Professor Fawcett
June 12, 2010 12:56 PM
Intermediate Potions II (3rd and 4th Years) by Professor Fawcett
There was always a briskness, which sometimes lapsed into uncontrolled urgency, about the second half of the year, but it was too soon after Christmas break for it to have fully kicked in. In that situation, there was nothing for John to do but hope that enough were focused for lessons to be somewhat meaningful and that the others would quiet down quickly and without incident. The Sonora students were a well-behaved lot in general, but he liked to always accept the worst as a probable outcome and plan accordingly.“Good afternoon,” he said, hoping to draw the intermediates away from discussions of break, other classes, each other, and whatever else teenagers these days talked about and into the academic. “I hope you all had a pleasant vacation, and are well-rested and prepared to get back to work. We’re going to be working with something tricky today, and you will need to give it your full attention.” With beginners, it was possible to present something a little easier right after a break, but the intermediates needed challenge. For one thing, it better prepared them for the upper levels, where coddling simply didn’t happen. For another, it was more likely to keep them too busy to get bored.
“Some of you may be aware of the properties of re’em blood,” he began, slipping into lecture tone without conscious thought, “the consumption of which will give the drinker immense strength. The same ones of you will also likely be aware that it is extremely rare on the open market, both because of the difficulty of procurement and the ramifications of its use.” John preferred not to dwell on the thought of large numbers of wizards with super-strength, or of the unpleasant things he imagined would happen to their normal bodies as the effects wore off. “Restoring someone to normal levels of strength, or merely increasing endurance, is sufficient in most situations, which is why we have the much less powerful Strengthening Solution.
“It is, of course, at most a temporary ‘fix,’” he added, “and there are consequences to long-term use. These can be almost severe as the consequences for making potions outside of school policy.” It never hurt to remind students that their cauldron-work was not supposed to leave this room. “Or of not taking care with the ingredients. Do not add the pomegranate juice before the salamander blood; I suggest you don’t even leave them close together at your stations. The heat must also be kept very even for the entire procedure, and the stirring orders observed precisely. This requires a few days to mature, so you’ll have to wait until our next session to know the degree of your success, but your potion looking orange at the end of the period is a good indication that you’re on the right path. A smell of burned rubber is not. You may work together, or alone, on this – “ he was planning to make them work alone quite a bit later in the semester, as their syllabus indicated, so he thought he’d give them a reprieve for the day – “and begin.”
Subthreads: The Triumph of Lists by Edmond Carey with Daniel Nash II, Edmond
Passive Resistance by Jose Hernandez with Dmitry
Paying attention is usually considered a good thing... by Alison Sinclair
Being practical. by Marissa Stephenson with Quentin Melcher
Re: Intermediate Potions II (3rd and 4th Years) by Pippa Brockert with Juri Dahlgren
Potions. Wonderful. by Cassy Brooks, Pecari with Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)
Establishing my dominance by Tawny Brockert
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Professor Fawcett
Intermediate Potions II (3rd and 4th Years)
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Professor Fawcett
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Edmond Carey
June 13, 2010 12:12 AM
The Triumph of Lists by Edmond Carey
After a stressful breakfast, during which he and his foster-sister did not acknowledge each other in any way, Edmond arrived early to class and politely asked after Professor Fawcett's health before taking his seat and opening his notebook. Instead of consulting the syllabus in the front and beginning to set up a notes page, though, he sat looking at the parchment, his quill suspended over it as the ink dried, until someone took the seat beside him and half-seeing the movement startled him just enough to restore his awareness of his surroundings.They had changed while he'd been off in his head; the room was nearly full. After a thoughtful look around it, Edmond dipped his quill back into the ink and began to write.
1. I am the most important person in this room.
He wasn't sure he'd meant to shape this as a list, but it didn't surprise him to see that he'd done so. Edmond felt making lists helped him order his thoughts, keep them all under control. Order and self-control were very important for everyone who wanted to live a successful life. All of his tutors said so.
He looked back around the room, his eyes briefly lingering on Cassie, and then wrote again.
2. This is not a state of affairs which I like.
3. There is also nothing I can do about it.
4. It is wrong to not want to serve my family to the best of my ability, in the manner in which I am ordered to.
5. Therefore, steps must be taken to correct this error.
Feeling slightly better, if still not totally content, he put down his quill and folded his hands atop the list. It did not solve all of his problems - he still had no idea, really, how to deal with Jane, and she was just the first difficult situation he was going to have to navigate here this semester - but acknowledging his impropriety in half-resenting his new place in the world put him closer to an answer to them all.
Acceptance. That was the key. He had to accept that he had no control over this and find a way to work within it and not keep looking for ways around it. It wasn't unlike what Morgaine dealt with as a Healer. If she only treated a few symptoms without looking for the underlying reason for the problem, her patient would not get well. He could not focus on minor problems and ignore the underlying issue of his improper reluctance to do as he had to do.
When it came to school, though, there was no such problem to contend with. He had always enjoyed his lessons, maybe even too much; apparently, the first time anyone had ever heard him express any kind of ambition, it had been to be like his first Latin tutor. Since then, he'd come to know that all he really wanted to do was remain what he was, a student forever. Both were, of course, impossible, but he had heard that some family heads were able to pursue some scholarly interests. Some were. He took down the notes in short, precise bullet points.
