"Witch Burnings, Part 1" History of Magic Class, (OWL and NEWT levels)

Timothy walked into the History of Magic classroom, surprised to be the first student there. He must be early, usually there was at least a Gryffindor or Ravenclaw when he arrived. He shrugged and put his things down in his preferred seat off-center in the second row.

((We will be expected to have the textbook with us, right?))

(Yes, sorry about that, I'll add it to the expectations now, thank you! ^_^)

Jett was bubbling with excitement as he entered the History of Magic classroom. His exterior was as cool and noble as ever but inside he was smiling from ear to ear. He had always greatly enjoyed this subject. History gave clues to the present, had hidden secrets that were begging to be discovered. At a young age Jett had decided that he would soak up as much history as he could, in the off chance that one day a discovery of his would tie back into it or provide a vital clue.

Noticing only one other student in the room, a Slytherin he recognized from Charms, Jett took a seat front and center. He smiled over the Professor and pulled out his text book, already delving into it's contents.

(Sorry for the delay! Mother's ill so now I'm caring for both my little brother and her. I've only just now sat down since waking up this morning xD)

As each student filed into the room, Professor Reid took note of their attendance in her booklet, so she didn't have the chance to forget later on. As Mr. Winters came made the effort to sit directly in the front, Madison couldn't help but smile. Not many showed enthusiasm for her classes, so when a student did, especially a student from her house, it brought her great delight. Hopefully it was a sign that today's class would go well.

She set aside her textbook to open up her lesson plans and review her schedule one last time before she had to get on with class. "Open your textbooks to page 254. We'll begin shortly." There was still about ten minutes before class started, but if the students wanted to get a head start and look over the material for today, Madison had no problem with it.

(We'll start when at least 2 or 3 more students join in ^_^)

((Dude totally understandable!))

Timothy raised his eyebrows in surprise that Reid was starting class with only 2 students, but it didn't much matter to him. He flipped open to 254, mildly interested that they would start the year with the witch burnings. Morbid, but everyone knew about it. Maybe they'd mention the magical school across the pond, the Salem Witch Academy or something.

Claudia walked to the History of Magic classroom with quick steps. She hoped their wouldn't be a lot of students in the classroom. She really didn't want to be noticed. She had heard whispers about her in the hall and she did not need that to happen again today. She walked in and sighed when she saw only a couple of other students present. She smiled.

"Hello Professor."

Instead of her usual seat at the front she decided to sit at the very back to try to be as unnoticable as possible. She got her textbook out like the others had along with her quill and parchment. She turned to page 254 as well and began to look over it with her head down. Atleast she would enjoy the lesson.

Anna Marie walked into the classroom with all of her notes stacked in her arms, and all of the supplies that she'd need for the class. She was one of the few girls who was that strange mix of shy and outgoing. She did terrible in a group setting, where she knew no one and was too scared to talk, but Anna Marie was always friendly and outgoing when she had known someone, able to talk fluidly. In this classroom, however, she knew no one, and as such, she kept her head down and her mouth shut.

Anna Marie took her seat, flipping through her textbook pages and pulling out some parchment and a quill to write with, her ears open to her professor but her eyes never lifting from her paper.

Madison gave Miss Evans a curt nod as she entered class, and then marked her and Anna Marie down in attendance, just like the other students. She then closed the booklet and set it aside for later, and opened up her textbook. "Now then. As you've all probably noticed, today we'll be learning about witch burnings. For some house points, can anyone tell me what they know?"

She glanced up to survey the class, to see who was paying attention and who was not. Professor Reid had no preference as to what sort of information these students would give, so long as they put forth the effort. She did hope that Mr. Winters would be the first to answer, however; Ravenclaw was starting to run behind.

Timothy raised his hand while speaking. "Many of those burned were not witches or wizards, simply Muggles blamed for bad fortune." It didn't help that their main test of whether or not a person was a witch was to kill them, and if the person died they weren't a witch.

Jett was engrossed in his textbook, his eyes rapidly following the lines on the page. He was hungry, famished, for knowledge. It was a feeling that gnawed at him at all times, only lessening and increasing as time passed. He had to soak up and retain all the new information he could, it was not a choice but a necessity. If he were ever going to become someone great he could not let a single moment pass him by if there was something to be gained.

