Detente

He looked at Du Hunt and scowled slightly. Enthusiasm was one thing, but he had just managed to get rid of an overbearing leader for the faction. He was not about to merely replace one evil for another.

"Manners, Ms. Du Hunt," Lorcan said in a poised tone. "I do indeed have purpose for asking you all here. Small as our group has become, I do not pull aany of you away from other matters for my own amusement.

"The fact of the matter is that Mr. Marcheti is no longer a part of Death Eater doings. He did us no great favors. The fact is that we have been blamed for a long rampage with appeared to have no point whatsoever, and that appears, to me, to be counter to anything the Death Eaters ever stood for. We have always acted with purpose, and we have always been quite clear about our actions and our motives for them until recently.

"The fact remains that the impetuous liberalism of the Order has done much to get our country in the perilous state we are now in. We are the ones that have been the keepers of tradition--the very tradition that has kept our world safe for thousands of years. So, I propose we get back to business and stop the egotistical horse manure." He flicked his wand at Marcheti's ledger that held the notations of the biblical-mocking hierarchy that served little more than to stroke Marcheti's ego. The ledger burst into flame.

"We will no longer be using that," he said, his tone full of distaste and hatred of the now burning book. "We are purebloods. We do not need to stoop and bow to anyone. Not even to be subservient to each other. Most of us have not done so in our entire lives, and I see no point in starting now. Not unless someone worthy of such homage truly does appear. Not only that, but you are all far more skilled than you were being given credit for. I propose we institute, among our ranks, a certain amount of dignity and respect--the respect that we expect and deserve to be treated with as purebloods and the only true keepers of the wizarding legacy.

"So--unless someone here truly relished in being little more than a house elf, I presume we might then move on to the more pressing business of the current direction of the Death Eaters and what we should be doing in light of the current rumblings of rebellion. Or did anyone truly enjoy their proverbial scullery duties?" He didn't expect anyone to actually want to return to being errand runners for the faction. Nor did he want them to want that.

When Katrina-Carlotta spoke, Rivah made a mental note to never cross the other witch. Not that she'd been planning to, but for a moment there the other woman had given off an aura that, to anyone other than a room of Death Eaters, would have sent everyone close enough cowering. The blonde wondered for a moment if the European even realized she was doing it.

When Lorcan spoke up, the Ministry witch let out a pleased breath of air. So, perhaps the whole speech had sounded a little pompous, but Rivah was used to dealing with upper-end Ministry officials. The young witch amused herself for a moment with the though of how the D'Eath would react if ever told he talked like one of the men Rivah dealt with on a daily basis. No matter how amusing to possible reaction, the female would never have the guts to say it to his face.

Other than all the pureblood stuff, the blonde had to admit to herself that she agreed with basically all that the man had said. She'd never been particularly fond of Marcheti, although she didn't loath him like some, and hadn't even tried to refrain from smiling when the papers went up in flames. While she hadn't hated the Wandmaker, and certainly respected his talent, Rivah had been far from fond of his ideas and way of running things.

"I have to say Mr. D'Eath," the woman broke in as soon as the wizard was done talking, eyes still glued to the smoldering parchments, "I've been wanting to do that myself for ages."

Charlotte sat in silence as she listened to every word Mr D'Eath said. He was one of those people would could draw attention and have people listen to him with great intent without much effort. This was a characteristic that Charlotte liked about him. So, Marcheti wouldn't be their leader anymore? Well, that was no surprise seeing as he'd bee in Azkaban and like Mr D'Eath said, he didn't have the grand vision that the rest had. They couldn't be led on no ambition.

Charlotte scoffed at the request to become a house elf. Who did? True she did like to do errands from time to time if they didn't clash with her career but only errands that had a purpose, not a stupid game that was below her. Miss Topez was a great spy and would use the fact that people liked her due to her fame in any missions where knowledge was needed. She gulped. Would that seem like a task for a house elf? If so then she mustn't admit to enjoy the tasks, yes they increased her fame and boost her ego that she could successfully carry them out, but she wouldn't be made a fool of in front of the rest of the death eaters.

Charlotte turned her head as Rivah besides her piped up. For a moment Charlotte was under the impression she wanted belittling tasks of a house elf until her sharp eyes caught Rivah staring at the blackened parchment. She snickered. 'It's about time we have some proper authority figure. Who will be replacing him? Charlotte questions. Hopefully it wouldn't be another dunderhead; she also hoped that it wouldn't be her. She had time to work undercover for the Death Eaters but with England trials not far from present she really did need to focus on them.

