Professor Fawcett
November 12, 2011 12:32 PM
Lesson I for Beginners (1st and 2nd Years) by Professor Fawcett
The classroom where Potions classes were held was spacious and well-ventilated for obvious reasons, and placed adjacent to the hospital wing for almost equally clear ones. Now, at the beginning of the year, it was also as close to keeping paper to a minimum – just three cases of Potions texts and periodicals at the front of the room, and the one by the door had its top occupied by a stacked set of wire baskets for the three class groups to hand in assignments and a box of tissues – as logic would dictate and a former Aladren of the classic type could help, but John didn’t expect that to last long. It never seemed to, somehow, particularly around his desk and, to a lesser extent, the smaller, lower table at its right.Happily, there was a generous space between his desk and the first of the student seats, all two-person tables taller than normal desks, with stools instead of chairs and surfaces treated with potions and then charmed against flammability. John had checked the continued effectiveness of those himself, repeatedly, before the year began, and would periodically through the rest of it. Fires were not on the list of things he wished to deal with this year, and were one of the ones he was more capable of preventing. At the back of the room, there was a door leading to the storeroom shared with the hospital wing, a set of spickets(with basins underneath; routinely drying puddles was another thing he did not wish to do and could largely prevent) for water, and a pair of large black cabinets, one holding supplies the students might not have or have enough of, one empty for the moment.
There was little else in the room besides two long rows of posters portraying famous potioneers along the walls which did not contain the blackboard and the supplies in the back. Student projects might begin to accumulate here and there as the semester progressed – certainly the empty cabinet would be used at some point to hold long-term potions from the Advanced class – but on the first day of classes, the room was as neat as it would ever be.
A few of the posters were murmuring about it, too. John chose to ignore them.
Once the class had been gathered in and the door closed with the ringing of the bell, he stood before the first and second years, feeling somewhat taller even than usual in front of those who generally included the school’s smallest students. “Good morning,” he said. “I am, for those who do not know me, Professor Fawcett, your Potions instructor.” He opened a red folder and removed a sheet of paper. “Please answer when I call your name from the roll.”
He finished that, getting through all the new first years’ names without emphasizing or, he thought, badly mispronouncing any of them, and then waved his wand, causing a packet of papers to go to each student. The second years would know what it was, but he explained for the benefit of the new students. “This is your syllabus. I suggest you keep it somewhere safe, somewhere you will be able to refer to it regularly, because you have before you what we are – unless I tell you otherwise – to study each class period until midterm, along with descriptions of your major assignments.” The projects they would work on this year paled in comparison with what lay ahead of the Advanced class, but they would be taken seriously nevertheless.
“I would also like to draw your attention to the section entitled ‘Classroom Rules and Procedures.’ You are going to be interacting with dangerous materials in this class, as has every class I have taught this subject to, and I do not intend for this to be the first class in which there is serious injury. If you are having difficulty, I am prepared to work with you to find a solution, but if you cause trouble in my classroom, I assure you, I will see to it that you are punished to the fullest extent allowable.”
He smiled then. “If you do not cause trouble, however, we can get along very well, and you may have an informative and, I hope, enjoyable experience in Potions. Now. Everyone take out your textbooks.”
He rearranged his syllabi every year, tinkering and adjusting, experimenting with different ideas and bits of educational theory in the half-conscious hope that he would eventually discover the ideal way to organize each level and perhaps come to be considered something of an authority on the subject. This year, he was taking the tact of beginning the class on a bit of a challenging note – not too much, not out of their league, but something that wouldn’t bore the second years to tears and which they could all have a use for. It would, if his recollections of being eleven were anything to go by – he was technically, he supposed, a half-blood, but had been a good bit older than these children when he finally found out his mother was a witch; sometimes, he thought that she really had convinced herself that her five years as a Muggleborn Crotalus had never happened until he and Carlene both turned out to have magic – hook the Muggleborns, and even the pureblooded children might want to send images of their new classmates and school and themselves home to Mother and Father and whatever other family they were particularly close or obliged to.
