Chapter 5
Their history class was silent for probably the first time all year while they waited for their new teacher to appear. Even the Gryffindor’s, normally rowdy before professors arrived seemed to have been sent back to the first day of classes, which this kind of was. They were in a new classroom, apparently Binns continued to go and teach classes in his old one, despite nobody attending.
The new room was probably more disorienting for the magical students than it was for the muggle born. None of the paintings moved. The walls were covered with paintings and sketches out of history, battles, meetings and some that Hermione couldn’t identify frozen in time. She even caught Morag, her table partner, quickly glancing at them out of the corner of his eye, as if trying to catch them moving.
Professor Flaherty swept in, a tall stack of parchment rolls hovering behind her. “Good morning, everyone.” Murmured replies quickly bounced around the room. “As you know I am Professor Flaherty, I graduated from here twelve years ago now, and since then I have achieved a mastery in history, with a focus in magical conflicts in the Middle Ages, as well as publishing my first book.”
She waved her wand, the parchments she had floated in dispersing across the class. “Unfortunately, none of you would enjoy that read.” The parchment landed in front of Hermione scanned it, seeing that it was a weekly schedule. Lots of reading, weekly quizzes. Well, the free period was very much gone.
“Now, some of you might be despairing about the disappearance of what used to be close to a free period, not seeing the value of a well taught history class.” Hermione was pretty sure the Gryffindor side of the room didn’t see the value of most classes, regardless of how well they were taught.
“I thought much the same thing when I arrived here. What use are dusty old tomes and scrolls, what power does knowledge of the past hold to the power of a wand.” Hermione was pretty sure she must have had Snape as a professor, because she seemed to be gearing up to take much the same approach, he had during their first class. “I soon realized my mistake. History offers the best possible knowledge, the ultimate advantage over the uneducated. Do you know how one man defeated 150 trained battle mages? Or why a Venetian wizard will never get along with a German?”
Yeah, definitely Snape inspired. She would also put good money on her being either a Ravenclaw or a Slytherin. “Now, this class we will go over the syllabus and talk about goals for the year. Tomorrow we start in earnest, you all are already a week behind.”
The next forty minutes she went over her expectations, that they do the best possible work, and in depth outline of their curriculum for the year. This year they would be covering the events from after the establishment of secrecy to the present day, then working backwards in future years. “Now does anyone have any questions?”
A few Gryffindor hands went up, along with most of the Ravenclaws. Padma was called on first. “Why are we working backwards in time. Wouldn’t it make more sense to work forwards.”
“Good question, before secrecy there was a lot of interaction with muggles which made things much more complicated and more suited to older students. Additionally, in ages past there have been events that… shouldn’t be studied by eleven year olds but are still worth leaning about.” Did teachers just have no idea how to dissuade students from looking into things. First the third floor corridor, which she still had a slight itch to check out, and now that mysterious comment.
Dean Thomas was the next to be called on. “How did one wizard defeat 150?” That seemed to be the question that all of the Gryffindors had been holding onto as they all dropped their hands with nods.
“And that is one of the aforementioned events that we will get to, but I would appreciate you not looking into yet. I would prefer to not get howlers from parents in my first week.”
She answered a few more questions and then glanced at the clock. “Okay, it looks like that is all we have time for. Please try to do your readings ahead of time, get to the library quickly before all the copies of the books are gone. Ravenclaws, you don’t have to go as far, you have no excuse.” So, that told them what house she had been in.
Hermione and Morag had barely made it out of the classroom before Michael and Terry descended on them. “So, are we going to go find out what that 1v 150 was or not?”
“Absolutely.”
It turned out that with only a casualty count, finding an event was much harder than they expected. Theo, who was by far the best of them at History, was decently sure it didn’t involve the English. Based off of that and their assumption that it would be in the UK, they were idly leafing through texts on Medieval wars in Scotland and Ireland.
It wasn’t the most exciting thing to do, but they were ahead in their coursework- really if you just used your free periods well, it was easy to stay ahead. Also, it was helping them kill time until the castle started emptying out. It had only been about a week and a half, but they had already managed to feel out the way the castle ran.
