This sounds.... fun? on Potions

Mary Brooding-Hawthorne

June 26, 2020 3:01 PM

Medicate yourselves. [Advanced] by Mary Brooding-Hawthorne

Mary tried not to terrify her students. She really did. They'd been working on a medical unit this term and she was sure that it had served almost the opposite effect on half the students as the other. While some of them were undoubtedly committed to becoming healers now, others would probably be satisfied to never get within arm's reach of a bezoar unless their life depended on it. However, there life would depend on it. Most of the people Mary was closely acquainted with had had need of a bezoar at some point in their lives. Of course, she was primarily acquainted with fellow potions masters, Tabitha, Darius, and their ilk. Perhaps that said more about her than it did about the safety of the world. Today was going to be the wrap up of this unit and she was a bit anxious for it. Again, some students would hate it, and others would love it. Dorian, she suspected, would have mixed emotions.

"Hello, everyone," Mary smiled, greeting her class with the same warm expression she almost always wore. "As you know, today is the conclusion to the medical unit we've been working through, and we'll be beginning lessons on environmental care, including ecological, herbal, and creature care, next week. Today, however, we're going to have an adventure. Please, pair up and face each other across your desks."

Waving her wand, Mary muttered a few incantations and sent various vials around the room. They were separated into two groups - poisons and cures - and each student got some of each. Among them, unbeknownst to the students at this point, of course, were potions to cause and cure a cough, hiccups, hair-raising, a chill, befuddlement, and more. There was nothing more deadly than a mild cough, as it would be unethical to require students to break bones or remove them to test out some of the more advanced cures.

"We have been practicing identifying potions we don't know and you'll find that each desk has a selection of tools available to do just that. You will take turns for this activity and it is meant to add a little more real-world pressure to your work without outright causing any harm. Whoever wants to go first, you will select a potion from the group on your right. It will cause symptoms that the student on the other side of the table must appropriately assess using the symptomology we've been working with and then identify the cure for using the tools on hand. This shouldn't take terribly long and if you get stuck, I can help. When you believe you have identified the correct cure, wave me down and I'll come make sure before you give it to them. Once cured, you'll switch. Like I said, there's no real harm in here, but it is a bit more true to life treating patients. When you are under the influence of a potion, you are free to sit or lay down as you please. Any questions? Go ahead and get started."

OOC - Welcome! Throughout this lesson, feel free to godmod Mary approving or not your potion selection and you are free to come up with other ailments that might be caused and cured here, so log as none are severe. You should assume that everyone has the skills necessary to do this task, and the knowledge, and that they have all imbibed most of these potions before.

Subthreads:

This sounds.... fun? by Gary Harper with Tatiana Vorontsova, Dorian Montoir, Mary Brooding-Hawthorne

Sylvia? I don't like this. by Nathaniel Mordue

22 Mary Brooding-Hawthorne Medicate yourselves. [Advanced] 1424 1 5

Gary Harper

June 26, 2020 5:15 PM

This sounds.... fun? by Gary Harper

Gary knew why he had to keep taking potions to prepare for his architectural classes, but there were times when it really didn't seem all that relevant. This whole medical unit, for example. He really couldn't see it helping him design buildings. Yes, arguably there was something to be said for knowing how potions were made and how ingredients interacted so that he could know what sort of spaces could be used for the potion making process and how to lay them out for the most efficient use. Also some potions were used in treating some of the materials and there were a slew of other fine reasons to keep learning potions.

He wasn't bad at it. It wasn't a difficult class once you figured out all of the names of things and what their properties were and how they interacted and why certain motions were used at different times and... alright, it did get a little complicated at times, but it wasn't arithmancy.

At least today was the last of this medical unit. The next unit might be more relevant, environmental care at least will hopefully cover more things that might apply more directly to building design. He could do one more last medical class.

When instructed to find a partner, he sighed and glanced around. Another partner class. It wasn't that he didn't like socializing with his fellow students, it was just that after all this time, he still didn't really know any of them all that well and that fact alone bothered him. Jasmine, Parker and Heinrich were the ones he knew best, but after this summer things were still a little weird between him and Jasmine. It had been neat when he was a fifth year and Ness had been in his classes. Those had been some good times.

He jumped a bit as someone actually approached him and asked to be his partner, "Sure," he gave them a grin, "Let's get dangerous."

2 Gary Harper This sounds.... fun? 1404 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

July 02, 2020 3:29 PM

I agree. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Much of Tatiana’s life at Sonora caused raised eyebrows among her family members, but one thing they had all unanimously agreed on was most of her class schedule. Parts of this were practical – Charms and Transfiguration made life run just a bit more smoothly, which, she was assured, would be her highest priority once she was running a household with a man and five or six children and a staff under her, and Volshebnaya Derevnya, for all their efforts to be as civilized as possible, was still quite a rural, isolated outpost, where anyone might have to deal with dangerous creatures at any time, mainly on his or her own – and parts of it were purely traditional; Potions and Herbology fell into this category, at least in Tatiana’s opinion. Wild beasts were one thing, but society had surely moved on from the days when the lady of the estate had to keep the key to the potions stores on a chain around her neck at all times, and also make most of the day-to-day potions herself, for fear that someone else might try to poison her family. Mama still made most of their potions and wore the key around her neck, but that was because Mama was so very old-fashioned. Surely civilized people did not actually poison each other anymore.

