Chapter 70 – A Date
Our first week came and went pretty quickly. Even with our two new elective courses, our days were not much more packed than before. Of course, we chose the same subjects, Care of Magical Creatures and Study of Ancient Runes. For starters, the former was surprisingly easy, following Professor Grubbly-Plank and learning about nifflers. Quincy found them cute... I found them useful.
"Useful?" She asked me when I mentioned it.
"Their tummies."
Their habit of stealing anything shiny was a problem for many. No wonder we were warned to take off and hide anything like that before class... but for me, the more interesting thing was the fact that their bellies worked as some kind of... magical bag of holding. An endlessly deep one at that. It gave me the idea of getting one. Not a niffler, of course, but a bag like that.
The second extra class was... less exciting. It was okay, and we first began to learn the basics of recognizing runes and tell them apart from nonsense scribbles on a wall. To my surprise, Quincy had difficulty memorizing them, as most looked the same in her eyes. On the other hand, I think I cheated. Thanks to my bloodline... For my eyes, every and all rune was clear and distinguishable; I felt like even naming them all!
Luckily I didn't say that out loud because the name that popped into my head often differed from what our teacher, Bathsheda Babbling, wrote on the blackboard. Silence is gold, and I wasn't thinking about wasting it now. What I found just as interesting as the niffler-situation was that, supposedly, runes were how ancient witches and wizards communicated. Back then, writing had the same power as spells. Then, it diminished increasingly as we advanced, and nowadays, they are only used in artifact making.
"At least you can help me with our runes homework while I help you out with potions!" Quincy sighed, collapsing next to me after our first week. It was an early night, and we had just returned from the Great Hall after supper.
"Sure! Give it to me, and I will write yours too!" I nodded, taking out a parchment and deciding to do it right now. It was straightforward as we only had to copy the actual, known runes from a sample text that we were given.
"It all looks the same to me... or like some crude drawings of a goblin!"
"I think they do use it to this day." I raised an eyebrow, biting onto the end of my quill and quickly scanning our small sample text.
"Really?"