Was it just her or did Professor Vance seem rather negative on the subject of superstitions? She thought Divination professors would believe in them, but it seemed the blond woman was talking down upon them, like they weren't real.... Rather strange.

Oh, they were building their own personal fires? Skylar could do that; she's used incendio before, so this wouldn't be too challenging. However, she did wonder about the safety of the whole thing, having so many little fires going on the grounds. Although surely the Professor knew what she was doing and she did have reinforcement from the groundskeeper, but still.

Watching the groundskeeper give his demonstration, Skylar set to work on her own, because she was cold again and the faster she got her own fire up, the warmer she could get. Beginning with the smaller splinters in the middle, she began working the larger pieces around in the form of a teepee. Once satisfied with the way her teepee of wood splinters was holding up on its own, she cast her wand in the familiar motion, "Incendio," and the wood lit without much trouble.

Time to warm up again. This cycle of hot to cold to hot to cold was surely not good for the immune system.

Shay took some notes about salt superstitions, as the conversation continued. She might have to try that salt in the dorm room thing. It wouldn't hurt anything and if they managed to get some good luck out of it......even better. Shay then waited to hear what would be coming next. Of course they would be doing Pyromancy readings, but first things first. Before they could do a reading, they'd have to build a fire. Ok.

Shay listened and watched, as the Groundskeeper demonstrated how to make a proper fire. It seemed pretty straightforward. So when the demonstration was over, Shay gathered the necessary materials and found an unclaimed fire pit. Remembering what she had seen she bent down on one knee and got to work. She put the smaller wood pieces in the center of the pit, careful to place them just as Mr. Baldvinsson had. When she thought it looked right, Shay reached for the larger wooden clubs. Resting them against the splinters, she stacked them up moving around in a circle, until she had her wooden teepee. Shay made a few minor adjustments and was finally satisfied with her work.

Now it was time to make the fire happen. Shay stood up and pulled out her wand. Taking a moment to concentrate, she pointed her wand at her little teepee. With an up and down movement of her wand, she said, "Incendio". She heard a pop as the spark hit the kindling. The fire caught and began to spread amongst the wood pieces. After a few minutes, she had a pretty nice fire going. Shay was ready to get her Pyromancy on.

It seemed they'd moved on to the more practical portion of the lesson. Jessa still wasn't sold on this pyromancy thing, but the girl would never say no to being given permission to start a fire, so much like many of her classmates did, she gathered closer to the Groundskeeper and watched him give his demonstration.

Didn't look too hard actually.

Satisfied with her level of understanding on this subject matter, Jessa got her wood and went to one of the fire pits that had been dug out in advance for the students. All she had to do was....let's see....he said to place the smaller splinters in the middle.....yeah. Jesaa did just that, fitting them as neatly as she could. Didn't matter whether the neatness would directly affect it or not, it was just the way she was.

Next she would need to build a cone-shaped structure with the bigger wooden clubs. This would be around the smaller ones, yeah?

The young girl got to work stacking until she'd created something of a dome, then with a sharp upward motion she cast. "Incendio!" This was one of the easier spells for her. When you made enough potions and did enough experiments, certain spells became second nature.

Now what?

Set each other on fire? Why would they want to do that? Professor B said the weirdest things sometimes, but that only made the first year like him more. Plus, his advice from her first-ever flying lesson had gotten her through lots of other lessons that involved learning new spells over the term, so he was one of her favorite teachers. Emmeline beamed at the fire the flying instructor/groundskeeper had made. Making a fire sounded so cool!

She glanced over at Jessa once worriedly, because more fires meant more smoke and Jessa didn't seem to get along with non-magic smoke. But maybe it was magic smoke, since they used magic to light it? Either way, the older girl had already started on making her own fire so Emmeline figured she was still doing okay for now.

The first year trotted over to her own fire pit. She knew the "Incendio" charm really well by now, and the Ollivander's lady had told her that her wand was particularly good at fire spells. Emmeline thought that this was likely, because she never had problems with Incendio anymore like she did with some other spells she'd learned so far. Anyway, the Incendio part came later.