…except, of course, in class, on orders. Or did it count, since they were technically poisoning themselves? Mildly, anyway.

She listened closely as Professor Brooding-Hawthorne talked. She had given in to the need to have a note-quill assist her in Advanced classes, just for the sake of making sure she didn’t miss something important and hurt herself or someone else, but she still liked to try to understand everything herself, and to take her own notes, just to prove she could and to keep improving her skills in those areas.

Today, Professor Brooding-Hawthorne was not unduly rambling or flowery with her language, so she could understand most of it pretty readily, nodding in places. A good, practical lesson – at least once one was expected to deal with five or six squalling brats whenever they were ill enough to require care, but not ill enough to warrant professional intervention. There was something she wasn’t looking forward to at all…

No, she wasn’t looking forward to that at all, and thinking of it made her briefly have that urge to run, to flee as fast as she could, to get away from the future. Therefore, she pushed the thought aside, focusing instead on how she would have fun puzzles to solve while her partner was ‘ill’. Tatiana liked puzzles, at least as long as they weren’t too strongly English-based, and illness looked the same no matter what language one spoke (unless, she supposed, one had a magical virus which caused language confusion, but what were the odds that one of the potions did that?)

She glanced around the class for partners and spotted the fair-haired Aladren boy in her year off by himself. He had gone to the ball with Jasmine, she recalled, but that didn’t seem to have worked out for them; she hadn’t really seen them together this year. Therefore, she was not stepping on anyone’s toes by speaking with him, so she went over to him, feeling a bit bad for him, really.

“Hello,” she said. “You want to work?” His response made her smile. “Is fun,” she concurred. “Will be fun. I will drink this,” she added, pointing to a random one of the potions on the right, the ones that were supposed to make her seem ill. “Ok?”

Downing unknown potions was the sort of thing she thought should have made her more uneasy than it did, even in class, but she supposed it wasn’t that much of a problem so long as she didn’t take it outside of class, and when in her life would she ever have a chance to do something like that? The potion she had picked at random went down easily, and almost immediately, Tatiana felt as all her blood had rushed to the top, hovering just beneath her skin, turning her very hot. She touched her own brow, feeling for sweat, she supposed, though she found none immediately, and was promptly then distracted by the swell of emotion which seemed to rise from her stomach, making her hop up off her stool and twirl in place, as it seemed like the thing to do just then. “It’s all so bright!” she exclaimed in Russian, followed by a peal of giggles; she was too giddy to remember to speak English with anyone who wasn’t Dorian. “Let’s dance! Eh…” A vague thought surfaced, something about potions, but she couldn’t seem to focus on it; it was boring, and she was ecstatic, though she wasn’t exactly sure why….

16 Tatiana Vorontsova I agree. 1396 0 5

Gary Harper

July 02, 2020 6:44 PM

This got exciting pretty quick by Gary Harper

Tatiana wanted to be his partner? Cool, his first thought was to try to recall what Evelyn had thought about her while she was listing off potential girls for him to look into dating. Had she been in the 'snotty girl' category? He'd thought that had been a little mean on Evelyn's part, but he assumed that she knew them better than he did. Particularly since Tatiana was a Pecari as well. Still if they were going to work together, perhaps he could see if Evelyn's analysis was accurate. After all, you never know....

He was smiling at Tatiana as she talked. If this was to turn into anything, he may need to learn Russian. He was going to volunteer to poison himself first, it seemed like the right thing to do, when she picked up one of the bottles and drank it down before he could stop her. So instead, he asked the simple, "How do you feel?" With his quill posed to begin noting symptoms. She touched her forehead, headache maybe? Fever? Then she did something he was not ready for, she hopped up and began dancing while laughing and talking in... he was going to assume Russian. He may need to learn it sooner than he had thought.

She looked happy, very happy as she spun around. What was that one.... he began flipping through the book as rapidly as he could. Which, after years of needing to look up random rule questions on the fly during a game session had trained him to flip through books awful fast while still keeping his eye on other things. Tatiana didn't seem like she was in any immediate danger, but if she decided to spin off into one of the other groups, that could get dangerous. There it was! He'd found the page, he needed a calming drought variant to counteract the increased euphoria.

That looked like.... he scanned the cures in front of him and picked one of them up. He waved over the professor who approved his selection. Had there been something of a smirk on her face as she left? Maybe he'd imagined it. Oh well, he popped the cork and stood to give it to the dancing girl. Oh. Who had no interest in drinking a potion. Right. "Tatiana..." he tried to get her attention and hold the bottle out to her all to no avail.

How was he supposed to get her to drink it?Tackling and trying to restrain her didn't seem like a good option. Was he supposed to body-bind curse her and dump it down her throat? He didn't like that one either. How was he supposed to get her to... hmm... that's a thought. Could he pull it off though? One way to find out. He set the bottle back on the table and pulled out his wand, a quick motion and a verrus shifted the potion bottle into a fancy looking goblet still containing the drought. Then he did it again to her empty bottle, and added just a bit of water.

