Spicy can be fun on Potions

Isis Carter-Xavier

March 04, 2024 8:45 PM

Like insecticide, but spicier! [Intermediates] by Isis Carter-Xavier

All things considered, Isis considered herself a fairly decent wife and mother at this point. For example, she had done her best so far this year not to embarrass Dora now that she was a student. Of course, Dora was a sweet young girl who - thankfully - did not seem especially embarrassed to have her entire immediate family at school with her, so that wasn’t as difficult as it could be. Otto was adjusting well to the way things were now, and while he definitely missed following his big sister around, he was finding more independence as the school year went on. And when asked to fill in for a Potions class and looking at the options on the lesson plan, she chose to brew doxycide, having heard some news reports of doxies taking up residence in areas far warmer than their usual cool climates (ie, her husband’s greenhouses) just in case.

“Today is a brewing day,” she announced to the class once the Intermediates had all taken their seats. “So either robes off or sleeves rolled up. Buddy up, and turn to page 115 in your text books for instructions on brewing doxycide. Does anyone know what a doxy is?” she asked. Isis awarded 5 points to the student who provided the best answer. “Great! You've been paying attention in Care of Magical Creatures, I see. Doxies tend to be known as pests, and this Potions is designed to control infestations.”

“Extra ingredients are up here if you need,” she concluded. “Please make sure you wear your gloves, especially when handling the Bundimun acid. We don’t need any trips to Miss Katey today.”

OOC: Instructions, per HP Wiki:

Juice the Bundimun*. Add the Bundimun acid to the cauldron and stir quickly.
Grind the Streeler shells and add to cauldron.
Stir the potion then heat.
Add chopped dragon liver and stir vigorously.
Add a dash of hemlock essence and stir again.
Add a glug of cowbane essence and a dash of tormentil tincture.
Stir slowly then heat the cauldron.
Wave your wand over the cauldron to finish the potion.

*We'll be assuming we've got some pre-juiced Bundimum acid, for simplicity's sake.

Subthreads:

Spicy can be fun by Ida Stanford with Alexander Pierce

Bigger Pests, Spicier Potion. Makes Sense. by Cole Pierce with Piper Wilson

Insects care about flavor? by Desmond Brockert

*sighs* by Olaf Brockert

12 Isis Carter-Xavier Like insecticide, but spicier! [Intermediates] 31 1 5

Ida Stanford

March 05, 2024 9:29 PM

Spicy can be fun by Ida Stanford

Ida liked potions class. Rather, for the most part she liked all of her classes and potions was no exception. She did like brewing days in potions class more so than the strictly learning days. There were clear instructions to follow, precise steps that lead you to the desired outcome. It felt very nice and orderly. She had started taking Muggle Studies this year and had learned a little bit about their 'science'. Parts of it sounded a bit similar to making potions in that regard.

As instructed, she removed her robes in preparation for brewing, found a partner and found the correct page in the text book. Someone else answered the Professor's question while she was still locating the correct page, but she had known what a Doxy was. Care of Magical Creatures not withstanding, her parents had told her a story or two of their investigations where they had factored in. Apparently they could indeed be quite the pests.

Once the instructions were complete, Ida pulled on her gloves. Not going to see Miss Katey sounded like a good idea. Then she read over the instructions a few times to get them firmly set in her mind. She particularly made a mental note that they weren't to heat the cauldron until after the Acid and Streeler shells were added. The second heating instruction wasn't very clear to her though, so she turned to her partner.

"What do you make of the heating instruction after adding the tormentil tincture? We heat it beforehand after the Streeler shells. It doesn't mention when to remove the heat between those steps. Do you think the contents need to cool down completely before the heat is added the second time?"

2 Ida Stanford Spicy can be fun 1571 0 5

Cole Pierce

March 06, 2024 10:21 PM

Bigger Pests, Spicier Potion. Makes Sense. by Cole Pierce

Cole looked mildly surprised to find Professor Carter-Xavier at the front of the potions room when he walked in rather than Professor Brooding-Hawthorne, but he smiled and waved at the Pecari Head-of-House who was married to his own Head-of-House. (And briefly wondered if that made Teppenpaws and Pecaris more closely related to each other than to the other two Houses? And then wondered if that was true regardless of who was Heading them, because Lenny's parents were both Pecaris and they'd made a Teppenpaw so there must be some degree of overlap there.)

