Maria woke up in her bed the next morning, curious about how she got there, but more about the throbbing headache that was splitting her head.

Dismissing it, for now, she got dressed and headed down to the great hall. Walking up the aisle, Maria caught a glimpse of Minerva's smirk, making her wonder: what on earth had she done last night?

Kneading her head, Maria slotted down in between Minerva and Albus. Before either of them could embarrass her further, she quickly interjected, " Don't say a word,"

"I wasn't going to, " Minerva replied, smirking.

"Sure, that I believe." Maria snarkily commented, sending glades down at the Gryffindor table, where a certain band of lads laughed uncontrollably. Their plan had worked.

Maria, still in a bad mood, took a bite out of toast and stormed out of the great hall, the loud noises doing nothing for her hangover, and headed up to the astronomy tower until her classes began.

"Now, today we're going to delve back into the fundamentals of our ancestors and their magic. Who can tell me how magic started?"

The sudden question broke over the quiet murmuring of the early morning class, as Professor Lightly abruptly dumped her papers on the desk at the front of the room, giving the marauders an "I won't deal with your nonsense today" look, rubbing her temples in hope of relief.

"To put it another way, what was the first field of magic? Was it transfiguration? Perhaps one of the dark arts? Or even fairy magic? Anyone?" Maria slumped into her chair, waiting for a students reply.

When one never came, she called out a name at random, "Yes, Mr Cresswell."

"...Charms?"

"Good guess, but not quite. Anyone else, " her eyes landed on the marauders, but they were too busy talking to notice, " if you're going to continue chatting, please do so quietly, it's doing my head in, "

Sirius and James shared a smirk, and leaning towards James, Sirius made a testing comment, " that's not the only things doing in her head in, "

James burst out laughing, only stopped when Remus sensibly copped that Maria's gaze was lingering on them.

Shaking her head, Maria landed on Adelaide, " Yes, Miss Mendler."

"Herbology?"

"Very close; two points to Hufflepuff. It is vital for us to remember that the prominent concern for people for most of human history has been one: of how to get enough food to survive. It was this that led our ancestors to abandon their hunter-gather ways of life and build the first cities."

Maria, while sitting down, used her fairy dust to illustrate a picture of a young family, walking through forests and settling with others in the town; the little girl holding on to her mother's hand with eyes full of wonder.

"Despite what most people think, early civilization did not make people healthier or happier, in fact, people in those first cities often lived shorter lives than their wandering cousins. It was not that living in a city made their diets more nutritious; rather, farming made their food sources more reliable. Wheat and barley don't run away from you, after all."

Maria paused to take a breath. "So you're right, in away. Herbology undoubtedly developed at the dawn of civilization, making it one of the first branches of magic in existence. But there was one other that preceded it. Any ideas?"

Silence filled the room once more, easing Maria's pounding head. Then, a shy hand was raised, "You... you mentioned hunter-gatherers. Was the first magic related to hunting?"

"Very good! Take five points for Ravenclaw, Miss Bones. Most of you take Care of Magical Creatures I presume. Though not quite the same, it certainly does bear resemblance to the first branch of magic developed. These magics developed primarily to make the tribe more efficient at hunting the herds that ranged nearby. Soon, however, they took on a different aspect. It was clear very early on that any tribe that could tame an animal would have an immense advantage: its food source could be kept nearby, and more of the animal could be brought back for the whole tribe's use."

The golden image was replaced by one of war, bears and wolves ravishing the town, taking down everything, and everyone in its path.

"The danger was that many of the animals hunted were too dangerous to be kept near the women and children of the group. Thus it was by the genius of these early magicians that such animals could be made peaceful – usually by some totemic ritual, taking on an aspect of the herd's alpha. Tribes assisted by these earliest totemists would thus flourish, and so the practice spread."

Standing up and moving out to the front, Maria sat on the front of her desk, crossing her legs gracefully in front of her.

"Skip forward several centuries later. By now, many types of animals are pastured near the various tribes, but those tamed herds are still merely a food source. It was still necessary to go on long-ranging hunts in order to capture more of them. But at last, the great innovation came, when someone realized that some of these animals could be something more than food, that they might help in the day-to-day work of the tribe. I say someone, but in fact, we have a pretty good idea of who this person was. We don't know how her name would sound in original Altaic, but from ancient translations we can assume the pronunciation, coming to from something along the lines of Aramate."

With a wave of her hand, Maria's portrayal reappeared, depicting a young girl, animal hide cloak covering her body, her hair tied in two small plaits either side of her head, framing her delicate face.

"Aramate was a young girl,  a student like anyone of you, being taught in the art of magic by an older and more experienced shaman. She did, however, possess a rather unique talent."

With an abrupt twist, Professor Lightly turned her back on the class and raised her hands. A hazy glow settled at the front of the desk, out of which coalesced s phantom-like shape.

"This, witches and wizards, is a chanko. It was the ancestor for most wolves found in Eurasia, though it most closely resembles the Tibetan woolly wolf. This was Aramate's talent: where other magicians struggled, she found it remarkably easy to forge the totemic links between it and herself. She was the one who proposed using these wolves to keep the other herds in line. Imagine it, a little girl with such confidence in her control of this that she would suggest using them to guard their own natural prey. But she did, and it worked. Sometime later Aramate proposed a second great innovation: if the wolves could be used to herd tamed animals, couldn't they also be used as part of the hunting party, to corral wild animals for capture."

