Plotter
March 24, 2014 4:21 PM
Advanced Potions by Plotter
The potions classroom was more or less the same as it always was, although devoid of its usual pungent aromas; the classroom was often at its freshest on the first day of term, the summer break having allowed various fragrances, resulting from a wide assortment of concoctions brewed within its walls, to dissipate. Just about everything else in the room retained its usual familiarity, from the ingredients cabinets, carefully organised and full of those items students were most likely to require, to the students’ workbenches, some permanently scorched and scarred from assorted brewing accidents over their many years’ service. However, there was one glaring and obvious omission as the advanced class entered for their first scheduled lesson of the term: the professor was absent.Professor Fawcett was not usually prone to tardiness, and as the minutes ticked by without bringing with the gathered pupils any sign of a professor, it seemed increasingly unlikely that the potions teacher would arrive at all. Or any other staff member, for that matter, as the substitute professors the advanced students had so far encountered had always employed punctuality.
When it eventually, inevitably, became apparent that nobody – professor or otherwise - would be arriving to teach advanced potions to the sixth and seventh year students who had elected to study the subject, the students were faced with a decision: how to best fill the time that would, ordinarily, be spent learning. Perhaps they would read ahead in the textbook, or perhaps be so daring as to attempt brewing a concoction unsupervised. Then again, there were probably some amongst them who thought their time could be better spent outside of the classroom, and who would stop them from leaving?
Subthreads: Enough of this... by Jorge Garcia, Pecari
Calling Alicia and all Prefects by Thaddeus Pierce II with Alicia Bauer, Jay Carey
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Plotter
Advanced Potions
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Plotter
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Thaddeus Pierce II
March 24, 2014 10:10 PM
Calling Alicia and all Prefects by Thaddeus Pierce II
Thaddeus had noticed something off as soon as he saw the pair of elves in his dorm room. He had come out of the bathroom at his normal time to find two of the long eared creatures pawing through his and Evan's stuff, not cleaning but clearly searching for something. In the previous six years, he had never seen elves in his dorm room, either in pursuit of their job or prying into private property. He'd known David when Wilkes was Head Boy. If this was an annual thing done to Head Boys' rooms, he was pretty sure he would have heard about it then.He'd missed breakfast trying to get the two elves to explain what was going on. It took time and effort and every bit of experience he had with dealing with House Elves, but he'd eventually gotten as much out of them as he thought they knew, which wasn't much.
Nathan Xavier was missing. The Headmaster was missing. There were purple clouds in the sky. The rest of the staff was missing. The owls couldn't get out. These were the facts the elves were able to give him, in order of importance according to them, if the number of times he was told the same thing in different ways was any indication.
So, armed with this minuscule amount of knowledge, he really was not terribly surprised to find that Professor Fawcett was not at his post for Advanced Potions. Thad gave him a little while to show up in case the elves were mistaken and/or overreacting, but he took it as a given that they were on the mark when Jorge Garcia declared sitting around waiting any longer was a waste of time.
Thad stood as well, but not to leave. He had people to talk to before they followed Jorge's example. He wasn't sure how many of the sixth year prefects had opted to continue potions at the RATS level, but he thought most of the seventh year ones had kept it up.
"I'd like to call a Prefect and Heads meeting," he declared, glancing at Alicia as he did so to make sure she was with him on this. "I'd also like at least a couple of volunteers to go check on the first years in Charms and intermediates in DADA." He'd made sure he knew the beginner schedule in case any first years in the hallways asked the badged guy where they were supposed to go, and he made a point of knowing where the Anns were supposed to be as well, just in case he ever had to find them in an emergency. He wondered briefly if this qualified yet.
"Everyone else can take a free period," he declared. "More information will follow at lunch, once we have worked out a plan."
He waited while the other students rearranged themselves, some leaving, some coming to join him, some possibly not quite ready to take the Head Boy's authority and leave a classroom without a professor's explicit permission.
"From what I understand from the elves," Thad began, sharing what little he knew with what remained of the school's oldest authorities, "the staff are all missing, owls can't get out, and there are purple clouds surrounding the school." He condensed the elves' five facts into three and rearranged them to the order he found most important. "Until the staff return and things are resolved, it looks like we're in charge." He was kind of glad the newest fifth year prefects were not yet present. They were untried and they might hold it together better if they were presented with a solid plan that they could help execute rather than just a problem. "Has anybody else learned anything more than that?"