“Muggle photographs, as you may or may not know, are generally stationary – that is to say, the images in them do not move.” He said ‘generally’ because he had just enough contact with the Muggle world to know they were starting to do some interesting things with portraiture, and he would rather not be corrected by the Muggleborn version of Mr. Melcher on the first day of class. “In the magical world, however, they do, something which is accomplished through the use of a specific potion during the development of the photographs. This is what you will work on today.”
He tapped the board with his wand, and a list of instructions appeared, printed rather than in his handwriting to give the students every sliver of advantage. “This potion requires considerable attention to detail, so feel free to group yourselves between years for it if you wish. Take care with your counting and your crushing, and to add each ingredient in the proper order.” One of the good things about this potion was that it was not very volatile even if it went wrong in most ways, but he saw no need to tell them that just yet. "The ingredients are eight cups of water, seven powdered shrivelfig pits - you'll need to crush them yourselves - two boiled murtlap leaves, thirty-two crushed fairy eggs, five hippocampus scales, and one unicorn tail hair. It is a long list of ingredients, but the potion itself is not complex. Just be very sure to fully crush the shrivelfig pits, count the fairy eggs, and stir the correct number of times after putting in the unicorn tail hair. You may work together in class, but I expect your homework short answer assignments, from the syllabus, to be done individually. You may begin."
OOC: Welcome, all, to Term 15 Potions! Standard posting rules apply: 200 words minimum, no writing for other characters, decent spelling and grammar, and keep your part of the story realistic. That said, have fun!
Subthreads: Pictures of You by David Kim [Aladren] with Brianna Japos (Crotalus), David
Say Cheese! by Shiloh Romano [Crotalus] with Cepheus Princeton - Crotalus, Shiloh, Cepheus Princeton
I think I can, I think I can by Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren with Waverly Canterbury - Pecari, Kitty
... by Angel Shield - Teppenpaw with Valerie Lennox, Crotalus, Angel
Picture Perfect by Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus with Alicia Bauer, Gareth
A resolution of contradictory reports by Theresa Carey with Arabella Brockert, Pecari, Theresa
A challenge? by Nora Dobson, Aladren with Sullivan Quincy, Pecari
Pictures!! by Jhonice Trevear - Pecari with Thaddeus Pierce II
Not a total beginner anymore. by Mellie Goodwin, Pecari with Michael Grosvenor, Teppenpaw
Beginning in Beginning Potions by Alexandra Devereux, Crotalus
Caring would help...but it would also take effort by Paul Bennett, Crotalus with Linus Macaulay
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Professor Fawcett
Lesson I for Beginners (1st and 2nd Years)
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Professor Fawcett
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Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus
November 13, 2011 11:28 PM
Picture Perfect by Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus
Like every Whitebriar child, potions held a special place in Gareth’s heart. His mother was a hobby potionist and each of the children spent time helping her brew on cold rainy days when they were trapped in the house. Her still room was not fancy but it was a place that held warmth and quiet laughter lingering in the air along with the shimmering fumes of gently bubbling caldrons. So while the potions class room bore no resemblance to his mother’s still room, and the Professor was clearly not his mother, he still felt comfortable taking a seat.Looking over the syllabus Gareth made note of the potions he’d brewed with his mother, as well as potions he’d never tried before. Satisfied with the terms curriculum Gareth took out some parchment and his quill to take notes in his spindly script as the professor spoke. He could almost hear Mr. Armand groaning in his head at the scrunched writing that while legible was a nightmare for anyone but Gareth to read.
Even he hadn’t known the method of making photos move was potions based. It was one of those things that were so common Gareth had never questioned the whys or hows behind their creation. It made him wonder for a moment what other everyday items were created in part though potions. I shall have to write mother about this, she’d love brewing this potion Gareth jotted a small note send a letter to her so he wouldn’t forget.
