Hogwarts Class Meta

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Hogwarts has seven years of school; years 1-6 are compulsory, but the final year is elective. 95% of the class continues with seventh year, with the remaining 5% going immediately into the workforce. Students take their O.W.L.s (Ordinary Wizarding Levels) at the end of their fifth year and their N.E.W.T.s (Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Test) at the end of their seventh.

There are 3-4 professors per core class, and 1-2 per elective. Each core class has a department, with a department head that has additional responsibilities. Each elective is nestled into a core class’s department, for administrative reasons.

Core Classes:

• Astronomy (Half block, meets twice a week in the evening)
• Charms (Full block, meets twice a week)
• Defense Against the Dark Arts (Full block, meets twice a week)
• Herbology (Full block, meets twice a week)
• History of Magic (Full block, meets twice a week)
• Potions (Full block, meets twice a week)
• Social Studies (Full block, meets twice a week)
• Transfiguration (Full block, meets twice a week)
• ***First Year Seminar (Full block, meets once a week, only during first year)- Flying, exploration of the grounds, explanations of school rules/resources, how to apply for tutoring, explanation of the owlery, safety tips, etc. Once the official curriculum is completed, this class is used as a house bonding time, often this means playing magical games. This class’s official professor is the head of house, but in reality, it has a rotating professor, and sometimes may be taught by a teacher’s assistant, groundskeeper, caretaker, prefect or head student.

In third year, a student can choose whether to drop Social Studies and must pick at least one elective. Electives are all taught for half blocks and can have a mix of student years among them; for example, a student can take Muggle Studies I in third year or seventh, and each subsequent year of class has the prerequisite of the previous year unless a student can test out. Students are encouraged to only take an O.W.L. for an elective if they have completed all available pre-O.W.L. classes for that elective or done significant self-study. (The exception to this is Muggle Studies, which a majority of muggle and half-blood students take the O.W.L. for, even if they haven’t taken a single class.)

Third year introduces five basic electives, with more being introduced for students who have completed their O.W.L.s.  

Pre-O.W.L. electives:

• Ancient Runes
• Arithmancy
• Care of Magical Creatures
• Divination
• Home Remedies
• Muggle Studies

After completing O.W.L.s, a student is encouraged to fall into a major so that they may pare down the classes into ones that will facilitate their future occupation. Some students choose to create their own major and/or do an independent study. N.E.W.T. classes require to be tested into with O.W.L.s; the exact grades of which are up to the professor to decide. N.E.W.T. level classes are all taught for full blocks (except for Apparition), but students may still take pre-O.W.L. electives for half blocks.

Sixth- and seventh-year electives:

• Alchemy (Potions, Arithmancy)
• Apparition
• Healing (Potions, Charms)
• Magical Languages (Divination, Ancient Runes)
• Magical Law (History of Magic)
• Magical Object Creation and Maintenance (Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, Charms)
• Spell Creation (Charms, Arithmancy, Transfiguration)

Students may also find that they wish to study something that is not covered by either the core or elective classes. To facilitate their learning, students may apply to do an independent study. To get N.E.W.T. credit for an independent study, a student must deliver significant research of their own.

Requirements for an independent study:

• A faculty advisor whose experience in a subject is related to the area of study a student wishes to pursue. The student must meet with this advisor once a week to review the direction of their studies.
• A cursory overview of what kinds of academic work will result from their study (weekly reports of study, term papers, physical products of magic, etc.).
• Approval for class space. This could include a dedicated space in an extra potions/alchemy lab, a corral in the library, the use of an empty classroom, etc.
• A dedicated block of time in a student’s schedule. While it is an independent study, the faculty must be aware of where to find a student during the school day. So, the student must be in their dedicated class space during a selected block.
• Approval from the Deputy Headmaster/mistress

Curriculum Overview for Core Classes:

Astronomy

            Foci of Astronomy:

• Planet Identification- Identification of each planet and their effects on magical fields
• Calendars- Lunar and Solar cycles, constellation cycles, ritual magic, solstices and equinoxes, magical high holidays
• Maps and Ley lines- Astronomical effects on how Earth’s magic waxes and wanes, and the permanent “current” lines

Charms

            Foci of Charms:

• Affects- the placement of a charm on an object/person
• Removal- removal of a charm on an object/person
• Discernment- deciding if a potentially magicked item has qualities that are needed to hold a charm without breaking, figuring out how to fix mistakes

Defense Against the Dark Arts

            Foci of DAtDA:

• Dueling- basic->advanced dueling spells, footwork/movement, social etiquette of duels, analyzation of historical duels/battles, nonverbal and wandless spellcasting
• Warding- spells/practices to keep dark magic or magical creatures in or out of a location, privacy spells, protection charms
• Dark Object Identification/Curse-breaking- how to tell if something is dangerous and how to render it inert
• Critical Thinking- using spells in inventive ways, analysis of propaganda, being vigilant
• Healing/First Aid- bone stabilizing, skin regeneration, stasis charms, harm detection

Herbology

Foci of Herbology:

• Identification- knowing what a magical plant is and how to care for it
• Cultivation- maintaining a safe and healthy environment for a plant
• Harvesting- safe harvest of magical products from plants
• Pest removal- removal of common pests that bother magical plants, removal of common magical pest plants that are dangerous to wixen

History of Magic

            Yearly Curriculum:

Year 1: Survey of Ancient Magic in Britain -> Establishment of the Ministry of Magic

Year 2: Establishment of the Ministry of Magic-> Present Day

Year 3: British History of relations with magical creatures/beings. (Goblin Wars, Centaur Treaties, Merpeople border disputes, Fae contracts, etc.)

Year 4: Survey of Magical World History (African, European Continent, Asian, Oceania, North and South America)

Year 5: British Magical History or World Magical History- students may choose between two exams to take for O.W.L.s

Years 6/7: Research based. Student picks a topic/location/time that they focus on.

Potions

Foci of Potions:

• Potioneering skills- knife skills, usage of scales, ingredient preparation, cauldron maintenance
• Ability to follow a recipe- knowledge of potion-making terms and techniques, cultivation of patience and dexterity
• Chemistry- why different ingredients give certain effects to the base, how different qualities of the same ingredient changes the effects of the overall product, safe rendering of the products

Social Studies

Foci of Social Studies: 

• Magical Government- the departments of the ministry, responsibilities of the Minister, the Wizengamot and the International Confederation of Wizards
• Calendar- magical holidays and social events
• Finance- budgeting, understanding the Gringott’s banking system
• Etiquette- manners and practices in the wizarding world, typical fashion and comportment
• Options of higher education and careers

Transfiguration

Foci of Transfiguration:

• 3 W’s (Will/Wand/Word)- What you want the spell to do/Wand movement/Incantation
• Magical physics- magical laws of mass and how to account for them when changing shapes and materials
• Animus- the physical creation or deletion of life when it comes to transfiguration, ethical discussion of magically created “life” and how it differs from natural life.
• Transfiguration without activated spellwork- metamorphmagi, magical creatures who can transfigure themselves
• Ritual transfiguration- Polyjuice potion, discussion of animagi, etc.
• Artistry

Curriculum Overview for Pre-O.W.L. Elective Classes:

Ancient Runes

Foci of Ancient Runes:

• Runic alphabets and phrases
• Translation of runes into building blocks for verbal spellwork
• Evolution of runes into modern magical languages

Arithmancy

Foci of Arithmancy

• Symbols and operations
• Magical physics

Divination

Foci of Divination:

• Prophecy- identification of what could be a prophecy, and interpretation thereof. What makes a true seer vs. a typical divination practitioner. Historical seers and famous resulted prophecies.
• Portents- identification of omens that occur without the activation of a practice
• Practices- magical rituals that create observable products to interpret (tea leaf readings, horoscopes, crystal balls, animal bone readings, etc)

Home Remedies

Foci of Home Remedies:

• Mending
• Reinforcement charms
• Cooking spells
• Magical pest control (gnomes, pixies, ghouls, etc.)
• Home wards
• Cleaning spells/potions
• Basic first aid

            Notes:

Home Remedies would be available in 3^rd year, but most students take it in 6^th or 7^th year, once their class schedules open up post-O.W.L.s. It’s interdisciplinary and covers topics that other classes skim or skip. Muggleborn or muggle-raised halfbloods make up the majority of the classroom demographics, as the curriculum focuses on things that most purebloods and magic-raised halfbloods would be privy to by osmosis.

