Professor Sophie O'Malley
October 29, 2016 3:40 PM
I see a cauldron and I wanted painted black~ [Years I-II] by Professor Sophie O'Malley
Sophie was at her very best for today’s lesson, although what she considered her best was a far cry from most people’s standards. She had made an attempt to push up her sleeves, but her thin little arms could not support the bunches properly, so, though hastily rerolled now, their edges were lined with messiness that rose from brewing potions. Her blonde ponytail, notable for its relatively impressive length, was a haphazard mess. A splash of something green stained her left cheek. And she was grinning ear-to-ear. Sophie loved brewing potions.“I have been very busy today,” she announced merrily to her first and second years. “As you see, each pair of desks has three cauldrons currently brewing over small flames. To that end,” she added, “you’ll have to forgive me for being a little out of sorts. I filled those all this morning.”
“You’ll note,” the small woman went on, “that each cauldron is black. That, my dears, is a delicate little illusion. They’ve been painted that way. In truth, one of them is gold, one of them is silver, and one is pewter. Your job for today’s exercise will be to determine which is which based on the progress of the potion simmering within them.”
“Each is brewing a Girding Potion. Can anyone tell me what that particular potion does?” It wasn’t one that they had personally brewed, as it was technically at the third year level, but it was, however, included in their latest reading chapter of their textbook. When the correct answer was procured, Sophie continued. “Great! Now, as I said, these samples were brewed just today by yours truly, which means the one in the greatest quality cauldron should be just about done. The other two will be at varying stages of simmering. “Would you please take this stack of worksheets and pass one to everyone?” she asked the student seated nearest to her desk. “They just have a few questions for you to answer about the cauldrons. Basically just ‘which is which?’ and ‘Justify your answer’.”
“I encourage you to partner up so that you can discuss this, and also because there’s only a set of cauldrons per two people.” She was not going to brew three potions per student. That was way too much work when she believed the kids worked better in pairs anyway. “Also, one last thing,” she added quickly. “I shouldn’t have to say this, but don’t touch the cauldrons. It’s kinda cheating to try to figure out the metal texture beneath the paint anyway, but as you can imagine, they are very hot.” Sophie paused, checking the progress of her worksheet-provider. “Okay, I think everyone’s got a worksheet. Go ahead and get discussing, my little cauldron detectives!”
OOC: Relevant information regarding the Girding Potion: the most complete one (gold) should be decidedly green, and as quality of the cauldron drops and therefore time required increases (silver, then pewter), it will be more blue. So gold cauldron: green potion, silver potion: blue-green, and pewter cauldron: mostly blue. The order they sit across is, left to right, pewter, gold, silver. Be good, follow the rules, and have fun!
Subthreads: Which one is which? by Kit Reid, Aladren with Victor Callahan, Crotalus
But black is so gloomy. (Tag Ayla Tremaine) by Simon Mordue, Crotalus with Ayla Tremaine, Teppenpaw, Professor O'Malley
I'd rather it painted red. by Farrah Welsh (Aladren) with Amelia Layne, Aladren
Here we go again... by Kellen Mormont, Aladren with Jozua Sparks, Teppenpaw
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Professor Sophie O'Malley
I see a cauldron and I wanted painted black~ [Years I-II]
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Professor Sophie O'Malley
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Kit Reid, Aladren
October 31, 2016 8:32 PM
Which one is which? by Kit Reid, Aladren
Entering the room, Kit noticed that there were three cauldrons brewing at every set of desks. She raised an eyebrow out of curiosity before heading to her desk at the front of the room. After placing her bag on the floor, Kit pulled out a compact mirror. She checked her hair to make sure her blonde bun was still neat and there were no stray hairs. Satisfied, she closed her compact and put it away.The Aladren didn’t have long to wait before finding out what the lesson of the day was. She leaned forward to peer at the cauldrons. They all looked black to her, but the professor said that was just an illusion. She thought it was a pretty good illusion.
When asked what the Girding Potion did, Kit’s hand shot up in the air. “The Girding Potion is used to increase endurance,” she answered. She had done all of the required reading, which had also stated that the potion had a tendency toward foul odor. It certainly did have that. She wrinkled her nose in distaste. She didn’t think that she would ever use the potion simply for the fact that she didn’t want to swallow something that smelled.
Receiving her sheet of questions, Kit looked over them with interest. Knowing what the questions were before going further was always a good idea, because then she would know what to look for when examining the potions. Turning to the person next to her, she assumed they were partners since they were sitting together. It might have been silly to do so, but it seemed just as silly to play musical chairs. “The first question seems pretty easy. It’s just asking about which potion is different from the others. The middle one looks more blue than the others. Do you want to take the second question?”
