Beginners, how do your gardens grow? on Potions

Professor Fawcett

September 11, 2013 12:24 PM

Beginners, how do your gardens grow? by Professor Fawcett

Teaching as the end of the year drew very close required a level of creativity to keep the students engaged in the lesson. In this respect, John had to admit he was not an ideal candidate, being not naturally a very creative person, at least in certain ways, and also having been in the same job for more than a decade. Still, he tried his best.

"Good afternoon," he said to his youngest students. "Today's potion is one in the spirit of the season, so I hope everyone heeded my advice at our last meeting to bring your dragon hide gloves today. We'll be working on a potion to stimulate healthy plant growth today."

John had never been a father, but he was an uncle, and had worked with early adolescents for more than a decade. When all else failed, or seemed like it might, he broke out the gross stuff. That would keep their attention on their work if nothing else did, and as for the pranksters, well, hopefully he had made himself imposing enough over a year or two to hold off that sort of thing. He had a notoriously low appreciation, given how frequently his room contained boiling or otherwise potentially harmful items, for those who regarded potion components as toys or his classroom as a playground.

"For this potion, which I advise any of you who think you might be interested in gardening to mark in your books and remember, you will need a splash of armadillo bile, doxy eggs, chizpurfle carapaces, shredded dittany, daisy root, and a measure of dragon dung, which, as it is not part of the standard potion-making kit, I have provided for you."

He had long suspected that he and Selina took turns as the majority of students' Least Favorite Professor Ever, and suspected too that he had just won today's round. "Anyone attempting to throw this ingredient, threaten a classmate with it, or in any way do anything with it not specified by the textbook's directions for this potion - " there were times when he was very glad to have had a certain uniquely challenging former student - "will have a detention as unpleasant as I can devise," he warned them, deciding that letting them use their own imaginations for the specifics would be more effective than anything he could actually say.

"To be effective, this potion must be stirred to an even consistency in the final stages, so you will need to put some strength into it. Raise your hand if you think you may need help before that becomes obvious to me by other means." Such as explosions resulting in students covered in unpleasant green slime. "If there are no questions to begin with, you may begin."

OOC: Posting rules apply: at least two paragraphs/200 words, spelling and grammar, and more creative, realistic posts will earn you more points. Tag Fawcett if you need him, and have fun!

Subthreads:

With some weird plant food apparently (wotw) by Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw

0 Professor Fawcett Beginners, how do your gardens grow? 0 Professor Fawcett 1 5

Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw

September 16, 2013 6:48 PM

With some weird plant food apparently (wotw) by Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw

Dimitri was a little leery as he made his way towards the Potions Lab for the potions class. He remembered Professor Fawcett saying that they were going to need their dragon hide gloves for the next class and had fretted all week over the reason why. What on earth could they be working with today that required such heavy gloves? he wondered to himself as he made his way to class. He entered the room and found himself a seat. He was hoping that the assignment for the day would make it to where they had to work with partners or could work with partners so he could work with either Ava or Emery again. He waited for them to enter the room and when he was pretty sure one of them had he waved hello to them. He couldn’t really tell which one of them it was thanks to the seat he chose and waited for them to have a seat. He turned his attention to Professor Fawcett when he began his lecture on their assignment and frowned slightly. Gardening? Seriously? he frowned to himself. We’re doing a potion for gardening? he complained to himself continuing to pay most attention to the lecture at hand.

Dimitri had never been known for being any good with plant life so he was very apprehensive about working on a potion that promoted plant growth. He looked over the ingredients that Professor Fawcett wanted them to work with and was still slightly confused as to why he wanted them to wear their gloves. Unless they’re for the dragon dung he mentioned Dimitri reasoned. That would make sense considering what he was asking them to work with. Dimitri made a list of the ingredients on a sheet of paper in front of him. Armadillo bile, doxy eggs, chizpurfle carapaces, shredded dittany, daisy root, and a measure of dragon dung he wrote down copying from the Professors list on the board and his textbook. He grinned slightly at the idea of using dragon dung and armadillo bile for a potion and grinned a little harder at the terrible thought that crossed his mind just before Professor Fawcett quashed it. He would be a kill joy about being able to use certain items as projectiles in the name of entertainment. Oh well…he could always find another way to torture his twin sister, however none would be as interesting as being able to chuck dragon dung at her.

Since Professor Fawcett managed to successfully put a quash on any ideas that might have involved poo flinging, Dimitri turned his attention to the task at hand. He flipped his textbook to the page needed and began looking over the instructions for the potion. It shouldn’t be too hard to do the potion on his own he reasoned and began putting his ingredients together. As he dug around in his potions bag he realized he was missing one of the ingredients required to make the potion that the Professor hadn’t provided them. He leaned over towards his neighbor and asked politely, “I’m sorry to bother you, but you don’t happen to have any extra daisy roots…do you?”

0 Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw With some weird plant food apparently (wotw) 0 Dimitri Porter. Teppenpaw 0 5

Ava Fletcher, Aladren

September 23, 2013 10:33 PM

With silver bells and cockle shells by Ava Fletcher, Aladren

Ava rushed to Potions, excited for the day. When Professor Fawcett had said they would be using dragon hide gloves she had decided that whatever it was they were doing was going to be intense. And if she ever heard her mother correctly, a lot of the Healer's potions were intense. When she got to the room, she found that Dimitri had gotten there before she had and she happily sat down next to him, glad that she didn't have to find someone she didn't really know as well to work with. If the Potion was going to be as intense as she thought it would, then she wanted to have a partner that she liked and trusted. As it turned out, it was only a potion for gardening and she suppressed the groan that threatened to come out. She had thought it would have been something really cool, maybe something to cure some mild sickness or something. Ava made a mental note to maybe go on up to the Hospital Wing and talk to Healer Bailey about maybe learning somethings.

As Professor Fawcett kept talking about the assignment, Ava dutifully took notes like a good student, make small annotations instead of writing out full words so that she could scribble faster, it was a skill that she had started to develop that year during class. The only problem was that as it wasn't a uniform version of shorthand, if she couldn't remember what an abbreviation stood for then part of her notes would be lost. Learning a true version of shorthand was now on her summer list of things to do. She opened her textbook and potions kit and made a tick mark next to each ingredient as she found and then took it out of her kit to line up on the desk in front of her. She had totally forgotten that she was sitting next to Dimitri, that's how involved with the task in front of her she was. Soon though, she was snapped out of the trance she was in when Dimitri politely asked her if he could borrow some daisy roots.

She raised her head, slightly startled. "Hmm? Yeah, of course, hold on, let me measure mine out first to double check I have enough for myself." She skipped down her list of ingredients to daisy roots and poured some out for herself and then Dimitri. "Yep! Looks like I have just enough, luckily for both of us!" She smiled at him. "So, what do you think about this potion?" She didn't want to say anything that might offend him, but she was kind of disappointed that the potion was only for gardening, although, and this was a thought that just occurred to her, gardening was probably an essential part of potion making, otherwise you'd have to buy many ingredients that you could otherwise grow yourself. She felt her mood lighten up at this new revelation.

0 Ava Fletcher, Aladren With silver bells and cockle shells 0 Ava Fletcher, Aladren 0 5