Everything is shattering and it's my mistake on Potions

Professor Brooding

August 09, 2018 9:57 PM

Because dying is bad. [III-V] by Professor Brooding

Mary had spent a lot of time wondering what her first lessons should look like, particularly since she'd not been talking to Tabitha as much recently. The Defense professor had a right to be upset, she supposed, but Mary wasn't in any position to pour her energy into fixing it. Too much pain and too much awkwardness lay in that direction, so Mary had chosen another.

She wanted to be the best professor she could be.

But what in Merlin's beard did that mean?

Mary had chosen her outfit carefully that day. Her black hair was braided more carefully than usual, although it still hung nearly to the floor. She wore a simple red robe, buttoned at her wrists and up the bodice to her neck. She wore a pointed red hat in the same material, and the whole look suited her coppery skin rather well. Although she still smelled of her usual jasmine and pine, she'd worn a more mild scent today to avoid setting off any sensitivities among her students and to make it easier to smell the potion they'd be working on. Her brown eyes sparkled as she peered around the room.

The Potions classroom was clean and well-ordered, important for safe potion-brewing, and the lighting was good. She wanted to make sure everyone knew exactly what each ingredient looked like, and could get a good idea of the color of their potions at various stages. She strongly preferred students didn't blow themselves up or any such thing.

She had also gone to great lengths to make the room comfortable, without making it personal. There were hints of her traveling background in the books that lined the shelves. Various languages and cultures were represented, and she hoped it would help any students for whom English wasn't their first language. She had heard that there were students particularly who knew French, Russian, German, and Chinese, and she had labeled her ingredient jars in those, as well as in English. She planned to pay close attention in case any other languages should appear there as well.

As the students filtered into her classroom, looking much more grown up than she remembered looking at that age, and also somehow much younger and more vulnerable than she remembered being, Mary perked up. Potions class was about to begin.

"Good afternoon," she greeted students as they came in. "Isn't it a lovely day? I hope you've all had a wonderful time so far."

Tables were set about the room with a cauldron for each student, and she watched as they took their places. A blank roll of parchment was ready for anybody who wanted to take notes or write down the directions that were written at the front of the room on chalkboard. Things like dosage and administration would be covered in lecture and in their textbooks, and she expected the students to take some initiative in writing that information down if they wanted it.

"I know that many of you are studying for CATS this year and looking toward the future of your careers and your continued studies here at Sonora. Those of you who aren't there yet are starting to think ahead anyway, and have taken at least two years of Potions already." Mary looked around the room and smiled at her students. She was so terribly proud of them all, but didn't want to be weird about it when she didn't actually know them.

"With potions, the most important thing is that you remember the risks and are prepared for them. Brew the antidote before you brew your poison, and keep a bezoar handy," Mary said. She didn't want to scare them necessarily but safety was important. "The other thing, is that potions are exciting! Whether you find pleasure in the way a potion smells or looks or tastes or simply in what it does, there's something wonderful about getting it just right."

Her mind turned toward the various dangerous potions they'd brew this term and she smiled. "So with that in mind, let's make sure nobody poisons themselves for the rest of the term, alright? At least... not irreparably. To that end, we'll be brewing the Antidote to Common Poisons today. Please note that this potion takes over an hour and a half to brew, and since we're only together for two hours today, it's important that we get to it!"

She gestured towards the ingredients list and instructions:

Bezoars, Standard Ingredient, ground unicorn horn, mistletoe berries.

Part 1
Add 1 Bezoar to the mortar
Crush into a very fine powder using the pestle
Add 4 measures of the crushed Bezoar to your cauldron
Add 2 measures of Standard Ingredient to your cauldron
Heat to a medium temperature for 5 seconds
Wave your wand
Leave to brew and return in 40 minutes with Pewter Cauldron, 34 minutes with Brass cauldron and 30 minutes with copper cauldron.

Part 2
Add 1 pinch of Unicorn Horns to your cauldron
Stir 2 times, clockwise
Add 2 Mistletoe Berries to your cauldron
Stir 2 times, anti-clockwise
Wave your wand to complete the potion

Completed potion should be teal-colored.

"I do expect that every student completes their own potion, hence having a cauldron for each of you, but I don't mind if you work together or talk while you work. I do prefer you each prepare your own ingredients, though. Please let me know if you have any questions and I'm happy to help!"

It wasn't a particularly difficult potion to make, but it was an important one to have on hand and having the students prepare it individually increased the challenge. Besides, it was a good one to get out their start-of-term nerves on. Mary smiled as the students began working, and she stood near the front of the room until anyone needed her help. Or blew something up.

(OOC: Potion information collected from the wiki: http://harrypotter.wikia.com/wiki/Antidote_to_Common_Poisons

In order to accommodate the threads that have happened between Tabitha and Mary, this post is set within the first week but is not the very first class. It is, however, the first practical lesson, they have had classes on theories and ingredients so far).

Subthreads:

I'm inclined to agree by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw with Winston Pierce, Crotalus

Not for the well-arranged mind, I've been told. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari with Ruby Brockert, Teppenpaw

Everything is shattering and it's my mistake by Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw with Professor Mary Brooding

...Sort of depends on who died. by Peyton O'Malley, Crotalus

22 Professor Brooding Because dying is bad. [III-V] 1424 Professor Brooding 1 5

Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw

August 13, 2018 10:42 AM

I'm inclined to agree by Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw

A new year, a new professor. So far, Professor Brooding seemed… taller than her predecessor. This was not exactly a challenge, as Professor O’Malley had been exceedingly tiny, and so it was not particularly noteworthy. She was still shorter than Kir, who seemed on course to hit six foot before the year was out. He tucked himself in on the wall-side of the middle row, banging his knees slightly on the underside of the desk in the process. Kir did not want to mark himself look like a troublemaker by sitting in the back row, but he was alarmed by just how small the third years looked (there had to be a clear foot between him and some of the boys - had he grown a foot in the last two years, or was there just a ridiculously high proportion of very short people in the current third year? It was bizarre) and he did not wish his tree-like self to obscure anyone’s view.

