The school's still gossiping furiously about the Snape issue, of course, but less of it's directed at them (except for one Hufflepuff informing them, sounding utterly baffled, that some Slytherins are signing on). 

Anathema's in the mood to explore the grounds some, actually - she likes sunshine.

Sure, sounds fun.

She does bring a bag with two books in case they find somewhere to sit and read, and then off they go!

There's a large open green space around the castle itself, including down to the lake on the other side from the train station - which seems to be a popular hang out spot. The Quidditch Pitch is on a flatter area overlooking the lake. But there's also a really big, dark forest sort of folded into a much smaller bit of land inside the sweeping walls (with 'Dangerous - Keep Out' signs in a perimeter around it), and smaller, lighter patches of trees and hedges and bushes, and stacked stone walls and cottages and outbuildings - one of the cottages down near the Forbidden Forest is occupied, but a lot seem to have been unused for a really long time.

There's extensive gardens and greenhouses around the Herbology classroom (and a cottage by there as well, which has been transformed into a classroom for less hands-on lectures). There's a few meditation mazes tucked away here or there, and some flat areas with signs they've been used for rituals in the past.

You could fit a village or even a small medieval city inside the walls easily, and there's signs there used to be inner sets of walls at some past point.

Some of the gardens and cottages have paper signs fixed to the entryway with some variant on 'claimed by this or those students' and then years. Lots of the claims seem to have expired, and lots are unclaimed.

"Maybe we should claim a cottage."

"Yeah! Lots of these are really neat."

"A home-away-from-dorm."

Giggle. "The Dragon Room's really nice, too... But I like having a lot of secret little spaces."

"Backups." Nod.

Heh. "The cottages will be really nice in spring, too..." Sigh. "Wish we could live here in summers."

"That used to be allowed, for people who didn't have anywhere else to go."

"Why isn't it allowed anymore?"

"Dunno. Headmaster just hasn't approved any, I guess."

"Ugh." She scuffs her shoe on the ground.

Pretty much, yeah.

Sigh.

They probably won't be able to pick a favorite cottage today - and should maybe learn a charm for sticking signs to stuff first - but it's nice to look between them. Maybe they can even ask the house elves for a picnic lunch sometime if they wanna avoid the Great Hall...

Still: class tomorrow, which means going to bed at a vaguely decent hour.

Back to the grind.

The next morning, Dumbledore announces that he is sensitive to student concerns, and Professor Snape will not be returning to Hogwarts next year - but he will serve out this year as Hogwarts' Potions Master, to give the school administration time to find and orient a new hire. Any classes that collectively feel uncomfortable being taught by Professor Snape may say so, and Dumbledore will arrange for the Potions Assistant or himself to teach that class.

There's some muttering - it sounds like the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs nearest Ellie are unsure 'at the end of this year' is soon enough.

Ellie is not unsure about this. She is sure that it is not.

She is willing to express this opinion, if asked.

That seems to firm up her fellows' opinions (especially given Anathema chimes in on Ellie's side) that they should still push forward, get him removed sooner.

Good.

Shortly after breakfast is History of Magic again - the room just as headache-inducing as last time, though Ellie seems to be the most sensitive by far. Professor Quirrel gives them a short answer quiz on the readings - only five questions, starting straightforward and landing at 'challenging' by the end.

This class he talks about pre-Roman conflicts between magical, muggle, and magical being communities. (Some magical beings apparently have records - or even first hand memories - dating nearly to the first human settlements in the Isles, though Professor Quirrel is highly dismissive of their reliability. The ancients, he says, did not much care for historical rigor, and what has survived to the modern day often describes events decades or centuries prior that the author had heard about second hand or had collated from someone else's set of second hand accounts. Even those few restless dead who still exist from that period are not truly reliable witnesses - ghosts remain obsessed with the events around their deaths, struggling to form coherent long term memories afterwards, and barrow wights and their ilk have poor memories all around.)

