I think those could be considered words...

[kaymerrickson]

Kay Merrickson was sitting down at a rather decent-sized table, which was covered with various textbooks, notes, inkwells, and quills. It was nearing exams, and she had a lot of information that she thought needed to be looked over,and it never hurt to be over-prepared in her opinion. Sighing, she sifted through the pile of parchment, looking for her Ancient Runes notes. Finding them, she placed the pile down in front of her. Right there on the top was her notes from the group lesson, and glaring her in the face were the two Chinese runes, one for jade and one for king.



"I still don't see the difference," Kay said to herself.

[matthias]

Matthias had just entered the library, intending to study for History of Magic. That class was going to be his death, if it didn't kill him first. As he headed past a rather cluttered table, his feet seemed to be having a little trouble keeping to their assigned space. His left leg caught behind his right, and he started to go down. Luckily for him, there was a chair nearby that he could catch himself on. As he used the chair to steady himself, he quickly realized that it was actually occupied. Turning to the girl sitting there, he intended to apologize. Before he could say anything, though, she muttered something.

"I still don't see the difference" When he heard this, Matthias glanced over her shoulder and saw the Chinese runes from class. And what an eventful class that day had been. Without thinking, he spoke. "Ancient Runes, eh?" he asked. "Fun class..." Realizing he'd interrupted on her thoughts, he said, "Sorry. I couldn't help noticing you working on Runes stuff."

[kaymerrickson]

"No, its fine, and yeah, it is a fun class. I like languages and all, but Ancient Runes has been and never will be my forte. It might be because its not the alphabet I am used to. By the way, you were at the group lesson, correct? Would you mind helping me by pointing out the difference between the runes? I see the arrow pointing toward it, but they looked exactly the same," Kay replied, turning to look at the Slytherin. She was somewhat startled that a stranger had just addressed her, but if he took Runes, he could probably help her figure out the difference between these bloody runes.

[matthias]

Interesting. From the look of her robes, the girl was a Ravenclaw. And yet she needed help from a Slytherin. Weren't Ravenclaws supposed to be the smart ones? Oh well, no matter. Matthias pulled out a chair next to her and sat down. "Yeah, I was at the lecture," he answered. How could he have not been there? He was part of the reason Arianna had gotten kicked out. Mentally shaking it off, he peered at the girl's notes. "Um...I think the arrow is the difference. I think it's actually a stroke instead of just an arrow." Of course, he wasn't entirely sure about that. The professor's handwriting wasn't all that easy to read sometimes.

[kaymerrickson]

"Really? I never thought that was the difference. And here I thought that it was pointing out the difference. Lord, I feel so stupid right now. Thanks for pointing it out though, " Kay replied, almost blushing. She should have thought of that, she really should of thought of it. She smiled a small, cautious smile at the boy sitting next to her, not really knowing what he thought of her.

"Would you like to sit here? I can clear off some of my things if you wish," she added. The library really was almost full, and this way he was in reach if she needed to ask him another question. She reached out and gathered up her history books and notes, since she knew she really did not have to revise for that course, and placed them on the floor next to her bag. "My name's Kay Merrickson, by the way. And yours would be?" Kay asked.

[matthias]

"No problem," Matthias responded. He saw the girl's smile, and returned it with a warm one of his own. No need to make her think he thought she was stupid or anything. After all, it was an honest mistake, one he could easily have made as well.

"And I think I will sit here, if you don't mind," he added. He glanced at the books she moved aside and noticed history books among them. Perhaps Kay could help him out with his studying. Later though. For now, the important thing was helping out with the Ancient Runes stuff. A review for the class wouldn't be a bad thing by any means.

[kaymerrickson]

Seeing his warm smile, Kay responded with one of her own. She really was glad that he was willing to help her out with Ancient Runes, since she really was struggling to remember the topics that were assigned. This year had been all about the Mayans, and while they were interesting from a historical viewpoint, especially with their advanced astronomical knowledge, Kay really could not get interested in their way of writing.

"Thank you so much for being willing to do this. I am afraid that I am quite dense when it comes to the Mayan stuff. Now I know that they count in Base Twenty and that we count in Base Ten, but when I try to convert our Arabic numbers over to Base Twenty, it doesn't turn out like the book says it should. Would you mind teaching me how to do that properly? I really don't get math," Kay replied, slightly leaning toward the Slytherin. She really shouldn't trust him, but he just had this vibe that came off that made her want to trust him.

[matthias]

"Mayan runes?" Matthias asked. "My class went over that..." he paused to think for a second. "Last year. Yeah, it was last year." He turned and reached for his bag to grab a bit of parchment and a quill, but quickly realized that he hadn't brought it. Turning back to Kay, he said, "All right. Eventually I'm gonna need something to write on and a quill, but for now we can just go over some of this verbally." He closed his eyes, thinking again. He understood the subject well enough, but teaching it was another thing. He needed to figure out the best way to go about this, and that was something that required concentration. And concentration could only come by blocking out all distractions, especially the visual ones.

