Professor Mary Brooding

January 24, 2019 10:45 PM
Mary Brooding was very excited for her new class of intermediate students. She knew them all already, of course, but it was particularly heartwarming to see know that some of her second years from before were now going to be in the intermediate class, experiencing some of the significantly more exciting potions than before. Some of her intermediates had moved up, of course, which made her also feel warm. She tried not to think about the advanced students that had graduated, as that was a sad sort of warm.

Another nice thing about this class was that Dorian was in it, and she could keep an eye on how he was doing. Jehan was also in this class, and it was the only time she saw the boys together for the most part. She'd been a young, scared, secretly-in-love-with-a-classmate student before though too, and she was the height of discretion. More than that, she only knew Dorian best. She couldn't possibly pick a "favorite" student and liked to think that she could adore them all equally if she knew them as well. As a result, the students who made their way into class for their first intermediate lesson of the year all earned warm smiles for being there.

Mary was wearing her usual Victorian gown, and today's was a soft creamy green. It was lighter than her usual, but it reminded her of Tabitha's eyes and summer, and everything lovely and bright. Her black hair was braided in its usual, potion-safe style, and hung nearly to the floor. The pointed hat atop her head was the same dark brown as the lace stitching along the soft green bodice of her dress.

"Hello, class," she said when her students settled down some. "I am so excited to see your lovely faces again. I want to get an announcement out of the way first. This something that those of you who were intermediates last year have already heard but might be new information for the newest intermediates." She offered another smile to each lovely face.

"There is a teacher's assistant position for students interested in helping with potions classes. Intermediate students can help with preparing ingredients, collecting ingredients, organizing cupboards and papers, and may brew some potions with me for class demonstrations. I may take on up to three Intermediate students, one for each year, but do not expect to take on more than one or two." Last year, no one had been interested at all, so she wasn't all that hopeful but it never hurt to try. "All students may continue in their positions as long as they'd like and as long as their work and behavior are satisfactory. That means that fifth year students may continue into the Advanced position next year, dependent on grades and such."

Satisfied that she'd made her point, Mary stepped around her desk to reorient her students to a new topic: the lesson for the day.

"I know that many students who choose to continue into advanced potions do so because they are interested in healing arts, so I want to start the term with a lesson I think will appeal to you if that's the case, and also will just be fun." Waving her wand, Mary sent a piece of chalk to the board and listed the ingredients for Skele-Gro: . "This recipe is used for regrowing bones that have been removed, typically by magic, and is a good potion for us to start with because it's so obvious when it works. Also, because I'm pretty sure none of you want any extra bones and won't drink it just for fun." She looked around more sternly as she said this last part.

"As usual, feel free to use whatever you need from the storeroom, and I'll be available for any questions you have. There are ingredients with labels in most languages that I know are represented here, and there are textbooks in even more languages should you want to use them to learn a new language or to strengthen your understanding of the potion at hand."

She paused a moment longer to allow anyone to ask any immediate questions, and then dismissed them to begin working on their Skele-Gro potions.

"You can work alone or in groups of 2 or 3," she said, beginning her walk around the classroom. \r\n\r\n

OOC - The only references to making this potion I can find are 1 Chinese chomping cabbage, 3 puffer fish, and 5 scarab beetles so feel free to make stuff up as you feel necessary. It should smoke when its made correctly and poured into a vial or wherever.

Subthreads:
22 Professor Mary Brooding To new beginnings. [Intermediate students.] 1424 Professor Mary Brooding 1 5

Jasmine Delachene, Crotalus

January 29, 2019 1:47 PM
Jasmine greeted Professor Brooding cheerfully as she entered the potions classroom. Professor Brooding was nice. Jasmine liked her. She had such pretty hair and nice dresses and she was very kind.

If only she taught Charms.

It would both improve Charms dramatically (Professor Wright kind of droned on and on about things Jasmine couldn’t follow) and let her see the nice professor without the foreboding sense of nearing doom that potions as a subject inspired in her. This would be one of the subjects she would be glad to see the end of come sixth year.

Unfortunately, she was only a fourth year and would need to slog through two more years of chopping up rat spleens and otherwise handling disgusting things and getting horrible smells steamed into her clothing. She wondered how Professor Brooding managed that. Was the some kind of spell to remove or prevent potion odors from clinging to one’s robes all day? She would need to look into that. Maybe Arianna would know. She was a seventh year, and must have learned something that important by now.

Professor Brooding started with the assistant position opening. No thank you. The woman was pleasant, but no amount of pleasantry would overcome the revulsion of the work required. Potions ingredients were decidedly unpleasant and Jasmine wanted absolutely nothing to do with preparing any more of those than she was required to in order to pass. She wasn’t even entirely against not passing if it meant not sticking her fingers into a vial full of snake eyes. Those were just gross.

