Potions-2 post by Sat 11/10 1pm E.

[Evelyn Sparrow]

Evelyn sat at her desk, a cauldron sat in its usual location, filled with a substance that didn’t particularly smell quick nice. Several sheets of paper were on her desk marked with a few comments and grades. If one were to examine these papers they would noticed that it seemed to be an evaluation of sorts. In fact it was the grades she intended on passing out to her students as they arrived. The potions she had received last class were superb, or at least most of them were. A few held disappointment as she noted that simple mistakes were made, and they could have been avoided with relative ease.

As she waited the arrival of her students she hoped that they had all taken the time to learn from their previous mistakes of tardiness. After all it did a class no good to be interrupted every minuet and a half after it began by some lazy student who felt it alright to not plan accordingly for their lessons. As she marked a few more comments on her final paper she heard the clock tick forward, moving the time to 7 minuets before the start of class.

Everything was in order, her personal stores of ingredients were fully stocked, and readily available for any student that failed to have the necessary ingredients for class. Although she had hoped that each student would make sure that they provided them selves with a fully functional potions ingredient kit as called for in their list of supplies they received in July. After all, she should not be made to provide for an entire class of students. She striated her desk, and was organizing her quills and inks when she heard the class room door creak open with the arrival of her first student of the class.

[Caitlin Collins]

Caitlin hurried down the corridor to the dungeons, hoping she would get to the classroom before anyone else so she could ensure that her name had been put down correctly. Having started a little later than everyone else so she could attend her grandma's funeral, she had been unable to come to the first Potions lesson.

She was a fairly good potion maker, having had the chance to practice quite a lot in India, and she needed a NEWT in Potions to become a Healer at St Mungo's - her greatest amition after returning to the placeshe had lived for five years and almost viewed as her home country.

Entering the classroom Caity was glad to see that she was indeed the first student to arrive. She cautiously approached the desk at the front of the room, having never met this teacher before.

"Professor?" she began quietly, not wanting to interrupt anything but knowing this would be her only chance. "My name is Caitlin Collins and I just transferred from India. I missed your first lesson, though, because of personal matters, and I just wanted to check I han't missed anything important and that my name had been added to your register correctly."

[quin]

Quin walked down the hall. Or rather, walked on her hands down the hall, her feet in the air and a backpack slung upsidedown on her back, Heno curled up asleep inside. Thinking quickly when she realized she had missed her first lesson, she decided that she had, "thrown up with a fever" and was to ill to go to class. Checking the doors, she came to the Potions Teachers room, and, seeing that she wasn't the first to arrive, smiled wickedly when she spotted Caitlin. After..walking on her hands through the door, she did a graceful back spring, landing on her feet, and walked casaully over to the teachers desk. "Sorry I missed the last lesson.." She said in a sweet, shy voice, "I got really sick, threw up and had a fever.."

This was a down right lie, she had been flying around outside and then kind of got trapped on one of the towers without a way down for the day. Needless to say, it was a full two, very hungry days until she got out. She wasn't half bad at potions, and enjoyed experimenting as much as creating, once she had blown up her cloak, pot, and half the contents of her dorm room when she mixed two ingreates together.

She put a friendly hand around Caitlins neck, and gave her a noggie. "Hey buddy.." She said teasingly, deciding not to say, Caity Poo.. Though it had been halasrious when the Ravenclaw thought it as her real name. Hiding a grin, she smiled pleasently.

[D'rorah Philosophy]

D'rorah made her way into the classroom with her materials. She had missed the first lesson, having been captive in the Shadow Realm. She would have far preferred to attend class... of course, she would have preferred almost anything to being tortured by the Shadow Mage.

Quietly, she selected a seat in the front of the classroom. As she passed two students she had not met, she nodded politely. "Good day, Professor Sparrow," she greeted. She made no move to excuse her tardiness. After all, she kept far ahead of her lessons and knew she would have missed nothing other than turning in a sample of whatever potion they had made in the previous class. And that, she reflected, was a matter which she could attend to after class.

Setting out her textbook and cauldron, she placed the potions kit with her supply of basic ingredients at the front of the table and quirked an eyebrow as she noticed a rather unpleasant odor. Her nose wrinkled slightly for a moment as she began scratching away in her notebook, figuring the smell would be less bothersome if she simply did not pay it any attention.

[Alessandro Darko]

Alessandro meandered slowly into the potions classroom, seeing a couple students already making themselves comfortable. He payed no mind to any of them as he made his way to a seat in the front row. He noticed D'rorah's presence a couple seats down, but made no attempt to speak to anyone, including the professor. He was, indeed, not in good spirits as he knew that he had made a debaucle out of his last potion, and was sure to have failed. He set his couldron on the ground beside his desk, laying his bag inside it, and crossed his arms on his tabletop, placing his head face down in his arms.

