1 Sept
Hey Diary!
I’m back at school, the feast is over, but I’m slightly restless so I just wanted to write a little bit.
I couldn’t get my History Of Magic text book when we went shopping for my school supplies - the book is a newly updated edition and they didn’t have enough copies yet. Flourish and Blotts actually gave us a discount “for our patience and understanding” and owned it to me directly. It arrived by owl while I was on the train. (Several other students apparently got theirs while on the Hogwarts express, as well.)
I have not found History of Magic to be terribly exciting; History in general has never been my favorite class in school. But! This text book is EXCITING! First of all, there’s so many famous witches and wizards listed in it that I’ve heard about in muggle media and even muggle history classes or other places in the muggle world that either I would never have guessed were magical or I might have but didn’t think they were real people. But the more exciting part is that there is a whole section on Harry Potter! He MUST be real if he’s in the text book! I Can’t wait to learn what is and isn’t true from the Harry Potter books!
There’s a lot of wizarding photos of these famous wixen, although some are photos of Portraits of the wixen instead, next to nearly every famous witch or wizard that lived 100 years ago or more, but the younger wixen don’t have photos. Including Harry Potter! I’m super disappointed that they didn’t include photos for the younger wixen.
I still enjoyed looking at the photos that are in the book though. There’s a girl named Rohesia Beaumont whose claim to fame is accidentally creating the potion that inspired the pepper up potion. Apparently she was attempting to brew a medieval potion (that modern healers have learned is entirely inefficient) for a headache but made a mistake and created something that instead very quickly cleared one’s sinuses. She reportedly was very annoyed with her mistake but because the person she had been making it for was impressed, she quickly figured out what she had done “wrong” and then began making batches of the new potion intentionally, making a name for herself and improving her family’s financial status. It was later the inspiration for a wizard named Linfred of Stinchcombe, who made a potion for the common cold. It wasn’t till the 18th century, some 5 centuries after Rohesia’s accidental invention, that Glover Hipworth invented the Pepper Up potion. He credited her with inspiring him and theorized that Linfred had taken credit for her potion. But the textbook claims that Linfred was Rohesia’s grand-nephew so perhaps he was simply improving on her recipe. That Linfred was related to Rohesia is apparently a new discovery and an update in the new edition of the text.
The reason I found her so interesting though is because she looked so much like me! There is a photo of a portrait of her in the book, though unlike many others, it doesn’t move. If I were to dress up in the same dress as she is wearing in the portrait, though, I could easily pass as Rohesia. Even Katherine thought the likeness was uncanny. I am going to owl flourish and blots to see if there is a book with more details about her. Maybe she’s a long lost relation! Mum will be thrilled if I really find stuff about this girl and start down that rabbit hole for real; she’s always felt I haven’t given history enough credit.
But that’s a task for tomorrow…it’s late and my dorm mates have stopped making noises. I should probably copy them and go to sleep.
Good night, diary!
Ava