Alternity

Greetings, British Citizens of Albion, and others!

Over the last four weeks, every person in this country has experienced great change. Most of us are still mourning losses - of material things, homes, possessions, jobs or livelihoods, of friends and loved ones, sisters, brothers, parents, daughters and sons. It's no surprise that many of you are clinging to the system and leaders you know, or you think you know, rather than take a chance on something new.

There are some things that haven't changed, however. The Ministry and the Council who brought about and supported Voldemort's tyranny lied to you when he was alive, and they are still lying to you now. If you think you'll be safe from oppression under their rule, you are mistaken. If you've heard reports of atrocities committed by Albion's Aurors or members of the Order of the Phoenix, such as the murder of families who declined to join us, they are untrue.

Some of the people we are attempting to capture are guilty of heinous crimes. They will be held accountable. If they turn themselves in, they will be given a fair trial and treated humanely while in our custody. If they give us no choice, we will kill them fairly in combat, but we will make the attempt to bring them in peaceably unless there is no alternative.

As for specific questions about me or about the Provisional Government of Albion, the Order of the Phoenix, or any topic related to the difference between our policies and those of the Death Eaters, I hereby invite them. When I began my essays, seven years ago, people used to write to me with questions they had about the Protectorate. Oh, there was a fair amount of hateful commentary, as well, but there never failed to be one or two with earnest queries. As well as some who simply had stories of their own that they wanted heard.

Well, today, I am opening the floodgates. Ask me anything. I reserve the right to tell you that I can't answer your question for the security of our ongoing conflict with the remnants of the Protectorate, but if I can, I'll provide as honest a reply as possible.


Let's start off with something simple. These are sure to be questions many of you have, so I'll just get them out of the way:

-Are you a traitor, Sirius Black?
No, but that depends on how you look at it. Am I a traitor to the Protectorate? The Protectorate was never my government. I was never on Voldemort's side and never will be. I was loyal to Britain and I am still loyal to the Provisional Government of Albion, and the Order of the Phoenix.

-But are you a murderer?
No. I've had to kill enemies in the heat of battle, in self-defence. I've been responsible for the deaths of others. In some cases, that's because the Order decided they needed to be executed after being found guilty of terrible crimes, including murder. Other times I've been unable to keep people from being killed. People who ought to have lived. I carry those failures, and will regret their loss, always. But no, I'm not a murderer.

I certainly wouldn't kill an entire family just because they decide not to side with Albion (though we have reason to believe they were contemplating joining us, and that's why the Council had them killed).

What else do you want to know? Public, private - ask your questions, and I'll tell only Grim Truths.

Greetings, British Wizarding World!

As some of you know, we in the Order of the Phoenix have heard the rumours that the Ministry recently lost the ability to monitor private journal messages.

If you have been taking advantage of the temporary promise of true privacy, good on you. Perhaps you've contacted friends or colleagues and taken the chance to admit to them that you have reservations, conflicts or grave concerns about the Protectorate's philosophies on blood purity or treatment of its subjects or the Lord Pretender's sanity. Perhaps you've had conversations that have led to better understandings of who among your neighbours feel the same. We fervently hope that your trust has been placed wisely and that no one to whom you've written has reported anything you might have said - presumably because you all know that no one is truly safe in this 'utopia' known as Wizarding Britain.

Your safety is about to be compromised again. We have reason to believe that the Ministry are very close to re-establishing surveillance over the private messages. In fact, while we cannot vouch for a specific date, we estimate that messages may be monitored again as early as this Friday, 25 July. Please take appropriate precautions as of that date.

We are reasonably confident that anything you may have written during the last month or so will not be able to be discovered by MLE or the Ministry but they will certainly be making the attempt.

Don't let your communications be in vain. If you took the chance and spoke your mind, continue to speak it, to those who feel the same or to those who can be convinced that the Protectorate is nothing more than a tyrannical charade, more fueled by fear and oppression than by freedom or opportunity.

The next time you find yourself wondering whether the person you are talking to would accuse you of treason if you spoke your mind, remember what it was like to be able to say what you thought, when you thought it. Remember the last time you were truly free to choose friends, not based on their birthright but the kind of person they are. Remember when it was not a crime to fancy Muggle music or Muggle fashion, Muggle gadgets or even Muggles themselves. Remember Britain when it was free.

