Zzzz... on Potions

Professor Sophie O'Malley

June 02, 2017 11:57 PM

Nap time! [Years I-II] by Professor Sophie O'Malley

As the staff fluctuated, it was impossible not to feel the strain. Sophie was not even technically affected, but the stress of her coworkers felt almost tangible. There were a lot of holes to fill currently, and replacements were needed. It did, a bit selfishly, make her feel a little more secure in her job. Not that she was in any danger of being fired, but if she was, they wouldn’t do it while they were already short-staffed.

She saw the way Isis Carter was running around trying her best to fill the gaps, and Sophie could not help but think that the woman could probably use a nap. Which had inspired today’s lessons for the first and second years, as the board proudly announced that they were covering “THE SLEEPING DRAUGHT”.

“Alright, guys,” she began when everybody was settled and accounted for, “we’re doing a little experimenting today.” Sophie glanced around at the younger years, hoping to see that none of them were naturally experiencing anything similar to the potion’s; the class was just after lunch, which meant students were either jazzed up from the free time, or else wiped out by a good meal.

“So sometimes, a potion has multiple ways of being brewed,” she explained. “Your books, for example, give one set of instructions for the sleeping draught - page 634, by the way,” added the small blonde professor. “However, the Intermediate’s books list a different set. Now, the end result is the same, but one is a slightly streamlined process. I’d like some of you to take the initiative and follow the instructions from the other class’s book - it isn’t really any harder, I promise - while some of you brew with the instructions in your books. We will compare color, viscosity, and effectiveness in our next class.”

Sophie smiled happily at her younglings. “Some of the other books are over on the counter, next to the extra ingredients. Feel free to brew in pairs, as usual. It’s often quite beneficial to have a second set of eyes or hands. Go ahead and get started.”

OOC: Both of the following sets of instructions were supplied by the wiki.

Version in the Beginners’ textbook:
Crush the wormwood, add to cauldron. Stir slowly.
Chop the valerian, add to cauldron, and apply a high heat.
Juice your Flobberworm and add its thick mucus to your cauldron.
Stir vigorously, apply a low heat and then give it another stir.
Chop the Sopophorous bean and add to cauldron.
Stir the mixture quickly, then heat.
Add a sprinkle of powdered asphodel petals and a dash of essence of nettle.
Heat the potion a final time, then stir slowly.
Wave your wand over the cauldron to finish the potion

Version in the Intermediates’ textbook:
Add 4 sprigs of Lavender to the mortar
Add 2 measures of Standard Ingredient to the mortar
Crush into a creamy paste using the pestle
Add 2 blobs of Flobberworm Mucus to your cauldron
Add 2 measures of Standard Ingredient to your cauldron
Gently heat for 30 seconds
Add 3 measures of the crushed mixture to your cauldron
Wave your wand
Leave to brew and return in 25** minutes (time depends on cauldron)
Add 2 measures of Standard Ingredient to your cauldron
Heat on a high temperature for 1 minute
Add 4 Valerian Sprigs to your cauldron
Stir 7 times, clockwise
Wave your wand to complete the potion

** Changed from the wiki, which said 70, but we’ll just assume our cauldrons are better than that for the sake of fitting into a class period. Have fun!

Subthreads:

I wish by Natalie Atwater, Pecari with Winston Pierce

Overtthinking by Kit Reid with Amelia Layne, Aladren

Zzzz... by Isaac Song - Pecari with Jennifer White (Aladren)

How about daydream time? by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw

12 Professor Sophie O'Malley Nap time! [Years I-II] 34 Professor Sophie O'Malley 1 5

Natalie Atwater, Pecari

June 05, 2017 3:50 PM

I wish by Natalie Atwater, Pecari

Natalie never really wanted to go to class after lunch. Actually sometimes, she didn't want to go to class period but after lunch it was worse, because she resented that she only had enough time to eat, not to go play in the water room. But she couldn't skip eating either, because that was important.

Besides, Natalie needed to enjoy good food while she still could! Kelsey had been a lot more weight conscious since she'd started looking for a betrothal. It was her sister's choice, but she could tell that Father and the rest of his family approved and there was always that pressure put on Natalie to "be more like Kelsey". She resisted this the best she could.

