It came as only somewhat of a surprise when Professor Gert gave the exact amount of named constellations, but a pleasant one at that. With there only being 88, it meant that not only was he right in guessing under 100, but the amount wasn't too far off from being 100 itself. But, what the young Slytherin did ponder over more though was her mentioning the fact that it didn't rule out the possibility of there actually being thousands of the starry formations and clusters which many people loved to cast their gaze up at. The thought of it made him wonder if any more would made up within the recent years, or if there had been ones that were, just never been made official. And as the thought further tarried along, he couldn't help but let it wander into a territory of what if that's what they were doing today? Creating constellations? That would be rather extraordinary, but highly unlikely. Archie wouldn't let the thought take hold over his facial expression too much either, though it did slightly turn into one of fascination the more he found himself getting seemingly lost in it.

Inevitably though, a few short moments after the next question was asked, he'd be pulled out of the metaphorical train and back into the station. However, there was the sudden realization that had now struck him...the question specifically was missed; Archie didn't actually hear what was being asked of them all. Thankfully, and luckily, this was something extremely easy to infer given how everyone else was answering. This obvious, common thread between each and every single one, was the name of a constellation or a few of them. So, left hand raised, a second or two being given before speaking for politeness, he'd say "There's the two dippers and Ursas." The answer was a clear reference to the Big Dipper, Little Dipper, Ursa Major, and Ursa Minor. Both sets of two would be placed together, seeing as both were duos. To give another piece of information about them just because "The North Star is at the top of the handle for one of the dippers." Archie just couldn't recall which one it was.

Setting the question before the gathered students, Celeste revealed a tabletop model that had been set upon her desk with a wave of her wand. The better to show the constellations being mentioned to the rest of the class that wasn’t mentioning them to share what was being spoken about. It was charmed with all eighty eight constellations to avoid missing any of them in the process. Thankfully she had thought ahead to set things up over the summer with her lesson plans mostly in place before term began. As Ms. Bixby started them off, the astronomy professor nodded and had the first three appear in time. “Aye…they are definitely included,” she confirmed, mildly grateful the girl left the other nine of the zodiac for others to supply if they so choose.



The model changed to the shape of long serpent as Celeste magicked the next one to appear appropriately given by one of the Slytherins. My it seemed like the lesson was following a sort of theme. “Aye…the mighty sea serpent and its brightest star, Alphard.” Also known as the lesser known Dumbledore brother she absently mused to herself before switching her attention to Ms. Montmorency once more who added another zodiac member. “Aye…the noble centaur archer,” she remarked with a nod. As for the extra little tidbit of information supplied by the girl. “Indeed…tis so large it can be seen by without a telescope despite being so far away from us.” Not an easy feat, but then it was a blue hypergiant.



It seemed her comment about ancient astronomers had bemused at least Ms. Marchand. “Aye, tis another good duo,” she agreed. And Celeste could see where the mention could have some from, reconizeing one of the young women who were fans of the Disney stories. “Hercules is actually th’ fifth largest constellation. And as ye can see, we have the headless man and the winged horse without back legs. ” Perfect example of the astronomers getting weird. And then there were Mr. O’Brien’s answer to the question. “Aye tae Ursa Major and Minor,” she agreed to the two larger groupings of stars. “However, while th’ Big and Little Dippers are often mistaken as constellations, they are actually examples of asterisks.” Alas a common enough mix up she had mentioned earlier.



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“Now tae have bit of fun,” Celeste began, moving on to the activity portion of the lesson. Maybe not as active as some, but a chance for imagination and creativity. Taking a pile of parchment sheets she had laid on her desk earlier, she strolled around the room handing them out to each student. “For the rest of class time I wuid like ye to come up wit ye own constellation.” The predrawn grids on the sheets there to help them create a drawing or map on their idea. “Pick a story from either muggle or magical history, myth or literature and pick an item or character from it to work with. Ye can even make up an entirely new story around yer constellation idea if ye so chose.” Each parchment handed out, she made her way back to the front of the classroom.

SPOILER!!: Parchment

“I look forward to what ye all come up wit.”

ooc: Here we have our activity part of the lesson. Get as creative as you so choose. Actual graphics are not necessary though feel free to include if the muse moves you. You have until Thursday and Celeste and I will be around for assistance and interactions. Have fun.

Oo what fun! Making up their own constelation! Maxine wondered who they had to speak with to get a constellation has officaly registered. Mabye the the class as a roll could have a competitation to see who could get one. But then agian they were making them up - not actually finding the stars in the sky to make them .. so strike that ... back to the task at hand.