Teamwork was a new concept to Gareth in the realm of academics. Mr. Armand always insisted the Whitebriar brothers complete their work on their own and not complete assignments together. So, working with perfect strangers was going to be a change of pace. Finishing off his notes he glanced up to the student sharing his table and said “Partners?” The word was more a question of the concept that asking to be partners.
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Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus
Picture Perfect
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Gareth Whitebriar - Crotalus
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Alicia Bauer
November 14, 2011 3:56 PM
Why, thank you. by Alicia Bauer
Potions, Alicia knew, was a subject she was going to have to do very well in. Her Head of House was the professor, and one of her sisters was in the Advanced class. That meant there was a good chance she’d be noticed, not just allowed to blend in with the crowd, which meant being on top of everything all the time. The adults, she knew, were as important as the other students to win over if she wanted to do well here.She paid very careful attention through the long speech, ruthlessly forcing her attention back to Fawcett every time her eyes wanted to wander to the turn of someone else’s head or the syllabus in front of her or the details of the room or something like that, taking notes in a small, neat hand on the top page of her pristine, still obviously new notebook. She, unlike her sisters, had been too small when their parents split up to have really had any lessons yet, so she had learned all her letters from expensive tutors, but it had been her mother who would make her write things over and over, no matter how angry or tearful she got, until her penmanship was good enough to satisfy Emily. Her mother was always more demanding than the tutors, and one of the things she was curious about at school was whether her mother would also be more demanding than the professors.
At the end of the speech – this speech, anyway – she relaxed by a hair. It sounded like Professor Fawcett was going to be reasonable. They knew what it was they were going to have to do, they would be given the resources to do it with, and then it was up to them if they did it or not. If she was right about that and about him, then this class wasn’t going to be one of the ones she really had to worry about. That still left the rest of them, but she was content to just look at this one right now.
Once she found the potion they were going to be working on in her book, she looked over it quickly, reading the ingredients and instructions. It was very specific, which she liked – there were a few in the book which included directions involving ‘dashes’ and such, things that were not easy to properly measure – but it was definitely something she’d have to concentrate on to get right. Counting out the small ingredients was going to be the most challenging part; she wondered if she should insist on doing that herself. It might put someone off if they thought she didn’t trust them, but she did not want to get anything wrong.
She looked at the person sharing her table, her brown eyes momentarily sharp as she took their measure and made up her mind about that. Then she smiled and said, “I guess so. I’m Alicia Bauer, Arizona Bauers.” Risky, since his robes said he was a Crotalus and had Rachel and Sam both for prefects, but Crotali were also the most likely to be purebloods, and he sounded foreign, which increased the chances – and helped with other things. “Is there anything - any part - you especially want to do?”
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Alicia Bauer
Why, thank you.
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Alicia Bauer
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Gareth
November 15, 2011 1:21 AM
You;re welcome by Gareth
“Gareth Whitebriar of House Blackbriar, pleased to make your acquaintance.” He said, his welsh accent blurring the words around the edges as Gareth gave Alicia a smile. Sharing the task of potions making wasn’t new to Gareth as he often helped his mother so he easily took charge of sorting out who should do what. “If you don’t mind I can grind the shrivelfig pits while you count out the other ingredients.” From experience he knew that the pits were difficult to grind down into powder and that it would take a few minutes to get it refined enough for the potion.It only took a moment to count out seven of the pits and place them in the mortar. The pestle was dwarfed in his hand, large even at age eleven. But, his movements held a familiarity that spoke of experience and with practiced twists Gareth began reducing the pits to a fine powder. It wasn’t the most interesting task in the world, but given his size and youthful strength grinding was a task often given to him. The practiced movements were soothing in nature and after a few minutes he checked to make sure the pits had been fully pulverized before glancing at Alicia.
“How goes it?” Gareth asked as he set aside the newly powdered shiverlfig pits before looking over the directions once more.