She sincerely wished though that her sister wouldn't always do "the right thing" that impressed their family quite so much. It put more pressure on the Pecari to be the same and a lot of things Kelsey did were her own idea not Great-Grandfather Atwater's or anyone else on either side of her family so if the Crotalus didn't think of them on her own, Natalie wouldn't have to worry about them. Or at least, not have to worry about being nagged about them as she didn't feel like bothering to try and live up to her oh so perfect older sister. It was never going to happen, so why should she? Natalie felt her energy was much better spent in other ways.

Potions, though was not one of those ways. Okay, yes, it was in the sense of being overall less futile but it wasn't exactly fun , though the second year had to admit she liked brewing better than theory lessons in Transfig or Charms. Plus, sometimes, Potions could have fun applications, it was just that Natalie found making them tedious.

At least, though, she could see why this could be necessary and useful potion. It still would be more effective if someone else made it though. She frowned though at the two different sets of instructions. Sophie had not said who had to do what.

Natalie turned to her neighboor and asked. "Do you think second years have to use the Intermediate instructions?" She would personally prefer not to, as Potions was one of her two worst subjects and she didn't particularly care to challenge herself.

11 Natalie Atwater, Pecari I wish 371 Natalie Atwater, Pecari 0 5

Kit Reid

June 07, 2017 12:13 PM

Overtthinking by Kit Reid

Arriving to Potions, Kit took her seat at the front of the class. She always sat at the front whenever possible. Judging by the looks of her – blonde and always fashionably dressed – one might not suspect the brilliant mind behind it that enjoyed classes. She would even go so far as to say they were fun. Though, the shortage in staffing hindered some of that fun.

For some reason, it seemed that the school had lost a lot of staff members and students. Kit wasn’t sure why, but she did overhear her parents talking about the possibility of sending her to another school to ensure that she received the best ‘education,’ which was really just code for ensuring she had more eligible pureblood males to choose from when she got older. She had barged in on them, even though, it wasn’t quite ladylike and convinced them that Sonora was the best place to be, because there were possibilities. She even had someone particular in mind, which was enough for her parents to leave it alone for the moment. She had no idea what she was going to do when she actually had to produce someone, but that was a problem for another time.

Today, her focus was Potions. She had left her long hair down, because it went best with her outfit. Under her robes, she was wearing a black and white short-sleeved sweater with a pink skirt, black stockings, and black wedges. Her belt was pink and black as was the bow clip that she had pinned on one side of her hair. Fashion achieved, but loose hair was not a good idea in Potions. Pulling a spare hair tie from her wrist, she pulled her locks up into a messy ponytail. Safety first.

Hair up and notebook out, she was ready to learn. And she was certainly not disappointed since they would be working from the Intermediate textbook. She frowned though as to why there were two sets of instructions. If they weren’t really that much harder and produced the same potion, why would there be two sets? Was it simply a matter of substitutions like how there were certain things that could be substituted in food recipes to make the dish healthier or was it more along the lines of how effective the potion would actually be. She made a note to ask the professor about it after class.

For now, Kit decided that she needed a partner. Turning to the person closest to her, she asked, “Do you want to be partners?”

0 Kit Reid Overtthinking 363 Kit Reid 0 5

Winston Pierce

June 07, 2017 4:35 PM

Re: I wish by Winston Pierce

Winston enjoyed potions most of the time. It wasn't necessarily his favorite class, as it lacked the interesting high points of some of his other classes, but it was fairly consistent in what to expect so it never disappointed him either.

It helped that he was pretty good at it, too. He had a good shot at bringing home an O for his final grade this year, so no class that had that going for it could be too bad. Dad would be pleased, and that in turn pleased Winston and gave the class a bit more shine than it otherwise ought to have.

Today he took a seat beside Natalie Atwater. He didn't know the Pecari girl particularly well, but she was on his father's Approved list, and he had enjoyed her company the few other times they had worked together in class.

As Professor O'Malley went over the day's assignment, Winston became intrigued. At a guess, he'd peg the intermediate recipe as the more effective, if for no better reason than because it was in the intermediate book, but he was definitely curious to see how they compared. When invited to do so, he fetched one of the next level books and brought it back to his seat, flipping to the appropriate page and comparing it to the one in his own book. As he read through the steps he became further convinced of his initial opinion. If the same potion could be brewed at the same level of effectiveness without sitting around kicking your heels for twenty five or more minutes, there was no reason at all for the tedious waiting version to exist.

