'Keeping them cleansed keeps the ball working properly.'

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL!

Grayson lost it. Any sense of maturity was gone while the fifth year snorted and then burst out into a fit of silent laughter. His shoulders shook and he had to to cover his mouth with his hand to stop the laughter from escaping. Did Professor Cassie realise how bad that sounded? Oh MAN, there were going to be tears, if he wasn't careful. Concentrating on seeing images in the crystal ball was going to be HARD.

LOL, what maturity?

A couple of deep breaths later and the boy had finally gotten his laughter to die down enough to notice the expression on a certain fourth year's face. UGH. He wasn't meant to CARE. Not THIS much. Jeez, Sophie Newell. He kept his gaze on her, a small smile on his lips and a raised eyebrow look on his face. Something told him that he'd have to deal with whatever was going on over there. Comfort her or whatever it was.

And.............. then the lights dimmed, meaning that he couldn't see much of the girl's face even if he wanted to. It also meant that he felt a little something from a certain someone sitting near him. Grayson bit down on his bottom lip and closed his eyes. Clear his mind of all thoughts? Nope. Not possible. Not happening while Ruby was being very........ "Distracting." Not that HE was complaining.

Girls, man. Gotta love 'em.

Yeah. Fine. Breathing. TRY and clear his mind of all thought.

What? We were moving on? Thornton opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling. But his mind wasn't clear yet! He'd tried to take the tactic of going through every stray thought he had, as if it was a to-do list, trying to clear it away.

But the list just kept getting longer!

Closing his eyes clearly wasn't going to work, but having them open while everyone stared into their crystals really wasn't going to work either.

Shimmying, he swung his head under the table, letting the cloth separate him from the rest of the class, his legs poking out and resting on the cushion.

He stared at the grain at the bottom of the table, trying to focus his mind on the patterns there as a way to clear his mind of other things. Staring at them, his vision began to go fuzzy and he felt his mind clearing up, as the grain patterns to look like images: musical instruments, trees, animals... Smiling, Thornton knew what he had to do.

He slipped back out from under the table and sat cross-legged on his cushion, rubbing his hands together intently. He looked at the crystal ball, and allowed his eyes to remain unfocused, his vision a bit blurred... hoping he'd see something.

But what was he supposed to be looking for?

Nap time!

Hugo was feeling sleepy already and with the dim lights, relaxing music, the lavender smell and the whole room, he was definitely taking a nap. But no, he had to clear his mind. Though it was going to be easy since he was already in sleeping mode.

Wrong.

Once Hugo tried to clear his mind, he started to fall asleep as well and involuntarily his head went to his right side and quickly woke up. Alright. Focus. This time he sat up straight and closed his eyes, breathing in and out. Instead of keeping his mind clear he started to think about he wanted to do. What would happen if he went to the Forbidden Forest? Detention or expulsion probably. He was curious about it though. Or what about the lake? He could swim there, right? And what if he....

Hugo opened his eyes with a frown. This was not working. He looked at the others. Were they having the same problem as him?

And this was getting more tricky because he had to wake his "inner eye". As if he ever had one.

"Let the balls talk to you." Okaaaay. Snort.

Alright get back to work, Hugo. Closing his eyes again, he gave another shot to this Scrying thing. Of course he already knew he was going to have a hard time on this. The boy remained with eyes closed, thinking about the color white because that's what he thought it could work to clear his mind.

okay wow… they were actually going to try to read something.. when Professor Morgan started talking he almost laughed at her saying "don't think about anything" yeah that wasn't too far for him. holding his composure he kept breathing in and out as she told them to do..

in……. out…..
in…… out…..
in……… out……….
in… out….

he let his mind go blank… but as soon as he thought it was blank he thought "what if i don't see anything?" he started to stress and he had to start his calming all over again

in……. out…..
in…… out…..
in……… out……….
in… out….

his mind was blank and he peeked open an eye and took a look at the ball.. all he could see was nothing… errrr… was his ball broken? should he shake it to get it to work?? watching the ball for a few more minutes now he still didn't see a thing… ughhhhhh

Benny hadn't been having much luck in his focus and cleaning when the professor spoke up once more to move them on to the actual activity of the class. He almost opened his eyes in response until he caught her suggestion to only do so when one was ready to look straight at the crystal ball that resided in its stand in front of him. So his eyes remained closed, his lids down in front of his gaze as he tried a last minute attempt to get some success.

