Professor Fawcett
December 04, 2010 10:53 PM
Beginner Lesson II (1st-2nd Years) by Professor Fawcett
It had, on several occasions, occurred to John that he was pushing the current first and second years harder than he did most beginning groups. He had tried to find a better reason for that than a subconscious desire to see what they would do, but had so far been unable to; it had taken him longer than it should have to even find that motive for his selections.Ah, well. Now that the levels were standardized, the second years would be moving on to the intermediate class next year, and it would prepare them well. Besides, they were managing well enough, at least with the potions. The writing was coming along a little more slowly, but they'd get there. And today's lesson wasn't overly difficult anyway.
"Hello, class," he greeted them once his watch ticked over the final minute of the break between classes. "I hope you've all had a pleasant day. If you could turn to page 516 of your textbooks for today's assignment..."
Once the rustle of pages had largely died down, he went on. "As I'm sure you've all realized by now, photographs and paintings in the magical world move and sometimes show signs of personality, though the photographs cannot speak. We will not be covering portraits in this class - that's a combination of advanced Charms and advanced Potions - but the basic potion to animate a photograph is, I believe, within your grasp at this point in your educations. This is not dissimilar to a lesson I understand you had with Professor McKindy, but the effects here, if the potion is correctly done, last for years before they begin to noticeably wear off, never mind end completely.
"The basic ingredients are eight cups of water, seven powdered shrivelfig pits - you'll need to crush them yourselves - two boiled murtlap leaves, thirty-two crushed fairy eggs, five hippocampus scales, and one unicorn tail hair. It's a longer list than you're accustomed to, which is why you have your books out in class today in addition to having the instructions on the board, but the potion itself is not complex. Just be very sure to fully crush the shrivelfig pits, count the fairy eggs properly, and stir the correct number of times after putting in the unicorn tail hair. You may work together in class, but I expect your homework short answer assignments - ah, see your syllabus for the details - to be done individually. You may begin."
OOC: Standard posting rules apply: 200 words minimum, no writing for other characters, decent spelling and grammar, and keep your part of the story realistic. That said, have fun!
Subthreads: WANTED: physical laborer by Sophie Jamison [Pecari] with Neal Padrig
Look at the pretty pictures... by Marcus Williams (Pecari) with Eliza Bennett, Crotalus, Eliza
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Professor Fawcett
Beginner Lesson II (1st-2nd Years)
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Professor Fawcett
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Sophie Jamison [Pecari]
December 05, 2010 12:13 AM
WANTED: physical laborer by Sophie Jamison [Pecari]
Potions! The blonde Pecari bounded off to her favorite class, a big grin playing on her face. Sophie absolutely adored Potions! She was hoping today to learn something she didn’t already know, and that hope was what made her smile as wide as it was, the furious desire to learn and increase her knowledge of the subject burning behind her sky blue eyes.She took a seat near the front of the class, wanting not only to be able to hear exactly what Professor Fawcett had to say, but Sophie sort of wanted to show off. Once they began, she was sure she would have no problem mastering the potion at hand. It wasn’t that she was arrogant, only confident in her ability. If this were one of her weaker subjects --like Transfiguration, per example-- she definitely would not have been so anxious to display her abilities or, rather, lack their of.
The small girl nodded along as the professor spoke, showing that she was paying attention and listening intently, after she had flipped open her textbook to the page the instructions were given for. Sophie was fairly-well acquainted with this potion --Serapes had shown it to her once, she was sure-- though she had never made it before, and she was ecstatic to try her little hand at it.
Once the orders to begin were issued, the blonde cracked to work. The first thing she took to doing was crushing the Shrivelfig pits, deciding that, considering her small stature, she ought to try the harder part first. Finding herself incapable of crushing said ingredients, she decided to momentarily try something else.
So she decided to count the fairy eggs. Rushing back to the table she had found the Shrivelfig pits on, Sophie scanned for her next ingredient. Grabbing what she wanted, she returned to her seat. “One, two, three, four,” she mumbled quietly, finding that if she counted out loud, it was easier to keep track of her place.
In a subconscious wandering of her eyes, the Pecari spied her neighbor, who seemed like they would have much more luck crushing Shrivelfig pits, giving her an idea. “Hey!” she greeted them, “Want to work together? I’m super-good at Potions. I’d love it if you would crush the Shrivelfig pits! Oh,” the blonde added with a friendly smile thrown in for good measure, “I’m Sophie Jamison.”
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Sophie Jamison [Pecari]
WANTED: physical laborer
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Sophie Jamison [Pecari]
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Neal Padrig
December 05, 2010 1:38 AM
That's something I can do! by Neal Padrig
Potions themselves could be pretty interesting, but making them was so boring that it completely negated any hype over getting to create something cool. The whole course just felt like some sort of cooking class using ingredients you’d never want to know was in something made to be drank. Neal preferred more exciting classes is all, and Potions never really struck him as something that’d get his pulse up. Well, maybe the anxiety of screwing up yet another potion he did on his own or scoring miserably at another written assignment made his heart pound in his chest, but that should hardly count. Ah well, at least the professor was nice. It’d be unbearable to even show up if the class and the teacher stunk.Grabbing a seat at random, Neal followed along with the instructions and had his textbook spread open accordingly. His bloodshot eyes stared down at a potion he wasn’t familiar with, which only surprised him because he liked to skim the texts books he had for every class (even the duller ones). His love of reading coupled with his natural curiosity had made it so he at least somewhat recognized what they’d be working up to, but today that wasn’t the case. Huh, weird, maybe he just skipped it or something.