The glowing wolf disappeared, and the students refocused on Maria, now intently gazing back at them.

"This was the first instance of domestication anywhere in the world. And so it was: the tribe prospered, the practice spread, and Aramate became the first person in history whose name we know. Her fame spread first in oral tradition, as the greatest of the totemists, then in written tradition as the oldest and most storied of the gods. She became the Hindu goddess Sarama, mother of all dogs and domesticable beasts. She became Artemis, the virgin goddess of the hunt. She became, quite simply, the first legend."

An expectant pause followed.

"We skip ahead several thousands of year. By now dogs are thoroughly domesticated, and various tribes in various regions have tried their hand at doing the same for other animals, most successfully in East Asia with the pig and the Middle East with the sheep. Still, neither of these animals were game-changing, so society remained firmly rooted in the hunter-gatherer tradition. Can anyone guess what changed that? Yes?"

"Was it the horse?" Remus inquired, rolling his eyes at the antics that were to come.

Sirius immediately jumped up from his desk, James soon joining him, and started trotting around the room, praying like a horse and shaking his head.

"Very funny boys. Take four points for Gryffindor Remus. It was the addition of a domesticated draft animal, but the horse still had several thousand years to go. No, it was the cow that sparked this great tidal shift, called the Neolithic or Agricultural Revolution. We're not sure which came first, but in quick succession, two kinds of cattle were domesticated, one in the Middle East, near the headwaters of the Euphrates, the other further east, near the delta of the Indus river valley."

With an absent wave of her hand, a map of the region appeared in midair, with the two regions briefly glowing to point out their location before the whole set-up popped out of existence.

"No longer would tribes be forced to migrate every year, to forage for new sources of food. The introduction of a draft animal made it possible to plough, to plant, to irrigate. It still wasn't easy, and the barrage of new challenges left many tribes and their totemists behind in the ash-heap of history. The greatest sorcerers set their minds to the task, and it was their efforts that led, as Miss Mendler pointed out at the beginning, to the modern-day field of Herbology. They were not, however, working without precedent."

A wry grin appeared on the Professor's face. "As before, there are certain professors in the field of Charms, who insist that it was during this phase of human history that the first cantrips came to be used. While this is certainly possible, it seems highly unlikely. We will cover this to a greater extent in the next class, but especially in this period of history, a single cantrip could easily take a magician's entire life to develop for use, a life that they could not spend helping the rest of the tribe survive. Unless a single tribe could enjoy such a prolonged period of peace and prosperity, while also enjoying the presence of not one or two but many individual magicians that one could be spared for decades on an otherwise fruitless task – without that, it's hard to imagine a cantrip being developed before the rise of agriculture."

"After agriculture," Professor Lightly smiled again. "After farming is an entirely different story. More food meant more people, more people meant more magicians, and the rise of specialization and leisure meant that those magicians could focus on other magics, could spend their lives in other fields. It was, in other words, quite inevitable that war-minded magic would come into being. Yet even here, Charms was not the first field to arise. No, that honour was kept for the discipline of the Dark Arts, or rather, because light magic spells arrived at the same time, we should more properly call it the discipline of the Emotive Arts."

"For that is the difference between a cantrip and a curse or cure. The field of Charms is defined by the question of Intent, to make a cantrip work, you must forge a sure and certain link between your own internal intention and the effect you wish to create. A dark or light spell, on the other hand, is defined by a matter of Desire, your magic is shaped, not by mental effort and force of will, but by the strength of your emotion leading you to act. Thus, it is possible to learn the name and incantation of an unknown dark spell, use it for the first time in a moment of high emotion, and the magic will express itself perfectly on that occasion. This could not happen with a normal charm. It is for this reason that curses are often seen as more powerful or versatile than the corresponding charm."

"With the proliferation of such spells and counter-spells, curses and cures in ever-increasing number, it could be easily predicted that the magicians, those former totemists and herbologists, would find themselves on the front lines of battle, would be pitted one against another in combat, would define by their success or failure the fate of the entire raiding party and the city behind them. From war, it was only a short step to politics, and in politics, the entire complexion of magic changed."

"But that... is a subject for another class period."

Maria laughed slightly, hearing a few scattered "thank Merlin its over"s as the students realized that their class time was up.

"Enjoy the weekend!"

Just as the Marauders were leaving, Maria called them back. This seemed to become a recurring issue.

James was the first to speak, throwing his hands in the air, " Ok to be fair, we haven't pranked anyone or messed with any teachers, well one, " Sirius gave him a sharp dig in the side, bringing him back on topic.

"But nothing to deserve detention."

Maria shook her head, linking up to their arms with her own, surrounded by her boys on either side.

"No, but I will give you one warning, "

"Never, ever, let me get pissed again."

They all burst out laughing, walking through the courtyard, most likely heading down to the black lake to relax and catch up on gossip and mischief.

Maria's hangover was long gone, turning into a mother figure more and more each day to her boys, her precious boys.

~~~~~~~

Well kids, now you know not to drink because my God do you get one bitch of a hangover. And. It. Fricken. Hurts.

*The_lost_flower*