Benny was beginning to feel real lost as the discussion about planets and such went on around him and he was only getting about half of what was being said. Had he zoned out and missed something pivotal? Missed reading something that made the rest of the class more aware of what was going on? Whatever the case, the second year was trying his best to both pay attention and take notes of what the professor deemed to be on the right track. And then listening intently as he continued his notetaking while Flamsteed went full into lecture on the information they weren't aware of.

And now for the activity.

He got up with a groan and headed to where their dressing up supplies were kept, taking out his own lab coat and goggles and putting them both on so he was soon safe and secure. With himself all ready, Ben moved to where the solar systems were being kept and went in search of his own. It took a minute or two, but finally the Gryffindor had it within his grasp and was able to return to his seat to get to work. The boy placing it carefully down on his desk before collapsing back into his seat.

Only to jump out of it when an explosion of sorts happened beside him.

Oh no...Adi!

Thankfully when he looked over at his friend, the Hufflepuff appeared to be safe. The second year heaving a sigh of relief as he took his seat once more. Good news for Adi, now he just had to work on his own Jovian planet and hope for no incident.

Easier said then done.

Now came the harder part. Harder than walking up all those flights of stairs. ... Maybe.

Picking up his pestle, he took a deep breath before starting to grind up the ingredients in the mortar. Grind... grind... crush... crush... His hand was getting tired. Already. He had to stop sometime because... ... he just had to. This was really tiring, you know? He took a deep breath but decided to continue on anyways. The sooner he got it done the sooner he'd be done with it, right?

... Crush... crush... crush...

Tiring.

Crush... crush... crush...

... Was that okay? Yeah? He was going to say so. ... Pause. He crushed the items up until it was a little bit more powdery before stopping. Properly. Glad that the step was over, Alec picked up his... ... ? Erm... wand? Where...? Eyes wide, he glanced up at the Professor quickly to see if he was looking in his direction. Please don't. Not while he was patting his robes looking for that blasted wand of his. Reaching down, he grabbed his bag and, opening it, started rummaging around in it. Wand... wand... where for art...

... WAND!

Grabbing it, he let his bag drop to the floor before sitting up straight. Nothing to see here. Nope. Clearing his throat, he glanced over at his notes, trying to ignore the heat that was rising to his face. ... Fingere... Elementi? Yeah, he knew this particular spell. Fingere... Elementi... and a jab, right? That's what his notes said.

"Fingere Elementi!" JAB!

...

...

HE HAD A PLANET!

And his planet had a RING too! Grinning widely, the boy quickly placed the planet in the box before shutting it tightly. Now... he could sit and watch all he wanted, right? Right.

After he heard the professors HUGE explanation and copied ALL the notes on the board, his hand was cramping. He rolled his wrists till he got all the cracks out. He had to finish his chocolate before he began the activity. He ate all his coins and then was ready to begin. He was a little sugar high...so he kept tapping his foot to keep it contained.

He had to use his mortar. He found it and then had to clean it. He said, "Scourgify!" and then it was all clean. He got goggles on just incase. Now he needed to add hydrogen, helium and nitrogen. He added the two scoops to his mortar of each gas. Now he needed to add a small pebble to it. He did that and then he needed to grind them together.

After what felt like an eternity, Caleb had finally managed to crush the tiny, round stone into rubble, mixing it in with all the powdered gases he'd collected. Alright, time to make a gas giant! He wondered if it would have a hurricane, like Jupiter. Wasn't there one on Neptune too? That'd be so cool!

"Fingere Elementi!" he exclaimed, watching as the elements swirled together and made a tiny little gas giant. It was a kind of blueish greenish color, sort of like Uranus, and even though it didn't have a hurricane swirling around on the surface, there were lots of bands of gases swirling around, making it look all striped like Jupiter. Pretty cool! What would he name it now?

Kace started grinding his ingredients into the mortar. He ground them till they were all powder like. Now he needed to do the spell he learned last time in class. He practiced saying the spell first, "Fingeri Elementi...." No that wasn't right. He checked his notebook and knew he was saying it wrong.


It was "Fingere Elementi.......Fingere Elementi......Fingere Elementi......Fingere Elementi!" he got the hang of it now! He pointed his wand at the mortar and said confidently...."Fingere Elementi!" and then he heard the small BOOM! and then the planet was made. He smiled and added the planet to the box.

