Friday December 5th 2008 ~ 10:00am


The calming smell of burning wood was being slightly over powered by the smell of raw tea leaves. Cillian preferred teabags himself but he wasn't looking to drink any tea today. Like the past week of lessons the fifth years were doing their final lesson on Tasseomancy - the art of reading tea leaves. Since their first class together almost a month ago Cillian had been trying to play catch up on what had been taught to them by Grimlish. He was determined to give them everything they needed to be able to confidently go into their OWLs. So far they had all seemed to have picked up on the fine art of reading tea leaves and Cillian was more than pleased. He was hoping their final lesson on the subject would go off without a hitch.

Cillian was sitting cross legged on the table next to the Professor's high back armchair instead of sitting in the chair itself. He was wearing a pair of black slacks and a matching black t shirt. The fire behind him was blazing brightly causing the tower room to be comfortably warm as the snow fell outside the windows. He had a fine white china teacup in his hands and was looking over it at the students.

"Alright guys, you know the basics now I want ye ta mix it up a bit. so far I've let ye sit wit whomever ye like, yer friends, buddies, girlfriends, boyfriends, whichever. Fer today, ta make sure ye can git a handle on reading anyone's tea leaves I want ye ta sit wit someone ye usually wouldn't sit wit. If ye can't find anyone I'll be more than happy ta find a partner for ye." He smiled softly at the students, "I also wanna see if ye can do this without referencing yer texts."

  Sit with someone they ordinarily wouldn't? Fergie wasn't sure he was comfortable with this assignment. What did it matter if they were friends with their partners or not? Reading tea leaves properly had nothing to do with how well you knew whose tea leaves you were reading. It was all about recognizing symbols and interpreting what they meant. Fergie happened to be good at that, he didn't need to sit with a stranger or an enemy to confirm it.

 But, well, he wasn't the professor and if he wanted to get a good grade (and he did), Fergie supposed he would have to comply. As long as he didn't have to sit next to Callum, anyway. He'd done that the first lesson with Professor Cuthbert and wasn't overeager to repeat the experience, especially considering all that had happened recently. Looking around the room for other prospects, the Slytherin chewed his lip and eventually settled at a table by himself. Someone could choose him - it was much simpler that way.

-- Uniform. --

Beatrix's eyes glided across the room. Normally, she sat with Xavier Tawse in this class. And only Xavier. Before, she would just sit alone and in the front of the class... But... That wasn't really a choice, was it? Who could she sit with without being completely annoyed? Fergie was a no, Neely was a no, Sasha wasn't even there... Ugh. Beatrix decided to try her luck with Callum, since he wasn't exactly being so awful now that they had to trust each other with that egg.

The Dark girl pulled herself away from the wall and pulled her bag over her shoulder. "Ahh... See you, Tawse... Good luck with... Whoever you sit with," She smiled, sweetly, at him. Beatrix's light blue eyes then landed on the Knight boy. She felt like she was about to ask a flobberworm to come talk a walk with her. Only the flobberworm was Callum. And the walk was a seat. Really, the analogy wasn't exactly needed but even still.

She finally managed to approach him and grabbed his arm, "We're sitting together," she declared, her voice stern. She wanted him to know he had no choice in the matter and if he were to mutter one disagreeable word she'd make sure neither of them passed Care of Magical Creatures. Though she wouldn't want to put her grade in harms way, and she didn't want to hurt a poor, innocent egg... But he was currently the only acceptable person she saw. And he had Elisabeth the Egg with him. Which Beatrix was still very uneasy about.

With a sigh, she found a table in the middle of the class and sat down, flinging her bag to her feet. "Are you going to the game tonight?" Beatrix asked, oh-so sweetly, "If so, don't you dare let that egg freeze,"

Sit with someone he didn't normally sit with? What a load of rubbish. Callum grumbled at the announcement, and decided if he was going to have to do this he would have fun. Callum was going to go sit with Fergie, since he was so obviously avoiding him, when Bea snagged his arm and dragged him over. "Easy!" he snapped. "You'll make me drop the egg." The egg, whose name was Addison as far as Callum was concerned. Elisabeth was too feminine- and they didn't know if they had a boy or a girl. The color was gender neutral, so the name should be too.

"And I am not going to the game tonight." He had a date with Maeve. They were going to stay in and make out. At least, he hoped so. For some reason Maeve had this thing against the egg. He couldn't understand why... It was an inanimate object and he had no attraction to Bea what so ever.