It was a day with options, so Edmond turned to the person next to him. There was no one he truly disliked, so there was seldom a problem in partnerships, but only someone he had to hand-hold and look after excessively to prevent an utter disaster or who could give him a challenge in skill level could inspire Edmond to feel anything beyond polite indifference to the proscribed work arrangements. Since a majority of his classmates had strong feelings one way or the other, though, he had to lean toward the 'polite' far more than the 'indifferent' and at least make an offer on days like this. "Good day," he said. Politely. "Would you like to work together today, or work separately?"
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Edmond Carey
The Triumph of Lists
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Daniel Nash II
June 14, 2010 2:51 PM
Lists are great by Daniel Nash II
Professor Fawcett was one of the better professors at keeping to the syllabus handed out at the beginning of the year. As such, Daniel was always conscientious about checking it before heading into Potions and reading ahead. When he'd been doing that last night, he was glad he wasn't going to be going into this lesson blind. The Aladren Head of House wasn't kidding when he said it was 'tricky'.There was enough going on during the creation of this potion that, despite his normal preference to work alone, he was glad of the option to be allowed to work with a partner this time. He chose his nearest neighbor carefully.
Another Aladren was best. Daniel didn't want to carry the responsibility of making sure some Pecari stayed on task. He just wanted a competent potions partner, to help make sure everything happened as it should at the proper time. Crotali were a good second choice, but there were sufficient Aladrens in the third and fourth years that he didn't think he needed to resort to working with anyone not House-sanctioned as being academically oriented. He considered his options.
1. James was out. Daniel didn't precisely dislike his roommate, but James Anthony was his greatest rival in almost all arenas, and it caused some tension that was best not mixed with potion making.
2. Quentin was also not an option. Daniel favored a form of speech that included a few too many metaphors and figurative expressions, which made working with Quentin in this class unwise at best and downright dangerous at worst. This particular potion was going to require enough concentration that Daniel may not have enough to spare for effectively communicating with very literal roommate.
3. Juri was the least objectionable of his roommates, but even there, Daniel had sensed a bit of tension between them, though he couldn't say for sure what its cause was. It could be anything from resentment over Daniel's hair and skin products taking up too much space in the bathroom to the fact that both of their mothers had gotten re-married over the summer and they were both irrationally holding this unwelcome circumstance against the other (or maybe Daniel was imagining the whole thing, which wasn't impossible, either). In any case, Daniel was inclined to avoid him as well, on the off chance that whatever issue stood between them chose this lesson to explode.
4 & 5. Either Euna or Taylor would be acceptable partners, but one was already seated next to somebody and the other hadn't arrived yet.
6. Instead, he looked toward the third year Aladrens. The first one he spotted was Edmond Carey. Jackpot.
Carey was reasonably good at potions, one of the better third years in the subject. Daniel could trust him to do his part without needing to babysit him. Plus, they were on the same team for Quidditch, so he knew they could work together without any potential fall-out, despite the muggleborn-pureblood thing. Whether that was because Daniel was respectable enough due to his upper-class upbringing, Edmond just didn't care, or because the pureblooded kid thought their common goal (winning) surpassed any blood differences, Daniel chose to believe that whatever the root cause was, it would extend to academic pursuits like earning as close to a perfect grade as they could get.
Without further delay, Daniel sat down next to the younger Aladren before someone else did.
Shortly thereafter, Professor Fawcett began the lecture, Daniel took meticulous notes, and then they were allowed to find partners if they so chose, and begin. Surely enough, as Daniel had expected, Edmond didn't look further than the seat beside his own. Nodding, and hiding his own satisfaction at arranging things to his own design, Daniel agreed, "Normally, I'd work alone, but this one's complex. I'd appreciate the second pair of hands."
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Daniel Nash II
Lists are great
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Daniel Nash II
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Jose Hernandez
June 14, 2010 3:19 PM
Passive Resistance by Jose Hernandez
Because of the syllabus, Jose knew today's class was going to be another of the bad ones. He left his kit and cauldron in his room and took a seat in the very last row, hoping to remain overlooked. His family was proud of him for sticking to their ways, but he didn't like it when he had to do this. He'd rather do the potion. Brewing was actually fun when he was allowed to do it.Unfortunately, the potions meeting his vegan sensibilities were few and far between, and most days he did what he was doing today.
He didn't like getting in trouble. He'd prefer to avoid detentions. The fastest route to those outcomes was to make people notice what he was doing. Inciting mass rebellion was not his goal. He just wanted to get through the class period with his principles still intact. So he quietly sat in the back corner, taking notes during the lecture, and then began his potions homework essay while the rest of the class started to brew.
He kept his eyes on the written assignment and did not try to tell anyone else that using salamander blood in potions was wrong and unethical (and don't even get him started on re'em blood). His stance on the subject wasn't going to come as a surprise to anyone and this was not the time or the place to make a public demonstration.
Ideally, he could get through the next hour without earning another detention to go along with his zero, but he wasn't counting on it.
