Allie raised her hand.
"I think my favorite character would have to be the giant white worm, Professor." she said.

Raiden raised his hand. "I rather liked Altheda from this story, sir. When they couldn't move up the hill, she was the one that pushed on harder than the rest of them. She was determined to get there, whether walking actually moved her forward or not. She put so much effort into it, and in the end she was the one who passed that task, because she worked for it." He thought for a second. "And I think that was the point Beedle was trying to get across. If you want something, no matter how much you don't think pressing on is going to help, you should keep trying."

Kayla raised her hand again because for some reason she had missed the last part of the questions. "So as I said before my favourite person in the story was Sir Luckless. What I learnt from the knight was that perseverence certainly does pay off in the end, even though the fountain wasn't actually magical at all he got everything he wanted in the end. I guess Sir Luckless, learnt that he could be courageous, chivalrous, smart and all those personalities that make a true knight. I think Beedle was trying to put across the message that magic is not the answer to everything and that being kind and respectful to each other and working together will get you towards your ultimate goal in the end."

"Right." Truebridge agreed.

"Thank you for your answer."

"The best friends and the worst enemies." Truebridge agreed.

"Very good, thank you." Ethan nodded, listening carefully to Jake's answer.

Truebridge looked between Copernicus and Plymouth in interest, wondering what manhandling had occurred in his classroom. Hmmm. "Ah... yes.... no... manhandling, please." It wasn't always a pleasant experience and often resulted in strange invitations to go for pie or risk being eaten.

"Thank you, Copernicus. Everyone please copy this down."

"Luck is relative to confidence I think." Ethan commented.

"Good. Thank you for doing that. Everyone needs to copy these notes down."

Wow. That was thorough. "Thank you, Abby." Ethan nodded.

"Good thinking." Truebridge nodded.

"Uh..." Ethan blinked his mind had wandered a little as he attempted to follow. "The potion she made for Asha, you mean."

"You may, and thank you."

"Very good, Anna." Truebridge nodded.

"Good point. Yes." Ethan agreed, stroking the cat in his lap.

"Poor, misunderstood worm." Ethan nodded, agreeing. "The worm is pretty interesting."

"Good." Zan nodded in encouragement.

"It's a good moral. It's amazing that the story survived at all. Beedle the Bard could be said to be ahead of his time in regard to the messages he presented about equality."

Ethan cleared his throat, "Moving on to the next tale. The Warlock's Hairy Heart." He paused, "What is a 'hairy heart'?"

Cela raised her hand, "A hairy heart is a term that applies to a witch or wizard that seems cold and unfeeling. It's slang. and theres a self help book about dealing with people that have a hairy heart and problems with commiting themselves."


She should buy that book for her brother.

Elizabeth raised her hand. "Um, a 'hairy heart', in the case of the story, was literally a heart that grew all small and hairy. But it was a metaphor for the fact that it turned less human and more animal-like. Because the warlock didn't want to be like everyone else, and had used the dark magic to remove his heart so he could never fall in love."

Scribbling down on her parchment as she copied down what Copernicus and Tobi had written on the chalkboard. After she was done, she raised her hand. "It's a heart ... with hairs?" Was that too obvious. Hmmm. Probably. The sixteen year old tried again. "It's a heart that basically turns into an animal, losing all sense of humanity." That sounded better.

Raiden raised his hand. This was his favourite story, and he remembered once asking his mum what having a hairy heart meant. "Sir, to have a hairy heart means that a person is kinda... mean, distant. Cold. They don't really show that they have feelings. Like if someone's cat just died and another wizard looked at the poor person and said 'so what', that person would be said to have a hairy heart." Personally, he hoped he would never know what it was to be like that. He loved caring for his friends!

"Right." Truebridge nodded, "Good answers all of you. So, Summarise the story and tell me what lessons we learn from it."


ooc: *Sleeps* remember... no editing posts while I'm not here! Prefects can merge for you if necessary. Feel free to discuss and debate on topic. chatting isn't a good idea though.

