Look at the pretty pictures... on Potions

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

0 Professor Fawcett Beginner Lesson II (1st-2nd Years) 0 Professor Fawcett 1 5

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.”

12 Sophie Jamison [Pecari] WANTED: physical laborer 34 Sophie Jamison [Pecari] 0 5

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.”

0 Neal Padrig That's something I can do! 0 Neal Padrig 0 5

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?”

12 Sophie Excellent! Manual labor that I don't have to do! 34 Sophie 0 5

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.

0 Neal And mental labor I get out of! It's a win-win! 0 Neal 0 5

Marcus Williams (Pecari)

December 08, 2010 7:42 PM

Look at the pretty pictures... by Marcus Williams (Pecari)

Marcus didn’t really have much of a opinion on Potions as he probably should have. He disliked Transfiguration, but that was more because of the Professor than anything else. He was hesitant in Charms because half the time he couldn’t figure out the point of what they were learning, but he did like the schedule and the consistency of what they learned. DADA was his favorite class because he felt that was the most important. It was better to know how to defend himself against a crazy person rather than how to float a feather around. Potions… was sort of in the middle. He could see the importance of it. A lot of healing potions were needed and created. But then there were things that he just couldn’t grasp the importance of. Oh well, maybe when he got through more years it would all start to make sense to him.

Taking a seat in the classroom, Marcus set everything up out of routine before pulling out his book, parchment, and pen. Professor Fawcett reminded Marcus a lot of his teachers back home. The sort that were nice, but professional. The sort of person that Marcus could trust on some level. Like, if some crazy student attacked him, Professor Fawcett would handle it appropriately and not assume that Marcus is the bad guy.

The lesson was about the moving pictures. Marcus had assumed that the pictures moving were from charms, but it would make sense that a potion was used as well. It was nice that this lesson tied into the lesson in Charms. Marcus thought it was a little odd that so many of the lessons were falling into one another. That sort of thing just never happened at his old school. Each subject was completely different from the last.

The ingredients of the potion sounded daunting. So much crushing of so many eggs, etc. Still, it was something to keep busy and maybe potions was something that he could get into it. Though, this wasn’t likely. He’d still try hard at it though. If nothing else, good grades would make his mother proud and he liked to make sure she was proud of him. After all, she had sacrificed a lot just for him.

Beginning the task of crushing the eggs, Marcus looked to the person nearest to him. “Hey, there are quite a bit of eggs to crush, want to split the load and help me out?” Marcus asked, giving a smile of hopefulness as he did so.

6 Marcus Williams (Pecari) Look at the pretty pictures... 180 Marcus Williams (Pecari) 0 5

Eliza Bennett, Crotalus

December 09, 2010 4:06 PM

What are they of? by Eliza Bennett, Crotalus

The one thing Eliza hated about Potions – well, besides the more complicated essays – was the way she had to do her hair for the class. When it was down, she could do something with it, but she could not help but think that ponytails made her face look funny. She did the best she could, especially with her lip gloss and eye make-up, on Potions days, but the fact was that she had to spend sometimes as much as half a day not looking anywhere near her best because of the time she spent with her hair up and then with it being messed up from having been up during Potions before she could get back to her dorm and have enough time there to get it back into shape.

She knew it wasn’t that bad, really, but considering the competition at this school, it bothered her just the same. And it especially bothered her today because she had been convinced since breakfast that she and Sara Raines were wearing virtually identical square diamond studs, but hadn’t been able to get a clear enough look at Sara’s ears to be sure. Such earrings weren’t really that remarkable, but midterm had seriously sensitized her to being compared to the Pecari girl in any way. It was impossible to go shopping in Illinois without hearing something about some Raines, or at least it felt that way sometimes.

A perk of Potions, though, was that she didn’t have much time to think about anything other than the potions and maintaining small talk. It was pleasant in the extreme to block out everything and worry about slicing things properly instead of whether or not she was too tall and too loud to be considered a lady or if her sense of style wasn’t in or whose jewelry was the most expensive. Her parents could be seriously annoying, but at least they weren’t the kind who really cared about the gender perceptions of subjects. When they noticed her, which was relatively seldom between their social calendars and her younger siblings, they were just pleased she was good at anything.

