i'm still human

HERA KNOX | REBEL | HORNED SERPENT BURIED DEEP WITHIN THERE'S A HUMAN DESPITE EVERYTHING I'M STILL HUMAN BUT I THINK I'M DYING HERE

[heraknox]

* .  ∙ •✧ * GEORGINA WEAVER —

⎯   ✴︎ There was a moment where Georgie realized her mistake. She trusted too soon and too quickly. She should know that she shouldn’t just say things to people even if they seemed nice. This not only put her at risk but everyone she knew. She closed her eyes and waited for Hera to hit her with a spell faster than sh could raise her wand or dodge. But then the door shut behind her and she opened her eyes.

          She glanced behind her at the closed door before she looked at Hera when she asked her about her being in contact with the rebels, then whether she knew where he was and if she could help her find him. She should have bee more specific in her conversation with Doe. Asked her where they might be headed. But it had always been better to keep from know that. Because at least then they couldn’t get the information out of her. Still in an instance like this she still wanted to know more than simply a contact. She could’ve gotten Hera right to them that moment.

          “Yes, I’m in contact with the rebels,” she started as she thought through what she really knew that would be helpful. “I spoke with my friend, Doe, who is with him, yesterday and I know vaguely where they were then. But with Death Eaters on their tail, I’m sure they’ve left. I can get in contact with her again, it just may take a while. We should be able to find him that way.”

▵ — Hera listened to every word carefully, running through them and all her options in her head. She would have to contact MACUSA, let them know that he was alive, and she was sure that Rage would send in the cavalry after that. The President had been explicit in her feelings on the Month of Terror, and it was no secret within MACUSA that she was on the edge of her seat to do what needed to be done against the Ministry of Magic. When word got to her, this would no longer be a contained war. It would no longer be Death Eaters and Rebels. If the President would have her way, it would be global. And all it would take was a few words from Hera: Grant’s alive. It’s time.

      Hera nodded as Georgie spoke, finally giving up on the resistance to pace, walking back and forth in front of her desk, distracted, fidgeting. “ Good. Good, ” she said mindlessly as she thought, and then paused, looking at Georgie and cocking her head. “ Doe? ” she asked, the name sparking a memory. “ You mean like Dorcas Meadowes, don’t you? ” she asked, and almost laughed. Leave it to Grant to end up side by side with one of Voldemort’s most wanted. Doe all but had a price on her head, now - one of the most notorious trouble-makers around. 

      “ I shouldn’t be so surprised, ” Hera said, almost smiling, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head. She let out a slow breath then looked up at Georgie again, measuring her next words and the safety of speaking them, even in the privacy of her own office. It was fortunate for her that Death Eaters were so disgusted by muggle technology - that meant they couldn’t bug offices. “ Listen, I... Have you ever heard of the Month of Fear? ”

[heraknox]

dromedat

⋆ — ❛ Ice cream’s never off the menu for me. Well, circumstances being as they are, I think we’re allowed to indulge with a little bit of ice cold joy. ❜

▵ — “ Now that’s what I thought. I’d probably even take the risk and say that even my old boss, Rage, wouldn’t care. I’m not sure he’d indulge, though. At least not in front of any of us. The guy’s got an eyepatch and an attitude that says ‘I’ll kick your ass to China’. ”

[heraknox]

dromedat

⋆ — ❛ Healer, or not, I will always make time for ice cream. ❜

▵ — “ When I was first being trained, ice cream was off the menu. But given the circumstances here - cheers to us, right? ”

[heraknox]

georgieweaver

⎯   ✴︎ There was something more than the recognition of Grant’s name that crossed Hera’s face when Georgie had said his name. She wasn’t about to just assume everything, but the thought crossed her mind that they were far more than co-workers. She would bet long time friends if not something else. It comforted her to see that reaction rather than worse. Something she completely risked by talking a mile a minute about things that someone in her position had no business saying. Had her assumptions been wrong about who she thought Hera was and how she sided, she’d be on her way to question right at the moment.

