Lesson 20: The Final Exam

"The Yamal peninsula is on the Arctic coast, so the guidebook says to pack warm clothing. It suggests bringing a down jacket, hat, gloves, rain poncho and galoshes."

Kyle Slater rolled his eyes. "It's summer, Zeph, remember? What does it say to pack in the summer?"

"That was the section on packing for a summer in Siberia. The galoshes are for all the mud. In the winter it says to either transfigure yourself into a Yeti or pack a parka, fur hat, several layers of thermal everything and the warmest boots you can find and then stay home, because you'd have to be an idiot to go there in the middle of winter if you're reading this book for advice on what to bring." Zephyrus replied matter-of-factly.

"And what is it again that makes you so sure Professor Vance is going to let us go with him to Siberia?" Amy asked.

"We have a plan," Kyle said.

"We're going to reason with him," Zephyrus replied confidently.

"Gummy's a reasonable man."

. . .

"Absolutely not," Gummy answered firmly. "It's far too dangerous." Professor Montgomery Vance looked at his three best students. Graduate students, he reminded himself. But nonetheless, how could he take them with him? "This isn't a holiday. We have no idea what was locked away in those Siberian holes, but they have to be found and dealt with one way or another."

"All the more reason we should go with you, Professor," Kyle replied in the most persuasive tone he could manage. "We can help."

"Kyle is really good at charms and working with magical creatures, Zephryus added quickly. "Amy excels at transfiguration and knows astronomy like the back of her hand. I'm pretty good with potions and herbology. And all of us are good at research."

Admittedly, the Sheta Sesh had lost some very talented members the previous Fall. They had managed to protect the world from the evil locked inside Bastet's Fortress, but at a great cost. The young wizards and witch standing in front of him, earnestly pleading their case, could be of great help. "No. No. You have no idea how dangerous this could be." Gummy shook his head. It was time for class. Where were the rest of the students?

"We're worried about what came out of those holes, too, Professor. We want to help. And--

Gummy paused, the tone of sincerity in Amy's voice sounded like an echo of his own, long ago. Had he sounded so different decades ago when he made his plea to be let into the ancient society of the Seta Sesh?

--and," Amy continued, "I want to know. I want to know what's really out there, what really happened in the past. You know secrets of antiquity and have held ancient objects of power that most people think are just myths. I want that, too. All three of us do." Kyle and Zephyrus held their breath, sensing their professor was on the edge of conscenting.

"There's no time," Gummy hedged. How could he say no to them when they were asking nothing more than what he, himself, had once asked and been granted. "I need to leave right after the exam."

"We're all packed for a summer in Siberia. Our backpacks are in the hallway," Amy replied quietly.

"Galoshes?"

"Got 'em."

"Well, you three had best finish up your final exams quickly," Gummy said with a smile, his mind made up just as the rest of the students began filing into the room, glancing over notes in a last-minute attempt to prepare for the exam. "The four of us have a very old mystery to solve. Whatever it is has waited over ten thousand years in that permafrost, but I have a feeling things are about to get very interesting indeed."

Kyle, Amy and Zephyrus quickly took their seats with excited grins on their faces. Professor Vance turned his attention to the class as a whole. "I'd like to thank you all for a fantastic year. I've enjoyed teaching you more than you can imagine. I hope you've enjoyed it as well and have learned a little something along the way." Gummy held up the final exam papers in his left hand. "I guess we'll find out in a few minutes exactly how much you've learned." He pulled his wand from his inner robe pocket and with a series of quick swishes, the exam papers folded themselves into paper airplanes and, much like memos in the Ministry of Magic, each delivered itself to one of the students.

"Witches and wizards of Hogwarts, I present to you your final exam."

Lesson 19: Siberian Craters

"So, you're back, are you?" Professor Vance asked rhetorically as he opened the window. He stood back so that a very familiar Northern Hawk Owl could fly into the classroom. The brown and white striped owl landed gracefully on the corner of the professor's desk and lifted its right leg. "All business as usual, I see. Well, at least you managed to get here before class started this time."

