All work and no play
Who: Draco Malfoy
What: Owls, research, and risks
Where: 13, Great Pulteney Street
When: 7 September, around one to nine in the morning
Status: Complete
Owl to Pansy Parkinson
Pansy,
Smith is an idiot. But it sounds like you're having a good time being Head Girl. Macmillan from Hufflepuff is Head Boy? They really were scraping the cauldron bottom this year, weren't they?
No insult intended, of course.
I'm going to come 'round to Hogsmeade for the festival. Meet me there? I'm dying for gossip from you. Just don't wear pink, and especially not that shimmery kind of thing you have. Madam Puddifoot might expire from jealousy.
Draco.
PS: How's Greengrass doing?
Owl to Narcissa Malfoy
Dear Mother,
How are you and Father? I hope the Ministry has been mostly leaving you alone. I've gotten a lot done over the past week- Snape owled me to say my research was excellent, but that I had to send him a supplement to it as well. It turned out to be rather interesting.
Father might like to know I'm learning pretty useful magic, even with Aunt Bella teaching me. She's really quite brilliant, when she's not acting insane exasperated. And I'm doing Wolfsbane next, with Snape. If anything needs discipline, that potion does.
Mother, d'you remember the book Moody sent you for me? Could I have it, please? It occurs to me that I'm actually curious.
Yours,
Draco.
Owl to Severus Snape (note and scroll)
Professor,
I thought I was careful in that letter. Wasn't I? I'd been working for hours with Aunt Bella, so perhaps I was more careless than I intended to be.
Here's the required addition. I enjoyed doing it, so it's a bit more than six inches. I didn't think you'd care to have me discuss ethical implications of anything. Aren't ethics in magic for the weak?
About Lucius Verinius, I asked because you've used the Killing Curse. More than once, right? Do you know how other Dark Magic comes more easily and . . . more eagerly, afterward? Does that ease keep increasing? Is that why Aunt Bella, and the Carrows, and the Da and others are the way they are- a bit . . . intense in their use of the Arts? How are you not Or does one thing have nothing to do with the other? Can you keep using more and more Dark Magic, and control your mind so it doesn't begin to crave that- crave Darkness?
Don't get me wrong! I'm not saying I mind using the Dark Arts at all. I honestly find them fascinating. It's just that . . . I'd like to know exactly what I'm doing.
I know you wouldn't speak with Aunt Bella about this, but I'd rather you didn't tell Father about my asking you such questions either. He'll either will worry or be disappointed, and I'm never sure which is worse.
Draco Malfoy.
-----
For a relatively harmless potion with few Dark inclinations, a great deal has been written about the ethics of using the Felix Felicis. Most advocates for the potion agree that the majority of virulent attacks on the potion are simply the native self-righteousness of a population that would use the Lucky Potion everyday if they could, and must needs stop the few with the ability or the resources to brew or obtain it, since they themselves cannot. While there is undoubtedly some truth to this assertion, the fact that the ingredients of the Felix Felicis include items on various lists of Non-Tradables as well as the Ministry of Magic's list of Questionable Potions Ingredients (1853) does place the potion on the spot as ambiguous.
We can also not afford to forget that Nicholas Flamel did in fact warn users of his creation's potentially malicious nature. Of course, according to those in favour of the lifting of Ministry controls on the use of the Felix Felicis, the easiest explanation for this lack of parental pride is that Flamel was as jealous of his potion as he was of the wonted Philosopher's Stone. The validity of this theory is only strengthened by rumours that the brilliant inventor and his wife died in 1993 after allowing their precious Stone to be destroyed instead of living in a continued, mistrustful fear of theft.
However, the assertion that a potion may be dangerous to the consumer is generally not regarded as reason enough to legislatively stop its consumption, especially if it is not an unequivocal poison. A potioneer is regarded by most laws to be responsible for his own safety. Use of the Felix Felicis is regulated mostly because it severely biases any and all arenas around the consumer, directly or indirectly. Even in the most innocent circumstances, the potion ruthlessly lends its consumer an 'unfair' advantage, literally mindless of the physical, mental or other harm this eventuates in those around him. While the harm is not always a direct consequence of the suddenly spectacular luck of one person, it is related often enough and just intimately enough that the Ministry sees fit to curb and monitor its consumption.
To any thinking mind, of course, this is a very harebrained sort of logic. The Ministry might as well check wealth, or magical ability, or intelligence, or blood purity. Life is necessarily an unequal playing field, and to deny enterprising solutions is, taken only slightly further, to deny progress. As far as the Ministry's objections regarding the quasi-Dark ingredients are concerned, most modern thinkers and reformists accede that the Dark Arts are as relevant and in some cases more efficient magic, as well as often more power-rich and complex, than non-Dark Magic. As long as this view is not yet widely accepted and arguably of debatable legitimacy, however, the implications of the Ministry's hesitancy on the count of the free use of the Felix Felicis cannot even be truly and completely discussed, let alone challenged.
