Arithmancy ((3rd-5th years))

[Professor Adam Greene]

Adam stepped into the Hogwarts castle. When he had left this place just less than a year ago, he had never thought he'd be returning on such short notice. Adam had graduated with grand plans to enter the Ministry, all the while working to achieve a goal that he had carried with him from a young age. Adam was going to be the Minister of Magic. That plan had changed though, in part to him discovering just how little he really knew about his 'dream job' and then the other part that changed his mind was the fact that Adam was slowly beginning to change as a person. He was maturing, and he was learning a lot about himself. With everything that had happened with his parents, and having to take care of Sierra, Adam had always thought of himself as a mature person. Perhaps he was, but in recent events, he discovered a lot more about himself that he hadn't known before. Dixie... and Rae... they both taught him a lot about who he really was. Being back at Hogwarts was just another fresh breath of air for Adam. It was just another sign of a new beginning.

He made his way through the corridors and off to the classroom that he would use for teaching. It felt odd; walking the halls as a professor and not just a student. It was even a bit intimidating. Still, Adam was ready for the challenge, and even looking forward to it in a way. When he had left the cottage that morning in Hogsmeade, Dixie had told him that he would do fine, and he hoped that she was right. On a positive note, Adam knew that having been fresh out of school he was one step ahead of any student who might try to pull the wool over his eyes. Adam knew all the tricks, and he wasn't going to let the students have their way with him simply because he was so young as a professor. There would be the good students though. Most likely the Ravenclaws would be eager to learn. After all, Arithmancy was an elective, which meant that it was most likely only the students who really wanted to take it. Of course, there were likely those who had to chose something to take and not really wanting to take any classes they were somehow stuck with Arithmancy.

Finding the classroom without any trouble, Adam entered to find that many of the students had already arrived. He wasn't late though, he knew that. They must have just been early. Odd, he thought. Students weren't usually known to be early. Adam carried his case up to the desk and began to get out his books while the rest of the class filed in. When the bell rang, he closed the door with his wand and then took a long look around the classroom. "Good morning class. Some of you may recognize me as a recent graduate of Hogwarts. My name is Professor Greene (it sounded so odd calling himself Professor Greene), and in recent events, I have been selected to fill the place of Professor Vector. I have been given a report of what you all have covered up until this point, and I look forward to continuing with the lessons. Now, before we begin, I'd like to hear from some of you. Can I have two or three volunteers share with my why you think Arithmancy is important. Just give us all a reminder of why we even study such an obscure field of wandless magic." So far, so good. Adam stood and cracked his knuckles a bit nervously as he waited to see if anybody would volunteer.

((The first three students to reply can simply include reasons of why they think that Arithmancy is important. You don't have to wait for Professor Greene to call on you. Simply assume that he would have seen you raise your hand and given you permission to speak.

P.S. Here is a link to the class site that I am currently working on. It's not finished, but you can certainly browse around and begin reading. Eventually, the material from this site will be needed to continue with the class! Click Here.))

[Sophia Hallington H7]

Sophia was up early that day. She's slept a lot better than she normally did, and hence had the motivation to get up and not be in a rush as she normally was. She wasn't overly early, but she didn't expect to be, and some of the other girls in her dorm were already up, but she had time to get redy and not be late. She didn't want to be late either-she had Arithmancy first thing, and that was one of her favourite subjects. They had a new teacher today-Professor Greene, who had graduated from Slytherin just last summer. She hoped that despite his relative youth he would be a competent teacher, and let her enthusiasm for arithmancy stay high. She'd always loved numbers, hence why she'd chosen Arithmancy as one of her electives in 3rd year, and hoped to continue with it next year for NEWT, and possibly do something with it as a career.

She leisurely got herself ready for the day, and went up to the great hall for breakfast. Finishing her boiled egg, mopping up the final bit of yolk with a crunchy soldier (that rapidly became soft when it was dunked into the gooey yellow blob in the centre of the hard egg shell), she wiped her hands and mouth with some kitchen roll, picked up her bag and left the hugh room, making her way up to the classroom that was now one of the most familiar classrooms in the school to her. She entered the room to find that there were few other students there, and no professor. Well, she was early in the first place, and people were often late first thing in the morning. She took her usual seat near the front of the room, took her things out of her bag ready for when the lesson was to begin.

