Fla.. gran.. te.. he thought as he scribbled this in his notes. WHY his aunt hadn't already broken this curse he couldn't imagine.. Unless she put it on there just for the sake of this lesson. That seemed fairly likely.

At her answer to his guess, he beamed. He'd been right! GRIN. Pao made sure to note this in his ever-lengthening list of scribbles.



"Woah..." he murmured. Sure enough, a list of red numbers was now floating in midair right in front of the bracelet. He dutifully wrote them down once he was done staring.

But... wait. They were supposed to interpret that now? There were supposed to be four parts of that big number, weren't there? How were they supposed to know where to break them up? Well, I'll at least try something myself before I go asking.

Pao easily picked out the 059 part in the middle. That's what was suggested earlier, so maybe they go together? Since there were numbers before that, he guessed that 059 made up the kernel. After all, Oakey mentioned something about 11 and she didn't deny that they went together, so they might both be included in the basis.



That left the range and the cline. Four numbers for two categories. Well, either they both have two, or one has three and the other has one. But how could you tell? I think I've reached the point where I need to ask.

He stuck his hand in the air. "Professor, how are we supposed to know where to divide that long number up between the basis, kernel, range, and cline?" There were four categories, but definitely more than four numbers up there. He'd only been able to make an educated guess because of others' previous answers.

Suffice it to say watching the spell in action got this Ravenclaw's jaw to drop slightly. He's never seen curse-breaking done live, always just reading about it. This was advanced Arithmancy stuff, and was now studiously referring to his book and closely following the Professor's demonstration at the same time.

But now they were to decipher the glowing numbers. Feeling quite unsure of himself, the Ravenclaw plows on anyway. He grabs his parchment and copies down the glowing numbers, then proceeds to try to figure things out....



He sat back into his seat, brows still furrowed in deep thought, even doubt. This sorta made sense to him, but is it anywhere near what the Professor was trying to make them understand?

Hadley blinked as she heard a question. Oh right; she knew she'd forgotten something. "Yes, where to break the numbers up. That's a good question. A skilled cursebreaker can typically just tap them and break them in the right parts, but..." They were learning, so yea. "Generally each of the four parts will consist of at least two numbers. Sometimes three. Usually the Kernel and the Range are more likely to contain three than the Basis or the Cline. The more numbers that a curse contains, the more complicated. If there's too many numbers or the numbers are too tightly bound together where you can't decipher which part is which number, chances are the curse is too complicated and dark." In which case they wouldn't be able to break that curse with standard methods of curse-breaking. But for a simple Flagrante curse, they should have minimal issues...

Soooo we'll just plat catch up now ^_^
 

Ooooo a guessing game!! She never did like those. Her answers always seemed so far off. Things were even more complicated with this being a class about numbers. It was hard to make an educated guess when you were terribly clueless. Now you'd think the child would throw open her text book instead of staring at the professor so blankly but well she didn't. All her attention was focused on the words Professor Hadley was putting on the board and even the words she was saying.

If only curses weren't so difficult. Couldn't they just guess what it was based on the symptoms...

A good question she would have to ask. "Professor...if you had a good enough knowledge of curses and the different kinds, would you be able to tell which curse it is simply by observing the object it's affecting?"

In other words she wanted to know if all this number work that was giving her such a headache was actually necessary. If all she had to do was study curses for the rest of her life she would for 2 reasons. 1. Because it'd be cool learning and using them and 2. because numbers were to be avoided when at all possible.


And now they were breaking a part a bunch of numbers that looked completely random to her. Sigh. This wouldn't go well...

She tried remembering what everyone had been saying earlier. This was why she needed to pay attention more >_<

Maybe she was getting it a little...but not enough to put legible stuff on parchment. It would have been a waste of ink to try. Lex sat perfectly still in her seat and waited to simply go invisible. Once that happened she'd totally be safe. The Professor wouldn't be able to see her and she wouldn't know that the girl still had a basically blank parchment. Oh! It didn't have to be blank!! Lex scribbled the numbers then tried making pictures with them. Doodling was just as productive if you did it right.

