[Arithmancy] Advanced Arithmancy Lesson: The Arithmetic Method

The first lesson is always the hardest, or so Tim thought. The first lesson of any term had far more to cover than the topic at hand. Introductions were in order, the students had to get used to Tim's flow, and in the case of the advanced class the students also needed to get used to how the class changed in both rigor and expectation from their days in the intermediate class. This year though, the class was going to be just as rough on Tim as it was the students. Ever since he'd returned from the summer holidays, he'd been all out of sorts. He'd woken each morning finding himself anxcious rather than excited, walking slowly instead of striding confidently. Tim hadn't been this nervous to teach since his first year and it bothered him deeply. However, he decided that the students would not know what Tim was feeling on the inside. He'd be the man that they had always known.

Tim had the classroom structured in a very different way than he had in the past. Rather than rows of desks, Tim decided to go for something of a more communal and social arrangement. There were twelve desks in total available for use in the classroom. Tim set the desks up in triangular formations around the room. Three desks were push together corner to corner in the triangular formation. Each desk was capable of sitting two students side by side meaning that there would be six students at each triangular pod of desks, a total of 24 seats. Although there wouldn't be 24 in each class, there would be more than enough students to sit at each pod so there were no chances of someone sitting alone.

Tim knew that some wouldn't be comfortable with this at first as some prefer solitude. But, knowing the course like the back of his hand, he knew that the students would need to lean on each other when the lessons got tough. As was usual for Tim, he placed a bowl of assorted sweets on each table for the students to partake in should they choose to. On the black board at the front of the room, Tim had written a set of directions for the students to take in upon their entrance to the room. It read:

Good morning! Please select a seat at any of the desks. Do make sure that there is at least one person sitting with you, no one will be left to their own devices. Choose wisely as you will be sitting with these partners for the foreseeable future. Please place your copy of Numerology and Gramatica on your desk as well as parchment and quills. Feel free to help yourself to sweets. Class will begin shortly.

Tim opened the door to the classroom so students could begin filing in. In the meantime, he went into his office to fetch his extra copies of the textbook in case anyone needed one.

Upon arrival at the class, Phillip saw the change in layout, read the board, and promptly ignored the instructions. He'd take some candy, but he wasn't going to purposefully try to sit with other classmates. The seventh-year preferred to be alone, and honestly, Phillip wasn't much fun to be around anyway, so the wizard half assumed no one would choose to sit with him either. Unless it was Billie, he would be okay with that. This was the advanced class, but he knew she was working toward her OWLs this term, so it was likely he'd see her here. Taking a seat, Phillip put his book bag on the chair next to him. Merlin forbid someone sat at his little cluster; at least he could try to keep them from sitting right next to him.

Phillip unwrapped the hard candy he'd grabbed from the bowl on the desk next to his and popped it quietly into his mouth. Reaching into his bookbag, he got out his parchment, ink, textbook, and a pocket-sized abacus just in case it was needed. While Phillip could do a lot of the math in his head, the Ravenclaw wasn't so cocky as to assume he could do all of the advanced level stuff without writing it down. He was a NEWT candidate, which meant everything would be that much harder, but he was willing to put in the work.

He just hoped he could do so silently.

How in the world Magnolia Lane Hawkins qualified to take Advanced Arithmancy was a mystery the fifth year girl was not about to question. She had been paying more attention in class, that much was true, but it probably did help that Mavis had been there to poke and prod her whenever she started daydreaming in class. She owed her best friend one for all the help but would probably need even more of it to keep up. That was alright. Magnolia came to class prepared with new parchment, a quill, and her textbook this time, imagine that. At least she hoped it was the right textbook…

When she walked into the room, she took a look around, trying to spot any familiar faces in the room or at least familiar faces she actually planned to interact with. She saw the directions on the board and smiled. If Professor Winchester was sure about that whole choose your own partner thing, she surely wasn’t going to disappoint. She only hoped that he wouldn’t change his mind later. Mavis would be in this class; the girl had proudly told her herself, and well, Donnelly was there too, but she avoided that side of the room. Magnolia honestly didn’t get how such an angel like @Billie Fay  ever got involved with someone as reclusive as Phillip, but she supposed it was all that opposites attract thing people always talked about that was at play here. But from what she had heard last summer, Billie had options now, and rather good ones as well. @Killian Buckley  was an absolute doll, if Nola hadn’t been so obsessed with fixing guys with issues, she might have fallen for him as well.

