For the Greater Good || Tom Riddle ||

Chapter Fourteen: The Arrival of School

She learned that he taught Arithmancy—a subject which she had never been particularly impressed by as it seemed fairly straight forward.

Arithmancy was the study of the magical properties of numbers and quantities. For instance, it was well-known in the wizarding world that the number seven had intrinsic magical attributes. There were also endless other combinations that purportedly could be interpreted to mean certain things, but Gwen had seldom dabbled in the discipline.

She knew the basic materials needed: numerology charts, an abacus, a wand, and patience.

Something she often lacked.

Nevertheless, she had read Novel Theories of Numerology several times during her fourth year. In fact, Gwen had accurately predicted the outcome of certain events by calculating the probability of them taking place, be it the estimated chance of success of an attempted Quidditch strategy, or the behavior of her fellow peers.

She had particularly spooked Morgana Macmillan, the infamous cousin of the Black family, by foreseeing whether or not she was going to be asked to the Durmstrang Frey Feast by her favored gentleman and be crowned the Frey Feast Gem.

The occasion was a long-standing tradition of thanksgiving for the fruits of the first harvest of the year. A ginormous loaf of bread was baked, as long as the Long Hall itself, as a symbolic appreciation of the Old Ones' dedication to magic and one lucky witch would be crowned for the fruits of their labor in honor of the Old One's esteemed goddess of harvest.

Truly, Morgana had no luck as she  had the tendency to be lazy, and  the title was only awarded to fifth years and above.

However, Gwen had correctly predicted Morgana would be taken to the Feast by Arne Ellingboe, who she hadn't shut up about since first year's Arcane Magic class. Gwen reasoned that a niffler could have reasoned that.

She had also predicted the night would end horribly wrong for the lovebirds.

She had been right.

Morgana had ended up consuming some soured pickled herring and spent most of the night in the powder room, unable to find the right charm to quell her upset stomach.

After that, Gwen grew bored of the subject. How could anything possibly be as amusing as the night that had unraveled?

After all, at Durmstrang, Arithmancy had been painted to be a borderline muggle study.

Sentiments toward the subject were contemptuous, and students were snobby. Rolling dice and deriving some sort of numerological prophecy from it wasn't true magic! It was simply assigning numerical value to words for the purpose of shoddy divination, at best.

Which many witches and wizards also believed to be a deplorable degree of study.

Unless you had The Inner Eye.

Even then, it depended on how straight and proper your head was screwed on. Even Grindelwald had preferred other types of divinatory arts. Ultimately, Gwen hadn't much exposure to the practice.

The only reason that ambitious students seemed to take the subject was that it was required for some international banking and wizarding transaction jobs. An O.W.L. in Arithmancy was needed to successfully be screened beyond the preliminary application process.

At Hogwarts, N.E.W.T.s in Defense Against the Dark Arts, Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Ancient Runes, and Arithmancy would be necessary for the esteemed Curse-Breaker gig at Gringotts Wizarding Bank.

Ministry officials tasked with the removal of unfriendly spells from illegally bewitched objects were casually called "Curse-Breakers". The group was rumored to love alcohol and adventure—having to travel all over the world from their home base of employment at Gringotts Wizarding Bank at Diagon Alley in London, England.