Ellie sat taking notes on her parchment about what Professor Sissay was saying about inanimate objects and how they could be assigned numbers when another question was asked for them to answer. Problems with words like trees, forests, George and so on? Ellie felt a bit confused about what the Professor was meaning she didn’t totally understand if she was completely honest. Ellie decided though that it was better to try answering then to be silent and just scribble hearts on her parchment. Raising her hand Ellie answered thoughtfully. "I guess words like ship and shoes would be causing problems since they don’t really specify what kind of ship or shoes the words refer too. There are many different types of ships and shoes in the world like for example ships that take tourists or warships and shoes for dancing or playing muggle soccer."

Patrick hadn’t answered the first question as many of his classmates had the same conclusion as he had. And rather than bog down with more answers he vigorously wrote down what the others had said. He quickly scrawled across the page trying to keep up with everything.

Oh... names? He had never thought about how names were connected. Did that mean his name had some extra meaning to his parents or that the numerology or whatever matches his parents? He had all of the questions now.

Raising his hand he waited his turn to speak, “Patrick Dooley.” he introduced himself as he hadn’t answered the first question but figured she knew him. Continuing on he smiled, “I agree with Vita about names our parents give. And... well if we’re talking about things that don’t always make sense numerically wouldn’t a salon and hairdresser be totally different?” used one of his mother’s favorite musings. Why she went to a salon to get her hair done. Yet he found it fascinating that the drive on a parkway but park on a drive way... wait that’s a good one, “also what about how in America say driving on a parkway, but park in a driveway?” his brows thoroughly furrowed at the thought of those not being related at all.

Rylee smiled brightly at the simple praise her answer had gotten. Honestly being correct in any aspect when it came to this subject was exciting for her. This wasn't a lesson where the answers came easily to her normally but she was here to work as hard as she could and learn all that could.

Picking up her self inking quill with the lovely purple ink, Rylee began to take down some notes of what was being said so far. Doing this not only would be helpful later on when she needed to study but it also gave her a few moments to see if she could answer the question that was just asked. The mention of trees in the forest already had her thinking about one of her most favorite things. "Maybe a flower compared to flowers in a flower garden?" One flower was completely different than speaking of a flower garden which could consist of a huge variety of flowers, plants and shrubs. She knew this was the case for her own garden at home or even the space where she planted her flowers and things here in the greenhouse.

Aaron colored slightly under the professor's attention, and her call-out. For someone as boisterous as he was capable of being, there were instances when he just couldn't help but to shy away. Probably because he didn't have the required confidence in this subject. That was most likely why. BUT... he liked that she was opening dialogue with them and being encouraging. He appreciated her already.

... and he shifted around to look at Valencia. The young Ravenclaw had just reminded him of a chapter he'd read in one of his grandfather's books. There were spells that supposedly revealed numbers that were crucial in determining the nature of curses, and how to break them, buuuuuut this lesson clearly wasn't about cursebreaking and he didn't feel too great about straying off the professor's topic.

Anyway. Names. The request for them to offer up their's made a lot more sense now. "I think it's important to consider that a lot of these types of things are opened to interpretation." ... And he understood that concept vividly, considering his gift. "So, say you're analyzing something, and you're cross-referencing your results with all the possible "explanations" that have been compiled over a length of time... Wouldn't you just pick out the explanation that best fits the your result?"

Yikes... that sounded argumentative. Was he blushing?? His face felt especially warm right now. "I'm honestly asking, ma'am." Aaron was worried she'd take offense to all his questions, but he didn't have the best history with this subject, and he'd always wondered about that bit. "Also... maybe something like "tree" is too vague for numerology to accurately analyze it. Similarly to the names of large cities. It feels too much like a generalization in that context, like saying... This city stands for "x", so everyone that resides there must also be "x", or if you move there, you're going to be viewed as "x". Perhaps it only really works for sentient being... names?" Like... her hypothetical niffler.

... This was another reason he couldn't follow the cursebreaker dream. Arithmancy hurt his brain, just like potions.

Nina nodded respectfully, turning to take a look at what Eiji had set up. Did it really matter if it took their Professor a few months to learn her name? Because name-tents were quite demeaning. It made her feel as if she was in primary school all over again. Nina would, of course, blame Eiji for this. The Slytherin quietly reached into her bag and pulled out a blank parchment from within it. She took the time to write out her name in her pristine, cursive script. Dotting her i's with hearts, as per usual.

At least making her sign gave her something to concentrate on while she listened to her Professor share some insights. Arithmancy was obviously calculation based and those who equated it to divination were clearly delusional. As divination was a subject based entirely upon nonsensical fancies and Arithmancy provided actual, factual information. And despite the fact that her Professor asked her to make a name tent like she was in grade two, the woman still had many admirable traits. Nina found herself pleased with the lecture, appreciative of each point their Professor made. It even brought a FAINT smile to her face, one she hid by looking downwards at her notes.

Again, Nina was rather unimpressed with the majority of the answers that her classmates shared. Her least favorite being the point about ships and shoes. One of the most apparent issues would be the matter of generalization. That a large blanket descriptor could be used to identify several things accurately. It was why all George’s couldn’t be reduced to a single number. It would involve too many assumptions, leading to analysis that resembled other flawed pseudo-sciences such as astrology. To reduce something large into a single value whilst expecting to gain a complete understanding of it, was far too simplistic an ideology. Surely a single number could give way to some understanding, but it couldn’t be expected that the whole story would be understood as a result.

Along the same vein, the Slytherin couldn’t quite agree with her Prefect on the matter of given names. Her head quirked to the side when Vita shared that she thought a given name likely carried more weight. Why? Didn’t that by her very definition, contradict itself? Because a given take didn’t necessarily give much information about the child who received it, but rather the parents who chose the name in the first place. This was especially relevant as the child grew older, often times choosing to give themselves a nickname or perhaps even changing their name entirely. The name that someone chose for themselves clearly had significance and a large impact on how they saw themselves, otherwise it wasn’t worth changing to begin with. Wouldn’t that in itself carry more weight than a name that was simply given?

Her eyes bounced from one side of the room to the next, as she was curious to see who shared which answer and even more curious to see how Professor Sissay chose to respond to them. As for herself, however, she remained quiet and played with her hair. It was VERY

Avalon was a little confused at Professor Sissay's question. She understood the premise that names of things weren't always uniform when it came to arithmancy, but she was having trouble generalizing the concept to some examples. She chose to listen intently as her classmates gave some responses. Most of them were relatively ordinary and didn't seem to spark many ideas in her brain. She did, however, find the older Hufflepuff boy's comment about interpretation to be quite interesting. He made a great point. These types of subjects could be quite unclear due to differences in human thought. And certainly due to differences in human word choice.

That sparked an idea! What about languages? Avalon raised her hand. "Would different languages be an example? Doesn't arithmancy depend a lot on the alphabet?" Well, at least that was what she thought. For some reason, she pictured arithmancy as matching up letters to a key that listed a corresponding number for each letter of the alphabet. "So for example, we might say tree, but in French, the word is arbre. And what about languages with totally different alphabets? Wouldn't that be a problem when it comes to arithmancy?" Avalon bit her lip. She didn't quite answer the question the way the other students were, but she hoped she made a good point -- that is, if she was correct in her assessment that the alphabet played a big role in the subject.

