alt_alice | ORDER ONLY: Private Message to Tonks and Frank

I tried following up with Sally-Anne Perks today after seeing how distressed she got at the meeting the other day, and I have a feeling I made things worse, only I've no idea what I said wrong.

I told her that we've got a history of keeping things secret, and that old habits are hard to break, but that we were trying to change for the better. By way of example I told her how we'd kept everything hidden from Neville and Evelyn, and they've only recently started to find out about what we actually do. And then I said whereas we used to keep their group at arm's length and worry about security breaches, that we were trying to be better about sharing information and resources and teach them ways that they could be secure. And while I was talking, she got very quiet, and gave me an angry look, and when I asked her about it, she wouldn't say what was wrong.

I've got some feedback from Hermione which suggests that we've not come off as well as we could when it comes to sharing information, and that on the whole they think we don't respect or trust them. Which is what I was trying to talk to Miss Perks about, but I suppose I wasn't very successful.

Tonks, love, maybe you'll have better luck? I'm not sure if I just rubbed her the wrong way, or if she's feeling particularly hostile towards parents in general, or... well... I'm not sure of anything, really. So whatever you could find out would be most useful.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

alt_alice

I know our sessions at Grimmauld and our meeting were two large steps forward, but I can't help but get the impression that we've made several steps back in the process. I'm fighting upstream against a bad first impression on one side, and a group that is slow to change on the other.

It's frustrating to see that things are going wrong, and try to fix it, and then see it not work.

Or get worse.

And even more frustrating than that is to have no bloody idea what I could do that I haven't already been doing, and what I've been doing hasn't worked.

From:

alt_frank

you're overthinking, love.

there's a lot of good we're doing.

might be some bumps on the way, but we're working together, and hard work has a way of helping people trust each other.

we've got to do more to earn it, is all. and that takes time.

you just keep making sure we don't sit on our arses and get lazy. the more you make us think about how we could be better, the better we're going to get.

you coming to bed?

From:

alt_alice

Soon. Yes.

From:

alt_frank

good.

From:

alt_alice

I love you, Frank Longbottom.

From:

alt_frank

love you back.

see you soon.

From:

alt_nymphadora

I did have a chance to talk with Sally Anne Perks this morning, Alice. I'd been working with her on Apparating (poor thing, she hasn't got the trick of it yet) and so when we broke the session I asked if she'd like to come down the kitchen for a cuppa.

We talked about different things, starting with what it's like being a halfblood out in the world and what it was like for me when I was in school. I didn't tell her most of it, but I didn't hold back on the ugly things, either. It's obvious she's got to face the same, and sometimes I think it helps to know someone else has been there, too. She asked if I'd ever been ill or got hurt and needed a Healer when I was small--and she asked because she had a terrible experience with a Healer who took her away into his examining chamber and hurt her. She said she still gets the shakes sometimes if she's in a place or smells a potion that reminds her.

I'm telling you this, and not the others, because she trusted me with it, but I do think it might help you see some of what keeps her from being able to trust the whole lot of us--because people have treated her badly and taught her that she's not worth as much as other children are, that no one's likely to take up for her or even think to include her. (And Madam Umbridge's rules are making that so much clearer and uglier now.)

Anywiz, that's what it boils down to. She thinks we don't view all of those kids the same way, and she especially thinks we're not likely to look out for her, though she didn't say that quite in that way. Actually, what she said was that we'd got portkeys for Hermione, who obviously needed one, but then we'd given Neville and Evelyn portkeys, too, but not given one to Ron or his brothers, even though they were in as much danger, maybe more with Bill and Arthur at the Ministry and him and Molly living out in the open where if anything turned against them, they'd be arrested quick as anything. She felt as if you were really safer in a way, and yet we only protected your children not the Weasleys'. And not any of the rest. Even when we could have done. Even after we knew who they were.

And, Alice, she didn't say it, but something came to me when she mentioned Hermione. I think she wonders how we could leave Hermione and Terry in slavery when we could have slipped them away to our Sanctuary at any time. At some time, anyway, while they were there in Hogwarts, working for Minerva. Before Hermione was made over to Harry Potter and sent off to Buckingham. It was about Hermione's being in Buckingham that she started with, saying that she knew that made it most important of all for Hermione to have one of the portkeys since she could be legilimised by the Protector at any time, which is obviously a concern for us. She… said it as if--it's not what she said straight out, but the way she did--she thinks we aren't so much worried for the kids' safety as our own and that we make decisions thinking about ourselves first.

