Marsha wanted to pay attention… but that was a lot of information and she wasn’t really sure that she had taken ALL of it in… but she would try her best and smile and ask questions if, once their main activity started she was still confused. Yeah, that seemed like a good way to do it - especially since everyone was deep in a conversation about the colour of ink.

Okay, well the only thing she would have added was that it was pretty and lasted - but that had already been said.

So, instead of sitting doing nothing, she took a few more notes down in her notebook and then rose to get her own supplies. She frowned slightly at Cutty, wondering if he was okay… he didn’t look it. He looked like he had a flu or something, like she had seen one of her aunts come down with that time. Hmm. She decided that she needed to ask the house elves to make him some hot chicken soup - that was what her Papa always made anyone if they were ill.

Instead though, she didn’t interrupt him and simply gathered her own parchment and a binding cover. With those resting over her forearm, she began to pick up the rest of the utensils that both Professor Glendower had mentioned they would require and that she saw the other students picking up. Good, she was ready.

She returned to her seat and smiled, waiting.

Nessa watched as students began passing around the examples and gathering their supplies. They had some pretty good thoughts about the questions she had posed to them as well. "You all have about the right idea in regards to why the gold and silver was applied to the illustrations," she smiled at those that ventured a guess. "They were meant to add something special to the books. Many of the original books were religious in nature and it was in reverence to a higher power." And though the metals weren't especially included for endurance, she really liked Cutty's theory. She hadn't heard that before, but it was an insightful connection that she'd have to give more thought.

But no one had really stumbled on why they were so well-preserved. "Here's a fun fact, everyone," she began as they continued to get ready for the next part of the lesson. "These books were created during the Middle Ages, also known as the Dark Ages. It was a time when literacy rates were somewhere between 10 and 25%. Most of the population couldn't read, even the people writing these books. They simply copied the letters and words from an original manuscript. And many of the people who owned these Illuminated Manuscripts were illiterate themselves, so they were simply displayed and not handled." Which is a big part of why they survived so well. "Why do you think people who could not read them would still want to own one?"

Once she saw that most of them were able to get the supplies needed, she turned to address the class again. "After you have all the things I asked you to collect, it will be time to create your book!" Super exciting. "First you will take each piece of parchment, fold it in half, then fold it in half again. This is called the signature." She demonstrated with a piece of parchment herself. "Once you have all of them folded, you will stack them neatly together and glue the end into the spine of your book cover, using the spell Adhero." That would be the middle. She had a few pieces all ready to go and she demonstrated this step as well, casting the spell as she drew a line down the spine of the book cover with her wand.

"Next, take your decorative papers and fold those in half. Take one, glue half of it to the inside cover and the other half to the first page, again using Adhero. This will make sure the book pages and the cover are all nice and secure and won't easily fall apart." Again she demonstrated by drawing a line on the inside cover and first page with her wand, and casting Adhero before pressing the decorative paper to the inside book surfaces. "And then you will do the same for the inside back." Once they were finished assembling, then they could work on the illustrating part. "If you have any questions to this point, let me know. I'll be walking around to make sure everyone is doing alright.."

Adi settled back comfortably in his seat, momentarily leaning back to regain control of himself. He vaguely wondered if by accident he had taken that potion he had brewed in that potions class... the one that he had added Hippogriff feathers to. But no. That wasn't possible unless someone had slipped him theirs or something.

Hearing Glendower speaking again, Adi righted himself and grabbed his quill to jot down notes. He found it surprising that so many persons were unable to read back in those days. He knew that many persons couldn't but that many? WOAH! Hand up, he supplied, "Maybe they just wanted to own it for protction? You did say that it was also called the Dark Ages and the original books religious so maybe they believed that all Manuscripts would protect them.''

When he finished off his contribution, the Puffer turned his attention to his parchment which he quickly recounted. Woops! As he suspected, there were more than twenty pieces. He set the extra aside then proceeded each piece as instructed- in half and then into another half.
........

PHEW! That was time consuming, yo! ...nineteen... TWENTY! Adi assembled them all into a super neat pile then just as he had watched Glendower, he cast Adhero, moving his wand along the book cover so that the parchment could be glued. Now, back to folding but this time it was the folding of the decorative papers. Luckily, there weren't so many as the parchment. Using Adhero again, the Puffer glued half to the inside cover and the other half the first page. And yes, he did remember to press the decorative piece in before repeating the step for the back cover.

