Jasmine continued to take notes as the class progressed, making sure to write down the requirements for planet status and other important information. As she suspected, her answer to the previous question was not correct because it would destroy life, but not the planet.

And now it was time for the practical portion of the class. Jasmine listened as the Professor explained how they would be creating their own planets. Hearing this, she was excited to be making her own little blue Ravenclaw planet. Jasmine walked up to Professor Flamsteed's desk and took one of the blue plastic bags. Then she returned to her desk and prepared to transform it.

Taking out her wand, Jasmine pointed it at the blue bag and tried to concentrate on the spell. If she knew nothing else, she knew that concentration was key to successful spellwork. Giving her wand a jab in the direction of the bag, she said, "Fingere Elementi". Jasmine stared in amazement as the bag slowly melted and and spun, forming a very cool, blue planet. Was magic awesome, or what? Still transfixed, she watched as the transformation was completed and the orb was floating in her hand. She couldn't wait to see what they would be doing next. Having finished for now, Jasmine noticed theft some younger students had asked for help from the Professor. After he had helped them, she made a mental note to keep an eye on them......just in case they needed some follow up assistance.

OH ATTENTION HELLO YES!

Maggie leaned back in her seat slightly, grinning at both the girl, Samantha, and the Prefect. They could BOTH help her. Ethan was closer though so she turned slightly to look at him. Yes. She knew the incantation. The professor had said so. That wasn't the problem. Actually there really was no problem per se. It was more that she just didn't want to do it. Yep.

Which was also why Ethan's explanation wasn't entirely satisfactory.

She eyed the bag of sand for a moment then poked it slightly with the tip of her wand. "Could you do it for me?" Pleaaaaseeee? Biting her lip, she pouted some more. She just couldn't do it. And he was older and a Prefect and awesome and way better at spells she was certain. Maggie glanced at the other girl as well for good measure. In case Ethan refused to do it.

Samantha noticed that Maggie didn't seem all that particularly interested in performing the spell. Was she nervous about making a mistake? Samantha didn't mind if Ethan would help Maggie but she hoped that he would not help her by doing all the work for her. Sam looked at Maggie and asked her, "Are you nervous about performing the spell?

So the Earth wouldn't be destroyed anytime soon? Good. That made Hady feel much better about it all and she sat herself up straighter.

She watched the Professor remove a bag of sand from a box and change it into a planet with a simple spell! So awesome! Hearing that they would all get to do the same she got to her feet and made her way to the front of the room taking a green bag of sand and promptly returning to her seat.

Sitting down she watched some of the others attempt the spell first to get a feel of what those that did it incorrectly had done wrong. As well as what those doing it right had done. Thinking she understood this she pulled out her wand.

Clearing her throat quietly she firmly jabbed her wand at the bag of sand in her hand and stated. "Fingere Elemenit." Nothing happened. Sighing softly she decided to try again. If it didn't work then she'd ask someone for help.

Here goes nothing. "Fingere Elemenit!!" She exclaimed more clearly this time as she jabbed her wand firmly at the bag of sand. Right before her eyes a loud POP was heard startling the small girl whom jumped slightly at the sound. As the sand began to swirl around and form a green planet she smiled happily quite proud of herself.

Watching the 'planet' for several moments she turned her attention to her housemates to see how the rest of them had done.

Extracting her hand from her brother's grip, Ruby went and fetched herself a green sand bag thing, and a blue one for Gabriel. She made a half-hearted attempt at the spell just so she could SAY she tried it...

"Fingere Elementi!" JAB.

... but obviously it didn't work, and then she simply passed her bag to Gabriel.

He'd do both.

That was the way they got things done.

SO MUCH words said by Professor Airey. Adi knew he would have dozed off if things hadn't been so darn interesting. Especially the other students and their way creative ideas. It was safe to say the Hufflepuff was impressed.

"I'll got grab us the sand,'' he informed Benny, AJ and Angel. After retrieving one yellow and three red bags of sand Adi returned to his seat and handed the red ones out. Obviously AJ and Angel would need help. He figured Benny would help out Angel so he turned to AJ. "Look at how the pros do it,'' he said with a wink.