Hewlett is going to be very angry with me if I don't get an O.W.L in this class...I need to somehow get 1,000 times better at potionmaking before the end of the year, or else it's curtains... He thought dismally as he sulked there with very closed off body language. In truth Alessandro was not completely deficient in potions. What he lacked for the process was the attention to detail, and if he just strengthened that aspect, his potions would turn out as desired.

He finally looked up and pulled himself back into his chair with a sigh, a halfway frown on his face, as he awaited for the lesson to start, wondering if he'd survive the class this time.

[Keaira O'Connell]

Keaira walked confidently in to class. Potions was her favorite subject, one that she had studied profusely in her free time. She couldn’t help but remember her time spent with her grandmother when ever she brewed a potion. She had always taught Keaira that cooking was the easiest way to warm up a mans heart. After all who could resist a batch of their favorite cookies, freshly baked… or maybe cake was there thing, what ever it was, boys seemed to enjoy having baked goods thrust upon them.

Her eyes glanced about to see the students gathered in the classroom. Caitlin, D’rorah, Alessandro, and there was a Slytherin girl Keaira had never bothered to get to know. Keaira thought about the other night, meeting Caitlin, and fighting shadows all in the same night of her arrival. She hadn’t told Dee about the nights encounter and wasn’t sure if she should, mainly due to not wanting Alessandro to have to deal with detentions with the game keeper, and ‘detentions’ with D’rorah.

As she headed in to the room, she turned down the front row, and headed for Alessandro. She noticed that he seemed a little distant and sad, so she decided that maybe it was not the best time to crowd him, choosing to sit a seat further down and leaving an opening between them. If he showed that he wanted to move closer she would, but if not she would keep the distance. “Good Afternoon Professor” She said quietly as she took her seat, placing her cauldron on her desk, and pulling the materials out one by one, organizing everything on her desk.

[Evelyn Sparrow]

Evelyn smiled warmly as the students began filtering in to the classroom. Some she knew and recognized from her first class others she did not. The first student to enter was a miss. Caitlin Collins. Evelyn had remembered getting a notice about several new students. One of which was Caitlin. As the girl showed her interest in knowing whether or not she had been added to the roster, but before she could respond Evelyn’s attention was pulled to another student who had just walked in on her hands. She cleared her throat and spoke in a very stern and loud voice. “Miss Woods, I request that you refrain from such foolishness in my class unless you look forward to detentions in your free time. Also such excuses are not acceptable, as if you were ill you should have seen Miss Aku in the hospital wing and a full report would have been done. Now kindly refrain from lies and have a seat.”

Her reprimand of Quin out of the way Sparrow returned her attention back to Caitlin and glanced down at her list, scanning down the list of names. Most of which were not here yet, until she found Collins, Caitlin. As she looked at the girl she smiled and her voice took back the charactistic warmth that it normally contained “Yes, Miss Collins I have you down here. 6th year Hufflepuff, and in my notes it mentioned that you are working towards the qualifications of a healer, what a wonderful ambition. I do hope you intend to study hard; a Newt in potions is not easily achieved. I will be holding advance lessons in Potions later on in the semester, but for now every one works together in a little review. All you missed last class was a shrinking solution. Something to test the level of my students. Now please have a seat.”

Evelyn stood up, and gathered the papers she had been working on just before class. As she glanced to the faces that gather around she noticed that there were currently only 2 students from last class that had arrived so far. So she decided that she might as well begin handing back the papers. As she shuffled through them she approached Alessandro Darko’s desk, and pulled his out. His potion had turned a dark green, giving away the fact that he added his crocodile heart to early. Other things she had noted included the smell being slightly off due to less than adequate leech juice. Additional comments informed Darko that his potion less a frog in a half state between frog and tadpole. His paper was an A, but just barely. As she handed him the paper, she smiled “Mister Darko, Please pay more attention when you prepare your ingredients, if you don’t have enough of something feel free to take from the student supply.”

Stepping aside she reached Keaira, and smiled brightly. “Very nice job Miss O’Connell. You seem to have an aptitude for the class.” Professor Sparrow handed back her evaluation of the potion and then returned to her desk. It seemed that Keaira had received full marks on her potion and an outstanding to top it off. With that taken care of she felt it best to wait for a few more students to arrive before starting class.

[Zane Lucifer Bishop]

Despite his general brilliance Zee was not terribly good at potions. He wasn't awful at the subject by any means, but he didn't place much value in it and thus rarely tried very hard. He could follow directions well enough, but had no instinct for potion making. Thus his potions, when he'd bothered to carefully measure everything, would come out as fairly mediocre. He never experimented and thought any who did was a fool. He'd done well enough with his own studies that he felt confident he could handle the NEWT level class, and so once again had used his imperiused father to pull a few strings. Sometimes it all seemed too easy.