Doo dee doo dee doo. Nothing to see here...

Numbers, numbers and more numbers.

This was going to be a little difficult. With a pout on her face Nessie looked at the numbers above the bracelet, trying to make sense of it all. So they had to divide these numbers up so they could figure out various things about the curse? Sounded simple enough, but didn't look simple enough.

Worth a try though. Eh.

The red head grabbed some parchment and before she tried anything, she scribbled what was on the board. Once that was done she immediately began trying to work it all out. She paused for a moment when Hadley spoke, took in what the Professor said and then continued with her curse breaking.

How to divide these numbers? Guess? Because Ness was confused. Waait...they had to look at the meanings and put them where they thought they went? That made sense no? It did...a little.

Write what each number meant first then? Yeah.

She wrote the first bumber and paused realising it made no sense. Wait the number could be seen as eleven too! Hah! Maybe that's what she needed to do. Maade MUCH more sense now. On to the next numbers then. Zero, well that was simple, as wasthe five and nine.

Once her meanings were written, it was time to divide it all up. Well the eleven worked as a pair, then two 9s together and two 5s together, putting the left overs together too? Sounded right-ISH! Gah! This was confusing.
Finished with her first attempt, Nessie scribbled one last line of words and stared at her work. Yep something was VERY WRONG with it. She looked at the younger first year for a second and wished she could doodle too, but she knew exams were on their way and she couldn't waste time like that. She needed to and WOULD work these numbers out. Maybe if she tried to reaarange the pairings?

Pout. Thinking. Pout.

Laura looked at the Professor and smiled, this was an awesome lesson and now she wanted to do her best and try and figure this code out, she was sure that she could do it but what was the code, she looked at what the Professor had put down.



Laura was confused as to what to do next. "Professor what do we do next?" Laura was sure she was missing something but she couldn't think of what. "Professor I'm lost." Laura sighed.

Oh yay! Puzzles! Kurumi had loved doing this a few terms ago and she was all but bouncing in her seat now to do it. Parchment and quill at the ready, Kurumi looked up when Professor Hadley performed the spell and just beeeeeeeeamed at the floating numbers that appeared. See, weren't numbers just beautiful? They were just...yes, beautiful. She was just going to leave her thoughts there for now because she had some thinking to do and shouldn't get distracted. And since they already knew what curse the numbers were representing...it shouldn't be too hard to figure out the parts of it's spell numeralization, right?

Kurumi decided to work with the Basis first, since that was the most obvious bit, and then work her way out from there. It would help with number groupings as well.


Oops...two of her answers there were essentially repeats of each other...but Kurumi knew that those were not the only two that needed some reworking anyway. For now, she would leave it and think things over a bit more. Some other ideas were sure to come to her while she relaxed her mind and thought a little more outside of the box, yeah?

Dear Merlin, what have I gotten myself into! Emmanuelle had never had experience with this curse breaking stuff (obviously, since she was still a student), so a lot of the information was going right over her head. But, she decided to give it a try and if she did it right, great! If not, she would know that curse-breaking was most definitely not for her and that would be that. So here goes. She started off by copying down the notes about kernels and all that as well as the curse number it's self. Then she grabbed her textbook and copied down the 'meanings' of the numbers. That done, she began breaking down the number according to what she knew. When she was finished her parchment looked a little something like this:

Jory copied the number onto his parchment. He stared at it trying to make sense of it. "Okay, let's go,'' he thought and he begun to write:

Umm...so now they had to actually figure out the curse and such. Addie stared blankly at the piece of parchment in front of her, but began to write some of the things that she needed to know out, including the key that included what the parts of the curse were and what the numbers meant.



Addie's work wasn't the best because she wasn't sure that she completely understood how the cursebreaking process worked. She had listened and everything, but it was still really confusing to her. She looked over her work, but she had no idea what to think of it, was it good or not. Well then, she would just have to wait to find out...right.