''Fingere Elementi!'' JAB! The bag remained a bag of yellow sand. "Erm. Sorry. Just warming up. THIS is how it's done. Fingere Elementi!'' Another jab. This time the bag began to melt, rising and spinning just like the Professor's had done.

There. One planet. "You try now, AJ.''

Umm...why were they talking about ways to blow up the earth?

Benny quite liked living and that meant the Earth needed to stay intact for as long as possible. Not blown into a million pieces or sucked into a black hole. At least Professor Flamsteed expressed how each of the suggested ideas were highly unlikely and not plausible to ever happen.

Whew...a relief.

However he did mention asteroids and their likeliness. And move on to discuss the first activity he wanted the class to partake in. The fourth year obediantly slipped his wand out as directed, listening carefully as to not make any mistakes. Ben remembered the mentioned activity, one of the few astronomy class projects he had been really any good at. But today would be different, at least the idea. One could only hope that he had the same bit of luck with his planets...or planet.

About to get up to retrieve a red bag for himself, Adi beat him to it, gathering enough for the quartet in the appropriate colors. "Thanks..." he said simply as he prepared to cast. He wasn't nearly as confident as his friend but it shouldn't be too hard with the simple jab and incantation. "Fingere Elementi...Fingere Elementi...Fingere Elementi" he murmered without moving his wand at first to get that right.

However at the last he had moved his hand for emphasis, forgetting his wand had actually been picked up already. The spell cast and shot haphazardly ending up heading not towards his own red bag but the matching one on top of AJ's desk.

Talking, talking, and more talking. It was a good thing that Airey was an interesting enough man because if not somebody would have to wipe the drool off the table because she would have been asleep. With that being said, her eyes DID cross a few times. Once he got to the activity portion she lived up. Hands on time. Oh, and they were going to use a new spell. Nothing could go wrong there.

Adi bounded out of his seat and gathered enough sand bags for the group. Wasn't he just precious? "Thanks." A demonstration from her very own prefect? Not her house prefect, but HER prefect. She laughed as he didn't get it right the first time. "Showing me how not to do it?" she teased. He managed to get the spell right the second time and that wiped the smile right off of her face. She was happy for him of course, it only meant that she now had her work cut out for her.

Practicing was essential, yes? "Fingere Elementi," she repeated over and over without a wand until the words felt comfortable on her tongue. AJ could hear Benny practicing beside her, and didn't think anything of it. He wasn't one to just jump into things. "Watch me get this right the first time," she said to Adi. "Fingere-" Before she could even get the second part of the spell out of her mouth, the bag blew up. She wasn't that bad, right? AJ didn't even get to the jabbing of the wand part yet. Benny. Her eyes fluttered over to him, and she had to put her hand over her mouth to keep it together. Risking giggles, she removed her hand to speak to him. "No fair... blow up your own bag." The explosion was pretty wicked though. "Nice explosion. How did you do it?"

"Welcome, Benny.'' Adi grinned broadly at AJ. "At least I didn't take forever to get it right,'' he said, meaning it as a joke. That was motivation for AJ. She would be determined to get it right as soon as possible.

"Give it your best shot.'' A mini explosion is what happened next though. Adi stared at where the bag had been. "Wow, AJ. Way to go.'' LOL. Of course, he knew it wasn't her fault having caught Benny's movement for a moment when he looked over at his friend. Explosions were AWESOME! "Well done, Benny,'' Adi said with a laugh. "Leave it to you to blow up stuff.'' The Hufflepuff approved of explosions, ya know.

"Are you done with your planet?" Ethan asked. She also might be needing some help? But then, Samantha was an older student so Ethan was sure that she could manage.

Now on to Maggie...and Samantha.

The prefect opened his mouth to respond to his housemate when Samantha beat him to it. Was she scared? Ethan was quite sure that Maggie isn't. She's probably just being cautious and stuff...or, she's got her own reason(s). Ethan grinned at Maggie and assured her of things. "Of course I can do it for you, but I want to see you try it first." Flamsteed won't be pleased (probably) if he did all the dirty work for Maggie. He saw him give advice as help to some first year lions, so to be safe, he'd follow the professor's lead.

