[HoM] Term V: Lesson I

[Prof. Victoria Potter]

History wasn't a popular class in the wizarding or muggle world. Vicky hated that because it could be fascinating to her at least. Sometimes she had to admit she thought of quitting, letting someone else try to motivate these students to learn about magical pasts. She had even typed out her resignation letter once but then her mother's voice rang out inside her head saying "quitters never win and winners never quit Victoria Potter so you just stop that right now."

That was why she was in the room now. Even if only one student showed she would teach him or her. So now she was at the chalkboard a yellow piece held in hand. She enjoyed the old fashioned way of doing things though she knew there were easer ways to go about it.

Today's Lesson: The Salem Witch Trials

Staring at the board a while she had to admit she was surprised she hadn't thought of this before. If there was anything in the history of the wizarding world that was worth looking into it was the with trials. It explained so much of the way wizards of today had to live their lives, hiding their existence from muggles. Pleased with her lesson for the day she hoped she would get the students in their seats so she could teach it.

[Ellie Rook]

Tired? Ellie was. Hungry? Ellie was. Going to be bored out of her mind? Ellie was. All these things added up to Ellie's distress in having to sit through a whole History of Magic lesson. She seriously had thought of a few good ways that she could get out of class, one of them involved poisoning herself. Not seriously poisoning of course, but mildly poisoning herself.

The fifth year was starting to hate the work load she had. She had taken way to many lessons, only giving herself one free period a day. She knew that most fifth years were just as weighed down as she was, if not more. However, Ellie felt like she was drowning, which did not add to her good mood as she walked to History of Magic. Drowning in school work? Ellie was.

Ellie walked into the familiarly boring classroom and sighed. Yet again she was right on time if not early. She would have to remember to set her watch back a couple minutes so she would show up late to class like a normal teenager. However, it was not to be.

She walked in, reading the chalkboard as usual. Ellie smirked a bit. It wasn't a topic she was totally oblivious of. She kind of knew what she was talking about. It might not be a horrible bore or a class.

"Morning Professor Potter." Ellie said, putting on a smile as she did so. She just liked saying Professor Potter. It kind of rolls off your tongue in a fun way. Professor Potter. Professor Potter. Professor Potter. Ellie smiled. Crazy? Ellie was...is.

[Prof. Victoria Potter]

Ellie Rook walked in first Vicky smiled watching her. She kind of reminded Vicky of herself a bit. She was pretty outgoing from what the other professors had to say about her, and she was quite smart usually the first to come up with the answer to a question. Sometimes Vicky wondered why she hadn't been in Gryffindor or Ravenclaw. The sorting hat often made its own decisions and she wondered how it knew what it was doing. In her day those in Hufflepuff took a brunt of the abuse from several of the other houses, a lot used to embarrassed by being accepted into the house.

This day and age things were a bit different -not much but a bit-. Ellie wore it like a badge of pride. Vicky admired her that because house pride well it was quite important Puff's now a days seemed to have it in spades.

"Hello Ellie, how's your day been so far?" she asked curious wondering if she was having a good day or a bad day. Plus she wanted her students to feel comfortable talking to her, that was important.

[Ellie Rook]

Ellie sat at her desk, twiddling her thumbs as she waited for the Professor to ask her greeting. Considering there was no one else in the room, Ellie expected the greeting right away, unless Professor Potter was ignoring her, which Ellie wouldn't mind at the moment. Her thumbs were keeping her occupied.

Ellie smirked and thought about her day. "Its ok." Ellie said with a smile. "Lot of homework, I don't think I can handle much more." Hint Hint, Ellie thought as she smiled sweetly at the young Professor.

Ellie like Professor Potter. Hogwarts had a lot of younger teachers, but Ellie thought she might be the youngest. Ellie could relate to her easier then she could relate to Professor Hubbles, even though he held a special place in her heart as head of Hufflepuff.

"So, expecting any students today?" Ellie said, after waiting a good five minutes. No one had shown up. "Am I really early or something, cause I can go get a coffee and come back..." Ellie said.

[Professor Ashton Laurent]

Ash yawned slightly as he stepped in the door, as much as he said otherwise, he actually did like History, especially went it had something to do with--he looked at the board-- ooh, Salem Witch Trials. This should be an interesting class! He smiled at the two occupants, "Morning professor, morning Ellie." He said, covering up a yawn, "Sorry." he said with an apologetic smile.


