" Most of you got good marks on your homework from our previous lesson. Mr Finch-Fletchley, take a point for anticipating part of today's lecture. Mr Thomas, your essay was admirably impassioned but both poorly written and off topic, please re-submit it correctly and I shall not repeat your claim that "all wizards are bastards" to your mother - with all that that implies - in your end of term report.
" If you don't know what that implies please ask your head of house, I'm afraid we don't have the time here.
" Now, I promised you a second lecture on the Beautiful Game. As this is the end of the module, we will consider the wider lessons that can be learned from one of the more unfortunate events to arise from a game of football.
" In the 1850s and 60s, muggle football was in a state of ferment. Multiple local ball games with superficial similarities but major differences were coming together and attempting to find a middle ground where all could agree on a single rule set. There was some success, but in 1863 there was a major schism, with the self-titled Football Association breaking away from the rest as its 11 member clubs' preferred rules were not accepted by the majority.
" The differences in the muggle rules were not of interest to wizards at first - we had after all been playing Wizards Football for a long time even when every muggle village had its own variation on the theme. However, it was very quickly found that teams whose home ground had Football Association muggles had an advantage. Those muggles' rules encouraged players to keep their distance from each other, passing the ball over long distances, and they had fewer players on a team, so the Obliviator's view of his target was rarely blocked. Because all of their home games were played with FA muggles those wizard teams racked up many high scores - and points scored is of course the tie-breaker in the league when teams have the same number of wins. This encouraged other teams to move their home grounds to ones with favourable muggles over the ensuing decades, or in the case of the Bermondsey club to confound a muggle club into moving to them. Once all the teams were playing with muggles with identical rules, the rules of our game were tweaked to suit, in particular with the introduction of the penalty area bonus points.
" Decades passed, and in 1960 a clever but misguided halfblood called Tom Riddle began to agitate for change. He believed that modern Wizards Football with its clear sight-lines lacked an element of skill, and that the older game where muggle players would get in the way encouraged more strategic play by wizards, picking their targets more carefully. He duly assembled two teams and cast around for a muggle match at which they could play.
" Riddle had found that after the Football Association teams had broken away the majority that remained united had called themselves the Rugby Football Union, named after the town of Rugby where the bulk of their rules originated. As a side-note, there is also the Rugby Football League, a minor schism which still exists but is of no interest to us here. The Rugby Union game is of the three the most similar to the pre-1850s muggle games. Importantly for Riddle it was played by larger teams, and the muggle rules encourage close contact between their players. Unfortunately for Mr Riddle he had failed to assemble a very skilled team, despite his assertions that the level of skill required in this game would be higher than normal. When Riddle's inept Obliviator - Riddle was an enthusiastic but unsubtle wizard of only moderate power so played the Cruciator - could not hit his target, the muggle removed the Cruciatus from himself by getting up, jumping into the crowd which hemmed Riddle in preventing his escape, and beating Riddle unconscious.
" Miss Granger, your concern does you credit. He recovered after a brief stay in St Mungo's hospital. He occasionally pops up in the letters pages of Football Monthly magazine.
" Oh, him? The DMLE's rather more skilled Obliviators were on the scene quickly and dealt with the problem.
" Riddle understood clearly the value of tradition, but he misunderstood what tradition is. It is not doing things in the old way just because that's the old way. No, tradition is all the lessons that we have learned from the wise amongst our forebears, including their teachings on how to think and how to approach a changing world. Change can come, but carefully, after consultation with your peers, considering all the ramifications.
" Your homework is a foot on something you immediately thought you would like to change when introduced to your new world. I would like to see a carefully reasoned argument, which you have discussed with your house prefects - I will be checking those citations - for or against your initial idea. "
As the students filed out Lucius sat back and relaxed. That assignment was always fun to mark, and was useful for finding out those who could do with a little more help fitting in.