April 1, Thursday
Full moon
"Post the book tomorrow". Ha ha. It's a week later and finally I'm sitting down to pack the book and address the letter. It's past midnight, the rain is lashing against the panes, so I enjoy sitting here at my desk surrounded by soft candle-light enormously.
I'm also glad it's the evening of the April Fools Day at last. I always feel like a complete git on this day, because anyone can take me in with any tale whatsoever. I always used to get laughed at on this day at school, and afterwards, too. Today's been quite tolerable, actually – since I'm a teacher only fellow teachers could play pranks on me with impunity, and everyone seemed to be too preoccupied by the end-of-term bustle for that. The corridors weren't that quiet though: I've served as a target for Peeves's various missiles two or three times (ink-bottles, toilet rolls etc – that poltergeist does have a very refined sense of humour, of course; and let me tell you that the third time he attacked me he regretted it bitterly) and caught the Weasley twins red-handed as they were trying to bewitch some detergent Mr Filch uses so that it would make things permanently dirty. I took points off them, but I must say those two young geniuses of mischief definitely know their business, their charm was very good. I wonder if I should have given them some points, too, for being so skilled.
Suddenly remembered how I was given both fifty points and a detention in my sixth year for casting a spell. It was the first time I used my newly-discovered Latro. We were all standing around in the quad, I remember, during the break, and suddenly Pettigrew shouted something indescribably nasty at us. It was so bad even Sev. was lost for words or action; but I thought it would be a great opportunity to summon the negatively charged Patronus, since anger and disdain were pulsing in my very fingertips. I remember that, for the first time, I consciously made a real show out of my actions: I tried hard to keep my movements slow and my face inscrutable as I raised my wand, still staring hard at Pettigrew, and said clearly: "Expecto Latronem!" Then I was almost knocked over backwards with the sheer force of the curse as the coal-black unicorn erupted out of the tip of my wand, galloped across the courtyard and charged Wormtail down. He was impressed, I can tell you. And just as I was adding insult to injury by supplying an equally cutting verbal rejoinder, Prof. McGonagall came running, angry beyond description, and put me in detention for attacking a fellow student. Then Flitwick came hurrying along, too, and after establishing that what I'd used was a brand-new, previously unknown phenomenon that I'd discovered on my own, he gave me fifty points.
It's funny, though, that the Latro hadn't been described before. Anyone would have thought that where there are positive emotions embodied, the logical step is to find out whether negative emotions can be treated the same way. And yet it was my lucky guess, and not a library book (the normal way) that discovered this thing for me. Oh, and the Latin dictionary, of course. The joy I felt when I found the word "latro" and realised it's exactly the right gender and declension! And then, when I stood in that deserted corridor and cast the spell without any real hope of success, and that huge black shape exploded right in front of me! Those were among the few moments of pure and undoubted triumph that I've had in my life.
Why, why, WHY does every full-moon night turn into a trip into history?! And always accompanied by the Ghost of Severus Past.
April 2, Friday
End of term begins. Had my last lessons with the fourth-year Hufflepuffs and Gryffindors, gave them some holiday work. Two items off my inner worry list, eight to go.
April 3, Saturday
Aaarrrrrrggh!!! I'm panicking! I quite suddenly realised, I mean really realised, that we're starting the last week of the term on Monday! I've been feeling so pressed for time lately I uncharacteristically sat down and started planning in advance a couple of weeks ago, trying to see how much I'll be able to cram into those last classes, and that left me feeling like I won't be able to cram in anything at all. Anyway. There's the whole of the summer term to look forward to, so we'll catch up on anything we've missed. But this feeling of being in a hurry is very unpleasant! Also, it's quite amazing, the way the workload seems to be overwhelmingly huge, it feels like you have a class every two hours day in and day out; and then you realise you've hardly had the time to teach them anything! Right, I'll stop fretting and go to bed, and spend what remains of the weekend in peaceful calm, trying not to think about teaching.
