Simon & Cutty
 

Cutty pulled out a clean sheet of parchment to reorganize his notes.



Professor Domingo's answer left Cutty guessing. Left him eager to spot the patterns. Not so much to please her, but for his own selfish gratification. Did gender play a greater role than meaning? Why were some numbers figured by multiplication and not addition? And besides being a convenient hint, why should five have been excluded in figuring the vibrational energy behind ten? Was there a significance for numbers one through four? What would happen when they got to much larger numbers?

Maybe they were looking at any variant of numbers provided they were smaller than the one being looked at. There had to be a pattern, though. Something that the discoverers were looking at to form a conclusion. He amended his notes.

If seven was a combination of a male number representing harmony and a female number representing justice or order, perhaps it could've been thought of as balance, rather than five. In Cutty's experience, marriage was as far from balance as anything you could get, though he did not regard this as a bad thing. Merely, he thought it inaccurate. Though, maybe it was something different. Maybe the pattern was 1+1, 1+2, 1+3, 2+3, 2(3), 2+5, 5+3, 5+4, 5+5. The last three might have also been combinations involving 3. 3+4=7, 3+5=8, and 3(3)=9, but then you'd have the combo breaker with 10.







"Hey Holden, want to compare notes?" He said leaning nearer to the boy.

Our mental synchronization....
 

"JINX!" exclaimed Simon as practically he and Cutty had asked each other to team up at the same time. Woah, man. They were definietly on the same wavelength today. His eyes widened in suspicion for a brief second. "Uh, sure." Simon pulled out his notes and looked for the next three numbers that they had to solve.



" Not sure if this is right, but I was guessing that perhaps nine had something to do with governments. I don't know why, but it seemed to make sense. What do you think?" he asked his dormmate as he was unsure about it all. The Professor said he was going in the right direction though....

Hmmmm...

Lex was still scowling down at her blank parchment when she heard the Professor approach and encourage not to let the veggies keep her down....If she had to guess the Professor wanted her to keep trying and that wouldn't have been so bad if she actually knew what they were on about. For a few moments she kept staring at her parchment that was still relatively blank until some explanations started rolling in at which point she began her religious scribbling. Couldn't miss a thing. It would be the difference between her understanding and not.



After taking everything down she gave another look at her parchment. They had to find 7, 8 and 9 and they were mixing other numbers? Was that it? Alexa chose the wrong day to not sit next to a Ravenclaw. As dumb as they were, they came in handy during this type of thing, there was no denying that. It looked like she'd be attempting on her own though. Pity.

Lex squinted at the numbers for a while before realizing it would get her nowhere. Picking up the quill didn't help either because she still didn't know what direction she was going in but at some point she had to start scribbling, if only to fill in the spaces. Merlin was she happy she didn't have an Arithmancy OWL to worry about at the end of this year.



Welp, no one could say she hadn't tried.

Beverly slowly raised her gaze to look up at Professor Domingo. What could five represent in their lives? An event? Glancing back down at her parchment, she made a few tweaks. So two and three are added, that's like...bonding...getting together...

Ha. Haha.

A sudden out of the blue thought crossed her mind. It was almost enough to distract her, but she pushed it to the WAY far back of her mind. Numbers. Arithmancy. She needed to think about that kind of stuff.

Focusing back on the task at hand, she dipped her quill in ink and started jotting notes and fixing a few things.



So...she labeled which were male and which are female...now for the rest. >.<

Mentions of Cutty + Simon.
 

The Slytherin nodded back at the professor and examined his answer. Well, that worked and was pleased himself. The better news? He can get more kebabs. But yeah, maybe in a little while, he’d go savor his little achievement first, because learning Arithmancy is a bit of a challenge, no?

The explanation was revealed shortly, and Ethan nodded in understanding as he copied the exact answer for Five and Ten. Well, he’s close all right, and that was good. At least his answer didn’t come straight from a textbook. That even made him feel smarter and whatnot. Moving on!