Now for the tricky part. He put on his biggest smile, watched the girl for her timing and then spun into the motions with her for just a few revolutions before he tripped and found himself sprawled out on the floor. That hadn't gone according to plan, still he picked himself up and smile his best back at Tatiana. "How about a toast?" He picked up the two goblets and offered the drought filled one to Tatiana, "To fun times!" He cheered, ready to clink the glasses and drink his water while she imbibed the cure to her ailment.

2 Gary Harper This got exciting pretty quick 1404 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

July 04, 2020 6:31 PM

Never a dull moment with me, if I can help it. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Gary Harper did not seem to want to dance. Well, that was no fun. As he flipped through a book and then fled, Tatiana hummed to herself, trying to remember the exact steps to one of the circle dances. She rose onto her toes - the shoes she was wearing were terrible for dancing; why did she even own shoes which were no good for dancing?! - and began moving through the foot patterns as best she could remember them, moving in a much smaller scale than she normally would but still not holding still.

"Tatiana."

Oh, there was Gary again! He seemed to want her to take a bottle he was holding, something which made her fall into another fit of giggles at the incongruity. What use did she have for a bottle? Still laughing, she reached out to tweak his nose before dancing away again, chortling and trying to invite him to join her again through improvised sign language. It had occurred to her, after all, that he might not have figured out that the Russian was an invitation, or he might be shy and think he should not dance if he did not know all the steps. She could teach those, though, and anyway, Tatiana had never had any patience with people who thought that dancing was all about getting steps right and making a good show. There were certain ceremonial dances where it was probably better to do it right, of course, and then there were those dances Mama had told them about, tied to old magic from the old country, where the dance steps could have power in the same way wand movements did, but this was neither of those things, and aside from those exceptions, she thought the point of dancing should be...just...to dance!

She twirled again, this time not drawing from any particular specific dance, enjoying watching the ends of her robes whirling as she spun. A memory of her early childhood ballet lessons came to mind - a routine she and Katya had performed for the usual audience of their immediate family. Poses of the Swan. On a whim, she pointed one foot en tendu and did the bit her teacher had called Birth of the Cygnets: demi-plie, and as she rose, she swang her hips one way, then stretched her torso and left arm up the other way before she made a half-twist while extending her arms - wings, in the routine - out a little and then, lightly, back down to her sides, having escaped the 'egg'. Her toes began to hurt, though, and she couldn't remember any more from there, so she lowered herself to her heels and looked back at Gary.

"Come, dance!" she ordered him before resuming the circle steps she had started trying to remember first, beaming at the people watching her. When she finished a turn, she found, to her delight, that he had decided to obey!

"C'est bon!" she said as he danced, beaming at him now, eyes sparkling almost as much as the aquamarine dangles on her earrings, dangles which swang merrily in all directions and reflected light from many facets as she made a pass past him, turned gracefully back toward him with her arm outstretched for the next set of steps, now that she had a partner - and gasped when she saw him suddenly on the floor.

"O nyet," she moaned through her hands, which were pressed over her mouth to suppress laughter - she knew it was not really funny, but her throat didn't seem to share that knowledge somehow. "You fall down, that is not American dance - you are good?"

He seemed to take the accident in good humor, though, which earned an approving smile from her. She wondered for a moment where he had gotten such lovely goblets - they were in a potions room, and while she knew the professor sometimes had tea with Dorya (where was Dorya? He should come dance with them!), she did not think of Professor Brooding-Hawthorne as someone who owned pretty goblets, somehow. Wooden ones maybe, but not pretty glass ones. She decided to ignore the wonder, though, in favor of raising hers in the requested toast. "Za tvoye zdarovye," she said warmly, and lifted the goblet to her lips.

For a moment, nothing happened, and she continued to smile vacantly, but then her expression began to change. At first, for a few seconds, she was confused, and then all at once, an expression of horror contorted her face.

"O nyet," she said again, now in a completely different tone from the one she had used before. She raised her hands to cover her face, only to bop herself in the forehead with the now empty goblet still gripped in one of them. "O der' - " she cut herself off, muttering under her breath instead in rapid Russian for a moment before she found the nerve to look up again. She did not have the nerve to look around the room to see exactly how many people were doubtless laughing at her, but she had the nerve to force herself to make eye contact with Gary, even though her face looked as if she had somehow mistaken a vast number of crushed rubies for nose powder. "Euphoria drink?" she guessed miserably.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Never a dull moment with me, if I can help it. 1396 0 5

Gary Harper

July 04, 2020 8:08 PM

I will strive to live up to your example. by Gary Harper

He had no idea what Tatiana said for her toast, but it didn't matter, she drank the cure. Thank goodness. He really hadn't been looking forward to trying to restrain her so that he could dump it into her mouth. Did it work though? The professor said it had been the right one. Still she was just standing there with that same smile.... Then it changed, very suddenly. Gary felt terrible.

"Euphoria drink." He confirmed for her as she lifted her quite pretty blushing face. He had what he hoped was a reassuring smile. She looked so embarrassed, he wanted to assure her that everything was fine. But the only thing popping into his head was along the lines of 'You are a wonderful dancer', and while he did think she was, it already sounded snarky in his head. How much worse would it sound if he actually said it out loud? Still he had to say something... then it came out. "At least you were a much better dancer than I was. You were graceful and quite lovely." He felt his own face begin to warm, "If I had drank that one.... the room here would have been a disaster area.
So," he paused, "thank-you for that at least."

