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crack_van2011-08-06 09:32 pm
perverse-idyll.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2011-08-06 09:32 pm
Entry tags:
The Ministry's Man by musamihi (PG-13)
Fandom: HARRY POTTER
Pairing: John Dawlish/Bartemious Crouch, Sr. (unrequited), John Dawlish/Rufus Scrimgeour
Length: 11,300
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
musamihi
Author Website: Author's masterlist on LJ
Why this must be read:
Frankly, if you'd asked me if there was any character I was even less interested in than Piers Polkiss (see previous rec), John Dawlish would have been high on the list. But this fic is staggering—gorgeously written and subtly disturbing, a jaw-dropping act of sympathetic infiltration.
Dawlish is an uncanny specimen of follower in search of a leader, a man heavily invested in black and white morality, a wizard who prefers not to think for himself. Instead he projects a romantic aura of incorruptible Greatness upon men he believes capable of holding back the ever-present terror, the moral vacuum he sees waiting to swallow up the wizarding world. Dawlish is infected with this vacuum; his submissiveness and hero worship will wring your heart and make your skin crawl at the same time.musamihi submerges us in his viewpoint, using canon events as touchstones. The effect is utterly mesmerizing, incredibly atmospheric, poignant and distressing, like being underwater and seeing everything familiar distorted by a foreign substance. The perspective it gives us is far removed from Harry Potter's, but no less limited in its scope.
Throughout, Dawlish's political loyalties express themselves in sexual pining and overidentification. He's a weak rather than a good man, but this story doesn't condemn him. His fate is already sad enough. Heartbreaking, in fact. This is a man whose worst nightmare comes true. The portraits of Barty Crouch, Sr. and Rufus Scrimgeour are also fine, painfully so, canon and so much more than canon. But John Dawlish is the most unforgettable of all. Truly, this is an astonishing piece of narrative ventriloquism, weirdly beautiful and psychologically penetrating. It haunted me for days.
~~#~~
Mr. Crouch bows his head, smiles, and starts pulling on his mittens. "The witches and wizards you protect deserve to enjoy their lives as they once knew them, Dawlish, in peace and order – and according to the principles they have always known." When he looks back up at me there's something softer about him, as though he's recalling some fond dream. "Which means that special powers must be laid aside when the special circumstances that require them evaporate."
"But there'll always be –"
"No." He raises his hand in a rare interruption. "Bad enough to suspend tradition for the Death Eaters and their ilk, but to destroy it forever on account of the lesser evils that will always clog the courts would be a terrible thing. We must respect our forbears," he says, glancing up at the shadowed faces of Merlin and whatever kings he's standing with. "It's the only way truly to preserve order."
I don't see that it makes a damn bit of difference whether you follow someone else's rules or make them up as you go along, so long as there aren't any Dark wizards on the prowl, but there are a lot of things I don't understand. I know, at least, where my trust lies. "If you say it is." I open the grate for him, watching him pale in the sudden burst of light.
"The only way. Goodnight, Dawlish." He gives me a sharp nod, steps across the hearth, and disappears into the fire. I resist the urge to follow him.
The grating slides shut, the hall dims, and I'm alone again – probably until my shift ends. I try to imagine what he might do were he in my position, left to himself in the dark silence among the Ministry's grand symbols, the place it presents itself for the first time to its people. I don't know why he thinks it's so important to throw away the power he's gained for all of us when he's the one who's always said that we'll do what must be done; I don't understand why he sees more safety in preserving some old piece of parchment than in handing out much-needed justice. I wish I could believe what he believes, because whatever's wrong inside of me leaves a vast distance between us that I can never hope to cross, as much as I long to. But now, in the most desperate dead of night, dwarfed by the Atrium and everything it's seen, I can share with him at least the sense that what I'm surrounded by is holy. I know what he feels when he sees all of this in his most private moments, and I can begin to taste the back-bending reverence that could make someone value this over human lives, and I resolve to be the Ministry's man, even if I can never be his.
