The Study of Ancient Runes — Spring Term [All Years]

For a while, the classroom felt peaceful.

Students diligently—some more diligently than others—flipped through their dictionaries and the only sound to be heard was the soft crinkle of pages being turned. It was, in Andrei's rather biased opinion, a beautiful sound. Of course, Marie would tell him he spent too much time around books and not enough around other humans, but he didn't mind. Books, after all, were a lot like humans save for the fact that they were often more agreeable to be around.

The distant bell tower sounded off a new hour.

Reluctantly closing his book, Andrei struggled to his feet. Having to deal with a cane was embarrassing really. He longed for the day that he could stand on his own two feet again without a piece of wood to prop himself up. Alas, today would not be that day.

"Alright everyone," his voice cracked. "I think we have all had more than enough time to finish up our translations."

He suppressed a hacking cough with the inside of his elbow.

"Please pass your papers to the front."

He waited silently until all the papers massed into a pile near the front of the classroom.

"Next we will be testing your memory. Please pick any of the many blackboards around the room and, using runes, write out the text you translated."

Once more the aging professor fell back into his chair with a dull thud. This task would serve to weed out the real students from those only here to fulfill the class requirement. He had high hopes for the few Ravenclaw students in the room—he'd grown rather fond of his house in his absence.

If Mimosa had been hoping for a more fun second half of the class, the child would have been greatly disappointed. As it was, the returning professor had set a perfectly dull tone to his first lesson back so the little Slytherin wasn't surprised when they had to re translate everything they had just translated back into runes. What was the point? Other than wasting time anyway?

Still, with more discipline than she had ever believed herself capable of, the child walked up to one of the boards and began to draw her chalk across it. For a moment, the temptation to simply squiggle random patterns was so intense, she almost gave in. But no, Elena was here, and she as probably going to do ehr best so Mimosa would do.

Laboriously, the young witch begin to write out what she could rememebr. Something about kings and queens watching soemthing for ten decades. It was a rhyme and all the words didn't make sense but she could at least try to rememebr the ones that did.

Runes were surprisingly easier than regular alphabets, and her memory as not too shabby either. Whenever she should herself pondering what came after a certain rune, all Mimosa did was close her eyes and remember the shape or design and it would make sense. in the end, the girl had an almost complete translation.

I watched with glee
While your kings and queens
Fought for ten decades

The last line, she couldn't be sure of, just that it contained pods in some way. The child tried to remember it, she really did but in the end, it was to no avail. Simply writing the word "PODS" in runes as her final line, the girl stepped back from the chalkboard, impressed at her own work.

She was amazing!

Elena passed her paper to the front that way she can get credit for what she had wrote. Elena was now currently writing about the runes she had heard of. Elena was okay in this class but not a mastermind in the class. Elena loved school, it was who she was and who she will always be. She never understood why she was in Slytherin but ever since she found out that Damien Greene was her biological father, she has barely spoken to him or Tessa. Even though they were kind enough to take her in. Elena couldn't help it.. The blonde has avoided Dia like the plague ever since she found out.

Elena continued to focus her attention on her assignment more then her personal life. She didn't want to have a break down in class thinking about how her life went from great to worse. This was going to be fun.

"Very good, Miss Denver," Andrei croaked. "Next time try rounding these a bit more."

Having hobbled around the classroom, Andrei stopped beside the Hufflepuff. Grabbing a piece of chalk with his free hand, the professor gently traced over the head girl's attempt at the camel rune. Rounding out the humps from pointy triangles to perfect semicircles, the man could not help but smile to himself. It had been a long while since he'd used a blackboard, it felt nice. It felt like he'd stepped back in time to a better era.

"If you'd left them pointy..." he replaced the chalk on the small shelf of the blackboard. "Well...well it would mean something a bit different."

Perhaps it was not best to get into that just yet, especially with students—she could research the meaning in her own time.

He passed by Miss Bliss without stopping; she seemed to be hard at work and Andrei did not want to hinder the learning process by interrupting her mid-thought. Instead, he continued his jaunt about the classroom until he came to the child model. Surprisingly, Mimosa's runework was not bad. The againg professor had expected less and yet she almost exceeded all his—albeit low—expectations.

Almost.

"Miss Harrington," he nearly sighed. "What exactly is this supposed to mean?"

He extended a shaky finger and indicated the 'PODS'. It was certainly a strange way to interpret the song. Normally, he would have outright corrected the girl, but he hoped she'd be able to see the error of her ways and fix them herself. That's what learning was all about, right?

The classroom emptied shortly after the tolling of the distant bell. The class had not been eventful in the slightest, but as Andrei leaned back in his chair he felt content. His doctor had told him that recovery was a process made up of countless steps and this—teaching his first class in quite a while—was one small step in the right direction. Though he hated to admit it there was a chance that feeling physically drained after a single class would become the new norm for him. He couldn't be too sure and, for the times being, he decided not to dwell on it and instead turned his attention towards crafting his curriculum for the next year.

Or, well, he would have had a knock on his freshly emptied classroom door not drawn his attention.

A letter from the headmistress.

Odd.

---
[Class Closed]

Points & Such

Mimosa H. --- +5 points for attendance, +10 for participation, and -2 for poor translation = +13 points to Slytherin
Elena B. --- +5 for attendance and +10 for particpation = +15 points to Slytherin
Clara G --- +5 for attendance = +5 points to Ravenclaw
Sasha D. --- +5 points for attendance, +10 for participation, and +2 for good translation = +17 points to Hufflepuff
Dominique G. --- +5 for attendance = +5 points to Gryffindor