He pulled her seat out for her, and relieved her of the goblet. With a tap and a wave of his wand, the goblets reverted back into their previous bottle shapes and placed them back on the table as he took his seat. It was his turn next, so he looked over the poison bottles remaining. Really it didn't matter, it was more of a chance to give Tatiana a chance to recover and get ready herself. Finally he picked a bottle, and looked to his partner. "Are you ready?" Once he got the go-ahead, he downed the drink. It did not taste great.

Gary placed the bottle back on the table, expecting to start coughing or sneezing, maybe he'd just get a fever? Nothing of the sort though he felt fine. "It must have been a dud potion," he stated a littler harsher than normal, then he swatted the now empty bottle over with his hand. "Stupid potions. I don't know what the point of all this is. I'm not going to be brewing these things for a living, I'm going to be building magnificent towers and sprawling complexes!" He started waving his arm about in gestures indicating the fantastic nature of these future buildings.

Then he noticed Tatiana staring at him. Like she was examining him, like she didn't believe him. "What? You don't believe me? I've got plans." Part of those plans involved finding himself a girl, and he had a downright gorgeous one looking right at him. He grinned a predatory grin and leaned in closer to her. "That's right princess, take a good long look. You've got at least an 18 in charisma yourself, how about we meet up some time after class and roll some dice together?" He asked with a suggestive waggle to his eyebrow.

2 Gary Harper I will strive to live up to your example. 1404 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

July 05, 2020 3:23 PM

Not bad, not bad at all. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana understood lovely was a good word, one Dorian sometimes used to describe either Tatiana herself or her pretties. She also understood that she was being thanked…for Gary’s lack of skill in dancing? She decided, based on his previous use of ‘lovely’, to assume she was missing something in those sentence. Thanking her for being lovely didn’t make much sense either, but she thought he was trying to be kind about how foolish she had undoubtedly just looked. She had behaved like a child! Only while it was charming for a little girl to dance simply because she felt like dancing, it was a bit…something else for a grown woman to do it in public.

She risked a glance around the room, just to see if people still thought the show was going on, or were openly laughing at her, and was grateful to be distracted by Gary picking his poison.

“Yes,” she said, careful to stick to Sonora’s lingua franca, just to prove she didn’t need to say simple words in Russian. For the most part, this was something she assumed that everyone assumed, but after she had just kept saying ‘nyet’ instead of ‘no…’

She wasn’t sure what she expected – an outbreak of boils? Hallucinations? Fainting? – but it wasn’t what she got, which was, at first, apparently nothing. She frowned slightly as he speculated that perhaps the potion was a dud – why would Professor Brooding-Hawthorne waste their time like that? – and was about to say so when he continued talking, and she began to stare instead of frown as he ranted about the pointlessness of the class, and how…something about complicated buildings, maybe? She had never really thought of Sonora as an overly complicated building, but perhaps her background was just wrong for making that evaluation?

”What? You don’t believe me?”

“No, it is not – “ she began, intending to explain that it wasn’t that she didn’t believe him so much as she was trying to figure out why he was suddenly angry. Before she could figure out words, though, he suddenly stopped being angry and started being…very strange. Maybe not dancing-in-front-of-the-whole-room strange, but strange. So much for the potion being a dud, then.

“I am seventeen,” she said, assuming he had gotten her age wrong. She had no idea what being seventeen or eighteen had to do with charisma – the word was nearly the same in English and Russian, and the sound combinations were uncommon enough, in her experience, in both languages that it seemed safe to tentatively guess that they meant the same thing – or what it was he wanted to roll up after class, but that seemed largely unimportant in context. “And you are drunk, I think. She give you….” The phrase that jumped to mind was cheap vodka, but she wasn’t quite sure how to say that in English. “Bad alcohol?” she substituted, and frowned at the remedies. “I know there is a potion for alcohol headache, but do not know, for only alcohol…and you act too drunk, for only alcohol, not so fast,” she said, as much to herself as him, and then also remembered that alcohol wasn’t allowed at school. So…something that made someone behave like a boorish alcoholic, even when there was no alcohol involved. She frowned at the list of common remedies, written in neat Cyrillic, in her open notebook. “You feel drunk?” she asked, figuring she should at least try to get him to describe his own state. “Or feel sick?”

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Not bad, not bad at all. 1396 0 5

Gary Harper

July 05, 2020 5:30 PM

Not bad? I may have to step things up, if I can. by Gary Harper

"Well," He continued, gazing into those beautiful eyes of hers. "If you insist, I'm not going to argue an attribute point one way or the other with you. A plus three modifier is nothing to sneeze at, but I do think you're selling yourself short." He reached out to take her hand but was stopped cold.

His face turned into a glare at the girl, "What did you say? Drunk?" That was one of the stupidest things he'd ever heard. He'd never touched a drop of that stuff in his life. Alcohol was a blight upon society, killing off brain cells and dumbing down society. Plus the drinking age in the states was 21. But that part was irrelevant! How dare this girl suggest such a thing! His outstretched hand turned into a fist and he pounded the table hard enough to make all the bottle wobble around.

