Professor Pye
February 07, 2017 8:20 PM
Beginner's Defence (Years I & II) by Professor Pye
Alfie had received a letter at lunchtime from Dorian, one that had completely unbalanced everything he had expected. Apparently someone had come looking for him at his apartment, the brand new one he had moved into five years ago after starting the investigation on his father. The one that no one was supposed to know about. Dorian’s letter, hastily scribbled and full of spelling errors (as opposed to the messily scribbled and full of grammatical errors he was used to when Dorian did have a chance to write him) conveyed that something serious was wrong, something bigger than he had originally expected, especially since it was a Monday and Dorian usually spent his Mondays mopping the floors and drinking Butterbeer at the pub round the corner. Alfie wasn’t sure what this all meant.Nevertheless, he pasted on a large smile as he walked into the Beginners Defence Against the Dark Arts class that afternoon. “Today we’ll start off with a quick written quiz, a few sentences on doxies, imps, leprechcauns, pixies, and faires, each and after that we will pick up where we left off in our books last week. Go!” Once the papers were recollected, Alfie instructed them all to reopen to their books. “Today’s lesson is on hags, an important thing to learn about since you are all children and they do indulge in eating children, but also because learning about hags can help us to better understand Muggles and why they tend to fear wizarding kind to the point of persecution. No offence intended,” he added hastily on to the Muggleborn children who likely felt uncomfortable when things of the nature were mentioned. After all, their families had to be the nice, reasonable sort or else they wouldn’t be sitting at the school there.
“A child-eating creature of human appearance, hags can be difficult to distinguish from the regular witch. They are thought, however, to have more warts than an average witch and to possess only four toes on each foot instead of five. If you turn the page, you will find a list of well known-hags, your homework for the week will be to put together a research project on each well-known hag. You will, of course, have the weekend to complete the assignment, and next Monday you will present to the class.
“Continuing on,” Alfie said, looking back down at his copy of the books. “The hag possesses rudimentary magic, similar to that of a troll and it is thought that they are what Muggles think are witches and are therefore popular in Muggle literature. The Muggle perception of wizarding-kind being hags likely comes from the hags’ insistence on eating children, Muggle and Magical alike, and oftentimes tricking their victims’ and/or their families. In the 14th century, hags were "gliding about in search of children to eat" at Burdock Muldoon's failed meeting of the Wizards' Council welcoming any two-legged creatures as beings.
“In addition to children, the diet of a hag includes raw liver and other raw organ meats. Like vampires, hags are classified as beings by the Ministry of Magic in the UK, a fact that causes centaurs and merpeople of the area to desire the classification of beast despite being offered a being classification since they did not want to be associated with the preying vampire and hag. The election of merpeople and centaur to be classified as beasts draws from an important debate over being or beast. Another creature which this division affects is perhaps, most famously, the werewolf as they have the unique classification of belonging in both categories (being in their human form, beast in their wolf form).
“For today, we are going to work brainstorm ways we might deal with hags using what knowledge you do have from previous readings and lessons on similar Dark Creatures. You’ll turn in a list to me at the end of the period—it doesn’t have to be written in full sentences, and tomorrow we’ll come back together as a group and I’ll go over which ways would actually be helpful.”
OOC: Regular class posting rules (be respectful, no power-playing/god-modding, 200 words minimum, be creative but realistic) apply. I don’t see why there would be a life or death situation in this particular lesson but rest assured if there was Alfie would intervene. The known hags listed in the book are as follows: Annis Black, Babayaga, Cordelia Misericordia, Leticia Somnolens, Malodora Grymm, and Old Mother Hubbard although you are welcome to make up your own.
Subthreads: Oh, so it's Hag that I dressed up as... by Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
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Professor Pye
Beginner's Defence (Years I & II)
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Professor Pye
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Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
February 09, 2017 12:25 AM
Oh, so it's Hag that I dressed up as... by Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
Sometimes Farrah didn't like Defense Against the Dark Arts because of the quizzes that they had. She knew that they were a way of assesses her understanding of the material, but she always had such anxiety whenever she had to deal with them. She knew the material and she always received an O once it was all said and done. Her parents tried to remind her that it was okay if she didn't score perfectly, but Farrah just couldn't get herself to not be worked up over things.
The anxiety always immediately left her once her pen was down and her quiz handed in just as it did that day when she'd finished writing about doxies and things, so she guessed it was more about the exam than the material.
Farrah pulled out her notebook and pen and prepped herself for the lesson while she waited for everyone else to finish. She had read the chapter that they would be discussing that day (she was an Aladren, reading ahead was part of the life) and she was quite surprised to learn that the image of witches that she had grown up knowing where actually the image of a Hag. Hags were the witches of her childhood. She had dressed up more like a hag one Halloween than that of a witch.
It was actually really scary to know that a hag will eat children and she wondered if the story of Hansel and Gretel wasn't a story at all but really someone's experience once having dealt with a Hag (the candy house probably wasn't real but if they wanted to make it more of a kid's tell Farrah could understand the change of structure). It made her think of all the stories she remembered having read to her or reading herself and how creatures like vampires or unicorns came into their work. Were the authors magical or did a Muggle stumble upon the creatures once and write fictional stories because no one would believe them?
Farrah jotted down the information that Professor Pye was giving to them as well as jotting down notes to herself for further research interests. She may not find time for it or even any information but when she reviews her notes, she'll see her comments and possibly have renewed interest in it. For now she put the thoughts aside and turned to the person next to her. "Do you want to work on ideas together?" She asked with a friendly smile.
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Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
Oh, so it's Hag that I dressed up as...
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Farrah Welsh (Aladren)
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