First was making a cone out of all this wood! Emmeline grabbed a handful of the smaller wood things and spread them around the bottom of the pit. She tried to make it pretty even so that her fire would go everywhere! She spent the next several minutes grabbing two larger pieces at a time and carefully arranging them all to make a biiiig cone.

Now for the magic part! The Gryffindor was bouncing up and down a little bit in excitement, because she'd never been allowed to make a BIG fire all by herself before! Honestly, she was kind of surprised that Professor Vance was letting them do it, but Emmeline certainly wasn't complaining. She withdrew her wand from its holster with a slight flourish. Then she concentrated on fire and warmth and sparks and embers as she performed the wand movement over the wood and cried: "INCENDIO!"

The result was both good and bad. The good part was that she'd lit the fire and the spell worked and everything! The bad news was that she'd been maybe too excited, because instead of making sparks and a steady flame like usual, hers had immediately engulfed the whole cone structure at once and blazed up as a huuuuge bonfire! Oops. She was glad that these things were contained in pits suddenly; her bonfire couldn't escape and hurt anyone.

During the whole salt discussion, Stasya had stayed quiet. Not because she wasn’t aware of those things, but more because she didn’t see why they were believed. Plus, she knew salt could hurt some creatures, and that was plenty distracting enough. Even without it being mentioned, and she hadn’t been about to mention it either. She wasn’t going to sprinkle salt on the floor in the dorms either, not when it sounded like all it would cause is salty shoes. She was much more attentive when the lesson moved on, proving that they were going to be doing their own pyromancy stuff.

She knew Incendio. Thanks to Kyle way back in the first Potions lesson, and she’d been working on it ever since, along with all her other studying for things like dueling club. Either way, she knew the spell, and she was confident she could manage it. She still went over to watch at Mr. Baldvinsson demonstrated exactly how they were supposed to make their baby bonfires, though. That wasn’t the same as Potions, so she wanted to make sure she knew that.

Jessa had already gone over to make her fire, which meant that she wasn’t worried anymore too. It meant she could pick her little fire pit and get started, and she’d gone over to the fire pit nearest to Emmeline’s just so they could help each other if they needed. She felt way more confident since she already knew the spell, after all. Taking a couple handfuls of tiny little wooden sticks, she piled them up in the center of her pit before she began trying to arrange the larger sticks around the outside. It kind of felt like she was making a weird little house, like the groundskeeper had said. He’d compared it to a tepee anyway, and that was sort of a house.

Just finishing up her little wooden structure, she jumped at the volume of Emmeline’s spell. Thankfully, she’d jumped away from the flames that had shot up from her friend’s bonfire, and she’d sent her a grin before turning to her own. “Incendio!,” she cast, moving her wand in the little upside down v-shape motion that had been demonstrated, giggling a little as a little spark hit the twigs inside her structure and began smoldering. Only to light the rest on fire too and eventually she had a little baby bonfire blazing. Not as big as Emmeline’s, but she figured it was big enough.

What was his rate of goodlucky-ness? "Not bad. Then again I havent burned down any kitchen I've cooked in so I guess my batting average is pretty good maybe." he laughed. Kitchens are safe from disaster simply because he tossed salt over his shoulder? Best property insurance policy ever.

But now it was time to set things ablaze. The leonine lad picked a spot and listened to the Groundskeeper give instructions, already knowing full well what to do because #childhood, but he liked watching the man demo things out. Fun man is FUN after all.

Alright, he's got his fire pit, he's got his wood pile, his tinder aaaaand here he comes starting the fiyah "Incedio!" Flame on. Worked like a charm.

Laurel observed in silence as Haraldur demonstrated with ease how the students were supposed to build and light their fires with the help of incendio. When the groundskeeper retook his position next to her, with good eye over the students Laurel murmured quietly. "That was a good and to the point demonstration Haraldur. I'm glad you had time to assist me in my lesson." Since he had probably got a number of grounds duties that he had put on holding for doing her a favour.