Callum rested the egg on a pillow, and covered it back up with a blanket. "I'm fully capable of taking care of the egg," he told her, voice level. They couldn't yell around the egg. Worst stipulation ever in their care of it. "But you could ask, you know. Maybe I had plans to partner with someone else? You know, like a Hufflepuff or something. I never sit with those." He didn't get to torture them quite as often either.

It was almost the weekend, and Mysti could smell it. That and the snow that was due.  Making her way up to the Divination classroom, Mysti was bundled up a fair bit, as the castle was quite drafty. It could get especially cold in the Divination area. Her egg for Care of Magical Creatures was with her, as she told Josh she could take care if Lizzy, as she’d decided to call it.  As she got to the classroom, she heard Professor Cuthbert’s instructions. Seeing the empty seat by Ferguson Amherst, Mysti decided to sit with him.  He, at least, was someone she could stand.

“I hope you don’t mind me joining you, Fergie. And this is Lizzy, my Care of Magical Creatures project.” She said, with a small laugh.

She glanced over at Callum and Beatrix, who were having egg problems, it seemed. So far, she and Josh hadn’t been doing too bad. Lizzy was doing fine. Making sure her egg was comfortable, Mysti settled in, and resisted pulling out her book for the tea reading. Without the book, this would be a little difficult.  Divination wasn’t her strongest suit, but she would do all right.

Reading tea leaves was always an interesting thing for Evie Pascal.  She wasn’t that good at it, but she surprised herself in foretelling a few things correctly. Divination had earned itself a place on her list of classes she could deal with. Though today, she would have to sit with someone she didn’t normally. This could make things interesting, and she was hoping it would be someone she could approve of. And she thankfully didn't have the egg with her. Adrienna had been taking care of it, and Evie would have it later. Now she had to worry about a partner for today.

Fergie had already been taken, and Evie decided to take a seat at an unoccupied table and let someone decide to sit with her. Thankfully, Beatrix Dark had forced Callum to sit with her so Evie didn’t have to worry about him.  Preparing the table, Evie made sure the necessary items were there and waited for someone to join her, and for some further instruction. For the moment, she would look out the window at the sky, which looked quite cold.

 Fergie let out a breath, the tension in his shoulders easing a little as Mystique sat at his table. He wasn't closely acquainted with the Hufflepuff, but she'd always been nice to him and she usually didn't dress poorly. Considering all the other people he could have ended up sitting with - Callum, Tawse, Beatrix, and even Neely, now that he'd gone and messed all that up - Mystique was actually a pretty good choice.

 "Oh, no, go ahead!" He greeted Mysti with a relieved smile, moving some of his things out of the way so she'd have adequate room for herself and her... egg. "I don't mind at all. Um..." He wasn't certain what he was supposed to say about her COMC midterm project, particularly since she'd apparently named it as though it were a person. Was he supposed to greet it? Because that was...weird. "Nice egg," he settled for, after an awkward pause, resisting the urge to shake his head. He was glad he didn't take Creatures. "You think you can do this without the text?"

Xavier had been happy about Divination lately. Ever since Cuthbert had taken over he had actually managed to bring up his grades, which help him come that much closer to being a true straight O student. The only other class he was struggling in was Care of Magical Creatures but since O Morain seemed to favour the Slytherins he didn't think it would be too hard to pull that mark up as well - even with the stupid egg project looming over his head. Although the Irish midget was completely unorthodox and probably completely unqualified to be teaching Xavier enjoyed Cuthbert's classes. He liked not having to stress out about making accurate predictions, all that was required of him was knowing how to do it, and that was easy.

With the assignment requiring him to sit with someone he usually wouldn't Xavier glanced around the room. For years he had been sitting with either Callum or Figaro. Fig didn't have this class and with both Callum and himself seeming to acquire girlfriends their interactions had been scarce lately. These days it was rare to see him without one of the Dark twins by his side, preferably Bellatrix but she didn't take this class either. With the unlikely pair of Bea and Callum and Mysti snatching up Fergie Xavier's eyes fell upon the only remaining Slytherin.

Gathering up his things Xavier made his way over to Ms.Pascal and sat down beside her with a smile. He liked Evie well enough. She was pretty and she was Slytherin but they didn't exactly run in the same circles. He was with Bella alot more these days and she was usually seen around the likes of Neely and Fergie, the best dressed Slytherins, if not students, in school.

"Mind if I join ye?"