Gummy carefully untied the message from the bird's tawny leg and then reached into his top right desk drawer. He stifled a laugh as he watched the bird's round eyes follow the movement of his hand and its head twitch at the sound of the drawer opening. He grabbed a good-sized piece of the crocodile jerky which he knew the messenger owl couldn't get enough of. As soon as the bird had the jerky in its beak, it found a perch on top of a bookshelf near the back of the room.

This should be interesting, Gummy thought as he unrolled the scroll. He'd been eagerly awaiting this message. At last he would learn what magic the Russian branch of the Sheta Sesh had been able to uncover at the site of those weird holes. The familiar handwriting of his friend, Dragunov Yuliy Timofeyevich, covered the parchment. A quick scan of the contents made Gummy's brow furrow in thought. It was not at all what he had expected. "Curiousier and curiousier."

Shuffling in the hall announced the arrival of his students, so Gummy rolled up the scroll and tucked it into a pocket. The sight of a Northern Hawk Owl perched on the bookshelf had three of his students huddled together, whispering, and throwing speculative looks at both the owl and their teacher. Professor Vance couldn't help but smile. There was nothing he loved more than a good mystery, so he knew how Amy Timko, Kyle Slater, and Zephyrus Fry had to be feeling. He would have bet a month's salary that all three of them were about to burst with curiosity.

"Alright everyone, settle down and get ready to take some notes. The last quiz of the school year is next class, in case you've forgotten." Moments later the students had settled into lecture mode and he began the lesson. "The XIII Olympic Winter Games took place in February of 1980. They were held in Lake Placid, New York in the United States. While there were many spectacular performances during those games, the 1980 Winter Olympics are best remembered for what Muggles have termed the 'Miracle on Ice.'"

Professor Vance paused, about to ask a question that he felt certain would somehow result in Kyle Slater claiming aliens were behind the nearly impossible win of the US Mens' Hockey Team, when the round, golden eyes of the messenger owl caught his attention. History is about to be re-written, he thought. That's the real lesson here.

"Who knows what historical revisionism is?" Even Gummy was surprised at the words that had come out of his mouth. Forget Felix Felicis. Forget the 1980 "Miracle on Ice". This felt much more like the right lesson to teach today. "Anyone?" he asked.

A hand shot into the air and Gummy nodded to Slytherin Zephyrus Fry. "Historical revisionism is when history as we know it is reinterpreted or what is generally believed to be true is changed. The Boston Massacre in 1770 is an example. The actual incident between British soldiers and American colonists was really minor. It likely would have been entirely forgotten, if it wasn't for a of rabble rousers.. er... patriots. I guess it all depends on your perspective. Anyway, Paul Revere made a woodcut that was completely fictional. It made it look like the British had intentionally fired on a big group of unarmed civilians for no reason. And then this other guy, Samuel Adams, printed it in his newspaper and handed out copies left and right. Next thing you know, everyone believed what happened in the picture was what really happened."

"Well done! Take 10 points for Slytherin," Gummy responded with a broad grin. "Mr. Fry has just described one kind of historical revisionism --- the negative kind. As they say, history is written by the victors, and in this case, propaganda was taught as fact to generations of American elementary school students. But we know much more of the story now because of another kind of historical revisionism. Existing information is re-evaluated, and new facts pop up every day. Sometimes documents that have been lost or maintained in someone's private collection suddenly become available. New Muggle technology such as DNA mapping can help solve mysteries by revealing information that was previously impossible to obtain. Archaeologists unearth something unusual and, suddenly, our entire understanding of the past may change."

Professor Vance reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a small stack of papers. He shuffled through them for a moment and selected a few which he set out on his desk before returning the rest to the drawer. He tapped the first of the sheets with his wand and it floated up into the air before expanding until the image on the paper was large enough for the entire class to see clearly.