Tina was still trying to come up with a good answer to the first couple of questions when Professor Sissay's voice jerked her out of her thoughts, and she jumped slightly. She didn't expect the professor to directly address her, well not at that moment anyway! She gave a polite nod in response to the instructions and took out a spare piece of parchment to make a name tag. Although her outward expression remained stoic, inside she was laughing to herself. This name tag thing was giving her flashbacks to that crazy charms lesson last term! Except this class was far less frustrating than that one had been…

She wrote her name (and her house and year too, just in case) on the scrap of parchment- she even dotted the I with a tiny butterfly, as she usually did - and neatly propped it on the edge of her desk where it would be easy to see. She'd just finished doing that when the professor moved on to the next topic: names. Upon hearing that, Tina was glad she'd remained silent for the first question. It sounded like her line of thought had been way off!

Tina considered Professor Sissay's points about names… different names used for the same thing and the same name used for different things (or people), and a thought occurred to her. What about nicknames? For example, her given name was Fantine, but everybody always called her Tina… well, except Professor Wishart last term, but that was beside the point. Calculating somebody's name number using a nickname would yield some very different results than a given name, so how did you know which one to use? Did one have more significance than the other? That could present a problem… but the professor had asked for problems interpreting words, not names, right?

Once again, Tina doubted the answer she had was good enough or even relevant enough to voice out loud, so she remained in attentive silence, taking careful notes on the points raised by the professor and her classmates.

Up until this point, Kaiser had been following reasonably well, though he had to admit his attention had started drifting juuuust a little bit during that recap. And then juuuuuuust a little bit more as the lesson moved on. It didn't help that he was having to contend with following and mentally translating a lot of words, including some he had never heard before; that was probably the biggest issue he had to face in his lessons at Hogwarts.

Talk went from trees and forests to Nifflers named George, and at this point Kaiser's attention wandered to the view he could see through the window, and he fell into his own little world, as he often did in classes. He barely even noticed that the professor had asked them another question until he heard the other students start to supply answers.

Well. Kaiser supposed he could try to deduce what the question had been from the answers everyone was giving. Orrrrrr he could return to his own thoughts, which had brought him up onto the roof of the castle, his carefree place of solitude where Arithmancy did not dare to tread. Hmm. Yes. Good plan.

This...... was starting to get confusing.

Lucas found himself trying to concentrate as hard as he could, his head tilted and his eyes squinted. So some names..... were wrong? Because there were different types of numer..... ology? It was weird to think of different types of numerology for different items and he couldn't help but wonder what the other types were.

Something that made more sense? The niffler comparison. Something that made less sense? Why anyone would name their niffler George.

But before he could think too much about that, there was a question and he had to find an example. Frowning slightly, the boy looked around again, trying to find another inspiration, and maybe something in this classroom, that fitted what the Professor was saying. But his brain was blank. Names were names, he didn't know what they meant. He didn't even know what his name meant and if it fitted him.

Lost in thought, the boy sat there. Quiet. Still looking around the room, as if an answer will pop out to him.

Names.

The irony being that Eiji hated his first name and never went by it. It frustrated him that some people knew it too and would remind him of this fact every now and then. Looking at you in particular, Trinetta. And his nose wrinkled a bit at his house's prefect suggesting the given name carried more weight because...no. James was not a name that carried any weight for himself, thank you.

Admittedly, he was finding some of this lecture interesting, but the practicality of it all was lost on him because using the Chaldeans numbering system on something like...elephant was a bold blanket statement to say that all elephants shared that fate and everything else. The professor herself had brought up a fair few 'problems' with the subject...which clearly meant she had her own agenda and they were all merely beating around the bush until she made her point.

So, quickly, that interest that had displayed himself in a brief lighting up of the eyes was fading. Though Eleanor's comparison to ships and shoes nearly warranted a chuckle. Nearly.

All in all...this was all horribly subjective and when someone mentioned the whole other language aspect, well, the Slytherin had all but checked out. The kanji in his own name had English equivalents, proper words too. Great samurai or crystal samurai or silver samurai depending on which translation you wanted to apply.

The talk of trees and nature in general though kept his focus slightly. Namely...when was a tree considered a tree? When it was a sapling was the term sapling more applicable or would tree suffice? When a tree was chopped down and turned into a stump, it was still a tree in principle and still very much alive too. Same could be said for a flower. The different between a flower still rooted in the ground and one that had been plucked from the it and put in a vase of water - buying its time until it wilted.

Time.

Hmm.

"There is no accounting for the passage and flow of time," he said coolly after his hand had been raised. Offering nothing more than that before his hand settled back on to his quill and once again...waited.

Another smile to the Professor. She wasn’t sure about anything though… so Holly was just hoping to not make a fool of herself. Reallllly hoping not to make a fool of herself. Here’s hoping. Twirling her quill between her fingers, she waited for the lesson to start… Though she really wasn’t sure what was up with everything on the Professor’s desk. They looked so… random.


Sissay. She had thought it beautiful the first time she had heard it… And she still thought it was.

With her chin in her hand, Holly watched the way the new Professor moved around her desk and the way she dealt and spoke to the class. Personally, there was no way she had missed her arrival. Or the arrival of the other Professors. She was, in fact, pretty sure that there were a larger number of new Professors than there were returning ones. Head tilting to the side slightly, she pondered if that was something Professor Sissay's numbers could explain.

Especially if they explained the world. Hmm. Sticking her hand in the air, her head buzzing with how she could relate to Arithmancy, and knowing very very close to nothing about the subject. "I'm Holly, Professor. Hi, hi. Could they explain Quidditch probabilities or the exact equations needed for a great handstand or barre routine?..." The third-year looked at the woman expectantly, smiling the whole time.


What was needed? "Correct, up to date information and knowledge about… Well, whatever you are looking to do Arithmancy on? Whether it's a person or a Quidditch team, a rock or a puppy… Or maybe a pregnant animal?" Nope, she had no idea… She needed more information to help her understand.


Were they real elephants? Or would they shatter? What about the sticky things? Would they move and break too? So. Many. Questions.


… Surmise quickly, meant lots of notes and a furrowed brow as Holly attempted to keep up in both her note taking and her understanding. She tried not to let her ink smudge otherwise she would be really up Knockturn Alley when it came to doing her homework and studying for her exams. No, she needed to make sure that her notes all stayed in tact.

Pausing in her notes, she looked up as she the Professor started talking about the names of things. Trees, forests, humans and nifflers… but What??!??!!?? How… Did nifflers work with Arithmancy?? Shouldn’t they be taught in Care of Magical Creatures??? Had she missed something? Had a bludger hit her head?

Still frowning, quill loose in her hand, Holly’s head tilted slightly as she listened to the end of the Professor’s speech and to her classmates who spoke up after her. …………………. Okay… Maybe… she understood? Maybe.

