And here's the twenty seventh chapter of "A Year Too Soon"! Enjoy!
* Review Response:
The Sinful, without Harry those two would probably never get close to each other in the first place. My own headcanon for this story is that they are... not on the best terms with each other. And, you are absolutely right about the thing Goyle Sr. forgot: one should never underestimate people's stupidity.
Vampireking40, the basilisk will be stopped way earlier than in the canon, but not before it claims at its first victim (Mrs. Norris).
Jostanos, mwinter1, magitech, Yaw6113, DarkRavie, Spiraling Fan 3128, Yana5, hellfire45, TheGreatBubbaJ, Yami no fukushi no tenshi, Ep (guest), Merle (guest), Toby860, lou2003us, Smokeing, thank you for your reviews, folks!
mizzrazz72, she's also an eleven years old girl who is also the youngest child in a large family. She will often react on her emotions and not do the wise things. A Magical diary that insists it can be her friend and offers to soothe her worries? Why not?
The Shadows Mistress, while my did get his Parseltongue from Tom Riddle, it was simply because he had the horcrux in his head for ten years. Just having that thing in his body caused Harry to develop his own Parseltongue. After the horcrux was removed, his control over the ability was disrupted, but he retrained the skill over the summer.
a guy1013, who said that the basilisk in the Chamber of Secrets will want to change its master?
orion0905, I'm afraid I will be disappointing you. My Lockhart is better prepared and is a bit more competent with his wand, but he's still a guy who steals others' achievements for money and fame.
setokayba2n, nope. Lucius isn't planning to unleash the beast from within the Chamber here. Nothing – as far as Dobby knows – is endangering "the great Harry Potter sir".
NazgulBelserion, I have no plans for Harry to ever learn or use any of the the Unforgivables.
* AN: As always, great thanks to my friend Skelekitty for his help in polishing this chapter.
Also, I'm very sorry for taking so long to write this chapter, by Life has been a cruel mistress to me recently. At least, I have a job again...
Disclaimer: I DO NOT own "Harry Potter" franchise. No profit is being made. Same goes for any books, video games, anime or manga I may or may not use for ideas.
"speaking"
"parseltongue"
'thinking'
written text
spells
A Year Too Soon
Chapter XXVII: Electives and Other Classes
Much to the disappointment of third year Slytherins, their very first class this year was History of Magic. And their ghostly Professor was as boring as ever, droning monotonously about one war between wizards and goblins or another. Seriously, were these wars the only thing that ever happened in the centuries long past? There had to be more to the history of Magical Britain that this. Perhaps, Harry thought, Professor Binns' limited selection of topics and his inability to excite his students about his subject should be brought to Headmaster's attention. And, as great as an essentially-free period was, the Potter scion would rather have a Professor that actually taught the subject…
Thankfully, the next class promised to be much more exciting than the endless boring lectures about the goblin wars. After all, it was their first elective. And for Harry, Flora, Hestia and a few of their classmates who had chosen Care for Magical Creatures, it was the time to head outdoors and meet Professor Kettleburn. The man was actually quite well-known by the student body and beyond, thanks to how many injuries he had lived through: over the course of his long career he had lost all of his limbs but one arm and half of one leg to one incident or another. Yet, despite being as maimed as he was, Professor Kettleburn could honestly claim that no student had ever been seriously hurt during any of his classes.
As Harry and his friends arrived to a small lea just off the greenhouses, they found the joyous man surrounded by a small crowd of Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students, telling them one story from his life or another. Noticing that the rest of his students arrived, the Professor quickly finished his tale and addressed the gathered students.
"Good morning and welcome to your first Care for Magical Creatures class. I'm Professor Silvanus Kettleburn and I will be teaching you how to take care of various Magical critters you might come across. And, believe me, I'm quite a professional when it comes to dealing with those!" He boasted with his metal left arm held high in the air. "Now, while you won't meet any creature that is actually dangerous during my classes for a while, it is still imperative that I lay down the rules meant to prevent any unfortunate accidents." And with that Professor Kettleburn proceeded to explain how one should behave around various wild Magical animals. And by the end of his briefing, none of the students present had any doubts left that the man in front of them was indeed an experienced professional.
