Justin smiled as she pronounced the rune correctly. " Yup, you got it." then he listened as she said that she had hard time seeing what the runes have to do with magic. " Well, Min....each rune is basically a law within the world as a whole. the witches and wizards that named each of them saw the world from a spiritual perspective. It's like how muggles believe in their respective Gods. They believe that things always happen for a reason just as we do. only in the wizarding world we veiw these reasons to be part of the teachings of Runaic Origin and it's broken down into different explainations...... Does that make any sense to you ? " He hoped he hadn't gotten to technical or confusing.

"Your welcome!" Janice grinned. "You were sounting while you were playing tag? How did you do that? And I thought we beat the Ravens—“ since when did she started calling them Ravens? “— Eagles, I mean, for the first place of the running?” She was just walking down the hourglasses when she saw the Hufflepuff beads are slightly above Ravenclaw’s. That made her smile for the rest of the day, and probably caught the attention of several Ravens Eagles.

“Good enough,” she said. “Okay, I’ll try to understand Hadley. And the lessons aren’t as boring as it was 2 years ago, like the tag thing.”

Minerva let what Justin said sink in and then she smiled. "Yes that does make sense. Thank you. Hey Justin I have to get to practice so I will catch you later, ok?" Minerva got up and packed her things. Giving Justin a smile she headed out the door.

Suggestions? Um.... add correctly? "I guess the biggest piece of advice I find helpful is to always check your calculations. It's easy to make a simple addition error that screws up everything else." Not that this was from personal experience, or anything.



"No, once we tagged someone we could stop and do calculations. You didn't have to add and run at the same time." That would be... well, brains would explode. "And we are above Ravenclaw, but things can change very rapidly. We can't get complacent. It's only 100 points." That was easily one victory in Quidditch.

"Yeah, I would definitely encourage you to check our Arithmancy! After all, Hadley is our Head of House. She'd probably like it as well." He winked.

"Oh," Janice sighed in relief. She thought that they need to run while calculating, which would be kind of s torture for her since she really can't multitask. "Yeah, the positions change very fast. But it's a really good competition we've got here, since we're competing on which house is the most diligent."

Janice grinned. "Okay, I'll try to understand the thing in the next lesson. Hadley would be glad to see a plus number of students, especially the one from her house."

" No problem. I'm glad I could help you for once. " Justin smiled as she got up and left for practice. Then he packed up his own things and left to go to his dorm and change into his sweats for his workout.

Sophie walked up to the study tables with her bag on her shoulder and a big Potions book in her arms. She looked around and saw a couple of people she knew. "Hello there, everybody!" She said to no one in particular.

Placing the book and her bag on the table, she sat down and opened her bag. She got parchment, a quill and an ink pot out of her it and placed them right in front of her. Opening the book on the page she wanted, she started rereading some of the information to make sure she had understood it all.

When she was sure about what to write, she grabbed her quill, dipped it in the ink pot and started her essay.

Ella walked over to the study tables, placing her thimble, basket of flowers, gloves, and wand down in front of her. She had successfully made one vase already which was currently safe and sound next to her bed. Now she was moving on to vase number two, hoping it would come out just as nice.

She picked up her wand and extended it towards the thimble, making the correct motion with her hand as she said, "Floreneo." She watched as the thimble moved a little but did not transform. "That's weird..." she said, picking the thimble up and looking at it. She placed it back down on the table and tried again, this time thinking of exactly what she wanted her vase to look like. "Floreneo!" Before her eyes the thimble had changed to a beautiful purple glass Vase. "Yes!" she said with a small pump of her fist. She was really getting the hang of this.

Next, Ella pointed her wand and filled the vase. "Aguamenti!" When she had finished, she watched and as before, no water leaked from her vase! "Thank Merlin." She said with a relieved sigh. She then pulled on her gloves and began picking out flowers from her basket. She wanted to use bright colors for this arrangement and used mostly pinks and purples. She smiled at the finished product. Now she had successfully created her second flower arrangement. "Only one more to go."

