Bart fought the urge to roll his eyes. Honestly he knew there were others that felt the same way. Yes it had to be true who would believe this stuff, when had it helped recently? A bunch of good guesses as far as he could see and his dad told him. Now she was going on and on about two religious books.

He put up his hand, "People used those because they were the only two book people were probably allowed to read in the ancient times and since they are said to be true because they are based around those gods they had to tell the future." Heck it wasn't even past people saying that he got lectures all the time that the books told you how you should act or your future in the afterlife wouldn't be good. So see it wasn't just ancient people that thought they knew this stuff.

Adi stiffened at the mention of the Quran. There was a copy of that book as well as the Geeta somewhere at his house, though he never bothered reading either of them. Not that his Dad hadn't tried to get him to. Anyway...

The second year raised his hand. ''Maybe they wanted a more Spiritual interpretation about their future,'' he said.

Lex looked up from the book to the Professor, all the answers of her classmates seemingly gone over her head. Had to be the case because she didn't hear a single one. Reading did that, she noticed and it would explain why holding a conversation with someone that read was so damn hard. It's like they couldn't even HEAR. A sure sign it was time to close the book before she missed the entire lesson.

The book made a soft thud as Lex slammed it shut, sealing away the last of her attention stealers. Okay. Now what were they talking about?

The Bible and the Qu'ran. Huh?

It took the Gryffindor an extra minute to catch the gist of the conversation and her hand rose hesitantly. Last time she jumped into a conversation she knew nothing about she ended up simply agreeing with everything Alice said. That probably wouldn't work in her favour a second time. "I'm guessing it's about the truth they figure they offered? What with societies rising and all, they'd need some truth to go off of." Truthfully she didn't know and still didn't see the point in books. Sorry.

Ohhhh biblomancy. Yeah, no. Abbi had never heard of that one before.

So they were going to use their books to tell the future? Hmm? Maybe because her's was a fairy book it would include a fairly-like future for her and that would be perfectly awesome by Abbi's ideas. Yet the Bible and the Quaran? What kind of future would come out of that?

Yeah, no answers but rather questions. Sorreh, Professor. "Yoh!" She raised her hand. So G okay?! "Professor, would every person get a different future interpretation from the same book?" Cause if it was different then there was no point in asking what kind of future the Bible and Quaran had, you know?

Ugh, religion. Adrienne hated the way it seemed to worm its way into everything. She kind of wanted to wait the rest of the lesson out in silence, but she also didn't want her grades to suck, and Elwood already didn't like her. She didn't much care about the professor's opinion, but she also did care about doing well on her exams, and answering questions tended to help her remember stuff. So she sighed, and put up her hand. "Because people usually saw them as the most true, I guess?" There were different levels of truth, of course, and everyone saw things differently. She took a breath before continuing.

"They believed in their religions enough that they saw those books as holy, or better than the others, so of course they'd be the obvious choice for, euh," what was it she'd just said the name of the type of divination was? "bibliomancy?"

Ian was pleased to receive an affirmation of his answer. He listened as other students spoke and answered the question as well and the teacher seemed to be really excited to have such a broad diversity of answers. It was odd, really. They couldn't all be correct, could they? he wondered to himself.

As he listened to the headboy's question he thought about it as he listened to the others. Ian had heard many stories about the bible when he went to church with his parents and he tried to listen to the priests and the bible teachers but much of it ended up sounding like blah, blah, talky, talky. He had asked his father about it once and his father just answered, Because that's always the way we've done it, since those Catholics showed up. It wasn't a very satisfying answer, but he had never gotten a better one from either the Priests, the teachers or his parents.

He raised his hand though and offered this thought, Professor, Much of our own history came down through stories told from one generation to the next. Perhaps it was just a matter of tradition that these stories, originating in oral histories were written down to be passed on. This was a rather interesting topic, Ian thought to himself. He wondered at what point Bart would fall asleep talking about books.

Huh, that was a good point. Why HAD they only used those two books? With his limited knowledge of history, he was positive he could come up with a really good answer. He raised his hand.

"Well, back in early days, before mass printing of books, those were the only books anyone took any time to transfer by hand because religion was so important to people back then. It still is now but it was like, REALLY big back in the Dark Ages," he explained. "So those were really the only books at their disposal. Plus, not many people could read, but those that did knew how to read the Bible and stuff because again, it was the most important book for them," he added.

Oichi had not heard of bibliomancy before so she looked it up and soon had an idea of how to answer the current question. Oichi raised her hand, "Well, the bible and the Muslim holy book are very popular holy books that people have taken very seriously for many years. Thus it is easy to think that many people interpret the pages of these books and take them seriously. But I am not so sure if the most popular books are the best things to find divine prophesy in because many people are looking for something to happen based on the book. They will see the most mundane things and think prophesies are taking place when more then likely they are not. However I do wonder and I am pretty sure we'll learn today how bibliomancy can be used best".

