First Years, Lesson Two

[Professor Gabrielle Moncrieffe]

Gabrielle was generally a little more lenient to first years taking their time to get seated, but she didn't want to encourage bad habits. "Alright, you've had your time to ease into it, and now the real work begins. So take your seats and get your note taking materials out, please," she said, taking a long sip of water before getting started on her lecture. "Now, some of the most famous witches and wizards of history come from the medieval period, also known as the Middle Ages, being the time period from around the 5th Century to the 15th Century. Many of you will be familiar with the most well known wizard of that time, at least from Europe," she clarified, mindful that there was a large contingent of Japanese students who would perhaps know more of Abe no Seimei. "Who would that be?" she looked around, giving a nod when one of the students gave the answer of Merlin. "Correct, thank you."

"I suspect even if you are from a non magical background, you may well have a passing awareness of Merlin, of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Merlin worked for King Arthur, and for his father, King Uther Pendragon before him. Merlin was especially wise, and given that throughout history royal succession has always been perfectly smooth," Gabrielle's voice dripped with sarcasm at this point, "it was considered in the best interests of the young Arthur to be placed up for adoption, to be fostered and raised in secret until such time as he was old enough to claim his royal lineage - and strong enough to defend himself should that be challenged. At least, that is one telling of the tale." A lot of these tales got changed over time, or had different interpretations, but Gabrielle would not bog her students down with that just yet.

"I dare say many of you will know the tale of the sword in the stone. Now Merlin, powerful wizard that he was, added another protection to Arthur's birth right as king. When Uther Pendragon died, there was no clear successor as Arthur was still not yet ready take the crown. So Merlin enchanted a sword in a large stone, with an inscription stating that whoever pulled the sword out would be king. Many attempted, but were not able to do so. Arthur eventually pulled it free, and the rest, as they say, is history." Gabrielle raised her eyebrows at her own lame joke, pausing to take a few breaths and let her students catch up. "This sword is often called 'Excalibur', by the way, but it's also argued that Excalibur was given to Arthur later, by the mysterious Lady of the Lake. Different swords? Same swords? Something you can look into. I suspect the mermaids in our lake don't hand out swords so freely, but you are more than welcome to ask them."

"Merlin was not the only magician that was involved in the story of King Arthur. While we will mostly be talking about her next year, please make a note of Morgan Le Fey, who was a powerful witch and most commonly known as Arthur's half sister. This may be something to recall for your exam, hint hint," she added, giving a look over the students. She'd waved her wand as she was talking, putting a few dot points to recall from her lecture that would help the students with notetaking, but she'd hoped they'd been listening more than just copying down what was on the board.

"Now, one last thing before we wrap up for the day. I mentioned at the start of the lesson that a majority of witches and wizards we have awareness of come from that medieval period in history. Some of you might be wondering why that is. Well, it's important to note that many records of people such as Merlin come from muggles - perhaps primarily romanticised versions of the story, but muggle records nonetheless. You should all, I hope, know about the International Statute of Secrecy, the laws that hide the magical from the non-magical. This was passed in to law in 1692. I would be a fool to say that that is the only cause of the reduction of records of notable wizards and witches...but it is easy enough to think that it played a major role, yes?" She knew she was pushing for time, but at least wanted to give the students a little more context. "And why do we have the Statute of Secrecy? Well, we'll go in to that in some of your upcoming classes."

The class time was up, and Gabrielle shifted on the spot, not realizing her legs had gone a bit numb. "Well done, you've survived your first big history lecture. So, for homework," she paused to have the homework come up on the board, shaking her head at the inevitable groans. "What, you didn't think you weren't going to have to work, did you? For homework, I would like you to write me a short essay on King Arthur, Merlin...or if you want to be really clever, anything you can relate back to Arthurian legend. You could talk about the Holy Grail, or the type of dresses Queen Guinevere wore, if fashion is your thing. I promise, there's so much there to work with and so many fascinating stories from that time you could have a look into. This is an opportunity for you to practice using the library, which you'll thank me for later I'm sure. If you're having trouble, please come and see me, I don't want anyone falling behind this early." With that, Gabrielle opened the classroom doors once again and let the students go with a small smile and nod.

Homework
RP the lesson. First poster to answer the question gets bonus house points. Complete the homework assignment for extra credit. Does not need to be long, one or two paragraphs is fine, please list your sources!