Toby would.

Toby would take pity on Pluto. Poor Pluto. Tobias would never give up his sympathy for the poor baby planet that didn't even manage to complete its own version of a year before being completely demoted. He couldn't help it; he simply cared too much.

This was not voiced though; instead, Tobias worked as hard as he could noting down all that he could hear Airey say, and making a mental note to try and research all this stuff again in his own time. Perhaps he could read in front of a fire, with a nice blanket over his legs, and Bludger curled up at his feet. The dream.

Before he could start getting carried away dwelling on the blissful idea of a calm, quiet and still study session, the activity was started. Tobias made sure he had all the steps written out, and then stood and eased his way into a one of the lab coats, and snapping the goggles over his eyes.

The solar system could wait. There was a lot of movement involved in this class and Tobias decided he could take it slowly, which meant heavy lifting would come later. First would be the sciencey bit, THEN he'd grab his solar system, and then he'd make the planet and add it. This also worked out because a lot of people were grabbing their boxes now; Toby could just wait for the rush to pass. He could not abide jostling from these whippersnappers.

Two scoops each of hydrogen, helium and nitrogen were added to Toby's mortar, and then he stood for a moment, deliberating on which stone to choose. It really was quite the tough decision.

Finally, the third year decided on a milky white sort of stone, very pretty, and added that to the mortar with the powdered elements.

Now for some crushing!

...

... uh... where was his pestle?

It was a lot to write down and her wrist hurt, so mid lecture Beverly just picked out what she thought was the most important. For example, the making of Terrestrial planets and Jovian ones. It also made it easier when she re-worded it to fit her thinking. By the time she was done it was time for the activity, and also time to stuff the last bit of chocolate into her mouth and store the rest away.

She was ever grateful when the elements appeared at her table. No standing up for the win!

After suiting up she added two scoops of the elements in the mortar, then chose a small pebble that resembled a Gobstone marble. That would do. The grinding part wasn't her favorite, but the chocolate seemed to have provided her with a bit of energy that she could endure through this. All for the sake of great marks.

Moments later, when she was done, she withdrew her wand. "Fingere Elementi!"

She was confident it would work, having done it more than several times already. The powders gathered and formed a small, glowing...sphere. Was that hair around it. Squinting at it Beverly realized that it wasn't a hair. It was thin, thiiiiiin ring around her tiny planet. Oh. That was cool. Really, really cool.

Into the box it went. :3

Lottie needed help.

At least she knew it was necessary. That's like, step one. She knew she needed help because she actually stopped listening after a few minutes of hearing nothing but SUN, SUN, SUN. Impossible. However, perhaps the one who was part of the problem could also be part of the solution, yeah? We'll just... wait and see.

She simply couldn't fail a class because of this.

Now, what was Airey saying? Oh, never mind, he was still discussing planets and the sun. The Hogwartian thought she heard the name 'West Odessa', but that was probably her mind playing tricks on her after having mentioned 'West', the direction not the person.

OH WAIT, the blackboard! She supposed she could pay attention now.

#THIS! That's what she wanted to ask Airey when she was making the solar system! She would've accused the man of being a mind reader, but LOL, thank Merlin he was NOT one. Awkward. Other than that, the Jovian planets explanation was brilliant. Had she been paying her usual attention to this subject.

And they were making one, okay. Lab coat on, goggles...well, yes sure, why not, on as well. And she quickly found everything she needed to find. Of course. SYLAR was the most important thing of all, of course.

So, what went into the mortar? A small pebble, not the real Pebbles, 2 scoops of hydrogen, 2 scoops of nitrogen, 2 scoops of helium... and... crushing them all together. Forcing them all together, technically. And so, with her mind mildly distracted, Lotus Wisteria will be crushing the ingredients for a Jovian planet until the fine powder happens. Just like she did with all the other planets. Mmmhmmm.

Yup, this was the boring part. Question. What happens if we use the real Pebbles?

Delilah frowned, carefully taking down notes as Airey talked and talked.... and talked. Oh, goodness. She was honestly starting to feel like her head was going to explode with all the information, half of which she wasn't even sure if she understood. That was probably because Nutella had taken up half of her brain...