If anything happened to the Gryffindors or Slytherins, if not given an obvious suspect, they automatically assumed the other did it. A bit sad from the supposed house of cunning and pretty judgement from the house of chivalry, but it was the world they lived in. Plus, that meant that they could pretty much do whatever they wanted and get away with it.
Michael had been inspired by the Weasley twins when they turned some of the Slytherin’s hair red on Friday, so he had been planning his own prank since then and was roping the rest of them into it.
They waited until close to 11:30. They expected most of the teachers to have finished their initial rounds by now and would be less on guard or preferably asleep. The plan was simple, but it had required a large amount of testing and experimentation to get right. The basis of the plan emerged when Michael noticed that other than the silverware, all the table settings and serving containers remained on the tables in the great hall permanently.
They were cleaned by magic and food was transported to them by the elves, but the actual pitchers, trays, and plates remained in the hall, the silverware was transported away between meals, depending on the needed utensils.
A furious weekend of experimenting had proven that anything touching the bottom of the pitchers would be vanished before they were filled. However, a vial taped to the side would stay and then unstick in the liquid. It wasn’t perfect, there was still a vial sitting in the bottom of the pitcher and Hermione had serious concerns about Hogwarts’s sanitation, but if they did it in pumpkin juice they would be fine.
After that they only needed to find something to dose the drinks with. Luckily, that wasn’t particularly hard when you were literally trained in how to make the cure for boils, a potion that coincidentally wasn’t that far from a potion that caused boils.
They quietly made their way down through the castle, taking a really slow route, but it kept them off of more common corridors and hopefully off of the patrol routes. They seemed to still be completely in the clear though when they made it to the entrance hall. This was going to be the riskiest part. Breaking into a sprint they dashed into the great hall, making straight for the Slytherin table.
The vials were attached inside all the pitchers near the first and second years. They sprinted back out, not stopping until they got into the nearest secret corridor. Throwing high fives around, they began making their way back up towards the tower, talking quietly, much of the tension gone now that they had completed their mission. She wished they could do it to more houses, but that would completely ruin their house’s easy anonymity.
“SHHHHH” Morag threw her arms out to stop them from walking. Silence falling abruptly on the corridor. “What do you-”
“SHHHH” Terry clamped his hand over Michael’s mouth. Hermione could hear it now, rapid footsteps, moving towards them. They all took off at a sprint on their route. Losing the sound of the others running over the sound of their own pounding footsteps. After a few minutes the stopped, trying to calm their breath, searching for sounds, nothing coming to them.
Morag was sent tumbling as the portrait next to them swung open, knocking her over. Potter and Weasley falling out and staring at them for a moment before restarting their run. Pulling Morag up, they took off as well, this time not resting until they were at the common room door.
Even though they got to sleep late, they got to the great hall early. There was no way they were going to miss the results of their first prank. Sloshing the pumpkin juice around the pitcher first to make sure there wasn’t anything in it, Michael poured himself a glass. They were being very careful ever since they had realized the possibility.
The hall started to fill up and Hermione watched a for some reason very smug Malfoy along with Parkinson and others drink to their hearts content. Even better for the prank, a single vial of the potion, diluted in a pitcher of pumpkin juice, divided among people didn’t cause the oozing boils it was famous for, but it did make it look like the younger years of their house was rapidly breaking out with acne.
When the first signs popped up, the younger years went to the upper years who tried all manner of counter curses and dispels, before shrugging. The juniors going back to their seats to continue their meal and continue drinking. It got worse and worse before one of the pitchers was poured down to a level where the vial was clearly obvious. At which point house prejudices became very obvious as Malfoy immediately stormed over towards the Gryffindor table and started hissing at Potter.
There was a quick exchange of furious words, before Potter looked straight at where she was sitting, before quickly looking back at Malfoy. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it was very obvious Potter was doing a very poor job of trying to play off whatever he had said as a mistake. But Malfoy was not buying it, charging towards her seat. Thanks Potter.
