"I drew what I heard, that's all I'm saying." he refused to embarrass Alex anymore than usual, well, he was trying to anyway. "Alex what's the big deal? You're all freaked out over here over what? A couple of signs in a crystal ball?". He hoped beyond words that the signs would come true, but he didn't like Alex being so weird when he wasn't the cause.

Selena sighed. "Alex, don't swear in Chinese, your pronunciation is wrong or Japanese for that matter," she said. She rolled her eyes. It was pointless. She turned back to Zane boy. "If you say so," she said simply, but she knew there was more. No worries, she'd ask him exactly what it was he heard later.

Alex rolled her eyes glaring at Zane, "Secousse." She said sorrowfully, not telling him what it meant, nope. she then looked at Selena, "Sorry." She uttered amused.

Selena sighed. "Really, will it kill you to do all the cussing after class?" she asked Alex. It wasn't that hard, really.

Gold looked at her crystal ball again, trying to clear her mind of everything. Well, almost everything. Which was when she heard voices, which completely cancelled out her concentration. She looked up, away from her crystal ball, to see a few chatty students.

Le sigh.

Shrugging, she picked up her quill again, and looked down at what she had already written in her notebook. Insect and fence. She dipped her quill in ink, paused for a moment, and then wrote down the meanings that coincided with the two images.

She paused again, a little unsure. She could go too many ways from here. Maybe it would be better if she wrote her thoughts down, after all. Even if they were pretty chaotic and in total disorder, at this moment. Gold hesitated for a moment, and then she wrote.


It sounded soooo childish, when on paper. Gold frowned, placing down her quill and reading what she had just written. Then she re-read it. She could never, ever put her thoughts down, in words.

Why had she even tried?

AND that was what she thought every time.

Alex grinned, "It wasn't even that bad, not even a real curse!" Alex told her firmly.

Oh, man, this was going to be AMAZING, I tell you, AMAZING!

Treyen didn't even wait until Professor Reynolds had motioned them to move to the front and get their crystal, when the boy was halfway there. He'd eyed the one he wanted from afar and he took that calcite one rather quickly.

Now he was back in his seat, and placed the crystall ball in the stand. Er, what? Dimensions? Hmmm....around the size of...er...imagine a Quaffle cut in half...then that's almost the size of this crystall ball. But..if he had to say numbers, then around 12 or 13 cm in diameter. Yup.

The ball was set in its little stand, and the lights were out! Ooooh, the Bloody Baron better not come right now.

The little Lockhart was on a different task today...the last time he'd discovered that he WAS going to be the next Gilderoy Lockhart..perhaps he should focus this time on the HOW...or simply let his mind go blank? Thinking. Thinking.

It was better to ask the HOW, because he'd gotten curious...and because the opportunity of perhaps see an image will be very rewarding....or....er, yeah, he couldn't make up his mind. Knowing the future was great, indeed, but will it equally rewarding to know HOW he was going to become the NEXT wonderful Gilderoy? Come to think of it...it's a bit boring, isn't it? There's no element of surpriseeee...and he could use some surprises.

Eyes closed. Mind going blank...blank...blank...Gilderoy...NO! BLANK!...blank...blank...blank...blank...

When his eyes opened again, all he could see was the calcite ball he'd chosen, and the serious look on his face meant he was truly focusing on seeing the ball, his mind was blank, he was...just focusing.

And..there was something...there...it looked like a book? Yes, a book, well, two books, like the ones Professor Kingsley managed to copy him, but the image as soon came up...as soon disappeared. BUT HE SAW SOMETHING THERE! HE KNEW HE DID! So, yeah. Two books. Not open, but not sooo closed either. Which was perfectly odd for the Lockhart boy.

Shaking his head, Treyen concentrated again, but the mind was blank. Except...blink, blink...was that an ant? Absentmindedly, the Huffie tried to take the ant away from the ball, something that was sort of impossible, considering the ant was sort of inside the ball? Oh, yeah, it was another sign!

He couldn't help but chuckle. Silly him, what's an ant supposed to be doing this far up in the Castle? Right. Focusing. Eyes on the calcite ball. And the ant was sort of transforming itself into a dot...and on top of that was an 'S' which looked more like a 'Z' really, but not too straight. QUESTION MARK! Er, what? For real? The boy tilted his head until he saw it more clearly, it WAS a question mark...clearly he was imagining this, right? Perhaps he'd fallen sleep and didn't even know.

