Neva had no clue as to how you could tell the future by looking at smoke. She stayed quiet and listened to her friend respond. "Makes sense" she thought, looking impressed.

OOC - No orbing happened here today people. Move along! Nothing to see.

Natalie gazed at the crystal ball. Something was supposed to appear in it. But how? She had no idea. She had never been very good with Divination.
She shrugged and just waited with a quill and parchment to take down notes when someone else to get the answer right.

Sebastian rose his hand and asked, "Professor, first wouldn't we have to close our minds to all of the influences of the outside world?"

Eliza looked over at Natalie and raised her hand "You Have to focus on the crystal ball and get rid of unwanted thoughts."she asnwered,hoping she was right.

Cassandra raised her hand and said "Crystal gazing is a way to get into trance, where you stare at a shiny object for a long period of time. The seer will induce a hypnotic state producing visions, the reflection of light in the crystal forms points of focus for those visions. If done correctly, the person will receive visions of various nature." Cassandra then added "Professor, aren't Crystal balls also an effective method of scrying?"

OOC: Whoa, slow down! I warned you my connection is playing hide and seek with me. Hehehehe...please, keep the class at a moderate pace so I dont stress myself out when I get cut off.

BIC:
Natasha grinned at the students, glad to see that they were all so involved in her class. "Yes...you're all correct. Crystallomancy is getting into a trance...where you open your mind and your heart to whatever is waiting to be seen. It's just there," She said, pointing at the Crystal Ball in her hand, "all you need to do is look at it."

She waved her wand around the room to dim the brightness and brought a few candles to life. "Atmosphere...quite...divining, isnt it?" she said off-handedly as she gazed at her crystal ball. "Okay...what we have to do is clear our minds...let go of any energy, any thoughts and just concentrate on the crystal. See how shiny it is? There are various ways to clear your mind, I usually think of a white wall, or count backwards from 100. Try it...try to get into a trance."

She didnt expect anyone to actually achieve this in their first attempt, but hey, it would be fun to try, right?

OOC: RP yourselves trying to get into a trance, or ask me questions if you have any.

Natalie looked at the Professor as though she were crazy, but then shrugged. She was the Professor after all.
White wall..white wall..with graffiti on it-NO! Just a plain white wall..plain white wall.. She went over the same thought in her mind countless times, gazing at the cystal, but she saw nothing.

Neva looks at her crystal ball,bemused. She sits staring at it, unable to keep her thoughts at bay. "Okay. I'm going to stop thinking....now..............wahay! I did it. Bugger. Starting from......now.......... Hey! I wonder what I will see in my so called trance."

Getting very perturbed with herself, Neva moves her shoulders around and stretches her neck. She stares at her crystal ball avidly without success. She sighs heavily and continues in her efforts.

Eliza smiled happily and rubbed her hands together in glee.She closed her eyes tightly, count backwards from 100.O.kay.....100,99,98,97,96,95,94..this is boring!OPPS! 93,92,91,90 she thought and for some unknown reason she started humming and waving her hands over the crystal ball.
76,75,74,73,72,71,70 her humming had started to go from high-pitched to low and high-pitched again,she sounded like a whale!! 43,42,41,40,39,38 her hands had started to follow the shape of the crystal ball and she felt a little silly but she still kept doing it 12,11,10,9,8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0 Elzia opened her eyes and consintrated on the crystal ball hard ;squinting at it ,wrinkling up her nose and making her head hurt. After about a minute she gave up "Why doesn't it work?"she asked herself

Erinelle nodded, and propped her head up upon her hands, and allowed her azure gaze to look at the shiny surface of the crystal. Now to clear her mind. She sighed, and thought of everything and nothing, things hazing about in her head like water and fire and she blinked a couple of times.

She couldn't see anything, and she doubted she was actually going to see anything. It was just a crystal. She shook her head, attempting to shake the things she was thinking about out of her head but failed. She gave up.

She sighed once more, and tipped her head to the side, so a veil of ebony hair fell in front of her face veiling her from view. Her gaze still kept upon the crystal. She stared at it, not really thinking of anything, what was there to think about? She'd thought about pretty much everything else whilst staring at the thing a moment or two ago.

The world started to go a little hazy but she paid no attention to it as tears began to slip from her eyes and the crystal began to have black hair. It wasn't her reflection, her hair was longer than the short spikes that shot up from a pale head.

Her own head was beginning to throb painfully, the blood rushing through it faster than it normally did and she still paid no attention too it. She didn't really know what on earth was going on, she was just seeing her brother, she missed him so much.

She cried silently, continuing to let the world become fuzzy and the crystal become smoky and look back at her with soft brownish blue eyes. She kept crying, her tears forming a pool upon the table, she didn't move though, she was seeing her brother, her annoying, baby brother.

"Ruben..." She sobbed quietly as the boy zoomed about on his broom, unknown to her, all in the crystal.

Neva looks up during her failed attempt at a trance to see her friend sob. "Are you okay Erin?" she asks quietly,looking concerned.

Natalie turned to look at Erinelle. "You saw something?" she asked, amazed. "Woah! Hey..why are you crying? Are you all right?"

Okay,once more Eliza looked at the crystal ball carefully and sighed,holding her chin in her hands and stared at the crystal ball hard and carefully until her eyes had become watery and the room was foggy with the shimmer of tears in her eyes from consentration.

The ball became smokey and Eliza could see some shining blue eyes staring back at her from inside the crystal ball. She was startled but kept looking ,not taking her sight from the crystal ball.Some spikey blond hair followed the deep blue eyes,the top of a green slytherin robes followed that and then finally there was a complete face and next thing Eliza knew ,she was staring at Shane Prince.

