Private Message to Professor Siz

[alt_linus]

Thank you for the loan of the American Witches books. They were a capital distraction, and the antics of Americans certainly supply fertile ground for drama, however much the books may overflow the cauldron of plausibility. Do they really punish pranks in American academies so severely? Bullying seems a strong term. My father gave me some words of wisdom before I entered Hogwarts, explaining that the Moon line of men were generally two things: high-performing Ravenclaws, and the butt of jokes. Responding to the latter would take time away from achieving the former, and he enjoined me therefore to endure the sneezing hexes and the boots charmed to kick their owner and the pratfall jinxes and the occasional expelliarmus and levicorpus and what-have-you as simply part of the price of being Moon and displaying excellence among the unimaginative, the uncouth, or the unkind.

(The tripping hexes were annoying, but it was really the destruction of parchments and the constant hiding of texts and quills that were quite wearing. And that satchel. I still miss that satchel.)

It is a great relief that things are a bit different here these days. I do not miss the presence of either Crabbe or Goyle, I will say — though not everyone has departed who gleefully hexed me or split their sides laughing when someone else did. The Order of the Phoenix has its own well-esteemed contingent of the uncouth or unkind. Fortunately most of them are kept sufficiently busy by the tasks of consolidating the gains of a successfully fomented revolution that they no longer have dull moments to fill with the apparently delectable pastime of watching a Moon turned upside down after laying bets on how many quills will fall out of his robes.

Father said that the ones who appreciated one’s skills and talents were the ones whose good opinion should carry any weight whatsoever, as all else was piffle and erumpent feathers.

Which brings me to Professor Dolohov, as indeed every third thought seems to, today. He valued my skills and talents, if use is a measure of value. I must confess to having welcomed the encouragement, and admittedly the projects he gave me were as enjoyable as the extra arithmancy puzzlers with which Professor Vector used to reward me, but it was hardly a one-sided exchange.

Did you know he put a geas on me? That’s why I ran out of my detention that time. Our conversation had strayed too close to the topic of a statistical analysis I had done on risk of mortality to Council members as correlated with proximity to specific other Council members, and that triggered the geas, because it was very much something I was not supposed to talk about to anyone but him. It quite worried him at the time. He very nearly obliviated me. He very nearly killed me, actually In the end, he went with a geas against discussing the topic with anyone other than himself, which was, he said, for my own protection, as the subject matter and conclusions were rather... sensitive.

(I no longer have the parchment, or I’d consider updating it with data from recent events. If I ever achieve my daydream of writing a history of the liberation of Albion, perhaps it might make a good appendix.)

Pardon, it is late and I am babbling and do not know what it is I really want to say in any case, and therefore will stop now. At least it was not poetry. Note the efficacy of your tutelage there, Professor.

You miss him too

Comments

[alt_sinistra]

Oh, Linus.

I'm thinking about how to talk about the question of bullying. I'll come back to it.

I had not realised he had set a geas. But, yes, that would have been a very dangerous sort of document, indeed. A very dangerous set of thoughts, for all you aren't the only one to think about that kind of thing.

I was, for a long while, keeping record of the times someone was called to court and then turned up dead unexpectedly, and worrying over how the intervals between were getting smaller and smaller and smaller, but not at all predictably. An erratic orbit. Also dangerous to contemplate.

Cedric and I started looking at his office and rooms yesterday. It will take a long time to unpick all the warding and protections, but I will see if anything about it turns up. If you feel inclined to other statistical charting of that kind, talk to me first, please?

[alt_linus]

Do be careful in his rooms. A considerable number of his books, as well as other items, can "defend themself adequately. "

Those are his own words to me, when we discussed -- ever so obliquely, which is a neat trick if one can do it -- my stealing something from him.

Let me retrace my steps and start from somewhere with a more panoramic view. It was for that blasted challenge, back last year. Can it have been only last year? Merlin. In any case, Montague, my sponsor in the challenge, required that I steal something from either Professor Dolohov or from

Oh, Professor Siz. I am so sorry! About your party last year, when my brother-in-law, in his cups, fell into your sculpture and chaos ensued. I must confess and throw myself on your mercy! That isn't exactly how it happened, and it was my fault, as I was taking part in that aforementioned blasted challenge. I ruined your sculpture and stole the Snitch that had represented the Sun. Jason Montague said I had to steal something valuable from either Professor Dolohov or from you and Professor Raz, and the sculpture was a gift from the Malfoys and from a noted artist and therefore valuable, but I knew you didn't like it very much, so it was perfect. Oh, Professor Siz, I am so sorry

But you and Cedric must absolutely be careful when approaching any of Professor Dolohov's items, because there are quite a number of them which are bespelled, cursed, warded, or a combination thereof! He said as much when we were delicately not-discussing why it was probably an extremely inadviseable idea for me to attempt pilferage from him at the behest of my sponsor.

I think he thought it was funny, actually. But he was serious about the dangers.

And I am so sorry.

[alt_sinistra]

I've warned people about the precautions, you can be sure of that. He never took me off the wards on his personal rooms.

As to the sculpture, please, do not worry about it. It was a present from the Malfoys, but it was

It was very well meant.