Raising her hand Vanessa spoke. "The Warlock's Hairy Heart is about a young and handsome warlock, who has decided to never fall in love, and he used the dark arts to prevent him doing so. But one day he hears some of his servants whispering about him not having a wife, so he decides to find a talented, rich and beautiful witch to marry so that he can gain everyone's envy. He meets this girl the next day, and he tries to persuade her that he does have a heart, so the Warlock attempts to put his heart, which he had kept in a crystal casket in his Dungeon. But because the heart had been kept from his body, meaning that it has degenerated into an animalistic state. This causes him to take the heart of the witch he was trying to persuade. This meant that both the Warlock and the Witch Died" She paused for a second, before speaking again. "I think that maybe we learn that we should learn to love and that it is good for us."

Kayla raised her hand, "Well this is a story about a warlock who decides that he doesn't need to have love in his life and so that he doesn't fall victim to gambolling and preening and losing your appetite and dignity when it comes to falling in love he cuts out his heart and locks it away for safe keeping. And no fair maiden's can convince him that he would be happy with them as a partner. Not until he overhears his servants jeering why a man such as himself could not attract a wife. So he seeks out a woman to become his wife, one that is superior to all others and he finds such a girl but still he feels nothing for her and he shows her his heart in the chest. She tells him to put the heart back and so to please her, he does just that but because the heart had grown cold and strange being condemned to the darkness it still felt nothing. So the warlock decided to take the maiden's heart and replace it with his old hairy heart but the hairy heart refused to be taken out. So in the end he had to cut it out and in doing so he eventually died." Kayla took a deep breath before going on, "The lessons to be learnt from this story is that no matter who you are, you cannot escape some form of injury be it emotional, physical or mental. The warlock saw falling in love as a sign of weakness and humilitation and that his security and comfort would be affected and he was not willing to gamble on that."

Elizabeth listened to Vannie's, and then Kayla's, explanation of the story, then raised her hand as well. "The warlock was too proud of himself. He didn't want to appear foolish and weak, and since he saw his friends who had fallen in love as such, that was why he had resolved never to have fallen in love. And the rest of the story also hinges on how much he wants to be seen as better than everyone else. He finds out his servants either pitied him, or thought him as unable to attract anyone, and that is the only reason he decides to find a wife. Because they hurt his pride. And when the maiden he chose as worthy of him didn't immediately fall for him, he feels the need to prove her wrong. Which goes horribly awry, since as soon as he replaces the heart to please her, she goes to him only to have his heart rebel against her love and made him choose to take hers because it was better, killing her. And when his own heart refuses to relinquish its hold on him, he ends up killing himself as well." She took a breath, then continued by saying, "So, in a way, the story tells us that it is better to accept humanity and its inherent 'weaknesses', than fall prey to your pride."

Raiden raised his hand again, even though he was sure that the professor knew by now that Raiden would be answering this question. His favourite story after all! But he'd taken points from a Hufflepuff earlier for not raising his hand...

"The Warlock's Hairy Heart is about a young man who decides that falling in love would ruin his life. He saw his friends falling in love, and thought that they way they behaved afterwards was just... stupid. He thought they were fools, and decided to stay above the pull of love forever. So he did some Dark Magic and made himself immune to love. Nobody else knew about it though, and they all thought that he would eventually fall in love and get married like everyone else." He paused, and waited for the tale to fast-forward in his head. It was repeating itself, word for word, as he'd learned it as a child while in the hospital. "His parents died, and he got all their money and their home, and he was actually happy that they'd died. Which is really sad... But one day, he heard two of his workers talking about how sad it was that he had no one to share all his wealth with, like a lady friend... so he decided to get a lady friend who would be the envy of everyone else in the world. And the next day a woman showed up that fit everything he was looking for, so even though he didn't feel anything for her, he started... er, what's the word... courting her...and her family wanted her to marry him, so she was going to, but she told him that she wished that he had a heart. So he took her down to the dungeon and showed her that he had a heart, but it was all hairy and shrunken from not having been allowed to properly be shown love and everything... and the lady wanted him to put it back in, and when he did, everything overwhelmed him and he killed her without meaning to, because his heart was greedy for everything it had been denied. And in the end, he cut out his own heart so it wouldn't have mastery over him, and he died."

