Order Only: Mr Strangeweale

[alt_hermione]

Sorry tea was so...tense, for everyone.

Did anyone change their mind about him? Or did you go through with it after all?


Or should I not ask?

Only, I've been thinking about how some people were against it, at tea. And...and I've been thinking about it. Whether there really was no other way.

Comments

[alt_kingsley]

The actual act did not go...entirely smoothly. But it was carried out this afternoon.

[alt_molly]

What do you mean about it not going smoothly?

Oh. The witnesses, I suppose. Merlin, some of them were so young; I knew it would be a bad idea. I did ask my own not to go.

[alt_sirius]

No, Kingsley means the execution itself.

Hanging is...not an exact science.

We tried to do it humanely but wound up having to put him out of his misery with a spell.

Private message to Padfoot

[alt_lupin]

Oh.

Is that why you've been in such a foul mood since you got home? It wasn't JUST the execution.

Re: Private message to Padfoot

[alt_sirius]

Yes. Sorry.

I'll make it up to Bea when she bounds in tomorrow morning asking if it's Christmas again.

[alt_molly]

Bill was there, wasn't he? I mean, he hasn't returned home, yet.

[alt_kingsley]

Yes, he was here.

I know he stayed to talk with Alice and Frank, but he should be along eventually, Molly.

[alt_molly]

He's just arrived now. Thank you, Kingsley.

[alt_sirius]

There really was no other way, Hermione. I don't like it, and I'm sorry, Justin--you made some good arguments--but we couldn't take the risk he would have stayed put if we'd moved him to Saltash or Aldrich, and we couldn't have asked them to take him in there as a prisoner, anyway.

Still. It was a bad business and on the whole I'm relieved most of you weren't there to witness it.

[alt_justin]

Sirius,

I say, I'm sorry it was a difficult task, what. But I'm not altogether sure it ought to have been an easy one.

Of course, it's inevitable that our hands can't stay clean in all this business. Like it or not it is a war, what, and as you said this afternoon, in most cases it's them or us. I do understand that.

Just as I know why you said there was no way to keep him alive and safely incarcerated. It's most unfortunate.

I do think that every time one wrestles with the question, though, one is at least weighing the value of the life in one's hands. There's no doubt he richly deserved to pay for his crimes. It's.... Well. It's bally well dreadful there was no other way, that's all, I suppose.

-Justin

Private message to Sirius Black

[alt_terry]

Thank you for putting an end to it. An end to him.

I'm sure it's more mercy than he ever showed his own victims. If that's any comfort, but I suspect it isn't.

[alt_jeremy]

If there was any other way it's too late now.

Some of those women -- well.

Dunno. I hope it helps. Something, anyway.

[alt_alice]

What is done is done.

I would not choose to do it again, however.

There is something to be said for actively exploring other options so that we have more choices in the future.

[alt_lupin]

What are we going to do with Otto, then? Surely we're not just going to Obliviate him and set him loose.

[alt_alice]

I was thinking more of Obliviating him and then putting him under watch at Saltash.

He's a risk, yes, but he wouldn't be able to recreate the Machine.

[alt_poppy]

I do understand how we came to this: his victims believed so firmly that they wished to witness Strangeweale's blood shed in payment for his deeds, but I would not willingly see us cognizance such an act again.

We crossed a line we ought not to have crossed. And we were complicit in allowing those young women to become the thing that harmed them. They were seeking retribution and peace, two things which are not compatible. Did you feel it? The thirst for retribution was palpable as we waited, but was there an ounce of peace in the aftermath?

I did not see anything healthy in their eyes or faces as they witnessed his dying. Indeed, I'm not certain which was more disturbing: the blood thirst that glinted in some of their eyes as he waited for the support to be knocked away or the sheer horror in so many of their faces as he struggled at the end of that rope.

And what did we achieve? We did not move Marston Strangeweale to feel remorse. We did not win any restitution for his victims. We did not change any minds amongst his compatriots. We eliminated a threat, but I feel certain there are other ways than death to have achieved that goal.

I'm not sorry I was there to stand with the Order today, and I know that we believed we were respecting the wishes of people whose suffering moved us to wish to make amends in any way we could find, but I will not acquiesce in another judicial murder. We absolutely must find another way.

[alt_justin]

Madam Pomfrey,

I say, hear, hear.

-Finch-Fletchley

[alt_susan]

Oh, Madame Pomfrey. I respect you so much for saying this, especially since you've spent so much time treating the pain that violent people cause. If it were me, I think I'd find it hard not to want to hurt them back.

But you really don't and I admire that so much. And I guess you can never tell what will happen--like when you saved Professor Dolohov, and then he helped save Ced later.

But those women... I don't know, even if killing him didn't give them peace, at least they know he'll never be able to hurt them again or re-create the Machine. And I don't think they'd be able to say that if we just Obliviated him & put him in prison somewhere. Obliviation can sometimes be reversed, and prisons can be escaped from. Or broken into.

[alt_poppy]

You're quite right, Miss Bones: we cannot see the future; we cannot be certain a living person will not find a way to commit evil again; and indeed we cannot know whether a person to whom we extend mercy might ever perform a good or beneficial act subsequent to ours.

It was entirely unanticipated that Professor Dolohov should ever have been in a position to help Mr Diggory, and even less foreseen that he should have been so inclined. What I mean to say is that my actions did not anticipate any future return on his part, and might very well not have led to any 'good' of that sort.

I do maintain, however, that while mercy may yield no measurable good, the refusal of mercy does cause certain harm, and not only to the person to whom mercy was denied. Refusing mercy hardens the heart and nerves of the person who, wielding that power of life and death, chooses to extinguish life. And it hardens the sensibilities of those who carry out or bear witness to such brutality.

Allow me to put this to you in another way. When I think of Voldemort, our so-called 'lord protector', I think that what distinguishes him and his actions and his accomplishments is not his mastery of magic (though he is, undoubtedly, one of the most powerful sorcerers in the long history of magic). What distinguishes 'lord' Voldemort is his cruelty and his murderousness, his inclination to kill any who stand in his way or threaten his supremacy.

Each time we make a choice to take life when it could be preserved (however inconveniently), we narrow the distance between ourselves and Him.

[alt_albus]

I find your articulation of the issues superb, Poppy. And much needed. Refusal of mercy makes us smaller, and harder. Poorer, individually and collectively.

I would also add the pragmatic, as well, if the moral and ethical are not sufficient. Once someone is killed, all they are - all they were, all they knew, all they held - is lost. We do not know which things might allow us to succeed in our goals, or what will be required.

I do not think we can afford such luxuries.

Clearly, we must contemplate some alternatives: this will not be the last time we are faced with this question. (Alice, my dear, I will give thought to some of the practical issues. The research that lead to the method used at Saltash might bear fruit.)

[alt_alice]

Thank you.