The Gryffindor nodded thoughtfully at Tanner's response before looking down to his notes to scribble some additional things down. Never know when this stuff could crop up on OWLs or something. Merlin, it was going to be a busy year. Way full of this note taking stuff too. Siiiiiiigh. Would the fifth year be able to survive? Only time will tell. Tune in next week for another episode. Dramatic? Maybe.

But right. He was Gryffindor so uh, Hermione Jean Granger it was. Right. Uh, okay even though he was a fifth year.... Would it be bad if he still flipped open his text book for this? 'Cause really there was no way he'd have any of this memorized.. Oops. So yeah, opening the text book now. Heh. what chapter was it in again?

SPOILER!!: *inserts calculations here*

H E R M I O N E
8+5+9+4+9+6+5+5 // 51
5+1 // 6
6

J E A N
1+5+1+5 // 12
1+2 // 6
6

G R A N G E R
7+9+1+5+7+5+9 // 43
4+3 // 7
7

6+6+7 // 19
1+9 // 10
1+0 // 1
1

..... Well that was a lot harder than he thought it'd be. And he had already thought that it was going to be hard so uh yeah. Saying something. ALSO, was this even right???? Welp. He had no clue on either front so yeah, just gonna sit here until told to redo the entire thing. And maybe look around the room incase any lions needed help or anything. 'Cause even if he only mildly knew how to do this kind of stuff..... He could try?

And all was fun and games until it got to this point of class where writing and things were needed. Ruby chewed on her bottom lip and then made the effort to at least open her textbook. Even if all the words and letters and numbers were swimming all over the page, at least it looked like she was trying, right? Because this part? Impossible for her. She shot a little look over at her brother but she knew better than to trust him to help her with anything anymore. Maybe she could just... work on the interpretation parts and not the actual calculation parts?

Gabe had been silent so far, working on his notes...making sure not to miss anything. The subject matter didn't really interest him...as it was about marriage and...Well, Gabe had nothing nice to say...and because his social cues didn't seem appropriate all the time, it was just best to remain quiet.

...and at the mention of hyphenating names, that got his attention. Actually, in the Ravenclaw's opinion, hyphenating was probably more efficient as...it included your birth name...and your new name. Mixing the old and the new...in a way. He quickly backtracked to add that bit in his notes.

Now...for the calculations bit. This wasn't hard for Gabe...as he loved dealing with numbers and calculating this and that. They were universal, which was their appeal. Math didn't change, no matter where you were doing it.

He looked to his sister...and began collecting his materials. Truth be told, he hadn't been that great of a big brother and yea, the guilt was strong. And she wasn't that well versed with the numbers like he was. Ruby would need his help...and that was okay. Gabe didn't mind. Of course, on his way over, he seen Kate...and she was a Claw and....eh, his responsibility?....Eeeeh...Gabe still didn't know what he...thought about this responsibility thing.

"This entry is what you should....go by." He carefully took her book and flipped the pages until finding what he was looking for. Pointing out the diagram, he nodded to himself. If the professor was talking about the Pythagorean Number System...that was it. "I hope that...helps. If.....you know.....need further....help?, I'll...help you."...but first he needed to check on Ruby. She tended to get overwhelmed with the Arithmancy stuff.

Sliding in next to said sister, Gabe began positioning his things again. "Don't look so scared."

Lux could remember reading about the Expression Number in her textbook, but had never tried calculating anything based off of letters before. This would be an interesting learning experience. As she listened to Professor Tanner, she flipped to the correct page of her book so that she could get started:

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lux's Notes

HERMIONE
8+5+9+4+9+6+5+5=51
5+1=6

JEAN
1+5+1+5=12
1+2=3

WEASLEY
5+5+1+1+3+5+7=27
2+7=9

6+3+9=18
1+8=9

Looking over her work, she hoped that she had done everything correctly.

So yep, textbook said birthname, and that made sense to Toby. He was pretty sure he'd not be forgetting that information again after the discussion and all. It helped cement things in his brain.