Annabelle saw a girl from the same transgfiguration class do the same homework. "Hmm i should get started on that." she said to herself. Belle took out her thimble from her bag and started to do the wand movements. "Floreneo!" she said and it made a beautiful blue vase It looked tiny but that is the way she liked it. Now she began to fill it with water. "Aquamenti!" she said and water filled the vase! She was getting good at this! Then Belle picked out yellow flowerswhich stood for her house pride to put into the vase. "Woot one down!" Belle said happily.

With Ella's purple vase sitting in front of her filled with beautiful flowers, she felt inspired to finish her last vase. She wanted this one to be a bit more complicated than the other two, which were quite plain. She placed a new thimble in front of her and brainstormed what kind of vase she wanted to create. How about polka dots? That would be pretty cool. With her mind set on that, she picked up her wand and pointed it at the thimble. "Here goes nothing... Floreneo!" Ella was disappointed to see that while he vase had formed, it was a plain black color. "Hmf. Really?" She frowned at the vase, reverting it back to a thimble.

Ella once again picked up her wand and closed her eyes, picturing the vase she wanted in her mind. "Floreneo!" This time, Ella's dream vase was sitting in front of her. "Cool!" she said, happily. Ella then pointed her wand at the polka dot vase, filling it with water. "No leaks...no leaks..please!" she whispered. Luckily, no leaks appeared.

Ella put her wand back on the table and pulled her gloves on again, reaching into the flower basket. This time she would use yellow and white flowers. Her arrangement looked beautiful against the black, white, and grey vase. "Now to place these around the school!" she said with a smile.

Amelia set her basket down on one of the tables and then placed her bag down beside it. Now she was going to work on creating and arranging all three of her vases. She had thought long and hard last night about how she wanted them to look, and now that she had her flowers... she was sure that she could make pretty flower arrangements for them.

Opening her bag now, she took out three thimbles and placed them on the table, positioning one in front of her. That was going to be the first vase. Now she grabbed her wand from her holster and tried to picture the vase she wanted in her mind's eye. She needed it there in order to do a successful job.

Red with gold design on it in the shape of flowers. Tapers towards the rim, where it is also gold.

She pointed her wand at table top making sure that it was facing straight down and near the thimble. She started making her clockwise movements away from the desk now. She circled three times while saying, "Floreneo!" And the vase appeared on the table before her eyes.

Now it was time for her to fill it with water so that she could put her flowers in it and they wouldn't die. Well, they'd die either way, but at least they'd live a lot longer with the water. She pointed her wand into the vase and said, "Aguamenti," watching as the water started to pour out. When she was sure that she had enough in the vase, she said a simple, "Finite."

She put her wand down now and looked into the baskets of flowers. She thought that since she didn't have any gold flowers, obviously... yellow would do perfectly. Plus Yellow was Zayden's favourite colour; that made it automatically awesome in her book. Searching through the basket, she took out yellow ones of different types and started placing them in the vase. She worked at it until she thought she had the perfect amount.

Alyssa sat down at the Study tables and placed the gouging tool and the piece of wood in front of her. She then took out her Runes textbook and studied the meaning of each of the runes and tried to see which rune would best fit one of the staff in Hogwarts. She read through everyone of them and crossing out the names of the staff as she read through the meaning of each rune. 'This is going to be a tough homework assignment,' Alyssa thought to herself.

She was almost at the bottom of the Elder Futhark alphabet before she found the one that she thought would most fit somebody she admired. TIWAZ. The rune symbol looked simple enough, a straight arrow pointing upwards. Alyssa picked up her gouging tool and before making the rune, read over the meaning of the rune and what it represented. Then she proceeded to make the first line. She gouged a straight vertical line, starting from the top down to the bottom. As she gouged out the first line, she concentrated on what the meaning of the rune meant and what it was supposed to do for the wearer. Once she gouged and dug out as much wood as possible, she slowly dusted off the wood splinters and making sure that the line she made was evenly gouged out.