What next, Professor?

Well, that was an easy one in Toby's mind. He stuck his hand up and said very simply, "'Cause they're pretty." Like how people owned art. It was nice to look at, and generally speaking, you couldn't read it, only look at it. AND it was expensive and valuable. Made perfect sense to Toby.

Past physically making the book, they still didn't know what they'd be doing, which only built up the anxiety for Toby. Of course, other than biting distractedly at his fingernails, he thought he managed to hide that quite well.

Actually getting to DO something and MAKE the book was good, though. It was a nice distraction, keep his hands busy and all. Toby got to work folding all the parchment in half, working his way quickly through the stack rather than painstakingly ensuring they were super even. That would take too much close concentration and slow work and he preferred to just keep moving. When they were all folded, he lined them all up in the inside of his book cover and drew his wand down the spine. "Adhaero."

Next step was slightly trickier, but still manageable. With the first decorative page folded in half, Toby placed it inside the front cover and stuck half of it to that, and then the other half to the first page. "Adhaero.. Adhaero..." Toby cast, tracing his wand first around the edges and then over the middle of each half to make sure it was firmly stuck. That done, he repeated the process on the back cover and page of the book.

Huh. Neat. So he'd made a book? That was pretty cool. Toby set his wand down and began flicking through the pages, wondering what they'd be filling them with. Hopefully whatever it was, he'd be able to get Quidditch into his, somehow.

Zhenya had organised all of the items in front of her, and listened carefully to Professor Glendower's instructions. They were going to be doing a lot of folding with 20 pieces of parchment, but Zhenya knew the end result would be awesome. So, following instructions, she folded all of her plain parchment paper as Professor Glendower had done. Then, she stacked them all up together.

The second step was to adhere to parchment into the book cover. So, doing exactly as Professor Glendower had done, Zhenya pulled her wand out of her robe pocket and got ready. Adhero, she had used that spell before so there was no need to practice, she didn't think. She placed the pieces of parchment inside the book cover whilst pointing her wand at the ends. "Adhero," she said, drawing a line down the spine cover. She had a look and a very careful tug to make sure the parchment was properly stuck to the book cover, and it was. Great.

The third step involved the pretty decorative paper. She had some green and white marble looking decorative paper, one for each end. It was all making sense now. As per instructions, Zhenya folded the decorative parchment in half. With the first one, she glued half of it to the inside cover, "Adhero," she said, drawing a few lines to adhere it. Then, she had to glue the other half to the first page. "Adhero," she repeated, following the same instructions and adhering it to the paper. Next was a repeat of those steps, in the back of the book. So, Zhenya flipped to the back of the book and repeated the steps on the decorative paper, adhering it to the last page and the back book cover. Her book was complete and ready for the next fun part!

Even feeling as icky as she did, Brooklyn had listened to the discussion, and the instructions for how they were supposed to turn the small stack of supplies on her desk into a book. That seemed easy enough, but the question that had been posed had made her roll her eyes, her head tilted down so no one could see. Actually, it was more at the few answers she’d heard, rather than the question, and either way, it made her raise her hand. “Respect. Their reputations, Owning illuminated manuscripts made people think the ones who owned them were better. Maybe that they could read, since most people couldn’t,” she said, lowering her hand as soon as she could. Not to mention, the manuscripts had to have cost a lot, so owning one already meant the owners had something more than everyone else.

But anyway, with her thoughts said, she applied herself to slowly folding the parchment sheets as instructed. In half, then in half again. It was tedious work, and especially so when her head was still pounding. She got all twenty sheets folded, though, but she hesitated before picking up her wand. Instead, she folded the decorative paper sheets in half. If anyone asked, she was just getting everything ready before trying the spell, but really, she was worried that whatever was wrong with her was going to affect her spellwork.