As he was finished reading through the two recipes, Natalie asked whether second years were required to do the 'harder' one. Winston thought about it, looked at the two recipes again and shook his head, "Professor O'Malley didn't assign it that way. She just said it wasn't any more difficult and, looking at them, it looks like the intermediate one just involves a lot more waiting around rather than anything particularly tricky." Of course, remembering to come back to the potion at just the right time was its own level of trickiness, but wasn't anything inherently difficult.

"Do you want to do the one from our book then and I'll do the intermediate one and we can compare ours to each other next class? Or would you rather work together on one or the other? I have no preference either way."

OOC: As the school is not that big, and group work seems to be the norm, I'm assuming they've worked together in class before. If you would rather otherwise, just ignore that bit.

1 Winston Pierce Re: I wish 370 Winston Pierce 0 5

Amelia Layne, Aladren

June 07, 2017 4:43 PM

Just take it one step at a time. by Amelia Layne, Aladren

At this point, with Professor Pye and Professor Perrault both abruptly gone, it almost felt weird to go to Potions and Care of Magical Creatures and Transfiguration and see different faces. In two other classes, after all, there was much less variety now and she saw more of the substitutes than she did of her real professors. Of course, it wasn’t that much more, all things considered, but sometimes it seemed like it, and she had flashbacks to elementary school and spending all day in one classroom, even though they did still move between rooms for their Charms and Defense lessons.

If she was to be honest, she was slightly dreading the day that they got new teachers, as this would involve a lot of changes – new teaching styles, new housekeeping rules, having to learn all over again what a new person wanted to hear on homeworks and the like. Having to do that twice in one year, first for the substitutes and then for their replacements, would practically be like being a first year again, with none of the academic advantages that were supposed to come with promotion to second year. Amelia liked feeling like one of the cool big kids who knew the ropes and could be helpful to the first years. She did not want to revert to trying to figure out the ropes herself, at least not three times in two years. If that happened, she suspected she’d be gaining some new favorite classes soon, and that Potions might be one of them.

Potions got a few more points in its favor when Amelia saw the words THE SLEEPING DRAUGHT in big letters across the board. Amelia normally never really had much trouble sleeping, with one exception, which was the first couple of days into each term at Sonora. She got jet-lagged traveling to Arizona, so she often napped, which messed her up at night, which meant she was tired again the next day, and so it could go on for several days at a time before she just forced herself to stay awake during the day until it started feeling natural again. Sleeping Draughts sounded really appealing at such times.

Amelia didn’t feel the need to bend herself too far out of shape to be An Aladren With A Capital A, but she did automatically assume that Professor O’Malley’s instruction for some of them to work from the intermediate book was at least partially for her. Between being an Aladren and being Uncle Geoff’s niece, she didn’t even have to consider it, at least not until she contemplated the matter of a partner. Luckily, her neighbor was her roommate today, so she didn’t anticipate any problems.

“Sure,” said Amelia when Kit asked the formal question. “We’re going intermediate, right?” she asked, just to confirm.

16 Amelia Layne, Aladren Just take it one step at a time. 360 Amelia Layne, Aladren 0 5

Isaac Song - Pecari

June 17, 2017 9:14 PM

Zzzz... by Isaac Song - Pecari

Isaac always felt a little bad for Professor O'Malley having her class right after lunch, but someone had to. He was feeling lethargic as usual, perhaps because he enjoyed stuffing himself or he enjoyed a lot of rich foods. In any case, he always fought sleep in Potions even if they were making a really interesting draught.

Today was worse. He thought he was going to fall headfirst into his cauldron if he didn't have someone to help him stay awake. The Pecari slapped his hands against his cheeks after sitting down and opened his almond eyes wide to try and fight the drowsiness that was already threatening to overwhelm him. Isaac sat up straight and started fiddling with his pencil, hoping it would distract him enough. He greeted his neighbor warmly and silently hoped he wouldn't get caught falling asleep in class.

"Seems like we're doing a lot of experimenting at this school these days," he whispered to his desk partner during Professor O'Malley's introduction. The school was short on staff, but they seemed to be making it work somehow. Lauren had told him this wasn't considered normal for Sonora or any magical school, but the professors here seemed to be unusually flexible and extremely industrious. Isaac liked that; at least his school sounded better than his friends' back home. However, with no Quidditch matches to watch and follow, Isaac found these days a little boring. Scrimmages were cool if you were a player, but not so much as a spectator.