"This," said Gummy, pointing to the image of a large cylindrical hole in the middle of a grassy field, "is about to rewrite history. This hole was discovered during the summer of 2014 on the Yamul Peninsula in Siberia, Russia. It's about 200 feet deep and 98 feet in diameter. The crater has smooth sides and all that dirt you see piled up around the top was forced out from inside the hole. The question is, by what? Muggle geologists currently have two favored theories." The professor swished his wand at the enlarged photo floating in the air above his desk. It immediately shrunk back to its original size and dropped back onto the desktop. With a tap of his wand on another paper, Gummy made another image of the Siberian hole float upward and enlarge itself for easy viewing. In this picture, the size of the giant hole could be seen more easily because the people in it looked very small indeed.

"The first theory makes no sense to me at all. They are basically saying that it could be a type of sink hole known as a 'pingo'. The land in which this hole suddenly appeared is covered in permafrost. That means that the earth below the first couple of feet remain frozen all year round and have likely stayed that way since the last ice age. The pingo theory suggests that warmer temperatures have caused the permafrost to melt. The melting destabilized the earth and it collapsed." Some of the students exchanged quizzical looks and a hand shot up into the air.

"Then why is there all that dirt that looks like it exploded up out of the hole?" asked a Gryffindor who looked particularly unconvinced by the pingo theory.

"Yes. I find that rather troublesome as well. The methane hydrate theory sounds a bit more plausible, in my opinion. Under the right temperature and pressure conditions, water and methane can freeze together and form methane hydrate. The frozen methane hydrate remained locked below the ground in the permafrost until recently when temperatures began to rise. As the permafrost melted, methane hydrate unfroze and separated into water and explosive methane gas. And then, BOOM! There was suddenly a really big hole in Siberia. The methane hydrate theory at least accounts for the earth that was clearly ejected from within the hole and the elevated levels of methane recorded at the bottom of the hole."

Gummy paused for a moment, as he considered how much he should tell the students. Then, with a shrug, he pulled the message from his pocket. "Wizards have been investigating these holes, too. At this point, we know of seven large holes like the one in the picture. Each of them was found in areas of permafrost. And in every case, magic detection spells revealed large amounts of magic that were too chaotic to decipher. This occurs when multiple layers of spells crisscross an area. It usually occurs in areas that are routinely used for practice, on dueling platforms, or where large magical battles have taken place." Professor Vance decided not to mention that it was also occasionally used by wizards to very effectively hide the magical signature of dark and nefarious deeds."Spell layering in this manner makes it nearly impossible to determine what the spells were cast, the direction and target, or how old the magic is in terms of order of casting. Nearly impossible. Sometimes wizards can unweave the chaotic magic and tweeze out the individual spells."

As he spoke, the History of Magic Professor watched his three most promising students exchange knowing looks. Amy whispered, "The Adze of Thoth!" Kyle and Zephyrus nodded. All three focused intently on their teacher, eager to learn what the Russian branch of the Sheta Sesh had discovered using the ancient magical tool that could unweave even the most chaotic tangle of spells.

"Spells were cast from six directions, probably at the same time," the professor continued. "All had the same central target, which resulted in a hexagonal shaped zone of magical effect. And that's the first reason history is going to be re-written by these holes in Siberia. These spells date back to just after the last ice age, which is before magic users were believed to have sophisticated spells or be organized enough to work together in groups such as this." The students didn't look nearly as excited by this somewhat esoteric revelation as Gummy was himself, so he pressed on without further comment.

"The types of magic this group used and the spell sequence hints at something a bit more exciting. The oldest spells, the first the group cast, produced heat -- presumably, enough heat to thaw the frozen ground to a depth of about 100 feet. It took a lot of those warming spells, so it was apparently not an easy task. The next spells cast were a series of movement or transport charms to remove earth. In effect, they magically dug a hole, but the spells they used are quite different from what we used to dig wells and so forth today."

Gummy looked down at the message for a moment. "Right. The next layer of spells was different from the others in trajectory. In this case, it appears that all six witches or wizards stood back-to-back inside the hole and used some really massive heat spells that melted the earth and rock, solidified it." His respect for the ancient magic users was growing the more he thought about what they had managed to accomplish. "The rest of the spells all appear to have been cast from around the top of the hole. There were four more series of charms," he explained, referring to the message again.

