And a woman entered. Yes, Ministry, of course. Because who else was going to teach them about this?

Kaika frowned as soon as she listened to the questions the two Ravenclaws had asked. But more at the girl's question. Hurt. That was certainly not nice, but maybe it did hurt at first until you grew accustomed to it. She shrugged but raised her hand, still, "I'm Kaika Lockhart" she said, firmly, "And I also have a question, Miss Department Head" because she failed at remembering the woman's name, "Is there any chance that certain skills are diminished by apparition? Say, flying skills?" she asked, all business-like.

She actually wanted to ask whether or not her Quidditch skills will be affected by this, but decided to go with flying. It was less...obsessive.

The old oak doors were open once more as a blond ministry worker by the name of Angelica Goldbloom entered. Not knowing wheter the lesson had started yet or not the woman silently took her seat behind her department head. Angelica had been held up at the Ministry by a last minute crisies but now she was here to assist her boss, Lorraine. Looking around the familier Great Hall it felt like only yeasterday when she herself had been a student at Hogwarts. Shrugging Angelica adjusted her navy blue ministry robes and waited for Lorraine to acknowledge her presence.

In this lesson she was going to only be assisting, but it didn't mean that she couldn't answer questions if such were asked to her or if Lorraine passed them to her. Looking around at the young faces of students she hoped that they were ready for learning to apparate.

Jessica listened attentively at what the instructors had to say. If she had questions? A boy had already asked what she had in mind.
"Yes, I'd like to discuss splinching too. It's a terrifying prospect." she said. "Oh, and I'm Jessica Mayer."

Lorraine listened as a boy raised his hand first and introduced himself as Ludo Snicket. And it didn't take long before chaos erupted and yet another girl asked about discussing splinching as well. "Thank you, Ms Mayer. Mr Snicket. And yes, I do assure you, that we will be discussing splinching during this first lesson, as it's one of the topics on the list for today."

Ah a more specific question pertaining splinching; this should be interesting, she thought arching a carefully manicured milky brown eyebrow as she listened to the 'more specific' question. Hurt? That was more specific? Oh how naive these children could be sometimes . . . It was really no wonder she had decided against teaching as a career choice.

"No, Ms Kovac," Lorraine informed her simply. "I do not believe splinching would hurt. It would however be one of the dangers of apparition as you could imagine how horrifying it would be to be walking along and see a floating arm or leg or something. But no, splinching hurts no more than falling fifty feet from the air after being pounded with bludgers would." A quidditch analogy would be useful as most students ought to understand that, right? Especially since she was sure she had noted a Captain's badge pinned to the girl's robes.

And speaking of quidditch, yet another girl - another captain presumably - raised her hand as well and introduced herself as Kaika Lockhart. Lockhart, intriguing; that name sounded quite familiar . . . almost as if, nah, her father couldn't have worked in the Ministry? But on second thought, she was almost sure Teal had mentioned a Lockhart before. Though there had to be hundreds with that name. Coincidence - must be.

"Miss Lockhart," Lorraine commented thoughtfully over her question. Figures she would have a question about other skills. "Might I pose another question to you; do you think your transfiguration skills are affected when you are hit with a jinx in a duel? I can assure you that Apparition will affect your other skills no more than Herbology will affect Charms."

"Wouldn't you agree, Ms Goldbloom?" she offered rhetorically, looking back to see where her division head had seated herself comfortably in the table behind her.

Looking back at the students, the brunette paced slowly across the front of the room, heels clinking on the hard floor of the Great Hall. "So since many of you seemed to ask about splinching, then I think this is a good place to start. What IS splinching?"

Clifford wanted to apparate. He didn't want to listen to all this ... boring talk! Ooooh! But splinching sounded kinda fun. Warren had splinched when he first started apparating and finding one of his brother's legs left behind was one of the most hilarious things EVAH!

The Prefect raised his hand at the Ministry lady's question. "Splinching is when you like ... you get physically split between where you are, and your destination. The separation of random body parts." He explained. He wouldn't tell the lady that he WANTED to get splinched.. Hmm.

...So splinching itself didn't actually hurt?! Wow, crazy. It was hard though, to imagine no pain came from leaving one's beloved arm or possible even HEAD behind. ...not that he was getting any ideas here at all.

At the Ministry lady's question, he raised a hand into the air, then hastily remembered to introduce himself. 'Err, HAII. I'm Terry Saunders. And isn't splinching when you've messed up an attempt at apparating rather terribly, ending up with part of his or her body or clothes behind at one place, with the remaining parts of the body at their destination?'