In addition to being of a relatively reasonable height, Professor Brooding also seemed generally nice. She seemed enthusiastic about Potions, and just radiated kinda… warm fuzziness, both in the way she addressed them all and in the way she talked about the subject. Which was a bit odd when it was something like poison. Well, admittedly, today they were brewing an antidote to poisons, which was sort of a good thing, because healing… good. But it also indicated that someone had been poisoned, which was unpleasant to think about. Of course, thinking about such things and being prepared for them were a sadly necessary part of life. Kir knew that better than most. Not that he had direct experience, but he knew that what his family did took them into a lot of very dangerous territory. Supporting LGBTQIA+ rights was always a bit controversial. When that extended to helping Purebloods run away from their oppressive families… That tended to get people who had a lot of power, and sometimes dark magic, at their disposal pretty pissed off at you. He knew that many aspects of their lives were warded to high heaven. Mail was checked for jinxes, visitors were screened for enhancements such as polyjuicing and other deceptions. He lived knowing that was going on all around him without it massively affecting him - his family did his best to spare it from impacting his life, whilst making sure he was aware enough not to do anything stupid - although the thought of it was still enough that his boggart last year had been a masked protester hurling fire hexes. It also meant he knew some basic first aid and common sense, including where his family kept the bezoars and the potion he was about to attempt. He wasn’t sure how much of that was common place wizard common sense, given that there were an awful lot of things in the world that wanted to kill you, and how much came from his particular family situation.
Kir paid close attention to the class, both for the immediate practical benefit, but also because he was not quite sure what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He knew he had to start thinking about what RATS to take after this year, and had narrowed it down to ‘basically everything.’ He knew he wanted to do something for the foundation, but that was pretty broad. Having good medical skills was a plus, though they didn’t really need more than one full on healer, so that was probably more a side line than a career. Plus he wasn’t completely sure that he could handle that. Blood and hexes and high stress situations weren’t really things he thought he’d cope well with at the best of times, and then quite often the reasons why people needed patching up were so horrific. It wasn’t like it was just a broom crash, or a duelling accident… It was usually something that had been done to them, at the hands of people who were supposed to have loved them. His family had never let him into the medical wing at the refuge, nor did they talk details in front of him, but he understood enough of the world to know why they needed that facility. The law or politics side of things sounded interesting. Trying to fight for civil rights or push through change. It also sounded exhausting and like hitting his head against a brick wall, judging from what his mom said. The stupidity of the political system was something that the McLeods and Solens-McLeods took less pains to shield their children from.

Kir dropped the bezoar into his mortar, and began to crush it, recalling a conversation he had had with his Aunt Catriona, regarding why the antidote was necessary when bezoars worked against most things. Firstly, she had told him, a bezoar per poisoning would soon add up. It made good sense to make it go further. Second of all to be successful, the bezoar had to be swallowed which was tricky if the person was unconscious or - and this was a point that had stuck with him rather vividly and graphically - they were as small as he or Ness had been at the point at which he’d asked that question. That had been enough to make him not want to ask too many more questions about poisons for quite a while, although when reading his textbook over the summer, he had come across the antidote they were brewing today, and made a different line of enquiry. Why not just use powdered bezoar? Was it merely that it only solved one issue (that of ease of administration) if less than a whole bezoar was insufficient as a dose, or was there more to it than that? The answer he had got, from Aunt Lola this time, was quite interesting, and he decided to share it with his neighbour now.

“Would you like to share my bezoar, if it’s enough?” he offered his neighbour, “They don’t keep so well once crushed, so no point smashing up two and then only half using them. People didn’t used to know how this Potion worked - they just kind of knew that it did, and that in spite of the fact that you’re using less than a whole bezoar, it’s actually more effective than a bezoar on its own. There’s a recent theory borrowing from Muggle science though that it’s actually stronger once crushed, because you’re increasing the surface area, which means it reacts and is absorbed into your system faster and easier. That’s why even though you’d be able to reduce the physical amount you’re using, it should still be effective.Of course, some people argue against that, saying that magical ingredients don’t like to be corrupted by being broken up, and that that’s why brewing the bezoar powder into a more complex potion is necessary. In both cases, there’s the fact that the powder doesn’t keep so well by itself which makes the whole thing necessary. Fun, huh?” he smiled. Perhaps Professor Brooding wasn’t quite so odd for finding poison antidotes interesting. Once you got past the inherent creepiness, there was quite a lot to say that was interesting about them.

OOC - Kir will be 6 ft something as an adult, so his height is based on this growth chart, which would place him around the 90th percentile, and then tracing back from there. The comments about the third years are based on the fact that I write Dorian and know precisely how (not) tall he is, and it has been commented several times via chatzy and IC that several of the boys in that year are on the small side/a similar height to him. Mary’s heigh confirmed with her author.

Thanks to Katerina for bouncing sciencey ideas around with me to help with the post.

13 Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw I'm inclined to agree 366 Kir McLeod, Teppenpaw 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

August 15, 2018 7:20 PM

Not for the well-arranged mind, I've been told. by Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari

Tatiana could not say she was delighted to have new professors to deal with, but it was nothing to do with the women involved themselves. It was, rather, another consequence of her ongoing hostilities with the English language. Getting used to a new English speaker was still something of a trial – the little differences in accents and pronunciations, the speed at which they spoke, the way they emphasized or didn’t emphasize words, the grammatical quirks which varied from person to person. It was always an adjustment, and while it had grown easier since her first year, it still wasn’t her favorite thing to do.