”So.. It’s easy to state that we need balls for Quidditch - but snitches, bludgers and quaffles are very different - in their names, attitudes and appearances?... Thus treating them the same, analysing them as if they were the same… would be an injustice.” She thought. Or… at least she hoped that was what the Professor meant. ”And perhaps … like someone saying they have hair when they are really using a wig?”

…. Okay. Even she had no idea where that last one had come from. SorryProfessor.

Text Cut: Vita

Quote:

Originally Posted by TakemetotheBurrow

That was an interesting point, really. Words of inanimate objects were still words, and you could certainly apply numbers to them to use for calculations, but those words were generic and not specific to an individual, right? Vita raised her hand, her thoughts going into overdrive. "I suppose given names, like from parents to children, have more meaning behind them. Maybe that gives them more weight? It's hard to say, which I think in itself is the main problem. How do you know that an analysis is specific to you if you share a name with six other kids around? Makes it hard to buy into the whole thing when you think of it like that."

Ayana beamed at the first answer that was offered, by the Slytherin prefect. "Interesting concepts, Vita. It is quite a delicate topic, and one that had troubled Arithmancers for centuries," before and after the discoveries of today's lesson, and most definitely after the 18th century and the rise of 'true names' for all living things.

Text Cut: Eloise

Quote:

Originally Posted by oh its Erik ok

Eloise had ideas in her head but none of them related to Arithmancy after she gave the answer. Which doesn't help anyone in this case since well they were in class and Eloise was about to daydream? Oh right right right she forgot to give her name.

"Eloise"

She replied with a smile.

And moving on to Eloise being lost and thinking she was saying World Tree. Maybe she was too much Ancient Runes on her mind with all the Norse and stuff. Seemed like she was trying to make connections to things that mostly didn't need to be connected or were just odd.

Wait...what...name what problems...

Nevermind. She is just going to sit at her desk and doodle on her parchment.

Ayana gave a curt nod to the absentminded girl, committing the name to memory. She'd look through her class registers for this young lady's surname, and make some notes. "Please pay attention Eloise, today's lesson is very important." Without it, she'll have trouble understanding anything Ayana will say in the upcoming weeks.

Text Cut: Analiese

Quote:

Originally Posted by SneakySeverusSnape

Analiese continued drawing and jerked her head up when Professor Sissay asked another question. She pondered about the answer. ""I suppose a book in a library would be one? And a shopkeeper in a shop? " She finished her drawing and placed her diary in her bag. "Oh, and a student in a classroom."

Ayana blinked. "Are those.. examples of problems Analiese?" had she only listened to the first third of what she had said not thirty seconds ago? Hmm. She hoped the girl at least wrote some notes.

Text Cut: Eleanor

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nordic Witch

Ellie sat taking notes on her parchment about what Professor Sissay was saying about inanimate objects and how they could be assigned numbers when another question was asked for them to answer. Problems with words like trees, forests, George and so on? Ellie felt a bit confused about what the Professor was meaning she didn’t totally understand if she was completely honest. Ellie decided though that it was better to try answering then to be silent and just scribble hearts on her parchment. Raising her hand Ellie answered thoughtfully. "I guess words like ship and shoes would be causing problems since they don’t really specify what kind of ship or shoes the words refer too. There are many different types of ships and shoes in the world like for example ships that take tourists or warships and shoes for dancing or playing muggle soccer."

Another one who hadn't fully understood the question. Hmm. Ayana considered her previous words, and wondered if she should have removed certain examples, in order to simplify the concepts. But no, she like to stimulate minds and examples were a great way to do that. In any case, there was some truth to Eleanor's words. "Indeed, the name sometimes does not encompass the type of the object, or the animal. The word 'owl' for instance, terribly inaccurate if you need to make specific calculations."

Text Cut: Patrick

Quote:

Originally Posted by siriusblackliveson

Patrick hadn’t answered the first question as many of his classmates had the same conclusion as he had. And rather than bog down with more answers he vigorously wrote down what the others had said. He quickly scrawled across the page trying to keep up with everything.

Oh... names? He had never thought about how names were connected. Did that mean his name had some extra meaning to his parents or that the numerology or whatever matches his parents? He had all of the questions now.

Raising his hand he waited his turn to speak, “Patrick Dooley.” he introduced himself as he hadn’t answered the first question but figured she knew him. Continuing on he smiled, “I agree with Vita about names our parents give. And... well if we’re talking about things that don’t always make sense numerically wouldn’t a salon and hairdresser be totally different?” used one of his mother’s favorite musings. Why she went to a salon to get her hair done. Yet he found it fascinating that the drive on a parkway but park on a drive way... wait that’s a good one, “also what about how in America say driving on a parkway, but park in a driveway?” his brows thoroughly furrowed at the thought of those not being related at all.

Another Slytherin prefect presenting the class with some wonderful ideas. "Excellent Patrick, this is one of the biggest issues with name based numerology. Can Arithmancy be different in America? It seemes preposterous. A hair salon is a hair salon no matter in what country." Ayana was very proud, this was one of the key issues she'd hoped the students would consider.

Text Cut: Rylee

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kolyander

Rylee smiled brightly at the simple praise her answer had gotten. Honestly being correct in any aspect when it came to this subject was exciting for her. This wasn't a lesson where the answers came easily to her normally but she was here to work as hard as she could and learn all that could.

Picking up her self inking quill with the lovely purple ink, Rylee began to take down some notes of what was being said so far. Doing this not only would be helpful later on when she needed to study but it also gave her a few moments to see if she could answer the question that was just asked. The mention of trees in the forest already had her thinking about one of her most favorite things. "Maybe a flower compared to flowers in a flower garden?" One flower was completely different than speaking of a flower garden which could consist of a huge variety of flowers, plants and shrubs. She knew this was the case for her own garden at home or even the space where she planted her flowers and things here in the greenhouse.

Another student who hadn't quite managed to follow her train of thought. No matter though, because she was taking notes and could review the lesson later. "Not quite a problem per se, but consider this. How would we accurately analyse a flower if we only go by the name flower? There are daffodils and roses and lilies, all very varied, all still flowers." Ayana tried to nudge Rylee in the correct direction with a warm smile, before moving on to the next raised hand.

Text Cut: Aaron

Quote:

Originally Posted by Govoni

Aaron colored slightly under the professor's attention, and her call-out. For someone as boisterous as he was capable of being, there were instances when he just couldn't help but to shy away. Probably because he didn't have the required confidence in this subject. That was most likely why. BUT... he liked that she was opening dialogue with them and being encouraging. He appreciated her already.

... and he shifted around to look at Valencia. The young Ravenclaw had just reminded him of a chapter he'd read in one of his grandfather's books. There were spells that supposedly revealed numbers that were crucial in determining the nature of curses, and how to break them, buuuuuut this lesson clearly wasn't about cursebreaking and he didn't feel too great about straying off the professor's topic.