She couldn’t stall forever. Finally, after both sheets of decorative paper were folded, she picked up her wand and slid the book cover closer to her. “Adhero,” she said quietly, tracing a line along the inside of the spine of the book cover, and then just to make sure, she repeated it on the edge of her folded parchment before sticking the two together. So far, it looked okay, and even after she finished gluing all twenty folded sheets of parchment, she tilted the nearly finished book and no pages fell out. So far it looked like her fear wouldn’t prove to be real, but she was still going to be careful. “Adhero,” she whispered four more times, attaching the decorative papers inside the front and back covers. Once that was done, she shut the book and pressed down, making sure she used as much strength as she had to make sure everything would stick. She didn’t want her book to fall apart while she was doing whatever the next step was going to be.

Before getting started on the next step Hady reached for her quill to jot down the few things Professor Glendower had just told them. Notes. Notes. And some more notes. Must always be prepared.

Notes finished and set aside neatly the third year raised her hand into the air. "Maybe it was just for the simply fact of owning one. Like when you're a small child and a friend gets a new toy or pet so you want one too...maybe it was like that." She could think of several times that happened to her when she was younger. Honestly she knew of a few times she seen the same thing with adults. It was kinda funny really.

Now it was time to get these parchments folded properly. Taking one sheet at a time she went about folding them in half once and then once more. One piece of parchment folded and set aside, two...two pieces...three... Hady continued this process until she had all twenty sheets of parchment folded exactly as they should be stacking them up and setting them aside.

Taking her stack of folded parchment she placed them inside the cover. Removing her wand from it's holster she then used the spell 'Adhero' to make the parchment stick to it like it should. A small tug told her the parchment stayed just how it should. Next she folded both sheets of her decorative paper in half and used the same sticking charm to make one sheet stick to the inside of the front cover and then the other sheet to the inside of the back cover.

Taking a moment to look over her work and test out the spells strength she gave a relieved smile. There perfect. Now what did she need to do?

Hmm... so she was kind of sort of on the right track with her thinking. Not bad considering she was really just pulling ideas and theories out of thin air. Say what? Professor Glendower had fun facts too? AJ listened intently hoping to hear something super cool that she could add to her own fun facts. They couldn't even read? Weird. Granted this fun fact wasn't as fun as the one she normally told about not being able to lick your own elbow, BUT it was pretty cool.

AJ had a theory about why that may be too. "I think people would want one because it's mysterious." She would personally see it as a challenge. "Or maybe it just made them feel cooler." Hady had a good point. She knew all too well that some people got things just because it was the "cool" thing to do. Girls were the main ones guilty of this.

They were going to be making their own book and AJ was pretty stoked about this. This first part of the activity seemed to be rather easy and straightforward. The hard part would be when she actually had to draw and write stuff. She could always just fill her pages with unicorns. Now THAT sounded like a plan.

First things first... she needed a book. Paying close attention to the professor's steps, she began to fold her first piece of parchment in half. Then it was folded in half once more. This was called the signature she repeated to herself. Picking up another piece of parchment, she repeated the process. Again and again until all of them were neatly folded.

Picking them all up, she straightened them out by gently hitting them on the desk. This was the easiest way to get them to all line up perfectly. AJ did not want a wonky book with pages sticking out at different angles. On second thought... that might actually be pretty cool. Nope. She was going to stick to the original plan.

"Adhero!" Her wand traced the spine of the book cover. Decorative paper time. The lion picked those up and folded them in half. Lots of instructions happened at this point and AJ had to focus so she wouldn't glue the wrong thing. That would set her back. "Adhero." She glued half of it to the inside cover and the other half to the first page.

Almost done...

All that was left was the inside back. "Adhero!" All set. AJ had her very own book.

“As a status symbol? Like, even if they can’t read or write, people would think that they are important because they own something very expensive?” It was likely, given that the people during that time had a very low literacy rate. Anyone can be fooled by anything that is shiny. Ethan lowered his hand and scratched the top of his head. He wondered what it was like not to be able to read and write, and be used it against you. He’d have to depend on his wits to survive the dark times, and work around things.

Moving on with his materials, Ethan took out one parchment folded it in half, then folded it again. He did the same thing for the remaining parchments he got. Ethan got his wand and stuck the stack of folded parchments together, “Adhaero.” The older Slytherin grinned as he remembered Xavi. That kid was seriously smart, and was very keen to learn new things. Next one was the decorative paper. Ethan followed the professor’s instructions carefully, and followed suit. “Adhaero.” Stick, “Adhaero” and done!