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Kit Reid, Aladren
Which one is which?
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Kit Reid, Aladren
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Victor Callahan, Crotalus
November 02, 2016 2:08 PM
I'm sure you know better than I do! by Victor Callahan, Crotalus
Potions was a lesson that was pretty cool by Victor’s standards. Okay, there was little wand-waving and you didn’t actually get to fight anything, but there were some pretty icky ingredients and you often ended up making some pretty awesome things! Today’s Girding Potion was a good example, even if he didn’t know what it was until Kit gave the answer to Professor O’Malley. Perhaps he should have done the set reading, but there were so many things that were more interesting to do than read a textbook! Luckily he seemed to have got away with it, at least for now.However, his optimism didn’t hold for very long. As Professor O’Malley started to explain today’s task, Victor began to realise that doing the reading would probably have been a good idea. Still, there was nothing wrong with ‘consulting’ the textbook whilst working, so he wasn’t overly concerned about his ability to participate. Victor did have a tendency to be a little lazy when it came to homework, and Potions was no exception.
Now that he knew what the Girding Potion actually did, he vaguely recognised the name. He was pretty sure there’d been a small scandal surrounding its use in the broom racing world a few years back. It was definitely one of the banned substances. Remembering its existence in relation to broom racing quickly increased Victor’s interest in today’s lesson. Anything that could be linked to broom racing immediately became a lot cooler in his eyes, as the sport was one he followed avidly!
The lesson didn’t sound like it was going to be really easy, but hopefully the textbook would give him more of an idea of how to actually answer the questions. He wasn’t stupid enough to go ahead and touch the cauldrons, not that he thought he’d manage to tell the cauldrons apart by feel anyway. He wasn’t some kind of metal-whisperer, and anyway he much preferred his hands unburned. Burnt hands weren’t very useful for eating or flying or doing anything, really.
Luckily for Victor, the girl-who-had-answered-the-question was sitting next to him, and had obviously decided that he wasn’t repulsive enough for her to feel the need to move. This non-burnt look was evidently working for him. He recognised Kit from other lessons, enough to be fairly sure that she was a fellow pureblood which, combined with her being clever and not bad looking, meant that she was a pretty perfect partner. Until, that was, she took the easy question and suggested he did a potentially harder one.
“Don’t you mean green?” he asked, peering into the middle cauldron. Unless he’d suddenly become colour blind, the middle cauldron wasn’t really blue at all, a fact that was confirmed when Kit realised her mistake.
“Well,” replied Victor, drawing out the syllables as he quickly searched for and scanned the relevant page in his textbook before giving Kit an answer for the second question. The level of blueness seemed to be an important thing, so he decided to continue along those lines. “I reckon this one looks the most blue,” he suggested, pointing at the left-hand cauldron and smiling hopefully at Ayla. If he was in luck, his comment would vaguely answer the question, or at least give the impression that he knew what he was on about. He wasn’t fussed about being the best, but he didn’t want Kit to regret staying and working with him. Victor was not the sort of boy who liked to feel unwanted.
OOC: Kit’s reaction to the Wrong Colour confirmed by her author!
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Victor Callahan, Crotalus
I'm sure you know better than I do!
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Victor Callahan, Crotalus
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Kit
November 03, 2016 3:40 PM
It's a group effort by Kit
A rose hue rose to her cheeks when Victor corrected her. “Oh, no!” Kit cried with obvious embarrassment. She felt utterly stupid for having stated the wrong color. How could she have done such a thing? Sometimes, it seemed like her brain and mouth crossed wires. Like one was moving faster than the other. “I’m sorry. I meant green.”There was no point in dwelling on her mistake though. Of course, it was something she would have to be careful of in the future. She wouldn’t want to miss points on something so silly when she actually knew the answer. She was glad that Victor continued on with the answer to the second question. Focusing on his reply, she looked at the one he was pointing at, which did look bluer than the others. “I agree. So, that makes the third one something in between. Okay, so then this goes on to ask about the type of cauldrons.”
She was pretty sure she knew the answer, because it was a lot like jewelry. Gold tended to be more expensive than silver and depending on the gold could get more pricey like if it were white or rose gold. She figured cauldrons were like that. So, gold was probably the best with silver following behind, which left pewter at the end. Double-checking the book, she found what she was looking for. “It says here that gold cauldrons produce the best quality while silvers are second and pewters are a lower quality.”
