Plant yourselves for instruction [Years I and II] on Potions

Professor Sophie O'Malley

March 26, 2018 2:38 PM

Plant yourselves for instruction [Years I and II] by Professor Sophie O'Malley

The nice thing about being an adult was utilizing child labor. For example, Sophie found that she could educate her students on a potion and, instead of letting their products go to waste, save their results to be used productively later. It would require a little testing usually, just to make sure their potions were well-brewed and up to par, but sprinkling a little of this and that on appropriate test subjects was still far less work than brewing that much of things herself.

Today, as the beginning students would see on the board upon entrance, they were brewing the herbicide potion. It wasn’t exciting, admittedly, but Sophie had been made aware that the school’s supplies were running a bit low, and it was on the curriculum anyway. Not that local plant enthusiast Nathan Xavier probably wanted to kill off plants, but weeds were not friends and had to be dealt with accordingly.

“Hey, guys,” Sophie greeted informally when it seemed everyone was settling in. “We’re brewing today, so make sure you get your sleeves rolled up and long hair pulled back.” As she said this, she rolled up her own robe sleeves above the elbow, creating a cloth bulge that would hopefully remain stable. Sophie didn’t care whether or not uniform robes were worn or how they were modified for her class, finding them generally inconvenient to brewing, but it was definitely always a good idea to free up the arms. Likewise, she of course had no opinion on how her students did their hair, but hanging strands getting in potions could have serious consequences, both for the potion and the hair.

“Without looking, can anyone tell me what a herbicide does?” It was probably an obvious question, but she awarded a couple points for the correct answer nonetheless. Kids liked bribes, and if she had to bribe them with House points to inspire class participation, that was fine with her. “Fantastic. So, Muggles have chemical herbicides as well, but this potion we’ll be making is more effective against magical and invasive species.”

“You can find the instructions on page 251 of your textbooks. Go ahead and pair up and get to it. Oh,” she added. “I probably don’t need to specify this by this time of the year, but please don’t try to drink your potions. You are not a plant, but it isn’t exactly good for you. Tastes awful, too.” On the latter point, Sophie had good authority. She’d been brewing all her life and had gotten a mouthful of things she shouldn’t more than once as a small child. She grimaced at the memory. “Go ahead and get started.”

OOC: Instructions, as provided by the HP wiki:

Part 1
Add 4 lionfish spines to the mortar
Crush into a rough powder using the pestle
Add 2 measurements of Standard Ingredient to the mortar
Crush into a rough powder
Add 3 measures of the crushed mixture to your cauldron
Wave your wand
Leave to brew and return in 45/51/60 minutes (depending on your cauldron)
Part 2
Add 2 measures of Horklump juice to your cauldron
Heat to a medium temperature for 10 seconds
Add 2 blobs of Flobberworm mucus to your cauldron while it's still on the heat
Stir 4 times, clockwise
Wave your wand to complete the potion

Subthreads:

I am a sprout who may become a tree by Parker, Pecari with Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren

Thyme to get to work by Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

12 Professor Sophie O'Malley Plant yourselves for instruction [Years I and II] 34 Professor Sophie O'Malley 1 5

Parker, Pecari

March 30, 2018 1:35 PM

I am a sprout who may become a tree by Parker, Pecari

Potions was one of his favorite classes. Maybe because he had made friends with Cleo in it last year or maybe because it was close to Herbology, but also more... magical. Parker liked getting his hands dirty, and to be honest, outside of Care of Magical Creatures and Herbology, there was no class you'd get dirtier in than Potions. Parker also liked the Professor. She seemed relaxed and informal, and if she didn't have kids, Parker would probably have gone to her if he needed to talk to an adult.

As he walked in he glanced up at the board. He kind of did a bit of a dance in his head. He knew this lesson. Last year Cleo had taught him a bit about this stuff because they needed it for the "gardening club", that mixed with what he knew from his mother and sister's gardening and he was excited. It felt a bit weird to be this excited for learning, and he wondered if this is what other students felt like in classes.

He sat down rolling up his sleeves in preparation for the potions work, feeling the excited energy building up. As other students walked in he closed his eyes and counted. He didn't want to have his energy release like it had in the MARS room.