"You're better than those two, yeah?" He asked leaning closer to the girl so the other firsties won't hear him. Ethan even gave her a huge grin to encourage Maggie to step up to the challenge.

AJ was having as much fun with the friendly banter as Adi was. Back and forth with only half of it something he was privy too. Though Ben braced for what could happen with a frown once he realized his mistake. "Sorry!" he appologized as soon as his spell reacted full-on with AJ's bag to result in an explosion of red sand. The tables certainly looked Gryffindorish now. Though at least it seemed as if no one had gotten hurt. And despite the girl's first comment, he wasn't blind to her amusement. Nor her compliment that followed.

"Totally by accident." The fourth year doubted he'd be able to duplicate it exactly any other time even if he had wanted to. WHich he probably didn't unless he wanted the professor to be mad at him. "Thanks...I think," Ben answered as Adi added his two cents. Yep, him and explosions happened. "Here..." he said, handing over his bag to AJ. "Have at it with mine and I'll go get a new one," the older Gryffindor already getting up from his seat.

Was that supposed to be a jab at her? "I'll show you, Adi." She wasn't a fourth year like him with all those years of experience, but that didn't mean she wasn't going to put forth some extra effort just to show him that she could do it too. Even if she was only a second year.

She laughed. "That was all Benny." It looked like it was an accident, and AJ would never know what he did to get the actual explosion. "You still get cool points." AJ had never managed to get anything to blow up, accident or not. He was giving her his bag. "You don't have to do that." But it was too late, he was already up in search for a new one.

AJ scooted a little closer to Adi so she could try out the spell, and hopefully be out of the line of fire if Benny made things go boom again. Which she totally was for, by the way. "Fingere Elementi." Jab. Nothing. "Distracted," she mumbled. "Fingere Elementi!" More jabbing ensued. It was still a bag of sand. Was this whole spell thing ever going to get better?

"By all means, go right ahead,'' Adi responded with an innocent smile. Mission accomplished. Getting AJ to be a little fired up made her determined to be her best. In the meanwhile, he eyed Benny as he went off for another bag of red sand. Would there be another explosion?

Adi watched AJ's attempts. "Stop thinking about my luscious hair and concentrate on the spell,'' he chided, quite enjoying himself. "You can do it,'' he added encouragingly. She was saying the incantation right. The jabbing was okay. Must just be concentration that was the problem.

Angel listened to everything the Professor was saying and then stared, so he had got her all geared up for world domination and then she wasn't allowed to build a robot to see if it would work... why talk about it then... that was totally confusing her.

Angel went and collect a plastic bag of colored "sand" making sure it was red, she then saw Ben explode one. "Hey Cutie... Ben!" Angel looked at him. "I don't think your supposed to do that." Angel giggled as she looked at her own bag.

Eh....

Was she supposed to hold the bag and do the spell or put the bag down. She decided to put her bag down on the desk. "Fingere Elementi!" Angel jabbed her wand at the bag and watched as the spell worked. She totally loved doing spells and thought it was cool. "Want me to show you Ben?" Angel hoped he wouldn't mind her asking.

Maddie was pretty pleased with the ideas that Kyroh and Dima came up with, further cementing her opinion that she wanted them both on her side for world leadership purposes. Also, the no dying thing was definitely still on so good on you for making that clear, D. WINK right back atcha. A smile too 'cause f-words and that seemed like the proper thing to do.

As for Flamsteed, he talked a LOT. Maddie sort of lost him half way through, thinking that if you talked too much about something, it became sort of trivial. The less words to drive home a point, the better. At least that's how SHE liked to do things. Luckily once he was done, it was clear they'd get a chance to do some practical stuff. The brunette liked this BEST.

Maddie got two bags in her favorite color, blue. Then she returned to her seat and set them down quite carefully. Now for the spell. A spell which was... UH...Fingere Elementi. Right. "Fingere Elementi...Fingere Elementi...Fingere Elementi...Fingere Elementi..." Did that sound correct? The second year paused and turned to those people sitting behind her, wanting to listen to their pronunciation. They seemed to be pronouncing it the same so she was doing good. Or so far, anyway.

