therealpm

*After a brief and slightly tense exchange with Ms. Primarolo- their respective drifts to the left and right have given them some areas of political overlap, but the years have not made Red Dawn any more forgiving and she makes no effort to hide her skepticism that he can handle the job- Norman relieves her and ambles over to the cell.*

*He peers inside. The werewolf is sitting at his desk and staring out the window. Plotting his gaolers' grisly deaths, no doubt; Norman knows how Mandelson's mind works.*

Hullo, Mandelson. I can't say I'm entirely surprised to find you in a cell, but I wasn't expecting it to be this one.

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*Peter's head snaps round and he narrows his eyes slightly. The face behind the bars is difficult to see clearly, but the voice is distinctive. Fowler. He racks his brains for any memory of any indiscretion the man might have committed, but comes up with nothing.

'This is preposterous, the man's a Tory. He has to have done something morally dubious. Other than joining That Party, obviously.'

Still bereft of any obvious line of attack, he settles for a glare and the rejoinder*

I wasn't aware Cameron's much vaunted 'compassionate conservatism' involved mocking the incarcerated. Or has there been another bout of regicide? I would be surprised but it seems to be a bit of a habit with your lot.

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*Norman has spent enough time defending weak Tory leaders from their own party to know a lost cause when he sees one. Cameron's lack of any discernible convictions would be tolerable if it were wedded to competence, but it isn't. He has lost them one election, he will lose them another despite the best efforts of the Labour Party to concede it before it begins, and that will be the end of him. John went on television last week to try and prop him up, but then John always was too generous toward idiots.*

Not yet. Give it time.

Still, at least we can get rid of him. You're stuck with Miliband.

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 06:02 pm (UTC)

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I am not, I have retired from that sort of thing.

*Peter taps his pen on his desk and wonders idly whether Fowler will be as easy to terrify as the other Tory guard. The man survived several year's in Thatcher's cabinet, so he supposes not.*

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*Norman glances significantly at the barred window*

You have now.

*Since Mandelson seems to be contemplating his options- or fantasising about maiming him, most likely- he decides to have a look at the wards. It would be good to know exactly what young Bercow has done, although he has little chance of replicating it himself in an emergency.*

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*Peter amuses himself by doodling small hex circles on his pad of paper for a while. Most of them are nonsense scribblings, but in a few he discerns the potential for use.

Cradling his chin in one hand, he drags out the shape of the more promising ones on the table with a fingertip. The first one does nothing, a dud, but the second suceeds in lighting a small fire, singeing the edge of his pad of paper. He lets it burn out, leaving a slight scorch mark on the desk's surface.*

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*The cell is encased by a double shell of barriers, both interwoven with the gold and green strands from the Mace. That's a relief; the magic of Parliament is stronger than any wizard's, and Commons magic is especially resistant to any interference from a lord. Mandelson would have a damnably hard job cutting through those threads. The wards thin out around the cell door, but that's to be expected- they must fold that section out of the way every time they want to let someone in our out of the cell, and repeated strain will weaken the spell. The rest of the wards form an even net with no obvious gaps or incongruities, although...*

*They seem a bit lacy around the bottom, don't they? Perhaps it's some newfangled technique for structural support? Fractals, or some such. Norman can never keep up with all the advancements in the field.*

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 06:52 pm (UTC)

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*By this point Peter is practically climbing the walls with boredom, but Fowler is a wizard and Peter isn't familiar enough with his guarding style to risk interfering with the wards any further. Instead he grabs one of Campbell's diaries and starts adding corrections.*

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*Norman glances through the window again to check on the prisoner, and finds him absorbed in annotating some book. Norman should have thought to bring reading. Silly of him, really. This is more like waiting to be seen by the dentist than standing sentry duty in the army. No one would mind if he brought a book.*

*He sighs and goes to sit at the desk in the corridor. Dawn has left a biro and a copy of Tuesday's Order Paper behind. He flips it over and starts trying to think of all the words he can form from the letters in 'Urgent Question.*

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 07:22 pm (UTC)

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*John arrives via the fireplace, reading through a stack of papers with a pen stuck behind one ear.*

Good morning, Peter!

