fandomhigh | DADA for Muggles [Wednesday, November 25, 5th period]

Remus was looking far from his usual affable self today. Not only was he a bit peaky, but his demeanor was decidedly controlled -- though pleasant as always. "Hello, class. Today we're talking about dark creatures that have an ethical dilemma attached -- namely, that they are -- or were -- human, and still have human thoughts, emotions, and impulses. From what I understand, vampires are hardly unfamiliar territory to this school. Where we are from, vampires are created via a human's receipt of a bite from another vampire. Vampires are not born -- they're created. They might be your brothers, or sisters, or husbands or wives or mothers or fathers or friends. It makes the decision about what to do with them all the trickier."

And Sirius was lounging against his usual desk but his body language decidedly less bored today. He glanced over at Remus and gave him a quick smile. "The same is true for werewolves," he continued. "In our world, if a transformed werewolf bites a human, that person will also turn into a werewolf. If someone is bitten by a werewolf who is in his or her human form, the victim will just have some lupine tendencies--generally a strong urge for raw meat. Werewolves change form with the full moon, while vampires remain vampires all year long. A third group of beings--hags--are a savage sort of witch who eat children and raw liver." He barked a laugh. "Hags are the reason that centaurs and merpeople chose to be classified as beasts rather than be in the same category as their sort."

"However," Remus added, "our Ministry still categorizes them as dangerous, just because of the power of which they are capable -- though whether they'll use, much less abuse, that power is unlikely. The others -- werewolves in particular -- are able to control their mental faculties, and are human the vast majority of their time." And if Remus sounded a touch resentful there, well, he was having a moment of difficulty there. "There's a great deal of political controversy at home for us -- for these people who have been turned into humanoid dark creatures, and whether they should be afforded the same rights as regular human witches and wizards."

Sirius nodded vigorously, shifting a little toward Remus. "For most of them, it wasn't some sort of lifestyle choice. They didn't choose to be bitten. But logic seldom has a place in these sorts of arguments. And it's better not to be bit through ignorance, so today we're going to make sure you know how to tell the difference between vampires and humans, and wolves and werewolves, hags and just unattractive people."

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Turn in your parchments on why raising the dead is bad and listen to the teachers discuss werewolves and such!

Alex found himself tensing at even the mention of vampires and tried to push those thoughts away. Really didn't need to ruin a decent week with those memories.

Griff glanced Alex's way at the mention of vampires, but tried to shrug off the bad feelings that went along with the memory.

Alex felt someone's eyes on him and when he noticed they were Griff's, he tried to give him a brief smile before averting his eyes and staring a hole in his desk.

Dinah's assignment was fairly detailed as to the legal and physical reasons why it was a very bad idea to reaise the dead. She really didn't feel like she could address the emotional reasons adequately.

She shivered at the vampire reminder, then looked around for George as they moved on to werewolves.

Yeah, Firekeeper was... not so much with the turning in of a paper. Oops?

She was listening to the lecture, though. Even if for her, telling the difference was easily done when all you had to do was smell it.

Didi turned in an essay about how death happened for a reason and there was no point trying to get around it because it almost never ended well -- and how, if you were going to try it, you should at least make contact with someone who had the power to do it, and not play with dark magics yourself, sheesh.

... she might have had strong opinions on the question.

Francine's parchment went into guarded detail about personal experience with some of the bad things that can happen when you raise the dead, but also wandered off on a jaunt towards the end about how 'because that's how it is' is a sucky answer for 'why do people have to die and why can't we bring them back.'

As for Francine herself... Yay, vampires.

Jack's paper was a bit short. Basically, it hit the high points: it was illegal, it didn't work, and maybe the person was better off being dead.

He was not expecting to hear about vampires or werewolves today, and was actually paying attention.

Jenny had thought about it and decided 'a foot of parchment' probably translated into a page and a half, so that was what she turned in. 2.1 spaced, Sylfaen 13-point font, with fiddly margins. Her essay was fairly straightforward but somehow passive-aggressive in tone.

Despite the 'boarding school bit,' being brought back from the dead didn't seem so bad to her, after all.

Sam's paper was long and detailed and did actually go into why raising the dead was a bad idea, with a little extra on why people might try it anyway.

DADA for Muggles [Wednesday, November 25, 5th period]

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Re: Listen to the lecture [DADA 11/25]