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Thaddeus Pierce II
Calling Alicia and all Prefects
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Thaddeus Pierce II
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Alicia Bauer
March 25, 2014 1:51 PM
Making plans. by Alicia Bauer
By the end of breakfast, Alicia had been exhausted by the effort of remaining calm and trying to remain in control, but even exhaustion had never managed to catch up with the anxiety which had set in after about half an hour, once it really started to look like Thad was not coming to breakfast and that left her with nothing to do, around trying to herd not-quite-hostile geese, but wonder why he was not there, and what, as it began to look increasingly unlikely that the professors were going to eat before classes, either, that might mean. She should, she knew in hindsight, have escorted the first years to their class just to make sure they had adult supervision once they got there, but nerves had won out at the last. Instead of taking that sensible, responsible course of action, she had instead darted in a different direction altogether, to check the hospital wing (Thad might miss the first class of the year if he were on the brink of death, maybe, if the entire staff was actually in there to restrain him from going) and be torn between relief that he was not dying in there and concern that nobody was doing anything in there before writing that off as a problem for another time and making her way to the Potions room.There is no reason, she’d told herself firmly, keeping her head high, smile on, and walk to a glide better suited to a ballroom, why – whatever is going on – would take him and leave me. We’re in equals in authority. I’m older than him, if it’s that. That had almost tripped her up when she thought about it; if it was age, then she might be in trouble very soon. Another problem for another time, though. There was no way they’d lack post-school-adult supervision for two weeks anyway. He is going to be in this classroom, and I am not sure if I am going to be more inclined to kiss him or kill him, but whatever I want to do, I will be physically able to do it. I will –
She yanked the classroom door open roughly, taking the tension of the morning out on something at last, and felt her legs shake and her mental dialogue attempt to slip into the spiritual vernacular for the second time each this morning when she looked around the room, though this time it was relief rather than fear inspiring it. If this went on much longer, she thought, a little giddily, she might have to join a religion. Maybe her father would give her lessons, though honestly, even from the very little she knew, she didn't think he was very good at his....
Not relevant, she told herself firmly. “You have no idea,” she told her friend, very calmly, as though talking about the weather on a day when it was not bizarre, “how glad I am to see you.” She sat down. “The teachers are all gone, and when you weren’t at breakfast, I thought you might be, too.”
She set up her desk, but with no anticipation that Fawcett would really come, now. Fawcett almost always beat his students to class. She should, after her detour, have already been behind, and she wasn’t. But it was necessary to wait. Just for a few minutes. She tried to argue with herself about whether or not that made her a coward for a bit, but couldn’t focus on the trains of thought and they were in any case interrupted by Jorge Garcia storming out of the room, followed by Thad calling the meeting she had been hesitating over writing the orders for. She nodded fractionally when he looked at her, agreeing it was time.
Her eyes widened at the intelligence he had managed to gather, including some she hadn’t had. So much for one of her plans; she had meant to write to Anne, figuring her tutor for the outside adult she knew who was the least likely to mock her if it turned out she was overreacting. She shivered a little, something about that making it all seem more real, but focused back on what was practical and relevant. No point in thinking about a plan which had been proven unworkable; she just had to move on to the next plan.
“I don’t know anything else for sure,” she said, surprised by how cool and level her own voice came out, “but I think you’re right to assume we’re on our own.” She bit the inside of her mouth for one second. “I have to retract what I said at breakfast at lunch, and after that, I’m going to the library to do some research.” Or possibly break into the offices of the headmaster and the groundskeeper, if she couldn't find what she was looking for in the library, but no need to mention that yet. “It's not a fabulous chance, but we might be able to figure out more of what's going on.”
She took out a sheet of parchment, which she had begun writing on during that interminable breakfast and had made a few additions to while they waited for a teacher she had known wasn’t coming. “With what we've got now, I wrote down a few thoughts during breakfast. If we could get the elves to accept us, that would probably make things easier, but as long as they keep cooking, I think we can keep things under control. For a while.” How much food was there? They could transfigure one food into another, or make more from what they had, but not conjure it from the air, and she didn’t know if making more from the existing supply would work forever.
