alt_neville | New year, new teachers

I think it's rather a pity that now that we have a new Potions professor for the first time in seven years, we're getting less time with Professor Gimlet than we ever had with Professor Slughorn. It would have been interesting to compare the two teaching styles, but the one hour lecture we had on Monday last week and today hasn't really been enough to give me much of a strong first impression.

At least there's the long lab session on Tuesdays. In addition to brewing the assigned 7th year potions, I hope I'll have time to experiment with some new concoctions that'll tie to the independent research I've been doing in NEWT Herbology. I think I really have settled on what I want to do when I leave school: to develop new ways of cultivating plants so they'll be more effective in medicinal potions.

It's a little frustrating that the coldest seasons fall during the heart of the school year. I brought back samples of the plants I tended last summer, and I hope I've enough different varieties to make experimentation worthwhile. There are some medicinal potions in the 7th year curriculum, anyway. Hopefully that research'll keep me busy until the spring plants are up and out of the pots again.

I think Defence is going to be quite different, with Professor Desai, but again, it's a little soon to know exactly what that means. I'm afraid I'll be at rather a disadvantage since I haven't been through CCF training, though.

On the whole, though, I'm pretty pleased with how the first week's classes went. Transfiguration and Charms and especially Herbology were brill. As for the second week...we'll see. But I have a good feeling about this year. I liked the Headmaster's speech at the Welcoming Feast, and everyone seems to agree he's added excellent people to the staff to promote Our Lord's purposes here at Hogwarts.

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Professor Posthumous Gimlet drones almost as much as Professor Binns did. Except he seems sort of nervous at the same time. Maybe because he's new at this. Professor Slughorn may have spent a lot of time boasting about students he'd helped, but at least his lectures were livelier. Mr Snape, do you know anything about Professor Gimlet at all? I think he was a student here quite a bit before your time, but I wondered if he's published anything in those potions journals you read.

I`m sure we'll learn a lot from Professor Desai, but it'll be a nerve-wracking class.

Neville,

I hope this will be good advice and not sound as if I'm being critical, because I do want to help. Only I think to some people your journal entry might come across as if you're feeling unappreciative of all the changes we've got at Hogwarts this year. I saw what my mother said on Professor Desai's posting, about how the faculty who've been here a long time are used to more 'indulgent methods.' That's her way of saying that professors like Brutka, Acton, and Sprout are all rubbish, and in your entry those are the only professors you're truly complimentary of.

So if my mother was to read this posting she might think you were insinuating that things were better before, and that the professors you've always had are the professors who are always going to be the best.

Fortunately I don't think she'll be bothered to read it.

I don't mean that you ought to behave as if you agree with my mother, only that you might say something complimentary about the new Professors when you feel the time is right.

I'm sorry - I don't want to sound patronising, really. It makes me nervous when I see her leave a comment in the journals. It means she's reading and paying attention, and wants us to know. And there's always a reason she wants that.

No, you're right, and I truly appreciate your pointing it out. I'll be sure to work in something specifically complimentary about both of them, soon. But part of it was that I didn't want to be TOO enthusiastic about Professor Desai, frankly, because I was thinking of Professor Sinistra. I would think it would be pretty raw for her to read, 'you know we have a MUCH better teacher in Defence this year.'

I realise your mother doesn't particularly care about Professor Sinistra's feelings, though. I'll add a bit to the end of what I have now, and I hope that'll help.

Added a couple of sentences. Better, I hope?

Yes, quite a bit.

I don't think Desai will be any better, but she's new and she's different and that always gets peoples attention. Raz wouldn't have allowed Salazar's Rules because he would have foreseen it getting out of hand and fostering ill-intent between students. He always wanted everyone to have a jolly time, you know? And I don't think he liked to be a disciplinarian if he could help it.

My mother doesn't really acknowledge that feelings like that exist, so no, she wouldn't care about Professor Sinistra's.

I'm glad things are sorting themselves out with Herbology, love. Pomona truly thinks the world of you, you know. She was quite complimentary when she came by for tea a few weeks ago, and was going on about how she was looking forward to see what you'd make of your NEWT project.

Well, that's good, because I love working with her. It's my favourite subject, and I'm happy that I've hit on a way to be truly useful to the Order when I leave school. I think I'll be talking with Sally-Anne Perks a bit about her internship this summer, to see if we can think of ways to do some joint research. I'd like to think of us being truly a team by next summer.

Say hello to Mrs Wilson-Lee for me, would you? I learned so much this summer, working with her in the greenhouse at Moddey. I almost hated to give those books on plant genetics back to her--they were tough going at times, but that's a whole side of my education I could never get at Hogwarts, and it will help my research so much this year.

I miss you and Dad and Kevin. And Terry, of course. And I'm nervous about what this year might be like, without Professor McGonagall at the helm. The kids here like Professor Dolohov--but I keep thinking of some of the things we know he's done.

I'll do my best to keep my head down and stay out of his way. It's lucky, in a way that I'm a NEWT student, buried in my own projects. It's easy to avoid people if you're in the greenhouses most of the time.

New year, new teachers

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