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| A PRETEND VIRGIN MARY The bass beat was loud, thumping, rippling everyone’s drinks and bodies as it sank against the floor and echoed off the walls, but everyone was moving too much, leaning too hard to pay attention to the way they were killing their eardrums. Sex was palpable, hinting the very air with a scent of pleasure and lust as people wafted around themselves and their floating drinks, bodies molding to the music as strobe lights blared and blinked rapidly through the muggy, London air. Sweat was nearly dripping from the tips of people noses as the DJ ran his deft fingers over the vinyls; sensual beats tugging two lovers from the dance floor to one of the dank corners of the seediest part of town. Moans, sweat, movement, and a moment stuck in time that seemed to become enhanced by the alcohol thrumming in their systems - and he’s dragging his trousers up and she’s fixing her skirt before they know it, flashing cockeyed smiles to each other before melding back into the crowd again, sliding against whoever is alone for the moment and easily forgetting about each other. It was the thing to do, anyway, when people stopped to think about it. Moan some, sweat some, and in moments life can be altered. She didn’t think it was true. She thought she just woke up with a massive headache, itching its way out of her skull and over her dark bags no longer concealed by make-up. She only assumed she’d drunk enough to knock out a horde of elephants and then had swaggered off with her friends to sleep off whatever she’d consumed. The thought that her “purity” had been denounced seemed illegitimate, as she was a good girl who was only out for a bit of devilish fun. And as she changed into her regular clothes, she ambled passed her hangover and into her sobriety and normalcy of life. Then she was putting on weight, and eating more than usual, and why on earth had she cried when the postman had given her the wrong letter for her neighbor instead of her? It didn’t even vaguely make sense, but she managed to come to terms with it as mood swings and the elaborate lifestyle of a good girl gone bad trying to switch lanes. But then she didn’t the more courageous thing and took her test. And found out she wasn’t just trying to live the bad girl lifestyle anymore, she’d been blessed. Her entire outlook changed when it came to life – she was nearly starting to believe herself, too – when she found she was pregnant. She was a virgin, she couldn’t make sense of a pregnancy – at least, no sense other than that she must plausibly be the only person alive to have been impregnated by God. He must’ve chosen her for her good deeds, for her devotion (all right, so she hadn’t been to mass in three months, but who said there wasn’t devotion in her heart?), and her love of life. She kept recalling the events of the evening she met God, and was gifted with His child. There were bright lights, thousands of eyes and a luminescent smile that flickered in her memory. She aired on television, proclaiming her story. He saw it. He found her. He told her, catching her off guard, scaring her beyond her might, telling her she shouldn’t be lying the way she was. She was baffled. She was caring God’s child, God’s newest gift to the world. He was well aware of the fact that she was caring their child, and that she was well on her way to becoming a whore who enjoyed shagging thoughtless the men she met at small, seedy clubs in SoHo. She fainted in front of television icons, dreamt of how she’d deceived herself into believing she was the good lass, and then woke up to find her life in shambles. She'd gone from pure to soiled in minutes, and it was all his fault. |
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| FOR REGULUS BLACK It was ridiculous. Truly ridiculous. Who knew that the only bloody thing that the Junior Assistant to the Minister for Magic got to do was rush around getting people to sign papers. Which was utterly ridiculous. Didn't they have a secretary to do this? Of course not. People obviously felt better when an assistant to the Minister himself came to ask them to sign over their lives to be sacrificed for the good of the general public. And, of course, the day that he had to go all the way of St. Mungo's had to not only be one of the hottest days of the summer so far, but also the day that the Floo department decided to close down the entire Floo Network for reasons unknown to Regulus himself. And of course, you weren't exactly going to apparate right in the middle of a busy street in Muggle London. It just wasn't done. No matter that groups of Death Eaters regularly went out and massacred entire groups of Muggles. No matter that the Dark Mark was regularly getting blasted into the sky where the entire Muggle population could see it. Still no need to let the British Muggles know that there was a good half of it's population that could mass murder them with two simple words and a debonaire sweep of a little piece of wood. What good was it being a high-up Ministry official if you had to cram into a subway car with fifty other Muggles who were attempting to get home from work so that they could do whatever it was that Muggles did when they went home. Maybe they watched tele-what's-it. He was currently smashed between an obese old man who kept farting every couple seconds while talking too loudly to his colleague, also obese and old, about the business of their company and how enormous the newest secretary's breasts were. On his left, her enormous hiking backpack slowly turning his upper thigh numb (who needed a hiking backpack in downtown London anyways?) was a very short girl whose hair was carefully crafted into a giant ball of poof that Regulus had only seen on advertisements for disco dances. And, to top it all off, a guy who looked to be about his age, with a foot-tall mohawk, about twenty-five tattoos, and more piercings than Regulus could count on one hand was standing right in front of him (and stepping on his foot, though Regulus was much too scared to ask him to move), and therefore right where he had to get off at the next stop. The tram screeched to a halt, sending whoever wasn't holding on incredibly tightly flying into their neighbor, and Regulus began trying to make his way around the guy in front of him, lightly tapping him on the shoulder and mincing his way around. He laughed right in Regulus' face, but thankfully didn't find it necessary to do anything too horrible to the poor child that was Regulus. He escaped from the subway system unharmed, climbing the steps quickly. How Muggles could stand using that thing every day, he had no idea. It was stinky and smelly and most of the too-loud musicians were horrendous. And then there was always the seedy-looking men