Lesson for Fifth Years on Potions

Professor Fawcett

February 22, 2009 7:51 PM

Lesson for Fifth Years by Professor Fawcett

Fifth year, as John well remembered, was hell. Unlike RATS students, who had at least some experience with the system of standardized examinations, CATS students walked in with nothing but their wands, a headful of dolorous tales about how difficult the exams were, and, in most cases, an acute awareness of the human brain's inability to retain all the facts they had spent five years cramming into their heads. Because of this, he was glad fifth years were not with one of the other years for their Potions class in their second semester.

He had a review planned for them in addition to the sample essay questions he'd procured, but still had a few potions left to go before they got there. One of which, unless his guess was totally off, some of the fifth years would be at least mildly tempted to make and consume illegally as CATS drew nearer, though he hoped their common sense would stop them short of doing so. There were far too many potions it was tempting to make on the syllabus for John's full peace of mind, but to not teach them was to have the students do abysmally on their exams, and that was unthinkable.

"Good afternoon, class," he said once he completed the roll and put it away. "Let's get to it. Today, you'll attempt to brew the Draught of Peace. It's a fiddly potion, takes full concentration to finish correctly, and it's an old favorite of CATS examiners. It's a bit stronger than a basic Calming Draught, and Healers and mediwitches and -wizards often use it under different circumstances.

"The ingredients for this potion are ginger roots, syrup of hellebore, essence of Belladona, powdered moonstone,unicorn hair, and scurvygrass, all of which you should find back in the cabinet. Instructions are on page 142 of the textbooks. You should work in pairs and, let me emphasize, pay careful attention to the instructions. Feel free to ask questions."

That concluded the lecture, which lead to the part John was relatively sure they would like even less. "For homework, I ask that you write at least a foot and a half on the proper uses of moonstone in potion-making. Writing is an important aspect of the CATS, and you want to be well-prepared." That was actually true, though he knew those who did get it were likely to only fully get it after the actual exam. "You may begin."

OOC: Standard posting rules apply, as always. Have fun!

0 Professor Fawcett Lesson for Fifth Years 0 Professor Fawcett 1 5

Elly Eriksson

March 17, 2009 4:59 PM

Floating on a sea of calm by Elly Eriksson

Elly was cheerful as she skipped every other step on her way to the potions classroom. Not wildly cheerful on a generic Elly scale, but probably the most content she had been since Echo left, so that was an improvement on the slightly less bouncy Elly she had been in previous weeks.

Upon entering the classroom, Elly controlled her skip-step to a normal walk, because she had caused more than one accident in the potions room in her five years at Sonora, and hoped she was now old enough to know better.

Slipping into a seat, Elly slung her satchel off her shoulder and dropped it unceremoniously at her feet, forgetting for a moment that it contained her potions kit, including some ingredients that really ought not to be dropped. Professor Fawcett was still taking the class, which meant no new potions professor yet. Elly supposed that Bulla would just wait til the end of the year and then find someone new to start off the next term. It made more sense, really, this late in the year.

The potion for the class was the Draught of Peace, with which Elly was already familiar because she had considered brewing up some for Echo in his most nervous phases. So she already knew that it contained essence of Belladona, which made her simultaneously grin in pleasure and sigh in frustration. She had a love-hate relationship with the stuff - it made her head go funny in quite an enjoyable way, but one not condusive to making potions of a passing grade. If Elly was of the persona to part-take in substance abuse, she would be sniffing some Belladona essence most days. As it was, although she enjoyed the fuzzy feeling of the fumes, she was far more interested in passing the class and not causing a disasterous accident. Nevertheless, she was unlikely to obtain as good a grade for this potion as for those with less intoxicating ingredients.

F;lipping her textbook to the correct page, Elly stood up abruptly and said, "Okay, let's get this show on the road." To the unfortunate yearmate who caught her eye, she winked, and said, "I've been told I'm lovely on essence of Belladona. This is going to be a riot."