Raiden blushed. He'd pretty much not summarized, but told the whole tale. Again.

"That was probably too much, huh..." He thought a second. "But this story is supposed to be telling us that we shouldn't avoid having feelings and falling in love, because in the end, trying to avoid it might destroy us. Invulnerability isn't absolute."

((ooc: Raiden gets very excited about faerie tales...))

The Warlock's Hairy Heart? Clifford strained his memory, trying to remember that particular tale.. he hadn't heard them all in a pretty long while. He didn't read fairytales anymore.. he was a big boy! "That's the one about the dude that uses the dark arts as a means of not falling in love, right?" Why he'd want to do that, Clifford had no idea. "The dude finally gets a girlfriend though, and she convinces him to put his freaky hairy heart back in his body.. His heart didn't really work well though, and he tried to steal hers.." What a good boyfriend he was.. NOT! "So they both die in the end."

And the lessons learnt from it?

"I suppose it teaches us ... not to ... try steal your girlfriend's heart?" Uhm.

Miles raised his hand. This one wasn't one of his faves, as he was sometimes freaked out by the hairy heart. Shudder.

"So basically, there's this warlock, a handsome warlock who decides he never wants to fall in love. He does this by using daaaaaaark magic." He nodded to himself, and continued. "Then, one day he heard people talking about how he doesn't have a wife, he then immediately decides he wants one, a really pretty and clever witch who everyone would be jealous of."

"When he meets a lady, they go to dinner, and she wants to know that he has a heart. He keeps it somewhere and shows her it, and she wants him to put it back inside himself. The warlock does, but it soon goes 'animalistic', and rips out the witch's human heart, to have that instead. Unfortunately, his hairy heart cannot be taken out. So they both die. What a silly warlock." Miles added at the end, always annoyed at that story. "And the lesson of the story is .." To not steal people's heart because you kept yours in a casket, and now it's gone all hairy. Snicker. "... to love is important, and you must always have a heart?"

Cedric raised his hands he knows everything about the warlock's hairy heart
"The story is about a young and handsome warlock who decides to never fall in love, so he uses Dark Arts to prevent himself from doing so. His family, hoping he will change, does nothing. However, one day, he hears two servants whispering about him not having a wife, so he decides to find a talented, rich, and beautiful witch and marry her to gain everyone's envy."Cedric paused he think that this story was amazing that everyone should read..A while ago he continued,
"He meets that girl the next day. Though the girl is both "fascinated and repelled", the warlock persuades her to come to a dinner feast at his castle. During the feast, she tells him that she needs to know he has a heart. The warlock shows her his beating hairy heart inside a crystal casket in his dungeon. The witch begs him to put it back inside himself. After the warlock does so, she embraces him. However, being disconnected from its body for so long, his heart has developed savage tastes as it has degenerated into an animalistic state. And so he is driven to take by force a truly human heart. He tears out the witch's heart to replace his own, but finding that he cannot magic the hairy heart back out of his chest, he cuts it out with a dagger. Thus he and the maiden both die, with him holding both hearts in his hands" Cedric paused and then he answer again"the lesson of this story is to tell us that we should never prevent to fall in love because love is the most wonderful thing in the world"Cedric said

Jake raised his hand. "The Warlock's Hairy heart is, like, about a Warlock, who knows that love basically means ruin. He sees his peers falling in love and becoming distracted and he is determined not to go the same way. And then... skipping ahead a few years, he over hears some servant people talking about him, and it kinda hit his pride... but that would hurt his feelings... so he did have a heart..."

Shaking his head, Jake tried to quit rambling. "Anyway, he gets a lady-person at his castle and there's some party and she thinks he's totally weird, for some reason. And she finds the heart, kinda grossed out... But she puts it back into him... and he reacts badly because the heart turned all weird and the good things make him bad... and he takes her heart, which kills her... and he tries the trade the hearts, but his one won't leave, so he cuts it out, because he never wants his heart to control him... So it's mental and physical... but anyway, yeah... he dies..."

