(1938-12-12) Muddying the Waters
Details for Muddying the Waters
Summary: Peyton happens upon a discussion between Marcus and Elizabeth, and does her civic duty in dragging him off for more Peyton-approved recreation, which leads to a discussion on the future of blood-purity.
Date: 12/12/1938
Location: Hogwarts Coutyard / Hogwarts Lake Shore
Related:
Characters
ElizabethMarcus_GoylePeyton

Peyton sweeps out of the Castle proper and into the courtyard, just in time to catch the tail end of the discussion between Elizabeth and Marcus. "Goyle," she calls as she slows, but doesn't come to a complete stop. "Not that I mean to interrupt your date, of course," and here she offers a smile that is ever so sweet to the Ravenclaw Fourth Year. "But some of us are heading down to the lake if you wanted to walk down with me. Of course, if you want to stay here, I can tell everyone why you couldn't make it, I'm just so sure they will be quite understanding."

"Yeah, confidence seems to be in short supply nowadays it seems… and I don't understand why." Elizabeth murmurs quietly. It's just one of those things. And if she noticed the acidity in his voice it wasn't apparent. Her soft lips part subtly with a slow exhale. "They'll comment on it regardless what I say. Just like you did. I'm assuming it's some sort of verbal attack because they think I'm attacking them in turn, when that is hardly the case." She couldn't help but make a face though as the girl glances at him, giving him an odd look. "Would you find it stimulating to study every single spot on the wall or ground? Of course not. And you have no reason to think that I would find them fascinating." Really, this is the first time she sounds a little put off.
Elizabeth instinctively flicks her gaze up at the sound of approaching, blinking once when some of the first words out of Peyton's mouth is 'date'. And her last words… are they sarcastic or honest? It's so hard to tell. "It's not a date. Not like he would be interested in me regardless."

"Jealous, Crabbe?" The look that Marcus gives Peyton when she calls her little interaction with Elizabeth a date, isn't very warm. Still, the Slytherin young man stands up, and dusts his robes. "Don't be, she stopped being interesting somewhere after telling me her name," he offers something akin to a sweet smile to Elizabeth. He arches a brow at Elizabeth. "Oh sweetheart, your whole existence -is- an attack on everything that is right and pure about magic," the tone is almost one of pity, but not quite. "But it's alright, there are other things out there, worse than you," he nods with a serious face at this. "No, I certainly would not find a wall, or the ground bloody interesting. I leave that to the Ravenclaws," he smirks and as she reflects on his lack of interest in dating her, he adds, "Now that, is an intelligent observation, Dweedlum."
He shrugs as he looks at Peyton. "No reason to stick around. Lead the way."

When Marcus indicates that he's done here, Peyton actually does come to a stop, and she listens in on the exchange - but makes no move to actually get caught up debating with the younger girl. "Stop picking on the child," she tells Marcus, lazily twining a lock of hair around one finger. "Or the only thing I'll be jealous of is that you're wasting my precious time," she teases. Approaching his side, she slips her arm into his, a move that seems to surprise even her, though she covers it up with a vague gesture toward the lake path with her free hand. "Shall we?" She spares a once-over for the Ravenclaw, one that seemingly starts at the austere braided style of her hair and stops at the wire-rimmed glasses before her interest wanes. "See you around, perhaps," she says with a bemused smile.
Between she and Marcus, once they have started to head off, she asks him with a gently teasing tone, "Since when do you play in the mud, Goyle? I had no idea you were such a rebel."

"The example of a stereotypical Slytherin. Your family would be proud." Elizabeth murmurs idly, uncrossing her slender legs and pushing herself smoothly to her feet. Briefly, she holds his eyes. Pondering to herself whether she caught a glimpse of his true face or if the mask he wears isn't really a mask at all. Still, a light but genuine smile tugs at her soft lips. "Goyle. Crabbe. I wish you two a pleasant evening." Even if she's always met with hostility, she's determined to be civil regardless what they may think about her. She won't stoop to their level. They walk away together, and Elizabeth feels the smile that had been on her lips fall away, becoming a little sad even. "Pity." Just that one word. Exhaling a small breath, she turns to enter the castle proper, leaving the fog and whatever else behind her.