Thinking about the fairy tales that she knew .. both muggle and magical ... Rupzel came to mind. She could do a human figure with long flowing locks right? Maxine began to doodle on the page trying to make her best stick figure out of stars.

Ary was quite mesmerised by the display in the classroom. Truthfully, he had never really taken the time to stare up at the night skies long enough to decipher any constellation; he usually just admired the stars in general. Probably the next time he was out camping or simply when there was that chance during an Astronomy lesson.

The Slytherin quite liked it when professors gave them the chance to let their creativity go wild, even if Ary’s creativity was mediocre. But what should his constellation be? Ary stared down thoughtfully at the parchment he had collected from Gert. He cast his mind around and it immediately landed on a tiger. Then that snowballed into thinking of Rajah from the Aladdin stories. Yup, he had found his subject for this project!

The second year filled his name in on the parchment then the name of the constellation: Rajah the Loyal Familiar.

Le gasp!

While part of his answer was incorrect, Archie's guess on what the activity would be was...correct!? This came as quite a pleasant surprise to the boy. Not so much so that it would actually cause him to audibly gasp upon Professor Gert explaining what the planned main activity was, but, it was more than enough to cause his eyes to widen with glee and excitement. To say the least, Archibold was sent through the moon to get to do some (light) artwork alongside making a stellar creation. This only made his already profound love for the subject to grow even more. And, quite frankly, the only thing which would make him happier in this moment was if they were all told that these constellations would be made real. Now this, was highly unlikely, so he'd take what he could get.

As for what he was physically taking besides the luxurious and quiet revelry in his emotions, was a slip of graph paper as it was passed his way. There would be no delay after doing so either, for Archie already had his idea in mind. He wanted to venture off the well-trodden path from what the rest of the class was most likely going to do, today. What was currently positioned in his brain, while not necessarily a pain, would be a far cry from being plain. For it wasn't considered to be one specific thing of what had previously been noted for the possibilities. But a combination of two of them. It was an object, somewhat merged with an animal; two animals for that matter even, just of the same species. Something that was said to be held by one of his personal favorite Greek deities back in the olden days. The golden days, of yore. The Staff of Caduceus. Not to be confused with the Rod of Asclepius. While the two did resemble one another, and were both indeed a part of the culture of Ancient Greece, the latter was used as a symbol of medicine. The former on the other hand, was a symbol of Hermes or Mercury depending on who you asked. Thus as a whole is also iconography for commerce and negotiation.

Such was the reasoning as to why Archie would be doing this in particular. The Slytherin prided himself on his knack of clever and witty banter. Plus...money. Who or what could ever go wrong with that? A rhetorical thought of course, for there were tons that could go wrong, but that wasn't the focal point. What was, however, would be the sketch that he started to do. So, he'd hop to it immediately.

And so began the drawing of the constellation.

Ary knew that it didn’t have to be too detailed, just enough so that their shape could be recognised. He drew two stars side by side and about four squares apart. These were Rajah’s eyes. Another couple of grids below, three more stars were drawn so that they were in an upward arch-like shape. This was the tiger’s smile. Three stars were drawn, in a regular arch-like manner, a few grids above the left eye; the step was then repeated above the right eye. Those were the ears.

The guy contemplated adding stars to represent the entire body of Raja but decided that would be too complicated. Instead, he added a star smack in the middle of the face to represent a cute pink nose, followed by a few more in two neat rows on either side of Rajah which represented whispers.

But what set his constellation apart from any that may look like a feline? Ary added extra ink to the stars that were the eyes, so that the eyes were darker than the rest. In reality, these stars would be the brightest of the constellation.

Desiree eyed the model on Professor Gert’s desk, watching with intrigue as the constellations her classmates named appeared. Ooh, that model was cool! Where could she get one of those? She smiled as the two she’d mentioned appeared, and her smile nearly turned into a giggle at the professor’s descriptions. If Hercules had no head and Pegasus had no legs, could they combine the two to form a complete creature? Man? Horse? Centaur?

She listened, pleasantly surprised at the activity instructions. She half-expected she’d be mapping out constellations when this class began, but making up her own sounded much more fun! The combination of drawing and fairytales was right up her alley. Best activity ever!

Desiree didn’t have to think hard to come up with a story, She was going with her favorite fairytale, Beauty and the Beast. The real question was which image should she choose to represent it? She thought about the titular Beast or one of the enchanted objects, like Lumiere or Cogsworth, but then she remembered how silly Hercules and Pegasus looked. She didn’t want her constellation to look like a funny half-finished creature! She decided to go with something a little simpler, but what?

