It was nice that Hadley didn't tell her she was completely wrong and make her look silly in front of everyone. Soph appreciated that about her, even though she still wasn't certain that her answers were all correct. She'd just hope, though.

A computerrrr. Culloden had showed her how to work one of these in the technology center last term - at least, he'd given her a brief overview, so she wasn't completely unfamiliar, but... she also wasn't really sure what all of those terms meant. People were good at listing them all off, though, and Soph jotted quick notes as they did so until there were only a few unanswered terms left. She wasn't sure exactly what a taskbar was - but then Kace filled them in, so she raised a hand and guessed at another term, "Well, going by the diagram, I'd say the tower is that part of the computer sticking straight up and down, like a building kind of tower. I think... it's like, the main part of it, yeah? The thing that does all the... computing? Like the powerhouse of it?" Or something?

Lux had done well in explaining how these type of computers worked but even so, Grayson still found the diagram to be useful. It was funny, wasn't it, to think that in recent times, all of the data that was probably stored in the tower and moniter back then could now be stored in a thin tablet. Heh. Funny. He missed his tablet, by the way. Homework would be much easier. Just saying.

As for the question, the Slytherin took some time to look over at the diagram in front of him. What could he focus on? The tower? Nah, that brought back memories of him not realising what it was. AND the time when he tried to turn the computer on and didn't realise that the tower had to be turned on as well. Something he could laugh about now? 'Course!

HA!

Ha!

Ha.

Moving on, he was going to concentrate onnnnn......... "Professor? The window is what you open up when you click on an application. It's only on the window that you can carry out the task that you need to. For example, in the diagram, it shows a window of a Word document," Which, like everything else, looked freaking old. "It's only when you open up the window that you can type what you need to, be it a letter or an essay and whatnot. You can have multiple windows open at the same time." Uh huh.

Thinking about what she had said, Jasmine realized that she hadn't really answered the question. She had explained what keys were, but hadn't said what they were used for. She really was out of it today.

Raising her hand again, Jasmine tried to correct her mistake. "The keys are pressed to type out words, numbers, symbols and also to perform actions like delete and return." She hoped that she had cleared up her answer.

OH OH OH he got a nod! He got an approving nod! HA! He wasn't hopeless after all SEE?! Ha, he was finally getting his muggle studies mojo back. Ha. Who needs to toss pizzas anyways. Hmph. That was a fail.

Ahem, right okay. Next question. When Hadley showed them the diagram, Zander's face lit up like a christmas tree. Okay, not quite as dramatic as a christmas tree, BUT STILL he was excited okay? Because he used computers ALL the time back home and he definitely knew all about that stuff. Raising his hand confidently the Gryffindor began explaining. "The toolbar, that's a bar with all these tools..." Uh. Maybe he was too confident because he hadn't really properly thought out his answer quite yet.

"Uh, what I mean is that... It has a bunch of buttons that you can use to manipulate things like text, for example" Did that even make sense.... "Basically a tool bar will just have shortcuts for doing simple tasks and there are tons of different kinds of them..." Okay, next time he's going to think it through before he raises his hand. Because that was a mouthful.

MERLIN GEEEEEEZ! LIKE HOW RUDE!

Trying to make her fall off her chair now, was he?

ARGHH.

After regaining her balance from almost falling off her chair Abbi made sure she gave him quite the STRONG nudge. "Oops. My bad, was just trying to reposition myself." All whispered of course, because class. HEHEHE. See, she could totally play little miss innocent. HAH. NOT like he could.

Anyways DISTRACTING from Grayson was not cool when the Professor asked another question.

OHHH. This diagram, she could ace this.

"Professor, The tower has like a board inside it and that's where all the components of the computer connect together and work together, I think." All said after a hand raise, of course. She'd seen the inside once when their computer at home got fixed, so she knew some about that.

Ethan looked up at Hadley when she got to his station and checked his work. Aeroplanes is to brooms. Head scratch. Hmmkay, then. The third year did not erase his answer though, but added Hadley’s comment as a note. He wasn’t going to throw his own answer away just because the professor corrected it.