0 Elly Eriksson Floating on a sea of calm 92 Elly Eriksson 0 5

Helena Layne

March 22, 2009 12:34 AM

Oh, that sounds nice. by Helena Layne

CATS prep was unpleasant, but it rarely killed anyone. For Helena, that fact was deeply comforting. When she realized she was starting on her fourth hour of homework, or had to run all the way to Quidditch practice, or finish a reading assignment in the bathroom at midnight so she didn't start problems with Annabelle - others had done this before her, and there was safety in numbers. If half the people in the upper years and her uncle Hal could pass their CATS and be relatively sane and healthy at the end, so could she.

As she sat down, she wondered what Professor Fawcett would teach next. A "permanent" Potions professor would probably be found over the summer, but it seemed inevitable that he would be back in some capacity or the other. Geoff thought Fawcett was Bulla's biological father and was blackmailing the Headmaster into firing professors so he could take the classes, but Anne didn't think he was old enough and swore he was really Powell's illegitimate half-brother. Helena's theory was that Sonora had the same ridiculously high rate of teacher turnover that it always had, so a deal had been cut with a retired genius to step in during the interims.

Helena began taking notes on the Draught of Peace as usual, in an orderly format and set system of abbreviations. She'd some familiarity with this potion, but already hoped it was a year the examiners chose not to favor it; though she felt reasonably sure he didn't know she knew, she knew Geoff had made it perfectly in his fourth year. Since she didn't have the best track record with not-extremely-fiddly potions, it was unlikely that she'd do the same.

She looked up from her potions kit automatically when she heard someone announce that the show was about to get out on the road - had everyone else really finished splitting up already? - and made eye contact with the speaker, Elly Eriksson.

She wasn't in Elly's circle, wasn't even on the fringes of it, but she'd worked with both Elly and Meredith and had a conversation with Saul and wasn't really overawed by them. As a group - Caedence did a tad to blur the photo, but who was she, witness to Anne and Geoff, to think friends would necessarily seem to fit together? - they seemed a nice, if gregarious, bunch. She actually considered Meredith one of her friendliest friendly acquaintances, and she liked Elly well enough. It didn't hurt at the moment, of course, that Elly was supposedly good at Potions.

Helena smiled slightly at the other girl. "You seem to use that word a lot in this class," she said lightly. It did - a full second too late - occur to her that Elly might well not remember what she was referring to, that Geoff claimed her memory for conversations was "freakishly good", but it was a little late now. "Or do I just bring out your secret inner anarchist?"

16 Helena Layne Oh, that sounds nice. 88 Helena Layne 0 5

Elly

March 23, 2009 11:59 AM

It's relaxing by Elly

Helena Layne was as good a partner as any. Though her comment about using a word a lot confused Elly for a moment. "Or do I just bring out your secret inner anarchist?" Helena said then, and Elly laughed.

"I didn't think it was a secret," she said. "And rioting is a hobby of mine," she said, with a grin and another wink. She didn't need others to bring that particular trait out of her; it had always come fairly naturally.

She began rummaging in her potions kit to find the ingredients for the lesson. She knew she didn't have rat spleen or caterpillars - why would she carry those around? - but there was one ingredient she knew for sure she had. "This stuff," Elly said, holding up her small bottle of essence of Belladona essence, "is dangerous for me." She put it on the far edge of the desk, as far from herself as she could sensibly put it while she checked the ingredients list again.

"I haven't made this one before," she said to Helena, "but I've looked into it so I basically know what I'm doing." It had all the same principles as all mood altering potions, with the added fun of the rat spleen - about which Elly knew all the dangers. Summoning rat spleens probably wasn't the best idea, so Elly neglected her usual method of obtaining ingredients on this occasion. "You want to get the other stuff or shall I?" she asked Helena, jabbing a thumb in the vague direction of the supply cabinet.

0 Elly It's relaxing 0 Elly 0 5