Then she proceeded to gouge out the arrow head. She first gouged out one line starting from the tip of the vertical line at the top and angled it, slanting it out towards the left. Like before, she concentrated on the meaning of the rune and what it represented for the person she would be giving it too. As she gouged, she made sure that the line was not too long. Once she had completed that line. She made another line, starting from the same point at the top but this time slanting downward at an angle towards the right. As she gouged out the line, she made sure that it was angled along the same angle of degree and within the same length as the other line on the opposite side. Once she was finished, she dusted off the wood dust and using her nails, pulled out any wood splinters that were still stuck to the piece of wood.

She sat back and admired her work. She had carved the rune Tiwaz. Now all she had to do was present it to the staff member, which was not going to be an easy task. The Headmaster was a very busy man and finding him in his office was going to be a difficult thing especially with all the weird things that had been happening on the grounds lately.

Alyssa had decided to make this rune for him becaue the rune Tiwaz was primarily a rune meant for males and it represented honor, justice, leadership and authority, all the traits that the Headmaster would have, or else he wouldn't be in the position he was now in, in Hogwarts. The rune was also to ensure victory and the righting of injustice and could be used to give the person more courage and to protect them in battle. Alyssa knew that the Headmaster wasn't headed out to fight a battle any time soon, but come to think about it, he was actually fighting something like that now. He was busy trying to figure out what was causing all the weird occurrences in the school and trying to solve it before anyone got seriously hurt, creature and human both. That in itself was a battle....not to mention encountering some of the most dangerous creatures. Yes the Headmaster definitely deserved this rune.

Now that she had her first arrangement done she set it aside carefully so that it would stay out of the way and any potential harm. She did not need her vase to fall off the table and break; that would be a huge mess, and mean that she had to do it all over again.

For now she planned to do her second flower arrangement and she picked up another of her chosen thimbles and placed it down in front of her. She tried to bring the vase that she wanted to produce into her mind and make it her central focus so that she wouldn't mess it up.

Opaque purple glass. Shiny. Tall and narrow. All one solid colour. A little wider in the middle than at the top and bottom. Rim has a lip.

With this image in her head, she pointed her wand directly at the table and made three clockwise motions moving upwards. "Floreneo!" The vase appeared on the table where the thimble had been a moment before. She was really getting good at this spell!

Pointing her wand at the inside of the vase she said, "Aquamenti." When she saw that it was filled to the right amount, she added a quick, "Finite!" And now her vase was ready for the flowers.

She decided that this time she was going to use white roses, so she selected some from her basket and placed them inside. She didn't fill this one as much as she had the first one.

Alyssa removed the pan flute from its carrying case and the phial of varnish that Doctor Xavier had given each of them at the end of class. She poured some into a rag cloth and wiped the pan flute with it. She had promised the Doctor that she would take good care of it and keeping it clean and polished was one way of taking care of it. Once the flute had a good coat of varnish on it, Alyssa placed it on the table in front of her.

Alyssa decided that she would practice the spells she had learned in the class here in their study room. She hoped that the other students wouldn't mind a little music while they were studying. First she would try the tuning spell. EMODULAR. Holding the wand next to her ear, she concentrated on what she wanted the spell to do before saying the incantation. "EMODULAR A". Immediately a loud sound blasted from her wand. "FINITE...FINITE!! Sorry everyone." Alyssa ended the spell and apologized to the startled students around her at the same time. She realized her mistake. She had forgotten to concentrate on how loud she wanted it to be.