Once he was done with his speech, Professor Kettleburn announced that the topic of today's lesson was puffskeins, small yellowish creatures that resemble spheres of fur and were sometimes held as pets in Wizarding households. And since puffskeins were essentially harmless - unless one really objected to being licked by their long tongues - Professor Kettleburn let his students pet the critters for a bit. Once he read a small lecture on them and assigned some homework, of course.
Girls, understandably, were more eager to play with the puffskeins as the barely-teenaged boy had this overwhelming urge to flaunt their manliness by not having anything to do with things that are 'cute' or anything like that. Harry, to be honest, wasn't much different for them, but he couldn't keep the act for long as he was soon smacked in his face by a ball of yellowish fur, courtesy of Flora. This quickly devolved into a weird version of killerball with Harry and the Carrow twins as players and the puffskein as their ball. That was a pretty fun game, but Professor Kettleburn didn't approve of it and threatened them with points loss and detentions if they didn't stop.
"Sorry, Sir. It won't happen again." Hestia apologized for the three of them. The man nodded, accepting her apology. He didn't go away immediately, though, and spent the next couple of minutes monitoring them closely. Once he was satisfied that they could handle their puffskein properly and won't go back to throwing each other or get into some other mischief, Professor Kettleburn finally stopped breathing down their necks and went to supervise his other students.
The rest of the class passed without any notable incidents. Once the bell rang, Harry, Flora and Hestia headed back into the castle to grab some lunch before their afternoon classes, which were double Transfiguration.
They were soon joined at the Slytherin table by Blaise, Daphne and Tracey. The 'younger' trio looked rather disheveled and the dark-skinned boy even had a few scratches on the back of his left hand and even on his cheek. He didn't look too distraught by it, though. In fact, he and Daphne both looked rather smug about something while Tracey was visibly sulking.
"Did something happen during you Defense class?" Flora asked, having deduced that whatever had happened to her friends must have occurred during Professor Lockhart's class. Blaise nodded.
"First, he gave us this stupid test where all of the questions were about him." Harry gave him a skeptical look. Surely, their new DADA Professor couldn't be that bad? "I kid you not. Not a single question on that paper had anything to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts. They all were about Lockhart!" Blaise said, ignoring Tracey indignantly telling him that it was 'Professor Lockhart'.
"And those scratches?" Flora asked. "How did you get those?"
"Well… After Lockhart was done grading our tests, he decided to give us a practical lesson on some the most fearsome beasts a wizard might come across. He let a cage-full of Cornish pixies loose in the classroom." The dark-skinned wizard explained with dramatic flair.
"Pixies?" Harry asked. "Those don't sound like very dangerous beasts."
"Maybe." Daphne agreed. "But when there is a lot of them, they can cause quite a mayhem. Blaise here actually got off easily: they tore apart a few books and even managed to hang heir Longbottom on the chandelier." Flora raised an eyebrow.
"And Professor Lockhart just let that happen?" She asked.
"Actually, the man tried to show off by dealing with the pixies with some spell that none of us had heard of before. Whatever it was, it only agitated the pixies further. They quickly swarmed him and snatched his wand. Once that happened, Lockhart beat a hasty retreat to his private office and we had to stun all of the pixies ourselves." Blaise explained, his words making Tracey sulk even more. It was clear that her vision of Gilderoy Lockhart as a knight in shining armor that could conquer any challenge was falling apart, but she wasn't ready to throw it away yet.
"That… doesn't sound like he knows what he's doing." Harry said. "Or even can use his wand properly. Pixies are, like, an annoying pest. An adult wizard shouldn't have much trouble with them."
"Yeah." Daphne agreed. "I think, everyone expected better from the man with such a colorful resume. I mean, wasn't he given an Order of Merlin for stopping a number of extremely dangerous beasts? Putting a bunch of pixies back in cage should be a piece of cake for him."
"Let's hope that it was one-time thing and he actually lives up to his reputation." Harry said. After a short pause, during which he consulted with his timetable, he added: "I guess, we will have our answer soon enough: we have a class with him tomorrow afternoon."
"Good luck." Blaise wished, clearly believing that they'll need all the luck they could get.
~/ *** \~
"How was your first Arithmancy lesson, Harry?" Flora asked as the trio 'reunited' in front of the Charms classroom. The twins had decided not to opt into this elective and, thus, had had a free period first thing on Thursday mornings.