…

The Slytherin eyed the diagram and his eyes were drawn straight to the tower. Why? Because he had seen Thomas do things to it. Hand up. “Professor? The ‘tower’ is where you place the CD-ROM drive, memory banks, and different electronic chips to make the whole system run. It basically houses the brain of the computer.” Well, that’s how Thomas had explained it to him when he literally took out every piece of chips apart from his own muggle PC. As a pureblood, it was a fascinating thing to see.

But Thomas.

Ethan leaned back on his seat and wore a placid look on his face and continued to stare at the diagram.

Leah took the piece of paper that was passed down to her. Whaa, nice diagram. Very detailed. Not to mention complicated. She looked for an item that would be easy to explain. Yep, this one! Mouse mat. Raising her hand, the Hufflepuff said, "This thing, mouse mat or mousepad, is like.. a MAT for the mouse. Lets the mouse run around easily, making it comfortable for both the mouse and the person using it."

Well, her explanation was not quite the same as her favorite prefect Elodie's, but did Leah's make sense too?

Hope had remained silent so far. After all....she felt like everyone else was doing a good job at covering everything and it gave her a chance to see the perspective of other people, after all she was raised by muggles. She took the diagram and stared at the picture of a computer and shrugged. If she really wanted to be a wise mouth about it she'd break each and every bit of this diagram down and explain it in perfect detail, but no, not today.

With her hand in the air she said softly, "The CD-ROM drive is where you would input a CD. It could be any kind of compact disk really, even a blank one. It would then allow the computer to read the disk and it would put whats on the disk on your computer if you wished or you could put stuff from the computer onto a blank disk. Things like pictures and music." Yes...she felt like that summed it up properly.

Cutty still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about his answer to muggle two-way mirrors and cellular phones, but he'd moved on from that in a split-second. In almost the same moment, Cutty was looking down a diagram and passing the rest up. His eye immediately drawn up toward the little symbols the diagram called icons.

Cutty heard everything that Tag had said and although it definitely formed a series of actions each related to the one before it, the things from which the boy could draw reference made the icons sound as if they did something quite impossible. "Professor?" Or anyone, really. "Aren't icons joost symbols. Symbols that when used cause a specific thing related to the symbol to occur?" Like Runes?



That was fascinating. Did that mean they could perform memory modification charms on it. And what was a computer memorizing anyway? Didn't Professor Hadley just state that the devices before them basically just worked out logical operations? He wasn't entirely unfamiliar with computers, he'd seen one before but he didn't own one and hadn't ever before used one.

Would you look at that? A fancy diagram that had things this blank screen wasn't showing her just yet. It's fine she could wait. Button pushing could happen at any point in this class and her index finger was fully prepared for this moment that would of course happen once this guessing game was done.

If Lex said she knew what those things did, she'd be an absolute liar so she opted for saying nothing at all. This worked too. She could just.....place her head on the desk again, listening to the information from others passing over her head, grasping on to something every now and then so it could never be said she wasn't paying attention.

For something that made life easier, it certainly sounded useless. What fun was anything her classmates had said and how would this better their lives? Couldn't they point to things themselves? Did they not know how to draw their own pictures and make their own signs? Why were they sitting at screens all day? Wasn't this bad for their sight?

Muggles needed to question things more often.

"Precisely, yes, the power strip is what allows the computer to work. Good." And nice application of previously learned topics.

"Yes that's all true, albeit the diagram depicts a CD-Rom drive, which is the place that holds the CD-Rom ... a storage device."

"Yes, speakers play sounds ... good." Hadley nodded. And they could maybe get the chance to explore that? "OR if you're in a public setting and don't want to disturb people with speakers, most computers have a small circular jack ... a headphone opening ... where you could plug a pair of headphones in to listen to music or video soundtracks without disturbing others."

"Yes, icons are little symbols on the display which are shortcuts to programs. Good." Some of them were more obvious than others, even if you knew nothing about computers.

"Yes, exactly right." Nothing more to add about the keyboard; it was one of those straightforward items.

