As Professor Vance explained the nature of today's lesson, Maxton spread his fingers and looked down at his own nails. They were mostly impeccable but seeing as it had just been lunchtime there was a little barbecue sauce stain on his right index fingernail. Oops.

The fourth year used the sleeve of his robe to quickly buff it clean. He hoped the Professor didn't notice. Or any of the girls sitting around him. He didn't want them thinking he was in the habit of keeping dirty fingernails. Because he wasn't!

"Is it possible to get a reading from someone's nail clippings, perhaps?" He asked, hand in the air. Like tea leaves? He really wasn't sure but he threw it out there anyway.

...

Fingernails.

Well, Vivian found that rather interesting. The moment Professor Vance mentioned that as their lesson for the day, the prefect found herself subconsciously looking down at her nails to see what exactly they'd be doing. She did, however, make a mental note that she needed to have her nails clipped later. They were starting to get a bit longer than her usual. Though, it did make her wonder why they were supposed to discuss finger nails outside of the classroom? Did they really need a well-lit area to make sure their predictions were accurate? She'd never know, but maybe she'd see the logic behind later on.

But the connection of one's fingernails to divination was rather tricky. To be honest, she didn't see what made them so special. "Does it have anything to do with the length of a person's nails, Professor?" Because then, maybe that would give her a reason to clip her nails today. Well, that would depend on the interpretations, though. She could cheat bad predictions in that case then, right?

She glanced back at Max a few times with her flirty smile and twist of her hair What was it about the fourth year boys this term, they all just became overly attractive. Her eyes moved around the room and fell on Cameron, well maybe not all the fourth year boys. Turning her focus to Juni as she came in Z gave her a wave and the rest of her group as they got there. She really needed to talk to Magnolia and see if she had figured out anything new lately with her makeup inventions. The girl had talent and Zita was more than thrilled to try things for her.

As the professor got started with her lesson Z couldn't possibly figure out what they would do. Maybe read birds or clouds, whatever she had thought the professor would do it wasn't this. Her eyes lit up at the moment nails were discussed, looking down at her own nails she loved the glitter polish she used now that it was being hit by the sun.


Her hand up she smiled when Professor Vance called on her, "Oh my gosh professor are we going to try out that mood polish today? I read about it and it sounds really interesting." She looked at the group to see if anyone else had ever heard of it "It's this nail polish that changes colors with your moods and helps others know if you should be bothered or not, or even if you are in need of help because you are upset." If they were going to be using that she would have the best class of her life.

Dorian lifted his head up when the Professor addressed him and shook his shoulders before sitting up straight again. "I forgot we had Divination outside" he mumbled. "I had to run down from the sixth floor and I got irritated because it had been for nothing cause I was still one of the first to arrive" he had been scared that he'd be late like usual.

When class began, Dorian looked over at Zoryn for a second, wondering if he should shake her awake or not. Than he figured that the Professor herself could wake her up and that it wasn't his responsibility.

Most times I Divination, the Ravenclaw had to flip the pages of his textbook trying to figure out what kind of divination they were going to use but today, one of the first times, Dorian recognized it from his reading over the summer. He had been bored okay? His hand shot in to the air enthusiastically and he waved it to get the Professor's attention.

"Professor, Professor! Onychomancy is what it's called" he said. Proud of himself to know an answer in Divination for once. " Onychos means fingernail in Greek right?" he asked. "I think you can predict someone's future or get to know someone's personality by looking at their nails" and he lowered his hand back down.

Also, mood polish? Dorian looked over at the Slytherin girl (Zita) and had an curious expression on his face. There was such a thing? Cool! He had no clue what that even was but "I want to do that too"

Oh! Jessi was waving at her! Rylee gave her friend a bright smile and waved back at her.

The lesson was beginning. And they were to be talking about their... nails? Lifting her hand up she looked down at her own nails which were clean and painted in clear coat of shimmery rainbow glitter. Uhh... What did her nails have to do with anything? She really didn't have any idea. "I really don't know but would having polish on my nails affect what we're doing today?" Hopefully not. She didn't really want to remove her nail polish but she would if she really had to.

Kye was a bit surprised with the image that appeared before them, but then again when wasn't she taken by surprise at this school?

Raising her hand, Kye spoke up for the first time ever, "Uhm... maybe you can use fingernails as like, a DNA sample? I mean, you can tell a lot about someone's current and past health from them... their color, strength... so it's pretty safe to assume you can use the nails to see something of their future, too?"

