Professor Aylin Morastus
August 17, 2009 5:43 PM
Lesson for First and Second Years- by Professor Aylin Morastus
A parchment lay out on her desk, it’s corners bent from being handled time and time again, the writing on it in a large, slanted script, belying the hurried hand with which the first draft had been scribbled. A finger trailed down this parchment, barely making contact with the surface as Aylin scanned over it, silently mouthing the words she read when she noticed the slight tremble in her hand. Sighing, she drew her hand into a tight fist and then stretched it out, to find the tremble still present. Four years and she still had not found a way to avoid the inevitable. No one had ever noticed, save the few that found themselves close enough to her as to rub arms, but the trembling of her hands that matched the nervous energy in her veins annoyed her to no end. Leaning forward in her chair, she lifted the lid on a small ceramic jar sitting on the corner of her desk as the faint sound of footsteps and muffled voices began to fill the corridor outside. Pulling out a cinnamon candy, she popped it in her mouth, replacing the lid just as the door opened.When the last student had taken a seat, she stood, coming out from behind the desk to walk amongst the tables as she spoke. Her light auburn hair was yet again straining to escape the knot pinning it up, several strands already successful as her hazel eyes scanned the room. “Good morning, I’m Professor Morastus, your new Potions teacher.” Most eyes followed her, others didn’t; she knew better than to worry about where their eyes were focused so much as how attentive their ears were. Her hands were often clasped in front of her, tucked tightly against her bronze colored robes, but occasionally they released one another to trace the edge of a shelf or table as she passed by, her eyes shifting from her students momentarily to the jars of ingredients and equipment she had yet to organize.
“I believe you have all found seats you are comfortable with by now, and we shall keep this arrangement unless you give me cause to change it.” A small grin. “So if you would, please use your wand to write your full name on the table in front of you.” As they did, they would find it fade as quickly as it had appeared, their signature transferred to the parchment sitting on the podium next to her own table by the board.
“Good,” Aylin exclaimed with a faint clap, her feet quickly carrying her to the podium where she looked over the seating parchment, pleased to see it filled in completely, for she would record attendance later, and pointed her wand at the board where the name of a potion, a page number, and time frame were now displayed. “Today we will cover the Forgetfulness Potion. Turn to page 32 in your texts for the ingredients and instructions. However, I do recommend you take out a quill to note the following…”
On a table before the board sat several examples, each being picked up in turn as Aylin went over some of the finer points before they began. “When mincing the fluxweed, it’s best to do so very finely, like so.” Taking her own silver knife, she demonstrated the technique. “Be sure to measure the sumac extract in a glass vial, and do not under any circumstances let anything metal touch it. The doxy blood must be added by single droplets every odd stir after it is reduced to a low simmer.” Pausing, she waited until the quills slowed or stopped altogether before finishing. “Alright then, begin. You have 90 minutes to submit your samples in the case next to my desk.”
OOC: There’s many a loophole for creativity here, so surprise me! Though a canon potion for first years, no details are given for it, so I gave you a few to begin with, after that, use your imagination. As for any potential problems.. I’ll leave that to you to. Have fun!
Subthreads: Potioning (and making up new words) by Daniel Nash II with Adelita Garcia (Crotalus), Lita
Why yes, I do pull my ideas from thin air! by Nathaniel Leon with Jose Hernandez, Nathaniel, David Lancaster, Professor Morastus
This can't be that hard, can it? by Andrew Duell with Jethro Smythe, Jethro
250 different species of sumac to choose from; hmm. . . by Euna Song with Quentin Melcher
Excellent: a <i>useful</i> lesson indeed. by Mike Song with Charlotte Abbott
Looking for a partner by Pippa Brockert with Edmond Carey
Late, but I have a goal to meet. by Marissa Stephenson
0
Professor Aylin Morastus
Lesson for First and Second Years-
0
Professor Aylin Morastus
1
5
Daniel Nash II
August 18, 2009 2:50 PM
Potioning (and making up new words) by Daniel Nash II
Though a little surprised to walk into Potions and find someone other than Professor Fawcett at the front of the room, Daniel gave a nod of greeting to the new woman and took his usual seat as though she'd always been the one sitting there. Before turning to a black page, though, he did scratch out Fawcett's name and put in hers on the inside cover of his notebook however.He was even more surprised by her instruction to write on the desk. It wasn't until his neighbor did so and he saw the ink vanish a moment later that he trusted that it wasn't an assault against school property and did so himself. Daniel Nash II, he wrote out in a neat script and held his breath until his name, too, disappeared and left his desk un-defaced.
