Order Only - Private message to the Juniors

[alt_sinistra]

I know what the Headmaster was trying to avoid with his punishments. I don't know if you want to hear it. I do agree with him that there are things that would be much worse. And he was afraid of those.

I tried to explain this, yesterday. To Alice and Remus and Albus and Poppy and Pomona and Severus. It went - badly.

It was suggested that I should ask you. Quite right, that. I'm sorry I didn't earlier. Had to find words. Get time to think.

So. I'm asking you what you want. What punishments you're willing to bear and what you aren't. When you do things that are going to get a punishment, no matter how much they matter and how much they're right. (Because if he doesn't punish some things, that'd be a whole other set of problems, and I think not the ones you want. Maybe I'm wrong.)

What you think works here, in this school, right now. Not the one we had when I was a student, or the one from six years ago or six months ago. Or even six days. We don't live there anymore.

He may not ask my advice or tell me in advance what he's planning (he didn't Thursday). But I do think he'll listen. And that maybe I can nudge things, if I know what would help your plans, in a way that'd help. Think about it.

Last spring, Raz and I started talking a lot about how our generation had failed you. All of you. Too many ways. The more things I see, the more that's right. You all deserve better. I'm sorry for my part in that.

Comments

[alt_ron]

Yeah, whatever.

Dolohov's an idiot if he thinks he made things less likely to blow up into open trouble. He just showed a whole lot more people than ever saw it before that he's a servant of the Protector for a reason.

It's fine with me if I get Cruciated again. Every time they use that, most kids are going to see him for what he is.

You know what? Crucio's awful. So Crucio me. Every time you do, somebody wakes up to what's going on.

I'm scared, but I'm not stopping. And I'm ready for worse to happen.

I don't figure I'll live to get to be your age, so what I care about is making a difference if I can, while I can. It makes it easier to take risks or y'know, do things my Mum will want to stop me doing because they're dangerous.

And saying you'll Cruciate me? Go ahead. I'm ready to die, so whatever.

[alt_sally_anne]

Yeah.

What he said. All of it.

[alt_sinistra]

Thank you both. For putting what you choosing so clearly.

[alt_neville]

I'll add, that I'll take Crucio, too, no problem, for the same reasons that Ron says. But I do want to protect the younger kids as much as possible. If you have any influence over him, nudge him into going for the kids in the upper years, if he's gonna punish anyone. It makes sense in a way: kids aren't picked as prefects until fifth year because they're seen as more responsible at that age.

What he may not fully realise is what he's doing to the reputation of any of the kids he orders to be put under Crucio. Those who are completely loyal write us off as traitors, but since there were enough in that group who were obviously innocent, more are starting to see through the lie 'they were punished so they must be guilty.' When we show him--show everyone--we can take Crucio, well, the younger kids look at us who underwent it a little differently now. If they grasp that we're taking the punishment to protect them, it'll mix a little gratitude in with the awe, and that's a good recipe to prompt them to look to us older kids as leaders.

Private message to Professor Sinistra

[alt_neville]

I'd rather take it then subject Evelyn to it, every time.

[alt_sinistra]

Your point about protecting the younger students is a very good one (and I think, not difficult to manage, assuming there's nothing that forces his hand there.)

I do agree he didn't think through the implications of unfairness and casting a wide net, and I do agree it has some benefits. (Above and beyond the fact that I still think any kind of serious investigation would have escalated things dramatically and not at all well.)

[alt_hydra]

There's no mystery here, I don't think.

We're all willing to bear what we are already bearing.

[alt_sinistra]

Clearly. With great resolve.

[alt_justin]

Professor,

It's not at all difficult to guess his motives or what he hoped to forestall. We encounter that sort of flawed logic every day, working with him, Professor Desai, even, if one may say it, Professor Lestrange, when he was teaching. His methods only seem reasonable if one accepts the premise that one sort of punishment for free protest is preferrable to another, or indeed warranted at all.

As Ron and Hydra say, we're all clearly committed to bear whatever's necessary to see through our chosen pathways. Since he has seen fit to cast himself as one who would protect your tender sensibilities, it might be best to allow him to see just how horrified you are by his choices and behaviour. We need to take things in stride, what, but you are free to react as if you are appalled, rather than conceding the necessity as if there were no alternative and as if the punishment were an expected consequence of free speech. It's unlikely he will question his own harshness but perhaps, if he does believe he has made himself a monster in your eyes, he will at least consider the shamefulness of his action.

-Finch-Fletchley

[alt_sinistra]

I am listening. I don't know how to say what I want, so I am going to avoid doing it badly.

