First Day of December Ⅲ

The first day of December did not only bring a bucket full of snow but an avalanche of homework for the fifth year students. Their professors wanted to cram as much as possible into their heads before the start of the winter holidays! This included Professor Flitwick for Charms! Rowan and Severus including the rest of their year mates were rather apprehensive about what Professor McGonagall would do. Luckily, they did not have Transfiguration until Wednesday, but Professor McGonagall would no doubt quite literally hand them a stack of homework and essays to complete. It put quite the damper on the festive spirit of the month.

After her last class of the afternoon, Advanced Arithmancy, Rowan emerges with a chink in her neck. It had been a good class, but Rowan had been a bit distracted that afternoon. It was not that she was concerned about the tedious Christmas decorating that awaited her after dinner, but rather the stare of Barrett Boone. There was a puzzled expression on his face at times as if he was entirely confused by his actions.

Now, if Rowan was the romantic sort, she would supposition that Barrett Boone had developed latent feelings for her. However, she knew for the fact that was not the case. He did not possess any attraction to the female gender! Nor had Darcy Travers acted in a jealous fit against her, and in fact had gone out of his way to be exceedingly favorable towards her to apologize for his behavior during her fourth year. There was no reason for Barrett to be concerned about her wellbeing and though they had become friends and even his confidant, but, they were not that close, to begin with.

Rubbing the back of her neck to get the blood flowing again, Rowan lets out a loud sigh. She had plenty to do such as tutoring later that afternoon. Typically, she did not tutor on Mondays in classroom eleven, but since, Severus had patrolled the entire Sunday, and with Prefect duties later that evening, he was severely behind on completing his homework. In a rare stance, Severus had bowed his head during lunch and asked for Rowan's help to cover his tutoring for the day.

Understanding what it must have cost her twin brother, Rowan agreed to Severus's request without further pleading. Reminded of the fact that the kids were probably already downstairs waiting for her, she hurried down towards the first floor. She arrives to see the classroom filled with plenty of first, second, third, and fourth years as well.

Sadly, with Rachel Grimond being the first exception the word spread, and other transfer year students popped in as well. They quickly realized that she and Severus didn't have the heart to kick them out if they did homework. As a result, Severus and she were the default gurus for the other three houses as well. The only silver lining is that out of all the house Prefect's, they were ridiculously well respected by the younger Hogwarts years.

The students all eagerly shuffle in and take their seats. Among them is the neatly groomed and nearly unrecognizable, Rachel Grimond. Quyen Crowley had taken it as a personal insult that her protégé was properly dressed. Rachel had taken a shine to Quyen and openly admired her mentor. As a result, Rachel now had become on friendly terms with the girls in her dorm and had even made a few friends outside of Slytherin excluding the first years who had adopted her into their group.

As usual, Rowan began by moving from group to group asking questions, before answering them and moving on. That and she had somehow become a Guru when it came to recommending novels. Naturally, it was all Lockhart's fault. She should have never given him, Pride & Prejudice and Jane Eyre to read.

With Pride & Prejudice, and Jane Eyre set basically in the Victorian era, the novels greatly appealed to the female audience that lived in a similar time period within the wizarding world. These two novels became what Lord of the Rings became to muggles. The muggle writer, Jane Austen had unwittingly become a favorite author in the wizarding world.

Pride & Prejudice, and Jane Eyre had taken the wizarding world by storm. The advent female students at Hogwarts had spread the novels to their friends, and female relatives, who in turn shared it with their inner circle. More than a few squibs had made a bagful of galleons for taking a trip to a muggle bookstore to buy the novels and then resell them to the avid female audience. The novels had gained so much traction that Flourish & Blotts had even announced they were opening a muggle novel section in Diagon Alley, (mostly for the convenience of the purebloods, who did not wish to traipse all over muggle London to acquire the novel).

Zonko's Joke Shop and other shops chartered towards children had purchased the highly popular games of Monopoly, Dungeons & Dragons, and more from a squib-owned children's toy store. Zonko's and the other wizarding world shops had further evolved the games by casting anti-cheating spells and animated board pieces that would talk and move when ordered too. This further appealed to the purebloods, who had been a bit disheartened to learn that their children found enjoyment in such muggle games. At least in this manner, the pureblood families felt that their children were playing wizarding board games rather than mere muggle board games.

In any other time period, such announcements would have been unheard of in the wizarding world. But slowly, but surely, the wizarding world was changing. The muggle would did not seem as fearful to the purebloods with the creation of the A.P.D., and the squibs and muquibs teaching their children at the Quattor Academy's. Even those pureblood families with squib children no longer saw them as useless as they were capable of even rising to new heights within the wizarding world. And naturally, their children showed their parents everything that they were learning at school to the point to even cause even interest and curiosity in their parents regarding the muggle world. Most importantly, the purebloods no longer feared as much that the muggleborn would destroy their pureblood traditions, but in fact, might even possibly learn to become more akin to them thanks to the wizarding etiquette class taught at Hogwarts by Professor Buchanan. The greatest fears of the purebloods had been mostly appeased permitting them to be a little more open-minded and tolerant.

Rowan's afternoon passed by in such a busy fashion as a few lucky students conversed about the new Divination Professors. Apparently, Professor Trelawney had a soft, mystique. Ethereal voice but was very knowledgeable making her very likable to her students. (And not apparently, there no one as going to die YET.) So, Professor Trelawney was off to a good start. And there was simply no need to mention Ronan as he had become the latest idol for the female student population. The only consolation was that no matter what the girls might do, the centaur would not be into them nor would fail into their trap. No matter what the romance novellas might say, centaurs rarely if ever were attracted to witches.

The Hogwarts staff still did not talk about the 1918 incident. Plenty of whispered rumors floated around Hogwarts, one said that it had involved a female student and a married male professor. Other said it had been an unmarried female professor and a younger male student. While some said, argued that it had involved more than one and possibly multiple students. Some students whispered that it was rape, other's a forbidden romantic affair, while more licentious minds an orgy. Either way, whatever had been done must have been rather delicate as the Board had been personally involved and the Professor's name had been stricken from the very records of Hogwarts with no one daring to mention what had occurred even to this day.

It was a Hogwarts mystery, but one that Rowan had no interest in solving. It was none of her business to begin with. That and sometimes ignorance truly is bliss.