You have the most impeccable timing for a kind word - I had an odd event this afternoon, and your message quite improved my mood after.
I should begin here by saying I’m a Hufflepuff, from a long line of them (Hufflepuff yeomen, my mother likes to say). But I like to think that I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and put the gifts of my House - hard work and loyalty and fairness - to the best use I can and with pride.
That subtlety is not seen as one of our skills is quite true, though I’ve spent enough time around Slytherins to appreciate the art at its finest. You would have had Professor Bobbin, of course, who was my great mentor in astronomy. And I believe you would have known Aldebarana Moran, as well, my research mentor between my student days and her death in ‘86. I miss them both rather a lot some days.
They did their utmost to teach me how to manage when those with far greater skill are at work and play. These days, I find that a certain thread of blunt honesty serves me very well, when silence or practicality will not do. (Raz now admits he found it charming for its novelty from nearly the first, though perhaps that’s his story to tell and not mine.)
Thus, while I much appreciate the warning (and would welcome others, if chance should fall that way), I’d already suspected her kindness toward me was not quite so well-meant as it appeared. Or rather, that she’d be kind if I’d just do exactly what she said without a fuss. For all her years in the Ministry, I do not think anyone gave her the lessons the Professor and Alde gave me. (And Narcissa, of course, more recently. Though I scarcely presume myself an intimate in those circles yet - this weekend was perhaps the first step there, beyond Raz and Narcissa’s generous welcome so far.)
As to your aside, alas, I have no idea, though that thought is perhaps shared by more than one of the CCF students this summer. And yet, I know there are a number of people - my parents know many of them through work - who find her ‘delightful’ and ‘charming’ and ‘so attentive’, and seem to mean every last word. (Did you know Gilderoy Lockhart? One heard the same thing of him. I am convinced there is some potion or oil involved in making such people seem so appealing to so many.)
As to the languages - well, today’s digression took me glancingly through references in Italian, Greek, Arabic, and a touch of Sanskrit. (As well as the Latin and reading German I have myself.) But my actual object of desire at the moment is Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi's work. He wrote something that was a combination of his own observations and Ptolemy’s Almagest - the transliteration for the title is Kitab suwar al-kawakib, or the Book of the Fixed Stars. There’s no translation into English, or even German, just French, and I wonder how much I’m missing in the text itself, though I can puzzle through the French well enough for the actual measurements.
The section I’m interested in is the portion on Ursa Major - four pages of text and a chart. (You will see, I’m sure, given my previous, why the historical locations of the stars in their best possible measurements would be of interest.) That said, it is scarcely urgent, and I expect to be quite busy with one thing and another myself.
On that note, I'm quite sure you've other things to attend to, and I should have an eye to my own packing. We do hope to be at Hogwarts tomorrow, but that just makes matters more rushed here.
Re: Private message to Antonin Dolohov
You have the most impeccable timing for a kind word - I had an odd event this afternoon, and your message quite improved my mood after.
I should begin here by saying I’m a Hufflepuff, from a long line of them (Hufflepuff yeomen, my mother likes to say). But I like to think that I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and put the gifts of my House - hard work and loyalty and fairness - to the best use I can and with pride.
That subtlety is not seen as one of our skills is quite true, though I’ve spent enough time around Slytherins to appreciate the art at its finest. You would have had Professor Bobbin, of course, who was my great mentor in astronomy. And I believe you would have known Aldebarana Moran, as well, my research mentor between my student days and her death in ‘86. I miss them both rather a lot some days.
They did their utmost to teach me how to manage when those with far greater skill are at work and play. These days, I find that a certain thread of blunt honesty serves me very well, when silence or practicality will not do. (Raz now admits he found it charming for its novelty from nearly the first, though perhaps that’s his story to tell and not mine.)
Thus, while I much appreciate the warning (and would welcome others, if chance should fall that way), I’d already suspected her kindness toward me was not quite so well-meant as it appeared. Or rather, that she’d be kind if I’d just do exactly what she said without a fuss. For all her years in the Ministry, I do not think anyone gave her the lessons the Professor and Alde gave me. (And Narcissa, of course, more recently. Though I scarcely presume myself an intimate in those circles yet - this weekend was perhaps the first step there, beyond Raz and Narcissa’s generous welcome so far.)
As to your aside, alas, I have no idea, though that thought is perhaps shared by more than one of the CCF students this summer. And yet, I know there are a number of people - my parents know many of them through work - who find her ‘delightful’ and ‘charming’ and ‘so attentive’, and seem to mean every last word. (Did you know Gilderoy Lockhart? One heard the same thing of him. I am convinced there is some potion or oil involved in making such people seem so appealing to so many.)
As to the languages - well, today’s digression took me glancingly through references in Italian, Greek, Arabic, and a touch of Sanskrit. (As well as the Latin and reading German I have myself.) But my actual object of desire at the moment is Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi's work. He wrote something that was a combination of his own observations and Ptolemy’s Almagest - the transliteration for the title is Kitab suwar al-kawakib, or the Book of the Fixed Stars. There’s no translation into English, or even German, just French, and I wonder how much I’m missing in the text itself, though I can puzzle through the French well enough for the actual measurements.
The section I’m interested in is the portion on Ursa Major - four pages of text and a chart. (You will see, I’m sure, given my previous, why the historical locations of the stars in their best possible measurements would be of interest.) That said, it is scarcely urgent, and I expect to be quite busy with one thing and another myself.
On that note, I'm quite sure you've other things to attend to, and I should have an eye to my own packing. We do hope to be at Hogwarts tomorrow, but that just makes matters more rushed here.
Aurora