Other than that, however, Tatiana thought she was mostly in favor of Professor Brooding, if only because she was interesting to look at. Today, for instance – her hair was long-long-long, which Tatiana found fascinating (as a grown-up lady, she would be expected to have long hair, as one could not put up short hair, but not that long), and she was wearing red. Red was a good color. Professor Brooding was the sort of person everyone would notice when she entered a room, which was one of Tatiana’s own goals. If the professor would just let Tatiana pin some brooches to her….

Even Tatiana, of course, knew this was unlikely, but a girl could dream. It had happened with the much-missed Ingrid. A professor submitting to her ministrations was not that much less likely.

Tatiana’s own ability to be interesting was severely limited by the rules about what could be worn during the day at boarding school, but she tried. For Potions, she forsook the pretty hair combs Dorya had given her, instead pulling her own long (but significantly shorter than Professor Brooding’s) light brown hair back with the faux pearl-edged band which had gone with her ball dress, and had fastened a square sky blue topaz brooch with a border of seed pearls to the neck of her robes. Beneath it fell two strands of oval milky aquamarine beads, a paler blue-green than the brooch, and in her ears were her cushion-cut dark blue topazes. She hoped the miscellaneous blues at least added some interest and variety to her appearance for onlookers; she found it depressing just looking at her classmates, all in identical plain green, all day sometimes. There was so little beauty in America, or so it seemed sometimes.

There was also little Russian text, which was another interesting thing about this class. The bottles were labelled in a variety of languages. Tatiana, unlike Katerina, only knew just more than the bare minimum necessary to distinguish French and German and German and English, but the Russian leapt out at her in its sheer legibility. She did not know why this was a feature, but she couldn’t say she didn’t like it, or that she wasn’t happy to see Dorian had Chinese writing to look at, or that she had even recognized a character here and there, even though she couldn’t really put them together properly at all.

She could, however, usually put together potions fairly well. Antidote to Common Poisons – a practical enough thing to know, she supposed. More practical, anyway, than her preferred solution to poisoning, which would be drinking from amethyst or agate goblets. Except that one had to know one had been poisoned first to take an antidote, whereas the goblets could be used either way…but they were rather expensive. The very best amethysts, the ones from Siberia, were fairly valuable; Tatiana had watched Papa haggle over some he had given Anya for her birthday one year, which had been set into three brooches which could be clipped together in different ways to make either a necklace or a tiara. Anya actually preferred the paler rose de France amethysts and white and lavender jadeite – Anya had one truly exquisite necklace with a removable pendant-brooch which was carved into a basket of lilacs in white and lavender jade, with green jade leaves – and lavender pearls, but those were not so valuable, good just for being pretty – all, Tatiana thought sourly, very unlike Anya’s engagement ring. That purple star sapphire alone, even without its admittedly beautiful and skillfully worked setting, was probably worth as much as most of Tatiana’s jewelry put together….

She sighed in annoyance, still put out that Anya had not called off the engagement as soon as she realized it would mean leaving the rest of them, and began preparing to brew. This was, for her, a multi-step process – removing her rings and bracelets and putting them in her small box, putting that in the slightly disproportionate depths of her handbag along with her hat and the silk gloves she wore when she walked outside, setting out reading stands and propping up her textbook and Anglo-Russian dictionary (still an occasionally deeply useful accessory, even after two full years here) on them, and then digging out her dragonhide gloves to ensure she didn’t burn the skin off her hands at some point.

A downside to these gloves, however, was that while they protected her very well, they also made it slightly hard to get the best possible grip on a mortar. Tatiana suspected the slightness of her arms did her no favors when it came to grinding up stone-hard objects, either, as she considered whether she could push down hard enough with the pestle to lift herself off her feet. Before she could test this, however, the bezoar slipped from beneath the pestle and shot across to the other side of the bowl, bringing another irritated huff.

“Maybe she has plan, us all become Beaters,” she remarked to her neighbor.

OOC: The idea that drinking from cups carved from amethyst, agate, jade, or a few other things, depending on region, could nullify poison appears in multiple folklores; the Greeks also believed drinking from amethyst goblets would prevent drunkenness. Have not tested it, but don’t recommend it.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari Not for the well-arranged mind, I've been told. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova, Pecari 0 5

Winston Pierce, Crotalus

August 16, 2018 8:30 PM

Your family is already dead by Winston Pierce, Crotalus

The problem with the intermediate class was that it was big. It covered three years and all four houses, and the core classes were all still required through CATS. There weren’t a lot of spare seats and if you arrived later than the rest of your classmates, which Winston unfortunately had today, the selection of where to sit was slim.

His choices today were front and center, middle side, and back row. All things being equal, middle side would have won hands down, but that spot was next to The Teppenpaw, who was, if not worse than The Pecari, then a close second place. The back row had two open seats, but Cleo looked like she was saving the one right next to her and the one next to that was still much too close to her. Cleo wasn’t technically as bad the Ones With No Names, but still made him feel flustered and embarrassed and that was to be avoided at all costs. So that left front and center, which was not ideal because it looked like favor seeking from the teacher, and, being a fifth year, he felt like he was huge and blocking the way of everyone smaller than him in the class, even if he was relatively small by fifth year standards. But better the front row than Cleo or The Teppenpaw.

Unfortunately, someone else got there first and he was stuck deciding between the other two. Well, he supposed he could just pretend The Teppenpaw wasn’t there at all. Ignoring people was easier than having improper thought about some girl from an inferior family. Plus, the back row was often utilized by delinquents, which Winston certainly was not.

So he sat next to The Teppenpaw, against his better judgement.

