Harmful Reading

The steam train continued onward. Its next stop was Agrippa Village by Lake Neuchâtel, a village where Muggles and wizards lived side by side.

Switzerland had four official languages. Neuchâtel was called "Neuenburg" in German. The city stood on the shores of Lake Neuchâtel and was a famous Swiss center of watchmaking and chocolate.

There was a German wizard named Cornelius Agrippa on a Chocolate Frog Card. He was as famous as Nicolas Flamel, and Agrippa Village had been named after him.

Europe in the fifteenth century was persecuting witches and wizards. Muggles considered Cornelius Agrippa's works deeply wicked and imprisoned him for them.

In his 1529 work, "A Discourse on the Nobility and Excellence of the Female Sex," he had argued that women were morally and theologically superior to men.

Women had not been allowed to read or write during the Middle Ages, though noblewomen could still study.

Not every man lusted after women's bodies. Some admired women's intellect and wisdom. Albus Dumbledore and Cornelius Agrippa were both such men.

Socrates and Plato also advocated for women to study and receive the same education as men. They also hoped women could become independent, so they would no longer be controlled by others.

Socrates had been sentenced to death by the Athenian court for insulting the gods of Athens and corrupting the minds of Athenian youth. What he said in the Symposium could easily have served as evidence.

It had actually been a gathering of friends, drunken nonsense after they had too much to drink. In the original myths, Eros was the fundamental force that created all things at the beginning of the world, the symbol of all love and desire. Only after Plato was he considered the son of Aphrodite, the god of love—a beautiful youth holding a bow