Cass raised her hand "Cartomancy is divination using a deck of cards, right?"

Then she asked "Professor, is this where people use tarot cards? or is that different?"

Is it Tarot Cards?" Rex asked the professor. "These cards tell your horoscope or your future" Rex said to Professor Reynolds.

Cartomancy, ha? Pppfft of course Josh knew what that was from his mother yet he did not believe that Cartomancy is way to predict future. Reading future through some cards created by some witch, wizard or a muggle, even Muggles had tarot cards, was something hard to believe for him. Those cards could only be used to play with the person who was expecting a reading. It was a false way of Divination.

Yet instead of voicing those thoughts, the Gryffindor boy yawned and looked around. Hmm. He was feeling quite tired today so putting his book on the desk he used it as a pillow as Evelyn called some other people geniuses. ''Wake me up when the practical part starts'' he whispered to the Slytherin girl and closed his eyes.

Preston scrunched his face up. The word cartomancy sounded oddly familiar to him. He closed his eyes for a moment and thought really really hard. His eyes opened quickly as his hand flew into the air and waved a little. "I-i-it's a-a f-f-form of D-d-div-divination th-that u-u-uses c-c-cards t-t-to fo-fortune t-t-tell." Preston told the Professor with a goofy grin. He was sure he was right, but there was room for a chance of error, but he was okay with that, he was just excited to be answering something that sounded so familiar to him.

"Yes, good answers, points to all of you!" Nolan said with a smile. "As you all pointed out, Cartomancy is Divination through the use of cards. Some people use playing cards, but the more common practice these days is Tarot card readings," he explained, adding it to the notes on the board with a flick of his wand. "Often times this is done when the person receiving the reading pulls the cards from the deck in a sort of pattern, but that can vary from person to person, depending on how the person performing the reading likes to draw their cards," he added.

Nolan looked at the two boys--one of them the Hufflepuff champion--who seemed very VERY confused about Cartomancy. Then Bre got into the conversation as well, and Nolan became even MORE confused. Were they seriously that confused or were they faking it? He couldn't tell, but either way...they were WAYYY off.

"No, that's...not it," he said, stopping himself before he added 'that's not even remotely close' to his sentence. No need to embarrass them now! Especially the Hufflepuff champion...he was awesome cause he was a HUFFLEPUFF like himself. Obviously. "Good try though?"

He wasn't sure why that came out as a question.

Nolan's eyes narrowed in on the boy who was resting his head on his textbook...he did NOT want to get that gong out again, cause he would DO it! That gong was really useful actually. It had an amazing effect on those sleeping students. Hehe.

"Now, moving on...as many people noted, Cartomancy has evolved from being used with just regular playing cards, to mostly being performed on Tarot Decks. Tarot cards are specific decks of cards used specifically for Cartomancy, and are often decorated with certain symbols or patterns that you wouldn't see on a normal 52 card playing deck. Who can name some of these decks? There are MANY out there, even some really odd and bizarre decks, so please, try and name a few that your classmates have NOT named before you," he explained as he began to rummage around in his bag for his own deck of cards.

"Theres the alchemist tarot," Simon answered after raising his hand. The boy had read a little ahead so that he could be prepared once he knew what the class was on. And his answer was one of the few he could remember.

Tarot cards? Oooh, Rubiey would enjoyy this lesson! Reading Tarot Cards were always fun!

Decks? Uhhhh... "There's the... Angel Insight Tarot? I think.." That sounded so insanely stupid it was unreal. Maybe she made it up?

Meh, only ONE way to find out..

What?! That wasn't the right answer??? But but but but they had just been called geniuses by their classmates! That practically meant they were Ravenclaws! Fletcher's mouth dropped open and he made eye contact with Salander and Rae, winking at them briefly before turning back to the Divination Dude.

"Are you suuuuuuure, sir?" he raised his hand and asked as politely as possible. He didn't really sound sure. "Because I could have sworn I just read something about cartomancy somewhere and I SWEAR it had to do with maps and bad romance. Cross me heart."

He illustrated this with a finger across his chest, very, very sincerely, and flipped his divination book open to the page on cartomancy. "See, right here." His finger now planted on a random paragraph. "And it says that you can use any type of map, like.... ordinary maps used in poker....face...."

Er..... shoot, that didn't say maps now did it... it said cards.... Fletcher grinned and looked back up at the professor. Maybe he hadn't heard that bit. Hehe.

Preston smiled and lowered his hand, he had earned himself some points for Hufflepuff. Today was off to a good start, it was. He bit his lips, realizing he didn't know an answer to the next question the professor asked. He was about to give up on the question until he remembered his two day trip to China with his Auntie LoLo.

It was something dragon related, but Preston couldn't remember. That had been quite some time ago, and he wasn't even sure if that was what the professor wanted to know or not. He went ahead and raised his hand, realizing that if he was wrong, or off, there wasn't anything horrible to make of it, he was sure the professor wasn't going to dock points for trying, right? Right.

"Th-there's a-a Ch-Chi-Chinese set c-c-called th-the G-g-gold-golden D-d-drag-dragon." Preston told the professor, suddenly remembering the golden part of the name. He bit his lip as he lowered his had, not sure if he had it entirely correct. Maybe it was Dragon of Gold...

Ugh, tarot cards?

Destiny only knew of one type of deck, and she wasn't even sure they were a real deck. She had seen her Grandmother use them, and well, that woman is as batty as they come. Merlin knows the woman could have made the deck herself.

She raised her hand anyway. "There are the Cat People Tarot. I don't know what they do, but they have pictures of kitties on them."

And kitties were coooool!

POUT.

"Can't I HOPE?" Or protest? Maybe? Or ask really, really, nicely. With please.

