Diplomacy

Diplomacy

Part 3

by Leni Jess

Episodes:

Science of Diplomacy

Diplomatic Influence

Diplomat's Aid

Diplomatic Language

Science of Diplomacy

Malfoy escorted Tyl to the Manor's dining room, greeting his fellow dissidents privately. Tyl wore his Portkey amethyst ring, but his focus was no longer on escape. He would facilitate this revolt, which might bring down Voldemort, benefiting the Island Confederation, though not nearly so directly as wizarding Britain.

Harry joined him, then Malfoy, who punctiliously introduced his companions. Tyl remembered them, as Harry seemed to - Zabini, who had been helpful, and Parkinson and McDougall, indifferent to his fate. A small group to be the heart of a conspiracy; these Death Eaters were evaluating him as much as he was invited to evaluate them.

Conversation turned to discussion. Harry had said little; now he went silent, but alert. Tyl focussed on what was said, what was implied, what he could deduce.

A West Islander of mixed European and local descent, Tyl was accustomed to assessing strange wizards' ethnic as well as political affiliations. Blond and burly Zabini was clearly a Lombard, however long the family had lived in England. McDougall was Highland Scot, an accentless aristocrat; Parkinson unobtrusively English, a simpler man than the others. Malfoy - Hanuman knew what he was, beyond another carefully-bred aristocrat, with either Veela or Vampire blood, not just the Scandinavian strain still strong in wizards of Norman origin. All were committed to this country. Failure would leave them nowhere to go.

Tyl delicately encouraged them, though Kalimantan could give them only moral support, if his recommendations were heard. He did not say no one trusted Death Eaters, who were neither innocent nor good - merely preferable to their master, potentially reasonable, even in opposition.

Rather more delicately he asked had they European contacts who might approve their actions. They responded affirmatively, and not all of their relationships were with Dark magicians.

They were being very open. It would be otiose to remark it. They certainly considered him easily killed if he became an embarrassment.

Malfoy suggested trying for some rapprochement with the supremely unreliable Dumbledore. Harry confirmed he might come to terms with them quickly, even if his long-range plans were unfriendly; they wouldn't be worse off. Harry could convey a message whenever they chose.

He said carefully, "I wish you well, not just for myself. Lucius has mentioned your other concerns; I understand those."

That was opaque to Tyl, but McDougall and Zabini exchanged nods, and Parkinson grunted.

"We're not the only ones whose children are endangered," Zabini said.

Tyl reflected they must all have been very young when they joined Voldemort. Suddenly he felt his somewhat greater age, though he was childless himself yet. His mother's recruiting Muggle-born young wizards of the Three Islands to the great schools of Kalimantan had taught him to think ahead in a way soberingly new to these hotheads.

Malfoy's visitors left more relaxed; Malfoy seemed pleased with both Tyl and Harry. Doubtless everyone considered something achieved.

For the first time Tyl discovered Malfoy could be kind; a reward, perhaps. It compensated for nothing, only added to his confusion.

Diplomatic Influence

Malfoy's co-conspirators seemed easier with Tyl, listening rather than declaiming. Perhaps they realised he had grasped their objections to the current state of wizarding Britain.

Their sticking point was how to treat the Muggle-born. While Death Eaters despised Muggles, and wished to subordinate Muggle-born wizards to the pure-blooded, these had drawn back from committing to unrealistic policies of destruction and enslavement.

Tyl hoped they might hear the Island Confederation's views on handling more than Muggle-born children.

"Letting untrained families endanger their children's world is bad, but worse are the assumptions you give all children born with magic. We teach our youngsters to work together. Your school promotes disunity, separating children into houses, distilling their worst characteristics. That's not healthy competition; that's sickening their relationships, your society."

Tyl saw McDougall slowly nodding. "We're all Slytherins, many of us children and parents of Slytherins, expected to be deceitful, selfish. My daughters, though, were sorted into Ravenclaw. That shocked me, but I've seen how differently they're taught, the different behaviour required of them - scholarship's the least of it! I've seen what you're saying, Riemann. Hogwarts teaches Slytherins to be like that, and teaches its other children to despise and fear us."

Zabini put in, "Slytherins are punished every day for crimes they're expected to commit. I see that with Blaise, with Isabella, and they are the most retiring of children, not like your boy, Malfoy. He's a leader, and," he spoke rather dryly, "apparently trying to make himself the classic unacceptable Slytherin."

Harry was listening wide-eyed, Tyl saw, but not rejecting this idea.

Malfoy scowled, but admitted, "Last year Draco was foolish, allying himself with that woman without thinking through possibilities." In open exasperation he added, "I was proud of my heritage, but I thought sometimes! I'm appalled at how little Draco thinks; certainly Hogwarts doesn't seem likely to teach him."

He turned on his young lover. "Harry. Since this summer you've shown more sense than my son, you've tried hard to get along. Is that because he's mine, or because somehow Gryffindor taught you to think?"

Harry answered, "Our houses teach us cooperation among ourselves, though it works very differently in each. Gryffindor doesn't teach us thinking, though, Lucius. It's your master taught me that - being impulsive gets people killed."

He took a deep breath. "I used to feel hard done by, attacked by Draco, abused by his Head of House. Maybe Snape's trying to protect his students from our Headmaster. Dumbledore gives me a lot of rope, but he gives it to a Gryffindor boy as much as to," Harry grimaced, "the Boy Who Lived. I can see that now."

Malfoy said softly, "More problems the old man is making for us."

Tyl tried to forestall another harangue on the faults of the most powerful wizard in western Europe, murmuring, "He didn't create this system, though he encourages it, ignoring its atrocious effects. He's old, and battle-hardened. You may need to convince others, to change the way wizard-born children see themselves."

