MERLIN'S GIDDY AUNT!

Botros stood straighter than he originally was and his voice quickly boomed, "Mister Turner!" This was a big, big mistake in Ab's class. Whispering into his classmate's ear right in the middle of class and causing her face to be as red as Thor's beard. "I'm going to ask you to get your things and come sit on my desk for the remainder of this class." He shot an angry, disappointed look at the fourteen? fifteen? years old boy. He was not going to interrupt his class and draw attention of younger innocent girls to this... whispering. GLARE.

...

Once the Slytherin was seated on his desk, Botros climbed the two steps and went to stand exactly by him on the chair, using the boy's shoulder as a cane. Much more comfortable than the wooden stick.

"Runes, as many of you have already noted, are letters in a family of ancient alphabets known as runic alphabets. They were used as a method of communication across Scandinavia and in other Germanic nations from around the 3rd century CE to around the 13th century, when they were displaced by the Roman alphabet." He dug a bit into the Slytherin's shoulder while turning around to the blackboard and waving his wand to write the main points of the upcoming lecture. "The primary runic alphabet is often known as Futhark, in a reference to its first six letters. The runic alphabet was probably derived from the Etruscan alphabet which was once in wide use in Italy, and it characterized by angular characters, with no curves or soft edges like those found in the Roman alphabet." His face turned to the students, making sure they were writing down notes, and continued, "This is common to alphabets developed during this period, since they can be readily chiseled into stone."

Botros moved away from the boy and the desk, to the side, allowing the kids to see the texts on the blackboard. "The runes were given to humankind by the central God of Norse mythology Odin, who hung himself upside down on the World Tree in a self sacrificing ritual." Did any of them fall asleep yet? Hopefully not. "After nine nights of suffering upon the tree, Odin died and passed on to the realm of the afterlife where he gained wisdom and was then reborn. Odin passed on his newly acquired wisdom to his people in the form of Runes." Pause. "The runes must be considered an instrument given to us by Odin to help us bring order and clarity to our lives." So, no one should be confused.

"Three aspects of the runes are the sound, the shape and the secret knowledge that are associated with the runes. A good rune master is one who has mastered this threefold nature of the runes. " That was related to what the enthusiastic Slytherin boy implied at with his answer. "But this is not something we're going to dwell on too much today." The old man offered a small smile before waving his wand toward the blackboard.

Above the writings appeared a drawing of someone. "Who can tell me who this is?" He stared at the picture along with the students. "What is the tool he's holding called? And why would we discuss them both in this class?" Go.