Rain Miller had once liked Divination, when he was in his third year and it had seemed funny to stare wistfully at a crystal globe and try to picture what the swirly smoke inside meant. It had been rather like trying to find shapes in the clouds, all you needed was a bit of imagination and then that round bit looked like a nose and that triangle, if you tilted your head and sort of squinted your eyes could have looked like a rat.

But it had gotten boring and Rain's divining abilities, which had seemed so promising at first, were deteriorating. He found that he was more and more into joking on the matter, and less trying to find creative and quirky ways of seeing things. It hardly mattered anyway, it seemed to be no more than a game.

The professor requested that they work with someone they wouldn't normally work with today, and Rain surveyed the room in search of such a person, though none presented themselves. Many students did not like working with someone whose attention span was shorter than an ant, for obvious reasons; therefore, Rain was always in the habit of each time working with whoever was left.

His chocolate brown eyes landed on Cuthbert – well, he wouldn't normally work with him.

He grinned sheepishly, folded his hands behind his back and a few large steps brought him right in front of the professor. "Professor Cuthbert, I wouldn't normally team up with you." He stated, still smiling.

Rain was certainly being cheeky, but Rain was always cheeky. There was not much intelligence or glory in such a move either, since, if the professor would agree to allow Rain to read his tea-leaves, it would have to be some sort of test.

But if there was something the Gryffindor boy did not care about at all it was his grades.

Cillian looked up at Mr. Miller with a soft smile. He knew the kid was prone to what his muggle family would have classified as ADD. It wouldn't be the first time Rain was found without a partner and Cillian had expected the young man to be coming towards him to voice such an incident. He had no problem with matching the kids up with each other if they couldn't find partners of their own but he wasn't any idiot about it either. He wasn't going to put two kids together that were more likely to rip each other's throats out than actually do their work together.

"Professor Cuthbert, I wouldn't normally team up with you."

Cillian let out a deep bark of laughter. He definitely wasn't expecting that one. He gave Rain a wide smile and nodded, "Quite right ye are." He took out his Fir wand and gave a swish conjuring up another squishy pouffe for Rain to take a seat on. He handed the young man a teacup of his own, "I'll be back in a moment." He got up off the table he had been sitting on, "Now that ye have partners we cin start." He grabbed a large pot out of the fire and went around the room pouring tea into each of the students china cups making sure that they all got a healthy helping of tea leaves, "Once ye finish yer tea - and mind ye don't have ta drink if ye don't want ta, yer witches and wizards afterall ye cin figure out how ta git rid of thee tea on yer own by now - switch cups wit yer partner and do yer best. I know ye don't usually work without thee text but it's good practice fer yer OWLs. Write down what ye see fer yer partners and I'll be coming around to see how yer doing in a bit."

With the rest of the kids situated Cillian returned to Rain and perched himself on top of his table again. He drank the tea from his cup savouring the earthy flavour. He handed it over to Rain, "Alright Mr. Miller, wow me."

Percy Dervish was trying something new this year.  In previous years, the brainy Ravenclaw had always been the first one in the classroom, rarely ever even being beaten into the classroom by whatever professor was teaching the class.  But now, Percy was trying to appear more laid back, more "chill."  His clothes, his hair, and even the move from glasses to contacts had all served him quite well.  He certainly looked the part of "cool guy", regardless of how he felt inside.  Upon walking in slightly after Professor Cuthbert had begun the lesson was mortifying.  Percy bit his bottom lip as he lingered outside of the classroom for awhile and tried to wait for a moment to slip indoors as quietly as he could without being noticed.  He hadn't intended on being "late", but his pet toad- Grammar had been quite wild today and gotten into a jar of some magical fireflies.  The problem was, now Grammar had been belching flames and Percy had been playing firefighter.  His normally immaculate appearance was actually singed somewhat and he looked unusually sooty, wearing his blue and grey sweater vest over his firmly pressed, white dress shirt, blue tie, black slacks, robes, and dress shoes.  At least most of his clothes were black, but his dress shirt's white was a little...blemished from the flames.  Percy tried desperately to fight the swell of crimson that was rising up his neck, checks, and ears as embarrassment flooded him.  After a moment...Percy meekly raised his hand, though he quickly considered his posture and tried to recline more, leaning his head back against the rear wall and attempting to still his faintly quivering voice.

"Professor...Cuthbert?  I didn't get a partner.  I-don't have to have one.  I just thought I'd let you know in case it was important."