Greetings, British Wizarding World!

I have wondered from time to time whether our chats are really doing any good. Whether the points I try to make are falling on deaf ears or whether some of my reminders of life before the Protectorate can even reach those younger people who have never known what it was like to live in a free nation.

Because make no mistake, the country’s wards are more like prison walls than protective garden hedgerows. They may keep the rest of the world from tearing down the illusion of wizarding supremacy but they also - and primarily - serve to keep captive a people who are oppressed and brutalised by their cagers.

I do not just mean muggles or muggleborn, although Merlin knows they are sorely tried by the abuses they receive. Over the last two days, in particular, we’ve seen the dangers of a government and of leaders who truly believe themselves above reproach, who truly think that they and they alone can decide what is right to think and believe, who truly disregard the personal freedom - obligation - to call the question, to doubt.

Sophie Fleet is a thirteen-year-old girl who until yesterday was a typical Hogwarts student. Without cause, she was forced to read in public a message she had written to her mother. She was then called before Ministry staff, including one of the most contemptible members of the Aurors, to reveal the content of messages she and her mother had exchanged over several months. Because she expressed a twinge of doubt regarding the motives and methods of the Protectorate, she was put to the question under physical torture until she ‘confessed’ to treason.

This morning, before the entire school, her wand was snapped and she and her mother are both being sent to the camps, where other members of her family may soon follow.

All because she dared to voice a dissenting opinion.

Because no teenager has ever expressed frustration with her life, the lives of others, the world, the universe, the unfairness of teachers, the arbitrary nature of fate, the evil of enemies (or even friends), the decisions of parents or the shortcomings of the future. Imagine if you will the improbability of a teen finding fault with the status quo.

My point is that if this young witch could be tortured and coerced into a confession when she had done nothing but mildly observe that life sometimes doesn’t work the way one wishes, or that her teachers seemed to wish her ill, then think what might happen to anyone who dares disagree. Hundreds of years ago, muggles persecuted each other on suspicion of witchcraft and thousands of young girls, some as young as Sophie, were tortured until they invented stories of deeds that even wizards cannot achieve. All because they were desperate to make the pain stop.

Friends, we’ve taken one step closer to that benighted point of view today. Not even your children’s thoughts are safe from intrusion.

Privacy is not a ‘privilege’ as Dolores Umbridge would have it: It is a basic right to which all people - muggle, squib or magical - have a claim. Here are some other basic rights I and those who fight alongside me also uphold:

The right to learn to use magic if one is born with the ability, regardless of bloodline;
The right to liberty and the freedom to choose where and how one makes one’s living;
The right to contact with one’s loved ones, be they muggle, squib or magical;
The right to think and speak freely in agreement with or dissent from authority without fear of reprisal;
The right to conduct one’s business without inflicting or becoming the victim of random violence;
The right to live peacefully and without fear of government detention, arrest or attack without just cause;
The right to food, clothing, shelter, healing care and education for all, regardless of magical birthright;
The right to fair pay in exchange for labour, goods or services rendered for all people, by mutual agreement of both labourer and beneficiary.

If you find that this list represents many of the things the Protectorate lacks, then you know the Grim Truth: You are not a citizen, but a prisoner; not a patriot, but an activist; not a collaborator, but a revolutionary.

My allies and I were once like you, isolated and unsure how to fight against what seemed an unstoppable and growing mass of dark wizards. We found each other and have for years been working together quietly, slowly, carefully, but steadily, to reverse the course this country has blindly taken over the last fifteen years. Here is how:

When you read this, if you agree, find one person you trust. Agree to meet that person the next day and introduce that person to a second person who also agrees. Now there are four of you. And so on. Take that step, just that one, and you will find more allies than you knew existed. Together, action becomes not only possible but imperative.

Greetings, British Wizarding World.

A few days ago, we all learned of the sweeping rout of an organisation that had set itself the task of bringing down the Protectorate regime. In what appears to have been an operation comprising months of work and dozens of staff, MLE managed to ‘crush’ most of the group that called itself the DogStar Company.