"First more transport charms, which I presume refilled the hole. Then water charms followed by cold charms that would have settled the ground and then frozen it solid again. The most interesting charms, though, were the last that were cast." The professor watched his students carefully. He wanted to know which of them would be the first to recognize the significance of what he was about to say. "Pacification, immobilizing and sleep charms appear to have been cast on the ground over and over again, periodically, over the course of the next hundred years or so."

"Merlin's beard!" Kyle exclaimed. "Professor, what was in that hole?"

"And where is it now?" Amy asked.

The bell to end class rang suddenly, but, for once, no one moved. "At this point, your guess is as good as mine. As I said, history is being re-written as we speak. Witches and wizards are looking into it. I'll probably head out that way myself. Nothing I like more than solving a juicy mystery like this one. You lot, however, have homework to do." Gummy swished his wand and homework papers appeared in front of each student. "Off you go now, I've got a trip to prepare for."

Lesson 18: The Edmund Fitzgerald

Amy Timko, Kyle Slater and Zephyrus Fry sat at a table in a secluded corner of the Hogwarts library. Kyle shut 'Ancient Amulets: A Survival Guide' and pushed the large, heavy book to one side before reaching for another. "No mention of the Adze in that one either," he said, reaching for one of the few unsearched tomes left on the table. "Let's see if 'Bewitched Antiquity' has anything."

Amy closed the book she was reading and picked up two of the other discarded books as well. The small group had spent hours combing through both newer reference books and old, musty tomes. So far, not one of them had even mentioned the artifact their History of Magic teacher had sent to his friend in Siberia. How were they going to figure out what was going on if they couldn't even figure out what was what the Adze of Thoth was? "I'll re-shelve these and see if I can find anything else that might reference the--"

"Hold on, Amy. I think I found it." Zephyrus stared intently down at the book in front of him, flipped the page, and then his face lit up.

Kyle was out of his seat in an instant. Leaning over the book, he whistled quietly. "You did it, Zeph. Look at that thing."

Amy dropped the books she was holding onto her chair and leaned over the table. The picture showed an old, woodworker's hand tool. It looked as if a flat stone blade had been tied to the end of an ordinary ax handle. But even though the picture was small, and she was looking at it upside down, there was no mistaking the ibis emblem of Thoth etched into the tool's side. "What's it say, Zeph? I can't read upside down."

Zephyrus ran his hand through his dark hair, as he did whenever he was nervous or excited. "It says, 'According to legend, in the aftermath of the Ancient Egyptian Wizarding War, Thoth and a group of his followers were attempting to locate a band of Seth's fighters. The magic-locating spells used by Thoth lit up the entire canyon. The supporters of Seth had used spells to hide the entrance to their base and then had cast layer-upon-layer of spells over the surrounding area, rendering magic-locating spells useless. Thoth asked his followers to find something he could enchant into a tool to unweave the chaotic magic flooding the canyon. A discarded Muggle woodworking tool was found. Thoth bespelled the adze and, using it, they found the hidden entrance and dealt with the vicious followers of Seth within.'"

"Ooooo. That is interesting. Does it say anything else? Amy asked.

"Not much. It does mention that the current location of the Adze is unknown. The last known use of the Adze of Thoth was in 1312 by the Knights Hospitaller, leading to their victory over the Turkish fleet in the Cyclades." Zephyrus looked up at the other two in confusion.

"Don't look at me," Kyle protested. "I didn't even know hospitals had knights."

. . .

Montgomery Vance stood before the windows of his History of Magic classroom. It was May, and Spring had, finally, truly come to Hogwarts. His thoughts, however, were miles away. He had begun to accept the mixed feelings that came with teaching. On the one hand, he enjoyed teaching even more than he had thought he would. But it was difficult to know that his old colleagues were facing dangers, learning secrets and solving mysteries without him. He felt as if he ought to be there with them. It wasn't his own ego, simply recorded fact: fewer of them tended to die when he was around.

"Go not forth, O Hiawatha!
To the kingdom of the West-Wind,
To the realms of Mudjekeewis,
Lest he harm you with his magic,
Lest he kill you with his cunning!"

"Who's Mudjekeewis?" Zephyrus asked, "Is he the one laying down all the magic in Siberia?"