After that he went back to writing in his notebook, recording the potion name and page name, and taking down her advice about the fluxweed, the sumac extract, and the doxy blood. Once that was properly documented, he hoisted his cauldron up onto the desk between him and the ready-made partner sitting beside him.
Assuming the other student had no objections to working with him (Daniel was, after all, a second year and a Aladren, and potions was his best and favorite subject), he asked, frowning a little in concern as he looked at his cast iron cauldron, "So, when she said no metals should touch the sumac extract, do you think that includes or doesn't include the inside of the cauldron? I'm fairly sure I've never seen a wooden or plastic cauldron."
1
Daniel Nash II
Potioning (and making up new words)
130
Daniel Nash II
0
5
Adelita Garcia (Crotalus)
August 19, 2009 5:50 PM
New words can be quite fun. by Adelita Garcia (Crotalus)
Adelita’s brown eyes widened at the sight of the professor. Had she been introduced at the welcome back to Sonora speech that the Headmistress had given? Lita didn’t think so, but then, she hadn’t really been paying all that much attention. She had been too excited to be back and tell Charlie all about her holiday than to really care for a ‘Hey, Holiday’s over, let’s get back to work’ speech. Well, until she announced another school was joining them, but that was beside the point.Taking a seat next to Daniel and only briefly wondering if Charlie would be mad at her (Lita still couldn’t quite figure out if they were still dating or not) Lita pulled out her book and notes and began doodling on her parchment while waiting for the class to begin.
Once the newest Professor began the lesson, Adelita followed her movements for awhile while the woman spoke. Her name was interesting, but that didn’t much surprise her anymore. Everyone seemed to have an odd name. And, apparently, Adelita was one of them. Shrugging at her own thoughts, Adelita smiled at the request to write on her desk. Using her wand she wrote out her name in the same loopy handwriting that she wrote with her notes Adelita Garcia. But, her smile faded slightly when her name began to fade. Sometimes, magic wasn’t all that fun.
Sighing, Adelita turned to the page that the professor had referenced and wrote down the lesson for the day. She only glanced up from her writing when Daniel spoke. A frown appeared on her lips in thought. He had a habit of making her think and then, ultimately feel foolish. “You know, I really don’t know. I wouldn’t think that it would include our cauldrons. Unless, are we supposed to coat the cauldron in something first in order to prevent the extract from touching it?” Her lips pursed in thought as her eyes dropped back down to the book in hopes that the book would answer this for them.
“It would be silly if it included the cauldron in that notion.” Adelita commented while she read. “Anyway, I can’t believe you even thought of that. I would have just gone on and made the potion not even realizing the cauldron was metal.” She let out a soft giggle at her own asinine tendencies. “And this is why I’m terrible at potions.”
0
Adelita Garcia (Crotalus)
New words can be quite fun.
0
Adelita Garcia (Crotalus)
0
5
Daniel
August 19, 2009 7:06 PM
That's why I make them up. by Daniel
Daniel laughed a little as Adelita admitted that she wouldn't have even considered that the cauldron was metal. "I wouldn't worry about it too much," he reassured, then added in reminder: "I share a room with Quentin Melcher. I need to think of these things out of self defense or I'd be answering literal questions all day. If I get them in first, he can't ask me."Which still left him with a literal question he didn't have the answer to. He looked over the instructions in the book as well and made an educated assumption. "Well, it doesn't specify that we need to line it or use a glass or other rare type of cauldron, so I'm going to guess a normal one is fine. It just shouldn't touch any metal before it hits the boiling solution. Heat or water might cancel any adverse affect metal has on the extract."
Glancing over the first few steps again, he asked, "So now that we've settled that, do you want to mince the fluxweed or get the water simmering?"
1
Daniel
That's why I make them up.
130
Daniel
0
5
Lita
August 21, 2009 5:35 PM
Did you make up any good ones? by Lita
Adelita’s face went from one of absolute horror to one of complete disgust before returning to her normal content look and hoping that the brief lapse of control had been missed by Daniel as he had mentioned his roommate. Adelita really didn’t know Quentin, but what she did know of him annoyed her to the ends of the Earth. All he did was ask useless questions that really had nothing to do with what they were learning at the time. Or questions that any idiot could answer if they had a brain. She certainly wasn’t a bookworm and could ask some random things, but he was over the top about it. She wondered if his parents had gone completely mad over the last twelve years of his life. She wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if they had.“I’m so sorry.” Adelita replied in all seriousness. She felt completely terrible that Daniel had to subject himself to Quentin and couldn’t blame him at all for being so literal about something she wouldn’t have thought twice about. “I don’t know how you survive. I’d have strangled him by now.” When they had first come to Sonora, Lita had thought Quentin was joking by the questions he had been asking, but that belief soon faded when he never stopped asking those questions.