April 4, Sunday
Been to the village library again, borrowed more Muggle books. Here's what I've already read this year (academic):
- Howl's Moving Castle and Castle in the Air – I liked the first much better
- The Hitchhikers Guide to the Universe – too Muggle to be thoroughly enjoyable for a wizard, but still very nice
- The Colour of Magic and The Light Fantastic – they were great! I cunningly made duplicates of the books before returning them as I fully intent to reread them. The language there!
- The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole and The Growing Pains of Adrian Mole – very Muggle, too, but sweet
- Wuthering Heights – rereading the classics.
- The Great Gatsby – I picked it because I used to know a guy called Gatsby at school, and I was wondering whether he became famous enough for Muggles to write a book about him! Don't regret it, either.
- The Spire – reliving the experience. I first read it when I was twenty, I think, and was glad to find that the stunning impression I got then has not been diminished by the years past.
- First Light, Hawksmoor and The Last Testament of Oscar Wilde – Peter Ackroyd rules. FL was the first one I read, picking it a little randomly, but it put me onto Ackroyd and I don't regret it. Sadly, our village library only has three books by him. And of course, since I needed some background reading to appreciate The Last Testament, I also read
- The Picture of Dorian Gray and a few other things by Wilde. Curse being an ignorant wizard! Imagine discovering the incomparable Oscar Wilde at the age of thirty-four! Decadent, admittedly, and often too ornate, but still exquisite.
- Dracula – not what I'd call a realistic story, and pretty boring from the middle on, but ah! the descriptions of sweet North Yorkshire!
- The Call of Cthulhu – left a controversial impression. The language is beautiful, perhaps too much so even; but the subject leaves one rather cold, even though it's supposed to be a work of great impact and describe things of cosmic horror.
Sorry, got distracted there for a bit. It was Mrs Norris, I'd promised to bring her a few things she needed from the village, and then we just talked.
April 5, Monday
Disaster. Dumbledore has been deposed. Umbridge is Headmistress. Disaster.
It all took place about two hours ago, as it happens. The good thing is that he's not been arrested or anything, he's just gone, having stunned half the Ministry that Fudge had brought along with him in the process. Well, it was stupid to come and interfere, no? Sev. said he thinks D will send word as to his whereabouts to the Order members soon.
April 6, Tuesday
Ha ha ha. Dumbledore's office refused to open itself to Umbridge. To revenge herself (I think), she's knocked together a band of devoted students (including the Malfoy gang) and given them the absurdly pretentious title of Inquisitorial Squad, so they wander around the school taking points off everyone they meet. Also, she has apparently been labouring hard to win Mr Filch over to her side. He's being so disgusting that even Mrs Norris has been round to complain.
And then complete mayhem reigned, because the Weasley twins decided to hold a Headmistresship-warming party for Madam Umbridge by setting off an enormous number of animated fireworks. Rare fun. And of course nobody minds. The fireworks have invaded the whole castle, flying here and there, whizzing into classrooms, both my third-year classes were disrupted. However, I did not let that dampen my spirits, but dispatched a student to fetch the Headmistress, as indeed did all the other teachers whose classrooms were filled with fireworks and as we had agreed during the break. Dear old Flitwick topped us all: I was passing within earshot of his classroom and out comes a very angry, sooty-looking Umbridge, and he says: "Thanks! I could have got rid of the sparklers myself, of course, but I wasn't sure whether I had the authority or not!" Unsuspected reserves of evil wit inside that tiny wizard!
Anyway, the day's been complete havoc, so I'm really tired, but at the same time mischievously happy.
