Lesson One:Astronomy

With hesitation, Lucas considered whether or not he should wait inside the classroom for the first day. After his instincts said yes, he walked out of the room into the small office to wait for the kids and surprise them.

[As soon as most students roleplay their entrance, Lucas will come out for their first lesson.]

Maya entered the classroom, breathing a sigh of relief as she was the first to arrive. It had taken longer than she anticipated to find the Astonomy tower and she was huffing after all the steps she had encountered on the way there.

Looking around at the interior of the room, Maya took a seat in the middle of the classroom, eargerly anticipating her first Astonomy class. She wasn't too sure what to expect from the subject, but it couldn't be the worst, she thought encouragingly. Taking out some parchment and a quill, because they were informed that Professor Ramos would provide the school book. She looked around, patiently waiting for the other students to arrive.

Evan entered the classroom very tired, breathing heavily. He still couldn't get used to incredible amount of staircases in Hogwarts castle. Especially Evan disliked spiral ones. And, unfortunately for him, Evan had to climb a spiral one this time. Maybe I wouldn't sign up for astronomy lessons, if I knew about how high astronomy tower is.

Evan examined a classroom, noticing a Slytherin girl sitting in the middle of the class. He liked to take seats in the middle too, but he found it awkward to sit somewhere near the girl when all other seats were free. So Evan took a seat near a window. At least there is more sunlight here. Good for the eyes, if we have to read and write a lot. Evan smiled to the Slytherin girl awkwardly, taking his seat. He was looking forward to know something new about planets and stars, but now he had to wait for other students to come and for the lesson to begin.

Cassandra always got up early in the morning, knowing that she would be more tired if she overslept. Today she'd been wandering the halls before checking her class schedule to confirm that the first clss today would be Astronomy. She was extremely excited, although she held it in and displayed no emotion, that was her rule.

She glided through the doorway smoothly and noticed that but a few students were here. Was this not a popular class? It didn't much matter to Cassandra though; except that the two people there were ones she'd met before, and not particularly liked. There was that muggle-born boy Evan, and that Slytherin, Maya. They had chosen to take a seat far away from each other, so Cassandra sat equally far away. Glancing at the students again, she smiled at the fact that if a Hufflepuff would come in, the houses would unite in Astronomy.

Checking her class notes and what the professor had written about the subject so far, she deduced that they would be given their textbooks but would still be required to bring parchment, a quill, and maybe some other things he would give them. Cassandra decided to ask him if her telescope and star charts were necessary. She had two dozen maps and charts of the constellations in the celestial dome of the Northern Hemisphere, and half a dozen for the Southern Hemisphere.

Morgana walked calmly into the Astronomy classroom, ready for her first lesson. Honestly, she was wondering how it would be, and if she'd dump the subject or not. Astronomy wasn't really her thing. But just because she didn't know much about it, didn't mean she couldn't appreciate it, and she supposed that was the reason for why she took the class. She looked around, and saw Maya, Cassandra and some other guy she didn't know already seated.

She walked up to Maya and sat on a table next to her. She gave her fellow Slytherin a nod in greeting and then took out her books, waiting silently for the professor to enter.

Now that it seemed that all the students had entered the room, Lucas appeared from his office. With a wave of his wand and a small explosion of red and golden sparks, his names appeared on the board in much better writing than his own. "Welcome!" He greeted the students with a grin. "Let's start with something simple. Please, grab a partner. Though I believe we'll have a trio, since we have an odd number. Oh, and pair up with someone you haven't met yet." After the pieces of parchment were distributed among the small groups, he explained. "Write your names, Houses and years. And make a bullet point list on what you know about Astronomy now."

Well, it certainly seemed the professor was very...enthusiastic.  Glancing around the room, she realized that she would not be able to pair up with someone she did not know, and didn't particularly give any attention to this fact.  Obviously Morgana and Maya were going to pair up together if possible, but maybe Morgana did not know Evan?  Cassandra decided it would probably be best to wait until the others partnered up, then be partners with whoever was left.  She had no complaints, everyone was the same here.  And maybe the professor would allow Cassandra to work alone, as she very much would prefer. After thinking along those lines for a while, she got out a pale blue-white quill that wrote in a beautiful blue without requiring ink, very rare from an institute in Finland, and began to write, following the professor's instructions.

Cassandra's Parchment:

Pleased with herself, she decided to wait for the others to pair up, then ask the professor if she could work alone. She would also have to request more parchment at that time, she supposed. After all, her own was very expensive and personalized, heavy, thick parchment that had been bought with the quill. No need to waste it on notes in class.

Ryland had walked into the room just in time to see the gold and red sparks leave an imprint of the professor's name in nice script. Grinning at the man's enthusiasm, Ryland quietly took a seat near the back and listened to the instructions.