ANYWAY. They were moving on to the activity part of the lesson.. Finally! And they were going to creating a jovian planet! Exciting, yeah? Heh. She put on her lab coat and goggles before starting with the first step;

She added two scoops of hydrogen, helium and nitrogen to her mortar... Oh, wait. A small pebble too. She added it in as well before starting the less enjoyable part of the activity, which was to crush all the ingredients into a powder. Boooooring.

After having ground up hydrogen, helium, nitrogen and the small pebble together, Annabeth put the pestle aside and grabbed her wand.

"Fingere Elementi!", Anna cast the incantation with the sharp movement towards the mortar. It seemed to work. But then tiny explosions began to pop here and there. "Explosions, explosions...It's probably excessive Hidrogen..." she searched on her notes.

"Here!" There wasn't anything in her notes about decreasing Hidrogen. But there was about decreasing Helium and increasing Hidrogen. She hadn't time to ask for help, it seemed it could explode at any time. Quickly, she combined the two spells,

"Deminuo Hidrogenii!" She cast the incantation which came to her mind, making two flicks while saying "deminuo" and a jab movement while saying "hidrogenii". It had worked somehow, the Jovian planet wasn't looking as a popcorn pan.

Annabeth pointed her wand towards the Jovian planet and made it go into the glass box and closed the lid.

She could breathe a sigh of relief now that it was done. She remained gazing at the Jovian Planet she had just made. It was beautiful. A big grin came to her face, no doubt she had been clever from her thinking about combining the spells.

Bart looked at the professor with a bit of a blank stare for a moment after his comment. Did he not have a sense of humor with all his big... oh right the boy finally got it and laughed a bit, "Good one professor" He was laughing a bit still as he listened to the activity. They were making planets again, were they the same planets as before. No it seemed like there was more steps to this or more items to put together. Yeah totally more items to put together, but if he did it once couldn't be hard to do it again, right?

He shuffled his feet to get the ingredients. Scooping in two scoops of hydrogen then he scooped in the helium, and finally he scooped in nitrogen. Once in his mortar he dropped in a pebble before shuffling back to his desk. Squinting at the board he looked at the steps. Now it was time to crush so he began.

crush.. crush... crush

Annabeth was mesmerized by the new planet. As soon as it was put into the box, the gaseous planet began floating gracefully around the sun, making its orbit more distant than the rocky planets. It was so colourful. The marvelous Jovian Planet was moving on majestically through space as if it knew exactly how it was supposed to work. Annabeth couldn't stop grinning.

"Now I can understand you, Professor Flamsteed. It's beautiful!" she said, her eyes were sparkling, forgetting that she was supposed to raise her hand before talking to the teacher. Would he mind?

He continued to crush until it was in that familiar powder. Now he thought about the spell. He created the planets last time so this shouldn't be any different.. he hoped. Pulling up his wand he did the wand movement, "Fingeres Elementi" Watching the powder stir a little, but it didn't do anything. huff What had he done wrong? Pulling up his wand again he did the movement over, "Fingeres Elementi"

Still nothing.....


Ugh why wasn't anything happening, not a planet not even a cool boom or bang explosion. This was really dung bombs. Honestly he wanted an explosion at least! The boy watched in envy as the others had explosions and planets. Looking at the steps he thought about the word, Fingere Elementi. Had he said it wrong? He looked at the mixture again and took a deep breath. Doing the wand movement one last time. "Fingere Elementi"

A planet formed!!

A big smile crossed the boys face he did it, he had been saying it wrong. Woot! He got another planet!

So this was basically like last classes activity. But they were making a different type of planet. Nigel sort of doodled starfish and nodded off on the long lecture by Flamsteed. Way to long of a 17 year old to pay attention to in this class.

Nigel must be lost because from his limited knowledge. How do you add scoops of gases into a mortar and crush him. They are gasses. Nigel thought bout this as he went to retrieve his awesome solar system. Ah they were powdered. Now it made sense.

The Prefect added the two scoops of the gasses he need and moved onto the next step. The pebbles. Thank Merlin there was one on his desk. Most have gotten it when he got up before. Just like Magic.