Peyton is not the only one surprised by the slipping of her arm into his. Marcus immediately dispels any signs of such from his expression, though. He in turn, doesn't spare a final glance for Elizabeth. "Dweedlin," he still offers as means of farewell, and then he moves on.
The question presented by Peyton, however, causes him to smirk. "Every now and then, we have to get a little dirty, if only to remember what it feels to be clean," he shrugs. "Not too often, though. Besides, I was bored and it seemed like it was about to rain," he shrugs as they walk.

"You're awful," Peyton assures Marcus as they go.

It's early evening, late enough that the stars have begun to peek out where they can between the fair weather clouds high above, but not so late that the younger students have been banished to their common rooms just yet. Not that there are any currently in sight, however. A small fire blazes on the lakefront beach, and small clusters of students gather here, chatting amongst themselves, with the more social sorts flitting from group to group as the conversations shift.
Peyton arrives on Marcus' arm, a fact that draws some raised brows, but no one comments as yet. "Butterbeer?" she asks him, moving toward a chest nearby full of dry ice and glass bottles of the popular drink, in spite of the chilly evening air. She lifts a pair of bottles without actually waiting for his response, and goes to open one of them - but then her easy smile turns into a frown. "Stuck," she proclaims, looking down at the bottle, then up at Marcus beseechingly.

Hazel eyes regard the gathering and groups. Marcus looks from group to group before he turns to see Peyton. While his eyebrows aren't raised, his eyes do glance at their linked arms with curiosity.
"Sure," he says on the drink, and watches as she's already moving on to the chest to get the bottles. Still with her, he watches as she tries to open the bottle. A faint smirk, almost a smile touches his lips. "Here let me," he offers, when she shows him the bottle and flexing his fingers, he gives the thing a shot, trying to remove that cap by twisting it off.
"Not that I'm complaining but… why did you bring me here?" He looks around, and back at Peyton.

Peyton delicately but deftly plucks the bottle from Marcus' hand once he gets it open, and she passes him the still-closed one for him to demonstrate his strength on again, this time for his own benefit rather than her own. "I hadn't planned to, not after earlier," she admits. "But seeing you there with the mini-mudblood, it was my duty to rescue you. Really, what were you thinking, consorting with that one so openly?" The words are unkind, there is no denying that, but Peyton speaks them as if they are matter of course, so naturally ingrained is her acceptance of their supremacy. "Not, I suppose, that anyone would ever mistake you for a potential Mud Club recruit," she says with some vague amusement. "But still. Appearances." Having already drawn her arm away from his, it is a crook of a finger she uses this time to draw him after herself as she moves away from the more crowded area, closer to the black shore.

"I ran into her, almost literally. I didn't see her until we were both about to sit at the bench," Marcus explains, frowning as he realizes he's doing just that. "I just stuck around to poke a bit of fun at her, that's all," he shares. "Even by mudblood standards she's an odd one."
Appearances. The word causes him amusement. Even as her arm has been drawn away, he can't help but glance at his arm, the spot where they were linked. Squinting as she walks away from the crowds, Marcus still follows her to that black shore. For a moment, his gaze goes to the water, but this lasts just that, a moment. With it gone, he glances back at Peyton. "I like the lake," he ventures to say.

"I… like the lake too?" Peyton says, bemusement etched into her features. "Anyway, I guess I don't mean to give you a hard time about the girl, you're entitled to talk to whoever you like. I guess I just assumed that if you were going to try to make me jealous, you'd do it with someone that at least presented a realistic challenge," she says, obviously teasing. Taking a sip of her drink, she looks out over the water. "Do you think fish care about blood purity?" she asks idly. "Like, do you think mother fish warn their daughters away from smaller, less colorful fish? It would explain why you never really hear about fish cross-breeds I guess." She stoops gracefully to pick up a flat, smooth stone. "Anyway, what's so odd about her? Aside from her inability to censor herself, apparently. It's a good thing I showed up when I did, else we might have a Ravenclaw hanging by her robes from one of the parapets by now."