They might be especially pleased with this lesson, though. Like all gold-digging, social-climbing secret losers, they relished any sign that they and theirs were doing better socially than they had any right to after that mess with Uncle Victor, and her mother in particular would love it if Eliza started sending home pictures of herself hanging out with the likes of her roommates and Ryan O’Malley and Sara and so on. Plus, photography was a vaguely feminine art these days, or so her magazines and the last scrapbooking craze seemed to indicate. Once they were put to work, she looked over at the next stool for a partner and found that guy who’d gotten into it with crazy Professor Crosby and that weird Aladren girl in the first week of school asking for her help.

“Sure,” she said with a smile. He was reasonably cute, and she didn’t really have a problem with the manual work. “You’re Marcus, right? I don’t think we’ve ever actually talked before.” Eliza looked over what he had out. “Have you already got them halved, or do you just want to split them by eye?”

0 Eliza Bennett, Crotalus What are they of? 174 Eliza Bennett, Crotalus 0 5

Marcus

December 12, 2010 7:52 PM

Whatever it is you find pretty by Marcus

Marcus found himself looking at a girl. No surprise there. There were a lot of girls in this school. He supposed there were probably a lot of girls at this last school too, but it seemed a little bit more equaled out. Or not. It was hard to say. Maybe it was the fact that he was in a boarding school that made things be put into a different perspective than what he was used to. Still, he was surrounded by females. When he commented on that to his mom, she laughed and told him he should be happy and grateful that he’s placed in a position to learn as much as he can about the opposite sex at such a young age. Marcus told her she was crazy to think that would ever happen.

Well, she didn’t seem insulted that he had asked for her help. That was a step in the right direction. Marcus was so on edge here regarding who he should talk to and who he should avoid in order to keep his head attached to his body, he really wasn’t having much of a life while at this school. His mom had told him to keep his head up and to think of the future. That it’ll get better for him. But he believed his mother was more of an optimist that he could ever be. Which was funny since before coming to Sonora, Marcus always had a smile on his face and nothing ever bothered him. He supposed that was the difference from being a naïve muggle and a naïve wizard. He knew the dangers in the muggle world. He was only beginning to understand the dangers in this world.

He wasn’t sure if he should be happy or concerned that she knew his name. They had a small class, so it probably wasn’t a big deal that she knew it, but he wasn’t quite sure what her name was. Too be fair, the girls all seemed the same to him. Except for the crazy girl, but she was in a column all her own. He knew that she was one of Jordan’s friends though because he thought he’d seen them together. “Yeah, I am.” He grinned at her. “I’m sorry, I don’t know your name, but you’re friends with Jordan, right? In Crotalus?”

Her questioned confused him for a moment because he didn’t know what she was referring to and then as quickly as it confused him, it dawned on him that she was referring to the pile and not to the actual egg. “I haven’t divided it yet or anything. I just saw the number and figured it would be better to find someone to work with first before actually getting down and dirty.” Marcus shrugged, but the smile on his face remained. He divided the pile as best as he could and gave her the one that looked smaller not because he thought she could do it, but because he was the one who asked for help, so it wasn’t fair to give her more of the work. “So, I’m just going to put this out there, but potion ingredients are pretty nasty. I mean, fairy eggs, hippocampus scales, shrivelfig pits? At least this is just for photographs. I’m worried about what’s in the potions we actually drink.”

6 Marcus Whatever it is you find pretty 180 Marcus 0 5

Eliza

December 12, 2010 9:27 PM

You photographed me? You shouldn't have. by Eliza

So she had been noticed as an associate of Jordan’s. The public perception was that she had friends. The information made her smile more widely. “That’s me,” she said. “Friends and roommates. I’m Eliza. It’s nice to meet you.” She toyed with the end of her ponytail for a second. “Don’t worry about, you know, not knowing my name. There are way too many brunettes in our year. I don’t know if I could keep them straight if I didn’t live with so many of them.”

She was actually pretty sure she could, but that wasn’t really relevant. And there were a lot of brunettes in their year. Eliza had actually been surprised by that. After listening to her mom ramble about school so much, she had expected to be completely eclipsed by the legions of perfect, blue-eyed blondes. Nicole liked what she liked, and Eliza’s coloring coming from her father wasn’t something Nicole really liked. She had, however, seemed weirdly comforted that time Eliza had pointed out that even though her skin wasn’t nearly fair enough for a recoloring to look right, she could have inherited Aunt Kat’s auburn hair and therefore had it even worse. Redheads had the worst connotations, and since Aunt Kat, for all that she’d always been a pretty good aunt as far as it went, was eccentric anyway, and everyone knew that Eliza was related to her…

Well, when she thought about it that way, Eliza, at least, didn’t mind her brown hair and eyes at all.