Poor Percy was trying to relax and play things cool, but he was so uptight.  In the classroom of all places, Percy should have felt comfortable.  But it was the struggles with socialization that had him constantly flustered, to the point where he wasn't even quite reaching his potential when he'd normally been head and shoulders above others in his studies.

 Reading tea leaves actually wasn't all that complicated - or at least, the ritual part wasn't. Fergie sipped his tea, preferring to drink it rather than get rid of the liquid with his wand. It didn't taste bad, and he figured that it would provide a more accurate reading if he drank it himself. How else could whatever magic lead the tea leaves to arrange themselves in patterns and shapes that could foretell the future get a good read on him, if he didn't drink it?

So he sipped quietly for a few minutes until there was only about half a teaspoon of liquid left in the cup. Then he spun the cup full circle a few times, holding it by the handle, and flipped the cup upside down, letting the excess moisture drain away before turning it back upright and pushing it towards Mystique. Now for the hard part - actually reading it. "Are you finished?" He inquired, not trying to rush the girl or anything. He just wanted to make sure he had ample time to get a reading.

((OOC - I used this website - link - for reference on the ritual of reading tea leaves))

Cillian looked up to Percy when the boy spoke up. He was still getting used to being called Professor Cuthbert. Even though he had been teaching for over five years now all of his students at the Inner Eye had been adults and just called him Cillian, it made him wish the students were more comfortable with using his first name as it would easily be more comfortable for him.

"Rubbish Mr Dervish, ye cin come up here an' read wit me an' Mr.Miller." Cillian gave a nod to the other young man that was sitting at the front of the class with him. He would have just partnered Rain and Percy together but given Mr. Millers habit of getting easily distracted he was probably doing Mr. Dervish a favour by having him come up to the front and be in a more supervised environment.

Once again Cillian turned to the class as students started to drink their tea and hand their cups over to their partners, "Try ta go as far as ye cin witout thee use o' yer texts. If ye absolutely need ta, bring 'em out. Jus keep in mind yer not goin' ta have 'em when sitting yer exams."

Percy Dervish tried not to make waves.  Professor Cuthbert was one of those professors that tried to make the classroom as comfortable as he could.  He was professional without being overly authoritative.  Percy quickly grabbed up his belongings, carefully balancing the teacup on his way to sit with Rain Miller up front.  He nodded somewhat...being practically the polar opposite of Rain.

"Hi..."

Perhaps the most outgoing and the most introverted of the students in the class were now paired.  Percy began to sip the tea...but couldn't help wishing it was green tea.  Ahh the power of green tea!  Nevertheless...Percy drank rather hurridly, wanting to get directly to the scholastic portion of the assignment instead of savoring the tea itself.  He grasped the tea cup's handle between a few fingers, keeping careful support underneath it with his right hand, even if the cup was now quite low on its liquid contents.  Percy counted aloud as he swished the tea from left to right.

"1, 2, 3."

Now Percy turned the cup over the saucer in a slow and precise fashion...allowing it to drain, before turning the cup back over.  He then looked to Rain, hoping to give him opportunity to participate fully without making him feel burdened.

"Good luck, Rain."

“Without the book it’ll be a little difficult. But I’ll do the best I can.” Mysti said, answering Fergie.

For the next couple minutes, she sat sipping the tea in her cup.  Luckily professor Cuthbert hadn’t chosen a really nasty kind.  This one wasn’t too bad, and wasn’t too hot either.  She nodded her head when Fergie asked if she had finished.  Then, Mysti did the same thing her partner had done, letting the cup swing a little and then inverting it over the saucer.  When the liquid had drained, she handed her cup to Fergie, accepting his.

“Umm... shall I start, or should you? I can I suppose. I’m not the best, but let’s see.” Mysti examined the cup. She looked for different symbols and tried her best at interpreting them.

“Um... I this is either a bird or..” She shifted the cup in her hand, “Or maybe an angel. So either way something lucky will happen. Maybe love? Doesn’t an angel mean something to do with love? Or I think they’re luck or happiness. Does that sound right?”

This definitely wasn’t her strong suit. Without the book, it made things a bit more difficult.  Hopefully it wasn’t too bad, and she’d at least pass. The longer she looked at it the more Mysti thought it could be an angel. Angels were happy things, normally, so luck or happiness would be a good thing to say.

“Yeah. You’re going to have something happy happen in the near future. A good event in your love life possibly.” Mysti set down the cup and looked back across the table at the Slytherin boy. “So what about mine?”