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_hydra]

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

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

[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_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.