"No, no, a mouse is the thing cats chase... " Hadley winked, before shaking her head. "Just kidding. Yes, a computer mouse is whats used to access items on the computer."

"Yes, the monitor. Displays the information from the computer tower."

"Yes. Good." That was in essence how the keyboard worked. Via the keys.

Hadley just nodded at Caleb's answer; which basically was what was already said, but correct nonetheless.

"Yes, the toolbar. Each application on the computer has its own unique toolbar."

"Yes correct, the CD-Rom Drive reads the data from the disc and interprets it."

"The cursor, which may or may not be whats represented by the mouse on screen... but yes."

"Yes. The screen displays the picture. Good."

Hadley nodded at Marigold's answer, which had basically already been given.

"Ah the mouse mat. A smooth place for the mouse to move so you can actually use it. Good."

"Yes, good." Hadley said when someone else commented on the power strip. They BETTER all know about the power and power strip, given last year. Unless they were new to muggle studies, in which case okay.

"Yes, good," Hadley nodded. "Task-bar for the computer. Not to be confused with toolbar for each application."

Ah finally someone mentioned the MAIN part of the computer. The part which controlled everything. The brain. "Yes, the tower. The main part. Very logical assumptions there too about it being the thing that did all the computing and the powerhouse. It is the brain of the whole device."

"Yes, the window is what opens when you click on an application. Good."

Hadley nodded when Zander explained about the toolbar as someone else had before him except he elaborated slightly more.


Hadley nodded at Abigail when she also discussed the tower as Sophie had. Yup, it connected the various components together and made them work together. Good.

And nodded again when Ethan elaborated more on the tower. The powerhouse.

And then she nodded again at Leah when she explained ... re-explained? the mouse mat as Elodie had discussed too.

And then nodded again at the re-explanation of the cd-rom drive? Did they cover all the parts on the diagram or were the remaining ones unknown to everyone?

"Yes, icons are symbols which represent a specific thing. Good." Another thing someone else had already mentioned sort of? So they covered everything? A glance at the diagram told her that she was pretty sure that was everything.


"Right then, time to turn on the computer. There's a power button for the monitor - usually - as well as one for the tower. The power button is the one that is like an incomplete circle with a vertical line through the circle. Almost like a variation of the Deathly Hallow symbol but without the triangle." Good analogy, right? Demonstrating the computer at the front of the class, the 'windows loading' screen was projected on the whiteboard.

"Computers are vital for many functions muggles take for granted. They help perform inventory functions at the local retailer. They control traffic lights so that you don't end up with a huge mess when driving places. They even are used to calculate how much you owe when shopping and ring up your merchandise." Hmm, computer was almost loaded. "The computers all should be unlocked, so once your computer is loaded, click on the windows menu and go to the games folder. Select a game and play it. OR you may open up the word processor and type up one paragraph about prospective career options."

ooc: so here's how this going to work. we all have computers (ooc). Yes we do? Regardless of whether or not its a mac or pc, you can do something - game, word processor, graphics, music, etc. Once you've done what you think your character would do/play, screencap its start and finish, upload it to your image account (such as Photobucket) and post it here under a spoiler cut. You can/should make RP posts regarding your character working on whatever it is they're working on =) you have 24 hours. GO!

ooc2: if you have questions about screencapping something, don't hesitate to ask me!

Oh awesome they were going to get to play some games… now first things first he had to turn this thingy on.. and there was more than one button to do it.. alright.

Looking around he spotted one on his screen as he pressed it and then looked for the other one.. The other one was somewhere on the tower thingy… and yay he found it. Pressing that one too he saw a light come on and the computer made a little noise.. doing a little song to let him know that it was waking up.. "cool" he said as he followed the instructions.. Games… yeah thats what he was looking for.

Looking at the screen he saw that there was a game on his computer called "Angry Birds?" this seemed like it would be very violent and scary, so naturally Bay clicked on it. and the picture that he saw was this.



so there were levels huh? Bay moved his mouse thingy over to the number one and clicked on it. When the window loaded Bay saw that there were birds and pigs.. what an odd combination… and the birds were on the sling shot thingy.. so he assumed that he needed to throw the birds at the pigs.