She wrote the information they had collected so far on the sheet. Glancing down the paper, Kit frowned at the question that had to do with why one would use an endurance potion. She wasn’t sure about that question. She was skipping over the next couple of questions. “Oh, that one is a little difficult. It’s asking why the potion would be used. I really don’t know. Do you have any thoughts?”
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Kit
It's a group effort
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Kit
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Victor
November 09, 2016 3:51 PM
And I can answer this question! by Victor
Victor didn’t really think much about Kit’s mistake. Things like that just happened. Sometimes your mouth decided to ignore what your brain was telling it to do, and it didn’t mean he thought Kit was stupid. After all, she was an Aladren, and you had to be clever to be in Aladren. There was a reason that he hadn’t been chosen for that house.The problem of which type of cauldron was best was something Victor wasn’t too confident about. A very brief skim of the text hadn’t fully revealed the answer, and he was just starting to go through it more thoroughly (whilst trying to look as if he was just refreshing his memory, rather than reading it for the first time) when Kit found the answer. He jotted down what she’d just said, not entirely sure how that connected with the potions’ colours but not wanting to look stupid or give away that he hadn’t done the reading. After all, this was his first proper conversation with her, and he didn’t want her leaving the class unimpressed by Victor Callahan. Even worse, she might say something negative to Ayla, and Victor found himself wanting to impress her.
He brightened when Kit confessed to being unsure about the next question. He wasn’t enjoying her struggles, more glad that there was a question he could help her with. “Ah, well actually I do have a few ideas,” he replied confidently. This was, for him, an easy question. “Endurance potions are banned in lots of sports - like broom racing, for definite - because players cheat using them. So I guess athletes sometimes use them.” He understood why endurance potions would help an athlete, but personally he didn’t think it would be very satisfying to know you’d won a race just because you cheated. Surely that would just take away your reasons to be proud of yourself? You wouldn’t really be able to say you were the best if you’d needed the help of a potion to win!
“So, which cauldron do you think is which?” he asked, quickly giving the question to Kit before she could ask him. Hopefully she’d assume that he was just giving her the chance to answer.
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Victor
And I can answer this question!
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Victor
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Kit
November 10, 2016 7:43 PM
We rock! by Kit
Kit nodded thoughtfully at what Victor was saying. “Yeah, that makes sense. Basically, misuse of potions in athletics. So, this one in particular gives the racers an unfair advantage by allowing them to continue longer than others, which would equal an unearned win. Actually…”She looked back over the questions that she had skipped. Everything was connecting in her mind. “So, the quality of the cauldron affects the quality of the potions…” Kit flipped through the book again. “That means that the middle one is gold one and is the highest quality potion. The left one is the pewter and the lowest quality and the right one is silver, which is a mid-grade quality.”
Kit followed the line of questioning. She didn’t mean to take over, but academics excited her slightly. “And it makes sense for why the Girding Potion would be banned in sports, because if the potion were brewed at different levels then how powerful the potion is would affect the performance of the player. Well, really, it would affect the performance of anyone.” Kit jotted all of this on the sheet. She thought they were answering the questions pretty well.
“This looks pretty good,” Kit said, as she looked over their answers. “Great job with the Endurance Use.” She looked over with a grin. “I definitely wouldn’t have thought of misuse in athletics.” Being brought up by a socialite and being female, the only thing that she was supposed to know about athletics was to support whatever team the men in your family supported.
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Kit
We rock!
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Kit
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Victor
November 17, 2016 2:39 PM
Go team! by Victor
Victory! Kit thought he made sense! Of course he had made sense - if the subject was related to broom racing, Victor knew his stuff - but she didn’t think he was useless, and she didn’t seem to realised that he had perhaps forgotten to do the homework. That definitely equalled success in his eyes.Then Kit seemed to have some kind of epiphany, and next thing Victor knew she was explaining the answers to the task to him, which he was definitely okay with. He noted down everything that she was saying on his answer sheet, aware that he’d forget it if he didn’t, and he did actually want to complete the task and get decent marks. He didn’t quite understand her further point about the Endurance Potion being used in sports - surely the fact that it wasn’t you doing the winning, but instead the potion, was enough? - but he decided that Professor O’Malley would probably like an extra-nerdy answer.
Victor shrugged as Kit complimented him, hiding his pleasure at being acknowledged as a genius (ha! As if - it was always Jehan who was the genius in the family) under an air of nonchalance. “Oh, well, I guess it’s easy to think of things like that when you’re into sports,” he replied. “And you’re the one who had the, um, the colour-quality brainwave.” Credit where credit was due, Victor would have struggled to link the two together.
All in all, things did seem to be going pretty well for them. “We make a good team,” he said, grinning back at Kit.
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Victor
Go team!
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Victor
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