So not every pendulum will swing the same way to determine the yes or no? That sounded a bit fishy to Chloe. She was on the fence with Divination and this was making her jump to the other side, because that just seemed like you could make it give you what you wanted, but she would still try it.

Even though she was short Chloe stood to make sure the thing swung naturally without a table or legs getting in the way. "Am I Gunnar McCarthy?" a small snort left her as she thought about being her brother. The crystal started to swing clockwise, so she figured that meant the no, but what if it was saying yes, that it really thought she was her brother?

This was confusing! She wrote her findings on her parchment though and thought again, "Do I have blonde hair? Watching for a moment she saw it going the opposite direction, so that must mean yes.

Valencia wasn't exactly sure if she was supposed to feel something from the stones... but she liked the look of Tiger's Eye so that's what she picked up from the table.

She considered her options before heading over to the sage smudging table. She lit the sage with a quick incendio. She preferred blue bell flames, but flames were FIYAH either way and fire was super fun.

It was really the first experience with real magic and the first year LOVED it.

Ahem. Anyway. She blew out the flame and waved the stone in the smoke. There was probably a way to do this in a majestic or fluid motion and not like she was frantically trying to get the attention of someone across the room, but that wasn't important. ... or was it? Divination was one of those magic branches you had to feel, wasn't it? Whoops.

After that, she headed over to the jewelry section to wrap a wire around her smoky stone. Alright. Pendulum complete. Now to go ask the rock a few questions.

Abra steadied the pendulum, then cast about his mind again for another question to ask it; the chair question seemed sort of boring and he had decided that maybe it wasn't exactly suitable for the pendulum. For a moment, Abra looked around the room, looking for inspiration, but most of the questions coming to him were ones he wanted to know the answer to, not ones he already knew.

After a long, loooooong moment, Abra let go of the stone again - making sure it stayed as still as possible - and asked it, "Do I have brown eyes?" That was supposed to give him a 'yes', as he did, in fact, have brown eyes.

But, when the pendulum started to move, it was in that same left-to-right-to-left-to-right motion as before.

"Err..." Abra said, blinking at it, but at that moment the movement changed, and it went from swinging side to side to moving in clockwise circles. Um. So... uhhhhhh...

... He was just going to pretend it had been doing that all along.

Again, Abra steadied the pendulum, and made a quick note on his parchment, with his trusty spell-checking quill. Just so he didn't forget the pendulum's movements so far, before he was finished calibrating it.

SPOILER!!: Parchment

Yes = clockwise circle?
No = left to right swing?
Undecided =

So since asking about...personal life stuff wasn't getting her anywhere, maybe she needed to try something more specific. "Like" was a relative term, she supposed...still blushing a bit, and really getting in to her own head, she refocused her thoughts. She needed something else. Something better. Hmmm.

"Am I going to be an aunt someday?" she asked. That seemed like a pretty easy thing to ask. She had two brothers, one of whom had a girlfriend right now as well. The odds were pretty heavy in her favor that at least one of them would have kids. She waited and waited and waited, watching the pendulum move...left and right.

So according to the powers that be, she'd be an aunt someday. Cool?

While the students were working hard on calibrating their pendulums, Kassie got a bit distracted by the stones and had begun to search out those with the most negative energy to be placed into the water. She placed the first batch into the water and turned to get more when she realized why the stones were there in the first place.

"Yes, yes, good job to everyone. Keep up with the calibrating until you are sure you know how your pendulum responds. We have about 5 more minutes. Ample time to get in a few more questions."

OOC: About 24 hours left for the activity.

Another question, another question. Why was it so hard to think of a question he knew the answer to already? Like? Did he really not know that many things? Abra was sure he DID know things, so... yeah...

Mostly he was just impatient to get to the part where his pendulum told him what he didn't already know, like whether he was going to really, truthfully make it in the music business, so maybe that impatience was sort of getting in his way. But Abra knew, he knew he needed to calibrate this thing first.

"Uhhh..." he said, staring hard at the stone on the end of the pendulum and searching his mind for some easy yes or no question. Oh! "Am I in Divination class right now?"

Abra waited and watched and waited and watched some more. At first, nothing, but then the pendulum started moving again. In anti-clockwise circles this time. Uhhhhhhh... wasn't 'yes' supposed to be clockwise? He squinted at his notes. Yeah... clockwise circles had meant yes earlier... unless maybe circles in general meant yes...

... Okay. Abra was going with that, partly because it sounded like it made sense in his head, and partly because he was too lazy to go through the whole cleansing process again, and didn't want to end up falling behind and not finishing the activity. Maybe that would make the pendulum useless but... well... never mind. He made another note on his parchment and got ready to ask another question.

SPOILER!!: Parchment

Yes = clockwise circle? anti-clockwise circle? circle motions in general?
No = left to right swing?
Undecided =

This was getting...kind of boring. Nettie couldn't think of anything else that she wanted to ask the pendulum. She kind of liked not knowing what was going to happen in her life, ya know?