He moved the mouse over the bird and drew back the sling shot as he saw he could adjust the height and other things with the mouse, He moved the bird all the way back and let it fly. he hoped it would hit something.



and his first attempt didn't work out so well but he had two other birds waiting to be flung across the computer screen so Bay followed his own steps and threw another bird.



and direct hit! Bay had almost said "woot" out loud for everyone to hear and look at that he had gotten 5,000 points so far. He was amazing at this game.. or so he thought because you know it was his first time trying it He had one more bird left so he did the same thing, he threw the bird.



once he finished breaking through all the poor little pig's a window popped up to say that he had finished the round… "awesome" he smirked as he debated on going on to the second round while he waited for everyone to catch up.. he he he… best class ever! got to make food and now computer games!! AWESOME!!!!!

And Bay wasted little time in getting his computer on and situated .... "Excellent job, Bay! Well done! You've used a computer before either in the technology center or at home?" she asked curiously, because he seemed to know what to do... either that or it was beginner's luck.


ooc: prime example of just ONE of the possibilities that you could do... ALTHOUGH there's more than just this. You could SOLITAIRE even, if you want to ... really the possibilities are limitless, but this is a good example of what i want with the caps and the RPing, so props to Robyn/Bay on this =)

Bay was totally into this game now when he heard the Professor talk to him. He hit the little pause button on the screen and looked at her. Ohhhh she wanted to know if he's used one of these before. "I've used them a few times before.. When I went to visit an aunt she has one.. Still not sure how to work it all but this game " he pointed at the robot " is a lot of fun. Thank you professor " he smile at her.

No matter what Beverly was told about how muggles were close to magical folk in their advances, she refused to believe it. Mainly because she didn't want to give up on her mother's beliefs for reasons. Also, there was a certain muggle woman who Beverly despised more than peas.

And that was quite a lot. She'd set peas on fire.

Snapping from the train of thought, but making sure to remember to send a Dungbomb to said muggle woman after class, Beverly brainstormed about these different technological advances. She didn't necessary dislike muggles or muggle-related stuff, she just...didn't care about it.

But she cared about the lesson.





They'll never be us, Beverly simply thought. Damn. She was grouchy today. It had to be because of the crazy weather and not being able to go outside. Actually. It was exactly that. Too much energy turned to edginess.

Blinking at the diagram, Beverly squinted at it. Squint. Squint. Squint. Bloody contraption. That's what is was. Still, she took notes and selected the screen. Of course that one was easy, it was were things were view on. Like a window to whatever they were doing on the computer.



So...they were going to play games? Beverly blinked at the computer in front of her and hesitantly moved the mouse. What the hell? It didn't even resemble a mouse. Where were the tiny ears and eyes or tail? HMM? NOT a mouse.

Moving said mouse around she moved the cursor toward the games folder and clicked it. Thank goodness for her brother or she'd be sitting here like a total loser not knowing what to do. Even if his had a touch pad instead of a 'mouse.' Now...all she had to do was find a game she wanted to play.

Last time they'd cooked pizza, and now they were being told to play a game? Hayden liked Muggle Studies. Luckily she wasn't too bad at it either. She knew what the power button looked like, and she pressed it. Her computer took a couple seconds to turn on, and then it was time to find a game. Hayden clicked on the windows menu, and then the games folder. There were many different choices, a couple she'd heard of and several she hadn't. She studied all of them, trying to figure out what to play. Finally, she decided on a game called 2048. She had no idea what it would be like, hopefully not too much math. When she clicked on the game it opened up a new screen that looked very confusing at first.



What was she supposed to do now? It would be very helpful if the game came with any sort of instructions at all. Since it didn't, it looked like she'd just have to figure it out herself. She pressed the up arrow and both boxes moved to the top of the screen, and a new box with a 2 on it was added. She pressed the left arrow and when two of the boxes ran into each other they formed a 4. She messed around with the arrow keys for a couple more seconds until she thought she finally had the hang of the game. She concentrated hard, even though she really didn't know what the point of the game was. To get to 2048, maybe? That was what the game was called after all. Hayden hoped Hadley hadn't said anything else because she was too focused on her game. She thought she'd done pretty good so far.