Well it was to his answer probably was not the most original. It was an answer and he actually gave an answer. It was pretty obvious why the Bible and Quran were the most used for Bibliomancy. Which pretty cool.

"Because there is usually one Bible or Quran in every house"

Everyone has at least one bible in their house whether you believe or not, OR Quran if you believe in that.

Emma flashed the woman a grin, proud of herself for being able to correctly answer. But before she had time to think about that too much they were on to the next question. She scribbled down some notes, taking in some of the other answers that had been given before slowly raising her own hand. "Perhaps they were the most popular choices because they were the most heavily printed and most available to everyone, even the common folk at the time."

Whoaaaa.

How did Caleb get so smart? When he opened his mouth, it was like a professor was speaking! Sophie just stared at him and tried to memorize what he's said. It sounded goooood.

Sophie raised her hand, too. "Ditto," she said, pointing at Caleb. So now her answer was just as AWESOME. "Also, I think there were more of those books around than any other book, so they were used more often." Made sense and all.

Robin smiled- these were the kinds of questions she liked to think about- they provided thought that started out with small obvious thoughts and then all of a sudden you were in so deep you didn't know how you got there! She twisted her hands in her lap and thought.
"Well, in the earlier times religion was very important to most people, they practically lived by it, so I guess it would make sense to use the holy books to tell their future" She back pedaled a bit
"So today I guess we use books important to the specific person, since there are so many different things people think are important" She clutched her own book a little tighter.

He got a good question. AWESOME. Alec grinned at the Professor before looking around to people as they answered. People had a good point about the part about it being hand bound and being around at a time when these books were looked up to a lot. ... Not... that they weren't at the moment but they were pretty big around those times, right?

Why were they popular? "Well... they're sacred books so... I guess people thought... think that they're words straight from a higher power. So... maybe people in those times, and still people now, think that using sacred books would be... the best books to use for Bibliomancy. Maybe they thought that... that those books would hold the most truth in them." ... And it was like what someone else had said about those being the only books around at the time.

And yes, Alec was more than okay with hair ruffles.

Kace was glad the professor credited him for his answer. He smiled and then she raised an interesting question. He thought about it and then gave his answer. He raised his hand and said,

"Professor back in the day, before i was even thought of, people believed in the bible because it was the common belief everyone was talking about. Everyone had a bible in their own house and was familiar with it. If people didn't believe they were judged."

He shrugged and said what he said. He hoped it was somewhat right.

Ella was glad that what she'd said held some truth, having been a bit sure before. And hey! Boyfriend's questions was a good one. The hair ruffler got big smiles from the girlfriend because see? He was smart. Would he admit it now or?

Anyway, the Hufflepuff was inclined to believe that it was the fact that the religious texts were the most readily available to people but that had already been said many times. She also knew that those specific books held truth for people and that was a big part of things.

So...nothing new to add, unfortunately. She was listening intently, though.

Tessa listened to the Professor's explanation and then raised a hand. "Perhaps those are the most often used books in the house?" she began. "Because of that relationship with the person, they may be able to help a diviner more so than a book a person has picked up only once or twice." It sounded reasonable... but she had no idea whether she was right or not.

She took notes on some other more reasonable sounding guesses, that way at least she had some notes down.

Uhm. Astrid didn't know. Of course, she was familiar with the Bible and the Quran but besides that, the book divination name was too much for her to remember. It went all Sticho-something blablabla. She wrote everything else down just in case she forgot things again. Her book was too detailed, anyway. It would be better to have someone simplify things for her.

But anyway. Yeah, the question. Astrid pondered on that for a while before raising her hand. "Well, back then maybe there weren't much books, but the Bible and the Quran were one of the famous ones? Some people base their beliefs on what is inside both of them." Hmm, yeah. That. It actually differs from person to person, though. "And because some people believe on both of them, they probably also believe that the Bible and Quran would be more ideal in finding the truth."

The seventh year had to fight back a snort when the professor said that she would be their guide. IF that were the case then Hannah wanted off this ride and fast. She completely ignored the first question, but decided that it would most likely be best if she answered the second one. Boring, this subject was so boring and lame, and downright useless. She wanted to say so badly... sooo what, nobody cared!

Hannah raised her hand very slowly into the air. "Professor, perhaps it was because back then people were followers more so then they are today. Maybe they just assumed that those were the best books to use because it was what everybody else did." It made sense to her. I mean look at the witch trials and everything else. It was okay to have a brain and form your own opinions you know!

