Post #1
 

Really?! They got to be crafty?! Kurumi had to admit that she was more interested in doing calculations rather than paint, but at least this was combining the two processes together. Not knowing which number she wanted to go with, Kurumi thought it best to just calculate all three of the possible numbers Professor Hadley had suggested starting with….her Life Path Number.

Kurumi flipped through her textbook until she found the instructions. “Add together the month, day, and year you were born using the addition method of reducing first, then adding together,” she read aloud to herself before her quill flew to her parchment.



“So, my life path number is 8,” Kurumi whispered now scanning the page for a description.
“Well, I suppose that makes sense,” Kurumi said scratching her head still a bit unsure if she wanted to use that number on her stick or not. Best to calculate the other two numbers before she decided anything, which meant the next number up for calculation was her Destiny Number. Flipping to the next page, Kurumi read the instructions for how to calculate and read them aloud to herself. “Using the full name listed on your birth certificate, lay out your name and assign the appropriate number to each letter using the chart given in Chapter Two of this text. Figure each name separately, then add the reduced total of each name - first, middle(s), and last, then reduce that number to its single digit root number.” Oh dear, this seemed complicated. At least she didn’t have a middle name! That was a Western idea that had not yet stuck in Japan. Thank Merlin for that.



“Four which means…” Kurumi said once again returning her gaze to her textbook.

Now she was in a bit of a pickle. She liked the meaning for this particular number, but the number four in Japanese culture is a number of severe bad luck. The sound for the number four and the word "death" are homonyms. You would never offer a friend four pieces of cake, because that would be like offering them death. You would never present someone with four gifts, again because the recipient would take that to mean that you wish them death. In fact, the avoidance of the number four is so omnipresent in Japan that there are many buildings that have no 4th floor and the elevators list the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd floors, followed by the 5th floor.

Kurumi looked at her parchment with a large frown on her face. She understood that her Arthimancy textbook and the culture she grew up in were two different ways of thinking, but she couldn’t help but feel an ominous black cloud over her head. Her Destiny Number was four…

Setting her quill down for a moment, Kurumi decided to take a short break to clear her mind before moving on. Maybe she should just pick a number that was important to her?

So they were going to be painting and creating?

Perhaps Patroclus had judged this Arthimancy lesson too early, it had taken a turn for the best!

Smiling brightly, the Gryffindor, headed towards the front of the room to collect his stick. Peering into the box he spotted one that was leaning at a different angle to the rest, and feeling a pull towards he selected that one.

Returning to his deck, Patroclus began to thinking of which number he would use, he had many choices; Life Path, Destiny or his Personality Number.......Personality it is!
Grabbing his text book, and finding the page for Personality Numbers, he got to work and started Calculating.

PATROCLUS HUDSON
7A29O33U1 8U41O5
7+2+9+3+3+1=25 8+4+1+5=18
2+5=7 1+8= 9

7+9=16
1+6=7
Personality Number = 7


Woo. 7 the Magic Number!

Emily hurried to the front of the class and took her stick back to her desk. Now she would need to think what number she wanted to decorate it with.
Emily pulled out her parchment and bgan calculating her destiny number.

EMILY ELLOUISE MORGAN BROWNE
(5+4+9+3+7) (5+3+3+6+3+9+5) (4+6+9+7+1+5) (2+9+6+5+5+5)
(28) (34) (32) (32)
(2+8) (3+4) (3+2) (3+2)
(10)+(7)+(5)+(5)
(27)
(2+7)
(9)

"Destiny number 9... lets see what you have in store for me." Emily turned to her text book and read the exerpt.
NINE (9): Your mission in life is to perfect and love unconditionally. Your purpose is to strive for universal brother-/sisterhood, using your humanitarianism, responsiveness, and healing art. Learning to transform and heal and being receptive and forbearing will bring you closer to your destiny. You're destined for broad horizons. Reach out and help someone.

Emily took out her wand and began to decorate her stick with her destiny number. A pretty, feminine, curling number 9 shone in glittering gold on her stick.