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Jose Hernandez
Passive Resistance
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Dmitry
June 14, 2010 7:10 PM
Is that the path of least resistance? by Dmitry
Dmitry was running late, he hated running late, and yet he had only himself to blame. He had spent way too much time on his hair this morning; it had just not wanted to cooperate with him. He needed a hair cut in a bad way. He raced down the hall to potions unbecoming of someone of his status but he couldn’t be late to Potions again, Professor Fawcett was the one Professor Dmitry felt would actually give him detention. He entered the classroom right before the door would shut thankfully. He caught his breath and straighten his clothes as he looked around the classroom. His normal seat was occupied which grated on his nerves, he would have to find the little twerp who had taken it and have a discussion about it later on.With a sigh he walked to the back of the room and flopped down in the only open spot, next to someone Dmitry had never noticed before. The child, probably a muggleborn or something seemed to be lacking his potions equipment but Dmitry shrugged it off and paid attention to the Professor. He took detailed notes as usual and then quickly scanned over the text in the book before looking over at the other boy. He seemed to be starting his written work instead of trying to partner up with him and get marks for the potions.
He glanced over at him and arched a brow. “Did you forget your potions equipment?” He asked in his deep Russian accented voice. “Do you want to partner up with me?”
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Dmitry
Is that the path of least resistance?
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Dmitry
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Jose Hernandez
June 14, 2010 9:39 PM
Not really, no. It'd be easier to just do the classwork. by Jose Hernandez
Jose looked up from his homework, surprised to find himself addressed. Dmitry Talsky, he recognized the transfer in the same moment he realized why someone was trying to involve him in the lesson. The older Crotalus wasn't familiar enough with the class, and specifically with Jose (Jose imagined that if the Russian recognized him at all it was only by virtue of being Pecari's Quidditch Captain), to realize what he was doing.During his first year, Jose had been far more vocal about his civil disobedience. Since Dmitry's arrival at the school, Jose had kept out of the way so that even when he did get in trouble, the professor didn't make any more of a scene about it than Jose did. Anyone not seated immediately adjacent could have easily missed it.
So he just shook his head in answer to both of the transfer's questions and explained, "I didn't forget anything. I left them in my room deliberately." He tapped on the phrase re'em blood in the first paragraph of his homework assignment. "I don't make any potions with animal products in them. I'm a California Pierce."
He wasn't quite sure how far his family's reputation had travelled, if word of the mogrel band of liberal hippie wizards who campaigned for animal rights, muggle integration, and environmental protection had reached whatever part of the globe the Talskies lived in. Though mixed now, the family branch was an offshoot of the more respected pureblood Pierce family that was well known now as the New Hampshire Pierces. The Californians were decidedly less respected in such circles, and only their vast wealth (which had surpassed that of the New Hampshire branch two summers past) gave them any real pull in most of wizarding society.
Of course, one couldn't tell his family was rich by looking at Jose. Nor by looking at any of them, really. Their bank account was as healthy as it was largely because they spent almost none of the money they earned. Regina had been a tight-fisted old witch, and Joshua and Maria hadn't loosened the family purse strings any after she passed. Jose was still wearing hand-me-down clothes and using a school broom despite being captain. But he was okay with that. The California branch believed in communism, too. He felt lucky he had anything at all that he could call his own.
On the other hand, maybe the Russian/European/whatever family of Talskies hadn't heard of the California Pierces at all, which, in all honesty, would probably go better for Jose in the long run. He wasn't going to apologize for that, though. Despite his surname, his family affiliation was firmly and unabashedly California Pierce.
And if that meant Dmitry was going to pointedly ignore and avoid him, or maybe relentlessly target him in Quidditch, for the remainder of their shared time at Sonora, Jose could live with that.
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Jose Hernandez
Not really, no. It'd be easier to just do the classwork.
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Alison Sinclair
June 15, 2010 7:56 PM
Paying attention is usually considered a good thing... by Alison Sinclair
She had no exceptional talent for making them, but Alison had come to have some affection for her Potions lessons because of the professor. Fawcett was a puzzle, and Alison liked puzzles.Guy was obviously a wizard. His presence on campus made that much abundantly clear. The methods he used to teach them, however, bore far more in common with her older brother Anthony’s AP Government class – the super-strict, old-school teacher of which said Anthony complained about endlessly but seemed genuinely fond of – than to the standard wizard-ly way of doing things. She had yet to determine if it was a way of trying to rig the class to be passable by the maximum number of people or just a matter of personal taste, but after she’d lost a few points for improperly citing a source in an essay, she had started to think that the writing and speaking well was as, or even more, important to Fawcett as their ability to make a functional potion. When there were – admittedly expensive – quills that existed for no reason other than to write things in a readable fashion, and when writing well really had nothing to do with the subject at hand, Alison had to assume there was a reason Fawcett cared that much, and she was determined to figure it out.
The current lesson, though, was doing nothing but reinforcing that he didn’t think the bare minimum was enough information to have on a subject. Despite the casual reference to it not being available for open use, Alison wrote down what he said about re’em blood, confident that it would appear again at the exact worst possible moment, like the big essay portions of an exam, if she didn’t know at least enough about the topic to pull off a short answer. She also took note of not putting the pomegranate juice in before the salamander blood. The hospital wing here was a fine place, but not one she cared for an extended stay in.
And then there was the partner issue. Partner work was a good opportunity for making connections, but she had a fancy to see how she could do on her own. To give herself time to think about the issue, she began checking her ingredients and made a sound of irritation when they proved lacking. It had never occurred to her that she would need to find some way for her parents to find a magical location for her to restock this sort of thing, not after her aunt had always just grabbed whatever it was she needed during lunch breaks and had it there when Alison next reached for it. And, just to make things better, it was one of the more expensive ingredients she was out of. Being Muggleborn was harder than it looked.