"It was… informative." The green-eyed youth replied. "Professor Vector talked a bit about what we can use Arithmancy for and what will be expected from us come OWLs. She then demonstrate how one alters a spell by playing around with its formula, using simple Lumos as an example."
"Maybe we should've taken the class with you? That sounds quite interesting." Hestia observed as they entered the classroom and took their seats.
"Yeah, it is quite fascinating." Harry agreed. "But that isn't something that we will be taught how to do until later. Professor Vector told us that it won't be until fourth year that we actually start learning how to take a spell apart and modify it. This whole year and, maybe, a part of the next one will be just learning the basics of the Numerology theory."
"Oh." Flora quickly deflated. Neither her nor Hestia were good with mathematics, and a year of studying the theory without applying it in some fun or interesting way didn't sound appealing to them, regardless of how nice a presentation Professor Vector had made. "That doesn't sound like something we would be good at." Hestia nodded in agreement.
"C'mon. Don't sell yourself short." Harry began, only to be interrupted by the bell ringing. Waiting for it to finish, he continued: "I'm sure you'd do fine."
"Thank you, Harry, but I really don't think we would do well in that class." Hestia told him.
"Alright, everyone, settle down." Professor Flitwick said as he climbed onto his special stool. "Welcome to third year Charms class. We will begin with a quick review of what you've learned over the previous two years, before moving on to general counter-spells, followed by application of incantation modifiers to your spells. Then we will take a look at freezing and body-binding spells. In addition to that..." And with that the first Charms class of the year began.
As Harry and his classmates stepped into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, the first thing they noticed was a dozen of Gilderoy Lockhart's portraits hanging on the walls. And, aside from a single covered cage on the Professor's table, there seemed to be nothing to indicate that this indeed was a DADA classroom: no spell diagrams, no posters describing Magical beasts, nothing. This made for a stark contrast with all previous Professors they have had. And the comparison was most definitely not in Lockhart's favor.
Deciding that he'd rather sit as far away from the man as possible, Harry quickly claimed a seat at the very back of the classroom for himself. A few moments later, Flora and Hestia joined him there, sitting down at his sides.
Once the bell rang, a door connecting the Professor's office to the classroom opened, admitting the man in. Professor Lockhart was wearing sweeping robes of turquoise, with his golden hair shining from under a perfectly positioned turquoise hat with gold trimming. And, well, that made him look less like a teacher and more like a model posing before a crowd of photographers. Not exactly an impression a Professor should be giving…
"Welcome, welcome to your Defence Against the Dark Arts class." Lockhart spoke as he walked up to a Ravenclaw boy in the first row and picked his 'Wanderings with Werewolves', holding it up to show his own winking portrait on the front cover. "And the one teaching you to defend yourself against the horrors of the world will be me, Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award - but I don't talk about that. I didn't get rid of the Bandon Banshee by smiling at her, after all!" He waited for his students to laugh at the joke he had just made, but got only a couple of weak smiles. "I see you've all bought a complete set of my books. Good, good." He continued: "Now, I would like to see how well you've read them, how much you've taken in." He waved his wand around, and a stack of parchments floated from his table's cabinet. With another wave of his wand, each student had a quiz lying on the table in front of them. "You have thirty minutes. Begin."
Harry down looked at his paper and immediately noticed that every single question on it was about Lockhart himself. Indeed, none of the fifty four questions had anything to do with Defense Against the Dark Arts or even Magical beasts.
"Is… Is this the same quiz Blaise had been complaining about yesterday?" Harry whispered to Flora and Hestia. The twins nodded.
"Looks like that." Flora whispered back to him. "I'm starting to think that Draco might have a point about Dumbledore going senile if the Headmaster hired such a shameless narcissist as the DADA Professor. So far..." She was about to add something, but was interrupted by Lockhart.
"No talking!" The man called. "Please don't disturb your classmates, or I will be forced to give you a detention."
"Sorry, Professor." Flora replied halfheartedly. "It won't happen again."
Once half an hour passed, Lockhart collected the test papers and rifled through them in front of the class. As it turned out, only a few people put actual effort into answering the questions properly, but the blonde man didn't notice that and, instead, kept telling the class to refer to one of his novel or other for some random fact about himself. Once he was done 'grading' the papers, he banished them and walked up to his table, stopping right next to the covered cage that was sitting there.