Jumping to his feet, he pounded the table again, "You take that back!" he nearly shouted at her as one of the bottle finally wobbled off the edge of the table. "I'm no stupid drunkard!" She was muttering something quietly to herself, then asked him a question after looking in her book. A stupid question. "Do I feel drunk? No! or sick. I feel fine, I'll prove it!" He reached down, grabbed her hand and dragged her to her feet. "You wanted to dance before, now let's dance!"

With that, Gary began gyrating awkwardly around Tatiana.

2 Gary Harper Not bad? I may have to step things up, if I can. 1404 0 5

Dorian Montoir

July 05, 2020 7:14 PM

No, no stepping up. Step down by Dorian Montoir

The medical unit was fun. They were doing them in lots of classes, and it was great because any time anyone talked about wanting to become a healer, Dorian could think ‘my boyfriend does’ and feel warm and fuzzy, not only because he was thinking about Jean-Loup but also because he was thinking specifically about how he wanted to help people.

Today, however, that sentiment was being ruined by the fact that the word ‘adventure’ was being mentioned. Dorian did not trust ‘adventurous’ classes as a rule. He liked to sit down and, methodically and safely, work through the material with minimal adverse effects.

Professor Brooding-Hawthorne was trying to argue that life was not like that, and to an extent he could see her point. Illnesses and accidents happened. However, there were two ways in which it was not totally true. Firstly, whilst illnesses and accidents happened, sometimes they happened in a very predictable way. If you had a child who played a lot of Quidditch, you kept stocked on bruise balm. If it was winter, you made sure you had the things for cold remedies. Secondly, his medicine cabinet was never going to look like the unorganised cluster of phials she had dumped on his desk. He labelled things. He alphabetised. He wrote potion expiry dates in neat little lists. He was not sure there was any freak accident that could result in someone falling sick the same day that his entire organisation system decided to spontaneously disappear.

He supposed he could be visiting someone less organised, such as Tatya, and having to deal with her medicine cabinet. Still, he didn’t think it was cheating to sort through and label the remedies before anyone took anything. She had just said identify and cure. He was allowed to organise first.

Also, the remedies available might clue him in to the diseases. That wasn’t cheating. That was like having seasonal clues available. Also, given that he was two for two on doing really bad things whilst under the influence of mood altering potions, he thought it would really be advisable to at least be aware that might be on the cards and be able to deal with it quickly.

Consequently, he was still working steadily, quietly and unimpairedly when Tatya began… well, rather causing a scene. He stood, prepared to go and get involved. She seemed neither harmed nor harmful, except for possibly knocks to her dignity and he wasn’t sure how much of a peril that was. She was less self-conscious than him as a rule, and everyone knew it was part of the class... Gary brought the situation under control, though Dorian felt a little bad at how embarrassed Tatya looked, wondering if he could have intervened earlier. He vowed to keep an eye and to jump in faster if anything else went amiss.

He had finished labelling his remedies, and was about to take a sip of something that he suspected would make him sneeze (honestly, he was getting round to that any moment now) when he noticed Gary’s… behaviour. He lowered his phial. He didn’t think Gary was normally a jerk. He was normally quiet, and at the Quidditch match, he'd been perfectly pleasant to hang out with. Dorian hadn’t seen him take another potion but it seemed the most probable cause- and the cause was irrelevant because he was manhandling Tatya!

“Protego!” Dorian cast, aiming squarely at the space between them. The bubble of a shield charm erupted between them, most likely pulling Gary’s hands away from Tatya. Dorian scanned his carefully lined up and labelled remedies. There was a cure for befuddlement, as well as the calming draft… ‘Befuddlement’ was a very ridiculous word but he had looked it up when he first encountered it and it meant similar things to ‘confused.’ That was the part that had stuck with him, not that this one caused brash and reckless behaviour. Recalling his own and other people’s behaviour under confusing concoctions, he didn’t recognise Gary’s behaviour as symptomatic of confusion. The calming draft sounded like it would work, but that had been used on Tatya. Did some cures get used more than once? Or did they all have different remedies? From his own table, the ones on Tatya’s looked broadly similar. This really was like rummaging through someone else’s disorganised cabinet.

“More calming draft?” he suggested tentatively. He liked calm people. Calm people were good.

13 Dorian Montoir No, no stepping up. Step down 1401 0 5

Mary Brooding-Hawthorne

July 05, 2020 11:32 PM

Step off! by Mary Brooding-Hawthorne

At first, Mary wasn't surprised by most of what she was seeing. While it was a bit odd to see Tatiana reacting the way she does, it wasn't outside of the usual. Everyone should be used to occasional embarrassment in potions class because that's how learning sometimes happened. Experiential learning meant experiencing things, even when they weren't comfortable. Better to experience discomfort here than outright lack of safety out in the world. She was impressed by Gary Harper's thinking in transfiguring goblets and getting Tatiana to take the potion of her own accord. When it switched on them, she grimaced, recognising the signs of the befuddlement potion Gary had taken. Tatiana seemed calm, though, so that was good. Mary let her eyes roam the rest of the room.

Dorian was being very Dorian-y which was great. He of all people here knew how important organization and caution was in medical treatments. He looked concerned soon, though, and Mary's eyes followed his gaze to Gary and Tatiana who were . . . oh no. Things were not necessarily going wrong, as this sort of thing happened in exercises like this. However, they weren't going right, and some problems could be avoided. It was one of the cases where a language barrier really did make things more difficult than they might have been otherwise. Of course, that might not have been the case if Gary and Tatiana knew each other well, which, to her knowledge, they did not.