The movement was simply enough but you had to think about what you were doing too, right? To get the desired end product? So Maddie would think about creating a floating orb out of the little sand bag thing. Come on, Maddie, think.

He'd had a good idea! Thornton smiled at being recognized by name, but not before he began furiously scribbling down everything that Professor Flamsteed was saying about the stability of the earth and why the science fiction around how to destroy the earth was just that: fiction.

But then he got into the instructions for the activity.

MORE WANDWORK?

Thornton's smile fell at the instructions. He looked at the bad name tag from the earlier spell attempt and his stomach churned. This looked much more complicated than the simple one he couldn't manage at all.

Still, he was not going to ask for help. He'd asked enough of other people already and he was not going to have someone else make his planet for him. If it didn't work, well, then he'd sit there and take the bad grade. Father always said that you needed to be responsible for yourself and not to rely on others.

So Thornton slipped out of his chair and went to retrieve a blue bag. He moved it from hand to hand, trying to psyche himself up to the spell. Setting it on the desk and getting himself settled in his seat, he gripped his wand.

Closing his eyes, he winced as he jabbed the bag. "Fingere Elementi." With his eyes squeezed shut, he couldn't see that things were beginning to pull together, but not exactly as intended.

As Thornton opened his eyes to peek at what he assumed would just be the same bag, he was dismayed to find a wonkily wobbling lumpy mess of a planet. Nevermind that many firsties couldn't make anything happen, Thornton laid his head in his hands. He was going to flunk out of Hogwarts for sure.

The lesson was going quicker than she had expected. The Professor hadn’t particularly made a comment on her idea but she did hear someone else almost replicate her master plan which received an annoyed frown from the Ravenclaw. Couldn’t people be original and come up with their own ideas? Obviously not.

They were asked to perform a spell and the fifteen year old sunk a little in her seat at the prospect. She was new to this magic business, she’d been a muggle for her whole life and she still wasn’t completely acquainted with how to concentrate her magical skills into one place. She was going to give it a go though and not ask for help in case people judged her as being stupid. She wasn’t stupid, she was just late.

Layla got up off her seat and grabbed a blue bag of sand as required in the first step of the activity. She brought it back to her desk and glanced at it for a short while. How was she going to go about this then?

She'd managed to perform some sort of magic earlier in the lesson with her name tag but that seemed extremely easy, all she needed to say was her name. Her attempts to get a message in the crystal ball hadn't worked but quite frankly she hadn't even tried with that. She didn't even believe that it was possible anyway.

After about 5 minutes of procrastination, she finally pointed her wand at the bag. “Fingere Elementi” she muttered and watched hopefully. Until absolutely nothing happened. Why didn’t it work? Why did her spells never work on the first try? She sighed audibly and slumped down on her seat. She supposed she should probably try again until it worked but quite frankly she didn’t want to bother.

And she definitely wasn’t going to ask for help either.

OH BLACK HOLES!!!!

Were they going to be talking about Jeffery? He was probably a massive black hole in the starry sky by now, sucking in anything that got too close to him and watching out for NOT Jeffery who was probably a bigger star now and not bullied by the others. Ah her star babies, they were good kids.

Alexa was finding it harder to sit still. Planet making would happen right before planet blowing up and she was all set for that stage of the lesson...just had to get through the little formalities, liking needing an actual planet if you had plans of making one explode.

She followed the others to collect a sack of what could have been sand, was it? Did it matter? Noooope. She looked them all over. Leave it to the Professor to try instilling house pride, but she wouldn't be blowing up anything worth a lick of Gryffindor today so she nicked a green sack and headed back to her seat. Luckily the spell was one they'd gotten a lot of practice on before in the past.

"Fingere Elementi!" Lex watched the sack twist, shift and change until it'd gotten circular and now had the look of a planet, if not a regular green ball....just saying. Okay, she was ready for the explosions now.

Well, she'd imagined an orb as best she could and after picking up her wand, Maddie let her eyes fall on the blue bag-o-sand stuff. It'd be cool if this worked, yeah? *JAB* "Fingere Elementi."

