Professor Fawcett
June 12, 2010 12:56 PM
Intermediate Potions II (3rd and 4th Years) by Professor Fawcett
There was always a briskness, which sometimes lapsed into uncontrolled urgency, about the second half of the year, but it was too soon after Christmas break for it to have fully kicked in. In that situation, there was nothing for John to do but hope that enough were focused for lessons to be somewhat meaningful and that the others would quiet down quickly and without incident. The Sonora students were a well-behaved lot in general, but he liked to always accept the worst as a probable outcome and plan accordingly.“Good afternoon,” he said, hoping to draw the intermediates away from discussions of break, other classes, each other, and whatever else teenagers these days talked about and into the academic. “I hope you all had a pleasant vacation, and are well-rested and prepared to get back to work. We’re going to be working with something tricky today, and you will need to give it your full attention.” With beginners, it was possible to present something a little easier right after a break, but the intermediates needed challenge. For one thing, it better prepared them for the upper levels, where coddling simply didn’t happen. For another, it was more likely to keep them too busy to get bored.
“Some of you may be aware of the properties of re’em blood,” he began, slipping into lecture tone without conscious thought, “the consumption of which will give the drinker immense strength. The same ones of you will also likely be aware that it is extremely rare on the open market, both because of the difficulty of procurement and the ramifications of its use.” John preferred not to dwell on the thought of large numbers of wizards with super-strength, or of the unpleasant things he imagined would happen to their normal bodies as the effects wore off. “Restoring someone to normal levels of strength, or merely increasing endurance, is sufficient in most situations, which is why we have the much less powerful Strengthening Solution.
“It is, of course, at most a temporary ‘fix,’” he added, “and there are consequences to long-term use. These can be almost severe as the consequences for making potions outside of school policy.” It never hurt to remind students that their cauldron-work was not supposed to leave this room. “Or of not taking care with the ingredients. Do not add the pomegranate juice before the salamander blood; I suggest you don’t even leave them close together at your stations. The heat must also be kept very even for the entire procedure, and the stirring orders observed precisely. This requires a few days to mature, so you’ll have to wait until our next session to know the degree of your success, but your potion looking orange at the end of the period is a good indication that you’re on the right path. A smell of burned rubber is not. You may work together, or alone, on this – “ he was planning to make them work alone quite a bit later in the semester, as their syllabus indicated, so he thought he’d give them a reprieve for the day – “and begin.”
Subthreads: The Triumph of Lists by Edmond Carey with Daniel Nash II, Edmond
Passive Resistance by Jose Hernandez with Dmitry
Paying attention is usually considered a good thing... by Alison Sinclair
Being practical. by Marissa Stephenson with Quentin Melcher
Re: Intermediate Potions II (3rd and 4th Years) by Pippa Brockert with Juri Dahlgren
Potions. Wonderful. by Cassy Brooks, Pecari with Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)
Establishing my dominance by Tawny Brockert
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Professor Fawcett
Intermediate Potions II (3rd and 4th Years)
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Marissa Stephenson
June 15, 2010 7:59 PM
Being practical. by Marissa Stephenson
Marissa’s mind was far from the holidays as she sat down in Potions, smiling and greeting her neighbors as she took out pencils and her notebook. The syllabus said they were going to work on a potion today, which meant the lesson was going to require every ounce of concentration she could give it. She could make things up as she went along, if she had to, during class discussions, but there was just enough magic involved in actual potion-making for it to require preparation and effort on her part. It was still easy enough, compared to her other classes, for Potions to be her favorite mandatory subject since History of Magic was cancelled.Not, of course, that she was sure she’d be taking it after next year. She didn’t know if it could work, but she had found herself occasionally daydreaming about the possibility of a completely book-based schedule. That would mean almost exclusively doing private studies, and having to make serious inquiries about what sorts of jobs existed for witches who couldn’t do magic, but it was a pleasant enough thought for her to think it might be worth it. There were going to be consequences she didn’t like either way; everything had a price. It was just a question of which price was, in the long run, better to pay.
The complexity of the assigned potion didn’t make her wince - though she wasn’t sure how well she’d do if she was required to memorize a list of more than ten steps, she was good at keeping track of even very detailed instructions that were written down, and it didn’t hurt at all that she’d shaken off her qualms about marking the book when necessary – but the final step, setting the mix with a charm, more than made up for it. If Fawcett had been slightly less….Brown Ajah, she would have thought the entire class was an elaborate setup to make her and Jose Hernandez start the semester off with failure. As it was, she just bit her tongue against a sigh. Even if the professor had an agenda, it was probably for their own good in the long run; the Wizarding World had never struck her as overly tolerant of people who didn’t fall near or above the norm when it came to skill and degree of conservativism, and that was speaking as someone from a conservative corner of the world.