Opening his eyes again, he let them rest on Kay's face as he said, "Ok, so you know the basic numerals, right? And the different slots for them to go in?" His eyes remained on her face as he awaited her answer.

[kaymerrickson]

Kay looked over the organized chaos that was her section of the table, and quickly found some parchment and a spare quill. "Here you go, you can borrow this, and there is a spare inkwell floating around here somewhere, but I can't seem to find it," she replied, while handing the stuff over.

Kay went on to say, "And I do get the whole dot represents 1, a bar represents 5, and a shell represents 0 bit. Its just that I can't figure out how to go from there. I can figure out the spots for numeral spots Base 10, but when I try to apply that to Base 20, I just get confused," She really hated math. History and Anthropology, she could understand that, but when she had to figure out anything not involving multiplying, dividing, subtracting, or addition, she was at a loss.

[matthias]

"Thanks," Matthias muttered as he started looking around. The inkwell must have been really well hidden, since he wasn't finding it. While he searched, he talked. "Right, so you know they write the numbers vertically, right? Well, it'll probly help to turn them sideways, at least for now." If he could find that inkwell, he could explain this with pictures...where was the bloody thing? "So you've got your bottom numeral, which is the ones, basically..." his voice trailed off as he found the inkwell. He grabbed it and opened it, and started drawing a couple numerals on the parchment.

"Ok, so like I was saying, you have the bottom numeral (or, in our case the farthest right) that's more or less the ones. You multiply the number that numeral stands for by 1. The next numeral up (or to the left for us) is the 20's. This time, you multiply the number it stands for by 20. Next one is the 400's, and then the 800's. Got it so far?"

[kaymerrickson]

"Yeah, I think so," Kay replied, looking over the supposed number he had written down. Thinking hard, she added, "So with what you were saying, there would be 18 ones, 6 twenties, 14 four hundreds, and, um, 2 eight hundreds." She picked up a quill, dipped it in an inkwell, and wrote that out so it looked like this:

(1x18)+(6x20)+(14x400)+(2x800) = ???

Now that it was in something she understood, Kay was ready to go. Sucking on the end of the quill and occasionally jotting down numbers, Kay started slowly working through the equation, finally ending up with a result of 7,338. Going through it again, she (miraculously) ended up with the same number. "Is it 7,338? Or at least, is that what it would be in Base 10?" she asked, turning to look into the eyes of the boy beside her.

[matthias]

Matthias looked at Kay's answer a bit skeptically. That didn't seem quite right. He jotted down a few figures and worked it out himself. Sure enough, her number was off. But how? He'd watched her do it twice, and her numbers all looked right, except for the answer. Wait...that one was off... Did I tell her the wrong number there? he wondered. "Well, shoot." He said aloud. "I think I messed up. I think I said 800 when I should have said 8,000. Sorry about that. It should be 21,738." Now that was a bit embarrasing...

[kaymerrickson]

"It's all right, I didn't even know how to do it. Thanks for showing me by the way," Kay replied, smiling at the boy. It wasn't his fault that it was difficult to switch from base twenty to base ten, and it really was nice of him to try to teach her it. He really was a sweetheart, and she didn't even know his name. He had dodged that question.

"So do you have name? Sorry to be so rude, but you never got around to answering that question. And if you studied the Mayan runes last year, that means you are in your fifth year, correct? How goes studying for your OWLs?", Kay added. She thought that she had at least some idea of who was who at Hogwarts, and it was rather odd that she did not remember that he was at the Runes lesson.

[matthias]

"Yeah, no problem," Matthias replied. He smiled at her second comment, before answering, "It's not rude at all, I'm afraid I missed the question. Sorry. I'm Matthias. Matthias Gardyner, and yes I am a 5th year. Studying is going quite well, thank you." At least, studying was going as well for him as it ever did. He generally didn't care for studying, so finals were always a drag. And OWLs were even worse than finals. History of Magic was going to kill him, like it did every year. The difference was, this would be the last year he'd have to take the bloody course.

[kaymerrickson]

"Well, that's good. Personally, I am dreading mine. I may be a Ravenclaw and all that, but all that studying is daunting. I hope you really do not mind me asking another question, but do you remember anything about the Mayan calenders? The professor was referring to the unlucky days, but I can't seem to find out the name for them. Also, whats up with the 260 day calender? It seems that the Mayans used two calenders simultaneously, according to the books, but yet the professor really didn't mention anything about the second one. He just referred to the solar calender," Kay asked with a small smile. She really hoped he wouldn't mind helping her figure out this, and it was probably a good review for him, anyhow. It made her feel a little bit less guilty by taking up his study time.