Ash sat down to wait for the other students, he wondered if Cris would show. No doubt he would seeing as the boy loved history! To be truthful, Ash liked history as well, but he was more into Muggle history, he'd always known that if he didn't want to run a shop, he wanted to go to an American Muggle college, College of William and Mary, located in Virginia maybe, and pursue a degree in Anthropology, study of human culture. Maybe he'd even become an Archeologist, and travel to Greece, Italy, the South Americas, and even Egypt and do some excavations! Exciting life, no?

Drifting off into a daydream, he sat lost in thoughts as more and more students filed into the room, he barely took notice of the eyerolls, groans, mumbles and muttered complaints. If they hated history so much, why were they here? In Ash's opinion, you should only take a class if you know you're going to like it. Then again, he was contradicting himself, after all, look at Potions. The boy hated Potions! Yet, he was still in there. Of course that was probably because he had no say in the matter... Merlin, this school really irked him sometimes!

[Prof. Victoria Potter]

Ellie's comment about having lot's of homework didn't go over her head and she laughed at the girl's clever hint. Vicky wasn't sure she would be giving out any homework this lesson seeing as so far Ellie was the only one in the class. Plus she only liked to give homework if she thought the students needed more help understanding something or if they forgot how to behave at all. "Well that's horrible all that homework I'm surprised professors don't understand how hard it is for all of you." Winking she moved back to her desk and took her mug with coffee in it to sip.

Ellie asked if she could leave to go get some coffee, which Vicky didn't think was a good idea but since no one else had arrived yet. "Yeah sure go ahead just hurry back ok and try not to let one of the other professors see you."

Ashton walked in looking tired. What was going on with everyone lately all the students looked absolutely exhausted, maybe some of the other professors were over working them. "Hey there Ashton looking tired there." She thought he could use some coffee too but didn't want to make Ellie feel like she was some sort of barista having to get everyone's coffee for them.

Vicky was waiting for some more kids to arrive, this time she had a lesson that she was really proud of. Salem Witch Trials were a very important part of wizarding history. Leaning once more against the desk she waited.

[Julianna Farraday]

"Man you have no idea Holyhead Harpies are the best team out there you know nothing..." Laughter filled the air as Julianna hung around with some of her friends talking Quidditch something she recently got into due to a certain boy. Picking up her arms to stretch saw the watch on her wrist and turned it over and looked at it. "Oops gotta go time for class, I'll see you all later" waving goodbye she walked to the room where class was held.

This class by far not her favorite. Professor Potter was alright it was just learning about history was completely boring. It was an easy course though if you wanted a good grade. Since she knew that she probably wasn't going to get one in divinations she had to put some effort into this class. So in she went and a seat she took.

Somewhere in the back of the room not really looking up at anyone. It might be a good idea to know what they were going to be learning about so she happened to look up huh interesting she thought, it might not be so bad. That would even make her want to take out her quill and parchment. Might be worth taking some notes or something.

[Professor Ashton Laurent]

Ash had drifted off into a daydream about being back in France, and was probably staring blankly into space. Just in time he heard Professor Potter speaking and jumped slightly in surprise, "Hmm? Oh! Sorry professor...I wasn't paying attention." he said blushing slightly. He went back over her words in his brain till he could make sense of them, and smiled slightly. "I'm alright, just a little tired." he replied. Who was the boy kidding? He was damn exhausted! Stupid, useless potions essay keeping him up!

He yawned slightly once again, "So, I've studied the muggle version of the Salem Witch Trials, but what is the wizard version of it like?" he asked curiously. He'd always thought it was interesting how muggles and wizards often shared history, but oftentimes, did not know it!

[Alexis Heart]

The librarian looked at her with her hooked nose Alexis could practically feel the woman breathing down her neck all of that did not make for the ideal studying environment. Snapping at people was not something she enjoyed doing but she was not opposed to it when the situation warranted and now it did. "What the bloody heck is wrong with you?" The answer she received made her feel a bit silly. The woman had been trying to get her attention to inform her that she needed to get to class.