“Granger, I am going to kill you for this.” Hermione didn’t respond, she didn’t have a good comeback loaded up, and she was trying her hardest to not laugh at how well the prank had worked.
“If your performance in class is anything to go by I wouldn’t be that worried.” Well thank you Michael.
The blonde flushed “Watch yourself.” He said to none of them in particular and stormed back off.
Hermione went to go back to her breakfast and a small paper airplane flew in from down the table, circling her plate before crash landing in her eggs, Hermione glanced up and down the table to see similar ones on other’s plates. She pulled it out and seeing ink along its wing unfolded it. Full debate meeting room 1203, 7 o’clock. Will have team meeting after. Don’t be late. -Avery.
She passed it over to Theo, if there was a full meeting, he would hear in a second. “What’s that?”
“Debate is finally starting up.” She was scared, what if she was bad at it. At the same time though, she was ready for some competition. She had been studying a lot, but at the same time she hadn’t really felt challenged by any of the material they had in classes. She needed something to push her.
Before she even realized it, it was seven and she, Theo, Sue, and Kevin- the final first year who had been selected, she didn’t really know him that well yet- were making their way to the indicated room, one of the larger ones underneath the common room.
Hermione pushed the door open and was surprised to see Professor Flaherty there in addition to Flitwick. By the time the clock hit seven everyone had arrived, and Flitwick kicked the meeting off. “Today we’re going to select the topic for the first debate. Also, I have never been able to have the involvement I wished I could. Now, with Fiona here-” he realized his mess up. Hermione guessed it took some practice for him to remember she wasn’t a student anymore. “Professor Flaherty, each team will be getting a faculty adviser who will help you as you work and practice.”
He pulled a galleon out of his pocket. “Well, there is no time like the present.” He glanced around the room. “Heads I will coach to team Grace, tails Elliot.” He flipped the coin, the gold disk shooting up through the air before tumbling down, landing perfectly in his hand. “Heads!” He grinned at the seventh year captain. “Looks like team blue will be stuck with me.”
Grace burst out. “How is it fair that they get Professor Flaherty.”
Avery shot back, “I notice how you didn’t object until you knew you wouldn’t get her.”
Hermione didn’t know the history between the two of them, but clearly, they were not friendly as the started bickering. She scootched over to the sixth year next to her as he looked like he knew what was going on. She tapped his arm, “Why is this such a big deal.”
He leaned over, whispering to her. “Avery sent a letter to his parents asking about her when she was announced as our teacher. Apparently, she won the national debate championship the year she graduated. Also, ever since she’s gotten her mastery some families call her to speak at the wizengamot as a history expert. Between a mastery and being very convincing she gets a lot done. Probably how the board knew her also.”
Hermione wasn’t entirely sure how Flitwick had made it as a professional duellist because of how much he tried to avoid conflict. Standing there, hoping that their arguing would petter out. Eventually he realized that he was going to have to step in. “This is happening, regardless of how much you like it. Also, I will have you know that even if I’m not as accomplished as Professor Flaherty is in debate, I am still quite a resource.”
Grace immediately shut up, realizing that she had been insulting her head of house for the past couple of minutes, Avery shooting her a satisfied smirk. “Now onto the first topic of the year.” He pulled out a bag that he showed was full of slips of parchment. “The other teachers were nice enough to help me brainstorm topics.”
He theatrically mixed the bag around, the folded slips jumbling through each other. “Fiona-” He cringed again at his repeat of the mistake. “Would you do the honours.”
Professor Flaherty sunk her hand in, pulling out a slip and uncrumpling it. She looked considerate, nodding as she read it. She turned the parchment out to them so they could read it as she announced. “Regulation of dangerous magics.” Hermione could tell from the potions master’s distinctive spidery scrawl exactly who put that one in.
Flitwick looked slightly put out by the topic but still excited. “As always, the sides will be decided on the day of the debate, so do your research and do it well.” He waved his hand, the door swinging open. “Now, let the debating season begin!”