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Gareth
You;re welcome
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Gareth
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Alicia
November 15, 2011 2:21 PM
Continue like this and we'll get along fine. by Alicia
Neither the name nor the accent were things Alicia had heard of before, but she nodded anyway. “And yours,” she replied formally to it being a pleasure to make her acquaintance, returning the smile.She was smiling again when he asked her to count things. She loved it when things went her way without her having to make any effort at all to make them do that – when people didn’t even know it was her way, really. It was pure coincidence, but it was just a little something that sometimes made the world feel like it might be on her side today, and that was always a good feeling to have. When she felt like that, she’d noticed, it was easier to think fast to make things go her way when they didn’t just fall into her lap so easily. “That’s fine,” she said, sorting out what needed to be counted besides the shrivelfigs.
As she did, she noticed that he had very large hands and glanced at her own. They were, she thought, neither large nor small, though a little longer than she really would have liked. She was the only one of the three of them who looked much like Dad at all, something she made up for by, in her opinion, looking entirely too much like him, but she had Momma’s hands, long and long-fingered. At least it was something she thought would be useful for separating and sorting out the ingredients.
She was quickly proven right. Her gloves made things a little more awkward, decreasing the amount of control she had over her fingers, but they were very good, flexible gloves and she wasn’t squeamish about touching the ingredients as long as she had them on, and it only took a minute to get into the rhythm of counting things out and separating what they would be using from all the other things they had in their kits and around them in general. It was soothing, mindless work, and she thought she was going to like this class even if she did have to work hard during it.
“Well,” she said when he asked her how it was going. She gestured to the ingredients, each set out neatly on the board in front of her. “I’m just about done with all of this. Do you want to go get our water while I finish up?” One day, they would be able to fill a cauldron with water without going to the faucet in the back, but neither of them knew that much magic yet, and she didn’t want to have to carry the heavy thing back there and then back here once it was full. If he got too much water, they could dip it out, but she didn’t want to be the one stumbling along spilling it everywhere, and he was bigger than her anyway. She was, she felt confident, pretty tough for her size, but her size was small, and she thought she looked little and delicate enough to fit the part.
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Alicia
Continue like this and we'll get along fine.
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Alicia
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Gareth
November 16, 2011 12:06 PM
You don’t seem difficult to get along with by Gareth
A quick look showed that most of the ingredients had been neatly separated and Gareth smiled. This team work stuff wasn’t as difficult as he thought it would be. “Alright.” He agreed easily as he picked up the caldron. It made sense for him to do the heavy work, and really it wasn’t all that difficult. At the sink he carefully measured out eight cups. It wouldn’t do at all to mess the potion up with sloppy measuring. Gareth cringed at the thought. How embarrassing, he just knew mother would send a Howler if he fouled up the first potion of the term.Once the water was properly measured Gareth returned to the table, careful not to let any slosh out. “Right, here we are.” He said pleasantly as he carefully set the cauldron down. “Would you care to tend the murtlap leaves while I crush the fairy eggs?” He offered.
For the first potion of the class it was a decent one, with a goodly number of ingredients and enough steps to keep things interesting. He wondered what sort of potions the advanced classes worked on. “Have you had much experience in brewing?” He asked conversationally. Her handling of the ingredients lead him to believe that she had but he was curious none the less.
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Gareth
You don’t seem difficult to get along with
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Gareth
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Alicia
November 18, 2011 2:52 PM
Thank you again. Neither do you. by Alicia
She didn’t know how to tell if something was exactly eight cups by eye, not yet, but Alicia thought the water looked about right anyway. She guessed she would find out for sure when they got the grades back – she knew a bit about how that worked from listening to her sisters – and would then know how much she could trust Gareth when it came to specificity. For now, she was just pleased to see the water was on the inside of the cauldron, not the outside or on his robes, which meant he probably hadn’t spilled any.Irritation, sharp and thorny, flared at being given a direction, but she was used to that; her family usually didn’t even have the decency to be polite about it, instead speaking to her as though she were an idiot child. She nodded smoothly. “I think I can handle that,” she said.
