The 'Master-Apprentice'-Type Relationship

[alt_moderator]

Alternity dealt with themes of education - formal, informal, and via one-to-one tutelage. Which makes terrific sense when you're writing a story that encompasses the span of schooling for its young protagonists. But in Alternity, the scholarship relationships outside of the classroom offered opportunities for characters to work side by side - and often, secretly at cross-purposes.

Through the magic of my phenomenal alt-moderator powers, I have the pleasure of being able to introduce to this thread some very special guests. These individuals forged deep, close connections with each other in either actual or virtual master-apprentice relationships.

We invite you to ask any questions you may have - about their training, about their relationship, about their suspicions, about how their training prepared them for the fights they eventually fought, or lessons they learned that they would pass on - whatever you want to know! Time and space are immaterial here; the individuals who are participating are free to answer in whatever way they see fit, depending on what's called for in your questions.

Please welcome:

Antonin Dolohov
Justin Finch-Fletchley (Noble Arts)

Severus Snape
Hermione Granger (Potions)
and
Draco Malfoy (Occlumency)

Aurora Sinistra
Evelyn Longbottom (Astronomy)

Barty Crouch, Jr.
Hydra Lestrange (Death Eaterdom)

Savitha Desai
Ron Weasley (Auror training)

Poppy Pomfrey
Sally-Anne Perks (Healing Arts)

Comments

[alt_antonin]

I answered some of your questions above, to some extent, but do allow me to elabourate. At perhaps more length than you might desire, but brevity has never been one of my virtues.

When Finch-Fletchley first appeared in my classes I saw an overly-mannered swot who was attempting to keep his head down and avoid notice. Several weeks into the term, however, we had worked through our discussion of "what are the 'Dark' Arts", and I was giving the children a chance to cast some of the magic they would be learning if they opted into the practical track of the class.

(For many reasons: I love my subject a great deal, but I will be the first to agree that it is not for everyone. I wanted the children to have the chance to see if they would be able to do the spellwork, and I wanted to be able to evaluate whether there were any I ought to discourage from the practical track until they were slightly less unformed and labile. The Arts originally ceased to be taught at Hogwarts at least in part because teenagers, with their stew of hormones and a thousand other things distracting them, are often susceptable to the imbalances the Arts can prompt if one is not exceedingly careful. (There is a reason I introduced meditation and self-examination within that first month; there is a reason the Conclave does not accept students under the age of twenty-two.) I knew that our practical classes would need to cover a great deal of material very quickly; I did not want to waste time on those who were not suited for the subject.)

At that point I was still being exceptionally careful with the little darlings -- Alecto Carrow had been a disastrously poor choice as teacher, and I knew I had to ease them into the true study of the subject slowly -- and so instead of asking them to curse each other, I asked them to curse me. (Also, of course, because who better to evaluate the casting of the curse than the one having the curse cast upon him?) (In retrospect, mind you, I ought to have remembered that I was no more than two months out from an injury that had nearly killed me, and would go on to almost do me in again later that year; that week was bloody exhausting. And I'm glad I've always made it a point to restrict the spells used in that exercise to things the target can undo himself rather than having to wait for it to be lifted, as several of the children panicked as soon as they realised they had just cursed a teacher and proceeded to flail about rather than lifting the curse.)

Finch-Fletchley was one of the last to cast, and the moment he did, his entire demeanour changed. The diffident, polite, retiring swot disappeared, and I was looking at someone who knew what power was, knew that he was able to use it, and would not hesitate to strike. Some champion duellists lose themselves in the heat of battle, and find strength in that berserker rage; some step sideways into a state where the conscious mind can be set aside, leaving only unconscious calculation and instinct. Finch-Fletchley was the latter, and his skill and his lack of hesitation intrigued me. The conversation we had later that day -- that was the week in which I was counselling the children as to whether they ought opt into the theoretical or practical track -- only cemented my belief that there was a natural practitioner hiding beneath that diffidence.

And I was both right and wrong. He took to it beautifully -- and again, no matter what he says, there was a part of him that found both the magic itself and the uses to which we put it immensely satisfying -- but what I did not realise, and what led to that conviction that he needed to be stopped, was that he did not adopt the accompanying habits of self-introspection.