April 7, Wednesday
Fucking hell. As if the week wasn't messy enough. At about six, I felt a huge stab of pain – nearly was sick, and realised something'd gone spectacularly wrong with Sev. I didn't even waste time running up and down staircases, I just Flooed to his office. I haven't seen him in a worse state for a very long time, maybe since the time when Black escaped from Hogwarts – but no, even then he was just furious. Today, he was quite beside himself. It took me quite a lot of time to actually extricate a coherent description of what had happened from him. Harry Potter, the boy whom I had started to respect, had broken into Sev.'s memories, which Sev. had removed from his mind for safety's sake during the Occlumency lesson and put into the Pensieve, and witnessed the disastrous day when Black and Potter hung him upside down naked after the D.A.D.A. exam. When I came to his office, he was nothing short of deranged. Like last time, he was hurling things off the shelves, but he didn't stop whatever I could do – shout at him, slap his cheeks or throw water over him. Finally I had to grab his forearms, immobilising him; it all looked like a tragic scene from an early Muggle movie, I imagine; then he swayed, fell down on his knees and started crying. No, not crying, sobbing. Howling. Then we had the usual horrible scene, though admittedly even more horrible than usual, alternating between me kneeling opposite him, holding him, the shoulder of my tee-shirt getting damp with his desperate tears, and me watching helplessly as he strode round the office, shouting curses against all people living and dead, first and foremost myself. This time he was so mad he even hit me when I tried to reason with him, breaking my lip and sending me crashing into a shelving unit. When I picked myself up and tried to leave, he grabbed my wrist so hard he nearly broke it and forced me back into the room: "You're not going anywhere!" I cried out in pain and he stopped, let go of my wrist, then embraced me convulsively and whispered: "Oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Rick, I'm sorry, you're the only one who really cares, and I just hurt you all the time..." I patted him gingerly on the back, but he pushed me away roughly and the next thing I knew he was screaming that he hated me.
He's mad. He's utterly deranged.
I'm used to that, of course, but it was damn hard to stay (relatively) cool and collected this time, because my head was swimming with his agony the way it hasn't for a long, long time – perhaps since the very start of all this, since his early post-DE period. In the end, it took me about two and a half hours to make sure he's calmed down, more or less, and to restore the office. He was in full-blown hysterics, I was scared.
If we both only get a half of what he's feeling each, how would he have felt if I wasn't there for him?..
Humiliation, that's what it was. At the start of our relationship, it was humiliation at being helped by me. This time, well it's obvious.
Relationship. Sounds like we're lovers. Ugh! Yuck!
April 9, Friday
Oh dear. The start of the Easter holidays. Looks like I've got more work planned for the hols than I had for the term. Lousy. And of course the constant burning pain in my temples doesn't help. It subsided a little, but it's still there. I do hope he gets over it soon and gives me some time to relax during the hols.
Oh, and I remembered Aunt Isolde's b.d. and sent her a card and some chocolates. I'm not very imaginative in my choice of gifts, I know.
April 11, Sunday
I seem to be spending my entire so-called holiday time reading yards upon yards of parchment with translations and the various special projects that I set to the more advanced groups. Most are feeble. My group's aren't bad – well, at least the ones I'd received so far, from Hermione Granger, Theodore Nott and Daphne Greengrass, but they were essays. The translations though!.. I'm keeping a roll of parchment by my side that I fill gradually with the student's more heinous productions, and then share them with the other teachers. A very Snapeish thing to do, I admit, but I seem to be at the end of my tether these days. Well, it's more or less my own fault. No-one actually made me do these special projects with them!
The good thing is that Sev.'s apparently decided to take the cold hatred line about the Pensieve episode. I'm glad. Cold hatred doesn't hurt quite so much.
April 15, Thursday
Even though it's the holidays, my colleagues still celebrate their birthdays! Some of the teachers are gone for the holidays, but those of us who are here had a very good time today in the staff room drinking the champagne that Prof. Vector brought to celebrate her special day.
I wonder how those of the colleagues who have birthdays in the summer deal with the situation. My own is late enough in August to enable me to celebrate it at school. But, say, Fergus and Aurora have theirs in July. I think they probably just save some gold on the wine and sweets.
April 20, Tuesday
Marking and marking and reading and reading. Sev.'s come round, said he just wants to be around me. He's now half-lying on my bed and reading one of my books. What's the bloody point of coming over and lying silently reading a book on your host's bed? And yet, I feel very comfortable.
