All on the table

Jack was done with the B.S. of Order's past. No more politics, no more arguing. She was not looking to be a tyrant, but she was not afraid of taking ownership of an action. She was leader after all. The buck had been given to her. She had done what she had to, and it had proved she had the guts to take on this job.

Under her, the Order would do something. Under her, the Order would start producing results. Under her, the world was going to change.

She would see to it.

Everyone shuffled in and Jack directed them all into the kitchen, where an assortment of drinks sat ready at the center of the table, waiting. The set up looked exactly the same, but a chalkboard floated at the end of the table. She approached it, ready to dive right in.

Words began to write across the clakboard. It read:

• Rebels
  
• Ministry
  
• Purebloods
  
• Creatures

She looked around. "I'm Jack, for those of you who might not know. I'm going to be heading our group from now on." And that was all she would say on the matter of introduction. "We're going to start doing something. No more planning, no more debate, we're going to start acting. These are the four problems at large in our world."

She pointed to the first. "The Rebels. Right now, they are harmless, but they could easily go awry and become worse than the Death Eaters. I propose we try to enlist their help now." She plowed on, intent on getting through everything before people could bicker. "The Ministry - the reason the rebels even exist. Corrupt, lazy, and undemocratic, we need to boot career politicians and get some real people in there. Third - I put purebloods rather than Death Eaters because they are, in essence, the same thing, but purebloods are currently more public than the Death Eaters. Right now, they are trying to reassert their time-old superiority over the rest of us and need to be stopped. And lastly, creatures. Still being shoved aside as lesser beings and growing ever angry. I say we come to their need and, maybe, they will come to ours."

She looked around. "I've given you four major things to consider. Now... consider it." And she sat down, awaiting the eruption. Best to let them get it out now.

Yes! Finally some sense! Louis' friend Jack, whom he had known from back in PA days, was leader of the Order. Louis knew that Jack was an excellent leader, from past experiences. Up until now, the order had been minor, it was just hours and hours of bickering and debating on about what they should do, no one ever actually did anything, which kind of pissed Louis off, as he thought the Order would be better than that. Louis had been recently in a funk due to work problems. Being an Auror means you where lucky to get home at night. He walked into Number 12 Grummauld Place. Seeing everything set up, and people there always. He took his seat as Jack started to talk.

Louis listened to everything she said, and his opinion was kind of torn, because all four topics where important. "Maybe the first thing we should do is be friend the rebels, and ally with them. So we make sure we don't have another enemy in the future." Louis thought out loud. Honestly, he wished hadn't, because he hoped not to start another argument between the Order members, or maybe he was embarrassed that he had gotten the wrong concept.

There was a strange requirement to being Minister and it was that political impartiality was a must. Of course no Minister had agreed to that in the past and certainly, no Deputy had either and Elijah thought it fair to say that political extremism – while not his favourite pastime – was a large part of Elijah Krum’s life; much to his obvious disdain.

He’d come to the Order meeting because he'd joined out of school but the mood had changed somewhat. Potter was gone, replaced by the ginger mudblood that was more fanatical than the rest given the right sort of environment - a perfect candidate for leader, naturally.

Merlin.

Elijah had entered with the swiftness of an idle man and the laziness of one twice his age. He poured himself a large glass of Firewhisky and capped it easily before making his way over to the table and taking a seat.

"Being Pureblood does not equate to being a Death Eater," Elijah complained lazily, touching the rim of the glass. "It is not a difficult concept to grasp."

Of course he had taken offence - why wouldn't he? Still, he hadn't the desire to fight their corner.

"You cannot pluck politicians out of the ground, either." He drawled. "No man is immune from corruption. If he was we would not have had the pleasures of Lord Voldemort. That corruption being evidence enough..."

Elijah looked over at Nick and shrugged a shoulder.

"Let us befriend werewolves and vampires as well as rebels and see their turncoat ways when it is too late. This must all be treated rather delicately, Ms. Dyllan."

This was already turning out to be rather interesting, unlike some other meetings. Looking around at the people who were talking, Jake placed his index finger on his chin and thought. He wasn't sure he even wanted to comment on anything right now. Jack had brought up some good points, but he wasn't exactly sure what they should focus on first.

The couldn't just rush in to things. Not really. He thought the rebels were the first thing that needed to be taken care of. Jack had been right, they're harmless now but if nothing was done they could easily become more trouble than the Death Eaters were.

He didn't really agree with the Purebloods being almost the same as the Death Eaters though. Some of them wanted Pureblood supremacy, yeah, but that wasn't exactly making them like the Death Eaters. Thought they wanted Purebloods to be in charge, like before, doesn't mean most actually wanted to hurt anyone.

Jack listened patiently, as patiently as she could, to Louis who really did not add much to what she had said. He had pretty much rephrased all she had said about the rebels so she simply said, "Thanks for the affirmation. I believe an alliance would be beneficial."

Be nice, Jack reminded herself.

And ah... Elijah. For whatever reason, Jack could not bring herself to think altogether pleasantly about the man, which probably had something to do with their Chase-Kitty situation. Both felt a loss neither wanted to acknowledge.

It was better to just irrationally lash out at each other.

"I know it's not the same," Jack said. "But right now, the pureblood society is on the rise, and it can easily turn sour for non-purebloods, which lines up perfectly with the Death Eater agenda. So, I figure if we carefully watch the purebloods, we can possibly prevent or disable the plans of Death Eaters."