Jake screwed up his face. "It's very unrealistic... I mean... you would die without a heart in the first place, so why he dies the second time is, like, beyond me..." This was all so very confusing to Jake, but it was still his favourite tale, for the attitude of the warlock. "And the moral is supposed to be, I think, don't try and... erm... evade your heart and stuff... even though you love with your brain, not with your heart and it's kinda stupid to meddle with your own "heart" and stuff... Of course... all that love stuff is, like... not real... that's why it's in a faerie tale... right?"

Joanne thinks about the The Warlock's Hairy Heart and makes a disgusted face. She raises her hand to answer : " well, the The Warlock's Hairy Heart is, in my opinion is an aggressive story it's about a warlock that decides to never fall in love and for that he takes his heart out and keeps it in a safe place in the castle. I think that the action of taking his heart out is related to Dark Arts, which are never a good sign. So one day he hears his servants talkin' about him, how he will never marry because he doesn't have a heart. So he decides to find himself a pretty and intelligent and rich witch to mary and make everyone envy him. One day they have a feast in the castle and she says he must prove her he has a heart so he shows her his heart in a crystal casket. But the heart, from being away from the body for so long has grown hair and looks really ugly " Joanne makes a disgusted face again " So when the witch askes him to put his heart back in his place, he does it, but when they hug, the heart - because he was away from the body for so long, alone in the dungeons, growing nothing but hair- controls he warlocks body and attacks the witch and rips her healthy and pure heart out to replace it for himself. But the hairy heart is stronger and does not want to come out, so the warlock dies with the witches heart on his hand a dagger on the other." Joanne pauses" so the morals are, first, never use dark magic, nothing good comes from that and you can never reverse the process, second... if you meet a nice lady, you better shave before showing your hairy heart" Joanne giggles " sorry, I mean, you better have a heart to offer the lady, not an actual heart, but a hear as being a feeling, sentiment. And third, falling in love should never be a problem, falling in love having a broken heart, it's part of life, there is nothing wrong about that. Things should be how they are suppose to be. But of course the most important moral is the first, about the dark arts being bad."

Chalice sat there listening to every word that was said by her classmates. she had never grown up with these stories and consequently she was a little lost but she had her classmates to rely on! Chalice raised her hand. "I thought that the story was saying to never give up on love because everyone has a heart, just some choose to put a barrier on theirs. In the warlock's case his barrier was hair but people have emotional barriers that prevent them from truely loving others too." Chalice said, based on what she had gathered from reading the story in class and hearing her classmates.

Ana raised her hand "It's about a beautiful warlock who despised love and feelings, so he kept his heart in a dungeon with help from dark arts. But people started to comment the fact that he had no wife so he tries to found one and he finds one. The warlock shows the heart and she asked him to put it back. But the heart lost the human thing and he kills her. Then he tries to take the hairy heart but he can't so he cut it and... dies" she said "The lesson is that we shouldn't be afraid of our fellings. IT's our weakness but it could also be our strongest quality" she finished

As soon as she was in his lap again, Iliana began her quiet purring. She tilted her furry head towards Ethan, nuzzling up against him as she listened to the class go over The Tales of Beedle The Bard. What a wonderful lesson. She hoped that her Unicorn class would be as much fun. With that thought, she laid her head down and watched the kids, paying special attention to Jake and Allie.

"There is this young and handsome warlock, Sir.." Evangeline Green started with a ickle small bounce, her hand raised in the air. "And he didnt want to fall in love .. ever, which is so stupid if you ask me, so he uses Dark Magic to prevent that. Which is even stupider." Needless to say, Evangeline didnt fancy this warlock that much. "But when he overhears people saying he doesnt have a wife and such, he decides to find himself someone to marry to. Eventually, he does, but the girl tells him she needs to know he has a heart." This was the grooosss part. Eww. "So the warlock shows her his hairy heart, which is kept in a crystal casket in the dungeon. The maiden begs him to put it back in and he does so, but after being so long away from his body, the warlock's heart has turned quite animalistic and forces the warlock to take the maiden's heart off her chest. However, the warlock finds out he cant take his own heart out to put in the maiden's and cuts it off with a dagger." Ugh. How stuuuupid. Of course he'd die with no heart! This was one of Evangeline's least favourite tales, but it still fascinated her. "In the end, they both die."