He looked about the dismal dungeon corridor as he neared the potions room. One more thing that made him wish he'd been in Ravenclaw. He wasn't so much a fan of the bleak dungeon walls, vastly preferring the many towers the school had. Ah well, he knew the hat wasn't wrong to place him in Slytherin, though he almost wished he had some sort of regard for the lives of others and could have been placed in Ravenclaw. Almost.

Zee glanced into the room before entering, making a quick check of who was present. He strode in and immediately dropped into the seat directly beside Alessandro, figuring this as opportune a time as any to begin ingratiating himself with the boy. He sat opposite Keaira, leaving the seat between her and the Ravenclaw empty. Perhaps he should've sat there as he also wished to move closer to the Slytherin prefect, but that would leave no empty seats beside him. He couldn't bring himself to rule out the possibility of sitting beside a certain other prefect however, and was hoping someone else would occupy the seat on Darko's other side before she arrived. If indeed she was even coming. Zee wasn't sure she was taking NEWT level potions.

"Hey, Alessandro, are you feeling all right?"

Zee smiled warmly, keeping the typical cockiness out of his expression for the sake of not appearing condescending.

[Caitlin Collins]

Caitlin groaned inwardly when Quin waltzed into the room, and glared at the Slytherin when she adressed her. She gave the younger girl a disbelieving glance at her story of being ill. A more likely story was that she'd been playing a prank and it went wrong, or she'd simply forgotten the lesson was on. Luckily, the teacher didn't seem to appreciate Quin's manner either and quickly rebuked her. She was glad to hear that her name had been entered correctly and that Professor Sparrow approved of her ambition.

She turned and made her way to a seat as far away as possible from Quin. As she retrieved her notes and writing materials from her bag, she glanced around to see who else was in the room so far. She knew all of them by name, but only really knew Alessandro and Quin. There was no way in hell she would ever voluntarily start up a conversation with Quin, and Alessandro didn't look too awake right now, so she turned the direction of her gaze to the other students. Apart from Jacques, their whole expeditionary force into the forest was there already. She glanced over at the door, wondering who else would arrive before class started.

[quin]

Quin shrugged woefully and jauntily walked to the back of the room, determinedly fallowing Caitlin. Heh heh She thought, sitting down next to her with an overly bright smile, though her eyes danced with an evil delight. She set up her colldrin, allining her ingredints on the table in a mess. Well, it a mess that looked perfectly normal to Quin, and could pick frog spawn from leek algee with her eyes closed, and leaned back in her chair, casting Caitlin a malisious glance.

"So, Caity Poo," She said in a low voice, one that carried to Caitlin, but not to those around her, "How have you been sense are little chats in the foyer and the tower?" She smiled innocently, and glanced over to the door, wondering who else would arrive.

[Jason Cruz]

The dungeons: definitely not Jason's favorite place ever. They were cold and creepy, neither of which were high on his list of preferences for any location. His cauldron swinging at his side, Jason headed down from the entrance hall to the bleak stone labyrinth. Feeling overly cautious of late, he paused at the door to the potions classroom and peered in.

He recognized a few students: Caity, the girl he'd briefly met earlier, not far from this room actually; Quin, the irritating Slytherin he'd met on the sixth floor, also briefly; Alessandro, one of a pair of Ravenclaw boys he'd befriended (or who had befriended him) earlier that year; and three students he had seen before but wasn't really familiar with. Alessandro was looking a little down. He'd been less than thrilled in the Ancient Runes class as well, but that seemed to be due to the seating chart Professor Choi had instated. Jason didn't know what could be bothering him now.

Sliding through the door into the room, he decided to sit by the Ravenclaw and find out. He knew that whatever had been bothering him concerning Wyst had been rectified and was curious to see what new malady had assailed him, hoping it was nothing serious. Jason dropped into the seat between Alessandro and the Slytherin girl he didn't know.

As soon as he sat down he recognized her as the girl Alessandro had been talking with at the Slytherin table those weeks ago at lunch. He suddenly felt very awkward, wondering if perhaps he shouldn't have sat between them. Thinking it would only seem more awkward to suddenly vacate his chosen seat, he tried to hurriedly set up his equipment. In his haste to lift the cauldron onto the desk, he banged it loudly off the side. Jason's face flushed predictable as he set out his mixing spoon and ingredient pouch, keeping his eyes locked on the bottom of his cauldron as if there were something terribly fascinating inside. He'd forgotten all about asking Alessandro what was going on.