        But things turned out as she thought, more firmly on the side she thought. And all this confirmation came with the look on Hera’s face and her question about Grant. She suspected they’d said nothing to her about him whether or not she asked. The New Order didn’t want to fight MACUSA quite yet. She was going to assume they weren’t ready for something like that. Their focus still had to only be the Ministry and everyone under their jurisdiction. So she couldn’t imagine she hadn’t allowed herself to assume he was alive and had to toy with the idea of never finding him.

        “He’s alive. He’s on the run, but he’s very much alive,” she reassured before she glanced behind her at the door. Who knew who would take to listening. They had to be watching the MACUSA auror in their midst like a hawk. They had to assume she was there for something other than their cause. She took out her wand and casted a silencing spell just in case before she turned back to her. “He’s with good friends of mine. He’s alright from what I was told yesterday.”

▵ — An almost giddy feeling washed over her and she couldn’t help but let out a small laugh. “He’s alive.” She had to say it out loud, one more time - to hear it.

      There was something to be said about hope. Hera had never been an optimist - a trait that most people and even herself hated - but just then, she had never felt more hope in her life. It was understood when she left MACUSA that she was to find out what happened with Grant, and whether he was dead or alive, the next step would be to send what was essentially a cavalry to step in on the madness that was washing over Britain’s wizarding community. She refused to believe that he had died because it was unthinkable - but when she heard that he was alive, when Georgie confirmed that he was very much alive, she suddenly felt as though she’d been holding her breath for the last three weeks.

      Hera lifted her wand and for a moment it looked as though she was pointing it at Georgie - but the door snapped shut and she cast a silencing charm behind it. “You’re in contact with the rebels?” she asked. She already knew the answer to her question but disbelief clouded any clarity of the situation, and she was trying very hard not to pace, her hand fidgeting at her side.

      “Do you know where he is? Georgie, can you help me find him?” 

[rpmusings-galore]

   “ Yᵒᵘ ᵐᵘˢᵗ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ʸᵒᵘʳˢᵉˡᶠ ᵇᵉᶠᵒʳᵉ ʸᵒᵘ ᶜᵃᶰ ˡᵒᵛᵉ ˢᵒᵐᵉᵇᵒᵈʸ ᵉˡˢᵉ ”

                      ＢＵＬＬＳＨＩＴ.

                   I have never loved myself. But you… 

                                         oh god. 

I loved YOU so much I forgot what   {н a т ι n g   м y ѕ e l ғ}   felt like…

[heraknox]

opalross:

Opal wasn’t quite sure how the mix up had happened, but somehow some memo for an auror had slipped into the stack for the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. She’d tried charming the thing to flit on its merry way down to the Auror’s Office, but for some reason it kept flying in circles around her head and ending back in her lap.

Maybe somebody addressed this improperly, she grumbled to herself. She’d just have to take it to the auror herself. She groaned inwardly. She didn’t just have to make a special trip just to deliver some memo of questionable importance; no, she had to deliver it to the Auror’s Office. Last time she’d been down there because of a memo mix up, some gruff looking man with a beard had yelled at her for disturbing a case. 

She hadn’t heard of Hera Knox before, but maybe that was a good thing. Most of the ones she’d heard of were… well, not the types of people she really wanted to be associating with.

Opal sighed and knocked on the door. “Yes?!” yelled someone impatiently from inside. 

Lovely, she thought. She put on her best polite-secretary smile and opened the door.

“Are you Hera Knox?” she asked. “It seems like there’s been a bit of a mix up– I’ve got a memo for you.”

▵ — Hera looked up from her struggle, less than pleased to find that the person at her door was not Georgina or Daphne or even Sybil, but a woman who was completely unfamiliar, and almost certainly not a rebel. There was no way to be sure, of course, but anyone she hadn’t met before, she wasn’t exactly fond of. At least not right away. It was the curse of being - what did the head auror at MACUSA call her, a ‘cold and calculating bitch’? 

      Nonetheless, she wasn’t going to make a fool of herself in front of this woman, so she stood up straight and ignored her desk, hoping that this interruption wouldn’t last longer than a few seconds, given she’d have to rush off sooner rather than later. “Yes, I’m Hera Knox,” she said, reaching out and relieving the woman of the memo at hand. She looked down at the Ministry seal and then back up at the woman before opening it, sighing. 