Ooh. OOH. Professor Tanner was changing the lesson plan? That was... neat, yeah. NEAT. Toby DID for a moment feel a little guilty about it (all the original planning of the lesson for nothing?) but quickly pushed that aside (another lesson for another day! interesting things! spontaneity!) He had no further questions, and so simply smiled and stayed quiet as they moved on.

Hufflepuff. That was him! Toby quickly jotted down 'Hermione Jean Weasley' on his parchment in case he somehow forgot in the next few moments (hey... he'd forgotten simpler information in less time), took a moment to look around at everyone else to see if anyone nearby needed help, before getting to work.

Okay. So, nine. And that took a fair bit of scribbling out and making tally marks on the edge of his parchment but Toby was pretty sure that was more or less right. He looked back around at everyone else and tapped the feathered end of his quill on the desk out of fidgety habit. He was keeping an eye out for anyone looking confused, but he ALSO didn't want to impose on anyone who didn't need or want his help. It was hard to tell, so Toby just worked on making himself look as approachable as possible.

Ruby looked up from her textbook, a little surprised to see Gabe there. Like right there. To help her?

"I'm not." Not scared... "I just can't..." Well. He knew. She bit her lip and then leaned in to whisper at him. "Can you double check I write the numbers the right way?" He understood what she meant, right? And at lest she was saying she'd try it herself rather than pouting and sulking and bullying him to do it for her.

Puck wasn’t a huge fan of Arithmancy…so she might have groaned when Professor Tanner brought up doing the actual calculations noooo she wasn’t good at this. She wanted to be good at it but she wasn’t she’d never been.

She glanced at the board furrowed her eyebrows and groaned a little more.

SPOILER!!: Arithmatic

Pre Equation
HERMIONE = 85949655
JEAN = 1515
GRANGER = 7915759

STEP ONE
HERMIONE = 8+5+9+4+9+6+5+5
JEAN = 1+5+1+5
GRANGER = 7+9+1+5+7+5+9

STEP TWO
HERMIONE = 51
JEAN = 12
GRANGER = 43

STEP THREE
HERMIONE = 5+1
JEAN = 1+2
GRANGER = 4+3

STEP FOUR
HERMIONE = 6
JEAN = 3
GRANGER = 7

STEP FIVE
HERMIONE + JEAN + GRANGER = 16

STEP SIX
HERMIONE + JEAN + GRANGER = 1+6

STEP SEVEN
(ECT) = 7

She looked at her calculations and HOPED she had gotten them right…because really if she hadn’t that would have made COMPLETE sense to the arithmetic loathing girl.

Ruby received a startled look.

Huh. She was willing to try it...herself?

".......Sure." Stare.

Not to appear rude, because Ruby would probably be offended by his surprised staring, Gabe pulled out a spare bit of parchment and ducked his head down. He'd transfer the calculations over...after making sure everything was right. Ruining his notes wasn't something Gabe was into, thank you very much.

Carefully writing out each letter and not needing to use his book...because Arithmancy wasn't something Gabe took lightly, he did some addition in his head...and then peered over at Ruby. But only for a moment.

It was good she wanted to at least try. In fact, he felt kinda proud. What had changed...he had to wonder.

..........."You know...I'd do it for you....if you can't." Whisper whisper.

Do it for her like he used to before they'd come to Hogwarts, sure. Too bad he hadn't been able to sit her OWL for her, then she wouldn't be stuck in the mess of having to re-sit the thing, and nobody would have ever found out that she had all this difficulty with reading and everything.

Writing out the numbers was tough. It didn't matter that she had a chart in front of her. Ruby did it painstakingly, slowly, painfully slowly....

And still made mistakes, though she didn't notice it. She bit her lip and slid her parchment closer to Gabriel.

Angel listened to what the Professor said and then got on with the work.



Angel looked at her work and sighed, she raised her hand . "Professor I'm not sure if this is right or not?" Angel was a bit confused, but if that was the case she wasn't allowed to subtract 11 right that was the number it should be.