"What? Mudjekeewis? Siberia? No." Gummy stammered. The students were nearly all in their seats. Already. He must have been lost in thought longer than he realized. "Mudjekeewis has nothing to do with Siberia, but I'm guessing you--" Gummy glanced around and saw two other sets of eyes intently on him, keenly interested in the conversation. "--and your friends have been doing some rather interesting research. Good. Good." Gummy gestured for Zephyrus to take his seat. "Mudjekeewis is a character in The Song of Hiawatha by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. It's an excellent poem with beautiful language and imagery. But today, we are talking about the Edmund Fitzgerald which was shipwrecked in Gitche Gumee, as Longfellow called it, or as most people call it, Lake Superior."

Professor Vance pulled a small roundish rock from his pocket and placed the mottled grey and dark red ball on his desk. With a tap of his wand, the air above the little, spherical rock flickered twice and an image formed.

"This is the Edmund Fitzgerald. The Fitz, as she has been nicknamed, first sailed in 1958. She was 39 feet high, 75 feet wide, and 729 feet long. That's a pretty big ship by any standards. Although she could carry other raw materials such as salt and grain, this long, wide, flat ship was primarily built to haul iron ore, like the little rock on my desk, from mines in Minnesota to steel mills in Detroit. The Fitz had a number of other nicknames during the years she sailed. Some called her 'The Toledo Express'. Others referred to her as 'The Queen of The Great Lakes'. Her most unfortunate, although perhaps most apt, nickname was 'Titanic of The Great Lakes'." Gummy tapped the rock again, and this time a map flickered into existence about the little piece of iron ore.

'On November 10, 1975, the Edmund Fitzgerald sank to the bottom of Lake Superior, taking all 39 crew members with her." A hand instantly shot up in the third row and Gummy nodded, granting the student permission to speak.

"A ship that big sank in a lake? Even the Giant Squid would have a hard time dragging something that big down," a dark-eyed Gryffindor asked incredulously.

"Ah, yes, well, The Great Lakes are really big. I suppose I should back up just briefly to explain the size of the lake we're discussing today. The map you see flickering in the air above my desk is Lake Superior. It's just one of the Great Lakes in North America. There are a total of five Great Lakes which are interconnected. As you can see from the map, the northern edge of Lake Superior, and that of the other Great Lakes as well, runs along the Canadian border, and the southern edge is along the U.S. border. Lake Superior is the northern most of the five lakes and it's about the size of Austria. In fact, if all the water was drained from Lake Superior, it would cover the entire land mass of both North and South America in a foot of water. All the Great Lakes are big enough to have real waves. Lake Superior regularly has 20 foot waves. 30 foot waves have been recorded during storms, so even a mammoth ship like the Edmund Fitzgerald could find a storm on Lake Superior rather challenging." As he had been describing just how large Lake Superior was, the expression on the Gryffindor's face changed from skeptical to surprise to wide-eyed shock. Professor Vance couldn't help but chuckle a little.

"Exactly. On a lake that big, a monster storm doesn't need the assistance of a magical creature to take down almost anything Muggles can build." The professor assumed his customary stance for lecture time. With his arms crossed comfortably against his broad chest, he leaned against the desk, his long legs stretched out before him. Just as he was about to continue, he noticed Kyle Slater whispering to Amy Timko. Gummy sighed. From the avid look on Kyle's face, he knew where this was going. Might as well address it head-on,he thought. "Mr. Slater, why don't you tell us what you've heard about the Edmund Fitzgerald."

Kyle looked abashed at being caught whispering in class. It lasted for about two milliseconds before he eagerly launched into what the Muggle-born Ravenclaw had doubtlessly learned from TV. "There was this mysteriously-huge storm. I'm talking suspiciously-huge, you know? Anyway, the Edmund Fitzgerald was in radio contact with another ship for most of the evening. In their last transmission, the captain said that they were taking on a little water, but were 'holding their own'. That's a quote, by the way. Then, suddenly, they disappeared from radar and radio contact and were never seen again. No distress call went out. Not a single body was ever found. It's obvious why, of course. I mean, put the pieces together. An unusual storm, sudden disappearance with no distress call, and every single person missing without a trace: aliens!"

