Chapter 12

Thomas was exhausted. His owl came back with his Battlestaff and the ministry dismissed his concerns and warning with a wave of the hand, as if it wasn't warranted. The politics always were a pain in the backside in his mind, but it reached a new high with the great fool that dared accepting the role of Minister. The man was so paranoid that many shadows that shouldn't have been able to come back into the ministry, since Bagnold managed to oust them from it, did come back to their old positions.

The board was beginning to come back together, all signs of a second war against Voldemort were visible to all that had a working brain and yet Fudge didn't fund the Hit-wizards or the Aurors, scared as he was that it would give power to the light faction and thus Dumbledore and this despite the fact that the ones that were pushing for more funds to the Department of Magic Law Enforcement were the neutral faction.

Thomas sighed, the bell would soon ring the first class and he'd soon have to teach the first years about every laws of magic that exists while making sure they were giving their undivided attention to his class as his was one of the most dangerous that was given in this school, potion and defense against the dark arts being the two other extremely dangerous course. Obviously, care of magical creatures was dangerous but if you followed the extremely precise and simple rules of safety, then you'd basically be safe.

He put in place the desks, as his classroom is used for the discussions with the prefects, the teaching of his direct pupils, his thaumaturgic club and finally the teaching of rituals to students. Thus the desks often needed to be moved around. Then he unlocked the chest in which students that didn't have enough money to buy a staff could take one that would be lent to them for the class. Of course first year students wouldn't even use them until December, as they had to learn a lot of theory before being mostly safe.

While he was doing so, first years began trickling in the class, he'd have to teach both Ravenclaw and Slytherin for the first two hours of the day. The two houses with the most potential if only they began taking the broom out of their posterior for the first and their fingers for the seconds. Thankfully, they were first years and thus had yet to have the insanely bad habits of the older students.

Thomas finally let the blackboard that was present in the classroom appear while it was getting next to the desk he reserved for himself. The student had all arrived and the bell finally rang to show that the first period had begun. Thomas smiled and started :

"So, in this class you'll learn the dangerous yet rewarding prowess of Rituals. Of course you will not cast any ritual anytime soon as Rituals are spells so precise and sensitive that even the most minute of mistakes will make it fail horribly. You'll learn in this class the way to classify and categorize every spell, you'll learn the uses of the astral bodies and the power of the weather. Finally, you'll learn to gather the power of nature or animals to reinforce your spellcasting ability or your body, create artifacts of legends or summon familiars of absolute loyalty. I am the Professor Preacher and I'll teach you everything you need to know about Rituals.

Let's get the show started, shall we ? For starters, can someone tell me how many types of magic there are ?"

A young girl with raven hair raised her hand, she had a robe that showed she was a Slytherin, no one else had the answer after a minute so Thomas let her answer.

"There are two types of magic, Professor, Artistic Magic and Rational Magic."

"That was a good answer Miss Greengrass, five points for Slytherin, Rational Magic or Scientific Magic as the first generation wizards calls it, is the category where we put every spell that requires more on the side of focus movement and incantation that it does on the side of intent, whereas Artistic Magic will be the opposite.

Curses, Hexes, Charms, Transfigurations all fall under the Rational Magic type. Jinxes, Scries, Mind tricks, and Prophecies all fall under the Artistic Magic type. This is not an exhaustive list as we discover more spells daily and some fall under class that we didn't have prior to the spell's creation.

Now to organize that, we divide the different spells into schools. Each school allows one to know the purpose of a spell. Who amongst you knows the different schools ?"

The young Daphne Greengrass still had that look that seemed to beg to answer a question whose answer seemed obvious, but this time another Slytherin had the answer as well as three Ravenclaws. Thomas thus let a Ravenclaw answer as to avoid showing any favoritism.

