Tap. Tap. Klunk.<span style="font-style: italic">Scriiiiitch.</span><br/><br/>A wry grin twitched at the corners of the Dark Art's Professor's mouth as he dragged a shell across a the stomach of Mandrake root infant, it's cries echoing only to empty ears obviously exercising some form of flora pain.<span style="font-style: italic">It's not real, you can't feel.</span>Jean-Baptiste not really concentrating on what he was doing as his mind was swirling with thoughts of the letter he had just had a few minutes ago. The shell in Jean's hand hadn't done anything to deserve its punishment nor had the Mandrake root, but its porcelain surface was easy to grasp, and it provided Jean with something sharp to vent his frustration.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Dear Mr. Mediène,<br/><br/>We are happily to inform you of you're house's involvement with the Dark Lord, has been acquitted of all false charges. The accusation's that Mediène Sr. was a member of the Death Eaters and his participation during the Second Wizardry War as a double-agent have finally come to an end. It is still regrettable we could not ask him ourselves before his untimely death. Rest his soul a true hero. We understand it has been quite some time waiting, two decades overdue at least and to commemorate you're house's noble sacrifice we have commissioned statue of you're father in Hogsmeade Village. Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.<br/><br/>Yours truly,<br/>Ministry of Magic.<br/></span><br/><br/>When the war was over and the trials held, his father deceased, and their family friend's imprisoned. Jean-Baptiste refused to journey  back to Hogwarts to help rebuild. He planned on going back to the bleak desert, if that was the right phrase. Well, Jean could safely tell those people at the Ministry that it was all bollocks. His father<span style="font-weight: bold">was</span>a Death Eater and certainty not a hero. Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks. Why would the Ministry decide to take away the only fragmented self-respect he had left, a noble follower of the Dark Lord.<span style="font-style: italic">Overdue my ass...</span>The Ministry probably just wanted to keep things consistent and familiar, but it was pointless. Hogwarts was a pseudo-school now; you couldn't have the son of a Death Eater be the Dark Art's Professor, that'd be foolish.<br/><br/>In truth, the castle was just a shell with ancient walls that people had once thought were safe. But, of course, that was all bollocks too. Evil had never left. He'd been lost in a world of his own since then; a dark world which wasn't too far removed from his current reality and they wanted to take that away too. Hogwarts was the same dismal, cold, and haunted house it had been before he'd watched people die twenty years ago, but now he felt so much more sensitive to the chill in the air and the bleak atmosphere. Had it been up to him, he would have helped Hogwarts burn, but the Carrow's had insisted, and where else would he have gone?<br/><br/>After Jean calmed down, he promptly ended the Mandrake's misery by firmly inserting the shell deep behind it's eye. Only to chop at at the face furiously, determined to remove any evidence of own his tears. His face was now red and sore, but at least it wasn't wet.