Kyle's enthusiasm was actually kind of endearing. Gummy smiled and said, as gently as he could, "Sorry, Kyle. No aliens this time, either. It was November, which is a bad month for storms on the Great Lakes. No aliens and no magic were involved in the storm. The Edmund Fitzgerald was stressed beyond what it could take. The wind and waves applied a torque or twisting force that ripped the ship apart. The front half sat right-side-up on the bottom of the lake. About 170 feet of debris separated it from the rear-half of the ship which lay upside-down." Gummy tapped the chunk of iron ore one more time and the map was replaced by an image of the beaten, broken Edmund Fitzgerald as he had described it, deep below the waves.

"And that brings us to where magic comes into play. As Kyle mentioned, not a single body was ever found. But they weren't beamed off the ship by aliens or apparated off by Maritime Rescue Wizards. No. Unfortunately, they sank with their ship. Lake Superior has a reputation for holding on to the bodies of those who drown in her. It's rather simple, really. The deep lake water never gets above 39 degrees Fahrenheit, so the bacteria that normally feed on a drowned body never get to multiply. And it's the gas formed by that bacteria that makes drowned bodies float. In short, the lake stays too cold for the bodies of the lost to ever surface and wash ashore. But why is it always so cold?" Gummy paused for effect and tried to utter his next word with the same degree of passion as Kyle had used earlier, but instead of "aliens", Gummy said, "Magic!"

There were some giggles from students and Gummy's rich chuckle joined them before he continued, "Many, many years ago, before any European had set foot on the shores of Lake Superior, when it was still known as Ojibwe Gichigami, or Ojibwe's Great Sea, there lived a witch by the name of Ishkoodah. Ishkoodah was a very strong Legilimens. She could seek truth in a person's mind as easily as you or I could scan through a copy of the Daily Prophet. She watched a young man named Adjidaumo grow to adulthood within the tribe. She could always sense darkness within him. The Ojibwe people loved him because he was handsome and seemed to do things to help people, but Adjidaumo always had hidden motives that only Ishkoodah could discern. You see, Adjidaumo wanted to lead the tribe, but the tribe had a chief and the chief had two sons who had inherited the wisdom and strength of their father. Ishkoodah knew that Adjidaumo was adored and people thought he could do no wrong, so she kept silent and spoke to no one of the dark motives of the young man.

"Eventually, however, the situation became dire. Adjidaumo had just returned from a scouting mission. He said that he had seen excellent game in an unusual location. He proposed they quickly form a hunting party that included the chief and both his sons. Ishkoodah looked into his mind and saw that he had made a deal with members of another tribe with whom his people had battled for generations. The hunting party was a trap! Adjidaumo was planning to hand all of them over to their enemies! What was Ishkoodah to do? No one would believe her, but lives were in danger and the good of the tribe was in jeopardy. So regretfully, Ishkoodah waited until Adjidaumo was alone, and then she invaded his mind so forcefully that the treacherous young man fainted from the attack. The witch then used her magic to bind him and take his life. But what to do with the body? That's always a problem when it comes to murder, isn't it?" Gummy asked wryly. He glanced at the clock. As usual, he was running out of time.

"Ishkoodah used her magic to move the body out onto the deep lake near what is now known as Whitefish Point. She removed a cowry shell pendant from around her neck, cast a chilling spell upon it, and then bound the enchanted pendant to Adjidaumo's corpse. 'You acted with such coldness in life that you deserve no warmth in death,' Ishkoodah said as she watched Adjidaumo's remains sink into the lake. The pendant is still down there, still refusing to let the Ojibwe Gichigami warm above 39 degrees. And that is why Lake Superior is so unwilling to give up the bodies of its dead: Ishkoodah's magic is still at work, keeping the waters icy cold."

As if on cue, the bell rang. Class had come to an end. "Homework assignments are on the desk by the door. Pick one up as you leave, please. If you have any questions, owl me or invade my office or shout questions to me over breakfast. I'll be around."