That kind if made sense... right? What you could learn, she didn't know. She assumed something health related. Although, she would LOVE if Professor Vance told them that anyone who bit their nails would be cursed for eternity, because that was an absolutely appalling habit. And she didn't want to admit it, but she could actually see the lesson going in the place of the mood paint. After all, what in your mood sets it off and what would tell it what color means what? But that was probably something she'd find out from buying this nail polish. Did it even exist?

...

She wouldn't mind having some. Did they have a glittery one?

Fingernail Divination? Scarlett could hardly believe her luck. She had JUST been reading up on this last night while studying for her NEWTs! She wasn't sure if she bought into the whole thing but it was interesting, to say the least. The only problem was....her nails were painted black at the moment. It was fall, and black nail polish had ALWAYS been her go-to color for the season. Oops.

She thought of that as a plus, though, and raised her hand. "For people who paint their nails, could you possibly use the chips to read your future?" she suggested. Otherwise, she was going to have some difficulty with this one...

One day soon, Abra was going to sit down and practice his warming charms until he got them absolutely pitch perfect. It had to be soon, too, because winter was coming; he might have even been able to be convinced that winter was actually already here, if he didn't know exactly how much worse it was going to get. But yes. Warming charms. Abra was sure that once he had managed to get the balance right, he would find it a lot easier to manage the Scottish climate. At the moment he could produce the charm just fine, but the spell's effects had a worrying tendency to intensify the longer he wore the charmed clothes, so that by the end of a full school day they would start to burn. Even when he tried to redo the charms, it took a full day (and he preferred try it at weekends) to test that his charms were working properly and consistently, and that was the real obstacle.

But this was Divination, not Charms, so Abra couldn't really dwell on the problem for much longer. When Professor Vance called the class to attention, Abra stopped staring off into the middle distance and instead looked up at her.

Fingernails.

Had they been sat inside, he probably would have automatically looked down at his own fingers and their associated nails, as if inspiration for an answer might strike. As it was, each of his hands was currently pinned under the opposite armpit, where they could stay warm. That of course meant that Abra couldn't really raise his hand to answer the question actually, but also the fact that he knew this was an improvement; since his first year he had had the tendency to forget about the rule of raising one's hand in order to answer questions in class, but he had got better at remembering and so it was a habit he had started to grow out of.

Also? Answering questions could be risky, especially if you got it spectacularly wrong and everyone laughed at you. The habit of worrying about this was one that Abra had not grown out of. He often kept his answers to himself for this very reason, unless he was reasonably positive (or, you know, a hundred percent certain) that he was right, or otherwise feeling particularly brave and (ha) confident (ha). In the case of this particular question in this particular Divination lesson, Abra didn't provide an answer, though privately wondered if perhaps it was something to do with the shape of the fingernails, or how bendy or brittle they were, or even maybe how fast they grew.

Hanna was making no assumptions about herself here. She didn't naturally get Divination. Potions and Care of Magical Creatures were where she REALLY felt she knew things. She put her mind back to other things she knew about Divination.
Which really... was very little. How about the fact that they could use lines in the palms of hands to do readings? Was there anything else on the skin they did that with? She wasn't sure if hair had use for divination, or whether people did readings off feet lines. Actually, it had been a while since Hanna had studied the backs of her feet. Never,
really. Sure she'd looked at them, but without removing her shoes and socks, she didn't think she could actually SAY whether her feet had lines in them like her hands did.

Hmm...

What were FINGER NAILS used for? Hanna raised her hand. "Er Professor, could it be the lines in the finger nails?" She looked at her own nails, and there were faint lines going down them. Her grandpa had much bigger lines, so maybe it was like a tree.
You could determine how old someone was by how deep their fingernail lines were? Though this was a divination class, not a forensic class.

Ooh, hi, Nat.

Smiling at his friend, Cam too scooted closer to her, guessing that she was cold. "Hi." Again, hopefully it was relevant to today's lesson that they were outside. Otherwise he didn't quite see the point. "Do you want any heating charms?" He whispered just when Professor Vance started the lesson. Alright then.

Now, what did finger nails have to do with being outside? Or Divination for that matter?

His only guess would have been health-related, as well, so Cameron simply nodded along to Daisy's words. Honestly, he didn't have any other ideas, not even when he looked down at his own fingernails. Did they tell anything about his future? Maybe that he would have to clip them soon. So in a way, maybe they did.

