Professor Fawcett
May 08, 2012 7:58 PM
Intermediate Lesson I (3rd-5th Years) by Professor Fawcett
John Fawcett prided himself on punctuality, and demanded it of his students, but one Tuesday he walked into his Intermediate class just ahead of the first students, wishing them a hurried good morning and putting the leather case full of his papers on the desk as they took their seats. He fumbled for his roll with one hand while waving the third through fifth years toward their seats with the other, occasionally making statements about coming along now and getting in their stations and getting their things out. His eyes felt grainy, but he ignored this; it was not relevant to the lesson, and should, therefore, be left at the door.He marked the students present as they came in, and then, once their presence or absence was duly documented, straightened his glasses and looked around at the class. Good group, a good group; some of his best Aladrens were in here. So long as Miss Bennett and Miss Errant were kept apart, it was a good group. Since his usual preparations had not been made, he tapped a piece of chalk with his wand as the last students settled into their chairs and allowed the chalk to then leave his hand and hover just above the surface of the blackboard, set to take down his instructions to the class.
“Good day, class – “ he began, and heard the chalk dutifully scratching away behind him. He stopped, frowned at it, and then ended the enchantment, catching it as it fell before turning back to the class as though nothing had happened except for a slight, resigned smile. He should have left that, of course, but it was a good laugh for the class now and he would straighten it out later. “ – and I hope you are all feeling on your toes today, because we’re going to be thinking.”
He gave them a moment to groan, if they wished; he did not take that kind of thing personally. It was merely part of the experience of school, and, in his opinion, something of a pressure-valve for students. Some of the more neurotic students he’d met, across the better part of seventy years spent in one kind of school or another in some capacity, were those who always tried to seem upbeat and pleased to be there; they often, to him, came across more like burgeoning serial killers. “The magical disciplines,” he began, “as we have established before, are strongly interrelated in some ways, and one of the more major of these is that they often offer witches and wizards multiple ways to solve the same problem. A few cases of this with Potions are – “
He re-enchanted his chalk, which, for a mercy, aligned itself beneath the words Good day, class and didn’t begin writing over itself. “Color-changing charms and potions, charms and potions of invisibility or something very similar, Transfiguration spells and potions which have similar effects – you will all, of course, recall the discussion of Circe from your Beginner’s class – and potions and spells related to mood, and, of course, some of the healing potions and charms we look at.” Learning how to patch oneself up was a substantial part of the average young wizard’s education, but not for a bad reason. He did hope they had followed his speech; he knew it had not been as well-organized as it might have been.
He twitched his wand, and the chalk went to the side of the board. “Your assignment is to write an extended essay, comparing and contrasting a spell and a potion with similar effects and then analyzing situations in which each would be more useful than the other.” He expected that would occasion a few groans, too, but they should count themselves lucky; he had the Advanced class looking at the technical differences in the effects of the spells and potions. It was something he had not done until college, so he was prepared to grant them some leeway when he graded it, but not much. “The potion you write about will be the one you work on, with a partner, today. I’d recommend that our third years stick with color-change and perhaps basic transfiguration, and expect something a bit more complex from the fifth years.” He believed in giving students the freedom to experiment and even make mistakes, within limits; it encouraged growth, and they would never know until they tried. Few of them, after at least two years with him, were going to misjudge their skills too far; he never would have given the Beginners this many options, but he trusted this class a bit more. “Raise your hand if you need assistance, and, as always, behave responsibly.” All of the classes had gotten a review of proper etiquette in the Potions room, including the necessity of being polite, a few weeks ago; thankfully, he did not expect many problems of that sort in here, either, but it had seemed better to make the point.
OOC: Have fun posting in Potions! Standard site rules apply, from length and grammar to realism. Tag Fawcett if you need him.
Subthreads: What could possibly go wrong? by Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren with Sullivan Quincy, Pecari, Kitty
Time for my Specialty. by Maximilian Joshua McLachlan, Aladren with Russell Layne, Aladren, Josh McLachlan
Brainstorming out loud. by David Wilkes, Aladren with Derry Four, Teppenpaw
Oh, brother... by Arnold Carey, Aladren
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Professor Fawcett
Intermediate Lesson I (3rd-5th Years)
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Professor Fawcett
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Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
May 08, 2012 9:57 PM
What could possibly go wrong? by Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
Surprise flared in Kitty’s cerulean eyes when she saw Professor Fawcett not too far in front of her as she made her way to class. That was unusual, he was never late and always had everything set up for the class before they arrived. Kitty had gotten a bit turned around, an aggravation that seemed mostly unaffected by the fact that she had been here for two plus years now. Even with the time lost back tracking, she was still on time, just barely and the Professor ushered her into class with the rest of the stragglers.Kitty snagged a seat in the front row. As excited as she was about starting intermediate classes, it meant that she was again in the younger end of the bracket, thus shorter than everyone else. Not that she wasn’t much taller than the average first or second year but still, she was way shorter than the average fifth year. The sound of parchment rustling and the shuffling of ink wells and quills was a familiar one and Kitty smiled as she got out her own supplies.
This year I am going to be good at potions. Kitty vowed (a vow she made every year, and always utterly failed at) as she hid a small giggle when the Professor’s chalk began writing ‘Good day, class-’ She didn’t groan with the rest of the class about the written portion of the assignment, she was good at that sort of stuff. When they were told they would then have to brew their chosen potion, Kitty groaned. Her ideal potions class would be one where they delved deep into theory and kept practice far, far away. I can do it, I can to it, I can do it if she just kept telling herself that it had to come true, didn’t it?
