A weekly reminder
Apr. 26th, 2013 07:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_umbridgeDear boys and girls,
Now, I’m sure you are all just ever so excited for our formal dinner tomorrow night. I am delighted to announce that we’ll have another exciting speaker, just waiting for your questions, Ms Prunella Post. Those of you who have questions for her are encouraged to submit them in writing, to the HJC members who will be circulating during the meal, and we will pick the most appropriate and useful ones to share with the assembled school.
The procedure for tomorrow evening will be the same as before, though halfblood students may assemble at 4:30, since I trust you will require less energetic instruction on your duties. Purebloods, please be entering the Great Hall at 5 promptly, and staff, please be assembled at that time as well. I trust you will all set a proper example through clothing and deportment this week.
Mr Longbottom: I have reviewed your latest comments on the Memorial Garden, and conveyed to Professor Sprout a list of questions, concerns, and instructions regarding preparing for the dedication. Please confirm promptly that you will be able to make the necessary arrangements in a timely fashion.
Members of the HJC: I will be having a teensy little meeting with you tomorrow morning in order to discuss the proper way to handle the parchment-work, so that all of it can be properly recorded, catalogued, and filed. A misplaced form is a lost form, you know.
Mr Ross, Miss Harkiss, Miss Iskanderian, Mr Scroops, Miss Bode, Mr Whitacre, Mr Vaisey, Mr McLaggen, Miss Gray, and Mr Kirke, kindly report to my office this evening as soon as you read this. You may wait on the bench outside until I am ready to see you.
Now, I’m sure you are all just ever so excited for our formal dinner tomorrow night. I am delighted to announce that we’ll have another exciting speaker, just waiting for your questions, Ms Prunella Post. Those of you who have questions for her are encouraged to submit them in writing, to the HJC members who will be circulating during the meal, and we will pick the most appropriate and useful ones to share with the assembled school.
The procedure for tomorrow evening will be the same as before, though halfblood students may assemble at 4:30, since I trust you will require less energetic instruction on your duties. Purebloods, please be entering the Great Hall at 5 promptly, and staff, please be assembled at that time as well. I trust you will all set a proper example through clothing and deportment this week.
Mr Longbottom: I have reviewed your latest comments on the Memorial Garden, and conveyed to Professor Sprout a list of questions, concerns, and instructions regarding preparing for the dedication. Please confirm promptly that you will be able to make the necessary arrangements in a timely fashion.
Members of the HJC: I will be having a teensy little meeting with you tomorrow morning in order to discuss the proper way to handle the parchment-work, so that all of it can be properly recorded, catalogued, and filed. A misplaced form is a lost form, you know.
Mr Ross, Miss Harkiss, Miss Iskanderian, Mr Scroops, Miss Bode, Mr Whitacre, Mr Vaisey, Mr McLaggen, Miss Gray, and Mr Kirke, kindly report to my office this evening as soon as you read this. You may wait on the bench outside until I am ready to see you.
Private message to Josiah Peakes
Date: 2013-04-26 11:30 pm (UTC)Really, I don’t know why everyone else seems to be bothering you with trifling little details and comments about my plans here. They just don’t understand the complex and demanding nature of the work, or all of the pieces that I’m seeing that everyone else has been neglecting for decades. Of course I know best, I am here, watching over the school.
You must realise, I’m certain, that they are all agitating for their own perspectives and their own goals. You know as well as I do that Lucius Malfoy and Dominic Selwyn have long held their own biases against me. Clearly, they are agitating the more flighty and whimsical members of the board again. I know you - with your strong and established leadership - will put things to rights immediately. You have always been so clearsighted and above those petty squabbles for power or position.
I am sending by owl a wide range of programmes and projects I believe we must undertake at the earliest possible moment, along with my rough estimates of the likely costs and time required. (In several cases, we would need to put the matter out to qualified bids, of course.) Now, I do know that you want Hogwarts to be the best and brightest and most fruitful institution in service to Our Lord’s plans for his glorious Protectorate, and I am sure you will back me on each and every one of these ideas.
I have also found out, in the past weeks, all manner of critical information about students, about staff, and about various other parties of interest to the school. A brief synopsis of my findings is being sent by the same owl, for your review.
I look forward to speaking with you more fully next week, and to being able to share further plans and some initial design sketches for several of my larger ideas. I believe your clerk has already confirmed Thursday at 3pm.
Dolores J. Umbridge
Private message to Marston Strangeweale
Date: 2013-04-26 11:40 pm (UTC)Thank you, my dear sir, for your note by owl this week. I so deeply appreciate the encouragement and understanding you express. I am so very sure, as you say, that the appointment at Court will merely be a chance for my teensy little improvements and projects to shine forth like the beacon of change and modernisation they are.
You were so very generous with your compliments. (By the by, did you know the ink you used is fading badly? I can barely read your comments as I review it tonight. I am sure you’ll want to take it up with your supplier. Disgraceful what so many business get away with, with cheap materials. My dear late father would be appalled.)