He took a seat near the middle of the room, as was his norm, saving a seat next to him for one of his friends (pretty much the entire fifth year class and most of the fourth years and some of the third years fit this criteria; Cole's bar for defining friendship was not high and could basically be summed up as 'anyone who smiled and said hi to him in the hall', though of course there were also a fair number of people he was much closer to than that who he would more actively invite to take that seat, though basically anyone who liked him enough to ask if the seat next to him was taken was welcome to it).

The rest of the class arrived and Professor Carter-Xavier started the lesson. She didn't give much of a lecture, just made sure they knew what doxies where and that they were making a potion to be a repellant for them. He turned to the designated page number and read over the instructions. As a fifth year going into his final semester of Intermediate Potions, it didn't look too bad. The Bundimun was already juiced, so basically the only prep they needed to do was grinding the streeler shells and chopping the dragon liver. He'd realized his 'dash' of potion ingredients had been getting bigger lately, due to having bigger hands that could easily hold more, but he suspected he might have been putting in too little before because his potions were turning out better recently.

"Do you remember what a glug is, or should I look it up in the glossary?" he asked his partner who had claimed his saved seat. He vaguely recalled hearing the term before, and obviously, it was some kind of unit of measure (probably just as annoyingly non-standardized as a 'dash' since nothing else in this recipe called for exact precision), but he couldn't pull anything more specific for what it meant out of his memory.

1 Cole Pierce Bigger Pests, Spicier Potion. Makes Sense. 1546 0 5

Alexander Pierce

March 20, 2024 9:51 PM

If we were older, I might think you were flirting by Alexander Pierce

Alexander arrived in potions and gave the professor a double take when she wasn't the one he'd been expecting, but otherwise moved right to his normal seat and got ready for a long period of potions. Due to the length of brewing most potions, the class wasn't scheduled every day, but when it was, it was long. At least he liked potions though. Herbology was much worse. That was dull, dirty, and long.

He broke out a small smile when Professor Carter-Xavier announced they'd be brewing today. Brewing made the length of the class worthwhile. He removed his school robe entirely, not liking the way sleeves felt when rolled up, and his button up shirt underneath was perfectly presentable and professional-looking. He'd chosen a dark maroon one to wear today, precisely for this eventuality, as it wouldn't show stains as easily if something did splash onto it. Not that he'd ever wear it again if it did get a stain his cleaning spells couldn't remove, but he would need to wear it for the rest of the day at least, until he could get back to Crotalus to change.

He raised his hand to answer what a doxy was, but Professor Carter-Xavier called on somebody else first and he sat back in his chair and tried not to sulk over not getting the points for himself.

Alexander flipped to correct page for the instructions in his potions book and glanced over them. Before he was quite done, Ida asked a question and he looked back over that part over the process.

"I don't think it needs to cool down completely," he answered, basing his answer more on what wasn't stated than what was. "If that was important, they would have been more specific about removing the heat and waiting for it to cool. More likely, we just turn off the flame as a safety measure while we add the dragon liver so it doesn't burn. Those are pretty flammable. Then we add and stir a series of things into it pretty quickly, and heat seems not to be important again until the end. Does that make sense?" he checked, trusting her to notice if he was missing anything important since he was making most of that up as an educated guess, in the absence of more explicit instructions in the book.

1 Alexander Pierce If we were older, I might think you were flirting 1566 0 5

Desmond Brockert

April 22, 2024 1:18 PM

Insects care about flavor? by Desmond Brockert

After half a year of being in Intermediate classes, Desmond had to say that he was really enjoying them. Of course, he had expected to, since they were more challenging than Beginner classes and he did like to be challenged academically. Granted, they were still pretty easy and he regularly tried to do what the fourth years were supposed to do. Obviously Desmond also did the third year assignments if they differed because that was a requirement and he was big on doing what was required.That was how one succeeded in life, you did what you were told and what you were supposed to and if you did that well enough, maybe you would someday get to at least enforce requirements if not to decide what they were yourself.