...so the Illuminati and these manuscripts were NOT related. Well okay then. FINE FINE. Eden would believe it....for now. MAYBE THIS IS WHAT GLENDOWER WANTED HER TO THINK, EEEEEH?

But seriously, she had to go get supplies and whatnot because APPARENTLY they were making one? A mini one? A real one? Regardless, Eden thought it was a fun, cool activity. Art was relaxing, and it put Eden's ever-ringing mind at ease.

She didn't get any gold or silver inks just yet...she'd let someone else use them first. But she wanted to make sure she got aaaalllll the colors she wanted. Mostly blues and greens...cool colors. Maybe ONE warm color like red or something just to make it POP. Oh. That was nice....Eden would do that! She grinned and tucked all of the paints she wanted to use under her arm and made her way back to her seat to wait for the examples to get 'round to her. She had no idea what hers should look like....maybe she would do a completely nontraditional one? Maybe that wasn't the point though...hmm....

Eden took the first example and bit her lip. Cool, cool, iT WAS MOVING. Eden wanted hers to move....that was BRILLIANT. She looked through them all, the moving ones really drawing her attention because magic was just COOL, okay? She wondered if they'd make theirs move...or if she'd have to go talk to another professor about it. Like Quiggles or something.

So they were well preserved...because no one read them. Wow. Eden knew the times had been bad during the Middle Ages...but seriously? WOW. She blinked a lot and scribbled that down in her notebook.

She raised her hand. "Well...I think that they kept them for decorative purpose...and also, the gold and silver are kinda' fancy...maybe it made people look FANCY when visiting other people....a sign of wealth and prestige or something." That made sense to her.

OH INSTRUCTIONS.

She did the crazy amount of folding, which essentially was folding the parchments into quarters, and pulled out her wand. Had she ever used magic in this class before? Eden couldn't remember, but here she went--"ADHERO!" she cried, and the spine and everything all stuck together. Now for the decorative pages. Eden folded those, too, and put them in the proper spots with the 'adhero' spell.

Lookin' goooood, McGee.

She bounced in anticipation for the next part.

"I think that guy's right," Brian said, inclining his head at Ethan. "People probably got the books as a status symbol. They had silver and gold on them and they were all handwritten, so you'd have to be rich to get a hold of them since they take months to write. It's probably a thing people used to be all self-righteous about. Like they were better than you just because they had an illuminated manuscript." At least, that was how the Hufflepuff saw it. People in general were just always trying to prove that they were better than the other. It was a little bit frustrating. WHY couldn't everyone just calm down and be happy? Sigh.

So there was a ridiculous amount of folding. Brian grumbled a little under his breath as he folded twenty - TWENTY - sheets of parchment into quarters. Somewhere in the process, he also managed to give himself a papercut. "OW!" he hissed, shaking his hand and dropping a bit of blood on some parchment. Whoops. He wasn't about to get up and take another sheet, though, so he just continued folding parchment. And folding the coloured paper.

Taking the normal parchment and holding it against the book spine, Brian closed his eyes and cleared his mind completely. He'd learned from experience that his spells never worked correctly if his mind was going off in about a million different directions at once. Tracing his wand along the book spine, he said very purposefully, "Adhaero." Nothing? Okay. Trying again. "Adhero."

Satisfied with his sticking skills, he took one decorative page and glued it to the front of the thing, with one side on the inside cover and the other on the first page. Brian picked up his wand gingerly and traced another line on the book. "Adhero." YAY. Now his thing wouldn't fall apart. Then, he repeated the process for the back.

He'd hold off the illuminating for now. His finger kinda hurt.

Having finished with this part of the activity, Adi had nothing to do except to look around at his classmates. And it was because of this that he happened to see when one of his second year Puffs get a paper cut. And there was blood. "Yo, Brian. Is it bad?" The cut, he meant. Those things were usually small but they could be super nasty.

But it didn't seem to be because Brian went back to continuing with the activity though he was having trouble with the spell. Adi was about to encourage Brian to try again but the kid already was. The older Puff smiled slightly. That's it, Brian!

