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Past Granger kneels near Alecto. Alecto is now holding zir wrist close to zir chest.
PAST GRANGER: Dawlish, how did Carrow come to be chained like this?
Dawlish is crawling out from under Harry. Ze looks irritated.
DAWLISH: Before Potter attacked, she was acting mental. She tr–
PAST GRANGER: And you chained her here?
DAWLISH: Yes, she–
PAST GRANGER: You are aware of the protocol for short-term restraint?
DAWLISH: Yes, but–
PAST GRANGER: Thank you, Dawlish.
DAWLISH: She tried to stab me with a muggle pen!
The narrative frame of Granger describing the events of Harry's capture closes. We are back in the present DMLE meeting. In addition to the people we've seen before, Cornelius Fudge is present; ze sits at the opposite end of the table from Amelia Bones.
GRANGER: I saw no Muggle pen in the residence, but perhaps he mistook something else for a pen; his ignorance of Muggle culture is quite plain. What is not uncertain is the extent of the injury to Carrow's wrist; the evidence I have gathered suggests that she was left in that position for nearly two hours while Dawlish stood guard. The threat of Luna Lovegood is the primary subject I will bring before this meeting, but we must reserve some time to discuss the conduct of John Dawli–
CROUCH: "Conduct"? He was injured in battle with Harry Potter! He deserves the Order of Merlin, First Class, no question!
GRANGER: And before that happened, he broke protocol to injure an innocent person.
THICKNESSE: You're worried about a little protocol from someone who just caught Harry Potter?
GRANGER: There is no higher duty of this office than to ensure the safety of those we serve!
CROUCH: You have no right to lecture us about duty!
BONES: I do not see eye to eye with Granger on this matter, but I am curious, Mr Crouch, why the Head of the Auror Office would not have the authority to speak on Auror Office principles!
FUDGE: I hardly think Barty Crouch is the one in the wrong here! Granger is– she's only–
THICKNESSE: Ah, Minister, careful–
The argument rages on, but no more of the dialogue is legible to the reader; instead, strings of non-word symbols, colored like the characters' normal dialogue, spiral around the table. At the center of the spiral, Shacklebolt says "If we could all calm down for a–", but it seems that everyone ignores zem. The next thing the reader sees is Granger coming out a door, where ze is greeted by Tonks.
TONKS: Wotcher, Granger, the Aurors are waitin– wow, you look mad knackered!
Indeed, Granger looks very tired.
GRANGER: I always look like this after department meetings.
TONKS: Well, we're all waiting in the Strategy Room for you to speak. I think some of us are impatient– you said you'd be quick.
PAST GRANGER: Dawlish, how did Carrow come to be chained like this?
Dawlish is crawling out from under Harry. Ze looks irritated.
DAWLISH: Before Potter attacked, she was acting mental. She tr–
PAST GRANGER: And you chained her here?
DAWLISH: Yes, she–
PAST GRANGER: You are aware of the protocol for short-term restraint?
DAWLISH: Yes, but–
PAST GRANGER: Thank you, Dawlish.
DAWLISH: She tried to stab me with a muggle pen!
The narrative frame of Granger describing the events of Harry's capture closes. We are back in the present DMLE meeting. In addition to the people we've seen before, Cornelius Fudge is present; ze sits at the opposite end of the table from Amelia Bones.
GRANGER: I saw no Muggle pen in the residence, but perhaps he mistook something else for a pen; his ignorance of Muggle culture is quite plain. What is not uncertain is the extent of the injury to Carrow's wrist; the evidence I have gathered suggests that she was left in that position for nearly two hours while Dawlish stood guard. The threat of Luna Lovegood is the primary subject I will bring before this meeting, but we must reserve some time to discuss the conduct of John Dawli–
CROUCH: "Conduct"? He was injured in battle with Harry Potter! He deserves the Order of Merlin, First Class, no question!
GRANGER: And before that happened, he broke protocol to injure an innocent person.
THICKNESSE: You're worried about a little protocol from someone who just caught Harry Potter?
GRANGER: There is no higher duty of this office than to ensure the safety of those we serve!
CROUCH: You have no right to lecture us about duty!
BONES: I do not see eye to eye with Granger on this matter, but I am curious, Mr Crouch, why the Head of the Auror Office would not have the authority to speak on Auror Office principles!
