Plymouth rubbed his puffy hair as he entered Runes. RUNES, he had been saying all day in preparation. RUUUUNES. A fun word to say, so the class was bound to be fun. Right?

"Sup, Professor?" Plymouth grinned, gave her the infamous "sup head jerk" and went to find a seat. He took a seat faaaaar away from the teacher so that she couldn't offer him lotion. Just in case.

Nancy slowly walked into the Ancient Runes-classroom already waiting for the professor to tell them to split up according to years. But the annoying Students in their 1st, 2nd and 3rd year, please take a seat on the left, while all students 4th year and up sit down on the right. was not to be heard. Wow!
Giving the professor a small smile Nancy walked down the aisle between the desks before plopping down in a chair in the far back of the classroom. This was going to be interesting. Hopefully the new Ancient Runes professor was nice and everything and not as weird as their new History of Magic professor. Taking off their shoes and socks! Ew!

Miles was never great at Ancient Runes, but this lesson, he would try his best. With his rucksack full of textbooks, he walked into the classroom and took a seat near the back, so the Professor wouldn't notice if he got anything wrong during the lesson.

Alessia greeted every student with a nod and smile, but she was feeling rather weak... maybe she should have taken up the headmaster's offer for a substitute, but she wouldn't let the kids down. Their little minds ready to be molded by her hands...

She moved to the back of her desk, and waved her wand summoning a cup of her coffee from her office. Pulling out her drawer, she put a whole lot of sugar in her coffee, and began sipping it. Better...

"Alright class..." she said smiling after finishing the small cup. "I know you've had many different professors in Ancient Runes, and I am also aware of how fond everyone probably was of my predecessor, so I'd like you all and open your minds and your souls to a new approach on the subject. In this first class I will go over the origins of what we today have come to call Runes." The coffee was starting to take effect and she clapped her hands together and said "So let's start from the beginning! Can anyone tell me what year that would be?"

Agie raised her hand. "Professor no one can ever be 100% certain. But it is believed that rune like symbols appeared as cave like markings in the Bronze Age, so around 1300 BC."

"Would that be 100 B.C.E, Professor? They were used throughout northern Europe, Scandinavia, the British Isles, and Iceland." Miles asked a little unsure.

Rub raised her hand and said "3rd century BCE"

After pondering on the Professor's question for a bit, Evangeline slowly raised her hand. Ancient Runes was one of her worst subjects, but she wasn't about to let that stop her. "Well, Ma'am, rune-like symbols appear as cave markings as early as the late Bronze Age - circa 1300 BC." She wrinkled her nose at the tone of insecurity in her voice and cleared her throat. "But when the Romans abandoned Britain around 450AD, various people and tribes came to England. They brought with them their set of ancient symbols known as the runes." Hmmmm.

Via raised her hand and guessed, "100 B.C professor?" She wasn't sure.

Ancient Runes was ooooone confuzzling subject. It was one of those subject's that always left Clifford's brain feel all achey and fuzzy. He was here to give it a go though and raised one hesitant hand. The beginnings of ancient runes? Erm. "A suuuuper duuuuper long time ago, Ma'am." Well, that was true, right?

Herminny raised her hand and said 200 CE, and she added this was the time the first runic alpha bet was made and it had 24 letters.

"The Futhark alphabet dates from roughly 3rd Century CE Professor," Sarah said aloud,her hand in the air.
She really hoped that was the one that Professor Lupa meant.

Barry raised his hand and said "Over 2000 years ago?" see this wasn`t his best subject at all.

Jess raised her hand, somewhat unsure. "Around 1300 BC, if I'm not mistaken." she tried.

"Children slow down... I asked when the beginning was... not for you to jump the broom and tell me all about runes!" She giggled "Let ME teach the class," she said.

"Well, that is certainly more accurate than the rest. Two points for you." She said and smiled.

"I'll allow for two points on this and I'll explain why in a moment... but first the answer to my question." She took a breath holding a hand above her chest.

"I asked for the beginning... You will learn to pay attention to how I ask my questions. 3100 BC Was when the first writing system was said to have started..."