When students got to work with their fires Laurel moved around amongst the fire pits to offer advice, answer questions and just idly converse a little with the students. It gave her a chance to get to know them better and that made teaching them easier.

About 20 minutes later she whistled everyone to gather around the big centre pit again that had now burned down to the coals which soothed Laurel's next step perfectly. "Good work on getting your fires started everyone! Now let me demonstrate how the fire reading is going to work step by step. When your fire has burned down to just a hot coal bed you're going to take two handfuls of salt from the large salt sack behind me and throw it on top of the coals."

Laurel turned around and got the salt from the sack and then she turned back threw it on top of the coal bed causing new flames to burst up and the fire crackled loudly. "Don't be scared by the flames or the crackling it will die down again. While you wait for it to do that you need to clear your mind of all other thoughts so that when the flames aren't as strong you need to look into the fire for at least 15 minutes to see and note down all the shapes that you see in the fire on a piece of parchment. From the shapes you've noted down you're then going to make a prediction for your immediate future."

Focusing on the fire for just a few moment Laurel registered three shapes before she put her eyes on the students again. "I see a flower shape and a lobster shape in the fire, and from those I predict that I will get a nice present from a dear friend one of these days. You will of course study the fire longer and can make a more accurate prediction of what you'll meet in your immediate futures. Don't forget to look up the shapes you see in your textbook. Now get back to your fires everyone and get started so that they don't die out you!"

OOC: Main Activity is up! As Laurel instructed the steps you need to follow to complete the activity and get full points are:
1. Let your students fire dwindle down to a coal bed
2. Gather and throw at least two handfuls of salt on top of the coal bed
3. Clear your mind and then when the cracks and worst flames have died down start looking into the fire and noting down all fire shapes you see for 15 minutes
4. Make ONE prediction of your student characters immediate future by interpreting all the shapes/symbols they've seen in the fire on a piece of parchment.

Be creative and have fun with this! There is no post requirement. You have until Monday @ approx 6pm GMT +2 to complete the activity before i wrap up and close the lesson. If you have any questions then say so in your post titles or vm me.

Olivia listened to Professor Vance's instructions and made sure to make notes as the Professor explained the next part of the activity. Alright. There seemed to be a few separate steps here. The first was to wait for the fire to die down a little until it was only the hot coal bed. That would take time. Olivia started watching the fire and waiting for it to die down. It felt like it had been forever and the fire still hadn't died down. The Gryffindor turned her wrist over to examine her watch and SIGHED when only five minutes had passed. This would be a long time.

Another five minutes had passed and the brunette was feeling a little bit nervous. So she decided to spend her time preparing for the next few steps. Two handfuls of salt would be next. Before grabbing the salt, she opened her textbook to the pages that she would need to read the shapes and determine the meanings of them. Placing the textbook near her and readying her notebook to take her observations, she turned her gaze back to the fire pit and noticed that it was time. The fire had simply become just the coal bed. Picking up two hefty handfuls of salt, she tossed both on top of the bed. Flames burst up into the air, sizzling and cracking as they did.

Now she needed to clear her mind. She didn't need to think about what events had transpired on the Merlin's Pride nor over break. All she needed to think about was nothing. Clear. She took a deep breath and transported herself to a peaceful place. A happy place. She thought of the ocean near her grandparents house. The waves lazily rolling into the sand and kissing her toes softly before surrounding them. Another deep breath. She closed her eyes momentarily and took another deep breath. Feeling more relaxed, she opened them and waited, watching the fire die down. Olivia turned her blue eyes towards the fire and tried to determine what shapes she could see in the flames.

Was that an Ace of... Ace.... She almost got distracted by another thought but brought herself back. Ace of hearts. Olivia clearly saw that in the flames but what else lay there? Was that a club or a shamrock? She squinted her eyes and finally decided on the shamrock. And there was also something.. Tulips... And. Small round circles... Were those rocks? Perhaps.....

No. Stones.

Thus she decided to begin scribbling her observations and what they could mean in her journal.