...Disappointment. The blue bag was still a bag and the second year was puzzled as to why. She'd been clear with her words and had a good enough picture in her mind. Perhaps she'd jabbed too aggressively? There HAD to be a reason why her spell didn't work when those around her got a better result doing the same thing. Or mostly the same thing. The twelve year old just had to figure out what went wrong.

After watching a few of the older students nearby, Maddie came to the conclusion that perhaps it WAS the jabbing. She just needed to let it come naturally, like she'd done this a million times before. Confidence in this situation probably couldn't hurt, either.

Maddie was ready to try again. YUP. And so she took a deep breath and let it out slowly, willing herself to relax. Then she focused completely on the task at hand. She could DO this. She was Maddie Cooper, for Merlin's sake.

With a jab of her wand, the twelve year old said clearly, "Fingere Elementi!" For a moment she thought she'd failed again but then slowly, very slowly, the bag began to change shape. It was forming into something else, something round, it was working! A grin might have betrayed how elated Maddie felt on the inside but she quickly got control over that. This was a small victory and she didn't NEED to let on that she was surprised it had worked out. Again, confidence was key.

When asked about the destruction of the planet, Gabriel kept quiet; not listening to everyone else's ideas...but in general deep thought. Of course when thinking about 'deep thought', he was reminded of the computer 'Deep Thought'...and then further reminded of Vogons and the Vogon Constructor Fleet.

If any conditions or scenarios were possible, that'd be his choice of untimely deaths for planet Earth. Quick, clean, painless...with a Vogon poem thrown in the mix.

So lost in his own amusements was he, that he'd actually relaxed completely; settling back in his seat; muscles sagging. When Ruby collected a bag of sand for him, as well as herself, Gabriel just grinned at her. A real one, too. It was so unusual that they were thoughtful of one another in public like this...

Of course, it didn't last.

"Ruby..." STARE. "...the professor is RIGHT there." There was some LOUD WHISPERING at her nerve...but because she'd told him about the detention and because he knew she struggled with things much easier, Gabe covertly pulled her sand closer. She'd attempted...So, he was merely assisting. Yes, that would be the story if asked...Anyway, the spell was simple enough. A jab...Transfiguration, too. So, more importance placed on the intent and focus...

He concentrated on the green sand, having completely blocked everyone else in the room out. To Gabriel, they currently didn't exist...which he preferred, really. If he were reminded, he would not be successful today. An anxiety attack would've ensued, causing him to fall into the floor, convulse...among other embarrassing things. So, yes...PLEASE LET HIM STAY IGNORANT TO OUTSIDERS. Just for the 'spell' duration.

"Fingere Elementi." Gabe jabbed his wand at the sand, eyes slightly narrowed with his singular focus. It was kinda like when he was just starting research on a new language. His eyes would zero in on the unfamiliar letters and words; attempting to process before actually knowing how to read them.

The sand slowly swirled itself into a small spherical shape before solidfying. POP!.....Was this right? It looked like a small...circular ball. Planets were circular balls...So...?

After a moment, he slid it towards, and then in front of, his sister. There.

Now for his...

Evil Mastermind answers were pretty fun to listen to. And of course even he had some ideas…actually a lot but a TRUE mastermind wouldn’t reveal their plans to anyone, now would they? More explaining coming from the Professor which was boring again ..except he did catch some words like dinosaurs and asteroid detection technology. The Gryffindor put his cheek in his hand and lazily waited until the real fun began.

Practical! Kevin grabbed his wand as quickly as possible and watched the Professor’s desk as 4 boxes appeared on it. Wait, they got to make their own planet? Even if he didn’t want to , he had to admit that that was cool. The third year stood up from his seat and walked to the front before returning back with red colored sand. Because they had to use their house colors, Kevin suspected that they would be doing some kind of house against house activity later on.

He placed the plastic bag of red sand on his desk and jabbed his wand towards it saying “Fingere Elementi!” The bag began to melt slowly…very slowy…to the point that Kevin thought that it had actually stopped but just when he was about to try again the bag suddenly flew upwards and a second later a loud POP could be heard.