Pair up with someone he doesn't know? He could do that. Of course, back in his first year, he would have only paired up with either Emmalynne or Aurelia, but those times seemed long gone. Finally, he settled for the other boy, a Ravenclaw. He seemed nice, and Ryland smiled as he reached him. "Hey, I'm Ryland. Wanna work together?" His French accent still lingered in the air, though it now had a more British vibe to it.

Maya smiled at each student as they walked in and gave Morgana a particularly friendly smile as she sat next to her.

Maya looked up when she heard a loud noise and realised it was the professor. Odd way to mark his appearance she noted as he scrawled his name on the board.

At the mention of partnering up Maya looked towards Morgana and ignored Professor Ramos' comments on partnering up with someone she didn't already know. Glancing around the room she could she Ryland  approaching the Ravenclaw kid and Cassandra was hunching over a piece of parchment looking determined to work alone. As it was, she had already met everyone in the room.

Hoping that Morgana knew more about Astronomy than she did Maya began to write her name, year and house on the top of the page and continued to stare blankly at it, thinking idly.

At the mention of partnering up with someone, Morgana sighed. Really? Couldn't people just work on their own? It was much more effective that way... But not ready to disregard the professor, Morgana looked at Maya. If she was to work with someone, let it at least be someone she liked. Working with people she didn't know was always a disaster when it came to Morgana, besides, looking around the classroom, there was no one there that she didn't know.

She nodded at Maya, "Shall we work together then?" she asked, not really waiting for a reply, knowing Maya wouldn't mind. She then looked at Cassandra. She seemed to want to work on her own. Morgana understood that fairly well. "Feel free to join us, Cassandra, if you want to," she said calmly to the Gryffindor girl. She then turned to Maya.

She wrote her own name on a piece of parchment and started scribbling down what she knew.

Morgana and Maya's parchment:

She showed her scribblings to Maya; she might have more to add. She looked at what she had been writing and looked at the point that was the reason for why she was taking this class. She wanted to be able to harness the power of the Solar System. To be able to control that... That would be amazing. Her face was a complete mask, a mask her father had taught her to use, that left no trace of emotions in her face, her body language or anything. The good thing about being able to read every single detail that was in the air, was that she knew exactly how to control her own details.

The reason she was hiding her face, wasn't due to her interest in power. It was due to the fact that her want for it was frightening her. She didn't like the way power was on her mind most of the time. Had she come from another family all-together, it would not be a problem. But coming from the lineage of Salazar Slytherin made her a bit more careful on her choices.

"Yes, that would be great." Maya responded, relieved that she could work with the fellow Slytherin.

Maya mainly watched as Morgana began to list everything she knew about the subject, it was a long list that stretched on and on. It soon became clear that Maya would have very little input on this topic, even in the muggle world she wasn't exactly up to date on the star signs and all that other stuff. She knew that her mother had an interest and she was the one that had implored her to choose the subject.

Glancing back down at the parchment, which was nearly full, she was glad that she paired up with Morgana as she was already learning plenty and she had an obvious larger knowledge base of the subject. On the other hand she was cursing the fact that she didn't research the subject further, feeling rather useless as she watched in silence, Morgana's quill scratching away.

When Morgana looked up at her, Maya grimaced in an apology. "Well I'm a Virgo and I was born in the Chinese year of the Pig." She screwed up her facing, trying to recall if that was what her mother had indeed said.

She scanned the page once more. "Hang on, you haven't mentioned anything about the moons. We, as in Earth has one and then Mars has two-Phobos and Deimos". She chimed in, glad she had something to add and hoped that it was relevant to the subject.

Morgana gave a calm smile and added Maya being a virgo and in the year of the pig, as well as a point about the moons of the planets.

Spoiler:

Professor Lucas started to give instructions. "Please, grab a partner," he said. Oh, no. I'm not good with people. "Oh, and pair up with someone you haven't met yet," Lucas added. Oh, no, no. That's getting worse and worse.

For Evan's surprise, he wasn't the last to be picked. Quite opposite, he was the first. A tall boy took a seat nearby and said, "Hey, I'm Ryland. " Wow. "Wanna work together?" Wow. Ryland didn't look like a first-year and wore a Griffindor uniform. "I'm Evan. Nice to meet you," Evan replied, sounding slightly confused, "Yeah, that would be great. I know something about astronomy from muggle books." Evan looked at their parchment and then at Ryland. He grabbed a quill and started to write.

Astronomy work. Ryland and Evan:

Evan stopped just after he started. "Hey, Ryland, what are your surname and year?" he asked.