“Um…I’m pretty good at the color changing charms. Are you good at the potion?” Kitty asked the person next to her hopefully. If they were, then things would probably go well.
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Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
What could possibly go wrong?
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Katrina (Kitty) McLevy - Aladren
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Sullivan Quincy, Pecari
May 09, 2012 10:17 PM
You had to say that, didn't you? by Sullivan Quincy, Pecari
Sullivan Quincy was many things - blond, muggle-born, 5'2", a pizza lover, allergic to bees, an orthodontics survivor, a native of Las Vegas, a victim of Jhonice Trevear's delusions, a Pecari - but a good student wasn't one of them. He had muddled through his first two years of classes, relying in part on the partner system and in part on the fact that Sonora didn't seem to fail people regardless of their grades. Last year, he'd only gotten a P in potions (which was alphabetically acceptable if not academically) and they still moved him up to Intermediates.Hoping, but not expecting, to move that up to an A this year, Sully scanned the room upon arrival just barely ahead of being late (punctuality was not one of his strengths either but he really tried hard for Fawcett and he could usually manage on-time even if early was outside his skill set) looking for an Aladren with a seat open next to them. The first one he spotted was Kitty in the front row. He didn't like the front row, but an Aladren partner was more important than location and Fawcett was hurrying him to sit down, so Sully did so in the seat beside Kitty's.
He fumbled with his spiral notebooks, taking out his transfiguration one first, realized that the red one wasn't for potions this year, put it back and got out the green one with "Potions" written on its front cover in black marker (the second o in the word looked like it had started out as an e, but a couple extra loops around the outside fixed the spelling to its correct form). He managed not to drop his pen taking it out of his bag, which he counted as a good sign for the lesson.
That didn't last much beyond the threat that they would need to think today and Sullivan groaned. He wasn't much good at the practical stuff, but he was even worse at the theory. He could generally muddle through the chopping and the mashing and the stirring as long as he had a partner who had some idea of what they were doing. Sure it was a stereotype, but that was why he liked sitting next to Aladrens. He thought he made a pretty decent minion and he thought Aladrens made pretty decent masterminds.
Fortunately, Fawcett didn't seem to expect the third years to perform potions or comparisons as complex as he was expecting from the fifth years, which Sullivan was grateful for. He was going to need all the leeway he could wrangle, even with an Aladren partner. He was glad he'd randomly ended up next to another third year, too. No high expectations here at all.
"Uh," he answered when Kitty asked if he was good at the potion. "If you can double check that I'm using the right ingredients, I'm pretty good at the smashing and stirring parts." His worst troubles in potions had always been his inability to tell one ingredient from another, which had led to some pretty spectacular messes over the last two years.
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Sullivan Quincy, Pecari
You had to say that, didn't you?
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Sullivan Quincy, Pecari
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Kitty
May 10, 2012 8:14 PM
Oops *blushes* Er…I mean we’ll be great! by Kitty
“Ohh! I can do that!” Kitty said joyfully as she bounced in the seat. Identifying and getting the ingredients before actually starting the potion making process was perhaps the only step of the whole miserable affair that Kitty excelled at. She’d always been good at gardening so she found it pretty easy to differentiate between plant based ingredients, and all her supplies were neatly labeled to cut back on mistakes. Her problems with potions came later, during the preparation and actual brewing of the potions. The young muggle born suffered from a terribly short attention span that a boring class like Potions just couldn’t keep on task. Usually she ended up fouling up the steps because she forgot that she’d already done one, or lost her place in the recipe all together, or she got the stirs all wrong. It was crazy how mixing things up became so terribly important in potions. When she tried to cook, the mixing stuff up part was actually the easiest part and didn’t take all that much focus or attention. Now she had to not only count the time stirred but pay attention to which direction and sometimes even make patterns like figure eights.Nope, Sully could do that part and she’d just get the ingredients right. “Sully I think this is the beginning of a beautiful partnership.” Kitty said with a laugh. Together they covered each other’s weak points so maybe this time nothing would go terribly wrong. “Mk, so I think we should compare it to the color changing charm Multicorfors. They both change colors, but I think that potions would only change the color of a person wouldn’t it? I mean they’d have to swallow it, so maybe it would work on animals too, but I don’t think it would work if you just put it on a book or something. The charm is more versatile and can be used on all sorts of stuff, but how long does it last? If it lasts forever then that could be a problem, I mean yeah you could turn a dog blue, but getting him back to his original color might be tricky if the spell is long lasting. I’m not sure how long the potion lasts. The one we took to sort us didn’t last long at all. And anyway, what use would someone have for turning people colors besides like sorting and stuff.” Kitty said, barely taking a breath as her wayward thoughts spun in all different directions.
She’d never thought to compare the differences between branches of magic that achieve the same results though different means. It was quite fascinating, already her mind was coursing down many different trails, everything from allergies to potions ingredients, to the need for discretion. One of the things about spells and such was that they were pretty flashy and obvious. Potions were more subtle and could be used in situations where subtlety was required. “So what do you think?” Kitty demanded, finally slowing down enough to let Sully get a word in edgewise.
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Kitty
Oops *blushes* Er…I mean we’ll be great!
