Ellie would like a cookie, please.

She can have one! (There's quite a lot of varieties - some normal for muggles, some weird wizarding ones, but the house elves can also do 'a random flavor.')

Random!

That gets her a soft, smooth cookie. It has a faint chocolate and cinnamon flavor, slightly sweet and almost milky, with licorice bits.

Tasty.

Anathema gets one for herself, and then - what does Ellie feel like doing next?

Library? See what titles they have.

Oooo, that sounds excellent.

To the library!

They have: copies of all the textbooks, further reading on all classes (including electives), classic fiction, an archive of magazines and newspapers, and... Actually not much else, though the 'further reading' section is fairly substantial, especially for the core classes.

Better than nothing.

Ellie grabs one of the books cited in their transfiguration textbook for later.

Anathema pauses around the cultural studies books.

Then grabs a dictionary and grammar on Ancient Egyptian, and a history book about Egyptian magical communities, and then skims through the Defense and Charms books until she finds something about emotion-based magic, including the Patronus.

Thence to checkout?

Sounds good to her.

She doesn't always really like reading around strangers - maybe after dinner they can go back to the dragon lounge, read until bedtime?

Sure.

Heeee.

It's a rather nice way to spend the next few hours. Anathema reads quietly, at least, deeply engaged in her books.

Ellie is focused just as much, just the rustle of turning pages and the soft scratches of notetaking.

She's smiling when it's time for bed, and she offers Ellie a soft "Good night."

"Good night."

The next few days aren't strenuous at all. The first two days of Orientation introduce them to magical safety (something Professor Reynolds has already taught Ellie), how to find the library, how to find the medical wing, how to find the professors' offices, and how to find all their classrooms. They're also given a literacy test, which all the Ravenclaws do well on.

Ellie and Anathema's first class is History of Magic, held on the fourth floor, at nine in the morning sharp. It's taught by one Professor Quirrell, apparently, who the upper years describe as 'nervous.' They'll be sharing the classroom with Gryffindor House, as well as their fellow first year Ravenclaws.

Exciting.

Ellie makes sure she's up in plenty of time to have breakfast, and brings both wizarding and muggle writing supplies.

The History classroom smells, faintly, of incense. There's a smoky quality to the light nearest the ceiling. It's enough to give Ellie a slow headache, concentrated at the front of her forehead. Ravenclaw and Gryffindor have twenty students even between them (eleven Ravenclaw, nine Gryffindor), and mostly settle into seats based on House. The Gryffindor students, notably, don't seem to actually have much in the way of muggle writing supplies, unlike the Ravenclaws - only one boy and one girl, each sitting a bit separately from the others, have a notebook on their desks.

Professor Quirrel hardly fills the front of the room - he seems small. Shrunken in, and dwarfed by even the paltry bookshelves around him. He keeps his desk between himself and his students as he starts the lesson - he has a noticeable stutter -

"Good morning, students, and welcome to the History of Magic. As this is your first year, I will mostly be giving an overview of British magic throughout the ages. We will begin with the earliest days we have evidence for, and move forward from there. You are allowed to take notes however you like, but essays must be written on parchment, with quill, in black ink."

That's a little weird but she can foresee the incense being a yearlong problem.

He goes over the curriculum, mostly, then in the second hour starts in on the earliest magic in the British Isles. "We don't have many surviving accounts from that time," he says. "Primarily oral tradition, and what we can guess from the remaining workings - and our ancestors worked amazing magic. They didn't have wands as we know them - while some Gaelic magical lineages made use of sacred branches, the wand proper was invented in Greece, and came to Britain with the Roman invaders. Rather, magic was focused around astrology and sacrifice..."

He details some of the early rituals - "Deemed Dark, nowadays, as if that is a reasonable brush to paint an entire culture with," - and mentions some of the workings that still remain active. (There was no full concept of a national identity yet, but the early protections against Roman invasion were used as the foundation for strengthening the protective magics over the entire British Isles. Several protections on barrows also remain constant - primarily keeping the restless dead within, and the living from disturbing their sleep.) He speaks with light admiration, mostly, of their ingenuity in sacrificial magic - but doesn't get too far in before the last fifteen minutes, when he pivots to giving homework assignments.

"No essays this first week," he says, "Though I'll give you a short one over Mabon on today's topic, which we'll continue next week. Your reading assignments are the first chapter of Wyrd and Wicce, as well as the section of A History of Magic's first chapter labeled 'Prehistoric Northern Europe.' If you wish to do further reading, the library has a copy I believe of Runes Before Writing by Edyth Glenn, which has a section for Northern Europe, including the Nordic countries and the British Isles. There is also Blood and Ash by Aodh Mag Raith, though some of the comparisons to the - admittedly much better documented - sacrificial traditions of the Mediterranean are more than a bit of a reach, in my humble opinion."

That was actually pretty interesting once he got going. Definitely a different slant than the texts; she's already read the assigned excerpts.

Art, at four in the afternoon, is less intrinsically fascinating, though they do learn an overview about materials used in magical art - though they'll be getting their legs under them with nonmagical materials, first. Charms - after lunch the next day - is less fascinating than either, given Ellie already learned everything Flitwick's teaching today over the summer. She can rack up a few points for Ravenclaw's House Cup by answering questions, though.

An hour after Charms lets out is her first proper class with Professor Reynolds, Defense Against the Dark Arts (alongside Slytherin House).

She's been looking forward to this.