       “Please, please tell me this isn’t about last week’s meeting? I told them more times than I can count that the memo they sent said the meeting started at eleven, not ten, and if they really wanted to get mad at someone they should be talking to Macnair instead of me since he’s the one who so kindly mislabeled my memo and only my memo.”

[heraknox]

daphnebarre

Daphne hadn’t been working in the Auror Department for very long but she was really loving it there. There was always something exciting going on and everyone had been so welcoming and friendly to the young blonde. Her mother wasn’t thrilled she was in England during such a perilous time but she had been growing restless back home in France. She wanted more for herself, something bigger and greater, and aiding the Rebellion was doing just that for her. With that innocent face and sweet smile, no one suspected she was capable of the bravery required to work against You-Know-Who. 

It was incredibly exciting for Daphne when the MACUSA Auror had come to work at the Ministry, especially once Daphne’s contact with the Rebellion informed her of the woman’s alliance with the group. She had been dying to reveal her own part in the organization but had been cautious of doing so within these walls, where there always seemed to be someone listening in on her. Daphne had been trying for weeks now to get the woman alone but her numerous invitations to lunch, out for drinks, and even dress robe shopping had been politely turned down. It wasn’t in her nature however to give up, so she made her way to Hera Knox’s office to try again.

She was met with an angry tone that Daphne tried not to take personally. It wasn’t directed at her more than it was Hera’s way of expressing her frustration in the situation, at least that was what Daphne was telling herself to feel better about having her head bitten off. “’Allo, Madame Knox. I was going to lunch and was wondering if you would like to accompany me? I don’t like eating alone.” A bit of a guilt trip made Daphne feel guilty herself but she shook off the feeling for the sake of the greater good. 

▵ — Hera didn’t particularly enjoy being the way she was - after all, she wasn’t exactly famous for making friends. But it was hardly due to lack of caring, and almost entirely due to caring too much. She often wondered if things would be different if the world were a different place, but the pessimistic side of her wasn’t so sure. Nature versus nurture and all that, and her attitude seemed to come a little bit from both.

      When Hera looked up and saw Daphne at her door, she instantly felt guilty for snapping at her the way she did. Daphne’s kindness was a welcome and touching addition to what was otherwise a rather dark environment - but every time Daphne invited her somewhere for something, there was some reason or other to avoid it. Whether it was because she was going to be spending that time gathering as much information about Grant and the Rebellion as she could in secret, or she simply didn’t want Daphne to get involved. The last thing she wanted was an innocent getting dragged into what seemed to be a more and more inevitable outcome of being discovered and possibly killed.

      But there was something to be said about persistent kindness, and  Hera knew that sooner or later she was going to break. She always would with those who were patient enough to keep giving her chance after chance. She sensed the guilt trip that snuck its way into Daphne’s words but almost laughed when she heard it, thinking, Well, you deserved that. “You’re still going to give me a shot, huh?” Hera asked, and half laughed, mostly at herself. “You’re a better woman than I am. Where do you want to go? I’ll pay, in the spirit of my bad attitude.”

[heraknox]

amosdiggoryhq

Interdepartmental cooperation was not abundant at the Ministry of Magic but Amos Diggory usually seemed to have a knack for making it work, that was why he was frequently assigned cases where he needed to liaise with an Auror. While those cases were always very exciting for him it was clear they were some of the least exciting for his counterparts. His upbeat attitude and affinity for paperwork helped him work smoothly even with the gruff likes of Alastor Moody. Today he was to travel with an Auror to settle a dispute between two warring centaur tribes that threatened to spill onto neighboring muggle farmlands. Well, the Auror would likely settle things and Amos would make note of the compromise for the records. 

Amos’ first stop was to the Auror department secretary to ask who was available to work on this case with him. With an all too happy look on her face, she informed him that a Hera Knox was wide open today and would love to be of assistance. It wasn’t a name he was familiar with but he followed the directions to her office where he found her having quite the fight with a drawer in her desk. Not wanting to interrupt, he leaned against the door frame and waited until she was ready for a visitor, taking note of her Yankee accent in the time being. 