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Kitty
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Maximilian Joshua McLachlan, Aladren
May 13, 2012 11:33 PM
Time for my Specialty. by Maximilian Joshua McLachlan, Aladren
Potions was one of Josh's favorite classes not just because he enjoyed potions as a subject, but because the professor was just as punctual as he was. The expectation was slightly lowered when he watched Professor Fawcett scurry in only a few steps ahead of him. Josh didn't want to think of the technicalities of "being early," but took his seat dutifully, keeping his opinions to himself as always. He took out a piece of parchment and a self-inking quill for notes as he did for most of his classes and waited for class to begin.He had been going mad recently over that last incident with Regina Parker towards the beginning or middle of the term. He was a fourth-year transfer student and had botched up his first interaction with her in class. He was used to not feeling the guilt, having set his mind on not making any friends, naturally being a lonely, independent person. Her reaction, however, had startled him and had set him thinking that his method was perhaps not the best. And it didn't help that she looked particularly like his best friend he'd been in love with at his old school. He no longer had contact with her, her being the girl from New Zealand, not Regina, and the memories didn't help. He kept his sharp grey eyes from wandering over to her direction, but sometimes they did as he rolled over in his meticulous brain of what he was supposed to do. He rarely felt apologetic in his actions because he rarely did things he regretted, but this was one of those rare instances. Anyhow, being in class helped enormously in getting his mind off of his current distraction.
Professor Fawcett finally began class, relieving Josh from analyzing his current state of being, and he focused on what they were to do today. He was glad they would be working more on the technicalities of spells and potions. One of Josh's great interests was discovering the technicalities of magic and observing through tests how a spell or a potion could be improved or changed. He wanted to know how one could invent a potion or a spell as well, but he was still not at that level yet.
Partners again. What was with Sonora and partnering people up in classes? Josh had gained somewhat of a reputation in his first term here of being unfriendly and standoffish, dubbed "The Transfer," or so he'd overheard. He wasn't particularly upset or peeved by it, but it didn't garner much room to make friends. Of course, that was what he was avoiding, wasn't it?
Josh set up his silver cauldron, a welcoming gift from his uncle when he'd first moved in with him at eight years old. Then he'd more or less forgotten about him after he started having relations with a woman he later married and sent Josh off to the New Zealand Academy. That is, until Josh began to "muck things up" at school. In his uncle's biased pure blood opinion, of course. It was his uncle he had to thank for his transfer and for the hatred towards Josh at the academy. He'd once held his uncle on a pedestal as a naive eight year old, but he'd come to see more of his uncle since. Uncle Inigo was one of the worst and most dangerous of the infamous McLachlan clan he'd ever met. His dear uncle was filthy rich, but Josh had his suspicions that it was all filthy money done by doing, or having others do, filthy deeds. Josh wanted none of it, though, being a part of the "infamous" McLachlan clan, he occasionally had to bear the brunt of the prejudice.
No more thoughts. Focus. Josh had set up all his ingredients nicely and pondered what potion to brew. The Exploding Potion came to mind, though Josh was hesitant to brew such a volatile potion with someone he didn't know or trust. The invisibility potion also passed through his head, though Josh felt it to be too simple. He finally decided to go with a confusing concoction. It went nicely with the confundus charm. Josh began to ready his ingredients, some shared with the befuddlement draught, and was about to consult his textbook when he remembered that he needed to have a partner along with him.
He looked awkwardly around for someone to partner with. Josh wasn't usually an awkward person, but he never liked having to approach people first. It gave him a sense of vulnerability that he tried his hardest to avoid. But it seemed impossible to avoid here in a classroom where he wasn't the most sought out person in the room. "Would you like to be my partner?" he finally asked someone as they passed by his table. It didn't look like they had a partner yet, or so he hoped. It would be fine if the partner just took down notes or played around with the charm. Josh was fine doing this on his own. He enjoyed doing potions on his own anyhow, but the essay, or the project, called for two. One to play with the charm, the other to do the essay, or so Josh wished it could be.
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Maximilian Joshua McLachlan, Aladren
Time for my Specialty.
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Maximilian Joshua McLachlan, Aladren
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Russell Layne, Aladren
May 14, 2012 1:30 PM
Specialization makes the world go round. by Russell Layne, Aladren
As this particular day in Potions got underway, Russell frowned a little for a moment at Professor Fawcett, wondering if there was something going on, because the Potions professor did not seem as completely organized and in control of himself as usual. Everything had looked pretty normal around here to Russell all day, and the Concert was still a while off, though maybe for the staff it wasn’t so much. He guessed there was a lot of logistical work that went into the background of that kind of thing, stuff that the students didn’t really know about, like there was in running a shop….That the uncharacteristic behavior might be a result of something on his teacher’s mind that had nothing to do with Sonora Academy, though, didn’t really occur to Russell. He knew that Fawcett was married, and obviously everybody came from somewhere and had known people there before they entered the school and, in the case of adults, after they left it, but in a way, it was hard to imagine his Head of House having a life outside of school, doing stuff like grocery shopping and paying bills and the rest of the usual normal-adult package. Professor Brockert, Professor Light – them, he could sort of see, especially the second. Professor Fawcett, Professor Levy? Not so much, unless something like Professor Levy’s absence just thrust it into his face and he couldn’t help but notice it. They just seemed very ‘about’ their jobs, somehow, at least to him.
Hearing the words ‘extended essay’, though, assured him that Fawcett was not, at any rate, at a high risk for undergoing a sudden and radical change in personality, and he groaned a little along with a good few of the others in the class. He’d do it, of course, but Merlin, CATS weren’t until next year for him, and the year after next for the third years; couldn’t some of the love just go to the fifth years, and let the rest of them focus on getting ready to thrash Pecari in the next game? Well…except those of them who weren’t Quidditch players or Aladrens, and definitely who were Pecaris, anyway. He guessed that idea had not been terribly well-thought out; he really, at the moment, just didn’t feel like writing an essay.
