Another Year Upon Us
Sep. 2nd, 2014 07:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alt_daphneWelcome, one and all, to a new school year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I would like to take pains to make this welcome especially known to our new First Year students, as well as to those who join us this year as new or returning Professors. To Professors Desai, Sandoval-Pennifold, Gimlet, Marwick, Gordon-Kinley, and Holcomb: we are most honoured to have your expertise to guide us. In the time he has been at Hogwarts, our newly appointed Headmaster Dolohov has aptly demonstrated the value of an in-depth, substantial, and nuanced magical education, and I know that we may all rest assured that these appointments were filled with the utmost perspicuity.
While we all look forward to the rigour and perspective that our new Professors will bring to the classroom - indeed, to the very capacity of our wands and minds! - we do not forget those who taught us so well before, and left us far too soon.
To all those in Second Year and above, I hope that before you retire this evening, you will consider taking a moment of silence to reflect on and remember Professor Rabastan Lestrange and Headmistress Minerva McGonagall. Remember them fondly and remember them well, and embark upon this new school year with their wisdom in your hearts.
To those in First Year: Now that you have settled in and completed your first day of lessons, please direct any lingering concerns or questions to your House Prefects. Remember that the school rules were carefully covered by the Headmaster at the Welcoming Feast, and that a list of said rules are clearly posted in each House common room. Failure to familiarise yourself with these rules will not be accepted as an excuse for breaking them in any way, shape, or form. This warning applies to students of every year and every House; trust that your Prefects are adept at disciplining students who fail to adhere to these rules, whether by carelessness or deliberation. One may hope that any misbehaviour will not require intervention by either the Head Boy or Head Girl, but should it come to that, expect a full and thorough reprimand.
And to All: Remember that Hogwarts has stood on this ground for centuries, and that the very legacy of Wizarding and Witching England is embedded within these walls and foundations. You owe it to yourself and to all of Wizard and Witchkind to extend that legacy far, far into the future. The strength, loyalty, and constitution of the Protectorate is intrinsically connected to the strength, loyalty, and constitution that is fostered within this very castle. Aspire to become the calibre of Protectorate citizen who those residing in the future will look back on with admiration and reverence, just as we look back on our great Founders today.
May we all stand together, in future's favour!
While we all look forward to the rigour and perspective that our new Professors will bring to the classroom - indeed, to the very capacity of our wands and minds! - we do not forget those who taught us so well before, and left us far too soon.
To all those in Second Year and above, I hope that before you retire this evening, you will consider taking a moment of silence to reflect on and remember Professor Rabastan Lestrange and Headmistress Minerva McGonagall. Remember them fondly and remember them well, and embark upon this new school year with their wisdom in your hearts.
To those in First Year: Now that you have settled in and completed your first day of lessons, please direct any lingering concerns or questions to your House Prefects. Remember that the school rules were carefully covered by the Headmaster at the Welcoming Feast, and that a list of said rules are clearly posted in each House common room. Failure to familiarise yourself with these rules will not be accepted as an excuse for breaking them in any way, shape, or form. This warning applies to students of every year and every House; trust that your Prefects are adept at disciplining students who fail to adhere to these rules, whether by carelessness or deliberation. One may hope that any misbehaviour will not require intervention by either the Head Boy or Head Girl, but should it come to that, expect a full and thorough reprimand.
And to All: Remember that Hogwarts has stood on this ground for centuries, and that the very legacy of Wizarding and Witching England is embedded within these walls and foundations. You owe it to yourself and to all of Wizard and Witchkind to extend that legacy far, far into the future. The strength, loyalty, and constitution of the Protectorate is intrinsically connected to the strength, loyalty, and constitution that is fostered within this very castle. Aspire to become the calibre of Protectorate citizen who those residing in the future will look back on with admiration and reverence, just as we look back on our great Founders today.
May we all stand together, in future's favour!
no subject
Date: 2014-09-03 02:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2014-09-03 03:07 am (UTC)Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 02:52 am (UTC)Well done, what. I've a feeling we shall all see a much brighter future with leadership such as yours.
By the way, I had quite an engaging chat with your sister on the train yesterday. I say, you never led one to believe her quite so accomplished. Nearly as deft as you yourself, what, with social niceties.
-Justin
Re: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:02 am (UTC)I joke, but in all truth Astoria has, in the past, been completely horrid. It's middle-child syndrome, Mother says. My sister's got a stubbornness to her that is not at all the good kind, but I suppose you have to live with her to fully appreciate the extent of it.