Conflict, the way he tells it, was frequent and intense. Magical humans and muggles were nearly entirely interwoven, with magicals almost always acting as community leaders. The numerous tribes varied between raids and sincere attempts to wipe each other out - often destroying entire teaching lineages. This did, however, drive quite a bit of innovation in ritual and place magic, which is to this day often superior for defense. This became more noticeable as magical humans began to form their own techniques, rather than relying solely on the underdeveloped traditions they had learned from the non-humans around them.

Trade, of course, continued with the mainland, even prior to the arrival of the Romans - one of the more culturally impactful changes in this time is the arrival of shapeshifting traditions from mainland Europe, though it took a few centuries to catch on properly.

"Professor," Ellie asks, "is this related to the modern Animagus transformation?"

"An insightful question, Miss Potter," he says, with all the delight of a career academic being asked about a pet subject. "It's difficult to be sure, but it seems two separate shapeshifting techniques actually made their way over - one Nordic, one recently Germanic, though that one had perhaps yet more foreign roots. The British-Nordic tradition eventually died out except in the form of shapeshifting curses - one descendant of which would eventually create werewolves, though that's a bit of a digression. The British-Germanic tradition, however, survived. It developed two main branches - that of the Irish Druids, and that of the British Hedge-Witches. The druidic tradition was always a secretive one, and sadly their shapeshifting tradition was among those they lost in one of their teaching lineage disruptions - but the witchcraft tradition remained strong, spreading easily. An early medieval coven actually required initiates learn to change shape before they could be considered full adults - a line often drawn between eleven and fifteen, in those times."

"The witchcraft tradition, of course, met wizardry, as those magicals who practiced in the Roman tradition slowly came to an accord with the older British magicals. The founding of Hogwarts provided the true catalyst for the melding of the two, however, for our esteemed Founders were determined to teach both. Salazar Slytherin was the most famous witch of his age - the only one of the Founders able to change shape - and one of his students, Amice Becca, modified the witch transformation with elements of self-transfiguration, creating what was very nearly our modern Animagus technique - modulo a few tweaks down the centuries."

"There had been existing wizarding shapeshifting traditions, of course - but all of them were immensely difficult to master, requiring a new spell with a new risk of error on each change. The witchcraft traditions had been far easier to learn, but Lady Amice believed that they had a clear drawback - it was rather easy to reveal a witch in animal form and to trap them in one form or another. The Animagus ritual had none of these problems. It was still incredibly difficult to learn, especially for those not educated in both witchcraft and wizardry, but an Animagus cannot be prevented from transforming directly, though you may trap them in an environment hostile to one of their forms, and once you complete the Animagus ritual, you retain the ability throughout your life, regardless of whether you have a wand on you. And, for centuries, Animagi could not be revealed or forced to change - the Animagus Revelation spell was only invented in the nineteenth century, and the Animagus Reversal spell, which can return an Animagus to their human form, was invented shortly after the turn of the twentieth."

"Of course, nowadays the witchcraft traditions largely lack the drawbacks they used to have, as widespread knowledge of witchcraft outside of Potions and Herbology has waned. Those old traditions are mostly a concern of dusty old men like myself."

He pauses.

"I rather rambled there, didn't I?" he says, a bit sheepish.

"It was interesting, Professor. Thank you."

The majority of her classmates (except a few Gryffindors) seem to agree, so Professor Quirrel smiles, and continues on with his earlier lecture.

They have another reading assignment - only one half of a chapter, this time, in Wyrd & Wicce - and then he explains the papers they will be writing over the next year - a total of four, two in each semester. The first will be presented to their classmates the week before Samhain break, and it will be on a topic of their choice within the scope of pre-Roman and Roman British Isles magical history. He wants them to choose an argument, and to do their best to prove it to the class, using their textbooks as well as sources from the library. If any of them want to find a topic or argument now, he can review that, but it isn't necessary.

In preparation, however, he'd like them to write an essay this week - no fewer than three hundred words, no more than five hundred (which they have learned a spell to measure in their Composition class already) - answering one of several questions he has prepared about the material from the last two weeks. He wants them to back up their answer with at least two citations from the textbooks, giving the page number and which textbook they found their point in. Direct quotes, facts, and paraphrases should all be cited.

There's groans from the Gryffindor side of the room as Professor Quirrel waves his wand, causing papers with the question lists to float to each student.