Whaaaaaat?

More numbers??? The Slytherin scrunched up his nose as he re-read the writings on the board. Six is the product of the male and female number, which could only mean a first born child, correct? But what about numbers seven to nine? Seriously? Ethan controlled himself not to do a head desk, instead, he concentrated on the smell of food. Yes. That should be enough to drive his brain to work, no? And so…more experimenting happened.

Scribble, scribble, scribble. Head scratch. Scribble, scribble, scribble.



“This is crazy stuff.” Ethan thought as he cradled his head while writing his interpretation. Stuff’s hard, you see? The Slytherin put his quill down, got up and got himself some more veggie kebabs. Analysing stuff that he doesn’t know makes his stomach protest for food. Besides, growing kid. As he munched happily on his food, Ethan nudged Simon and gestured the boy to let him see his notes. Sharing is caring…and he just might get something more sensible from his fellow snake. He too, turned to Cutty who’s just behind him. “Watcha got, Mordaunt?” Three heads are better than two. See? That even seemed relevant in Arithmancy. Three is greater than two. Heh. As Ethan took a peek, the Slytherin choked at Cutty’s work. Cough, Cough, Cough. “Are you Pythagoras’ decendant???” Those numbers just looked…intimidating for the boy. Yup.

That was weird, dude. O__O
 

"Juh..!", But before Cutty could get the word out, Simon had already uttered it. Too eerie. For the first time in his life, Cutty's face mirrored that of the person with whom he was communicating quite unintentionally. Wide-eyed suspicion.

It had suddenly faded, however to blank consideration as he looked down at his dormmates notes. "I was lookin' for a pattern. Trying to see if it mattered which numbers we combined to arrive at 7-9's numerical vibration. What I see is that the first three numbers are found by combining 1 with other numbers, then the next three are found by combining 2. Like, 2 plus 3 is five and 2 times 3 gives us 6 and so on. So I was wondering if the next set would be combinations of 3 or perhaps 5." He took a blank sheet of parchment and demonstrated for his dormmate just what he meant.
"If that's the case, then I think you'd be close with your answer for 9. Only, you've got the meanings for 4 and 6, which gives us 10." He spoke casually, though. Not his usual judgey self. Or he was holding it all in, as he was prone to rudeness. "I think you meant 5, anyway. Which gives us..."

"But if there is a pattern with 3, then maybe 9 might be..."

Cutty looked to his dormmate to try and glean anything of comprehension, although to his weak amygdala he was more likely trying to read an expression that suggested he was being followed or believed.

catchup and Cris
 

Number nine: Nine are the months that the child uses to grow and be born..
Nine might be the number of the birth!
Number eight is the number that reminds me of the snowman and the track of the little cars..
Professor might be the number eight the number of the fun?
Number seven..seven are the colours of the rainbow..seven is the number of perfection!

"If I am you might be too. We might be related. Mordaunt's not common as all that." Or the wizard by the same name at the train depot seemed to give that impression. Maybe he could convince Ethan that they were actually family. Cutty knew not of any relation due to his father's with-holdings, but he figured it couldn't hurt. On the chance that Ethan should be prefected. There was nothing so cushy as the position of al-vizier.

From his years of selling sweets to the student body, Cutty had gotten rather used to arranging numbers. He'd also gotten rather quick and scrolling the complicated symbol for silver sickles. Maybe it was helpful here. The number arranging, not the sickle symbol.

Not being able to answer the question of "what else" on the first attempt, AJ just kept quiet and tried to think of something to add, but how could you really do that when nothing was making sense to you at all? Who would have thought that she ever would have wished for regular muggle math again. Numbers were just numbers... why did they have to mean something more? She listened to everything the professor said and made notes, notes that she didn't understand of course.

That was the only thing that she was sure of. She knew that there was way more to it, but she was stumped. The first year turned to her textbook for guidance. Hopefully she could make some sense out of this!