His fevered reading was interrupted by Professor Reid starting her class. Jett mournfully looked away from the book and up into her eyes. He had just read part of what his text book said about witch burnings but beside that he knew little. This topic would be something new to him and Jett was quite excited about that. He listened to the Slytherin boy speak and then raised his hand with an addition of his own. "Some witches allowed themselves to be caught by muggles before using magic to protect themselves from being burned at the stake, Professor."

Anna Marie remained seated and stayed with her face shoved into her notes. He wrote down what everyone had been saying around her, for she knew it was true, as well as writing her own notes of what she had known. She wrote down the Flame-Freezing charm, knowing that it was the charm that witches and wizards would use to save themselves at the stake, and also wrote down The Crucible by Arthur Miller just as a side note of muggle text in relation to the witch burnings.

Her lips remained sealed though, no matter how much information she wrote down. She was quiet, focused, and now slowly starting to have her fingers shake. She felt overcome by an urge that she couldn't satisfy. Not now, not yet. She'd have to wait to calm the addiction that screamed in her veins, making her heart beat faster with every minute that went by. Anna Marie contained herself, breathing as smoothly as she could, focusing on remaining calm, drawing no attention to herself, and never lifting her face from her parchment.

"Indeed," Professor Reid replied, "that's 10 points, both to Slytherin and Ravenclaw." She was happy to see some students answered, as it was a sign there was some form of enthusiasm in her class today. With a smile, she lowered her gaze to the words before her. The pause was merely to collect her thoughts, she knew the text well enough, and hardly needed to read it. Much of it was committed to memory, after the repeating material year after year. There were always different students, of course, but always the same subject.

"The muggles practiced many methods to prove whether or not the accused were witches or not. Basically, if they were magic, it could be assumed that they would live, and if they died, well, they were innocent. And as Mr. Carpenter said, this resulted in the death of many innocents." Though the words she used were sensitive, there was, rather, a lack of emotion over the thought of such mindless slaughter. The text in front her students wanted them to believe the events were simply the result of mass paranoia and panic. Madison did not at all deny that the paranoia had been present, but that was an effect- not cause. What textbooks did not analyze, were the variables that caused the events to take place. Madison had many theories, as she often did, and any one of them could be true.

But this was a history class, not a speculation on what was, and what could have been. She had to stick to the facts, and the words that educational standards shoved down her throat. So she continued, "Now during this time, the Ministry of Magic did not exist. There were no laws or standards that kept wizards and witches from revealing themselves. These events did cause wizards to come together and deal with the issue. Can someone else tell me the name of the group that dealt with the issue, and another student, tell me how they went about fixing the problem?"

She was using a tactic simply to make sure her students were paying attention, and so that her voice would not be the only one heard throughout the class. Unfortunately, the reality as it was, reading the information aloud and discussing it was really the only way to teach history. There wasn't a whole lot of methods that got around that tradition. She'd thought about making a debate of sorts out of it, but that would require the interest from students for it to work. Madison never expected much in that sense, being a dull history professor, however much she herself enjoyed the subject.

Claudia looked up slightly to see if anyone was going to answer. She really didn't feel up to answering but when she needed to she would. She looked around hopeful for anyone to answer but she knew it would be a time before someone gained strength to answer. She knew she could answer the question but in truth she didn't want to. Answering a question would just draw attention to herself and that was not what she needed right now. She breathed a low sigh and sank lower in her seat.

Timothy frowned. It wasn't the statute of secrecy, that was a law. Could it be the order of the Phoenix? No, that was founded by Albus Dumbledore. He began skimming the textbook for the answer. Besides, he'd just answered, he didn't want to look like a brown-noser.

The room was silent after Professor Reid spoke, no student ready to answer. It was a shame so few students took their education seriously, Jett thought. Just because they may not have an interest in the subject did not make it unimportant. It was no reason to slack off or doze off in class, as it appeared some of his classmates were doing. Knowledge was knowledge, no matter the subject.

For once Jett did not know the answer to the question posed, nor had he read it in the pages of his book. Putting his quill down he quickly flipped a few pages ahead. Maybe more information would be further on and he could find the answer.

Claudia sighed she knew she was going to have to say something even if she didn't want to. She couldn't take the silence any longer. She sat up slightly mumbling under her breath. Might as well do it while it counts. She looked up at the professor regretting that she was going to say a wrong answer.

"Professor, was it the International Confederation of Wizards"

After saying that she sank lower in her seat afraid to be told that she was wrong and from anyone looking her way.