Time to grind up all these things and make a powder.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ivana R

The old man hadn't listened to what she had talked about the hydrogenated fat or sugar. At least he hadn't listened to what she had told about his memory too.
Annabeth stood up and walked slowly towards the teacher's desk. She took her wand and conjured a crystal bowl. After looking proudly at it for two seconds, the girl opened with her own hands a great amount of chocolate coins, leaving them in the bowl she had just conjured to this purpose. "It looks nicer than tasty," she muttered to herself.

"Professor, your coins," she said, smiling at him, sincerely regretting for what she had said about the mnemonic techniques. Professor Flamsteed seemed to be a good person.

Salivating. There was definitely some of that going on right now as the astronut resister the urge to lick his shriveled lips with his tongue. Not that he really had a sweet tooth, but more it had been AGES since he had had chocolate. Or so he believe when the reality was he had had some just that morning. Whoops. Plum forgot that.

"Thank you, and take 2 points for your generosity."

Now come to his mouth sweet sweet deliiiiiiiiiiiiight.

Due to his hearing not being what it once was, the sounds of explosions coming from all about the classroom came off as nothing more than mere pops. A popping sound much like chewing gum. "NO CHEWING GUM IN THE CLASSROOM!" he announced, waving his wand in the air and accidentally setting of small red sparks.

That should put an end to the popping noise and now he could enjoy his chocolate.


............................

Blimey. Not nearly as good as he remembered. Alas.

OOC: there is still plenty of time to do this activity as I am going to extend the hours a bit because of quidditch interference We will move on to the next activity once I have had some sleep, so there is still somewhere between 10 - 12 hours before that happens.

Solar system collected...on to planetbuilding.

Sufficiently recovered from the surprise of Adi's planet being made, Ben went to work on his own. "Scourgify..." he cast on his mortar and pestle and scoop before beginning. Then taking the final tool, Ben scooped out the necessary amounts of each of the three elements they would needed need. Hydrogen, helium and nitrogen as his notes now said jotting things down.

One...two scoops of hydrogen.
One...two scoops of helium.
One...two scoops of nitrogen.

With it all in the bowl of the mortar, Ben added the small pebble before starting to grind and break and blend everything together. Crunch...crunch...crunch. Blend...blend...blend. And finally it was all down to a nice fine powder perfect for a little magic. So with a lift of his wand after putting down his pestle, Ben thought back to the spell he would need, running it over in his head to make sure he had it right again. Fingere Elementi...Fingere Elementi...Fingere Elementi.

"Fingere Elementi!" he cast when he was ready, jabing at the mixture and nearly jumping in preparation of the possibility of an explosion. But nothing happened...well no explosion that is. His jovian planet had formed without the trouble.

Riiiiight. Now to create the planet.

Delilah picked up her wand, taking a few deep breaths. She was kind of worried, really. What if exploded or something? That was a little scary. Scratch that. MORE than scary. The girl eyed the mixture for another few moments before deciding to perform the spell. Yeah, she could do it right?

"Fingere Elementi!" She jabbed at the mixture and.. nothing happened for a second but suddenly there was a planet right in front of her. So, it had worked after all. She couldn't help but grin slightly as she carefully herded it into the box and shut the lid.

Ooooh, it certainly looked colourful, alright. It was kind of pretty.. She set her wand back down and just watched it.

Considering how many mini-explosions she was hearing, she was half expecting that to happen to her as well. It was very likely, says Airey Flamsteed.

Now that the mix had finally turned to the finest powder ever imaginable, it was time to attempt the explosion, right? Right. So she stayed a bit away from the mortar as she did the jab motion at it, "Fingere Elementi." Erm... .... ... blink. Nothing happened. Not even the mini-explosion. Whaaaaaat was going on???? Did she do something wrong? Actually, yes, she wasn't holding her wand. >__< OOOH. Okay, clear head now, wand at the mortar, "Fingere Elementi!" OH WOW. Look at that! Look how pretty! Rings and all!

Zero explosions, but that dead reaction at first was... quite suspicious. What if it ended exploding once the jovian planet joined SYLAR. Gasp. All her work for nothing!

Here's to hoping this doesn't happen.

Finally, she allowed the youngest planet to join the others and closed the box. Pretty solar system was pretty.