Feeling annoyed and slightly embarrassed – she hated not being prepared – she went back to the ingredients cabinet and scanned the shelves and drawers until she found the dried moke skin and measured out a quantity of the unpleasantly gummy powder. With her mind on getting it back to her station without spilling any or letting it touch her, she turned around without looking up from the sample and collided hard with one of her classmates. Wincing, she managed to save the ingredient and then looked up to see about the other person.
“Sorry,” she said. “My fault. You okay?”
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Alison Sinclair
Paying attention is usually considered a good thing...
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Alison Sinclair
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Marissa Stephenson
June 15, 2010 7:59 PM
Being practical. by Marissa Stephenson
Marissa’s mind was far from the holidays as she sat down in Potions, smiling and greeting her neighbors as she took out pencils and her notebook. The syllabus said they were going to work on a potion today, which meant the lesson was going to require every ounce of concentration she could give it. She could make things up as she went along, if she had to, during class discussions, but there was just enough magic involved in actual potion-making for it to require preparation and effort on her part. It was still easy enough, compared to her other classes, for Potions to be her favorite mandatory subject since History of Magic was cancelled.Not, of course, that she was sure she’d be taking it after next year. She didn’t know if it could work, but she had found herself occasionally daydreaming about the possibility of a completely book-based schedule. That would mean almost exclusively doing private studies, and having to make serious inquiries about what sorts of jobs existed for witches who couldn’t do magic, but it was a pleasant enough thought for her to think it might be worth it. There were going to be consequences she didn’t like either way; everything had a price. It was just a question of which price was, in the long run, better to pay.
The complexity of the assigned potion didn’t make her wince - though she wasn’t sure how well she’d do if she was required to memorize a list of more than ten steps, she was good at keeping track of even very detailed instructions that were written down, and it didn’t hurt at all that she’d shaken off her qualms about marking the book when necessary – but the final step, setting the mix with a charm, more than made up for it. If Fawcett had been slightly less….Brown Ajah, she would have thought the entire class was an elaborate setup to make her and Jose Hernandez start the semester off with failure. As it was, she just bit her tongue against a sigh. Even if the professor had an agenda, it was probably for their own good in the long run; the Wizarding World had never struck her as overly tolerant of people who didn’t fall near or above the norm when it came to skill and degree of conservativism, and that was speaking as someone from a conservative corner of the world.
The possibility of help on the potion spoke in favor, though, of Fawcett merely knowing what they’d need to know for their CATS and teaching that, not unlike the teachers she’d known in Muggle school who had completely divorced themselves from the evolution and sex ed debates and concentrated on getting their students through state exams instead. That was something Marissa could understand, and even respect; there had been rules in her life that she hadn’t liked, but she had followed them because it was the only practical thing to do. She had never understood willfully defying an authority figure asking her to do something that was of no actual harm to anyone but, if not done, led to discomfort for the defiant no matter how many times Bella and Aria had tried to explain the attractions of the idea to her. Of course, it helped that she didn’t really have a lot of strong feelings.
She felt bad asking someone to work with her, since people often interpreted such a request as something that couldn’t be refused when she’d actually more than understand if someone would rather go it alone or with someone who wasn’t her, but again: practical. The easiest way was to have someone else on hand for that bit at the end. It was the kind of thing bad students did, but she had learned to put a check on her pride a long time ago when it came to passing or making something explode and potentially hurt people who included her. So, with a smile mostly assumed by briefly thinking of a joke she’d heard last week, she turned around and took the plunge. “Mind working with me on this one?” she asked, trying to sound, in addition to friendly, as confident and cheerful as possible.
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Marissa Stephenson
Being practical.
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Marissa Stephenson
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Dmitry
June 18, 2010 1:07 AM
Why not just hire someone? by Dmitry
"I didn't forget anything. I left them in my room deliberately. I don't make any potions with animal products in them. I'm a California Pierce." the boy said and Dmitry frowned for a moment trying to remember what Father had said about the Pierce family. His and Dorian’s whole summer and been devoted to remembering American pureblood families.From what Dmitry could remember the Pierces were a pureblood family that was well respected. Yet he didn’t understand why he didn’t make any potions with animal products. He knew the boy’s name but couldn’t remember it seemed to be on the tip of his tongue, he then realized that the boy was the Captain of the Pecari team, Jose. Dmitry looked over the boy with a critical eye, not to size up his opponent but to see who his brother was learning from. He frowned noticing his robes were of a hand-me down quality, and if he remembered right the boy rode a school broom. Not someone his brother should be looking up to.
Dmitry shrugged it off and nodded. “So your father just allows you to fail?” He asked in his deep Russian accent, a far cry from Dorian’s soft English accented voice. He pushed his own work to the side fascinated by the California Pierce, Jose.
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Dmitry
Why not just hire someone?