Jaina placed a tiny Irish flag on the end that was green and on the end that was yellow she placed a badger. She saw Kurumi add her birth month and birth date together. So, Jaina did the same:

Well, that worked for her because she liked 2. She carved the number 2 on the stick where the black band was.

Post #2
 

Kurumi leaned back in her chair and began to seriously think about numbers. She knew that she was going to get a headache by the end of the lesson, there was just no avoiding that now. She wasn’t too attached to the two numbers she had just calculated, so she needed to think of something that was special to her. Kurumi scratched her head with her hand and began waving her quill in front of her face, which then tickled her nose a bit, and she squeaked a sneeze.

Aha! The most important numbers to her were three, five, and seven. Well, those three numbers were important to all people in Japan as then signified a rite of passage and festival day inJapan for three and seven year-old girls and three and five year-old boys, but at least she had a starting place. Her mind was attached to the number three as she had three older brothers who she cared very much for. Turning back to her textbook again, Kurumi decided to check on the number’s meaning in Arthimancy.” Imagination, positivism, playfulness, creative expression,” she read with a smile on her face. That certainly fit her brothers!

With that decided, Kurumi ran to the front of the room to grab a stick that she could decorate. Having now returned to her desk, she set the stick on the desk and took out her wand. Would the spell they learned in Ancient Runes work here? They had learned how to carve wood using a spell. Swallowing a bit, Kurumi pointed her wand towards the top of the stick, took a deep breath, and began casting the spell.

“Intaglio three, three, three.”

What were the odds, it only took three repeats of the number for it to be carved into the wood.

Her smile a mile wide now, Kurumi’s next task was thinking about colors and decorations. Since this stick was quickly becoming a representation of her brothers and how they made her feel, she wanted to make sure that it was extra special.

They had to decorate? This lesson was so not fun anymore. Sakura hated things where she had to be creative. She wasn't like her sister.

Sighing, Sakura got up and grabbed a stick before walking back to her desk and flipping through the textbook. She may as well put a meaningful number on the stick if she was going to do this. But first she'd need to calculate that number.

Ugh.

Flipping through she finally landed on chapter fifteen. The Hidden Passion Number. Reading through the text she decided that it would be interesting to calculate said number.

Right, so now she had to figure out which number was repeated the most in her name... well at least that didn't involve any complex calculations.

Ok so her Hidden Passion number was the number one. Now what did that mean?

Interesting. Sakura didn't think she'd ever lacked resources but maybe that lack of resources was yet to come. After all she didn't know what the future would hold. She did agree with the rest however. Now to put the number on her stick...

Selina had no idea where to begin with this stick. All she had thus far was a blank stick and her number. She could not help but smile when she thought of her number. It was so perfect for her personality that she could not have even picked a better number. She was everything that number predicted and more. This class was so far very enlightening. But that still left her at a loss. Then she got it! Her number was a reflection on her personality. Why not make a stick that did the same.

So she pulled out the small purse that was always on her person. Before school had started her mother had put an expansion charm on the small bag she always had on her. It was so whenever she needed anything she could have that and more at her finger tips. selling dug into her bag and looked for her art supplies. Being an artist, or painter more specifically, Selina loved these type of assignments. Finally she found her paint and prepared to start.

Her first move was to paint the plain stick red. For obvious reasons namely her hair. But also for Gryffindor the house she was proud to be a part of. Also a more personal reason, because it was the color of rebellion. Whenever she thought of rebellion she thought of the Golden Trio. They were her idols and she emulated them in so many ways.

Next she put the number one that was her destiny number in gold on the stick. Not only to compliment her Gryffindor red, but because Selina had the motivation of a winner. Gold was always what she was striving for. If she was placed on the Quidditch Team she would do all in her power to make sure they won fairly, same with the house cup with her accumulation of house points. She was driven for achieving her best and would not rest until she reached it.

Looking down at the stick there was still much to do.

As Luin went through the text book again she spotted the brief meanings of the numbers:
She frowned a bit at that point, maybe 6 wasn't the best number. She thought of it a bit and then quickly waved her wand and the stick was clear again. She looked at the next chapter and found another number that seemed better suited to her.
She always did like the number 7. Although she did choose 6 first. She sat in indecision for awhile and then started work on it again, going with 7, and going with blue and purple for her glitter.