At first it was fine. Professor Brooding talked (with far too much cheer and enthusiasm, in Winston’s opinion) and she even ordered them to work individually which suited him just fine. But then Kir had to ruin it and talk to him. At first Winston tried pretending not to hear, but The Teppenpaw just kept talking. About bezoars of all things.

In spite of his conscious decision to ignore the Teppenpaw and just go about readying his cauldron for brewing, Winston’s head turned toward the voice blathering on and on right next to him.

His eyebrows rose of their own accord, an involuntary reaction to Winston’s incredulity. Muggle science? What?

“Fun, huh?” the Teppenpaw (though after that spiel Winston wasn’t sure Aladren hadn’t misplaced one of its members) finished and Winston was physically incapable of holding back a retort.

“No. To both. No, I won’t share ingredients with the likes of you, and no, you need to look up the definition of fun again.”

He turn back to his own cauldron, pointedly, to show how much The Teppenpaw was beneath him, and began sorting out the ingredients he would need from his kit, including his very own bezoar that was not contaminated by a Vermont McLeod touch. (Scottish McLeod’s were perfectly acceptable, but the Vermont ones Did Not Exist in the same was the Boston Pierces Did Not Exist, and the only reason Winston hated The Pecari any more than The Teppenpaw was because The Pecari’s existence was a much more personal affront to the New Hampshire Pierces.)

1 Winston Pierce, Crotalus Your family is already dead 370 Winston Pierce, Crotalus 0 5

Kir

August 18, 2018 9:52 AM

And lovin' it by Kir

As Kir took his seat in Potions, he wasn’t thinking about Zevalyn, for once. He was thinking about a boy instead. Specifically, Jehan Callahan. Last year, he had witnessed him asking Luke Powell out to the ball. The kid was brave, he had to hand him that, but given the impression Kir got from the Callahan in his year, one of the Gentlemen’s Club as he had, in spite of his best efforts at retaining an open mind, given in to calling them in his head, Jehan was potentially in for a world of trouble. Trouble that it was Kir’s job to sort out. Or rather, his family’s job. He had sent Jehan all the flyers he thought might be helpful, but it didn’t really feel like enough. However, unless Jehan came looking for his help, there probably wasn’t much more he could do… Be open, be available, spread gay literature throughout the school. These were the tools at his disposal, and he had deployed them all. On Jehan, anyway. There was also Victor. Kir liked to believe the best of people. That Purebloods loved the members of their family properly. And it wasn’t unheard of siblings to desert - his dad had followed his aunt in leaving their family. Not that he was even wanting Victor to necessarily do that. He just wanted him, first and foremost, to not be an a****** to his brother if and when he found out. That would be a great start. He had not worked out what to do about Victor yet because Kir had no idea what he knew, or what he thought about it if he did. That unnerved him because, for all he knew, Victor knew full well what was going on and was trying to beat it out of Jehan on a regular basis. For all he knew, Victor had no idea, and Kir was obviously not going to be the one to tell him, though he wondered whether there was any way of softening Victor up on those kinds of issues... He didn’t really know what Victor was like, as a person. The Gentleman’s Club and Kir had managed to do a surprisingly fine job of simply avoiding each other in spite of being in the same year for the last four years. But now he and Victor were both prefects, which was good. It would give Kir access. They also Jehan in class with them, which meant that Kir could keep try to keep an eye on him.

It was not Victor, however, that he crossed paths with first. It was Winston. Kir was pretty surprised to find the Crotalus boy taking the seat next to him until he noticed that practically all of the others were full. Well… He supposed, Winston was kind of a good test subject. Just how big a bunch of buttholes could he expect the fifth year Crotali to be about life, the universe and everything?

Apparently, pretty big ones.

Alright, he had poked the dragon a bit by mentioning Muggle science but it was probably better than leading with homosexuality or blood status. Maybe sticking to the weather would have been better but… Well, he hadn’t. He sort of felt that Winston’s reaction would have been pretty similar whatever he had said. Kir could have opened with the weather or with the fact that he thought Isaac Song looked particularly jump-able today, and he probably would have got the same reaction. Well… He might have got punched if his random pick of guy had happened to be Pureblood instead, or Winston himself (because, no offence to Isaac, he was just a random pick and Kir did not actually want to boink him on a desk). Winston just flat out hated Kir for the fact of who he was, and who his family were. And he felt the back of his neck burning at Winston’s comments. He knew, theoretically, that these people did not like him. He had been on the receiving end of Winston pretending he didn’t exist for four years, and that had been fairly crappy but just… Kind of expected. Being looked at like he was dirt on the other boy’s shoe, over something so simple - so nice - as offering to share ingredients really stung.

Several responses leapt to mind, ranging in their degrees of sarcasm and deliberate provocation.

Thank goodness you had all those etiquette lessons to teach you how to treat people like crap in the proper manner

I know a lot about fun. Kissing boys is great. - he wondered if Winston’s head would literally explode if he said that. And admittedly that would be his main reason for saying it because he didn’t think kissing boys was that great. It wasn’t terrible either. It was something he’d done a couple of times Pre-Z. Pre really being attracted, per se, to anyone and he had mostly done it out of curiosity and boredom. It was warm and wet and vaguely nice, and had felt the same as kissing girls at that point, but he wasn’t sure whether that was because he felt equal attraction to both or had, at that stage, felt equal non-attraction. Kissing Zevalyn turned him on way, way more than kissing random people at New Year parties ever had. And, whilst scientific research was usually good, he wasn’t particularly tempted to expand the sample size at this point to work out why that was.