FUDGE: I hardly think Barty Crouch is the one in the wrong here! Granger is– she's only–
THICKNESSE: Ah, Minister, careful–
The argument rages on, but no more of the dialogue is legible to the reader; instead, strings of non-word symbols, colored like the characters' normal dialogue, spiral around the table. At the center of the spiral, Shacklebolt says "If we could all calm down for a–", but it seems that everyone ignores zem. The next thing the reader sees is Granger coming out a door, where ze is greeted by Tonks.
TONKS: Wotcher, Granger, the Aurors are waitin– wow, you look mad knackered!
Indeed, Granger looks very tired.
GRANGER: I always look like this after department meetings.
TONKS: Well, we're all waiting in the Strategy Room for you to speak. I think some of us are impatient– you said you'd be quick.
Voldemort's Children — Page 57 — First | Latest | Archive | Transcript on: turn off (requires Javascript) | Home
This page was an exercise in deciding which information was the most important. There's a huge amount of backstory – I know the details of the injury, I know the attitudes of all people in the room, I know the defenses Granger would make to a variety of counterarguments, I even know exactly what happened between Alecto and Dawlish (though Granger doesn't) – but my sense of the narrative flow says I shouldn't spend too much time in this argument, so I have to cut a lot of that out.
Feel free to ask about anything in the comments, though!
Alecto actively sought out the Aurors' protection; ze probably grew up being taught that Aurors are there to protect zem, which suggests a relatively high status in society. Dawlish, Crouch, et al. apparently don't share that assessment of Alecto's status; they think of zem as a crazy person, and are willing to dehumanize zem because of that. I wasn't very specific about why in the comic, but was the angle I was thinking of when I designed Alecto.
So when Dawlish was stationed with Alecto, Alecto didn't see any reason to be afraid of approaching Dawlish, and probably wasn't aware of what Dawlish would perceive as a threat, even if Alecto had the mental capability to censor zir behavior in that way. Dawlish, for zir part, was under a lot of stress from knowing that Harry might attack and believing (unfairly) that Alecto was a possible danger. Obviously, this didn't lead anywhere good.
I don't know whether Alecto was actually involved in the torture scheme, and neither does Harry, since ze stopped to attack Dawlish before getting the chance to read Alecto's mind. To the other DMLE staff, the possibility of Alecto having committed these crimes reduces their sympathy for zem. To Granger, it doesn't matter; Granger genuinely believes in preventative justice rather than retributive justice, so zir feelings are unchanged by Alecto's alleged history.
During this argument, Crouch probably accuses Granger of grandstanding, and/or having a personal grudge against Dawlish. Granger's reply is that ze is only interested in operating the most effective force possible, and that it is a liability to have an Auror who ignores policy (and who harms the office's reputation - although I'm not sure Granger would use that argument, because the others don't think of Alecto as the kind of person whose opinion about the office matters).
You mentioned knowing the attitudes of everyone in the room—what are they all thinking?
Fudge was the one who nominated Granger to the position in the first place, under pressure from everybody who knows anything about anything. (Fudge had resisted nominating Granger because of zir unconscious attitudes about Muggle-borns and, to a lesser extent, young people.) Fudge feels like that means Granger owes zem something, so Fudge is slightly irritated about Granger doing something that disrupts the order that Fudge values.
Shacklebolt doesn't like confrontation very much, so ze isn't saying very much. Ze supports Granger, though, because ze has a lot of respect for a person who has clear goals and is willing to fight for them. (Incidentally, my version of Shacklebolt was in Slytherin when ze attended Hogwarts.)
Crouch and Thicknesse are sort of the antagonists here, but they're distinct from one another: Crouch has a strongly held ideology of , while Thicknesse is trying to advance zemself and fulfill a role. Crouch thinks what Granger is doing is morally wrong, while Thicknesse opposes it because it's unconventional and inconvenient. (This is also why Crouch speaks in yellow and Thicknesse speaks in grey.)
Amelia Bones happens to disagree with Granger about priorities; ze agrees that it's bad for Dawlish to violate policy, but ze thinks it's insignificant compared to the value of having Dawlish on the team. However, ze also thinks it's not usually zir role to interfere with the decisions of the Heads of Office; ze is more of an organizational leader than a dominant one.
Arthur Weasley, Head of the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts Office, perked up when ze heard someone mention a , but then went back to sleep when it turned out to be a false alarm.
Fantastic detail! I understand why you didn't put it all into the comic, but I'm glad it's available.