Post 2
 

Ok so she had her number, now she needed to decorate the stick. But how? She could colour the stick...maybe. Or... well maybe she could make it a bit more personal than that. A representation of herself. If the number was meant to be a representation of herself than shouldn't the stick itself also represent her?

It should.

But what exactly represents her? She could do a few things but she wanted something subtle and pretty...

Ahah!!

She could put a Sakura tree on the stick. It would represent her because it was her namesake, and at the same time it was pretty. It would be perfect.

Now that she'd decided on what she was going to do on the design of her stick Sakura grabbed her wand and set about placing the design there. It took her an age but she finally had a Sakura tree that she was happy with on the Kau Cim Sticks. It looked pretty and was light pink in colour.

Now all that was left was the outline and then the design part would be done. Concentrating hard Sakura created a noticeable outline around the outside and added a spell so that it would look shiny. She didn't want it to flash or anything, she figured the design should be plain like that and then she could do more of the flashy stuff with actual number.

Post Two!
 

So he had his Number; 7. Good old magical Seven.



Now it was time to decorate, but where to start? As if she had heard his question beside him Kurumi began to use the spell Truebridge had taught them, first with the Kappa and then with the Runes.

"Nice Idea Kurumi!" Patroclus grinned, pulling out his wand, clearing his throat and setting to work, "Intaglio Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven Seven." The numeral was well and truly etched into the stick, but he throught it best to say Seven, seven times, it was the magic number after all.

But not it was time to consider the colours with which he would decorate the stick, colour that would represent himself and the attributes of the number Seven. So Patroclus looked to the text book to garner some ideas.

Post #3
 

Relieved that she had chosen her number and managed to carve it into her wooden stick without anything exploding or melting, Kurumi’s next task was decorating. Ug, she felt another headache coming on already. How was she supposed to decorate this stick so that is represented all three of her brothers? One, Ryunosuke, was a true Gryffindor through and through and was currently the head of a Japanese wizarding magazine, Mahou Daily. Her middle brother, Takashi, who was a Ravenclaw, had followed in her father’s footsteps and was working for the Japanese Ministry of Magic in the International Relations Department. Then there was Junichiro, who had graduated from Hogwarts and then gone to work for a non-magical gaming company. Using them as inspiration was going to make her stick one big mess. No, best the stick to something simple.

She began playing with her hair when her hands felt the white ribbon she had used to tie her hair up that morning. Ribbon… a symbol of binding and tying! That’s it! Kurumi immediately fashioned three red ribbons, one for each of her brothers and set those to the side. Red could have many meanings, but she was thinking of it as representing the sun, a symbol of energy, radiating its vitalizing life-force into human beings. Her brothers were certainly that to her – especially after everything she had gone through as a child.

Just as she was about to fix them to her stick, she realized that she needed to add some color to it first. Thinking for a moment, Kurumi decided to go with a pale pink color. She had read that it was a color good health and could also mean happy and content. She had considered using violet because of her eye colors, but that just did not go very well with the red. After casting Pingo PINK on her stick, Kurumi then set to adding the ribbons to it. Leaning back a bit to take a good look at her work, Kurumi couldn’t help but think that it was still missing something.

Something sparkly! ﾟ.+:｡(ﾉ^∇^)ﾉﾟ.+:｡

Reaching into her pocket, Kurumi pulled out a silver chain and wrapped it around the stick before casting the color charm on a few of them to turn them a pink color.

There, now she was done. Ripping off a small piece from her parchment, Kurumi quickly wrote a label for her stick and then set everything down on her desk.

...well wait just a blasted minute! They were going to use charms in this class?! Sierra made a slight face at the sound of that. Sure, she liked charms--loved them even--but seeing as she was only a first year and had just one Charms class under her belt, she didn't exactly know how to perform the Paint Flashing Charm or any of the other charms the professor had mentioned.