I am fully aware many listeners will point at my actions in the summer after the Unmaker's death and call this the pot calling the kettle black, but I have never denied the Arts can be dangerous. Aside from the practical considerations of the potential for injury or long-term physical damage, there is a mindset it is all too easy to slip into: that because the practitioner can use the Arts, he should; that because a particular square peg is at hand, it ought to be forced into the round hole one is confronted with. Much of the meditation and introspection I teach alongside teaching the Arts is there to provide a grounding in the sort of skill that will allow you to examine the impulse that prompts you to choose that tool for the particular problem you are facing and question whether you are choosing the right tool for the job.

As it happens, I now have a collection of cautionary tales -- my own and others' -- with which to reinforce this lesson in my students.

The Noble Arts are many things -- beautiful, powerful, elegant, graceful -- but the one thing they must be, above all else, is mindful. I came to realise Finch-Fletchley had absorbed all my lessons save that one. And I had seen him in action far too many times by that point to believe he would be capable of ever setting those tools aside. He was a true believer in his cause, but he would not -- coud not -- allow himself to see that it is when you are most convinced that your behaviour is above reproach that you must hold yourself even more firmly to a ruthless self-honesty. Say what you will about me, and I am well aware what is said about me, I have always chosen my hypocrisies deliberately and consciously, knowing in advance that I am compromising my principles or bending one of those principles in service to another. I came to realise that he had not been doing the same -- and given the company he was keeping, that he lacked the tutelage of a more experienced practitioner who could stop him from overreaching himself. (I have often wondered how that summer would have been different had Severus Snape lived through the Battle of Hogwarts: the man was a fool, but he had been, once upon a time, a gifted enough practitioner that I can't help but wonder if he would have noticed the chasm Justin was walking across and been able to stop his teetering.)

De Rei Magie (the full title, of course, is a paragraph full of nested sub-clauses, but no-one ever bothers calling it anything but) is a collection of spells, rites, and rituals concerning itself with harnessing power, particularly during the points at which you are most in extremis, with a subset of spells revolving around controlling the mind and the will of your target. A quarter of the spells in there are nonsense; half of them are exceedingly difficult to control once you have begun them, cannot be stopped or deflected once you have started, and have a tendency to end very badly for the caster if his attention should waver in the slightest. If the caster is lucky, he will only kill himself; if the caster -- or rather, those around him -- is unlucky, the detonation can be more destructive than you can possibly imagine. (You may be familiar with an explosion that happened in Siberia, near the Tunguska river, in the early 20th century. You Muggles, I believe, thought it to be a meteor strike.)

I owned, and consulted, the book for the historical value and for the remaining quarter -- mostly added by the original author's son after he died partway through his research; the spell that was his demise is on page two hundred ninety one -- which was neither nonsense nor folly, but Justin did not stop to think that when one finds a book in the innermost library of a Master of the Noble Arts with which said Master has taken such precautions, it is likely not to prevent a random bystander from happening upon the book by chance: it is to protect himself and those around him from the book itself. Once you have read it, the chance you will want to use the damn thing when you are in a bad moment is great; when you are convinced that your cause is just and noble, and worth achieving by any possible means, it is greater. If I could not dissuade Justin from his fanaticism, and it was becoming clear to me by that point that I could not dissuade him from his fanaticism, I thought it best to remove myself from the potential blast radius, even if it meant leaving certain things undone. (I will always regret that I was not the one to kill Bellatrix; she had been last on my list, as I knew I was not likely to survive the attempt.)

As it happened, though, Юстинка and I got to fight our last duel anyway, and I found that despite realising how much of his danger I had created -- and realising that it was my obligation to correct my mistakes -- in the moment I could not bring myself to end it. To this day I am not sure why. Or rather, I have my theories, but I am not likely to share them. If Bella hadn't happened upon us ... well. I don't know what would have happened; we shall leave the matter there.

What would I do differently? So many things. But what-if never gets you anything but heartache.

