Astronomy Lesson three (First years)

Sighing Colin leaned against his desk, blinking his eyes tiredly. He would have to apply for the class that happened in the evening wouldn't he?

He looked at his watch, he hoped the students arrived soon; he never was good at waiting.

Jamie walked into the room still feeling a little sleepy but she had to go to class. Jamie had a chance to look around the room to see only she was there. "Hello professor" Jamie said. Jamie took her seat in the very back and got what she needed from her bag.

Aquila was unnaturally pep-y for the hour of the evening.

Seeming completely unaffected by any of the tiredness that was plaguing the others in the room he came in full of energy and smiles.

"And how is everyone on this fine evening," he quipped with his smile as he flopped into a chai about mid-way through the room, "Evening Professor."

He attempted to sit still for a moment, but the acted failed quickly. First he began to tap his hands on the desk, then it lead to squirming, and then finally he gave up all pretences and started examining the room at a whole.

His gaze quickly fell on the only other student in the room; a slytherin girl who also happened to be in all his classes so far.

"Hello there," he smiled mischeviously, "Aquila Turrow - sauve lady's man, and your dream come true," he joked having trouble keeping a straight face, "and you are?"

Damian made his way up to the Astronomy classroom, mind lost in his thoughts, though, he wasn't exceptionally tired. Entering the class, the boy nodded respectfully to the professor before moving to take a seat near the front of the class.

Jamie turned to the boy from Ravenclaw who just said something to her "Jamie Malfoy" Jamie tried to keep it short. She waited for the professor to start the class so she can leave sooner.

"Nice to meet you Jamie," he nodded at her politely, turning back around in his desk thinking well, that was boring.

Obviously she had not wish to converse and if he was only going to get one word answers to his hard thought invested jokes he didn't either.

He began taping on his desk again, quite unconsiously. He thought about trying to talk to the other boy, but he did not wish to yell up to the front of the room so he left it for now.

Instead he looked around the room as a whole. It seemed like there were missing people; hadn't there been more first years last time?

Flora walked into the class and greeted the Professor. She went and sat next to Aquila, 'Hey' she greeted him.

"Flora!" Aquila beamed as the Ravenclaw girl sat beside him. Finally something to funnel his exess of energy into. "Amuse me; this class has yet to start and I am infinitely bored waiting for it to do so."

Rebecca sipped the coffee her sister had thoughtfully provided as they made their way up to the classroom. Climbing into the tower was a bit of a pain, as the stairs were steep and tall, but they were both athletic girls and had no problems with the physical aspect of it.

She closed her eyes briefly at the top, as images floated across her vision, disjointed and making no sense. Sometimes her visions were like that, sometimes they weren't.

With a huff, she continued into the room. "Good evening, Professor."

Colin blinked tiredly as the last of his first years strolled in, and then shook his head trying to get himself awake.

"I hope all of you are more awake than I am," he laughed softly as he straightened himself up. "I'm glad that you have all decided to join me in Astronomy - the study of the sky. You may or may not be aware that the Astronomy is the oldest study worldwide. The ancient people were always facinated by what the night sky has held. Of course their methods were much more rudimentry than what we have today - so what they thought they knew was obviously a little off."

He sighed and strolled over to the window to open it. Allowing both a better veiw of the night sky and the cool air in the room to help keep him - and the students - awake.

"Since this is a first year class," he said as he made his way back to the center of the room, "I thought we'd start with the most basic of nightly objects." He waved his hand towards the window where the moon was gleaming brightly over the Castle.

"So, what do you know about the moon? Feel free to just yell it out."

Valerie grinned. "Well I know it's not made of cheese!" She anounced jokingly. "But seriously, do you mean literally, or can we throw in some mythology? And would you like some coffee? You look tired." She offered. "I brought enough for an army."

"The moon is the earth's satellite," Damian offered. "It also helps control ocean tides." He rather agreed with Valerie that his head of house looked tired.

"You and bored." Flora smirked at Aquila, "What a surprise!"
She raised her hand as the professor asked a question, "It's also belived that the moon was originally a part of earth broken free from where the Pacific Ocean is today. And it rotates around the earth in about 27 days and a half."

Colin laughed softly at the first answer he recieved, "Thank you Ms. Greenway - I'm glad to hear that none of you are under that misconception; You may thow in anything you like. I literally want to know what you know about the moon. And thank you but I will have to pass on the coffee." He was tired, but he was sure it was unprofessional to be taking things from the students. Besides, once he got into the topic he would forget about anything else.

"Thank you Mr. Grey - five points for each of those answers."

"The same for you Ms. Evans." he smiled at the Ravenclaw girl, "and you have actually hit upon the exact thing I want to start with - How did the moon get there? You have stated a theory, Ms. Evans, but there are three more than I want to focus on specifically; Does anybody know which ones I am getting at?"

"Some muggles believe in the, erm, 'Big Bang Theory'?" said Damian, his uncertainty turning it into a question. "Anyway, they think that everything started out as a really dense mass or something that exploded everywhere. Then, the bits and pieces - dust and stuff - clumped together to form planets and stars and moons, with the smaller stuff orbiting stuff with greater mass and gravity. So, the moon is just a smaller bit orbiting a bigger bit.

"Or, um, I think it's something like that." Quite honestly, Damian had always had trouble following said theory, and had been far more interested in stargazing that strange theories.

"Very good Mr. Grey - Despite your uncertainty you're close enough that I will give you five points for that answer."