Re: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:08 am (UTC)-Justin
Re: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:18 am (UTC)And it's hard to even imagine the Longbottom children quarreling.
Astoria and I just seem destined to grate on one another. Who knows how it came to be.
Re: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:29 am (UTC)We spoke about that, in fact--your sister and I, I mean to say. She asked about Ron and Ginny, specifically, and we talked about how strange the summer has been for all the Weasleys.
And for you, too, I'm sure. I must say it's jolly difficult for all of us to be back at Hogwarts without Malfoy but for you, I imagine it's a particularly bittersweet feeling. I say, I'm sorry if it's painful for you. I do assure you, I sympathise.
Have there been Head Boys and Girls from the same House? I suppose one could look at the rolls and see how long it's been since they both represented a single quadrant of the school. Surely Draco would have made an excellent Head Boy, what, and I should say it would have been a bally well different year if we had any other Head Girl.
-Justin
Re: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:36 am (UTC)If Draco were still with us and had been made Head Boy, I'm sure that he would have set an example that this school would not have soon forgot. I nearly asked the students to take a moment of silence in his honour, as well, but it didn't seem quite appropriate - even if I plan to do it myself, later.
Re: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:40 am (UTC)And your remembrance is a credit to him, well done.
-Justin
Order Only: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:44 am (UTC)In all honesty, Daphne, Astoria was rather charming, if a bit uninformed. Still, do you think there might be hope of bringing her round to the idea of a Galleon, eventually?
-J
Re: Order Only: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:45 am (UTC)Ugh, she's getting better at this than I had realised. I'd best look into it before it gets out of hand.
Re: Order Only: Private Message to Daphne Greengrass
Date: 2014-09-03 03:48 am (UTC)Please don't fuss on my account. It was a simple conversation, no harm in it at all.
I'm off to bed, now, though. Good night.
-Justin
Order Only
Date: 2014-09-03 03:57 am (UTC)When I'm old and famous I want to be able to look back and see that I said the right thing, and that I didn't lie.
Re: Order Only
Date: 2014-09-03 04:03 am (UTC)Re: Order Only
Date: 2014-09-03 04:05 am (UTC)Re: Order Only
Date: 2014-09-03 04:38 am (UTC)Good show. You're going to be brilliant at this, y'know.
Re: Order Only
Date: 2014-09-03 05:00 am (UTC)Re: Order Only
Date: 2014-09-03 04:39 am (UTC)Let's hope that when you're old and famous everyone will have already looked back on Sandoval's rubbishy "loyalty oath" and hexed her hair on fire.
Re: Order Only
Date: 2014-09-03 05:04 am (UTC)I think I shall feint as if I fell asleep so that I have time to ponder an appropriate response. I shouldn't like her to believe that I fancy her rubbishy oath as anything other than sublimely brilliant.
(Thank you, though, for the rest of what you said)
no subject
Date: 2014-09-03 04:36 am (UTC)Have you given any thought to my suggestion about reviving the oath?
no subject
Date: 2014-09-03 02:00 pm (UTC)I did think about it, and quite carefully. I went back through my journal and re-read your welcome message from when you were Head Girl, and I was struck by your eloquence and your commitment to upholding the virtues of both our school and our Protectorate. I am cautiously confident that those virtues, instilled by both yourself and your peers, were seeds that have by now taken root in the best of us. Thanks to the seeds you so carefully planted, I can extend faith to our students--faith that they are on the verge of flourishing into a unified and dedicated whole; a model of acumen and righteousness that will shine a light for those in the years to come.
(I say "cautiously confident" not to diminish the success of your efforts, but to acknowledge that there will always, always be a few bad Bott's Beans to spoil the bunch; those who show themselves unworthy of the faith I have placed in them will be dealt with accordingly, and shall be denied all faith thereafter.)
Do you think that you yourself will revive the oath within your own classrooms? It would be quite like establishing your own Hogwarts' legacy, now that you've returned! For the oath really does reflect your own insight and bearing, which I submit have played no small part in your abundant successes. I aspire to have insight and bearing of my own, but shouldn't like to obtain it by resorting to mimicry of any true originator.
I do, however, hope that you will find the rest of my tenure as Head Girl quite in keeping with the spirit of your example.
(For anyone reading who is unacquainted with Professor Sandoval-Pennifold's loyalty oath, which was issued on the the second of September exactly five years ago, I suggest you turn back in your journals to find the entry. It truly is worth remembering.)
Sincerely,
Daphne G. Greengrass