Potions 3 - offically starts @ 12:30 1/13

[mallan]

From the way that Keaira and Zee acted after Mallan approached he wasn’t sure if they were being completely honest. There was no reason to push the subject though so Mallan just accepted their words. He was about to reply with a thank you when Vivian pushed herself by, ramming Keaira in the process. From Keaira’s reaction it didn’t seem to hurt that much; either that or she was hiding the pain well but Mallan wasn’t sure and he didn't want to assume she was hurt. Keaira seemed like a strong girl and Mallan was fairly sure that any comment about her being hurt or needing help might make her feel insulted. So instead of asking her if she was okay like he would most people he decided to just make a comment against Vivian.

(Mallan let out an unnoticed) Well that was rude.

Mallan was not prepared for Zee’s friendly nudge in the gut and so it caught him off guard. Mallan gave Zee a friendly smirk but was not sure what Zee meant by what he said since Zee was also a Slytherin. Siding on precaution Mallan left his response at a smirk. It was nice though, to finally have a guy from the school socially interact with him further than a sentence and a smile.

Before Mallan could further reply, Keaira and Zee walked into the classroom. Mallan was about to enter himself a moment later when the professor opened the door and regarded Mallan. He was slightly annoyed at the professor's comment about his immobility because he didn’t think that he had been outside for too long. However, there was no way he was going to talk back to a professor and she was rather nice about it anyhow.

Sorry professor. Thank you.

Walking in, Mallan looked around the classroom, giving anyone who looked his way a friendly smile. He gathered the required material, that was noted on the board, from a table against the wall and decided to take a seat next to Zee. Thinking back to the hallway outside of the Room of Requirement Malllan wasn’t sure if Zee like talking to much so Mallan took his seat quietly only giving Zee a friendly smile. Though, he hoped that Zee would talk to him. It would be nice to have a guy friend at the school. Mallan, though he enjoyed all the girls, was feeling in need of some guy interaction. Hopefully Zee would want to be friends with him as Mallan was beginning to feel alone in the school.

After taking his seat and regarding Zee, Mallan read the directions on the board three times to make sure he understood them before he set out his materials to begin making the potion. Mallan followed the instructions carefully and with exact measure. However, he took time to reread the instructions between each action and so he wasn't sure if he let the cauldron calm down too much or if he let it thicken for too long.

[D'rorah Philosophy]

Following Professor Sparrow's instruction to begin when ready, D'rorah allowed herself one final smile to Dylan before returning to her own work. She carefully measured the armadillo bile into her cauldron and set it over a flame. She knew it would take a bit to coax it to a boil and had everything else ready to go. She watched it for a moment to make sure the heat was high enough to bring the bile to a boil, but not so high that it would scorch, then looked over at Dylan's progress, occasionally checking back to her own. As she waited, she prepared a small glass phial so she would be able to place her sample inside when finished. As the armadillo bile came nearer and nearer and nearer to boiling, she focused more exclusively on her own potion.

Finally, it had reached a nice boil and D'rorah began slowly adding in her ginger root slices, careful not to add so many that she caused the temperature to drop. The potion before her began to foam and fizz as she finished adding the last of the ginger root. Carefully, she adjusted the flame below her cauldron and watched as tendrils of green smoke began to drift up into the air. The entire time, her face was tight and pinched, as though sternness of expression might somehow mitigate the horrid smell of the potion cooking before her.

She watched for a while as the smoke finally began to thin and disperse into the air, looking for the nostrils of its next unhappy victim. Then, once it had finished, she slowly stirred in her finely-ground scarab. Almost instantly, the mixture began to feel much thicker against her stirring utensil and changed to grey. She withdrew her utensil and checked the clock on the front wall for the time, noting the correct time down to the second so that she might wait exactly the prescribed fifteen minutes with its interjected clockwise stirrings. The entire process was done very precisely, following the instructions to the very letter written on the board.

Finally, she removed her finished product from the heat and allowed it to cool for five minutes before bottling it into her phial. Thus finished, she began the process of clearing away her area and waiting for the Professor to request their finished products. Only now, as she was finished, did she hazard a glance around the room to discern the progress of her fellow classmates.