Anyway. Names. The request for them to offer up their's made a lot more sense now. "I think it's important to consider that a lot of these types of things are opened to interpretation." ... And he understood that concept vividly, considering his gift. "So, say you're analyzing something, and you're cross-referencing your results with all the possible "explanations" that have been compiled over a length of time... Wouldn't you just pick out the explanation that best fits the your result?"

Yikes... that sounded argumentative. Was he blushing?? His face felt especially warm right now. "I'm honestly asking, ma'am." Aaron was worried she'd take offense to all his questions, but he didn't have the best history with this subject, and he'd always wondered about that bit. "Also... maybe something like "tree" is too vague for numerology to accurately analyze it. Similarly to the names of large cities. It feels too much like a generalization in that context, like saying... This city stands for "x", so everyone that resides there must also be "x", or if you move there, you're going to be viewed as "x". Perhaps it only really works for sentient being... names?" Like... her hypothetical niffler.

... This was another reason he couldn't follow the cursebreaker dream. Arithmancy hurt his brain, just like potions.

Oh this was just a marvelous example of the sort of thinking she wanted to encourage in her classroom. Ayana beamed at Aaron, and couldn't help a slight chuckle at the mention of 'x'. Should he pursue Arithmancy as a career, he should be prepared for a lot of 'x's. "This is wonderful Aaron, well done. However, I'm sure you agree that the method of 'pick and choose interpretations' is not one that Arithmancers would like. We are all about accuracy, or getting as close to it as possible." As for his second slew of questions, Ayana simply smiled. "It feels incomplete, correct? Like there is something lacking in your analysis toolkit." This is exactly why they'd all gathered here today after all. To enlarge that very toolkit.

Text Cut: Nina

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArianaBlack

Nina nodded respectfully, turning to take a look at what Eiji had set up. Did it really matter if it took their Professor a few months to learn her name? Because name-tents were quite demeaning. It made her feel as if she was in primary school all over again. Nina would, of course, blame Eiji for this. The Slytherin quietly reached into her bag and pulled out a blank parchment from within it. She took the time to write out her name in her pristine, cursive script. Dotting her i's with hearts, as per usual.

At least making her sign gave her something to concentrate on while she listened to her Professor share some insights. Arithmancy was obviously calculation based and those who equated it to divination were clearly delusional. As divination was a subject based entirely upon nonsensical fancies and Arithmancy provided actual, factual information. And despite the fact that her Professor asked her to make a name tent like she was in grade two, the woman still had many admirable traits. Nina found herself pleased with the lecture, appreciative of each point their Professor made. It even brought a FAINT smile to her face, one she hid by looking downwards at her notes.

Again, Nina was rather unimpressed with the majority of the answers that her classmates shared. Her least favorite being the point about ships and shoes. One of the most apparent issues would be the matter of generalization. That a large blanket descriptor could be used to identify several things accurately. It was why all George’s couldn’t be reduced to a single number. It would involve too many assumptions, leading to analysis that resembled other flawed pseudo-sciences such as astrology. To reduce something large into a single value whilst expecting to gain a complete understanding of it, was far too simplistic an ideology. Surely a single number could give way to some understanding, but it couldn’t be expected that the whole story would be understood as a result.

Along the same vein, the Slytherin couldn’t quite agree with her Prefect on the matter of given names. Her head quirked to the side when Vita shared that she thought a given name likely carried more weight. Why? Didn’t that by her very definition, contradict itself? Because a given take didn’t necessarily give much information about the child who received it, but rather the parents who chose the name in the first place. This was especially relevant as the child grew older, often times choosing to give themselves a nickname or perhaps even changing their name entirely. The name that someone chose for themselves clearly had significance and a large impact on how they saw themselves, otherwise it wasn’t worth changing to begin with. Wouldn’t that in itself carry more weight than a name that was simply given?

Her eyes bounced from one side of the room to the next, as she was curious to see who shared which answer and even more curious to see how Professor Sissay chose to respond to them. As for herself, however, she remained quiet and played with her hair. It was VERY

"Thank you Nina," Ayana nodded to the quiet Slytherin girl with a smile. Any insights Nina had, Ayana gathered she would have to discover them only through homework.

Text Cut: Avalon

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fireheart

Avalon was a little confused at Professor Sissay's question. She understood the premise that names of things weren't always uniform when it came to arithmancy, but she was having trouble generalizing the concept to some examples. She chose to listen intently as her classmates gave some responses. Most of them were relatively ordinary and didn't seem to spark many ideas in her brain. She did, however, find the older Hufflepuff boy's comment about interpretation to be quite interesting. He made a great point. These types of subjects could be quite unclear due to differences in human thought. And certainly due to differences in human word choice.

That sparked an idea! What about languages? Avalon raised her hand. "Would different languages be an example? Doesn't arithmancy depend a lot on the alphabet?" Well, at least that was what she thought. For some reason, she pictured arithmancy as matching up letters to a key that listed a corresponding number for each letter of the alphabet. "So for example, we might say tree, but in French, the word is arbre. And what about languages with totally different alphabets? Wouldn't that be a problem when it comes to arithmancy?" Avalon bit her lip. She didn't quite answer the question the way the other students were, but she hoped she made a good point -- that is, if she was correct in her assessment that the alphabet played a big role in the subject.

If Ayana had a bell she could ring whenever someone offered the best response she'd heard yet, she'd be ringing it in full force right now. "In the same vein as Patrick, this is one of the key reasons why numerology often provides inaccurate answers. The Chaldean system, the Pythagorean, they do not provide any answers for non latin or non greek based languages. Take my own country, Ethiopia. We are the only nation in the world who speaks Amharic, does that mean our analyses should glean different results? Certainly not, right? Excellent example Avalon, very very well done." Ayana truly beamed in the little one's direction, filled with pride. Simply brilliant thinking.

Text Cut: Tina

Quote:

Originally Posted by MadMadamMalfoy

Tina was still trying to come up with a good answer to the first couple of questions when Professor Sissay's voice jerked her out of her thoughts, and she jumped slightly. She didn't expect the professor to directly address her, well not at that moment anyway! She gave a polite nod in response to the instructions and took out a spare piece of parchment to make a name tag. Although her outward expression remained stoic, inside she was laughing to herself. This name tag thing was giving her flashbacks to that crazy charms lesson last term! Except this class was far less frustrating than that one had been…

She wrote her name (and her house and year too, just in case) on the scrap of parchment- she even dotted the I with a tiny butterfly, as she usually did - and neatly propped it on the edge of her desk where it would be easy to see. She'd just finished doing that when the professor moved on to the next topic: names. Upon hearing that, Tina was glad she'd remained silent for the first question. It sounded like her line of thought had been way off!

Tina considered Professor Sissay's points about names… different names used for the same thing and the same name used for different things (or people), and a thought occurred to her. What about nicknames? For example, her given name was Fantine, but everybody always called her Tina… well, except Professor Wishart last term, but that was beside the point. Calculating somebody's name number using a nickname would yield some very different results than a given name, so how did you know which one to use? Did one have more significance than the other? That could present a problem… but the professor had asked for problems interpreting words, not names, right?

