Moving Portraits and Muggle Money
September 18th, 2023
The first two weeks of classes after syllabus week passed by swiftly. Hermione fell into a steady routine of classes, studying, and making new friends. She found herself spending more time with Neville, Luna, and Susan. They also kept up their Saturday drinks with the Slytherins at the Three Broomsticks.
With the new freedom to come, and go as she pleased, Hermione was able to make extra trips home to ride her horses. She was happy to spend more time with her parents, but was worried about people noticing that she kept disappearing alone.
Hermione was excited for today. It was a Friday which meant 1) She only had two classes today, Magical History & Culture, and Study of the Non-Magical World. 2) Classes were done before lunch.
Magical History and Culture
"Good Morning." Professor Tonks greeted the class.
"Good morning." The class greeted her in return.
"Today, we are going to discuss the history of Hogwarts, and its founders."
Hermione perked up when she heard this.
"How many of you have read Hogwarts, A History?"
She of course raised her hand, and was surprised she was joined by 75% of her classmates. Among those with their hand raised was Draco Malfoy, and Pansy Parkinson.
"Those of you who have read the book, what is your favorite part?"
Multiple hands raised, eager to share with the class. The professor was happy to see her students were excited to share.
"Mr. Malfoy." Professor Tonks
"I enjoyed reading the history of the founders."
"Thank you Mr. Malfoy. This brings us to what I wanted to cover. I have a bit of a surprise for you."
Professor Tonks rolled out an easel that had a rather large, covered painting on it.
"During the repair of the Castle this summer, we found something that you all may find interesting."
She pulled the cover off the painting, and it showed a still portrait of four adults. Two males, and two females.
"Professor, Why would we find a still portrait interesting?" Seamus asked.
"I wouldn't expect you to. One moment please."
Professor Tonks did a few complex wand movements, and the portrait started to enlarge itself. Then attached to the wall at the front of the classroom.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to introduce you to Godric Gryffindor, Salazar Slytherin, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Helga Hafflepuff. We were previously unaware the founders had an enchanted portrait hidden in the school."
The seventh years who, regardless of blood status, were all accustomed to seeing moving, and talking portraits, were in awe as they realized the significance of the portrait. They would soon be able to talk to the founders, to learn directly from them!
"Good morning founders." The professor said.
"Good day. We hast not spoken with anyone in a long time. I am Rowena Ravenlaw. It is a pleasure to meet you." The Ravenclaw founder said in olde english.
"Would you please introduce yourselves?" The four founders introduced themselves. They kept it simple, just sharing their names.
"For today's class, the founders will be telling us the history of Hogwarts and the story of how the school was founded."
The founders spent the next hour of the class telling the students about the history of the school. They covered how Hogwarts was intended to be a safe place for those with magic, given the hysteria of the muggles at that time. They discussed how they came upon, and built the castle, and even their admissions process.
"What is the true story of your feelings about muggle borns?" Hermione asked.
"We wanted Hogwarts to be a safe place for all magical beings. So everyone with magic was always welcome. The disagreement arose when discussing how we should bring muggle born witches, and wizards into our world." The Hufflepuff founder said.
"I was concerned about how we would keep muggle born children safe." Salazar Slytherin said. He continued, "There was so much fear in the muggle world that I wanted to ensure once we introduced them to our world, they would have safety, and support even when not at school."
"He had a valid point." Godric added. "The question then became how. Rowena, and Helga were vehemently against pulling the muggle born children from their families entirely. Which was what Salazar and I wanted to do. We figured the only way to keep muggle borns safe from muggle prejudice was to pull them into the magical world from the moment they showed magic."
"At that time, the muggle world was burning suspected witches at the stake. It was awful and terrifying, and we wanted to protect the magical children from that. I was willing to compromise on my stance to find neutral ground with Helga, and Rowena.
“I was not.” Salazar Said.
“So your problem was never with muggle borns? It was with the way muggles treated witches, and wizards at the time?” Pansy asked.
“You are correct. I wanted to do everything in my power to protect the muggle borns. That’s why my Chamber with Bessie existed. To protect the school from muggles with ill intent, if they somehow managed to break through the wards.”
Again the students were astounded. The Slytherins looked like they had just been told that their life was a lie, and they were struggling to comprehend it. The Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs were looking at the Slytherins with compassion.
“The reason Slytherin was marketed as ambitious, and cunning was because I would do anything to protect those I cared about. Including muggle borns. We were meant to be the house of protection for all magical species. Our ambition, and cunning would give many of us an upper hand in politics to write laws to protect those who would otherwise be left unprotected.” Salazar finished.
“So you were never interested in pureblood supremacy?” Draco asked.
“No never. I just wanted us all to be able to coexist peacefully.” Salazar said.
With a smile, Professor Tonks ended the class as the bell rang. She was hopeful these new revelations directly from the founder would lead to even more open mindedness among the Slytherins.
Study of the Non-Magical World.
“Good Morning Class!” Professor Campbell said jovially.
“Good morning Professor.”
“Today we are going to discuss muggle technology, and some things we will need to know for our upcoming field trip. Do we have any questions before we start?”
Looking around the room, there were no hands raised so the professor continued.
“Now to start, I would like to remind you that we are leaving for our first field trip after lunch. Please meet me in the Great Hall at 1pm, in appropriate muggle clothing, or as close as you have to appropriate muggle clothing. As a reminder we will be joined by the 6th year students for this trip.”
There was a murmur among the students as they were excited, and curious about what the day would hold.
“Today the first thing we are going to learn, which will be necessary for your trip into the muggle world, is how to count muggle money. This is something you will need during our field trips, if you would like to buy anything.”
Daphne Greengrass raised her hand. “Professor, how will we get muggle money if we all just have galleons and sickles?”