Angel was totally lost here and the Professor had just stared at her work without talking about it, well she didn't care what this crazy Professor thought of her, she was going to do what she was doing and the Professor could either love it or hate it she didn't care what the Professor thought.



She was totally and utterly lost and would be speaking the Professor Bentley at the end of this lesson to see if Arithmancy was needed because she was starting to lose her marble with all this crazy numbers, give her muggle number lessons everyday.

Snorts at all the bean talk, but for now my girl is in her own bubble. :)
 

Combining their characteristics? What characteristics? Like a characteristics of a boy and girl? She could do that. She eyed her sister and the look on her face showed that she was just as confused as she was. Maybe they should hold some kind of class for the kids who were first years who had no idea what was going on before they had to endure a real class. AJ thought that after the lesson she would have to find somebody who understood this rubbish and get them to put their heads together. The lion didn't really care about the subject, but it was frustrating her to no end that she was so lost.

Okay so adding masculine and feminine didn't exactly add much considering that male and female already pretty much said that. Racking her brain she added a few more things to her notes. Remembering that the professor said something about love and harmony she decided to throw that in there too.

Sophie glanced up as the professor verified that what she'd wrote down so far was correct. Cool. So at least she didn't have to redo what she'd already done and could just go from there. She was actually surprised she'd managed to do so well so far. Usually, this subject was one of the three she wasn't so great in.

She copied down a few more things onto her parchment:

ONE: generator of all numbers, not actually considered a number; characterized reason
TWO: first female number; characterized opinion and division
THREE: first male number, combination via addition of 1 (unity) and 2 (division); characterized harmony
FOUR: second female number, represented space and matter; characterized by justice and order
FIVE: Five is a combination of two plus three, and since two is a female number and three is a male number, I think five could represent love. It sort of makes sense to me, since we weren't told that we could also combine 1 and 4 to equal 5. It's like we purposely added just the female plus male numbers. <333
TEN: Ten is a combination of ALL the numbers listed above. We were told it comes from adding combinations of 1, 2, 3, and 4, and since we also got to 5 by adding 2 and 3, I think ten means EVERYTHING. So it would equal reason (1), opinion/division (2), harmony (3), justice/order (4), and love (5).

SIX (2x3): Represents creation, new life formed after marriage.

SEVEN:
EIGHT:
NINE:

She started to dip her quill in ink when she felt a tap on her shoulder. Oh, heyyy--a partner! Yeah, she needed one of those in one of her worst subjects. She slid her parchment closer to the girl, so she could see Sophie's answers for the first part. "The professor said these were right," she said, pointing to the top of her parchment. "Let me see what I can come up with for seven, eight, and nine."

She turned around and started jotting down a few things.

Leah
 

Cris checked what he had written down, when Leah pointed out his conclusions for the number 7. "My bad, it's supposed to be a combinatiion of both 3 and 4 not a product of 3 and 4, so that would add up to seven. Thanks for pointing that out to me. Here let me correct that," Cris thanked Leah and he took back his journal and corrected what he had written down before turning to read Leah's answers.

As he read, something else popped in to his head, so he decided to mention it to Leah.

"Your conclusions make a lot of sense. I noticed that about the number 9 and that it should logically be 3 times the harmony, but what does that mean? Universal harmony? I just doesn't make sense at all. And I was thinking, since 7 has the characteristics of 3 and 4, could one of its characteristics be peace too? You know justice, order and harmony combined? Let me go through my answer for 7 and 9 and revise it a little."



"So how does this look now?" Cris pulled over his journal to show Leah his revised answers.

Cutty & Ethan!
 