I’ve written before about my mixed reaction to that group and its supposed origins. It’s not easy to find oneself becoming a rallying cry, especially when one’s stated objectives and motives seem to have been adopted and ignored in equal measure by the group using one as its touchstone. The DogStar may have expressed sentiments many of you in the Protectorate feel and think and wonder and wish, but they spent too much time indulging their darker impulses, pursuing their goals by any means and giving too little thought to the collateral consequences of their actions. Nonetheless, the men and women of the DogStar clearly believed in their cause and in their final moments, proved their dedication to their credo. As tragic as it is to have lost so many lives, it would be more tragic still to decry them as having sacrificed in vain, or in service to a fool’s notion.

Perhaps some of you reading this don’t think of it as a loss. Perhaps you do think of it as ridding the country of a dangerous menace, a disruption that needed to be put down. Perhaps you were happy when you learned that the group behind the Quidditch World Cup bombing had met its inevitable sticky end. That's understandable, I suppose, especially if you lost someone there or through any of the other deeds attributed to them. But if you look more closely at who those people were, it’s more sad than gratifying. Because they were, in the end, people: Mothers and husbands, sisters and sons. They were shopkeepers and teachers, office-workers and potioneers. They recognised that the Protectorate is an oppressive place and they took action to overthrow the despots who created the current state. Whether we agreed with their methods or not, they did sacrifice themselves in service to an idea of a better life for us all.

Yet that sacrifice may well lead one to wonder how the DogStar could have grown so large when its values were so radical and violent. Do the sentiments espoused by its members really pervade the entire realm? If all their members - muggles, muggleborn, witches and wizards alike - did not support those darker impulses, then how could they have joined DogStar? How could they have worked so hard for an organisation that believed it could be acceptable to set off bombs that would kill hundreds of innocents, on the chance that they might take some of their enemies with them? There are probably as many answers as there are fallen.

Of course, I can’t be sure but I think that in many cases, it may be because they thought there was no alternative. It could be that the strain of living under the yoke of oppression created by the Pretender and his Death Eaters drove many to choose DogStar’s plan to take desperate action over sitting back and doing nothing. Or it could be that people began to think that DogStar’s methods were necessary, that their violence answered the cruelty of the Protectorate in a way that non-violence could not do, that they were fighting fire with fire, as it were. That it was the only way to stop the brutality of the Ministry.

Unfortunately, as we’ve seen over and over, losing one’s scruples in the face of an enemy does little but lower oneself to the same level. Using Dark methods to fight Dark wizards only turns one into the thing one is fighting. Instead of upholding justice, the DogStar became as brutal as the Ministry, as indiscriminate and as unjust.

I can’t know why they did it, but I fear that many who found themselves in DogStar may not have realised before joining how ruthless a group it was. In that respect, they may have been similar to several who initially joined Voldemort without seeing the pit into which they were about to fall. I wonder how many who still serve him have now seen that the pit has no bottom, that there are no depths to which he will not sink, and who now deeply regret their choices but believe they are unable to escape.

I wonder how many in the DogStar felt a similar way, and how many justified their actions because they were in the name of the greater good.

The difference between good and evil is not just in motivation. It’s in the lines one draws and will not cross. It’s in the fundamental choice to not kill, no matter the provocation, to not bring harm to innocents even if doing so would stop a thousand murderers, to refuse to cast spells that violate the basic rights of the victim, such as subverting their free will. It is in looking long and hard at what we are and are not willing to do to improve the lives of those we wish to help. It is in continuing to seek out others with the same moral code and freely advocating to take only those actions which uphold that code. It is in relying on one another, constantly and continually, to help each other resist the temptation to resort to magic that will cause irreparable harm.

If there is a Grim Truth from the events of the last several months, it is that the surviving members of the DogStar - and anyone else who is mourning their colleagues - still have a choice. The remnants of that organisation can still remember and honour the lost by reforming to fulfill a better purpose. I urge them to re-examine their goals and the path to achieving them. I hope that they can find alternatives to wasting the human potential their former comradeship had amassed.

Greetings, British Wizarding World!

It’s hard to believe that the first class to enter Hogwarts after the journal project began is now beginning the second half of its education. I hope that education will still prepare them for the work to be done, particularly if we’re to reverse the damage wrought by the Protectorate, but perhaps that is too much to ask on top of rudimentary skills in potions, charms, astronomy and transfiguration.