She bit the inside of her lip a little when Marcus roughly divided the fairy eggs, deciding it would be rude to ask if he was sure he had counted out the right number. It bothered her to not be sure she was doing her very best on everything presented to her, but it had been drilled into her from birth not to be rude. Well, at least not to anyone other than girls her own age after a certain point, anyway, and she had yet to find a reason to even do that this year. Sometimes the other girls annoyed her, but she got over it. Thanking any deity who cared to hear that she had mastered the Levitation Charm almost immediately after they’d learned it, she transferred her portion to a bowl and picked up her pestle.

“They’re not really much fun to make,” she agreed with him. “I used to feel sorry for Healers, until I found out they usually have other people actually make the potions and stuff for them and they just have to deal with, you know, diseases and injuries and things.” She thought about that for a second, then said, “Actually, I still feel sorry for them. But I feel sorry for potioneers, too. At least by the time we get potions, they’re blended and bottled and have as much flavor improvement as they can in them.” She looked down at the bowl, wondering exactly how crushed the ingredient was supposed to be. “This potion is cool, though, because I can finally show Mother and Paul pictures of everyone. Don’t you think?”

0 Eliza You photographed me? You shouldn't have. 0 Eliza 0 5

Marcus

December 14, 2010 12:47 PM

You have low self-esteem, don't you? by Marcus

To say there were a lot of brunettes was an understatement, but he was sure that wasn’t the reason why he didn’t know her name. Truth be told, he was certain it was because there were just so many girls. And even then, maybe it wasn’t so many girls so much as they all seemed to be the same. Except for Nova, but that was because she was just flat out crazy. “Not to worry now though, your name is in my book now.” When he said book, Marcus tapped his temple to indicate his mind. It was true. Even if they never spoke again, Marcus would always remember her name.

He was sort of amused though that she discussed how many brunettes as if that was that was incredible. Marcus was used to being a minority considering he did the urban/suburban program which allowed him to go out of the inner city and into a decent public school. The issue was that most of the minorities in the suburban schools were from the inner city themselves. Everyone else was Caucasians from the suburban areas. But, there were still other minorities. At Sonora, Marcus felt completely alone in his ethnicity. There were an abundance of girls with brown hair, but there wasn’t any other black person that Marcus had come across. He would prefer there to be more people for him to blend into like all the brunettes Eliza was referring to.

Marcus did not consider himself a wuss for finding this disgusting. He was almost certain anyone with their right mind would agree with him. He wasn’t even sure what a hippocampus was or why it would have scales. Was it a type of snake? Or possibly a fish? And what exactly did the scales do to help a person? Wasn’t it usually oils and stuff from a being or plant that helped heal people? Or have movies wronged him?

“flavor improvements… hm.” He wonder if they were anything like the flavor improvements on the medicine he gets when he’s sick, Marcus wasn’t looking forward to any magical medicines. “Yeah, I mean, moving pictures is pretty cool.” Marcus agreed. “But I haven’t needed to develop pictures since I was a kid. Ma has a digital camera, so we just upload them straight to our computer and print them out.” Marcus explained, although he didn’t have any clue as to whether she knew what he was talking about. Sara and Jordan hadn’t. “I don’t have any pictures of this place. I wish I did though, Ma would love to see this place.” His mother had asked him all sorts of questions when he had been home. He knew that he hadn’t explained it well enough and pictures always showed details that Marcus would have missed.

“Healers are the magical version of doctors?” Marcus asked her. Since Midterm, Marcus was reading more just to get a better understanding of this world. Healers was easy enough to understand, although not really what it was that they used, just that they were doctors. Potioneer was someone who worked on potions (he didn’t need a book for that one). But then there were all these careers that could be for one thing in the non-magical world. Like an Auror caught bad wizards/witches, like police, but then there were the magical law enforcement. So, were Aurors like military and magical law enforcement the police?

Marcus finished crushing the eggs, hopefully they were crushed enough for this, chemistry wasn’t his best and he never wanted a kit when he was a kid like some of his friends did. He grabbed some of the fig things and began to crush those too. Might as well do all the crushing in one swoop. After some thought, Marcus said, “At least you can buy everything bottled. I can’t imagine how time consuming all this is if you had to do it all yourself.”

6 Marcus You have low self-esteem, don't you? 180 Marcus 0 5

Eliza

December 14, 2010 6:30 PM

Just a little bit. by Eliza

Eliza laughed at Marcus’ assurance that he would remember her name another time. “We’ll see,” she said. “I’m going to try to hold you to that.” For all her light tone, she would be hurt if he didn’t recognize her another time – she hated feeling insignificant – but not actually offended. She didn’t offend as easily as she sometimes thought she should. Certainly not as easily as most of her family did.