The possibility of help on the potion spoke in favor, though, of Fawcett merely knowing what they’d need to know for their CATS and teaching that, not unlike the teachers she’d known in Muggle school who had completely divorced themselves from the evolution and sex ed debates and concentrated on getting their students through state exams instead. That was something Marissa could understand, and even respect; there had been rules in her life that she hadn’t liked, but she had followed them because it was the only practical thing to do. She had never understood willfully defying an authority figure asking her to do something that was of no actual harm to anyone but, if not done, led to discomfort for the defiant no matter how many times Bella and Aria had tried to explain the attractions of the idea to her. Of course, it helped that she didn’t really have a lot of strong feelings.
She felt bad asking someone to work with her, since people often interpreted such a request as something that couldn’t be refused when she’d actually more than understand if someone would rather go it alone or with someone who wasn’t her, but again: practical. The easiest way was to have someone else on hand for that bit at the end. It was the kind of thing bad students did, but she had learned to put a check on her pride a long time ago when it came to passing or making something explode and potentially hurt people who included her. So, with a smile mostly assumed by briefly thinking of a joke she’d heard last week, she turned around and took the plunge. “Mind working with me on this one?” she asked, trying to sound, in addition to friendly, as confident and cheerful as possible.
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Marissa Stephenson
Being practical.
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Quentin Melcher
June 22, 2010 5:09 PM
Always a positive quality. by Quentin Melcher
Midterm had been the usual for Quentin, only a bit a more lonely than normal due to his increasing feelings of alienation towards his parents and grandparents. Although Quentin still valued that which was intellectual and enjoyed it, he was not agreeing so much with his parents and grandparents views on matters such as amount of magical people in one's background-blood purity was a different issue and Quentin liked having his blood only be blood and not partially some other substance-and appearances.From what the fourth year had seen, the girls in his class, aside from Pippa,with any sort of magical background were also the most vapid. Not to mention a particular group of sixth year girls who were all about appearances and having an all magical background-except for, of course, that one muggleborn that was his roommate's sister.
Quentin listened eagerly as Professor Fawcett began the lesson. He really enjoyed Potions, it tended to be simple, straight-forward and precise. Whether it was just because that was the way Potions was or because Professor Fawcett had learned quickly to be very exact when Quentin was in class, the Aladren did not know, but he liked it.
He had never had the desire to really drink re'em blood in order to gain physical strength. Quentin had been raised to think the brawny were inferior to the brainy. Except of course in terms of brawn. But he had been raised to think being intelligent was more important than being good at physical tasks. Not that Quentin actually thought he was a better person than those who were good at physical tasks but he still had no use to be physically strong.
One reason for this was that he could always use magic for any practical reason that required one to be strong physically, such as opening jars or lifting things. There was no reason that any wizard that wasn't an athlete needed such a thing and it was unfair if athletes did, which was good for re'ems everywhere.
Still, this was the assignment, and Quentin would do it because if his father found out he hadn't, he would get in trouble. Besides, Quentin did like Potions and was rather good at them, and he could see the practical aspects of the less powerful Strengthening Solution that they would be brewing today, such as if someone was feeling sick and weak and tired.
He had just taken out his ingredients and cauldron when he heard someone speak to him.
“Mind working with me on this one?”
Quentin looked over to see Marissa. "Of course." He knew his friend wasn't the most skilled at magic but she was not stupid and could be an asset in Potions. Besides, Quentin liked being around her and would rather work with her than some of the others in his class.
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Quentin Melcher
Always a positive quality.
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Quentin Melcher
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Marissa
July 14, 2010 10:10 PM
Well, maybe not always. by Marissa
For a moment, Marissa construed her friend’s answer as a refusal. Quentin was…very…literal, and the literal interpretation there was that he did mind working with her. That didn’t match up with tone or past experience, though, and she needed him to complete the potion, so she decided to take it as an agreement until he corrected her."Great," she said, checking the thin band holding her long hair back from her face and well away from the cauldrons. This was the one class where she did consistently well. To set her hair on fire here would be painful, and not just physically. It would be embarrassing beyond belief; that was a firstie mistake. Not even - most first years had better sense than to set their hair on fire. "I'll, um, start sorting out some ingredients in step order."
