Professor Fawcett
May 29, 2009 10:59 AM
Lesson for First and Second Years by Professor Fawcett
For the first time in his quasi-career at Sonora, John was taking the same class in two successive academic years. It was not something he had expected to happen, and it caused him concern on at least two levels, but there it was: he'd been called back to fill in for Potions once more, and had accepted again.Now, here he was, introducing the first years to the art of potion-making and no doubt confusing the second years who'd already had him as a sub. Once the flow of students reduced itself first to a trickle and then to a stop, he closed the door firmly and went around the (already paper-covered; his concern that he was getting too comfortable in the room was not ill-founded) teacher's table to address his pupils.
"Welcome," he said warmly, "or, as the case may be, welcome back, to Potions. For those of you who aren't familiar with me, I am Professor Fawcett." He used his ever-handy pointer to indicate where the words Professor J. M. Fawcett, in careful print, were located on the board. "As the second years among you should know, I am also merely a substitute. Until such time as the Headmistress secures a new professor for Potions, however, I will be taking this class."
He put down his pointer, not needing it for the moment. "I realize that some of you have no experience in Potions, or lack the...aptitude for it. That's perfectly fine. As long as you follow safety regulations, act sensibly, and do the best you can, I'll be satisfied. However - " here his tone went stern; this was a matter of as much importance to him as to the school - "you will be dealing with fire and with solutions that can do you serious harm if mishandled. When you are in this lab, use caution. No running or pushing or unnecessary wielding of scalpels. Do not spill your potion on purpose, or add ingredients not found in the list. Make sure to read and follow all directions carefully as you work; performing steps in the wrong order, or with the wrong quantities of ingredients, can cause disaster."
He decided it was time to lighten the intimidation act. He had never been good at it anyway; though he was tall, John was also thin, graying, bespectacled, and usually had some variety of ink stain on his hands or clothing. Not exactly a force to be reckoned with. "There are other ways to make a mess of things here, but I will trust you to make use of common sense until you give me a reason not to," John told them, moving back behind his table to look over his normal glasses (too much bother to whip out his readers; his wife had suggested bifocals over the summer, but after how long it had taken her to talk him into getting reading glasses, he doubted Allison had been surprised by his resistance to the idea) at the roster. "Please say 'here' as I call your name. Charlotte Abbott..."
Once roll was called, John erased his name from the board and took up the chalk, this time writing down page 37. "Here, you may find your first potion," he told them, then gave them a moment to find it in their textbooks. "A simple cheering draught. It's not nearly as powerful as a good number of the mood-altering potions you'll study for RATS, but still not something to indulge in frequently. A cheery disposition might seem like a good thing, but when you are cheery at a funeral, it can cause you a number of social difficulties.
"The ingredients are asphodel root, daisy root, fluxweed, and ginger. All of these should be in a standard potions-making kit, but if you are for some reason running low on an item, there are reserve supplies in the cupboard." For clarity, he used his pointed to indicate where it was. It was always best to count on at least one student in every class being as dense in non-academic matters as he'd been at eleven during the Stone Ages. "Separate into partners, remember to be sensible, and begin."
OOC: Standard posting rules - 200 words per post, somewhere between eight and ten lines on screen, with decent spelling and grammar for a minimum - apply. Nice, detailed posts are preferred. Spills, accidents, and unsuccessful products are allowed. Have fun!
Subthreads: Sensible? What's that mean? by Jose Hernandez with Connie Jones, Jose
Is anyone brave enough to work with me? by Cassandra Kerrigan, Aladren with David Lancaster, Teppenpaw, Cassie
All I need is a cup of cheer... by Edmond Carey with Daniel Nash II
Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble. by Marissa Stephenson with Quentin Melcher
Re: Lesson for First and Second Years by Andrew Duell with Jethro Smythe, Jethro
A cheering potion is exactly what the doctor ordered. by Euna Song with Clarissa Marigold, Euna, Headmistress Powell
If only everyone had just a little dab of this. by Adelita Garcia (Crotalus) with Charlotte Abbott, Lita
Hassled... by Insomnia Zannicci with bridjalyn Tuppin Pecari, Anonymous
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Professor Fawcett
Lesson for First and Second Years
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Professor Fawcett
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Jose Hernandez
May 29, 2009 1:51 PM
Sensible? What's that mean? by Jose Hernandez
Coming from a semi-magical background like the California Pierces, Jose Hernandez had only one class that loomed large and foreboding ahead of him. He was familiar with Charms (he'd even been allowed to try a few very simple ones while Maria stood sentry against Muggles), and even if he'd not tried it yet himself, the act of Transfiguration was just a matter of course during normal daily activities. History was a homey place that surrounded him on a daily basis. He spoke Elizabethan English fluently.DADA was somewhat less commomplace, but Jose wasn't worried about it. He figured he knew at least as many monster legends as anybody else and his seventh year cousin was taking it at the RATS level. Saul might not be exactly academically reliable, but Jose trusted he could help out on first level assignments if needed.