sitting on the benches, their pupils permanently dilated. They just freaked him out. Emerging into the street, he took a deep breath, scowling at the smell of gasoline that immediately filled his nostrils. Right. He was going to be positive from now on. He was going to focus on the fact that he was in a seedy part of town, where his suit and briefcase made him stick out like a sore thumb. But no focusing on how much he stuck out. Studiously ignoring the fact that there was no one looking at him other than to give him a curious stare, he walked down the street, turning tomato red as a gaggle of girls wearing stilettos that could probably kill people burst out laughing as he walked by. He heard something like 'Loosen up, boy!' shouted after him, but he ignored it. He had a mission. He had to get to St. Mungo's. The sooner he got to St. Mungo's, the sooner he could get the papers signed. And the sooner he got the papers signed, the sooner he could go home and sleep for the rest of the afternoon, unless Silas was hellbent on making him more social and dragged him out on another one of the terrifying excursions that usually had Regulus even more antisocial than usual. He thought of various excuses for why he couldn't go 'check out hot chicks' or some other nonsense. He doubted Silas would accept that he had to work - because he didn't. Once work hours were done, there was no one left in their offices for Regulus to force to sign papers. So he got to go home. And besides, Silas could always tell when Regulus was lying. It was a side affect of spending nearly every waking hour together for the past couple years. An unfortunate side affect, but a sadly unavoidable one. He hardly noticed when he arrived at the tell-tale mannequin in the window, lost as he was in excuse-making thought. He talked quickly to it, stepping through the glass, into the well-lit entrance hall of St. Mungo's. Of course, he remembered it being quite cheerier before, without the ubiquitous photographs of the Dark Lord, but it was closer to it's former life than the Ministry probably ever would be again. The Welcome Witch immediately recognized him from the picture (of him, the Minister, and the Sr. Undersecretary) that hung in every government building. A fawning smile curved up her lips and her peroxide-blond hairdo quivered as she greeted him. He smiled briefly, barely looking at her. "The Spell Damage Ward is on the fifth floor, correct?" he asked finally, meeting the girl's eyes. She nodded again, her ponytail quivering. "Thank you." Lovely. Now all he had to do was go up and get the stupid papers signed. The ordeal was three-quarters over. Once on the floor, he came to the next receptionist, who seemed to be the twin of the one downstairs. Same hair, same fawning smile. It was almost disconcerting. He blinked several times, before focusing on the problem at hand. "Yes. Hello. The Minister sent me to speak with the Chief Mediwizard in charge of the Janus Thickey Ward? About the John Doe that you have taken into your care this afternoon - I have a couple papers they'll need to sign..." He trailed off, rather proud of himself. He sounded professional, for once. It was probably because he was dealing with someone who was probably only intimidating in their dreams. The receptionist smiled fawningly (again). It was really getting rather irritating. "That's Ms. Hestia Jones." she said, pressing a small button on her desk. "Mr. Black from the Ministry of Magic to see you, Ms." she spoke clearly, and to Regulus' great amazement, into a little grate. Why was St. Mungo's using Muggle technology? Bizarre. Very bizarre. Almost as bizarre as the fact that Hestia Jones was working at St. Mungo's. Wasn't she a Muggleborn? |
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Since the burning time magic has lived hidden away from the average person's eyes, secret yet peaceful. Witches and Wizards carved out their existence, either blending in with their non-magical surroundings or making their own settlements out of the way of any prying eye. People were happy and thriving; life was good. So good that perhaps people were growing slack. Now there had been instances of magic seen by non-gifted people before but never something of such magnitude that it couldn't be covered up or magically forgotten. This isn't uncommon at all to be honest. What is uncommon is to be caught vanquishing a human at an internationally televised event. *** Anthony Hagen was a Secret Service agent recently asked to retire after an incident involving what he thought was going to be an assassination attempt of the British Prime Minister as he visited America. You see, Anthony not only was a wizard but he was a seer as well and had used his gift with great outcomes in his job. This time did not work out for him however. There was going to be an assassination attempt but he was wrong about when. Anthony's mistake resulted in international embarassment, him being sacked, and a very angry partner who took a dive down the stairs to help Anthony catch the waiter mistaken for an assassian. Anthony might not be in the service any more but he knew that that assassian was still out there. He knew what he had saw and he would take action. The next week the Prime Minister and more than a dozen other foreign dignitaries were gathered in the same building that Anthony had made his mistake in. They had moved to that venue from the rain outside; this simply had to be what Anthony had seen now. Using his magic and training Anthony gained entrance and remembering his visions sought out the to-be assassian moments before the suicide bomber was about to go off. Anthony knew only one way to get rid of the assassian and the explosives in time and he did it. He wasn't counting on the press flooding out of the door as the President strolled out in apparent anger over the talks. Anthony had just vanquished a man on live television without any proof that it was a criminal he had just taken out. *** This all has taken place three months before. Anthony Hagen has been put to death and panic has taken over the world's good sense. People are suspicious of everyone around them and witchcraft accusations have started to fly and become a world obsession. People, magical and non-magical alike find themselves accused of things that are flimsy fabrications. The magical world scramble to keep themselves hidden and to save those accused. Most do anyway. There are some in the community that believe it is their time to step out from the shadows. They are those with power, why should it have to remain hidden? If there is going to be a battle they will not only fight for their existence but fight for their open existence or maybe even domination. But everyone must face the oncoming trials and suffer the consequences. |