[alt_justin]

Антонин,

Interesting. And you still make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusions were different from yours, I must not have been engaging in self-reflection. Or perhaps I wasn't engaging in the right self-reflection, I'm not entirely sure which way you would put it.

I had no illusions about what I was doing. None. I had no illusions about the compromises I was making in order that Albion succeed in its missions. I never believed myself morally superior to my enemies because it was patently obvious that our side needed someone who was willing to abase himself in order to fight at their level. I tried--I say, how I tried!--to remind myself that I was carrying out orders, that I was targetting victims who had committed far greater crimes, for far longer, and that I was saving lives in the process. I arranged my assassinations--with two exceptions--to cause a minimum of pain and distress in my victims. As for those exceptions, and any other signs along the way that I was, as you put it, taking satisfaction from my use of the Arts--well, as I say, I am entirely aware of my failures. But deluding myself was not, in fact, one of those failures.

If anything, the problem I faced was that the path on which you set my feet, and from which I found I could not in good conscience turn, still was as anathema to me at 19 as it was at 15. Yet there was no alternative, and no one else left among the Order or Albion MLE who was as well-trained in what had to be done.

And, by the bye... above reproach? Hardly. I came to Hogwarts a pacifist; I left this world as a murderer. I reproached myself every day.

There's very little to that trajectory except reproach.


As for my use of the book, as you put it--well, there, учитель мой, I fooled you. At least, on that night, I did. I admit I did begin looking for some spell or key that would enable me to defeat you and Bellatrix once and for all--preferrably something not as drastic as killing another unicorn, what--but when you reacted so strongly to my quotation, I knew I had shaken you.

I hadn't planned on using any spell in that book--that night, or ever. You fell for the bluff, old man.

However. I will admit this much, since you seem convinced I was unable to turn my gaze inward without fooling myself about the resulting reflection: Had I had to retreat again, as the night before, I likely would have looked still further. And had I defeated you that night, survived and not been shot in the back Cursed by Bella, it's entirely possible that in time, I would have returned to that text. Years later, perhaps, unless I'd been able to take your advice and burn it immediately. So perhaps it's for the better that I was not offered the opportunity to study it, even as an academic exercise.

But I would not have felt the need to take such drastic measures, had you and your lot not clung so desperately to your hold over the Protectorate. And I would not have had the least interest in, nor belief in my ability to protect myself from, such a dangerous text, had you not primed me so well in the Arts.

-F-F

[alt_crouch_jr]

I would not have felt the need to take such drastic measures, had you and your lot not clung so desperately to your hold over the Protectorate.

Nor, indeed, if your lot had lived peaceably in the Protectorate as law-abiding citizens.

So many words. Excuses, justifications, self-delusions.

[alt_hermione]

Yes, because life in a continued Protectorate was about as peaceable for 'our lot' as gazelles on the Veldt.

What about your excuses and self-delusions, then, Crouch? You're happy to put down the others but we haven't yet heard what you have to say about training Hydra.

Were you ever suspicious of her? What did you think training her was going to be like, compared to how it went? And if she hadn't killed you, would you have eventually reached a point where you would have been satisfied?

[alt_terry]

Yeah. You, Crouch, don't even consider those of 'our lot' who weren't even citizens, who never had the choice to live 'peaceably' in the Protectorate.

Talk about underestimating.

And self-delusion.

[alt_crouch_jr]

Expect no apologies or explanations from me, Filth.

As for Hydra, training her was far more worth the time invested than I imagined. Have no regrets, however, that she was the only trainee I was ever pressed into taking. (Mentoring was not my métier.) I was less surprised than you may suppose re. Hydra's rebellion--have you met her mother?--and after the marriage came to light, its likelihood rose.


Re. satisfaction: I can't say that I died satisfied, but in that last moment I wasn't dissatisfied, either. I chose the place and mode of my death quite deliberately.

[alt_antonin]

If that is what you need to tell yourself to come to peace with matters, than far be it from me to contradict the dead.

But take it from me: "there is no alternative, and I am the only one who can do what needs to be done" very rarely ends well for anyone in the end.