Diplomat's Aid

Tyl went without sleep, providing everything that might assist Malfoy's revolution. If he encouraged opposition to Voldemort, he must help them reform wizarding society here afterwards.

Malfoy complimented him; he felt no inclination to advise that, despite Malfoy's oppressive wards, his quill, bought with his first year's earnings, worked perfectly.

Like many charmed quills it recorded his thoughts without his having to touch it, and speech, with adjustable levels of accuracy. Old Ramanujan's quills could also reproduce anything they had ever written. His transcribed all the official reports he had prepared from his mother's field notes on recruitment and indoctrination of Muggle-born wizards. Now that work was more that a favour for his busy mother.

Ramanujan's quill suddenly fell flat; someone coming. Tyl pocketed it, continuing his survey of Kalimantan's major schools. While boarding-school children needed some substitute family, they could collaborate outside boundaries set for their comfort.

Tyl set the borrowed quill down, seeing Malfoy seated with Harry in his lap. He refrained from grimacing. The wizard had come late last night; Tyl had hoped his new place in Malfoy's plans might free him from that. Useless to think Malfoy would not then amuse himself by toying with Harry under his eyes.

As Tyl looked up Harry pushed Malfoy's hands aside, asking, "What can we have, if not the houses the founders established?"

"Keep the houses. Assign children to them differently. Your Sorting Hat could populate each from a complete spectrum, rather than a narrow selection; simpler then to teach them cooperation inside and outside without stress."

"Assigning children would be easy," Malfoy agreed. "Changing the system which directs the Hat is not. We could reorganise the Ministry of Magic far easier than Hogwarts."

Tyl shrugged. "I can describe options for you, I can't apply them. You'll have to gain control, or, better in the long term, convince enough other wizards that change will improve things."

"And ensure people's sense of wizarding tradition isn't disturbed," Malfoy added. "We mustn't be seen as altering the founders' intentions, but as implementing them."

"How, when they created the system?" Harry demanded.

"You've seen public opinion manipulated enough, both for and against you; you should understand it's not reality we'd adjust, but perception."

Harry made a face. "That shifts like a weathercock."

"Or," Malfoy said softly, "like a coin set to spin, gyrating wildly, settling not randomly but with the desired face upwards, when delicately touched. It's not the Daily Prophet that chooses heads or tails."

"You've done your share of that," Harry challenged.

"You imagine I leave anything to chance?" He turned to Tyl. "Riemann, have you finished that paper on choices, and how those work out in your Confederation?"

"Almost."

"Thank you. It will circulate beyond my fellows, soon enough."

"After Voldemort is gone," Harry said.

His eyes were bright, but Tyl could see his fear, and wondered at it, before he supposed that Malfoy, like the boy's Headmaster, would use him as a symbol at the forefront of the fight.

Diplomatic Language

Malfoy seemed to appreciate Tyl's reports, examining carefully the options for making the Hogwarts house system promote cooperation rather than division.

"Do you want something dealing with wizards discovered as adults, and hence less trainable?"

Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Kalimantan has so many you need a policy? It's not a problem here; Britain's a small island, its wizarding population smaller. How are those wizards missed?"

"Because they hide, or are hidden," Tyl answered dryly. "In that enormous number of people, determined Muggle parents can do that. They almost always stunt magical ability, or distort temperament; that's not understood.

"My own grandfather," he added, deliberately revealing his own connections to the Muggle-born, "had no wizarding education, except from his wife. They met as wharf rats abandoned by their families: he for having magic, she for refusing to disown it."

Malfoy looked disgusted, but just now he was being courteous. "Was your grandmother Muggle-born?"

"Oh no. She came of an ancient, powerful wizarding tradition, but her people live close to their Muggle neighbours, cater to their prejudices. Among them, magic is not a power women have. So it was denied her."

Harry exclaimed, "That's terrible!"

Tyl shrugged. "It's nearly a hundred years ago now. She went to the mainland; eventually her artist's eye and crafter's hand - and her magic - won her customers. Her elders never knew. She married, taught my grandfather everything she had illicitly learned; when they had my mother they understood the training witches need, and ensured she had it.

"Malfoy, though untrained wizards may not be a problem, you must make arrangements for the Muggle-born that encourage them to work with you, not to hide, not to fight."

"Yes," Malfoy agreed resignedly.

Harry murmured, "My mother was Muggle-born. And a very powerful witch."

Malfoy looked as if he bit into an unripe persimmon. "Yes, Harry, everyone knows that."

Harry looked pleased and mischievous together. "You won't enslave the Muggle-born? Nor make them second-class citizens?"

"No," Malfoy said between his teeth.

He added, "Better training for Muggle parents of wizarding children is a reform we can push, before we can do anything about Hogwarts. That popinjay Fudge, pretending he's powerful, is susceptible to pressure. A suitable campaign in the Daily Prophet - even The Quibbler - some pretty catch-phrases, and he'll yield to pressure, if his own position doesn't seem endangered."

"Teach Muggle-born wizards and their families when they're identified; don't wait till it's time for them to attend Hogwarts," Harry insisted.

"I understand the force of Riemann's logic, Harry; don't push me!"

Harry grinned. "How can I help?" he asked, adding cheerfully, "My mother makes a perfect example."

Malfoy said dryly, "Your aunt's a perfect example of the response to a wizarding child we don't need. Will you publish that too, Harry?"

Harry flinched; Tyl watched the silent conflict, puzzled, until Harry lowered his eyes. "I can see there's a lesson there. Yes, Lucius, use it. If she does nothing else for me, she can do that."

~~~TBC~~~