Terence's Lament

Terence's Lament

a terence higgs sketch

> ~ <

..:: give up the grudge
shut your fucking mouth
why you gotta judge everybody but yourself
take a look around you
there ain't nobody home

I may be a loser
but at least I'm not alone ..::

~ gob, give up the grudge

Adrian Pucey flashed Terence Higgs a sceptical smirk and raised his black eyebrows in doubt. His glacial eyes glanced Terence over once, twice, and a third time before he leaned back on his bar-seat and folded his arms over his black-robed chest.

"Ministry?" he began after another pointed silence aimed to keep Terence guessing at his intentions. "I had hoped Montague was bloody joshing about that. I never seriously thought you'd be one to don the Ministry Robes and keep them, not after . . . what happened. But, if you ask me, it fits you. Taking orders. Being beneath the one with power."

The Slytherins sat near the back of The Leaky Cauldron where all the dregs of society convened, tall mugs of fire whisky in hand. Grey and black smoke loomed thickly in the air, swirling around them in soft corkscrews as bosomed barmaids with red curls bounced around taking orders from loused wizards with talking hands.

"Is there a reason you're here, or is it just to gloat?" Terence snapped, running a hand through his messy, light brown hair before taking another sip of the drink he didn't order. "I never thought that was your style, Adrian." He smirked haughtily and pointedly added, "Not after what happened."

"Sod off," Adrian growled deeply, clenching his white-knuckled fists at his sides. "Don't you turn this around on me. I'm not the bloody traitor! I'm not the one who sacrificed everything the Dark Lord gained for his followers." He grabbed his mug in anger, causing some of the drink to spill over the rim. He took a deep sip, the familiar alcohol burning his throat. Adrian never had gotten used to the taste of alcohol; he was never much of a drinker. But then, something happened and he found comfort in the bottom of a bottle. Come to think of it, it was the only place he found comfort.

Terence frowned and slouched his shoulders. They sat, an awkward silence between them as monkey-suited barmaids hustled past, as wizards chatted monotonously about the latest from the Daily Prophet--the arrival of the Russian Minister of Magic for the 2008 Quidditch World Cup. "What happened to you? To us?" Terence asked after he took a cigarette from the packet, replacing it in the top pocket of his prestigious crimson Ministry robes.

"We split apart," Adrian snapped, his temper drastically rising. "Like all other friends after Hogwarts. Bloody hell, I reckon we started falling apart when . . ." He trailed off, unable to finish the thought. With an aggravated sigh, Adrian plopped his head into his cupped hands, rested his elbows on the sticky bar table.

Terence took a satisfying drag of the smoke before responding with a safely considered, "Don't say that. Just because the Dark Lord failed doesn't . . . well, it doesn't mean that we only turned out the way we did because we lost the war."

"Don't say that!"

"Say what?" Terence calmly asked.

"'We.' You betrayed us. Your comrades, your friends, your family. We stopped being a 'we' when you became a bloody double agent!" Adrian reeled on him, his eyes blazing murderously. His breathing came ragged as he forced himself to calm down, hoping that the prying eyes of the fellow bar patrons would fancy going back to their business.

Terence jabbed his smoke out into the ashtray, blushing slightly from embarrassment. "Will these immature rows help, Adrian?" Terence asked, his lofty voice dripping with defensive sarcasm. "I fancy that it'll make those sleepless nights much less sleepless? Will you stop dreaming about it, wondering what it is you could have done differently?"

Adrian chuckled mirthlessly. "You're lecturing me?" he asked incredulously. "Listen, Terry, every bloody night I save him. So am I to be condemned cause I couldn't when it actually counted? At least I accepted that. What did you do after he died?"

"I tried to fix my--our!--mistake," Terence replied evenly.

"By joining the Ministry?" Adrian spat through gritted teeth.

Terence shifted uncomfortably in his seat, wringing his hands together beneath the table. "In the end, I tried to do the right thing. You weren't there, Adrian. You didn't see the tears she cried over his body. The incoherent bloody words she murmured as Malfoy finished the job. She was bleedin' hysterical! And that's why I joined with the Ministry. I saved her when Malfoy was going to cast the curse. I may have let one of me best mates die, but by bloody hell I was going to let Penelope give her life for him."

"Don't you get it?" asked Adrian, not believing that Terence couldn't understand what he understood. At Hogwarts, it was always Terence with the level head and the potential to become Head Boy. "For as long as there is light in the world, there will always be darkness to oppose it. For every battle that the Death Eaters lost, for every battle that the Ministry lost, nothing changed. Lord Voldemort may long be dead but that doesn't mean that we were defeated!"

Terence quickly glanced up, tears brimming in his autumn brown eyes. These were events that he'd much rather not be reliving. A part of his life that he fancied leaving in the past. His life as a Death Eater, killing people he attended school with, people he passed in the halls of Hogwarts with nothing but a polite nod between them. "What . . . is it you want to hear, Adrian? If it's an apology you're looking for, I'll be happy to oblige."

"Words can ever fix what happened!" barked Adrian.

"So, that's it? You won't forgive me?"

"I can't even comprehend forgiving you, Higgs." Adrian gulped the remainder of his fire whisky, and he missed a breath as the sordid crimson liquid burnt his oesophagus. "Don't you see it? You will always be the Ministry's bitch. Just like Percy will always be dead. Just like Oliver'll always be a Quidditch player. Just like I will always be a Death Eater."

Terence didn't reply, instead he sat and contemplated Adrian's words and events fifteen years in the past that should had been forgotten. "I'm the Ministry's bitch," Terence repeated, yanking on the emerald amulet he wore around his neck. The emerald's magical properties were supposed to have brought peace and harmony to otherwise troublesome situations. Much to Terence's chagrin, it was not. "I may be Ministry, but you, Marcus, Alexander . . . are me mates. At least you were. I didn't give the Ministry any names of my fellow comrades as so many others did. Do you know how many Death Eaters died because their mates betrayed them? That, my dear Adrian, is not blood on my hands."

Adrian chewed on his lower lip, his eyes glaring into Terence's as if he hoped to gain aspect into his soul, as if he hoped to flay him on spot.

"I may have been a traitor in the eyes of the Death Eaters, but I was also a Death Eater in the eyes of the Ministry. Sometimes, we have to take a step back and decide what's really important in our lives. As you said, Adrian, there will always be good and evil in the world," Terence said, finishing the conversation as he stood up, "that is inevitable. It's a pity that the others don't see that." He nodded his head to his old mate, gathered his black leather gloves and slipped them on before exiting The Leaky Cauldron through the back doors.