Ben had enough of a time listening to what they had to do than paying full attention to the question or questions being asked of them. Ugg...maybe he'd ask Ad-- nope. No sharing of notes with a certain Hufflepuff prefect now. He'd have to hope Angel or AJ managed to get good enough notes on what was being said while he moved to follow along with the instructions on making their own illuminated manuscripts.

First he folded all his sheets of plain parchment, first in half and than in half again as directed by Professor Glendower. One...two...three....four...five...nine...ten...el even...seventeen...eighteen...nineteen...twenty. All were done before reaching for his wand. He'd need to concentrate for the spell and he took a deep breath to gather himself. "Adhero!" The twenty sheets were technically now one as the stack was attached together to make the base of the book.

Now he had to move onto the decorative pages, the sixth year picking which one he wanted to use for which side of the cover. "Adhero!" he cast on the front decorative page to get it attached to the cover. When he checked it and found it had worked, Ben tried it on the other side. "Adhero!" There...the front of the book was finished, at least in these steps. Repeating the process on the other side with the other decorative paper, he had more than a good start.

And a sigh of relief.

So they were all right about the use of silver and gold adding something special to the books. Go them. It was the preservation that surprised Lux more than anything. Illiteracy was THAT high in the middle ages? She couldn't imagine living in a society where most people couldn't read. It was mind-boggling.

Another question was asked, and she immediately raised her hand to answer. "Because they are pretty and people like pictures." Or well...most people did. Maybe there were some exceptions. She herself liked illustrations even if a lot of the books she read didn't have them.

Carefully following instructions and watching Professor Glendower's demonstration, Lux began working on her illuminated manuscript. She already had some ideas of what she was going to put on it. Each piece of parchment was folded in half and then folded in half again. Once finished, she stacked them neatly. "Adhero!" Now she had them all glued together. She was doing this like a pro.

Yay!

More folding, but of the decorative papers this time. "Adhero!" There. She had a sheet half attached to the inside cover and half attached to the front page. The exact same process was completed for the back of her manuscript, and Lux was completely caught up. Patiently she waited for Glendower to move on to the next steps.

Angel smiled as she raised her hand. "Professor, is it because they looked so amazing and maybe because they wanted to own something that would be of value."

Angel then got on with the work that the Professor told her to do, she picked up a piece of parchment and folded it in half, she then folded it in half again, so that she had it like the Professor had showed her, she then did it with a second piece of parchment and then a third and fourth until she had done it with all twenty piece of parchment that she had, she hadn't realised that it would be so time consuming.

Angel then stacked them neatly together and then got her wand out. "Adhero!" Angel did the wand movement and smiled as she got the spine of the book, this was awesome.

Angel picked which decorative paper she wanted for the front cover and smiled as she folded it in half "Adhero!" Angel smiled as she made sure she did exactly as the Professor had said and soon the front of the book was looking good.

Angel then picked up another decorative paper and folded it in half. "Adhero!" Angel did the wand movement and put this one on the back of the book, making sure half was inside the last page and half was on the outside of the last page. She was totally enjoying this lesson.

Wow, making books like this was HARD work. Thank goodness they had magic! But why would someone want a book if they couldn't read it? Well, the reason that most people wanted useless objects - reputation. He raised his hand to jump into the conversation. "They want the satisfaction of knowing they have an expensive, rare item. Even if they can't use it. It makes people feel important," he explained.

And now...onto this book building thing. He took his parchment and folded it in half. Then he folded it again. And then he started with the next stack...until he had a nice stack of folded parchment. He then took his cover and waved his wand muttering "Adhero!" as he did so. Viola! He had a blank book!

Norah put her hand up quickly in response to the little question, 'cause the faster she went the faster she could get to the art stuff. "They're pretty and cool looking, just like the paintings we hang places except even cooler 'cause they're shiny." OKAY that was done. Book making time. Awww yeah. Well, first note taking time and THEN book making time but she was one step closer, okay? That meant excitement.

Once she'd recorded the information Professor Glendower had added, she pushed her note-taking parchment to the side and brought the stack of pages towards her. She folded the first one in half one way, and then other, and set it to the side. Aaaand again. Fold, fold, fold, fold, fold, fold. That went on for ages 'cause 21 whole pieces of parchment was a lot. By the time she was almost done, the fourth year was half-ready to just make some paper airplanes and be done with it, but the pull of using that gold ink was much too strong. So, folding it was. See that? Thinking before she acted. It happened once in a while. She brought the folded parchment into a nice pile, and placed them on the spine of her book. "Adhero!" One line traced down the spine and TA DA! All stuck.