A more historical question than one relating to the actual form of Divination they were learning about but all the more necessary in Callie's opinion. There were some very well worded answers and others that got the point across just the same. Good now they could move on.

"You've all got it right when mentioning the fact that, for whatever combination of reasons you all gave, the Bible and/or the Quran or holy book of choice was what was most readily available for the diviner at the time. Books were not a common thing until after the printing press was invented." Magical or mundane, the Muggle version coming first interestingly. "But variety is key in the study of Bibliomancy today because it allows for the actual action of picking a work of literature to become part of the reading."

So one more question before they moved on to the actual activity. "So please, tell us what book you chose to bring, why, and one personalilty characteristic you think you have that made you pick this book for today." Rather it was random choice or not. Professor Elwood was really curious to hear these. "Be sure to save them in your notes for your readings in just a few minutes."

Bay didn't know if he should be embarrassed of his book or not, it was a bit childish but it was his favourite book his mother used to read him "101 Dalmatians" he loved all the dogs and all the goodness in it. He pulled his book out of his bag and raised his hand. "Professor, I brought 101 Dalmatians… because its a childhood favourite of mine and I love how that even one person can do so much evil there are more good that will gather together to help, thats the reason why I brought this book" he lowered his hand and his face started to blush, hopefully no one will make fun of him for it.

Ana finally raised her hand to answer this question. She'd stayed silent for the other two but for this one it appeared she would have to give an answer.

"I brought the Book 'Narodnye russkie skazki'. It's a collection of Russian fairytales," it was also written in Russian. Ana hoped that wouldn't be a problem. She could translate it into English quite easily after all. "I chose this book because it reminds me of my childhood and my home. Since it's a collection though I was thinking that I could maybe just focus on the tale of 'Ivan Tsarevich, the Firebird and the Grey Wolf'?" Ana asked the Professor, hoping that would be okay. She knew all of the other stories of course but that was the one that she'd always loved the most. The one her father had read to her over and over during her childhood.

"I believe that the personality trait that made me pick this book," because even if she couldn't just focus on that one story most fairytales had many things in common, "is persistence," Ana finished, putting her hand down and moving to write down the answer as Professor Elwood had instructed them to do.

Tobias raised his hand and, when it was his turn, he spoke.

"I bought Quidditch Through the Ages."

He paused, looking down at said book. Probably a whole bunch of people had it, but he didn't mind, because people could share favourites, after all. Then he looked up again, remembering to give a personality characteristic. He had one... but did it count? Ah well, he'd say it anyway.

"I like Quidditch."

Super simple stuff.

Sander raised his hand and offered the title of the book he had brought. "Professor I brought J.R.R. Tolkein's Lord of the Rings. It has always been a favorite of mine because it tells how a group of strangers, are able to form a strong bond of friendship, despite their differences. And with that friendship they were able to rid the world of evil." he paused for a moment to think before continuing.

"That's the one personality characteristic I have that made me pick this book. To me friendship is a powerful weapon, and with the help of friends you can conquer anything." Sander nodded looking pointedly at Tessa, Alex, Bay and Lux when he said that.

It was sort of embarrassing to talk about books in this way, in front of his classmates who had brought random things from their shelves in many cases. Not that Mo was afraid to show that he cared about something like an old book or whatever, but the book he'd chosen was a little sentimental (rather than fully logical) and he felt conspicuous.

Mo shifted the book around on his desk before raising his hand. Might as well just get it over with, right? "Professor, I brought this book called Emma. A good friend got it for me as a gift because I guess she thought I'd like it or get something out of it, and I did. I found a lot of truth in it." He'd written his SNAC essay on it, in fact. "I suppose that I picked it today because I like things to be logical and orderly, and since I've already figured out the truth in this book and made sense of it, I'm more comfortable with it than some of my other books." Like that tome Alice was toting... he had a matching book, and it made his brain hurt.

Bart fought an eye roll as he looked at his desk. He put his hands to his hairy face and scratched at it. Who knew growing the beard would be so itchy. Why they brought the books, what type of questions was that. They brought the books because she told them to bring the books. Why would anyone bring the books if they weren't asked.

He listened for a bit and then put his hand up. "I brought our text book. It's required to be bought and brought to class, so I brought it since this is class. " He looked at the book on the table, "Personality why I brought it well I don't like to read, I'd rather do things than read about them or read about stories. I create stories not sit and read about made up ones or what others have done so I don't have a favorite to bring, hence bringing the textbook."

Was that a good answer for her? He wasn't going to lie and pretend he liked to read when clearly he did not.