Pinch on his arm. Nope, he was very much awake.

Or getting into another state of dreaming. Whatever he was seeing now seemed truly amazing, his imagination was wonderful for sure (for he thought this was only a matter of one's imagination).

The boy blinked twice, and then stopped blinking at all. His eyes in the ball, gazing into it, he couldn't hear the lightnings but he certainly could see them, falling into whatever ground there seemed to be inside his mind. His imagination wasn't so great, then, because many people could imagine a storm, except, he was seeing the lightnings more clearly.

Rae had been doing her usual act of not paying attention. She completely missed Evelyn telling her to keep her awake. Rae started to see what was going on once the professor came over to wake Evelyn up, woops... A few minutes later Rae saw Evelyn falling asleep AGAIN! "Hey! Wake up!" Rae kicked Evelyn's foot under the table but only hard enough to wake her.

Back to lesson:

Right, since she hadn't been paying any attention, she was way behind. She had looked at what everyone else was doing before realizing she needed to walk up and get a crystal ball and make some kind of notes or something before looking at a ball of glass for some kind of image. Once Rae had walked up and grabbed the first one in her reach she jotted down a few notes



There, she could catch up in no time! She sat there and stared for something to pop up so she can write it down. Then... An Envelope? Errr.... Okay, she would figure it out later. As soon as she finished jotting down the envelope thing she saw a Swan. Random. After that it was a Bridge, then last was a Comet... Merlin! Okay well.... Rae got more parchment out



Well she understood that the last three all had to do with Xylon, of course. But an envelope? She never got letters. Hm.. Okay sure. Rae wrote down the definitions in her own words still trying to figure out who would possibly send her a letter.

With her head just about to roll off her palms and onto the table, she awoke just before when a slight jolt of pain went from her leg and up to her knee. Ow! Her eyes snapped open in surprise before leaning back and looking at her feet. Or, well, tried too. It was either too dark, or her vision was too blurry to see them. Or...both once again.

Frowning, she looked over at Rae, wondering why she kicked her so hard. The Slytherin didn't know it was just a soft kick, but that could be the reason from forgetting that her feet had become insanely sensitive from last year. Just like her right shoulder. "Alright, alright. I'm awake." she mumbled, sighing and sitting straight this time.

Crossing her arms, Evelyn went back to staring at the crystal ball, trying to remember the stuff she had seen before. Something fluttering or something, and a key hole thing. Eh, she'll look the stuff up later. For now, just...

...staaaaaaare.

Destiny found it kinda hard to believe that out of all the people that scrye, none had lost an eye. She would just have to do some research on her own to find out the truth! Or maybe she would get Evelyn to do it..she was better at researching things. It was only fair that since the Professor had given her a fact, the one about straining one's eyes and needed glasses, that she give one as well, "Did you know that elephants have poor eyesight, too!?" Too, because the Professor and herself were both wearing glasses.

She blinked as soon as he said she could, and now that her eyes felt MUCH better, she could concentrate on the crystal ball better. She waited before she did, and snickered as she saw that Evelyn had fallen asleep. As the Professor woke her friend up, Destiny turned back to the crystal ball in front of her.. 'Twas time to staaaaare again!

Was that..an elephant in there!?

Weird.

A heart and a cake, hmmmmm not the manliest signs Patroclus admitted to himself. He gazed around to see if anyone had seen, he didn’t wasn’t anyone to think he was a big softy, even thought he kinda was.

He pondered the signs, “A heart means love and friendship, and cake is parties celebrations and fulfilled wishes, so …..” He was at a lost to figure out what they meant, what about?, no that’s silly he thought to himself, could be? Nup lost it! He was unsure what to do, he didn’t want to ask, as that would reveal his signs to the class, so Patroclus decided he would gaze once more into the Orb to find a third symbol, that may help him understand the other two.

Ellie's eyes became all unfocused after staring at the ball for quite a while. Suddenly she began to fall asleep. Not the dreamy kind of sleep. But the kind where it's all dark and she was clearly not paying attention to the class anymore. Zzzzzz.

Nolan blinked in surprise as Cela's announcement. Really? She couldn't see ANYTHING? That was shocking to say the least. Hmmm. Or was she not really...trying to see anything?