Smiling at the Head of House when asked, he was about to give an answer to the question about his own lunch, but class had begun. Aaron just sort of gave a bit of an awkward face as he didn't really know what to do in this moment. It was rude to not respond to the question, but at the same time it was also rude to speak off topic. Valentino got caught between a rock and a hard place here. Well, if the professor really wanted to know, the two could always talk after class and everything.

As for the question itself, it was a relatively simple one. And today's topic would be about Onychomancy: fortune telling using ones's finger nails. Through studying hard and long, also with information given to him from his mother, the Slytherin boy was able to produce a logical answer. Raising his hand, Aaron had stated with much confidence "Professor, from what I know, the diviner can figure out a person's personality and small glimpses of the future through examination of the shape, coloring, length, and markings within the actual nail itself." A brief pause before he continued. "My mum had told me that she used this a lot to determine things like illness."

Mara stared confused at the fingernails on the board. She liked them rather short, so she could write better, but it bothered her to see such plain fingernails. She was a fan of bright colours and decorations and would usually be found using light shade of pink, one of the few colours she was allowed to exhibit. Self-conscious, she stared at her nails, longing for the day she would be allowed to paint them some other colour... Would she pick orange, purple of blue?

"I think the way someone cares about their nails can show a lot of their personality. Like, if they're short, long, bitten, colorful... Even the colors they chose, it shows something... Or what they want it to show, I guess. And if they're neutral too, it says something about the person... " She said hesitantly and confusedly, wondering how could that possible relate to Divination. She thought about other hypothesis, but ultimately she decided to just sit back and listen to her classmates guesses.

Nails? Well, Night knew there was palmistry involved in Divination, so maybe something like that. She grabbed her black pen and began to jot down some notes for the lesson.

But honestly, Divination made no sense.

Patrick smiled at Professor Vance before she started the lesson, "absolutely Professor. I'm not sure how many more of these we will get, but it is so nice to be outside here and there."

he listened intently as he tried to figure out what he thought about nails. Well you could tell a lot by a persons hands and nails for that matter. In the states when his parents would take him to the mechanic with them to get their car fixed, the mechanic always had grime under his nails like a hard worker. There was usually a tan line on his hand from a ring that he likely took off while working. He shrugged a shoulder assuming that his guess was a bit off base but figured he should try his hand at the answer anyhow.

"You could likely tell little things about someone like if they work hard, don't work hard, or I guess that would be have to work with their hands or not." Although he still wasn't sure what magical properties or divinational relevance it would have for such a thing but he just nodded his head and continued to listen to his classmates.

"I'm well thanks. Much better than the other day," she said, referencing the time where an exhausted Vi had visited Professor Vance in her office for some career advice. With the months moving forward, Olivia couldn't help but feel more worried about her future. She desperately wanted a path to pursue not only to calm herself but also to give her some sort of direction. She pulled out her notebook and then got ready for the class. What would they be learning about today? Was it something in the classroom? Or....?

Vi blinked. Fingernails. They were focusing on reading fingernails...? The shape, the colour, the markings... But what could fingernails tell about someone. You could learn about their career and perhaps even make speculations about their personal history. She nodded along with the other students as they mentioned how markings, colour, and shape can all go into predicting a person's future. "Is it like moleosophy in the sense that the locations of the markings on the fingernails are important? Perhaps the location can even put a date or a range of time on the future event?"

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lislchen

Ooh, hi, Nat.

Smiling at his friend, Cam too scooted closer to her, guessing that she was cold. "Hi." Again, hopefully it was relevant to today's lesson that they were outside. Otherwise he didn't quite see the point. "Do you want any heating charms?" He whispered just when Professor Vance started the lesson. Alright then.

Now, what did finger nails have to do with being outside? Or Divination for that matter?

His only guess would have been health-related, as well, so Cameron simply nodded along to Daisy's words. Honestly, he didn't have any other ideas, not even when he looked down at his own fingernails. Did they tell anything about his future? Maybe that he would have to clip them soon. So in a way, maybe they did.

Natalie smiled at Cam as he scooted over and offered some heating charms. "Yes, please," she replied in a whisper as class started. Well, yes please, as long as he could do it quietly. Natalie wasn't great at magic anyway, so she probably wouldn't be able to do it without causing some attention.

But then she listened to the Professor's question about... fingernails? Ew. Natalie looked down at her own fingernails. They were short, but cleanly cut. What did they have to do with divination? Natalie raised her hand timidly.

"Maybe the state of our nailbeds is, like, another way to read stuff, like we read our palms or our tea leaves...?" Maybe?