Oakey watched as the numbers appeared above the bracelet. He removed some parchment and set it down on his desk and began to write.

He looked down at the parchment and tapped the quill to his face unknowingly face up leaving some ink splotches on his cheek

Nerida looked up as the numbers appeared above the bracelet...That was cool! She quickly added the number to her notes. After she finished she continued listening to the rest of what Professor Hadley was saying. Break apart the numbers?? Interpret them...Erm...She would try.....


She looked down at her parchment...Was it okay if two of them were the same?? She didn't understand this at all she rested her head down for a second trying to relax her mind..Then maybe she could think straight and fix her work...It looked like it was wrong...

'Cause we're still here/I'm forcing Kendall to finish this lesson. xD
 

Back to her sketching, Kendall tried to hide the sigh as the subject of numbers had come back. She'd gotten her hopes up with the last class she remembered, when all they had done was to guess things without seeing them. Trying to figure out curses by looking at numbers just made things seem way too complicated in her opinion, and made her think that maybe curse-breaking really wasn't as cool as she'd thought. She'd still taken out another piece of parchment to start actually taking notes, though. They might come in useful next term for the exams she really didn't want to deal with, but she'd probably not look at them again until then. And she'd continued adding more details to her butterfly on the first sheet of parchment, only looking up as Professor Hadley had said she'd cast the spell for them, on her evil bracelet.

Her eyes had widened as first a string of glowy red numbers had appeared in the air above the bracelet, then the professor had said it was their job to decipher how the number was separated into all the parts of the curse that she'd only barely paid attention to. We can't get help with that too?, she'd thought, even as a firstie had up and asked about if the separate number groups could have three numbers instead of two or even one. At which point she found out that it wasn't really possible for a part to only have one number. That was useful, and she broke away from the sketch long enough to actually try to accomplish something for the activity. Even if it was entirely wrong, which it probably would be.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Curse-breaking
SpeRevelio= identifies if an object is cursed
Arithmos Revelio= identifies what curse is on the object using numbers (ick)

Curse parts (with Arithmos Revelio):

• Basis: what the spell affects
• Kernel/Core: what the spell does
• Range: how the spell is activated
• Cline/Type: what kind of spell it is

Possible curse used: Flagrante curse
Possible numbers with Professor Hadley’s cursed bracelet:
0= decay
1= beginning, independence, leadership (?)
5= change, physical world/touch
9= immediate, short-lived, metamorphosis

Numbers: 110595959

Basis: 11 (The curse affects the person who puts the bracelet on first, in this case Professor Hadley, who is a head of house and therefore kinda a leader)
Kernel/Core: 059 (The spell creates burns/decay of the skin immediately upon the first physical touch, spec ifically putting the bracelet on)
Range: 595 (The change is immediate and physical, plus short-lived because she takes the bracelet off and it stops)
Cline: 9 (the skin undergoes a metamorphosis ‘cause it’s all red and burned immediately)

Now to get this right, Nessie would make sure she understood it all.

Turning back to her parchment, the red head scribbled more and more notes. She could see where she had went wrong in a few places. For one her groupings were completely wrong as were her ones. She rememered Hadley saying something about no master numbers so that had to be out of there.
As for the order, she had changed it and it looked highly wrong too. Maybe she just needed to seperate them without changing the order. It made sense in her head, because the zero, five and nine could all be connected in some way.

She had it now or at least she thought she did. Finishing off her work, Ness looked up and waited for what was next. This looked much more correct than before.

O_____________________O

Oh my god. What was this? More numbers to decipher. NOT COOL. AT ALL. Despite how much Kat hated doing this number stuff during Arithmancy, the Slytherin tried her best to decipher then correctly. But if she got wrong though, nobody should blame a dumb girl like her. SIGHS. "Here goes nothing," Kat told herself, preparing her brain for more thinking. UGH.



