The Face of HOL
Meet your fellow HOLers through this amazing column where each installment will bring you a new exciting interview with someone from our community. Whether you know them well or not, we are sure there will be something here you did not already know.
Prof. Will LestrangeBy Silvana Mandeville
Silvana: HOLers! We meet again after a few months. This time I am back and not alone, with me here is Slytherin’s Head of House. Let's welcome Prof. Will Lestrange.
Hello, Will! It's nice to see you again and how are you today? Will: It's been a *rough* week in so many ways (from health issues to weather) but I'm so relieved to have made it through and prepare for a busy but exciting and relaxing weekend! Silvana: Hope you are doing better in the future. Anyway, I’m curious about how you found HOL? Will: Having recently lost my previous Quidditch fix, Laurie Lovegood (of Gryffindor) told me tales of this place: a speed-based Quidditch format that played to my strengths, a Snitch game that involved logic puzzles, and a Slytherin team about one good player away from a Quidditch cup. In those days, you had to wait until two weeks before the start of term to enrol - which meant August 18, 2013. An hour after midnight I visited HOL, got Sorted into Slytherin, passed the entrance quiz, and I was in! While it was easy enough to make it through orientation, get into some classes and get onto the Quidditch team, being in my late twenties with a PhD made it hard to be in a "first-year student" mindset for HOL. My solution: to create the "Will Lestrange" persona - that was essentially an idealised younger version of myself. I could 'attend' HOL as this persona and allow him to age and mature in real time. The only thing left was to pick a birthdate that made me the 'right' age: what would be cooler than my half-birthday, 11.11.01? Silvana: Ah, a long story indeed. As a student before and now a Professor, what things did/do you often do in your free time? Will: I would say I definitely love puzzles (especially logic puzzles), Quidditch, and competitive games. If you've visited the Arcade Club in the Dungeons at any point in the past five years, you might discover you share my passion for Muggle video games! Silvana: Everyone has a role model, who is your role model and why? Will: I wouldn't say I have just one role model: there are too many great people who came before me whose experiences have flavoured my own! From a Slytherin perspective, four names come to mind. My immediate predecessors as leaders of Slytherin House were Prof. Cody Lewis, Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis, and Prof. Amy Lupin. All have taught amazing classes here at the school (does anyone remember Gobbledegook?) and built an amazing legacy in the Dungeons that I am proud to continue. But my inspiration as a Quidditch captain goes way further back: although I never played alongside her (except in the summer of 2018), the notes on the Dungeons walls left by Faye Roderick have exemplified the ideal of what a captain and leader really should be. Silvana: Quidditch sounds interesting, but uh … I can't even play. *laughs* What about classes? I'm curious about your favorite! Will: I really want to say one of my own here! But that would be cheating - and to be honest it's hard to choose a favourite. But in my second year I got to take a class under Prof. Zenix James called When Muggles and Magic Collide. It addressed issues that are usually brushed under the rug in a very captivating way. Further, the assignments were a nice blend of straightforward, quick prompts, fun puzzles, and writing tasks that made us think without being way too long. I even got to make some predictions about interactions between the Muggle and magical world that have held up eight years later! Silvana: Oh, I didn’t get to meet Prof. Zenix James. Anyway, seven years studying at HOL definitely involves a lot of experiences that can be shared. What were your ups and downs? Will: I'd say the truest 'down' was in my second year, when Slytherin House seemed to be stagnating. While we were defending Quidditch champions, the house as a whole seemed to be less active and there didn't seem to be a way to really move the house forward. But at the end of that year, we got new leadership: Prof. Cody Lewis became a Head of House, joined by Prof. Scarlet Leslie-Lewis from Ravenclaw (and Amy Lupin, who had just graduated, would also join Slytherin staff)... and pretty much immediately thereafter I was made a Prefect. This vote of confidence from the 'new' Slytherin leadership (note these are the exact same three people I mentioned two questions ago as role models) lit a fire under me and motivated me further! And that's not getting into everything that happened on the Quidditch pitch... but... that's for a later question? Silvana: Yes! I have another question about Quidditch! Given that you graduated a few years ago and became a Professor, was being a Professor one of your goals? Are there any other goals from your school years that have now been achieved? Will: My goals when I started out at this school were as follows: -Become a dominant Quidditch player and lead SQT to a Quidditch Cup (I was thinking 'as a Seeker' since it was a lot easier to win Snitch matches than memorise the entire corpus of Quidditch questions) -Rise through the ranks of Slytherin and become the Head of House -Become a positive influence on what exactly it means to be a Slytherin so that people think of my values, not Lord Voldemort's, when they think of that house. And I think all three have been achieved! Silvana: Best wishes for you and Slytherin! Now tell us some