August 13, 2020 – 8:50 AM
Emerett Picardy — Played by MJ
“Oh, I pass them all onto the Auror office,” he replied swiftly, not at all joking. He still had an old connection or two from his youth there, and the sort of threats he got - the attempted arson to his Wellingtonshire house only a fortnight ago! - were best dealt with somewhere that wielded more power than the Hogsmeade constabulary and more inclination to be of service than Mrs. Skeeter’s whole department.
He did not think Mrs. Skeeter had the faintest desire to offer him so much as a token apology, never mind protection, and never mind actual change.
“Indeed there will,” Emerett acknowledged - not everyone would see sense, and he could not help that - “but as long my opinions are shared by the right people we may still make some difference here.” What was public adulation worth to him? Little enough. What he required was for the people with the power to impose the necessary changes, the people who mattered, to start listening.
Or for the Ministry to find new people for those positions, of course.
September 18, 2020 – 1:28 PM
Morwenna Skeeter — Played by Lauren
Morwenna fought the sudden urge to inflict a bat bogey hex on the man and instead focussed on keeping her expression neutral. Her entire career had been dogged by the right people – the kind that never truly went away, not matter how hard one worked or how much progress seemed possible, they were always waiting in the shadows, a new batch of clod-headed men who shared a club and all had the same cousins.
The right sort in Mr Picardy’s estimation were of course the kind that would agree with him, but Morwenna felt the deeper meaning perfectly well. No matter how many muggleborn women were elected to the Wizengamot, or how many black men married into Jewish families were elevated to the highest position in the land, there would always be someone like Emerett Picardy waiting to step in and sway the country back to his way of thinking.
Would it be an overreaction to have him assassinated?
“What precisely is it you’re hoping to change? You know yourself we register all werewolves and monitor them at the full moon – surely you wouldn’t advocating executing innocent people for something they had no say in becoming?”
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MJ knows my soul rings to the rune of this iconic hat
October 31, 2020 – 12:33 AM
Emerett Picardy — Played by MJ
Emerett scoffed out a laugh as though the last she had said was quite preposterous. “My dear woman, I am not advocating doing anything at all to innocents,” he returned, brushing off her curtness as though she were the one overreacting. (Naturally the truth of the matter came down to what one designated the ‘innocent people’ in all this: Emerett could not see the slightest innocence in the wolves that hid their claws by day to prowl amongst the sheep.)
He cleared his throat and regarded her with a knowing look at part of what she had just said. “All werewolves?” He echoed, arching an eyebrow incredulously. “Now, Mrs. Skeeter, despite the Werewolf Capture Unit’s best efforts - and yours I’m sure -” (he did not believe that for a moment, but he could at least feign being on the same side) “I think we both know the figures there are not reassuring.” Registration, monitoring! As if they did any of that, and did not sit about twiddling their thumbs and hoping werewolves would out themselves in broad daylight. If all the werewolves in Britain were already properly supervised, how on earth were there fatal attacks publicised every year or two? Did they even know which werewolf had turned Urquart’s daughter into one? Emerett doubted it.
“Why, what changes are you striving for?” He supposed she would be frothing at the mouth to leave her own mark on the department in one way or another.
December 24, 2020 – 9:57 PM
Morwenna Skeeter — Played by Lauren
If he called her ‘dear woman’ again there was a strong possibility that Morwenna was going to smack him one. The supercilious look on his face as he questioned the work of her department - and she knew, by extension, her own competency - was quite enough to get her blood boiling. Perhaps she could claim some form of self-defence? If she cursed him she would certainly be defending her nerves as he was succeeding in getting on every one of them right now and then some.
“Tolerance Mr Picardy. A thing we in the civilised world see as the only step towards the future.”
The worst of it was that he wasn’t entirely wrong about the figures: they weren’t as good as she would have liked but, unfortunately, she knew in her heart they could never be perfect under her tenure without significant changes to the Ministry’s hiring policy. And it wasn’t as though she was going to turn in either of the young men she had met who were in the same state as her, albeit with a significantly less stringent relationship with keeping their clothing in good repair.
MJ knows my soul rings to the rune of this iconic hat
December 27, 2020 – 5:14 PM
Emerett Picardy — Played by MJ
Of all the answers she might have given, tolerance was perhaps the most maddening: one could not shake their heads at tolerance without seeming unChristian for it. But what it was, as a Ministerial policy on this particular terrain - no doubt that was Minister Ross’ byword in every regard, tolerance - was a damning show of weakness, an admission that she and her department were pleased to capitulate and dress up a defeat of the civilised world as showing clemency. (So had Julius Caesar done in his Bellum Civile, just before he destroyed the Republic.)
“An admirable statement, Mrs. Skeeter,” Emerett said coolly, tiring of feigning excessive cordiality to so tiresome a woman. If he had not been convinced of this already, here was another sign that her policies would help speed the collapse by doing none of the boldness that was needed.
But then, she was a woman. What had he expected? “Though in practice,” he added sagely, as if he had any right to offer ‘friendly’ advice, “you may well find that protecting peace requires something of a firmer hand from the government.” They were in the bookshop; perhaps he could direct her towards Romans 13:4 or some Aquinas or Augustine. Some wars were just and worthy of being waged, and taking the easy way out of an issue by denying it ought to bite her back one day. “A little public justice is undoubtedly overdue.” But if she would rather sacrifice innocent human lives than the freedom of a few murderous werewolves, that was, unfortunately, her prerogative. For the moment.