"Will I go to university?" she asked. It was a relatively safe question to ask. The obvious answer was yes - barring some crazy development in her life, she was going to go to school and probably have like, ten majors if she could. She wanted to learn everything.

Watching the pendulum swing, a moment or two passed before it started to move left to right. Just as she had suspected.

Tina spent the next couple of minutes dangling her pendulum in front of her, admiring the way the green stone glinted in the fire light, until Professor Sutton moved on to the next activity. Of course, she'd read the chapter on pendulum divination in her textbook before coming to class, so she had some idea about calibration. But it was still nice to see it in action... easier to tell when you're doing it right that way. Tina watched the professor's demonstration intently So, calibration was basically asking the pendulum known yes/no questions until you got a consistent movement to indicate a particular answer? Okay, that sounded pretty straightforward.

Tina took out a piece of parchment and neatly labeled three sections for yes, no, and undecided/inconclusive. Now came the fun part, the actual calibration. She held up her pendulum and asked quietly, “Am I Desiree Marchand?” The pendulum slowly moved front to back. So that must be a no. Tina started to write down her findings, but her pendulum was still moving, this time in a counterclockwise circle. Now she was confused. Did both of those movements mean no? She'd better try again to be sure!


“Do I have green eyes?” she asked, watching the pendulum intently. This time it started swinging left to right. What? Tina frowned. She needed less movement possibilities, not more of them! When she looked back at her pendulum, it had once again fallen into a counterclockwise circular motion. Maybe the clockwise circle meant no, and the other movements were just a coincidence? Tina hoped so! She really didn't want to have to repeat the cleansing process, especially after she'd worked so hard to make her pendulum look like the Bellefeuille leaf!


She decided to give one more “no” question a go. “Am I in Gryffindor?” she asked. For a moment, she wondered if that hadn't been the best question to ask, as the hat very nearly did put her in Gryffindor until she asked it not to, but she breathed a silent sigh of relief when the pendulum spun in a counterclockwise circle. So it seemed safe to say a counterclockwise circle meant no. Thank Merlin! Now she could move on to the next thing.

Tina took a moment to think of a good “yes” question, something less basic than “Am I…?” She had it! "Is my cat's name Nemesis?” she asked, smiling slightly as the pendulum bobbed up and down. That movement was kind of funny! It almost looked like the pendulum was nodding. She hoped that was her sign for yes, but she had to test it again to be sure. “Was I born in France?” she asked, and again the pendulum made he up and down “nodding” motion. Good, at least the yes part had been easy!

Tina looked at her notes again after writing down the yes movement. Now how was she supposed to determine what movements meant “undecided/inconclusive”? Ask the pendulum questions she didn't know the answer to, and any movement other than the ones she marked as “yes” or “no” meant inconclusive? She'd give that a go and see if that worked, but first she needed to think of a question… and there was one in particular that had been weighing on her mind since she left Beauxbatons. “Will Cassius Rosier ever get what's coming to him?” she whispered under her breath, hoping nobody would hear. The last thing she needed was for Professor Sutton to overhear and draw the wrong conclusions!

Tina watched the pendulum intently, secretly hoping to see it bob up and down, but it didn't. Her heart sank. She took up divination to get some certainty about her future, not be even more confused by it! Instead of bobbing, the pendulum drifted lazily from left to right. So that meant inconclusive, right? Well, she supposed that was something. If she couldn't have the answer she wanted, at least she got one that helped her with her assignment!

With a heavy sigh, Kassie looked to the clock and headed to the front of the room. "Unfortunately, our time for today is up. You all did very well." She had been listening to and watching all of the students as they built and calibrated their pendulum. "Please keep in mind that you may need to periodically check your pendulum's calibration over the next few weeks. It can occasionally take them a bit of time to settle in." She knew that from previous experience.

"For your homework, I would like for you use your pendulum as many times as possible over the next few weeks. You will be recording how your pendulum responds and if it was able to correctly predict the outcome. A report will be due at the beginning of our last lesson before the holiday vacation." With a flick of her wand, the classroom door gently swung open. "If there are no other question, class is dismissed."


OOC:Thank you all for participating! I had such a great time reading each and every one of the posts. I'll leave this open for about 24 hours if anyone needs to finish up or would like to do an exit post.

Hanna had done the calibration of her pendant, and by asking if she was a Ravenclaw and a Gryffindor had seen that clockwise was what her pendant did when it was a yes, and counter-clockwise if it were no. She had asked whether she was tired, and the pendant swayed side to side before coming to a stop. Figuring that was what it did if it were unsure, she wrote it all down.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Parchment

Pendulum movements

Yes = Clockwise, approximately two seconds per rotation
No = Counter-Clockwise, different speeds but slower than a yes answer
Undecided/inconclusive = slow side to side movements before stopping

The lesson had come quite quickly, and Hanna packed up her belongings, putting the pendant carefully into a spare piece of parchment and into a safe pocket in her bag. "See you next time Professor Sutton," Hanna said on the way out.