Well, knew. She just wasn’t sure she should show that. But if the way Rachel talked was anything to go by – her eldest sister talking to their family members was her best source of information; Kate was much more likely to speak to Alicia herself, but she rarely, if ever, said anything that wasn’t uselessly stupid when it wasn’t just flat-out wrong – Professor Fawcett wasn’t really the type to buy ocean-front property in Arizona, at least when it came to academics. If she wanted him to buy the nice plot where she should be a favorite, she was going to have to be top-notch in all these classes. Maybe if she weren’t an Aladren…but she was an Aladren.
She took her cauldron back this time, wanting to grumble about not being able to risk trying a levitation charm when she still didn’t have total control over how high whatever she was levitating went. She had been getting the hang of it, but then she’d gotten a wand, and that made things…different, and had thrown her all off. In the back, she took about three cups of water, then returned with it, carefully balancing the handle across both her palms. They were stinging, an impression of the handle across them, by the time she reached the table again, but she just rubbed them briefly against her skirt before taking out her wand to light the burner, trying to be as discreet as possible about it. People didn’t really notice, she had discovered, most of what they saw; if she didn’t draw attention to it, it might not occur to him to wonder how it happened.
His question demanded some consideration. It might be to question her experience, or it might just be a get-to-know-you type of conversation, but either way, it demanded that. Unfortunately, she didn’t really have time to give it any; she had read that hesitating made people think one was being dishonest, or at least let them know the question was being thought about. That would be bad. “Not very much,” she said with a self-deprecating smile. “I’d play around when I was little, you know, but that’s really about all.” She had chosen the tactic that ended with her just looking like a natural. Her heart had just sped up a little, as it did when she made decisions, as she wondered if she’d made the right call. “What about you? Have you done this before?” When in doubt, always change, or at least shift, the subject as soon as possible.
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Alicia
Thank you again. Neither do you.
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Alicia
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Gareth
November 20, 2011 6:36 PM
That shall make teamwork more amicable by Gareth
Gareth nodded at her agreement, and gave her a smile as he carefully crushed the fairy eggs. It was important to make sure that each of the delicate eggs had been crushed, without going over the line and reducing them to powder. He looked the crushed eggs over with a practiced eye to be sure they were the right consistency while Alicia tended to the murtlap leaves.“My mother enjoys brewing potion as a hobby and when the weather is bad and we’re done with lessons we would often help out.” Gareth said fondly. Those stormy days with the deep rumble of thunder and the hiss of rain heavy on the roof were some of Gareth’s favorite. His mother’s soft voice played a delicate counter to the fierce storms that for all their intensity couldn’t breach the stillness of the brewing.
Looking over at her side of the table Gareth saw that the murtlap leaves had been boiled properly. It wasn’t quite the same as working with his mother, sister and brother, but things were moving along in a reasonable way and Gareth was sure they would receive good marks on this potion. “I believe we’ve gotten all the prep work ready. So we should probably begin the brew.” Gareth said. He hoped they would be able to test it out and see if it worked or not.
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Gareth
That shall make teamwork more amicable
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Gareth
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Alicia
November 20, 2011 7:40 PM
We shall see. by Alicia
Alicia smiled slightly as she successfully got her cauldron hot and Gareth talked about helping, along with others she’d assume were his siblings for now, his mother with hobby-brewing. That was nice, he was fond of his mother.She liked hers, she supposed, or at least she wasn’t as embarrassed to admit that they were related as she was with a lot of her other relatives. She couldn’t imagine Momma having a hobby, though. For as long as Alicia could remember, it had been all business, except maybe a little while right after Isaac was born. Her mother was all ambition; there wasn’t a lot of room in her life for anything else. The closest she could come to something like what her partner was describing was when Momma would sometimes sit on a higher seat, or on the sofa with her, in the living room and almost absent-mindedly plait Alicia’s dark hair, or sometimes, very rarely, come into her room with hot chocolate and they’d sit on the bed and drink it and talk for a little while.