128 was pretty good, right? It seemed like it, especially since this was her first time playing the game. Hayden glanced around the room quickly and noticed that everyone else was still playing games. Hadley hadn't said anything. Hayden was glad that she hadn't been so caught up in playing that she hadn't missed anything. But seeing as nothing new had happened, she went back to playing. She focused on getting all the blocks together with other blocks of the same number. She grinned happily every time she reached a big number that she hadn't reached before. It felt like a pretty big accomplishment. But the longer she played, the harder it got. She had to concentrate more and more on what she was combining as there were less spots available. Eventually she just couldn't do it anymore, and all the spaces were filled with no opportunity to make any more combinations. The words 'game over' flashed on her screen.



Another quick glance around the room confirmed that Hadley still hadn't said anything else. So Hayden started the game over to play again. She tried to pay attention at least a little bit on what was going on, so she would know when they were moving on in class.

Zander found it kind of hilarious that Hadley had to go on and explain something as simple as what the 'on' button was. He may be bad at Arithmancy, but this muggle technology stuff was the kind of thing he grew up with. Before Hogwarts, he never even used parchment. Everything was done by computers and printed onto paper. So this was easy. Yet, Zander felt the need to humor Hadley, so instead of going on and doing something super complicated, he just went for a simple game of internet tic-tac-toe.

Pulling the page up on the internet browser, he smiled to himself. The Gryffindor looked around the room to see if anyone was having any trouble. Because this was pretty funny. Ehehe. Pizza's may not be his thing, but computers? He could do this blindfolded. Not that he wanted to try that...

Anyways. He pulled up the game, surprised at how quickly the internet had worked. Hm. Who knew wizards got good wifi? Clicking the box in the very corner of the board, the third year played his first move. The computer followed followed very quickly with it's move.

SPOILER!!: First move

Okay. So he wasn't really a tic-tac-toe expert. He actually lost most of the time. So where would he do the next move? The other corner? Was that a good choice? Eh, this was more of a Ravenclaw game, huh? Again, surprised by the internet speed, Zander marked his next move.

SPOILER!!: Second move

Alright so clearly this game was not going anywhere. It was pretty obvious that it was just going to be a tie at this point. Yet, the Gryffindor felt the need to keep playing. Who knows, maybe he could come out a winner in the end? A miracle? Possibly? Okay yeah moving on. Clicking the next box, Zander put an X and waited for the computers next move.

SPOILER!!: Third Move

Yeah. Clearly going absolutely no where with this game. The third year let out a small sigh. He wasn't having much luck with this stupid game. Maybe he'd take a try at Angry birds liek Bay? That didn't look that hard... This computer was just too good. Man, technology these days. If this computer went to Hogwarts it'd totally be a Ravenclaw.

SPOILER!!: Fourth move

Was this bit even necessary anymore? At this point there was only one space left. And nobody would win. He'd be at zero and the computer would too. Just a tie game. Man.

SPOILER!!: Last move

Darn. Tie-game. Hm. Zander looked around the room and noticed that not many people were done yet. Maybe he could just sneak in another game? For tie breaking purposes of course. And he just needed to prove that he could actually beat this computer for good.

Brain of the whole device, yeah! That's what she meant! "Cool." Because it was. Even though they didn't need to, Sophie totally wished wizards used computers.

As instructed, Soph located the power button first on the tower, then the monitor, and peered up at the projection to look for what was next. A loading screen... yes, yes, good. The waiting game was making her antsy, but things LOADED. And the screen looked right! This stuff was way easy, so she pressed on, awkwardly taking the mouse in her hand - she lifted it from the mat, examining the underside of it curiously before setting it back down and blinking up at the cursor on the screen. She mooooved the mouse a little and watched the cursor move one way, then mooooved the mouse a little the other way and was pleased when the cursor followed her movements.