Ludo was a bit relieved as the Apparation instructor clarified that they would talk about splinching. This relief quickly evaporated as she used a Quidditch analogy to tell them how much it hurt.
His eyes widened a bit....no one seemed to find this funny.

As Ms. Brothmeister turned the subject to splinching, Ludo raised his hand again. "Miss...from what my older siblings have told me, Splinching is when a wizard or witch Apparates to a location...but leaves a part of their body behind. Right?"

Elizabeth raised her hand as the others suggested what splinching was. "Um, I'm Elizabeth Andrews," she said first, as instructed, then continued. "As the rest of us have said, splinching is when you don't quite follow every step of Apparition as well as you are supposed to, with the result of leaving a random body part behind in your original location. And it can be as big as, say, a leg, or arm, or even as small as half an eyebrow. Although I can't say I'm exactly sure how you'd manage to leave something that insignificant behind." She slowly lowered her hand again, as she realized she was verging on going off on a tangent, and flushed a faint pink.

Oh, dear Merlin. This was it! She was certainly not going to do well on this. On the good side, what Willow had asked didn't hurt and flying wasn't going to be either interrupted or affected by apparation. But that was only the good side.

The bad one was, what was this woman talking about? Herbology and Charms? This wasn't a class, was it? Well, not a regular basis one, but still, she didn't understand what she'd meant by putting such different classes toget--

Ooooooooooh.

Of course! Flying and apparition had nothing to do with each other. That was amazing.

Kaika listened as the Prefect answered the Department Head's question and simply nodded, for there was nothing else she could add to that.

To be perfectly honest, as soon as Mrs. Brothwhat's-her-name(she could not recall the woman's surname to save her life) had answered her question, Willow started to ponder the entire thing over.

So it didn't hurt? Splinching? Was she being serious, or was this her way of not scaring them? Because really, leaving half of your body behind had to be to be painful somehow. How could it not? Well, Lorraine something had said it wasn't painful, but still. . .

. . . Charms? Herbology? WHAT?

Blinking once as she snapped back to reality, Willow tilted her head to one side as she listened to do woman say something about those subjects. This was not a real class. Or was it? Ugh. If this involved Herbology somehow, she would. . . she would. . . she would have to think about what she would just have to do something to stop it.

Riiiiight. Sure that being Quidditch Captain gave her some powers --like bossing around the team and ocassionaly some of her house mates-- but Willow was one hundred percent certain that telling a Ministry person what to do in the middle of her lesson was beyond her.

Mentally, the fifth year kicked herself for having signed up for this. Not only she would be leaving half of her short self behind --because Willow was sure this would end up happening to her at some point-- and cry like a baby when it began to hurt, but she would also have to deal with dirt? Oh, this was not happening. Herbology classes with Bunbury were more than enough, and she did not need to learn anything else that involved Herbology with some woman who's name Willow couldn't even remember, for crying out loud.

She should have just saved the twelve galleons this lessons costed, and stick to brooms and floo network.

When the instructor spoke once again, Anna sat up straight in her seat and listened carefully to what was said. She glanced around at the woman who'd shown up to assist. Was it bad that she hadn't caught the names of the two instructors yet? Hopefully they'd reintroduce themselves. Until then, they would be known as "Instructor." Anna didn't know too much about apparition, but she did, sort of, understand what splinching was. "Instructor," she said, raising her hand. "First of all, I'm Anna Greingoth, and it's a pleasure to meet you. I believe splinching is when your body becomes randomly separated during apparition. It's pretty much when you apparate and accidentally leave parts of your body behind." Ewwww...if that ever happened to her, she'd freak before she could figure out how to unsplinch herself.

Oh these students were just sooo brilliant! She wanted to squeeze every single one of them except for the few problems that came along with that; one, she hated kids unless their name was Cy Andrus and two, she was nearly forty and worked for the Ministry. That would just be ethically wrong and she was sure Bonteceu would never have her back if she did that.

"Exactly right!" The brunette settled on when one of the Slytherin Prefects - oh of course he was Slytherin, they were so striving and brilliant - "Splinching is when any body part, or particle for that matter, since it could even be an ear hair, would be separated from the rest of you. Not painful and easily reconciled. Although may require some experts from Magical Accidents and Catastrophes, but that is besides the point . . ." She was babbling again, so she settled on watching the two captains who seemed to be changing colors with fright or something.