However, whenever Desmond could, he went above and beyond. For one thing, doing the bare minimum, especially academically, was anathema to him. How anyone did not hold themselves to the highest standards in all things was a difficult concept to him, and this was considering that he had a hard time admitting he found a concept difficult. Academic ones were never a problem but sometimes people acted in baffling ways.

Ways that he found just plain wrong when he felt there was definitely a right way to act. Obviously, his older sister sprang to mind because she most definitely did not act like she should. Now, contrary to what some might assume, Desmond did not expect all girls to act like proper pureblood ladies, because some had not grown up in that environment and did not know to act that way. Liesl did so he expected her to know how to behave herself and act accordingly.

Also, if some random non-pureblood girl acted improper and unladylike, it didn’t personally embarrass him like it did when it was his older sister. Like, Miss Collindale’s behavior at the Opening Feast had been appalling as she was way too old to be throwing temper tantrums in public and he’d hated witnessing it because regardless of background, she had to know that was unacceptable behavior in public, but she was not associated with him in any way-a status that he planned to keep as it was.

On the other hand, with Liesl, Desmond did not want people to mention what a freak his sister was. Right or not, people judged you based on things like that and if people got confused and thought the sixth year was a distant cousin of his, he wouldn’t mind a bit. One good thing about being a Brockert was that having such a huge complicated family was that while he couldn’t pretend not to be related to Liesl at all, there were still people with the same last name that he was not as closely related to and while for some, the shared last name would have given it away, that wasn't the case for Brockerts and people wouldn’t necessarily assume she was his sister.

Fortunately, he at least didn’t have to take classes with her, which made them all the better. Desmond listened as Professor Carter-Xavier gave today’s lesson. Once she was finished, he turned to the person next to him. “Would you like to work together?” He asked. He was always careful to sit next to people he found suitable to spend time with.

11 Desmond Brockert Insects care about flavor? 1572 0 5

Olaf Brockert

April 24, 2024 1:30 PM

sighs by Olaf Brockert

The term was wearing on and nothing was really going on in Olaf’s life that was worth talking about. Which was fine with him since he preferred reading to talking anyway, and honestly, it was not as if anyone else had much worth talking about either, but for some weird reason, they always seemed to think that they did.

Which was sort of self important of them, if he really thought about it. Why did people think what they had to say was so valuable? Occasionally, someone said something useful and interesting but mostly people were pretty dull. And if people at school were this boring, Olaf shuddered to think about how dreadful society balls were going to be. At Sonora, people could and did talk about whatever they wanted,though he knew that there were people like Christopher who tried to keep to themselves and not let others see who they were -and the Aladren sincerely wished more people were quiet like that even though he didn’t like why Chris specifically was like that.

At balls, from what Olaf gathered based on what his sisters and cousins said, and the fact that how Liesl wanted to present herself was an issue, people made small talk and talked about even more boring things than they did otherwise, because they had to be polite and proper and make conversation on topics that were approved. Which from what he understood was the driest, dullest things imaginable, like talking about the weather.

And worse, Quidditch. He understood that tended to be the standard among boys, particularly younger ones who had yet to grow up and get into a career. Then Olaf thought they might end up talking about work. Which sounded like…well, some people did not have very interesting jobs but literally anything was better than Quidditch. Even dancing a thing that Olaf had very little use for. He knew how to do it if he had to-and he probably would have to since he was most likely considered very eligible though he certainly didn’t want to think of himself as being such-but he didn’t care for it much and would rather not do it.

Still, it was better than talking about Quidditch which not only was super boring, but a topic that Olaf really actually knew very little about. He was okay with this, but knew some people wouldn’t be. Christopher wasn’t wrong about that. There were sadly other people out there like Uncle Eustace, they just didn’t happen to be at Sonora. Unlike his cousin though, he didn’t really care what some Neanderthals thought of him. He simply didn’t want to deal with them and was glad he had one more summer of hiding out and reading instead of being forced to interact with other people.

And he didn’t want to really deal with any of his classmates either but unfortunately, Professor Carter-Xavier told them they had to “buddy up”. Everything else that she’d said, with regards to the lesson was useful and important and interesting, worth saying, but really? Olaf could do this on his own.