"And that brings us to the new direction I've been considering," Lorcan said, "Seeing as though this..." he shoved the charred book off into the fireplace hearth, "...causes us no considerable grief.

"I'm sure you all know about the discontent that some of the citizens are starting to feel about the Ministry. So far as I can see, a good many of them who are feeling such discontent have had little nor no experience with espionage, politics, or leadership in much of anything," Lorcan said. "And, they appear to be blessedly misinformed. They desire to peg onto the Ministry the deaths in Diagon Alley that was actually done by one of our own dear Death Eaters. That is fortunate for us. It is equally as fortunate that they appear to be blaming the Ministry for the greed of Gellert Grindelwald. So, if they choose to misstep and run the liberals out of town, who are we to interfere with them?" He laughed, truly amused. His new plan for them was quiet, stealthy, and held the potential to be equally as insidious as some of the blatant things that had recently gone so wrong for them. This, though, he thought, had a higher chance of success.

"As I see it, we would do very, very well, to let the armchair politicians proceed with their little rebellion, allow them to take over the ministry, and then, my guess is that either they'll not know what the devil they're doing, or bugger it all up or both. Either way, I would guess that eventually, if we bide our time, we might be able to almost just walk in and claim the Ministry for ourselves.

"In the meantime, I would suggest a great deal of sublety. Staying low key. It would do us good to get out into the public again and work to establish ourselves as being rather sympathetic neutrals. Have tea with the discontented. Listen to them. Empathize with them. Even agree with them. Fuel their fires of rebellion slowly and very carefully. Offer few strong opinions at this point. If you are as skilled and strategic as you all believe you are, this ought to well be childsplay for you. So tell me. Are you all as skilled as you think you are? Are you up to this?" He did believe that if they did not misstep, control of the Ministry was merely a matter of time, and they most likely would be hailed as heros in the process.

Katrina-Carlotta's mind was alight with plans and possibilities. She agreed with Lorcan. She really did, it would be easy enough to fan the flames and allow the Rebels to overthrow the Ministry. But the man was under the impression that the Rebels wouldn't know what to do with the government once they'd got it. While that might be so, the group would hardly go down without a fight. In her opinion, Lorcan was thinking too practically. If the Rebels succeeded in gaining the Ministry, it would take a lot of work on their part. After all of that, their emotions would hardly allow them to give up the control they'd worked so hard to achieve just like that. Human emotions were not something to be underestimated. However, the dark witch kept these thoughts to herself, they'd come out later if necessary.

Mentally scanning through every Brit she knew, Katrina-Carlotta tried to come up with who might and who mightn't be a part of this new group. The woman was just about coming up blank, when her thoughts turned to Albus Potter. Albus, who'd been in possession of a very anti-government book when they'd met, Albus, whom had been quite pleased to find out that she liked the novel, Albus, whom had seemed to understand some of the deeper meanings of the book better than even she herself had. A thought suddenly crossing her mind, the dark witch jerked her further towards Lorcan.

"Yes Mr. D'Eath, we are all skilled and will strategically play the Rebels for you. But what I want to know, is the identity of their leader," the woman stated, sending Lorcan a pointed look. "I also wish to know if we could gain from getting them on our side. Or perhaps even a treaty or truce of sorts. Then, when they take over the Ministry, we could step in with little resistance," Katrina-Carlotta announced. It was just a thought, but it would certainly be easier to be at peace with the group then not.

Charlotte nodded, her eyes thinned as she carefully absorbed each word that ventured from Lorcan's mouth. Not that she would be spending much time listening to the public on their political views, the majority of them simply wanted to talk about flying to her. However, Charlotte had found this to be somewhat useful in the past, a tool to their actual thoughts. Being famous people naturally trusted and wanted to please her - the non-famous people and those without power of course.

It could be good once the death eaters take over the ministry for Charlotte to do a public announcement supporting the new regime at the Ministry, it would certainly do well in brainwashing the civilians, of course she would need to have been scouted by England first. She wouldn't want death eater involvement to hold her back from being Britain's best beater.

'If needs be. I can make more casual appearances. Cunningly find out what the public are thinking. I've never had someone lie to me before. Being famous gives you that automatic trust with someone. Ahaha.' The laugh wasn't necessary, it would probably make other death eaters roll their eyes. Then again some would hopefully think what she had to at was important. Topez usually remained quiet and listened during the meetings but she did plan on making more public appearances. Increasing her following would put her in a better position for becoming the beater; why not kill two birds with stone. Increase popularity and Market research for the death eaters.