She took a hesitant glance around the room and then made her way up to the front to retrieve a stick. She walked slowly back to her desk then took out her book, opting to try for the calculations part first. If nothing else, she could at least follow the instructions in the book and come up with her Life Path Number. That was the hope, at least.

Flipping her textbook open to the correct page, Sierra browsed the information on Life Path Numbers and then began her calculations.



Hmm. So that had been fairly easy. Easy enough, she supposed. The hard part was going to be actually figuring out the wand movements and incantations for the charms she needed to use.

Post 3
 

Ok so she'd decorated her stick, now for the final part. She needed to add in the numbers, one using Arabic numerals and the other Chinese characters. Then once that was done she'd need to add a charm to them so they'd change colours like she wanted them too.

But where to place the numbers? She'd gone a bit overboard with her Sakura tree design. It covered the entirety of the stick. Looking at it hard Sakura turned the stick over, but no there was still no real room for the numbers...

This was why she disliked crafty things.

Wait a minute. She could put the numbers on the flowers! There would be enough room and since the flowers were a light pink the numbers would definitely be noticeable.

Right. That's what she was going to do.

Pulling the stick towards her she pointed her wand at one of the flowers and cast the spell to carve the Chinese numeral for the number one, before repeating the process with the Arabic numeral for one on another flower.

Now to add the flashing paint charm...

What colours should she use??

Ahah!

For the Chinese numeral she'd make it flash different shades of green, sort of showing off her Slytherin pride. Besides she liked the colour green and it went well with light pink.

Concentrating hard Sakura cast the spell to make the numeral change colours, she was happy to see that she'd done it right and that the numeral flashed a few different shades of green.

Now what about the other numeral? The Arabic one. Maybe light blue, like baby blue. It wouldn't look too bad would it?

Sakura once more cast the spell to make colours change, this time on the Arabic numeral and was gratified to see that the blue went nicely with the pink background that it was on.

It had taken awhile but she was finally finished with her stick. If she touched it anymore she would ruin it completely, or end up redoing everything because she was too finicky.

With her calculations out of the way, Sierra turned her attention back to her textbook. Now, she needed to figure out what the number three meant and how it could possibly apply to her. She flipped a few more pages in her textbook and came to the part that told what each Life Path Number meant.

Hmm..

THREE (3): Your path will entice you to be both spontaneous and creative, to live your life with joy and imagination. You will learn the benefits of optimism and enthusiasm, and how to express your emotions and exuberance. Once you've mastered these concepts, you'll move on to the next phase - inspiring others. You're a born communicator and your wit and lightheartedness will help others see the joy in any situation. Artistic, creative, and articulate are words to describe someone with a 3 Life Path. Career/vocation options should relate to anything artistic - writing, speaking, designing, illustrating, dancing, etc.

...wait. What?! Sierra just couldn't believe it. According to the textbook, she was meant to walk down a path of joy that would lead her to helping others. Are you kidding me?! Sierra made a face at her textbook. She didn't really like being a number three, but nevertheless, that's the number she'd come up with. Blahhh. She just couldn't imagine herself spending the rest of her life mastering the art of being joyful just so she could spread the cheer to others.

Wasn't that a Hufflepuff's job?! ...and she was no Puffer.

She promptly closed her textbook and decided that it was time to start painting her stick.

Eino took a plain stick from the box with the determination to make it absolutely spectacular! Exactly that and nothing less than that. He made his way back to the stick already playing with the stick, flicking it around, waving it, etc, just to check it's durability. Sitting down, he picked up his quill, dipped it on ink and began writing down his birth information. He was born on the eleventh or November, in two thousand and sixty one. Yay, his birthday was only two months away. Finally, he would be twelve. Generally people regarded him as a first year for being only eleven but that was because his birthday was so late in the year. Next, to add all of the numbers together. Okay, let's see eleven plus eleven is twenty two. He wrote it down. Twenty two plus two thousand and sixty one is... He took a minute to add them using nothing but the drawings of numbers on the margin of his parchment. Two thousand and eighty three. Now, a two plus an eight plus a three. That was thirteen. Finally, one plus three was four. What did the number four represent? "The Life Path 4 suggests that you entered this plane with a natural genius for planning, fixing, building, and somehow, with practical application and cerebral excellence, making things work. You are one of the most trustworthy, practical, and down-to-earth of individuals; the cornerstone members of society. Indeed, as a Life Path 4, you are a builder of society." Said the book. Splendid! Now onto the beautification of the stick...

