Sitting in her seat, Kurumi cocked her head to the side at the man's words. He was sorry that she knew Alice? Kurumi wasn't, aside from all the blushing and awkward conversations that the girl caused.

Thoughts still lingering on this for a while, Kurumi missed the first bit of what the old man had said and only really came to again when they were asked if they knew what was in the jar....or what the jar was...or something. She was sort of distracted by the jar for some reason. Which clearly meant that she had no idea what it was - especially since she knew nothing about the Ministry and even less about the Department of Mysteries - minus knowing that Evelyn worked there now.

Sitting in silence, Kurumi simply shook her head back and forth a few times. Nope. Not a clue. But the guesses everyone else were giving were sort of...frightening...

Sarah thought about it for a moment. Is it like a time machine? So you can travel back or forward in time? He did come from the Time place. Perhaps it actually was the orb from last year... Or maybe...

Jory wasn't sure what the thing was and as he studied it, he felt more puzzled. He raised his hand anyway to volunteer an answer. "Does it have something to do with someone's life and death?'' he asked.

As she sat listening to the man speak, she grew quite fond of him. It must've been the way he talked, the words he used. It made her miss her own grandfather. But she wouldn't think about that now. Not in a room full of people.

The guesses at the jar were wondrous to be sure, and she for one did not have a clue about it - other than she never, ever wanted to touch it. He'd said not to and from the descriptions being said, it was with good reason. She really didn't want to turn any younger, or older either. And she above all did not want to never have been...or die and never be again. If that's what it did at all...Yikes!

Sherman clapped his hands, beaming at the student. "Yes, ma'am! This beauty is straight from the Time Chamber itself." He patted the precious jar on the side, beaming at it affectionately. "Do you have any idea what it is?" Because the girl seemed to have a glint of intuition in her eyes. er face appeared to have been lit up, a look that the elderly man had seen many times.

He stared at the students with wide, patient eyes and awaited an answer.



The Unspeakable wheeled around the room, calling on various students for answers. What bright children! Such creative thoughts that had settled in their minds. "You all are very imaginative," he said, impressed. "Wonderful ideas. You're on the right track, and you're very, extremely close to the answer. Keep trying!" He beamed at them all and proceeded to call on some of the other children.

Sherman's goofy grin made a reappearance on his crinkly old face as one of the younger students, a miss Ella Bishop.. hey, hadn't Alice mentioned her before?.. answered his question. "Brilliant, Miss Bishop, absolutely brilliant!" He beamed at the girl, and then repeated what she had said for those who couldn't hear. "Miss Bishop is correct. This is a Bell Jar, a very rare piece of laboratory equipment that speeds up your aging." He grinned at her once more and then turned back to the other students. "Does anyone have information to add to Miss Bishop's description of the jar and its capabilities?"

This time, the elderly man was so impressed that he clapped his hands in amusement and started to bounce in his wheelchair. "Perfect, Mister Vanderbilt! Wonderful!" Yes.. okay.. he was becoming a bit giddy. He toned his excitement down.. just a tad.. he didn't want to seem to be mad, now did he? No, Mr. Clark was not going bonkers, he wasn't. "The cycle of life and death! Mister Vanderbilt is right on target, everyone." He nudged forward the jar a bit more with his wheelchair.

"The cycle that the jar demonstrates is called the time cycle, or, as Mister Vanderbilt said, the cycle of life and death." He smiled once more at the boy. "When an object is placed inside the jar, it rapidly goes through this cycle. This means that, hypothetically, if one of you were to stick your head inside of the jar, it would turn into the head of an adult. Then it would become all wrinkly, like mine, and then it would wither and die." This is why you do not stick your head in the jar, children. "Afterwards, your head would start again as an infant's. Isn't that amazing?" He gazed at the children, a glint of wild excitement in his eyes.

But, then he added hastily, "BUT. Do not put your head in the jar, children, please." Beam.

"Now," Sherman began to wheel around again, in a pacing manner. "This jar had slight significance in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries in good old, '96, approximately 83 years back. Does anyone care to explain what role the Bell Jar played in this particular battle?" They should know, shouldn't they? After all, they were able to answer the first question, which was much harder, in his opinion.