If wishes were fishes, though, there would be a lot more happy cats in the world, so he drew a circle around the assignment on his syllabus, reminded himself he had crossed through all of the other circles above it so far without any real trouble, and focused on what they were doing in class to give them something to write about. Thinking that the Transfigurations and Potions thing sounded kind of cool, he got up from the table he’d ended up as a single at today and looked for a partner.
To his great surprise, his roommate Josh spoke to him. There was no reason why he shouldn’t have, of course, since they had been living together without any real problems for a while now, but the other guy had a reputation around campus for being extremely reserved if the speaker was being charitable and kind of a jerk if the speaker was not. It wasn’t really his style, Russell thought, to just ask to be partners.
Still, he had yet to do anything particularly heinous to Russell, so he mentally shrugged and really did nod. “Sure,” he said amicably. He glanced at the ingredients the other guy had laid out already. “Got some ideas for where to do with it?” he asked. “I had a few, but I’m flexible.” With another Aladren especially, he might argue it if it was something he thought was boring, or just not complicated enough to win Fawcett’s approval, but he wasn’t dead set on doing any one thing. He thought he might be a little better at Transfiguration than Charms if they had to demonstrate spells as well as potions, but it wasn’t like he was anywhere near failing either one of them. Russell could be accommodating in the interests of keeping the peace he thought was a nice feature of his dorm, one he wished to keep around.
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Russell Layne, Aladren
Specialization makes the world go round.
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Russell Layne, Aladren
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David Wilkes, Aladren
May 14, 2012 7:17 PM
Brainstorming out loud. by David Wilkes, Aladren
Professor Fawcett wasn’t looking quite as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as usual, but David had yet to make it to a single class in time to set his desk up all day, and so, fumbling with quills and parchment and papers and stuff, he noticed nothing about his Potions teacher except the fact that the man was in the room. He’d had a slightly different perspective back in Muggle school, where they had represented the main group of individuals in the school who did not wish to beat him up on a regular basis, but at Sonora, he largely regarded the professors as beings somewhere between omnipotent but distant chessmasters and talkative pieces of furniture.The last of his things hit the desk just as the professor started talking, and David ran a hand through his dark hair, breathing a quiet sigh of relief. Safe. For another period, anyway.
He scribbled down the general idea of the instructions, trying to think of something to do. He ruled out Transfiguration potions at once, since he’d read enough to know most of those were very difficult and plus, he just didn’t like human Transfiguration, which also accounted for the example. Circe, to him, was one of the creepier figures in the kids’ version of the Odyssey he was familiar with; from what he’d picked up flipping through encyclopedias, there were many things that were much worse in Ovid, but that was why he wasn’t reading Ovid, at least not unless he became very convinced this was necessary to look smart at some point, like in college, when he’d undoubtedly have somehow become too cool to wince. Or something like that. Anyway, he knew what he didn’t want to do, which didn’t help him a lot with figuring out what he did want to do. He was pretty sure Fawcett would raise a disapproving eyebrow at him, or worse, if he went with the third year assignment….
“How do you like charms?” he asked the person sitting next to him when they were dismissed to work, completely forgetting about pleasantries like asking them to work with him and going through that dialogue before getting to the point. The bit of his mind which would have normally been given over to things like that which had nothing to do with the assignment was currently dwelling on how he was going to have an ulcer before they got to CATS, he was just sure of it. “And stupid charms or Healing charms?” He was personally inclined toward the first one, just to be different and maybe derive some entertainment from the class, but he was more brainstorming out loud than making real propositions at this point. David had a faith in his ability to talk himself to the right answer to anything, given enough time and, of course, adequate background information. For that, he had a faith in his professors, that surely they wouldn’t actually have him do something he didn’t have the knowledge to do.
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David Wilkes, Aladren
Brainstorming out loud.
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David Wilkes, Aladren
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Josh McLachlan
May 14, 2012 10:42 PM
And round, and round... by Josh McLachlan
It was a good thing Layne was flexible because when it came to potions, Josh was not. To say he was a perfectionist was an understatement, but that side of him only came out when he was working on things that he held in high regard. His academics, of course, was where that came out. He wasn't sure if his roommate knew what he was getting himself into, but was content that he hadn't turned him down. Josh just hoped he wouldn't get too in the way.He looked down at his ingredients when Layne mentioned them. "I'm going to brew the Confusing Concoction," he told him. It would be useful to know what exactly he was brewing for the essay. "This will be a stronger brew than what is usually sold in apothecaries." Josh prided himself in learning how to either strengthen or weaken only a couple of potions, though he had yet to really experiment with his own ideas. He eyed his companion carefully. "Are you good with potions? If you're not, I suggest you take notes or write down characteristics of the Confundus Charm. If you're good at it, well..." Josh looked back at his supplies. "I suppose you could hand me ingredients or something." He didn't know how to work on a potion with a partner, but there was no way in the world he was going to admit something like that. He'd never seen potion brewing as a partnership. It seemed like Sonora was challenging his decision to stay antisocial in more ways than one.
Josh poured water into the cauldron and set it to a simmer before slicing up the lovage into thicker slices than the textbook recommended. This way, the brain would be confused for a longer time and more clouded than usual. Well, than the textbook-potion intended, anyway. The core of a dirigible plum was next and he was almost out of them. His grandmother had called them the most irresponsible fruit she'd ever known, which he'd thought an odd statement from her, and had refused to purchase him anything of the sort for potions. He'd had to buy it himself at a shady apothecary in the bad part of Scotland as a seven-year-old in order to see what the fruit actually looked like, his curiosity had been so great.