“Diggory,” he introduced with a warm grin. “Amos Diggory, Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures. I was told you were free to be my counterpart on a case today.” He paused to judge the look on her face at the news, his first indicator for how things were going to go between them. “It’s up north in the country with lots of fresh air. Be nice to get out of the office for a bit—you look like you could use the break.”

▵ — Hera looked up when the man introduced himself, surprised to find that he somehow seemed both happy and decent, which was really quite scarce around this department. Everyone was either a miserable sod like her or a terrible human being and those two things were almost entirely mutually exclusive now. “Amos,” Hera repeated, nodding, and then looked up when he continued speaking, surprised. “They think I’m free?” she asked shrilly, and as soon as the word left her mouth her drawer finally popped open, and she stumbled backward with the momentum when it did - taking the drawer straight out of the desk with her.

      Almost all of the contents spilled out, scattering across her chair and the ground, her identification papers landing daintily on top of a small pile of quills now sitting on the chair. Hera took in the scene for a moment, completely silent. Up north in the country, and a man from the Magical Creatures department. That probably meant either giants or centaurs - she seriously doubted werewolves, given how things were with them at the moment. 

      “Up in the north, huh? She didn’t say anything about a meeting, did she?” she asked, her nose scrunching, and then shook her head. “You know what? Nevermind. It’s better if both of us pretend the word ‘meeting’ never came up.” She grabbed her identification papers and stuffed them into her cloak, taking her wand out of its pocket and waving it over her mess. It gathered itself together and back into the drawer, though it was completely unorganized in there now, too. She sighed and looked up. “Well, Mr Diggory, what can I do for you up north in the country?”

[heraknox]

georgieweaver:

⎯   ✴︎ If MACUSA was sending someone over, maybe they finally realized something dire was going on. How they hadn’t heard of the Minister’s death, she wasn’t sure. She remembered the last time there’d been a new Minister put in place, the President had been there. She was surprised the Death Eaters had managed to keep this information from getting out. Or maybe it had, but MACUSA was still trying to figure out what to do. They had to have known something before sending another of their aurors over. Grant hasn’t been in communication with them and she was positive of that or there’d be more of them. She was left wondering if this had only been to find out where he was and they weren’t prepared for the shit storm they were facing right now.

        Georgie didn’t claim to know anything about all of the politics in the ministry, nor could she claim that she knew anything about MACUSA, but she knew what being an auror was like, she’d been one before the New Order, and it had to be horrible being the only one sent into a mess that you had known little to nothing about. There weren’t others to back you up, there wasn’t someone other than an auror to cover the politics aspects. She’d have no idea how to handle that were she in Hera Knox’s position. Even more so with that fact, she was left immensely curious about what MACUSA’s endgame truly was.

        This is why she managed to sneak away from the Department of Mysteries with an excuse of lunch, though truly it was much too early for it, and made her way to the temporary office that had been given to Hera. They’d spoken a handful of times, but it could be said that they didn’t quite know more about each other besides their jobs and that they were a good person. Georgie suspected she wouldn’t get any of the answers she sought out, but it would bother her too much not to try, especially with knowing Grant.

        She knocked and the resounding exclamation almost made her turn back, but she was determined enough still for the moment to push on. She opened the door slowly before she started stepping in. “I’m sorry to trouble you…” she started and caught herself from going right into the explanation. She shut the door behind her before she turned back towards Hera. “I really am. And I know none of this is my place with me being a forced transfer to the Department of Mysteries just to make sure I was out of the way and you… you’re an auror from MACUSA and basically a diplomat… and since I’m not anywhere close to the a status to be even speaking to you about this… but I was once an auror and I’ve seen a lot with this… the New Order and the rebellion… I have to ask this or else I may never get the answers that have been bothering me.”