The question entered Anna Marie's head, and instinctively she wrote down the Ministry of Magic. However, looking at it, she shook her head and crossed it out on her paper, knowing that she had been jumping for something easy. That answer just too obvious, but there was something else prying at her brain.

Slowly, she began to write the word 'international', because the word just felt right, but she couldn't think of the rest, she was too scared of being wrong again, even though it was all in her notebook and in her head, nothing out loud. Anna Marie turned to her textbook, finishing what she had been writing with 'international confederation of wizards, para.1', and beneath she made and arrow from what she had just written, pointing to 'international statute of wizarding secrecy', which had caught her eye when she skimmed the paragraph.

Anna Marie remained silent, the only noise that came from her was the moving of her quill. It was then that she heard Claudia speak up, confirming what she had previously written on her paper.

"Correct, thank you Miss Evans." She took a moment to write down a note of how many house points had been earned for each house. So far, Hufflepuff had none. Reid glanced up on the only student that had yet to answer. "Miss Clark?" She waited till she had Anna Marie's attention before repeating herself, "How did the Confederation address the issue between witches and wizards?"

Because the young Hufflepuff had not volunteered an answer on her own behalf, Professor Reid wouldn't be awarding any points to her. Madison had some small satisfaction from it, as Hufflepuff was doing just fine on points for now, but she did prefer all her students to participate. Anna Marie appeared to have been writing notes since class started, but that did not necessarily mean she was paying attention. If Miss Clark was getting ahead of the class, Madison would have to discourage it.

Timothy made a note of the International Confederation of Wizards working to keep magic secret, glancing up as Reid singled out a student.

With a hushed voice, Anna Marie stopped writing on her parchment, but her eyes never left it as Professor Reid had called her out to give an answer. She didn't appreciate the gesture very much, but she wasn't going to display any ill will towards her Professor. She was a professor, after all, and commanded respect.

She was a little thrown off a first though, because she had never raised her hand, and almost never spoke in any class. Her fingers were still shaking above her paper, but she answered in a hushed voice. Anna Marie's eyes still never left her parchment, as she hadn't wanted to look out into the crowd with a red face.

"They created the International Statute of Wizarding Secrecy. It began in 1692 and proved to work well."

His quill moved in jolts, one or two words at a time. Jett was taking his notes down in his usual fashion, a single word here that would spark the memory of the text book, a phrase there that held a vital fact. Some of the information was new to him and he made a point to include a little mark next to the new information as an indication of something to read up on.

Around the room the student's seemed slow, half asleep. Professor Reid noticed, of course, and singled out a student who had been particularly quiet. Jett looked across the room to the Huffllepuff girl who appeared to be staring intently at her notes. Her voice was quiet, barely audible to Jett on the far side of the class. If she had not wanted to be put on the spot like that she should have offered up an answer while she had the chance. Jett would never understand how some people would prefer to fade into the background. What good could one possibly do there?

Looking away from the embarrassing scene the professor had created for the girl, Jett busied himself once again with reading his textbook.

So it was the International Confederation that started the Statute. He really ought to remember that, Timothy thought, writing down the information.
He kind of felt bad for the girl, being called on when she didn't have her hand raised. She did seem to know the information, though, so perhaps she was one of those types who didn't want to be a show-offy prat, and the professor called on them when no-one else in class knew the answer.

"Correct. This was where the separation between muggle and wizard truly started. Presumably, the confederation planned to hide the presence of magic from the world until it wasn't anything more than superstition to muggles." She glanced towards the clock, before looking back to her class, "Now for O.W.L. level, this is all that you need to know, aside from a few facts about Wendelin the Weird as well as other witches and wizards who used the flame-freeze charm at the stake. "

"As for N.E.W.T. level, you'll need to remember the names of the people mentioned in this chapter, and be prepared to write a short essay explaining why you believe the Salem Witches really were witches, or why you believe they were not." It was basically a way for them to prove they understood the material, their views on the matter did not effect the outcome of their scores. She turned towards the board, and with a flick of her wand, the chalk came to life and began etching out their homework assignment.

O.W.L.'s, write short essay about your knowledge on Wendelin the Weird- include any extra information related to her for a better grade.

N.E.W.T.'s, write short essay as a practice for the exams. The two topics: Why you believe the Salem Witches were actual witches, or why you believe they were not.

"You can remain in class to get a head start on your assignment, otherwise I'm giving you an early dismissal. Any questions?"

Timothy wrote down the assignment and started packing up. He could work better elsewhere.