“Good morning everyone! Good morning! Please settle down! Please settle?” She called over the fourth year students, who were all enthusiastic about the day. Althea smiled from the front. “I know we all have stories to share and things to catch up on, so I think we’ll hurry through this lesson and then we can chat. Sound good?” She asked. “We’ve got a good plan today, so, let’s get started!”

Althea went around the back of her desk, pulling on her safety goggles. “Now, let’s say that you get lost in the woods, and you can’t aparate away. Well, you need to stay the night. And so, you’ll build a fire,” She told the students, pointing her wand at some sticks and paper, casting a quick fire charm, as a small warm fire started. “You’ll drink some water,” she continued, casting aguamenti and putting out the fire. “Maybe you’ll build a little shelter,” She said, magically lifting a paper tent off her desk, and hanging it in small trees she had conjured.

“Now, you’d be living well with all this magic. But what if your wand was broken?” She said, tossing her wand behind her. “What if you had lost it, or if someone had stolen it? What if you were lost in the woods, and all you had was stagnant water unsafe to drink, leaves and twigs but no matches, and only the clothes on your back?” She asked, taking the glasses off, and putting them back on the table, and showing the jacket that symbolized the person’s clothes.

“Defence Against the Dark Arts teaches you how to preform with your wand. However, no subject teaches you what to do if you are unarmed. This is where Muggle Studies comes in handy!” She picked back up her wand.  “My question for you, class, is what is the muggle activity called that includes going out into the woods, and living off the land?”

“Also, can I have three volunteers come up and demonstrate for me?” She pointed at one student. “Please go show me how to start a fire without magic.” She asked a second student, “Please go show me how to make this water drinkable.” And then she pointed to a third student. “Please show me how to make shelter using my  jacket up there.” She moved to the back of the class, and before the students began, she spoke up. “Lemon drops and house points for whoever can preform their task correctly!”

With carefully concealed excitement –or was it nervousness?– Esther filed into the classroom and made a beeline for the front row, neatly sidestepping a classmate or two in a not-race to get there first.

Muggle Studies. There had been some reluctance, on her part, in choosing it; her grandfather, as some grandfathers went, was very purist—and very, very strict. Although he had less say in her upbringing than her mother did, his opinion still meant something, even though he lived an entire continent away, and his opinion on Muggles and their Muggle-ness was, on the whole, wholly unfavorable. When one had magic, why rely on electricity? Or appliances, if one had house elves? Or Internet, when there was Floo powder, and Howlers, and Patronuses, Portkeys, Apparition and mirrors? If one was born a wizard, he believed, one ought to live as such, unfettered by such useless curiosity-

But after years of friendship to more than a few muggleborns and actual halfbloods– kids whose parents included a Muggle –his granddaughter’s ‘useless curiosity’ for such things had grown, flourishing under a wonder for successful, if muggle methods for doing things, cultivated by a thirst for gossip and pop culture that, apparently, was universal. Against his wishes, she found herself attracted to their social networks, their fantasy genre, and their every-moving trends of fashion. Even the simpler things – like biking or going to the movies – intrigued her. And camping was definitely one of them.

‘Roughing it’ was not a practice Esther was fond of, but for the sake of learning (-and the company, she suspected, but wasn’t about to dwell on) she was open to learning things—magical muggle things. (And, of course, looking competent in just about any situation.)

But when the tip of the professor’s wand landed on her, Esther bit her lip, suddenly wary. She’d wanted to stay and answer the question, rather then come up and demonstrate, because of the three skills Professor Santucci had asked of them only the second one failed to cause the tiny Slytherin some measure of apprehension; filtering water only took some patience, really. But as luck would have it, she was the first one up; making fire was her task.

She had to deliver, or she’d embarrass herself. That, and the one who saw fit to teach her would never let her hear the end of it; he’d be insufferable for weeks.

Hesitating just a beat – her gaze briefly lowering in uncertainty – Esther sniffed and tossed her hair. With the others, she strode up to the front of the class; she could do this. “There are different ways of making fire without magic,” she began, letting her hands fall to her side. There, she kept them carefully flat—rather than let them curl into the anxious fists she wanted to make. “Nearly all of them require at least two items or more. One requires these things called batteries and steel wool; another just requires flint and steel. But, um-” She darted a glance at Althea, “since a person might not have these on hand, there are other ways, ones that need items a person may be likelier to have.

“The way- um, method– I’m about to demonstrate is with a lens.” Her hands did clench then, despite her wishes. Off all the methods, it was, indubitably, that was the easiest one she knew; even now she was less certain of it than her skill at filtering water. Taking a bracing breath, Esther conjured a lens and summoned another sheet of paper. She brought over both to her newly vacated desk, which without its occupant was in direct sunlight; above the sheet of paper, she had the lens in her hands. “With a lens, all you need to do is simply angle the lens toward the sun, until you're focus the beaming into as small an area as possible. Put your tinder nest under this spot-” she angled the lens, frowning slightly as she did; this would take concentration,“-and you’ll soon have yourself a fire.”

Before long, the paper burst into flames. “If you add some water to the lens– like, let it pool at the center– it will intensify the beam. The only downside is that since it requires sun, it won’t work under rainy or overcast conditions.”

As the flames died down until there was nothing but ash, Esther looked up at the professor, expression hopeful.

---

Juni loved Muggle Studies. It was her easiest subject. Her mother was a muggle, and she had grown up with muggle technology and fashions. Her grandparents were muggles, all her cousins on her mother’s side were muggles that she knew of. They went on these awful family camping trips from time to time—which Juni detested. She was not one for staying in tiny, cramped muggle tents and freezing. She didn’t like having to build fires so they could boil water to make it drinkable. Blech, blech, blech!