When Professor Oh my Oh Malley asked what a Herbicide was Parker's hand shot up. He knew the answer, and since this was not a common occurance he wanted to make it count. Plus Pecari House would get points, so that was a nice bonus.

"Herbicides are chemicals, or potions in the wizarding world, that control unwanted plants, usually weeds or other problematic plants," Parker said. Now he realized why people answered questions in class. He felt a rush. Similar to when he was playing sports. There was a sense of accomplishment just from stating something he knew, and he didn't get beaten with a bludger while saying it. He could get used to this. He just needed to find a way to get the information beforehand.

Parker realized that Professor X probably didn't like this lesson, but it probably would help in the future as the garden was big, and full of things that could sprout where they weren't meant to. Like magic in his family.

Parker opened his book to the required page and read the instructions. There would be a lot of down time in this potions lesson he realized after reading the wait time. This lesson was getting better and better.

He turned to his partner for the first time. He remembered his first experience with Cleo in potions and how nice she'd been with him.

"Hi! You wanna get the ingredients together then we can take turns grinding things?" Parker said with a smile that looked like the side of zebra on his face.

41 Parker, Pecari I am a sprout who may become a tree 1402 Parker, Pecari 0 5

Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

April 05, 2018 9:27 PM

Thyme to get to work by Michael DiCaprio - Pecari

Mikey was really enjoying meeting a ton of different people. He thrived on human connection, so all this partner work in all of his classes was awesome. Potions was cool, it was just a lot of mixing odd ingredients and making weird smells and colors. He liked doing it with other people just so if they messed up he didn't get all the blame.

The uniform wasn't uncomfortable, but it was inconvenient during this class. For his smaller size, the sleeves were a little long and his arms weren't growing very fast. Mikey rolled up his sleeves in bunches, but he knew it wouldn't stay for long. He hated having to roll it up constantly, but he didn't know how else to do it. Maybe he'd look it up later or ask older classmates for advice. If his sleeve ever got caught in the potion he'd be scared of messing it up.

Herbicide was a foreign concept to Mikey, who had neither plants nor animals back home. He'd probably heard about it in Herbology, but he couldn't remember what the term was for. Probably something to do with plants.

Mikey didn't raise his hand, but after someone said the right answer he groaned inwardly. Duh, he should've known that. It was like pesticide, though all he knew of that chemical was that it was bad for people to consume.

The rest of it was pretty self-explanatory, so Mikey opened up his textbook and looked at the instructions. He'd been making potions for awhile now so he finally remembered which one was mortar and which was pestle. The instructions helped differentiate them too for the most part. "I wonder if anyone in our class drank their potion without being told to. Seems dangerous," he commented. "Wanna work together? The first part doesn't look too complicated."

19 Michael DiCaprio - Pecari Thyme to get to work 1406 Michael DiCaprio - Pecari 0 5

Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren

April 08, 2018 5:36 PM

I am a person who will remain a person by Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren

It was getting to be late in the term, and Heinrich was still not fluent in English, but he was much improved in it. He had been exposed to English every waking hour of every day, and his listening comprehension was so much better than it had been when he arrived at Sonora. Idioms still gave him some trouble, and less common words were largely meaningless to him, but as long as teachers didn't speak too quickly, with too many metaphors or difficult vocabulary words, he was mostly following lectures now.

Expressing himself was another matter entirely. In writing, words were never spelled the way they sounded or he thought they should be, there were too many spaces, too few capitalized letters, too many Cs, and that was when he could remember the words he needed at all. And speaking was worse, because he didn't have time to look things up and check he was right, and he hated being wrong. So he generally just didn't say much at all.

So when a second year told him to get ingredients, he just nodded and said, "Yes."

He first checked his own bilingually labeled ingredient kit, putting out what he had onto the desk, then went up to collect anything else they needed from the teacher's stores and brought those back to the desk, too. This part was harder, because his textbook instructions were in German, while these labels were in English, but some of them were spelled the same in both languages, and he could see what other kids were grabbing, so he thought he had everything they needed when he deposited his finds onto the desk with the others.

Still, he thought maybe he better check with the American to make sure he was right. "This is all?" he questioned. "I am called Heinrich," he added, by way of introduction, since they hadn't worked together before.

1 Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren I am a person who will remain a person 1414 Heinrich Hexenmeister, Aladren 0 5