Or maybe it's just that talking with Sally Anne has got me thinking these things. Why did we ever swear a ten-year-old muggleborn into the Order, Alice? And put her in so much danger that we put her under an unbreakable vow that would kill her if she- Why didn't we steal her away and make it look like she'd died? That's what we do. All the time. But not for Hermione and not for Terry until years had gone by.

Sorry. That is just my thoughts running on. Only, I should tell you that the fact that we kept the truth from her about that baby we saved from her foster parents' farm, that's something she's not going to get over for a while.

She does hold onto things rather. I suppose it's what teenagers do, isn't it? But it's not just the baby who didn't die, it's letters Sirius didn't answer that Pansy Parkinson wrote him, and questions we didn't answer when we should have, and the portkeys we didn't give- You know, it's interesting, I think in some ways she's more upset over things she thinks were unfair to her friends than she is over the things we did that seem unfair to her.

But there is something she wants for herself, I think. And that's to belong. Or, well, to be wanted. And she wants to learn. Anyone who treats her as if she deserves to be taught--I've seen it every time I've stuck my nose in a lesson or helped out with the Apparating--she tries so hard to please, to do just what she's asked. Madam P's said as much, hasn't she? That Sally Anne wants to learn everything she can and that she wants to master it all.

I think that's because if she's not the very best, she won't get any notice at all. She can't afford to let teachers ignore her, because then she won't have the marks to get any sort of position after she leaves school. And she's right about that. And she still may get ignored, but she's not going to make it easy or give anyone any excuse for doing it.

But-

I think there's more to it, too. Or maybe it's just that I'm seeing myself again instead of her.

Being fostered is hard, Alice. And I don't think her family is much different with her than the Crouches were to me. It makes you hungry for… someone to care about you, to teach you or tell you you've done well, or… well, you get hungry for other things, too, and I hope she's not… well, we didn't talk about any of that. But I think it's what makes it easy for Dolohov to make an impression on her. He acts as if he cares about her, and he's made her feel she has talent in his subject. It's hard to resist that. Harder for people like us.

I think.

And maybe I'm thinking too much. But there it is. That's what I learned about her, if you can make anything of it.

From:

alt_alice

Thank you, Tonks. You've given me quite a lot to think through.

It's hard sometimes to look back at the decisions we've made and judge them in hindsight. Some of the choices we made were out of a misguided sense of what ought to be done, others out of necessity or because we didn't see options that are painfully obvious now. And although we've made some rather significant errors along the way, even with the best of intentions, I think we've done a great deal of good as well.

The best any of us can do is to own up to our missteps and try not to repeat them.

And now that I can see a bit more of where Miss Perks is coming from, I'm hoping it'll help bridge the gap.

I hope

Well.

I hope that even though she's had some negative experiences with the Order, that she's found her time here to be useful. After all, the main reason we came together during these two weeks was to give the Hogwarts group as much support as possible when it comes to OWLs and NEWTs, as well as their own security and safety, and of the members of that group facing OWLs, she is the most at risk. Could you tell whether she's found this time to be worth her while?

From:

alt_nymphadora

She wants to join us.

So, yes. She was really very grateful about what we've been doing. And she knows we meant to help her as much as we wanted to help the others. She knows it even if she doesn't quite trust it. I know that seems odd after what I said before about her thinking we might not care for her as much as for others. I think she does know that we mean to help halfbloods and muggleborns and muggles, that we do what we do to try to make things right for the people the Protectorate steps on.

But I asked her if she thought she wanted to join us, and she said yes. Yes, she does. She wants to change things, and she knows that we do, too. I asked her which things we do were things she thought were worth taking risks for, and she said saving babies, keeping people out of the camps, and healing people who need healing. She talked some about how glad she was when Madam Pomfrey came and helped her, when the Stretton's muggles had the measles. That showed her that we care about the same things she does, that we care about helping people that most wizards wouldn't cross the road for.

Only, I wish we hadn't gone and hurt her by lying to her about that baby.

But you're right. There are decisions we make that we wish we hadn't or wish we'd been able to do differently but couldn't really have. And I think she'll understand that when she's thought about it long enough. Or when she's joined us and sees how we make decisions.