The pit of the dirigible plum was to be crushed finely, and as he pulled his mortar and pestle from his bag, he looked over at Layne and took pity on him. He should do something, he supposed begrudgingly. Though if he messed the potion up, he would hold a very long grudge against him. "You can chop up the two wormwoods," he said, handing him the handle of the knife and pushing the jar towards him. It felt strange to be this friendly. Josh didn't speak much unless it was necessary, and right now it was necessary. His passion and desire for the potion to go perfectly was very apparent. "Though be careful to chop it in three very even pieces." That was important, or else the hallucinogenic properties of the wormwood wouldn't be extracted. Josh continued to crush the smooth pit of the plum and looked over once in a while to see how Layne was doing.
When Josh finished crushing the core to a fine powder, he dumped it into the cauldron that was beginning to simmer slightly. He stirred it counter-clockwise six times. Once the wormwood pieces was added, the mixture would thicken, and then it would be time to add the three dandelion roots after they were chopped up thinly. Once the roots were added, then the mixture would begin to thin slowly and, as it was stirred counter-clockwise five times instead of four, would turn a light purple. Josh had made mental notes of this, though he had pages and pages of his own notes on his desk. He was certain Layne and his other roommates could smell remnants of potions in their room though Josh had tried his hardest to get the smell out completely. He wasn't sure if doing potions without supervision in one's dorm room was illegal or against the rules, but he couldn't necessarily be stopped at this point.
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Josh McLachlan
And round, and round...
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Josh McLachlan
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Russell
May 15, 2012 1:09 AM
...Until it makes you hit a speed bump. by Russell
Russell stared at the other boy for a long moment after his little speech. “I’m very good at Potions,” he said flatly, finally, as Joshua began preparing ingredients further, “and if you want a piece of advice, don't talk to your roommates like elves.” Arnold might let it slide, on his own – maybe; Arnold was an okay guy, but he was a Carey, and an Aladren, and a winning Seeker – but Arthur, insulted himself or possibly hearing about his twin receiving the same treatment since he at least liked to present a united front with his brother, and Preston would take turns eviscerating the new guy for that kind of remark.As for himself…well, Russell wasn’t going to catch someone in a back hallway and break both of their legs, even if he could. He didn’t like violence, and it was completely pointless, anyway – a real waste. But neither did he like being treated like an errand boy. At home, he would stack boxes or go get something if his parents or an uncle or someone told him to do it, but the other boys in his dorm, at least within these walls, were his equals – especially on the Pitch and in the classroom. He wasn’t their helper; if Joshua wanted a partner, he could have one, but if he wanted a lab assistant to bow and scrape and wash beakers, he could go through school and become a research professor like anyone else and get some lab assistants, one of which wouldn’t be Russell Layne.
“We’re all just as good as you,” he added, though he bit his tongue short of adding anything about possibly being better. It was going further than he usually did, than he even felt comfortable doing, to say as much as he had already. But being told to essentially check out if he didn’t meet some arbitrary definition of ‘good,’ and to hand someone things if he did, had struck a discordant note against his pride.
When he had come to Sonora, Russell had been a little overwhelmed by the rich boys, with their fancy tutors and their suits and their promises of inherited fortunes, but he’d observed over the years that they were as human as anyone, and that where they had strengths, he often had others to lay against their weaknesses. Not that he’d ever needed to, of course, but it was there. And after the summer…He guessed, as stupid as it was, that he was feeling a bit more confident than usual, and definitely not willing to put up with much from this guy, who he’d originally thought was just weird like Arthur but who was looking, as time went on, more and more like he simply had no idea how to walk down a hallway without making people very, very annoyed. Or like he enjoyed doing that.
“I’ll use mine,” Russell said pleasantly when he was offered wormwood and a knife. “My great-uncle runs an apothecary, he taught me to always trust my own materials. I’ll add it to the cauldron, too.” This was their potion, not Joshua’s. They needed that to be very clear; he’d rather not actually say something out loud, but they needed it to be clear that he was not going to be pushed around in a way Russell had gotten the impression this roommate wouldn’t try on the others even before that advice at the beginning of the conversation. He’d seen Joshua being more civil around Preston and the twins, who were the kind of people on, from what he’d gathered, the same family playing field. The kind of people who bought out shopkeepers of the kind Russell’s family – except, of course, those running the antiques shop, though there had been a few close misses there, too – had been only a generation or two ago, rather than those who even knew what a counter was.
He paused slightly at the fussy instruction about cutting things evenly, and the way Joshua kept looking over at him, but he didn’t say anything. So far, the other guy hadn’t done a single thing that Russell thought he would have done if he’d been in a new place, and one of them was apparently not seeing how other students, at least those he was stuck being fairly close to, did in their classes. It was obvious he was feeling perfectionistic about the potion – Fawcett’s option-based classes could do that for Russell, anyway; there was a desire to prove himself to the professor – and Russell could respect that, as long as he stayed reasonably polite. Living with Arthur had a way of making a guy become patient, within limits.
“Ready for the wormwood?” he asked, gathering it up with his tongs. “You can chop the dandelion roots, and then I'll stir.”
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Russell
...Until it makes you hit a speed bump.