Even though the professor's relay of instructions was short, he found himself nodding off. When he almost fell out of his chair, he quickly straightened up and rubbed his black hair in embarrassment. Luckily it had been quiet so only the people around him would've noticed. "Geez," he muttered before taking a deep breath. Finally it was time for some practical work, and he hopped out of his chair to get his blood moving.

"If you haven't noticed, I'm feeling really tired today so sorry if I'm more out of it than usual." Isaac rubbed the back of his neck as he mentally ran through the ingredients in his bag. "I'm down to follow the instructions from the Intermediate class--I'll have to start brewing those next year anyway--if you're up for it. I can go get it too. Do we need any more ingredients? I think I have everything except Flobberworm Mucus and Lavender."

19 Isaac Song - Pecari Zzzz... 375 Isaac Song - Pecari 0 5

Jennifer White (Aladren)

June 22, 2017 3:16 PM

Sleep on your own time by Jennifer White (Aladren)

Jen had been at Sonora long enough to start forming preferences of her classes. She liked herbology, but she found potions dull. Her partiality to herbology was important in this context, because it countered the assumption that she didn’t enjoy potions so much because of its lack of wand use. If it were simply that the magical didn’t feel so, well, magical, then she wouldn’t like herbology so much, which, similarly to potions, required the use of a wand but rarely. If forced to give an explanation, Jen would cite the repetitive nature of her potions classes. Dice this, crush that, stir it all in. Then wait. Then stir. Then simmer. Then stir some more. Also the fumes from the concoctions could make her head feel either particularly heavy or particularly light, and Jen didn’t really enjoy the potential of being doused in someone else’s exploding catastrophe, either.

That said, she didn’t dislike the subject vehemently. Sometimes the classes could still be enjoyable, and Professor O’Malley was an okay teacher. So filled with a good meal, Jen was in a reasonable mood when she entered the potions classroom and took a seat next to one of the older students. She had learned the names of the majority of her classmates - not intentionally, just simply by being in the same room at the same time with frequency and regularity - so even though she hadn’t spoken to him before, jen was relatively certain this kid was Isaac. He greeted her and she smiled back, which, considering at the start of term she might have managed a thin-lipped half-attempt, was definitive proof that being around so many people all the time had encouraged Jen to be a little more sociable.

She silently listened to the instructions, watching the professor through the lenses of her rectangular framed glasses. She had remembered to clip back the forward-most sections of her mousy-brown hair before class started, because when it fell forward in front of her face it was annoying at the best of times, but just plain dangerous when she was adding precise amounts of volatile ingredients into a simmering cauldron. Not as dangerous as falling asleep into it, though, Jen mused as she saw probably-Isaac startle awake. “Yeah, you look like you could use some extra Zs,” jen agreed when he raised the matter. “Isaac, right?” she sought clarification. “I’m Jen,” the Aladren added, just in case he hadn’t cared to sort out one first year from another. She wouldn’t hold it against him.

Her second-year partner wanted to try the intermediate potion. Jen genuinely didn’t care either way, so she shrugged and replied, “Yeah I’m up for it.” And then, “I have the Lavender. But not the mucus. Wow talking about mucus never gets old,” she said sarcastically, starting to clear her belongings from their workspace as her partner had volunteered to collect their ingredients and instructions.

0 Jennifer White (Aladren) Sleep on your own time 388 Jennifer White (Aladren) 0 5

Natalie

June 22, 2017 4:37 PM

What do you wish for? by Natalie

Natalie cringed inside when Winston mentioned that Sophie explicitly said that neither potion was harder. Admittedly, the Pecari was not the best at listening to directions, which might be part of why she was a Pecari in the first place. It was just that she got so many in general that she occasionally tuned out the wrong ones. Class admittedly was a place she was supposed to listen. Good grades were an aspect of personal and familial pride and while she was iffy on the personal side of it, her family was disappointed enough in her.

Which was so not her fault. It was Kelsey's for being so blasted perfect all the time. Natalie felt she was a perfectly normal person and her sister was this...well, she was like the Ultra Pureblood Lady. Like she was created in some lab and the second year was a normal flesh and blood human, born that natural way. Natalie wasn't a failure, it only seemed that way because Kelsey was a super success so nothing the younger girl did was the problem. It wasn't as if she wanted to play Quidditch or "go Muggle" so she was just fine the way she was.

