Another Snooze Worthy Class PV George Henry Fin

George was sitting upright in his seat, listening to each word with rapt attention. History of Magic was among his favorite classes - second only to charms - and as always, the Hufflepuff was diligently noting down every fact about the Gargoyle Strike. Not that he had any need to - he had read ahead in the textbook, and another set of identical notes was waiting for him in his dorm room. Still, he wasted parchment, scratching ink across the paper with the tip of his quill.

When George had first had the idea of jobs brought up to him after joining the wizarding world, the opportunities seemed boundless. Quidditch star, auror, researcher of magical creatures... each one seemed more glamorous than the next! Despite his initial commitment to the idea of being magical law enforcement, his mind had been drawn quickly to other matters in the Ministry. Beings and Beasts and even Quidditch stars all needed to be incorporated in the vast web of bureaucracy that the Ministry spun. Reading the Daily Prophet and his History of Magic text books had given George some big ideas about what it meant to be in the ministry. To him, arguing over regulations and policies seemed like almost a greater thrill than any other career. His older brother would have been so disappointed in him.

The professor asked a question, and George began to squirm in his seat. He thought the professor might point him out to answer - but instead, the honor went to the student next to him, a gryffindor that had hardly written a word all class. Inspired by the Gryffindor's lackadaisical attitude toward his education, the Hufflepuff set his quill onto the desk and turned slightly to speak to the other student.

"D'you want my notes when the class is done?" the boy wondered, keeping his voice hushed. It wasn't like he needed them, after all. His spare set was in his room, and the lesson was fairly textbook - hard to get creative when you're simply telling the students what had already happened. "I already read ahead in the book, so I'm just kind of writing it for something to do."

He pushed the book in the direction of the Gryffindor, giving a slight smile in his direction. Letting his mind wander away from the lesson, he realized something - a comparison to Muggle history. Perhaps his new friend would find it insightful, or at least less boring than paying attention to the professor.

"There was a strike in Glasgow in 1919, did you ever read about that?" George murmured, raising his brow slightly as he shared that less than interesting fact. He remembered it from a weekend in January the prior year - his uncle Brian had missed his birthday, and offered to take him on a trip into the city to make it up to him. He remembered sitting in George Square, quite pleased with himself for having a whole square named after him. Brian was a police officer in the city, and always had some historical anecdote to share about it. "Battle of George Square - it was back when the workers were fightin' to get onto a 40-hour workweek, like we've got now. Way back then they had to do 47-hours. Bit of a chore to work that long, I imagine."

George had never held a job, being only 11, but an extra 7 hours was a lot of time one could spend playing in the woods or watching television. It must have been painful for the strikers to lose that battle, even if they eventually won the war. A curiosity itched as he realized that the story might be a little too muggle-specific.

"...Do wizards work 40 hours? Hm."

Percy was about to lay his head on the table after he scribbled down a fact or two but he heard one of the Hufflepuffs next to him speak. It was definitely to him as the kid had offered notes and Percy was probably noticeably lacking. His head perked up once more and he turned to look at the boy next to him who was very into the lesson about the strike despite the method of teaching. Surprising.

He raised his eyebrows, wondering if this kid actually was asking if Percy wanted his notes or if he was just messing with him but it seemed that that the boy was actually proposing to give him his notes on the class. Who was this guy? Most would not willingly give out their notes but this guy was different and Percy admired his kindness. After deciding that the Hufflepuff was telling the truth, Percy nodded quickly and returned the smile. Thank god for this boy.

"Ya seem quite excited for this class if you've already read ahead." Percy kept his voice low so the professor wouldn't feel the need to give him detention, that would only add to his potential issues at this school. He looked at the book that the kid pushed to him and opened it to the table of contents where he flipped to the Gargoyle Strike of 1911 page and read a small portion to where he got the gist of it and pushed the book back. Percy decided he would read more about it when or if they were assigned homework so he'd actually be able to focus.

The Hufflepuff said something about muggles holding a strike at Glasgow. Percy found this quite interesting because he had never really heard about muggle history although he figured it wasn't all that cool. Muggle history had no magic and that probably meant less chaos, strikes and fights over the years but Percy figured he might be wrong about that. "Really? Only a few years after the Gargoyle one, that's so cool."