I am also thinking about where I can provide that kind of leverage - given past history and conversations (and of course I can't expect you to factor those in, not knowing the details.) But I will see where I can use that space, thank you.

[alt_cedric]

What do we want to do about it? Make things better or worse for him and therefore everyone at Hogwarts? There are multiple ways that we can make his job and life easier or harder. I could have not shown up to help with letters over the weekend. Justin could have come earlier, Hydra could have been brought in, etc.

Is it better to have him less stressed with confidence in a group of hard-working, loyal 'friends' to be able to better resist Desai's needling and make 'good' decisions or is it better to leave him vulnerable to that needling, pull back on the support, pile on the stressful minutia and leave him with only Crouch as a friendly ear? One of those makes Hogwarts safer, one more dangerous and like the rest of the realm.

[alt_harry]

I've tried that.

I've been good. I've been quiet. I've tried to keep things from getting out of control.

IT DIDN'T HELP.

[alt_harry]

Both of you -- Siz and Cedric -- you're trying to say you think we should try to stop the graffiti. That I should try to stop it. And maybe put on Slytherin robes and go back to sleeping in the Slytherin dorms, because I'm probably just drawing more negative attention to Gryffindor and if people get cruciated over and over, it's basically my fault for not behaving.

My answer to you is the same as my answer to Dolohov: no. You can't control me that way anymore. Any of you.

I'm not going to tell people to stop writing names on the walls.

[alt_cedric]

I'm not talking about stopping the graffiti or knuckling under like that. I'm talking about how we try to influence Dolohov and the school. I'm stuck with the family, can't write more now will try to explain again later tonight or some time tomorrow. I wouldn't ask you to do that Harry.

[alt_sinistra]

I am not asking you to stop. I'm so very sorry what I said made you think that.

It matters to me that you - all of you - get choices. As many as you get the chance to make. That's why I asked what you want.

Right now, I can't sort through a lot of the options. Almost all of you are better at strategy than I am.

If there are punishments, should I encourage more of the arbitrary ones? So that people talk more and more about unfairness? Or push to punish only people who have been caught doing something? Would it help your choices if I pointed some things out, called attention to them.

They have different effects, as you've already pointed out. There's the new detection spells, the ones he mentioned at supper last night. They'll be able to figure out who did which graffiti soon enough. That changes things, too.

I can't pick that for you. And I can't ask everyone in school. But I can ask those of you in the Order.

And. If you truly feel that it would be better, somehow, if Tosha weren't Head. If it would be better to have Savitha or Bellatrix or someone else, then we can talk about how to do that. Because some choices might go there. (And some things we don't get to choose.) I don't agree, at least right now, but I could be wrong.

Won't be down at supper. If anyone wants to talk in person, I can set privacy charms in my office.

[alt_harry]

Professor Sinistra, I don't think you should lean on him either way.

Because if you do, you'll feel responsible for what happens next. And that shouldn't be on you.

[alt_sinistra]

Chances are, I'll feel responsible for something anyway. I'd rather feel responsible for something that's useful. Whatever that is.

But if going on as I have with him is what's wanted, I can certainly do that.

[alt_cedric]

As I said earlier, what I meant was how should we try to influence Dolohov?

Even from his point of view, his decision to have a bunch of students tortured was not the best way of running the school. He let Padma and Seamus use this an excuss to act on their petty grudges. He could have easily reined that in. He let it happend to Warrington. He had to know that was a tactical mistake, unlikely to have the effect he wanted. Why? I think because he was rushed and fearful. He saw treason and had to act, swiftly and without mercy. Because of Halloween, because he feared word would get to his lord before he'd acted and out of fear of an even worse result from his retribution both to himself and 'his' students.

The people he's closest to at this school are me, Justin, Siz and you. Who does he go to talk to, who does he spend time with? Desai's a rival, Sandoval's clearly using him, he knows it, she knows he knows it. He doesn't trust Padma out of his sight. I think he views Seamus as trainable, but not the protegee he chose. Vector resents him. Outside school he has a few other people he can lean on, but here? It's all us.

Do we make his life easier and set him up to lean even more heavily on us or do we make his life harder, full of stressful minutia so he responds more wildly?

[alt_harry]

Dolohov isn't our enemy. I mean, he's not our main enemy. Our enemy is Voldemort.

If Dolohov were on our side, really on our side, he might have still put on a big show using crucio on everyone who might have been anywhere near some graffiti, because he felt he had to, to protect the school from Voldemort. Just as Hydra had to actually do it.

I don't want to get rid of Dolohov. I don't want to ask anyone (you or Professor Sinistra or any of the other staff) to make his life harder on purpose.

That's not our goal.