Ian continued to breathe deeply and slowly. He began to imagine his toes relax, and then his foot...ankle....calf and up his body. As he took a breath in, he thought about the next part of his body relaxing. After a period of about ten minutes he had reached the top of his head. He felt a wee bit light-headed, but completely and utterly relaxed. He was hesitant to open his eyes because of how relaxed he was and he didn't want any light to intrude on that. He knew though if he was to complete the assignment.

He slowly opened his eyes, focusing on the lower part of the ball facing him. He saw a wisp of yellow begin to lift a tendril up to the top of the ball. As he watched the top of the misty finger rise, he saw it extend like a spider's webs as it separated. Shortly, the whole ball was full of the yellow mist. It was extremely mesmerizing to see the mist swirl to and fro in the ball. He no longer experienced outside stimuli. The world of Hogwarts faded away and his eyes only saw the mist. He was drawn closer to the ball, seeing wavy lines emerge that caused him to squint his eyes, hoping to bring them into focus. As he pushed his head forward however, the mist began to dissapate and as quickly as it had appeared, it was gone. The ball was now a crystal of light he could see through that reflected the light of the room.

His eyes opened wide and his jaw dropped and he felt absolutely devastated. He was crushed that he had seemingly gotten so close and yet the image in the ball eluded him. He placed his hands over his face and took deep breaths, trying to calm the disappointment and unexplainable anger he felt at the time. He wondered to himself why the ball would do this to him. Did he not have the requisite amount of sight? Did the ball consider him unable to handle what it held? Ian couldn't quite make sense of it. He really wished he'd been in class. Maybe then he would have been able to understand more about this mysterious magical device.