Dorian looked ready to intervene, so Mary sat back. Letting students solve their own problems was preferable most times, and Dorian and Tatiana were close so that should be fine. She wasn't sure how close he was with Gary, but they were prefects together so they certainly knew one another. But Dorian resorted to magic, which was very sweet and noble of him but not likely to make anything easier for a befuddled Gary. He had the right idea though when he began looking for a potion, although he settled on calming draft. That probably would have helped but was not the solution meant to be used this time.

Striding forward, she nodded to Dorian and Tatiana and uncorked the solution to the befuddlement potion. Taking advantage of the moment while Gary was reeling from the shield charm, and the effects of the befuddlement potion still in his system, Mary tapped him on his left shoulder, and then shouted "hey" on his right side.

"Drink this, Harper," she told him shortly, handing him the vial. She wouldn't normally speak to a student like that but usually sternness would cut through the befuddlement draft well enough in a pinch. She was also counting somewhat on the fact that he knew who she was anyway. Plus, she was prepared. If he didn't drink it himself, she'd stick it in his mouth for him. Again, last resort, but still. If he tried to argue the point, she could just splash it in his mouth.

That done, she nodded again. "That does happen sometimes. The other Professor Brooding-Hawthorne would be proud of your quick defensive magic, Dorian," she added. "Are you alright?" she asked both Gary and Tatiana. When she was satisfied they didn't need her anymore, she left them to their task.

OOC - Feel free to assume that Mary resorts to any of the options she considers, although she would use as little force or touching as possible to get the job done. I'll keep a peek out if you need another response from me, otherwise do your thing.

22 Mary Brooding-Hawthorne Step off! 1424 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

July 06, 2020 9:05 PM

Or I'll knock you right off your feet. by Tatiana Vorontsova

Tatiana ignored the shouting, for the most part. For one thing, it was harder to understand people when they were shouting, and he was presumably not saying anything important enough to bother with the effort over. For another thing, the reason that his comments were likely irrelevant was that he was suffering from the effects of some kind of mood-altering potion – he was not really completely responsible for whatever it was he was babbling, so the less attention she paid to it, the better. It would make things easier once she figured out what was wrong with him and fixed it.

She froze in shock, though, when she was abruptly yanked to her feet, sending her book tumbling to the floor.

Tatiana had been yanked around roughly before in her life – by her brothers and sisters and cousins, in play or in silly childhood arguments. In Volshebnaya Derevnya, at least, however, no-one outside her family would dare touch her without her permission, because she was one of the Vorontsovae. That she specifically belonged to a minor branch of the family was irrelevant; she was still not someone who even other people of her social station would presume to treat this way, if only for fear of starting trouble between their families and hers. As for people who were not her social equals – she didn’t think such an extraordinary thought would even occur to most of the village, or a large portion, at least, of the magical community in Russia. It simply Was Not Done, and as far as she had previously been able to tell, Americans were similar to her own people in that one regard if in nothing else.

Apparently, however, she had been mistaken about that. She reached for her wand, and was just raising it to Stun the fool (the professor did want to know, she thought, how she would handle such a situation in real life…) when Dorya suddenly cast a shield charm and she stopped halfway through the incantation, lest she send the spell bouncing back onto herself.

“I thought to give him Stun,” she said grimly, not putting away her wand, when Dorian suggested more calming draughts. “This is how I treat someone, they do that in life – “ she cut off as the professor swept into the situation, flushing, realizing this almost certainly meant she was going to fail the lesson.

“I am well,” she said when asked. “Dorya is better for defense than me – I had thought to hex him,” she added flatly. She did not put her wand away as she studied Gary. “You better now?” she asked suspiciously.

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Or I'll knock you right off your feet. 1396 0 5

Gary Harper

July 07, 2020 5:49 PM

As you should do. by Gary Harper

Suddenly the world was spinning. Something had exploded in front of him, was Tatiana okay? He reeled back a few steps and saw two to three swirling Dorians standing there, with their wands still in hand. He shook his head to clear it. What the heck Dorian?! When had he learned to cast Mirror Image? Three on one wasn't exactly fair odds, but if the Dorians wanted to duel... so be it! He stepped forward, groping for his wand, and nearly toppled over as the room swam again. Shaking his head to clear it, the Dorians merged back together and he felt a tap on his shoulder. Whirling to the side, he saw nothing? As the voice spoke from behind him, he spun around again nearly loosing his footing in the process.

It was the professor, and she didn't look happy. She shouldn't look happy. Students were randomly casting spells at other students in the middle of class! Why was she looking unhappy at him though? Dorian was... Drink this, Harper. What? She was holding an open bottle. Reality came crashing down in upon him at that moment.

He took in the situation again from his newfound perspective, glancing from Tatiana to Dorian to the Professor. He gave Dorian a glare and then turned it upon the professor. She still looked serious. He snatched the bottle from her hand. He really, really did not want to drink it. A plan had formed in his mind, but it was a bad one. He was sure of that. So, he drank the potion.