Errr. Well, Ellie knew what cartomancy was from last term. He'd mentioned it. But... she didn't know specifics. So, yeah. She'd wait until Reynolds answered.

What's new?

"There are the Benedetti, Marseilles, and Phoenix tarot card set," Lila said with her hand raised. She was surprised she could think of any let alone three. This made her very proud of herself.

The professor was saying something, right? Was he? Yes, he was., so half listening to what the professor was saying, Josh yawned again his eyes still closed. He knew a few variations of tarot cards yet he was not sure if he wanted to say it out loud. Because the idea of sleeping was more attractive to him instead of jumping on his feet to answer a question like a Ravenclaw.

So, raising his hand, of course without looking up or doing anything else since he was too comfortable with his text book, he decided to speak. ''There's Celestial Tarot, sir'' the Gryffindor boy said and moved to get in a more comfotrable position.

After writing the topic in her notebook, Evelyn glanced over to Josh when he started moving, giggling slightly at what he asked her to do. Aw and here she thought this was one of his favorite classes. Why sleep in it?

That was her job!

"Sure." she muttered, slumping down in her chair slightly and doodling in her notebook as she listened to the Professor. Seems like he caught on to what Josh was doing too.

Oops.

Name some of these decks?

Pfft, just say a few random words and it was probably a tarot deck like it out there somewhere. Listening to what the others were saying, she continued to doodle...random dragons...all over her page. Eh, she plenty more pages to write information down.

"There is the, Guardian tarot set." she said after raising her hand. That was pretty much the only one she knew of, besides a dragon set, but someone already mentioned dragons. Psssh. Cookie girl was lucky that it wasn't her that said it.

"Theres the Occult deck" she said looking at her nails in bordem. This stuff was seriously way too easy.

Shaking his head at Fletcher....because the book didn't say anything about maps!...the boy raised his hand.

He'd been doubting this one, perhaps the Professor would enlighten him, "Professor, is it true about the Gummy Bears deck?" because it just sounded plain odd to him.

And it also sounded like something Sir Fletcher would say, truth be told.

Treyen's question about whether Fletcher was good in divination was answered.

Fee raised her hand as she spoke up.
"Well, there is the Fairy tarot,the art nouveau tarot and the tarot of the witches."

"Well, I'm not sure what it's called, but isn't there one with a picture of two people falling off a building?" she asked. She remembered seeing that somewere.

Alice quickly copied down into her notebook everything that Professor Reynolds had put on the board with the flick of his wand. Alice thought for a moment...different types of Tarot decks?

"Professor isn't there The Curious Tarot. The pictures on them were kind of creepy to be quite honest," Alice said, recalling the pictures on them. "I think they depicted the workings of an atomic age, and I believe they are very difficult to come by."

Listening to his recently found favorite teacher, Riley eventually thought of a type of tarot card deck he could say. "Professor Nolan, there is a deck called the Phoenix tarot deck that was created in the 20th century and are very colorful." he said nodding as he lowered his raised hand.

The Gryffindor fifth year eagerly wrote down the other names of decks that his classmates were saying. he then glanced back to the Professor to see if he was correct. He could care less about the others

Peeves hadn't had fun in a LONG TIME. He hadn't had a chance to cause REAL mayhem since the slumber party! Peevesy was bored and it was time to come out of hiding, but where?

When he noticed there was a Divination class going on, he swooped in, INVISIBLE to everyone as he floated around trying to find something FUN to do. HEHE. CACKLE.

THEN the silly SILLY professor turned his back to the chalkboard, looking through his man bag for something. SILLY PROFESSOR! It was a starting point, he'd come up with something better later.

He swooped down, still invisible, and grabbed a piece of chalk, writing in huge letters "PROFESSOR REYNOLDS SMELLS!" before turning visible JUST for a moment to blow a raspberry behind the professor's back. HEHE HOW FUN! He had missed this!

He turned invisible a second later, swooping off to the corner to wait for another opportune moment to be MISCHEVIOUS!

Pam was dazing off, when all of a sudden, the chalk started moving on it's own! She gasped, at what it wrote. Who would do this? The divination teacher was one of the coolest teachers here! Then the creature came into view... A ghost. Huh, it didn't really surprise herr. They must get bored just floating around.

Then, a........ raspberry?? What the heck??

hmm, Emmaleigh was sure that she had looked at some of these decks when she was shopping for her school supplies. But which ones had been her favorites. She thought about this for a while, and then raised her hand to answer. "Well, there is the Robin Wood deck, DruidCraft deck and my favorite, the Fantastical Creatures deck."

Jeesh. This was TOO COMPLICATED for Rose's brain to process right now. She was still sort of hung up on the whole 'Morgana-is-my-sister' thing, really. Divination was just confusing! And she didn't understand it at all. What was this 'Curious Tarot' thing? Was it reallly the 'Curious Carrot', por something? She had NO IDEA what a Tarot was, and why it was curious. Carrot was soo much better. And it was food she could eat, which seemed a really good idea right now - she was so hungry. Glancing round to make sure Proffessor Reynolds wasn't looking, she popped a muggle sweet into her mouth, a sour cherry thing. Yum.

And then she heard the words 'Proffessor Reynolds' yelled really loud, and she thought someone was gonna tell on her. But the sentence went on to say that... Proffessor Reynolds smells? Nope, Rose didn't smell a thing. She sniffed the air experimentally, but... nada. Nothing. Zilch. And she hadn't seen anyone yelling, either.

Weird.

Listening to the professor and taking notes, JD looks up briefly in his writing, watching as words formed on the blackboard. His eyes widening, he looked at the professor surprised. How on earth was he doing that...without his wand too. he thought shocked. As the words continued to appear, his eyes narrowed.

Someone or something in the roo..."Peeves!" he gasped aloud as the figure appeared, then disappeared just as quickly.