Various matters

[alt_umbridge]

I am deeply disappointed in the actions of Mr Linus Moon and Miss Lavender Brown. Both have been removed as members of the Hogwarts Junior Council, and I am reviewing whether either of them should have additional punishment beyond that already applied.

Now, dear boys and girls, I so deeply appreciate those of you who gave me such thorough and detailed accountings of your holidays. Mr Diggory and Miss Pennifold set good examples, while Mr Finnigan, Miss Calderwood, Miss Robins, and Miss Rohani turned in truly exemplary reports. Mr Fred and George Weasley, I was quite surprised by your attention to detail - I wonder if you might encourage your brother and sister to do better. (Mr Ron Weasley, I expect to see you in my office at 4pm.)

Miss Lovegood, Mr Malfoy, Mr Marks, McLaggen, Mr Montague, Miss Postlethwaite - kindly plan to come see me at your earliest opportunity about your submissions. Also Miss Jones. Mr Crabbe and Mr Goyle, please come see me on Thursday at 1pm to discuss your deplorable writing ability.

I will be following up with those of you - including staff - who did not make a thorough report, as I review each and every essay. Naturally, this may take a couple of days, as I am just so very busy with all manner of other tasks. And I do see that some of you spent quite a lot of time together, and I do want to compare what you said about it. No detail is too small, dear children, to be important.

I remind you that we do have tutors in attendance (kindly report them immediately to the HJC members on duty should you see any unexpected or inappropriate behaviour), and that each and every one of you is expected to follow all my teensy rules and regulations, or there will indeed be consequences. I also remind those of you with locked items that it is imperative you be ready at your assigned time, or I will be forced to assume you do, in fact, have something to hide that requires correction and instruction.

Comments

Private message to Lavender Brown

[alt_umbridge]

Miss Brown, I want to say again how particularly disappointed I am in you. Now, it is a fact that men - young and not so young - can forget themselves and lead innocent and untainted women astray.

But it is your duty, my dear, to resist that temptation, to hold true and strong to what you know is right and proper. Now, I think back to your first year, and how dear Parvati Patil was blessed and honoured to lure the unicorn to her, through her tender and delicate purity.

Ask yourself, dear, how much better it would be to preserve that selflessness and continence in yourself, to be a beacon shining to others of the right and best way to behave. You have been misled, but you might yet redeem yourself, were you to truly apply yourself to mending your ways. Professor Carpenter speaks so very highly of you, too, and I would hate for her to be disappointed by your little flaws.

Now, if you are willing and ready to renounce your foolishness completely, and to work entirely with me to allow me to shape you to better ends, we might be able to arrange for you to rejoin the HJC next fall. Perhaps.

Re: Private message to Lavender Brown

[alt_lavender]

Dear Headmistress,

I'm sorry. You're right that Linus and I used very poor judgment, and I understand that you don't want students who set a bad example on the Junior Council.

But it was only the one time, and we've really been very good up til now.

Could you please find it in your heart to reconsider any other teensy corrections you might have for us?

I simply can't go to lessons this way!

Sincerely and penitently,

Lavender Brown

Re: Private message to Lavender Brown

[alt_umbridge]

Miss Brown -

If you approach your current punishment with due humility and a sincere desire to reform your actions, then perhaps I will stay my hand and refrain from further correction. However, any sign you are shirking your proper instruction and I will be forced to take further steps.

The current punishments stand.

Private message to Antonin Dolohov

[alt_umbridge]

Antonin -

I did not receive any summary at all of your weeks at holiday from you. I’m sure it was some teensy oversight.

I would be glad to give you an additional day or two to reply, if time were the consideration. You have said before that you are sometimes quite occupied with other - quite mysterious - tasks. Surely you must understand that the more information I have, the better I can manage the various matters of the school.

Re: Private message to Lavender Brown

[alt_lavender]

Thank you, Headmistress. I understand.

Private message to Aurora Sinistra

[alt_umbridge]

Now, Sizzie, dear, of course I reviewed your submission of how you spent your holidays first thing this morning, and I notice you did not include rather a lot of terribly important details.