But, before it could take effect, he had something he had to do. He spun to face Dorian. "What the heck was that?!" He exclaimed, "I thought you liked Tatiana! Don't you respect her? You just blast your way in here unasked like some knight in shining armor to rescue the poor damsel in distress? Have you no confidence in her abilities? She's a strong, smart, capable woman. She had a plan, she was dealing with the situation, and you...." the fires of the befuddlement potion vanished, and Gary floundered for the last few words that had been streaming out, "... you took that from her." He ended weakly.

With a muffled sob he collapsed back into his seat. Without looking at anyone he muttered out a quiet, "I'm fine." Then he took a few deep breaths and remembered Tatiana after her ordeal. She had brought herself to look at him, he could do no less. He raised his eyes up to hers, his face showing pure misery. "I'm sorry Tatiana, I'm so sorry."

His eyes dropped to their table again. There were still bottles on it. "I guess I should go again, so that you can cure me." It was a quiet statement. "Do you think any of these will just make me sneeze a lot?"

2 Gary Harper As you should do. 1404 0 5

Nathaniel Mordue

July 09, 2020 9:06 AM

Sylvia? I don't like this. by Nathaniel Mordue

He usually kept it to himself – there was too much which could be read into such a declaration, with the teacher among the truly alarming number of staff members engaged in improper behavior – but Potions was easily Nathaniel’s favorite class. When he found himself seized by the notion that something bad was going to happen despite the lack of evidence for such an idea, or had the morbs to a particularly severe degree, or even, most of the times it happened, fell into an unreasonable rage, there was often a remedy for it in the precise measurement of ingredients, the intense concentration of chopping and slicing, the satisfaction of seeing exactly what he was looking for beneath the veils of shimmering vapors. He saw, touched, smelled – he could lose himself in sensory input, shutting out the snarl of abstractions that usually occupied the inside of his head. In Potions, he could hold his own beside Sylvia without a particularly backbreaking effort, a rarity in their other classes. Potions just made sense to him, enough that he even sometimes had the confidence to experiment a bit with the potions he knew best – that was to say, those used in magical photography.

Nathaniel liked Potions. Nathaniel valued potions. He did not, however, have any particular liking for consuming potions, and he had no liking at all for consuming unknown potions. When he heard that he was going to be expected to do the latter, he did the only thing that made sense, which was to signal to Sylvia that they were working together today and public opinion be damned.

There was, of course, no real way that this made it better, except that he trusted himself to feed Sylvia antidotes and Sylvia to do the reverse more than he trusted anyone else in the class to perform such a function. In times of trouble, it was always best to look to one’s own people for help, and he thought times where they were poisoned ought to count, by almost any definition, as troubled times.

“I think we should at least try to make some educated guesses about what these might be before we start drinking any of them,” he told his cousin when they were dismissed to begin the work. “There’s a list of common healing potions in the book – we might look up what they’re commonly used for, and then check the book’s index for any potions that sound like they might cause that effect. What do you think?”

He thought this was a very good plan himself, and only framed it as a suggestion out of politeness and habit. Other people, however, seemed not to be so cautious as he was, as a little way over, he saw Tatiana Vorontsova just down a bottle without the slightest hint of hesitation and then –

Nathaniel supposed he was shocked enough by her beginning to apparently dance on her own in the middle of class, but he outright stared when she started…doing something that looked more deliberate than the earlier steps, and specifically involved hip-swinging and sort of…gyrating, he thought the word was. Very much drawing as much attention to the fact she had a body as was really possible in their uniforms, anyway. Had she drunk something that induced madness, or was that just what they did in Russia? It was not something he thought a lady would do in American society, anyway. And practically commanding Harper, of all people, to dance with her, dear Merlin –

“So,” he said briskly, if quietly, to his cousin. “Think we can work specialis revelio on all these without her noticing, too?” he asked, with a slight incline of his head toward the professor. “I do not want either of us to have time to make a scene like that if we can possibly avoid it.”

OOC: Nathaniel saying he and Sylvia were working together was pre-approved by her author.

16 Nathaniel Mordue Sylvia? I don't like this. 1412 0 5

Dorian Montoir

July 11, 2020 7:52 AM

Glad we're all agreed by Dorian Montoir

Dorian was fairly relieved to see Professor Brooding-Hawthorne coming in to assist with the situation, not least because when Gary's eyes had refocussed after being pushed back with the shield charm, they had looked distinctly unfriendly. Dorian had more than enough experience of angering bullies to know how that usually worked out. Heck, he had experience of more or less this very situation, of what happened when you shielded one intended target - some of his early accidental magic had been protecting his stuffed bunny after Matthieu had made various threats about pulling Tùtù's ears off. Denied the psychological route to torment Dorian, Matthieu had just gone direct and pushed Dorian to the ground instead. He held the shield charm steadily, in spite of the way his mouth had gone dry with fear.

Luckily, Professor Brooding's voice seemed to cut through Gary's confusion, the same way it had when Dorian had been too paranoid to trust a remedy from Parker. Well, perhaps not entirely the same - he had been relieved to find someone he trusted there to help, whereas Gary seemed to be responding more to the professor's authority.