Oh pattern hunting! thought Simon. That made sense. That was probably the most logical approach to it all. Before Simon could respond to let Cutty know if he were following him, Ethan had nudged him. Good, Ethan was joining. The three of them would be able to tackle this problem together. Teamwork was always good. Simon passed his notebook back to Ethan for a second with a quick, "I'm not sure if anything is right there, but that's where I was starting from. What did you deduce?" he asked with a friendly grin. He nodded again. "Seriously, he probably has a secret time turner that's allowed him to travel back in time and learn this art from the real people who invented it," teased Simon playfully before becoming more serious. " He's a genius."

Now back to Cutty. He nodded again. "I see what you're saying that makes more sense.. Yes, I did mean five," said Simon turning a hue of pink with embarrassment. He crossed that note out. *Ahem*. Right, now where were they? "That was an interesting observation perhaps... If the pattern was three, then the pattern could be 3 plus 5 plus 1 or it could be 2 plus 1 plus six...?" He raised an eyebrow. He thought perhaps he was following his friend. He jotted down some notes.

Hmmmm...

Austin looked over his notes and took what the professor had to heart. He decided to think about the other aspect of it, the math side. Well, Six had a lot of numbers that could add into it, so does Eight. On his paper, he wrote down all the addition combinations next to his already written notes.



With this, Austin tried to find all the ways that they could be combined. He had already covered the human aspect, now for the 'cosmos' aspect, as he called it. He decided to start with six. Five meant marriage, while one meant unity. Maybe the unity of marriages? This leads him back to a child, so he thought he was okay on that one. Four meant Justice, while two meant opinion. Combining those two could mean the opinion on justice? But that didn't make any sense. Adding two threes together meant extra Harmony. So maybe that means there's Harmony between a family that has opinions on how to discipline their first born child.

Seven. He wasn't entirely sure what six was, so he wasn't going to worry about the addition of six and one right now. The next option would be five and two. Five, again, was marriage, while two was opinion. With what he already had, maybe seven was the choice of two married people who want to have a second child. The only thing he could pick up from the next addition of numbers was that seven was both discipline and harmony, which should be good between married people.

Eight. The addition of seven and one, and six and two he disregarded, for he wasn't entirely sure what seven or six was. So he focused on the latter two. Five and three would be the Harmony between two people who are married. While the two fours meant extra Discipline, which he wasn't too sure about. He'd have to check that out later.

Nine. The only one he really could work with was five and four. Which he gathered was something along the lines of marriage and discipline. He wasn't sure what that meant. Maybe discipline in a marriage?

He was starting to get flustered with all of these possibilities, and he wasn't sure what to do. So he wrote down what he could, and waited for the professor to continue.

Sophie squinted her eyes at her parchment, not because she couldn't see what she'd written, but because she was thinking hard about what the answers might be. Finally, she put her quill to her parchment and jotted down a few ideas.

ONE: generator of all numbers, not actually considered a number; characterized reason
TWO: first female number; characterized opinion and division
THREE: first male number, combination via addition of 1 (unity) and 2 (division); characterized harmony
FOUR: second female number, represented space and matter; characterized by justice and order
FIVE: Five is a combination of two plus three, and since two is a female number and three is a male number, I think five could represent love. It sort of makes sense to me, since we weren't told that we could also combine 1 and 4 to equal 5. It's like we purposely added just the female plus male numbers. <333
TEN: Ten is a combination of ALL the numbers listed above. We were told it comes from adding combinations of 1, 2, 3, and 4, and since we also got to 5 by adding 2 and 3, I think ten means EVERYTHING. So it would equal reason (1), opinion/division (2), harmony (3), justice/order (4), and love (5).

SIX (2x3): Represents creation, new life formed after marriage.

SEVEN: Maybe seven is a combination of two and five. Two means opinion and division, while five means marriage. Maybe seven means being able to keep your individuality (uniqueness) despite becoming one with someone else. Kind of like being true to yourself.
EIGHT: I don't think we'd get too much by adding four to itself, so I think eight is a combination of three and five. Three means harmony and five means marriage, so I think eight means learning to live with the person you married (living in harmony) and getting along with them. Maybe it means you work together to have a happy life.
NINE: Maybe nine is a combination of three and six. Three means harmony and six means new life, so maybe this is the decision to have a second child. Or maybe it means a new life together as a husband, wife, and child.