[Alessandro Darko]

Alessandro looked up at Professor Sparrow as she passed him his grading parchment. He couldn't believe his eyes. He looked around the room as if this was some sick joke that everyone was in on, but it appeared quite the opposite. An A?? he thought in bewilderment. He was sure to have completely bombed the potion and was praying for a P at the most. Thank goodness he passed. He let out a sigh of relief and his spirits instantly picked back up. He actually had the motivation to try and exceed expectations in class today.

Picking up his cauldron and setting it atop his table surface, Zane Bishop plopped down in the seat beside him. He inquired as to if he was feeling alright, which implied that he must have witnessed his previous gloomy expression.

"Oh hey Zee..." Alessandro said lightly giving him half a smile as he extracted his bag, and began to set up for class. "Yeah, I'm feeling fine now, was a bit out of sorts before I got my grade." He smiled fully now. "I know its just barely passing, but it's passing none-the-less." He said still beaming.

Just then, Jason Cruz chose the seat to his other side, looking like he had a purpose in his mind, but then quickly shifted to awkwardness and began setting up for class at an alarming speed, clanking his cauldron on the edge of his table, startling Alessandro to realize his presence next to him.

Alessandro turned to face the racket and smiled when he saw it was Jason.

"Well hey there Jason." He said looking amused as he noted Jason's flushed color. "You feelin' alright, mate? You look a bit peeky..." He said frowning and went back to organizing his own work station. He was determined with whatever assignment he recieved today, to come out victorious. He was a Ravenclaw, he would make his house and his mother proud.

[Dylan Cooper]

His head drooped and his pace meandering, Dylan trod through the dungeon corridors, the setting largely reflecting his mood. The cold stone walls and matching floor held no trace of happiness; even the flicking torches seemed to have minimal warmth compared to others throughout the castle. At least he wasn’t late, though. Recalling the disaster of his previous Potions lesson, he grimaced slightly and his frown increased. Professor Sparrow didn’t seem like the type to allow him to do little or no work in class, and Dylan wasn’t actually particularly enthusiastic about attending the class in his current state. Briefly deliberating over whether or not to actually enter the room, he waited outside the door for a moment while his mind ran over the possibilities. His mind wasn’t being to co-operative, however, so without much ado he pushed open the door to the classroom.

Figuring that he would be required to work on the potion of the lesson, he neglected his seat at the back, having placed himself in such positions since hearing the news last week. Pacing slowly to the front of the class, he moved onto the bench beside D’rorah and slid his satchel onto the hard surface before him. Taking his time to extract his potions kit and pewter cauldron, he placed each in front of him and struggled to maintain upright in his seat. Every muscle in his body was fighting against it, urging him to lay down and forget the world as he dwelled on the thoughts that were so deteriorating to him.

He knew D’rorah would not be happy that he’d showed up to yet another class, but at that point he had bigger things on his mind. He didn’t particularly care what their potion of the day was, either, and didn’t bother to acknowledge anyone else. All he did was cast a small, sideways glance toward Dee, hoping she wouldn’t berate him for being present.

[Susan Matthews]

Susan had slowly made her way down to the dungeons. She was very tired, what with the lack of sleep she'd been having lately. She entered the class presumably on time. Susan slumped into a seat in the back. She was not in the mood to be in class right now. Susan quickly surveyed the room. Of course, Alessandro and D'rorah had already found their places at the front of the room. A certain Quin and Caitlin that Susan had met in the foyer one afternoon were already up to bugging each other. Susan recognized a Slytherin from her Ancient Runes class, along with a few other students she'd seen around, but never really had spoken to. It was Dylan, that Susan's thoughts came to rest on last. He didn't quite look up to this class either. Susan winced as she thought about how his grades must be dropping. Attendance must count for something though, right?

Susan figured pity wasn't what he wanted though, and so she moved on to preparing for class. She silently retrieved her potions supplies and text book from her bag. She took out a piece of parchment and a quill to take notes for the day. Satisfied with her array of supplies, Susan leaned back in her chair and lightly closed her eyes, pretending for a moment that she was asleep and in her own bed.

[Caitlin Collins]

Caity managed not to groan out loud when Quin followed and sat next to her. She gazed with distaste at the Slytherin's mess that was overflowing onto her side of the table, wondering if Quin could actually tell where everything was or if she was just trying to be annoying. She supposed that she was a bit of a hypocrite saying that, as she wasn't the most organised person either. Then again, she at least had some semblance of what the word "organised" meant, which was probably more than could be said for the other girl.

Trying to edge away without being noticed, Caitlin turned to see who else had entered the room. She recognised all three new students; Jason she had met briefly, Susan had been involved in another 'Quin incident' and Dylan had been helping her to perfect her patronus using a boggart in the ballroom. None came to relieve her from having to sit alone next to Quin. She gazed pleadingly at the door, hoping that whoever else entered would take mercy on her.