Care of Magical Creatures might have been even less familiar territory, but Jose liked animals and figured that would get him through most of the lessons. And that left only potions.
Oh, he knew about potions. He knew too much about potions, and that was the whole problem. Because everything he knew came from Animal and Environmental Rights brochures about the illegal, inhumane, or unsustainable poaching or harvesting methods of potions ingredients.
He arrived for his first class in the subject with a heavy dread. Saul had lead the first years here, but even his cousin's buoyant cheer hadn't managed to lighten his spirits.
Jose sat in the back of the room and worriedly picked at the sleeve of his robe as Professor Fawcett went through the preliminaries and introductions. Unable to sit still, Jose shifted in his seat, fiddled with his pen and wand, rearranged his books on his desk, and nearly had a heart attack when he heard his name called out before he realized it was just role call and managed to get out a choked 'Here!'
And then there was the day's potion.
Jose anxiously turned to page 37 and read over the ingredient list. He very nearly whooped when he saw the most controversial item on the list was asphodel root. Talk about a cheering potion. He beamed at his neighbor, not caring if the other kid thought he was a touch manic.
He flipped open his organic potions kit - which contained only plant products grown by environmentally conscious herbologists - and checked to see if he had everything. Ginger, check. Daisy root, check. Fluxweek, yep. Asphodel root . . . ah, yes, right there. He bounced excitedly in his seat, still grinning. "I can actually make this one," he told his neighbor, thinking only of his ethical restrictions rather than his actual potions skills. "Whoo, cheering draught!" Jose clearly had no need to imbibe their final product.
He lugged his battered cauldron - a hand-me-down from Saul that he would not swear had never been used as target practice - up onto the shared desk between him and his neighbor. "So, you ever made a potion before?"
As he asked, he took off the rose tinted John Lennon glasses he'd been wearing to this point and tucked them into his bag. From the same pocket of the bag, he grabbed a leather strap band and gathered his loose dark hair into tail at the nape of his neck, tying it off and out of the way with practiced ease. With another confident glance at the waiting cauldron, he rolled back his school robe's sleeves in preparation, giving off the distinct (but entirely wrong) impression that this was not the first time he'd been confronted with the task of brewing anything.
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Jose Hernandez
Sensible? What's that mean?
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Jose Hernandez
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Connie Jones
May 31, 2009 6:56 AM
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/sensible?view=uk by Connie Jones
Connie slunk into Potions class and plonked herself down with a slight 'harruf',' arms crossed on the table and head nestled between them. She'd been so glad that Pepper was going to be around. That'd she'd be there to look after her. She'd forgotten that that easily strayed into fussing with Pepper, and that sisters could be embarrassing. Hers had been leading the little Teppenpaw first years down to Potions and been waiting for her outside the door to the classroom.“Looks like you'll be needing this first,” she'd said, handing over the cauldron that they had to share (as if hand-me-downs weren't bad enough, they were going to have to share a cauldron). And then, to add insult to injury, she had been informed that “Long hair needs to be tied back for Potions,” and seen her sister flicking her wand. The next thing she knew, she'd felt a pulling sensation all along her scalp as her hair had tied itself into a ponytail. Glaring, she had made her way into class and sat down. Had Pepper had to play the fussy, know-it-all sister in front of everyone on their first day of classes? She didn't see anyone else's older sibling acting like their mum, cleaning dirt off their cheeks or telling them to sit up straight and behave well. It didn't help that she hated having her hair tied back either. She had quite pretty ringlets when it was left down, but tied up, the mass of curls got bottlenecked at the hair-tie and then splayed out in some sort of ridiculous explosion. She tried to tug it out but found that it wouldn't budge. Perhaps magically tied up hair needed to be magically undone. That was so unfair.
She perked up a bit when the teacher started talking. Whilst the names 'Potions' 'Charms' and 'Care of Magical Creatures' were quite self-explanatory, she didn't know the whats, wheres and how-it-all-actually-works of any of it and was pretty keen to find out. However, she found herself vastly uninspired by what turned out to simply be the magical equivalent of “Don't chase each other with the Bunsen burners and please handle the chemicals safely.” Bleh.