Where, precisely, were you staying? And surely you must realise I need far more specific information about your activities. With whom did you have supper? Or tea? What did you discuss? In detail, please. I trust I needn't be more pointed about the implications if you are not forthcoming, dear.

I must know far more than you shared, really.

Private message to Josiah Peakes and Latimer Caldwell

[alt_umbridge]

Gentlemen -

Honestly, I am so very frustrated, not only by the students, but by the staff. I do ask you, what would it take to find staff like dear Gwennie and Cordie? It is a subject I would like to devote a great deal of attention to this summer, among the other necessary tasks. I don’t suppose you both could begin to develop a list of suitable replacement candidates to be considered?

I do not suppose we can budge Antonin unless Our Lord has other duties for him, but we must replace Defence at the least. On the others, I would like very much to find someone more obliging for Astronomy (for all Sizzie’s infuriating Guild insists there isn’t a suitable alternative) and it would be as well to have a backup ready for Artithmancy and Runes - Septie has been most unpredictable recently.

Perhaps Potions as well: Horace has gotten very set in his ways, and perhaps a younger and more flexible mind might come round to our new and modern practices far more easily. And Transfiguration, well. Surely we could do better than a foreigner who persists in giving no hint of his real loyalties or goals.

On that note, I was reminded that the past methods for managing the YPL counsellors and the CCF simply won’t do. I’ve had a discussion with a few of the committee, as well as the oversight board, and I am determined to simply make a selection from among those best suited. For the CCF, of course, I would allow them to go through the trial process (so deeply informative, some of those Ministry tests and questions) but we could start with a far more deliberately selected group than Sizzie allowed in. Breeding will out, honestly.

[alt_sirius]

Madam Umbridge, are you planning to start a gossip column in the Prophet? The Hogwarts Beat, perhaps? Surely that can be the only reason you insist on invading every possible pore of the lives within the castle.

I can't imagine you ran the Ministry with this level of microscopic focus. Haven't you realised by now that the more you attempt to tighten your grip, which is already well beyond the unreasonable and into the deplorably nosy, the less your charges will trust you?

I wish I had any idea what your ultimate goal could be. It can't be to close the school altogether? Or is Hogwarts to become nothing more than a sham in which your favoured few are systematically brainwashed and penalised into becoming little pink clones of yourself? While the ones you clearly despise are systematically tortured until you can excuse packing them away to the camps, presumably.

But perhaps it gives you too much credit to suggest a plan, and a Final Solution to which you are the sole arbiter of who is and is not worthy. (Funny, we can think of someone else who thinks it's his business to decide that kind of thing, can't we?) Perhaps you're just the most meddlesome busy-body and prig ever known to the Wizarding World.

Madam, you are so far out of line it's a wonder you're still alive.

Re: Private message to Antonin Dolohov

[alt_antonin]

Should you wish authorisation to know upon what I have spent my time these past two weeks, you may feel free to apply to Our Lord directly and personally. I am certain He will treat your inquiry with the careful consideration it is due.

Private Message to Dolores Umbridge and Latimer Caldwell

[alt_lucius]

Have only a few moments between luncheon and other meetings so shall make this brief:

Madam, what in Mordred's name do you mean with all these intrusions? Just what do you think you are doing?

Our Lord may have His reasons for not incinerating you into a pile of pink dust but do not think His tolerance has not been tested, nor that it is unceasing. Particularly when it stirs the responses of a certain blight on our doorsteps.

Do not force me to pay you a personal visit. You would not be best pleased with the results.

Re: Private message to Aurora Sinistra

[alt_sinistra]

First, Madam Headmistress, I must report that my class with the 5th year Slytherins was quite disrupted this morning by the punishment you have placed on Miss Parkinson. I am doing my utmost to make sure that certain of that class - Mr Crabbe, Mr Goyle, and Miss Bulstrode in particular - will pass their exams, and this kind of disruption to our scheduled revision does them no service at all.