Oh wow! Oh wow! Oh wow!

Odd, this was definitely odd. Lex had gone through what might have been her fourth coin and she felt she could have bounced off the wall. It was an odd sensation if only for the fact that at the same time she felt she was about to crash. These conflicting feelings did very little for her headspace. Was she hyper or tired? It was so hard to tell and she wasn't yelling. Even harder to tel--

OHHHHhHHhHHhhHhhH!!!!!! BIG EXPLOSIONS!!!!!

She LAIKED those and the Professor said this one was expected. Expected yes expected. Lex hurried over for her coat and goggles then snatched her solar system from the table and headed back to her seat. She grabbed a whole bunch of the hydrogen, helium and nitrogen. Let's see there was three scoops of the first......six of the second--Hey what'd this do??? This one got 4 scoops of it added.

If her bones weren't being so rickety she might have been bouncing in her seat in anticipation of the impending explosion. Oh boy! Oh boy! Oh boy!

Crush crush crush. That was as fine as she was prepared to grind all this stuff. She wanted her explosion NOW. This was what she'd been waiting for all term long. It'd been a long time coming.

"Fingere Elementi!"

BOOM!!!!!!!

Merlin. Did the professor HAVE to mention explosions? She eyed one Alexa Cambridge as she went to retrieve her coat and goggles, knowing for a fact that it wasn't safe to let that child know what to do to make stuff go boom. That was just a bad idea in entirety, wasn't it?

Gear and game face on, Alice hobbled over to fetch her solar system. Her planets were already looking quite nice, but Aireyhead was right; they were clearly missing those pretty little Jovian planets in here. She'd need a pebble to create them with too, right? While she was up there, the seventh year selected a pretty looking turquoise one. That color wasn't in her box yet.

And upon reaching her station again, she immediately got to work, pulling her mortar closer before squinting at all the powdered element labels. Which one was Helium? And Hydrogen and Nitrogen both ended with an N, how would she tell the difference? Elderly issues for sure. Life was hard.

But no matter. Didn't she need two scoops of all of them? Grabbing each jar, she dumped in two good scoops of whichever element she was touching at the current moment, followed by the other two and the pebble. Ta-da! Getting everything into the mortar was such an achievement on its own.

There all the the things needed to be crushed..crushed into a fine powder. It did look exciting. But Nigel knew in a matter of seconds he would have a gas planet in his solar system. Now the only thing to worry about was a name.

"Fingere Elementi!"

Magnificent. He now had a planet to add. Next he opened the box and threw it in. There basically done for now.

Now the name. He tried to remember the ones Mo told him in the lab.

Nah, just Zeus was fine. Greek Gods need some representation and not just their Roman aspects.

Cough cough.

Lex tried fanning at all the smoke that had appeared after the initial explosions, grinning through the coughs, clearly pleased with her work. No matter what happened now, she felt completely accomplished. Before the term was out she made something go BOOM and without the risk of losing points too. Best class ever. Definitely. All Professors should take a page out of Professor Airey's book. The man was full of good ideas.

Ahem, but she needed a Jovian planet like everyone else....yeah.....

The Gryffindor reached for the powdered gases and added the right quantities this time, two scoops each like the Professor had said then she got the rock and crushed it in until everything in her mortar was finely ground powder. See? She could follow instructions proper. Glancing across she saw Alice giving her looks but couldn't imagine WHY. Explosions were happening! Why was no ons else excited???

"Fingere Elementi!"

This explosion was far less impression than the first but she could live with it. Eh. Sure. No smoke that half killed her and no deafening noises but it gave the desired result, a new planet that she quickly added to the others. he was a little cutie and would fit right in. GRIN.

What... came after the powdered elements and the pebble...?

Right. The crushing. Alice wasn't keen on moving her arm again, so she cast a quick "Excito Animans" on the pestle. Envisioning the grinder crushing the ingredients to smithereens, she watched in satisfaction as it did just that. Another step down and she hadn't even gotten her elbows sore.

Next was the spell, yeah? After a speedy "Finite" to end the animation of her tools, she peered into the mortar to assure herself that everything was in a fine powder. Then came her real performance. "Fingere Elementi!" With a jab of her wand, the magic was done.