Of course, most Bennetts were achievers. She tried, but she still wasn’t as good as her cousins, and she couldn’t see how she could ever come anywhere close to them. They had the right to be a little touchy. Until she did something worthwhile, something to make her stand out from all the others here, she didn’t.

She listened to him talking about what she assumed was a finger-camera – what else you’d use to operate a camera was a mystery to her, so she didn’t know why he felt the need to call it a ‘digital camera,’ and she wasn’t entirely sure that ‘digital’ was even a real word – and realized she was completely lost when he started talking about ‘uploading’ photographs to a ‘computer.’ Uploading sounded like stacking boxes, and computer sounded like a person who was very good at math. When he asked about Healers, though, it began to make sense.

“Yes,” she said. “Except Healers don’t chop people up.” She paused. “Well, usually. We live near a teaching hospital now, so tons of the people who come to our parties are Healers, and I heard Father discussing alternative therapies with someone over midterm –“ Her father had a knack for finding some way to converse intelligently about most subjects, though here it helped that his first Illinois girlfriend had been a Healer – “but most people don’t trust Muggle methods.” She looked at her fairy eggs again and decided they were most likely crushed enough. “But you can borrow my camera sometime, if you want.”

She began to look for the hippocampus scales. They’d been one of the more costly items in her kit, so she was going to make sure to measure those as precisely as possible. Money wasn’t really an issue, but neither did she want to throw it around on something that she didn’t really, personally, want. “And professionals are better at being precise than we are,” she said in agreement to his statement about buying potions. “I mean, we haven’t had any bad accidents in this class, but one of my aunts ended up in the hospital once when she got some measurement off.”

0 Eliza Just a little bit. 0 Eliza 0 5

Marcus

December 17, 2010 10:12 PM

Don't worry, I can't tell at all... by Marcus

“Nah, I’m serious” Marcus reiterated. “My mind’s a vault. Your name is forever implanted in my head. You’re stuck with me now, Eliza.” Marcus said, still grinning. If there was anything that Marcus was good at that wasn’t a sport, it would be remembering people. His mother said ever since he was little and cognitive, Marcus could remember anyone who he came in counter with so long as they had a conversation. It was sort of weird, but it sometimes came in handy.

While working on the potion together, Marcus discovered that although he had read up on some of the careers that the magical world offered, the magical world clearly had a misunderstanding on the muggle world careers. Marcus gave her a look when she made the comment about chopping people up. This was clearly a misconception regarding doctors. Yes, they cut people open, but that was to remove the malice that was killing the person or to stop the bleeding of whatever weapon had driven through their skin. Non-magical weapons did horrible things that he was sure the magical world had never seen before. They had to treat them just as physically as the injury itself. And, if it worked, he didn’t see the problem with it.

“Well, it’s not like non-magical people have a choice in the matter. They do what they have to in order for someone to survive. They don’t get to wave wands around and be on their merry way.” Marcus knew his voice had a defensive quality to it. He couldn’t help it. People in the magical world looked down upon the people he loved. He thought everything that they have accomplished thus far was amazing. Magical people had it easy and they weren’t sharing what they were capable of with the rest of the world. As a result, the non-magical people evolved in order to survive.

“Thanks for the offer.” Marcus, losing the defensive tone because he didn’t actually mean it towards her. He just had issues with the magical world. He needed answers, but everyone just provided him more questions. It was frustrating. He wasn’t used to it. Even English had answers. He might not understand the story or the poem, but his teachers explained them to the students. Here, it was just ‘okay do this’ but never ‘this is why you have to do this’. It was agitating. “It would be nice to be able to take pictures to send to my Ma. Let me know when you want to run around together to get the pictures.” He didn’t want to have her camera without her actually being there. It didn’t feel right even if it was okay with her.

“Geez.” Marcus said when she explained about her aunt. “Potions can be that dangerous just making them?” Marcus was flabbergasted. He did not want to have a potion explode in his face. That is the last thing he needed. He liked his face and he hoped that someday a girl would like his face too. “I thought magic was supposed to make life easier, but everything is exploding if you do it wrong or cursed or something.”

6 Marcus Don't worry, I can't tell at all... 180 Marcus 0 5

Eliza

December 18, 2010 1:02 AM

I'm a master of deception by Eliza

Eliza wasn't sure how to react to being told she was stuck with someone, so she smiled back and said, "Well, good," in the same bright, light tone she'd been using and hoped that it was the correct response. It felt all right. After all, it was good to have people know who she was, right?