She was dismayed to learn they were jumping straight into a practical lesson this year. She looked over the ingredient list and the dismay was overwhelming. No snake eyes, thankfully, but scarab beetles were almost worse. They looked creepy and made the most awful sounds crushing them.

The pufferfish were only marginally better, especially if they were using the whole fish, which it looked like they were. Ugh. They still had their eyes.

It was just eyes in general, Jasmine considered, that made potions really horrifying. They stared at you, questioning all your life choice that had led to that moment of squishing them with a pestle.

She shuddered, and turned to her neighbor, “Will you be my brave knight today?”
1 Jasmine Delachene, Crotalus Oh brave knight! 1397 Jasmine Delachene, Crotalus 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw

January 30, 2019 2:49 PM
Dear Mama,

We have arrived safely and Jeremy has been Sorted into Crotalus. He has two roommates; I don’t know their names yet. There is also one girl in their group. I think he is all right; he was talking to another boy last night, and neither of them looked too unhappy. And anyway, you know Simon and Sylvia will look out for him, so there is really nothing for you to worry about at all.

Are you okay Mama? I hope you aren’t lonely there by yourself….


Nathaniel had started writing this letter as soon as he had reached his room the night before, but had broken off after he wrote that, unsure whether to start over or not. On one hand, if she knew he was worried about her, she might feel guilty and then spend more time with Aunt Avery or – anyone, really – which would be good for her. On the other hand, though, he didn’t want to make her feel any worse if she was already feeling bad. Plus there was the possibility that she was actually relieved to have Jeremy out from under her feet, impolite though that would be to mention.

He still hadn’t made up his mind by the time he got to Potions, and was thinking of it when he walked in the room, his greenish eyes a little distant until Professor Brooding greeted the room with a comment about their lovely faces. His looked surprised for a moment, then smiled, then noticed she (unlike at least some people in the room) really did look lovely today…except for being old, and his teacher, of course. He reddened slightly and looked down at his desk as she talked about intermediate assistants. Did he have time to do that? He knew he wasn’t involved in nearly as much as some students, which was points off his Exemplar of a Student score, but he was concerned about how much more difficult Intermediate classes might be, compared to Beginners.

He looked up again at the mention of the very possibility someone would be stupid enough to drink Skele-Gro for fun. Once, he might have assumed no-one would be that stupid, but then he had gotten to know his father’s character. His father was very, very stupid. Jeremy was…he tried, of course, but sometimes Nathaniel worried that Jeremy was a bit like their father. He thought on the whole, though, that Jeremy was too concerned with his own well-being to drink a can of Skele-Gro, no matter how much his roommates dared him to. So there was one thing he could probably cross off his list of things to worry about.

His attention was turning toward one thing he felt he didn’t have to worry much about at all (actually brewing potions was not that difficult; all the directions were right there, and his kit was freshly stocked with everything, so no worries about supplies or seeming irresponsible for not having everything to hand) when Jasmine Delachene happened.

“Ah – I – “ said Nathaniel, perplexed.

The fourth years, as a whole, were very odd. Monsieur Montoir and Mademoiselle Vorontsova couldn’t help it to an extent, he supposed – they were foreign – but Mlle. Vorontsova, excellent subject for photography though she could be, could have helped being quite so loud and glittery, and the whole lot of them just seemed…suspiciously bright sometimes. Miss Delachene was sometimes even more intriguingly not-like-everyone-else than Mlle. Vorontsova. Right now, she looked normal enough, but she was asking him to do…something?

“I’m happy to help if I can?” he said faintly, the end rising into a slight question. He wasn’t sure he had ever considered being a brave knight before and therefore did not know if he was remotely cut out for the position.
16 Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw ...Yes? I think? 1412 Nathaniel Mordue, Teppenpaw 0 5

Jasmine

February 13, 2019 1:17 PM
Nathaniel’s answer was not the most gallant of responses, but it was sufficient. He offered to help, that was what was needed. She pushed her mortal and pestle onto his desk and handed him her vial of scarab beetles. “Can you crush these for me? Scarab beetles are creepy and I don’t like them.”

She also gave him three pufferfish. “And those, too.” She turned back to her kit and began to arrange the less objectionable ingredients on her own desk. “Shall we work together, or would you like me to prepare the cabbage and fill your cauldron for you in exchange?” She wanted nothing to do with the scarabs or the pufferfish, but she was not against returning the favor with the rest of what needed doing. She thought it would make more sense to just work together, but she didn’t want to make assumptions. He was a Mordue, after all, and Jasmine had not entirely missed that Sylvia did not seem to care for her. Jasmine was a bit baffled as to what she had ever done to the younger girl, but she did not wish to risk confrontation by asking.