When he was ready to give up on one part and move on, Ben finally opened his eyes, careful to do as Professor said. Let your cards fall where they lay. Or rather eyes and gaze in this case. So he let his head face straight ahead before opening, his attention hitting the crystal orb at a point on the sphere about halfway down from the top and off to the right side. An odd choice it seemed but he'd go with it.

Now all he had to was focus and wait.

Time to relax and take in deep breaths.

Erm, Professor, how was that supposed to be happening when you were clearing your mind, and apparently you should be feeling faint or dizzy or off? Shouldn't they be feeling the complete opposite to that? Devlin didn't find the logic in it, so, sighing, and raising one eyebrow he tried to concentrate.....

..... which was insanely difficult cause his roomie over here was losing all sense of whatever sanity he had. "Hey! You look like a bloody idiot, like that." Devlin whispered harshly to Grayson. Honestly, he did. Thankfully, though, he regained his composure so Devlin wouldn't have to give the other guy looks of annoyance.

Drawn. Talk.

Right, this was starting to sound like some fluffed up imagination to Devlin now. His opinion on the class was wavering.

So, that deep breathing thing? He should start that now. The boy first tried to calm his breathing and ease his mind, which was not going so well. Whatever. No one was a master and was going to get this right the first try.

Concentrate.

How was Zahra supposed to nap with all this loud breathing and talking? Then Professor Divi was all NAP TIME OVER, just like that. "Shortest nap EVER," she mumbled as she pulled her crystal ball over to her.

Hum. Now what?

She cast a glance over to Ruby and Grayson. Ugh no. No help there.

Then over to Mari, who looked like she was stressing pretty hard about looking at a ball. So no help there either.

...

.......

Well if Professor Divi wanted pictures... Zahra BLEW HOT AIR onto her ball then drew with her finger a big smiley face on the condensation that formed on the surface.

COOL. Cool. This was eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeasy.

OK, so Jasmine had stared at the crystal ball for several minutes and nothing. She hadn't seen anything, she hadn't felt anything and those random thoughts kept popping into her mind. So far, things had not been going so well. Since this was her very first try at scrying, Jasmine decided to give herself a break.

Jasmine thought it best to take a step backward and work on her concentration again. Leaning back from the crystal ball, she closed her eyes and began to breathe deeply. She devised a plan to get rid of her unwanted thoughts. Every time something entered her mind, she pictured the thought being flushed down a toilet. Crazy, yes......but it was kind of effective. Now she only had about one hundred things in her head rather than a million.

Jasmine kept breathing rhythmically and kept flushing her mental toilet. When she thought she was ready, she opened her eyes. Focusing on the ball again, Jasmine looked for any sign of activity. There was something in particular that she really wanted to see, but one could not control the inner eye.

Angel was still trying to close her mind at the minute but at the minute she just couldn't get him out of her head and when she looked up to get her mind clear she suddenly saw him and it made her mind less clear.

O_______________o

Angel looked at the crystal ball as she blushed a bit, why was she doing that it was crazy now she wasn't concentrating on the Crystal ball her mind was filling up with pictures of Ben and she needed to concentrate, thanks Ben... she would have to get used to seeing his picture everywhere in her mind because it was there now.

"Concentrate Angel" She said to herself as she looked at the crystal ball.

It was time to start the activity, and Lux honestly was not all that confident in her ability to see anything in the crystal ball. Trying her hardest to avoid getting distracted, she struggled since thoughts like this ball looks as empty as ever kept entering her head.

More deep breathing, and she gave another attempt. Still nothing appeared in her crystal ball. Was it broken? Frowning slightly, she reached her hand out and tapped the ball. "Hello, is there anything in here?"

Abby saw that it was time to try and get a reading from the crystal ball, so she cleared her mind of thoughts and tried to see whether she could get any readings from it and she couldnt see anything at first and she wondered whether she was going to find out anything in the readings but she knew that she had to try because she wanted to see if she could pick anything up

Lex...was just going to....start pretending it wasn't her Professor Smiles kept staring at. In truth, it could have been anyone at her table even though the eyes were on her. Coincidence, you know? On the odd occasion those happened. Now that she'd convinced herself it wasn't her she could try this reading thing. She eyed the crystal ball, noting that nothing was happening and the ball wasn't darkening. Well wasn't THIS promising?

Alexa leaned back, supporting her weight with her arms. If the ball wouldn't respond there was nothing left for her to do, nothing but relax right? Not like anything would happen. Even earlier when the Professor told Conner she'd seen something. That never happened, who were they all kidding?