She didn’t think she envied Gareth, though. An adult letting someone their age participate in a hobby could only be something like what had been involved in her sisters sometimes letting her play with them when they were younger, an act of condescension, and those didn’t make her feel included, they just made her feel furious.
“Of course,” she said when he said they should begin the brew, separating out the first ingredient to go in and sliding her cutting board over to him with it on the end. “I always wonder, though – why does it matter about the order things go in? They’re all going to be reacting together in a minute anyway. Is it just about the stirring, do you think?”
He seemed to want to be the leader, so, like a good girl, she was going to let him. Asking him a question let him be smart, but having a theory made her seem not dumb, and including the phrase that asked his opinion let him have a way to just speculate along with her if he didn’t know the answer to give and didn’t want to seem dumb either. At least, that was how it all worked out in her head. She guessed it was always possible she could guess completely wrong. She hoped she didn’t, though.
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Alicia
We shall see.
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Alicia
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Gareth
November 21, 2011 12:17 PM
That’s all that can be done I suppose by Gareth
He checked to make sure that the main caldron was at the proper temperature when Alicia asked why the order of ingredients was important to the brewing process. It was a good question, one that he’d never actually thought of before. Following the instructions was just something that they did because if they didn’t the potion would fail. But, he didn’t really want to admit that he didn’t know, so to buy a bit of time he added the powdered shrivelfig pits and stirred the proper number of times before speaking.“I believe it may have to do with how the ingredients interact with each other at each stage.” He hazarded a guess. It sounded reasonable after all. “It probably has something to do with the timing as well.” He added thoughtfully as he waited. “You can add the mertlap leaves now.” Gareth offered, he had the fairy eggs ready to be added after the leaves. The two ingredients went in closely together making him wonder again at her question. How much difference could it make if they were added at the same time, instead of one after the other? He didn’t know, but he did know that it would ruin the potion to deviate from the order of ingredients, so it wasn’t worth trying to see what would happen if they did.
Gareth kept a careful watch on their brew as the ingredients were added. From time spent in his mother’s still room he’d learned that one of the first indications that a potion was going awry was the color. So far it looked perfect, he gave a satisfied smile.
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Gareth
That’s all that can be done I suppose
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Gareth
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Alicia
November 24, 2011 11:24 PM
This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. by Alicia
For a minute, Alicia thought she had gotten it all wrong and he wasn’t going to be able to come up with something or just admit he didn’t know and was going to look like an idiot and blame her, but then he came up with what she’d been thinking anyway and she smiled, relieved, really hoping it passed for admiring.“That sounds very reasonable,” she said warmly. “I think it’s my good luck that we’re partners.”
She wasn’t sure if that was laying it on too thick, not thick enough, or just right, though obviously she was aiming for it to be that last one. Jeremy, her stepfather, had always warned her about aiming too high all the time, but she had never been wrong and he right about what she could hit. Of course, she had never tried to hit anything social before, not really, which was the part that was sort of fun but also sort of, when she thought about it, frightening. She knew what she could do in her lessons, around the house, all of that; here, she might just miss.
When it was pointed out that they were ready for the murtlap leaves, she carefully removed them with a long-handled spoon and transferred them from one pot to the other, grimacing very slightly at the few drops of water that splashed below as they moved. Doing things by hand was so…sloppy, she thought as, once the leaves were in the pot, she got a bit of cloth to clean up and imagined some of the hot, faintly murtlap-tinged water seeped through the fabric and touched her hand. She scrubbed it vigorously against the side of her dark blue skirt facing away from him for a second, slightly reddening the heel of her hand, but still wanted to go wash it properly – wash both hands properly, now. They felt dirty, it bothered her. If she didn’t find something to distract herself with, she knew she’d want to scream in a minute from it, though she also knew that she wouldn’t really scream. She’d just want to a lot.
Alicia tried to distract herself with Gareth’s smile. “Do you think it’s going well?” she asked, rising slightly in her seat to see the brew. Her height didn’t bother her nearly as much as her jaw did, but sometimes she did wish she was a little taller.
