[ - ]
Table of Contents [Report This]
Printer Chapter or Story Microsoft Word Chapter or Story
- Text Size +
Propaganda


Ace Dante opened his door Saturday morning when there came a knock upon it and smiled at Sirius Black, who stood before him wearing his leather jacket, the collar popped, his Deep Purple t-shirt, and a pair of strategically ripped-and-safety-pinned jeans. “You’re here for your spinner, I’ll bet.”

“You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?” Sirius asked, smirking. “Been counting down the days.”

Ace tuned and grabbed two helmets off a table beside the door and handed a plain white one with a chinstrap to Sirius as he lifted his own leather jacket from a hook beside the door. “”Well, let’s not make you wait even a minute more.

Sirius eagerly slid the helmet onto his head, barely caring that it would flatten his perfectly set hair, and he jumped backward eagerly as Ace put his own helmet on and came out, swinging his leather jacket on ‘round his shoulders, the keys for the motorbike jingling in his pocket.

Across the street, on the wall of the church graveyard, sat the other boy - the nervous one that hung around with this Sirius Black character. Ace nodded toward the other one, “Does your friend fancy a ride as well?”

“James? Nawh, James isn’t overly fond of motorbikes.”

“No?” Ace asked.

Sirius shook his head, “Bad experience on one. Lost control a bit and it ended up blowing up a house.” He said it so offhand - as though that were a perfectly normal thing to have happen to a motorbik - that Ace couldn’t help but laugh and assume that Sirius was exaggerating or else making the whole thing up.

“Then he doesn’t need to have a spinner if he doesn’t want to,” Ace said, and he swung his leg over the bike. “Up you go,” he said.

Sirius climbed aboard the bike behind Ace and gripped the seat with nervous excitement. He glanced back over his shoulder at James, who gave him a thumbs-up, and then turned back to Ace.

“So to start them… you grip here… that’s the clutch, so you don’t go stalling the bike the moment you start it… and then, once you’ve got that grip, you turn the key… Hear that? The motor? Now grip your break with this finger… and you shift here with your foot… See, into reverse or first to start. Reverse to back up of course, first to move forward… So reverse, that’s the R… and then you just…” and he jumped, kicking the starter and the bike roared to life. The vibration moved through the seat, trembling up Sirius Black’s legs and he felt just so bloody alive, he grinned with absolute excitement. “Ready?” Ace yelled over the engine.

“Ready!” Sirius shouted.

And Ace lifted his feet from the ground, kicking the stand as he went, and they backed down the carpark to the street. Sirius’s knuckles were white from clutching the leather seat and he grinned at James as they pulled level with the stone wall, James sitting up straighter, watching eagerly… And then Ace shifted into second and Sirius waved… and they pulled forward smoothly and off they went.

James watched as the motorbike went off down the street and he smiled to himself at how excited Sirius must be feeling. He settled back onto the wall, his eyes travelling over the cemetery stones that stood sentinel in the dismal little graveyard.




Ace Dante pulled into a small wooded road and came to a stop on the bike. He turned it off, kicked down the stand and climbed off, turning to Sirius, who looked surprised. “Why are we stopping?” Sirius asked.

Ace dropped the key into Sirius’s hand. “This road’s about a half mile long of pure woods, nothing to run into, the worst you could do is end up tipped in the sand…”

Sirius’s heart nearly stopped, “You’re gonna let me drive it?!”

“Sure,” Ace said. “Push up, I’ll get on back.”

Ecstatic, Sirius pushed forward and Ace swung up behind him and Sirius ran his fingers over the handlebars, over the body of the bike… “Wicked,” he breathed as he stroked the smooth cranberry-red paint.

Ace said, “You remember how to start her up?”