And listening to a Gryffindor speak. "Not necessarily, Mr Terry. Splinching doesn't have to be from you messing up, but more that you're not quite focused on the destination. Which will bring me to yet another question; in just a moment." she smiled weakly as she turned towards the familiar and quite outspoken Ravenclaw boy.

"Quite right. Any part of their body, hair and skin cells included," she nodded in acknowledgment although she wasn't quite sure about the cells part since they were so small and barely visible to the naked eye, but anything was possible, right?

Oh this Elizabeth was quite the witty one at her mention of the eyebrow. Yes, she would have to remember that name and when the time came, recruit her for the Ministry. The Ministry could use more bright young witches like her . . .

"An eyebrow, Miss Andrews, is about as insignificant as your big toe," Lorraine commented towards her rhetorical comment. "Every single particle in your body has a purpose. Whether we realize it or not, there is in fact a significance for even your eyebrows," just don't ask me what

"And might i remind you all that even the smallest of things being left behind could cause you to fail your Apparitions Tests when the time comes. Which is why you fifth years are here - never to early to start learning those basics. Apparition is a highly common method for magical transportation, but when used improperly could in fact risk the safety of the entire wizarding world."

Perhaps that was harsh for these young students, but they needed to be prepared about the safety of their world, right? Of course right.

"Lorraine Brothmeister, but you may just call me Ms Lorraine, if you'd wish," she nodded at the young girl who called 'instructor'. Cute one - this one was and . . . ooh! Another prefect! How exciting! "But yes, you're quite right about splinching as your classmates have said..."

Turning back around to face where ordinarily the dias would be, the brunette frowned and tilted her head. Oh - there was no chalkboard in the great hall. Oops! Perhaps a miscommunication, but no matter. With one swift movement, the department head removed her wand from a dark purple sleeve and flourished it lightly at the wall - conjuring an adequate sized chalkboard on the wall before turning back to face the students with a satisfied expression.

"Now - I know you are all excited to apparate, but we have some housekeeping in the first two lessons before we actually will be getting to that. Enough on the glumside of splinching," she mused before continuing on. "Who can tell me what are the most important aspects of Apparition. I'll give you a hint - there are three of them, but please only list one"

Excited to appareate. Riiight.

Though now that she thought about it --because she was trying to simply ignore the Herbology part-- there was a huge chance that the rest of the people were excited about this. . . insanity.

Hearing Mrs. Lorraine question, and raising her hand because it was an easy one, Willow said, "Destination." Because she could not remember the other two, and because it was the obvious one.

Honestly, Kaika wasn't remotely sure she wanted to apparate. This whole thing sounded like a big mess if not done correctly. A big, big mess. And she wasn't one for big messes.

But she was already here, and they weren't going to start with the actual apparitions until later on. Which suited her perfectly.

Somehow she felt she was in a classroom. Not the Herbology or Charms one, but a classroom nonetheless, with Miss Department Head asking questions. Ha. She raised her hand, before raising her voice, "Ummm, I assume...setting your mind to do it...Determination" because all badgers were determined.

Copernicus hadn't really studied up on Apparition, but he was willing to make a guess. "My name is Copernicus Kettleburn. Is one of them... deliberation?"

"The three of you are exactly right!" Lorraine commented animatedly. "Destination. Determination. And Deliberation!" She flicked her wand as those three words appeared in a column as such on the new board. "Throughout our time together, we're going to be discussing each of those three individually, as the more you can understand those three basic concepts, then the better you will be when it comes time to Apparate at our third and final meeting together."

"We will be discussing the first part of Apparition today - as Ms Kovac put so eloquently, is Destination." Lorraine waved her wand again as a circle appeared around the first 'D' word on the board. "Who can tell me what it means by 'destination'? A textbook definition or your own personal meaning ..."

"Thank you, Miss Lorraine," Anna commented, giving a polite smile to the woman whose name she'd finally caught on to. Anna lightly tapped her fingers on the top of her desk as she watched the instructor---Miss Lorraine---conjure a chalkboard in the front of the Great Hall, or classroom as it now was. Hmm...the three most important aspects of apparition.... Anna raised her hand once again. "I'm going to have to go with determination, Miss," she said.

Anna sighed. Wow. This lady was rather quick with her questioning. Anna had barely spoken her answer outloud when another question was being asked. Anna raised her hand once again. "...and as for the following question, destination is where you'll end up. In other words, it's where you'll be apparating to," she said.

This felt a lot like a class, --not like Herbology, which was a good thing-- and Willow felt as though she should have brought ink and parchment to take some notes.

