“Hermione’s not the only one willing to open a book, you know? It’s textbooks I don’t care for… hundred pages of twaddle for every useful bit.”

McGonagall replied archly, “That ‘twaddle’ represents a thousand years of intensive study and improvements in practice, Potter. Our people have deified the Hogwarts founders for far too long, and I ask that you reject that example. Rowena Ravenclaw, for all her greatness, could not have performed much of third-year transfiguration — even the tools for constructing spells at that level did not yet exist.”