-----
What: Owls, research, and risks
Where: 13, Great Pulteney Street
When: 7 September, around one to nine in the morning
Status: Complete
Owl to Pansy Parkinson
Pansy,
Smith is an idiot. But it sounds like you're having a good time being Head Girl. Macmillan from Hufflepuff is Head Boy? They really were scraping the cauldron bottom this year, weren't they?
No insult intended, of course.
I'm going to come 'round to Hogsmeade for the festival. Meet me there? I'm dying for gossip from you. Just don't wear pink, and especially not that shimmery kind of thing you have. Madam Puddifoot might expire from jealousy.
Draco.
PS: How's Greengrass doing?
Owl to Narcissa Malfoy
Dear Mother,
How are you and Father? I hope the Ministry has been mostly leaving you alone. I've gotten a lot done over the past week- Snape owled me to say my research was excellent, but that I had to send him a supplement to it as well. It turned out to be rather interesting.
Father might like to know I'm learning pretty useful magic, even with Aunt Bella teaching me. She's really quite brilliant, when she's not acting insane exasperated. And I'm doing Wolfsbane next, with Snape. If anything needs discipline, that potion does.
Mother, d'you remember the book Moody sent you for me? Could I have it, please? It occurs to me that I'm actually curious.
Yours,
Draco.
Owl to Severus Snape (note and scroll)
Professor,
I thought I was careful in that letter. Wasn't I? I'd been working for hours with Aunt Bella, so perhaps I was more careless than I intended to be.
Here's the required addition. I enjoyed doing it, so it's a bit more than six inches. I didn't think you'd care to have me discuss ethical implications of anything. Aren't ethics in magic for the weak?
About Lucius Verinius, I asked because you've used the Killing Curse. More than once, right? Do you know how other Dark Magic comes more easily and . . . more eagerly, afterward? Does that ease keep increasing? Is that why Aunt Bella, and the Carrows, and the Da and others are the way they are- a bit . . . intense in their use of the Arts? How are you not Or does one thing have nothing to do with the other? Can you keep using more and more Dark Magic, and control your mind so it doesn't begin to crave that- crave Darkness?
Don't get me wrong! I'm not saying I mind using the Dark Arts at all. I honestly find them fascinating. It's just that . . . I'd like to know exactly what I'm doing.
I know you wouldn't speak with Aunt Bella about this, but I'd rather you didn't tell Father about my asking you such questions either. He'll either will worry or be disappointed, and I'm never sure which is worse.
Draco Malfoy.
-----
For a relatively harmless potion with few Dark inclinations, a great deal has been written about the ethics of using the Felix Felicis. Most advocates for the potion agree that the majority of virulent attacks on the potion are simply the native self-righteousness of a population that would use the Lucky Potion everyday if they could, and must needs stop the few with the ability or the resources to brew or obtain it, since they themselves cannot. While there is undoubtedly some truth to this assertion, the fact that the ingredients of the Felix Felicis include items on various lists of Non-Tradables as well as the Ministry of Magic's list of Questionable Potions Ingredients (1853) does place the potion on the spot as ambiguous.
We can also not afford to forget that Nicholas Flamel did in fact warn users of his creation's potentially malicious nature. Of course, according to those in favour of the lifting of Ministry controls on the use of the Felix Felicis, the easiest explanation for this lack of parental pride is that Flamel was as jealous of his potion as he was of the wonted Philosopher's Stone. The validity of this theory is only strengthened by rumours that the brilliant inventor and his wife died in 1993 after allowing their precious Stone to be destroyed instead of living in a continued, mistrustful fear of theft.
However, the assertion that a potion may be dangerous to the consumer is generally not regarded as reason enough to legislatively stop its consumption, especially if it is not an unequivocal poison. A potioneer is regarded by most laws to be responsible for his own safety. Use of the Felix Felicis is regulated mostly because it severely biases any and all arenas around the consumer, directly or indirectly. Even in the most innocent circumstances, the potion ruthlessly lends its consumer an 'unfair' advantage, literally mindless of the physical, mental or other harm this eventuates in those around him. While the harm is not always a direct consequence of the suddenly spectacular luck of one person, it is related often enough and just intimately enough that the Ministry sees fit to curb and monitor its consumption.
To any thinking mind, of course, this is a very harebrained sort of logic. The Ministry might as well check wealth, or magical ability, or intelligence, or blood purity. Life is necessarily an unequal playing field, and to deny enterprising solutions is, taken only slightly further, to deny progress. As far as the Ministry's objections regarding the quasi-Dark ingredients are concerned, most modern thinkers and reformists accede that the Dark Arts are as relevant and in some cases more efficient magic, as well as often more power-rich and complex, than non-Dark Magic. As long as this view is not yet widely accepted and arguably of debatable legitimacy, however, the implications of the Ministry's hesitancy on the count of the free use of the Felix Felicis cannot even be truly and completely discussed, let alone challenged.
-----