He took off his robes and, sighing to himself, turned to his classmate. “Will you work with me on this assignment?” It was most likely for the best if he picked for himself instead of ending up stuck with Leo or Xarryn or someone else that he'd find more difficult to deal with than the average person.

11 Olaf Brockert *sighs* 1564 0 5

Piper Wilson

April 24, 2024 2:50 PM

Yup, with all the precise measurements. by Piper Wilson

Ever since the Returning Feast, Piper had been racking her brain for ideas for Fair topics. Obviously, she wanted to participate in it and she wanted to work with her friends but this whole Fair was about passion projects and she was unsure that she had a passion. Like, there were people who could hear that and had a topic come instantly to mind. Maybe they wouldn’t necessarily want to participate in the Fair-Kira, for example, was passionate about fairy tales and myths and folklore,but she was really shy, and had never really liked putting herself out there-but they had a passion , something they enjoyed, that made them get up every day.

And Piper wished she had that. She was lucky in many ways, she had good friends, parents who were loving and sane, that didn’t expect too much from her or Gabriel, and she wasn’t cripplingly shy and insecure. However, not having a particular passion really and truly bothered her. She wanted to be excited by something, she wanted to get up every day having something that she looked forward to doing. She liked to spend time with her friends, but that wasn’t the same thing at all. Piper wanted to be the person that when someone mentioned passion projects, she thought of a topic that she wanted to do right away.

However, she wasn’t. Which sort of depressed her. She had never thought of herself as someone who was…well, passionless. Being passionless was something that she associated with very, well not quiet people, as Kira and Ryan and some of her other cousins were quiet, and still had things that they were passionate about, but people who were…less enthusiastic about life in general. The Olaf Brockerts of the world. Except that even Olaf was very clearly passionate about reading.

Piper, on the other hand, had been desperately trying to figure out a topic that made her tick but so far hadn’t been able to come up with something. She was involved in both types of art club, and that was fun but she didn’t really see art as something that made her feel alive. Nor did any of her classes speak to her that way. The things that truly thrilled her were spending time with friends and family and doing school activities.

Which was why she wanted to do the Fair in the first place. Even if Piper had a thing that she was passionate about, she still would have been willing to do something that her friends wanted, because it was better to pick something that they’d all enjoy. Like if she’d been passionate about something and it happened to be something that one of her friends couldn’t stand, she would want to do something that they all liked for the Fair. They got enough of researching things that they didn’t necessarily find interesting for classes.

And today’s potions lesson wasn’t giving her much for ideas either. It was definitely a lesson that was useful and all-though Piper had never been much of a gardener, herbology was interesting enough sometimes but not something that excited her, not something she lived for, not something she really did much outside of class and assignments-but pest control was never going to be something that she had tons of enthusiasm for. After all, that was essentially killing, and while Piper wasn’t going to go vegan like Lenny, the idea of being passionate about killing anything was just wrong .

Though she did envy Gwendolyn’s passion for researching people who were passionate about killing. Maybe it was a bit out there, but Piper was sure her distant cousin was one of those people who instantly knew what she wanted to do for the Fair, if she indeed wanted to be involved. It was a thing that made the Aladren unique and interesting.

Then again, so was Cole, and he hadn’t had a specific passion either. Which made Piper feel better because if the other Teppenpaw wasn’t boring-and he absolutely wasn’t-then maybe neither was she. Of course, she would never call another person boring to begin with, because that was just incredibly mean and anyway, she firmly believed that everyone had something interesting about them, even if it was something that they didn’t want others to know about. Usually those were things that were the most interesting and not the things that people talked about at society balls. Piper personally preferred more intimate gatherings and liked to throw slumber parties for the female cousins around her age, people like Gwendolyn and Liesl who she wasn’t as closely related to, which allowed her to get to know them better away from school where they all traveled in mostly different circles. That was how she knew about the Aladren’s interest in the criminal psyche.

“Yeah, I think that might be a fairly non-standard measurement.” Piper replied. “I mean, I’m not sure how much exactly a dash is either. Maybe the cowbane essence makes a glug as it comes out of its jar?”

11 Piper Wilson Yup, with all the precise measurements. 1556 0 5