She took a seat, waving Mavis over as soon as she saw her walk in, “Mavis! Mavis! Come sit over here!” she exclaimed excitedly, waiting for her friend to take a seat before she pulled out the book in her bag. “Oh wait—I brought the wrong textbook,” she said flatly, making a face as she realized her mistake.

Piling into the class with a few of the other advanced student's Mavis hip-checked a sixth year Ravenclaw to get to the seat next to her best friend, Magnolia. There was a good chance she even threw up an elbow or two on the way, just to be sure. Mavis wasn't a violent witch by nature, but she was persistent.

Sliding into the seat next to Magnolia, she gave her bestie a triumphant smile before tossing thick black hair off her shoulder. "Hey girl," she said with that typical sing-song kind of greeting, louder than needed, of course. Giggling a little when Nola stated she had, once more, forgotten to grab the right textbook Mavis gave her a knowing look and then reached into her own bag. "No problem, we can share mine," Mavis wasn't even worried about it because it was going to be a more social lesson by the looks of it. She flipped open the book to no specific page and then turned to check out the board's instructions.

"Partner projects, you know what that means," She giggled again, it meant drama, and drama gave way to gossip! It was all too clear she was excited to work together on something.

“Thanks!” she smiled at Mavis, sliding her chair noisily across the floor a few centimeters next to her friend, looking down at the page that she had flipped to with slight horror. What in the world was any of this stuff? The mere thought that they’d eventually have to learn it made her feel a little nervous. But the feeling quickly passed by; she didn’t want to feel concerned by any of that. It felt too far away anyway.

“All-nighters in the common room probably,” Nola giggled in return, though there was no seriousness in the way she spoke. Instead, she knew that it meant that the two of them would be up all sorts of hours working for ten minutes and spending the rest of the hour chatting about something else, mostly school drama. Because there was nothing as exciting as school drama to the fifth year girl, and from the looks of it, there would be a lot of it this year.

“I wonder if anyone else in the gang is in this class,” she said wistfully, a strong belief that the more friends there were, the merrier, no matter how distracted they’d all probably be. “Especially you know who,” she whispered, nudging her friend a little as she tilted her head only slightly in Phillip’s direction, “Drama,” she clarified with a grin. If Killian had told her through a letter to keep it a secret, he should’ve told someone else. Nola told her best friend, everything. Turning to the board again, she read the message once more, a little regretful that she hadn’t taken up the professor on his offer for candy. Maybe she’d pick some up on the way out.   

Mavis bumped her shoulder into Nola's as the pair giggled, wondering who else from their growing social circle might be in the class. She knew Killian was wicked smart, and Billie was a Ravenclaw, so enough said, but she couldn't remember if Josie had mentioned it or not. Mavis had made extra sure that Nola would be here, even going so far as to kick her friend's butt into gear when it came to studying the last term. If Mavis was going to be a little nerd, at least she could have her bestie for back-up, right?

"Oh, I wonder," wiggling her eyebrows at Magnolia, the Gryffindor witch rubbed her hands together mischievously. "In that case," she said concerning the word drama, "I certainly hope so," Mavis whispered. They were in the cluster of desks next to the Ravenclaw in question, but she didn't exactly what him to hear them gossiping. Phillip Donnelly had a bit of a reputation, and Mavis wasn't trying to be part of the drama, just an 'innocent bystander.'

"Any news on that front?" She asked, like a moth to the flame, she was eager to hear more about the teenage love triangle that was forming in their click. Mavis leaned back into her seat for a moment, sighing loudly as she realized something she was desperately missing, "Nols, I need some boy drama," she mused, because between her OWL heavy class load, her need to be the Best. Mentor. Ever, and wanting to get over her irritating fear of Quidditch, Mavis totally had some free time.

Just a minute or so after the official start of class time, Tim returned to the classroom gently closing the door behind him. He walked to the front of the classroom and tapped the blackboard with his wand. The words completely disappeared and were replaced with the words THE ARITHMETIC METHOD in big, bold letters. With another flick of his wand, pamphlets flew from his desk and distributed themselves to each of the students in the room. "These are NEWT information pamphlets. All of you are in an advanced class which means you passed your OWL, thus making you NEWT eligible. You are not required to take the exam, but this class has been for the most part structured to prepare you for such an exam."