(sorry, guys! I've let this slide a bit, and I didn't mean to. my bad.)\

"I'm not so sure that's a wise move, Katrina. Yes, we do need to know who their leader is, but since it appears to be a grassroots movement, I'm thinking they may not exactly be organized enough yet to have a designated leader. It is worth finding out, though.

"I'm not sure we're interested in getting them to our side. We don't need to be associated with them. We do not need to ally with them. Remember, we're intending to stay low key so that when they bugger this up, we can come in and take what is rightfully ours without any resistance. If we ally, then we are obligated to support them, and that's not the position we want to take here. We need them to be on their own with this. Otherwise, we give certainly more intelligence to their movement than we want them to have. All we need to do is to be supportive of the frustrations that individual rebels have, to keep their commitment to their own movement fired up. They will do enough on their own, I think, given the right amount of anger and discontent over things they actually know nothing about."

He listened to Charlotte as she talked about wanting to use her popularity to not only the benefit of the Death Eaters plan but also for her own personal gain.

"I see nothing wrong with your idea, Charlotte. Just make sure that your own personal gain doesn't end up trumping what we need to do as an organization. Not that we don't all appreciate personal gain," he grinned. "Do try to at least keep the plan on even footing with your own gain, please.

"Oh, and I will be fending more of the action part of the Death Eaters to Katrina. I'm not a fighter. Never have been. That's Zada's forte, not mine. I'm a businessman. I prefer to remain behind the scenes doing the business work that keeps us afloat. Zada has told me she will assist in any 'errands' that need doing. Anyone have issues or problems with that? Speak now if you do."

Katrina-Carlotta waited patiently until Lorcan was done talking. Waiting a moment, pausing to see if anyone would immediately speak up against her, the dark witch scanned the room with dark eyes.

Leaning back in her seat, the assassin turned her attention back to the male D'Eath. "A pleasure and an honor, I'm sure," the dark witch stated, almost daring to see what objections anyone could have against her. Silently making a mental note to definitely keep an eye on that Charlotte character, the witch allowed herself a small smile.

"I have a theory as to the leader of the Rebel group. If I am correct, I may be in a position to influence as well as keep quite a close eye on them, that's why I asked Lorcan. I was simply wondering exactly what you where hoping for," Katrina-Carlotta admitted soothingly, twisting the rejection of her possible idea into a self-professed testing of limits. After all, if Albus Potter truly was the Rebel's leader, there were unlimited ways she could use that. The dark witch didn't believe for a moment that there was no real leader as Lorcan did. There had to be an unofficial leader at the very least, and now that the idea had been planted in her head, Katrina-Carlotta was almost certain that it was, indeed, Albus.

Charlotte's lip curled for a second at Lorcan agreeing that she could discover what the civilians thoughts were. She could easily make a public statement sding with those against the Ministry, saying she believe it to be corrupt and truly cause more civil unrest.The only thing is she wouldn't want any backfire, politics is never good to meddle with when you're famous, especially when wanting to be scouted.

Topez didn't reply she simply sat, her eyes sharp and one finger lightly circling a groove in the table where they were sat. Katrina-Carlotta seemed to have an awful lot of knowledge and Topez was secretly thinking it'd be unwise to cross her path, after all, Du Hunt wasn't someone to mess with. Being a death eater was her part time. Assassin was her full time career.

Katrina-Carlotta barely refrained from rolling her eyes at the complete silence after her words. For a moment it almost looked as if Charlotte Topez would speak, but the woman wisely kept her mouth shut. It was rather doubtful that the Quidditch player would have anything helpful to say.

Letting out a loud breath through her nose, the witch curved her back in a languid stretch. Eyes scanning the other occupants of the room, the dark witch pursed her lips ever so slightly. "Clearly no-one else has anything of importance to say," Katrina-Carlotta observed simply with a hint of distain.

Standing swiftly from her seat, the witch allowed her eyes to linger on three particular people. "Zada, Ne'Os, Alexis; I'd like to speak to you sometime within the next few weeks. I'll get any owl you address to me," she stated simply. The European wished to exchange a few ideas with Zada, and had some fun little jobs for the other two.

"It's been fun Lorcan, Topez," Katrina-Carlotta announced, deliberately switching to Charlotte's last name. "And Trenton," the female paused here to throw a small vial towards the blonde Ministry worker, "don't forget." With that, the assassin strode towards the door without a backwards glance.