Magical Creatures

            Foci of Magical Creatures:

• Care of […]- the care and keeping of magical creatures which have use to wixen, how to collect usable products from specific creatures in as humane a way as possible
• Prevention/Removal of […]- the prevention/removal of potentially dangerous magical creatures
• Nonhumans- basic biology of various magical creatures (werewolves, vampires, merpeople, goblins, giants, centaurs, house elves, etc.)

Muggle Studies

Foci of Muggle Studies:

• Technology- complex machines that haven’t made the crossover into magical institutions, why some inventions did (indoor plumbing, limited clockworks, etc.)
• History- muggle historical events that had limited influence from the magical world (wars and treaties, the slave trade, colonization)
• Wixen-Muggle exchange and history of the treatment of muggleborns and halfbloods. The Statute of Secrecy and important legal cases that have outlined current procedures on how to interact with the muggle world in general and government in specific.
• Current Events

Divination

Divination is the interpretation of “events” that are communicated via magic. Magic is everywhere, in everything, at every time, and divination is the process through which wixen can experience magic throughout time while remaining in the same physical location. Time turners allow for wixen to move physically back in time through the same magic in the same space, but it can’t go forward.

A common misconception of divination is that it is only used to attempt to discern the future. In fact, the most common uses of divination are to decipher past events. Prior Incantato is a charm that divines echoes of the last spells cast with a particular wand; aurors often use divination spells within their investigations.

There is a difference between true seers and using divination spells. True seers have a natural inclination towards the sensation of magic in their physical body; this often manifests as something akin to synesthesia as seers experience sights, sounds, and feelings when they are focusing on a particular moment and location within magic. When a seer is experiencing this event, they are overwhelmed by the amount of information that they are beholding--because magic is everywhere and in everything--so these episodes are often paired with a temporary aphasia.

Once the seer finds their way back to their present, they often have forgotten the majority of, if not all, the “vision;” the brain sees each “vision” as such an assault that it forgets vast quantities of data in order to protect the seer’s sanity. Seers who wish to relay prophesies must train themselves to communicate whilst within the trance; this usually requires finding a specific focus to limit the amount of language that could be used to speak of a moment.

Some common self-imposed rules are speaking in poetry, only saying adjectives, only saying nouns, drawing pictures blindly, only speaking about weather, etc. Seers have also utilized crystal balls, which are magical devices that can record a somewhat “blurry” recording of a “vision” that they direct it to. Legally, a copy of any prophesy that has been recorded with a crystal ball must be delivered to the Department of Mysteries, where it is studied extensively.

Any magical person can interpret some things using divination, some people just have more clarity and natural inclination than others. Divination spells and rituals are tools that provide a focus and connection for a diviner to attempt to discern significance.

For example, when doing tea leaf interpretation, the practitioner will interpret shapes from tea leaves left in the bottom of a teacup that has been drunk by someone who wishes to have their future foretold. The tea is brewed and steeped with intention, which creates a focus in magic, and the tea leaves are pulled into a shape through that focus. The shapes themselves are up to the interpretation of the practitioner; sometimes the shapes are self-evident and sometimes they are symbolic, and it is up to the interpreter to relay their meaning. Those practitioners who have a higher resonation with magic tend to relay more accurate interpretations of these symbols.

Apparition

Similarly to Divination, Apparation is a way in which wixen can experience the same magic in an extremely similar time, but in different places. Apparition happens when wixen spread their magic aross their entire being (including any objects on their person) and force that magic through extradimensional space into a different location. Inability to completely envelop themselves, or hesitation in the force at which magic is pushed though space, results in splinching, which is the removal of part(s) of the wixen’s “body” (body, being defined here as both the physical human body, and any clothes or held items) from the self.

The consequences of splinching depend on the circumstances of the loss. For example, the speed at which the body part is recovered and the quality of the tear in flesh affect whether the appendage could be reattached. If someone were to splinch their earlobe, it would likely not matter whether it could be attached, as the flesh there could be regrown with a potion. However, if it were an entire ear that were splinched, it would depend on the state of the remaining cartilage, which is harder for potions to regrow.