Typical Ravenclaw always had her head in a book, she bolted out of there heading to class. Stopping short she realized that she had no idea what class she had that day. She had so many and she just wasn't sure. Digging in her bag she went after her class schedule. It was history of magic.

Popping her head in she saw that there weren't too many people there yet which was cool with her. Ashton another Claw was there along with a Gryffindor she thought might be named Julia something or other. Heading straight for Ash Alexis plopped her butt in the seat "hey you what's up?" she glanced at the board "ooh cool topic."

[Professor Ashton Laurent]

Ash looked up as a familiar voice sounded by his head, "Hey Alexis, not much. You?" He heard her comment about the topic and smiled, "Yeah, it is. Salem Witch Trials. I've studied them from the Muggle point of view, so I was just asking Professor Potter, how is the wizard point of view different?"

[Prof. Victoria Potter]

Victoria smiled as more students entered. It was nice to see since her last few lessons well she'd just say she wasn't beating students off with a stick. As long as she had more than two she was happy. Ashton asked her a very good question, this is why she loved teaching a child's inquisitive nature. Adults weren't as astute or as thirsty for knowledge.

"Well muggles didn't set much store by actually looking for evidence. Most of the time they were more lured by rumor and innuendo. Many of those accused weren't even witches or wizards. Imagine for yourself being an actual witch or wizard in that time. They lived in fear of being found were forced to stop using their powers openly. It was like a lock down on everything they knew. There was no one to trust, because everyone was fearful of being found out. Many isolated themselves, the families with children were the most at risk since its hard for a child to hide their abilities especially when they're too young to control them. Wizards remember that time as a time to live in fear."

Yes, this was a darn good topic to learn about.

[Professor Ashton Laurent]

Ash nodded, although he still didn't really understand. "Well, why couldn't they just use their magic to stop the trials? I mean, what where the muggles going to do? Sure they had power of the ones that weren't really witches and wizards, but what about the ones that were? Surely, they could have overpowered the muggles." Of course, Ash remembered that maybe the reason why they didn't was because they didn't want people to know... but still....

[evasiiren]

Her first day, and the Finnish girl was already beginning to think she was late to supervise the History of Magic class along with Victoria. Looking at the hand drawn map on a napkin, she scrunched her nose up slightly in confusion before giving a small huff in panic. The route to the classroom she needed was scrawled hard in blue ink deep into the napkin, so much infact that it had ripped it slightly. Bringing it closer to her face, as if it would help, she dragged her finger along it where the path was drawn and looked up in advance to see where she was going.

Taking a few steps and a few corridors later, she had arrived. Pushing open the door, she peered her head round before entering fully. Smiling at the few faces who turned to look at her, she clutched her notebook in her arms and made her way to the front of the class, seeing the professor at the front.
"Miss Potter? I'm Eva Siiren, your new apprentice" she smiled, holding out a hand in greeting.

[Prof. Victoria Potter]

"Another good question, one I can only speculate on since I wasn't there and there's not much written on the wizarding perspective. Basically what it all boils down to is fear. They were scared for themselves and scared for their lives. Yes they could have overpowered the muggles with their powers but A, that would make them no better, and B they would be revealing themselves to others. Wizards of the past wanted to remain innocuous they wanted to live among muggles in secret, surely trying to use a mass memory charm on half of Salem would have revealed them for what they truly were. As I said I'm only speculating on this matter."

Before she could say much else the door opened once again and this time a woman only a few years younger than her entered. Vicky didn't recognize her as a staff member so she stood arms crossed over her chest watching the woman walk in and walk straight to her. Vicky was introduced to her new apprentice unfolding her arms she held out her hand in a friendly gesture. "Oh yes Miss Siiren it's nice to meet you. I was told you'd be coming sometime this week. Ok class please give me your attention. I'd like to introduce Miss Eva Siiren. She's going to be my apprentice or helper if you will, with my class. Please show her the same respect you'd show to me or any other professor. If you'd like to say a few words Eva."

Vicky moved back to her desk leaning against it wondering where Ellie was...

[Sarie Thimble]

Sarie tripped down the stairs. Just what is needed she was already late of History of Magic. Why was she so... well her. She gather her fallen books and starting running and crashing into the door.

Dang I was quieter in charms. Which was saying some thing she had blown her desk and her chair in the that class. "Sorry I'm late Professor." She muttered when she sat down.