         “What exactly is MACUSA planning?” She paused when she knew how out of place that was. Suddenly, she filled with worry about being discovered. What if Hera really wasn’t against the Death Eaters as she thought. “That was out of line…” Still she couldn’t stop herself from explaining further as much as she wanted to. “Just… first, when all of this really started, you… or rather, MACUSA sent Grant Lloyd over. He helped out the Order, though I know for a fact that truly wasn’t his orders, and then when the Minister was murdered he naturally joined the rebellion, but he also had no other choice because they’d kill him for being a Muggleborn. He’s now on the run with…” She stopped herself from saying that her friends were with him. “…and they’ve sent you and I truly don’t mean offense by this, but they’ve only sent you. Even five of the best aurors couldn’t fix this. I just don’t understand the plan I suppose…”

▵ —When Hera looked up and saw Georgina, she almost immediately regretted her snappy tone. Georgie was one of the ones who she believed to be obvious safety spots. There was no way that Georgina Weaver would have been a Death Eater, and she seriously doubted that she was neutral, either. Surely, at her age, she had friends and family who were put in danger by the war, if not killed. It seemed it was easy to find family members of rebel victims at every corner. She remembered it felt the same way when the Month of Fear happened, for what little time she had outside of the hellhole itself.

      “You’re not bothering-” Hera started, and then Georgie plunged into an explanation all leading up to the big question. In the beginning, Hera wanted to assure Georgie that she had nothing to be sorry over, nor should she worry about Ministry status, when she ended on a note that seemed to surprise them both into silence - What exactly is MACUSA planning? She stood up straight, forgetting the jammed door entirely. 

      Hera would have wanted to answer if she knew how. MACUSA wanted to help. That was about all they knew for sure. She was in constant contact with them, telling them as much as she could, always fitting in a fib here or there to give them a reason to believe that Grant was still alive so they didn’t give up hope on him, and didn’t change her mission to leave finding him out of it. “No, it wasn’t out of line,” Hera said slowly, trying to think of a less asinine way to say “I don’t know” - but before she could, Georgie plunged into the next half of her explanation.

      And she said his name. Grant Lloyd. Hera’s heart raced, the milliseconds between those two syllables and everything that came next feeling like minutes - hours. Of course he helped the Order, Hera thought. Even she could have told MACUSA that that would happen, after the Month of Fear. When she heard the word kill, her heart skipped a beat and she held her breath, for a moment mistaking it as confirmation that her worst fears had come true.

      And then she said the words that Hera had been waiting to hear ever since the news of Grant’s disappearance reached her ears in New York.

      “It’s - it won’t just be me, I’m here because -” Hera said, trying to keep her mind focused, her head swimming with all the information that just came across - from Georgie obviously being a rebel to Grant being on the run with people - and finally she had to stop. She stared at Georgina for a moment before she finally managed only two words: “Grant’s alive?”

[heraknox]

▵ — There were some good people left in the Ministry, it seemed. Hera could spot them a mile away, no matter how hard they tried to hide it. She’d even heard rumor of a secret passageway for rebel spies or undercover rebels who needed to make a speedy escape from the ministry, but she was mostly convinced that this had to be false, for two reasons: by now she was sure at least one Death Eater would have heard about it and put an end to it, and because she had seen more than one rebel be dragged down to “interrogation” after being discovered within the ministry. The net was getting smaller, and her time being safely concealed was getting shorter. They’d find out she was a muggleborn soon enough. 

      Sooner still if she was late to this meeting again. Of course the drawer that held her identification papers (forged by order of the President to hide her blood status) would be stuck shut today, and of course she wouldn’t notice until now. Every time something like this happened she only drew more unwanted attention to herself. They were already skeptical enough of having her around, given the last MACUSA auror to show up at their door ended up being a rebel and a huge thorn in their side. She made a mental note to tell Grant about how difficult he’d made her job here when she finally found him, but she knew she wouldn’t end up saying anything, and if she did, it would be after a few shots of firewhiskey and gigglewater and all in jest. 

      Hera was on her hands and knees under her desk, trying to work open her desk drawer, when she heard someone knock. The sound surprised her and she jumped, her head hitting her desk with a loud bang. “Shitfuck!” she said, putting her hand on top of her head and crawling out from under the desk, shouting “Yes?!” as soon as she was free from the claustrophobic space. She finally stood and leaned down, shoving her arm underneath her desk once more, gripping the back of the drawer and pulling as hard as she could. “What is it?” she asked grumpily, trying very hard not to talk through clenched teeth. 