Awarlesta bounced up and down in her seat with her hand shooting in the air, "It was in the famed Harry Potter era! A Death Eater bumped into it or something. Correct?" She read endlessly about the all famous Harry Potter and by the pictures in the book, he was rather cute.

Ella smiled sheepishly as Hulk's Granddad Mr. Clark said her answer was brilliant. She was quite pink too! If anyone was looking at her right now, they'd clearly note the change in color. Mehhh. Darn those compliments! They got her every single time! She tried to make herself a bit smaller as the adorable old man went on to announce what she said to the class, looking down at her desk to avoid eye contact. MEEP. BUT...She'd been correct! BEAM! How cool was that? Really cool, that's how.

Ohhhh! So the Jar didn't just age people but made them go through the entire life cycle? WOW. How cool was that? The third year tried not to giggle when Mr. Clark called himself wrinkly, though she wholeheartedly agreed. Homeboy was like the wrinkle king or something! Yeah! The Wrinkle King of Cute! BEAM. She scribbled down some notes, writing all of the new information down because it was quite fascinated.

O___O

Put her head in the jar? Ummm. NO thanks! Of course she'd never do that. Seemed like a horrible idea! Almost as bad as the Theodore nose hair whipping incident of last term. Meep!

Oh...a question! How was the Bell Jar related to what had happened in '96? Hmmm. "Mr. Clark? I think during battle one of the death eater's heads ended up inside the jar! And I'm guessing it did some damage." Heh. That's what he got though, for being a big evil meanie!

Vivi didn't want to put her head in the jar, but she wanted to see someone else put their head in the jar. What if they pulled it out again? Would it be stuck in whatever stage it had been in at that moment? Imagine going through life with the body aging normally but the head already really old. Or much younger!

She wasn't sure she had anything to add to the statements her classmates had already made, but Vivi raised her hand anyway. "I think it sort of ended up incapacitating one of the Death Eaters when he fell into it. So, in that sense, it was sort of a weapon."

Jory raised his hand. He had remembered something about this incident though he could not recall were he got the knowledge from. "A Death Eater's head got into one of them,'' he said. That would have been something to see...certainly creepy and weird but fascinating.

Kurumi could honestly say that she had no intention of sticking her head - or any other part of her body for that matter - into said jar. Especially not after it was confirmed what the jar was. She HAD ready about them, mostly in her history textbooks and what not, so she knew a little bit about what was going on now. Which is why her hand went up this time.

"A Deatheater stuck his head in the jar and it began to morph back into the head of a baby," Kurumi said as she lowered her hand to her desk. "I suppose you could say that the jar's role in the battle was that it served as a distraction. Something that weakened the Deatheater by returning him to his youth." Since, you know, the man had asked what role the jar had played and not just what had happened and all.

Well aint he the excitable one?

Vickers was grinning at the elderly wizard. His Uncle didnt go further about him other than he was a good man and a trusted associate. Whoduthunkit that Wheels would be the life of a party eh?

And yeah... he is soooo going to ask his Uncle about this jar and all those time related devices he suspects his Uncle uses. Gifts no longer manufactured anywhere... photographs of notable historical people with his Uncle he says were look-alikes? Pffff yeah right.

Now back to the bell jar. Vickers furrowed his brows as Clark continued to explain what it can do. Yes it was an amazing piece of equipment but it was also a cleverly hidden weapon. What if it was stuck on someone then pulled away at the moment that person reached the end of his/ her life cycle? Dying of old age will never be looked upon the same way again.

At the question he raised his hand he says "Its like how you explained it Mr Clark-- someone-- this Death Eater that Hermione Granger was trying to fight off-- actually got his head stuck in the jar, and he started to age rapidly then loop back into babyhood. Suffice it to say that jar is far more effective as a weapon even if that is not its primary purpose."