Raising her hand, Willow said, "Well, Destination is related to where we want to appareate, yes? In order to reach that place we have to really focus on what we are doing, and all. . . " Eh. It was best to stop there before she would start to ramble.

Yay! They weren't going to apparate until their last meeting. Kaika was suddenly relieved and more at ease. The nervousness fading away.

And yes! Determination was one of those, well, it didn't really surprised her, considering she'd read about that a couple of days ago. And then, Miss Department Head said they were going to focus on 'Destination' for the time being.

But that was easy, right? She raised her hand high up in the air, "Well, it's the place we'll be ending up, right? Where we'll be 'landing'" she said, straightening herself in the chair.

Destination, Determination, and Deliberation, Abby writes them down on her parchment. She then raises her hand her quill still in it. "Destination mean a place to which one is journeying or to which something is sent"

Feeling a twitch of pride at being called Miss Lorraine, the brunette glanced over at the current student speaking as she heard the tapping of the desk and then her mentioning to go with determination, albeit just a tad slow... Peculiar - what was her name?

Anna. Green-- no, Grein-something- or other -- or

"Oh. My. Gawd." She muttered slowing, as realization hit her. "You said you were named Greingoth? Anna Greingoth? Kin to Alexander Greingoth?" She blinked, flabbergasted at the girl, completely and momentarily forgetting about the rest of the class. This was important after all . . .

The only thing that woke Lorraine from her revelation was hearing the Ravenclaw Captain speak again and she simple nodded half-heartedly at the girl. "Yes, it is dearling," Oh since when did Lorraine use the word 'dearling'? Never.

"Yes, yes, exactly that," Lorraine spoke, her eyes still on the descendant of Alexander, as she responded to the other captain and another girl, whose voice she hadn't heard before. These kids were pretty smart.


Shaking her head distractedly, Lorraine finally somewhat snapped from her revelation as she continued the lesson. "You're all along the right lines. The destination aspect of Apparition refers to the place that one is going or where their attention is directed. It is the ultimate beginning stages of being able to apparate correctly, since if you have no intentions of your directions, then you don't where you will go, thus making apparition difficult." Lorraine explained to the group. "Now that you all have a good idea of what Destination is, then I want you all to write down on your parchments where you would want to go, if you could apparate anyplace in the world."


ooc: and now I'm off to bed, but feel free to post your little blurbs about where you'd want to go... <3

Angelica nodded to Lorraine before eyeing the young student answering the question thoughtfully "Yes, Apparition will affect your skills, but no more than any other subject you take here at Hogwarts as Ms Brothmeister just stated." She paused to adjust her robes before continuing "Apparition is something which will help you focus your mind on just one thing like a destination you want to go too or a spell you which to perform." Looking over at her boss Angelica said "Ms Brothmeister wouldn't you agree that Apparition is good for training your ability to focus your mind?"

Anna flashed the instructor a smile, all the while wondering why the woman was staring at her like so. Briefly wondering if perhaps the woman's gaze had set upon someone behind her, Anna blinked and then turned around in her seat. She wrinkled her eyebrows in confusion when she realized that no one had ended up sitting directly behind her. The instructors gaze, therefore, was meant for her. Anna sighed and sank down in her seat a bit. Seriously, could she not attend a single class without someone's watchful eyes on her?

When the woman began questioning her name, Anna sat up straight again and glanced at the students seated near her. Ugh. No doubt they'd all be wondering what Anna had managed to get herself into now. "Erm, yes, ma'am," Anna reluctantly said. "Anna Greingoth...daughter...of...Alexander Greingoth. Why do you ask? Whatever it was that he did, I wasn't a part of it. I swear!" Anna glanced back and forth between the instructor and the piece of parchment in front of her, finally resting her eyes on the parchment long enough to jot down a few notes about the destination she'd like to apparate to.

So, this theory part was feeling very easy, which was starting to make her worried again about the practical part of this.

But Kaika decided to let it go, since they weren't really close to that part of the deal yet. And then she heard the question Miss Department Head asked.

Anywhere? A smile showed on her face and she started to write in her piece of parchment,

Well of course if you could not decide on your destination then you were unlikely to go anywhere. Kayla was feeling slightly nervous about apparition, her mind often wandered off to different places and she sometimes lacked concentration.

So now the big question of all, where would she most like to go? Kayla thought about it and once again she was undecided, there were a couple of places she would really like to go. Taking some time to really think about where she would like to go right now and it came to her.