When Gemma woke the next morning her first thought was to answer George's note. Unfortunately, sometime during the night Archie had woken up and flown out of her open window. It was early, about 6:30 and her first lesson wasn't until 10am so she sat down at her desk in her office just outside of her sleeping quarters and pulled out a quill and from the drawer. She had chosen green ink for her inkwell (green had always been her favorite color) and as neatly as she could wrote her reply.
Hi George,
I'd love to meet you in Hogsmeade that weekend! I've never
Been there except for the train station so I look forward to it.
Feel free to write in the meantime!
Best,
Gemma.
She rolled up her note and got herself ready for the day. She didn't know where a lot of things were still so she decided she would go to the Great Hall for breakfast, hopefully there would be someone else there and she could ask some questions. The large banquet hall seemed much different on a regular morning than it did last night, there were a few students at various tables, most of them looked like very overeager first years to her and Gemma laughed a little to herself thinking of high school and college freshman. She made her way to the staff table where the headmistress and a few other professors were sitting. "Good Morning Professor Kirkland." Headmistress McGonagall greeted her happily. "How was your first night, you're up early?"
"Oh it was great, thank you. I'm just an early riser."
"Good, well tuck in dear and have some breakfast, Fillius have you met our young Gemma yet?"
A tiny little professor with a rather squeaky voice took her hand, "Nice to meet you."
"You too." Gemma replied with a smile, she made her way around and took a seat next to McGonagall.
"Professor Flitwick teaches Charms Gemma, he's the best at wand work I know."
"That's fantastic." Gemma said addressing the little professor, "I'd love if you could maybe teach me a few things, you know I bought a wand, but I practice magic a little differently back home and have never really used one before. I use more incantations, spells and potions in my craft."
"A wiccan decent I imagine." Professor Flitwick replied.
"Yes, are you familiar?"
"Not in practice my dear, but I have read about it. Tell you what, I'll teach you a few things with your wand and you can teach me a few things about incantation? I'm afraid potions I'm rather amiss, 7 years of potions and an E in my NEWT level class and I still can't even manage to make myself a decent pepper up potion." The group laughed.
"Well, I must admit, I've never done much peppering up, a lot of the potions I've practiced have been vanquishing potions, which I imagine would not be too safe in a school, but I'd be happy to show you anything I know."
"Vanquishing potions?" Professor McGonagall asked after a moment, "What were you vanquishing?"
"Demons mostly." The two professors looked at her dumbfounded, seeing their confusion Gemma continued, "My parents were killed by demons, minions of evil essentially, sent by powerful dark wizards. My family has taken down quite a few over the years, my book goes over many of them in great detail, I'd be happy to show you."
"Magic really is different everywhere you go, yes I'd love to know more." Professor McGonagal said, "Perhaps we could meet in my office at the end of your first week, bring your book and we can see how you're doing here, and then we could talk over some of these things. I think we may have as much to learn from you dear as you have to learn from us."
Professor Flitwick was smiling widely. "And I'll show you some wand work too! Oh how exciting Minerva, to have a professor who was brought up with a completely different kind of magic, how fascinating. We must introduce her to Professor Binns."
"Perhaps when she's ready to go sleep Fillius." Gemma smiled
"That all sounds great, I'd love to do that, I'm sure I'll have some questions of my own come the end of the week anyway."
"Well fantastic."
Gemma finished up her breakfast then asked, "So I have some time before my first class, could either of you tell me where I could go to send this note? My friend Hannah had let me use her owl at the inn, but I don't have one of my own."
"Of course dear, you need the owlery, we have dozens of school owls." Professor McGonagall told her as she finished her toast.
"The owlery." Gemma took out her school map that had been left on her desk in her office, and traced her finger from where she was to tall tower labeled owlery. "Perfect, well I think I'm off to do a little exploring. Thanks so much, and it was great meeting you Professor, I look forward to working together."