Percy figured since they were talking a fair amount already that he might as well introduce himself. "By the way I'm Percy, just thought you should know." After introducing himself the Hufflepuff asked if wizards worked forty hours and had an immediate answer. "Depends on the job. Normally we strive to use magic to make life easier but magic can't be used for every task, like Aurors work the most hours I think." He didn't even question the other boy on why he didn't know that, the only answer to that question was that he didn't grow up in the wizarding world. Interesting.

The professor looked back to Percy after he spoke again and instead of immediately giving him detention, put a finger to his lips which signaled to Percy that he needed to be quiet. Or quieter at least. All he did in reply was nod and look back at George with a grin on his face as he was quite amused by this.

"The wizarding wars were at the same time as the real- er, the muggle ones, too," George said, catching himself in an awkward error. The whole of magical history had quite an unreal feeling to him. As a Muggle-born, absolutely no part of what was happening to him would have seemed possible last year. And yet here he was, reading about Gargoyles going on strike as if it were as plain as gravity making an apple fall from a tree. "I feel like if you look at it, a lot of the time, Muggles start getting mad around the time wizards do. Maybe it's something to do with the magic in the air or summat."

That didn't make much sense at all. George's ears turned red at the edge as he exposed his own ignorance, the boy quietly accepting his book back. He nodded subtly at the boy's introduction - looking ahead most of the time, rather than at Percy, to avoid giving the pair of them away. He had stopped taking accurate notes, now, just scribbling down random gibberish words and tiny doodles of jarveys and nifflers in the margins.

"I'm George Henry! Proud Hufflepuff, and writer for the Hogwarts Headliner," he boasted, in a tone just a bit too loud for the classroom setting. Both boys looked up to see the professor signalling for the pair to quiet down. George bowed his head in shame, giving the professor a nod as a promise to obey. He couldn't entirely suppress a snicker as he turned and saw Percy grinning at him, returning the smile with a bright one of his own. "Here."

George flipped to the next page of his notebook, sliding it over to sit between both of the boys. They needed a subtler form of communication to avoid disturbing the lecture - quill and parchment would do just fine. No owl required.

"George Henry" was the first thing that George wrote atop the page, reminding the other boy of his name. Beneath it, his titles. "Writer for the Hogwarts Headliner."

He signed off his name and title with a flourish, a daring splash of ink that added a hint of professionalism to his needless bragging about his position and house. He left little inkblots on the page as he paused to think, wondering what to write next to his classmate.

"I'm from Walkerburn, in Scotland. You sound Scottish, too." It felt much more difficult to make conversation like this. The words didn't flow as easily, although his calligraphy was significantly better than many of his first-year peers. Something about the rhythm of a conversation didn't translate to the paper. "Auror seems like the coolest job. My friend wants to get into Care of Magical Creatures. I reckon it's just because we're in the Newt Scamander dorm together."

A moment passes.

"You know who that is, right?"

Percy was confused when George almost said the wizarding wars were at the same time as the 'real' ones. He guessed that in George's eyes the muggle world was 'realer' than the magical world but it was the opposite for Percy. It was probably a matter of how they were brought up, Percy guessed for George he was raised in the muggle world while Percy was raised in the wizarding world. 'Probably the magic, muggles get mad when they can't explain stuff and magic is quite difficult to understand, even for me and I've been around it my whole life.' Is what he scribbled down on the paper quickly before writing down a few notes on the parchment already in front of him.

Before he had started writing on the shared paper, he had a silent laughter fit at how loud the Hufflepuff boy had gotten. He was pretty sure the entire class heard what he said and if they didn't they might want to have a check-up at St. Mungos soon. Percy's grin from the laughing was still quite noticeable along with a red face. Proud was right, this kid was quite loud about his status. Admirable.

'Writer, eh? You guys've got a large team, I'm impressed at how many of you there are. Especially since you seem to communicate so well with each other, or at least enough to crank out a headline every week. Or something.' After he read a bit more of what George had written, Percy nodded. 'Yep. I was born and currently live in Ayr.' He nodded once more after reading the bit about being an Auror being the coolest job, George was quite correct on that. 'My Dad was an Auror for a bit, but that was before I was born. What do your parents do?'

Once more, the professor looked at Percy but instead of doing anything he shook his head and wrote something on a piece of paper before walking over and handing it to Percy. SEE ME AFTER CLASS! is what was on the paper. Great. Meh, Percy just crumbled it up and shoved it in a pocket before returning his eyes to the notebook paper.