There, right in front of him , was his own little planet. Cue a proud smirk as he looked around to see what the others were doing. ……….Wait…he should name his planet! But how?

See? SEE? Toby had kind of touched on all that stuff in his answer, which made him feel totally proud of himself for remembering it okay. Though he still copied all the notes down and stuff, because going over things again and again was a really good way to learn, for him at least, even if it got super frustrating. And Astronomy could never be frustrating, nope.

Toby remembered that one task about creating a solar system very well, 'cause that was Ella's last term and they'd worked on them together when they were all totally old and stuff.

But sh. No. Don't think about that. Toby went up to Airey's desk and retrieved a back of the yellow mixture for himself before returning to his desk and retrieving his wand from his school bag.

Okay, so, this should be easy enough, considering the past experience with the spell. Toby cleared his throat for maximum enunciation, jabbed his wand at the bag that sat in his palm, and spoke.

"Fingere Elementi."

More or less exactly how Airey's had done, except maybe not as neatly as he was nowhere near as experience with this kind of spellwork, the bag started floating and spinning and all that fun stuff. He watched with keen interest as it did it's thing, finally jolting back, startled, at how loud that popping noise was when you were up close and personal.

But there it was, a little yellow planet, just chilling in the palm of his hand. Neat.

Snorting, snorting was happening because what Adi said about his hair was both funny AND true. "Maybe you shouldn't sit by me next time." Just kidding, Adi. Don't leave her. He was right though, she did need to concentrate, and block all images of his hair and everything else about him out.

She blocked everything out and stared at the red sand. Total concentration was happening here people. "Fingere Elementi!" she cried, following the spell up with a nice jab. Right before eyes was her very own red planet. "I did it." It had only taken her three times, but she had managed it. WOOT! Adi helping her was both a good and bad thing. It was good because he encouraged her, and made her competitive side come out, but bad because how was she supposed to concentrate with that hunk of a boy right next to her?

Creating their own planet? FREAKING. AWESOME! Though, the boy was a little put off that he hadn't been at Hogwarts when the students had been allowed to create entire solar systems. Jeez, why had he been Frenchin it up in Beauxbatons? Would've named the planets and kinda cared for them and all.

Wasting NO time, Grayson got up from his seat and headed over towar--

SMACK!

"Sweet mother of--" THAT was unexpected.

Grayson stopped in his tracks, his eyes wide in shock and his hand reaching down to rub the cheek that had been hit. DANG, that was HAWT. Who did that? And in a class too? Jeez, talk about SNEAKY. He knew his bottom was irresistible but couldn't they wait for a more suitable time for this? Everyone, aside from some people and Flammy-o, became suspects as Whitty looked this way and that for a guilty face. Any guilty face. Come out and present yourself!

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

Yeah. Fine. Whatever. Someone had gotten a nice touch of the fifth year's beautiful backside. Lucky bugger.

Shrugging, Grayson strutted up to the front and got hold of one of the sand bags or whatever they were. And he was going to take GREEN, of course. Slytherin green. Heading back to his seat, the boy pulled out his wand for the required spellwork. Fingere Elementi, huh? And a JAB. Sounded simple enough. "Fingere Elementi!" JAB!

............. Really? Nothing? REALLY?

"Fingere Elementi! Fingere Elementi! FingERE ELEMENTI!" JAB JAB JAB!

THAT was more like it! He watched with a smug expression on his face as the plastic melted away, leaving the inside to float up and spin round and round and right round. Quite quickly, too. Jeez, someone was eager to become a planet, huh? A POP later, and the spherical planet was formed and floating in the palm of his hand.

SMIRK. That was how it was DONE.

"Maybe you shouldn't sit next to me,'' Adi said, reaching out a hand to poke her on the shoulder. But he paused mid way. Eh...Professor Airey might notice and he had no desire to loose House points or to be tossed in detention. How would that reflect on a Prefect? Professor Head of House Hadley would be disappointed in him. So he let his hand drop and flashed AJ a grin instead. He knew she was kidding.

Ohh! Looky! AJ had done it! "Well done,'' he told her, watching the planet hover. "Knew you could do it.'' Yep, AJ was a great student. Hehe.