He bit back these responses though. He was a Teppenpaw. Diplomatic and all that. And, more importantly, he was representing his family. He was aware of the irony, that that was such a deep Pureblood value. But it was probably the one thing they thought that made sense. Yelling at Winston that he was a bigot was only going to reinforce his view that Kir was trash. Even though he was a freaking bigot. That was just a fact. He was also mindful of Jehan. Starting a row in which Winston was likely to use all kinds of horrible slurs - a row in which Jehan’s own brother, if he was sitting near enough them - might want to weigh in, siding with his roommate against The Queer Teppenpaw… That was hardly going to be good for Jehan’s self esteem. Or just… anything. Kir preferred situations where homophobic slur words didn’t end up being screamed across a room.

But he also didn’t feel he could let Winston’s remarks go unchallenged. He did not start fights. He had always just tried to be someone with an open door, who was approachable to anyone having trouble, and going around being loud and obnoxious and getting in people’s faces all the time would rather have undermined that. But when the fight came to him, he also was not going to back away. A vague nagging doubt told him it was ego - that he had never stood up for his ideals in the abstract but now that Winston was insulting him he was going to. But… well, whatever. He didn’t have time to argue with himself right now, when there was such a smug, self-righteous prick sitting next to him awaiting a response.

Winston’s head was full of bullcrap. Things he had been fed growing up. In some ways, Kir tried to tell himself, searching beyond the fury and the humiliation, it was not Winston’s fault that he was like this. But at some point it would be. At some point, Winston was going to tip from being a child who had been spoonfed rubbish to someone who was perpetuating the system. And they were all getting older. Kir was not idealistic enough to think he could reform Winston’s whole world view in one single Potions lesson. But maybe he could plant a seed of doubt. Tug a little on the tread that made things unravel. Because Winston was definitely being irrational and stupid right now, and Kir was dying to point that out.

“What’s wrong with me?” he asked evenly. Mostly evenly. He was annoyed to note that he didn’t sound as relaxed and neutral as he would have liked. He did not trouble to keep his voice down - after all they weren’t discussing anything that he was embarrassed to hold as an opinion - but nor was he broadcasting it any louder than the average classroom conversation. Yet. “And how, exactly, do you think it affects the quality of my potions ingredients?”

13 Kir And lovin' it 366 Kir 0 5

Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw

August 31, 2018 7:31 AM

Everything is shattering and it's my mistake by Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw

Dorian was not in Potions. He had been missing since Wednesday night. The disappearance of a classmate might well have been something to spark concern, except that Dorian’s absence might not have been immediately apparent. There was still someone who looked very like him coming in, taking his seat, answering his name in the roll call, and grinding through the day’s tasks. It was a very good copy, physically speaking, with Dorian’s small stature and delicate features, the dark brown bangs which verged on black flopping into his eyes. But it was the eyes where the problem started. The were large, and dark brown, framed by long lashes, but in all other ways they were wrong. They began each lesson by staring more or less through the blackboard, but drifted gradually back, until what they were focussed on was clearly somewhere else entirely. Dorian had often been on the quiet side, easily overlooked by people who did not know him well, but around his friends he was warm, he radiated kindness, he was quick to smile or to sympathise, his face animated by every slight feeling that passed through him. In class, he was usually attentive and interested, even if he had not spoken up a lot since joining the intermediates. And all of that had, overnight, simply gone. The light had been turned out, and now there was just this Dorian shaped thing that appeared to feel nothing.

Or perhaps it was still Dorian, sitting in class, and the issue was that the only feeling right now was despair, which had taken over so completely that it had pushed everything else out. Despair was a fairly good summary of what he was feeling on the inside, and he was fairly sure it was apparent sometimes, when his concentration lapsed. But he also was striving to simply not feel anything at all, or at least not to show it. He had almost kissed Jehan. And Jehan’s reaction had been to run out of the room. Dorian had tried and tried to think of different interpretations of that. After all, he had felt mixed up enough to want to just go, get some space. But the conclusion that he kept coming back to was that Jehan had also realised how he felt and that he despised the idea. Dorian kept replaying Jehan’s last words to him. He wasn’t sure if they had been ‘you choose’ or ‘you chose.’ The two were so similar… But he couldn’t make sense of it either way. And did it really matter what Jehan had meant? He had walked out. That sent a pretty clear message.

He would have gone back to just trying to be Jehan’s friend, to stop all the romantic stuff that Jehan clearly didn’t want from him, except he had no idea how to do that. He had no idea where the dividing line was between friendship and romance. There had always been something special between them, or at least something he thought of as such. He had no idea how he was supposed to interact with Jehan, how he could do so in a way that didn’t display his feelings. He was concerned not only with the fact that Jehan clearly did not want him to feel that way, but that no one else would understand it either. If there was something that Jehan did not want to know about him, it stood to reason he would not receive any sympathy or understanding from anyone else. The only safe option was to totally shut down. To minimise interactions. It wasn’t hard to do, anyway, when he felt so sick that he didn’t want to eat. He skipped meals. He took seats at the back of class. He was just blank. He could smile and nod when people asked if he was ok. And then he just went back to nothingness. Jehan was part of him, and Dorian did not know what being himself looked like if he couldn’t be half of Dorian-and-Jehan.

He had come back to Sonora feeling so sure of himself. So happy and content in who he was. And then he’d had the conversation in MARS with Jehan, where everything had seemed to be going so well, where he had felt like he would never have to hide anything from him again and now… Now all of that was gone. And the worst part was, it had taken his best friend with it. He couldn’t cry over how his heart hurt, or how lost he was or how he just didn’t know what to do because the person he would have gone to over all that was Jehan. In some senses, he supposed he had nothing to lose. He could just try to talk it over with Jehan, because it couldn’t hurt worse that shutting himself off. Except he was scared. And that was another problem… Why was he so scared, so pathetic all of the time? He had high ideals about love. One was supposed to be willing to risk it all. And thus he was falling short of his own standards. Still, he had never figured that ‘all’ might involve putting his closest friendship on the line. Why did he have to stand to lose everything, soulmate and best friend, in one fell swoop?