Fingernails and divination? She looked down at her hands. Her nails had never been anything but short. That's the way her father taught her to keep them. He always stressed that short nails were easier to keep clean and clean hands were a must for working in a bakery.

Not having any idea what answer the professor was looking for, Emmalyn decided to listen to the other students responses. A lot of them had great ideas, or so she thought they were great ideas. Some were questionable, and a few were down right silly. She pulled out her parchment and began writing down the responses she thought were most likely to be correct while waiting for the professor to tell them what she was looking for.

Fingernails with divination? Yea this was definitely extremely odd, but then again at least she knew she was in the right lesson because almost all methods were a little odd. Which of course had Skylar glancing down distractedly at her own chewed up fingernails. Mostly because she was often too lazy to cut them and she got anxious often, which led to that biting habit.

DNA? Personality? She half listened to her peers answers as she considered what she knew of the subject, when something Max said actually sparked something she read in a book? "I think fingernail clippings used to be used in spells, heal rituals and superstitions. Which speaking of superstitions, I think i read something about Japanese girls being told that biting their nails would result in difficult childbirth?" Another glance down at her nails. Oops? Hopefully it was just a myth?

Assured that no more students wished to give answers Laurel proceeded to give some information. "The form of Divination that uses fingernails is called Onychomancy. Onychmos means fingernail in Greek like Dorian mentioned and has been used and practiced since ancient times. Believe or not our fingernails and fingernail clippings are associated with many superstitions and are used in many magical workings like for making sure a spell affects the right person and in healing and potions. Professor Noble and Healer Mcmillan could tell you more about that if you ared interested." Here Laurel paused to gather her thoughts and for allowing note taking.

"Before we start interpreting our own nails by length, shape, colour, condition and marking we need to get them ready for doing just that and this is where the supplies on your tables will come in. You all need to give your fingernails a good wash in the water found in the cauldrons so that they are super clean and then you are going to need to massage in generous amounts of the scented oils found in the bottles and see if you can make out any markings or colour specks on your nails by reflecting the sunlight onto your nails with the help of the hand mirrors." As she spoke Laurel had gone over to one of the tables up front and had washed and massaged in the oils on her own hands to make her fingernails shine and then used the mirror to reflect the sunlight onto her fingernails and saw how a white spot appeared on her ring finger, a new love, could it mean Aaron? "For those of you who are wearing nail polish please remove it with the aid of the scouring charm. I caution you all to not sniff in the strong oils too much it might make your head spin. Now get to work!"

OOC: Mini activity is up! As instructed have your student wash their hands in the cauldron, massage in the oils and see if you can see any markings or colour specks by reflecting the sunlight with the hand mirror onto your students nails. Don't interpret anything yet. Just take note. You can do this in one or as many posts as you wish. Have fun ! Be Creative! You get 3 days to complete the mini activity until wednesday @ approx 7pm when I will move on.

Onychomancy? Daehyun hadn't known such form of Divination existed, so he made sure to write everything down and not miss a detail if he wanted to pass this class. One thing he wasn't going to do was ask professor Noble for more details, only because the man scared the living daylights out of him, so he'd like it if he minimized their interactions. But he might just pay a visit to the Healer.

He reddened at the professor's next words. Interpret nails by length, shape, colour, condition. Length? Varied on how stressed or nervous he was when he'd bitten each off. Shape? Irregular, as he often tore his nails when he was finding one thing or another to do in the barn or greenhouses. Colour? He supposed that one looked fine. Condition? Clean, but unfortunate.

... it was going to be a fun reading, for sure.

Listening to the instructions they'd been given, he dipped his fingers into the water in the cauldron and made sure he hadn't missed any bit of dirt on his last scrub, and once satisfied, he picked a bottle of scented oil at random, and rubbed the oil onto his nails. It felt awfully odd to him, since he'd never done more to his nails than clean them with water and soap, though he couldn't deny that it felt nice and made his nails all smooth and shiny in the sun.

But he wouldn't be caught dead admitting that aloud.

Deciding against using a hand mirror, Daehyun moved his fingers under the sun until he caught a ray, and stared dumbly at his nails. Was he supposed to see shapes there? He supposed he saw a crescent moon on his index, but he wasn't too sure. His eyesight was very good, but he could not see.

Miranda looked down at her fingernails as Professor Vance Spoke..
And then looked at the picture she'd provided.. M'kay so all of her nail polish had to come off?!.. .. But she had just redone it this morning!!! UGH!.. Whatever.. Now she'd be spending tonight redoing them.