This was so strange. And so cool.

Windows menu, windows menu... Sophie clicked what Hadley had in her demonstration and looked at all the options that came up in the menu - pictures, documents, all sorts of weird things she didn't know the use for. She discovered the option for the games, though, and also eyed the one for a word document. Hmmmm. Normally, Sophie wouldn't mind bragging about her career aspirations, but... GAMES. On a COMPUTER. That was something new and fun. So, TO THE GAMES IT WAS.

She scanned over the list of games, finding... all sorts of weird names. Things she'd never even heard of. What did Mahjong mean? Curious, she clicked at it and leaned in close to the screen, examining the window that popped up. Click on the layout...? DRAGON! Her favorite! She moved the cursor carefully and clicked right on it, then sat back with wide eyes to examine the board that came up. That didn't look anything like any dragon SHE had ever seen. Weird.

Squinting at the little box in the left-hand corner, Sophie shrugged a little. The gameplay seemed simple enough - a game of matching. She was quick to find a few matches at first before she came upon an error. Oh. She'd tried to click a tile that wasn't available - ahhh, as she dragged the mouse and the cursor across the tiles, she noted that the available ones lit up. Good note. She pressed on, then, playing a bit more and eliminating tiles gradually - at one point, she thought it looked more like a skull than the original dragon it was supposed to be - before not too long, she ran into a dead end and HUFFED loudly.

"It cheats." What a rude game.

Muggle Studies was one of the best subjects EVER. They got to make pizza AND play computer games. Professor Hadley was her kind of Professor and an awesome Head of House. Both of her Heads of House were amazing women. Go Professors Hadley and Bentley!!

Eagerly Lux turned on both her monitor and tower, knowing how to do each already from multiple visits to this very room. Generally using the computer to talk to people on Twitter, she did not have much experience playing games. There was bound to be a fun one to try out though! Lux always liked trying new things, and challenges were awesome. Patiently she waited for the computer to start up, rubbing her hands together eagerly as the start up music played.

And here we go!

As soon as the screen loaded, Lux moved her mouse to the bottom and scrolled across the icons there until she found the one titled 'Finder'.

SPOILER!!: Clicky

After clicking on the icon, a window popped up on the screen showing the different files that were on the computer. There were a lot of files, and she did not want to search through them all in order to find a game to play. Looking at the left side of the window, she scanned the list of options that she could choose from in order to sort out the files that she wanted. One of them was labelled 'Applications'.

SPOILER!!: Clicky

Clicking on the 'Applications' button brought her to another window which had files in it, but there were not as many as there had been in the other window. This was much better, and made it a lot easier for her to find something to fiddle with. Near the top of the list of files, there was Chess. This was a game that Lux was not very familiar with, having only played it once. Maybe it could be fun for her to try it out on a computer, moving some of the pieces and seeing what would happen.

SPOILER!!: Clicky

Clicking on the Chess icon brought her to another window which was a chess board. There was no toolbar that she could use in order to ask for help, but the plain wooden pieces were closest to her while the black pieces were further away. It did not take a genius to figure out that all she needed to do was move one of said wooden pieces for the game to start.

SPOILER!!: Clicky

Staring at the board, she thought of what she wanted to do. As far as her understanding went, the small pieces at the very front were called 'pawns' and they were the first pieces that were moved in a game of chess. They also moved two places forward. Or so she thought. Picking one of the random pawns on her end, she slid it forward two spots then watched as the computer moved the black pawn opposite of it.

SPOILER!!: Clicky

Now what to do? Unsure, Lux bit her lip before deciding to move another one of her pawns. If this was a good idea, she had no clue because she was not an expert at strategy. As soon as she made her move, the computer sent out one of it's pieces that looked like a horse. This was a 'knight' as far as she knew, and the knight moved in an 'L' shape. She loved Knights and liked to think that these ones were Knights of the Round Table because the King Arthur stories were awesome.