"It appears that only a few of you have read the books from cover to cover. It's a bit saddening that you ignore the great knowledge offered to you like that, but… While reading books will arm you against the foulest creatures known to wizardkind, it is ultimately up to your wand to defeat those horrors. Let us see how well you will fare when you're facing those beasts. Know only that no harm can befall you whilst I am here." And with that he whipped off the cover from over the cage, revealing a swarm of electric-blue pixies, which immediately started jabbering and rocketing around, rattling the bars and making bizarre faces at the people nearest them. "Don't think that these Cornish pixies are harmless just because they are small." Lockhart told the laughing students. "Devilish tricky little blighters they can be! Your fellow students took half an hour to subdue these very pixies." His words were met with a quite a skepticism. "Very well, if you think that these pixies are of no consequence to you, then let me see what you make of them!" And with that he opened the cage, unleashing pandemonium upon the classroom.
Even though they had an extra year of DADA and Charms under their belt, the third-years faired just as poorly against the swarm of pixies as their underclassmen. And the reason for that was pretty simple: while they knew better and stronger spells, they haven't been taught how to hit moving targets yet. Thus, most of the spells their fired missed the blue-skinned blighters by a wide margin and splashed against the stone walls quite harmlessly.
And much to his dismay, Harry wasn't doing any better than the rest of the class in this mad quest to subdue the little blighters. Yes, he knew a bit more Magic than most of his classmates, but that amounted to nothing as he was just as bad as them at hitting pixies with his spells.
Still, after half an hour and a fair share of (thankfully, easily fixable) property damage, the little pandemonium-bringers were all stunned and returned to their cage.
"Good job, class." Lockhart said, clapping his hands, as he climbed out of his hiding spot under the Professor's table. "You've managed to subdue all of the pixies before the class's end. Very good. Now tell me, was it easy?" There was a dejected murmur of 'no's among the students. "See. And these were just little, harmless pixies. Imagine if you had to deal with something much more dangerous… Something like ravenous giant fire crabs instead?" A number of students certainly looked rather terrified by that - something that Lockhart quickly capitalized on: "Worry not! You might be ill-prepared for such an encounter now, but it is my duty to rectify that. Just a singled year of studying under me, Gilderoy Lockhart, Order of Merlin, Third Class, Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League, and you will be able to survive facing even greater dangers easily."
And just as he finished talking, the bell signaling the end of the class rang.
"You know what." Harry said as he, Flora and Hestia walked out of the DADA classroom. "I still have my reservation about Lockhart, but if we learn how to properly deal with Magical beasts from him, his classes might be worth it." The twins nodded in agreement.
~/ *** \~
Alas, Gilderoy Lockhart decided that he needed to completely shatter whatever hopes Harry might have about learning something useful from his classes. When the third-year Slytherins had their next DADA class on Monday morning, the man didn't explain a thing about the Cornish pixies his students had faced previously, nor did he bring some other creature to give them a hands-on experience in dealing with Magical beasts. Instead, Lockhart picked one of his books, "Year with the Yeti", and began reading from it, occasionally asking a student to reenact some of the more dramatic bits.
Needless to say, this turned Defense Against the Dark Arts into a big waste of time, and Harry resolved to inform Professor Snape about this, should the next class be no better. And to make the morning even worse, the next period was History of Magic. At least, there were Studies of Ancient Runes in the afternoon to stop Monday from being what would have been indisputably the worst day of the week…
"Welcome to the Study of Ancient Runes." Professor Bathsheda Babbling said once the bell from the lunch break finished ringing. "The aim of this course is to introduce you to the Magical language or runes and its various applications. We will begin by studying the runes of Younger and Elder Futhark, their meanings and usage. Next, you will learn how to translate runic arrays and understand how they can be used to invoke various effects through Magic. Finally, this course will teach you the basics of crafting your own runic arrays." Pausing for a moment to take a breath, Professor Babbling continued: "For those of you who will choose to continue studying Ancient Runes after their OWLs, there is the NEWT-level course that delves deeper into the mysteries of European runic languages and teaches about the methods for construction of advanced runic arrays, such as the ones used in the ward schemes."