That jar looked awfully small to be doing anything that was very important, but it was amazing that it could cycle through life and death. She wondered if they could make a bigger jar, one you could stand inside. Then when you aged...would you also develop any diseases that you would have naturally? And if you could, would they just keep you going until you died and then returned to the 'real time' age that you were? Would they use that to help find cures before it was too late? She thought about this more. But if you could stand inside, wouldn't everyone just live their lives and then come in when they felt too old and fast forward until they became the age they wanted to be again? This idea was incredibly fascinating. What type of a world that would be... you'd never know how old anyone really was. She brought herself back to the facts of the seminar. This jar, was small. Maybe there was no way to make bigger ones. Were they created in the first place? With spells and enchantments? Or is it some kind of energy that already existed somehow and some clever person put it in a jar? Now the young Ravenclaw just had more questions than answered. She wanted to ask all of these things, but she thought everyone might think she was crazy.

She knew though if she didn't ask, she really would go crazy. She raised her hand and asked, "Sir, I have a lot of questions about this. And I don't mean to skip ahead, but - do bell jars come in bigger sizes? Could a person put their whole body in one? And how are they made? How-" She stopped herself. Maybe she'd best be quiet and ask the rest after the seminar.

"It made one death eater turn into a baby didn't it. He was bawling and all!" Sarah raised her hand and said. "It sort of stopped him from fighting" GO JAR!!!!!!

Nigel listened to everybody say the correct answer and felt he should at least talk about it.

"Something to do with a Death Eater's head changing age."

Nigel sure did not want that to happen to him. It sounded horrible.

Aww...no explosions then?

It was a bit disappointing when she thought about it. In her mind some big explosion was coming up but all it was was a time changing age modifying thingy. That was what it was, yes? Nothing very dangerous there. Such a shame too. It would have been quite the spectacle if the old man actually managed to blow the roof off hogwarts. Although...er...he'd take off more than the roof if the thing really was supposed to go BOOM.

So time/age changing thingy...do not stick head inside. Got it. Her head wouldn't be going anywhere near that any time soon.

She continued bouncing in her seat as he spoke, just trying to keep the imagination train rolling. Lex raised an eyebrow when he mentioned that the jar had some kind of use waaaaaay back, some loooong time ago. Now seeing as she didn't follow history very well and was the farthest thing from an avid reader, she had no idea.

Some of her classmates had some pretty cool facts about the funny little jar though! "Cooool!! Did he die afterwards? How'd his head get back to normal--did his head get back to normal? Why does nobody tell me this stuff?" Merlin, people were so mean with their knowledge!

Had something to do with the wizarding war of 96' ? Ariana really needed to do her reading.. or maybe she should just talk to Millie.. She worked somewhere in the magical law enforcement shouldnt she know about all of this. then Ariana wouldn't have to read hehehe.

Always getting out of doing ACTUAL work she was. ariana looked at the glass ball thing the man had.. it sure did look weirrrdd. ariana didnt care though and she surely wasnt sticking ANY part of her body in that thing.. wait did mr. sherman put his head in their!? maybe he did!? did this aging process go along quickly? maybe he'd die in class!

deciding not to ask that she just sat around and listen to everyone else.. .. Ohhh so that's how it was used in the war.. hehe stupid deatheater.

Sherman beamed at all of the students, most of which knew exactly what had happened in the Battle of the Department of Mysteries. They were too smart for him. He wondered if any of his questions would ever stump them. "Brilliant, children! You are all correct! An unnamed death eater accidentally stuck his head in the jar while pursuing Harry Potter and his friends in the Ministry." These students really knew their history inside and out, didn't they? "His head transformed into that of an infant's. It soon returned to it's previous proportions, but then began to repeat the time cycle again. Isn't it wonderful?" Grin.

What a mad fool they must have thought him, taking pleasure at this nonsense.

And here was a student who had an answer to his second question. What role did the jar play in the Battle? "A weapon? That's a very interesting thought, Miss Branxton," he complimented, sneaking a glance at her nametag. "Yes, when the Death Eater was incapacitated by the jar, it did serve as weapon. Well done!" He smiled at the young girl once more and proceeded to the next student.