Some more students entered the room, and it wasn't long before the new professor arrived too. She vaguely recognised him from her past few years at Hogwarts, but she had never talked to him or anything. Firstly because he was a few years older than her and she basically had never had any reason to talk to him, and secondly because he was a Slytherin, and she tended to avoid Slyterins wherever possible. Well, he was now a professor, no longer a Slytherin, and so she would have to respect him as a professor, leaving her anti-Slytherin thoughts in the past. He introduced himself as Professor Greene, and the lesson soon began.

The first question that was asked was about the importance of Arithmancy. She never liked answering these sorts of questions, but this time she actually had an idea of what to say, and put her hand up, hopefully to be asked to answer, and hopefully gaining some points for Hufflepuff. Soon enough, the professor asked Sophia to answer, and more confidently than usual she answered "Well, Arithmancy gives people information about themselves and their personality by using their name to calculate their heart, character and social numbers. These can be used to make important decisions, which in some cases could be life changing. Arithmancy can be used in all sorts of situations, from choosing what foods to eat to deicding what dates to hold events on." She waited for the other volunteers to answer, and then for any points to be given out, hoping that her answer was point-worthy.

((I apologise in advance for my lack of activity later in the class, as I'll be away. If it's still running when I return, I will post Sophia doing any of the tasks that are set.))

[Jacob Baine H3]

Jacob liked maths. He liked maths so much that the fact that he liked maths could be considered a theory in itself. No, a proof, that was more like it. He liked maths, and that was perhaps the most factual thing he knew about himself.

So when he heard that Arithmancy involved numbers, that was all he needed to know. With the speed of a heavy object plummeting to the ground at exponential velocity, or perhaps a log graph rapidly approaching zero, he signed up for Arithmancy without any thought as to what kind of numbers would be involved, and how.

Understandably, he was a bit on edge when he got up this morning. He was just beginning to doubt his choice. He had heard that Arithmancy was for smart students, which what he most certainly was not. Half his mind was preoccupied with nightmares of being stuck in a class full of bespectacled upperclassmen Ravenclaws, while the other half feared that he would be miserably humiliated by a similarly bespectacled professor.

He woke up early that morning, which was a rare occurrence, a bit like finding a black swan with your paper and milk in the morning. On top of that, his shirt was buttoned correctly and not inside out, and his pants were buttoned and zippered. His tie and robe were neat because he had so much time and nerves, but he missed breakfast again---he didn't think his stomach could take it. Instead, he sat on his bed until he began to think that he would be late.

He exited the Hufflepuff dormitories at a sprint, clutching his supplies to his chest as he barreled his way through the morning crowd to the classroom. Not surprisingly, he got there very early, and proceeded to arrange his supplies on his desk with the precision that only a neurotic can muster.

After a long time at this other students began to enter the room. Normally, Jacob would avoid greeting them out of pure spite, but today he avoided even looking up, so afraid was he to find himself looking at glasses and Ravenclaw colors.

Finally, he roused himself to action, telling himself that he needed to see what he was up against. To his surprise, the first person he saw was a fellow Hufflepuff. He had seen her around the school, but had never been this close to her. He stared at her, and vaguely thought she was rather pretty.

Jacob, having already entered that unfortunate stage known as puberty, attempted to catch her attention. In his mind, he thought he was letting out a cool and unconcerned cough, followed by an equally cool and unconcerned lop-sided smile. But in reality, his throat betrayed him, emitting a mousy squeak. In an attempt to salvage his reputation, he gave an extra big smile, but it came out as a crazed, wild-eyed baring of teeth.

As he hid his face in his arms, he hoped that she had not noticed.

Finally, to end his misery, the Professor came in. Jacob was barely listening; instead he was berating himself for being such a hopeless case. He finally was drawn back into reality by the Professor cracking his knuckles. It occurred to him that the Professor had posed a question, and wildly, Jacob tried to remember it.

Ah. Why was Arithmancy important?

Without thinking, Jacob blurted out, "Because I like maths."

His face scrunched into a very agreeable (at least to any onlooker) shape as he realized what he had just said.

Best not to dig himself into a deeper hole.

He put his head down onto the desk and covered himself with his arms.

Things were going just gloriously.