She continued on to address his concerns. "I do not remember saying anything to suggest we would not handle such a situation anything but delicately. I believe I have proven myself qualified in that particular area so, unless there are any concrete, immediate concerns, I will have no more prejudiced conjecture on that side. That goes for everyone. We are striving for equality - even for the equality of Death Eaters. I will not hear a word against those who have no one speaking on their behalf. Slander and prejudice does not belong in the Order."

Michael sat in the shadows in the kitchen, not saying a word, sipping on firewhiskey in a paper coffee cup, a cup he'd brought himself. Jacks words had struck hard at his very core when she first started to speak. And now they laid souring in his brain.

What the hell did they know about his family? 'Corrupt, lazy, undemocractic, career politicians,' were they? And what the hell gave them the right to even make judgements about the order and what it was really about? None of them had even been thought of when the order was formed. None of them there but him even had known Dumbledore, Sirius, Remus, James...or any of the rest of them. They were generations removed from the founding fathers. And generations removed from any apparent sense of the greater good.

He listened to the power hungry prattle and it reminded him of what the muggles, historically, had been through in the 1960's with children--yes, mental children--deciding they knew far better about the greater good than people who had actually been there and done that.

Equality for the nice Death Eaters that insisted on trying to resurrect the most evil wizard of all time and put him in power? The nice Death Eaters that then had recently done it with the second most evil wizard of all time and had blinded them all to his trechery and greed? Equality? When had she lost her freaking mind? In Michael's mind, he'd have been happy if every one of them who had been part of Grindlewald's rise to power had been cast either in Azkaban forever or thrown through the veil in the death chamber. He had no use for them. But apparently the madness that Grindlewald had created still ran like a cancer through the public. It made him sad. And it made him angry. He saw the future of the entire wizarding word crumbling right here before his eyes--starting in this room. At her engineering. His friend's.

Nobody--not even Jack--had that much right. This was not brilliance. This was the height of stupidity. If Jack Dyllan were going to make him choose between his friends and his family, then he would choose.

Susan fixed her yellow cloak and her hair. Portkey was not her favourite way to travel by a long shot. There had to be a better way to get here. She knew she was late. She couldn’t help international travel. She hadn’t been all there lately. She had been worried about Hannah for the last few days, she’d been in and out of St. Mungo’s. She says it’s a virus but Susan is worried it is more. She had talked to Neville last night, he’d looked like he’d age ten years. He was getting too old for this type of stress.

Susan walked into the meeting. “Sorry I’m late. A bit of trouble with trying to travel internationally by portkey. Neville Longbottom is unable to attend today due to medical reasons,” announced Susan. Susan looked at the board analysing it. She had worked with all four of those people before. She still was weary of creatures but she had been raised that way.

“I don’t think it matters who we befriend anyone anyone can turn on us at moment’s notice. I’ve seen werewolves and vampires save lives but also take them. I’ve seen Death Eaters turn around and change their lives but I still know people who will be forever loyal to their beliefs. I know a few Rebels and there is nothing wrong with their ideas but there is always worry of rashness,” said Susan. “The Ministry is a mess. The Khaats can’t be blamed for all but some of it I suppose so. This mess didn’t happen overnight. I’ve personally dealt with the pressure they put in the Daily Prophet and international governments. I know for a fact that Germany is taking in refugees escaping the UK, it is only an amount of time before they turn on the Ministry,” she added. She knew that was a lot at once but she had a lot of information and opinions.

Susan entered late and Jack nodded to her, gently assuring her that there was no problem with it. Jack was not going to run this like a class. These people were adults - she knew that, and she would treat them that way.

Jack nodded in agreement to Susan's words. "Every person is a risk - every person here is as risk. But it's a risk we have to take. And you're right about the Lupins, Susan. Robert is far from corrupt. But the Ministry is a big place - I couldn't keep corruption out of my department, no matter how I tried. The problem is that everyone in leadership has ties far stronger than their country."

Susan really was hoping more people would show up soon. She wanted to see what the Order was these days. She had been out of action for so long. Having five kids isn’t easy. She really wanted to know what the whole point of all this was. She didn’t really know why she was still in the Order. They had done nothing the past few years. She understood why Neville was thinking about leaving the Order. The Order has done nothing.

“Jack I hate to say this but you’ll never get rid of corruption. Something will always slip through. It’s just how it goes. But that doesn’t mean it should go unpunished,” Susan said. She had grown up with a corrupt Ministry, her aunt wasn’t corrupt but a lot of people where back then. It got better when she had her kids now it was getting worse. She fears it will become worse than it has ever been. “To be honest the corruption is surpassing what I grew up with and that’s saying something. It’s a total retrogress,” she added.

James lengthened his stride as he arrived at the door of Grimmauld Place, realizing that he was a bit late. He knew that Jack would forgive, as he had just returned from being abroad. His brow was twisted in concern, all the rumors and tidbits of news since his return floating around inside his head. He was determined to keep his mouth until he knew exactly what was going on since his departure. He was glad that Jack had been given leadership over the Order, but he knew that there would be those who were against. He sincerely hoped that she could achieve what Jess and Matthew could not: Unison within the Order.

James walked into the kitchen, giving Jack a short wave, and sitting down to listen to the debates.