"Try again, perhaps?" he suggested, still not sure exactly what she was doing. Ah well. He understood what was going on with her somewhat, so he'd let her be.

While Nolan was trying to focus on the slumbering Slytherin on one end of the room, he kept getting distracted by bickering on the other end. He turned his head to look at them--more Slytherins, all arguing and muttering mean things to each other. Well THAT would not do at all. He'd expected better from those students!

"Miss Malfoy-Lupin, 2 points from Slytherin for being rude," he told her. He wasn't exactly sure WHAT she had said, but the tone was definitely too snippy for his taste. "And all three of you, please try and get along, if you can't I'll have to move you and more house points will be at risk."

OOC: Remember that cussing AND foreign language are both NOT allowed on the site and in the RP. Please refrain from it in the future or risk getting a site warning.

Nolan's attention was drawn to a Hufflepuff--Lockhart, he was pretty sure the last name was--who was gazing very intently into his orb. HMMMMM. Whatever the boy was seeing, it was definitely intriguing to him. He wandered over and looked at the boy before asking quietly (he didn't want to break his meditation) "See something interesting in there?"

Oh. The student with the blinking problem was talking again. He turned and looked at her before chuckling a bit at her fact. Guess you DID learn something new every day. "Do they really? I never knew that...I'm not much of an animal expert," he told her with a grin. Yeah, animals were like...well, animals. He didn't know what to do with them! Quite frankly, he really didn't care.

Nia eyed the ball. And tried to focus. Part of the problem was trying to think of a question she wanted an answer to. There were lots of questions out there, but some she was uninterested in the answer too, others she wouldn't risk a reading with...and more that would be far too complicated to interpret the answers for. Hmm. She picked up her quill and stroked it thoughtfully under her chin.

Finally she settled on a simple question. She gave a quick glance around her as she settled to get comfortable for focusing on the ball. It was as she did so Nia noticed Ellie. A giggle nearly escaped her. She held it back though, in case the Professor thought it inappropriate. "Psst, Ellie!" she semi whispered, giving the young Ravenclaw a poke. "Wakey wakey..."

Ellie felt an uncomfortable prodding in her side. She slowly opened her eyes to investigate the cause. That's when she saw Nia. Oh crap! She blushed, way to go, Ellie.

"Sorry.." she said, shiftily. So... was class over yet?

Oh goodness. What was WITH these kids today? Why were they all passing out on him?! He knew he wasn't THAT boring. Maybe one of the house elves had slipped Calming Draughts in their drinks at lunch or something. Hmmm. He'd be avoiding the pumpkin juice for a while, just to be safe...

Now, how to get all the sleeping children up and alert? After a few minutes of pondering, Nolan went behind his desk and pulled out a small gong from one of the drawers...his sister had gotten it for him as a gift a few years ago for Merlin knows what reason, and he'd never had any need to use it since then. Time to break it in!

He dug through his drawers and found the tiny mallet, and with a bit of a smack--not too hard but not too soft either--he rang the gong.

GONGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!

There. That should do the trick! Even those kids lingering on the edge of sleep needed a little jolt too.

Once the noise started to fade away, he grinned at the class. "You have roughly ten more minutes to finish up your readings and take notes!"

Hehe.

OOC: You have around 12ish or so hours to finish up your RPs before I assign homework and end the class.

A smirk spread across Nia's face as Ellie reacquainted herself with the room. "No need to apologise to me," she said with a wink. "I'm just glad to know you obviously worked extra hard at practice last nice." She chuckled. Though, it hadn't been that hard, had it? It'd been more strategy than hardcore training. Hmm.

Anyways, they were meant to be doing a reading. So now Ellie was actually awake, maybe she should check on that bit in case the Professor came round. "So, did you, err, see anything exciting?" she asked. "In the ball, I mean..." And not in your sleepy dream. Nia was rather skeptical about looking for answers in her own ball. Maybe the pale blue and semi opaqueness was a baaaad idea.

And then she jumped. Big time. At a long reverbrating noise. Turning towards it, she saw Professor Reynolds with a gong. Who kept gongs nowadays, except large dinner halls? And now she was all shaken to try and focus on her question too...

Ellie looked sharply at Reynolds. Really? Was that necessary? She was up! She looked around the rest of the room... Everyone else seemed to be awake.. for the most part.

She smiled and turned to Nia. "Well, I try my best every practice." she said simply. Truth.