Once Kat was finished, she reviewed her answers and found no error in her opinion. Man, Arithmancy gave her a headache. Not good. She might need to take a rest after the class, though.

I have nooooo idea how to do this. :/
 

From Sierra's standpoint, the professor was talking, but there was nothing coming out but a foreign language. That's about how well she understood anything that was currently being discussed. She watched as Hadley cast Arithmos Revelio. That part Sierra knew. It was just this whole breaking up and interpreting part that she was pretty much clueless about.

Sierra copied down the numbers and began the process of staring at them. Maybe if she did so long enough, the answer would just fall out the sky. Heh. After a while, though, she raised her hand. "Professor?" she asked. "Can we work with a partner by any chance?" If so, she so called dibs on Kurumi Hollingberry!

Well he already knew it was a good question, but he still felt heartened to hear her acknowledge that. As she began to answer, he began to scribble frantically, his tongue sticking out of his mouth in concentration. His quill flew furiously across the page so that ink splatters jumped up onto his outstretched tongue. "P-tewey!" he said, spitting it out.

When she was done, he checked over his notes so he could begin to digest the information. Parts usually have min. 2 numbers.. Kernel/Range more likely to have 3+.. More numbers in curse=more complicated. Too many numbers=don't try to break.. Yeah, that made sense. "Okay, thanks! That really helps! But.. when do we get to learn how to do the tapping separation thing? That sounds much more reliable." And easier, and efficient.



He checked his work. Actually that all fits in fairly well with what she said. I'll just work under the assumption it's right and divide out the rest. So that meant he should divide the 5959 in half evenly. That meant the Range and Cline were both 59. "How it's activated.." he muttered. Physical touch and immediate effects again. Same for Cline. He added this to his parchment.

Minerva listened as everyone talked about numbers. She felt a little confused. Well she always felt the number 13 was a bad number, maybe it meant something evil or bad. Wondering about this her mind wondered off away from class. She was thinking about how she hated the number 13 and how back home she always hated Friday the 13 and all those horrible movies.

Then she was brought back to class by the next activity. Oh they were doing an activity.. Crap Min, what was the activity.. Sitting up she scrambled to try to figure out what they were doing. Looking at the notes and then her book she wrote down the number in front of them.

Now it was time to work it out:



Well Minerva hoped that was right and hoped she wasn't noticed daydreaming especially in Hadley's class. Of all classes she could do that, this was not the one she wanted to. No not her head of house, that wasn't showing very good Puff ways now was it.

Hadley was giving the students a few moments to see if they could work it out themselves before she would walk around and glance at their parchments. But that was when she heard one student speak up with a question.

"No," Fina said flatly. "Breaking a curse via spell numerization is much different from breaking a curse just by guesswork." Which is what she was implying they did. "Numbers are far more reliable."

Hearing another student, she looked over at Laura's desk and blinked in shock. "My Wenlock. You've... wow..." she had no words, but made a mental note of this. "Your grouping are correct. Next you look at the meanings of numbers along with the meanings of each groupings and attempt to interpret what they mean for how the curse is activated."

Like Kurumi just did. Except she forgot to mention one small detail about the clines. She'll tell them later. "Nice work."

"The order of the numbers should not change, dear," Fina said to another seventh year as she noticed the girl had arbitrarily placed the numbers in a random order for each part.

"Well your groupings seem correct..." Hadley noted; although his interpretations seemed slightly off.

"Nice. Your groupings are correct. Now you just have to figure out what they mean in accordance with each part of the spell."

"It's a good start," Hadley said, nodding at the Slytherin girl. Definitely a good start; she had a decent enough grasp on understanding the material at least.

"I'm not sure that the curse would only affect me though, but you've got a good start," she said, nodding at Oakey's parchment. Then she looked up at his face ... and blinked.... and whispered; "And er... you've got some ink.. right there" she said matter-of-factly.

"Good start, yes." Hadley said nodding at the Ravenclaw, making note to go over the cline meanings in a moment. After she'd given everyone a chance.