"There is the Abjuration school, which regroups every defensive type of spell. The Conjuration school, which regroups the spells that call for objects through teleportation or outright materialization. The Divination school, which regroups the spells that allows one to see through past, present and future, meaning every scry and prophecy is from that school. The Enchantment school, which regroups all spells that affect the mind and emotions. The evocation school, which regroups elemental spells. The Illusion school, which regroups spells that create false images or sounds, this school often shares spells with enchantment though. Then there is the Necromancy school, which regroups spells that directly affect the bodily functions of someone, for example every spell that heals someone or opens wounds without help from another element. Finally the Transmutation school, which regroups every spell that alters the form of an object or creature."

"Perfect answer, and directly out of the book as well. That'll be five points for Ravenclaw. Next time though, try to answer with more personality as I know and understand what is in the book, but the point is for you to also understand it and thus why I ask you these questions. Anyway, these schools bear no meaning to Rituals. They are artificial classifications used to organize our knowledge of magic. You need to know them as it'll help you learn with a greater efficiency, but don't stay stuck on them as Rituals don't care what school of magic they belong to.

There is also a warning that I have to give you : don't focus on the morality of such or such spells, but remember that a spell that leaves a trace to prevent the reversal of it is considered Tainted Magic and is highly frowned upon. It is to a point where we call it Dark Magic to scare children, so please do not use or abuse such magic.

Now, back on track, The types of magic are what is important in a ritual. It'll change the way the Ritual is organized majorly. You don't prepare a Transmutation Ritual like you'll do a Divination one. Simply because one is a recipe with a list of actions to follow exactly whereas the other is an art that needs to be abided by, music, dance and song may be needed for Divination. A good show is what is necessary for an Artistic Ritual.

Now, onto the rules of safety as it's what you'll mainly learn until I'm certain you won't doom yourselves while trying the easiest and safest of Rituals. First of all…"

Thomas began explaining the rules to the students while stopping from time to time to see if the children actually had the decency to at least skim through the teaching material before coming to class. Sure it wasn't the most interesting part of his subject, but it was the most important as nobody wanted to spontaneously combust because they messed up in their ritual preparations.

It allowed him to see who was actually serious in his studies and Malfoy surprisingly was serious to an absurd degree, it proved to Thomas that the only wish of that child was to make his father proud. Crabbe and Goyle were actually despairingly daft, even worse was that Crabbe didn't know how to read. They are so daft that they cannot even fathom the difference between good and evil, right and wrong.

He also noted the sheer smarts of Greengrass, which pushed him to tell her to stay after class; she needed and deserved a nudge in the right direction in his opinion. The other Slytherin simply were in their houses because it was a familial tradition and the Hat didn't want to put them in danger by putting them elsewhere. It was sad in a way.

For the Ravenclaws… he had to give Michael Corner a detention as he was disruptive to the class. Every time he had the answer to a question, he made a drama about the fact that he was not interrogated despite having his hand raised. The child needed to calm his attention hogging tendencies or he'll have a really bad time, especially since Harry Potter was in his year.

His two friends, sidekick more like, had a lot more potential, but they didn't show their knowledge as much as they could have. Sure, they can't be interrogated every time, but raising the hand shows that you may know the answer and their lack of hand raising every time Michael raised his was more telling than they could understand. Especially since their surface thought betrayed that they knew the answer. Which also indicated that they would greatly gain from the Occlumency course that joined the core subjects last year.

Once the children left and only Daphne stayed, he began speaking :

"So. I know your family has issues with a curse. If, and only if, you are trying to find a way to remove it, I'm disposed to help you through Rituals and Magical Engineering. However, I'll let you find your way through it at first as it's not as urgent as it seems. Take this authorization, it'll grant you access to the history of curses through Rituals, it may help you find the cause."

Thomas gave her a parchment that granted her access to the restricted section of the library so that she could access more than a little information about the curse of her bloodline. She seemed hesitant before taking the paper and thanking Thomas, she left swiftly after with a thoughtful look.

He didn't take more of her time as she would have another class right after and he himself had to begin preparing the Thaumaturgic Club for its opening. He then got back to his office, where he was continuing his work on wards against naturally occurring curses. It was a hard job, but one that would be absurdly rewarding for him and his collaborator on the subject.