The universe just hated him. It was the only conclusion he could draw. The universe had forced him to have Matthieu as a brother, and the second he had clawed back some sense of self-worth, some feeling that he might have a place in the world, it had turned everything upside down again by making him realise that it had made his soulmate a boy. At least… he thought Jehan was his soulmate. He fitted every single definition of the idea that Dorian had ever read about, or dreamt of. Except that he might not want him. Dorian was confused on that point. Jehan had been so warm, so affectionate… Sometimes he replayed that moment in his mind, and Vlad didn’t walk in and he was with Jehan and it was wonderful. And sometimes he played it out with Jehan recoiling, a look of horror on his face. After all, he’d walked out… Why would Jehan leave if it wasn’t because he’d worked it out and was repulsed? You soulmate was supposed to want you. So either he was wrong about Jehan being his soulmate - and that led to all kinds of other horrible thoughts, because he definitely wanted something more than friendship with Jehan. He had always believed in true love, that the only person you would really feel for was the one you were meant to be with forever… If he truly loved Jehan (and he believed that he did) that couldn’t be wrong. But if Jehan didn’t want him, did that mean they weren’t soulmates? And if so, then Dorian’s feelings about him were just base desires and were wrong. Or was Dorian’s concept of soulmates all wrong? A soulmate who didn’t love you back didn’t make sense. Did they just not exist? He was sure they did. And he was sure Jehan was his. So why was he stuck with so much hurt and loneliness?

He had no idea what to cling to. All of his beliefs about love were falling apart, and the person who kept him safe and together had walked out on him. Tomorrow was Saturday. The day they usually went to MARS. He doubted Jehan wanted to, but he was already preparing to drop the fact in at dinner that he wasn’t feeling well. Not yet that he felt ill, because that was too early - the medic was too good at quickly fixing them up - but that he felt like he was coming down with something. He wasn’t even sure that was a lie. The first week usually hit him pretty hard anyway, the difference in the timezone just enough to mildly screw him up, the mental effort of switching back to full time academic English, the range of germs from all over the world… He usually came down with something in his first couple of weeks back. And he knew he looked awful. He hadn’t really slept a lot since Wednesday, although he had tried his best to be a quiet little ball of misery, not to toss and turn or (Merlin forbid) cry audibly. Vlad was a light sleeper. And Vlad… Who knew what he thought at this point? But it probably wasn’t good.

When Professor Brooding began to speak, Dorian raised his eyes to where she was, although whether he was looking at her was debatable. He liked her, and he wanted to do her the courtesy of paying attention. His eyes followed her as she spoke, but he was not present or connected the way he had been in her first two lessons. He was just… sort of there. Sort of not. Her opening remarks only increased the distance. Nothing was lovely. He was not having a wonderful time. He was never going to be happy again and he wasn’t sure he could feel any emotional connection to anyone who thought everything was going well. He wasn’t sure he could feel any emotional connection to anyone. He just wanted to crawl under a rock, away from people, because his soulmate didn’t love him.

It seemed they were brewing an antidote to poisons today. He didn’t care. Still, it was something to do. The times when he had things to do were easier. He felt nothing about doing them, but going through the motions was preferable as a distraction from what was going on his own head. And with Potions, that was easier than wandwork. His results in those classes had varied between non-existent and wildly out of control for the last two days. It probably just looked like he couldn’t cope with the step up in difficulty. His pride would have been wounded at being made to look like an idiot, on top of everything else, but there was no room for any further feelings on top of everything else. There was only misery. He took out a bezoar, and began to grind it.

13 Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw Everything is shattering and it's my mistake 1401 Dorian Montoir, Teppenpaw 0 5

Professor Mary Brooding

September 01, 2018 4:41 AM

A noted change. by Professor Mary Brooding

Mary was always eager to see her students. Their bright smiling faces-- or their grey, sleepy faces-- always said so much and told their own stories. So when Mary noted one face, one that she had previously seen only in context of eager excitement over her Chinese potions books, suddenly darker than grey, she was concerned.

Mr. Montoir's expression was grave and bore the sort of darkness that only truly sad children ever show.

Hesitant to draw attention to him, she watched from her desk while he worked on his potion and waited until it was clear that he would not be able to complete the task adequately before attending him. By then, class was finishing up and she was leaving final remarks with various students about their work, so it wasn't so pointed when she stopped at Mr. Montoir's desk.

He seemed like he wasn't really hearing anything or seeing anything, so she waited for him to look up before saying something.

"Hello," she said, nodding to him. She wanted to say more to start their conversation, but couldn't think of anything lovely to say when faced with such sad eyes. It reminded her too much of her past and punched a hole through her heart.

She knew Potions was the last Intermediate class for the day, but didn't want to be inconsiderate if Mr. Montoir had other plans. She also didn't want to force him to stay and speak with her if he didn't want to by requesting he do so. At the same time, she worried that if she didn't make it clear that she was there to talk, that he would choose not to do so. She supposed she could request he stay to help clean up but that seemed rude, as well.

"Good job today, everyone," she said, raising her voice to speak with the entire class. "Go ahead and clean up and call it a day. It's a lovely afternoon and I expect you all to take some time to enjoy it! Class is dismissed."

Turning back to Mr. Montoir, Mary offered the warmest expression she could. There was no pity in her eyes; understanding and encouragement filled her face instead.

"I will be here for the next several hours until dinner, and may request that my meal be served to me here," she said softly, speaking directly to Mr. Montoir. "Particularly if a student wanted to speak with me about what was upsetting them, if they wanted to get away from their peers for a while, or if they thought that a good cry over hot chocolate might be beneficial. I suspect marshmallows will be present."