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Dmitry
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Edmond
June 20, 2010 1:02 AM
As is not being the leader just now. by Edmond
He kept his expression to a mild, polite smile, but Edmond felt something like profound relief when Daniel called him an extra set of hands. The implication - and how often did he hear that implications were often more important than a conversation's content - was that Daniel saw Edmond as his subordinate in this arrangement. He had been afraid, given the way gossip seemed to spread among wizards, that coming back would lead to everyone deferring to him to the same uncomfortable degree that Jane kept trying to, which, he was quite sure, would drive him mad. It seemed, though, that Morgaine and Julia greatly overestimated how much the average student either knew or cared about Carey politics.Of course, there was also some evidence suggesting Daniel was a half-blood or Muggleborn - Julia had apparently done research on the Quidditch team, just to make sure that he was not associating with anyone too unsavory and thus set to be the second coming of Gwenhwyfar Carey, and found no Nash family to exist - so maybe this didn't mean anything at all.
Edmond decided not to think about it. On the few occasions she hadn't been either frantically reworking her schedules or dealing with financial paperwork over midterm, Morgaine had become fond of trying to talk out all the conspiracies that might have been forming for the past few years, which had formed in the past few weeks, what all of the goals in all of them might be, and how many of them were now trying to kill her. The result was that his suspicion that he did not like circular thinking had been confirmed. Even trying to follow her was enough to make his brain go numb, and he did not need to start doing that without assistance, least of all here. Going catatonic from sheer paranoia overloads was a very bad idea in school.
"Very well, then," he said amicably. "I think we will do well." That was a logical conclusion, given their House. Crotali were exact more frequently enough to use it as a House trait, but many lacked the drive required to fully exploit the advantage. Where they had details, Aladrens, officially speaking, had determination. And intelligence and social awkwardness, which Edmond suspected was a far larger component of why he was an Aladren, but those did not necessarily make getting what he wanted in this case more difficult. The former even made it easier.
"I know it is not uncommon to take out all necessary items before beginning a potion," he said, reviewing the list on his page for things he didn't have, "but do you think we'd do well to only measure out the pomegranate juice after we use the salamander blood? Just to avoid confusion." He was happy to take a subordinate role, but simply following any orders that Daniel cared to give without offering a single contribution would be...frowned on, and, he suspected, not only by the family.
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Edmond
As is not being the leader just now.
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Edmond
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Quentin Melcher
June 22, 2010 5:09 PM
Always a positive quality. by Quentin Melcher
Midterm had been the usual for Quentin, only a bit a more lonely than normal due to his increasing feelings of alienation towards his parents and grandparents. Although Quentin still valued that which was intellectual and enjoyed it, he was not agreeing so much with his parents and grandparents views on matters such as amount of magical people in one's background-blood purity was a different issue and Quentin liked having his blood only be blood and not partially some other substance-and appearances.From what the fourth year had seen, the girls in his class, aside from Pippa,with any sort of magical background were also the most vapid. Not to mention a particular group of sixth year girls who were all about appearances and having an all magical background-except for, of course, that one muggleborn that was his roommate's sister.
Quentin listened eagerly as Professor Fawcett began the lesson. He really enjoyed Potions, it tended to be simple, straight-forward and precise. Whether it was just because that was the way Potions was or because Professor Fawcett had learned quickly to be very exact when Quentin was in class, the Aladren did not know, but he liked it.
He had never had the desire to really drink re'em blood in order to gain physical strength. Quentin had been raised to think the brawny were inferior to the brainy. Except of course in terms of brawn. But he had been raised to think being intelligent was more important than being good at physical tasks. Not that Quentin actually thought he was a better person than those who were good at physical tasks but he still had no use to be physically strong.
One reason for this was that he could always use magic for any practical reason that required one to be strong physically, such as opening jars or lifting things. There was no reason that any wizard that wasn't an athlete needed such a thing and it was unfair if athletes did, which was good for re'ems everywhere.
Still, this was the assignment, and Quentin would do it because if his father found out he hadn't, he would get in trouble. Besides, Quentin did like Potions and was rather good at them, and he could see the practical aspects of the less powerful Strengthening Solution that they would be brewing today, such as if someone was feeling sick and weak and tired.
He had just taken out his ingredients and cauldron when he heard someone speak to him.
“Mind working with me on this one?”
Quentin looked over to see Marissa. "Of course." He knew his friend wasn't the most skilled at magic but she was not stupid and could be an asset in Potions. Besides, Quentin liked being around her and would rather work with her than some of the others in his class.
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Quentin Melcher
Always a positive quality.
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Quentin Melcher
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Pippa Brockert
June 22, 2010 10:32 PM
Re: Intermediate Potions II (3rd and 4th Years) by Pippa Brockert
With only slightly more enthusiasm than that of someone going to the dentist, Pippa entered Potions. She really didn't like this class. Professor Fawcett, while stricter and less warm than some professors, was perfectly nice but Pippa just didn't like the subject. She knew, being raised with magic, that potions often were made from living creatures, but the Teppenpaw didn't really like knowing the specifics.Though, knowing her younger sister, odds were Tawny would spout off exactly what was in a potion just to upset Pippa. Their father had told her-when the younger girl was out of earshot-that Tawny was exaggerating in some cases, but it still bothered the fourth year a great deal.
She wondered how muggleborns handled it, learning the kinds of things wizards used to treat a variety of ailments. To go from taking whatever it was that muggles took for such problems to taking things that contained frog spleens and rat tails.