April 26, Sunday
Last day of holidays. Had a very strange experience today: as I was shaving, I looked at myself in the mirror and suddenly wondered how my students perceive me. I stared at my reflection for a long time, until I could alienate myself from it and see it as someone else. And I didn't like the man too much, you know. He looked sullen and far from good-looking. The lips were thin and sort of cruel, and the straggly hair hung over his eyes, obscuring them. I pushed the hair out of the face, but that didn't make things better, because there was a crease between his eyebrows that made him look faintly menacing. Disgusted, I shook the hair back into my face and went away from the bathroom.
April 28, Tuesday
Mother's birthday. Apparated to Lighthouse Cottage in the evening. Sat there for about an hour, looking at the sea, then flew and walked around a little in the moors. Picked some flowers, put them on the graves, then cleared the ruin a little of dead leaves and twigs. She liked this time of year so much – said she was lucky to have her birthday in April.
May 2, Saturday
Full moon
'Nuff said.
May 5, Tuesday
Resumed German. A student came up after the lesson and asked if the course would continue next year, because he'd only just realised he wanted to learn German! He said she'd learn the whole textbook during the summer and would very much like to join us next year. I said he's welcome if he manages that.
May 13, Wednesday
Tomorrow's Aunt Vivienne's birthday. Maybe I should visit. No, I don't think I can cope with Aunt Vi on top of three classes. I'll send her some flowers.
May 17, Sunday
Oh my, dear diary, I've been neglecting you shamelessly. I just didn't have the time or the energy to keep up with detailed diary writing. So, what happened so far: Easter holidays (partly covered in previous entries) – incredibly gloomy, during which I contacted the panel that will be present at the OWL and marked an endless stream of essays and translations, most of which were awful; then the first day of the term was marked by another performance of the Weasleys', who created a first-class swamp in a corridor and then departed, disappearing triumphantly into the sunset; and of course everyone's trying to wreak as much havoc now in Umbridge's school as they can without those two unparalleled masters. It's been amusing for a while but now it's become rather exhausting. It's boring when you are likely to slip on a Dungbomb every few feet of the corridor. The whole school smells of dung and Stink Pellets, which gives me an endless dull headache. And Peeves is going wild. He takes care never to annoy me personally, after our last little chat on April 1, but he's all over the place, dropping statues, torturing poor Mrs Norris, singing stupid songs etc. I have a distinct feeling some teachers are actually encouraging him (as if he needed that!), and maybe for the first time in my life I tend to take Sev.'s stand on the issue of discipline. This is all really too much, especially when there's a month left before the exams. I'm getting very tired, very low on concentration. Weather's terrible, too: one hour the sky's completely overcast, the next it's sunshine – my head hasn't been clear for a week, and I just keep wanting to drop off to sleep every time I sit down anywhere. Had absolutely no rest during the holidays, either. Wish the term would end sooner. Usually, it feels like there's about two weeks' space between April 1 and May 31, but this term just draws on and on endlessly.
May 18, Monday
Waiting for the WSM in the staff room. The Headmistress is somewhat late. We're just chatting. I really like these chats, they make me feel so at home here. Although I must admit I'm getting slightly bored by Prof. Vector talking about her children all the time.
Ah, U's there.
After: She asked us to fill in a form stating which days we would prefer for our classes next year and which days we would like to keep free. All I could manage was a nervous laugh. Free days?! There's no time for free time this term, even, so what's the point in asking what days I would like to keep free next year when there'll be more groups? Oh, I hope nobody will be starting Runes next term. I do suspect, however, that they will. A couple of youngsters have already come up to me between classes and asked whether the course will be on the syllabus next year. Well, didn't Sevvie warn me against being popular with students!
I wonder, though, what the distinguished Headmistress wants to give us free days for. It's not like her. I have a sneaking suspicion that they won't be quite as "free" as she makes out. More mad paperwork, most likely.
May 19, Tuesday
Writing this in class. My last but one German lesson, and I've set them a final test for the whole period. They are sitting there, scribbling furiously, it's a pleasure to watch them. From time to time, they whisper to one another, shooting glances at me covertly, thinking I don't see them, silly little creatures.
They're all the same! I've been rereading the diary to keep myself amused, and there's an identical entry in February. I'm stuck in a rut!
