Clark Dill
July 24, 2015 11:01 PM
Trespassing and Experimenting by Clark Dill
Clark had, in his beginner years, given himself a more thorough tour of the school than Mr. Xavier had (he assumed) given to the first years this year. Obviously, the library had gotten top billing, and he had explored the Labyrinth deeply enough that an elf had appeared and kindly asked him if he needed help finding his way back (Clark had not been given the impression that refusal of this friendly offer was an option). Beyond those obvious areas of exploration, though, the abandoned elective classrooms were also great sources of interest to him.The Astronomy classroom had been like a gift, and he'd begun thinking of it as his own personal Independent Study room, where he was alone with the cosmos. The enchantment projector in particular was fascinating, and it had only taken a few months to figure out the charms and spells to make it work and display the images he wanted it to project.
Where the Astronomy room was his refuge, the Muggle Studies room was his treasure trove. The prize jewel in it was the electric outlets that actually worked. The pervasive magic of the school would sizzle his laptop in seconds, so he kept that home, but some of his other electronics came with him for him to enjoy here.
That wasn't what he was doing today. Well, his CD player was plugged in for quiet background music (today it was the Star Wars soundtrack), but mostly he was here for the selection of bunsen burners and glass flasks. It had been years since the last Muggles Studies class had been offered, so there wasn't a stash of chemicals available to introduce magical folk to the wonders of Chemistry, but Clark's Chemistry Set from home had provided plenty of glass bottles full of different elements and compounds. He'd set those up in an empty storage cabinet at the back of the room in September for use during the year.
Right now, he had his Chemistry Textbook (it was not a formal Independent Study like Astronomy was, but he was trying to keep up with all the Sciences he should be taking had he been in muggle high school - and high school Chemistry students did Chemistry experiments) and the bottles he needed for today's experiment laid out on his 'lab' table. The book was open to a page about Sodium Hydroxide Titration.
His goal, according to the lesson, was to use hydrochloric acid to neutralize the Sodium Hydroxide, then crystallize sodium chloride.
As such, he had a flask full of yellow-orange sodium hydroxide solution setting on a white paper (so to be able to more easily identify color changes), and a burette set up above it with the diluted hydrochloric acid. Off to the side, a bunsen burner waited for the part where he tried to evaporate out the water to get the sodium chloride crystals.
He hadn't gotten that far yet, though, so the burner was off. Currently, Clark was turning the knob of the burette to allow a few drops of acid to fall into the flask at a time, swirling the flask to see if it had turned red yet, then repeating the process. He was very concentrated on this task, watching intently for the moment the solution changed color, indicating he had achieved a perfectly neutral product.
If anyone entered the classroom right now, he wouldn't know it until it was far too late to hide what he was doing. And what he was doing - between the mildly dangerous acids and bases, the bunsen burner, and the use of an unused classroom and some of its equipment without permission - he was pretty sure, would very likely be frowned upon by the school administration.
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Clark Dill
Trespassing and Experimenting
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Clark Dill
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Ingrid Wolseithcrafte
July 28, 2015 12:28 AM
Transgressions and Excuses by Ingrid Wolseithcrafte
“What are you doing?” the question was genuinely curious, or perhaps more utterly mystified. Either way, it certainly was not the stern and recriminatory tone of an authority figure who could see full well what was being done but who did not approve of said activity.
When Ingrid had entered the Muggle Studies classroom, finding it not nearly as unoccupied as she had expected, she had considered backing away quietly but, as usual, her curiosity had got the better of her. She thought she might not find the answer overly interesting, given that it was that Aladren science club kid, but she still had to know. She glanced over her shoulder but the corridor was still deserted. Besides, he stood to get in way more trouble than she did if anyone came along. He was actually doing stuff. She was just lost.
Or that’s what she would be telling a certain selection of teachers, should they happen to stumble upon her here. There were some where she’d play the curiosity angle - that she was just taking an interest in Muggle culture and trying to find out a bit more about it. There were ones that sang that happy clappy kumbaya let’s all get along kind of tune, whom she was sure would lap it up. However, she wouldn’t be caught dead admitting such a thing to a professor from a proper background. If Headmaster Brockert caught her, she thought that excuse would get her into more trouble - he certainly would look down on her and her family for having such odd tendencies. In that case, and perhaps with Professor Pye too, she was merely lost.
In fact, neither of these were her true reason for seeking out the Muggle Studies room, but whatever the background of the teacher, she knew they would all be united at being unimpressed by her real reason. She had tried, really. At least as much as she had felt capable of. Certainly her own impatience with such tasks was a contributory factor to her giving up, and perhaps she hadn’t persevered as long as some of her classmates might have. But then, could one’s own nature, one’s tolerance for such things, be really deemed to be one’s own fault, rather than simply the lot that the personality Gods had dealt out? Ingrid was good at many other things but sticking with a difficult homework task was not one of them. Still, she had no wish to be shown up or get detention. She had heard rumours that Muggles had a machine called the Internet, which did your homework for you. It seemed unlikely that the school would keep such a thing on the premises but she had thought it worth a shot. She glanced at the little pile on Clark’s desk, suddenly rather glad to find him here, as she had no idea what an Internet machine would look like.
“Do you know what all the things here do?” she asked cautiously. She wasn’t willing to rule out the possibility that he was here on official sanctioned nerd business, and would rat her out if he found out that she wanted to cheat on her homework.
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Ingrid Wolseithcrafte
Transgressions and Excuses
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Ingrid Wolseithcrafte
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