Once again, Tina doubted the answer she had was good enough or even relevant enough to voice out loud, so she remained in attentive silence, taking careful notes on the points raised by the professor and her classmates.

"Tina, thank you." Another name she'd have to look up in her registers, to make as one to look out for after the homework submissions. Ayana would need to make sure they all understood the concepts presented in this lesson, for it provided the base for all the work they would be doing in the coming months.

Text Cut: Kaiser

Quote:

Originally Posted by Felixir

Up until this point, Kaiser had been following reasonably well, though he had to admit his attention had started drifting juuuust a little bit during that recap. And then juuuuuuust a little bit more as the lesson moved on. It didn't help that he was having to contend with following and mentally translating a lot of words, including some he had never heard before; that was probably the biggest issue he had to face in his lessons at Hogwarts.

Talk went from trees and forests to Nifflers named George, and at this point Kaiser's attention wandered to the view he could see through the window, and he fell into his own little world, as he often did in classes. He barely even noticed that the professor had asked them another question until he heard the other students start to supply answers.

Well. Kaiser supposed he could try to deduce what the question had been from the answers everyone was giving. Orrrrrr he could return to his own thoughts, which had brought him up onto the roof of the castle, his carefree place of solitude where Arithmancy did not dare to tread. Hmm. Yes. Good plan.

Hmm. This one seemed to be drifting off at a crucial moment. "Kaiser? Any information hidden in those trees out there?" Ayana said, not unkindly, trying to gently tug him back to the topic at hand.

Text Cut: Lucas

Quote:

Originally Posted by hermionesclone

This...... was starting to get confusing.

Lucas found himself trying to concentrate as hard as he could, his head tilted and his eyes squinted. So some names..... were wrong? Because there were different types of numer..... ology? It was weird to think of different types of numerology for different items and he couldn't help but wonder what the other types were.

Something that made more sense? The niffler comparison. Something that made less sense? Why anyone would name their niffler George.

But before he could think too much about that, there was a question and he had to find an example. Frowning slightly, the boy looked around again, trying to find another inspiration, and maybe something in this classroom, that fitted what the Professor was saying. But his brain was blank. Names were names, he didn't know what they meant. He didn't even know what his name meant and if it fitted him.

Lost in thought, the boy sat there. Quiet. Still looking around the room, as if an answer will pop out to him.

This young boy's facial expressions almost caused Ayana to chuckle in the middle of answering someone else's response. As it was evident that he was thinking quite hard about the topic of the lesson, she moved on to the next student. As long as they were all thinking, she would not bother them.

Text Cut: Eiji

Quote:

Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie

Names.

The irony being that Eiji hated his first name and never went by it. It frustrated him that some people knew it too and would remind him of this fact every now and then. Looking at you in particular, Trinetta. And his nose wrinkled a bit at his house's prefect suggesting the given name carried more weight because...no. James was not a name that carried any weight for himself, thank you.

Admittedly, he was finding some of this lecture interesting, but the practicality of it all was lost on him because using the Chaldeans numbering system on something like...elephant was a bold blanket statement to say that all elephants shared that fate and everything else. The professor herself had brought up a fair few 'problems' with the subject...which clearly meant she had her own agenda and they were all merely beating around the bush until she made her point.

So, quickly, that interest that had displayed himself in a brief lighting up of the eyes was fading. Though Eleanor's comparison to ships and shoes nearly warranted a chuckle. Nearly.

All in all...this was all horribly subjective and when someone mentioned the whole other language aspect, well, the Slytherin had all but checked out. The kanji in his own name had English equivalents, proper words too. Great samurai or crystal samurai or silver samurai depending on which translation you wanted to apply.

The talk of trees and nature in general though kept his focus slightly. Namely...when was a tree considered a tree? When it was a sapling was the term sapling more applicable or would tree suffice? When a tree was chopped down and turned into a stump, it was still a tree in principle and still very much alive too. Same could be said for a flower. The different between a flower still rooted in the ground and one that had been plucked from the it and put in a vase of water - buying its time until it wilted.

Time.

Hmm.

"There is no accounting for the passage and flow of time," he said coolly after his hand had been raised. Offering nothing more than that before his hand settled back on to his quill and once again...waited.

Eiji Rasting sure was a sullen one. It almost lessened Ayana's excitement at the wonderful answer he gave. Almost "Quite right Eiji! Excellent!
And when you use numerology in an attempt to predict the future, this is quite an alarming discovery." A name does not change, but the times do. One of the biggest flaws in predicative numerology. Marvelous, marvelous.

Text Cut: Holly

[QUOTE=Stormdancer;12411784]
Another smile to the Professor. She wasn’t sure about anything though… so Holly was just hoping to not make a fool of herself. Reallllly hoping not to make a fool of herself. Here’s hoping. Twirling her quill between her fingers, she waited for the lesson to start… Though she really wasn’t sure what was up with everything on the Professor’s desk. They looked so… random.


Sissay. She had thought it beautiful the first time she had heard it… And she still thought it was.

With her chin in her hand, Holly watched the way the new Professor moved around her desk and the way she dealt and spoke to the class. Personally, there was no way she had missed her arrival. Or the arrival of the other Professors. She was, in fact, pretty sure that there were a larger number of new Professors than there were returning ones. Head tilting to the side slightly, she pondered if that was something Professor Sissay's numbers could explain.

Especially if they explained the world. Hmm. Sticking her hand in the air, her head buzzing with how she could relate to Arithmancy, and knowing very very close to nothing about the subject. "I'm Holly, Professor. Hi, hi. Could they explain Quidditch probabilities or the exact equations needed for a great handstand or barre routine?..." The third-year looked at the woman expectantly, smiling the whole time.


What was needed? "Correct, up to date information and knowledge about… Well, whatever you are looking to do Arithmancy on? Whether it's a person or a Quidditch team, a rock or a puppy… Or maybe a pregnant animal?" Nope, she had no idea… She needed more information to help her understand.

SPOILER!!: Professor

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daemon

Ayana slowly paced to and fro at the front of her classroom, nodding towards each student who wanted to speak and listening intently to their results. She carefully made sure never to cross the roped area, and gently nudged an elephant back towards the centre of their little enclosure when it got too close to the edge. Wouldn't want any tiny elephant deaths on her hand.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Daemon

Were they real elephants? Or would they shatter? What about the sticky things? Would they move and break too? So. Many. Questions.


… Surmise quickly, meant lots of notes and a furrowed brow as Holly attempted to keep up in both her note taking and her understanding. She tried not to let her ink smudge otherwise she would be really up Knockturn Alley when it came to doing her homework and studying for her exams. No, she needed to make sure that her notes all stayed in tact.

Pausing in her notes, she looked up as she the Professor started talking about the names of things. Trees, forests, humans and nifflers… but What??!??!!?? How… Did nifflers work with Arithmancy?? Shouldn’t they be taught in Care of Magical Creatures??? Had she missed something? Had a bludger hit her head?