Eliza looked up from her hippocampus scales, her eyes widening with surprise, at Marcus’ tone when he started telling her about Muggles. A retort about how that was oversimplifying things was on the tip of her tongue – her cousin Anthony had gone in to be a Healer, and his brother Jack had finished Auror training and been recognized for something before he was allowed to handle complex cases without a keeper, and that had been before Uncle Vic and Aunt Kat forced them to all take an interest in the subject – but she couldn’t get it to come together into coherent form. It was hard to make words do what she wanted them to when she was startled and a little alarmed by what had just been said to her.

Later, of course, she would come up with the perfect response, the one that would have vindicated her a little while still smoothing the situation over so they could continue to get along well all at once. Later, as in hours from now. Or a few days. Not now, though. It never came when she really needed it.

“You’re welcome,” she said, sounding more subdued than before, when he chose to end the tense moment by returning to the issue of pictures. “Any time outside of classes works for me. There’s not much of a social calendar here.”

She and her roommates had considered creating one, but it had sort of…fallen through. Eliza was keeping the plan in the back of her mind in case it became more viable in a year or two – a back to school party each year could be awesome, and from what she understood, formal entertainments only happened once every four years here, which left Christmas and New Year’s and Valentine’s all open for exploitation – but for now, there was nothing to do but attend classes, talk with her roommates, work, and maybe attend the occasional Quidditch game. The players were mostly very good looking. And inappropriate, as most of the ones who weren’t girls were disqualified for reasons ranging from being Muggleborn to being the unattractive brother of her almost-aunt by marriage, but that was part of the fun of it, when she could tolerate the weather.

When he expressed surprise at the dangers of potions, Eliza smiled again. “What Aunt Kat was doing was way more advanced than anything we’re going to learn in here before seventh year or something,” she said. “All we’re likely to get is cosmetic damage. Which the medic can heal with a wave of her wand and then send us on our merry way.” She realized that was bordering on, if not actually being, sarcastic. “I’m sorry. It’s just – you have no idea what you’re talking about. There’s plenty of things magic can’t fix. My uncle’s been in the hospital for, like, a year, and they can’t fix him or Kat – from something else, not the potion blowing up on her, that was years ago. But it’s why we had to move to Illinois, to look after her. And we all hate Illinois.”

0 Eliza I'm a master of deception 0 Eliza 0 5

Marcus

December 21, 2010 8:23 PM

I don't know if that's a good thing. by Marcus

The minute that Eliza returned his statement back to him, he knew he had offended her. That had not been his intentions and truth was, her saying that doctors ‘chop people up’ was an offense all on its own. “I didn’t say magic fixed everything, I just said non-magical people didn’t have a wand to help them along. Anyway, you’re right, I don’t know what I’m talking about.” Marcus agreed. He wasn’t the sort of kid who acted as though he knew everything and expected people to believe him. There were things he knew plenty about (style of sneakers, hats, football, and basketball mainly), but there was a lot in this world that he didn’t, especially the magical world. But her statement regarding doctors just showed how clueless she was on his world.

“You can’t really blame me though, can you? Some guy shows up on our doorstep and proclaims that I’m a Wizard and am invited to go to Sonora Academy. Okay fine, but there was nothing else to it. Sure he explained about where to get supplies and how we can’t tell anyone and stuff like that, but nothing really substantial.” Marcus vented. He couldn’t help it. It wasn’t fair to throw this on her, she just lived the way she only knew how to live, but no one else says anything about anything to him. He had no outlet so she was now becoming it.

“They don’t explain why you magical people hate people like me or like my Ma. Like it’s our fault. They don’t explain why the magical world can’t be in the non-magical world too. They don’t explain the whys of anything, they only explain the hows. This is how you do a spell. This is how you make a potion. This is how you ride a broom. They don’t tell you why you need the spell. Why do I need to turn a beetle into a button? Why do I need to make a certain potion? Why a broom, why not something else?” The examples he was giving were just whatever ran off his head. He just meant in general, nothing was ever explained. He had no understanding of anything.

“Besides, you know nothing of my world, just these assumptions of things. Doctors don’t chop people up. They don’t have magical capabilities that prevent them from having to do surgeries. Surgeries save lives. We do the best that we can. We learned to adapt. We developed and invented. We survived. The magical world still uses candles to light their way. You all might call the non-magical – my family – barbaric or inferior, but I’m grateful to have the past that we have. It shows how strong and how capable we really are. Without a wand. Without magic.”