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Alicia
This could be the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
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Alicia
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Gareth
November 27, 2011 9:15 PM
It’s good to have friends in a strange country by Gareth
A small blush tinged Gareth’s cheeks when she said she was lucky to be his partner, and he cursed his light complexion which made every passing embarrassment noticeable to all. While she transferred the murtlap leaves over Gareth studied the crushed fairy eggs as he waited for the heat in his cheeks to fade. Once the leaves had successfully been added, Gareth carefully poured the crushed fairy eggs into the potion and began stirring.It was sort of surprising to Gareth how easy it was to get along with Alicia. She didn’t fuss or whine about whatever they were doing and seemed content to follow his direction unlike his sister. Gwen always had to have her way, and if she didn’t… Well, Gareth was just glad that the girls here weren’t the same way. Maybe it’s just part of growing up? He hoped so, it would be painfully embarrassing if his kid sister threw a fit in the middle of class because she didn’t get her way.
“Yes, I think that it is going well.” Gareth agreed as he stirred, his blue eyes focused on the potion. “Alright, I’ll need you to add the hippocampus scales while I stir, then all that’s left is the unicorn hair.” Gareth instructed. A pleasant smile curved his lips, the potion really was going well and he felt certain that they would produce a successful potion together. “So, what do you think of the school so far?” He asked politely, curious to get her opinion on it.
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Gareth
It’s good to have friends in a strange country
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Gareth
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Alicia
November 30, 2011 6:08 PM
And just in general, I think. by Alicia
Gareth blushed, seeming very intent on the potion in front of him all of a sudden, and Alicia smiled, very slightly, to herself for a moment. She’d flattered him, then. That was a point to her – not a win, not yet, but it was a point to her, and she would take that and be happy with it for right now. It meant that anything she’d done wrong might have been forgotten.Unless it was just the heat of all the burners and steam and everything that went with making potions, of course. That was a bit of a dampener on her self-congratulations. She didn’t want to contemplate that too much.
She smiled automatically at the instruction and began adding hippocampus scales carefully, making sure they didn’t bump into each other in such close proximity to the cauldron and mess something up. She was sure that any progress she’d made with Gareth would be gone with the wind if she bumped into him and it caused the potion to go wrong, and she’d be annoyed for the rest of the day if she messed up her first potion and so her second chance to impress Professor Fawcett. She needed to do that even more than she needed to walk away from this partnership feeling like she’d won on the social front as well as the academic one.
“I like it,” she said simply when asked what her opinion of the school so far was. “So far. My roommates are very nice, and I’m happy with my House.” Aladren wasn’t the House her family had the most success in, that was beyond a doubt Crotalus, but that just meant she’d shine all the brighter for surpassing Gramma Claire and Uncle Geoff instead of just shining a little bit brighter than her Crotalus mother. “How do you like it? Is Crotalus nice? Most of my family has been there.” In fact, her sister and her first cousin were his prefects, though she had a horrible suspicion that he might get the relationships reversed and think Sam was her brother instead and Rachel, a far better relative choice, just a cousin. He had taken after his mother – well, she guessed; it wasn’t like he had a father for them to see, or to give him a name that wasn’t hers – just as she’d taken after her father, while Rachel was fair-haired and blue-eyed.
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Alicia
And just in general, I think.
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Alicia
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Gareth
December 06, 2011 11:29 PM
Good point by Gareth
As she added the scales Gareth counted each turn of the wooden spoon, his blue eyes were glued to the bubbling brew. It slowly shifted to the proper shade and Gareth flashed Alicia a smile. “Brilliant.” He said as he reached for the unicorn hair. The long white hair fell easily into the center of the brew and Gareth made sure that each stir was carefully counted so as not to ruin the potion when they were so close to being finished.Removing the wooden spoon, Gareth cancelled the heat and turned to give Alicia a large smile. It had only taken a few moments of reading to confirm that the color and texture were perfect, both indicators of a successful brew. They wouldn’t know for certain until they tested it, but Gareth was optimistic that they’d pulled off a perfect potion. Thank Merlin, it would have been horribly embarrassing to muck it up Gareth thought as he began cleaning up the mess.
