Josh knew he, himself, already enjoyed Arithmancy pretty much especially the calculating part though sometimes he could get things wrong which happened mostly when he was feeling distracted or slightly sick as he did right now. But whenever Evelyn looked like she was enjoying it was well, the Gryffindor enjoyed it even more. Arithmancy was a cool subject! Indeed it was!

Smirking at the fact that Evelyn had previously beaten him, Josh turned to look at his beloved she-snake only to find she was looking at him as well...but then apparently her gaze had moved to somewhere else and, this making it the most annoying moment of the day for him, he saw Riley at the point she was looking at smiling at his girlfriend!!!

*GLARE*

Did not that coward have a brain? Had not he learned that he HAD TO stay away from his beloved if he wanted to remain ALIVE!! Josh had already suffered another detention while trying to show Riley that fact and he was still staring and smiling at Josh Carter's girlfriend?

Of course, Professor Hadley's next words with her next question had come to his ears but the seventeen year old was unable to take his eyes and mind from the exchange between Evelyn and Riley. And yes...it was an exchange now since she smiled back at him!!!!

Groaning some, Josh gave Riley his best DEATH GLARE when the other lion boy now turned to look at him. Yeaaa, that was a death glare Riley Sinclair and you knew what it meant. You knew that!!!

''I think you subtract instead of adding this time while calculating...stuff'' he told to the professor whatever had remained in his mind from what he had previous read from the book, in order to keep his mind away from all the plots about turning Riley into a mural on a wall near the Gryffindor tower by beating him up. However, though he spoke to the professor, he was still glaring at the other Gryffindor boy with wildly narrowed, shining dark brown eyes.

If he did just another SLIGHT move, he did not care whatever it would be, towards Evelyn, he was GOING DOWN!!

Legend had done his job. And he felt pretty good. Even if he had just written some stuff on the board. Leaning back in his chair, which he had returned to once Hadley had taken the class over again, Legend tried to pay attention.

Huh.

The Challenge Number?

You don't say.

Legend's hand shot up once Hadley asked another question, even though some students already answered. "Professor! What she- he pointed to the Slytherin, whos name he couldn't quite remember at the moment. -just said."

Eino had never heard of a challenge number, but according to what his classmates had mentioned, Eino was able to deduce that they were not fun, and indeed challenging to calculate. It was only natural for him to think that, since there are peaks in a person's lifetime, there would also be a few lows, and these were what the challenge numbers identified. He flipped through his textbook until he found them on chapter twenty-three. Apparently they weren't the low points of a person's life but rather, as the name suggests, challenges a person must overcome in order to reach the highest point. Well, calculating them would be challenging enough, so they better have cauldron cakes for dessert tonight. His classmates were right, they were similar to the pinnacles but instead of adding they had to subtract the numbers. That didn't seem too challenging.

"Yes, you all are precisely right!" Even you, Legend, with your agreement with everyone else. "With the challenge numbers, we use subtraction!" Probably one of the only numbers that we do that for... Now Riley brought up another good point. "If you get a negative number, which is extremely likely, then it's fine. Just take away the negative sign and its positive. It means something, but we won't worry about for now..."

Right then. "Can I get four volunteers again, please? Preferably different from before and again, one from each house... Age isn't of concern as long as you feel confident in your ability to attempt these difficult calculations."

Eino raised his hand, then placed the same over his heart. "I solemnly swear that feel confident in my... what you said." He said nervously, and gulped. Well, he didn't really, but he had to learn. Hopefully that wouldn't hinder his chances, then again it wasn't like hands were shooting in the air. Maybe he shouldn't have volunteered after all... Too late now it was time to grab the Unicorn by its horn and make it drink pumpkin juice! Or whatever the saying was.

Having given her answer, Evelyn took the opportunity to glance over to Josh again, yet, he didn't look as happy as he did before. And the reason was...Uh. He couldn't be mad over a simple exchange of smiles, could he?

