Antonin Nikolaevich Dolohov (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alt_antonin) wrote2012-09-05 06:03 am
alt_antonin) wrote2012-09-05 06:03 am
Class on Tuesdays and Thursdays
As there was some confusion with the third-year classes yesterday, please allow me to clarify: the timetables you have been issued are not in error. Due to the difficulty involved in integrating the changes to the curriculum, we have indeed been forced to schedule several classes through the lunch hour. In addition to yesterday's third-year students, this also affects the fifth-year Gryffindor class on Thursdays.
As I'm aware that in many cases, your schedule does not permit you to eat earlier or later, you may arrange with the elves for lunch to be delivered to the classroom, and eat quietly and unobtrusively through our discussion. (I will likely be doing the same.) I know this is less than optimal; I apologise profusely for the inconvenience and will do my utmost to keep the situation from becoming too untenable.
As always, if you have any concerns, please stop in my office during my scheduled open hours, arrange with me privately for evening or weekend hours, or contact me via private message. I remember from my own school days how reluctant we always were to disturb our professors, but you will not be a disturbance to me in the least: I would far rather clarify the issue early when whatever problem can still be easily solved.
As I'm aware that in many cases, your schedule does not permit you to eat earlier or later, you may arrange with the elves for lunch to be delivered to the classroom, and eat quietly and unobtrusively through our discussion. (I will likely be doing the same.) I know this is less than optimal; I apologise profusely for the inconvenience and will do my utmost to keep the situation from becoming too untenable.
As always, if you have any concerns, please stop in my office during my scheduled open hours, arrange with me privately for evening or weekend hours, or contact me via private message. I remember from my own school days how reluctant we always were to disturb our professors, but you will not be a disturbance to me in the least: I would far rather clarify the issue early when whatever problem can still be easily solved.
Re: Private Message to Dominic Selwyn
I can tell you precisely whose hand provided the commentary -- the book belonged to my great-grandfather. He never published any translations; I do own a half-dozen manuscripts that he started but never completed, and about thirty or forty books that belonged to him. He was a perfectionist and an inveterate scribbler -- it's why he never finished any translations of his own, but why his notes in others' books tend to be so interesting.
You'd be welcome to come browse my library the next time you're in London. I'm hesitant to allow the manuscripts to leave the premises, but you'd be welcome to spend some time at my house reading if you have any free time over the next set of holidays, and you'd be welcome to borrow some of the other books he made notes in. (Actually, it's possible the unfinished translations would be amenable to a copying spell -- it's not something I've thoroughly investigated in part because they'd never been of interest to anyone beyond the family. You have quite a bit more expertise in that area than I do.)
Yours in arcane scholarship,
Dominic
Re: Private Message to Dominic Selwyn
You are a torment. A most pleasant torment, to be sure, but a torment indeed. I will eagerly accept your offer, with utmost thanks. If the remainder of his commentary is of the same calibre, which I am certain it is -- once I am more settled in my role here at Hogwarts, would you care to collaborate on a project to bring his work to wider audience? As a bit of a perfectionist myself I can certainly relate to his reasons for not publishing during his lifetime, but it would be a very great pity not to give him his chance for the glory his mind well deserves, even posthumously.
At very least I would be delighted for the chance to investigate the possibility of duplication -- over the years, I've found a few tricks that can often be deployed to coax certain texts into permitting some liberties, and notes and manuscripts-in-progress in particular can often be courted into allowing reproduction without needing to go to the elaborate lengths a wizarding press must to allow the printing of whole texts without disaster. (About which I have some funny stories.)
I shall let you know the next time I'm to be in town, then, and anticipate many pleasant hours of learning all you are willing to share of your specialities.
Fondly, and doing my utmost to control the accompanying outstretched hands of polite but covetous glee,
Antosha