Ooh, she had it! The enchanted rose in the bell jar! With her concept in mind, she drew three stars close together in the middle of her grid to form the rose, with three more stars in a downward line for the stem. She added four stars around the rose, two above and two below, to form the bell jar, and one more star halfway between the top two for the little knob at the top of the jar. She glanced at her drawing. While she could definitely tell what it was supposed to be, it looked lacking somehow. What was missing?

Soon it came to her: fallen petals! She added three more stars in a cluster around the rose’s stem to simulate the fallen petals. There, now it was finished. She just needed a name for her constellation. Not Rose… too obvious! What about Belle? Not only was it the name of one of the main characters in the story, but the name meant “beauty”, which seemed fitting for a rose. It could also be taken as a play on the bell jar that housed the rose… but would the name be confusing when there already was a Belle in that story?

Wait......Hercules with no head and Pegasus with no legs? Wouldn't the Greeks be angry with that? Seeing as they were important parts of their legend stories and all that? And seeing how Hercules' dad liked to throw lighting around like it was confetti......

Oh well, not her problem since she wasn't the one who had come up with the constellations.

Kalie took a sheet of paper, filled in her name, and started thinking. She didn't really want to go the fairytale route, since she was sure there would be plenty of her classmates who would do that. But what could she do instead? Real-life people? An object? Hmmm.....that seemed like a good option. There weren't many objects represented as constellations aside from the Big and Little Dippers. But what object should she choose? It had to be something that others would recognize. Maybe a money sign? But should it be the British pound or the American dollar? Hmmmm......

Wait ... So they were meant to be creating their own constellation? This was an interesting task considering that Emma wasn't exactly sure what a constellation was. It was a cluster of stars that resembled an object, but what if the cluster already existed as part of another constellation? Did it not really matter?

Watching some of her peers get to work in brainstorming, the second year considered the options. She supposed it didn't really matter much in terms of what shape her constellation took ... or whether the pattern actually existed in the skies. Did she go with the Disney theme? For some reason an Elsa and Anna duo came to mind if she went with Disney, as surely much as there a big dipper and little dipper, there would be stars that would resemble the sisters. But continued pondering some more as she finally settled on a different constellation idea.

Scrawling 'Emma' on the top of her parchment, she considered what her name meant ... universal. So she could just sketch a circular pattern in the sky which would meet the requirements of 'universal'. Which is exactly what she did. Named a constellation after herself, because if not now, who knew when the opportunity might arise again.

Link to drawing

Not wanting to bother them as they began, Professor Gert moved around and her desk and settled in with some notes for another class to review as the students went to work on the task before them. At least it appeared as if everyone was into her plan of activity, the astronomy professor noting heads down, minds whirling, and quills scratching along the parchments without too much trouble. Of which she was most pleased as it wasn’t always clear what lesson plans would go over the best. Except maybe ones that somehow involved food she would guess. Not something often ascribed to astronomy unless on considers the myth about the moon being made of cheese.

After some time had passed, Celeste returned her attention full to the class, getting up to look and see what was developing. “Interesting…” she mused with a genuine smile as she looked over Ms. Bixby’s constellation of a girl. Woman? It was still being formed so they would have to wait. Mr. Atreyu-Rehman was the next nearest and it was a face so far. A face that seemed like it might be a bit feline unless was mistaken. “Very good…my cousin would be quite pleased.” Cats were her thing almost as long as owls were the professor’s own. Fitting given both their animangus forms that developed afterwards.

Somehow she expected Ms. Marchant to take a hint from another one of Disney’s tales and the young woman didn’t disappoint. It did take her a moment to figure out what it might be, but more because she was thinking more of a character than an enchanted item. Oh a rose! “Beautiful,” she complimented the work that coincidally had been actually named after such beauty. A simple nod and encouraging smile directed at Ms Gellar as she appeared to be still working out just what her constellation was going to be. And then there was Ms. Montmorency’s work that looked to be a ring, seomthing that could ultimately respresent any number of things if she was correct. “Nice,” she remarked as she moved on to continue around the tower.

Eventually a glance at the clock revealed it was that time. “Alright tis it for the evening,” Celeste informed the class as she made it back to her desk. “Great job everyone. If ye aren’t finished, please do so before the next lesson. If ye are, you can turn in your drawings. And have a guid night.”

ooc: Thank you for coming and hanging in there. The lesson is now complete though I”ll leave the class open for a day if anyone feels the need for a wrap up.