"A distraction?" And here was the Prefect, the one with the shiny badge, who had awkward friends like his dear granddaughter. This girl was an insightful one. "Yes, perfect, Miss Hollingberry!" She received a beam just as the other girl.. what was her name, Branxton?.. had. "Everyone, did you all catch an earful of Prefect Hollingberry's answer? A distraction! The jar played the role of a distraction because it changed the purpose of the Death Eater, from pursuing Potter to attempting to pull away from the jar. Brilliant, young lady, brilliant!" Beam. Beam. Beam.

And now who was approaching him? Was this a youngin with a question? Wonderful. Sherman smiled broadly at the young girl. "Young lady, those are such thoughtful questions! Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to them." His beam turned into a frown rather quickly. "You see, after the other significant events that took place that night, no one bothered to tell about the poor Death Eater and his head. His tale has been left untold." He stared at the child, deep in thought. "I'm afraid I don't have the answers for you, dear."

-------------------------------------

With that being the last comment, Sherman began to teach again. "Alright. So, I'm assuming that you all are curious and, like good insightful children, you want an example of how my.. I mean, our, precious jar makes its magic!" He beamed affectionately at the crystal jar, his eyes filled with a great appreciation. "I have brought along a chicken egg to demonstrate the Bell jar's power over the time cycle. Shall we begin?" He bounced excitedly in his wheelchair, ready for the fun part of being a professor for a day.

As carefully as he could, he pulled the pearly white chicken egg out of his bag and lowered it into the jar. The old man pulled his hand out quickly, before it's effects turned on him. Sherman's eyes intently watched the egg as it began to transform.

After a second or two, the egg began to rise in the jar. His eyes followed the object upwards and closely observed the cracks appearing in the shell. swoon, the shell broke apart into multiple pieces and floated to the bottom of the jar as a baby chick appeared. The little thing began to chirp as it magnified in size. Soon, it had groen into a full sized hen. Sherman immediately shoved his hands into the jar, disrupting the process and pulling the hen out out of her captivity. "Observe the hen, children. See how it has gone from an unhatched egg to a full-sized chicken in a matter of minutes, or possibly seconds?" He beamed at all of them and held the chicken at arms length for them to see.

Sarah was glad that he had shared his jar with her... he was not as possesive as Sarah then.

There was no need for Sarah to be told o observe as she was already watching with rapt attention.. that was awesome. Yet she had a question so she raised her hand and asked"lets say that someone were to have a chicken farm and use the jar to quicken the process... would the chickens be of inferior quality to those which were raised naturally as they had shorter time to develope?"

So Hulk's Granddad was seriously making Ella smile. His excitement was contagious and the stuff he said made her giggle. Like the comment about the death eater's head? The Isn't it wonderful? That was just too cute. BEAM. Ella nodded enthusiastically, thinking it was quite cool that the jar could make that happen.

OH! They were going to get to see the Bell Jar in action?! MEEP! That was SO cool. Ella sat up straighter in her chair, green eyes going wide at the sight of the white egg that was now being placed inside of the device. WOAH. This was going to be wicked!

O_____O

The badger watched, fascinated, as the egg cracked, a baby chick emerged, and then it grew into a hen. Merlin's beard! That was...crazy!

"Excuse me, Sir." Ella said, raising her hand as she eyed the hen. "Is the hen like...healthy and everything? Given how quickly it grew and everything?" In other words, would the hen live and function as a normal healthy hen would given the way it was hatched/grown?

Minerva had been sitting quietly the entire time. This was just a bit much for her. The thought of your head changing freaked her out and then they were saying someones had gotten in there. O_O, she wanted as far from the jar as possible. Why would they bring something like this into the school.

Feeling a bit tense she watched as he placed an egg in the jar and it quickly turned into a hen, she felt herself whimper as the egg went to a hen way to quickly. "Sir. umm.. isn't that inhumane doing that to that poor chicken? Is it hurting the poor thing, and if we don't get it out won't it die?" She did not want to watch a hen die if she could get it out of the jar and save it, but she wasn't sure it was safe to get it out either. This was just to much..