Sometimes, Pippa wished she had more courage to refuse to do things in this class the way Tawny's friend Jose did. She wanted to join him sometimes, take a stand, but Pippa knew that if she did, Tawny would misconstrue it and get very very angry, something the older girl did not want to encourage particularly in a place where scalpels were routinely available.
So, she resigned herself to the fact that she would have to do the assignment and could drop Potions after CATS. It was what her parents wanted anyway. Pippa turned her attention to Professor Fawcett.
When re'em blood was first mentioned, Pippa felt a little wary-and a bit queasy. She didn't like the idea of drinking blood of any kind. That made them no better than vampires, which she had been taught to hate and fear, though she only truly felt the latter.
Actually, drinking re'em blood for super strength was worse than vampires. Whereas vampires drank blood to survive, re'em blood was drank by wizards-often the same wizards who hated vampires and treated them as second-class citizens-for a superficial reason that while not really meant to hurt anyone(hopefully) would potentially wreak havoc.
Fortunately, they were going to be making the less powerful Strengthening Solution that was given sometimes to people with chronic or serious illnesses to make them feel weak. Pippa could handle that even though the potion ingredients included salamander blood.
She turned to the person next to her. "Hello," Pippa greeted them. "Would you like to work with me on this?" It was a habit of hers to ask this way and as the person next to her was neither Quentin nor Tawny, she figured it was perfectly acceptable to do so.
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Pippa Brockert
Re: Intermediate Potions II (3rd and 4th Years)
132
Pippa Brockert
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Juri Dahlgren
June 24, 2010 11:07 PM
Picking a pretty partner. by Juri Dahlgren
Having been promised over break that he would be able to get his first tattoo if he did well in all his classes, Juri was determined to score above and beyond in every class. Not that it was really all that difficult. He was an Aladren after all. Though, he might not have seemed it since he wasn’t as obvious about it as James and Daniel, Quentin even. And truthfully, it wasn’t like he put his best effort forth. He did well enough in his classes, but there was no real effort behind it and his mother knew it. She knew he was capable of doing better and that was the only way he was going to get the piece of artwork he wanted.For this reason, he had originally been planning on working alone figuring that this was the least likely way that someone else could cause a problem in making the potion. Of course, that was before the girl next to him asked him if he wanted to work with her. Having been running a little late for class, he had taken the first available seat without paying much mind to who was in it. When he saw that it was Pippa an eyebrow arched. They had gone to the dance together last year and it seemed like she had a good time, but they hadn’t kept in touch over summer and had only had minor passing conversations since returning.
So, he wasn’t quite sure where they stood. He figured they weren’t serious since it would probably be obvious if they were and besides he had been involved with others since then, but now he was wondering if they could even be defined as friends. He supposed that perhaps they could be as she was asking him to work with her. “Sure,” he answered with a lopsided grin and scooted closer. “Do you want me to take care of the salamander blood?” From experience, he knew that some girls could be squeamish about such things and since it didn’t really bother him, he didn’t mind taking care of the dirtier matters of potion making.
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Juri Dahlgren
Picking a pretty partner.
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Juri Dahlgren
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Cassy Brooks, Pecari
June 25, 2010 10:05 PM
Potions. Wonderful. by Cassy Brooks, Pecari
Cassy sighed as she placed her potions kit on the table, and after listening to Professor Fawcett, began to work. She moved with a swiftness and skill that most didn't have. She enjoyed potions, at least a little, but it wasn't her favorite thing in the world. Still, she was working alone, and at the moment she preferred it that way.Caspia frowned, wondering how she could go from happy to sad in a few short minutes. Well, today was her mother's birthday. She wished the woman was alive so she could tell her happy birthday, but seeing as she died a few years back, well it wasn't possible. But the good thing was was that she was doing something her mother enjoyed- magic.In her younger years she would tell her mother all the things she learned with her father, and her mother would clap in amazement, always asking questions, always curious. That is what she loved about her mother. She was always there for her to talk to.
Cassy looked up, hearing someone speak nearby. She watched as someone stand beside her and, murmuring something, though she didn't know what. She had been so focused on her mother...
"I'm sorry. what?"
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Cassy Brooks, Pecari
Potions. Wonderful.
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Cassy Brooks, Pecari
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Pippa
July 01, 2010 7:09 PM
*blushes* by Pippa
Pippa blushed deeply as she realized it was Juri she had asked. She hadn't been especially aware of whom she had been sitting next to. In fact, she had been rather distracted by her general dislike of the subject of Potions. Pippa usually spend a good deal of time during the class and on practical assignments trying to find a way to morally justify them to herself.But it was him and truthfully, Pippa was glad. Granted, she had a tendency to feel self conscious around Juri-around most boys in general-but at least she knew him and he'd generally been nice to her.
Of course, at the same time, she did not know where she stood with him. Pippa knew he wasn't her boyfriend, the way Alison had implied when she'd given the transfer a rundown of people at Sonora before midterm. He could never be, whether or not she liked that but Pippa wanted them to at least be friends.
At the moment though, she was merely grateful he was doing to do the salamander blood. "I'd really appreciate that." Pippa admitted. It might make her seem squeamish and weak to some, but after all, pureblood girls were often raised to be that way.
Truthfully though, Pippa still really didn't feel right doing the potion at all. She knew the strengthening solution could be used for things like getting people who were a bit lethargic to have more energy but it was still far more likely to be used for less honorable purposes, like a Beater who wanted extra strength in Quidditch so they could hit bludgers further and injure other players more affectively, or someone who wanted to win in a physical fight.
