3rd August, 1893 — Augurey Beak Cafe, London

Jude had already made up his mind. He was fairly resolved to it as a course of action now; he had floated it, tentatively, with a few people, and on the whole hadn’t felt dissuaded. And all the candidates that had come out so far were centrist as best, and outright conservative at worst – so if he didn’t push out the progressive boat, well, who would?

There was only one thing that had him faltering, and it wasn’t much to do with him or the campaigning or the prospect of losing at all. It was – this. Anticipating his reaction was bad enough, but now Jude was going to have to actually battle through it. He’d laid the groundwork as best he could: planned to meet Kieran after work, just him and not the whole group; kept it at the Augurey, neutral ground, and still public, nowhere he could explode; had waited until he was halfway through a pint before broaching the subject.

(Whether that was for Kieran’s comfort or because Jude’s courage had wavered again at the last minute, he wasn’t sure.) He’d asked after his day, stayed on the Prophet angle and, swallowing the nerves and gritting his teeth, brought up politics. “They’ll have you reporting on the election from now until October, won’t they?” The question was casual, but Jude was suddenly, uncharacteristically, avoiding eye contact.

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Kieran Abernathy/Cassius Lestrange

  

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The election had Kieran on-edge. It had only been a few weeks, but the conservatives running had mentioned werewolves more than he'd like, mentioned Hogwarts scholarships, mentioned voting and purism and muggles. He liked the crime part of his job, or the political aspects that solely involved him flitting in and out of the Ministry — he didn't like this. It made him nervous.

So it was good to go to the Augurey, and the first half of the pint went down easy. He shrugged his shoulders at Jude. "I suspect as much," Kieran said, easy even if his tone was flat. Why wasn't Jude looking at him?

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“Right,” Jude echoed. Kieran’s general lack of enthusiasm for wading knee-deep through the mire of election politics for the foreseeable future was not especially heartening, but then he hadn’t been expecting it to be. He was worried it would only get worse from here, but Jude gave a helpless look at the old severed Augurey beak behind the bar and plunged ahead anyway.

“So, I know it’s not an ideal situation,” Jude said delicately – Kieran’s profession was almost the least of his worries – and he looked at Kieran now to better express that he was in complete earnest about this. “But I was, ah, thinking that I – might – run.”

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Kieran had kept one hand on his beer, and he tightened his grip when Jude spoke. It took him a beat to reply, and when he did he finally hissed, "Are you deranged?" If Jude was going to run, he wasn't going to half-arse a single moment of it — and Kieran wasn't ready for that level of scrutiny. For that matter, neither were the rest of the ABC crew - did Jude want attention on all of them?

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He’d waited, and braced himself, and it still took all he had not to flinch. He blew out a breath instead and said, calmly, “Not as far as I know.”

Jude leant forwards a little. “You think I am?” The question was sincere. And he knew where Kieran was coming from – of course he did, he knew there were dangerous pitfalls here – but it was like Kieran thought he hadn’t stopped to consider any of it. As if he would have bothered saying this on a whim.

“I promise I’ve thought about this.”

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Kieran sighed. He was sure that Jude had thought about this. But Jude was not a realist. Jude thought the best of magical Britain, not the parts where — people came to talk to them, people who asked about the ABC, people who noticed how Kieran looked at Jude.

"You could do anything," he said. "Why does it have to be this?"

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   Jude Wright

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You could do anything might almost have been a compliment, in another context – here it was a condemnation, a barely disguised plea.

“Because,” Jude said, and he was ready to fight for this even if his arguments never worked on Kieran, “someone has to do it, and I can’t just keep waiting for someone else to try. It might as well be me.” And he knew he was probably going to fail – he had no grand delusions here – but his stepping up and saying something would at least be a way to steer the debate. If he didn’t, and no one else remotely progressive raised their voice either, there would never be talk of changing anything, and magical Britain would settle for the same slow stagnation.

It wasn’t to say he didn’t have concerns about this, about the press and the publicity, the rumours that might float, the scrutiny that would fall on the people he knew and cared about just as much as it would fall on him. And he knew Kieran was closer to him than most people, maybe anyone, had ever been, and he knew there were secrets they couldn’t afford to let slip.

“I won’t let anything happen –” he broke off, because he couldn’t say to you, and it wasn’t a reasonable promise when things would be beyond his control, but he was determined to keep it true anyway. Jude went quiet. “But – are you asking me not to?”

If Kieran outright asked him not to do it, Jude wouldn’t.

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Kieran had always known that Jude would run for Minister eventually. It had seemed obvious to him when they first met; he might have even teased Jude about it before they were friends. But that had always been an eventually, a someday. Jude was young still. Why did he have to do it now?

But Kieran knew why. The longer they waited, the more likely it was the far-right would make more progress in changing the minds of voters. And Kieran knew — he knew — that Jude would be able to convince people; maybe not to vote for him, but certainly to believe in the things he advocated for.

He knew that, because it had worked on Kieran.

He looked at his beer, at Jude's stunning eyes, and back at the beer. He looked up at Jude's eyes. He swallowed.

"You can run," he said, "But I won't like it."

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His breath caught a little in his throat in the waiting for it, for all his plans to come crashing down, for Kieran to give up on him for good this time. (Jude did worry that one day there would be a boundary – and he would cross it, go too far, overreach – and Kieran would move on. Decide all this was too much trouble, decide that he was better off with other friends or, worse, better off alone.)

Even his permission came reluctant and strained, but the relief that flooded Jude’s limbs was unconditional; he felt ten times lighter already, practically buoyant. “Thank you,” he said, trying not to smile too brightly when he could see it had cost Kieran something to give even that much.

He clasped Kieran’s wrist in gratitude. “Really, thank you.” Jude was happy to take that, because Kieran actually being enthusiastic about this was frankly deranged to expect. “And if it helps,” he said in a lighter, joking tone, trying to soften Kieran to this or maybe just to try and make him crack a smile – “I’m not expecting to win.”

So nothing needed to change between them, at any rate.

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Kieran's mouth twisted in a wry attempt at a smile. "Well," he said, "We'll see." Jude probably wouldn't win. But — Kieran wasn't going to discount him. (And if he did win — what then? Someone would pay attention to the way Kieran looked at him. Someone would pay too much attention to Kieran.)

"And I'm designing your posters," he added.

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Jude laughed. “They’re all yours,” he agreed happily.

We’ll see. Jude was – really going to try it, then. So he supposed they would.

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