With eyebrows furrowed in concentration, the Hufflepuff carefully folded one piece of decorative paper in half and cast "Adhero," as she used her wand to draw a line on the inside cover and first page of the book. Sticky stick stick. Aaaand again. "Adhero!"

Norah sat on her hand again with the book all assembled, tapping her feet on the floor because all the coloring stuff was still SITTING there waiting to be USED. It was BEGGING okay? The whole entire rainbow. Begging. What kind of cruel class was this.

"Yes, basically they were status symbols and very nice to look at. They were expensive, at least the first ones were, so some of the wealthier people owned them." Plus, it was to show godly reverence, but she'd rather not get into a religious discussion. Nessa continued to weave through the rows of desks, making small noises of approval as she watched her students get to work. Their books were coming along nicely.

"Nice work so far, everyone!" She could see that a few of them weren't quite finished, but they still had time to catch up. "Once you have your book assembled, it will be time to add some decoration and illustration to the pages. We will be using these books to write in later, so keep that in mind, but otherwise the decorating and illustrating is up to you in how much, what kind, and where. And make sure to add some illumination with gold or silver ink!" That was one way they'd relate their own books back to the originals.

"Once you are finished with your illustrations, perhaps you'd like to animate them." That was optional, but a fun addition. "This spell is similar to the one used to animate portraits, but it is much more basic. Whatever portion you decide to animate will just move in the same manner repeatedly." They wouldn't be able to have a conversation like she could with the portraits around the castle nor would they seem to have minds of their own. But it still made things much more interesting.

She picked up a piece of parchment that she had already drawn a jewel-encrusted bird on and held it up to show the class. "What you need to do is trace the part of the drawing that you'd like to move and clearly speak, Animatae." She demonstrated this for them, tracing the lines she drew of the bird with her wand, commanding Animatae. The bird then flew from one corner of the page to the next, then again.

OOC - Again, make as many posts as you need for this last part of the activity. There is still time to catch up if you missed earlier steps. We'll be wrapping class up in 32ish or so hours, then Nessa will give further instructions on what they'll be doing with their books.

FINALLY. Norah didn't bother with writing down the last bit of notes Professor Glendower said, 'cause as soon as she brought her hands to the table her fingers went right to the colored pencils. OH YEAH. This was going to be radical. She opened the book to the first page and drew a biiiig red arc, followed by an orange one and then yellow and then all the colors in the rainbow PLUS extra shades of purple because that was the best color. Humming a tuneless song as she worked, she rested her chin on the table and used the fancy shmancy gold ink to trace clouds at the ends of the rainbow. She moved next to the sparkly ink that was all hers, and drew a unicorn tap dancing on the rainbow because it was her book and she could do whatever she wanted. The unicorn kind of looked more like a dog with a stick on it's head, so she drew an arrow and wrote 'Unicorn' just to make sure everybody knew. Just 'cause art was fun it didn't mean it was easy. That bit was annoying. Under the rainbow she drew a giraffe, 'cause they had long necks and in whatever world this picture was of giraffes could reach all the way to the rainbows in the sky. Because she said so. This had to be what it was like to be QUEEN. Or a prefect. Same thing, really.

Satisfied with the page, the fourth year thumbed through the pieces of parchment until she got to the seventh page because her birthday was on the seventh so it just made sense. She used the fancy pants gold ink to draw a big ol' trunk for a tree, adding a halo of green and pink leaves because pink leaves were cool and would totally be everywhere if she got to be in charge of the whole nature thing. She added a couple of sparkly birds into the drawing because sparkles were still very important, using her colored pencils to color a nice orange nest for them. She leaned back and chewed on her lip in the most artist-y way she could think of. It needed something else. With a small smile Norah added her and Sebby and Marcel all up in a the tree having a tea party, except they were made of sticks because stick figured were a whole lot easier than the normal kinds. Okay, she and Sebby were having a tea party and Marcel didn't drink tea 'cause he didn't like it. He was a weirdo like that.