Tim walked among the desk pods as he continued. "For those of you who have spoken to other advanced students, you will probably know that the rigor of the class is exceptionally increased in comparison to the intermediate class. It isn't impossible by any means, but most of you will not be able to fly through assignments as you may have been able to in the past. Please kindly note on the syllabus what my office hours are. If you should find yourself ever struggling with any of the concepts we cover, then please let me know sooner rather than later. I can help you as much as you need, as often as you need. My goal is to make sure you're prepared for what's to come on exams and beyond, so your questions are not a bother."

Overhearing a student say that she had purchased the wrong textbook, Tim took a copy of the apposite text from his shelf. He placed it down on the desk in font of @Magnolia Lane Hawkins with a smile and a nod. He looked around the room and noticed most everyone had taken his instruction, save for @Phillip Donnelly. It was far from a surprise, but Tim decided not to acknowledge that he was sitting alone. After all, it wouldn't do much good.

Tim sat on the edge of his own desk. "We begin with the Arithmetic Method. This method is almost as old as the practice itself and is a fundamental of all areas of the subject be it basic or complex. To properly perform Arithmancy, the method states you must first identify what you need to discover, then identify what it is you already know, the variables at play, and how to obtain your end goal. On page 17 of your textbook, you will find these steps listed in greater detail. You will have a moment later to copy them down, but for now I'd like you to instead focus on a real world problem."

Tim flicked his wand and above the blackboard there formed a small black cloud. Suddenly, rain began to pour from the cloud. The rest of the room remained dry...for now...as the rain puddled at the foot of the blackboard. "Imagine that you are an employee of the Ministry and your job is to reverse curses, charms, and jinxes that occur in the every day setting. You receive a message from old witch who was attempting to water her house plants but instead conjured a storm under her own roof. She's unable to reverse it. You're dispatched to her home to do it for her."

With another flick, smaller clouds break off from the main cloud and begin to slowly inch toward the desks. "You have five minutes exactly before one of these clouds arrives to your desk and drenches you and your partner in rain if you don't complete the task. What you must do is on your parchment write down the following information: what the problem is, what you need to discover, what you already know, and what you must do achieve your goal. We have not studied curse and jinx composition so I will tell you that one thing you will 'already know' in this scenario is that in oder to reverse a jinx you must know the number of individual elements within the jinx, in the case eight. You will also know that to reverse it you will need to speak a variation of the incantation that will eliminate all eight elements. Write those two things along with what else you know, what you need to know, and how to get it. Show it to me when done, if you're correct or close, I will give you the incantation to vanish you storm."

With a final flick of his wand, words appeared on the board:

Hint I: If a jinx has eight elements, my incantation for a counter must include an eight in the language.  The language of incantations is a dead language.
Hint II: What you need to know is literal.
Hint III: What you need to do to achieve your goal is also literal: we're talking about a reversal, that probably has much to do with it, eh?

Despite being a little late to the party, Andronicus was still trying to learn enough in advanced Arithmancy to earn a NEWT in the subject. He'd done well enough on the owls in the Fifth year but hadn't gotten an excellent mark last term. He vowed to study more this term, practice too, and maybe even ask Jacqueline to pity him and help him study. (And actually, mean study...) Scooting his chair into the desks group he was sitting at, Andronicus sat up straighter when the storm began to brew at the front of the class. This was already pretty interesting, but also he was a bit nervous. What if he couldn't figure out the spells? He took a deep breath and wrote quickly when the professor gave them instructions and the tiniest bit of a head start.

Finishing the notes, the Slytherin looked up at the other two at his group and clenched his teeth a little, an edgy look growing. "Anybody know any dead languages?" Wait... did the professor count Latin as a dead language? No one really spoke it anymore, barely even wrote or read it, but most of the spells they used were in Latin, so it wasn't entirely dead, was it? Tapping his foot on the ground, Andronicus overthought, too fast, and began to confuse himself right into a circle. As the storm grew closer, his shoe tapping against the stone floor became louder.