With her stick in one hand and her wand in the other, Sierra tried to get started on the design of her stick. She still really had no idea what she was doing, but maybe if she glanced around the room for just a bit, she'd hear one of the other students using the correct wand movement and incantation, and she'd just mimic them.

No, no. That might not be such a good idea. What if she thought another student was using one the correct charms, but they were actually doing something completely different?! Or, what if Sierra ended up doing or saying something wrong and accidentally blew something up? None of those options really looked promising.

With a sigh, she lowered her wand and just thought for a while. Surely she'd seen her parents or even Anna do one of the charms around the house at some point. She tapped her foot silently against the floor as she thought...

...and then it came to her! The Color Changing Charm! This one she knew! When she felt the corners of her mouth lifting into a small smile, Sierra raised her wand again and pointed it toward the stick. With a couple of swishes, flicks, and jabs, she was quickly giving the stick a rather Slytherin look. It was mainly green, which meant all that it needed was a bit of silver to truly be the colors of Slytherin house. Switching colors from green to silver, Sierra created a fancy looking three at the top of her stick.

When that was done, she held it out to get a better look at what she'd created. It looked pretty good to her.

Sorry. Work. Iback now and all day tomorrow =)
 

Walking around the classroom, Josephina watched over as the students set to work between calculating numbers and decorating. Many seemed to be enjoying a break from traditional calculations and thriving on the arts and crafts.

And then she came across one... "Er.. Satine? Assuming you meant to use your personality number," of course she did, why else had she calculated it? "Then it should be a two. You've made a small copying error with the middle name number..." Hadley said, pointing it out. Not to be rude or anything.


"You can either pick a random number that you like based off its meaning in chapters two or three of the textbook, or you can calculate one of the numbers as well." Josephina said, as she noted the girl had decided to work on one after all.

"Sure," Josephina said, as she was called over by another first year. "You can calculate one of the numbers in the textbook, or you're welcome to just pick any number that you feel like suits you and save the calculating for another time. If you'd like help with calculating or wish for me to check your work, then I can do that too." You know, cause she didn't want any of the kiddies to feel left behind just because they were young and inexperienced with Arithmancy.




"Just so you know, you've actually calculated your personality number, not Heart's desire," Josephina said, glancing over another kid's work. "Heart's desire would mean you used only the vowels."



"Yes, you've done well! Nice job," Josephina commented, as one of the kids just asked for her to check his work. Some kids just caught on faster than others.



Another small error. "Just so you know, October is actually the 10th month, so your life path number would calculate out to be seven, not six." Mmhm; in case he was interested and all.



Er ... what?! Aww ... he was so ickle though and cute!

"You don't have to use your wand, but you're welcome to attempt some decorating spells, if you'd like." Hadley suggested to the ickle cutie Ravenclaw. "If you'd like to attempt the flashing paint charm, the incantation would be colorus fulgeo blank to blank, where you just fill in the blanks with the colors you want to change. Tap the color you want to change, one complete circle to the right and then one complete circle to the left."

Yup, perfect opportunity for them to practice some charms without any pressure of doing it for a class.



Looking over the next student's work, Josephina shook her head. "Um ... your middle name actually adds up to six, not eight. So your final answer would sum 17, reduced to an 8 for your destiny number." Oh those numbers, so tricky.




"Kurumi," Josephina said quietly, as the girl seemed indecisive over numbers. "Might I remind you that your life path number should actually include your birth year for the most accurate number." Surely she wasn't embarrassed by it? It wasn't like the girl was going to be THIRTY this year or anything!!! Like her old professor was

"That goes for you too, Jaina," Hadley commented. "If you're wishing to calculate your life path number, you'd have to include the year as well."

was the year there before?! I swear my eyes are going bad...XD
 

Kurumi checked her textbook. Ah, sure enough. Well, then her calculations were a bit off, but she was rather content with using the number three in relation to her brothers, so not all was lost. "Oh, sorry Professor," Kurumi blushed returning to her calculation parchment. "I'll fix that, but I am still going to stick with the stick," she giggled at the terrible joke she had just made, "I have made and keep the number 3. It is a reflection of my brother and I."



