In Harry Potter as Neville Longbottom

Chapter 7: The First week (Re)

I was a hero for Gryffindor in the first year after this class. I managed to escape Potions class which they all hated and lost no points for that! Imagine! Harry and Ron along with Dean Thomas, my roommates, would speak endlessly about how lucky I was. Well, they were right though.

I maintained a suitable distance with Harry and Ron while being friendly with Dean. This was a simple boy with no habit of getting into trouble and I could use such a simple normal friend.

The first week passed like this. It was easy for me to handle plants in herbology classes where my own experience helped me get 15 points for his house handling the Venomous Tentacula, as they tend to be grabby.

As a precaution, the professor taught everyone a simple fire charm - 'Incendio'. That was unnecessary though as these plants would stay away from any heat and hence I just simple charms to make my hands warm and handle plants easily.

She then introduced the class to Puffapods, a fairly safe bet to start people off with. While this was a fairly simple magical plant, it was one of the easiest defences against a 'Troll' something which I wondered was just arranged for the famous trio to learn.

Puffapods make trolls sneeze and if thrown in a large quantity it can make a troll unbreathable. This can give ample time to hit or run from him. But I think trio never took plants seriously.

"Professor, can I keep these seeds with me?" I asked professor sprout. This was one professor who always had the means to clean up all the trouble Voldemort caused. From these simple puffapods in the first year to growing the Mandrakes for curing petrified students in the second year. Somehow the professor always had solutions.

"Sure Neville. It is much first time seeing someone so good at handling plants. You can take these as a gift but if I find some flowers in the hallway, you will be the one cleaning after them and losing your house points." Professor gave the seeds away smilingly.

Professor Flitwick started the first-year charms with the simple charm 'Lumos' and I used my wands and as expected a slight pink soothing light filled the room. My wand tip was glowing more brightly than any other student here and it was rotating like a ball.

I got another 5 points for that. This somehow sparked a competition with a particular bushy hair who I found cute and somehow not so irritating. The most boring and interesting class came after this.

"The history class that can give instant sleep!" I hated going to this class as there was hardly anything professor binns ever said that caught my attention but today he did manage to make me awake.

"During the first goblin rebellion, a large number of wizard families led the army and using their grimoires they could maintain an advantage over their alchemy tools. The last use of grimoires in history after this was not clear and hence considered heresy.

"Excuse me professor, but can you explain the grimoires a little? I have read a lot of books before but never came across grimoires or their uses," I raised my hand and asked this question.

Professor Binns looked at me and spoke "Well during older times, grimoires were considered a spellbook collection of all charms and runes that could provide guidance in making magical objects like talismans and amulets, or how to perform magical spells, charms and divination. They were a standard for any wizarding family but after the "witch trials" and "goblin wars" many famous grimoires were lost or burned by muggles.

At the end, when magic schools like Hogwarts came with a standard curriculum, their use and presence were simply discarded."

"But why professor? I mean any such book would be a prized possession for anyone. It is like all the knowledge of millennia compiled correctly and ready for use. So, why do wizards stop using them?"

"Many reasons but the key was blood or rather magic in blood. You see grimoires were strictly written or kept locked with the blood of a wizard and he will pass on this to his descendants traditionally meant for the firstborn son.

His blood would then pass on and hence the grimoire would become bound to their families. But after the witch trials and goblin wars, many such first born wizards died and their grimoires became useless. Also many were hidden and kept secret from their own families in fear of being stolen and hence they were simply lost in time.

Finally, if a thief managed to steal a grimoire and would be able to access the knowledge hidden inside, it would strip the previous owners of their magic. This could lead to the loss of their heritage, their vaults in Gringotts or even their all properties.

Hence many wizard families would start a fight or a war secretly with these thieves and the ministry had no way to solve this trouble. So, the grimoires were then stripped of direct identity with the families and lost their key value."

The whole class of young magicians were now simply listening to this amazing piece of info they never knew. Even pure-blood wizard families in Britain had not used grimoires in centuries so, this fascinated everyone in the class.

After this amazing discovery, the dull atmosphere came heavier than before and before the night lessons of astronomy, I head to the library to look for any information about grimoires.

There was hardly anything in any book until I found a book on the history of wizards where they mentioned a wizard "Malachai Macklyn (Mal-man)". This guy was considered to be the strongest magician after Merlin and his grimoire was considered to be the best in his time in Britain.

"The book bound by a pentagram, in the hands of Malachai and his staff ruled the wizarding world. He could have been the next Merlin but he was a free soul and was said to be able to turn into a Dragon as an Animagus which was a rarity for any wizard but this was not proven."

'Grimoire', a book with lost knowledge of magic and charms and many other things. I need to know more about this.

I wrote a letter to my nan about this on that very night enquiring if she knew about our family grimoire or anything related to this.

The following week had no such surprises. Flying lessons were easy but without me making a scene, there was a Weasley. Ron struggled to get this broom up the first few times and angrily throw down his wand.

'What kind of a wizard throw his own wand away?' Anyway, that was how instead of my memory ball, Harry chased Draco who picked Ron's wand and this gave our house Harry the first year seeker.

Somethings in cannon refuse to change themselves it seems.