Noble Arts this year is shaping up to be brilliant

[alt_seamus]

So today, Professor Dolohov showed us this fascinating spell that lets you use your own blood to lock a box so it can't be opened. It doesn't just work on boxes -- you can also do it with an envelope, for instance. But the material has to have once been something living (like wood).

I've been wondering this evening if it works on fibres -- wool, cotton, silk, linen. Cotton comes from a cotton plant, so surely that would work. Wool comes from a sheep, and sheep are alive but I'm not sure if the wool is? And silk comes from silkworms but I don't quite know how they make it so I'm even less sure about that. I suppose I could test it out on a sock, but I'm not sure how a sock even would lock, and I don't particularly want to get blood on my socks. I think I have a little wool pouch somewhere in my trunk, if I can find it (it's a pouch for my omnioculars) so I can test that out later.

He let us try it ourselves and taught us the incantation. (You only got to try it if you volunteered, but lots of people did. I suppose I don't blame the ones who didn't, because you DID have to use some of your blood, although he taught us a spell for that, you didn't have to jab yourself with a knife or anything.)

Professor Dolohov prefers the term Noble Arts but he does use the term 'Dark Arts' quite a bit in class, since that's what we're all used to. Anyway, it was dead interesting. The Slytherins and Ravenclaws will get to learn the box spell on Friday, I think. What was your double-period class like? Ours isn't until tomorrow. (I guess it's the Slytherins and Hufflepuffs who had it earlier in the week?)

Comments

[alt_blaise]

We had our Double Session on Monday. It was about the Intra Profundis assignment, and was really very interesting. He asked us to say which section we'd written on and to defend what we'd said about whether that type of magic would now be considered 'Dark' and by which definitions. He really didn't seem to mind which definitions we used, either. Only that we could explain our choices and the logical conclusions one ought to draw if starting with those assumptions.

I don't think I've ever been asked to think as ... fully as that. He's really rather amazing, don't you think?

[alt_padma]

I noticed that in our first lessons, too--he doesn't seem satisfied with just one answer. He'll ask more and more questions, like he really wants you to think about why you said what you said.

Off to Charms. Somehow even though she assigned us that essay, I don't think Professor Acton will probe quite so much.

What section of Intra Profundis did you pick?