Ryland smiled at Evan's reaction. He seemed even more shy than Ryland was during his first year. For a second, he wondered if other had seen him as the shy, reserved type. "Marcotte." He said automatically, without thinking, then remembered the professor had written Malfoy as his last name. "No, I'm sorry. It's Malfoy." he corrected himself, a bit ashamed. He knew that if the boy had met Lucy and Wade yet, he'd realize Ryland didn't look anything like them, and then he would probably have to explain. "And I'm a Third year."

Grabbing his backpack, Ryland took out a small notebook in which he had asked Lucy to write some things about Astronomy for his first class, in the case they had to discuss anything. His cheeks turned pink as he realized the notebook was filled with doodles and the notes were written in pink ink. Turning to Evan, he said "My sister wrote this." and rolled his eyes.

"Okay, I have here that Astronomy is widely used by centaurs to predict the future." he glanced at Evan. "Have you taken Care of Magical Creatures yet? If you do, you'll meet a centaure soon enough." he smiled then turned back to his list. "Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune." he stopped, trying to read the writing. "Mecury and Saturn. Obviously, the planets. Then I have the Zodiac. And I guess she wrote 'Milky Way'?" he handed the notebook to Evan, to see what he could make out of the last bullet point.

Evan looked at the notebook and smiled, "I used to like doodling at school, when I had normal pens. It's not that easy with quills for me. Though I preferred standard blue ink to pink," he said. Evan narrowed his eyes, trying to understand what exactly was drawn in the notebook, and then added, "And I also preferred to draw spaceships and stars. That's probably why I'm here now."

After finishing one more line of text, Evan sighed deeply. "You know, I have a sister too. I haven't seen her for a half a year though." Evan suddenly looked a little sad. He stopped writing and started looking at something distant, that only Evan could see. Then he sighted once more and continued his work. His sister used to help him too, as she was two years older. So he could clearly recall using her notes like Ryland. "She likes pink ink too. Or at lest she liked it when I saw her last time."

Evan shook his head and concentrated on their parchment and Lucy's writings once more. Yes, it looks like Milky Way. And there is a picture of it, by the way. It's pink, but still recognizable." Evan smiled, he found this Milky Way really well drawn. He finished with Lucy's notes, put the notebook aside, and asked, "You wouldn't mind if I add something from myself, would you?" Not waiting for an answer, Evan proudly scribbled some lines on the parchment.

Astronomy work. Ryland and Evan:

"Ryland, could you check this, please?" Evan asked his partner after the work was done and moved their parchment closer to Ryland.

Cassandra looked up from her paper as Morgana said she would be welcome to join. Fat chance, she thought, but smiled up at the girl then returned to her work. She noticed that Evan and the other Gryffindor boy had paired up already and were beginning to take notes, Evan drawing something on the parchment. Huh, maybe it was a chart of the stars? There were several different stars that she assumed they'd eventually learn about, and Cassandra wasn't sure exactly what to write. Suddenly remembering the professor, Cassandra stood up and walked to the front of the room.

"Hi, Professor Ramos?" she hoped that was the correct name, "Do you mind if I work alone rather than in a group of three? I've already sort of begun and may I additionally request more parchment? I ran out." She hoped he would understand. Cassandra was definitely not in a mood to argue, and she would rather just enjoy the lesson.

Remembering something, she returned to her seat and fetched a star chart from her bag and brought it to the professor. Cassandra had drawn it some days ago, and also drawn several different views of the galaxy and the Milky Way. She wanted to be certain they were alright before she drew anything else.

Auden walked into the classroom very frazzled. She was late once again. She really needed to get a watch and an alarm.

"I'm so sorry Professor. I was in the library reading and lost track of time. It won;t happen again." Auden said. She then sat down while trying to get calm.

Lucas smiled at the girl who approached him first, the blonde one. "I would rather you didn't work on your own, it wouldn't be fair. But since you've already started...you may do so. Only this time, though." he declared. "I won't grant you that privilege again. You must get used to working with others." As the girl brought a star chart, Lucas grinned. "This is excellent, Miss Periwinkle!" he inspected the chart, then handed it back to her as another student came into the room.

"Don't worry. Miss Mayer?" he raised an eyebrow, hoping he had gotten the right girl. The only people absent so far, were Wade and Lucy Malfoy, two Slytherins he had not gotten the chance to meet yet, obviously.

"Take a seat Miss Mayer, and please, join Ryland and Evan for this assignment." he gestured to where the two boys were sitting. "Or, if you would rather work with another girl, Miss Periwinkle here is available." he nodded towards the blonde.

Lucy dragged her backpack behind her, already running insanely late, and ran into the classroom. "I am very sorry, Professor. I've really got no excuse." She took a seat and then thought, "But I'd like to work with Auden." then turned to the Ravenclaw, "If you don't mind."

Lucy ran into the classroom and took a seat. But what really surprised Auden was that Lucy wanted to work with her. Auden didn't really know Lucy so it surprised her.

"Sure that's fine with me Lucy." Auden replied.