“Well why shouldn’t I tell you apart from your brothers? You’re Harry’s best friend, everyone knows that,” she said all of this as though he were silly- and it was true. Everyone knew the gangly redhead as Potter’s best man, and should easily be able to pick him from the rest of the Weasley clan. She was smiling at him now, one redhead to another- some said that they all looked alike, redheads and Weasleys, but she knew better. She didn’t realize that this could be taken as an awkward reaction to the current conversation, but she was thoroughly enjoying it. “Oh, the Yule Ball? She told us everything. The Ravenclaw house was and is very close, as surprising as that may seem. Apart from marks and intelligence, there was no real cause for competition between us, and thus we became best friends. Being best friends entitles you to everyone’s gossip, and I do mean everyone’s.” The redhead shrugged a little and tilted her head, as if all of this didn’t matter- as if knowing the intimate details of that night and his apparent failure as a date were inconsequential minutiae in the grand scheme of things. Morag was like this- like many others in her house- she analyzed information as she came upon it for its importance, and then discarded it if it seemed as though it might not help her toward her end game. In this case, the information had been laid out to remind him of his weakness, to drop him down from whatever high horse he might be riding on (his contribution to Potter’s success or the fact that he was playing Florence Nightengale to so many half-breeds). This was not, of course, for any reason of malignant origin; it was merely how she operated when she desired information that was being kept from her. It wasn’t something the was proud of, her ability to manipulate, but it’d come in handy when coupled with the façade of the quiet, shy girl that she wore so easily.
She was aware of the man upstairs, but he posed no threat to them. He looked worn around the edges- a father doing a bit of week-end shopping for his little ones, she assumed. Perhaps the mother wasn’t in the picture, or maybe she had been, once. The war did that to families. It hadn’t been only death that ripped them to shreds, but living life knowing that the person you’d married had a specific set of ideals, when it came down to things. Or, the stress of it all drove them apart, like a great wedge hammered into place by fear and distrust and horror. Morag had seen the articles in the Prophet that spoke about these things, and she’d been thankful that her mother and father loved each other in such a way to never be affected by silly things such as wars and battles fought not for them, but for another class entirely. It wasn’t their place to intervene, and so they hadn’t. Except, of course, when their daughter’s life had fallen into danger. Only then had they risked what little renown they still had in England to whisk their only heir away from the din and chaos that Hogwarts had fallen into. She was thankful for this, but also a bit forlorn that she’d missed the most exciting parts of the battle- it was as though she’d been reading a book and then just as she made it to the plot’s climax, she’d found that the pages had been torn out, leaving only the happy (or so they claimed) and torment-less conclusion.
“I think that one should only join a cause if they believe in it. If they don’t, then what’s the point of staking one’s reputation on such a trivial thing?” she asked flippantly, tilting her head the other way. “Perhaps that’s why I haven’t. Or perhaps, I saw how badly things went for those who chose definitive sides the first time things went bad, and now I’m a bit more careful about voicing what I do or don’t support, mm?” She was being antagonizing, and she knew this, but it was only to help him recognize her point of view. Sometimes Gryffindors (or anyone who’d fought as a soldier for Dumbledore or Potter in the second war) seemed so keen to push their chivalry, their greatness on people that they didn’t understand that others might have a varying set of morals. The basis of right and wrong did not, as they say, lay in the eye of the beholder. Therein lie the trouble, she supposed. “I should be worried about those that don’t want to be locked up against their will. Why won’t they? It’s for their safety and ours. The potion might be your way of contributing to a safer night, but what if you weren’t around the ferry contraband across the invisible lines in the sand? What then? These so-called oppressed beings would be loose wolves, likely wandering the streets or caged in their homes and riotous, potentially causing harm to others. I mean no disrespect, Ron, but what happens if there isn’t someone around to break the law for those that refuse to honor it? Only bad can come of this, I know that you know that, elsewise you wouldn’t be so keen on getting this shipment out the door.”