*He looks up from his papers and spots Norman scrawling over a sheet of paper at the desk just outside Peter's room. From the number of doodles and lists of words, he's clearly been at it some time.*

Ah, Norman, so glad you could make it - I do hope Peter hasn't attempted to threaten or blackmail you too severely while you've been here. How have you been?

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*Norman grins*

Not too severely.

Can't complain, can't complain. Although next time I shall remember to bring a book. And yourself?

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*Peter grumbles*

Either allow me to leave this cell, if only for a short while, or provide me with some reading material, or both.

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*John briefly turns his head towards Peter.*

I've got a stack of constituency letters here that need to be read and replied to if you're at a loose end.

*He returns his attention to Norman.*

Oh, I'm very well thank you - catching up on all my constituency casework during party conference season. I am not yet used to no longer going to Conservative Conference - I doubt I ever will be. I take it you're headed there at some point, if only to drop in on a fringe event?

Anyway, I do believe we have more immediately important things to discuss - have you managed to take a look at the wards?

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 07:51 pm (UTC)

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Yes, it should be... ~~marginally less embarrassing than the Liberal Democrat Conference~~ eventful, this year. But I promised Ken I'd stop by. Still, I suppose you can watch Boris upstage Cameron just as well from the comfort of your sitting room.

I have. They look solid, although you might want to shore up the bit around the door. It's wearing a little thin. And this section along the bottom- *Norman points to the holes* It is supposed to look like that, isn't it?

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*Peter's ears strain to hear the wizards' conversation. His stomach drops at Fowler's comments. It is far too late for him to attempt to hide the damage to the wards- his only hope is distraction and that John will attribute the damage to decay. He calls back*

Well if you're sure you want me in contact with your constituents...

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Oh do be quiet for a moment while I take a closer look at what Norman has mentioned, Peter.

*John inspects the wards more closely. They do appear to have been tampered with, just as Norman said.*

...No, Norman, it isn't supposed to look like that.

Peter, have you been trying to get through my wards again?

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Oh course not, that would be incredibly foolish given that one of the conditions of my stay here, rather than in a DEFRA cell, is strong wards.

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*Norman's eyebrows shoot up. It could be natural degradation of the spell, but he wouldn't trust Mandelson to tell him the weather, much less confess an escape attempt.*

It would be very unfortunate if someone were trying to undermine John's containment so that you would be taken into custody. I don't suppose you have any enemies who would do such a thing?

Well, for your own safety we'd better investigate how the wards were damaged. When did you put them up, John?

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The first set were put up when Peter was first brought here, so the time of the recent blue moon. Since then, additions and alterations have been made on occasion, when needed. As such, there is no possible way that that-

*John points to the bottom of the wards have been worn away by something or someone*

-could have happened by any sort of process other than magical interference.

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*Peter wanders over to the door and peers at the wards, commenting mildly.*

Objects, imbued with magic over a great deal of time, have been known to reject additional spells before. It is entirely possible that your doubling of the wards provoked such a reaction.

*He pauses.*

There was a case recently, wasn't there? I can't recall if it was reported in the Spellcaster's Periodical... or was it Wizarding Weekly? Do you remember seeing it? Something about a piece of furniture, I think it was...

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But if that were the cause we should be seeing an interference pattern between the two wards, and yet they appear to be entirely discrete. And look, the holes don't line up, either. There are more of them in the inner barrier. I suppose that's the one John set up first? That would explain why it's suffered more damage.

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 08:46 pm (UTC)

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It looks to me as though someone has been picking away at the wards-

*John tries to glare at Peter*

-for quite a while for them to get to this sort of state.

You wouldn't happen to know of any good diagnostic spells, would you, Norman?

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I don't think I could analyse the wards themselves- you'd have to do that, since you were the caster. It shouldn't be difficult to do a trace and see whether any spells have been cast in this room over the past few days, however.

Don't worry, Mandelson, we'll catch your mystery saboteur in no time!

*It's possible Norman is enjoying this just a little. He still remembers the 1997 election.*

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...excellent.