Only, we put it there for the party rather in hopes something unfortunate would happen to it.

As to the advice you got, quite. My things are rather less likely to have a nasty bite than his. Given the number of entirely unreasonable tasks you were all asked to do, I think that you did very well choosing what you did, under the circumstances.

[alt_sinistra]

Bullying. I don't even know where to begin.

First. It can get better. I had one really good friend, once I got to third year. And we're still friends mostly because we're both very stubborn badgers. You've not met him, I've barely seen him the past few years, because it'd put him at risk. We owl a lot.

The rest of my yearmates, I just did not understand. They mostly left me out raher than being nasty, except for a bit fourth year with the Ravenclaw witches in my year that was - very bad. Alcor (my predecessor) after that, he taught me about how to see the patterns in how people interact, how to make sense of it, have it stop being so puzzling, and more something I had choices about.

And then once I left school, when I could find people who liked the things I did, and who weren't so pinned down by trying to do the right thing, the visible right thing, it got a lot easier. You've seen how Gilly and I are together, and you've seen me with other people. It's - it's always work for me, attention and effort, except with a very few people, but it's so much better than it was at school.

Even if I still get it very wrong a lot of the time, and I know people laugh at me, and assume things about me that are wrong and hurtful. And yes, even in the Order.

Including people, welcoming them, really doing it well, is the hardest thing in the world, I think.

I've been thinking a lot about bullying, here. About discipline in general. Because how do we go on, with students, when all of you spent years with people doing things that could be lethal? Were, sometimes. When Crucio was considered a perfectly reasonable punishment, or other, horribly abusive things. (And I'm not just thinking of Madam Pinkness, for all she was quite horrible that way.)

I don't have any answers. At all. Except that I know we have to do better, somehow. I keep feeling I failed so many people, so many times, and it'll take the rest of my life to begin to put any of it right.

And except to say that you still have time, to find the people who want to be around you, who find you interesting, are amused by your quirks and your poetry and your earnest adoration of statistics.

[alt_linus]

Ravenclaw witches. Well. Yes. Never get on their bad side. They have an ability to painstakingly concentrate on details.

I wonder how Padma is.

As for finding people who find one interesting and appreciate one's abilities and interests and actually want to be around one, I am rather afraid of decreasing my store of such, once I broach a certain subject to Lavender, but there it is.

Speaking of, Madam Pince has found for me the run of Oxford Poetry issues from 1910-1921!

[alt_sinistra]

I like individual Ravenclaw witches rather a lot. (Gilly. Poppy. A few others.) Rather less when they're all in a flock, as a rule.

As to Padma, I don't know if you'd have heard, but she's being held somewhere safe. She doesn't have regular access to her journal, but she's safe. I haven't heard anything recently.

About Lavender, all I can say is that being honest generally works out best, even if it's also hardest. I never thought Raz would be interested in me, or that we'd enjoy each other's interests as much as we ended up doing.

People can sometimes surprise you, in the good ways, if you give them the chance. And if they don't, well, at least you know, and you aren't guessing.

[alt_sinistra]

The books. Tosha and I would talk about them, you know?

And he was really clear about what parts were what America is like - he'd spent a lot of time there, you know? And what parts were propoganda, here. And what parts were a bit of both. I've got notes somewhere, I can hunt them out.

(Though in the matter of punishment, I think he'd remind you that that part of America is rather densely populated with Muggles, and things that would cause undue attention would be a big risk, and isn't that a summary of the much larger question of our past twenty years?)

[alt_linus]

It rather is.

But they know about us now. Muggles, I mean; they are at this point, in this country at least, excruciatingly aware of our existence. At least, the ones who are awake are. Is a mass Obliviation planned? Is all interaction between wizard and Muggle to be proscribed in the future unless disguised? Shall we be going back to the former state of affairs? Would such even be possible?

Professor Siz, I know not if my abilities and aptitudes merit it, but I intend to bloody well do my damnedest to go to Oxford. If I have to learn to live undetectably, to appear to be a Muggle, it would be a small price to pay for the importance of this quest.

(I have been speaking with Rosemary Roche, to whom Mrs Longbottom directed me when I enquired, but no one seems to quite know what actually admitting a wizard to Oxford might entail in the way of such things, if indeed it is possible at all.)

[alt_sinistra]

You are quite right that at this point, there is no hope of secrecy here. My understanding is that everyone working here, for Albion, hopes we can learn to live together, with different strengths and skills and interests. (Even if that seems rather a long way away at times.) Even if we've got some different ideas about what that might look like in practical terms.

As to Oxford, that seems a fine sort of quest, all things considered. It's exactly the sort of thing that will need sorting out by someone, and why shouldn't you be one of the first?

And if we ever do sort out the wards, there are other places you could go. All sorts of universities in America, or on the Continent. I keep wondering about astronomers in other places, what they know that I don't. And even the simple things, like what the stars actually look like in Australia or New Zealand.

[alt_sinistra]

I do miss him.

I'm also furious at him.

I don't really have words for any of it yet.

After we sort the Octoboros, though, I think I want to sit down and tell stories for a night. If you're interested. When we have time to breathe again.

[alt_linus]

Yes, please.

And yes. Quite. Neither do I.