May 20, Wednesday
It's been a nice, warm day. I collected all the parchments I had to read and mark, went outside into the grounds and did them sitting under a tree on the lawn. It was great, but then my peace and calm were interrupted. I was well-hidden behind the trunk, and at one point, I could hear laughter and twittering and suddenly a group of girls hove into view, and they didn't see me, apparently, because they didn't pay me a slightest bit of attention, just went on chattering about boys, and one of them said: "Well, yes, but I wish he had a lean bottom, like Heald", and they all went "oooh, mmm, tee-hee-hee"; and then one of them turned round, recognised me, squeaked, gave her neighbour a nudge, they all went red, fell silent and then said awkwardly in an unsteady chorus, "Oh, hello, Professor...", then moved quickly away. They are so absurd.
Well, that's only natural, after all. They say girls like to think about older wizards in these terms, and what's the choice for them here? Hagrid's too wild, Flitwick too small, Dumbledore too old, Severus... hmmm, let's not underline the obvious. Which only leaves Mr Filch (enough said), Fergus Merrythought, who is probably a bit too young to be considered an older wizard, and me.
Lean bottom, though. Ha. That's only because I don't wear robes, ladies. Sevvie's lean, too, but nobody sees it underneath his mantle! Anyway, jeans and leather trousers make almost any arse look trim and fit.
May 22, Friday
The classes are gradually drawing to an end, thank Heaven! We're mainly spending the time revising in all the classes, therefore there's not much to do by way of preparing for lessons, which is a relief. On the other hand, there's this unending stream of essays etc that crave my attention...
May 25, Monday
Just sat through this term's last weekly staff meeting! Yesssss! She's been talking a lot about what we're supposed to do next September, but I didn't pay any attention, truth to tell, just stared out of the window. Anyway she's given out handouts this time with all her aims, etc. I'll look at them later. Maybe.
May 26, Tuesday
Full moon
Had my last German class this term. I'm very happy with them, and they seem to be happy with me. I can't provide them with any certificates, but they don't seem to be too depressed about that, either. We've parted in the best of spirits; the seventh-years looked sad, and both of them said they'd try to find a way to carry on studying German.
Evening: Oh no! More essays! Augh... The most important thing is not to fall asleep over them. They alone are liable to give me nightmares, full moon or no full moon.
May 27, Wednesday
Deadly tired. Just dragged myself home from a four-hour session at the Society of Ancient Tongues, the larger part of which was taken by a viva voce of two girls wishing to become Doctors of our accursed art, Natalie Andrews and Annabel Brocklehurst (Mandy Brocklehurst must be a relative). Natalie is my sister in Ruthwell, so he asked me to be one of her examiners. Annabel was a student of my other hero (heroine), Welta Franks-Caskett, and she also asked me to be an examiner. As a result, I had to sit there for the whole duration of the disputation, listening to the girls, listening to Egil and Welta, listening to the other examiners (one of them droned on for ages, reading off what seemed like eight rolls of parchment!), and then finally taking the floor with my – rather short – reviews. Interesting discussions, too, but really very long. Then there was a ceremonial dinner, of course. I only managed to get away at about half past nine. I thought I'd have a really early night, what with not having slept yesterday (was actually dreaming of it during the disputation), but now that I'm home, the sleepiness is gone, although the tiredness remains. Hate it when it gets like this. Am going to force myself to bed anyway.
Can't face the thought of getting up at eight and teaching tomorrow.
May 30, Saturday
Tried to amuse myself by going to the Quidditch match (R vs G), shouted myself hoarse with "Go Ravenclaw", and what do you think? The dreadful Gryffindor team, the losers that they became minus Harry Potter and the Weasleys, won and got the Cup! That's unfair.
In the afternoon, decided to just forget about everything and go for a fly. Don't regret it either. It's been a lovely day, and I flew for two hours, which ventilated my brain beautifully. However, I think I'm going mad anyway. I saw something that looked like a giant, well, giant moving in the Forest. Must be hallucinating.