Etta listened to the professor's instructions, making sure she didn't miss a word. So they basically had to make predictions using the fire.. interesting. Now, what was the first thing to do again? She patiently waited for the fire to dwindle down to just a hot coal bed.. which took a bit of time. She absently stared at other people starting with the activity, her gaze shifting to the dwindling fire every now and then. After what felt like a forever and a half, all she could see was the hot coal bed. Great. Now, moving on to the next step.

Tucking her wand in her a pocket, she grabbed a handful of salt with both of her hands and made her way back to her fire pit and as instructed, she threw it on top of the coals. She immediately took a couple of steps back as the flames suddenly burst into the air, making loud crackling noises. Woah. She waited for a couple of minutes before closing her eyes and taking a few breaths, trying to relax. She had a lot of things running through her mind lately. Her OWLs, classes, homework, the upcoming IMPS challenge.. but she threw them all completely out of her mind. Once she opened her eyes, Etta was thinking about absolutely nothing. She'd managed to ignore all her stress for once and focused on her upcoming activity.

By this time, the crackling had reduced considerably and the flames didn't seem to be that strong. She sat down, took another deep breath and stared at the fire. She had to figure out shapes, yeah? .. which seemed way more difficult than expected. She really couldn't make out anything at first. Wait, had she done something wrong? Had she not followed all the instructions properly? Just when she was about to give up, she could see something. What was that again? She squinted into the flames. Um. It looked like a leaf? Yes? She quickly jotted it down. Okay, what else? Frowning, she kept staring at the fire. Uh.. another shape.. she leaned forward slightly. An APPLE? How random. But before she could even remotely comprehend what that even meant, there was another shape. Woah, slow down. A dolphin? Etta blinked. Right, that was about it.. yes. Wait, no. There. Another shape was slowly forming. It looked like a jug. Huh. After referring to her textbook for a couple of minutes, she pulled out a parchment and started to write. The professor had mentioned only one prediction, yes?

SPOILER!!: parchment

Quote:

The shapes that I saw and their interpretations :
Leaf : It's a sign of satisfaction and making new friends.
Apple : An apple is a sign of happiness and good health.
Dolphin : A cheerful and optimistic character.. also a possibility of me taking a cruise in the near future?
Jug : It's a sign of good health and money-making.

From what I can understand from these interpretations, I don't have to worry about my health in the immediate future.. that is, the possibility of me getting hurt or sick is practically none. I'll be cheerful too since I'll most likely make new friends.. good friends, which is very exciting.

Right, it was time to start with the main activity for the class. Vivian nodded as Professor Vance instructed them on what to do. Waiting for the fire to dwindle down into a coal bed would take some time, so Vivian took advantage of it and rewrote her notes while waiting in patience. She even got to neatly do it now, because her handwriting from her previous parchment looked like tangled up hair strands. It was just in perfect timing when she finally finished it, and saw that her fire had died down just enough to proceed to the next step.

With the first step done, Vivian hopped up and went to gather salt from the sack behind her Head of House. She gave the woman a smile before taking two handfuls of the salt and then tossing it onto her coal bed. She had to clear her mind in this part, too, which sounded like a really good idea. The blonde could really use a moment to just be quite and admire her snowy surroundings, despite the obvious red-nosed reindeer facade Vivian was holding. She literally had a red nose, just saying.

Still freeing her mind of all thoughts and emotions, Vivian kept her eyes on her coal bed. Once it had lost its life, the Slytherin peered down to examine any possible shapes from what was left of her gorgeous fire. Hmm.... It took the blonde a little long to find the first shape, which was an arrow facing north. Vivian looked at where it was pointed and saw... no one? She blinked and then looked back at her fire. "Are you kidding me?" There was... no one. In the north. Who was on her north, anyway?

Her eyes then caught another symbol just close to the arrow. Vivian squinted a bit and sort of made a conclusion that it looked like Harry Potter's glasses. Err... right. So eyeglasses? Yeah, she was sure that was on the textbook somewhere. The Slytherin took note of all of the symbols, and she was quite happy she only had two. Merlin knew her brain wouldn't have handled interpreting any more than just that.

