Orion was excited. They were about to go to their first history of magic class. The day before they'd had their English lessons, with the primary class. A whole afternoon in a room full of little kids. Granted, the cats were actually younger than their classmates, and had only been reading and writing for less than a year-- well, 2 in Orion's case, because of the alternate dimesnsion-- but still, they felt a bit foolish at times. They might be younger chronologically,
But today was their first magic class! Well, okay, it was a history class, and not a practical class, but still. . . magic!
"Saku! Magic class! yay!" Orion said. Draco and Percy had been there a term longer than them, so they knew the way.
"WEll, history of magic," Percy said.
"Better than nothing," Orion replied.
Saku
"Gotta start someone," Saku added
He rubbed his hands together gleefully.
"This is going to be great."
James Doyle
James Doyle ran his fingers through his greying hair and looked about the room. It was a average-sized class. He saw the four cat godlings come in and sit down at their desks.
"Good morning, students. I know some of you are quite excited to be starting back at school, or starting for the first time. And I also know some of you are wishing you weren't here at all," he said, looking at Liam.
"Okay. This is history of magic. We're going to be learning about the different kinds of magic, where they come from, which ones are good, and which ones are evil, or can turn evil. We're going to learn how to identify magic users, and understand how magic works. We're not going to be using any magic in this class. You'll be having those classes in the afternoon. First I'm going to take roll:" he pulled out his list.
"Bryce, Jolene?"
"Here."
"Bryce, Leighanna?"
"Here."
"Bryce, Noreen?
"Here."
"Bryce, Reagan?"
"Here."
"Doyle, Declan?"
"Here."
"Doyle, Dustin?"
"Here."
"Doyle, Finola?"
"Here."
"Doyle, Fiona?"
"Here."
"Doyle, Kennedy?"
"Here."
"Hanson, Saku?"
Saku
Saku was grinning with amusement at the number of Doyles and Bryces.
"Present," Saku replied, deliberately being different.
Vampire Kitties
James smiled at Saku's effort to be different.
"O'Callaghan, Garrett?"
"Here."
"O'Callaghan, Liam?"
"Unfortunately." Everyone laughed.
"Draco?"
"Here."
"Orion?"
"Here."
"Perseus?"
"Here." James checked them all off.
"Okay, so everyone's here. I'm going to hand out your textbooks now." And he handed out a stack of really big, rather dusty old books.
Saku
Saku raised his eyebrows at the books, more at the amount of dust, rather than the size. Didn't they get used that often, even in the school?
Orion
"Sorry about how dusty they are," Mr. Doyle said. "They've been in the closet all summer. Not much use for them over the summer holidays. We're going to start by going over the types of magic users. Just in this room we have magi, gypsies, and godlings. Different kids of magic. I know most of you already know each other, and me, but bear with me." He looked over his list.
"Orion?" Orion nodded. "You're a seer, correct?"
"Yeah. I mainly do past and present. I'm not so good at the future stuff, my sister Cassie is, though." James nodded.
"That's from your mother's side?"
"Yes. She's a seer."
"Sight is one of the trickier magical gifts. It's often inherited, but not always, and it doesn't usually work the same way in any two people. There have been seers all throughout history. We're going to be doing a unit on Sight and seers in a couple of weeks." He looked over his list again.
"Saku, is it? It says here that you are particularly good with fire magic, though you're not a mage."
Saku
Saku nodded.
"I get that from my mother's side," he said. "And protection magic as well, although I'm much, much stronger in fire than protection. I was lobbing around fireballs when I was, erm... physically three."
James Doyle
James nodded. "I myself am a fire mage. Jolene, Noreen, Reagan, the three of you are all fire mages, right?" The three girls all nodded.
Saku
James went through the class, determining everyone's magical specialities. Finally he cleared his throat.
"Okay, now I want you all to open up your books to the introduction."
Saku held up his hand.
"Yes, Saku?"
"My book has no introduction."
"I see. Is anyone else missing an introduction?"
Orion and Percy
Orion looked but his introduction was there. Percy raised his hand.
"I don;t have one." James went to find a couple extra books.
Saku
James soon returned with a couple of books.
"We had a teacher a few years ago who liked to rip the introductions out of the books."
"Why?" Saku asked.
"His word of choice was 'excretment'."
Draco
Draco laughed, and heard a few others laugh too.
James went into talking about how magic had always existed, and he talked about the different legends from different cultures about the origins of magic.
The class went by pretty quickly. with about 20 minutes left, James decided for a little start of term game.
"Okay, now, we're going to go around the class. I want everyone to tell me your name, and something interesting about you."
Saku
Saku grinned. Two Doyles and a O'Callaghan later it was his turn.
"I'm Saku Hanson," Saku said. "And I'm physically so close to my Dad's age that I get to call him Zac in public."
Vampire Kitties
"I'm Declan Doyle," Declan said, "And I collect old movies."
"Liam O'Callaghan, and when I was little I dreamed I lived on Saturn," Liam said.
"I'm Orion, and even though I'm the youngest, I look a little older than my brothers, because Saku and me spent several months in an alternate dimension, but were only gone from this one for, like, a day." Orion figured that one was interesting enough.
"I'm Draco. Somewhere in some computer there's a picture of me with the name John Doe, because I got arrested. When the lawyer lady was talking to me, she kept asking my my name, and I told her it was Draco, and she thought I was making it up. said something along the lines of ,'Yeah, and I'm Hermione Granger.'." Draco laughed at the memory. Then he'd had to bust out of juvie. That had actually been fun.
"I'm Percy. Short for Perseus. I have no reflection," Percy said. "But I show up in photographs, so I usually use a poloroid or a digi-cam to see what I look like. It's weird."
James Doyle
They finished going around the room just as the bell rang.
"Okay," said James. "You can take the books with you. I want you to reread the introduction and have a look at chapter one before the next class. You're dismissed."
And the students filed out.