"Likewise." The professor squeaked. Gemma excused herself and made her way across the grounds to the tall tower that held all the owls. As she made her way up the spiraling staircase, she could hear the rustling of the birds above and when she entered the circular room she was faced with what seemed like hundreds of owls. Every size and color you could imagine. Not knowing exactly what to do, she decided to ask.
"Hello." Gemma said upward toward the owls, "would any of you be willing to help me send a note?" A lovely tawny owl swooped down and landed on the windowsill next to where Gemma was standing, he hooted softly. "Oh, hello there." The owl bobbed his head, "hmm, I wonder what I do." The owl then stuck out it's right foot, there was a small clasp there. Gemma took her note, placed it in the clasp and told the owl that it needed to go to George Weasley. The owl hooted in response and took off through the window. Gemma shrugged, "well, I hope that works?"
Later that morning Gemma was ready to begin teaching her first class. She sat at her desk looking at her roster. She had ten kids in her first class:
Ritik McDowell-3rd year-Hufflepuff
Bessie Robles-3rd year-Hufflepuff
Matylda Rosa-4th year-Hufflepuff
Marcel McMillan-5th year-Hufflepuff
Zach McCarty-3rd year-Gryffindor
Mercy Beard-4th year-Gryffindor
Frederic Hays-4th year-Gryffindor
Shana Cresswel-3rd year-Ravenclaw
Alanna Paul-3rd year-Ravenclaw
Marvin Barrera-5th year- Ravenclaw
Gemma noticed that she had kids from three out of the four houses and then remembered something Hannah had told her about Slytherins back at the Leaky Caldron, "Slytherins are pretty much all purebloods and they like to keep it that way. You probably won't see any in a muggle studies class, but that might be for the best." Gemma made a mental note to make sure to tell Hannah she had been very correct, at least so far. The bell to indicate the change of classes rang at 10 minutes to 10am. Gemma took another look around her classroom, her name was on the black board and underneath she had written their topic for the days lesson: Why is Magic a Secret?
Students began to trickle into the room and Gemma greeted each one by name, realizing suddenly that she knew who each of them were without having seen them before. The kids sat down and Gemma began her lesson. She had never had a room full of people listen to her so intently, and she kind of liked it. The discussion of the days topic went very well. Students were participating and had some great insights.
"So, what are some of the reasons you think wizards and witches decided not to share magic with non magical people?" Gemma asked.
A hand went up and Gemma called on the girl, Alanna who said, "History."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, wizards used to make themselves known and were used to serve people. Like Merlin."
"Very good, and why would Merlin serving King Arthur lead to us deciding that wasn't a good idea."
"King Arthur became quite dependent on Merlin. He used him."
"You could say that; would you say that was an indication of how people who can't do magic would treat someone who could in general?"
Another hand went up, Gemma called on Marcel, "I think Merlin's story aside, it's obvious that muggles would never stop wanting magic solutions to solve things, and that can't happen. Not even we can use magic to solve everything."
"That's very good, and an excellent point."
"But what about the muggles who do know and keep the secret fine?" said Mercy.
"Another good point, go on?"
"Well, I'm muggle-born, my whole family are non-magical, and they all know about me and don't tell anyone. Nor do they ask me to preform spells for them."
"That's because you're not old enough to do magic out of school, they know that." Replied Marcel.
"Ok." Gemma intervened, "a good point, but Mercy, do you think once you are of age that the respect, they've shown you in regard to your being able to do magic will continue?"
"I have no reason to believe otherwise, they are my family."
Gemma looked at the clock at the back of the classroom and noticed that their first hour was just about up. "Well, this was an excellent discussion, and class is about to end, so for the next time we meet I'd like an essay on this very subject. Just your opinion, no length requirement, but I do want a nice full opinion on the subject. Don't just give me a few sentences, really think about this for next time." The bell rang, "See you then." Gemma dismissed the class and as they filed out, she felt great about her first class and thought to herself, yes, I can do this.