Apparently.

Hearing the request for volunteers, the Slytherin waited a moment or so before raising her hand. She didn't volunteer for the last time, but might as well this time. "I'll volunteer, professor." Wait, what were they doing?

Pres wanted to volunteer. She was awful at arithmancy. She raised her hand halfway, and pulled it down as fast as a blink when Eino volunteered. He would know what he was doing tons more than Presley would. She would just do her calculation on her private parchment, and verify what they wrote on the board. That was th best option for everyone. Presley would probably hopelessly confuse the entire class.

Gwen remembered that the last time she somehow ended up volunteering it didn't turn up so bad, so she was confident she could do it again. Why not?, the young Ravenclaw asked herself.

William raised his hand. " I will try to get the Challenge Number" Willaim told the professor.

Roderigo shot a glare at Ellie, for she had lost them three whole points from Ravenclaw. They were in third place for the house cup, and at this stage in the competition, every point counted. However, he turned back to Professor Hadley with a smile as she addressed his question.

Roderigo nodded slowly, scribbled down what Professor Hadley said in a small corner of parchment and then smiled again. He figured it was time to sit down, and he made his way through the sea of desks and back into his seat. But then he jumped up suddenly, having forgotten to grab his textbook. He ran back up to the front of the class awkwardly, grabbed the book, and ran back to his seat. He then proceeded to open the book up to chapter after Pinnacles; Chapter Twenty-Three: The Challenges. But before he could answer Professor Hadley's question, about four other people did. Shrugging, he pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and decided to switch his normal black ink to dragon's blood ink, just for the fun of it.



Roderigo spun around in his chair. It was Riley Sinclair, his Gryffindor pal. The Spaniard hadn't even noticed him in the classroom, and would have sat next to Riley had he seen him. He waved to him, smiling.
"Where'd you see that?" he asked curiously, having not read about Expression/Destiny Numbers.

Looking back up at the front of the classroom, Roderigo leaned back in his chair, knowing he wouldn't volunteer since he had just done so for the Pinnacles.

Be our friend, Salander?
 

Oh, yes, Ellie felt people LOOKING at her. Nosy, nosy people. And, guess what? She didn't care. So they could just turn away and be good little students, mkay?

Hey! An art class in Hogwarts wouldn't be such a bad idea. Not that Ellie was particularly artistic, but it would beat most of the other subjects taught by a longshot. Including Arithmancy. Ellie only took it because she LIKED Hadley.

Ironic how the only Professor that ever takes points from her is one of Ellie's FAVORITES.

She eyed the door when Hadley pointed to it, considering the option because, no, she didn't want to do calculations. Her hand automatically went to her cheek at the Professor's mention...before falling down onto the desk. Wrong cheek, Ellie. Heh.

The door was still there, but she LIKED Hadley enough to walk out. So...she was staying. Just, maybe, not here. She needed a friend to help her. Where was Lola Jones when you needed her, eh?

She did spy Salander, though. And he was older...wiser? Well, he seemed to know what he was doing...or was at least doing SOMETHING. And Ellie was going to go to him. Yup. It wasn't hard or anything, either, since she was textbookless and all she had was her quill and partially black parchment.

Quickly, she moved to the desk beside him...Hadley wouldn't mind, right? And she scooted it over, much closer to see his parchment better. "Hi Sal... I'm lost." So, care to help a poor, innocent, confused little fourth year?

Oh, he didn't mind either, right?

Hopefully.

So long as he wasn't going to volunteer for these Challenges. Meh. Like THOSE sounded any better than Pineapples. They sounded WORSE. Challenging. Meh.

But Evelyn volunteered, so hopefully Ellie'll be safe with Sal.

Apparently no matter how much he tried to keep his mood well someone like Riley had to step in and challenge his efforts for that by simply poking his well-known-to-get-raised-easily temper. Letting a deep breath out his nose to keep his anger at the other Gryffindor, who had been trying to steal his girlfriend, under control.