So she picked up her wand again and placed it next to her ear. Concentrating on the spell, as well as, how loud she wanted the tuning spell to be, she said "EMODULAR A". This time she heard a flute playing a soft A note tone in her ear. She was successful this time. Now for the song. Alyssa leafed through the music sheets she had borrowed and found a soft soothing one. She decided that she would pick a song from an old movie Lord of the Rings entitled May It Be. She studied the music sheet.

She studied the notes as it moved up and down the scales along the music sheet. She concentrated on the song and how it sounded. She then picked up her wand and said "LUDO TOTALUM" and then immediately swung over to the pan flute lying on the table and drew a circle over it and it said, "LUDO SOLUS". Immediately the lilting song could be heard coming from the flute. As the pan flute softly played the song, Alyssa pulled out from her bag, the parchment where she had started drawing her family tree for Arithmancy class and started entering more information into it.

Sophie walked over to the study tables with the other two vases she had made, her bag and Pygmy Puff. She thought that the study tables area was in need of some more decoration. Not that the pictures of important Hufflepuffs weren't enough, but she felt like they could use some flowers there. Heh!

She looked around and analysed where it would look better. She decided to place the yellow vase on one of the corners. She rearranged the lavenders with her free hand and stepped back to look at it better. It looked lovely there! And hopefully it would inspire her fellow Hufflepuffs and hopefully none of them was allergic to flowers or anything.

Amelia had her Ancient Runes book propped open the the page with the Elder Futhark alphabet on it. She also had a list written down of some chosen staff members. There was Tate for one. She could easily do a Rune for him about leadership... but he was a busy man and she didn't really know him. There was also a good chance that someone else was already doing a Rune for him.

Pass.

And with that he was also crossed off of the list. Then there were Professors Hadley and Bentley, but she wasn't sure what Runes would work for either one of them. If only there was a Rune that really related to Herbology. :/

Pass.

Their names were crossed off as well. Now there was just Nurse Tillstorm left. Amelia might be in the minority here, but she actually liked the Healer. Maybe she could appear cold and insensitive... No nonsense... but still. She liked the woman.

Maybe it was just because of her profession.

She circled Tillstorm's name, and smiled; she had half of this part done. Now she needed to think of a Rune that would associate with the woman. There was Uruz, but one she had already done that Rune for the first assignment, and two that seemed to be more of a physical Rune than anything. It was also more of a masculine Rune.

Pass... Pass... Pass...

Every Rune she skimmed over failed to describe Tillstorm in any way. Until she reached Berkana. Okay, so it really didn't seem to fit the woman at all. But in a way it also did! Yes, This was the Rune that she wanted to carve.

She studied the shape of it and saw that it looked like a B with sharp edges instead of curves. Not too hard to carve with a wood tool. And speaking of wood tool, she reached into her bag now and took it out along with a small piece of wood placing them both on the table.

Taking out her quill now, Amelia did a light tracing on the piece of wood as an outline of the Rune that she wanted to carve. Once the outline was done to her satisfaction, she put down the quill and picked up the wood tool again.

Gently she carved into the wood. She started with the easiest part -- the | shape. Going lightly at first, she gradually made the mark deeper and deeper until she was sure that it was to her liking.

Then she moved on to the top > shape of the Rune. She did the shape lightly at first and then as she did with the |, she gradually went deeper and deeper into the wood.

Next she did the same thing with the lower > part of the Rune. And when she was done that, she went over the entire shape with her wood tool to make extra sure that she had everything smooth and to her desire.

Blowing the dust and shavings, she was now done her Rune for Nurse Tillstorm.

Breathing wasn't working. Nothing was working right now. All he knew was that he was so nervous! How was he even meant to cope?!

Alec blinked as he stared down at the blank piece of parchment. He must have spent quite some time staring at the blank page by now but that was something that couldn't be helped. How was he meant to concentrate in this state?

The twelve year old put his quill down and leant back, his eyes staring off into the distance. He just needed to find a way to beat that redhead... who was with the Head Boy. Not to mention, she could probably decide to be mean to him on the day. Things didn't really look too great already.