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Russell
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5
Josh McLachlan
May 15, 2012 11:24 AM
That would make things difficult by Josh McLachlan
Josh didn't really care about the advice Layne had given him, though the fact that he was very good at Potions was heartening. Josh knew the Careys and Stratford well enough from his observations of them. He'd had time to appraise them during their interactions in the dorm room; after all, one of the Careys had greeted him on his first night here. He knew that they were from large, prestigious families and he didn't want to make trouble with them. He could only assume that, like every other pure blood he knew, their pride was easily wounded and they would take revenge, something he was trying to avoid. Josh had yet to appraise much of Layne, however.He didn't know if he believed if they were all just as good as him. Josh's life was dedicated to this sort of thing and had been since he'd started his studies. Being so singly dedicated to schoolwork and having a natural talent for potions in particular had, admittedly, given Josh airs. But he had very few things to be proud of. His relatives had caused his life to be miserable from the day his parents were mysteriously killed in America, they didn't care for him in any way whatsoever, and though he was a filthy rich pure blood from a prestigious European family, even among the most noted pure bloods, the McLachlan name was subtly looked down upon, or at least known with some fear. It was their money and their dark magic that had gotten them where they were now, and Josh looked down on the practice immensely.
The only pride he really had was in himself and his skills in magic that hadn't been begrudgingly handed to him. He had pride in one other person, but he could never speak to her again and the thought made his heart ache.
When Layne mentioned that his grand-uncle ran an apothecary, Josh's expectations of his roommate rose. To make a contact in the apothecary business was enough for him to overlook the minor insult. "Your great-uncle owns an apothecary?" he reiterated. In working with elements he loved, Josh, in his distracted state, spoke more. Being in his niche made him relax, and perhaps it was the potion fumes that wafted around the room, but there was some calming effect in brewing. That all was to explain the reason for his next comment. "It's my ambition to open my own apothecary in the future," he said offhandedly. "Though I'd like to work in a laboratory first."
Josh didn't live in a fantasy where he would receive some enormous inheritance in the future like most of his other schoolmates. Once he turned seventeen, he expected to be kicked out and told to live on his own, finally able to be forgotten by the McLachlan clan and no longer be regarded as some excremental burden. He had known of this since he was a young boy and he knew only an education could get him out of the grave his relatives had dug for him. So he had thrown himself to his work.
He didn't mention his own experiments with potions to his roommate, but instead continued along with Layne's suggestions. "Go ahead," he said, nodding for him to put the wormwood in. Now having the knowledge that his roommate was more than adequate, Josh felt comfortable enough to meticulously chop up the daisy roots. He looked up briefly after finishing his careful mutilation of the second root. "Has it thickened fully yet?" he asked. Putting the roots in too late would be detrimental to the potion and Josh had no room in him for failure. "A little trick I learned," he said as he began cutting the third root, "is that if one stirs the potion counter-clockwise five times after putting in the roots instead of four, the wormwood's properties will be emphasized and the hallucinogenic properties of the plum's core will be somewhat stronger. I tried stirring it six times, but it turned sour and didn't work properly."
Sharing so much with a roommate who clearly knew nothing about him, and with good reason, felt out of place, but when Josh wasn't looking at him, he could easily replace him with Robbie or Luke, his roommates back at the New Zealand Academy. Before they fell into his uncle's social trap and turned their backs on him for good. It still hurt that the boys who had sworn their friendship with him had lost their trust in him so easily and had, at the blink of an eye, scorned him with the rest of the school. Josh never wanted to feel that hurt again and now had gained a reputation. It was all just too easy. Sometimes he wanted to take the easy way out, to make a giant mistake so his family wouldn't hesitate in finally "exiling" him with a very handy "disappearing trick."
But there were still small delights in life like good dreams, when he was still asleep, and potions, magic, photographs, and his loyal wand. These were the things this boy took pride in. The little delights that he held onto so tight that they were in danger of being smothered. It was a good thing they were inanimate and didn't mind.
"Potion ready, then?" asked the Scottish-accented boy, the hint of Australian coming out on the word "ready." He found their places switched and didn't think twice about it, but scooped up his daisy roots feeling lighter than he'd felt all day. Brewing potions was currently the only thing that made him so civil and conversational. All the other days he was silent, unfriendly, and came off as ill-mannered.
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Josh McLachlan
That would make things difficult
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Josh McLachlan
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Russell
May 16, 2012 3:56 PM
That's why you ought to drive carefully. by Russell
Russell wasn’t sure how much to heart his roommate had really taken his comments about treating the rest of them with proper respect, including the one without terrifying relatives, but he was content to apparently not be expected to stand here while he was actively insulted anymore. If it had really come down to it, he didn’t think it would have been hard to set it up so that Preston decided to hex or, depending on his mood, beat the tar out of the other guy – the big question was just whether it would have been better to tell Preston himself that he’d heard Joshua saying bad things about him, or whether filtering it through Arnold and Preston’s girls would have worked better or at least kept any hint of responsibility from coming back to nest with Russell – and, in doing so, take himself out of the consideration for prefect, but he’d rather not. For one thing, a lot would hinge on it not coming back on him, especially if he tried the intermediaries thing without adding at least one more link, or an actual rumor, to the chain, which he didn’t know how to do, and for another, it was just weird to think that way. Who seriously did that kind of stuff?Well, someone, obviously – the idea had to come from somewhere, and he’d seen similar enough stuff in histories – but he was fourteen. He thought it was probably going a little far to take himself, or even the prefect’s badge he’d have a better shot at if Preston got into a fistfight before Christmas, that seriously.