Some people could just have their things lying about willy-nilly, or take them out of the box as they needed them, but Marissa preferred to have everything she needed ready to hand and anything she didn't out of the way. It took more time, but it lowered the chances of making a mistake, or having an accident, which could potentially save a lot more time than it took up. "So," she said as she organized, "how was your midterm?"
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Marissa
Well, maybe not always.
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Quentin
July 21, 2010 1:22 AM
It's not good to deal in absolutes, I suppose by Quentin
OOC-*headdesk* Apparently, I made a typo by having Quentin say "of course." I probably meant to write "of course not " But given that he can't hear Marissa's thoughts, there's no need to adjust anything in the post. :)BIC:
Quentin waited as Marissa got her station in order. While he sometimes had an issue with those who judged people for not being a particular way, people like his parents and grandparents who believed in people having act properly, look nice and be intelligent and from an all magical background, Quentin was never bothered when people liked to have their work organized, it made things much easier, and in Potions, safer.
He considered his friend's question. "Well, I guess it was all right. The usual stuff for me. Nothing out of the ordinary, both in the sense of me experiencing and doing the usual midterm things, that I've done over midterm since I was in first year, and really, before then too, and the sense of my immediate family being composed of mostly people who abhor anything the least bit unusual."
Even if it's their own son/brother and granddaughter/niece, Quentin thought. He really hated how his parents and grandparents acted towards Kirstenna and Uncle Jethro, and he wished he could have spent the holidays with them there instead of just him, his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.
The only thing that had been different was that they all seemed to be talking a lot more about finding someone to betroth Quentin to but he didn't want to say this to Marissa, as he was sure that the fact that he'd taken her to the ball last term was largely why they were talking more about it, and it wasn't just because he was getting older. Quentin's suspicions had only been confirmed more when he'd spoken to Pippa earlier in the year and she'd said that her parents were doing the same after she'd gone to the ball with Juri.
But Quentin stood by his choice to take Marissa to the ball and he'd do it again if the chance so arose (as it would again when he was a seventh year and she was a sixth year) and she was willing. She was his friend and, much like with Kirstenna, he didn't care if his parents approved.
He looked back over at Marissa and asked. "So how was your midterm?"
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Quentin
It's not good to deal in absolutes, I suppose
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Marissa
July 21, 2010 4:13 PM
Generally not, I'd think. by Marissa
OOC: Ah, understood and no problem! BIC:There was something Marissa had noticed about some of her pureblood compatriots, the ones with the unusually large vocabularies and formalized ways of speaking: they could use lots and lots of words to conceal what they were actually thinking. She didn’t know if this was just a quirk of having such a large vocabulary – she was, by the standards of some of her parents’ relatives, even worse for being incomprehensible – or if it was a deliberate stratagem, based on the – not bad – assumption that people not accustomed to speaking the same way would lose track of the sentence and therefore not catch any hints of impropriety, but it was usually pretty effective. It took her a moment to process what her friend had said and realize that the last bit was angry or bitter or… something along those lines, something she wouldn’t normally associate with him.
Given that Quentin was not best known for guile, and that he always talked that way, she had to assume the former explanation was more in effect. When he returned the question, as was a customary part of this exchange, Marissa almost apologized for bringing the matter up. While she didn’t mind, as some people did, when other people answered pleasantry-questions honestly, she never really expected it.
“Um…it was fine,” she said, fiddling with the handle of her cauldron. And it had been, that was the thing. “About the usual. Some of my younger cousins finally heard someone asking me if I couldn’t stop being a witch, so I guess that’s all the talk of the playground right about now – but don’t worry, even the other Muggle kids won’t buy it, they’ll think they’ve been watching too many Sabrina reruns, or Buffy, or something – and my friends had a host of in-jokes I didn’t get, but it was really good to see everyone again.”
And it had been. That was always the thing. She was entrenched enough here to feel a little bit guilty about it these days, but she still always wanted to stay there. There, she had everything. Here, at best, she was always going to have a substantial and powerful portion of the populace thinking of her, at best, as a second-class citizen, with third class being more likely because of her magic problem. While it did inspire a deeper understanding of the Civil Rights movement than she might have otherwise had, she couldn’t see a single other benefit to it all. “And Mama finally bought me those Collegeboard test prep books she’s been talking about for the past year. She wants me to have all these credits in case I go to a Muggle college, and I have to start studying, like, yesterday to catch up on everything I’ve missed while I’ve been here. Whose cauldron do you want to use?”
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Generally not, I'd think.
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