They still needed to place the potion in vials and Gareth took four large ones from his bag. Humming softly under his breath, an old melody his mother often hummed while she tended her herb garden, Gareth doled out the potion into each vial. Once they were corked Gareth handed two of them to Alicia and kept two for himself. “It was a pleasure working with you, I’m sure that we’ll receive good marks on this.” He offered kindly.
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Gareth
Good point
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Gareth
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Alicia
December 13, 2011 10:49 PM
I do like to make them. by Alicia
Alicia knew that Gareth’s “brilliant” most likely applied to the potion, or at best her role in assisting with the potion, but she smiled back, deeply pleased, and imagined it was just or at least partially a commentary on her. That she was brilliant, in every way, as brilliant as the diamonds in her mother’s best earrings. Better, even.She noticed, though, that he didn’t offer his own thoughts on the school, and something about the kind tone of his voice after he finished bottling the potions slashed at the momentary upswing in her mood. It made her feel like someone who was receiving charity, who needed that charity. Which she did not. All she had now was what her stepfather or mother or step-grandmother gave her, but one day, she was going to have anything she wanted, whenever she wanted it, in her own right, and for now, the gifts would do.
“I’m positive we are,” she said confidently, looking at the bottle of potion in her hands. “This weekend, we’ll both be able to send photos home to our families.” Or very soon, anyway. She wanted a good set of pictures to go home all together, to show her success.
Her with her roommates, everyone all happy and smiling. Her with friends from different Houses, and the boys, in the Hall, the Gardens. She might have to recruit Sam for some of this, though she’d rather not; he was no threat to her in any case, but she’d rather not ask anyone for help that she didn’t have to, and she wasn’t sure if the whole thing would look completely effortless and natural if she had help anyway. Jeremy knew better, but she thought, if not completely certainly, that Momma didn’t. Anything too professional-looking – though she seriously doubted Sam’s abilities on that front – might be….
She wanted to close her eyes and shake her head, though she didn’t because Gareth would wonder why and she wouldn't have an answer. She could not second-guess everything. It was not like she had never been around new people before, so that was no reason to lose her head. She knew she could recover if she did and made anything but the worst kind of mistake, probably, but would rather not go through that much trouble.
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Alicia
I do like to make them.
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Alicia
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Gareth
December 18, 2011 10:57 PM
*nods* by Gareth
A pleased smile touched his lips at her statement. “Yes, my sister and mother will find the gardens fascinating and I’ll need to get a shot of me flying on the Pitch for my brother and father.” Gareth said with a nod, his gaze distant as he visualized what the best shots to send back to his family. There were some rather striking fountains in the gardens that he knew his sister would simply adore. “Seems I’m the first to attend it’ll be nice to show off the new school.” Gareth added.Perhaps he could enlist Cepheus’s help with the Pitch photos, Gareth thought as he cleaned up the remains of their potion making. It was good busy work and kept his hands active as he fought of the sharp pang of homesickness that pulled at his heart as he thought about which pictures would be best to send home. He knew that his siblings would be thrilled to get actual photos of the school they would soon attend. Brochures only gave so much and Gareth knew that he’d have to include a long detailed letter with the pictures to satisfy their curiosity.
Once all the excess ingredients had been replaced in his potions kit Gareth put the dirty utensils into the caldron. It would be great when they learned the different cleaning charms that would make such tasks a mere flick of the wand. Unfortunately he would have to deal with the mess the hard way or risk the potion residue drying into an unspeakable mess. “Do you have anything you’d like me to take care of while I wash these?” Gareth offered polity. It made sense to just get them all done at once and he didn’t mind cleaning off her tools as well.
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Gareth
*nods*
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Gareth
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