[Jason Cruz]

It must have been his attempts to be social this year that were doing it. In the three previous years Jason had been at Hogwarts, and the six years before that when he'd gone to muggle school in California, he had been an exemplary student, always on time, always turning in his assignments. The fact that he was now late once more because he'd fallen asleep didn't necessarily seem to follow that reasoning, yet Jason still wrote it all off as due to his social endeavors.

The whole issue where Leilani vanished for a time, apparently pulled away by her parents, had affected him severely. And now he had met a couple of gryffindors in his common room, one of whom was an uncommonly pretty girl. Mainly though his thoughts were on Vivian, and they often had him daydreaming away the hours while he sat under a tree or in a corner of the library, or sometimes in an overstuffed chair in the common room. Inevitably he'd doze off and end up late for something, or without enough time to finish an assignment.

So of course Jason was at that time sprinting down the dungeon corridor trying to get to his potions class quickly. They were supposed to be making a wit sharpening potion, and he was already nervous about that. Compounded by his tardiness, Jason had abandoned all pretenses of cool. He burst into the room much as he had into defense against the dark arts oh so long ago, this time managing to skid to a halt before colliding with the desk in front of him.

"Sorry Professor Sparrow. I was just . . . yeah, I really have no excuse. Sorry. Sorry."

Jason hurried over to a seat that as of yet had no occupied seats around it, his face a little less red than might have been expected, but still well flushed. Glancing between his potions kit and the board, he quickly pulled out the necessary ingredients and began crushing his scarabs a little too enthusiastically, creating a small cloud of powdered insect around his mortar.

[Dylan Cooper]

Regarding the neat scrawl upon the board once more, he released his hand from D’rorah’s as they were instructed to begin. Catching the smile sent his way, he returned it before focusing completely on the task ahead. Pouring his less-than-ideally fresh armadillo bile into the cauldron before him, he tapped his wand at the base of the thing and started up a suitably sized fire. Twirling his wand a little bit, he increased the heat to allow the bile to boil slightly faster.

Checking that his roots had been cut to a satisfactory standard, he could see no visible fault within them, though with the smoke starting to flow through the dungeon that might have been an optical illusion. Hearing the familiar pop associated with a boiling liquid, he instinctively popped his head over the edge of the cauldron. Not being an altogether good idea, he shied away from the mild stream of gaseous armadillo bile that frothed into his face and coughed once, and only once.

Shaking his head, amazed that he could even be considered to do such a moronic thing, he then felt a familiar headache erupt at the movement. Closing his eyes briefly, attempting to block out the pain, he heard a loud pop and felt a small sting at his hand that brought him back to reality. Re-opening his eyes, he saw his armadillo bile overheating and beginning to bubble over the rim of the cauldron. Hastily, he jabbed his wand at the fire beneath it in an attempt to cool it down, determined that he could still save this potion. If he simply allowed his bile to cool somewhat, though only back to just boiling, he would be fine to safely add the roots. Concerned only about the time, he didn’t allow the matter to waylay or panic him. There was no point in doing something on time if it was utter drivel, afterall.

The combined smell of all cauldrons in the room managed to create what was possibly the foulest Potions lesson Dylan could remember, though of course there had been that incident in his second year… That tar-like mixture had taken hours to scrape off of his cauldron. Finding that his current potion had lowered back to a low boil, he added the ginger roots at a decently slow pace, taking care to not rush the process. Finding his potion foaming and fizzing desirably, he reduced the heat immediately, determined to not let his concentration sway in such a major way again.

Finding a deep green smoke frothing from within his cauldron, he knew that it should be lighter but pushed the notion aside, knowing that a tad more scarab could easily rectify that. Finding he had a few minutes to wait, he put the time to good use, first noting the exact time and copying it down, then checking on his scarab. Adding another head to the mixture, he quickly ground it up with his pestle, doing an uncharacteristically rough job. Knowing it would not be good enough to meet his high standards, he continued to crush it, the heavy layer of smoke within the room beginning to clog his senses and consume his attention.