Still, I’m glad that so far, this year seems to be progressing with fewer calamities than in the past and indeed, cause for celebrations (public Cruciation aside, of course). I gather that the Tri-Wizard Tournament (and particularly the Yule Ball) has been successful so far in bringing the students together in new and exciting ways. One thing I agree with is the goal of making new friends and gaining new perspectives, which is a hallmark of the collaboration that the Tournament affords.

But the Tournament is also meant to be a competition, an opportunity to put each school’s best students against one another in a fair and unbiased test of their skills. We’ve already seen some unanticipated results, what with two Champions being chosen from Hogwarts. That’s either a sign that the Goblet is not to be fooled by the Lord Pretender’s whims or it’s a sign that once again, someone cleverer than the combined intelligence of Beauxbatons, Hogwarts and Durmstrang found a way to put my godson, Harry Potter, at risk despite all the protections he’s given. One can only hope that he’ll continue to show resourcefulness beyond his years.

Speaking of protections, however, there’s another matter that we really ought to discuss. That’s the recent incident at Hogwarts in which one of the French delegation nearly lost his life due to bullying.

Yes, I know that it turns out he was bullied by two of his own schoolmates and it had almost nothing to do with Hogwarts’ students. Yet in this case, there are parallels to Hogwarts’ students that cannot and ought not be ignored.

In the first place, the young man had endured a history of abuse, which could have been halted earlier had his teachers taken closer note of his situation. While his own fortitude is to be applauded, he should never have had to bear up for that long without anyone taking an interest. I wish I could say that nothing like it ever happens at Hogwarts but we all know that prefects and professors alike often expect students to resolve their own problems. Even without this most recent example, Hogwarts is no stranger to crops of young tormentors, which seem to come and go in waves but are never quite addressed consistently.

In the second place, his torment is symptomatic of insensitivity toward wizards who do not come from pure wizard blood. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, the idea persists that pure blood and magical ability are inextricably linked and worse, that the old, pure families themselves are more worthy than newer bloodlines. Englishmen have always been preoccupied with matters of class; it is one of the (many) ways wizards are no different from muggles. But as the regime solidifies its power, that idea has taken root with new fervour. I’m disappointed to see it pervading French thinking as well, though I wonder if that has more to do with personal ties forged between families and less to do with any policy changes on behalf of Beauxbatons or the French government. Either way, it seems clear that had the student had wizarding parents, and not squibs, it is likely that he would not have presented such a tempting target - and more likely that his professors would have acted much more quickly to protect him.

But beyond the injustice of this incident, let’s take a moment to discuss the effect of a bullying culture on its citizens. These systems rely on elevating the importance of class distinctions so that those in the middle perpetuate both ends of the spectrum. Those in the middle admire and envy those above them, and they buy in to the promise that if they make those below them feel worse about themselves, they will in turn feel better, and may even be admitted to the elite as a reward. They buy in to the idea that they can ‘join in’ to make themselves stronger, less helpless in a society that belittles them for an accident of birth, standing or finance. Of course, some wizards, finding themselves tempted or pressured to spurn those weaker than themselves, recognise that the social obligation to harass, bully or even torture is wrong, but they feel they must go along and pretend. Doing otherwise would mark them as targets of bullying themselves or worse, expose them to accusations of being rebels, possibly putting their loved ones in danger.

The biggest danger of all, though, is in the coercive power of bullying as an acceptable cultural structure. It manipulates people into justifying their wrong actions by appealing to their fears for themselves and for their loved ones. It subverts their concern for those they are being coerced to harm, forcing them to either dismiss their doubts as unfounded, or to dismiss the people themselves as contemptible or inferior (and therefore not deserving of mercy). The culture of bullying also tempts moral people to invent twisted justifications for their deeds, even to the point of absurdity. Under extreme circumstances, one might come to conceive of these violent deeds as a way to protect the oppressed. Then it’s the voice that says, ‘If I don’t take this action, someone else will, who will enjoy it more, who will be more cruel, more vicious, who will feel less remorse.’

While it may be necessary, from time to time, to perpetrate such an act, it is never all right, never justified. In such a situation it is important to remember what is really right and proper and fair - and to ask who is victimised. The ones who create that pressure are the real bullies and their actions, the creation of that culture, passes through those in the middle and makes them instruments of their brutality. Sometimes it can be impossible to see a way out. But it is vital to think carefully and closely about what can be done to break the cycle.