She did however catch the part of the instruction where it hadn't been assigned that way. "I know she didn't." Natalie replied. "But she didn't say who had to do what, and it's usually assumed that the older students have to do what's considered more difficult. We're second years and the Intermediate potion is assumed to be the harder."

The Pecari continued. "If the main difference is waiting around though, I'd rather do the quicker one. And I think I'd rather work on it together." Winston was probably better at Potions than her so his help would be appreciated and plus working with someone else would make the time go faster no matter which version they did.

"It seems kind of pointless to have both versions if they're the same other than the waiting time doesn't it?" Natalie asked. It didn't make much sense to her at all.

11 Natalie What do you wish for? 371 Natalie 0 5

Isaac

June 24, 2017 9:23 PM

Doesn't work so well for me by Isaac

Isaac hadn't heard this first year talk very much, but he did recognize her and felt a little bad that he couldn't remember her name. He smiled apologetically at her when she made it clear she'd definitely noticed him fall asleep for that second. "Yeah, nice to work with you, Jen," he replied with a friendlier smile. He was lucky she had just given him her name instead of awkwardly trying to work around it.

"Cool. Oh yeah, it never gets old," he agreed good-naturedly, "being so appealing to look at and all." He grinned at her and stood up. "I'll go get it." It didn't take long for him to find it in the communal cabinets along with the Intermediate textbook and returned with a jar full of the icky stuff. "Alright, so..." He trailed off as he searched for the instructions in the book. "Okay, looks like here we need to crush up four sprigs of lavender and two measures of standard ingredient into a creamy paste." He looked over at her. "Do you prefer to do that or measure out mucus and standard ingredient into the cauldron?"

Isaac assumed Jen wouldn't want to deal with the mucus, being a girl and all, but his mom always told him not to judge people just because they looked a certain way. After all, though his mom wasn't really tall or strong-looking, she was one of the toughest people he knew, even tougher than his dad. They just weren't tough in the same way.

"Do you care which cauldron we use?" he asked as he set his up. "We can use mine if you don't mind."

19 Isaac Doesn't work so well for me 375 Isaac 0 5

Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw

June 25, 2017 10:50 PM

How about daydream time? by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw

Kir had three different places that he tended to sit in class. First, and best, was next to Kit, but he couldn’t sit there all the time because his other friends and her other friends would probably all get annoyed with him, and he’d seem really obvious and creepy. Sometimes he sat somewhere else in the front row, so that he would make a positive impression on her with his studiousness, and sometimes he sat in the middle row so that he could stare at her. Today was a middle row kind of day. He even scored the seat right behind Kit, and her perfect, shiny hair. He really liked her hair. He liked the way it curled just a bit, and it looked like it would be really soft to touch, and last time he’d been working next to her, he’d noticed that it smelt like flowers. He had daydreams about sitting with his arm around her, being able to stroke her pretty, soft hair and being surrounded by the pleasant Kit-hair-smell.

He knew, of course, that he was completely doomed, and that having a crush on her was a terrible idea. Ish. Mostly. Sort of… It was kind of confusing. They could not be together without some serious pissing off of her parents. She was a Capital P Pureblood of the Introduction by Place Name variety. He was not. He was so far from being that that if you asked her parents to write down all the worst qualities they could imagine in a boy to date their daughter, they would probably pretty much describe him. He didn’t just come from a bad, mixed blood family, he came from a family of disowned people who now ran a charity helping other people who got themselves disowned and preaching a set of ideals fairly diametrically opposed to Purebloods on every single point. The trouble was that that made the idealist in him see Pureblood society as something that it was good to take Kit out of. That if she left, he would be in some sense, rescuing her. The people they’d helped ended up, overall, happier. But it wasn’t without its complications. He knew that leaving, or being kicked out of one’s family was a traumatic thing to go though, and had been starkly reminded by that over Christmas by their new arrival at the centre. Not that he spent a lot of time with them, not that his parents and aunts didn’t do their best to shield him from it all, but he still saw it, in the tired and sad looks they wore when they came home, in the brief syllables they were willing to exchange on the topic in front of him -’How’s she doing?’ ‘Better.’ - that one single word that could be loaded with so much sadness, with so much implication of how far there still was to go to reach the other sense of the word; the difference between better as in improving, and better as in healed. He didn’t want Kit going through that, and the thought of her going through it for him made him feel awful. But then… but then he got these butterflies in his tummy every time he was with her, or even thinking about her, and he hadn’t felt that about anyone before and because he’d never had either, he didn’t know whether this meant he had a crush on Kit or whether he was in love with her, and if it was the second one, wasn’t everything justified and weren’t all obstacles meant to be overcome?