“Here,” she mumbled to the role call, the little knot of bad mood tightening as she realised she was going to get her stupid full name called out by every teacher. Eventually, they were finally told that they were going to be making a Potion. A cheering one. That caught her off guard a little. She wondered about raising her hand to ask about it but if it was common in the wizarding world, she'd probably look stupid. As the person next to her declared himself able to do this, and seemed to have a full set of supplies out already, perhaps she could just ask him. She noted he seemed to have a very battered cauldron which a) seemed to back up the idea that he came from a background where cauldrons were well used and he thus knew his stuff and b) suggested that he might be another victim of hand-me-downitis and wouldn't look down on her.
She shook her for 'no' when he asked if she'd ever made a Potion before, pulling out her text book too to show some willing. Pepper had been a very careful owner and no one would suspect that the book wasn't new, bar a couple of tell-tale signs; the inside cover where two words of the neatly sloping hand that declared the book to be 'Property of Pepper Jones, Teppenpaw House' had been crossed through and replaced, in a more scrawly hand, with 'Connie' and 'Pecari' respectively, and the pages where things had gone terribly wrong, and potions had spewed forth over the book. The cheering draught, however, didn't seem to have been one of these, and the page looked spotlessly clean.
“I don't come from a magical family,” she explained. “Um... Is this sort of thing normal to wizards? Using magic to change how people feel I mean?”
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Connie Jones
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/sensible?view=uk
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Connie Jones
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Jose
June 01, 2009 6:02 PM
Wise? Prudent? What're those? by Jose
Jose belatedly recognized his neighbor as the girl the other old student who had brought in a bunch of Teppenpaws had babied. He was really glad that, as annoying as Saul could sometimes be, he'd done nothing like that to Jose. Unlike the red-haired girl, Saul seemed to be at least somewhat aware that older relatives were embarrassing by their mere existence and hadn't made a big deal of their family relationship in front of the other first years.And then a giant realization hit him. Red. Haired. Teppenpaw.
"Holy Macaroni. That was Pepper Jones," he said out loud, then realized he'd probably only just magnified whatever embarrassed Pepper Jones had inflicted upon her first year relative. But it really couldn't have been helped. "Dude, check this out." He grabbed his own leg by the ankle and hoisted his foot up to where they could both see the ink scrawling that covered the canvas of his running shoes. He pointed at the circle that enclosed the initials SP + PJ. It was directly opposite the circle that enclosed the initials SP + BO on the other shoe. Both were slightly over written by a heart encased JH + RT and drawings of guitars and cartoon characters.
"See, that's my cousin - Saul Pierce?" he gave the name a questioning raise of his eyebrow, in case his cousin's name was as legendary in her family as Pepper Jones's was in his, "and your . . . sister?" he guessed, based largely on how obsessively maternal Pepper had acted. He doubted a cousin would act like that. He shrugged and added, "Hand-me-down shoes." Just in case his potions partner thought he was insane and wrote declarations of love on his shoes that didn't apply to himself and were years out of date. He had plenty of reasons for people to think he was insane without adding more.
He abruptly realized he'd totally ignored her initial question and hurried to fix the lapse, "Oh, and cheering potions and charms are, well, they're not common, but they're not uncommon either. They're sort of like, um, rock candy. It exists, just about everyone knows about it, most people have even tried it once or twice, it's super sweet, but you gotta go looking to find it and it's not exactly considered good for you. Plus, it's rude to cheer someone up without their permission. And mostly you only hear about cheering charms and potions. I don't think I've ever run across a depressing draught. Well, unless you mean not getting rain for too long. That's depressing. All the grass dies and the fruits get all shriveled."
He put his foot back down on the floor and popped back up onto his feet to peer into his battered cauldron. "We gotta fill this with water. Want me to do that while you start measuring the ingredients?" Jose wasn't exactly buff, but he figured he'd have an easier time of lugging around a water filled cauldron - a cauldron that was heavy even when it was empty - than Pepper's sister would. Thinking of whom - they still hadn't exchanged introductions. "Oh, and I'm Jose. Jose Hernandez. Hose, for short, not Joe or Josh or anything Americanized like that. I'm already totally Americanized, my name doesn't have to be. I'm talking too much again, aren't I? I told myself I wasn't gonna do that."
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Jose
Wise? Prudent? What're those?