“He does,” he said when Joshua asked for confirmation that his great-uncle ran an apothecary. What, did he not believe it? “Rinehardt’s Apothecaries – Rinehardt was related to one of his grandmothers, so Uncle Philip inherited it from his mother.” His uncle had thought about changing the name a few times, but the old-timers knew what they had always been to, so it was just good business sense to leave the name as it was. The Laynes owned it now; maybe in three generations, the daughter of the daughter of one of Russell’s daughters would inherit it under a different name, but that would be okay, too. Some of the huge old pureblood families, the ones whose wealth went back to Europe and things, might manage to hold something like that in unbroken lines with the same name for centuries, but the rest of them did as best they could.
He listened to Joshua talking about his ambition to own a shop someday – probably expected a chain right out of the door, but Russell had not grown up around as many merchants as he had to think there was a snowball’s chance in Sarasota of that – after working in a laboratory. “Good luck, is all I can say,” Russell said. “It’s a lot of work, I know that.” Which he was not entirely sure all rich boys were going to be willing to do, though he didn’t fault them for that. If he didn’t have to do something unpleasant, he didn’t guess he would do it too much, either. “I’m supposed to get the antiques shop, but I don’t know what I’ll end up doing.”
That wasn’t something he really said a lot, but nor was it something he considered a state secret. He had bounced between the businesses of different relatives all summer because it was good to know what was out there and his parents wanted to be sure he did that; what he ended up doing with his life didn’t even have, he knew, to be one of those things he’d seen while he was out of school, though of course it would be easier to get set up in whatever business he ultimately chose if it was one other members of his family were already involved in. They could open doors, arrange meetings, provide different kinds of assistance….
Life, as far as Russell could see, was a lot of what one knew, but a good-sized chunk was also tied up in whom one knew. Maybe it was no good, maybe it was just inevitable, but that was what it was. He didn’t see the point of railing against it too much.
Russell glanced at the wormwood-infused potion and nodded. “Yeah,” he said. He raised an eyebrow slightly at the comment about the stirring. “You fool around with potions recreationally, or is that something they taught at your old school?” he asked as he stirred, thinking, as a few things shifted in his head, that he knew the answer but seeking confirmation just the same. He had thought it was Arthur who was messing around with something in their dorm; he offered his other roommate a mental apology for this suspicion, though he wasn’t sure if Arthur wouldn’t actually take it as a compliment, if he knew.
The two of them were really alike in a lot of ways, he thought, which made it either surprising or inevitable that Arthur didn’t seem to have clicked with him. Not to have failed to hit it off the way Joshua and Preston seemed to, or the way he’d heard Joshua and Reggie Parker had, but just not…clicked, somehow. It still wasn’t clear to Russell how that was going to play out, which was another reason it was probably best to stay the guy in the shadows for a little longer when he remembered to keep his mouth shut, definitely until he was completely sure where Preston stood, anyway.
“Looks good to me,” he said when asked if the potion was ready. He had done it all right, after all. “You can take a look yourself, though.” He was tempted to say something a little sarcastic about seeing how much easier it was to get along when one was pleasant, but reminded himself – guy who watched, was pleasant to everyone usually, and kept most sardonic remarks to himself. That was the way to go.
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Russell
That's why you ought to drive carefully.
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Russell
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Arnold Carey, Aladren
May 17, 2012 8:39 PM
Oh, brother... by Arnold Carey, Aladren
Maybe it was in part because it was his Head of House’s class, and that added more pressure, or maybe it was in spite of it, since he really had no objection to Professor Fawcett and had never been treated poorly by the man even after last year’s Quidditch final, but Potions was definitely not Arnold Carey’s favorite subject, at least when he thought about it. When he was actually working on a potion and Fawcett was neither right in front of him or hovering behind him, he could find a rhythm in it and do well, especially when he was feeling the pressure of the clock rather than the pressure to overachieve because he was a Carey and an Aladren, but just thinking of the detailed, fussy work and – worse – the written papers was off-putting. The concept just about defeated the pleasure he drew from actual successes in the classroom.His greeting to the professor, then, was cheerful and polite, but he didn’t hurry to get to class early, he didn’t sit at the front, and he was not really looking forward to what the syllabus told him was in store for them. Getting into the theoretical things, and the this-versus-that’s, of magic was just not one of Arnold’s strengths; why one thing was better to use than another was usually a matter of either what worked better for the purpose or what he had time to get together, sometimes with a little intuition thrown in, but there was nothing complex about it, and he didn’t really care why a spell or potion worked so long as it did. He could, when they studied on Saturday, rattle off the long lists of recipes and ingredients and properties that his brother drew up for him or stole from books without – much – difficulty, but a good deal of the Saturday sessions consisted of Arthur explaining concepts to him. He sometimes felt guilty about that, even though Arthur insisted that having to teach the material over to Arnold helped him know it better himself.
Hearing what they were doing made him glance at his brother, who almost immediately glanced at him, too, and they shared a brief, if not exactly overjoyed, smile. Saturday was, Arnold very much suspected, going to be a long day for him. An evening or two before that might go on for a while, too. So long as he passed the assignment in the end, though.
First, though, before he could even think of any of that, he had to figure out where to start with all of this. That was a pre-condition for passing, usually, and today didn’t seem to be one of the exceptions he thought might exist sometimes if you worked with Arthur, which he generally didn’t; they both knew how their mother found it a bit unsettling that they were as close as they were, and it had seemed better, by mutual, unspoken agreement, not to unsettle their classmates as well once they began school. Plus, they were in the same dorm, which meant they already spent enough time together to get on each other’s nerves, and if they always worked together in classes, it was a sure thing that it would eventually not go well.