She hoisted her own new cauldron up onto her desk, because one potion at least was going to need to get started, and her cauldron was pink and glittery with hearts on the outside (though still a boring dark cast iron gray on the inside, sadly) and was therefore the superior one to use.
1 Jasmine You will do for today 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Nathaniel

February 21, 2019 4:05 PM
Nathaniel’s confused, deer-in-the-Lumos expression did not improve when Jasmine clarified herself, shoving things onto his desk and telling him to dispatch them for her because they were, quote, ‘creepy.’ It did, however, slip into a look of astonishment when he saw The Cauldron.

It was rude to stare. Nathaniel knew this. He had been taught this when he was very small. He needed to look away from The Cauldron, but just couldn’t quite seem to do it. The thing possibly had some kind of entrancing enchantment on it, because it was magnetic, impossible to ignore. How had he apparently ignored its presence in the same room before? Had it not been here when he was a first year, or had he repressed the memory, or…what? Was it something that only became apparent about The Cauldron when one got close enough to it, close enough for it to paralyze him, cross the desks, and eat him?

No. No, that didn’t make sense. Because its apparent owner wanted him to crush beetles for her. Because beetles were creepy. And because he could not crush the beetles if he was being digested by the Pink Monster of Glittery Horribleness there.

“Shall we work together, or would you like me to prepare the cabbage and fill your cauldron for you in exchange?”

Nathaniel meant to politely decline and insist that no repayment was necessary. Instead, he said, “Your cauldron is pink.”
16 Nathaniel I assume That Thing will eat me before tomorrow. 1412 Nathaniel 0 5

Jasmine

March 19, 2019 9:59 AM
Jasmine remained entirely ignorant of Nathaniel’s concerns for his life as she asked whether they should work together. She saw him looking at her cauldron, of course; who didn’t enjoy looking at all those sparkles? But she would admit she had been expecting an answer to her question rather than a statement of the obvious.

Of course, Uncle Daniel had had much the same response to it and then inexplicably reiterated his relief that he had found a job teaching at college finally. Jasmine did not understand why he had needed to share that just at that moment, but she had politely told him she was glad he enjoyed his new position.

Nathaniel did not follow up his observation with an unrelated remark. Maybe Daniel had just trying to make up for saying something so self-evident but since Nathaniel was a Teppenpaw instead of an Aladren, and not a college professor besides, he didn’t have the same level of intellectual or professional pride to protect? Mom did say Uncle Daniel was impossibly prideful of his brain sometimes. In any case, Nathaniel left his comment open, which meant she was allowed to talk about her cauldron, without it sounding like bragging.

She smiled in pleased satisfaction. “It is!” she agreed delightedly on its pinkness. “I found it this summer! Isn’t it beautiful? I love the sparkles! Most cauldrons are so boring to look at!”
1 Jasmine What Thing? Is there a monster you need to save me from? 1397 Jasmine 0 5

Nathaniel

March 20, 2019 9:04 PM
Okay. At least it had not been in the same building as him for two years without him noticing it before. Jasmine’s delighted babbling, however, opened up ever so many questions. Who would sell that atrocity? Who would buy it? What was happening to the world, that someone would sell it and someone would buy it?

He was grateful, at least, that Jasmine babbled on after the part he could not have given an honest answer to, apparently regarding her own question about the beauty of That Thing as rhetorical. The only answer Nathaniel could think of was that is the ugliest cauldron I have ever seen in my entire life, and that would be an unkind thing to say.

“I…uh…I’m glad you like it,” he managed faintly after she seemed to stop. “I think I prefer mine, though,” he added, more firmly. His was entirely normal, undecorated pewter. It was unremarkable in the extreme, distinguishable from few of the other cauldrons in the room when new and now only distinguishable really from those of people who were less careful about cleanliness than he. That was important; if his cauldron was dirty, there might be cross-contamination, and then one of his potions might fail. Mama would be disappointed, if that happened and she found out about it. “I’ll just…prep these for you,” he remembered aloud, looking at the things she had deemed creepy and thinking they were much less unsettling to his mind than her enthusiasm over the Pink Cauldron. “I’m guessing Potions isn’t your favorite class?” he asked as he began to grind up beetles, assuming the answer and finding comfort in that, though the pink cauldron did seem to be a great favorite of hers. She might like the class just for the opportunity to use it.
16 Nathaniel No, I...don't think it poses any threat to you. 1412 Nathaniel 0 5