In the past three years in your studies at Hogwarts, I hope you've learned to live and breathe the history around you and have realized that each second, you are creating all sorts of history: your history, Hogwarts' history, your family's history, and more. It goes to show that every living and breathing thing around you is interconnected and has an effect on the world around them.
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Think of life as a timeline. Upon reading to the end of this sentence, you have spent three seconds of your time "writing your history." But wait a minute, this brings us to the confusing and constant debate about history versus memory. What you just read in the beginning of this paragraph is considered the area of intersection between history and memory, a phenomena that some might argue to possibly be non-existent but it is not necessarily the case. In simple terms, memory is known as a "collective recollection, a sort of living heritage" whereas history is widely known as "a representation of our past in an organized manner."
Whilst these given definitions are vague, we can easily summarise and differentiate these two words. History is a representation of what happened in the past that is presented in a collected manner. Its main function is to be analyzed, learned from, and used to identify patterns in an organized timeline. Memory, on the other hand, is an assortment of personal events that have happened and affected you in some form or another -- something you remember from a personal interaction. Its main function, however, is to be used in an innate and more personal manner. Sometimes, it has an extension that aids the building of one's identity.
Still, one would be a fool to think that history and memory function independently and strictly related to their own definitions. Remember, definitions are human-constructed meanings put in place to help you understand something from the writer's point of view. There would be many overlapping factors between both terms but if you want to strictly differentiate them, maybe we can say memory is to an individual as history is to a society.
Based on the understanding that history "is a representation of what happened in the past," how much of what we are taught is an accurate representation of what really happened in the past? This brings me to my next topic: the believability of history as presented to us.
Who Do You Believe?
As a Third Year at Hogwarts, I expect you to start questioning the things you learn in history (or, indeed, all classes) instead of merely accepting information as it is presented to you. I once attended a course on "The Believability of Historical Representation" many years ago as a student here at Hogwarts. In fact, I volunteered to attend it in Fifth Year as the topic interested me immensely. It's hard to recall exactly what happened and was mentioned in that one-off course but a particular portion struck me like a bolt of lightning. Quoting the conference speaker, Professor Jaqueline Harkross
"I have spoken for exactly 30 minutes on the history of Asian magical culture. Yes, I timed it carefully. I have a question for all of you - How many of you truly believe the things I've said? Ah. I see many hands up. But how much of what I have said is true? How sure are you that I'm not making this up? In fact, I have been talking a whole lot of crap and nonsense for the past half hour and you didn't even realize it because I'm the speaker. I'm the leader of this course and thus, you are inclined to believe whatever I say.