A moment passed as she searched Mr. Montoir's expression and as the other students filed out of the room. She then went back to her desk to say goodbye and answer any last questions from others and waited for Mr. Montoir to decide what he'd like to do.

22 Professor Mary Brooding A noted change. 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 0 5

Dorian

September 01, 2018 6:38 AM

Disappearing by Dorian

Objectively, Dorian’s potion was not bad. It would probably get an E, even from a less than generous grader. It would certainly score nothing less than an A unless some kind of mean spirited individual with a personal vendetta against him was grading it. But Dorian thought it was dreadful. It was too watery, for one thing, and the colour was definitely a few shades off the desired teal. He felt a twinge of embarrassment as Professor Brooding came around to inspect everyone’s work. He liked her so much, and now he had let her down.

“Hello,” he replied, when she came by. He scooped a sample of his pathetic potion into a vial, hesitating before holding it out with an apology. “Sorry. I can do better.”

But, after addressing a remark to the whole class, it wasn’t the quality of his potion that Professor Brooding commented on. He was obviously doing a very bad job at hiding that something was wrong. He had suspected that anyway. But that was better than betraying any of his other feeelings, broadcasting those to the world at large. He listened carefully to her remarks, staring into his cauldron as she talked. Not being able to really meet anyone’s eyes had been a feature of the last few days...Marshmallow was a funny word. It was the kind of word he might not have recognised, having such rare occasion to use it at school. But they had had the bonfire in first year, and when he had taken out his language notebook to look up the Cyrllic spelling of Katerina’s name, he had kept flicking through, going over the forgotten words of his first year. He could say marshmallow in four different languages. Except, right now, it didn’t feel like he even needed a single language, because he wasn’t sure how to talk to anyone any more.

“Thank you,” he nodded at her offer. Talking to Professor Brooding sounded nice. Except he wasn’t sure what to say. She had said several hours. That meant he had some time to think about it. “Maybe?” he half informed her, half asked.

As the class filed out, he went with the flow, not wanting to draw attention to himself, not wanting to make excuses to his friends as to why he was staying behind. But he thought he probably would come back later.

(OOC - as this takes place at the end of class, if anyone wants to reply to Dorian during and have an interaction, I’d still be up for that).

13 Dorian Disappearing 1401 Dorian 0 5

Ruby Brockert, Teppenpaw

September 09, 2018 2:28 PM

So if you're mind is well arranged, it's appealing? by Ruby Brockert, Teppenpaw

Ruby was somewhat excited about being a third year. It sounded so grown up and now she was old enough to go to parties other than Angelique's which was thrilling. Plus, now she got to have class with Emerald. Of course, she didn't really expect her sister to work with every time but maybe they would sometimes or they could do homework together! Ruby was not as into learning as either Emerald or Topaz but she tried to see the best in every situation and this was definitely the best.

On the other hand, now the work they'd have to do would be more of a challenge and honestly, Ruby wasn't all that excited about that . Not that she was stupid, but she knew she wasn't as smart as her Aladren sisters. Topaz never let her forget this fact and while Topaz thought she was smarter than Emerald, still seemed to grudgingly admit that Emerald was still intelligent.

Of course, Emerald only grudgingly admitted the same about Topaz as well.

Now she was in Potions which had never really been a favorite of Ruby's. She generally preferred Charms and Transfiguration. Oh, and COMC because sometimes the animals were so cute! Even Herbology was nice when they got to work with flowers.

Still, she took an instant liking to Professor Brooding. The professor was just so nice and cheery and Ruby loved that. Though, she could only somewhat agree with what the professor said about looking at her future and careers. The Teppenpaw was looking to the future but mostly the aspect of finding true love like Owen had and getting married and having kids. Ruby wanted a decent sized family but she thought she'd space her children out better than her parents had, more like Uncle Ben and Aunt Shannon had. She had no intention of having a career, she wanted to be an active part of her children's lives. Something that if the third year was honest, her mother really hadn't been, though she didn't have a career either. It wasn't really the norm for society pureblood women.

She also wasn't quite sure that she agreed that potions were exciting. Topaz thought so, but Ruby sincerely doubted that her sister and Professor Brooding were of the same mind about the topic beyond that.

Another thing was that apparently they all had to do their own potions. She couldn't collaborate with Emerald or Dorian or anyone else. Ruby was slightly disappointed, she was rather used to partner work now.

The Teppenpaw started to ready her ingredients when Tatiana spoke next to her. "Merlin, I hope not!" Ruby exclaimed. Nothing appealed to her about playing Quidditch and especially Beater. It seemed like such a mean position and super rough too. Though she doubted Tatiana meant that literally.

11 Ruby Brockert, Teppenpaw So if you're mind is well arranged, it's appealing? 1405 Ruby Brockert, Teppenpaw 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

September 10, 2018 6:57 PM

I don't know - I'm not sure my mind is that well arranged. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana was slightly surprised by the vehemence of Ruby Brockert’s response to her joke. She reviewed it in her head to consider whether she had made a mistake, said it wrong – humor could be impenetrable to her when it appeared in English, so it was quite possible that she simply couldn’t make a joke in English. In context, though, she wasn’t sure how it could be seen as anything else – who would reasonably think that Professor Brooding really wanted to make them all Beaters?

“I am sorry,” she said. “I only mean – this is exercise,” she said, gesturing to her failed efforts with the mortar and pestle. Her wrists might have looked even thinner than usual without their usual complement of bracelets, but fortunately, to her mind, her work gloves extended far enough to pretty well hide her wrists altogether. “I cannot play Beater, though – there is not enough exercise.”