Remembering to check the time, he flicked his eyes up and attempted to discern where the hands were on the clock wall. Giving up quickly, he squinted at his watch for a moment before realising that the smoke was altering his vision and that there was no way he’d be able to see anything so little. Beginning to get frustrated, he refused to let any panic come over him and simply felt for his mortar. Finding it, he picked it up with one hand and, unknowingly, spilt some over the side and onto the bench. Assuming there was still the amount he intended for, he began to slowly add the powder to his cauldron.

Unable to correctly discern the colour of his potion, he didn’t realise the lightness of the grey; it was almost a very dark, dirty white, even. Thankful that, at least, despite his recently horrid memory, he remembered only that it needed to wait 15 minutes, he, regretfully, was unable to time said length due to the copious amount of green smoke still flowing about. Unhelpfully, he failed to recall the process of stirring required, and after about seven minutes assumed enough time had passed, he jabbed his wand at the base of the cauldron and caused the flame to extinguish immediately.

Blinking several times in quick succession, he searched around for his glass vial and quickly located the object, uncorking it and grabbing something with which he could siphon a small amount of the potion into it with. The still rather hot liquid meeting the unusually cold glass of the vial, a large crack formed all the way from the centre of the base to a small arc of the curved edge at the top. The glass shattering in his powerful, blacksmithing hands, he inhaled rapidly, feeling a sharp stabbing in his hand. Closing his eyes briefly, he crouched onto the floor and grunted in pain, seeing a decent-sized amount of blood flowing readily from around a sharp shard of glass currently embedded in the palm of his right hand.

Clenching his teeth and jaw, he quickly grabbed another vial and, haphazardly, poured some more of the slightly cooler concoction into the fresh, new container. Cool enough that the glass did not, this time, shatter, he quickly sealed the incredibly bad and inaccurate potion into the container and set it on his station, grunting in pain once more and looking around for a bandage of some kind. His wand hand currently unable to function, conjuring anything useful was quite out of the question.

[D'rorah Philosophy]

D'rorah looked over from her station just as she was finishing her cleaning... she was about to warn Dylan that his potion looked too hot to seal, but was a moment too late for her words to do any good. He seemed to absorbed in his actions at the moment, in the pain of his hand, to notice her watching. She reached forward a hand to help with bottling a new sample, but decided it would be best to allow him to finish on his own. Eyeing the sample he collected, she wished she hadn't cleared hers away so quickly... the sample he had bottled wouldn't do much toward earning him the grades he was accustomed to. Obviously, there were some lingering effects from his injuries... it shouldn't be too much of a surprise, considering that one brutal attack had followed another without even enough time to complete recover from his physical injuries in between.

Reaching down, she pulled a lace from one of her boots and transfigured it into a roll of bandage. "Hold still," she bid quietly. "This will do for now... but." Reaching for his hand, she looked carefully for any remaining shards of glass. Carefully, she eased them out with her own fingernails and whispered a cooling charm to help ease the pain and slow the bleeding a bit. "Is that any better?" she asked quietly, looking up into his eyes. She wanted to ask what had happened... the day had begun so well and all he had to show for it now was a ruined potion and a hand covered in cuts. She turned her attention back to his hand and began slowly winding the gauze around it. She had to make the wrappings firm in order to stem the bleeding and hoped she wasn't causing too much pain.

"We should get some ointment from the infirmary for this..." she started to add that he should rest, that he should have never returned to class as quickly as he had at all those weeks after his first injury... but she wasn't going to nag him. She had made her feelings known back then and respected the fact that, much like herself, he simply couldn't bring himself to be away from his schoolwork for that long. She finished wrapping the bandage and used a temporary sticking charm to fasten it in place. She was so looking forward to the winter break... then, at last, she knew he would rest... he would take the time off that his mind so desperately needed to recover, perhaps even see one of the mediwitches at Saint Mungos to see what was causing his lingering difficulties--if it was, in fact, only stress.