[thundercusly-blog]

Fortunately the name of the store, The Junk Shop, left nothing to anyone’s imagination. The place looked like a troll had rampaged about and to begin tidying it up would quickly become a disaster. With the secondhand items going in and out on a daily basis, it’d be too hard to even keep track of it. As it was a fairly calm day, both in the Diagon Alley as a whole and the shop, Jean spent most of her day at the counter reading newspapers from both the muggle world as the wizarding world.  It wasn’t until the little bell above the door notified her that someone had entered the shop when she looked up from her newspaper. Quickly after she put the newspaper face down onto the counter, hiding the several death eaters that had taken up the front page. 

“Good morning!” she cheerfully called out behind all of the nick-nacks that were placed on the many shelves and counters. “Welcome to The Junk Shop, where someone else’s rubbish has the potential to become your fortune. We’ve just received a load new old things. If you’re looking for broken wands, they’re on the left, cloaks are on the right and we’ve also got a handsome jewelry collection. Is there anything I can help you with?”

[heraknox]

▵ — Being in the Ministry - or The New Order, whatever - felt a lot like drowning. Or, at least, what Hera imagined drowning felt like. She felt dirty doing what she was doing. She’d suffered in the past for being a muggleborn, watched others like her suffer, and now here she was, in the heart of the worst anti-muggleborn atrocity in history, pretending to be one of them. Hiding amongst a group of people who want you dead but just don’t know it yet was draining, but worse was trying to do something about it while not giving yourself away. Every time something slipped through Hera’s fingers, every time another muggleborn died... it was almost as draining as the torture during the Month of Fear.

      She took breaks whenever she could to get some air away from those people. They often started discussions that made her stomach churn, and given everything she’s seen in her life, that alone was an accomplishment. Normally she would have hexed them or worse, even if it meant revealing herself and ending up hiding out on the streets somewhere or getting killed on the spot, which would have been worth it. But this wasn’t normal. Grant was missing, and she couldn’t reveal herself until she knew he was alive. So when it got to be too much, she left. It didn’t particularly make her popular in the Auror office, but she’d never been very popular in any office. Everyone in MACUSA just thought she was cold. At least that wasn’t a problem here. Next to some of the murderers she worked with, she seemed positively cuddly. 

      Today she found herself in a shop in Diagon Alley. Were it not so charming it probably could have been called a dump - after all, it was called The Junk Yard - but Hera couldn’t bring herself to think of it that way. Messy and chaotic as it was, there was a sort of cuteness about it that caught her eye every time she walked past it. She hardly had a chance to take it all in before a small girl seemed to appear from the masses behind her desk, having almost blended in with all of her merchandise. 

      ❝ Broken wands, hm? I can think of a fair number of people who would’ve liked to know that there’s a profit to be had in those, ❞ Hera said, allowing herself a light laugh. In truth she was far from calm and far from comfortable, her mind racing over the fresh blood that she felt was on her hands - but damned before she was going to show it. If she was going to find Grant, dead or alive - and she refused to believe he was dead - and help the rebels in this war, her job was twenty-four hours. 

      She put her hands in her coat pocket, flashing a smile that probably looked a lot more at ease than she felt. ❝ Not exactly. Sorry, I mean - I walk past this shop almost daily and I’ve never been inside. I figured now’s as good a time as any. I’m not from here and I’m trying to get to know the area better. ❞

[heraknox]

Is there anything you regret? What about it has kept it with you for so long?

▵ — ❝ I regret a lot of things. Too many. We’d be here all day if I tried to list them all. And there’s nothing I can do to change it, now. I can’t even apologize to the people who matter. ❞

[heraknox]

Is there anyone who’s not with you that you would like to see right now? What would you say to them?

▵ — ❝ Yes, there is. Very much. If I could see him now I guess I’d say… I’d tell him “I’ll see you tomorrow”. ❞

[who-r-u-realy]

ilvermorny | horned serpent