*Peter considers casting a low level distraction jinx, but suspects that would draw attention, rather than divert it. He considers confessing it now- John would probably be more inclined to forgive his attempts to escape if Peter came clean, rather than forcing him through the diagnostic spell rigmarole, but there is a Tory watching him with barely disguised glee and Peter can't bring himself to confess in front of someone he spent a large portion of his adult life trying to beat back into unelectability, a task in which he largely suceeded. Instead, he sits on his bed, takes up the copy of Campbell's book and continues with the annotations, careful to look as though he didn't have a care in the world.*

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*John pauses just long enough to allow Peter to confess should he so choose. He doesn't.*

Well, if no one else has anything to say on the matter, then I suppose I shall have to cast a diagnostic charm...

*John focuses very hard on the spell - practical spellwork such as this has never been his strong point and he knows full well that he'll never be able to get a positive identification of the caster; the most he can hope for is a few hints.*

*After a time, the spell begin to work. As John suspected, it doesn't identify the culprit. All is shows is that the alterations were cast by someone when they were inside the cell.*

*John thinks back through the list of magical folk who have been inside Peter's cell long enough to cause this degree of damage to the wards. There really is only one possible explanation.*

*John lets the spell die and looks at Peter. He can tell that the werewolf is trying to ignore what's going on around him, but John has spent too long in Peter's company to accept his current state at face value. Perhaps if he could talk to Peter alone...*

Norman, I don't seem to be able to get a grip on this, unfortunately. If I recall correctly, there's a small section at the back of the Lords' Library for diagnostic spellwork - would you mind terribly going to see if there's anything to aid me in this? I'm afraid all of my own collection are woefully lacking in this area...

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*John's diagnostic spell is astoundingly... not good. It's the sort of thing Norman might have cast as a schoolboy- no proper localisation, no isolation of the separate magical traces, and of course no identification of casters. This sort of analysis is Norman's strong suit, so perhaps he's being uncharitable, but really, Michael could have done better and Michael's specialties are hair care and shooting fireballs at things until they explode.*

*John's always been a bit of lightweight- Norman remembers when he first came to the Commons; he used to bob up and down on the benches like a helium balloon- but he would have expected his elevation to his current office to settle him a little. This is an area of magecraft the Speaker really needs to master, and it's clear John has not been applying himself to it with the necessary rigour. Norman may have to have a word with Betty about her successor. If she'd been this inept Mandelson would have have run rings around her back in the 90s.*

*Norman could cast a better tracer right now, but there's no point in humiliating John in front of his prisoner. That's hardly going to enhance his authority, and if they can't rely on the wards to keep Mandelson in they'll have to rely on his fear of his gaolers. Maybe he should suggest Ashdown take another shift.*

Very well. I'll go see what I can find.

*He's going to come back with textbooks. Lots of textbooks. John obviously needs them.*

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*John waits until he is sure that Norman has gone before he turns back to Peter. John crosses his arms and waits for Peter to say something to him - or at least acknowledge that Fowler has gone. Peter doesn't even look up from his book. John sighs.*

Peter?

*John waits until Peter gives some indication that he's listening.*

Have you been tampering with the wards to pass the time?

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*Peter lets the book fall into his lap.*

I was bored!

*He realises how petulant that sounded and hastily adds.*

The BIS work is hardly taxing, I've read all the books Dawn so kindly provided and have been allowed outside of these four walls precisely three times since coming here, and two of those were on the same day.

*He looks away and figets a little.*

...besides. The detail of the spellwork by the Mace is very interesting. Quite unique. If you look at it closely. I didn't mean to unravel the wards, just... investigate them a bit.

*Peter drops his eyes, hoping he looks sufficiently penitent for John to find the story plausible.*

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 10:02 pm (UTC)

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Peter, the DEFRA inspectors are due back any day now - what in Merlin's name are they going to say about this?! If you are bored say something to whoever is on duty rather than trying to break out of your cell! How difficult is that concept for you to grasp?!

*John tries to calm himself. After a while, and a few breathing exercises, he just about manages to get his temper under some sort of control.*

Perhaps you're right - in part. I will review the guard duty rota, put regular exercise blocks into the timetable and get you out of the cell. Maybe then you won't be bored enough to try escaping again.

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*Peter continues to keep his eyes downcast*

...sorry.