Still frowning, quill loose in her hand, Holly’s head tilted slightly as she listened to the end of the Professor’s speech and to her classmates who spoke up after her. …………………. Okay… Maybe… she understood? Maybe.

”So.. It’s easy to state that we need balls for Quidditch - but snitches, bludgers and quaffles are very different - in their names, attitudes and appearances?... Thus treating them the same, analysing them as if they were the same… would be an injustice.” She thought. Or… at least she hoped that was what the Professor meant. ”And perhaps … like someone saying they have hair when they are really using a wig?”

…. Okay. Even she had no idea where that last one had come from. SorryProfessor.

This young girl certainly liked Quidditch! Ayana knew the sport was very popular in this school, more so than any other wizarding sport, and smiled at Holly with some amusement. "Indeed, the word ball is inadequate if someone should want to analyse snitches, bludgers and quaffles."

That wig comment had Ayana outright chuckling, and she nodded.



"Excellent class! Really, very thoughtful answers, I think we have seen plenty of problems that arise when wanting to use predicative numerology on more than just our names," Ayana began, wrapping up the discussion part of her first lesson with a flourish of her hands, returning to stand by her desk and the curious items on it. The roped off section was still there, and she glanced at it once. She'd have to remove that charm before the class ended, or they'd all become momentarily deaf given the acoustics in here.

"The very problems we have thought of, and many more, were the motivation that ancient arithmancers had to provide a better and more accurate way of understanding the true nature of objects, and spells too. What if I want to know the state of my undetectable extension charm? Would I apply the Pythagorean system to the incantation?" Ayana allowed for a pause to give her students some time to get used to these ideas, before flicking her wrist and producing her wand. Yes, magic in Arithmancy class! All her previous students had been happy at any excuse to wave their wands and take a break from extensive analysis, and she assumed Hogwarts would be no different.

Granted, they'd yet to reach the extensive analysis part of the module. This was only the beginning.

"Today, I'd like to introduce you to a new concept of Arithmancy you might have heard of previously," Ayana grinned around at the class. "Arithmalethilogy. The truth of the numbers, as the Greeks called it. This method, discovered by ancient arithmancers thousands of years ago, reveals the very essence of the object you'd like to analyse, and subverts the need for any names at all." Pretty neat right? She certainly thought so. "I'd like for us to start with the very basic spell used in this method, the Number Revealing charm."

Ayana cleared her throat, and turned to tap the blackboard where information on the spell began to emerge, for easier note taking. "This spell is similar to the spell used by cursebreakers, but predates it by several hundred years and dates back to the beginnings of the Hellenistic empire and used in the very dawn of modern arithmancy." Before that, Arithmancy had been an immensely difficult practice that had yielded accurate results only to the most proficient of masters.

"The result of the spell is seven smokey figures which will rise from your wand as soon as you finish the incantation. The wand movements are slow, steady clockwise motions moving to the right. The horizontal movement should only start when you begin to see the first number emerge - a grey figure that will form at the tip of your wand. The incantation is Emfanizo Arithmou," Ayana said slowly, and repeated the incantation once again; 'emfaNIzo arithMOU'.

"You will come up to my desk and take one of the objects provided here in order to practice this spell. For my demonstration, I will perform the spell on the the Caterwauling Charm I have placed here," Ayana glided across the classroom, and came to stop at the roped off section. "Emfanizou Arithmou!" she cast, loudly and clearly, and as her wand moved a bright grey smoke spilled from the tip to form figures: a 6, two 4's, a 7, a 5 and a couple of 9's.

6 4 4 7 5 9 9
"The figures will only remain for about half a minute or so, so make sure you jot your findings down before they disappear. After we have managed to successfully cast the spell, we will move on to how we analyse these numbers," Ayana smiled around at her class, trying to catch some of their gazes. "You may begin."

And as the students all came up to take an object from her desk - there are only five elephants, be gentle with them! - she tapped the blackboard again to reveal the correct series of numbers they should all see once they correctly cast the charm.

Quote:

Elephants - 2 3 9 7 4 8 8
Coin bag - 6 9 4 3 7 5 0
Flutterby bush - 8 1 2 8 7 6 9
Broken clock - 8 4 2 0 1 6 0
Joystick - 2 9 0 0 0 0 1

OOC: Alright, we've arrived at our charm practicing bit of the lesson. Time for the wands to come out! You'll have between 36-48 hours for this section before we move on. Have fun!

Indigo was already getting confused. He hadn't answered the previous question at all because he had no idea. What if there was someone else named Indigo and they both did the name thing. The numbers would be the same because the name was the same, so the result would be the same, but they wouldn't be the same person so why would that make sense? It didn't, to him. Unless full names were necessary, then he could see how that might start to make a little more sense.

Then he was even more confused because earlier she had said his answer was correct, that a word was necessary, but this thing that they were doing now did not require words. It did require numbers though, which, of course it did that was kind of the whole point. But the numbers did not come from words, they came from... the thing itself? He wasn't sure how that worked so he just wasn't going to focus on that aspect because it was going to confuse him a little too much. Instead, he went up to the desk and grabbed one of the items - a coin bag - and sat back down. He was just wondering if all of the things of the same type would have the same numbers when he saw what she had revealed on the board and that answered that question. It would also be useful to know if he had done the spell correctly or not.

Indigo took out his wand and made a clockwise motion over the coin bag, making sure to go slowly. "Emfanizou Arithmou." Slowly, the smoky numbers appeared. Indigo quickly picked up his quill and scribbled them down in his notebook in front of him. 6 9 4 3 7 5 0. He glanced up at the board to confirm that was correct. He was satisfied with that, but still a bit confused as he regarded the coin bag. If it was made out of a different material would the numbers be different? Would it matter whether or not there were actually coins in it? Would two different previous owners mean two otherwise identical objects would have different numbers? He had a lot of questions, but didn't voice any of them aloud. Not at the moment, at least.

Avalon beamed at the professor's reaction to her answer. She was relieved that she had made a valid point, and even more relieved that Professor Sissay complimented her on her thinking. Avalon picked up her quill and continued jotting down some notes on her parchment. She paused to listen as the professor relayed the instructions for the next activity. Yes! She would be able to work with the fascinating little elephants. She wrote the incantation in large, capital letters on her parchment so that she wouldn't forget it.

Avalon made her way to the professor's desk and smiled as she gingerly retrieved one of the elephants. She had been eyeing them since the beginning of the lesson, so it only seemed right that she use them for the activity. Taking a deep breath, Avalon picked up her wand and pointed it at the elephant. She made a few slow counterclockwise circles before stating the incantation. "Emfanizou Arithmou!" she said firmly. But nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

Raising an eyebrow, Avalon retraced her steps. What did she do wrong? The incantation was correct. She used slow, counterclockwise movements. Ah! Counterclockwise! She remembered that Professor Sissay had said to use clockwise movements. Avalon shook her head sheepishly at her mistake, but quickly tried again, using a controlled, clockwise movement. "Emfanizou Arithmou!" A plume of smoke drifted from the tip of her wand and hovered above the elephant. At the first sign of the 2, she started the horizontal wand movement. The rest of the numbers followed, billowing gracefully out of her wand. 2 3 9 7 4 8 8.

