Professor Yu
February 15, 2015 11:54 PM
Advanced Potions (Years VI & VII) by Professor Yu
Diana entered the classroom with an air of calm that she hadn't had about her for the past half of the semesters. Her twitches seemed to be mostly gone and she didn't have the need to obsessively check her potions stores or other belongings like she once had. Granted, that was more likely than not because she had begun to hide different ingredients in their cases around her personal room in a manner akin to a squirrel preparing for winter, but Diana liked to pretend that wasn't the case. She stared at a spot on her desk, brown eyes growing wide and her fingers itched to scrub the little blemish until the wood was raw but she refrained. What would her class think of her if she were to behave in such a manner before them? Her left hand subconsciouly rose to tuck a stray bit of hair that had fallen from her normally perfectly coiffered hair behind her ear. Diana bit her lip and pressed her right hand closer to the outside of her right thigh--she was not going to clean that spot, she absolutely was not.The moment the hand on the clock struck eight o' clock, she nearly jumped out of her seat to stand by the chalkboard all her students were now familiar with. The right hand was threatening mutiny and trying to serruptitiously clean her desk and Diana was not about to let that happen. "So," she said brightly, looking at the students who had decided to continue with potions. "I hope you all thought about what topics you would like to start your research on this weekend. We'll start our library work on Friday and you can, of course, get a head start if you want, but the rest of the semester, as you know will be spent creating a portfolio that you will be working on for the second half of all the semesters you have left." For sixth years, that meant they had three more halves and for the seventh years just one. "Are there any questions?"
Once she made sure any questions had been answered, Diana moved on. "Today, we are going to be putting our lesson from Friday on how to identify the ingredients in an unknown potion and using those to figure out what the potion is to use so I hope none of you forgot what we talked about. I have brewed several different potions in preperation for this lesson for you to choose from, one group of three per potion please. Together you will determine through smell, sight, consistency, and any other method you like other than tasting and touching the potion directly what is in the potion and what the potion is. You will have forty-five minutes to investigate after which you will present to the class your findings."
"If you don't have any questions on the lesson you may begin. Of course I will be circuling around to pass out your essays on innovative use of an ingredient of your choice from Friday and to answer any individual questions," Diana cleared her throat and walked to her desk to pick up the purple folder that contained the class's essays. There was a tiny fruit fly on it. Diana's nose twitched and she tried to flick it off but it only flew right back. She narrowed her eyes and pressed her left thumb directly on top of the folder, squishing the thing into a deep wine colored stain. In horror, she wiped her thumb off on her desk and took the essays out of the folder, discarding the offending death trap into a dustbin thankful that her back had been to her students that entire time. She would have to come back and clean her desk later now that it had a spot and the remains of an animal on it.
OOC: Creative, realistic posts are worth more points. If Diana is needed, please tag Professor Yu in the subject line. Posting rules apply. Please remember to add your house after your name so your points can go to the right place Have fun!
The potions she created are:
Forgetfulness Potion
Felix Felicis
Elixir to Induce Euphoria
Shrinking Solution
Wiggenweld Potion
Draught of Living Dead
Polyjuice Potion (this one has been made without the hair of the person in it)
You can find the information on these on the harry potter wikia :) Also, you can be sure that Diana kept an extra watchful eye on those who chose the Draught of the Living Dead or Polyjuice Potion to keep them from being ill-used.
Subthreads: Decisions, decisions. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
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Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
February 18, 2015 7:46 PM
Decisions, decisions. by Julian Umland, Teppenpaw
Julian smiled when Professor Yu mentioned the rapidly-approaching start date for their portfolio project. It was highly unlikely that even an Aladren would have mistaken her smile for that of someone who was at all pleased about the rapidly-approaching start date for their portfolio project. Trying to figure out what she was going to research for it had been stressful since the day she found out she was going to have to do it, and since she was no closer to an answer than she’d been then, the pressure was getting worse, not better.She did not, of course, lack for advice about how to approach the project. Almost everyone at home seemed to have an opinion on the subject. Mom found theoretical angles the most interesting; she had made a special trip to a magical library just to read up on advanced potions and seemed to be suggesting that Julian attempt a massive project exploring the links between transformative potions and human Transfiguration. Dad, just as uselessly given the types of material they covered in Advanced classes, had suggested she stick to practical stuff. Her older brothers, though, had managed between them to hit a nerve: Paul (who had never let being a Squib interfere with having opinions on magic and magical theory; he claimed that he read it in deference to the most famous saying of Sun Tzu, whatever that meant) had written a lot about how she needed to put a lot of thought into the ‘image’ the portfolio gave of her, and Stephen seemed to think she should lay out a plan for the next year and a half so that, grouped together in the end, her portfolio pieces suggested a career path she might want to take so she could possibly use it as an artifact for university admissions. Both of their points would have been excellent, had she had the slightest idea what she wanted to pursue at university or what kind of image she’d need to project to further that aim.
Three of her brothers were currently pursuing formal education outside of their home. Stephen and John, she was pretty sure, did not enjoy actually going to school much. For them, education by people other than Mom was a means to an end - independence and a good life for Steve, access to a larger library and more freedom to practice magic for John. Paul, for his part, had made a joke she wasn’t entirely sure had been entirely a joke about how he enjoyed “sitting back and feeling superior to the unlettered masses” in the university library, but he was really in it for the same reasons Steve was. Julian, though less intelligent than all three of them, was the one in the family who actually liked school, and for the exact reasons that they didn’t like it: because until now, it had really demanded very little from her. All the whats and whens and wheres she was ‘paid’ for had always been decided for her by the teachers, and the rest of her life hadn’t been much more complicated. She did what people expected of her and everything worked out beautifully.
Now, though, the rest of her life was getting more and more complicated and even school had, just when she needed it, betrayed her. The last thing she needed was academic independence on top of everything else, but her teachers seemed determined to give it to her, even though she didn't know what she was working toward. She guessed there was a level on which she had always expected to end up just like her mother, but if she was going to do that, then why was she even still here? Taking care of a house and kids and maybe doing low-level sales or clerical work part-time did not usually involve knowing what the Draught of Living Death even was, never mind how to make it. Just hearing Professor Yu’s reminder about Friday made Julian want very much to pick up her pestle and throw it at the woman.
Professor Yu did not endear herself to Julian much further with the assignment. Groups. Of three. That was...not ideal. She folded her essay up and shoved it in a robe pocket without even looking to see how bad it was before looking around for partners.
The easiest solution seemed to be approaching someone else first instead of ending up as the third, so she turned to the nearest person. “Need a second or third?” she asked with a smile, hoping it was ‘second’ or at least not a flat ‘no’ because the person already knew who they wanted to work with.
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Decisions, decisions.
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