In the meantime, though, it felt so good to have a list in her hands. Lists made everything seem more manageable, more under control. “As long as we can keep classes semi-running and someone in the hospital wing, anyway.” Three prefects in seventh year, four in sixth; seven other people weren’t enough to do everything that needed doing even if one of them knew enough about medical charms and potions to take over the hospital. If not, she'd have to do that herself and help Thad administrate, both, which sounded...potentially challenging. “If this goes on until the end of the day, I suggest we recruit the other Quidditch captains and seconds - the older ones, anyway - to help as well, just for extra bodies with badges on them to help keep an eye on their Houses.” Even they had to sleep sometimes. Alicia knew she required at least four hours a night, and six was better; she could pull all-nighters, but no more than two in a week and those not back-to-back. Besides, having the captains close would mean having Cepheus close, and she didn't want anyone she loved out of her sight for longer than it took to use a bathroom until this was over. She'd take whatever got her closer to that goal.
She had thought of more than that. The most trivial was whether or not they should stop wearing their school robes to distinguish themselves from the other students, and the most important, she knew, might very well constitute putting a noose around her own neck in Salem. If the elves would obey them, then she would happily send one of them to the boundaries first, to see if their brand of magic would let them get through; if not, then one of the students who knew how to Apparate would eventually have to try, and she wasn’t sure how many others had their licenses yet. If she could get to the desert, she could go for help, but she didn't want to leave her friends, and didn't particularly want to die if it didn't work, either. Research, though, would have to happen before she intended to allow anyone to try such a stunt, and she thought it would be at least a week before there was a chance they'd be that desperate.
Maybe even two weeks. If they lasted that long, and no one else turned eighteen in the meantime, she guessed she might get to see if she could have been a hero in another life. Somehow, the thought didn't cheer her up at all. In any case, though, she didn't think giving every thought she had had voice right now would be a good thing, so she folded her hands in her lap and focused on this place, this moment.
OOC: Alicia’s thoughts on food are from the bit about Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration in Deathly Hallows.
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Alicia Bauer
Making plans.
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Alicia Bauer
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Jay Carey
March 25, 2014 6:33 PM
Volunteering for something else by Jay Carey
Jay had asked the elf trying to open his trunk what, exactly, it thought it was doing when he woke up to the sight of the attempt, but the response hadn’t made any sense. He had briefly considered Stunning the elf, since clearly it had gone mad if it thought Professor Fawcett might be in his trunk, but he had finally just informed it that Fawcett wouldn’t fit in there before dressing as hurriedly as he could and leaving the room. Getting in trouble with the new headmaster on the first day for Stunning one of his elves - Jay's parents didn't have one, but he knew enought to know that kind of thing was frowned on as long as the elf wasn't attacking him - hardly seemed like a good way to get the year started. He had, instead, tried to inform Fawcett himself of the problem, only to find his Head of House’s office also full of elves going through the bookshelves.He had not run to the Cascade Hall, sure now that there was a real problem if all the elves were acting this way, but he had come close, and had regretted it when he got to the Hall to find that not only was Professor Fawcett not there, but neither was anyone else he might have informed and who might have used the information to good purpose, either. Instead, there was just…Alicia Bauer, talking to Alex, who glanced at him and shook her head the tiniest bit before returning to the conversation.
That had not left much for Jay to do but look over the tables, searching for his three siblings and Lucille, all of whom were present and looked like they were in good health. Aria was not present, which concerned him, all things considered; neither was Thad, who he thought was the next logical person to talk to. Jay had sat down and tried to eat breakfast, since the theme seemed to be to pretend that nothing especially bizarre was happening, but he had not been able to choke down more than a few bites before it was time to go to classes. Alex filled him in on what she knew on the way, but it wasn’t much, and only made things seem worse, not better.
If the remote, wandless Imperius had been possible, Fawcett would have been behind his desk in the Potions room, serious and efficient except for the occasional hint of sarcasm or humor it was entirely possible to miss if you weren’t listening closely. The remote, wandless Imperius was not, however, possible, and Jay found himself in another place without the people who were supposed to be in it in it, wondering how many others there were, what was going on, what the problem was, what problems the problem was going to give birth to any minute now….
He jumped in his seat when Jorge loudly announced that there was no point to staying longer, then looked to Thad when the Head Boy evidently decided that enough was enough and started giving orders. He wanted to hear what went on in the meeting, but stood up as soon as there was mention of volunteers and the other two classes meeting right now.
“I’ll take the beginners,” he said. Brandon was in there. Henry and Anthony were in Defense, too, but Anthony could take care of them both, he was sure, and the intermediates were bound to be less unruly than the beginners anyway. They’d had at least two years to get used to the routines and discipline of the school, where the beginners might do anything if left alone for too long.
OOC: Continued in Charms.
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Jay Carey
Volunteering for something else
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Jay Carey
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5