"The only thing is that I mentioned each part is generally at least two digits. So the second five in your range would be grouped with the cline, actually." Hadley said, prodding the Ravenclaw.

"Your grouping are better this time, yes," Hadley nodded Nessie, as she corrected her work from before, giving it another go...

"The only thing is that you've counted a five twice." Hadley pointed a slender finger toward the range and the cline. "See there, you have a five in both the range and the cline. There shouldn't be overlap like that."

Hadley blinked over at the next person to call her attention. "It's rather pointless as you won't be working with a partner for your final task, but if you must need assistance, perhaps you can consolidate efforts with Miss Cambridge over there." The girl looked like a lost deer in headlights, after all. Together they could probably figure it out, maybe?

Trust her nephew to ask her for the shortcuts before trying it out the long-way. "The tapping thing .... is actually rather simple. Tap the numbers where you think they should break and say diffindo. If they break apart, then your separation is correct. If they don't, then you've got the wrong part you're trying to separate."


"You're definitely on the right track," Hadley nodded.

"Let's see how well you all did with your separation..." Fina tapped her wand at the numbers that hovered above the bracelet in the places where many students guessed the groupings would be. And the numbers broke apart....

11 059 59 59

"Before I let you complete your final, there's one other thing I should tell you. About the clines. There are seven classifications of clines, but only two that you'll need to worry about unless you decide to pursue cursebreaking studies beyond Hogwarts. One and Nine;" She flicked her wand at the board as words appeared:

Quote:

Classifications of Clines 1 - Spells which are by nature identifying spells. Those spells which identify the nature of an object, its individual components, or what an object or magical effect are. Ex: specificalis revelio, arithmos revelio 9 - Spells which are powerful, immediate, and unstable. Those spells which react instantly and do not have permanent or long-lasting effects. Ex: impedimentia, blasting charms

"The number before the last digit in the cline is indicative of several factors; who the spell targets, as well as the complexity of the curse." Hadley explained. "So your final is simple. In a moment, the classroom will transform itself into a maze. There will be a series of obstacles from perhaps a random creature to moments of darkness to even possibly a tripping jinx to delay you. You're to persevere until you get to the end when you'll be confronted with the cursed bracelet, in which you'll have to successfully cast Arithmos Revelio and then break the curse on the object. If you break the curse, then you will be able to touch the bracelet without it burning you and you may leave after. Good luck."

With that, she flicked her wand and the Arithmancy classroom was changed into a maze, with tall shrubberies separating each student...

ooc: No i don't expect you to perfectly break the curse at the end of the maze. I do expect you have to fun interacting with each other, as you try to make it through. Feel free to interpret "interceptions" and "delays" as you wish; be imaginative. If it's something other than a jinx or creature you want as an obstacle, go for it. Be creative. I'd recommend a minimum of 6 or 7 posts. You can earn up to 30 points for your RP-ing efforts (not counting the points from before this post). But don't delay, as this final WILL be ending on Saturday Night, December 1st by 10pm EST.

Hey now... he's just curious, not lazy! XD (Post 1)
 

Pao began to once more scribble hastily. Diffindo.. tap... keep trying til you get it. Well that didn't actually sound difficult at all! "Thanks!" He was SO gonna use that if she set them a practical portion for the exam.

When she revealed the separations, he did an internal whoop of joy. He'd been right! YES! Maybe the Arithmancy gene was in him after all?

Er.. take that back. The Cline just was one thing. But a maze? That was a whole different story. Oh no... I dunno if a first year even stands a chance at this. But all the sudden he had no chance to back out. He was in the maze and there was nothing he could do about it.

Erm.. now what? "Just start walking. Wand out for sure." He struck out in a random direction, slightly spooked by the sound of phantom footsteps from other parts of the classroom maze. He came to a T. Um, left? No, that was a dead end. Right it is, then.

