Divination Class

[doctordweeb.livejournal.com]

First class, and Daniel was admittedly nervous. It had been ten years since he’d lectured, and he had no idea if he could still do it.

Appalled by the tower’s former décor, he’d gotten rid of the poofy chairs and rather disturbing tablecloths, and replaced the shelves and tables with simple furnishings of dark polished wood. Being Daniel, he’d also had to hang up all kinds of weird artifacts from all over the world, including an extremely disturbing Benin ceremonial mask. At each of the desks he had placed a book, special-ordered from an esoteric book store in Indonesia.



Around the room, on much larger desks, were all kinds of odd equipment--everything from candles to long sticks to some bowls of nuts.

Once everyone was seated and more or less quiet, he scanned the crowd and launched gently into his lecture.

“All right, I’ve given each pair of you a book--your textbook didn’t cover most of what I wanted to teach. We’re going to do this a little differently; I want you to pair off, take your book, and rotate around each of these stations. I’ve marked each section in your book relevant to the divination process, so you’ll know how to do it. Rather than demonstrate, I want to see what you can make of each on your own--I’ll move around, in case anyone has questions.” He’d placed a notebook at each of the six stations, detailing how each divination method worked--Ifa, Chiromancy, Lithomancy, Runecasting, Cartomancy, I Ching, and Aura-Soma.

“Some of these are probably familiar--Chiromancy, more commonly called palm-reading, is common through most of the Western world. Some of them are more obscure, but none of them should be terribly confusing--again, if they are, don’t hesitate to ask questions.”

The list of partners was hung up on the front of Daniel’s desk, and read as follows:

Damien Thorn and Chance Silvey
Agnes Nutter and Molly Michon
Harry Dresden and Laura Palmer
Charles Ofdensen and Galadriel
Benton Fraser and Stephanie Brown
Jack Harkness and Susan Sto-Helit
Ayuma Kasaga and Penny Creighton-Ward
Max Headroom and Indiana Jones
Janet Fraiser and Shaun West
Provenza and Nealan of Queenscove
Camilla Macaulay and Henry Winter
Catelyn Stark and Sidney Reilly

Comments

[schizowarrior.livejournal.com]

At least Molly knew her parter--Agnes was her freaking hero, after fixing Molly's snapped spine. She found a table and lurked, waiting, flipping through the book as she did so--man, this stuff was weird, but it was pretty interesting.

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Catelyn was quite relieved that her partner was not a stranger. Besides Sidney, the only person she knew here outside of her family was Dr. Cox, who wasn't taking the class. She still moved nervously around strangers, despite the fact that she no longer looked like something out of a horror story.

[sidney-reilly.livejournal.com]

"Hello again," Reilly said, coming up beside her. "We appear to be working together today. I hope that's all right?"

[ex-ladyston.livejournal.com]

Catelyn turned. "Hello," she said. "That's quite all right--a relief, in fact; working with a stranger would likely make me very nervous." She'd lost a lot of social skills while she'd been a zombie...well, while she'd looked like a zombie.

[twoyearsmissing.livejournal.com]

Jack didn't know who Susan was, well he did but he'd never found out her name. It had been when he was about five years old, which wasn't all that long ago and he'd caused nothing but chaos for poor JD. He sat there wondering if he should actually know who his partner was for the class, he'd only shown up out of curiosity, and it seemed like it had been a good idea.

[usethepoker.livejournal.com]

Susan, who didn't have a clue she'd met Jack in mini-form, found him by the simple expedient of calling on her inherited talen for finding, well, anybody.

"Jack Harkness?" she asked, just to make sure she'd been right. "Hi. I'm Susan, I'm meant to be your partner." She glanced around at all the stations, wondering just what they were supposed to divine from a bowl of trail mix.

[twoyearsmissing.livejournal.com]

Jack looked up, he recognised her. "Yeah, that's me." He held out a hand to her, he wasn't sure to say about him being five or just let people go on thinking he had a kid. "I think you've met my JD."

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

Stephanie knew almost nothing about Benton Fraser, other than he was polite, a Mountie (kind of went hand in hand with polite, she assumed), licked (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1213163.html?thread=61944811#t61944811) a lot of things, and had many a cigarette-flavored (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1213163.html?thread=61941739#t61941739) make out session.

Also, he indirectly named her pet chicken (http://community.livejournal.com/hogwarts_hocus/1226804.html?thread=62669108#t62669108)

Okay, so Steph knew a lot about Benton Fraser. None of which was conducive to learning divination. This was going to be interesting.

[themountie.livejournal.com]

Well, this was an intriguing choice of partner, Fraser thought. And, for that matter, an intriguing lesson! This was actually the first full-on class he had attended, and he was eager to get started. Considering this a job-related activity, he was in uniform now, although he'd opted for the slightly more subtle brown working gear (http://home.hiwaay.net/~warydbom/duesouth/photos/season1/102a.jpg) over the extremely bright red serge.

Actually, that was less about saving anyone's eyes and more because he thought they might be working with entrails and didn't want to get his serge unnecessarily dirty.

"Good afternoon, Miss Brown. How are you today? And how is Buff Orpington?" He still thought a chicken was a silly choice of pet, if you weren't going to get eggs out of it, but that wasn't going to stop him from being interested.

[busty-robin.livejournal.com]

"Hi, Constable!" What? He was in uniform! "I'm good. Bright eyed, bushy tailed, all that. Buff's good too. Most effective alarm clock I've ever had! Roosters don't exactly have a snooze button. How're you doing?"

She gestured to the work stations. "Any preference? It's all Miss-Cleo's Hotline to me."