The Gryffindor's eyes narrowed in scrutiny of the defiant orb but even then she didn't give it much hope. Nothing would happen, nothing was happening, nothing ever did happen.

Somehow she started thinking of her kneazle. He'd have liked the ball, even if it wasn't the kind he could lift and roll about with. Least he could regard his own reflection. Felix had a conceited side. It didn't show often but when it did she took note. For good measure, she poked at the ball, prompting it to do something, but not even then.

Puck knew what she didn’t want to see. Or really whom she didn’t want to see. It still hurt. She still remembered it all, the late night phone call and she still sometimes felt bad about not being sad about it. But she was sad, only, not in a way anyone would ever notice or find out.

The shutters that normally covered her eyes with their fake sparkle of brilliance had faded somewhat when those thoughts made their way into her head. Her lip was going to be sore after class…she was practically chewing the poor thing to death.

You can do this, you are a Greyveson…think what Abby would say if she saw you sad? Over that man? she thought and let out a deep breath – she was still calm…just more somber than she had been at first.

She sat there for a moment thinking happy thoughts, and all her mind could settle on was Germy. Germaine, she wanted to hear him huffing at her all of a sudden the little cuddly guy would have loved this class. He’d have stared at his reflection in all the Crystal balls and she knew he’d have made happy squeals at the sight of Lux.

“Puck you can do this” she whispered as quietly as her voice could master. And then she couldn’t help but grin at what the blond-girl….the minister of magic’s daughter? had said. It was true, it was a short nap.

Tapping the orb seemed to have no affect, and if there WAS something lurking in the depths it ignored her attempts to talk to it.

How rude.

Time to try another tactic. Focusing REEEEEEEALLY hard on the crystal ball, Lux squiiiiinted her eyes as if that might will something to show itself to her. "Come on, mist. I know you are in there somewhere." Oops. Probably was a good idea not to talk since it broke focus. Clamping her mouth shut, Lux looked around the room hoping that she hadn't disturbed anyone.

Distractions. Psh. Put her in a room with Grayson Whitlock, as she was in now, and losing all distractions was basically impossible. At least the lights were dimmed, so she could barely see him now anyway. Him or that new girl next to him.

Sigh.

Anyway, she should really start to focus on her crystal ball. It was supposed to be misting over or something like that. Sophie adjusted her position and looked forward, trying to focus on nothing but the crystal ball. She took a few more deep breaths then continued looking at her crystal ball.

Mmkay, images. Where are you?

Her eyes were open and searching the room. Were there actually people who were having success in here? AJ's eyes landed on an older lion just as she was fogging up her ball and drawing a face on it. She couldn't help but to laugh. That was one way to see pictures. Okay, this was getting her nowhere fast.

Sip.

At this rate she wouldn't be relaxed, and she would be out of tea. Sigh. AJ closed her eyes once more and tried REALLY hard not to think of anybody or anything. Nope, her mind went to tacos and that made her think of Adi. This was ridiculous. She needed to get a grip.

Yeah, nope. Marigold had achieved meditation or whatever they were supposed to be going for for about two seconds. She shifted herself into a comfy-er position and looked back at the ball. Inhale, exhale. Inhale exhale.

WHO was making that OMMMM sound it was DISTRACTING HER!!!11!!1!1

Oh wait. She was making an omm sound. She stopped and went back to her concentration.

Norah tried to continue with her methodical breathing, but everyone else was breathing too, and the result was a whole bunch of really loud breathing that was doing nothing good for her whole mind-clearing task. How inconvenient. She opened her eyes and looked quickly around the room, just to make sure she wasn't the only one whose inner eye seemed to need a pair of glasses. Phew. At least it wasn't just her.

Closing her eyes again, she struggled to keep her mind from wondering what she would be eating at her next meal. Why did relaxation have to be SO boring? Wasn't she supposed to be discovering her future by now? She opened one eye and peeked at the crystal ball. Still nothing. Sigh.

Alright time for the activity. But first he needed to drink some tea to help him cool down or in this case clear his mind. He sipped some and tried to get his mind away from distractions. This may be hard because his girlfriend was in the class and he couldn't help but let his eyes wander over to her. He shook his head and tried to get his scattered brain calm. He sipped some more tea and then closed his eyes. He tried to picture himself at the beach and imagine smelling the sea breeze. He smiled and it was working. His breathing was getting calmer and his thoughts weren't soo scattered.

He heard some distractions but he didn't let that phase him. He was just focusing on the task at hand.

