Strike

People shouldn't be arrested for charming funny mustaches onto portraits of the Minister. Made to clean up the mess they'd made of other people's property, maybe, but not arrested. Ezra was deeply troubled when the order was sent to arrest the girl he'd seen so many months ago in a dog costume, back at it again in the Atrium of the Ministry. She certainly had some interesting ways of protest - none of which suggested an arrest, in Ezra's opinion. Fines, fees, community service...whatever - but this was unprecedented. Ezra was very much a man of the law, and of doing things by the book when it came to the law. Increasingly, the Minister - and what sometimes felt like the entirety of the Ministry of Magic, Ezra's entire workplace losing its mind and integrity - chose to disregard the law, crafting declarations with no process and handing out punishments for disobedience with no basis. This was not the Ministry Ezra vowed to uphold.

He was troubled, and he was frustrated. He knew he was better off in than out if he stood any chance of trying to fix any this - losing his job would ostracize him completely, leaving him no chances, so he had to play along to some extent. He did what he was told. He frowned a lot more now; he felt some sort of separation occurring within himself that he couldn't quite lay a finger on yet, to identify it as good or bad. His old methods were growing increasingly unreliable. As active as his mind was, Ezra never had much trouble clearing it before. Not even in those dark, not-too-distant days of Muggleborn persecution. He had too much guilt weighing on him now, blocking his path to any sort of enlightenment. Or, at the very least, just a day where he didn't feel so heavy. He had some sort of hand in this regime now and a choice to make - to form a salute or a fist.

While he figured all that out, he had to play along. He went about his work with that frown and that guilt. He was different, but if anyone noticed, they didn't bring it up. Everyone was a bit glummer around the office these days anyway. The place had grown so downhearted Ezra almost didn't feel crazy for being relieved at his assignment for the day - he was to travel to Azkaban, to talk to Luna Lovegood. He literally preferred Azkaban to the Ministry at this point.

When he actually got to the prison, that feeling died rather quickly. Azkaban was the very definition of dank, like one giant boxy dementor. Ezra was being crushed from both the inside and outside now, and he looked absolutely downtrodden as he made his way to Luna's cell. When he got there, he was actually sort of glad to see her eyes were closed. He hated to think what this place could do to someone like her, and he really wasn't here to bring her down any further. They said she wasn't eating; at least she looked like she was getting some rest. Ezra entered her cell silently, settling into a chair and waiting for her to wake up.

She wasn't asleep, though. Ezra watched the blonde when she spoke up, somehow knowing it was him without even looking. "Yes, it's me." She still didn't open her eyes. Was she weak? Ezra pulled the bottle of water and croissant wrapped in a napkin, pilfered from the break room at the Ministry right before he left, out of his coat pockets and held them. Luna was asking him a question - how he was doing. And she had an eye open now. Her gaze made him shift in the chair. "I'm fine." He sighed. "They said you weren't eating? You must not feel too great."

"You don't sound all too pleased to see me." Ezra frowned. He didn't really expect such a retort from Luna. Honestly, coming here, he had a small and faint hope that she might actually be happy to see him - Azkaban could get awfully lonely. But just walking into the prison itself snapped that hope right out of him. Luna was a nice person. She didn't belong in a place like this. Ezra was seeing a lot of that lately, wasn't he? People being persecuted for things that weren't actually bad, and the real criminals actually getting lauded for their crimes. Ezra's revered justice system was failing him, and he didn't know what to do about it. It sat on him heavy. The more he dwelt on it, the more he thought about Luna and how she certainly seemed to know what to do about it all. And how he'd gone and arrested her for it.

Luna looked at him for just a second when he brought the food out, and Ezra perked up only to deflate when she looked away. She didn't look fine at all, and like she could really use some food, but she refused it. Wouldn't even consider it. Ezra sighed again and stood up. He went to the prison cot and left the wrapped pastry and the bottle of water sitting on the pillow, and then he sunk down into the old mattress (as much as the thing would let him sink). It looked like Luna had gone back to sleep again, and Ezra didn't really know what to do at this point, either. Then she spoke up.

"I don't like it here," he spoke automatically, and then winced at his own tone-deafness. Nobody liked Azkaban. And yet, how many people had he sent here over the past couple of years? Everything Ezra took for granted was currently crashing down around him and he was completely out of sorts. "I don't like thinking about you being here. Luna..." He paused. He had no idea how to articulate what he wanted to say, a hallmark of how new such thoughts were to his brain. "I think I made a mistake. I think I'm making a really big mistake." He really wished she would open her eyes, and see the pleading written all over his face.

"No," Ezra said bluntly, shaking his head and sighing. He'd be pretty pissed, if their roles were reversed. Ezra couldn't remember ever protesting anything in his life, he always just kind of went with the flow of things, but if someone had been standing continuously in the way of things he did care about...yeah, he'd be pissed. He could at least see where Luna was coming from, if he didn't understand all that she was about. She was just passionate and he was always putting a cap on it. No one liked that.

Luna's response to his admission that he didn't like being here was the main influence that prompted him to go further. That was the point of Azkaban, nobody liked being here. And Ezra was part of this system, this system that had a place specifically for holding people and crushing their wills. After holding them up against an arbitrary sense of justice, of course. Ezra was seeing that all now. It was all arbitrary. He'd lived his entire life thinking this, what was around him now, was justice just because someone said it was. Anyone who spent more than ten seconds in Azkaban knew there was nothing justified about it. Ezra had a true sense of right and wrong in his heart, and often, it didn't agree with this system. He just always thought the system was a tool, used to bring people to those truths eventually. He saw now the system wasn't interested in going that far; justice was perfectly fine dying right here in Azkaban, next to the prisoners.

How the hell did you fix something like that? "I have no bloody idea." This wasn't all Ezra's mistake, surely, not this whole system. Just his part in it. Specifically - his part in it, now that he realized it was wrong. He looked at Luna. She seemed a bit more lively now. At least she wasn't laughing at him or cursing him away. He nodded along with what she was saying. Ezra was a big believer in that, too - mistakes as opportunities. He had no idea where to begin with this one, though. He felt too deep. "I don't even know how to start. Do I just...do I quit my job?"