Dorian was taken aback when Gary continued to berate him after swallowing the remedy. Something about taking away Tatya's choices? Bit rich coming from someone who had pulled her about against her will! Dorian felt the heat rising in his face, unsure how to react - but was spared a decision as the potion seemed to take effect and Gary backed down and... well, looked how Dorian had felt both times he'd come off similar potions. Dorian's pulse raced, both with the heat of his actions and the fight that had almost erupted, and his palms were sweating and shaking. It had nowhere to go now though. It was impossible to be mad at someone who was feeling so pathetic.

He nodded his appreciation as Professor Brooding-Hawthorne complimented his quick spell work, not quite sure what his voice would do if he tried to use it, and not sure what to say as it felt a weird thing to be thanked for... Tatya was saying she had considered hexing Gary.

"Probably also a valid plan," he murmured, finding he didn't take offence at the idea that she might have done so, in self-defence. He wondered if that meant he owed Jean-Loup... not exactly an apolpgy but perhaps a bit for forgiveness than he'd really been giving him over attacking Matthieu in Dorian's defence. Seeing someone mistreating someone you cared about made your blood pound inside your ears in a way no other fear could quite replicate.

He sat back down shakily, having stood to cast the charm but not having moved from his own work station, and tried to concentrate on the little bottles in front of him. Gary and Tatya seemed to be talking to each other, although he still couldn't help but tune in, both because he was still on alert and because he wanted something else to think about besides the various unpleasant memories now rolling through his brain on a loop. He heard Gary's request for something that would just make him sneeze a lot. Wordlessly, he swished his wand, causing the appropriate vial to subtly nudge Tatya's hand, thus potentially sparing them any more unpleasant incidents. He surveyed the remedies in front of him, debating whether a swig of calming draught would do him any favours even though he hadn't imbibed any of the potions yet.

13 Dorian Montoir Glad we're all agreed 1401 0 5

Tatiana Vorontsova

July 14, 2020 10:23 AM

Now let's try to calm down. by Tatiana Vorontsova

‘I’m so sorry’ was not exactly an answer to Tatiana’s question, but it communicated most of the same information. The bizarre behavior was acknowledged as bizarre, and he was no longer engaging in it. This was a good sign, and moreover, she had watched the professor medicate his condition. Professor Brooding-Hawthorne talked too much, but she knew her subject. Therefore, he was probably back to normal.

“You had potion,” she said with a wave of her hand. “You do not do that on purpose. It is ok.”

Her tone was perhaps stiffer than it might have ordinarily been, but the statements were true. They were not responsible for how they behaved under the effects of the potions; so long as he continued not behaving like a threat to her, she had no reason to attack him, or hold the behavior against him…much.

“So long as you do not do so again,” she added warningly.

She glanced over the potions, and was surprised when one of them suddenly moved, brushing her hand. Interesting. Had it heard Gary’s comment about wanting something that would only cause a cold? Was Professor Brooding-Hawthorne doing something to help her out? That didn’t make sense, though, it would be unfair – the professor would not help her. She was lucky enough to have a second chance to pass for the day. Perhaps her hand had just brushed it? But no, it had not moved, she was reasonably sure of that.

“Perhaps try this,” she said, figuring that it didn’t matter so much. She had no enemies, after all, that she knew of. Therefore, she could probably assume that no-one was trying to cause her more embarrassment – and really, even if she had had enemies, surely even they would have thought she’d had enough embarrassment for one day? And they had to choose somehow, after all. “Maybe we have had all the bad. Professor can only be so….” She frowned, trying to think of a word. “I need a word,” she announced. “English word. For person who is…always not nice? Professor is not like that, most of time.”

16 Tatiana Vorontsova Now let's try to calm down. 1396 0 5

Gary Harper

July 16, 2020 6:15 PM

Way ahead of you there. by Gary Harper

Tatiana was being very kind. She wasn't being particularly friendly about it, but she was at least being understanding. That was good. He had, as usual, made a terrible mess of things again. He'd manhandled Tatiana and practically started a fight with Dorian of all people.

The worst bit about it was that while the potion had scrambled up his brains plenty, he hadn't said or done anything that was untrue for him. Tatiana was beautiful, and with all the social concerns gone, it would be fun to dance with her. He'd had plenty of... chats with Evelyn lately to know that while Dorian had been intending well, he hadn't really done her any favors. So, while his actions had been caused by the potion, the motivations behind them were purely his. He sighed again. This was why he didn't interact with people. It was dangerous.

Her warning about not doing it again was like the final nail being driven into the coffin of any chance he may have had of... oh, who was he kidding? Tatiana was practically royalty, wasn't she? Either way, it didn't really matter. He was just Gary.

She held out another bottle for him. He shuddered just a moment thinking of the possibilities that it may contain. He took it anyway and looked over it while she suggested that it wasn't bad. "Umm.." he thought for a moment as she asked for an English word. "Mean? Cruel?" He snapped his fingers, "Heartless!" He smiled a moment and considered the bottle again. "I hope you are right. If not, promise me that you'll hex me into the ground before I do anything stupid again."

"Here we go again," He said resignedly and drained the bottle. "I don't...AH-CHOOOOO!!" The force of the sneeze caught him off guard as his seat tipped over backwards throwing him to the floor. In the process his foot caught the table and sent the bottles flying. Oh no, he thought, not "AH-Chooo!!"

2 Gary Harper Way ahead of you there. 1404 0 5