So, despite the fact that she loved muggle studies, she wasn’t looking forward to this class.
It was like camping. But in a classroom.

And she did not pity Esther, who was asked to build a fire. Most muggles used lighters anyway.  Juni recalled one awful family camping trip where her uncle had forgotten to bring a lighter and they all got frustrated at him when he couldn’t build a fire. Most muggles who were accustomed to living in highly populated areas didn’t know how to survive in the wild, Juni thought.

She was lucky though, that she was asked to purify the water, and make it suitable for drinking. “Professor Santucci, do I have access to anything to put the water in? Or those cleaning tablets some muggles keep in survival kits?”

Althea stood back in utter fasination to see her students work. They were amazing, and it was plain to see why she loved them so much. They were so smart! They learned so well! They were so creative! They were the best students she had ever had. It didn't matter that they were one of the first classes she ever taught. She loved them, each individually.

"Excellent job, Esther!" She shouted, a wide smile on her face, as her hands clapped. "Three points to Slytherin!" She then also tossed a sour yellow candy to the girl. She watched the girl return to her seat, as Juni stepped up. Juni had the toughest task, but Althea knew she was bright and that she wouldn't give up on the task at hand. And, that calculating ravenclaw figured out the job.

That she didn't have all the pieces.

Althea smiled. "Excellent observation, Juni. Let's go ahead and say you had just come from the store, had bought a pot, and then were disarmed and left in a forest." Althea said, smiling at her own silly story. She went back to the desk, plucking a small pot from inside. "You have this with you. Can you make it work?" She asked, returning to her place in the back of the room, and leaning back up against the desk.

Juni tilted her head and squinted at Althea in a way that just showed how ridiculous she thought the story was. But the short nod she gave the professor showed that yes, she was willing to go along with it.  She took the pot from Althea and walked to the stagnant water, and scooped it into the pot. Then she walked over to the fire that Esther has created and frowned.

“You need to let it boil. It should make it good to drink.” She said,  “But we need to make sure the fire is really hot. So we have to wait for a long enough time so that we have hot coals. Then we need to build a support?” Juni wasn’t quite sure how to do that, “With logs, I guess. I dunno. To hold the pot over the coals so I won’t get burned. And we just need to let the pot boil for like, five or ten minutes or something…” She wasn’t sure how long, but that sounded about right to her.

“But this fire is not hot enough, Professor. It needs to be an old one.”

Zeta'd wound up with the jacket. She smiled briefly at Juni, then turned to looking down at the jacket. It wasn't that large, or thick. Not much shelter out in the woods. Or against the wind. Not a fun sort of camping trip at all!

There were a few sticks left that hadn't burned. She took a couple of them, braced them against each other, and sighed as the rough structure collapsed a moment later. It took a couple minutes to rebuild it, more solid this time. Then she draped the jacket over it and stepped back to consider her work. Wasn't quite draping it over a few branches, but there weren't any there for draping.

(Sorry guys. This totally dissapeared on me!)

Althea watched from the back, as Juni caught on to her trick. That fire was young. She wanted to see if her students were at that level yet, adn they definitely showed that they were. She was so proud. How they did that every class, she didn't know, but she'd walk out of class each day, brimming with pride of her students. She might even have bragged about her students to the teacher one of the days...

Or everyday.

She loved them! Was that so weird? Probably. But she couldn't help herself but clap for Juni. "Excellent! Excellent catch, Miss Zamperia!" She said proudly. "Three points to Ravenclaw! " She shouted. The students knew she was nuts by now. They had to. That she got excited by the stupidest things.

"Miss Pepper, well done. Really. You stuck with it, even when it didn't want to work with you." She smiled proudly. "Three points to Hufflepuff as well." She hopped off the desk, walking back to the front of the room. "Now, here's the rapid round. I'm going to spout off survival questions, and first one to answer them gets a house point!"

"If you are armed, and are in trouble or lost, what is the international sign for help?" She asked, sitting up on her desk, and crossing her legs.

Esther preened under the professor’s praise, and looked on with interest (and not a little envy, though she certainly didn’t show it!) as the other girls made their demonstrations as well. Clearly camping was serious business when one did it the muggle way– though of course she had already known that. And it never grew more apparent when her hand shot up in the air. “A flare gun!” she chirped, her hand already lowering to flick one lock of perfectly sleek, black hair from the curve of her lip. “It’s a muggle firearm– a weapon, basically, even though its purpose is the farthest thing from causing harm– that you use to launch flares, made with the intention of catching attention. Or at least something to get into open air, above tree level, like the smoke from a fire.”

Pausing, Esther cutely cocked her head to the side, as if in thought. “Though that can be really dangerous.”

There was more, of course, and the Slytherin was keen to show up the others add. “You’re to aim it at open sky, flare guns. Shouting can only travel so far.”

Physics. In truth Esther found it considerably less interesting than grumpy cat memes and romantic muggle films, but sometimes the sciences were interesting– even if it only explained the little things she hardly ever wondered about.

Erin had the distinct impression this was something she should avoid.  Erin liked civilization.  It implied chocalate, house elves, and creature comforts.  Admittedly, Erin probably would have been a bit more excited about everything if one of her agents hadn't decided that organic vegetables were the only thing she was eating for the next week and a half, but she really could not do anything about it.  Or rather she could, but just did not like the consequence of it.   She figured she should ask probably the most important question.

"Professor, what's the best way not to get caught in this position in the first place?" Erin asked, figuring that nature was not her thing.  There was no chocolate anywhere nearby afterall.