Pao hadn't gone more than five paces down this new path when suddenly his eyes died. "I can't see!" he yelled. "What's happened to my eyes?" But then his reasoning kicked in and he remembered she had mentioned something about darkness. Oh. "Then lumos!" he said. That did the trick. Though he could still only see about a half meter in front of him, it was enough to press on.

Post 1
 

A maze? Jory thought this would be fun though he was a bit apprehensive about breaking the curse towards the end. "I'll worry about that later,'' he thought as he eyed the path straight in front of him. He recognised the voice of Pao somewhere on his left.

The boy gripped his wand and began walking. As he walked deeper into the maze, it became darker and darker until he could see nothing. "Lumos!'' he said. His path was lit once again and he continued. Soon, became to a fork. "Which way to go?'' he pondered. He looked both sides, deciding on left finally.

Jory walked on keeping a sharp lookout for any obstacles.

Post #1
 

He had what on his face now? Ink, Oakey rolled his sleeve up and wiped it from his face which only smudged it more across his cheek.

there were other clines? Oakey was about to raise his hand to ask what these were because he was totally the one in the class considering Curse Breaking as his career, but as his hand shot up so did the maze.
He'd have to ask Hadley about them later it seemed.

He stood up and peered around to decide which was the best way to go first. It seemed he had two options. Straight behind him, or to to his left. His thoughts were instantly interrupted by a high pitched screech. He clasped his hands to his ears in pain as the screeching pierced through, and got even louder. He jerked himself around and took one hand off his ears. He winced as the screeching got louder from removing his hand, but he grasped his wand from his desk tightly and pointed it upward "Silencio!" Oakey shouted and the screeching came to a sudden stop.

He let off a loud sigh, and turned deciding to take the path behind him, but the path was missing. Now completely covered with thick shrubbery.
This maze better not be working against him Oakey hoped as he moved forward and took the path to the left.

post 1!
 

Still at her seat, Kurumi hurried to write down this last bit of information on clines because it certainly seemed like it would be useful in general - and especially when she moved on to telling them about this maze. The last digit in the cline was nine...and the number before that was...5? Wait, that wasn't an option though! Or did that mean the last number preceding the cline which was a 9 which would make sense since the spell they had been working on was certainly not an identification spell and...

Kurumi clutched her parchment tightly as the classroom shifted and...she was alone.

But HEY! She had her parchment with her so that went promptly into her pocket for safe keeping while her wand hand retrieved her wand. It was...sort of dark with all these shrubs, so Kurumi flicked her wand and conjured a ball of light to float along side her so her wand could be free as she began to walk cautiously through the maze.

Don't. Touch. Anything.

Kurumi turned a corner and walked RIGHT into a massive spider web. "KYAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" she shrieked as she began to try and pull it off her, throwing her hood over her head in the process and masking her in darkness all while her little ball of light was floating along side her.

Post #1 And feel free to grab her out of fright or jump over her or whatever! ;)
 

Oh, so they weren't supposed to change order? Emmanuelle must have gotten her muggle maths and Arithmancy mixed up. Oops? At least the curse wasn't deadly, or she would be in big trouble.

And as Professor Hadley explained what they were going to be doing next, a little thrill went up her spine. Well, a maze with obstacles sounded exciting, as long as there was nothing out there trying to kill you. And that was when she remembered the stupid people eating plant. Yikes! Hopefully, the stupid thing wouldn't be able find its way into the maze. Surely not. And how would they be able to tell if it was a maze vine or man-eating-plant vine? Suddenly, this wasn't seeming like such a great idea after all.

But before she could voice her concerns, the maze was set up. Sigh. There was nothing left to do but enter the maze. Once Em did, the hair on her arms stood up and she could feel eyes on her. She looked around to see what it could be, but didn't find anything. Yet she still felt them on her. Strange. She crept carefully down the maze, keeping her eyes peeled for anything dangerous. Eventually reaching a fork in the pathway, she debated for a moment, then decided to go left.