Then, Professor Babbling went on to demonstrate what her art can do: she produced five blocks of light wood with a number of runes inscribed on them and arranged them on her table, one lying flat in the center and the other four standing around it. She then passed her hand above the resulting square and a small blue fire suddenly sprung from the central block. She passed her hand again, and the fire disappeared, leaving no mark on the wooden block.
"This is a pretty simple runic array, one that was created by fifth-year students as their semester project." The witch said. "Anyone can guess what the runes here do?" Quite a few students raised their hands, Harry and the twins among them. Professor Babbling, however, picked a Hufflepuff boy sitting by the classroom's window. "Mr. Thompson?"
"The four blocks on the edges define an area, and when this area is entered, the fifth block either starts producing bluebell fire, or stops." The boy explained.
"You're absolutely correct." The Ancient Runes Professor confirmed. "Take five points for Hufflepuff." She then directed her attention to the classroom as a whole. "As you can see, runic arrays can be used to set up a boundary and detect when it is crossed, or to produce a predefined Magical effect like the Bluebell fire Charm here or, perhaps, the Lumos Charm. Or such runic arrays can be combined together to create, for example, a lighting for a room that turns on on its own whenever someone is inside." After a small pause, she continued: "Runes can be used for great many things, and this class will teach you the basics of how it can be done. And, the first thing, of course, is learning what the runes are." With that, Professor Babbling tapped the chalkboard with her wand, causing the runes of Younger Futhark to appear on it in a neat script. Each rune also had small numbers next to its strokes. A girl from Ravenclaw raised her hand. "Yes?"
"What are those numbers, Professor?" She asked.
"The numbers next to a rune's strokes indicate the order in which those should be drawn." Professor Babbling replied. "While most of the textbooks don't mention it, in my experience the runes that had their strokes done in the correct order will be working better than ones that had them drawn randomly, so be sure to write the order of strokes down." There were no more questions as the students furiously scribbled the runes down into their notebooks. Once everyone was done, the Professor spoke again: "Now, let us study what each of these runes stand for and how they may be used. We will begin with the rune fé." Tapping the chalkboard with her wand, she replaced the previous writings with that of the rune 'ᚠ', along with some notes about it. "The rune fé stands for 'wealth' and its primary use is…" And with that she proceeded to give a small lecture about the rune…
Although the class was purely theoretical right now and would remain as such for a while - Professor Babbling told her students they would start learning to inscribe runic arrays only at the end of the next year, when they had a solid understanding of what the runes stood for and how they interacted with each other - it was still an interesting and even fun class.
Not only runes themselves were a fascinating subject as they were one of the first ways to channel and direct Magic that man had developed, but Professor Babbling was also very knowledgeable about them and shared a lot of interesting trivia and anecdotes about the runes themselves, their history and how they were used. Or misused.
All in all, the Study of Ancient Runes was a very enjoyable class and Harry was glad that he had chosen it as one of his electives.
~/ *** \~
Tuesday turned out to be a rather quiet day with pretty much nothing of note happening. And so was the Wednesday morning. The lunch break, however, brought some interesting news. Harry had gone to the dormitory in order to repack his schoolbag, and on his way out, he noticed a note on the board that wasn't there in the morning.
Curious, he took a look at this note and saw that it was an announcement for the first of the public lectures Headmaster Dumbledore had promised back in the spring and confirmed at the Welcoming Feast. The topic that will be discussed during that lecture wasn't advertised, though. A shame.
"Something interesting posted over there, Harry?" Hestia asked as she and Flora emerged from the girls' dormitories.
"Yeah." The green-eyed youth confirmed. "Professor Dumbledore's first lecture has been announced. The notice doesn't say what it will be about, but it does say that it will take place in the Great Hall an hour before the dinner on the next Friday, the eighteenth."
"Cool!" Flora exclaimed. She then deflated for a moment, before continuing: "What do you think it will be about?" She asked.
"Don't know." Harry said with a shrug. "Perhaps something about the history of Magical arts?" He suggested then. "Professor Dumbledore did mention this topic back when he first announced these lectures, didn't he?" The twins nodded: it sounded like a good topic to kick these lectures off. "Or maybe he will talk a bit about Alchemy. That's about the only thing that the upper-years have been talking about for the past week." The young Potter added then as the three of them stepped out of the Slytherin common room and headed for the Transfiguration classroom.
