Finch-Fletchley was the most bloody frustrating student I've ever had.
Imagine, if you will, that you are a teacher of art, and in one of the introductory classes that you teach, you find a pupil with the raw talent and vision sufficient to someday approach the skill of Michaelangelo or DaVinci or ibn Yushua. When you recommend him for further study, he tells you that he comes from a culture morally opposed to art, and he is only taking your class because it is required of him -- but while he is actually in the process of putting brush to paper or chisel to stone, you can see in his eyes that there is a part of him that loses itself in the joy of the creation.
I suppose I ought not to have pushed. But despite what he would tell you, and despite what he dearly wished to believe of himself, there was a very large part of him that relished the work, and I have never been able to resist nurturing that gift.
Regulus was frustrating too, mostly because he never cared enough to apply himself to his studies. He was never incompetent, but he never quite cared enough. But I never regretted the time I spent with him, because whither Regulus went, Barty was not far behind -- and the moment I laid eyes on Barty, who had sacrificed a Hogsmeade afternoon to eavesdrop on one of the tutoring sessions Orion insisted I provide Regulus even throughout the Hogwarts year, I saw a hunger I knew I could not allow to go unanswered.
It always amused Barty to present himself as nothing more than a keen wand, but in truth, he had one of the finest minds I've ever encountered. He soaked up everything I had to teach him like it was water and he was a man dying of thirst. I'll always regret having left him behind when he-whose-name-I-will-not-ever-again-write sent me outside the wards as ambassador to the world outside; not only do I regret having lost so many years together, I have a feeling things would have turned out quite differently if I'd been there for him more often when he needed me in those intervening years.
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Date: 2015-09-04 07:39 am (UTC)Imagine, if you will, that you are a teacher of art, and in one of the introductory classes that you teach, you find a pupil with the raw talent and vision sufficient to someday approach the skill of Michaelangelo or DaVinci or ibn Yushua. When you recommend him for further study, he tells you that he comes from a culture morally opposed to art, and he is only taking your class because it is required of him -- but while he is actually in the process of putting brush to paper or chisel to stone, you can see in his eyes that there is a part of him that loses itself in the joy of the creation.
I suppose I ought not to have pushed. But despite what he would tell you, and despite what he dearly wished to believe of himself, there was a very large part of him that relished the work, and I have never been able to resist nurturing that gift.
Regulus was frustrating too, mostly because he never cared enough to apply himself to his studies. He was never incompetent, but he never quite cared enough. But I never regretted the time I spent with him, because whither Regulus went, Barty was not far behind -- and the moment I laid eyes on Barty, who had sacrificed a Hogsmeade afternoon to eavesdrop on one of the tutoring sessions Orion insisted I provide Regulus even throughout the Hogwarts year, I saw a hunger I knew I could not allow to go unanswered.
It always amused Barty to present himself as nothing more than a keen wand, but in truth, he had one of the finest minds I've ever encountered. He soaked up everything I had to teach him like it was water and he was a man dying of thirst. I'll always regret having left him behind when he-whose-name-I-will-not-ever-again-write sent me outside the wards as ambassador to the world outside; not only do I regret having lost so many years together, I have a feeling things would have turned out quite differently if I'd been there for him more often when he needed me in those intervening years.