"Have a seat," she said quietly as she began clearing away his area. She first pointed her wand at the largest shard of the phial that had broken. "Reparo." The pieces on the table and floor skittered together, leaving only a small piece that was still missing. D'rorah looked back at Dylan... that would mean she had missed a piece and they would have to get it out later. With an air of resignation, she carefully cleared everything else away. "Scourgify," took care of the remnants of his potion and things were quite quickly put into order. Setting his phial into the rack next to hers, she took her seat beside Dylan and waited for the rest of the class to finish their own potions. "Are you alright?" she asked quietly, leaning over closer so as not to disrupt the class.

[Cavan Mikal Weiss]

Cavan had been watching his bile silently for sometime when he realized it hadn’t started to boil yet. He frowned and looking at the time, quickly turned up the heat, it wouldn’t do for him to be unable to finish due to simple heating issues. He sighed in relief when within no time at all the mixture had begun to boil as it should. He quickly added the ginger roots, thinking it wouldn’t matter too much what speed he threw them in. The bile began foaming and fizzing rather more quickly that he had expected and the mixture was over flowing before he could turn the heat down again.

While he waited for the concoction to calm, he tried to clean up the mess he had already made. He managed to get most of it cleaned up before he needed to add the scarab, but without a hair-tie he also managed to get the mess in his hair. He grumbled to himself as he dumped the whole pestle of ground beetle into the cauldron at once. He had to kneel on his stool to get enough leverage to stir the thicker substance. He smiled, seeing that the mixture had turned a smoky grey that he figured was good, since it was still grey.

Looking at the clock he frowned, he didn’t have twenty minutes to wait. He didn’t want to turn in an incomplete project, but he didn’t want it to be wrong either. He sighed, knowing he was going to have to cut it close and hope he could get it close. He let it cool for ten minutes, stirring it as prescribed and seeing how little time was left, took it off the heat early, knowing it had to cool before he could hope to bottle it. After three minutes he was ladling the potion, blowing on it to cool it enough for the vial that he’d already written his name and house on. With little time to spare he blew on it once more before pouring it into the vial and closing it.

He set the vial on the rack, worrying his lip as he took his seat, beginning to clean up his mess and try to get the guck out of his bangs. It was a battle and he managed to get most of it out, though some of the smell still lingered. He wrinkled his nose but sighed in defeat, he would just have to scrub extra hard tonight.

[Caitlin Collins]

As Caity finished preparing her ingredients, she looked up to see who else would enter. She returned Dylan’s smile and turned to see what the commotion was by the door when Vivian pushed her way through, and shortly afterwards Zee and Keaira made their way in. Professor Sparrow made her way to the entrance and spoke quietly to whoever was standing there – Mallan, who came through the door as she turned away. She sent him a small smile as he sat next to Zee.

”As soon as you are ready to begin, feel free. When your potion is brewed and ready, remember to take a 2 oz vial and fill it. Label all potions with your name, and house please. I will be making my way through the class to check on your potions as you all work. So let’s get started.

She was slightly disappointed that no one had come to sit next to her, but remembering what had happened last lesson when Quin had taken that particular opportunity, perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing.

Although her armadillo bile wasn’t completely fresh, it was close enough that hopefully it shouldn’t make that much of a difference. She tipped it into her cauldron and lit the fire beneath manually. Her wand was still sellotaped since she hadn’t had a chance to go to Diagon Alley to get a new one yet, and it was not performing so well. She didn’t want to risk lighting a fire when she was around so many possible volatile substances and ingredients, and particularly when she was around so many other students. She would feel extremely guilty if the fire got out of control and ended up harming the others. Then again, having used magic all her life to do such tasks, she wasn’t so great with matches either. After several attempts and a couple of minor burns, she finally succeeded and stood back to wait for the potion to boil.

The smell was indeed horrid – wrinkling her nose, Caitlin began to slowly add the ginger roots slightly earlier than she should have, just to avoid smelling any more. Of course, that didn’t help in the slightest, since she was surrounded by other students who were waiting the full length of time and simply enduring the smell.