Adelita nodded when Daniel came to his own conclusion about the cauldron and the extract. “Makes sense.” She commented lightly while she sorted out the rest of the supplies they would need. Lita tried to think of potions like cooking they way that her mother told her she should. Cooking came easily to the women in her family, but Lita was disastrous. “If we fail this, I’m sorry. It’ll be because of me.” Adelita told Daniel bluntly. She might as well get that out now before they actually started the project.
“Um…” Adelita started, looking down at the fluxweed for a moment. Well, at least it wasn’t a bug or a dead animal. “Okay, I’ll do this, but can you do the blood? The whole ‘every odd stir’ will have me all flustered.”
0
Lita
Did you make up any good ones?
0
Lita
0
5
Daniel
August 25, 2009 12:17 PM
Thistle: <i>v.</i> To falsely project oneself as a pureblood by Daniel
Daniel shrugged at Adelita's sympathy over his roommate. In all honesty, Quentin wasn't that bad. You just had to be really careful about what you said around him. Holly was nearly as bad, and he liked Quentin's questions better than her nervous breakdowns when he got it wrong. Quentin at least made him think about language, communication, clarity, and how weird English was. He'd far sooner share a room with Quentin than a mansion with his sister. He rarely felt more than a momentarily impatience with the other Aladren, and perhaps an occasional inclination to hide.But that might just be him. Holly was clearly mentally unbalanced. This was hardly the first time he thought he might be genetically disposed toward insanity himself. If Adelita seemed to think a sane person would have wanted to strangle Quentin by now, he wasn't going to argue it.
As they turned back to the potion at hand, Daniel shook his head at her comment that if they failed, it would be her fault. While that was true, he was far more certain that they just weren't going to fail. He made a mental note to keep a close eye on everything she did, just in case.
"I haven't failed a potion yet, so I think we should be all right," he assured her, then promised, "And don't worry, I'll handle the tricky parts and the blood."
With that he hoisted his cauldron up onto the tabletop between them. Though a year and a half old, and well-used over that time, the cauldron was obviously equally well cared for. Its sturdy highest-quality black body looked exactly as it had when it was brand new. The only difference was that it no longer had that freshly cast smell to it.
Daniel used his wand to fill it three quarters of the way full with water and then set a flame under it to start heating it up. It would take a little while for that to start simmering. In the mean time, he checked on her progress with the fluxweed, frowned slightly, and suggested, "Make the cuts just a little closer, if you can, but you're not doing too bad. There's just no such thing as too thin when you're mincing."
Confident that she had that under control, he went through his potions kit to find his vial of sumac extract. Finding a glass measuring vial and cast a cleaning charm on it to make sure there wasn't any metal traces in there. Then he held his breath, crouched down to eye level with the target measurement line, began the careful process of decanting exactly the right amount into the glass cylinder.
1
Daniel
Thistle: <i>v.</i> To falsely project oneself as a pureblood
130
Daniel
0
5
Lita
August 31, 2009 10:04 PM
That seems fitting for your sister. by Lita
Adelita grinned in appreciation when Daniel said he’d take on all the hard parts, including the blood. That was more than helpful to Adelita. She could do simple tasks, or so she hoped. She wished everything in life was easy. Even dancing was difficult for her. Well, in general, dancing would be difficult for everyone, but she wanted what she loved to be easy. Playing instruments came easily to her sister. All she really had to do is hear and watch a person play an instrument a few times and she could pick it up with ease. That was one thing Adelita was always jealous of.But more than wanting the things she loved to be easy, she wanted everything to be easy. If school was easy, she wouldn’t be bothered by it so much. She wouldn’t be mad that she was here instead of at a performing arts school. Of course, if it wasn’t difficult, than life would be boring, but that wasn’t the point.
Adelita set herself to cutting up the fluxweed. She wished she knew the charm that just cut things so that she didn’t have to do it manually, but she had yet to learn it and her mother and father weren’t about to teach her anything regarding magic. They felt school was best left to that sort of stuff. Daniel’s input startled Lita as she had let her mind wander slightly while she had been cutting.