He tried not to admit that his own family might be something of a problem too but Kit probably was not the kind of girl that they expected him to date. Nessa had made that pretty clear over the holidays. Kir had been wrapping up presents for his friends when his little sister had asked ’who is that for?’ with such strongly disgusted emphasis on the word ‘that’ that one might have been forgiven for thinking that Kir was wrapping up a particularly ugly pair of woollen socks or mouldering dead ferret, and not, as he actually was, a glittery blue unicorn notebook. When he’d explained that it was for Kit and that she liked girly things, this had received an ‘ugh’ from Nessa. They probably thought he’d bring home someone more like them, someone more like him… He tried to ignore the fact of the glaring gulf between him and Kit, because it was fairly simply fixed with a quick mental gloss, in that any Kit that was willing to come home with him and meet his weird-ass family would obviously have undergone substantial personality/political shifts, and therefore would be like them. She was still kind of pink and girly, but weren’t his family always teaching him not to judge? And she wasn’t stupid by any means. She was smart, and she was nice. And she was surprising. She had taken up Quidditch, regardless of the risks to her manicure and her reputation. Sure, she didn’t look like she wanted to go hiking and camping, but who was to say that wasn’t easily fixed with a pair of sparkly pink wellies and a unicorn sleeping bag? Or with simply offering her the chance to say ‘yes’?

He sort of tuned out Professor O’Malley because right before she started talking, Kit was fixing her hair in a ponytail, and it made it swish, and he started thinking about whether he preferred her with her hair up or down (down, easily). Also the problem of what Nessa thought of Kit kept threatening to intrude (he couldn’t see whether she was using the notebook in class but he liked to imagine she was, whilst simultaneously also imagining that she’d kept it for something special like writing a diary or writing secrets, which included lots of hearts with the letters ‘KM’ in them), and the most effective way to block that out was to think about nice things instead. Given all the emotional complexity that came with any kind of realistic relationship, Kir either tended to drift into unexplained snapshots (them walking in the woods together holding hands and everything Just Being Fine) or himself saving Kit from rather more literal and easily envisioned (and defeated) foes than The Patriarchy. His family might have had something to say about the rather passive role that Kit took in these daydreams, given that she was so smart and probably at least as adept at spellcasting as he was, but it wasn’t as if what was going through his brain right now represented reality, or what he expected of Kit, in any way. He just wanted to think about them getting together, rather than what being together would actually mean because the latter was far too messy, complicated and upsetting.

People around him started moving, and he glanced to the board to try to work out what they were doing. Sleeping potion. Ok, that much made sense, but then there were two sets of instructions - beginners, and intermediates. Logic sort of suggested that as a beginner they should be doing the beginner ones, but then why had Professor O’Malley written up both? One possibility was that she was also distracted and/or losing it, but it seemed much more likely that there had been a point and that he had missed it. Were they meant to make one, and read about the other for homework? That seemed like kind of a good guess. But he knew what they said about assuming…

“Hey,” he smiled at the person next to him, “You want to be partners?” It was almost always a safe bet that partners would be required, and most other people seemed to be joining up. Hopefully he could work out what they were meant to be doing before not knowing actually reached a critical point.

OOC - Kit’s hair smell and how much of the instructions made it onto the board checked with the respective authors.