Fun facts about yourself, please? Will: I am a born Parselmouth who speaks Parseltongue as fluently as English. My Animagus form is a killer whale named Willy, and my Patronus is a green anaconda (anakonda in Parseltongue) named Anne (or An in Parseltongue). The Muggle whose physical appearance most strongly resembles my own is the model Max Silberman (who sadly passed away at the age of twenty-five). Silvana: In July 2021, you were appointed as Deputy HOH and then, in September, as HOH for Slytherin House, how do you feel about this? Will: As mentioned before, being Head of House was one of my goals - though when I was a Prefect there were always other Prefects who seemed like they took to the more intricate parts of their Prefect duties more naturally than me. I was particularly impressed by former Head Students Maxwell Shadow and Arianna Stonewater, for example. But as time moved on and I kept on moving through the ranks, it started to make sense that I would have a shot at succeeding Cody, Scarlet, and Amy atop Slytherin House once I actually graduated (especially since so few other Slytherins were graduating from HOL these days). Of course, to lead a House you need more than just a Quidditch broom... so, as I got towards my sixth and seventh year I made sure to pay attention to the other parts of leadership - both HOL-wide and in the dungeons, learning from those around me. Once I graduated and became a professor, Scarlet was the only other professor in the house, so I made sure to work more closely with her and learn the tricks of the trade as best I could. Getting a vote of confidence from her to be able to take on more responsibility in the Dungeons made me feel like I was definitely going in the right direction! And getting those two promotions: first to Deputy Head of House (while Scarlet still served as Head) and then to Head of House shortly after Scarlet stepped down - made me feel like I had done well (and of course now had big shoes to fill!) Of course, there were always a few hiccups along the way: in the beginning and end of my first year as Head of House I was sick enough to feel awful, for example. But we were able to make our way through and persevere! Silvana: It seems you’ve always enjoyed Quidditch, through your school years and up to now. This term we also have a new class on Quidditch written by you. There are those that say that you own the fastest broom here at HOL. I wonder what made you like Quidditch so much? Any interesting memories of being a quidditch player or captain you want to share with us? Also, do you have any tips you'd like to share with the newbies? Will: I am one of a handful of HOLers who have chosen the Thunderbolt VII - a broom known primarily for speed (some would say 'at the cost of everything else') as my primary broom, and it is not uncommon for me to be clocked past 130 or even 140 mph on that broom. What drew me to Quidditch was its fast pace and the way that I could use my reaction time on that broom to succeed (especially once I learned enough finesse over my first few years that I was no longer crashing my broom into walls and trees). But to be honest, my first love was, and is, Snitchplay because of the interplay of how all the elements work: from the standard broom maneuvering of the Quaffle side, to the logical puzzle needed to find the Snitch, to the way we need to fluently switch between so many tasks at once! I could probably fill multiple editions of the HOwLer with personal Quidditch memories alone, but I'll just choose two. -In the finals of the 2015 Summer Snitch tournament, I had to go up against Matilde Rayne. I had faced her twice before and gone 1-1, with both matches incredibly close (in fact, the first of those matches was in the finals of the 2014 Summer Snitch tournament, where she had handed me my only loss by two squares). I remember flying around the pitch, feeling like I was making so many mistakes and falling behind. I was flailing around thinking "I'll never get this, I'll never get this"... knowing she had the clues before I did. But then I got the final clue and everything fell into place right away - I was thinking "I'm sure she solved and is right there", and then... the Snitch was revealed and I was two squares closer to it than she was! Sure enough, I found my way to the Snitch and claimed the 2015 trophy. -When Darcey Goode and I were made SQT captains in December 2016, the first *real* test of our captaincy was the next month: while we had edged out Hufflepuff with only a three person team, we needed to see how well we could do against Ravenclaw in January. The week before the match, I scheduled a special practice designed to simulate what a strong opposing team could do. The intention was to treat this practice like an actual game to practice teamwork and make it apparent that SQT was still a force to be reckoned with even in light of the changing of the guard. The entire team showed up that day and demonstrated that we were indeed the team we had always hoped we were; from there, it was no surprise that the season would have ended up successful! Silvana: Lastly! What messages would you like to send to all HOLers. Will: There are so many reasons this place has stood the test of time for over two decades! Look around and find things that you like, but don't be afraid to step outside of your comfort zone! You may discover new favourite things, talents, or friends... and I hope you enjoy your time here! Silvana: Wow, that's a nice interview. HOLers, do remember Prof. Will’s message, ok? Have fun during the holidays and ‘till we meet again in the next issue. See you all. Have a nice day! |