"Perhaps." Hestia said. "Though, isn't the art of Alchemy a bit advanced. Professor Dumbledore did say that these lectures will be for everyone, didn't he?"
"Well, yeah." Harry agreed. "I guess, we'll have to wait and see what this lecture will be about."
Later that day, after the dinner, the twins approached Harry in the common room.
"Remember you promised to teach us about the non-Magical world?" Flora asked and Harry nodded in response. "Do you think we can have our first lesson now?" The green-eyed youth thought about it for a moment, before agreeing.
"Alright." After a second or two, he added: "Though, to be honest, teaching isn't something I have any idea how to do. I can try to answer your questions about the non-Magical world, but beyond that..." He said while scratching the back of his head.
"I guess, we can go about it that way." Flora conceded. "We'll ask our upperclassmen that took OWLs in Muggles studies for what questions they had to answer for our future 'lessons' with you, but right now… Hmm… Let's talk about transportation? We, the Magical folks, have the floo network and portkeys. Some of us can apparate. And if we don't feel like doing any of that, there are broomsticks or other objects enchanted to fly. But what about muggles? How do they get around?" She asked.
"Well, I've heard that the Ministry makes use of enchanted cars, and there is also the Hogwarts Express - both of which are developed from the stuff that originated in the non-Magical world." He corrected Flora. "And, yeah, most people in the non-Magical world travel either by car or by train. You can actually go from England to France that way nowadays. There are no road connecting Europe or Africa to Americas though. To cross the oceans you need either a ship or you can fly an airplane."
"You can fly without Magic?" Hestia asked, astonished by what she had just heard. Out of the corner of his eye, Harry could see Salazar Slytherin also make a surprised face as he had quietly listened in on their impromptu lesson - the man might not be able to speak anything but Parseltongue, but he could understand Queen's English perfectly.
"Yeah, though I don't really know how it works." Harry replied. "All I know is that an airplane - the machine that lets one fly - needs to have wings, and it must go quite fast. I think, one of those can cross Atlantic ocean in about eight hours while carrying something like three hundreds passengers." He said, while making a simplistic drawing of a plane of a parchment he had at hand… The concept of a machine that was capable of such a feat was certainly something new to those who grew up in the Magical world if Flora's and Hestia's reactions were of any indication - and Harry was actually quite surprised by that. Airplanes have been quite common for the past few decades, one could hardly find a place in Great Britain where you wouldn't spot one flying overhead if you observed the skies for at least an hour. "Of course, planes don't just fly just over the oceans." He added. "There are also planes that go between all major cities - at least ones that are on the same side of the globe."
"Fascinating." Flora said. "But I can't imagine that being cheap. Even with Magic, flying requires you to buy a rather expensive broomstick, a flying carpet or whatever. Or enchant one yourself and hope that the Charms don't give out mid-flight. I heard that powerful wizards of old times could tame dragons or even fly with nothing but their own Magic, but those haven't been seen in ages."
"Well… Once again, I don't really know much about how it all works, but I don't think that an airplane ticket is that expensive. There wouldn't be so many planes flying around if only a few people could afford a ride." Harry replied.
"That sounds reasonable." Flora agreed.
"And what about trains?" Her sister asked after a few seconds of silence. "You said muggles use them a lot. Are the ones in the non-Magical world all red and smoking too?"
"Actually no. I don't think that there are any steam engines still in use left. [1]" Harry replied. "The trains in use right now don't produce as much smoke - if any at all - but they often do have at least some red paint on them. They also look quite different from the Hogwarts Express."
"And what do they look like, Harry?" Flora asked, causing the said boy to suppress a groan. He didn't know how to explain the looks of InterCity 125 and similar trains to the twins. He wasn't that good at drawing things either, and trains actually had more details to them than airplanes…
"Well… Most of them look something like this..." Harry began as he tried to sketch the look of the High Speed Train at least somewhat accurately… Perhaps, he had been acting a bit too hasty when he agreed to teach Flora and Hestia about the non-Magical world. He was clearly not cut to be a teacher. At least, not for a subject like this. Still he had made a promise to them, and he should do his best to keep it.
[1] The last steam-hauled passenger trains on the British Railways network ran in late 1960s. Usage of steam locomotives in industrial operations continued until 1980s. There is, of course, a number of privately-owned steam locomotives that are currently used on 'heritage' railway lines.
That's all, folks!
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