She turned around to her partner and showed her what she'd come up with. "What do you think about this?" she asked, pointing to the seven, eight, and nine. Also... "I'm Sophie, by the way."

Adi nodded at Professor Domingo after she spoke. Okay. Back to more thinking. He studied his answers as he tried to come up with real life applications for the numbers. Once again, he began making adjustments:



Okay, Professor Domingo. Is this any better? Adi seriously hoped so.

Zander gave Lux the best smile he could muster under the circumstances. Ugh. It's hard to try to be happy when you're being bogged down with all this number nonsense. SERIOUSLY, WHAT WAS THIS WOMAN EVEN TALKING ABOUT ANYMORE!? Yeah, Zander's lost. Really lost. And apparently so was Lux.

"Hm... Okay, uh seven, eight, and nine?" he thought outloud. Well he looked at Lux with a perplexed face. "So seven and nine are males?" he questioned more than he stated. "Which leaves eight to be a female?" That's all he really new according to Professor, Professor over there.

The third year began scribbling down on his pair quite vigorously.

SPOILER!!: Attempt at this number mumbo jumbo

Seven: Male; 3 (harmony) + 4 (Justice and Order) ; 1 (Unity) + 2 (Opinion) + 4 (Harmony) + 2 (Opinion) + 5 (Love) ;

Eight: Female; 4 (harmony) + 4 (harmony) ; 4 (harmony) x 2 (Opinion and Division)

Nine: 3 (Harmony) x 3 (Harmony) ; 1 (Unity) + 3 (Harmony) + 5 (Love) ; 4 (Justice) +5 (Love)

"Uh, that's all I've got?" He said as he showed Lux his notes. He could figure out the whole what numbers add and multiply, but the whole what they all mean together thing was completely lost on him.

Lux was relieved that she wasn't the only person who was clear
Y confused by this lesson. Whatever this Professor was trying to get at was lost on her. But yes, Zander seemed correct in the genders of the numbers, so that got him another nod from her.

Looking at his notes, she saw all the math work and tried to make sense of it. So the meanings were gathered from combining the meanings of other numbers? Was that how this worked? "Maybe Seven means harmony, justice and order." The other combinations he did could work, but that seemed the easiest since it only involved adding 3 and 4 together. "Maybe Eight is Four but extra powerful. Because I'm not sure about harmony and division working together." Unless that made sense after all; in that case just ignore her. "For Nine, I like unity, harmony, and love because it seems the most romantic of the options." Every once in a while this Puff liked romance, so 1 + 3 + 5 seemed like the best option to her.

Now his marginally good work was getting criticized by someone 3/4 years younger than him. Just his luck. Not that anything she was saying was wrong or anything. And was that a surprised look on her face. At least one of his answers was clever.

"Yeah, i did not think you could just do three times three. Since it is just multiplying harmony...So yeah probably just means a good relationship. Married or not, if doing three times three"

Shrug.

That was just a guess.

Zander tried to encourage Lux with small nods as she spoke. It really sounded like she was unsure of herself too. Was Arithmancy just like not a third year thing? The small boy looked around the room to try to see if everyone else was just as lost. Most people looked busy at works, so either they all got it and Zander missed something important OR everyone else was just really good at faking it. Probably the latter. Annnyyyways, back to this number nonsense.

The third year nodded as he jotted down what she said by underlining the favorited options. Then he looked back at his parchment and decided to scribble some more down too. "I added a few possible meanings for the number nine?" he told Lux quietly. "I'm not sure if I'm even close.... But what do you think?" He added. Hopefully she'd have some more ideas because at this rate Zander was running out.