Yeah... now moving on to the interpretation and predicting the future thing.

This should be good.

After the initial scare the Professor had given her with just taking her hand, Jessa was all the more skeptical of such arbitrary means of determining the future--especially when it wasn't set in stone and entirely dependent on an intricate series of decisions made not only by yourself but by those around you. With so many blind sides it was hard to believe such a prediction was even possible.

Still, Jessa took a seat by her fire and watched it burn, waiting for what seemed like hours when in fact it couldn't have been more than 10 - 15 minutes at most. The girl hadn't built a very big fire in the first place. It really wouldn't have taken that long to burn out. Funny enough, the moment it began to die and let off more smoke was the moment her bubblehead charm decided it was done for the day, forcing her to reapply it while she waited for the last of the flames to burn out.

That done, she went and got a handful of salt (one in each hand) then came back and tossed them at the charred wood and fire remains.

She knew she was meant to be clearing her mind and all but in her case it was particularly difficult. Jessa didn't know how to clear her mind, there was always something that needed thinking about, always something that required her brain power to deconstruct.

By the time the 15 minute wait had come to a close, Jessa had planned her homework schedule for the rest of the week and new places to have Mew fly around in the Room of Requirements. Without much stimulus to keep her attention on the charred wood, her mind had wandered. Didn't mean she couldn't see though. Like right now she was seeing.....

Something like a goat...a table...annndd.....what was that over there by the top? Hmm...looked like a little man sorta. Sure it could be a little man.

SPOILER!!: Parchment

• Goat - A new enterprise which has an element of risk about it; a goat is an unfortunate sign to sailors or to those connected with them.
• Table - This means suggestions and consultation; note the subject from the surrounding signs.
• Man - You may expect a visitor.

Interpretation:

If this reading is right then I'm gonna find a new experiment that's probably risky (no surprise there) and gonna have to get advice from Professor Hirsch (like I always do) and will have a visitor so I guess someone's gonna be there to take part in the experiment with me. That's about all I've got from this thing.

In the end, it was rather vague if you asked her.

Liv thought Haraldur's demonstration was on point. He was a great help to the Divination lesson.

Liv did an amazing job starting her fire. Professor Laurel demonstrated how the fire reading was going to work, step by step. When her fire was burnt down to a hot coal bed, Liv, she took two handfuls of salt from the large sack behind Professor Laurel and threw it on top of the coals.

She wasn't scared by the flames or the crackling because it would die down. She cleared her head of thoughts so the flames wouldn't be so strong and looked at them for 15 minutes and wrote down everything she saw on the parchment. She then made a prediction of the shapes.

First, she saw an aircraft which meant she would have an unexpected journey. Then she saw a machine which means she would have a lack of initiative. She jotted this down on the parchment and gave it to the professor.

Kyle built his fire up then sat back, waiting for the fire to burn down to coals. He thought as he sat, about the competition, about Jace, about his classes, and even about his kneazle. Having plenty to think about gave him some patience as he waited. Eventually the fire died down, and the coals were glowing nicely. He went and retrieved two handfuls of salt and tossed them on the coals, watching fire come up and engulf them. He cleared his mind as he waited for the fire to die down one more. Then, he looked over the patterns in the salt, looking for some sort of images.

At first, nothing came to him. No shapes stood out as anything distinct. Then the first thing popped out at him: what looked like the club from a playing card. He made a note of it and continued observing. As he carefully looked over everything, the next thing came to him: something that looked like a chess piece. He shuddered a little as his recollection of his father's stories of The Game came to him, and how everyone was related to pieces on a board. Next there appeared to be a saddle of some sort. Did that have anything to do with riding? He made note of that as well knowing he would be looking these things up soon enough. His fifteen minutes were about up and he figured he would see nothing more when... Was that a squirrel? He tried to peer closer without getting burnt. Yeah, it looked enough like a squirrel to him. He jotted that down and searched some more. The fifteen minutes were soon up, and there was nothing else that jumped out at him.