And Alec probably didn't either. What with the late nights and the early mornings, he was surprised he could even walk. And every couple of minutes, his hand somehow found its way to his hair to ruffle it some more. This was more nerve-wracking than playing football in primary school. Back then, there wasn't a lot resting on the outcome of one match. And he didn't have so many people telling him how well he was going to do.

... GULP!

Alyssa was sitting at the study tables when she noticed how anxious and nervous was looking. She knew that it was because of the upcoming Quidditch Finals match tomorrow. So she decided to do him a favor. She would cast Pagma Heterogenous charm on him to temporarily put him into a peaceful trance.

She walked up to Alec, and said,"Hi Alec. You look all nervous. It's must be all that stress and pressure everyone has been putting on you lately, telling you that we want to win the Quidditch Cup really bad this year. Well you need to calm down, so I'm going to do something to help you do that okay. Don't worry I won't hurt you. It's a little spell that will wear off."

Taking out her wand, she swished it back and forth and said, "PAHK-pah-keys" casting the peaceful trance on him. Then she waited to see whether the spell worked on him.

Daisy walked over to the study tables and spotted Alex over the top of the millions of books and quills and pieces of parchment she was holding. Somehow, Daisy thought she had been on top of her homework and studies. Apparently not, because she felt almost buried knee deep in essays and questions and spells to practice and had to save time over the weeked. It was the Quidditch final, and if she won, they'd be partying all weeked. But if they didn't... well, she didn't like to think of that, but nobody would be in the spirit to do any homework, especially her.

Dumping her books Alex's table and sitting opposite and across from him, hoping her wouldn't mind her presence. She would be quiet, after all, but some people were funny about space. She dipped her quill in ink and began to write. She had exam's, for Merlin's sake. (Not that they meant a big deal in third year). But it would be nice to pass at least.

'Hi,' she grinned at him, looking up from a charms diagram and waving before slamming her head on the book in despair, unable to concentate on anything except Quidditch nerves. She was playing as Chaser, something fun, but nevertheless scary, especially as it would be a new experience.

Alec blinked as someone started talking to him. Oh! It was Lyss! A small smile spread across the young boy's face as he looked up to the girl he counted as his sister. Lyss was on the team as well. She probably knew what he was feeling like at the moment.

And right he was. But instead of sitting here talking to him about it like someone else would probably do, Lyss decided to use magic to help solve his problems. "Yeah, sure," He sat up, eager for this spellwork. "Thanks Lyss!"

Okay, maybe agreeing to this wasn't the smartest things he's done. And when was he realising this? Just as Lyss was pointing her wand at him and doing some weird wand movements. It was too late to back out now!

But before he could protest, or do anything else, he felt a tingling sensation inside of him. And he was beginning to feel warm and... comforted? Peaceful? Happy? One of those. He didn't have Quidditch on his mind anymore. Now his thoughts were made up of all the things that made him happy. Things like: kite flying... playing football with his Dad... and spending time with Anya.

And then there were all the friends he made at Hogwarts as well, Lyss being one of them. And all the help he got, especially from people like Keefer.

... The game. Alec blinked several times as the nervousness and anxiety returned. He looked up at Lyss and whispered, "I... the game..." Was that spell meant to do that?

Alyssa smiled when she saw a peaceful calm appear on Alec's face. The kid really needed a break from all the stress of being a Seeker in his very first year of playing Quidditch. She saw him smile and wondered what he thinking of in his mind. 'Good the spell is working.'Alyssa thought to herself but then she spoke too soon because Alec seemed to come out of the trance and was looking all nervous again.

"Don't worry about the game, Alec. I'm sorry that the spell wore off too fast. I'll try it again,okay?" Alyssa took out her wand, and pointing it at Alec, she swished it back and forth and said,"PAHK-pah-keys"

She hoped that the spell worked a little longer this time.