“Oh, okay, thanks!” Lita said as she did what he told her. She tried as carefully as she could to cut the fluxweed in even thinner slices. She felt slightly embarrassed that Daniel found something she was doing wrong with simply cutting, but she knew that he was an expert at this, so she couldn’t get upset about it. Still, she felt her cheeks burning slightly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Daniel as he measured the sumac. As she watched him, a realization hit her and without realizing it, a giggle had bubbled out of her throat. Trying to cover it with a cough, Lita tried to focus on her cutting once more. “Daniel, I never realized it until now, but you are a true Aladren.”
0
Lita
That seems fitting for your sister.
0
Lita
0
5
Daniel
September 01, 2009 10:26 AM
I also use the phrase 'pulled a Holly' to mean 'fainted' by Daniel
Daniel paused in his measuring, going completely still while he decided how to handle Adelita's observation that he was a true Aladren. The fact of the matter was that she was correct. Daniel had never really tried to hide, exactly, that he'd been put in the most appropriate House for him, but Aladren did have certain nerdy stereotypes that he wasn't keen to accept.After a moment, he moved the sumac vial away from the measuring cylinder and tilted his head to look up at her from his crouch, a wry crooked smile touching his mouth, and a genuine amusement dancing in his brown eyes. "Yes, I am, but let's keep that between us, shall we? It'll ruin my cool movie star mystique if that kind of thing gets out." He was, of course, mostly joking.
Mostly.
He glanced back toward the measuring cylinder, still not quite filled to the appropriate line. The incompleteness of it bothered him. It just needed a few more drops. He bit his lip, held his breath again and added them until the meniscus was where it should be. He capped the the sumac vial with an air of accomplishment, straightened up out of his crouch, and put the vial back into his potions kit.
He checked the water - still not simmering - and Adelita's progress of the fluxweed - nearly done - and then double checked the potion instructions. "When you're done there, do you want to measure the dried nettles?" He assumed, perhaps chauvinistically, that she'd rather not mash the beetle eyes into a paste, given a choice. Even Daniel found that to be a little gross.
1
Daniel
I also use the phrase 'pulled a Holly' to mean 'fainted'
130
Daniel
0
5
Lita
September 04, 2009 3:56 PM
Is your sister the source for all new words? by Lita
When she saw Daniel stop working on the sumac out of the corner of her eye, Adelita set her knife down before turning herself ever so slightly so that she had a better look at him. She had never really given the houses much thought last year because everything had been so new for her. But, now that she was half way through her second year at Sonora, Adelita had begun to distinguish the differences that each house had to offer.For instance, her Tio Jose was perfect for the Crotalus House. He was very particular with his work and often spent hours working on some drawing of a house or another. He claimed they were works for his portfolio for university, but sometimes Lita thought he did it to get out of having to be social with everyone. Her Tio Mateo, however, was the opposite and seemed to scream the characteristics that Pecari claimed.
Lita, herself, wasn’t really sure if she belonged in Crotalus. She was only cautious with her dancing and didn’t really care for rules. Perhaps the potion knew more about her own personality than she did or maybe she was still just trying to fit in and not really being herself. Who knew? But, she was still starting to see certain personality traits that went well with the house with whom the student was placed in. Daniel’s behavior in Potions and how logical way of thinking in History had Lita convinced he was an Aladren.
A cheeky grin came across her features at Daniel’s comment. She knew what movies were now. Those stories told on the picture boxes, so she had a vague idea in which he was referring too. “Oh, come now, Danny” Lita said quietly, leaning closer to him and letting his nickname with which she had wanted to call him since he told her not to come out, “Don’t you know that as long as you keep those boyish looks, the world will still love you?” She was partially joking when she said it. She was fairly certain that it didn’t matter what Daniel did with himself, he would still have a crowd of fans.
Sitting up straight again, Lita corrected herself, “Sorry, I meant Daniel. I just like saying Danny.” Returning to the task at hand, Lita finished with the fluxweed just as Daniel gave her the next options for the potions. “Sure. That shouldn’t be so terrible.” Pushing the minced fluxweed in Daniel’s direction, Lita pulled out her own dried nettles, “Are you going to be upset with me if I don’t measure them out exactly to the line?” She was teasing him, but a part of her thought he would be annoyed if she didn’t get it perfect.
0
Lita
Is your sister the source for all new words?
0
Lita
0
5
