Lavinia Petronilla Scalara (donnapericolosa) wrote in lightning_war, @ 2008-09-05 18:33:00 |
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Current mood: | curious |
Tuesday morning, 15 September 1942, at Lavinia Scalara's office at the War Bureau...
Lavinia Scalara usually didn’t take time out of her day to read student theses—but they usually weren’t dropped off at her office in sealed Internal Affairs pouches by Verity Umbridge, either, so she didn’t know what it was when she opened the manuscript, which was a little messy, loosely bound and written in places on salvaged parchment and paper which still held the faint ghosts of flyers and magazine articles in French and German and Latin. The diagrams were detailed, and she wished, not for the first time, that she knew more about artificery. Finally she realised that she was simply too strongly oriented toward pure theory and divinatory work to judge its merits by herself, so she flipped back to the references and stared at them for a minute, noting the number of references to personal communications and unpublished works…by someone who was sitting at a desk across the room from her.
Lavinia considered this briefly. The name Halász Sharolt appeared several times in the list of references, which was also interesting. She flipped back to the front page, where the dedication was, and read it over a couple of times. Unlike the rest of the manuscript, which was in academic Latin, the dedication was in French. French was not Lavinia’s best language, but this had clearly been written by someone who thought her mentor had died.
Lavinia looked at the name: Juliana Yseult Aranxta Malfoy de Marigny. It was familiar. She’d heard stories about this person. After a moment, she went back to looking at the diagrams, and then she paled. This definitely needed to be classified. And looked at by someone who would understand it.
Lavinia dropped the manuscript squarely on Michel Rosenthal’s desk. “Michel, Nicodemo Zabini’s junior assistant brought this to my office this morning in a sealed pouch. I seem to recall you mentioned the author, but even if you haven’t, she’s using you as a reference all over the place. Do you know this person?”
Michel recognised the handwriting at once. “Yes, she was one of my best students.” He slid back into his chair, flipped through the pages and made approving noises. “Yes, very nice work. She’s here in Britannia?”
“Yes, she is,” said Lavinia, watching him with mild amusement. “I think we can make her a Magistra, if we can just get her through the oral examinations and she can defend that to people who have the clearance to look at it. We need her.”
Michel was already making notes in pencil on the blotter on his desk. “Hm? Oh, yes, definitely. There’s some ideas in here…look, what do you make of this one? She isn’t actually coming out and saying so, but it looks like this could be used to permanently disrupt a gate.”
Lavinia paled. After the earthquakes the previous evening, she was tired of surprises, but at least this one was on their side. “Goodness, isn’t she precious? Yes, we want this girl.” She sighed. “I’ll send a letter to the Malfoys. If they send this girl to school, and they might have to, she’s not to sign up for my sister’s course. She’ll probably blow something up, and I don’t want her going down on the guild rolls as an apprentice.”
Michel nodded. “Yes. There’s nothing your sister can teach her.” It was a shame, he thought, that the only decent arithmancers Hogwarts turned out were those with the drive to study it on their own; it did mean that they tended to be quite exceptional, but Michel felt that everyone could benefit from understanding at least the basics. Lavinia’s sister was even more of a pure theorist than she herself was, and the theories she favoured tended to the bizarre and the impractical, with an emphasis on divination and something that was almost spiritualist.
Lavinia nodded. “Is this the same de Marigny, the one with all the little blue ribbons?” She frowned. “I wouldn’t ask, but something about the way she reaches conclusions reminds me of a story you told me once; it’s the same style of thinking.”
Michel grinned fondly. “Oh, yes. I used to tease her that I could tell how difficult a problem was by how many ribbons she lost before it was done.” He glanced involuntarily at his bookshelf, where one of those blue ribbons was still marking the last lesson he’d taught in advanced harmonics.
Lavinia grinned back at him. “You used to tease her a lot, didn’t you? I could tell you were terribly fond of her. You must be relieved she’s this side of the Channel.”
“I worry about all my students,” Michel said, smiling, “but yes, there are always a few who stand out.”
Lavinia nodded. “Do you want to put her up for the Guild, or shall I? It might be better if I did it; people are liable to say that you’re biased. You can put our Addie up; then her mother won’t have so much of a fit.” She shrugged. “Or the other way round, but then I foresee lots of trouble. At any rate when she is settled in you ought to go and see her in person.”