Alec couldn't help but smile up at Lyss. He would have said that she didn't know what he was feeling... except she did. She knew exactly how he felt and she had been doing this longer than him. Maybe he shouldn't be stressing out so much about all this.

As for Lyss trying that spell again... "Yeah, sure," he said, "Is it meant to wear off quickly?" ... He really had no idea what this spell was meant to do. All he knew was that it made him feel happy inside. Weird.

But now that he had already had the spell cast on him, Alec seemed to be more ready for this now. It still made him slightly uncomfortable to have a wand pointed at him, even if it was from Lyss. He closed his eyes...

... and the tingling sensation was back! So were the happy thoughts. Except, this time, there were different thoughts entering his head. Like eating ice cream outside in the garden... that time Rilez called him amazing... and the first time they won a Quidditch match.

... The match. O__O Alec blinked again. As much as he tried not to think about it, it always came rushing back. Weird. The young boy looked up at Lyss with a worried and slightly confuse expression on his face. She could probably tell what was going on in his mind now.

Alyssa watched Alec carefully as he fell back into a peaceful trance. She saw the frown lines disappear from his forehead and he was smiling and looked at peace. She sat back looking at him relaxing for a couple of minutes but then the frown lines appeared again and now he had a confused look on his face.

"I'm so so sorry. The spell should have lasted longer. I promise you it will work this time." Alyssa took out her wand and pointed it at him. But this time she concentrated on what she wanted the spell to do and focused on Alec before swishing her wand sideways back and forth and saying the spell."PAHK-pah-keys"

Alyssa looked as a beam of green light shot out from her wand and hit Alec in the chest. She hoped that the spell worked this time.

Alec blinked as he looked up at Lyss. She was really really smart, there was no doubt about that. And she really seemed to know what she was doing. Good, seeing as she was the one with the wand and he was the one who was... sitting there, confused about what had just happened.

He looked around for a bit before nodding up at Lyss. Third time... this could just work. Lyss could be able to make him less nervous for the game. That would help him get some homework done in the process and not have to get distracted by his thoughts. Excellent.

OOMPH!

Having been too caught up how great he would feel afterwards, Alec didn't notice the fact that Lyss had pointed her wand at him again. A flash of green light later and the tingling feeling was back. Along with the happy thoughts. That time he was flying kites... and chasing Anya in the park... and just Anya's beaming face...

Alec's eyelids began to droop slightly as his thoughts wandered off. The blank piece of parchment he had earlier? It was now a pillow. Soft and comfortable and perfect for just some time to relax and not have to worry. The twelve year old folded his arms and lay his head down onto the piece of parchment. Mmm... Soft, fluffy pillow...

Alyssa looked carefully as Alec's face relaxed again and saw the peaceful calm replace the worry and nervousness on his face. He began smiling and his body looked relaxed. In fact, it looked too relaxed. Alyssa frowned when Alec's eyelids started to droop and his head started to follow forward. Before she knew it, he was face down on a piece of parchment fast asleep!!. Alyssa belatedly remembered what Madam Poppy had said about the side effects of the peaceful trance. Alec was undergoing those side effects right now!!

Alyssa was undecided as to whether she should let him sleep awhile or whether she should wake him up. So decided that she would let him sleep for about 10 minutes. Merlin knows the boy must not have had a peaceful night's rest ever since he found out that he would be facing 'SCARY NINA' again in the finals.

Alyssa kept an eye on her young friend as she watched the minutes go by. She didn't dare let him sleep longer than that, for fear that she wouldn't be able to wake him up at all. Once the last minute passed, she reached out with one hand and cradled his head, lifting it off the parchment, and with her other hand, softly slapped him on the face.

"Alec, wake up!! You dozed off. Alec wake up" Alyssa carefully studied Alec's face waiting for him to wake up, and hoping that there were no other signs of any unknown side effects that Madam Poppy may have neglected to tell them.