Heeding Professor Sissay's warning that the numbers would disappear quickly, Avalon snatched up her quill and scribbled the numbers on her parchment. Yes! They matched the ones on the blackboard! If only she could have gotten the spell to work on the first try...

Oh, arithmetic. That made a lot more sense, actually. Arithmancy, arithmetic, easily confused words. ”Arithmetic, yes. My mistake.” Now that mistake had been cleared up, she could move on to learning more about what actual arithmancy could do.

All words were weird if you thought about them too much. ”Different languages have different words for the same thing, so if we were to nuemerologically analyze the meaning of a tree in our language, the result might be quite different from the meaning of a tree in Russia.” Did that even make sense? ”Even with one person using one language there could be different results, like if your name changed because you got married or adopted or something. Different name, different numbers. What does your name say about you then? And if someone gets your name wrong and leaves off a letter, that would entirely screw up the calculations.” For some, their surname represented a long family line or the love of their life. To her, it meant nothing. The name of a man who has left her life before she was even capable of forming any memory of him. Her name was nothing but a word that had always been too difficult to spell. It was a common error for people to forget the second L that came after the B.

Cordelia listened intently and took notes as the professor introduced the concept of arithmal-really-long-word. Holy hippogriffs, that word was a mouthful and yet another example of a word that no one could spell correctly. Number revealing charm. That was words Cordelia could understand. So this spell would produce smoke numbers. Seemed simple enough. Wait, did the professor just say she was casting the spell on the caterwauling charm? You could cast this spell on other spells? This sounded more complicated than expected. When it was time to get an object, Cordelia went up and selected a broken clock from the professor’s desk. Returning to her seat, Cordelia set the clock down on her desk and practiced saying the incantation without her wand. ”Emfanizo Arithmou. Emfa-ni-zo Arith-mou. Emfanizo Arithmou. Emfanizo Arithmou. Emfanizo Arithmou.” Once she was sure that she could say the incantation correctly, Cordelia pulled out her wand and started practicing the clockwise motion without saying the words yet. Eventually she was confident enough to try putting the incantation and wand movements together. ”Emfanizo Arithmou,” she cast on the clock, moving her wand slowly in the clockwise motion. A little smoke spewed from her wand but it disappeared before it could start forming numbers. She would have to try again. Focusing more intently this time, Cordelia again cast the spell on the clock in front of her. ”Emfanizo Arithmou!” This time, stronger smoke came from her wand as she repeated the slow horizontal clockwise motions. The numbers appeared before her - 8 4 2 0 1 6 0 - and Cordelia quickly jotted them down in her notes before they disappeared. The numbers on her paper matched the ones written on the board. She had done it!

Together with her hatred for people, Odaline's unsettled nature had began to creep back in as she spent more time in the classroom. She said nothing to answer any of the questions so far and added nothing to the discussion. Instead, she watched and observed and took notes of only the answers she approved of. (Which was not many) With a cautious glance at the door, Oda began to tap her fingertips against her palm to settle herself.

Very quickly, before too many people rushed up there, Oda swiped herself a broken clock. She had been tempted by the coin bag, just for the reminder of her summer that it might have had, but the broken clock felt personal right now. Strangely. Nothing ever felt personal to Odaline. Nothing until now.

She returned to her desk, waiting for others to start their casting so that her voice could be lost under all of theirs. Anything for no attention to come her way. Oda rehearsed the wand movement first, a few times until she felt that it would be second nature paired with the incantation. Which, luckily, was when other people started to do their own work and she was able to cast firmly. "Emfanizou Arithmou!" Were she alone, she may have celebrated the smoke numbers that she was presented with and quickly scribbled them down. 8 then 4 then 2 then 0 then 1 then 6 then 0.

And she had been quick enough that she had time to watch the smoke briefly before it disappeared. Why did broken clocks always bring disappearing things? Families? Smoke? Families? Didn't matter. Shouldn't matter. Doesn't matter.

Eloise really had the thought that Professors say that about every class that it was important for the year because how else would you get kids to pay attention that didn't like arithmancy. And just took it because they thought it would be ok and easy enough to pass. Mistake right there.

Ok, yeah Eloise will be needing to take notes now because this was information that seemed important as she got some parchment out and started copying what she said about Pythagorean and all that and Arithmalethilogy. A lot of Greek to her, Profesor Sissay. Oh, she heard charm. ok, now they were getting somewhere.

She wasn't one to judge incantations..ok she was but Emfanizo Arithmou sounds like a failed Italian magician.


Guess no chance of anyone nicking an elephant than well alright. The redheaded fourth year sprung up from her and went up and well too late for an elephant. Sadly, but she took a joystick which looked like it more belonged in an antique shop or museum of gaming. Back to her desk to begin practicing the charm.

"emmmfaNIIIIIIIzoooooo ariiiithMOOOUUU"

yeah still sounded like a failed Italian magician. But she tried again say it properly with the correct wand movements" Emfanizo Arithmou"

Oh look at the cool smoke and numbers 2 9 0 0 0 0 1

Was the lesson starting to make more sense? A bit. He still didn't understand what the other types of numerology were but that didn't matter because they weren't concentrating on them right now. Just on Arith..... Arithma...... squint Arithmalethilogy. That was a mouthful, wasn't it?

What he was understanding was that they were going to use a spell on an object and it will reveal numbers. That was it. He made a quick note of that - and the type of Arithmancy because he was sure he was going to forget - before putting his quill back down again.

Did he know what object he wanted to use? Yes! The elephant, there was no other choice! He wasn't, well, competitive but that didn't stop him from rushing up to the front of the classroom as soon as Sissay said that they could begin. There was a small crowd starting to form already but he nudged through as best as he could and swiped up one of the tiny elephants. Hello!

Lucas pushed through the, this time bigger, crowd again and strolled back to his seat. A small smile started to creep onto his face as he sat there, observing the tiny elephant. It was so small! Could he name it?

Dani. Dani the elephant.

It was a broken clock for Vita and the seventh year took the object and held it up, observing it thoughtfully. There didn't appear to be anything particularly special about it, but perhaps performing the spell would reveal something more. Either way, she was ready to try.

"Em-Emfanizou Arithmou." That incantation, though... Vita found herself frowning. She prided herself on being great at spells, but this one was tricky. A mouthful for sure. "Emfanizou Ar-Ariithmou." Yikes.

She continued practicing, quietly and to herself, trying to get it to feel natural rolling off her tongue. If she didn't have to think about saying it correctly, if it came naturally, her focus could be on making those numbers appear.

Hmm? Kaiser didn't have very long with his thoughts before he was dragged back into the present moment, back to the classroom, by the words of Professor Sissay. "No," was his response, as he turned his quill over in his fingers and dragged his gaze reluctantly from the window. "Not today."

Oh, how he would rather be up on the roof right now than stuck inside a classroom contending with all these words and concepts. He still wasn't totally with it even now, but he had at least fixed his eyes on the board at the front of the room rather than the window. All the better to appear engaged, even if he did look kind of glazed over.

