Lesson Three - First Years

[rachel]

After having had a day off, a day of rest and relaxation, Rachel was really ready to kick start her lesson. She always loved the first years lessons, even though they always seemed to be tired. Rachel loved teaching the basic Astronomy, the further along the class was, the harder it got for both the students to understand, and the teacher to make them understand. It wasn't a hateful thing towards any of her students, because really, she loved her sixth and seventh years too, she just had fun with the first years. Rachel liked being able to make their lessons fun, even though she hadn't yet, and she felt quite guilty for that. She planned on doing something the next lesson they had, but she wasn't going to give anything away, Rachel was going to keep it a secret.

Pushing the desks back into place, Rachel sighed. It was almost midnight, and there were no student here. She had done everything she'd needed to do, and for the first time she was truly ready. This would be the first practical lesson that the first years have had with her, and she was hoping that the students would actually enjoy it. She had looked at the microscopes with them, she had gotten them to look through the microscopes, but only briefly, so that she didn't have to waste time going through that when it was time to use them.

The students today would be looking at the stars, observing the constellations. They would each have to pick two from the text book and then try to find them, before drawing them and marking the degrees that they had found them. This was so that Rachel knew that they had done it, and not just picked it out of the book. She didn't like making the work too hard on them, it was their first year, but that definitely didn't mean that they were getting off scot free, it just meant that she wasn't going to over work them. Opening the door, Rachel took a seat on the floor next to her desk, waiting for the students to arrive.

[Isabella Huntington]

She knew that it was dangerously close to midnight, but being late to Astronomy was the last thing on Izzy's mind as she made her way up one of the many towers of Hogwarts castle. It was a struggle for the Gryffindor to climb the winding staircase, and she frequently stopped to take a rest and to try to steady herself. Dizziness had been one of the first symptoms to make itself known several weeks ago, back when Izzy was sure what she had was just a cold. A lot had developed since then, and now the first year was certain that she actually had a case of Dragon Pox. The red patches of skin, the sore throat, and now nausea, only confirmed her suspicions. And made her even more miserable.

She had been dealing with the itchy patches and a very sore throat for a couple of weeks, while the nausea was relatively new. She'd been experiencing it for no more than four or five days now, and it had only been about fifteen minutes ago when her stomach finally denied everything that had been in it. That was the main reason why she was close to being late.

Izzy briefly wondered if she was better off staying in her dormitory instead of going off to Astronomy, but then she reminded herself that she had made a promise earlier about finishing today, and then taking a break from academics tomorrow. She just had one more class to get through... and besides, she was almost there. Just a few more steps and she'd be right outside the door to the classroom.

When she reached it, the Gryffindor slowly made her way into the room and to the first desk she saw. With a loud thud, the bag containing her books and other items fell on the floor next to the desk. She then collapsed into her seat and laid her head down on the desk. Maybe she could take a little nap before class started.

[vi]

Vi woke up with a start in the Slytherin Dorm, realizing that it was approximately 11:50PM. CRAP! Vi whispered rather loudly as she jumped out of bed, changing her clothes as fast as she could from her PJs to her Hogwarts Uniform. She grabbed her pile of quills and parchment and her books and ran, realizing that she had approximately 10 minutes to get from the Slytherin dungeon to the Astronomy Tower. If only Apparating was both known and possible to her...

She climbed staircase after moving staircase, running through the quiet halls noiselessly, something she learned after her countless midnight runs from Muggle authorities. She held her piles tight to her body, her blonde hair waving behind her. Her blue eyes bulged when she realized that she had run through a group of gossiping ghosts. She stopped in her tracks, feeling like every inch of her was frozen. The ghosts looked at her, quite annoyed. She didn't look back, but stood there, speechless. After a minute of freezing, she shook it off and broke into a full-out run to the tower, now set back a couple precious minutes.

She finally entered the Tower, a bit sleepy and a bit fatigued. She looked in, seeing that there was only one student in the room. She wasn't late after all. She looked at the girl warily and saw that she was sickly looking and probably contagious. That's disgusting, she said under her breath as she took a seat far away from the girl. She didn't want to catch whatever it was that the Gryffindor was spewing.