Sirius nodded enthusiastically and he followed all the same things that Ace Dante had done back at the carpark. It took him two tries not to stall it - but once he got it going and he engine was rumbling and everything, he felt excitement go up his arms and he grinned, remembering Filch’s face back in February… remembering the rush of the air through his hair… and he wished against all wishes this lovely motorbike could fly because ohhh how much he wanted to zip right up into the clouds with it… But driving, it turned out, was very similar to flying and Sirius zipped down the road as Ace Dante laughed and shouted instructions… they drove up and down the road several times, Sirius whooping excitedly as they cut corners.

Ace Dante made him practice driving up and down and up and down about twelve times before he finally shouted, “You want to drive her home?”

Sirius definitely wanted to.

So they pulled back out into the road and Sirius drove the cranberry-red motorbike down the street, past the lake and back to the carpark beside Ace Dante’s house. When they came to a stop and Sirius had cut the engine, he pulled off the helmet, jumping off the bike as Ace Dante got up, too, and Sirius high-fived Ace with excitement. “THAT WAS SO COOL!” he shouted.

“You did excellent,” Ace answered.

Across the street, James was standing up beside the stone wall, looking quite alarmed at the sight of Sirius Black driving the motorbike.

Sirius grinned, “Thanks man, that was great, man. I really love your bike, it’s brilliant. I wish I had my own bike. I will one day.”

Ace Dante said, “Well… do you still have that card I gave you?”

Sirius nodded, “I do.”

“Well sometimes old Hank down at that garage, he’ll get junk bikes and he’ll sell them really cheap, he calls them scrap - but if you get one and bring it here, I’ll help you fix it up if you buy the parts and all.”

Sirius’s eyes widened, “Yeah?”

“Sure,” Ace said.

Sirius reached into his pocket for the card. He’d been carrying it about ever since Ace Dante had given it to him. “Hank, you say?”

“Yes, Hank Tonner. He’s the owner.”

“Brilliant,” said Sirius.

He thanked Ace Dante again and returned his helmet, then ran off across the street to James as Ace went inside. They walked back to the Potter house through the woods, but Sirius insisted on staying in human form and he talked and talked and talked the whole way about how grand the bike was and how cool Ace Dante was and how great it would be if he could only come up with the galleons to buy his own motorbike to fix up as he’d said. “I need a job,” Sirius announced, “I need galleons! I need loads and loads of galleons. James, if I have a motorbike we could go anywhere and do anything we like.” He suddenly had visions of flying a motorbike to Costa Rica and his eyes glistened with excitement at the thought. He pictured Remus Lupin clinging onto him as their hair whipped back in the air and the ocean sparkled down below… he pictured white sands and aquamarine water…




Propaganda posters went up that night in every wizarding town across the country. Minchum for Minister? they read across the top in bold lettering. Below was a photograph of Harold Minchum, cowering behind a broken stone wall, peering over the edge with wide, frightened eyes. It was cut from a wizarding photo of the duel between Dumbledore and Grindelwald. ALL TALK AND NO ACTION - HIDING BEHIND WALLS SINCE GRINDELWALD! boasted the poster nastily. WE WANT A MINISTER WHO WOULD ACT. And below that was a photo of Adom Tutman… facing the too familiar figure of Voldemort, his bone-white wand raised… VOTE TUTMAN, the foot of the poster said.




James and Sirius stood in front of the pub window in the center of Godric’s Hollow next say. The pub window had been heartily wallpapered by the propaganda posters, so many that they overlapped and the barkeeper had been working at tearing them down all morning, muttering to himself that he’d had to perform memory charms on no more than thirteen muggles already that had noticed the pictures moving… “Not a fully magically community,” he muttered, “The blighters might’ve thought of that before they went hanging wizarding photographs…”

Sirius and James exchanged glances, then hurried to walk away to talk about the poster. “Adom Tutman can’t win this election, we’re all doomed if he does,” James muttered as they walked.

“More than doomed, we might as well hand the bloody keys to the Ministry to Voldemort if Tutman wins,” Sirius said, his voice rising in anger. “How could people be so bloody stupid so as not to see that!”

James shook his head.

“See, this is why I need a motorbike.”