Out came her wand and pointed it at her left hand first, focusing on each nail. "
Scourgify..,.. Five times she said the charm to clear each nail of polish before switch her wand into her left hand and repeating the process on each of her right hand fingernails..

When she was through she put away her wand and made her way to the cauldron of wash water and cleaned her fingernails further and ensured they were as clean as they'd ever been before rubbing the oils into each nail..It didn't take long to see the shine and brilliance required.So, she made her way back to her pillow and sat down with a soft poof as the air in her pillow was expended.

Oh, so wearing polish on her nails did actually affect the days lesson! Whoa! She had only been guessing but she was glad she was right on some aspect of things. Rylee smiled widely though the smile faded as she giggled at Professor Vance's response. "It does? I'm not so sure about that." More giggles. Warn off impulsive behaviors, hm. Did that really work? There were times were she could be rather impulsive with the things she did... do now and think about it later.

The lesson was starting and big words were being used. Pulling out a sheet of parchment and her signature purple ink and quill, Ry, quickly began to take down notes. It sounded easy enough... except... she had to remove her pretty glitter polish! There was a tiny ever so slight pout at this but in the end she quickly got over it. She could repaint them later.

Scourgify. That cleaned things. Rian used that one all the time! She knew this one... all she had to do was speak the incantation and point her wand at her nails. The movement was a-a um... uh... it was a squiggle! No-no.. think Rylee! An S! It was an S shape! Haha!

With all the confidence in her she pulled her wand from it's holster on her wrist and aimed it at her right hand. "Scourgify!" she made the S shape with her wand as she spoke. Nothing happened. Crinkling her nose a little she cleared her throat and pointed her wand at her thumb nail. Creating the proper shape with her wand she spoke the incantation once more this time the polish washing away as it should. "I did it!" she exclaimed happily wiggling in her seat.

Now to remove the polish from the rest of her nails...

Ony..what? Kye scribbled the word in her notebook. Onychmos

As if reading her mind, Professor Vance asked them to wash their hands, and phew. Sigh of relief. Kye wasn't about to touch anyone's dirty hands!!

Kye perked up and was quite excited to use the oils. She got up from her chair, wanting to be one of the first to wash her hands. No thank you, leftover germs! She waited her turn, and washed her hands in the cauldron. Looking at the available bottles of oil, Kye took a little of each (was that bad?) and started rubbing them into her hands.

Kye did her best to look for anything on her nails, but was having trouble getting the right hit of sunlight. She used the hand mirrors and started to notice little glints of... hmm.... Was she doing this right?

Maxton gulped nervously, hyper aware of Zita and her hair twirling beside him. He wasn't sure if she was doing it on purpose or if she just really enjoyed playing with her hair but one thing he was sure of was that it made him feel a tad on edge. He wasn't sure why, it just did.

He tried instead to focus on Professor Vance, but that proved just as tricky because she was also very distracting.

She was explaining all about fingernails and how they were used in Divination, but Max was finding it difficult to concentrate and it pretty much went in one ear and out the other. Stupid hormones!

Huh... what did they have to do?

How DID Professor Vance remember these words? Onychomancy?! Hanna pulled a face, mixture between being impressed and utterly lost. As soon as she thought the word, it was gone. What was it again?

She shrugged and on her parchment wrote 'Onomancy' with 'nails' next to it. It was very technical. Or perhaps Latin. No, Professor Vance said it was Greek. Hanna nodded. Most of the words she was learning were Latin, so this was nice. She was learning more languages!

Hanna didn't have nail polish on, and her nails were trimmed neatly. She got in trouble when she was younger when she used to bite them, and since stopping the habit had taken care of her nails.

Following the demonstration by Professor Vance, Hanna washed her hands in the cauldrons. She was very thorough, and after a minute was quite satisfied that they were clean as clean could be. At least for an eleven-year-old. Next was time to massage in some oil, which wasn't something she was opposed to. Without sniffing too hard, she inhaled the scent of the oil. It was pleasant! She rubbed it into her nails until they shone, and then grabbed the mirror.

This part was a little tricky, and took some constant movements of the mirror against the sun to get the right brightness to shine right on her nail. It lost itself easily, too. The young girl was getting a tad frustrated with the whole thing. She was never good at burning grass with a magnifying glass, either. There were some very faint lines going down her nails, and her thumbs and pointy fingers had little semi-moons. Her little fingers, her right middle finger, and her left thumb had white marks on them, too. Her mum told her she got those from lying, but she never believed her.