He flicked his wand at the chalkboard and the worlds 'Simaltanious creation theory' appeared in neat white script.

"Although the big bang explains the theory of the whole creation of the universe - and I was looking for just the creation of the moon - it is close enough to the discription of this theory that I will take it. Mr. Grey is correct - it is believed that objects are created from 'dust' which in this case happens to be different particals of elements that were all pulled together to meld into a planet, or a star, or the moon.

"In this theory people believe the moon did just happen to be a clump of elements that formed close to and around the same time as our earth here - and since the earth was bigger, it created a stonger gravitational pull and pulled this mass into its orbit creating what we know as our moon."

He paused looking thoughtful for a moment, "However people have found some flaws with this theory. If the earth and moon were created close together they should have most of the same elements in their composition. The moon however has almost to no iron while our own earth is very iron rich."

"So," Colin twirled his wand in his hand, "That is one theory. I still got two more up my sleeve. Anyone else want to wager a guess? You got nothing to lose. I'm only interested - right now - in awarding guesser with points, not taking them away. Any takers?"

After a moment of pondering, Aquila put up his hand. It was always worth a guess.

"I believe some people believe that the moon is just a big chunk of space rock... that got to close to use and," he made some pulling motion with his hand and accompanied it with a small whistle, "it got stuck in our orbit."

"Five points Mr. Turrow - yes, it is commonly thought that the moon is just fly space junk that was caught by the earth's pull."

He flicked his wand so the words 'Capture theory' joined the others on the board.

"This one had two problems with it though. There is the fact that the moon - although not holding the key component of Iron which flawed the last theory - is surprisingly similar to our earth's composition. If one is to follow the Capture Theory, then this fact becomes hard to explain. Secondly, there would have to have been some mysterious force to slow the 'moons' movement for the earth to capture it."

"Now, there is one more theory, which I am just going to go ahead and give you, for this one is rather obscure to the general public although it is the most commonly accepted theory."

He flicked his wand once more and the word's Impact theory appeared.

"This one states that some time long ago in the earth's history it was hit by an objected about the size of mars. The moon is assumed to have formed from the 'dust' of both objects - accounting for the composition problems of both the former theories."

Once that was done he nodded and then clapped, "Okay - I hope that you have that down for we are moving onto the next aspect of the moon I wanted to focus on - it's phases. Between when we see the moon at it's brightest, and when it is brand new there is eight phases. Does anyone know any of them?"

Flora raised her hand, 'I think they are called New Moon, Waxing Crescent, First Quarter, Waxing Gibbous, Full Moon, Waning Gibbous,Last Quarter and Waning Crescent.' she counted off on her fingers.

Jamie raised her hand "When the moon covers the sun it is called Eclipse and people usually love Eclipse because of the site you see but your not aloud to look up" Jamie didn't no if she was right but it was just a guess.

Valerie shrugged, "I think it you make something called a pinhole camera, you can look at it. Right?"

"Yes Ms. Evans I do believe you go them all. Thank you - you can take five points for Ravenclaw," he flicked his wand so that all the stages that the Raveclaw girl had said appeared, replacing the former words on the board, "As for the rest of you - Misses Malfoy and Greenway - you are both correct on the contest of eclipse, unfortunatly that wasn't what we were looking for right now."

"Can any one tell me which of these stages our own moon is in right now?"

He glanced at the moon, admiring the sight as he'd always done; if he had to spit ball himself he'd call it a waxing gibbous but he wanted to see what the children would say.

Damian frowned thoughtfully out at the moon. He'd been more interested in the constellations and the stories behind them when Theo had taught him before, so the moon phases weren't really his strong suit - well, except how they could apply to potions.

He raised his hand. "Isn't it the, uh..." he paused to think of the correct term. "Waxing gibbous, sir?"

Rebecca nodded and wrote everything down. She glanced outside herself, and wondered how the boy had figured it out. She had thought that was what it was, but was hesitant to offer her answer. She had studied the moon with a fascination, which her sister thought strange. Valerie had no clue about the moon other than what Rebecca told her. Val was a big fan of the legends of the sun, though.

She smiled, and sat back, allowing class to flow around her serenely. A vision flitted on the edges of her conciousness, but that's the way it always had been. She ignored her glimpses of the mercurial future.

"You know, they say Seers get their powers from the Moon Goddess in some cultures," She said offhandedly to Val, but winced when it came out louder than she had anticipated. Could the Professor had heard that?

"Good job Mr. Grey - that will be five points for Hufflepuff," he smiled and nodded at the moon. His smile grew slightly more bemused when he heard one of the Ms. Greenway's whispered comment, "It is true that some cultures did and do say that. Ms. Greenway, but as you know even her in the magical community there is some debate on where such powers come from - or from a few skeptics still if they even exist."

"Now, that was all I had to cover for the moon today - so I want you to make sure that you have that all written down or squared away in your brain."

He paused for a moment before continuing.

"But just because that's all I got to say, doesn't mean that it is all you have left to do; when people study the sky they will notice that - if one looks long enough - that it's not always the same. Stars come and go, and things like the moon and planets have thier own orbits that move them about. Throughout this year, and your studies in astronomy, I would like you to have a record of these changes. So you will be making star charts."

He waved his wand and large pieces of chart paper appeared on their desks.

"You will have to make several of these - so I think it would be best if you got started on your first one now, and since right now I will be focusing on the moon and the planets, although I want you to get all the stars in, I want a specail focus, for you guys on that."