She really did not like the idea of an innocent salamander dying for those purposes.
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Pippa
*blushes*
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Pippa
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Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)
July 07, 2010 5:34 AM
It can be by Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)
Charlotte always found it difficult to get along in potions. For a start she lack the concentration that made a person into a good potioneer; her mind was apt to wander onto far more agreeable topics than salamander blood. Plus her brother was the big potions whizz in the school, not her, and she'd spent a good portion of midterm staying with her Uncle, who was a renowned potioneer and had published several volumes on the subject. With that sort of talent and interest around her, Charlotte had found her own sadly lacking, which made it even less imperative for her to do well - she clearly wasn't going to match those standards. That much didn't bother the brunette though, and she ritualistically took notes on Fawcett's lecture. It was an interesting class and practical work (which potions tended to involve) was always more stimulating than just taking notes.When they were allowed to start work, Charlie didn't mind whether she had a partner or not. Sure she liked to talk suring class, but if everyone wanted to work alone she wasn't going to impose her presence on them. On the other hand, if someone approached her and asked to partner up, she wasn't going to decline. So the Crotalus started pulling her ingredients from her potions kit. She had to rummage around for her salamander blood - it had to be there somewhere - and finally found a vial that was almost empty. "Oh for crying out loud," she muttered, apparently loud enough for the girl at the next desk to hear.
"Oh, I was talking to myself," Charlotte offerred her version of an apology. "Can you believe I spent most of midterm with a potioneer and didn't think to restock my salamander blood?" she sounded angry, but at herself. She exhaled and regained her composure. "Sorry, I didn't mean to distract you," she said.
This girl - she was a transfer this year, like Dmitry, but Charlie didn't know her well at all. Her name was Cassy, and she spent a lot of time with Daniel. At first, Charlie had to admit, she'd felt something akin to jealousy, almost like she regarded Cassy as competition. But it had been fleeting - she was still good friends with Daniel, and if Cassy was, too, it only made sense for them to get to know each other better. "It's Cassy, isn't it?" Charlie clarified.
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Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)
It can be
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Charlotte Abbott (Crotalus)
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Tawny Brockert
July 07, 2010 7:24 PM
Establishing my dominance by Tawny Brockert
Tawny absolutely loved potions. They had to be her favorite thing in the world. For one thing, she was really good at them and Pippa was not. In fact, her sister would whine about using animals in ways that would harm people.She always had lots of fun with that, telling her sister how unwanted puffskiens ended up being used as potions ingredients and the painful methods that were used to extract the ingredients from animals. These methods were often largely made up but Pippa was too trusting which meant she believed Tawny. If she was that stupid, she deserved whatever the younger girl dished out.
The other thing was that preparing potions, particularly the methodical chopping that was required on some ingredients had a soothing effect on Tawny. She never got things pre-chopped even if it would be more effiecient. Tawny wanted to do that herself. She needed the calming feeling it provided. Sometimes, she just felt so angry and wound-up and it was widely agreed that it was better than chopping up potion ingredients was better than chopping up her sister, her roommate, and members of the Twerp Brigade. Or their stuff.
At least she had something that could have that calming affect on her, which was more than the Pecari could say for a good portion of her housemates, particularly Singing Twerp. Tawny had been dead serious when she'd mentioned to Red-Haired Twerp that she should glue the other one's mouth shut. Preferably permanently. As much as Tawny hated to be on the side of any of them in anything, Red-Haired Twerp was the lesser of the two evils and gluing Singing Twerp's mouth shut was for the good of Pecari as a whole.
The problem with Tawny's love of Potions was that it was not considered proper for a pureblood girl of her standing. It wasn't fair. The one thing in life she enjoyed and was good at, she wasn't even supposed to like.
Tawny sat in rapt attention as Professor Fawcett talked. It was surprising, but she did not mind him much. He had more rules than she would have liked but her family and pureblood society as a whole had far far more and these rules made far more sense than theirs. Rules in Potions often had to do with safety and she understood that. Just because Tawny was a Pecari didn't mean she wanted to hurt herself. That would be silly, Tawny would much prefer to hurt others (or their stuff).
The ones about making Potions outside class, however, she might not adhere to. Tawny needed to mix up a batch of Super Stick Potion for example. It was a potion that was liquid in form and non-poisonous ,but if you spilled it on something it would be like glue. Really, really, strong glue. It also had the advantage of being odorless, colorless and taking on the taste of whatever it had been slipped in when used for the purposes that Tawny wanted it for.
But, if she wanted to be Quentinish about it, Professor Fawcett had only insinuated they shouldn't brew the Strengthening Solution-a potion Tawny could see nothing wrong with doing, nothing unethical about, though Tawny's definition of 'unethical' was somewhat more liberal than some other people's-outside class. He didn't say anything about other potions.
The third year turned her attention to setting up her ingredients and cauldron. Tawny wasn't going to work with anyone else, and was rather glad that she wasn't being forced to. The only person in her class she actually liked-though there were a few others she tolerated-was Jose and for reasons Tawny honestly did not comprehend, he usually refused to do the assignment, so rather than work with someone she disliked, she was glad to work alone.
