a nasty thing like that. But they knew the amount of bad was small and the amount of good was big, and I had to trust them.”
The tutor nodded slowly.
“But you’re older. You know more than me,” Rabastan stated. “What do you think?”
A knowing smile creeped across Peter’s long face. “I think you’ve managed a spectacular diversion from your maths, and these are questions better suited for your brother.”
His brother! Mister Greengrass was much older than Rodolphus, but he was right. If anyone would know what was good or bad, it was Rodolphus. Rabastan smiled back, taking the defeat with grace, filing away the question for next time he saw his brother. “Sorry for the diversion.”
“Quite all right. But you still need to solve for x. Pen on parchment, come now.”
The quill was tapped twice into the ink and then set to the parchment, as instructed. “Mister Greengrass?” he said, with only a flicker of hesitation before continuing with his work.
“Yes, Rabastan?”
“I’m glad to have had you as my tutor. I’ll miss our lessons, when I go to school.”
“Maths, first.”
Rabastan smiled and finished out the problem, once again arriving at the final answer of 13. So much for second-guessing.