A bit of a frown shows on Marcus' features, when Peyton mentions the lake, as if expecting her to poke fun at him for what he said. So when she moves on back to the girl, he visibly relaxes. Her words now cause him to laugh. "Pey," he says, becoming familiar again. "If I was trying to make you jealous, you would -know- and it certainly wouldn't be with someone like Dweedlandin, or whatever her name is." He grins, almost affectionately at the Slytherin girl.
He takes a moment to look at the fish. "I think every species goes through this, when you think about it. As you say, you don't hear about fish cross-breeds. The strong ones, the ones bred to rule, to understand the world, their world as it actually is? They have a responsibility to safeguard and protect themselves against weakness. Weakness that could get their whole species killed." He looks at Peyton then and at her question about Elizabeth, he shrugs. "I think it is the mud in her blood?" He seems amused by this. "Just a kind of weird air around her, like half breeds and mudbloods tend to have. Like, they think themselves better than us, because they have such thin blood. It's just strange."

"Are we still talking about fish?" Peyton asks with a somewhat wry smile. She takes another drink, then decisively takes a seat there on the shore, perching on the end of her cloak, the voluminous fur-lined garment drawn about her shoulders. "I've heard all the arguments for purist belief, I've never doubted - how could I? The world is haves and have-nots. The sole difference between wizards and muggles is that we have magic, and they have not. The difference between pure-bloods and mudbloods is that we have more magical blood in our veins, and they have-not. But… what if a mudblood pretended to be pure-blood? If they claimed the birthright of some obscure but legitimate line, with help in their subterfuge of course. How would we ever know? And isn't that where we'll be heading, going this route?" she asks, her voice quiet, keeping this discussion solely between the two of them. "When being impure becomes a thing to persecute people for, rather than simply pitying them, or feeling disdain… won't that be when we get liars in our midst? Half-bloods 'passing' as one of us, all but undetectable?"

"Not really. I was talking about creatures, but sure, I was talking about us wizards," Marcus evenly replies. Not that he needed to clarify. He listens to her, and he frowns darkly. "They couldn't get away with it. It just wouldn't be possible. They would be discovered, punished. Harshly." He stops.
"It is our birthright. It is something to be proud, and something to protect and care of," his voice fills with passion. "Have you heard rumors from their world? The news? It's chaotic, it's crazy and those… things seem intent in destroying everything and everyone."
His expression softens and he sits down right next to Peyton, gently putting a hand on her arm. "I hear what you're saying, but that's why it's important that true wizards everywhere make their voices known, that they speak up. We can't just pretend this isn't an issue, as it is, they could be lying already." There's another pause and he adds, "I won't let them hurt us, no matter what. I will protect our family, yo—" he stops himself, looking at the hand on her arm and removes it.

Peyton sighs quietly, nodding as Marcus spills forth with more of the usual purist dogma. "I suppose you're right," she says, accepting as always of these assurances, despite her own niggling concerns. "It's the butterbeer talking," she says with some amusement, tipping the bottle upward one last time, before using a flick of her wand to send it sailing neatly into the nearby rubbish bin. "I know," Peyton says of his claim to protect her - they are family after all, not that it would ever occur to Peyton that someone wouldn't protect her. "But still, it's a possibility. Imagine one day, a child of our lineage marrying a muggle-born? Our names ruined, forever; bloodlines muddied for all time. All because we forced them to fight back the only way they ever could."
She looks down at his hand, only noticing it on her arm when he removes it. "I…" She blushes faintly. "We should be getting back to the castle. It's getting late, and I'd hate to give the Ravenclaws anything to cheer about if we lose Slyherin house points for breaking curfew." She moves to rise then, waiting for Marcus to join her. The fire has been snuffed already, and students are wandering back up the path, toward the looming beacon that is Hogwarts Castle.

"Don't let it talk too loudly," Marcus tells her of that butterbeer. "Appearances, remember?" and he grins as he uses that line against her, his word teasing but lacking any real bite. Peyton's concerns cause him to frown and now, it's his turn to sigh.
"It's because of our children, that we must do this. They would fight us, destroy us, whether we forced them or not. It's in their nature," he says simply, the truth coming easily to him. "And it's in our to see this, and do something about it. And if they want to call me a monster for doing just that? Let them. I'll be a monster and I will kill and destroy every single one of them, that threatens us." He purses his lips into a thin line. "You accused me of not caring about anything or anyone. Well I care about this. And I care about our blood, our lineage, our family."
To his credit, he doesn't comment on her blushing, he gives her a pass and her words about the points cause him amusement, that he visibly show. But, he doesn't disagree with her, instead he nods and gazes for a moment at Hogwarts Castle in the distance. "Come on cousin, I'll walk you back." And there is just a tinge of something that could pass for chivalry in his voice.

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