Oh he had been doing quite fine until a sudden movement caught his eye. Maybe if he had been focusing on the task at hand fully he wouldn't have noticed but he couldn't lie. He was still distracted. Anyway, the movement was AJ sipping her tea. Adi wondered if she was distracted as he was.

He studied her once more until she closed her eyes. A second later, he closed his, tried to focus on the music and push ALL thoughts out of his head. He was just going just listen to the music. And he did just that.

Once again, the Hufflepuff's mind was calm and clear. Back to gazing at the Ball.

Angel was still gazing into the crystal ball trying to clear her mind or anything but one person kept coming back into her mind no matter what she did. She tried to block the image out but couldn't as she stared into the ball things got a bit weird.

Angel was just concentrating on the crystal ball and not realising that she was saying something out loud. "Benny! I just can't get you out of my mind, your all that I can think about." Angel suddenly heard the words escaping from her lips.

O_____________o

*blush*

Angel was a bit embarrassed now, was Benny going to kill her or was the Professor going to get there first and kill her, she just wanted the whole world to swallow her up.. saying that where had that come from she had tried her hardest to get him out of her mind but it hadn't worked.

Once tacos came to her mind there was no shaking the thought away. With her right hand propping her head up AJ went into full daydream mode. Tacos that were full of beef, layers of cheese and sour cream. MMM. She imagined lifting the taco to her lips and taking a bite. Tacooooos. Adi liked tacos. Her mind shifted to Adi catching her taking a huge unladylike bite of the taco goodness.

Her daydream then transformed to Adi eating a taco with his luscious locks blowing in the wind. In a dreamy voice he offered her a bite. It was SO real that she could feel the grease running down her arm. Merlin...

WAIT.A.MINUTE. AJ blinked a few times and realized that it wasn't daydream grease, it was drool. Real life drool. What just happened? Was that in her ball or in her head? She quickly wiped down her mouth and arm. There would be no more tea sipping for this chick. What was in the tea? Had anybody noticed? She gave her ball a dirty look. Thanks a lot.

Zahra GRINNED BACK at the Crazy Sparkle Gryffindor that was talking to herself. Then wiped off her smiley face from her crystal ball, FOGGED it back up with some hot breath, and drew another picture. THIS picture was of a LION - but being drawn on a foggy orb with a finger, it wasn't amazing. But it was cool enough for Zahra to HOLD UP HER BALL AND SHOW OLE PUCKY HOUSE MATE.

CHECK IT OUT.HAHA IMAGESSSSSS in the OOOORRRRBBBBBB. It was showing Gryffindors being awesome, basically. RAWR.

Picking up her tea cup, Lux had a nice long sip. She needed to see something in the depths of the crystal ball. At this point in time she'd be happy with anything even if it made no sense to her.

Closing her eyes, she started the deep breathing again when suddenly Angel interrupted, saying something about the Benny boy who was Adi's best friend. Awwww, seemed that the little Lion was bitten by the love bug. That was so cute, and Lux decided that it might be a good idea for them to have a talk later on. This had to be the first boy that Angel liked seeing as she was only twelve. That was the age Lux was when she had kissed Bay and all those other boys. But those kisses from the other boys hadn't meant anything to her.

Closing her eyes again, Lux tried to get back into the deep breathing.

In and out. In and out...

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mad Eye Touz

Zahra GRINNED BACK at the Crazy Sparkle Gryffindor that was talking to herself. Then wiped off her smiley face from her crystal ball, FOGGED it back up with some hot breath, and drew another picture. THIS picture was of a LION - but being drawn on a foggy orb with a finger, it wasn't amazing. But it was cool enough for Zahra to HOLD UP HER BALL AND SHOW OLE PUCKY HOUSE MATE.

CHECK IT OUT.HAHA IMAGESSSSSS in the OOOORRRRBBBBBB. It was showing Gryffindors being awesome, basically. RAWR.

Puck had to, there was no way around it. There was no possible way that she could not G-R-I-N at Zhara. She was funny – Puck liked funny. Okay so – maybe fogging the future would be easier with her eh?

Puck STARED at her ball for a minute before considering drawing on hers as well…if her mind wasn’t clear maybe maybe it’d help? To fog or not to fog that was the question – she at least had to give Zhara a return lion….or something equally funny – like maybe a fog-sketch of Luke Skyhopper…the hideously hairless cat.

But all Puck did was whisper a quiet “Awesome” to her housemate as she lazily gazed at the sphere in front of her.