Taking his sister's parchment...Gabe shifted just a bit closer; so he could talk more easily to Ruby without being overheard. See, if anyone started picking on her...The protective thing didn't rear its head often...but when it did, it wasn't pretty.

"You got them mostly right..." Gabe was whispering...marking things on the parchment. "With "Molly", you put 9...but cut the 6 and 3, which would've made 9..." So, essentially, it was right...but lucky on her part. "You're still switching 6 and 9." A quiet comment....

Sliding the parchment back, he chewed his lip. "Try again?"

... she was? Ruby looked down at the parchment but honestly she could barely tell. She covered up the other parts with her fingers and squinted a bit. Okay. Reversing those... and... okay.

She looked at the corrections and tucked her tongue in the corner of her mouth, concentrating.

SO hard. She took a breath, finishing up, and then gave her brother an uncertain look, then glanced toward the professor before sliding the parchment back to him.

....

".... did I.... mess it up again?"

Brooklyn had been quiet since the lesson had begun, not that she didn’t have her own ideas regarding name changes and stuff like that. She just didn’t particularly see why that had anything to do with math and numbers and personalities. Okay, the personality part maybe. Her name was a part of her after all, but she didn’t see what math had to do with any of it. Numbers were just numbers, and the second year didn’t see why they meant anything other than just being numbers. It was like divination, which she also didn’t really see a point to.

She’d outwardly paid attention as the professor had spoken, though, even though her mind was still wandering. That wasn’t her fault. The number thing looked easy enough, anyway. Until that master number thing got mentioned and she got lost again. She wasn’t going to admit she hadn’t really looked much at the textbook. There were better things for her to read, but for now she slid said textbook closer to her. They’d been released to do calculations, after all, yet she only flipped to the section on the Pythgorean whatever. That was all that was important right now. That and her parchment, which was slid between herself and the book and quickly scribbled on.

SPOILER!!: notes

ginevra
7955491
7+9+5+5+4+9+1
40
molly
46337
4+6+3+3+7
23
potter
762259
7+6+2+2+5+9
31
454
4+5+4
13

Once she got to that point, she stopped. It looked like a good enough number, unless people were superstitious. She wasn’t. And she didn’t want to do more math, so that meant stopping.

Okay, so Margo needed to find the right numbers for Hermione Jean Weasley, it was kind of fun to see what numbers everyone was going to come up with for the different names. Margo thought she could do this alone! She was pretty sure anyway. So pulling out her text book, Margo began.




Putting down her quill Margo hoped that she did this right! Smiling Margo waiting to see what was next.

Quote:

"So, let's do some investigation using the divide and conquer method! Gryffindors, I would like for you to calculate the Expression Number for Hermione Jean Granger. Hufflepuffs, calculate for Hermione Jean Weasley. Ravenclaws, please take Ginevra Molly Weasley. Slytherins, you have Ginevra Molly Potter." Two very famous witches of which a great deal was known. "Raise your hand if you get stuck and I'll be happy to assist you. Older students help the younger students if they need it!"

Okay so seeing as she was a Slytherin she would need to calculate Ginny's named after she married. That was easy enough really. Luckily she remembered how from last year. Getting her parchment and quill ready she began to work on the calculation.

Quote:

GINEVRA
7+9+5+5+4+9+1=40
4+0=4

MOLLY
4+6+3+3+7=23
2+3=5

POTTER
7+6+2+2+5+9=31
3+1=4

4+5+4 = 13
1+3=4

Hady checked her work over before setting her quill down and lifting her eyes to the Professor. She was finished and waited silently to see what was next.

Calculations for Hermione Jean Weasley? Sure, Adi could do that. He cast another look at AJ. He wouldn't mind partnering up with her but he figured she might refuse his help again. Feeling sad with that thought, Adi focused on his text book and began his calculations:



There! All done.



Adi was looking around at his classmates, having finished his work. Okay, fine, he was mainly looking in AJ's direction but he happened to notice a Slytherin girl looking... put off? puzzled?