BOOM.

She winced visibly, seeing as this assignment wasn't wary of her sensitive old people ears at ALL. Must the explosion make such a ruckus? Fortunately, the elements had combined into a planet, so she didn't have to redo it like others had. Alice went ahead and ushered her little Jovian thing into the box, then closed the lid. Nap now?

It took a fair amount of squinting and searching, and Tobias could FEEL time tick by as those around him progressed further in their planetary exploits, but he eventually located the pestle right beside where his right hand had been resting on the desk. Literally. RIGHT THERE.

Narrowing his eyes at his own awful memory, Tobias grabbed it up and instantly got to work with crushing up the elements and ingredients in his mortar. He had had quite a lot of practice with this for their homework, and, if he said so himself, felt like a seasoned expert in the art of CRUSHING.

Deciding it was best to try and work as quickly as possible, lest his energy desert him any time soon, Tobias got to work, enthusiastically thumping and grinding up the contents of the mortar into as fine a powder as he could get it. He tired quickly, which was probably understandable, what with being all elderly and stuff. At this point, Tobias was sort of starting to accept it and get used to it. And right now, he was just crushing stuff and living his life.

Soon enough, Toby judged that the contents were nice and ground down, and that he could probably do the spell now. It only took him like a minute to locate his wand this time, which had to be some kind of record.

"Fing-"

... Actually, no. Airey had said something about explosions. Toby wasn't entirely sure just WHAT he'd said, but the word 'explosion' had definitely passed his lips. Which meant... that Tobias sort of... crouched. Strategic crouching behind cover. The desk would save him should anything go wrong.

From down here, Toby still had a decent view of the mortal, just from below, and he aimed his wand at it, and began again.

"Fingere Elementi!"

..................

.........

... nothing.

Tobias had just motioned with his wand as though to poke it and try to jostle the magic into working, and was also rising to his feet at the time, when the spell reALLY DID RESPOND. There was a sudden BOOM, and Tobias, caught unawares, jolted in surprise and fell back the short way to the ground, ending up in a sitting position.

If anyone had been watching from across the room or something, the next thing they'd have seen was Toby's arms appearing on the desk, which helped to lever him back up and onto his feet again. That... had been slightly painful but Tobias wasn't really one to show that he was in pain unless it was super bad. Besides, there was ASTRONOMISING TO BE DONE!

The planet had turned out a gazillion times better than Tobias had been expecting, and the third year was kind of in awe for a moment. To be fair, Toby had mostly been expecting the gases to blow up completely, and that he'd need to start again, so anything was a bonus at this point. He leaned down and inspected the planet carefully. It was mainly white but with beautiful colours streaked through it from everywhere on the colour spectrum, and a few delicate looking rings which made it look AWESOME.

Feeling enormously proud of himself, Tobias scooped up the planet in his hand, noted how utterly bizarre it felt to be holding a tiny Jovian planet, and promptly deposited it in his box to join the rest of his solar system.

This was awesome. But what should he name it?

Tobias just watched his miniature solar system now, completely captivated by the entire thing.

After the small planet went into the box Beverly turned around for only a few seconds when she heard a POOF! Turning around, wand in hand ready hex anyone who dared tamper with her planet, she caught sight of it smoking and crumbling.

Holly Chinese Fireballs, what happened?!

With a wrinkly pout she watched as it became rubble. Welp. That wasn't supposed to happen. Huffing, she put her wand down and restarted the procedure. It had to be her magic lagging again or maybe the pebble she'd chosen was too small. Either way, she had to do it all over again. What a drag.

Collecting the elements and another pebble - a shiny dark one this time - she crushed them in the mortar. It took longer to grind everything into fine powder this time around because of her sore muscles (did she even have any left?) but she got the job done. Picking her wand up again, she cast:

"Fingere Elementi!"

The powder gathered up into a tiny ball. The rings around this planet were more obvious than the previous one. That probably had to due to the planet being a royal blue with gray swirls. The rings were a gold-ish kind of color, really sticking out. It might not have been identical as the first planet, but she loved his one too. And it BETTER stay that way. No crumbling.

Carefully putting it inside the box, Beverly watched it go all berserk. Live tiny Jovian planet, LIIIIVE.