Bother! Violet had missed three out of five, not her usual performance. She wished the teacher had made it clearer that being related by marriage didn't count (Violet also wished she'd thought of asking before doing the assignment).

And now they had all this homework--and her head was hurting again, making it hard to think. A pox on all this bread, anyway! Usually Violet would have chosen an obscure event, just to test her mettle, but today she opted to pick the event she knew the most about, first-hand--the Hogwarts battle against the Neo-Alliance.

With the first bit done, Claudine subjected herself to more research. It was the IMPS Competition she found very interesting. She wished that she could have been around for that. Claudine didn’t want to be in the actual competition {there would be too much attention on the participants} but she’d have rather liked to cheer for Hogwarts. Anyway. She had gotten the gist of the events and had already formulated her thoughts which she added to her notes.

SPOILER!!: Claudine’s notes

Chosen Gaunt family member: Merope

• The Battle Against the Neo-Alliance at Hogwarts:

Given the fact that Merope fell in love with a Muggle, I would say that she would not have sided with the Alliance. After all, her own child {or children if she’d had more with Tom Riddle Senior} would have not been purebloods.

• The IMPS competition featuring visitors from America - the Ilvermorny Students!

I believe that Merope would have been wary of foreigners and would have wanted to keep herself {had she been attending Hogwarts at the time} and family members at Hogwarts from mingling with the visitors. These were complete strangers whose ways of lives were completely different from what she was used to, after all. This time, there was no love/obsession involved for her to disregard what her family had taught her.

Claudine read over her notes before moving onto the next prompt. Even this event was as interesting as the previous and she soon forgot her annoyance about having to do all the research. The Snakette quickly read through the notes on that time in history {due to time constraints} then updated her notes.

SPOILER!!: Claudine’s notes

Chosen Gaunt family member: Merope

• The Battle Against the Neo-Alliance at Hogwarts:

Given the fact that Merope fell in love with a Muggle, I would say that she would not have sided with the Alliance. After all, her own child {or children if she’d had more with Tom Riddle Senior} would have not been purebloods.

• The IMPS competition featuring visitors from America - the Ilvermorny Students!

I believe that Merope would have been wary of foreigners and would have wanted to keep herself {had she been attending Hogwarts at the time} and family members at Hogwarts from mingling with the visitors. These were complete strangers whose ways of lives were completely different from what she was used to, after all. This time, there was no love/obsession involved for her to disregard what her family had taught her.

• The Separation of Hogwarts into Cooper and Belle's schools for boys and girls (respectively)

I don’t think that Merope would have been in favour of this. Gender had nothing to do with how she was brought up. There was a possibility she might have agreed had Hogwarts’ students been separated by blood status when she was younger but an older, wiser Merope would most likely not care for any sort of separation.

"Oh!" Phoebe dropped her chin onto her fist and gave that scenario a very serious think. Well, somewhat serious, since this entire conversation was tinged in an air of flirtation. Morgan was cute, okay? He was cute and she liked flirting with him, even if they were supposed to be doing classwork.

"I like this idea very much. Competitive. Ferocious. Not a protective mother, but a proud one. Or both, you can be both." Phoebe bit on the edge of her thumb thoughtfully. "She was a pureblood and from a family of bigots, but her aunt murdered her parents and was terribly cruel. She wouldn't have had any reason to feel loyal to England or to where she came from. She'd be proud of the distance she created, of how she separated Ilvermornay from the shackles of the world she came from. So I think you're exactly right. Should we act it out?"

Alright… so discuss a member of the Gaunt family’s reaction to a historical event. Okay.. she thought as she scanned her textbook until she found a name that was intriguing. Morfin. Was it pronounced like More-fin? Or morphine? Nope. Definitely Morfin, she ruled. The more she read about him, the more disgusted she was. But you wouldn’t have been able to tell that because Lisa wore a smug smirk on her face. Hah! Known to be crazy. Well this SURELY proved her concerned point about incest causing people to be BONKERS. This Morfin fellow served that purpose quite well.

Right. Let’s see…. How would a crazy, pureblood supremacist react to these events? She started with the IMPS Tournament cause she had just learned about it the other day and thought it was SO COOL. If they had one, she’d want to participate or watch. What a cool event with some intriguing characters. She was always partial to a few of the students like Henrietta Kramer, Levi Kenning, and more. Etta was one of her faves. She became Head Girl later on and was so so cool. Literal goals.



Her smug facial expression soured when she read the next title. Her eyes widened and suddenly everything that had been happening and things people had been alluding too had made sense. She bit her lip, trying to contain her frustration and tears, because no one- not even her siblings - had told her what had happened. They had been stuck in a Room and….. She wiped one eye quickly and picked up the quill.

Morfin would have been on the side of the Neo-Alliance. Every life he took, he would have bragged about. Wouldn’t be surprised if he went after purebloods or halfbloods who tried to help the muggleborns or who were stuck in the room too.