Anyway... the Hufflepuff whispered to her. "Hey! You need help?"

Abby wrote down what the professor said and looked confused this was a poor subject for her and she was confused she had wrote down the name but that was as far as she had got

Janelle listened as Professor Tanner explained what they were going to do. She took notes as the conversation progressed, hoping that they would help her later. Janelle liked numbers so she was looking forward to the activity. After they were assigned their name to calculate, Janelle flipped open her book and began to read. Fortunately, she had looked over this information before. Otherwise, she might have been a little panicked right now.

Janelle wrote down the name that she would be working on. Then using her book as a guide, she copied down the numbers corresponding to each letter. It was time to calculate.



When Janelle was finished, she hoped that she had done everything right. She looked at her work and then at he Professor's. Suddenly a question came to mind and she raised her hand. She had read about Master Numbers before and was wondering something.

"Professor Tanner, I was wondering......when you did your name.......you reduced 22 in your first name, but you didn't do it your final answer. I thought that you didn't ever reduce Master Numbers. So is it OK to do it sometime?"

Cilla had heard a male voice whisper at her. She looked around and saw an older Hufflepuff.

"This subject isn't me strongest subject so I am not sure if I 'ave done this calculation correctly," she said as she showed him her parchment.

It was time to play with numbers, and this was why this class was one of her least favorite. It was too much, and you never got to use your wand which was a bummer all on its own. Her thoughts couldn't help but to wander to Adi because he would be the one to help her under normal circumstances, but she couldn't get that now. Not after she completely blew him off in astro. Did she even want his help. No, and by no she meant yes.

Her eyes betrayed her and glanced over in his direction. This whole "no talkin" thing was killing her, but she was trying her best to keep it all inside. So far nobody had noticed her internal struggle except a few people. None of them were her sisters. What great sisters she had, she thought to herself.

AJ flipped her textbook open and tried to make sense of it all. Her eyes began to cross and information was not being retained.



She knew this stuff. All she had to do was associate the letters with the correct numbers. Why was her brain giving her such a hard time. AJ closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Her days were not getting any better. What happened to that saying that time healed all wounds? Whoever came up with that nonsense was an idiot.

Looking down at his parchment, Adi realised he hadn't quite finished everything. Woops. Talk about only thinking of AJ. He picked up his quill to finish off the calculations:
Now he was done!

Looking up once more, he met AJ's gaze which he held for a while...



"You all done, Abby?" Or was she like her sisters did not get along well in this subject. But he was willing to help her out. Yep.



"No worries. It isn't a strong subject for a lot of us.'' Adi took her parchment which he began to check.
..................
After a while, Adi handed the girl back her parchment and smiled. "I don't know what you're worried about. The calculations are correct." So unless the assigned numbers were incorrect, the Snake girl didn't have a problem.

Abby looked up from her parchment and said to Adi "Nope can't figure out how to do this it is one of my weaker subjects" Abby would be glad to have some help

"Understandable,'' Adi said. "Okay, so Ravenclaws were given Ginevra Molly Weasley. The first thing you have to do is assign the numbers to each letter using your textbook.'' He pointed to his own book which was still opened at the page Professor Tanner had indicated. "After that, you add all the numbers from each of the three names. Can you do up to that? I'll walk you through the rest afterwards.''

Answers were good, he liked those, and Arithmancy seemed more straight forward than most. Bonus!

After copying some notes down, Zeke re-inked his quill and set to work on Gryffindor's assigned calculation. it was pretty cool that this was an experiment of sorts.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Hermione
8+5+9+4+ 8+4 9+6+5+5 = 51
5+1 = 6
6

Jean
1+5+1+5 = 11 12
1+2 = 6
6

Granger
7+9+1+5+7+5+9 = 43
4+3 = 7
7

------

6+6+7 = 19
1+9 = 10
1+0 = 1
1

Was that right? Had he counted on his fingers alright?... minus his early errors.

Abby nodded and looked at her textbook and wrote down the numbers for each letter of the name assigned