Oh, right! The crystal and the ball and the candle and the shapes. Yeah, no. "I haven't seen anything." she glanced around. Was she slacking that much.. "Have you? Seen anything?" If Nia hadn't, she was good.

Nia, recovering from the shock, saw that look towards Professor Reynolds. Good. She was glad she wasn't the only peturbed by it. Had he got the gong because he thought the class would fall asleep? Interestinggggg...

"And of that, I'm appreciative and very glad." She nodded and grinned. "And it's why you're making such good improvement." Aaaaand back to the Divination, even if Quidditch was far more interesting. In Nia's personal opinion of course. But still, no point losing points for unrelated chit-chat.

She stared at her ball. "Not yet," she said pulling a face. "I was going to try and focus when I saw you catching a quick nap." She tilted her head, studying the pale blue sphere. "I'm guessing I could identify some shapes in the ball if I looked in the striations hard enough and fixed it. A bit like cloud pictures. But that's defeating the object, no?"

Ellie nodded. "I like quidditch," she shrugged, "And I like our team." They worked together pretty well. Really well actually.

She laughed, "Sure, I could see a crup in there if I tried hard enough." Was crup even a legitimate symbol? "And I like your ball, by the way," she added, noting Nia's choice of color.

Being kicked was doing her no good. Not only did her foot hurt now, but she was still incredibly tired. Why wasn't she able to sleep? She already found two symbols! Well, one and a half. She didn't know what the first one was.

Taking a deep breathe, she forced her eyes back open once more, finding it ten times more harder to keep them open this time, but it wasn't a problem to keep them open...now...

O__O

Jumping slightly in her seat, Evelyn looked around, her eyes wide in surprise at the loud noise and her hand automatically going towards he wand that was in her sleeve of her sweater, but seeing it was only the professor, Evelyn relaxed once more, crossing her arms in irritation.

Well, NOW she was awake...

Awake and in a horrible mood.

"Probably," Nia agreed. Though clouds seemed the most likely option in her ball. Whilte fluffy ones. "And if you did find one..." she scanned down the list of interpretations she had in front of her... "Then I guess it's most likely to have the same meaning as a normal dog." She pointed to it on the page. "So a good friend. Though if it's barking, it's supposedly an untrustworthy friend." She frowned at the bit of paper. How were you meant to tell whether an image of a dog in the ball was barking or not? Did the images for interpretation move? Or make a noise? "As long as the dog wasn't actually a Grim," she added a thoughtful moment later. "They're meant to be pretty ominous." And with that, she added a half eye roll.

Nia's lips curled into a smile. "Predictable, much?" she said, giving the first year a small wink. "Though it makes yours look quite tiny in comparison." She looked at hers sat on its stand. Maybe she should try properly focusing again. Just so she could say she'd given it a full on attempt.

Ellie smiled. "Crup sounds good then. Not barking, mind you. I'd rather have the trustworthy friends.." And not the grim. She soo didn't want the grim. Of course, she didn't believe much in the grim being an omen or whatever. But she didn't want other more gullible people thinking she got the grim and giving her weird looks the rest of the term.

Alex opened her mouth to protest, all she said was he was a jerk..but she so wasn't saying that out loud. Nope no thank you she was so not losing anymore House Points..she would just keep silent and regain the points. Alex sighed finishing up her reading making sure to put her own interpretation of her..symbols into her reading and not Selena's.

This was simply awesomeeee! You know muggle movies? Well, yeah, the ball looked like one of those screen things where muggle watch movies...AWESOME!

Still, the little Lockhart wished for the lightnings to have some sound.

But...er, what? Treyen looked up, "Can't you see them? There's a bunch of lightnings in there" he said, pointing at the ball...except...THEY WERE GONE! "Or at least they were" yeah, he wasn't seeing anything now. But he had! Talk about greatness.

Now...time to interpret, yes?

Er, yeah, Treyen preferred reading the teacups like the last lesson, actually, weren't they tea leaves? Yeah.

Mmmhmm. The boy took note of those things, and shook his head. There was so much uncertainty in his future that he didn't take this sign as cheery as one could think. As cool as the lightnings may have been, they were not at the moment.

Apparently, he was going to think A LOT the upcoming months, and while he'll get an answer of whatever he's asking, perhaps his perception of things may change...for the better. Because he decided to see the lightnings as a good thing. As the great light that will guide towards the better path. Yes.