And Mr Moon has told me about your punishment of him. Not only will this affect his practice for exams tonight - and we have so very few observing nights left before OWLS - but it affects the detention work he has been doing for me.

At tonight’s staff meeting, I think it would be very helpful if we spent some time discussing these and any other punishments that affect student ability to attend classes, revise, or learn. I very much want to understand why you’ve taken these steps, and moreover why you’ve done so without informing the staff so we could raise necessary concerns or make appropriate adjustments to our planned classwork. I gather I am not alone in my confusion and concern.

As to your other questions, I stayed in a private home walking distance from the Astronomy Guild Hall in New London. I spent my time with a variety of people - sometimes astronomy colleagues, sometimes friends, sometimes family. We talked about a wide range of topics, some of them quite personal, and I would never be able to reconstruct the conversations now.

Re: Private message to Aurora Sinistra

[alt_umbridge]

Sizzie, I cannot believe that you of all people would be so careless, stupid, and unloyal as to question my judgement and discretion. Haven’t we talked in the past about the consequences? I am scarcely bluffing, you know - it would be so very easy for me to make things difficult for you, or your family. Or any number of other people.

No, we will not discuss it at the staff meeting: I have cancelled it. I do, however, demand your answers here, as soon as possible. I will not tolerate any further foolishness.

Let me turn my attention to other topics, as well. Surely, dear, you must know that there's quite a large amount of gossip going about about you and Rabastan. That he's quite lost interest, or that he's gotten cold feet about marrying you. Stands to reason, I suppose.

Of course, there's the other side of the gossip, that says you must be so very stupid and foolish as to think he'd actually be interested in you. That has been sure he'd throw you over. Or that given his reputation, and his removal from teaching, that there must be fire behind the smoke. It is so very easy for people to believe some things, or convince them of that.

Now, tell me: have you spent time with him against my express wishes?

Re: Private message to Aurora Sinistra

[alt_sinistra]

Madam Headmistress, my apologies for a delay. I was attending to a number of matters directly affecting students.

As to my location during hols, I have been advised to make a practice of not revealing unnecessary information relating to security and privacy, even in those cases where there is no possibility of a threat. I am glad to tell you that I was resident in New London, no more than a mile from the Astronomy Guild Hall. My parents were delighted I could stay this year with someone they consider a member of the family.

As for who I met, they are all busy professionals, respected in their fields, and in a number of cases honoured by their Protectorate for their skills and service. It would be rude of me to expose them to time-consuming and needless inquiries that can have no bearing on my ability to teach or fulfill my other duties here.

As to your last, Madam Headmistress, surely you can't imagine I'd try and hide something that made the papers from you. He did escort me to Karoline Moon and Ptolemy Baddock's wedding. Quite the lovely affair it was, for everyone who was there.

Now, I know you've pressured us to have every thought as to propriety. We naturally consulted with trusted family on both sides, who could not imagine a more appropriate and proper outing. (And of course, since we were both invited in our own right, it would have been extremely odd not to attend with each other.)

We are, after all, still engaged to be married, and looking forward to that eventual moment, no matter what gossip might suggest.

Re: Private message to Aurora Sinistra

[alt_umbridge]

I am surprised at the advice you received. Really, I had thought your mother and father more sensible than that. That surely they'd encourage you - I assume you have told them the details - to extract yourself from a tighter connection, rather than continue it.

Really, Sizzie, dear, this is ludicrous.

What can you provide more detail on then? You were not even very detailed about your projects. No details about your textbook discussions. Or - I don't even understand what this means, "the effects of inertia and gravitational attraction" or "the mechanisms of binary stars and other moving celestial bodies", or what was this other one, the "interaction of variables in the development of stars of the same class".

Kindly provide as much detail as you can, about whatever you can, or I will take steps.

Re: Private message to Aurora Sinistra

[alt_sinistra]

I am glad to provide as much detail on my research and professional obligations as you might desire.

It will take me a few days, however, since I would need to cover the fundamentals of the relevant aspects to make sure you could understand the actual research.