He began looking things up in his textbook trying to figure out what it all meant. Okay, so the club from a playing card... Would that be the same as the Ace of Clubs? He figured so and jotted down the meaning. Something about good news through the post. That would be interesting. Then the chess piece. Something that would be difficult to adjust to, and could be a source of worry. Oh good. He shuddered again and moved on. Saddle, solving something troublesome. So, maybe it had to do with the chess piece? And the squirrel, as odd as it was. Contentment and cheerfulness. He smiled. Well, maybe that had to do with the good news through the post? Or maybe with the solving of whatever was troublesome. What if the good news was good for someone but worrisome to him? That could be something. And then it would all fit together.

Cassie had gotten her fire started with not too much trouble. It wasn’t like she hadn’t the experience with lighting one for potions brewing. The cold and wet of the outside could be an issue, but still, the fifth year was ready when Professor Vance was ready to move on. They were to wait until the fire had settled down and throw salt into the mix. Wasn’t that a turn of a phrase like rubbing salt in wounds? She shook her head to bring her focus back, paying attention to the woman as she demonstrated. Right…that was how it was to be. She could do that…hopefully.

While she waited for her fire to die back, Cass turned her textbook to the right chapter to be ready but didn’t look at the pictures so she wasn’t influenced by the potential objects to be seen. Not that all the possibilities could possibly be covered. Finally it was ready, at least looking like it had with Vance’s reading so the Ravenclaw scattered the salt she had gathered into the embers. The fire crackled, but she had already closed her eyes to clear her mind for the reading. When she felt ready, she opened them up once more, staring into the fire before her.

5 minutes…10 minutes…15.

Was that a dagger she saw? Or was it just her remembering the smoke to daggers spell? Regardless, she wrote it down as a possibility. A star looking shape followed it into her notes. Blinking to clear her head once more, Cassie turned to her book ready to make an interpretation. A dagger meant danger which seemed almost self-explanatory. And the star…good luck. She couldn’t remember if she saw dots around it. Hmm….what could it mean?

SPOILER!!: Parchment

Cassandra McNally

Dagger=Danger
Star=Luck

Prediction= I fill find myself in danger but fortune will smile on me and I will survive it.

Seemed as good a one as any.

While warming up by her fire, Skylar turned her attention towards Professor Vance when she began explaining how the activity was going to work, with a demonstration. Lobster and flowers predicted nice present from a friend? What? Blinking at the professor, she flipped to the page in her textbook to look it over and sure enough, there it was. Weird. Divination was weird.

Okay, so first things first, she needed her fire to dwindle, which was going to be weird, because it was blazing quite a bit. How long did it take a fire to dwindle? Then again, as long as she didn't feed it, maybe like ten minutes? Enough time to clear her mind and try to focus. But not focus too much, because she had to make sure her mind was a blank canvas. Once the fire died down, she took two handfuls of salt and threw them onto the coal bed, shutting her eyes to avoid sparks crackling into eyes. Counting to ten, she opened them, and most of the crackling had died and she stared into her fire to search for shapes.

It reminded her of searching for shapes in tea leaves, yet very vague. Definitely vague. There was a stick... no wait, it wasn't a stick. It was a closed umbrella. And there were two thin lines running up near each other surrounding the umbrella.... not just straight lines though, but reminiscent of a train line, or tram line.

Squinting at the flicking fire, she searched for something else... and there it was, the tram to go on the tram line. Was that all? She found three items, which perhaps there was more, but there was enough here to go with and she was fairly sure it had been about ten or fifteen minutes that she'd been looking into the fire. Plus, her eyes were starting to hurt from looking too long, so time to write down her thoughts and draw up some kind of interpretation.

SPOILER!!: Parchment

Skylar Diggory
Slytherin
Fourth Year

Tram - A roadway journey on business or pleasure
Tram Line - This is indicated by two thin, straight lines which run near together up the side of the cup
Umbrella - closed, a bit of bad luck which may be avoided

Interpretation:
I'm going on a journey. A journey that will take me far away, which hopefully I know where I will go, but there's no way to know for sure. There might be bad luck on my journey, but it can be avoided and it doesn't matter because I will be with someone who makes me happy, because it's a journey for pleasure. So I will be with someone who matters to me and together we can avoid that bit of bad luck we might encounter.