And finally managing to look at Professor Hadley and doing his best to keep his gaze on her, fighting the urge to look back at every single minute to see if there were any more exchanges taking place between Riley and his beloved, Josh forced a smile and raised his hand kindly when Hadley had asked for volunteers from each house.

''May i volunteer for Gryffindor this time, professor?'' He enjoyed those calculating stuff, right? Maybe if he was a volunteer he could both help younger students deal with the case and distract himself from the thoughts of sending Riley to attempt to flirt with the Giant Squid instead, and not HIS girlfriend, by a nicely aimed kick at his back. ''May i?''

What? Huh? Treyen turned his face to Hadley as soon as she spoke to him, and then...Oooooh, that's right! He half-smiled her way, and then corrected his parchment.



It took him very little to correct that, and he was soon hearing about the point loss on Ellie's behalf. First Sierra, then Ellie. He only hoped Kurumi wouldn't be next. Then...Ellie went to sit by Salander?

Blink.

Yeah, eh...what about those Challenges, Hadley?

I was sleeping...and clearly my brain still isn't on xD
 

Kurumi had been so busy taking notes that she had missed when Professor Hadley had asked for volunteers. Seeing as two people from her house had already raised their hands, Kurumi felt that it was probably pointless that she offer herself up as one. Besides, Josh was at the age that Professor Hadley had been wanting for the first set of volunteers, so it was probably best to just sit this one out. Instead, Kurumi turned to her parchment and began her calculations.



However, after calculating the first two numbers, Kurumi stopped herself due to her own over thinking and confusing herself. Best to wait for further instruction from Professor Hadley at this point. But, Kurumi wasn't one to wait when knowledge was involved. "Professor, what happens when you calculate a number and it becomes negative? Do you just disregard that negative sign and apply the principle as if it were a positive?" Or was she CLEARLY over thinking things?

Nika looked up at Hadley and waited for people to volunteer. Even if age wasn't an issue she certainly did not fell confident in her "arithmancy skills". Best that someone else that's smarter does it.

Whaaa? Riley had gotten something right? Well at least reading part of the chapter before answering seemed to help him out. The Gryffindor decided that that might help him out sometime then. And wait, he asked a question that was worthwhile and made sense...

He nodded to the Professor making a note of it in his textbook, Riley was on a roll. He did not volunteer however, seeing as she only needed four and two Lions had already offered their assistance.
Riley heard someone whisper something to him and he too turned to look and see where the male voice was coming from. It was a Ravenclaw...with lots of curly hair--Roderigo. "Hey." he mouthed. Next he waved and then turned back to watch the Professor round up her volunteers. He should have sat by Rod.

As other students chimed in to volunteer a small voice spoke up and asked Professor Hadley a question and it was oddly familiar. The same one as Riley had asked, oh but it was Kurumi. He smiled as he turned towards her, she obviously had been reading or something and just missed Hadley's answer.

"Yes, Kurumi, I was confused as well. But the way you are talking about is the correct way to do it if you get a negative number." He grinned and then turned back. See he could help people!

Treyen Lockhart, too. ^_^
 

Sierra just looked forward with a facial expression somewhat similar to :whaa:. Her brain was dying, and that's all there was to it. She wasn't even sure what was going on anymore, but all she knew was that volunteers were steadily raising their hands for something or another.

She was stressed...

...and so she sighed and put her head down on her desk. When she raised it again, she saw Ellie scoot closer to Salamander, and at first she just rolled her eyes in no one's general direction...

...but then she thought better of it. Hey, this Ellie Stone--again, she had the right idea! Why did Sierra not think too highly of her again?! Oh, yeah...right. Ellie had stolen her first crush away from her! Speaking of her first crush, thank you, Ellie Stone, for leaving your boyfriend wide open for me to scoot next to!