The team meeting after was pretty normal, they threw out ideas on what they thought the main points for both sides were going to be and then Avery split them into two teams. They were planning to meet up in two weeks to discuss what they had found for their side of the issue and then they would work together to make rebuttals and go more in depth. Hermione had been put on the pro-regulation team which seemed like the far simpler side so she was happy for that. She had also expected Professor Flaherty to comment more, but she mostly just watched them. According to her they were fallowing the right process, but she wasn’t going to write their arguments for them. The best help she would give them would be on how they would structure and deliver their points and maybe point them in the right direction.
Hermione made it back to the common room to find her friends waiting for her at their usual couch. No sooner had she made it over before Michael was talking. “Hermione, Morag and I found out a way to figure out what the event was.”
She was lost two hours of discussing laws and issues had deadened her to everything, “Sorry, what event.”
“The thing Professor Flaherty mentioned, the one guy.”
“Oh, cool how can we do it?”
Michael pulled out a piece of paper. “I managed to get a copy of the sixth and seventh year syllabuses. We can just scan these books and most likely it will be in one of them.”
She realized that they were going to far more effort than this probably warranted. “Issue is, because they’ve never been textbooks before and they’re pretty random books, so they’re not in the monstrosity.” He gestured towards the endless shelves.
“Okay, let’s go get check them out of the school library. They must have bought a bunch of copies for this year.”
Morag let out a sigh, “And there’s the issue, there in the upper section.” Well, that was an unfortunate situation. Unlike the Ravenclaw books were she could find questionable books as a first year. The school library was much more regulated. Until their OWL year they couldn’t access the ‘upper section’ which wasn’t even up geographically, it was just for only upper years. Even after that no one could visit the restricted section without a note from a teacher.
Hermione didn’t think she was a reckless person. But, they were just coming off the back of a very successful night time excursion. And the very presence of Potter and Weasley that night proved that sneaking out was a common thing to do. “Why don’t we go tonight?”
“Like after curfew again?”
“Yeah, I mean nothing went wrong last time. It’s a big castle and there aren’t that many staff.”
It was easy. They didn’t see hide nor hair of anyone on their way to the library and creeping though the well-organized shelves, the Ravenclaw common room would be made much easier if the tomes were sorted at all, they easily found the books they needed. Hermione also couldn’t resist grabbing a few more for herself. How was she supposed to resist The Peak of Power: Greatest Duels of History.
They snuck out of the library, their wands illuminating the path, only to swing the door open, directly into professor Quirrell. They all tensed up before unanimously realizing that running would do them no good when he was looking straight into their faces.
“O-o-out of b-bed l-late are we?”
They all were furiously thinking about what to say to possibly try to get them out of the situation. “I’m so sorry professor, but we have a history essay we needed to start working on and it was late.” Thanks Michael, that was the least believable excuse ever.
The professor glanced over the books in their arms, looking at Secrets of the Arcane topping her stack of books. “W-well I think w-we c-can all a-appreciate the p-path of knowledge. F-five points f-from Ravenclaw.” And he walked off without another word.
The hell was wrong with that man. Despite the hiccup with the disconcerting professor, they made it back up without anything else going wrong. They were still too hopped on adrenaline to go to sleep. They started flipping through their loot.
They’d only been at it for forty-five minutes when Theo suddenly stood up. “Guys I think I’ve found it.”
He laid his book open on the table. The header reading THE STAND OF SOREN.
In the year 817 as the Danish continued their attempts to subjugate the western isles. A full squadron of 150 Danish mages moved to conquer a small atoll near Skye, near uninhabited excluding a muggle population of roughly 200 and a single wizard known only to history as Soren. Details of the event are mainly lost to history but what is known is that Soren used the sacrifice of the muggle population to power a spell, destroying all life on the island including its invaders.
That was- disturbing. Hermione felt a little bit queasy at the thought of that much willing death. Killing someone in battle was the way the world had always worked, but sacrificing people to aid oneself, that seemed evil. One man though, able to wipe out even a small island. That was something else.