13 Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw How about daydream time? 366 Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw 0 5

Jen

June 28, 2017 8:55 AM

Then I guess you need this potion by Jen

When Isaac had returned, Jen had cleared the workspace of books and parchment and had retrieved the lavender she’d volunteered from her own kit. The first year had began collecting together measuring equipment when she was able to read the instructions for the intermediate version of the potion, and her partner asked if she had a preference of which task to complete Jen took a moment to consider the options. “I’ll take the mucus,” she decided, sliding the jar towards herself, and pushing the lavender towards Isaac. “You can smell like a soap store.” The heady fragrance of crushed lavender was probably going to be overall more pleasant than whatever aroma the contents of the jar would emit, but it was much more likely to linger. Jen avoided using floral fragranced soaps or shampoos because she didn’t enjoy being shadowed by smells that really belonged in a meadow. She’d take a bit of flobberworm mucus as a preferable alternative. "At least we don't have to harvest the mucus ourselves." Probably something fun to look forward to in sixth year, if she was still taking the subject by then.

“Sure,” she agreed to use Isaac’s cauldron. “I think mine has a bit of congealed something or other burned on the side anyway.” She supposed to ought to get rid of that sooner rather than later but she wasn’t suicidal so she didn’t relish trying a cleaning charm on an unknown potions remnant, which would mean she’d have to scour it out by hand. “Guess I’ve got a date with some industrial strength cleaner and my trusty dragonhide gloves in the near future.” If she sounded like this was the worst use of time anyone could ever imagine then it probably wasn’t far from the truth, and so her attitude was entirely valid.

When she had her ingredients measured out and ready to go, Jen said, “I seemed we have to add in the mixture not long after these ingredients,” she said, gesturing to those she had prepared, “so let me know when you’re ready.” She had learned early on that it was a good idea to read the instructions through before starting to brew a potion. Sometimes you just had to add ingredients in quick succession, but sometimes it seemed like the instructions were trying to trip you up, with things like ‘grate your root finely before adding’ when the ingredients didn’t specify grated root, or maybe ‘leave the final ingredient to soak for ten minutes before adding’ which you might not see until five minutes before the end of class. Yep, it was always best to read through first.

0 Jen Then I guess you need this potion 388 Jen 0 5

Winston

June 30, 2017 10:34 AM

I wish there weren't Flobberworms in this potion by Winston

Winston nodded in agreement. "That works for me. I'd prefer not to just sit around waiting, too. Hang on, let me just put this back." He held up the intermediate textbook to show her what he was talking about and then brought it back up to Professor O'Malley's desk.

Upon his return, he looked over the instructions for their beginner book recipe again. "Would you rather crush the wormwood or chop the valerian?" he asked after reading the first two steps. "And - ew, we're going to have to juice a flobberworm, that sounds unpleasant. Do you want me to handle that part?" he asked gallantly. "You can," he scanned down the recipe further, "chop the Sopophorous bean while I do that. We ought to get everything prepared first before we start brewing so we're not rushing over it later. It looks like everything goes into this one pretty quick. Are your asphodel petals whole or powdered?"

"And they do have some different ingredients," he added thoughtfully in answer to her earlier question, "so maybe they both exist so that if you have lavender but not wormwood, or the other way around, you can still make a sleeping draught. Sleeping draughts sound like useful things you might want to be able make quickly with the ingredients you have on hand in the middle of the night when you can't sleep." It was pure speculation, of course, but it made sense to him, and he hoped it did to her, too.

1 Winston I wish there weren't Flobberworms in this potion 370 Winston 0 5

Natalie

July 08, 2017 5:52 PM

I wish I had more important content. by Natalie

Natalie waited as Winston returned the intermediate text to Sophie and her mind began to wander slightly. She wished she was on a beach. Even if the beach was just a conjured up one in MARS. How nice it would it be to submerge herself in water. Or to conjure up a river and do some kayaking. However, as her classmate wasn't gone very long, she didn't really get to ponder it much. Which was a good thing, because then it would have made Natalie more impatient with being in class.

"I'll crush the wormwood, I guess. Thanks for doing the Flobberworm" She wouldn't have made a fuss about it if she'd had to, unlike some people. Well, okay, Kelsey would probably have proactively taken something else and left the other person with the Flobberworm because ladies were not supposed to enjoy or seem like they enjoyed doing such messy tasks. Besides, it would ruin their manicures, which Natalie didn't have. She wasn't the type, though it would probably be expected of her once she got older. Actually Potions wasn't great for manicures in general. Come to think of it, neither was school in general.

The Pecari nodded. "Yeah, though if I'm up in the middle of the night, I'd hope to have some already made just in case. I mean, just because I'm not asleep doesn't mean I'm not tired and making potions doesn't seem like a great idea if you're already tired."

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