'Do I know who Newt Scamander is? Does a dragon breathe fire?! Obviously I do, we have a book on him. He's that Hufflepuff who is amazing with magical creatures. Speaking of what's your favorite magical creature?' Percy paused with writing and tapped his chin with his eagle feather quill before scratching away on the paper again. 'Dragons are cool but I reckon Phoenixes are the best. At least to me.' After scratching the last few words down, he placed the quill down and looked back to the board to pretend he was paying attention. In reality he was waiting for the scratching of George writing back.

George shrugged helplessly as he saw Percy catch his little slip of the tongue. At least their new method of conversation didn't allow for slips of the tongue. Paper was a much more cooperative medium. You had to picture each word in your head before it got sent out, in contrast to speech, where words sometimes tumbled out before you could catch them and landed in unfortunate positions. George dipped his blue feather quill into his ink pot again, humming softly under his breath as he scratched on the parchment once more.

'Everyone gets mad when they can't explain stuff. That's why they read the news'

The Hufflepuff let out a snicker, pleased with himself for finding something (in his own eyes) sharp to say back. The pair of boys were not being subtle with their conversation, despite the extra layer of protection provided by their silent method of communication. A duo of red-faced young men snickering to each other tended to stick out amid a sober lecture on sentient object legislation.

'Ayr? right on' George jotted onto the paper. He carefully dragged the tip of his quill in a strange, jagged shape around the page, which Percy could possibly recognize as the silhouette of Scotland. He marked it with an X near the southern side, tapping the centre twice. Walkerburn was there, although it could have just as easily been a map to buried treasure, as he provided no context for the image. 'Walkerburn but I live at Hogwarts.'

His eyes darted around the class as he performed some mental arithmetic, tallying up the students in the room. With how many people went to Hogwarts, he wouldn't be surprised if it had a larger population than his hometown. Better off that way - there was much more to do around here than back home, even if the forests were slightly more accessible in the Muggle village.

Scribbling came to a stop as the professor approached, with George swiftly returning his quill's nib back to his own parchment. He played it cool, letting Percy take the note from the professor while he jotted on his own page... although the professor would clearly know that Percy wasn't distracting himself, over here. When Percy went back to writing, George's attention was straight back on the page, his quill inked and waiting for the chance to reply.

'Occamy' was all he wrote. He lifted up his quill, poking the feather out toward Percy's face to tickle his nose - then he pulled it back, giving the feather another shake. It was a bright blue, not unlike the plumage of an occamy. Glancing up the page, he noticed another question he missed, regarding his parents. His hands felt a bit more tense, suddenly, as he had to more directly address the difference between him and Percy. His family had no aurors, ministry officials, or alchemists. 'Mum is a school teacher, dad's not working right now.'

He paused for a moment before adding another line. 'My uncle Brian is a police officer in Glasgow. He told me about that muggle strike.'

Not an auror, but it was a similar concept, no?

Every time George was about to write, Percy would stare only at his quill. The bright blue was such a cool color, especially since most people had simple bird feather quills like Percy. His was a feather from an eagle, a Steller's Sea Eagle to be specific. It was fairly expensive because it was bought from Asia and the cost also reflected the look of the feather. It was a dark brown for the most part but at the end furthest from the actual writing part it was a brilliant white, almost as light as snow.

'A bit strange that they do if it's anything like the Daily Prophet then they're listening to straight dragon dung.' Percy figured most news was like the Daily Prophet, almost straight gossip and facts that are twisted to become more entertaining. 'Is it? I figure you'd know.' Was that rude? It shouldn't be, Percy already figured out that he grew up in a non-magical environment so this is not rude. Right? Percy still kind of doubted this.

He watched as George drew some sort of map..? A treasure map? Percy figured it was something like that until George said that he's from Walkerburn which is most likely what the X symbolized. 'Walkerburn? I thought you were making a treasure map and if you were, nice treasure map you've got there.' Percy grinned at his own joke like a dope.