She’d need to mirror her eldest brother tonight. They had a lot to talk about….

Lisa kept her head down and continued her research, shifting her attention back to the IMPS tournament- a much happier topic.

Then she was down to the last prompt. As before with the others, Claudine skimmed over the information, seeking to brush up her knowledge of the Cult. Of course she had heard tales of it from her family but that had been a very long time ago. Or so it seemed.

SPOILER!!: Claudine’s notes

Chosen Gaunt family member: Merope

• The Battle Against the Neo-Alliance at Hogwarts:

Given the fact that Merope fell in love with a Muggle, I would say that she would not have sided with the Alliance. After all, her own child {or children if she’d had more with Tom Riddle Senior} would have not been purebloods.

• The IMPS competition featuring visitors from America - the Ilvermorny Students!

I believe that Merope would have been wary of foreigners and would have wanted to keep herself {had she been attending Hogwarts at the time} and family members at Hogwarts from mingling with the visitors. These were complete strangers whose ways of lives were completely different from what she was used to, after all. This time, there was no love/obsession involved for her to disregard what her family had taught her.

• The Separation of Hogwarts into Cooper and Belle's schools for boys and girls (respectively)

I don’t think that Merope would have been in favour of this. Gender had nothing to do with how she was brought up. There was a possibility she might have agreed had Hogwarts’ students been separated by blood status when she was younger but an older, wiser Merope would most likely not care for any sort of separation.

• The Cult of Walpurgis takes over the Ministry:

Since the Cult believed in control over Muggles, and Merope was in love with a Muggle, as with a few topics above I do not think Merope would have been in favour of said Cult.

And Claudine was done. Yes, her history knowledge was significantly expanded now.

Heath glanced at the answers written on the board, his eyes darting from the board to his own parchment to check his answers. He saw that he had all but one correct, and the one he got wrong was the one he left blank. So Terry Boot was related to Bellatrix Lestrange… who knew? He was tempted to ask about the nature of their relation, but Professor Recard was moving on. He positively beamed at the praise his answer earned, but his mood deteriorated the instant the subject of blood purity came up again. Never before had he felt such a visceral hate for any person covered in HIstory of Magic class as he did for the Gaunt family! He didn’t want to look at historical events, or anything else for that matter, from the eyes of a blood supremacist! He’d already spent nearly an entire term doing just that in his attempts to placate Lucien Rosier, and it worked out terribly for all involved!

That uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach was back as he read the list of historical events on the board, and his eyes fell to the one at the top of the list: The Battle Against the Neo-Alliance at Hogwarts. That topic was definitely out! Just thinking about the Neo-Alliance dredged up complicated feelings that were better left buried, let alone writing about it! After mulling over the remaining three events, he decided to start with the IMPS competition. His brother had been at Hogwarts when it happened, so he’d heard stories about it… that and it sounded the most lighthearted of the three options.

Now he just needed to pick a Gaunt family member, but which one? No way in Hoth was he writing about a blood purity fanatic, so that excluded almost all of them right off the bat. That left three that he could think of… Rionach, Isolt, or Merope. He thought Isolt might be too obvious a choice for this topic, and he doubted Merope would care much about such a competition. Rionach it was! He read through his textbook, gathering as much information as he could on Rionach Sayre (nee Gaunt) and the IMPS competition, and when he was satisfied with his research, he wrote:



One event down, three more to go! Heath checked the list again, deciding to go with the separation of Hogwarts into Cooper and Belle’s schools for boys and girls, respectively. As he researched, he discovered that this event took place when his mother would’ve been at Hogwarts. How had he never noticed that before? Did she remember Belle’s school? He’d have to owl her about it later. For now, there was still work to be done! Based on what he knew about Rionach, he thought she would strongly disapprove of the separation. After writing down his observation on that topic, he moved on to the Cult of Walpurgis. That… was a little harder to figure out. If he recalled correctly, they were environmentalists, but they also supported dominion over muggles. And didn’t that cult also have ties to Voldemort? Merlin, this just got confusing! Writing furiously, he added to his notes.

When he was done, there was only one topic left, and it was the one he dreaded most. Still unable to bring himself to write about the Neo-Alliance, he wrote one single word in big letters under that event heading. The word described both his own feelings on the subject and what he suspected Rionach Sayre’s would’ve been as well.

Gabi was pleasantly surprised at how many people elected to work together - and Morgan and Phoebe were even getting ready to act things out, it seemed! - but alas, the time had come to wrap up the activity. "Alright students! Excellent work. From what I saw you all had some creative ideas! Please leave the written portion of your assignments up here once you're done," she explained before waving her wand so the door opened for them to leave for their next classes.

"Everyone, please read Chapter 5 in your textbooks on the Gaunt Family, and complete the questions at the end of the chapter on Merope Gaunt. We will go over the answers at the beginning of the next class!" she called out as they started to file out.