SPOILER!!: Clicky

Hmmm, thinking about the Knights made Lux want to send one of hers out, so she chose the one on her left side, sending it out bravely to battle. What a good Knight it was.... Except almost immediately the computer swooped in and her Knight was gone. Awww, that sucked! Pouting, she noticed that it had been taken by something weird looking. Okay, what was that supposed to be?

o_O

SPOILER!!: Clicky

What was she supposed to do now? Totally at a loss, Lux looked around her. Was there still time to play, or what? Maybe she should wait for the rest of the class because this game was making her head hurt. She was so confused.

Listening to the Professor, Simon nodded. Okay first step first was to turn on the computer. He quickly turned on the power of the computer tower and then he monitored. As he patiently watched the screen load, he wondered what games the computers had on store for them. A colourful beach ball appeared and spun a couple of times around which made Simon bit his lip a little bit. It was the colour wheel of death. He took a deep breath and relaxed. By the time he had exhaled, the computer had sorted itself out. He touched the mouse and quickly moved it to the menu bar. He clicked on it and read the options that they could choose from. Where was the games folder? His blue eyes hungrily searched for the section and widened when he had found it.

Clicking the game folder, he opened it up and found a sudoku game. Ooh, he thought. He liked puzzles. Puzzles were fun. A smaller window popped up revealing a puzzle. He started working out where all the ones were. When he couldn't find all the ones, he moved onto the twos and threes. A couple minutes later, he had a puzzle that looked like this. Pursing his lips, he tried to figure out where all the other numbers went. Becoming more and more unsure by the minute, he checked his answer by clicking a single button. The puzzle application told him that his answer was right so far and that he should continue playing. Alright... thirty more.. he thought and added more numbers.

He added a couple more numbers here and there, making sure that they worked in the puzzle. Eventually, he made his way to a puzzle like this. With fourteen left, the puzzle became much easier and he was putting numbers here and there until he solved the puzzle. The application popped up with another screen, informing Simon how long he had spent on the puzzle.

He'd spent seven minutes? He bit his lip. That was not good. He would have to practice. But practicing was for another day. He glanced around the room and noticed that some of his classmates were still working. Could he work on another puzzle perhaps in the meantime? Yes, he'd do that quietly. He reopened the application and started solving a different one.

Oh, GREAT.

Sophie + Muggles = Not good.

Sophie + Muggles + Computers = ...

Well, she didn't even want to imagine the chaos that was probably about to happen. She had no experience whatsoever with computers, let alone playing games on them. Why would you want to play a game on a computer?

Oh, right...because they were all snowed in and couldn't go outside anymore. Well played, Hadley.

So anyway, Sophie took a deep breath and began the search for the Deathly Hallows-like symbol she was supposed to push to turn the whole thing on. That didn't sound too promising, but other people had started, and they hadn't had chaos erupt yet. She found the power buttons and the computer sparked to life.

Sophie stared at the computer as if it was a three-headed dragon. WHAAAAAT did she do now?! O_O. She fumbled around with all the buttons and after a while, a long while, she located a menu:

One

Applications was a word she knew, and if there was anything she did know about Muggles it was that they had the same terminology MOST of the time. Applications likely meant the same thing, and so she selected it and began browsing the applications on the computer. Garage Band?! Ohh, cool! Sophie would choose that, because it did look cool, but she didn't know how to play in a band. NEXT!

CHESS! This was something familiar!

Two

Sophie selected "Chess" and began to play.

She made the first move and noticed the computer played along. She blinked at it as it called out its move.

Three

Uhhh, so what now? Sophie suddenly got the feeling that the computer knew how to play better than she did. WHO was playing with her? It was like a weird ghost was in there or something.

Four

Sophie continued playing along, with whoever this was, until finally her piece on E4 was overtaken. WHAAAAAAT. This computer WAS better than she was! Crazy! There was a THING beating her at chess!

Five

Oh yay! They get to do whatever they want? They get to play? Ethan sat straighter and examined the computer before him. Yes, of course. He's got to power it on first before anything else, yeah? Maybe...pressing the power button on the tower should go first because it's closer to the power supply...correct? Upon closer inspection, Ethan found the right button, pressed it and the computer started to whir. Pleased with that, he pressed the other power button on the monitor. The screen came to life and...it did exactly what Professor Hadley's monitor did, so yes, he was on the right track.

