Disclaimer: not mine. If it were, I'd have a Strad by now.
Actually, I'm really starting to like Amati.
Dolores Umbridge:
Minerva's Thoughts
I remember Dolores Umbridge from when she was a student. I suppose that her first year at school was my tenth year of teaching; while I had not attained the skill and grace in the classroom that I have now, my thirty-ninth year of teaching, I was, by no means, inexperienced.
Yet things were different in this tenth year. In the first ten years, I had taught two subjects; I had taken half of the Defense classes- the other half were taken by Cornelia, as she was raising a young son at the school and wanted to spend time with him. I also took a third of the Transfiguration classes.
Thus, my tenth year was my first as the sole Transfiguration Mistress, as well as my first as Deputy Head and Head of Gryffindor.
I remember calling her name for the sorting. "Umbridge, Dolores."
"That's not my name. 'Umbridge, Dolores *Jane*'."
There were titters from around the hall. Obviously, this girl was in for a rough ride. Everybody knew not to mess with either of the Professors Dumbledore. Headmaster Dumbledore was rather lenient, the student body knew, but Professor McGonagall-Dumbledore was strict and formal, even to a degree that she was made pedantic.
I did not say anything to Umbridge. I simply gestured to the stool. As she sat (for, I will say, an incredibly long time), I thought, my eyebrows contracted. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have given much thought to the girl. But to disturb the Sorting was a horrible offence, and everybody knew it.
When she was declared a Hufflepuff, the girl yanked the hat off her head and gave me a wide, menacing grin.
I replied with my carefully honed glare. The smile slid from her face as quickly as it had appeared, and she scuttled away. I knew it then. I had an enemy.
Perhaps a person without my life experiences would have labeled me irrational for this thought, but I knew otherwise. Why should she and I not be 'enemies'?
Age? No. Not age. My own husband was eighty years my senior. I had been tortured and mutilated by a man some thirty years my senior. I had later helped to bring about this man's death. No. Age did not matter in this world.
Why else? Student-teacher relations? No. I had been a student when I had married Albus, a teacher. My mentor.
It didn't matter.
And I could tell that to Dolores Jane Umbridge, it mattered even less.
Dolores Umbridge:
Minerva's Thoughts
I remember Dolores Umbridge from when she was a student. I suppose that her first year at school was my tenth year of teaching; while I had not attained the skill and grace in the classroom that I have now, my thirty-ninth year of teaching, I was, by no means, inexperienced.
Yet things were different in this tenth year. In the first ten years, I had taught two subjects; I had taken half of the Defense classes- the other half were taken by Cornelia, as she was raising a young son at the school and wanted to spend time with him. I also took a third of the Transfiguration classes.
Thus, my tenth year was my first as the sole Transfiguration Mistress, as well as my first as Deputy Head and Head of Gryffindor.
I remember calling her name for the sorting. "Umbridge, Dolores."
"That's not my name. 'Umbridge, Dolores *Jane*'."
There were titters from around the hall. Obviously, this girl was in for a rough ride. Everybody knew not to mess with either of the Professors Dumbledore. Headmaster Dumbledore was rather lenient, the student body knew, but Professor McGonagall-Dumbledore was strict and formal, even to a degree that she was made pedantic.
I did not say anything to Umbridge. I simply gestured to the stool. As she sat (for, I will say, an incredibly long time), I thought, my eyebrows contracted. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't have given much thought to the girl. But to disturb the Sorting was a horrible offence, and everybody knew it.
When she was declared a Hufflepuff, the girl yanked the hat off her head and gave me a wide, menacing grin.
I replied with my carefully honed glare. The smile slid from her face as quickly as it had appeared, and she scuttled away. I knew it then. I had an enemy.
Perhaps a person without my life experiences would have labeled me irrational for this thought, but I knew otherwise. Why should she and I not be 'enemies'?
Age? No. Not age. My own husband was eighty years my senior. I had been tortured and mutilated by a man some thirty years my senior. I had later helped to bring about this man's death. No. Age did not matter in this world.
Why else? Student-teacher relations? No. I had been a student when I had married Albus, a teacher. My mentor.
It didn't matter.
And I could tell that to Dolores Jane Umbridge, it mattered even less.