While George took a moment of not writing, Percy look at the students. The mixture of scarlet and yellow was quite nice to see, way more reassuring than a mixture of blue and scarlet or emerald and scarlet. At least Gryffindor students and Hufflepuff students generally got along, there wasn't a rivalry set in stone about the houses as a whole as most would think there was between houses like Gryffindor and Slytherin. Percy didn't understand why so many of his siblings despised Gryffindors or why some Gryffindors hated Slytherins just because of their house. He figured there were a plethora of similarities between the house traits such as determination and boldness so why so many disputes? Who knows.

The Gryffindor boy had kind of spaced out into his own world when he heard scratching on the paper to which in response he looked, obviously. It said Occamy, a valid answer. The Occamy is actually pretty awesome to Percy, it's like a weird serpent with feathered and purple wings and the mix of blue and green feathers on it's body mixed quite well with Occamy wings. Again, not his favorite magical creature but still cool.

George wrote that his mother is a school teacher, something that Percy very quickly could figure out. Only he wondered what muggle schools were like. Were they like Hogwarts but for different things? That had to be pretty boring, living without magic. At least muggles would have feasts like Hogwarts did at their schools if it was anything like it, though what would prepare their food? At least wizards and witches have magic and at Hogwarts they've got house elves but muggles had none of that. And how would the food get there without the people being visible? There were so many holes in the system without magic that Percy wondered how they did it.

'Aren't police officers the muggle versions of an Arithmancer? That's what my brothers tell me anyway.' Police officer was a bit of a funny name, something Percy had never actually heard of or seen in his life. Since they're the muggle version of an Arithmancer what would they do? The muggle world has much more than Percy thought.

George snickered at the phrase 'dragon dung'. He'd have to add that to his vocabulary - casual references to magical creatures and objects weren't something that was ingrained in his speech yet. The smell of muggle was strong on him, though he was eager to wash it off. Fancy galas, weddings, politics - the way they talked about purebloods in the Daily Prophet made him wish so badly to be part of it. They were like muggle royalty.

Coming from a working-class home had never been an insecurity for George - after all, a Hufflepuff is unafraid of toil - but it only furthered the divide he felt between him and the purebloods. His clothes, beyond his uniform, were old, out of style and out of shape. Thankfully he had been receiving quite a hefty salary for being part of the writing team on the school newspaper. It was worth more than any allowance he had at home, and he earned all of it himself. To him, the magical world was a place of limitless possibility, even in the simple sense of being able to have the nice things that other kids took for granted.

'No dragons in muggle world. News is horse dung there,' George wrote, highlighting the cultural difference in the phrase. The news wasn't entirely reliable. His mother had taught him to question everything that he learned, and do it twice if the person telling you it had something to gain. He wasn't sure what the news had to gain by lying to him, but they had never told him about wizards, so evidently they weren't as all-knowing as they claimed. He paused a moment before responding to the next note. 'No treasure in Walkerburn' he lamented.

The mix of students in the class was George's favorite. He still envied Gryffindor for their reputation as heroes. The young Hufflepuff took a moment to scan the faces in the class, searching for Elsian Cox, but to no avail. The other first-year had sent him a taunting letter about getting into the house George wanted, and the Hufflepuff intended to nurse that grudge until graduation.

Arithmancers? George saw the word on the note and had to pause, trying to recall what they were. He'd been studying up on job prospects. Twelve years old was a bit early to commit to anything, but he was still curious about the options. At first, 'wizard' seemed like one job, but it was apparent there were near infinite options. Arithmancy was the one about math. He remembered writing home to his mother about those, since she was always sending him little pieces of math homework to complete, lest he fall behind in his muggle education.

'Arithmancer = Mathem a ti ci an.' The end of the word stretched out as George struggled to recall the exact spelling, furrowing his brow and putting down his best guess. The poor delivery sort of negated the humor behind the equals sign, but at least it was balanced. 'Police officers are like Aurors that do the law enforcement. I think.'

He was no expert. If he had to guess, an auror would be someone who reads auras. In the muggle world, he knew those people were called 'hippies', as his father had once during dinner complained about being lumped in with them. Maybe wizards had those too. 'Arithmancers do math, right?' he added, seeking confirmation of his knowledge.

As glamorous as the Daily Prophet made being a pureblood out to be, it wasn't at all like that. Sure, on the surface the wealthy purebloods lived a perfect and beautiful life but that's not how it really is. Often there are rivalry's between the families to show who's more powerful or popular and there can be a lot of dirty work going on inside families as well. Percy and other purebloods may have a nice amount of money but money only creates more problems, not pushes them away.