The Ministry's Man
Pairing: John Dawlish/Bartemious Crouch, Sr. (unrequited), John Dawlish/Rufus Scrimgeour
Length: 11,300
Author on LJ:
musamihiAuthor Website: Author's masterlist on LJ
Why this must be read:
Frankly, if you'd asked me if there was any character I was even less interested in than Piers Polkiss (see previous rec), John Dawlish would have been high on the list. But this fic is staggering—gorgeously written and subtly disturbing, a jaw-dropping act of sympathetic infiltration.
Dawlish is an uncanny specimen of follower in search of a leader, a man heavily invested in black and white morality, a wizard who prefers not to think for himself. Instead he projects a romantic aura of incorruptible Greatness upon men he believes capable of holding back the ever-present terror, the moral vacuum he sees waiting to swallow up the wizarding world. Dawlish is infected with this vacuum; his submissiveness and hero worship will wring your heart and make your skin crawl at the same time.
musamihi submerges us in his viewpoint, using canon events as touchstones. The effect is utterly mesmerizing, incredibly atmospheric, poignant and distressing, like being underwater and seeing everything familiar distorted by a foreign substance. The perspective it gives us is far removed from Harry Potter's, but no less limited in its scope.Throughout, Dawlish's political loyalties express themselves in sexual pining and overidentification. He's a weak rather than a good man, but this story doesn't condemn him. His fate is already sad enough. Heartbreaking, in fact. This is a man whose worst nightmare comes true. The portraits of Barty Crouch, Sr. and Rufus Scrimgeour are also fine, painfully so, canon and so much more than canon. But John Dawlish is the most unforgettable of all. Truly, this is an astonishing piece of narrative ventriloquism, weirdly beautiful and psychologically penetrating. It haunted me for days.
Mr. Crouch bows his head, smiles, and starts pulling on his mittens. "The witches and wizards you protect deserve to enjoy their lives as they once knew them, Dawlish, in peace and order – and according to the principles they have always known." When he looks back up at me there's something softer about him, as though he's recalling some fond dream. "Which means that special powers must be laid aside when the special circumstances that require them evaporate."
"But there'll always be –"
"No." He raises his hand in a rare interruption. "Bad enough to suspend tradition for the Death Eaters and their ilk, but to destroy it forever on account of the lesser evils that will always clog the courts would be a terrible thing. We must respect our forbears," he says, glancing up at the shadowed faces of Merlin and whatever kings he's standing with. "It's the only way truly to preserve order."
I don't see that it makes a damn bit of difference whether you follow someone else's rules or make them up as you go along, so long as there aren't any Dark wizards on the prowl, but there are a lot of things I don't understand. I know, at least, where my trust lies. "If you say it is." I open the grate for him, watching him pale in the sudden burst of light.
"The only way. Goodnight, Dawlish." He gives me a sharp nod, steps across the hearth, and disappears into the fire. I resist the urge to follow him.
The grating slides shut, the hall dims, and I'm alone again – probably until my shift ends. I try to imagine what he might do were he in my position, left to himself in the dark silence among the Ministry's grand symbols, the place it presents itself for the first time to its people. I don't know why he thinks it's so important to throw away the power he's gained for all of us when he's the one who's always said that we'll do what must be done; I don't understand why he sees more safety in preserving some old piece of parchment than in handing out much-needed justice. I wish I could believe what he believes, because whatever's wrong inside of me leaves a vast distance between us that I can never hope to cross, as much as I long to. But now, in the most desperate dead of night, dwarfed by the Atrium and everything it's seen, I can share with him at least the sense that what I'm surrounded by is holy. I know what he feels when he sees all of this in his most private moments, and I can begin to taste the back-bending reverence that could make someone value this over human lives, and I resolve to be the Ministry's man, even if I can never be his.
The Ministry's Man