Still, Arthur wasn’t the only person in the room who was better at knowing what he wanted to do with open-ended lessons than Arnold was. He turned to the nearest open student, hoping that one was one. “So, do you have any ideas about what to do with this?” he asked, his fingers discreetly crossed for a ‘yes’.
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Arnold Carey, Aladren
Oh, brother...
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Arnold Carey, Aladren
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Derry Four, Teppenpaw
May 20, 2012 2:09 PM
Should I get an umbrella? by Derry Four, Teppenpaw
Derry arrived in Potions with time to spare today. This wasn't exactly a novelty for him, but neither was it a regular occurrence. He never got there late after the first couple of days in his first year because he didn't really want to serve detention and it had started to look like Professor Fawcett was considering it if Derry didn't clean up his act, but the amount of time he had between arrival and the start of class varied widely from day to day.Today, he thought he had even seen Professor Fawcett entering the room, which was something he had never encountered before, and he'd checked his watch (an old-time pocket watch that went nicely with his colonial era outfit - he'd gotten it for Christmas and Three said it was an antique, probably not as old as their shared clothing style, but older than Grandmother anyway which was saying something) to see how early he was.
It wasn't early enough that he felt comfortable heading off to do something else during the intervening time, so he just headed into the classroom, greeted the professor and the other early birds, and took a seat. Derry wasn't much of a creature of habit so he didn't have a seat that he usually chose, and today he had a wider selection than he normally did. He picked one at random, going mostly by the direction Professor Fawcett's hand had waved when he'd dallied too long at the front of the room and was urged to move on to his station.
He got his things out and set up and even had time to check his syllabus to see what they'd be working on today. No specific potion was mentioned, though, so his check over his ingredient levels was more general than focused to what he'd be using today. He was almost completely out of scarab beetles and doxy eggs, but he didn't think he should go fetch more from the classroom supplies until he knew he'd need them.
He was still contemplating what else he should ask his mom to resupply for him when he wrote his next letter home when David Wilkes sat down next to him. "Hey," he greeted, easily abandoning his inventory in favor of something more social. But David had barely gotten his things settled when Professor Fawcett started the lesson, so conversation would have to wait.
The project sounded a little daunting, and for that reason, he was kind of glad an Aladren had landed in the seat next to his. He could generally handle brewing well enough, but when thinking was involved, he preferred to have help. He was always better at practical work than theoretical, regardless of subject. He understood how magic worked, but mostly in an instinctive way that was almost impossible to put into words. For some reason, though, Professors didn't seem to accept "Because that's the way it is" as an explanation for why something behaved the way it did.
When the lecture ended, David apparently accepted Derry's earlier 'Hey' as a contract to work together because he started right off with a query about Derry's Charms skills. "Uh," he began, not quite sure how much detail David was looking for, so he kept his answer to the main two points that might be relevant. "I'm really good with casting charms and really bad with writing essays about them."
He blinked a little, though, and was somewhat taken aback at the categories David broke Charms into. "I, um, I don't know a super lot about healing charms, just that one unit, so I guess the stupid ones would be better?"
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Derry Four, Teppenpaw
Should I get an umbrella?
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Derry Four, Teppenpaw
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David
May 21, 2012 3:22 PM
How about a great big multicolored one? by David
David nodded in approval as Derry said he was good at casting Charms, but not writing about them. That worked well enough, he thought, for this class period anyway, since David would write his own essay and he wasn’t completely sure how much they were going to be using the charms instead of just talking about them. He ranked himself as someone who was ‘pretty good’ at magic rather than ‘really good,’ though, so having a partner who ranked himself as ‘really good’ was good in case someone did have to take out a wand.He did think, though, in retrospect that he should have been a little clearer in his word choice when he defined categories of charms, since he’d left out those which were neither stupid nor medical, which had probably left Derry thinking he was one of Those Kind of future doctor-Healer types when he really figured he was almost as unlikely to do anything even tangentially related to that as he was to follow in any of his dad’s various occupational footsteps, but it was too late to change the sentence now. So he just left it there.
“Got any ideas, then?” he asked. “I’m good with anything except Transfiguration. I’m sure there's something fun, you know, we could come up with – plus everyone’s going to do Healing, I’m pretty sure – but I can’t think of it.” He hated how that happened, sometimes; another time, when it wasn’t practically the assignment, he’d be able to think of any number of weird things to do with Charms and Potions that might get him in detention, or at least the hospital wing, if he tried it and wasn’t very, very careful about trying it, but now that he needed to, his mind was a blank.
So it went, though. He guessed he’d have to make do, and be glad when things did go right, because getting too upset about it wasn’t going to work. When he got flustered, David usually found that while his mind might speed up, it rarely did so in a productive way. He had to be pretty neutral-feeling to really think; if he was happy or annoyed or anything else, he couldn’t concentrate that well. Well, well for him, anyway. He wasn’t sure he ever did anything that could reasonably be said to constitute concentrating well except when he was off doing random experiments or other things that had no bearing on his education and were purely for his own entertainment.
“Except the color-changing thing,” he added, catching sight of an ingredient in his potions kit that reminded him of that. “But I’m not sure that Fawcett would really be all that impressed if we did that one.” Not that he wouldn’t try it, of course, if Derry couldn’t think of anything better. He couldn’t lose that many points if it was done correctly, and was, after all, working with a partner who was in a lower year. Fourth year, sure, but that counted in his book, even if many of the fourth years were sort of scary.
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David
How about a great big multicolored one?
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David
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