Looking up from her calculations, Kurumi frowned. It would have been more exciting if the number had come out different.

Picking up her stick, Kurumi smiled. She hoped that they were not going to do anything to damage them like...fortune telling stick dueling.

'.....dresses with refined taste; well-dressed and well-groomed....'

Whom ever wrote this text book was creeping Patroclus out! Were they in the room right now? Or stalking his well-dressed steps......

Smiling to his vain self, Patroclus decided that instead he was going to play more with the idea of 'Mysterious with an air of secrecy' Slashing his wand through the air, pointing it at the stick, muttering under his breath and recalling the Charms, the lovely professor Carlton had taught him, the Prefect slowly started to see his idea come to life, as the colour and tones of the stick altered.

With a few more spells and a few more thought, the artwork was done, and before his eyes sat a stick that captured the mystrious nature of the sky, the secrecy of Stars. With a dark purple base and layers of vibrant colours on top, the stick seemed to twinkle like the stars it represented.

Patroclus could have been more pleased!

Eino didn't know much about decorating, he just wanted his stick to be shiny and cool so that it could be mistaken for a sword or something equally cool. "Let's see..." be said biting his lip, there were too many options that he didn't really know how to begin. "First, perhaps, let us try a color changing charming, this dull color just won't work." He said with a wave of his wand, but nothing happened. Concentration, incantation, wand movement and nothing happen. "Dear me!" He exclaimed recognizing his mistake; He was using the stick to cast the charm on that wand. Now that wouldn't work. He exchanged them, that is placed the stick on the desk and picked up his wand and repeated the spell. This time the stick's color began changing from dull black to a light shade of gray. Now it couldn't be all gray, maybe add some of Eino's favorite colors. Wait, Eino wasn't sure what his favorite colors were... maybe yellow and blue? Let's go with those. He waved and flicked his wand and stripes of blue and yellow appeared on the stick. Next, he casted the flashing paint charm turning the gray into silver, the yellow into blue, and the blue into a royal blue. "Splendid!" Eino rejoiced/ Finally, he added the number to his stick, which was the number four.

*Walking up he picked a stick and sat back down. Writing down his name Matty thought he would go by that, but half way down he figured his name Matthias Alecto Walker Gardner would take way to long. So crossing out his name he started in his birthday.

May=5 2nd=2 5+2=7

Looking in the book he found what he needed.

"Right... I wonder if..."
*Flipping around the book he read on trying to pick a color to use.*

This, has got to be, the most difficult decision she has made thus far this year. Life path number, or the heart's desire number?

She could not decide!!

Flipping from page to page, reading the life path number and then the heart's desire number, over and over again, the Slytherin finally settled on using the life path number. The only problem was, she didn't bring the notebook that had her calculations in it. Which meant, she had to write it out again. No biggy though. The calculations weren't difficult. She could do them in her sleep. Maybe. If her writing was eligible while she sleepwrote.



Nooow she remembered that that was her life path number, because she totally thought the description git her. A born boss and had natural power and authority? Heck yes, that's probably what everyone wanted. Smiling ever so slightly, she stared at the pick up stick thing for a moment before picking up her quill...and trying to etch the number eight on one end of the stick.

Wasn't working out so well. In fact, it was bending her quill. Pffft.

Eh, she'll just ink it onto the stick. Now...STICK, you number 8! Stick to the...stick!

Decoratingg?!!!

Ellie will SO decorate. Yup, yup.

She hopped up and got herself a stick, then returned to her seat. Now...she needed a number. But...heh...she totally forgot her 'life path' number and all those other special ones they did her first term. Which was aaaaaages ago, anyway. So...she'll pick another number.

Seven.

Seven sounds good.