And that brings me back to friendships - the best friends are those who challenge each other to become better people, without judging but without necessarily accepting one’s failures. So as the term starts up again, students, ask yourselves who your real friends are - are they the ones who accept you but also push you to improve yourself? Are they the ones with whom you feel comfortable speaking the Grim Truth? And if not...why not? There are risks in speaking out but if your friends are worth having, they will help provide the key to a longterm plan for escape. True friends, friends with whom no topic is taboo, no problem is unsolvable, no question too unthinkable, they are the way out.

Greetings, British Wizarding World!

It’s been a long time since you heard from me, I know. In the interim, I hear that the papers have been full of my supposed exploits, nearly none of them anything for which I would wish to claim credit. You’ve also been inundated with information about the recent discovery that Nigel Cullenden was, and always has been, none other than yours truly.

So you might think I’m too busy running from Ministry Enforcers to come back to writing these entries. I can’t deny I’m disappointed that I have had to leave my home and a life that was, all things considered, rather successful, because the Lord Pretender’s assassins got lucky. But I can weather that, I assure you.

However, the reasons I have not written – or not written more often – have precious little to do with the very recent lively events outside your borders, in which I became a more direct target of the Protectorate. There are two reasons I have been silent, both of which are now, I believe, no longer relevant.

The first is that the epidemic your officials have dubbed after my family name rather eloquently spoke for itself. The Ministry fell over themselves declaring that my supporters had somehow infiltrated the camps, poisoned the water and somehow further mutated the disease to infect both halfbloods and later purebloods. First they denied the disease’s existence altogether. Next, they admitted the disease was real but denied any danger to those with ‘true magical heritage.’ Then, when that didn’t protect them, they tried to keep the cases of halfblood sickness quiet by quarantining the cases in a secret, locked ward at St Mungo’s. They even obfuscated the bloodline of a pureblood wizard – Xenophilius Lovegood – in order to maintain that the illness could not affect anyone with sufficiently potent magical blood. But that didn’t work for long, either (though the aftermath of that lie has continued to impact his surviving daughter’s life negatively). All the while, the Ministry knew that the real cause of the disease was the tampering of one of their own Unspeakables. Eventually, they had to reveal enough information that the Healers at St Mungo’s were able to craft a vaccine, but not before countless lives were lost or otherwise brought to harm by their arrogance and cowardice.

Apart from a few moments along the way, it seemed clear to me that the truth was speaking loudly enough for all to hear, and needed no comment from me.

The second reason, I’m ashamed to say, was both more personal, and more important to me. It had to do with the retaliations that followed any of these discussions. I have reason to believe that each atrocity was committed by the same culprit, though not by his own choice. I gather from yesterday's Prophet article that somone's going to suggest pretty soon that he was insane. But I swear to you he had no history of mental illness to my knowledge. I believe that he was pressured, possibly forced, to torture, to maim, to desecrate, to mutilate and to murder in order to associate my words and the Black name with deeds most of us find abhorrent. Ironically, the deeds were correctly attributed to the House of Black. They just pinned them on the wrong brother.

For a while, I thought that if I kept quiet for his sake, it would provide him some protection. Still, I failed – on both counts. First I failed to keep my silence at times when I could not sit idly while the public health risk raged on, or when the Ministry continued its muggle hunt and implicated men and women with no active part in this struggle. Moreover, my silence failed to shield him in any way from being used at the hands of his keepers, from being directed to destroy himself piecemeal. From chipping away at his soul.

The bright side, if one can see it that way, is that their tactic had limits. Eventually, the moment had to come when his ‘usefulness’ ran out and he would be discarded.

I believe that day came recently. I believe that we have witnessed the ultimate lesson of loyalty to the Dark Lord: Not ‘Serve or Die,’ but ‘Serve and Die.’

I don’t know whether the Grim Truth is that he was killed by Voldemort’s hand, or simply at his command. I don’t know, and may never know, whether he finally made his stand, refused to act on his instructions, and paid that price, or whether he was simply deemed too broken and therefore no longer worth keeping. I don’t even, in all honesty, know for sure that he’s dead. It's just possible that this could be an elabourate ruse. It could be designed to bring me out (in which case, I'm playing into their hands by writing this), or it could be a story they're telling us all to cover for themselves in case he actually did come to his senses and ran, like they claim, and found a way to go back into hiding. If so, then they've enlisted a large cast of players in the charade.