[charlesofdensen.livejournal.com]

Galadriel? Not a name he was familiar with. Certainly not a person he met during the sorting, either. No matter. Ofdensen took his just-gotten-that-day wand (dogwood, 15 inches, griffin's feather), and looked around for anyone that could concievably be a Galadriel.

[tolo-nan-galad.livejournal.com]

Galadriel stood slightly aloof, looking at the crowd milling for partners. She was here to study, but she did have a bit of experience with divination - her mirror for example, and her powers of the mind. She poked about a bit with her mind, listening for her name. When she found it, it was not someone she knew. But Galadriel always liked to make friends.

She crossed the room to the man who was her partner. She inclined her head to him in a nod of greeting. "Mae Govannon, sir. I am Galadriel."

Her own wand, brand-new from a shopping trip into Diagon Alley with an odd little person named Gonzo, was 12 inches of golden mallorn wood (amazing that Ollivander had had it!), with a heart composed of stardust.

[charlesofdensen.livejournal.com]

"Mae....Govannon, ma'am?" Ofdensen couldn't place the language whatsoever.

"I'm Charles Ofdensen. I believe Professor Jackson assigned us to be partners?" he added with his typical eyebrow raise.

[dresdenfile.livejournal.com]

Laura...I hadn't spoken to her in ages. I wondered how her charmed clothing was holding up against Galahad (who reminded me a bit of Mister, in that 'too-smart-for-a-cat' way). I sat back at a table to wait, stretching my legs out and leaning my staff against the chair. I didn't have a wand, because, being so used to my established foci, I didn't think I'd be able to use one.

[wh0-kill3d-m3.livejournal.com]

"Hey, stranger!" Laura slipped into the seat beside Harry and set Galahad down on the table in front of her. "You better behave yourself, or it's out the door with you," she told the treecat. To Harry she explained, "He whines terribly if I don't bring him to class. But he gets so bored, and he's got this mischief thing going for him that I don't quite trust. I figure he can't make too much trouble in Divination. Can he?"

[dresdenfile.livejournal.com]

Thinking about some of the methods I had recognized, I wasn't so sure. Class might get...interesting...with the cat around. "He might be able to, but I doubt it'll be anything destructive. You have anywhere you want to start?" I was just grateful they didn't go in for entrail-reading here.

[meatheadknight.livejournal.com]

Neal checked the list, and didn't recognise his partner's name. That wasn't terribly surprising; he hadn't been here more than a few months, and still didn't know most of the people at the school.

Milling around and trying to find his partner was probably going to be one of the least efficient ways of finding the person, expecially since the single name - Provensa - told him absolutely nothing about who he should be looking for. It looked like a surname, so he didn't even know if he should be looking for a man or a woman. So, Neal simply took a sheet of parchement out of his bag, folded it so that it would stand up on his desk, and wrote "Nealan of Queenscove" on it in bold, swooping letters. With any luck, his partner would find him.

[getoffmydesk.livejournal.com]

And find him he did. Provenza walked up to the desk, looked at the boy, the paper, and then back again. "You got a wand?" he asked the kid. Provenza himself was unprepared.

[meatheadknight.livejournal.com]

"Yes, I do, as a matter of fact," Neal said biting back a sigh. "I take it you don't?"

[teamseaslug.livejournal.com]

Osaka, along with her wand, has a few sets of disposable chopsticks on her desk. She also has a piece of parchment with "Ayumu" and an arrow pointing to her sitting in front of her, since it always seems like people get confused as to what her real name is. She's never met anyone named Penny, and hopes that she's nice.

[fabpenny.livejournal.com]

Penny scanned the room and saw the sign in front of her partner. She smiled with relief and hurried across the room to greet her. "Hello, I'm Penny," she said. "You're Ayumu? Grand."

[dr-fraiser.livejournal.com]

Janet waved at Daniel and offered a covert "thumbs up" at him. She didn't have a clue how to go about any of these divination techniques and hoped that her partner knew marginally more. Not that she was actually worried about grades at a school that held classes on such an informal schedule. But still, she didn't want to embarrass herself in front of Daniel and the rest of the class.

[redonme.livejournal.com]

Shaun, who didn't have a clue as to his partner's identity, decided to just wander around until he found her.

"Excuse me, are you Janet?" he asked. He still had the cricket bat, out of sheer paranoia, and, as he hadn't known where to go to get a wand, didn't have one.

[damien-thorn.livejournal.com]

Damien entered the room with a confident swing in his step, but his pace suddenly slowed when he saw the other students. Dresden was sitting at one table, talking to a girl Damien remembered encountering once or twice before. That man already had enough tricks up his sleeve, and Thorn wondered what motivated him to come. And there, at another table, was Reilly. Damien's lips twisted into a wicked smile when he thought about Reilly's future. The man was wasting his time. His remaining days would be very short, and with any luck, end with a spectacular mess.

The name next to his own was unfamiliar, and gave no indication of gender. Will we have to wear name tags like children? Damien thought. The answer, for the time being, appeared to be yes. Damien wrote his name in neat block letters on a scrap of paper, and placed the placard on the table next to him.

[chance-silvey.livejournal.com]

Chance arrived punctually, though not early. Many of the students had already arrived. Her partner was probably already here --

All right, that wasn't Reilly, because Reilly was over there, sitting with a woman who looked a bit worse for wear. And it sure as hell couldn't be Alan Grant. In the first place, Chance expected Grant would hold little truck with Divination, and in the second place, she didn't think it was his style to go around claiming to be someone he wasn't.

Yet there was a dead ringer for Grant sitting with a placard beside him that read the name of Chance's assigned partner. Damien Thorn.

She blinked. Are they budding, or what?

Never mind. She approached the table. "Chance Silvey," she said. "Your partner for the class. I don't believe we've met before."

Unless Grant had eaten a magical chocolate. Now there was a thought.