She watched, amazed, as the egg turned to a chick and into a hen. Remarkable! she thought excitedly. It was really something to watch the bell jar in action. But still, she wanted answers. How, why, when did someone discover this thing? She also hoped, like the Hufflepuff girl did, that the bell jar wasn't causing pain to the chicken during its transformation. She somehow didn't think it was, because this nice old man didn't look the type to showcase torture in front of a live audience. But she'd been wrong before.

Alexa sat back in her chair and watched the man place an egg in the jar. Ummm...why was adorable old man putting eggs in the jar? Wasn't it for aging and time related stuff?

When the egg began moving and cracking her eyes widened in wonder. Right. Time. Remembering this made it a little less surprizing to her when she saw the egg finally go through the various chicken stages until it was a full grown hen. "COOL!" Some of the other students were asking questions but she found them a little silly compared to the one she was gonna ask.

"So what would happen if you put a chocolate frog in there? Would it get older and hop less?" Making it much harder for them to get away and YES she considered chocolate frogs more important than the health of the chicken. For all she knew she would probably be eating a part of that chicken for dinner. It wouldn't last much longer so there was no need to fixate on it. Nope.

Kurumi blushed slightly and sunk into her seat a little before flicking her eyes towards Vivi who had also received a BEAM from Mr. Clark. Was this just a common thing with old people in the wizarding world? They were overly enthusiastic and grinned all the time? Professor Burbage had been so in their first Astronomy lesson and now this man was doing it too.

Better this than another Lafay though, that was for sure.

Bowing her head slightly in gratitude, Kurumi returned to her notes and jotted down a few notes before the man continued - and with a demonstration at that.
Kurumi watched carefully, notebook and parchment in hand, as the egg morphed into a chick, and then a hen and jumped with surprise when the man pulled the hen out of the jar rather suddenly. Her thoughts wandered to the Deatheater whose head had gone into the jar and, well, they didn't know the fate of. Eyes widening a bit, Kurumi glanced at Minerva when she asked about the humanity of this demonstration and the cogs in her head began to move a bit.

This was a bit different from the Deatheater. He had been fully grown and his time reversed whereas the hen - which techincally hadn't officially begun to live just yet - was moving it's timeline forward. Or did that really matter?

Working with timelines was confusing...no way this Gryffindor would ever be a time lord. There WAS a reason why witches and wizards were told not to mess with time and why all the timeturners had been destroyed.

Instead of commenting on anything, Kurumi simply nodded her head. Yep. She had seen...and now she was getting anxious for the activity of this lesson. Were they going to stick random things in the jar to see what would happen?!

Now that... that was interesting, and Vivi leaned way forward in her seat to observe. Amazing, actually. Absolutely amazing. A bit inhumane, admittedly, but it was definitely something she hadn't seen before. She beamed back at the man.

"Is it lasting? I mean... when you do an aging spell, it won't last, which suggests it only seems to age you in very superficial ways. But would the only way to reverse this to leave it in the time stream long enough to circle back around? If you put someone in there and they aged five years, would they live five years less than they would have before?"

Whoah.... a live demonstration of the bell jar's effects....

Vickers sat up straighter when the Unspeakable took the egg from his bag. His jaw dropped somewhat when he saw the the man place his hand in as he set the egg at the bottom of the jar. For a few seconds that was all this Ravenclaw was looking at-- Mr Clark's hands. Did they get more scrawny and shriveled up? Did they get younger?

His gaze only shifted away when at the corner of his eye he could detect movement from within the jar. The egg has hatched! There's a chick in there now.... wait now it was a hen. And once again another silent gasp as the wizened wizard plucked the foul out of the jar, again with his bare hands.

Wow just... wow.

There were several questions thats popped in his head, some were already vocalized by the other students. But there was something he had always wondered when it comes to the aspect of aging living organisms forward "Mr Clark, what about the mental processes of that chicken? Will it be thinking like an adult hen already or will it still be thinking like that of a pre-hatched chick?" given that it didnt quite "live" life to give it experiences and such.. or it doesnt matter anyway? And just as he as about to lower his hand he raised it up again for an additional question "And Sir, werent your hands affected when you placed the egg into the jar and took the chicken out?"