[Edward Summers R6]

To any onlookers it seemed as if a large tower of books was making its way down the halls. The tower hung on a precarious balance and it teetered to one direction dangerously before changing direction and teetering to the other. Ed, although one of the brightest boys in Hogwarts, had never been much of a quick thinker, so it had never occurred to him to place a simple hovering charm on the books and easily leading them down the halls. Ed was very adept at Charms and would have been able to do it quiet easily. Ed took a lot of classes, nearly every time slot of the day was filled, which meant that he didn’t have time to head back to the dorm and pick up his next set of textbooks. Which meant that he usually had to carry all his books around with him.

It was useless to carry them all in his bag, the bag ripped easily under the pressure. Not to mention that in his thirst for knowledge and study Ed had also moved beyond the required textbooks and bought himself a few more books related to various topics to aide him in class. Ed was skinny and quite tall, he had no physical skill to fall upon, so instead he relied on his brain, and all his hard work was paying off. Top of the class in everything that didn’t require a wand or a quick wit, and already receiving owls for prospective jobs once he graduated, and Ed hadn’t even taken his O.W.L.’s yet. Seeing as Ed was unable to look around his tower of books it just so happened that he could not see the crowd of students who dove out of his way as he made his way down the halls.

In fact, Ed was quite oblivious to the hatred that was thrown his way and even hummed a happy tune to himself as he constantly weaved from side to side to keep the tower upright. Ed reached the class and quickly entered the threshold. He found a seat and sat down, placing the tower of books on the floor next to him. It came up even with his shoulder even while he was sitting and he waited eagerly for the class to begin. More and more students filled in and soon the Professor entered. Ed thought over his question and then quickly raised his hand. “Well, ancient knowledge believes that numbers can unravel the secrets of the universe and tell its secrets to other wizards. So if we can learn to use numbers and learn the secrets that they tell us. We can gain a vast amount of knowledge about our surroundings, which can greatly influence our abilities and lives.”

[Ruby Lehane]

Digits wrapped around the cloth tan strap of the over-the-shoulder canvas bag that was light as a feather. It was always so incredibly light even though it held a good five books as well as parchment, ink, quills, and whatever else needed to be dragged to class everyday. Magic had that ability to make things lighter…well not just that. Magic had a way of doing a lot of things. In this case it had a way of lighting the load that Ruby was going to be packing around for the entire day until her break came along. There were plenty of classes to go to and plenty of points to earn for Slytherin. That was something that Ruby was always interested in doing. For the last 4 years Slytherin had not won the House Cup. There were too many Slytherins that didn’t know how to exact revenge. They were all concerned with doing things in the open and lose Slytherin house points. That wasn’t going to happen. It couldn’t happen. There were far too many that didn’t understand that going behind the back, that manipulating got better results. That was something they’d need to learn. Until then it was up to the few Slytherins that understood manipulation to earn the points back that Slytherin kept losing. Ravenclaw was not about to win this year. If it was the last thing Ruby did it was to keep Ravenclaw from earning the House Cup again.

Form moved from the 5th year dorm room. Stature stretched briefly with the bag on shoulder before feet carried her up the steps to the common room and then out the secret passageway. Feet moved through the echoic corridors, form tall, back straight, head held high as she moved. Long blonde tresses were hanging loose as always, slightly wavy giving her an air of someone far older than she. Through the corridors she moved and then headed up the stairs to the Arithmancy classroom. She’d had an interest in Divination ever since she was a little girl and it hadn’t stopped. She was more than eager to learn about numbers and divination and how they could help her strategize. That was something she needed…something that would be of use in the upcoming years.

Icy blue orbs settled on the door to the classroom and moments later she slipped through it and sat down. She was early as always. Taking her normal seat, hands brought her bag to the desk and she dug through it almost immediately grabbing up the quill, ink, and parchment that she would need for notes. Digits then tucked a few strands of blonde hair behind her ears as Professor Greene came in. Professor Greene…that was a new one. She remembered him as Adam Greene…not Professor Greene. However that was not the point. The point was that she could earn points in this class if she worked to answer every question for there was no way a fellow Slytherin would deny her that.

Now, before we begin, I'd like to hear from some of you. Can I have two or three volunteers share with my why you think Arithmancy is important. Just give us all a reminder of why we even study such an obscure field of wandless magic.

Ruby waited for everyone to speak and after the Ravenclaw before her spoke she held up her own hand. “Not only that, but Arithmancy is thought to actually predict the future if you know what you’re looking for. All curse-breakers at Gringotts are required to take the O.W.L.’s in Arithmancy. I also believe it is also called Numerology,” Ruby said as she waited to see if she was correct about that last statement.