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Jose
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Connie
June 02, 2009 4:32 PM
Right, let's try to put this into terms you'll understand... by Connie
'Holy Macaroni, that was Pepper Jones!'Connie blinked. That was the sort of thing one didn't exactly expect to hear in reply to questions about the magical world. Apart from being a total non-sequitur, she didn't think her sister was the sort of girl who had a reputation that preceded her. Unless it was one for just being super nice and helpful to everyone, but that didn't exactly match the tone of voice this guy had used. He'd said it like Pepper was someone... exciting. She didn't have long to dwell on these thoughts however, as her lab partner seemed intent on showing her his shoes. New as she was to this magical lark, she was fairly sure this wasn't the first step in brewing their Potion and could only conclude that it either somehow, bizarrely, it related to Pepper being worthy of a 'Holy Macaroni' or that this guy had ADHD.
S.P. + P.J.
As if Connie hadn't broken into her sister's diary frequently enough to know the initials, it was confirmed by his cousin. Who had, for some reason, written their initials on- ah, of course, not originally his shoes. Her eyes widened and she nodded, as 'Saul Pierce' had seemed like a question.
His explanation of cheering draughts made them seem a little less sinister. She supposed Muggles changed their better by taking anti-depressants. Or drugs. She tried to work out which one a their potion seemed more like. It was a task that was made a lot harder by her very sheltered and limited knowledge of all three. But she'd been told that a cheering draught was something that you shouldn't have very often, and anti-depressants were medicines, which meant you had to take them a lot, so they couldn't really be used like them. She called Jose's words back to mind... 'It exists, just about everyone knows about it, most people have even tried it once or twice, it's super sweet, but you gotta go looking to find it and it's not exactly considered good for you.' It didn't all line up – for starters, she didn't think it would be true that “most people” had tried drugs, seeing as only bad people did them – but it was something that made you act differently and that it seemed like a bad idea to do. But on the other hand, they couldn't seriously be being told to manufacture drugs in their classroom.
“Connie,” she replied automatically to his offer of a name, whilst her mind churned the problem over. He could presumably figure out what it was short for himself by hearing the register called and, as she had no desire to be called anything else, didn't feel the need to elaborate. Not at present, anyway. “If they're all bad for you and dangerous and stuff, why exactly do people take them? Like... when? What for? And why did he write her name on his shoe... Pepper likes Saul, not the other way around. He got with her room mate. Oh, yeah... if we need water, water'd be good,” she nodded, not at all minding the fact that they seemed to be having three conversations at once, just hoping that they didn't forget to get some work done in between them.
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Connie
Right, let's try to put this into terms you'll understand...
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Connie
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Jose
June 03, 2009 3:13 PM
So what you're saying is 'not fun and exciting?' by Jose
Connie, Jose repeated silently, committing her name to memory. He was usually pretty good with names. And being Pepper's sister, she was particularly important to remember. He was totally going to tell Saul about this. As if they didn't already have everything else in common, Saul and Pepper both had relatives in the first year. But he was maybe a tiny bit relieved Saul had decided to go with Briony for a girlfriend, or maybe Pepper would have combed his hair, too.Jose frowned as Connie asked after the purpose of the cheering potion, but that was largely because he'd banged his knee when getting the cauldron down off the desk again. He managed not to drop it, and held it against his hip while he rubbed at the bruised knee and thought about how to answer.
Cheering potions just were. It was hard to explain them. "It's sort like a lollipop," he tried a different analogy, the second comparison to candy an oddity he would have tried to fix if he'd noticed it.
"It's something your dad might give you if you fall off a stage and you're crying more because you're scared than because you're hurt. You get cheered up right away and you can go on about your day in a good mood even though you fell off a stage. But there's not the same chance that you might start falling off stages on purpose to get the lollipop because, as happy as they make you, cheering potions taste awful.
"Cheering charms are way better. They don't have the aftertaste. Their big drawback, though, is that muggles will notice if you start pointing wooden sticks at your kids. But they won't notice it if you give your crying kid a sippy cup with a dose of cheering potion. They'll figure it's just juice. Mom always carries around a happy cup when she's looking after toddlers. It's got the big Don't Worry Be Happy smiley on it, too, so she doesn't get it mixed up with the juice cups."
"Hang on, I'll be right back." He shifted the caudron in his arms again and went to get it filled with water at the nearest faucet. When he got back and settled the full cauldron back in its spot on the table, he picked up his explanation as if he interrupted himself.
"And Saul totally dug Pepper - still does, kinda, though he pretends he doesn't cuz he's with Briony, right? - but he couldn't ask both of them out and he liked them both the same, see?" Jose pointed to his other shoe, the one with Briony's initials on it, "and he had to pick one for that dance a while back, so when he polled his roommates, they decided he should ask out Briony. He thinks Echo was biased though, because Echo didn't know Pepper and Briony was friends with Elly and Echo totally dug Elly." Or so Saul had explained this summer during the thousands of hours of useless trivia Jose had been subjected to about the comings and goings of the Sonora populace.