Norah picked up her wand and pointed it at the glittery birds. "Animatae." She beamed as the birds began to fly back and forth across the top of the page. Holy guacamole. BEST DAY EVER.

As she waited for the next set of instructions Hady lightly drummed her finger tips against her knee. It was a quiet form of distraction to keep herself busy. The drumming stopped the very moment Professor Glendower resumed speaking and the third year picked up her quill to take down the last bit of notes that she assumed she'd need later. This was the part she'd been waiting for. A chance to decorate her book and she had some ideas already in mind.

Opening her book she got to work on the first page. It was time to draw whatever she wanted. Lightly nibbling on her lower lip she picked up a brown colored pencil and began making what looked to be random lines drawn here and there all around the parchment soon followed by other lines close to the first. She then switched colors for a green one which was used to make leaves everywhere...this was done in several shades of greens with a few random leaves or yellow, orange and red. Hady then continued on making some bushes here and there as well followed by half the top portion of the page being a light blackish-gray color for the night sky. White stars were then made above the tree tops in the sky. There was an oddly drawn owl sat in one of the trees that resembled her owl Riddick back home. Lastly she draw a small bunny peeking out it's hole in the ground as well as a large snake dead center in the middle of the forest ground. This was her baby Aime back home.

Remembering that she needed to still use the silver ink she grinned knowing what to do. She began to out just a few things, one very large star in the sky, the small bunny, the owl and then the snake. With that done she pulled out her wand and very carefully began to trace the outline of the python while reciting clearly, "Animatae." Right before her eyes it began to slither back and forth across the 'dirt' area in her drawing. Now this was epic!

As she watched her draw come to life Hady had a thought and raised her hand, "Professor could we make more then one thing in the drawing move?" That would be alright wouldn't it? Like maybe the bunny as well?

It was safe to say Adi was enjoying this lesson (minus the whole Benny thing). They were actually going to get to decorate and write in these manuscript thingies they were making! Wheee! So just what was he going to draw for the next step? A variety of stuff! But of course the glorious Hippogriffs had to be first. Using his various coloured pencils, the Puffer drew a paddock with the Griffs then right beside it, a paddock of unicorns! It was his future Griff/Unicorn farm but on a smaller scale, of course!

Flip to the next page! On this one, the Puffer drew a rather oddly Giant Squid with him, Margo and Hady talking to it. On the next page, he drew him and Henric in the Treehouse followed by a rather fat badger lurking in front of the Hufflepuff Barrels and three figures that were supposed to be Professors Hadley, Botros and Glendower.

Yeah, yeah. Adi knew he was missing a drawing of him and Benny, which on a good day would have had been the first thing he would have done. But he wasn't feeling it. Instead, he drew stick figures of all the persons he knew at Hogwarts in their respective House colours. Even the Professors were not forgotten. Bu then he had an idea! Grabbing more pencils, Adi drew another stick figure that was Benny and then one that was him... the expression on his face was one of anger and hurt while his once best friend had a sad and jealous look. Gus was poking out of Benny's pocket. It was safe to say this represented their falling out shortly after they hung out at the Pathways and tested their potions.

Well, obviously, there were a few things Toby was totally going to add to his book illustrations. He was mainly planning to do a bunch of border decorations and all that, especially Quidditch things because Quidditch was basically his life. And also cows, because he loved cows. Other than that, he wasn't really all that sure what illustrations to do, as he still didn't know what exactly they'd be writing about, because surely it had to match?

Buuuuuuuuuut, seeing as they were allowed to just get on with it, Toby figured that maybe it didn't actually matter what they put, as long as it was an illustration. That worked for him, so he quickly got to work drawing up cool borders and the odd full-page illustration, mostly focusing on Quidditch (with quaffles and bludgers and beater's bats and hoops and golden snitches and keeper's gloves and brooms) but also animals (a full page dedicated to all his pets, past and present, and all kinds going around the edges of some pages), more cows (even though they were already included in the pets), and also a whole bunch of flowers, too. Flowers were awesome.

It took ages. AGES. And Toby wasn't all that good at drawing, unless the subject was plants, and his concentration kept wandering and he COULDN'T keep still. But... he'd done his best. He'd tried. That was important, right?