...and so Sierra edged her desk a little to the left, closer to Treyen, of course. BAHH HAHA! Take that, Kurumi Hollingberry! She looked up at Treyen and just gave him a little shrug. "Help!" that little shrug seemed to say.

on my phone...so calculations will come later
 

Kurumi smiled at Riley when he explained things to her, but couldn't help but blush when he implied the he had asked the same question earlier. "Oh, thank you Riley, she replied as she bowed her jead slightly. Yep, she was in over thinking mode and had had her nose too far in her Arithmancy book to have heard the explanation about negative numbers.

She did notice Sierra suddenly move her desk closer to Treyen who was sitting next to her. Perhaps she too needed help with the calculations?

Kurumi turned her attention back that her parchment so she could finish the task she had started.

i see u too puppy luv funnies xD
 

Alright! So he finally got the Professor's nod of approval. But then they moved on the next challenge which are... Challenges.

Huh.


He starts flipping through the pages looking what that was about when he felt someone scoot closer to him. "Hey there Ellie!" he greets her, an amused smirk on his lips. Yes her lil coloring book comment didnt slip by him. Alas comic relief aint free "Lost?.... oh with them number crunching?" he said as he tilted his head towards the board. "Sure, will try to help you out, but I gotta tell ya lotsa stuff slip by me." Case in point... the small pile of crumpled up parchments beside him.

Lucas watched as people volunteered to try the calculations. He wasn't confident enough to try to do it in front of everyone, but he still looked in the textbook and decided to try doing it on his parchment.



Hmm, had he done that correctly? Better wait to see what everyone else did.

Smiling to Riley once more before she completely returned to her notes, along with casting a quick smile to Sierra. It had been nice of the she-snake to help her clean up the mess on the 5th floor after all. Still, Kurumi couldn’t help but shiver a bit when Sierra looked at her.

Kurumi looked at her parchment and wondered if she was supposed to turn her minus to, which Riley had explained should just be thought of as a 2, into a positive so that her third challenge became an addition instead of subtraction equation, but she smacked herself playfully in the forehead. Obviously, that would defeat the purpose of the exercise, wouldn’t it?



Setting her quill down, Kurumi felt a little unsettled by the results. Were her results implying that she just wasn’t going to learn the lesson that the number 4 was teaching her? Or was the number going to apply to her in a different way? Were her numbers telling her that she was at risk of growing a big head?

MERLIN! Her brothers were right! They were always telling her that her head was too big.

Kurumi set her quill down and hope that her calculations were right.

Perhaps, the lesson she had to learn from the number 4 was just a very difficult an deep one? Kurumi thought that she already knew the importance of hard work - look at how hard she studied!

Furrowing her brow a bit, she pushed her parchment to the side and began to ponder the possible meaning behind the predictions. Merlin...was she going to become lazy later in life?!

Right then. Her volunteers. Where were her Hufflepuffs? "Alright, Penny." Technically she hadn't volunteered before, after all, but Fina just asked to come up when the Greingoth boy hadn't. "Penny? You can do the first challenge for us. Eino, you can show us the second challenge number. Evelyn? The third challenge number. And Josh? The fourth."

And look at you smart Lions already attempting your challenge numbers on your own. Fina made a mental tab to check their works after the four students displayed their examples on the board.

Nika waited for the volunteers to go and do their work on the board before she even started to work on hers. Even though some people looked like they were scribbling away and probably working on their challenge numbers she wasn't even going to try to attempt it. Arithmancy was too hard to be going ahead of the class.

Penny made her way up to the front of the class, and over to the blackboard..
Lifting a piece of chalk, she started doing the First Challenge Number

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackboard First Challenge Number = day of birth - month of birth May 5th 05 - 05 = 0

Penny looked back at the class, to explain her answer... "My brithday is May 5th...
The formula requires me to subtract my day of birth from my month of birth..
which is 05 - 05 = 0
My first Challenge Number is 0..."

Then standing back for Eino, so he can start the second number calculations...