Jose paused for a moment to set the fire under the cauldron to eventually get the water in it boiling. "I think he may have actually had a bigger crush on Pepper, but I could just be projecting. I am the guy who gets Saul's hand-me-down clothes with declarations of love for pajamas and body odor. I may not have the right priorities in picking Saul's girlfriend for him." He gave Connie a cheeky grin and a wink to show he wasn't being entirely serious.
"Are we ready with the asphodel yet? It's not quite time for it, but as soon as we start getting bubbles, it should go in. And do you have a stirring rod? I think I forgot mine."
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Jose
So what you're saying is 'not fun and exciting?'
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Jose
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Connie
June 07, 2009 7:25 AM
No... just "try not to cause harm to yourself or others" by Connie
Connie mulled over Jose's explanation and ruled that it made sense, and that these weren't dangerous, illicit substances after all. His wandering off with the cauldron also reminded her that he'd asked her to do something other than gossip about their seventh year relatives and she began to weigh out the ingredients. Or try to. The closest she'd come before to measuring ingredients had been baking, and that was all done in cups. And although the funny, old-fashioned scales seemed straightforward enough – put a weight on one side and the ingredient on the other, Pepper had explained that along with many, many other things that would be different – however careful and minute an amount she put on or took off, the scales seemed to swing wildly.Her attention was snapped back to the more important matter at hand by Jose's return and the revelation that Pepper seemed to have lost out because of some dumb poll of Saul's roommates.
“That's stupid,” she scowled, “Particularly if he liked Pepper more, he should have just asked her. I bet she's way nicer than this B.O. person too.” Her mouth returned the smile he gave her, it was sort of automatic, but the kind of automatic based in the fact that Jose was nice and she liked him, and nice people deserved to get smiles back. Her eyes still looked somewhat scowly, however, and preoccupied with the unfairness of Date by Jury.
“Oh. Um... sort of?” she ventured when Jose asked whether the asphodel was ready. She was glad he seemed so easy going and like he wasn't going to laugh at her or get angry and snooty that she hadn't been able to do it. “I'm not really used to scales like this and I can't seem to get it to stop in the middle. Even if I put the teensiest piece on, it seems to leap wildly one way or the other.”
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Connie
No... just "try not to cause harm to yourself or others"
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Connie
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Jose
June 08, 2009 11:37 AM
Oh, so why didn't he just say that to start with? by Jose
Jose shrugged and spread his hands in a don't blame me gesture when Connie pointed out his cousin was stupid. Jose had no intention of arguing in favor of the intelligence of a guy who honestly thought it was okay to spell 'cat' with a 'k'. "I don't pretend to understand what passes for thought in Saul's head."He leaned in to squint at the scale when she admitted to having difficulty getting it to balance out. Taking out his army knife, he took out one of his organically grown asphodel roots from his potions kit and sliced it into tiny slivers. "I help in the food tent, sometimes," he explained the ease that practice with carrots had granted him. "Try adding these one at a time, see if that helps." He didn't think having the root sliced would make too huge a difference . . .
He checked the water again. They were starting to get bubbles forming along the bottom and sides. It would start simmering soon. He trimmed the fire to give them a little more time.
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Jose
Oh, so why didn't he just say that to start with?
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Jose
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Connie
June 14, 2009 9:25 AM
Teachers like to phrase things in a confusing way by Connie
"Thanks," she smiled, taking the asphodel root slices from Jose, glad he wasn't getting annoyed with her for being slow with it. "Food tent?" she questioned, as she added them carefully to the scales. They moved more slowly, thanks to Jose's greater level of precision, and she found herself able to stop them in the middle. "There you go," she declared, passing them to him, "Just right."Turning to consult the textbook, it informed her that the next thing they needed was powdered daisy roots. Looking into the Potions kit, and finding the little whitish straggles, it looked like the powdering was something they were going to have to do themselves. She began heaping them on to the scales, the fact that they were smaller and lighter than the asphodel meaning that even her rough portioning meant she could get the balance.
"So, that's the daisy roots... How do we go about achieving the 'powdered' bit?" she asked. The walking information leaflet service known as Pepper had only mentioned that ingredients mostly came in their rawest form and that there were a number of different ways in which she would be expected to prepare things. Speaking, or rather thinking, of Pepper, she was drawn back to what the pressure of the potion-making had distracted her from.
"Do you think there's anything we can do about it?" she asked, "Saul and Pepper, I mean."
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Connie
Teachers like to phrase things in a confusing way
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Connie
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