Not for the first time, Tatiana considered asking Ruby about her name. The idea of having a noun for a name was strange to her – people were named after people. It also removed the very possibility of a whole holiday from Ruby’s annual calendar, as there was definitely no Ruby Day – Tatiana would have known about it if there had been. Rubies did not suit Tatiana’s coloring well, it was not dramatic enough to stand up to good rubies, but Mama had some very beautiful ruby brooches she had brought with her to her marriage which Tatiana had always admired.

“Do you find the stone hard to use?” she asked instead, a politer question.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova I don't know - I'm not sure my mind is that well arranged. 1396 Tatiana Vorontsova 0 5

Ruby

September 26, 2018 6:15 PM

Well,one is overrated anyway. by Ruby

Ruby's face colored slightly. Of course Tatiana had been kidding. It would, of course, be ridiculous for Professor Brooding to push them all to playing Quidditch in Potions class. It was her job to teach them to potioneers and other potions related careers, even though Ruby and others wouldn't do anything but be pureblood wives, mothers and socialites. The Teppenpaw could still see value in knowing how to make some potions though including this one. Emerald insisted that it was needed because she wouldn't put it past Topaz to poison someone and while Ruby didn't want to think that about her younger sister, she knew that it could still happen some day that one of her children would put something in their mouths that they shouldn't.

"It's all right." She reassured the Russian girl. "I'm sorry I reacted in such a...strong way. I wasn't really thinking. I just don't like the idea of lobbing metal balls at someone. It's so violent." Ruby didn't care for any sort of violence. She hated blood and guts and people being mean to each other in any way. Not that she thought competition was inherently negative, there was nothing wrong with a nice friendly game-which did not exist when Topaz was involved and Amethyst still needed to learn how to lose gracefully-but she felt some people took it too far. It became a problem when you thought you were better than others because you won or were seeking to be superior to others. And Quidditch would be better if not for the metal balls and beating even though of course Ruby would still not want to play.

Anyway, if Professor Brooding was going to try to make them into Beaters-or Quidditch players in general-she probably wouldn't have her job long. It was fine for the new Quidditch Coach, of course, to go about forming this new school team and be-gently- encouraging people to join it. There was no problem with that so long as she wasn't aggressive and bully people into joining as well as not treating the people who didn't join as if they were somehow less than those who did like saying the girls who didn't were prissy and the boys who didn't were wimpy.

This-along with the fact that he already had a good job-was precisely why Ruby's Uncle Eustace was not the Quidditch coach. He had wanted it, had been pretty much in an uproar over the state of the game at Sonora. Grandfather, for his part, had pointed out exactly that Uncle Eustace was already employed and that his employer would not appreciate him taking a leave of absence to be the Quidditch Coach. However, Topaz had told her that she'd overheard Father telling Mother than Grandfather had expressed his real misgivings about Uncle Eustace in the position to Father, even though him being employed already was a valid one.

Of course, her uncle probably wouldn't say that about girls that didn't play, he was more likely to give preference to boys over girls who did sign up though as well as make nasty remarks about them having no place playing the sport. Uncle Eustace believed that girls weren't as good at Quidditch as boys and that made them inferior people.

She knew too, that her uncle had rather put Jasper off playing the game competitively. Uncle Eustace often took Ruby's brother and their cousin Christopher-Olaf was still too little- outside to do Quidditch related things during family gatherings. As much as the Teppenpaw hated to be negative about people, especially family, she felt he was much too hard on them but if they told him they didn't want to, he'd pick on them too. Father and Uncle Gene, for their parts, would step in and tell him to leave their sons alone but Jasper had told Ruby that he thought it was easier to just deal with it then to fight with someone older and bigger than him who generally had more power.

"A bit." Ruby replied to Tatiana's question. "It's too bad we can't use a spell to break it apart."

11 Ruby Well,one is overrated anyway. 1405 Ruby 0 5

Peyton O'Malley, Crotalus

October 11, 2018 6:38 AM

...Sort of depends on who died. by Peyton O'Malley, Crotalus

Potions had always been Peyton' s favorite class though that had been partially because Sophie had taught it. Still, potions was like cooking which was the Crotalus's favorite hobby.

Right off the bat, Professor Brooding seemed very different from her sister-in-law. She could see it in the way the new teacher dressed. Peyton wasn't one to judge someone based on their clothing, in so far as criticizing them for not being fashionable, however, how a person dressed did sort of reflect their personality and the professor's red robes and pointy red hat were a far cry from Sophie's yoga pants. She hoped that this was the only difference between them, Sophie had been rather laid back and Peyton really hoped that Professor Brooding wasn't terribly strict. She'd never be Sophie, the third year was highly biased but that didn't mean she had to automatically hate the professor for not being so.

Of course it wasn't as if Professor Brooding looked the part of a strict teacher either. Her clothes on the more vibrant side and her hair nearly to the floor, whereas Peyton had an image of strict teachers-male and female- as having short hair and wearing suits or more conservative robes in colors such as black or dark blue. And her image of a strict male teacher also looked suspiciously like Headmaster Brockert.

Plus she seemed...very enthusiastic about Potions. Peyton supposed that having a teacher who loved her subject was a plus though really, the main thing she cared about was that the teacher was nice.

Still there was a part of the Crotalus that wanted to dislike her-for not being Sophie-but she knew that wasn't fair. It was just that Peyton didn't like change and being in Intermediates was enough of one.

And the third year wasn't sure she agreed about liking the way potions tasted, smelled or looked though she got what Professor Brooding was saying because that was what cooking was like. Even how food looked was important, because if it didn't look tasty, nobody would want to eat it.

Peyton settled into her seat and took out her potions kit. She turned to the person next to her. "Do you want to work together? We can make enough for two and then each submit a vial."

11 Peyton O'Malley, Crotalus ...Sort of depends on who died. 1403 Peyton O'Malley, Crotalus 0 5