*He keeps staring at his hands whilst John attempts to calm down, but after hearing John's decision, allows a grateful smile to spread across his face before looking up.*

Thank you.

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 10:19 pm (UTC)

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Just make sure this doesn't happen again, Peter.

*John storms off through the fireplace, once again leaving Peter unguarded with holes in the wards. John is far too busy plotting to give it a second thought.*

*When John's back in his flat, he gets out his phone. He scrolls though the contacts until he finds Paddy.*

*If Peter wants to be let out of his cell to exercise in the great outdoors two, or maybe even three times a week, then that's exactly what he'll get...*

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*Norman comes wandering back with his arms full of books. He could levitate them, but between that and the invisibility spell he would need to accompany it the sorcery required would be more taxing than simply carrying them. He's envious at times of wizards like John and Mandelson who have so much power that they can afford to squander it on trifles, but then, the need to spend his magic with care has probably taught him to use it more wisely.*

John? I've brought the- John?

*The only person present appears to be the werewolf, and the wards still have that moth-eaten look along the bottom. Norman heaves a sigh and wishes it came as more of a surprise.*

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*At the sound of Norman's voice, Peter wanders over to the door.*

He's left.

*He smirks, and leans against the wall, looking through the door, then notices the spellbooks. He hasn't had a chance to read a spell or potions book in weeks and his palms itch at the thought of being able to delve into some proper magical research again. He indicates the book with a tilt of his head.*

Anything interesting?

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 10:44 pm (UTC)

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Detection spells and tracers, mostly. I suspect you would find most of them below your level.

Although under the circumstances perhaps it would have been more useful to bring John the DEFRA regulations on werewolf containment, or a dictionary containing the definition of "to guard". I knew they shouldn't have abolished the National Service.

*Norman checks himself- he shouldn't be complaining about John to Mandelson, even if the boy has proven himself next to useless. He can give him the spellbooks later. He sets them down on the table and comes over to inspect the tattered wards, but there's nothing he can do to repair them. Any attempt on his part is likely to damage them further. They'll need the original caster to set them right.*

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 10:56 pm (UTC)

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*Peter shrugs*

Perhaps, though potions were always more my area of expertise.

*He holds out a hand.*

May I see?

Oh, John already has those. I can't comment on whether he has read them.

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*If he has he certainly has not retained them, Norman thinks, but he keeps that thought to himself.*

*He raises an eyebrow at Peter's outstretched hand, but if the sole suspect in the Case of the Damaged Wards thinks he's getting a how-to guide for casting spells that will avoid detection, he has another think coming.*

Do you need anything else for the afternoon?

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 11:11 pm (UTC)

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*Peter huffs and crosses his arms*

Reading material. I would hardly leaf through Campbell's drivel were alternative and novel literature available.

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*That's what he was annotating? Despite himself, Norman feels a twinge of sympathy for the Labourite.*

I see your predicament.

*He looks over his pile of books, but except for the packet on rural broadband provision, which is his own reading for the afternoon, none of them contain material he can trust Mandelson with. Even the most simplistic texts cover elaborations on the basic tracing spells that Mandelson may not know. Still, it must be some kind of human rights violation to lock a man in a room with only Alastair Campbell's diaries for company.*

*There are always a few abandoned newspapers scattered around the deep leather sofas in the Smoke Room, and at least it's on this floor and on this side of the building. Even reaching that far will be a substantial drain on Norman's energy, but the damaged wards should still be sturdy enough to hold Mandelson and maybe having some entertainment will make him less inclined to breach them.*

*Norman gropes around the room with his mind until he locates a few newspapers and gathers them up, summoning them to Mandelson's cell. They appear in the air over his bed and fall onto the duvet with a rustle of pages. A Financial Times, an Economist- he can't identify the others from here, and there's no telling how old they are, either, although in his day the staff used to clean up the room fairly regularly. Of course, in his day they had to empty the ash trays; they won't need to do that anymore. They ought to rename it. Well, he hasn't been by there recently- perhaps they have.*

There. That should keep you busy for a little while.

*He walks over to the desk, collapses into the chair, and takes up his broadband packet.*

Edited Date: 2012-09-20 11:41 pm (UTC)

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