“Generally you would exchange your money into the needed currency at Gringotts, but for the sake of our field trips, you can exchange your money with me.”
“Does it just look different, or is the money valued differently?” Theo asked.
“Great question. Muggle currencies are different, depending on the location. Muggles in the United Kingdom use the pound sterling, whereas on the European continent they use the euro, and in the United States they use the dollar. We are only going to talk about the pound sterling, as that’s what you’re likely to use here in the UK.
“Now in the Wizarding World we have three coins, galleons, sickles and knuts. There are 29 knuts in a sickle, and 17 sickles in a galleon. Meaning there are 493 knuts in a galleon.”
The class was nodding their heads, familiar with the currency in question.
“In the muggle world, they use the pound note which is paper, and the pence. The big difference is they have multiple notes, and coins, all having different values.”
Professor Campbell showed photos of the different notes, and coins as she talked about them.
“There are 100 pence in one pound. Pence coins come in values of 1p, 2p, 5p, 10p, 20p and 50p. You can use any combination of those coins to make a pound.”
She showed photos of the coins in question, and noticed the confused faces of the students who had no experience in the muggle world.
“The best thing is all of the coins have their values written on them. In addition to the pence coins, there are also the 1 GBP, and 2 GBP coins. Now, in contrast to the Wizarding World, they have larger notes, valued at 5, 10, 20 and 50 pounds. This means that instead of carrying around 50 pound coins, they can just carry a single 50 pound note.”
There was a rumble among the students. The purebloods, and those who didn’t spend time in the muggle world were overwhelmed, as maths wasn’t a core subject in the magical world.
“How are we supposed to keep track of all of that?” Ron asked.
“We will have to work together, and help one another to learn and navigate this.”
Draco raised his hand. “How does muggle currency compare to wizarding currency?”
“The direct comparison is 1 knut equals 1 pence, and 1 galleon equals 4.93. That is not the rate you will get at Gringotts due to fees. If you ask me to exchange your galleons into pounds we will use the simple exchange of 1 galleon equals 5 pounds.
“Now I have some pound notes, and coins up here for you to come put your hands on and get used to. You can use the next ten minutes to get familiar with the currency.”
The students converged on the front table and started playing with the money. There were confused questions about how paper had value, and how they were supposed to remember it all. For the first time, there seemed to be a confused camaraderie among the students regardless of their houses. The muggle born students, familiar with the currency offered their help to those not familiar.
After ten minutes had passed, the students returned to their seats with even more questions. The remaining question was, how expensive were things in the muggle world? Professor Campbell gave examples for how expensive things would be where they were going, giving the students an idea of how much money they would like to bring.
“I take it we all have a basic understanding of how muggle money works?” She asked the class.
Heads nodding yes were given in return.
“Today we are going to a muggle theme park. You will see muggle technology in action. Rather than wait until we are in the park to explain how things work, we are going to cover some of it now.
“Most everything you see in the muggle world that lights up, or moves uses a form of energy called electricity. Those in the non-magical world have learned how to create this energy, and move it around to power the different things around them. Any questions?”
Noone raised their hand to ask anything. When Hermione looked around the room, she thought most of the students looked confused more than anything. When the professor realized there were no questions, she grabbed 4 ward stones off of her desk, and placed them in the corner of the room. Using her wand, she activated the ward stones, and a dome formed around the students.
“So you’re aware, I just created a magic free zone. This will allow me to show you some muggle technology.”
The professor briefly stepped outside of the ward stone, and lit what looked like a diesel generator on the terrace of the classroom. Once it was started, the muggle electronics within the bubble started to power on. Hermione recognized a TV, VCR, computer, boom box, and a small remote controlled car.
Gasps could be heard around the room as the devices powered on, with no assistance. As this occurred Professor Campbell returned within the ward.
“Now what I just did was turn on what is called a diesel generator. It provides energy to these devices, by way of the cable running along the ground.”
The professor pointed to the white extension cord running from the generator to the different devices in the room.
“Today on our trip, you will hear lots of music playing throughout the park. Most of it will come from a device like this one, with many spread out speakers.” She pointed to the boom box.
“Now like our wireless radio, the muggles have their own. They also have the ability to store information on compact discs called CD’s, which these machines can play back.”
Hermione laughed when she realized the professor was playing Celine Dions, My Heart Will Go On.
“They also have the ability to watch moving pictures, with sound on this device called a television, or TV. Our TV has a device hooked up to it called a VCR. This device lets us watch things that have been recorded, and distributed like movies.” She hit the play button on the remote, and the opening scenes of the movie Titanic started.
Hermione couldn’t contain her laughter.
“Professor, I take it you enjoyed the Titanic movie that recently came out?” She asked the professor with a giggle.
Professor Campbell shot Herminie a playful glare and answered.
“You would be correct Ms Granger.”
The movie played for a few more minutes, then much to the classes frustration, she paused the movie.
“Now one more piece of technology you will see in use today, in some fashion, is the. This device uses cables, and energy to connect to other computers around the world. I could send a message on this computer, to a computer in Australia, and it would arrive in less than 30 seconds.
“Computers can look very different. Some look like the one you see here, others have buttons and knobs, with very simple screens. Those are the types you will see this afternoon.”
Professor Campbell looked at her class. It appeared that she had broken half of her students. Those who didn’t live in the muggle world looked like they had been slapped across the face with new information, while the few muggle born students looked like they were trying not to laugh at their classmates.
“One last thing before you all leave. Meet in the Great Hall at 1pm, wearing muggle clothes. We will portkey from there. If you need to exchange money, please come early!” She yelled as the students ran from her classroom.
This afternoon was going to be a trip to remember.