Unlike George, Percy's robes and clothing were clearly new and well taken care of. This was something that was obvious from the outside but he never says anything about it, Percy doesn't really care about his clothes actually. His father is the one that wants him to fit the pureblooded image and look like he's attending a cocktail party 24/7. It's quite annoying to Percy but he's learned to have to live with it. Or at least until he got to Hogwarts, now he wears whatever he wants under his robes. Occasionally he wears the school uniform but only when he feels like it or when it's considered mandatory.

Percy nodded like he was quite well informed of this. From the sound of it, muggle news was also rubbish. It's nice to see a similarity between worlds that seem completely different from each other, it's not exactly the best similarity but it works. 'Have you ever seen anything about magic in the muggle paper?' He looked to the board and pretended to scratch down some notes on his parchment before returning to the notebook. 'Or something like it? Muggles are a bit oblivious to magic when it's clearly there. No offense.'

Speaking of reputation, Hufflepuff seemed to have the worst reputation. Percy meant no offense to Hufflepuffs at all but their reputation held them as soft, cookie loving wimps and Percy did actually highly disagree with this. Hufflepuff was his least favorite house mainly because of fear of being there, but even so Percy is completely aware that the people in the Hufflepuff house aren't all the same just as how not all Ravenclaws or Slytherins are the same. He is very aware that most reputations towards one house as a whole can be proven incorrect by just looking a little further into the house occupants, like Ravenclaw is taken to be uptight nerds who care more about books than people but Percy's brother, Theron, is quite the opposite. Theron is obviously clever and creative as any Ravenclaw but he is also goofy and friendly which disproves the stereotype/reputation of Ravenclaw house.

Percy stared at the paper at George wrote Mathematician, staring the same way George looked at the word Arithmancer. Quickly he figured out that it probably was someone involved with math because at the beginning of the word it says 'math' so, simple. He nodded to confirm this, Arithmancers did work with math.

'Police Officers are Aurors? Oh. A bit of a funny name to be honest, I'm guessing they haven't got wands.' He stifled a laugh at his very good joke before looking back at the paper where George had once more written something. 'Yeah, they do math. It's like divination but with numbers.' That's the way his mother explained it to him, anyway. 'Also Aurors only do law enforcement. They catch dark wizards and fight against dark magic.' Percy wrote this down after looking back when George said Aurors that do law enforcement as if there were categories of Aurors. It was a strange sentence to read.

After his first incident with magic and the visit from an owl inviting him to attend magic school, George had felt very foolish. Magic had existed all around him since the day he was born, and he never knew. He'd been magic himself since the day he was born. Despite that, he still managed to stay ignorant. When he was younger, he was proud of finally outgrowing his belief in magic - finally moving past those stupid fantasies and being grown-up about things. To think some Muggles would think themselves right about magic until the day they died - it was a sad thought, really. Magic made the world a whole lot bigger and brighter.

With that thought in mind, he was quick to respond to Percy's query. 'Nope. They are pretty dumb about magic,' George wrote, cramming the words into the margins of the notebook paper. They would have to flip the page soon enough, but George wouldn't admit defeat until the full surface was painted black. 'My brother never even believed I had done it when I did my first magic on him. Dropped a branch on his head. They literally wouldn't believe in magic if it hit them in the head.'

George rolled his eyes at Percy's joke about police officers having wands. Of course they didn't have wands! Most of them don't even carry guns. That was one benefit of the Muggle world, he supposed. You were much safer there than in the wizard world, where every grown man and woman can cast spells that'd turn your bones to jelly and your insides to outsides faster than anyone had any right to. The higher you climb, the farther you have to fall, George supposed - but he was quite interested in seeing the view from up here.

'I know,' George wrote back. 'Someone told me about Aurors when I was reading about the wizarding wars. I do remember reading that some of that got into the Muggle news, actually. When that lady died - Amelia Bones, she got on the news. No one could figure out who killed her.'

It was a dark subject, but even the nineties felt like ancient history to him. He had studied it only through his History of Magic textbooks and some songs that his mother liked to listen to from back then. She had assured him that the nineties would come "back in style," but he had yet to see any evidence. Based on what happened to wizards during that time, George hoped the nineties would not come back into style. 'No wands for Muggle police. Not as many dangerous criminals.'