That was about as good as an interpretation as any...

Shay was happy with her fire, but she couldn't dwell on her success for long. It was time to move on to the next step. She gathered around the professor with the rest of her classmates and listened. The process for the fire reading seemed pretty straightforward. It was the emptying your mind part that seemed the hardest. Of course when you tried to clear your mind of all thoughts, that was exactly the time when thoughts wanted to be let in. Anyway, Shay made a few notes and returned to her fire pit. The fire hadn't completely died down, so she had to wait.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, there were only coals and an occasional burst of flame left. Shay chose this time to go over to the salt sack. Reaching in, she grabbed two handfuls of salt and returned to her pit. She was happy to see nothing but coals. Shay threw the salt into the fire, both handfuls at once and stepped back. As promised, flames shot up and the fire crackled loudly. Now, the hard part. Shay took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She tried to free her mind as much as possible. It wasn't easy, but she did the best she could. Trying to concentrate on her breathing and nothing else, Shay opened her eyes. Her fire looked ready, but the thought of staring at it for fifteen minutes..........that was a very long time. Shay glanced at her watch, set the timer and began the staring contest.

At first......nothing. Then she thought she saw something. Was it really something or was she starting to hallucinate? It looked like a ship, like one of those that muggles cruised on. That was weird. After a few more minutes, she saw what looked like a rocket. Was there a pattern here, a transportation theme? Shay's eyes were starting to get tired and a little blurry. Her alarm hadn't gone off, so she still had time left. Her next vision was a rose. Well that was different. The next thing Shay saw was a simple triangle shape and then her watched beeped. Time was up.

Shay jotted down the things she had seen in the fire and then got out her textbook. She looked up the things she had seen, wrote them down and started her interpretation.



When Shay had finished writing, she put down her quill. Her signs had been good and she continued to think about her interpretation. She hoped it was correct.

Kitty was 99 percent certain her info on salt and plants roots was correct, she remembered reading that in different Muggle books. But that wasn't what they were asked about really, so she quickly forgot about it.

Once before she'd built a fire, also at Hogwarts. So this should be a good refresher, even though she didn't picture herself making fires when she left Hogwarts. Then again, you never knew.

Moving to put on gloves and taking loads of splinters and clubs, Kitty went to her area and started setting things up. After a few minutes of doing this, she glanced to look at her classmates to see how theirs was going. Hers wasn't nearly the best, but she decided it wasn't so bad. Taking out her wand, she pointed at the wood.

"Incendio!" Her fire came to life.

Next they had to wait for their fires to burn down. This might take awhile, Kitty thought, and was surprised to see just how quickly the fire went away. She supposed that made sense, considering that she wasn't still feeding it.

Now time for the salt! Wondering what she might possibly see, Kitty tried her best to empty her mind...

She'd built many a fire, albeit with a slightly different technique to the Groundskeeper, so it didn't take her long to get one going. And equally, it wasn't long before her fire had died down and the crackling was less frequent. She tossed in her salt, which meant was now time to stare into the flames. For fifteen minutes.

Fifteen long minutes.

And honestly, she just saw flames. Orange and red flickering flames, changing shape too quickly to register. Maybe a thing that was red and round? She scanned the textbook interpretations, quickly finding 'apple' under the As. Happiness, good health and fortune...sounded good. Now, what else?

Time for the pyromancy itself! The main activity was always Emmeline's favorite part of Divination lessons. She liked going through the methods and seeing if any actual symbols or omens appeared or anything like that. She hadn't really gotten any results so far, but then she wasn't a Seer, and maybe some methods worked better for non-Seers than others did. In any case, she was excited to get started on the symbols part of the day.

