25 July 1991 Thursday

I have a lot to take in. Saturday I find out I'm a wizard and magic is real. Sunday I move into an actual bedroom for the first time in my life. Monday I find out I have a lot more relatives than I thought. Tuesday I find out that my mother's childhood best friend is going to be one of my professors and that I'm rich. Wednesday I get a lot more background on my family and I get a letter from Lord Black. Today I'm supposed to hear from him again, so I've got my bedroom window wide open and I'm trying to focus on getting things done, but it's hard. I've done my half hour of calligraphy practice, I've read and highlighted the other two chapters in my potions text, I read the introductions to all my other textbooks, and I've read through all the notes I've made since I found out.

I forgot I was going to write about what the deal was with braiding and knot tying and that sort of magic not being taught at Hogwarts. Mrs. Figg said that this is stuff the members of old families would know but isn't written down (she also told me that nothing she was telling me then was forbidden to be written down, and that the stuff that was forbidden, some of that she didn't know, and the rest she couldn't tell me anyway). First, there are two meanings to the term Dark Magic. The one that people usually mean, or assume people mean is "evil magic" but the older meaning is "earth, lunar, hidden, women's magic". Most magic to do with textiles is dark magic, as is all blood magic. Women have a special affinity for blood magic (Why? ... Oh. Yuck. OK.) and only women of childbearing age are supposed to do it. The protections my mother put on me were ancient blood protections. Men aren't supposed to do blood magic because there's no way for them to get blood except by hurting or killing something. There are little blood magics that everyone does, like charging personal runes or marking possessions, but even then, men would be better off using semen (Yuck!). Some holidays, like Beltane and Yule, are dark holidays, which doesn't mean they're evil, just that they are about ... It's really hard to explain, because anything I can think of to contrast to "light" also implies "evil". Mrs. Figg taught me a new word, chthonic, but I'm not sure I even spelled it right, let alone that I could say it.

But anyway, balance, right hand vs. left hand, light vs. dark, solar vs. lunar, are all important things in magic. Most of the time when people talk about the Old Magic, they are talking about the old dark magic but trying to avoid saying that dark is good. Also, dark is the magic of judgement, light is the magic of mercy, and too much of either is bad.

She also told me that this isn't the most popular viewpoint these days and that while boys and men pick up things about the existence of women's magic, it's not something they are supposed to talk about much. She said she was filling me in because this is something all the kids in magical families already know. She had no idea where my mother would have learned it. Maybe Professor McGonnagle or Professor Sprout teach it. I'll probably never find out. I mentioned having seen a book on magic embroidery, and she said that some secrets are less secret than others, and that some things got rolled into chthonic because they were things women usually did, rather than anything deep about them. I had to think about that, but I guess it's kind of like if rugby was a kind of magic.

She also said that this doesn't mean that nothing and no one is evil, just that the definitions of words are often fuzzy. You can do evil light magic or good dark magic, it's all in how you use it. We ended up talking a bit about what counts as light magic, but just for an easy example, repeatedly healing someone just so you can hurt them some more without killing them is pretty evil. She also said that according to her parents' research, the Dark Lord had no business calling himself that, cos there's only ever supposed to be a Dark Lady. We giggled a bit about what that said about dark lords.

She used lots of big words when explaining all this, so I kept having to stop her and ask again, and she said sorry, that's what comes of being the child of scientists. I said, wait a minute, I thought your parents studied genetics, and she said if her parents had gone to Hogwarts, they would have been Ravenclaws (as her siblings were) because they wanted to know everything. Dinner table discussions were really interesting. (I think Ravenclaw is sounding better and better... But then I think of something cool about Hufflepuff or Professor Sprout - oh, and Welsh for Hufflepuff is pronounced ooftytoof, but I can't remember how to spell it. Who wouldn't want to be an ooftytoof?)

Argh. Still no owl. Back to my notebook. There's a list of Noble and Most Ancient families and a list of Ancient families. Is it possible to be most ancient without being noble? No, because all the families that would qualify have died out. Is it possible to be noble without being Ancient or Most Ancient (most ancient means you had a family member at Hogwarts with the founders)? No, because nobility is granted by the crown, and since the Statutes of Secrecy magical people have much less chance of being noticed by the crown. Does the Queen know about magic? Yes, and there are some magics that only the seated monarch can perform. Does that mean the Queen is magical? It's complicated and my books don't explain it anywhere that I can find.

No owl no owl no owl... Haven't done Dudley's horoscope yet, not sure I care at this point. I think I have enough to be going on with at present. Totally forgot about the talking snake, got to remember to ask someone about that. We named the kittens Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, Thyme, and Marigold.

What the... There's a coach in front of my house pulled by four black winged horses! And now AP's calling me!