It is so very good to know that I have people who entirely support my work here, who see the importance and vital necessity of what we are trying to shape. As you know, I do not forget such loyalty. Do have a word with Caldwell and Whitacre, please? I’m sure their trifling concerns are simply brought on by misinformation from parties who do not see my brilliance.
Private message to Campanella Wright
Date: 2013-04-26 11:58 pm (UTC)What do you mean, you see a number of difficulties with the proposed plans for the CCF summer arrangements? Is it not your job to do what I, as guiding light of the committee, tell you to do? Do you not understand that I am balancing a number of objectives, and that I am doing so with the greatest possible knowledge of the children and the skills they must develop in order to be tools in the hands of Our Lord?
I suppose you do not. Your training has not prepared you in any way, shape, or form, for the complicated process of building an educational and developmental programme. It is entirely clear that Sizzie’s weakness and softness has had entirely too great an impact on the YPL, in far too many ways. I did tell you I would allow none of that going forward, and I am not sure why you continue to question my judgement and foresight.
As I directed, you are to contact the camps immediately for the necessary specimens - I do understand it will take some time to find the most suitable beasts for our teensy projects. Those whose loss will not be a problem. And you are to devote yourself to the logistical arrangements, since you have raised so many objections to date about the safety and security of the participants. I am sure that whatever your other duties are, they can wait.
As to this year’s candidates, I cannot imagine why you thought I would include you in their selection. I will present a rota to the examiners in June, and they will, I am sure, choose the best of the lot, based on their exhaustive and informative modern testing procedures. Much more reliable than those silly interviews you did last year.
Do not step outside your assigned sphere again, Ms Wright, or I will be forced to take appropriate action.
Private message to Edgar Gimlet
Date: 2013-04-27 12:18 am (UTC)I am writing to you, as I am sure that as a member of the YPL committee, you are well placed to tell me exactly who I should speak to in Magical Transportation. And you are such a right-thinking and well-spoken man, I would appreciate your advice on another teensy matter. Getting my floo repaired has been trial after trial. First, your office said they’d send someone on Tuesday. Then, they could only send one while I had other crucial appointments, and they could not do Wednesday. And then they had to reschedule from Thursday for some trifling reason.
I was told, originally, that the wizard dealing with the matter would arrive at 9am. I waited and waited in my office until noon, when, of course, I had to supervise lunch. Apparently, he attempted to come through and was blocked by one of the students attending the open floo we arranged for him to use, as he was not on the afternoon rota of expected arrivals. (That little matter, I have seen to.)
When I finally got him here, he spent just hours tutting over it, and did absolutely nothing I could see for nearly two hours. (He claimed it was some ‘attunement to the space’s imbued magics’, or some such. He then spent another hour or two in some sort of silly calculation - could he not have done that in advance? It is not as if Hogwarts is an unknown location, or my floo a new one.)
I finally had to convince the man to finish up so I could attend to confidential business in my office. He said something on the way out that I’m sure was simply to cover his own ineptitude, about not being sure about the castle magics. (Really, everyone makes such a fuss about the ‘unique magical signature’ of Hogwarts, and I’m quite certain it is all entirely done to excuse laziness and stupidity.)
Now, I’m sure you can tell me who I should report him to for the best effect. Your department has gone through quite a few changes since my own oversight of the Ministry.
On the other matter: I am contemplating reviewing the committee memberships for the YPL committee. I would appreciate knowing if you have suggestions who might be more appropriate for our sharper focus and more productive programme of training and winnowing out the very best in service to Our Lord. I know that a wizard rising through the ranks, as you are, must know others of like mind. In particular, I am interested in alternates for the Auror spot, for Wizarding Education, for Magical Sports and Games, and for Purity Control.
Private message to Madam Umbridge and Professor Sprout
Date: 2013-04-27 01:51 am (UTC)Yes, Professor Sprout shared your questions with me.
Ma'am...I realise you have already announced that the Garden dedication will be May 12. But NEWTs begin the next day, and OWLs shortly after that. Wouldn't it be, well, more of a real celebration if we wait until after these exams? I'm afraid that people will either skip the dedication or if they come, they'll end up resenting being pulled away from their books if attendance is mandatory. But if we delay until June, people will be much more relaxed and celebratory, and the garden will look so much better, too, more well established. Even the weather will be better.
Couldn't we reschedule until June?
Re: Private message to Madam Umbridge and Professor Sprout
Date: 2013-04-27 02:40 am (UTC)May 12th it will be. I have my reasons.
Private message to Megan Jones
Date: 2013-04-27 02:39 am (UTC)Now, I know you'll tell me the truth, dear. Think hard, and to the very best of your abilities tell me: which halfbloods at Hogwarts could be removed from the school without being any loss? Of course, there have always been halfbloods getting killed or lost around the school -- so wasteful, you know, when they could be used for something that could truly benefit Our Lord's glorious plan.
That tiresome Fawcett girl, for example, the one who ran. Examples like her would be just perfect. Quite expendable. It would be ever so useful to a fellow servant of Our Lord.
Now, I hope you understand, from your teensy assignment, how the nice and proper people behave. I know you're overcoming a great disadvantage in your background, Megan, dear, but I'm sure you can make up for it if you just work hard enough.