Marcus gave a sigh, any frustrations slowly dwindling. He had wanted to vent for a long time and now that he had, he felt better. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to put that on you, but ever since I got here, people make me feel I should be ashamed of who I am and who my mom is. I’m not ashamed and I don’t feel like I should be. My mom has worked really hard to make a decent life for us and supposedly this school will give me a better future. I may not know what I’m talking about, but it’s not because I’m too stupid to care or learn. I have tried reading so many books on it, I ask everyone that I possibly can, but either they can’t give me an answer or it’s a lot of back peddling. At least I’m trying to learn about this world. All of you who come from a magical background, you guys don’t care to learn about mine.”

6 Marcus I don't know if that's a good thing. 180 Marcus 0 5

Eliza

December 22, 2010 9:21 PM

It has its ups and downs by Eliza

Eliza had hoped it wouldn’t happen, but she wasn’t surprised when Marcus got angry at her. That was what happened when she was stupid and started telling people about it instead of just being polite.

“You’re right,” she said when he was done with his rant. “I don’t know anything about the Muggle world. I’m a witch, not a Muggle or a Squib – a person with magical parents who can’t do magic, that’s what we call them, Squibs. It’s just like you never would have learned about this one if you hadn’t been born so you fit into it.” She put down the utensil she was holding.

“It’s all…different. Some wizards want to kill everybody who’s not like them, but there aren’t enough of them to do it. Some Muggles – I can only tell you what I’ve been told – want to do that, too, but there’s a lot more of them. That’s why we don’t mix. They tried to kill us all, so we went underground. We changed everything. To survive. Just like you said Muggles did.”

She looked back at the potions book for the next instruction. “For whatever it’s worth,” she said, “I personally don’t really care about blood politics. As long as you don’t try to kill me because I’m pureblood, we’re good.” She tilted her head. “And as long as you don’t do anything to my Mafalda Colbert bag. I was on a waiting list for, like, six months to get that. And it took forever before that to convince Mother to let me go on the waiting list with her. It’s the closest thing to good jewelry she’s going to let me have until I’m sixteen.” She pulled her Potions kit a little closer to her. “I’ll set up the cauldron and start boiling the murtlap leaves if you’ll start crushing the shrivelfig pits.”

0 Eliza It has its ups and downs 0 Eliza 0 5

Marcus

January 03, 2011 9:18 PM

Most things do, unfortunately. by Marcus

Although Eliza admitted to not knowing anything about the muggle world, there was still a huge difference between the both of them. Eliza had known of the non-magical world. She could have studied it to her hearts content whenever she wanted too. Marcus did not have that option. He only thought this stuff was someone’s imagination. He had no way of knowing any of this really existed if he had never been told that it was real. He certainly never heard of any war in his history, which meant that if there had ever been a war, the wizard people did something so that the non-magical people would never remember. To Marcus, that clearly showed more power for the magical and therefore, nothing for them to have ever feared. Her kind had chosen to ignore those who had no magic. They looked down on them. Hated them. And for what? What did it get them to feel this way instead of being able to learn from one another?

At the age of twelve, Marcus had long ago learned what racism was but he had never truly been able to understand the depths of it. He would never be able to understand how another person could hate someone because they were born a certain way. He couldn’t help the color of his skin, but because he was black, he was stigmatized. And apparently because his mother was not lucky enough to have magic in him, he was now forever stigmatized with this as well. They just couldn’t catch a break.

He kept all this to himself, though. He already had Nova as an enemy, he didn’t want Eliza to hate him too. She seemed nice enough. It was just clear on how different there backgrounds were. He was used to that though. The kids in his suburban school had no idea what it was like to live in the city. And not even the good part of the city. It was a difference that no one spoke about because it was just easier that way. Maybe that was the way it was for the magical to just not talk about the non-magical. Too much of a difference to really understand it even at the basic level.

“Do anything to your what?” He assumed it was some sort of special purse that she had. He always heard girls talking about ‘Coach’ bags and things like that. He didn’t understand the need for them. Most of them looked really ugly anyway. But, he supposed the same could be said about his sneakers and hats. “You have to wait for jewelry? You girls are strange.” Marcus mumbled, though his grin returned because he found it amusing.

“Yeah, I’ll do the pits. I’m apparently not half bad at crushing things.” Marcus commented, indicating his piles of already crushed ingredients.

6 Marcus Most things do, unfortunately. 180 Marcus 0 5