Now...MERLIN. Where in Salazar Slytherin's armpit is the start button? THIS...IS...CONFUSING! Ethan did tap the monitor, but nothing happened until he accidentally bumped his mouse. "Oh. Ooooh." The pointer thing moved, and it showed a smaller...screen thing on the side...and right at the middle was the word and icon that said START. "Huzzzaaaaaaah!" the Slytherin let out a small cry and clicked the thing.

And as he did, Ethan's eyes widened as MORE icons flew across his screen. Wait it can fly? Anyway, the Slytherin slooowly moved the mouse like a grand daddy, eyes squinting until he found an interesting icon. "Oooh. What does this button do??" CLICK. Oh bravo! A game...A GAME! Yusssss! "Achievement unlocked!" Success! Hehehehe.

Ethan followed the instruction, and occasionally flail at his monitor because the instructions went by TOO fast. Merlin! A few more clicks and the Slytherin FINALLY figured out what to do. Matchy-match the colored coins and unlock a new puzzle...or was it a treasure? By the way, that frog thing on top? FUNNY.

Anyway...

Click, swap, match, win. Repeat.

GAME TIME? REALLY?

OHHHHH YEAH! Abbi was SO ready for this. Though she was going to do this old school style. Spider solitaire style that was. She at first waited for her desktop to load and then after that she clicked on the start button searching for games where she found her solitaire. LIKE WHO would even write a paragraph when games were there?

New game dealt. Boy she was ready and she would TOTALLY not use help. Like who needed that anyways?

After sometime she switched cards about, untill finally she got her first full set. ONE POINT FOR ABSTER! She had this. MHHHHHM. Took her a while though and mostly because she couldn't find herself a free Jack. Finally thoug she nmanaged to get one, thank goodness.

Hmmm..the others then? She clicked about, again having a lack of the Jacks and began to get slightly annoyed at the computer, but soon enough it granted ehr wishes and she was able to complete everything with a fairly alright score if you'd ask her. She was way too impressed with herself. Though she had to admit, maybe she should of opted for a more exciting game. This one...well it was a bit adultish.

OH WELL. STILL! She WON. TOO COOL! MHHM

So what was Grayson up to then?

Well that was interesting. All the different things that make up a muggle computer. First time Nigel used one was a simply awesomely awesome experience. Nigel listened on and wanted to find the one with the least amount of work. He was feeling more lazy than usually today. Maybe to was the cumulative effect of the cold.

Lets go with that.

Nigel was not in the mood to play simple computer games. The one paragraph thing on career options sounded better. Plus Nigel has been thinking about that a lot more than he should. So there he went, typing away until his paragraph was finished.



Perfect

Awesome! They got to do whatever they want? Adi knew what he was going to do! Play Spider Solitaire. It was one of his favourite games because he won most of the times. Well, that was because he usually set the game on 'easy' mode. Hehe. The Puffer turned on the computer, waited for it to boot up and opened the game.



It always took sometime for him to form the first deck because there were so many cards to sort through and sometimes the cards he needed were blocked by others so he had to move them out of the way. But never the less, in about five minutes he successfully made the first deck.



Onto deck two! Adi switched some cards around and added some new ones from the deck on the right hand corner of the screen. The he did some more switches until he had another deck.



After forming deck three, the third year began building deck four. Once again, he added a deck from the right hand corner of the screen, switched some cards around until he had a complete deck.



In less time than it had took Adi to complete the previous decks, he formed another. This was because as less cards were in play, the faster one could swap around the remainder.



Soon, deck six was up. He was going to win this and he knew it!



The second to last deck was completed within seconds. Just one more remained.



Now finally, the last deck1 Just as with the previous one, Adi completed it within seconds. And looky. Fireworks were bursting on the screen, indicating he had won. He grinned broadly. This was an awesome game. Eight decks completed in 112 moves and giving him a score of 1188.