It took her fire forever to burn down to just coals like the professor's had done. She had definitely used too much force on that Incendio charm, oops. Emmeline folded her arms across her chest and tapped her foot impatiently while she waited for several minutes to pass and the fire to resemble Professor Vance's coal bed-level fire. Once the fire was finally just hot coals, the first year bounded up to the salt sack and grabbed two BIG handfuls of salt (as big as she could make them, anyway). She figured that would be okay, because her hands weren't all that big to begin with and she wanted this pyromancy thing to work.

She tossed the salt happily on her fire and jumped back as the flames flared up again with lots of crackling noises. The next step was going to be the hardest for her, she could already tell, so Emmeline started trying to clear her mind as soon as she'd thrown the salt on. She knew it was too early to look for symbols, but this mind-clearing thing was weird. Thoughts of Sirius and the other creatures in the barn kept flashing across her mind, because she could hardly wait to get to the exciting part of this lesson and then it would be over and she could go to the barn and--

And that wasn't clear at all! Emmeline glanced around at her classmates to see what they were doing, but if they were clearing their minds, they weren't doing anything visible that she could copy. At least not when she'd looked anyway. She didn't want to look too long; Professor Vance might think she was cheating. The first year took several deep breaths and tried hard to think about nothing. She wasn't sure that she really achieved the clear mind thing, but she thought she must be pretty close by the time the crackling noises had stopped and her flames had died down quite a bit.

Now it was time for the Divination part! Emmeline dove for her bag and extracted her textbook, a piece of parchment, her quill and black ink. She inked up her quill and sat with it poised over her parchment as she stared into the fire for 15 whole, long minutes while she scribbled down the shapes she thought she saw in the fire. She wasn't sure that she'd really seen them; the fire mostly just looked like fire to her. Emmeline had tilted her head at all different angles and squinted during her 15 minutes to come up with symbols.

The final step was to look up the symbols in the textbook -- reading, ugh -- and make a prediction. That sounded easy enough to her.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Emmeline Sparkes
Gryffindor
First Year

Fire symbols: Antlers, Cat, Cauldron

Antlers = an accident
Cat = sign of trickery, meanness, and quarrels (probably about money) among family members
Cauldron = new opportunities that need careful consideration

Prediction: An accident will happen that means spending money. Mum and Dad will get in a biiiig fight with Grandmama and Grandpapa over money again, 'cause they have to fix the accident. And then me or someone else in the family will get new opportunities to make lots and lots of Galleons, so it will all be totally okay in the end.

Emmeline sighed as she packed her textbook away. The symbols she'd seen were not happy ones, and she was glad that Nanny had warned her not to rely on Divination. Witches could make their own futures, Nanny said so. Besides, Emmeline wasn't sure that she'd really seen those symbols at all, so she guessed she wasn't any better at pyromancy than at the moles thing. She'd made up her predictions based on what the textbook said her symbols meant. Oh well. At least it was almost time to go, which meant she could race down to the barn and play with the cruppy that Professor Wayland had assigned to her.

Laurel wandered away from Haraldur's side and headed around amongst the students fire pits and talking to each everyone of them and observing as how they fared and of course she cautioned and advised where it was due too. It pleased her to see that they all though seemed to have respect for their fires and didn't play with them.

Laurel had taken the precaution to bring burn paste just in case that someone got burned since it was always a risk, but it seemed that students were reading their fires for shapes from a good distance.

Looking down at her watch after accioing away some left over salt to the sack she saw to her surprise that it was high time to wrap the lesson. Putting her wand to her throat she whistled loudly and beckoned for the students to listen up and gather around her. "That's a wrap everyone! Thank you all for a wonderful lesson! It pleases me greatly to see that you all have handled your fires with respect and care. Please hand me your prediction parchments on your way back up to the castle to eat some well deserved lunch. You homework assignments will appear on your house common room notice boards later today so look out for that. Class dismissed!" Laurel finished with a sunny beam on her face. She would be staying behind to put out all the fires and to restore the sand to its original state without all the holes for fire pits. She did not want anyone to accidentally hurt themselves.

OOC: Thank you all so much for participating in this lesson! I hope you had as much fun with it as I had. I will keep this thread open for another 12 hours or so for you to make your character departures and wrap up your activities. I hope to see you next time!