But I feel certain that Walburga Black’s demise was no mere tragic coincidence, and further that the woman who bore us would not be dead if her youngest son were still alive.

I also know that I have two fewer reasons to keep silent.

Greetings, British Wizarding World.

Things have been moving quickly of late - so much so that I could likely write to you every day. But then if I did, I hate to think what retributions might occur, whether 'in my name' or despite it.

Still, there are some items that bear attention, and demand response. Back at the beginning of last year, and then again in June, we talked about the debate over whether the Head Boy and Girl ought to be allowed to use the Unforgivable curse known as the Cruciatus. At the time, I wondered if teenagers had really become so much more unruly in the present generation that torture was the only way to control them.

However, it seems that the Grim Truth of the matter is even more insidious: Apparently the youth of Hogwarts no longer need to do anything wrong to earn punishment in extremis. Anyone with children at Hogwarts or soon to begin attendance should be righteously afraid for them, if they were not already. Especially now that they have been locked into quarantine by Ministry edict!

There were two incidents this week alone, neither of them provoked or deserved. I have seen some comments to the effect that the second student invited the curse, for academic interest, and therefore the occurrence is of no concern. I could not agree more with those who counter that an underage witch cannot be expected to give informed consent to be tortured. Although the witch in question has my respect and kudos for the way she bore the curse, she should never have been allowed to subject herself to it. I am sure her father wishes she could have gone through her whole life without ever experiencing the torment of an Unforgivable Curse. (As do we all.)

Some of the students have been braver than others at expressing their outrage – and their fear that they may be next. Even the Hogwarts Board of Governors have questioned the wisdom of allowing the Curse when it can be applied to callously and for so little reason as has been exhibited this week. Perhaps the least of these messages is the one that reminds us the journals are not to be trusted, for they are tools the Ministry intends to use against you as they monitor your thoughts and statements, much the way Amycus Carrow held a theoretical discussion against the student he tortured Thursday night.

This incident, and others like it, demonstrates more clearly than I can say how abhorrent the use of the Unforgivable Curses ought to be, and how there can be no safe haven for Hogwarts’ students while those in charge take it upon themselves to punish the people in their care so brutally. What justification can possibly serve? How can anyone of conscience allow such a miscarriage of duty? One can only hope that yesterday's emergent Board meeting will lead to a more sensible attitude toward the Curse. (It is especially intriguing to note Lucius Malfoy's shock over the use of the Curse, considering he had no such scruples when it was applied to his own goddaughter about a year ago - and by none other than my benighted mother!) I admit that I'm heartily curious as to the outcome and the particulars of their discussion!

At the same time, Hogwarts has now become a quarantine state, at the very time that its students are more concerned than ever that they'll be attacked by one type of madman or another. We now see that the Ministry cover-up of the epidemic has led to its spread far beyond the confines of the camps. Supposedly, the Ministry claims that half bloods are 'more vulnerable' to the ravages of disease. However, is should be clear that this affliction, whatever its origin, recognises no barriers of blood. It is working its way through the whole population, not just those with no magic. This fact alone ought to remind everyone that there is no difference between purebloods, halfbloods, Muggle-borns, and Muggles. All are human. I don't know what makes wizardkind able to perform magic. Is it a genetic trait? Is it something more mystical? I'm no biologist. But I do know that our abilities do not give us the right to style ourselves more worthy than those without the talent.

It's that distinction that I suspect may be the downfall of St Mungo's efforts to discover a cure for the Scourge - or paralysis, if you prefer. I shouldn't be surprised if they started, or were ordered to start, from the assumption that the camp epidemics could not touch the magical population. It's clear you're all at risk.

That assumes that the Ministry are (finally) telling you the Grim Truth themselves, and not obstructing your right to travel out of some authoritarian desire. One thing they have not told you is that no matter what, there is still hope. You owe it to yourselves to take precautions, but in addition to demand that the Ministry bring all its resources to bear, to make no assumptions about what may be causing this disease or how to resolve it. And you owe it to yourselves to keep questioning what you hear, to keep your eyes and ears open and to continue to speak when you can - and when you must.