“No, you’re right, you should do it. I’ll take care of Addie.” Michel considered the idea of travelling to Hogwarts for a moment, then regretfully shook his head. “I wish I could go, but between my job here and at Bletchley Park I just don’t have the time.” Seeing Liane’s thesis reminded him that he hadn’t done any of his own research in quite some time.
“I can’t turn Addie’s research over to you if she’s never met you, Michel,” said Lavinia with a soft, exasperated sigh; had he forgot she was his boss? “I’m sending you down to see both of them. We need them in the Ministry even more than the Guild, and Dracaena got the resolution passed for us to requisition the best students out of the NEWT classes. I know perfectly well that you go into Bletchley when you’re not scheduled, and they’re very well-staffed at the moment, and you know what will happen if I go down there.” She put her hand on his shoulder and looked down at him. “Besides. That little girl thinks you’re dead. Read the dedication she put on that thing. It will completely bollocks her Guild examinations if she’s standing there gaping like she’s just seen a ghost.”
“Oh?” Michel flipped quickly to the front and read. “Oh. Yes, I can see why she might have thought that. We did vanish rather suddenly. I should write to her before I go.” There were, he thought, rather a lot of things he wanted to say to her, to tell her about. Even if she was going to be disappointed to hear that he wasn’t working on anything he could share with her before she was given a clearance.
“So that she doesn’t pass out in my sister’s office when you turn up? Yes, that’s a good idea as well,” said Lavinia, shaking her head. Michel’s stories were beginning to come back to her. “Especially if she’s as…exuberant…as your stories would indicate. Addie is rather quiet and thinks that her work is nothing at all special. When you see it you will curse my sister for ever letting her think so.”
Michel shook his head. “Bad enough that she doesn’t encourage them, but she actively discourages them? Why would someone like that become a teacher?”
“I don’t know,” said Lavinia. Her sister was a mystery she’d long since stopped attempting to divine. All she wanted from Hypatia was credit for the parts of her work that were based in Lavinia’s own, or the parts that had been their collaboration. “You know a lot more about academia than I do and have been in the guild much longer. I could never be a teacher myself, I have no credentials worth speaking of. I was a courtesan until last year.”
Lavinia shrugged. Michel always seemed to forget about that. “My sister does encourage some of them, that much I do know. But my sister is also a little strange, Michel. She doesn’t deal well with people at all and she ought to be someplace like Bletchley.”
Lavinia glanced down at the thesis. “You should be teaching down there,” she said after a moment. “Not now, but after the war. All your former students adore you. Some of them would doubtless write you love letters, if they knew where to find you,” she teased, although there were bits of the work they’d been looking at together that had seemed a bit like a love letter, oddly, or very nearly as passionate.
Michel ducked his head in embarrassment. “I know my students like me, but I think you’re exaggerating. I would like to teach again. If they didn’t need me so badly at Bletchley I’d offer to trade places with your sister.” He shrugged. “I really don’t know much about academic politics. I did my best to avoid that.”
“I’ll tell Dracaena that you should be teaching after they finally close that place down, or at the very least when the war is over,” said Lavinia, smiling. “Academic politics is something the world could use less of.”
Lavinia glanced down at Michel, who was already reading the thesis again and writing down notes, and she sighed. She glanced back up at the book on the shelf with the blue ribbon hanging out of it, and back down at Michel. “Michel,” she said sharply. “Sorry to interrupt you, but if you have the girl’s natal data, I’d like to have it. I run charts on everyone I’m thinking of hiring for this office, you know that.”
Michel frowned. “No, sorry. I would have just looked it up in the school records if I’d needed it then. I can ask her to send it.”
Lavinia nodded. “You do that,” she said. “Don’t forget. I want you to write her a letter by the end of the day. I’ll write to Addie and tell her to expect you…Thursday, I think.” He was clearly already lost in the girl’s work. After a moment, she glanced back up at the ribbon, and remembered the way he had smiled at it. Michel would use anything in the office as a bookmark, but he didn’t leave bookmarks in the same place for long, or re-use them when he was finished. He also didn’t tend to remember what bookmarks he’d used in which books.
She went back to her desk and picked up a quill to write to Dracaena, but couldn’t quite begin the letter. Then she glanced over at Michel, who was already writing something. It occurred to her that he was having his Saturn return. And in his seventh house, which was…interesting.
michelrosenthal and donnapericolosa