 

[Finley Mackintosh Baros]

Walking into History of Magic was always one of those times when Finley wished he could be late - but that would have meant that he would have had to wait outside and since he was already here it seemed prudent to go inside. He didn’t mind History, it had been one of the classes his dad hadn’t been overly fond of until the end, but he’d always paid attention anyway. This lesson was about King Arthur and he, like any young wizard, had read the fantasy books about his life - he hoped this class would tell him a little about how much of that was fact and how much of that was fiction. When Professor Moncrieffe asked who the most well-known medieval wizard was, Finley quickly raised his hand and answered, “Merlin!” He felt a small rush of pride when she nodded in confirmation. He underlined Morgan Le Fey a couple of times, just to make sure he knew to keep an eye on that for the exams, because she seemed like she would probably be mentioned. Once class was over and the students started packing up, Finley headed out, pointing out to a classmate that writing the essay today was pointless, they would need to find the right books first.​

 

[Miles Flynn]

The first lesson was pretty boring, all things considered, and Miles wasn't really holding out for much. As he settled down in his seat, his mood instantly soured as they were told to take out their writing supplies. So, a boring lesson it was going to be, he supposed. Huffing as he settled back in his seat, Miles spent most of the lesson simply pretending to be listening along and taking notes on everything. In reality, he was barely paying attention to any of the information they were all being bombarded with. While not the best solution given he was sure some of this was likely going to be on the exam at the end of the semester, he was sure it would be fine. And, as the lesson ended, they were given even more bad news as there was homework they were supposed to do as well. Miles simply groaned, reluctantly jotting the homework down on a spare piece of parchment he would likely just lose later before finally gathering his things together and leaving the classroom.

 

[Aaron Dela Cruz]

For someone who wasn’t as studious with this whole magic thing, actually History of Magic wasn’t that bad. It was easy when it was just names and dates and places, because he was used to learning about names and dates and places of people, times and things he didn’t know about back home. Well, some of them he knew because who didn’t know who Jose Rizal was? And if you didn’t you had probably never set foot in the Philippines, but that was not his problem. History wasn’t exactly his favorite subject, but at least Professor Moncrieffe had a way of keeping things somewhat interesting. The tale of King Arthur was something in a book he’d read once, or probably a movie or something, but he’d never paid much attention to Western Literature since his Dad liked to keep things a little bit more traditional, at least in terms of what Aaron knew at his age. The discussion on the secret of wizards was alittle more interesting, most because as someone who wanted to learn how to make a radio in this place, it seemed like something he might need to know about. It made sense that wizarding records dropped off after the law was put in place, but it made him wonder—how much history had been lost because of it? He’d heard about the written word and records sometimes being deleted from public knowledge, he was sure Governments did it all the time, but that was more his mother’s influence and she’d grown up in a country frequently at war. The thoughts continued on until the class was over and then the professor mentioned homework and Aaron died a little inside. He hated homework and he didn’t have Jenny around anymore to get on top of him about it. She’d been good at that, threatening him if he didn’t finish it. No one here threatened him - it was hard to take any of them seriously if he didn’t fear for his life.​

 

[Christa Langley]

History of Magic was a cool class, because she could seperate a bit of fact from the fiction she’d read when she was younger. She used to have this book of bedtime stories that had little introductory stories of King Arthur and Merlin and Mermaids and Unicorns and all that really cool stuff, but she was now learning that some of it was actually real, and just thought to be a fairytale because it was Muggles who didn’t believe it. Well she didn’t very much like the term muggles, but she wasn’t going to be able to do much about it. She scribbled as much notes as she could, trying to catch everthing the professor was saying, she hoped that being thorough would mean that Sabrina would have a better time of everything too. She could just look over everything that Christa was saying about these classes and she’d just get it a lot quicker than Christa did, at least that was what she hoped anyway. It was still weird to hear Merlin’s name talked about so well. The same way that they might have talked about Queen Elizabeth, or Thunderbolt, like real figures in history. Actual people. THat was strange and she wasn’t sure she’d ever get used to that. It made sense that magical people had a whole history she had to learn, but how was she supposed to learn it all in seven years? That seemed impossible.​

 

[Mania Athanasiou]

Mania returned to History of Magic with an open mind. It hadn't been the most boring lesson and the Professor had been nice so there was nothing to dislike about it, yet at least. As she took a seat and the lesson began however she found it to be incredibly daunting to sit and listen to such long lecture, obviously it'd be important things to know but seriously just sitting there listening was quite boring. Nia was actively either bouncing her leg up and down, twisting her hair around her finger or adjusting her glasses and checking the time. She didn't want to seem bored, she wasn't exactly bored the information given was interesting enough but she just needed something else to do while listening. As the lesson came to an end the Gryffindor gave a big sigh of relief, finally feeling it appropriate to get up and properly move. She had attempted at taking notes but well had given up halfway through, next lesson maybe? Giving a quick smile to the Professor Mania left the room behind skipping rather than just casually walking, to let out some of that pent up energy.

 

[Julian Nightray]

Julian sat quietly in his seat, struggling to pay attention to Professor Moncrieffe. History hadn't really been one to strike up his fancy. It's never been particularly useful in his opinion, like sure he got the part where those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it, but he didn't think it needed this much attention. And this lecture was getting particularly too long for his tastes that he didn't even bothered to take down notes. Maybe he'll read up later. Maybe. The closest to interesting was the mention of the Statute of Secrecy but even that wasn't enough to get him to focus on the lesson. Packing up his things, he gave one last glance at the board before exiting the classroom. Maybe he should try to see if he could hang about the Greenhouse.​