But what lessons could they learn from that? Her Mother had never really talked to her about that tale, since she thought it could be scary, so Evangeline wasn't sure. Hmm. "It teaches us ... to don't be afraid of love?" The sixteen year old attempted, dearly hoping she was right. Otherwise, it could be very embarrassing. "The warlock decides he doesnt want to fall in love because he doesnt want to be vulnerable and when you're in love, you depend on others, so yeah. But in the end, shutting his heart down for love and other emotions, turned him into something not very human." Evangeline suddenly smiled, struck by an idea. "It teaches us that love makes us human." YAY!

Anna raised her hand and said, "The story centers around a young warlock who has made the decision to never fall in love. To prevent accidentally doing so, this warlock uses dark magic. In the meantime, his family hopes he will eventually change his mind, yet they all stand by and do nothing to help him. One day, the warlock overhears to servants whispering about him not being married, so the warlock sets out to find a talented, rich, and beautiful witch to marry. His goal is for everyone to envy him," Anna began.

"The very next day, he meets a girl that possesses the qualifications he is looking for in a wife. The warlock persuades this girl to come to a dinner feast at his castle. At this feast, the girl tells the warlock that she needs proof that he has a heart. The warlock shows her a beating, hairy heart inside a crystal casket in his dungeons," Anna continued, making a face at the mental image she had of a hairy heart inside a casket. "Anyway, the girl begs the warlock to put his heart back inside his body, and when the warlock does so, she embraces him. The problem is, the heart had been away from the warlock's body for so long that his heart has developed rather savage tastes. The warlock is forced to take a true human heart to replace his now-animalistic heart. The heart he choses to steal, though, is the heart of the witch who has just embraced him. When the hairy heart does not come easily out of the warlock's chest, he cuts it out with a dagger, therefore killing both himself and the witch."

"First of all, ewwwww," Anna said, making another disgusted face. "Second of all, I think the story teaches us to not attempt changing the way things are naturally meant to be---whether that attempt at change be magical or...well, normal. The warlock should have just let his life take the natural course it was designed to take, but because he didn't he denied himself a happy life, and ended up destroying not only his own life, but an innocent witch's life, as well. I think it also teaches us not to be selfish, because let's just face it. It was because of the warlock's own selfish desires that he and the witch died so early."

Plymouth raised his hand. "HEAR HEAR! Ding ding! That - well, I don't, but if I had the power to, I'd give you points, my man. It's a lesson we all could learn, huh?" COPERNICUS.

With his hand still raised, Plymouth continued on. "I don't like this one, much. Too violent, you know? The gist of it is some dude grows a hairy heart cause he wanted to, and then he lost who he was. He got caught up in "trying to fit in". I mean, besides learning not to covet your neighbor's wife OR GIRLFRIEND, the lesson learned is just be yourself. If you want to grow a hairy heart, then by golly, grow a hairy heart. Don't change just because that's socially normal. Be yourself and don't carry knives. That's the lesson learned. And don't steal your step-brother's girlfriend."

Copernicus headed back to his seat as instructed by the professor, but he was awfully disheartened by Cela's reply. Strength of personality is more important than intellect? So if all you were was smart, but extremely boring... That was about the most blatant thing she could have said to him. He sank down into his seat.

Copernicus rolled his eyes at Plymouth's contribution. But... it had a lot of personality behind it, which meant that it was probably a much BETTER answer than anything clever that Cope could have offered. He raised his hand anyway, although he couldn't exactly fake the level of excitement he'd shown earlier in class.

"Professor, I kind of got from this story that it is unnatural to be without emotion or feeling, and it keeps you from being truly human. The warlock wanted to be impervious and ended up being incapable of actually enjoying the world around him. Unfortunately, the cautionary note in the story is that once you work so hard to keep from feeling anything, you really never are able to be human and normal again." And end up being completely boring and making your best mate/step-brother hate you. Forever. Yippee.