Private Message to Professor Siz
Aug. 3rd, 2015 09:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_linusThank 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
(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.
(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.
no subject
on 2015-08-04 01:25 pm (UTC)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?)
no subject
on 2015-08-04 04:07 pm (UTC)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.)
no subject
on 2015-08-04 05:13 pm (UTC)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.