It was more luck than judgement that Kaiser managed to tune back in again in time to hear the instructions for the spell they were supposed to be casting, though he still managed to miss the details on exactly why this spell was useful. But, well... that was a future problem.

When they were given the go-ahead to get started, Kaiser moved to the front of the class and grabbed one of the joysticks, the first item he could reach, then returned to his desk once again. He rolled his wand between his fingers and looked around at the others in the classroom for a moment or two, repeating the incantation under his breath in order to get used to it, so he wouldn't trip over the words when the time came to actually cast the spell. "Emfanizo Arithmou... Emfanizo Arithmou..."

Already those around him were producing smoky numbers, but Kaiser still delayed. He tilted his chair back so that it balanced on two legs and kept murmuring that incantation to himself. "Emfanizo Arithmou."

It obviously paid to move schools sometimes, as one gained knowledge at one that you didn't necessarily gain at another. In other words, they had studied probability not only at Illvermorny, but at her muggle school as well.

The next question.....well, there were plenty of problems, but her classmates had mentioned most of them. And as one of those that preferred going by a different name than her given first one, she wasn't very appreciative of Vita's response either. Even though Archer was a part of her name, it bothered her to include the 'Sterling' part. Especially since sterling was also the name of a type of metal (not a very valuable one, either), British muggle money (pound sterling), several towns and thousands of other things. Of course, that problem lead really into what the professor had been trying to impress upon them anyway so....

Approaching the desk, Archer grabbed one of the broken clocks before sitting back at her own desk, placing the clock upon it. Wait, had Professor Sissay said Caterwauling Charm? That caused the prefect to chuckle at the thought of somebody accidentally setting it off....

"Emfanizou Arithmou," she recited, practicing saying the name of the charm so that she wasn't the one setting off the Caterwauling Charm. "Emfanizou Arithmou."

Though she had mastered the art of looking forever disinterested, the Slytherin was thoroughly enjoying this particular lesson. Surprisingly, however, it had very little to do with the subject matter itself. She did enjoy Arithmancy (for it was logical, detail-oriented and required extensive analysis), but more than that she felt drawn to their Professor’s teaching methods. The questions Professor Sissay had posed to the class kept Nina in a state of thought, even while others shared their answers, Nina was still thinking about many of the concepts that were posed.

Then there was the matter of introducing new material. Professor Sissay provided such detailed context. Nina often found herself having to visit the library after class to read up on a period of history or the state of the world at a particular time, in order to understand the lesson within a larger context. But already, the connections to the ancient Greek arithmancers had provided her with much of the information she needed.

The spell they were using had dated back to the beginnings of the Hellenistic empire, which was quite peculiar. Thought it made sense all at the same time. For arithmancy and this period of history shared many commonalities. For example, the emphasis on science and logical mathematics, married in with a simultaneous emergence of art and creativity. Airthmancy was primarily based upon logic, but it allowed for flexibility in application too. Something which was only growing more apparent throughout the lesson.

Fortunately, Nina realized she had been a little too immersed in thought before she had missed the demonstration entirely. Drawing herself back to the present moment, the Slytherin frantically began jotting down the rest of her notes, causing her to lag behind the rest of her schoolmates in choosing an item from the front of the room. Not that she cared to have one of the five elephants. She didn’t like animals. Miniatures or not.

Which also meant she avoided the flutterby bush. Animals and plants were just about one in the same. Because she didn’t want to stand their for too long, she quietly reached for a coin bag and hurried back to her seat where she began practicing the incantation. Pronunciation was often key and she intended to get it right on her first try.

"Em-fa-NI-zo arith-MOU."

Eniola was relieved to finally have some wandwork. Normally that's one of the reasons she didn't like Arithmancy because it was far too much theory and not enough wand work which is something she excelled at typically. Hopefully that's the same here. She thought as she listened carefully to what the professor was instructing them to do.

Going up to the Professor's desk she grabbed a coin purse and quickly returned to her seat to begin. She was curious to see where all of this was going.

Okay, slow, steady clockwise motions moving to the right. She thought to herself as she started to move her wand. "Em-fa-NI-zo arith-MOU." Eni said over the coin purse and she saw her numbers appear.

6 9 4 3 7 5 0
Quickly Eni jotted the numbers down in her notebook and began to think about what it could mean. Was it a code to unveil something? Was it something about the coin purse? Did the professor put a spell on each object before she allowed us to grab them? What did the numbers mean?

instead of answering the question, Dorian had opened up his notebook and dipped his quil in the ink pot before he began writing down a few notes which he thought would come in handy for later. As information about the spell began to form on the blackboard, the Ravenclaw wrote them down quickly before the Professor vanished the words. Arithmalethilogy, if it hadn’t been written down he would have no idea how to spell that.

When he was done, he placed his quill down carefully on a blank piece of paper so that he did not spill the ink on the desk and watched as the Professor demonstrated the Number Revealing charm. So slow, steady clockwise motions moving to the right? Got it. Simple enough, he had had to learn more complicated wand movements over the course of the years. The hot air charm for example. For such a simple charm it had a complicated wave.

Getting up from his seat, he walked to the items that they had to work with and after looking at them for a moment, he picked up the broken clock. As he sat back down, he placed the broken clock down and took out his wand from his robe pocket.

He moved his wand clockwise slowly while moving to the right as a grey smokey figure began to appear in thin air.8420160

With his left hand, because he held his wand with his right, he quickly wrote down the numbers in an even more horrible ‘doctors handwriting’ than he normally had before placing down his quill and stopped the charm. Seemed like the numbers were alright…what now?

Arithmale - what?

Jade took notes furiously as she listened to the professor, trying to take in everything she was saying. This was really interesting! It was a lot like curse-breaking! That was her dad's area of expertise, though he had never taught her about Arithmalethilogy before. Granted, they didn't talk about anything as much as they used to. But she could definitely impress him with her new knowledge next time they met.

And now they were to try out the Number Revealing Charm. The brunette walked up to the desk at the front and after some contemplation, took a flutterby bush. Upon returning to her seat, she decided to practice saying the incantation first. "Emfanizo Arithmou, emfaNIzo arithMOU, Emfanizo Arithmou..." it had a funny sound to it. She also tried the wand movement - slow clockwise motions moving to the right. The difficult bits would be keeping her hand steady and making sure that she maintained her focus.

When she thought she was ready, Jade directed her wand at her flutterby bush and cleared her throat. "Emfanizo Arithmou," she said loudly as she made the slow clockwise motion. Oh oh, there was something emerging from the tip of her wand!! Was that the first - oh, darn it. Her hand shook slightly out of excitement and the smokey figure quickly disappeared. She would have to try again. "Emfanizo Arithmou," she repeated, this time focusing entirely on her spellwork. As she did the correct wand movement, she saw grey smoke spill out from the tip of her wand again. The smoke formed itself into seven numbers - 8 1 2 8 7 6 9 - which she jotted down quickly onto her notes as soon as she put her wand down.