Eliza sighed as she gazed at Shane prince in her crystal ball but then the crystall ball went smokey and Shane started to disappear from view. Darn it!

She looked up as the picture faded and she realised that she was being spoken too. "No..." She croacked, wiping away the tears that she suddenly realised were upon her face.

She looked down and saw the table was slightly damp and she dabbed at it with her robes, trying to cover up the evidence of her crying. Her head still hurt her like mad, and she looked up, hoping that she looked alright.
"I'm fine!" She exclaimed, a bit to happy for it to be true and a shaky smile upon her face, she still felt like she was going to cry again when she realised her surroundings.

"You look fine dear." Neva reassures Erin. She knew the first thing a girl thought of after crying was whether she looked okay. "Come 'ere" Neva says, pulling Erin into a tight hug. She releases her before saying "Now will you keep it down. I'm trying to get Nickelodeon" she laughs.

Eliza looked at Erinelle then at the others then back at Erinelle "Whats up?"she asked,wondering why Neva had just hugged Erinelle.

Natalie smirked at Neva's comment and decided to try again.
Come on, come on, come on! she thought as nothing appeared in her crystal.
"I give up! Divination is just not my thing!" she sighed. "I give up!" she looked at the crystal again "Okay, just one more try.."
She gazed into it trying to think of nothing when grey smoke appeared and she saw what appeared to be that frightning face that she had lived with all her life. Her mother. She looked angry and Natalie thought she saw green light flash when she pulled her gaze away from the crystal and yelled at it.
"NOPE SORRY! Wrong number!" she turned to look at her friends "Out of everyone I could have saw, I had to see her, didn't I?" she sighed and shook her head. She pointed her wand at the now, clear crystal ball. "You stay in Azkaban." she ordered.

Neva stares at her Crystal ball, trying to clear her mind. She focuses on the light glinting from the crystal, marvelling. For a moment, she thinks she sees a shape. She is perturbed to discover, however, that a fly was flying behind the glass.

Neva swats the fly away and carries on in her failed attempts at concentration.

Eliza giggled at Natalie "Seen your mother I bet?I seen Shane!"she sighed dreamily when she said Shane's name. "He was just staring at me,smiling."Eliza hugged herself happily.

Without realising, Neva's mind becomes blank. To the unsuspecting eye it looks as if she isn't breathing.

She stares at the glass, mists of coloured smoke swiring before her eyes. Slowly but surely, the begin to form a shape. There, floating in the glass is her father. He looks as if he is saying something but Neva cannot make it out.

As suddenly as it appeared, the image dissipates into a cloud of white smoke. Neva has to blink hard in order to regain her senses. She looks around her, alarmed. "That was....." Neva trails off, her gaze falling onto the white smoke again.

Natalie smirked at Eliza then inspected the crystal ball. "Is there like a button so that we can change the channel?" she then turned to Neva. "Oh you got a vision or whatever. What did you see?"

Neva looks up, clearly her mind isn't on the task at hand, as she hears Natalie ask her something. "Oh..erm...what did I see? It was..erm. It was nothing. Just random swirls of colour. Nothing to write home about" she replies quickly. To be perfectl honest, she isn't sure of what she saw, apart from the obvious.

Eliza sighed dreamily again "I love him,I just Love him...I mean I love this class."she said the last part to the others incase any of them had heard her. She looked at The Professor and raised her hand "Professor,Is there a reason why most of us are seeing people that we care about?"she asked

Kerry closed her eyes and tried to focus. "Ok," she told herself, "the first step is to clear your mind." Kerry sat in silence, eyes closed, trying to make her mind go blank. It was not an easy task. Some of the chatter around her did not help in Kerry relaxing her brain.

"Ok, forget that," Kerry thought to herself again. "Perhaps if I just peer into the ball and lose myself in the crystal maybe then I'll be able to focus better."

Kerry leaned in closer to the ball, placing her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, holding her weary head up, Kerry peered into the ball. She saw nothing....peering longer and harder Kerry felt her eyes begin to strain. Something was working though, the more Kerry stared into the ball, the more quiet the class around her grew. Kerry's eyes began to shake and swell with tears as she stared. Kerry closed her eyes a moment to relax them, and when she opened them again she swear she saw a smoky haze in the ball, and just beyond the haze was.... Kerry leaned in even closer to make just what the object was, when she bumped her head on the crystal ball.

Kerry lifted her throbbing head, and looked into the ball once mall. The smokey haze was gone. "Stupid clutz!" Kerry quietly whispered as she yelled at herself. "Arghhh, and I was so close!" She continued to growl.

Kerry rubbed her eyes, which were now dry from staring for so long, and held her aching head in her hands for a few moments. Ready to begin again Kerry looked around the room to see how her classmates were doing. As she did, she began to forget her frustrations and giggle to herself when she saw the twisted, straining faces around her. "At least I'm not the only one who couldn't see things right away," Kerry thought to herself as she lowered herself down and started the task all over again.

Cassandra pulled her black silk hankerchief out of her pocket and laid it flat before her. Her mother had told her to do so to prevent reflections or other objects from the room being viewed in the crystal ball. She placed the crystal sphere directly in front of her, on top of the hankerchief.

Cassandra began to center herself. She thought of a white wall, nothing around it, nothing adorning it. After a while she began to feel centered, she gazed into the crystal ball before her. Trying not to blink, she took deep, slow breaths in and out, she began to relax and continues to gaze into the crystal ball's center.

Her mother had started trying to teach her how to before just this past summer break. Cassandra began to see a small, cloudy formation, almost a glow in the center of the crystal ball which is where she was focusing on. That was as far as Cassandra ever got with a crystal ball. That glow... She was hoping she's have a vision.

Cassandra knew she was just supposed to be patient, and in-tune with her inner self. So she tried again.