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Tawny Brockert
Establishing my dominance
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Tawny Brockert
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Marissa
July 14, 2010 10:10 PM
Well, maybe not always. by Marissa
For a moment, Marissa construed her friend’s answer as a refusal. Quentin was…very…literal, and the literal interpretation there was that he did mind working with her. That didn’t match up with tone or past experience, though, and she needed him to complete the potion, so she decided to take it as an agreement until he corrected her."Great," she said, checking the thin band holding her long hair back from her face and well away from the cauldrons. This was the one class where she did consistently well. To set her hair on fire here would be painful, and not just physically. It would be embarrassing beyond belief; that was a firstie mistake. Not even - most first years had better sense than to set their hair on fire. "I'll, um, start sorting out some ingredients in step order."
Some people could just have their things lying about willy-nilly, or take them out of the box as they needed them, but Marissa preferred to have everything she needed ready to hand and anything she didn't out of the way. It took more time, but it lowered the chances of making a mistake, or having an accident, which could potentially save a lot more time than it took up. "So," she said as she organized, "how was your midterm?"
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Marissa
Well, maybe not always.
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Marissa
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Quentin
July 21, 2010 1:22 AM
It's not good to deal in absolutes, I suppose by Quentin
OOC-*headdesk* Apparently, I made a typo by having Quentin say "of course." I probably meant to write "of course not " But given that he can't hear Marissa's thoughts, there's no need to adjust anything in the post. :)BIC:
Quentin waited as Marissa got her station in order. While he sometimes had an issue with those who judged people for not being a particular way, people like his parents and grandparents who believed in people having act properly, look nice and be intelligent and from an all magical background, Quentin was never bothered when people liked to have their work organized, it made things much easier, and in Potions, safer.
He considered his friend's question. "Well, I guess it was all right. The usual stuff for me. Nothing out of the ordinary, both in the sense of me experiencing and doing the usual midterm things, that I've done over midterm since I was in first year, and really, before then too, and the sense of my immediate family being composed of mostly people who abhor anything the least bit unusual."
Even if it's their own son/brother and granddaughter/niece, Quentin thought. He really hated how his parents and grandparents acted towards Kirstenna and Uncle Jethro, and he wished he could have spent the holidays with them there instead of just him, his parents, grandparents and great-grandparents.
The only thing that had been different was that they all seemed to be talking a lot more about finding someone to betroth Quentin to but he didn't want to say this to Marissa, as he was sure that the fact that he'd taken her to the ball last term was largely why they were talking more about it, and it wasn't just because he was getting older. Quentin's suspicions had only been confirmed more when he'd spoken to Pippa earlier in the year and she'd said that her parents were doing the same after she'd gone to the ball with Juri.
But Quentin stood by his choice to take Marissa to the ball and he'd do it again if the chance so arose (as it would again when he was a seventh year and she was a sixth year) and she was willing. She was his friend and, much like with Kirstenna, he didn't care if his parents approved.
He looked back over at Marissa and asked. "So how was your midterm?"
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Quentin
It's not good to deal in absolutes, I suppose
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Quentin
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Marissa
July 21, 2010 4:13 PM
Generally not, I'd think. by Marissa
OOC: Ah, understood and no problem! BIC:There was something Marissa had noticed about some of her pureblood compatriots, the ones with the unusually large vocabularies and formalized ways of speaking: they could use lots and lots of words to conceal what they were actually thinking. She didn’t know if this was just a quirk of having such a large vocabulary – she was, by the standards of some of her parents’ relatives, even worse for being incomprehensible – or if it was a deliberate stratagem, based on the – not bad – assumption that people not accustomed to speaking the same way would lose track of the sentence and therefore not catch any hints of impropriety, but it was usually pretty effective. It took her a moment to process what her friend had said and realize that the last bit was angry or bitter or… something along those lines, something she wouldn’t normally associate with him.
Given that Quentin was not best known for guile, and that he always talked that way, she had to assume the former explanation was more in effect. When he returned the question, as was a customary part of this exchange, Marissa almost apologized for bringing the matter up. While she didn’t mind, as some people did, when other people answered pleasantry-questions honestly, she never really expected it.
“Um…it was fine,” she said, fiddling with the handle of her cauldron. And it had been, that was the thing. “About the usual. Some of my younger cousins finally heard someone asking me if I couldn’t stop being a witch, so I guess that’s all the talk of the playground right about now – but don’t worry, even the other Muggle kids won’t buy it, they’ll think they’ve been watching too many Sabrina reruns, or Buffy, or something – and my friends had a host of in-jokes I didn’t get, but it was really good to see everyone again.”
And it had been. That was always the thing. She was entrenched enough here to feel a little bit guilty about it these days, but she still always wanted to stay there. There, she had everything. Here, at best, she was always going to have a substantial and powerful portion of the populace thinking of her, at best, as a second-class citizen, with third class being more likely because of her magic problem. While it did inspire a deeper understanding of the Civil Rights movement than she might have otherwise had, she couldn’t see a single other benefit to it all. “And Mama finally bought me those Collegeboard test prep books she’s been talking about for the past year. She wants me to have all these credits in case I go to a Muggle college, and I have to start studying, like, yesterday to catch up on everything I’ve missed while I’ve been here. Whose cauldron do you want to use?”
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Marissa
Generally not, I'd think.
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Marissa
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