As always, the potions they were making sounded like a real attention-getter. Only when he listened to the list of ingredients and directions did Neal’s face scrunch up in distaste. He hoped that, one day, they’d get to learn some really cool spell or something to go along with what they were doing. Surely there had to be at least one potion out there that you needed a spell to make? The mahogany haired Pecari would just have to hold out hope for such a lesson to pop up.
Taking out his Potions kit, Neal made sure he had enough of everything before he got started. After that was taken care of, he knew the next best step would be to find a partner. Neal felt comfortable with a lot of his classmates, so he was sure that working with someone would be easy enough. But that was before a partner sought him out instead.
“Hey! Want to work together? I’m super-good at Potions.” Really, Neal would work with anyone so long as he had a second pair of eyes to make sure he wasn’t adding too much of anything. But that last part? Defiantly didn’t hurt her cause.
“Sure thing,” Neal agreed quickly, wondering when he’d start to hear the angels singing. Really, someone good at potions wanting to work with him was nothing short of an act from above. “Er, I’m not the best at Potions, but I’ll do my best to help out.”
That’s when she told him what to start on, and he nodded and got the Shrivelfigs out form his kit. Preparing this ingredient was something they’d done before, so at least he knew he couldn’t screw this part up. It was usually somewhere between putting things in the caldron and stirring them together that he started to have problems arise. She thought to introduce herself then, and he gave her a friendly smile. “Sophie, right, I’ve seen you around the Commons and Pitch and stuff.” He had never really talked to Sophie, or been near her when she wasn’t decked out in Quidditch gear, so it didn’t bother him that they didn’t recognize each other straight away. But since they were on the same team and House and all, he knew enough about her to know that she wasn’t a jerk or anything, and that was always good to know. “Oh,” just because she officially introduced herself to him for the first time, he chimed in, “and I’m Neal Padrig.”
Finishing up his chore, he set them aside and turned his eyes back to her. No longer was he so self conscious about the veins in his eyes or his monotone. It didn’t seem to bother very many people he talked to so far, so why should he let it get to him? “Alright, I’m done. Anything else for me to do? I’d rather just take directions than go off and do my own thing, because that doesn’t usually end well. Trust me.”
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Neal Padrig
That's something I can do!
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Neal Padrig
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Sophie
December 05, 2010 11:50 AM
Excellent! Manual labor that I don't have to do! by Sophie
Sophie was glad when her neighbor agreed to be her partner. “Good, good!” the British/German/American/confusingly-mix-of-cultures girl replied in that weird way of speaking she had. Her accent most strongly resembled her British half, but she had an American way with words. Her German side didn’t really present itself on the surface, but it was underneath, a fourth of her.“Er, I’m not the best at Potions, but I’ll do my best to help out.” The blonde was not worried about their progress despite that statement. If he was going to help, then it would go swimmingly; besides --and she didn’t mean to brag-- she probably had enough previous knowledge on the subject to take a different level class. Serapes had showed her a few potions, at least, that he said were second- or third-year level. It had taken a lot of work, but she had nearly gotten some of those ones down, too. “That’s okay,” the blue-eyed Pecari replied perkily. “As long as you try you’re best, I’m sure we’ll be fine!”
When her partner mentioned seeing her around the Commons and Pitch, Sophie began wondering if they had met before. Now that she thought about it, he did look oddly familiar. Did she know him? Imaging him in Quidditch gear, she began to think that he was on her team. Feeling guilty about knowing him, she waited in hopes that he would introduce himself too.
“Oh, and I’m Neal Padrig.” Ah ha! She did know him! “Oh, right! I knew that!” she replied with an almost uncomfortable laugh. “Yea, Quidditch! Right!” Sophie felt like she might blush due to the identity ignorance, but it just wasn’t what she did. When she was embarrassed, she giggled, kind of like… she was doing right now.
When Neal asked what he should do next, Sophie shrugged. “Well, I’ve got the fairy eggs counted… Those need crushed too. You could work on that while I make sure we’ve got everything else.” She glanced at the spot she had gotten the fairy eggs from and then at Neal’s kit. “You have a kit? Awesome! Does it have the other ingredients in there, the unicorn hair, the murlap leaves, the hippocampus scales?”
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Sophie
Excellent! Manual labor that I don't have to do!
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Sophie
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Neal
December 05, 2010 9:30 PM
And mental labor I get out of! It's a win-win! by Neal
It would seem that Sophie was more impressed with his Potions kit than Neal was. At least she seemed interested enough to wonder what else he had in it. Hey, if she liked it, great. At least someone thought it deserved some attention.“Oh, yeah. My dad was more into the idea of me having one than I was, but it’s been pretty useful so far. I’ve seen a few other people with them, too. You should defiantly look into getting one.” It was sort of funny that he had a kit and he hated the class while Sophie lacked one and she seemed to like it way more than he did. He’d probably give her his if it hadn’t been a gift from his dad.
He nodded again to her when she ran their materials pass him. “Yeah, I’ve got all that stuff.” The brown-eyed second year put the kit next to her, careful not to get it in the way of their working space. “You can go through it if you want. Get stuff out for the potion so that you can look through it at the same time, it’s fine by me.” Hoping he was more of a contribution than he would have thought he could be, Neal took the opportunity to put his freckled hands to work on crushing the fairy eggs. They were awfully delicate looking, so he tried to take his time on them.
Deciding that doing something fun while he worked wasn't such a bad idea, Neal figured it wouldn’t be too distracting to talk to pass the time. “It sounds like you have an accent. Are you from somewhere outside of the States?” Neal’s mother had come from Wales and had traveled a bit around the world before settling down with his dad, so he knew enough about other countries to feel comfortable talking about other places, even if he hadn’t visited for himself.
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Neal
And mental labor I get out of! It's a win-win!
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Neal
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