Hey, Bill?

[alt_ron]

So I turned in my form about what electives I want to take, but I'm not sure, and I guess there's still time to change if I wanted.

I asked for Care of Magical Creatures, which will obviously be wizard, but I also put in for Divination and Runes. But I don't know. And Parkinson said I should ask you about it. Should I do both? What's Runes going to be good for, anyway? I think you said you use it, but really? What for? I mean, I don't even know what sort of job I'd want. I always thought Auror, but it seems like that's not what I thought. Or anywiz, it doesn't seem like I'd maybe have much of a chance. I tried asking Mr Dawlish about it one time when I had but he didn't want to talk about that.

Anywiz, I didn't really want to write about this here, but since we can't send letters

I dunno

What do you think?

Ron

Comments

[alt_bill]

I know it seems intimidating, Ron, but really, there are a number of different areas that you can study and still end up with the career you want. BUT even if you don't yet know what that career IS, that's all right, too. So try not to get too bent out of shape about what subjects to pick. You can follow many career paths no matter which electives you choose.

If you're truly interested in being an Auror, you need a minimum of five N.E.W.T.s. Two of the particularly recommended ones are in the core subjects you're already studying: Transfiguration and Potions. The third must be either Defence Against the Dark Arts or Dark Arts (you can do both, if you're taking both classes and get a N.E.W.T. in each). Your other two N.E.W.T.s (or one, if you're taking both DADA and DA--but I don't think you applied for DA, did you?) can be either core or elective. Charms is a good choice for one of the N.E.W.T., which is a core subject, but there are good arguments to be made for COMC, Runes or Arithmancy. (It's my impression that including Divination as your fifth N.E.W.T. doesn't make you quite as strong a candidate, although there have been some very rare candidates who have pulled it off.)

Runes is interesting if you like history, or if you're interested in other magical systems and/or languages (you'll study Druidic nomenclature--that means the terms particularly used in that field of magic--as well as the various early written alphabets like ogham, pictographic writing, etc.) There are sections on Pictish, Gaelic, and Brythonic magics. You'll find Runes to be particularly helpful if you also plan to take a N.E.W.T. in Charms, since the older spells you study your seventh year sometimes use a quite a wide range of spell notation, many of which we don't use anymore.

[alt_bill]

That is not to say that you shouldn't take Divination at all if you're aiming to be an auror, you understand. It just means that you should choose other classes for your fourth and fifth N.E.W.T.s--Charms, Runes, or COMC, say.

[alt_ron]

I'm decent at Charms. Well, except for my wand. So, I mean, I think I'm decent at Charms or I will be if I can figure out how to get my wand fixed. Neville found a book about wands, but nothing we tried really helped.

D'you know anything about repairing wands if they get snapped?

[alt_bill]

Sorry, Ron, but I'm afraid I don't know anything about wand repair at all. It's quite a specialised subject.

Have you spoken with your Charms professor? Could she help you?

[alt_percy]

I think he has, but she didn't know anything, either.

Ron, I may have found else something in the library that might help, other than that book that Neville found. There's an old tome that talks about how wand movements can be modified if the wand is unstable. Something about adding an extra fractional turn to standard movements. Anyway, stop by my table at the library or catch me in my room if it's after curfew, and we can go through the section I've bookmarked. I don't know for sure if it will help--the author has some very dodgy theories about charms, so there isn't any telling whether this is authoritative until we experiment a little. But at least it's something else we can try.

I'm sorry, I know this is frustrating for you. I can check with the shopkeeper at Dervish & Banges the next time I'm in Hogsmeade for you, see if he has any suggestions.

(Once the quarantine lifts, of course. And who knows when that will be.)

[alt_ron]

Yeah, okay.

Thanks.

I'll see if I can find you when I get back to the common room tonight.

[alt_ron]

Hm. It sounds really, well, tough. I just don't see why, if you're going to be spending your time trying to catch people who break the law, you'd need to know a load of history and old languages nobody uses anymore. I mean, sure, maybe somebody might steal stuff from a museum or something or one or two criminals sometime might use really old spells so nobody'd know how they did what they did, but then you just call in an expert or whatever, right? I don't see why all Aurors'd have to know that stuff. Charms and Defence and DA and Transfiguration and all, I get that.

[alt_bill]

I know it doesn't sound obvious at first, Ron, but it'll makes more sense as you study further.

After all, nobody "uses" Latin anymore, if you mean uses it to hold conversations. But it's the basis for the large majority of our spells. As for history, it can be more useful than you realise. I worked at Gringotts at first, doing curse-breaking, and that can come up for Aurors a lot, too. A sound knowledge of history can be incredibly important when you're trying to figure out how curses work and interact with other magic. I got a lot of the techniques I used from very dry history books, believe it or not.

And as for calling in experts, well, the point is that Aurors ARE the experts. They have to be able to react very quickly to situations, when there often isn't time to ask anyone else for help, so they need to have a lot of esoteric information at their fingertips ('esoteric' means not generally well-known).