The Speaker and His Wraiths

The Wheel of the Year

New Information

"I wanted to spend this meeting with you guys just talking about some Dark culture." Harry announced, "I explained some of it in our first meeting, but otherwise we've been so focused on Voldemort and our plans that I haven't made any time for genuinely talking about the culture we're fighting to preserve. Does anyone remember any of the things I mentioned during our first meeting?" He pointed to a Ravenclaw he vaguely remembered.

"You mentioned the Magic Holiday Wheel." She said firmly. Harry nodded.

"That's right." Harry clapped his hands together. "Does anyone know what that is?" Nearly every hand in Slytherin went up, same with a rare few from the other Houses. "Excellent. Would someone like to share with the class? Yes, Abbott!"

"The Holiday Wheel is also known as the Wheel of the Year." Hannah explained confidently. "It's a Wiccan seasonal festival tracker. It centers around eight Festivals for the sacred solar events of magical power."

"Thank you." Harry grinned approvingly. "Can someone else please name all Eight Festival days?" Millicent Bulstrode raised her hand.

"Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Litha, Lughnasadh, Mabon, and Samhain." She answered, "They alternate between the four quarterly days, and the cross-quarter days."

"I'm confused." Ron called to her as she finished. "What's the difference between quarterly and cross?"

"The quarterly days are solstice days and equinoxes." Bulstrode explained, "The solstices are Yule and Litha, while the equinoxes are Ostara and Mabon. The cross-quarter days are midpoints between a solstice and an equinox. They're sometimes called sabbots, and those are Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain."

"So it's like a compass." Ron realized, "North, South, East West, that's like the quarter days. Right? And the other parts of the compass, like, Northeast, Southwest, those are cross-quarter days."

"You got it." Bulstrode nodded with a smile. "Back to you, Harry."

"I don't mind seeing you guys talk, really, it's great to discuss these things." Harry grinned, "But yeah, as Millicent said, the Wheel has eight festivals. Everyone got that?" Nods all around. "Perfect. Raise your hand if you want to go through each festival and their respective rituals, keep your hand down if you want to just pick one and go more in depth with it."

Nearly every hand went up, which made Harry laugh in delighted surprise. Even Slytherin seemed excited, but that was probably because they never got to talk about their traditions with other people.

"Okay, we'll do it like this:" Harry told them, "We'll start with Yule and end with Samhain, and you guys will have the floor. I'm definitely not the most knowledgeable person on these topics, so I want this to just be a discussion between all of us. Ask questions, get involved, learn something. Let's get started off with Yule."

"Well, Yule is in December." Ron said, looking around. "It's rather like Christmas, isn't it? We had that Yule Ball last year."

"Yule is the winter Solstice." Draco spoke up, "It's the longest night of the year, and there is a single 'solstice moment' on Yule."

"Some of the traditions surrounding Yule would be lighting a fire." Daphne continued quietly. "The fire represents a light that guides you through the darkest night. It's meant to keep your magic pure and bright on the longest night."

"Why would that have any reason to be banned?" Luna asked, tilting her head. "It sounds lovely."

"There's rituals that are usually done on Yule." Theo spoke next, "There's smaller ones, and bigger ones. There's one that involves writing down your wishes and dreams, burning them, and praying to Magic to guide you towards them. The bigger ones were what people usually had issues with." He shuffled in his seat, and sighed. "Some people made ritualistic sacrifices. Not human ones, but birds or small animals like that were common. The blood is considered a gift to the earth, recognizing that the rising sun represents new beginnings. They'd burn the body and bury the ashes."