minerva mcgonagall (![]() ![]() @ 2018-11-17 18:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | minerva mcgonagall |
Typically I am not the sort of person to dignify gossip with a response, but over the past few days I have been asked several times whether I plan to address a comment made earlier this week by the wizard who calls himself Lord Voldemort. I suppose I ought to.
Let me begin by saying yes, I work closely with Albus Dumbledore, a man I respect a great deal and, in his decades as a professor and now fifteen years as Headmaster, one of the most exemplary leaders Hogwarts has ever had. I am happy to bear these slings and arrows by his side. But I am not a 'henchwoman', and frankly the suggestion is more than a little patronising. There are plenty of things on which Albus and I do not agree. I am the youngest Deputy Headmistress in a very long time because I am very good at my job, not because I do whatever I am told.
Nor am I the co-leader of an insurrectionist group, though it is quite flattering that the so-called Dark Lord feels I have time, between teaching, grading papers, and draughting my own academic work for publication, to also coordinate the Order of the Phoenix. Would that I had a time-turner! But I served for years as an Auror with the DMLE, I have great respect for their process, and I am no vigilante.
I am a teacher, and whilst my politics are something I have always made quite public in my professional life, I treat all my students with respect no matter what their own may be. My father is a Muggle, and I hold that as a point of pride rather than shame. If under this new administration that makes me an undesirable, then so be it. And if this Dark Lord has become preoccupied with me, rather than with someone in a more vulnerable position, then so be it. I can withstand the scrutiny.