James looked at Sirius, “Because of stupid people voting for Tutman?”

“Yes,” Sirius said, “Because we need to create propaganda posters for Minchum and put them up everywhere like these blasted Tutman campaigners are!”

“It’s probably the Death Eaters that’ve done,” James said, “They can apparate about to put them up.”

Sirius looked frustrated and he punched his own palm, “Well damn it, we’re going to find a way to answer. We can’t let them bash Minchum up like that without a response! People can’t go voting for Tutman!”

“Alright then, how do we do?”

“We’ll get the posters made first. Then we’ll figure it out from there.”

James nodded and the boys ran home to begin their work. Dora was out, back at St. Mungo’s to see Charlus, who was still not home yet, and they grabbed snacks from the kitchen - bags of crisps and bottles of pumpkin juice and thick sandwiches with gobs of mustard - and they ran up to James’s room where they got out parchment and the colorful inks that Lily Evans had given them the year before at holiday, and they scoured the papers for pictures and they set to work.




Dumbledore held one of the anti-Minchum posters, which he’d torn from the window of the Hog’s Head Pub, staring down at the pictures with unease. He looked out the window at the castle, looming over Hogsmeade, his eyes tracing the turrets against the sky.

The seat across from him creaked and he looked over to find Harold Minchum having just lowered himself into the chair. Dumbledore turned forward. “Good morning, Mr. Minchum,” he said, and he waved to the bartender, motioning for a round of drinks.

Minchum nodded, sliding his wand into his pocket, “Good morning, Dumbledore.”

Dumbledore slid the poster across the table to Minchum. “I assume you’ve seen this.”

Minchum scowled. “Yes. The photo is taken out of context.”

“I assumed,” Dumbledore replied.

“There were children behind that wall,” Minchum explained. “Four little ones. Muggles, two of them. They were terrified.”

Dumbledore said, “One was our kind?”

Harold Minchum nodded.

“The papers need the story, Minchum, to combat this.” Dumbledore looked up as the bartender put two goblets of mead before the pair of them. “Thank you Aberforth,” Dumbledore murmured and the bartender turned swiftly away.

Minchum nodded again.

Dumbledore leaned forward, “I have reason to believe that this photograph - of Adom Tutman fighting Voldemort - was manufactured by Tom Riddle himself.”

Minchum frowned.

“A friend of mine, a very dear friend, has discovered a stolen Charkorais egg,” Dumbledore explained slowly, “Stolen from a sanctuary in Egypt, in Cairo, to be exact, right from Adom Tutman’s hometown…”

Harold Minchum sat forward, “But a Charkorais egg could be used for --”

“Yes,” Dumbledore said, “The stone that creates the elixir of life.”

Harold Minchum looked quite concerned. “But if something like that gets into the wrong hands…”

Dumbledore nodded.

Harold Minchum shivered.

“And if Tutman is the one who’s stolen the Charkorais egg from Cairo and brought it here --”

“Then he’s still working for Voldemort with this campaign,” finished Minchum.

“Precisely,” Dumbledore nodded.

Harold Minchum scowled.




CURIOUS IMPERIUS! read the top of the poster, followed by the photo from the Hogwarts staff photos from the boys first year. They’d cut up James’s yearbook to get it out and taped it at an angle right next to a giant question mark. WHO’S MIND ARE YOU REALLY GETTING WITH TUTMAN? read the subhead, then, Disappeared halfway through a term at Hogwarts, Tutman was suspected of being under an imperius curse. DO WE WANT A MINISTER WHO GOES MISSING AND IS CONTROLLED BY YOU KNOW WHO? NO! MINCHUM FOR MINISTER!!!! GET IN SOMEBODY WE CAN TRUST!!!!




“Owls,” said Sirius suddenly, looking up as Bubo let out a squawk from her perch.

James looked over at him.

“We send the posters to each of the Order members by owls and they each put them up anywhere they can.”

James nodded. “Brilliant.”