Finally setting down his quill (he'd been adding gold to the golden snitches, and some of the flowers, and especially to the animals), Toby stretched out his hand to ward off cramp and automatically looked up and around at everyone else. He watched a couple other kids work for a while before finally retrieving his wand. After spinning it around his fingers ones or twice, he flipped to a certain page in the book and nodded to himself. Okay. He'd start with a Quidditch illustration; that could look cool if it were animated.

Aha! So she was on the right track with picture books and although she probably should have elaborated more, and on an exam she would have, right now she was just focused on learning and note-taking more than elaboration.

After she finished jotting down the last bit that the Professor spoke, she followed her peers up to collect her supplies. Parchment and markers. And another fun fact; the illuminated manuscripts were used for display not handled?!? Interesting. Quickly jotting that tidbit down, even though she was sure she'd recall it now if she heard the term on an exam, she awaited for the next step for what they were to be doing. Making their own manuscripts no doubt.

Carefully taking one piece of parchment from her stack, she folded it in half and then again. Thinking now, Tia wasn't sure she had enough design ideas for that many pages. Though they were somewhat small, since they were quarter of a page, but still. Nonetheless, she repeated the process of folding each parchment until she'd folded the stack of parchments. And following the professor's lead, drew a line down the spine of the book cover for where she'd need to attach the parchments. "Adhero," the fifth year practiced first without her wand, even though it was a familiar charm. "Adhero," she said again, this time pressing the book pages into the center of spine.

So they didn't need to illustrate the entire page for ALL the pages because they needed writing room. Which meant she could focus on maybe some solid decorative pages and leave some room in the middle of the book for her writings. Tia sat for a moment studying the examples that the professor passed around as she debated on her drawing and possible animation choices.

Okay then, he already gathered the stuffs that he's gonna need to make this manuscript. Parchment, decorative paper, ink, and other else. He watched Glendower carefully demonstrated the steps. First, the parchment. Jackson grabbed a piece a parchment and folded it in half, then folded it in half again. He did that to the other parchment until all of them were already folded. Wow, he needed to folded twenty parchment!

Then he stacked all the parchment together and used the sticking charm to glue them at the end into the spine of your book cover. "Adhaero."Okay then, what's next? The Korean guy then picked the decorative and followed the Professor's step, folding them. Then using the sticking charm, he glued half of it to the inside cover and the other half to the first page. He made sure that everything were glued perfectly. Good.

Move on to the next step.

Drawing? Oh damn it. He didn't know what should he draw and his drawing was terrible! Sigh. Well uh... Maybe he's gonna draw things in stick figures. Hmmm.. What should he draw? Okay, first he drew himself (in stick figures) playing piano because he loooooves piano. He also drew himself singing and then... he drew him, Ethan and Leah acted together at Ancient Runes class and the last he drew Leah and him hanging out together at the Hogsmeade. He still left some pages for writing too.

And of course he wanted to make the drawing moving because it's a wizarding manuscript, right? With his wand, he traced the part of the drawing and cast the spell. "Animatae." He did it at his first drawing, himself playing the piano. Hehehehe, he watched the drawing like uh... playing the piano. He should try this spell to the next drawing too!

Was Adi all set to animate his very bad drawings? NOPE! there was just one more he needed to do. He tried to make this one the best of all the others because this was going to be depicting him and AJ in Sugarplums, the very first time they met. He grinned stupidly to himself as he recalled the silly story he had made up about Chocolate Frogs. To bad she hadn't totally fallen for it. Hehe.

Anwayyy, yada, yada, yada... stick figure Adi and AJ, various candies on display and whatnot. Of course he added some gold ink as he had done with the other drawings. NOW he was done and all set to animate! "Animatae!" he said as he traced over stick figure AJ then repeated the process for his sticky self. Hehe. Look at that! Stick Adi seemed to be talking a whole lot while stick AJ was laughing. COOL!

Onto the other drawings! The Hufflepuff got some Hippogriffs and Unicorns running around in their paddocks by repeating the spell; Hady taking a picture of the Squid with her camera; Henric babbling in the Treehouse as he examined Chocolate Frog cards; and the badger trying to tap the Barrels correctly in order to enter the Puff common room. LOL! The badger was the most amusing of all. Seriously, his paws couldn't reach the upper barrels even if it stood up on hind legs.