Alessia waved her wand and a map was pulled down from the roll above the blackboard.



"Sumer was a historical region located in southern Iraq, then called Mesopotamia, known as the Cradle of Civilization. Sumerian was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in this region since at least the 4th millennium BC."

She waved her wand again, this time in the air, and an image of a tablet appeared before them.



"The Sumerians were one of the earliest urban societies to emerge in the world. They developed a writing system whose wedge-shaped strokes would influence the style of scripts in the same geographical area for the next 3000 years."

Alessia then flicked her wand to the black board and the following appeared:


"Can you see now, how this could have inspired the creation of Runic symbols?" She smiled and looked at the student's faces. They were sooooo cute!

"Eventually, all of these diverse writing systems, became known as cuneiform, encompassing both logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic, and syllabic systems. But the term "cuneiform" is very deceptive, in that it tricks us into thinking that it's some type of writing system. The truth is that cuneiform denotes not one, but several kinds of writing systems. Questions so far?" She said waiting.

Clifford blinked when the Professor awarded him two points for his answer. What he thought was a stoopid answer. RESUUULT! Teehee.

Sitting comfortably, he listened carefully as she began explaining all about where runes came from and stuff. The pictures she showed them were pretty cool - shame he didn't understand some of those long words.

"Uhm, Professor?" Clifford slowly raised his arm when the teacher asked if they had any questions. "I was wondering if erm - you could explain that last part again?" A light flush coloured his cheeks and he shuffled in his seat. "With less of the long words?" Ack. He wished he hadn't asked now.

Are the rune a symbolic or logophonic system?

She looked at her prefect. She was sure glad he asked her to explain that again without all the big words. Her head was swimming and she was drowning. Her notes looked like a bunch of scribbles on her parchment.

Clifford tickled her to pieces sometimes without he did things. If he wasn't sweet as a bowl of cotton candy she would have questioned why he was prefect, but she was beginning to understand what the Headmaster saw in him to make him a prefect.

Herminny was dumfounded, she had looked at books on ancient runes but she was still wrong, she was a little annoyed but glad to know the truth and why so many people could make the same mastake. Herminny also saw how similar the runic symbols were and how they formed the first alphabet but not the first writing system.

Barry nodded to the professer "No its simple enough to me," he said quitely.

Oh this was much harder than last year.Sarah barely understood any of it...then she thought of a really stupid question...
Raising her hand she asked, "Umm Professor why did they change from something that was simple in 3200BCE to something that..well...isn't in 1000BCE? I mean the first lot look like what they mean...slightly."
She was feeling stupid already.

Miranda raised her hand "Professor? I have a question. What ARE", she looked down at the notes she was scribbling, "...logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic, and syllabic systems?"

Tobi raised his hand, he couldn't tell much about the symbols, but he could tell there was but one difference between the runes in the first column and the second one. "Ma'am? Why did they change all the symbols between 3200 BCE and 3000 BCE to merely be lying on their sides? I mean if you're going to change them, what's the point of that particular change? why wouldn't they just leave them?"

Varius sat reasonably in the middle of the class. He had been told how lovely and sweet and kind this Professor had been, but by Merlin did she talk a lot of Merlin poop - or so it seemed to Varius. He was almost considering not starting this runic alphabet of his if this was how complicated Runes was going to be. Deciding that asking questions would only further confuse him, he shook his head profusely, squinting his eyes as if this would help him concentrate and understand a lot better. He flipped through the textbook pages, to see if it could help him any with answering the questions.

Head bent, Melly wrote down furiously as much as she could of what the professor said. Unfortunately, due to the fact that she liked to keep her handwriting neat, she wasn't able to catch half of the things that the professor had spoken. Blinking as she re-read her notes, she rose her head and stared at the lady for a few moments.

After eyeing the notes again, she opened her mouth and half raised her hand to ask a question, before noticing that someone else was voicing her thoughts. Err... Right. She looked down again and... ah! New question!

"Erm, professor, excuse me, but...," She bit her lip. "Which are the -," She looked down, "cunei-f-form -," She blinked at the word. It sounded so weird, "systems?"