Despite the little mistakes she had made so far, the potion still seemed to be on track – at least, it was foaming and fizzing as the writing on the board said it should be. Now there was the problem of reducing the heat. Caitlin could not see any way to do this manually, so with great reluctance removed her wand from her pocket and tried to do the spell that would reduce the heat. It didn’t work. Instead the flames flared up even more. Beginning to panic, Caity looked around to see if anyone would be able to help her. Dylan was having his own problems though, worse than hers it seemed, and D’rorah was preoccupied with assisting him. Her potion was starting to boil again quite ferociously, and that meant it was inching its way up the side of the cauldron. Uncertain at what to do, she glanced around again, hoping someone; another student or at least a teacher, would take mercy on her. She certainly wasn’t going to risk using her wand again in this lesson.

[finch]

Luke had been halfway across the school when he had realized the Dungons, which is where his class was currently taking place, was in the complete other direction. He had only just arrive, a few days before, and not completely gotten the gist of the school. He turned on his heal, and set of down the hall, now quite late, and at a dead sprint down the halls. His satchel, customary for his artistic instinked, would have been flying out being him hand he not strapped it on securly to one shoulder. Rounding the bend to the potions room, he slowed to a easy walk, slouching slightly, and slightly out of breath, though his face was a normal tan hue.

The rest of him wasn't so normal, though he wasn't bothered by his appearance. A turquoise mohawk and neon yellow eyes was a tad bit odd, to say the least, not to mention his black pants, on which were a few smears of paint. He wore contacts though, which explained them, though the hair was quite natural. He would be quite blind without the contacts, to say the least. He wore his favorite shirt, with the white sea dragon climbing up one arm, rearing its golden maned head on his chest and spewing fire across his shoulder and down his back. Hand drawn by himself, when he was supposed to have been attending a lesson with his Uncle.

He scanned the room, and catching site of the teacher, walked to her, a note held in his hand. The hand writing, which was rather messy, was made harder by a large amount of green paint which had dried along one corner. "Sorry Professor Sparrow, I got lost," He said in a respectful, calm voice, which seemed out of place with the rest of him. "It won't happen again." He promised, handing her the note and looking up at the board.

Take a seat, and start working. You have 1 hour,starting at the begining of the class, to produce a wit sharpening potion. At the end of this, all potions will be sampled, and graded. If you do not finish, it will reflect.

Ingredents:

scarab beetle – ground up, preferably by pestle
ginger roots – sliced evenly, about 10 roots
armadillo bile – 4 cups, works best when fresh.

After ingredients are prepared, start by bringing the armadillo bile to a boil, the smell will be horrid. After a boil is reached, slowly add the ginger roots, causing the bile to foam, and fizz. Reduce the heat so that the potion does not overcook. A bit of green smoke will be frothing from your cauldron at this point. After it has had several minutes for the smoke to dissipate, and the potion to calm down, slowly add your powdered scarab beetle. At this point the potion will thicken, and turn a thick grey color. Let it sit for 15 minutes, stirring it clockwise four times every 2 minutes. At that point remove from heat, and let stand another 5 minutes before bottling.

He glanced around the room again, and spotted a empty seat next to a fellow Hufflepuff. She seemed to be having some trouble, and he spotted her wand, which was wrapped in spello-tape. He walked steadily towards her, copying down the words on the board as he went, and sat down next to her, quickly getting out his supplies. Seeing the fire creeping up the side of the cauldren, he spoke up, and looked at her. "Do you need help?" He asked in a quiet voice, one hand reaching out and scooping 4 cups of his armodillo bile, which, meryfully or not, was fresh, bought the other day, and dumped it into his potion with a slight thunk. He waited a moment, then realized he had forgotten to turn the fire on, and tapped it gently with his wand.

[Evelyn Sparrow]

With a flick of her wrist the last paper she had needed to grade was done. She smiled at the complete stack of papers that were finished. There was nothing left but to see how the students were faring on their task. Pushing herself away from her desk, she stood up. She smiled at the students busily working, there were plenty of good potions in the process. But as she looked about she noticed there were also several catastrophes in the making as well.

Quickly professor Sparrow made her way over to the first student that she saw needed some assistance. It appeared that Dylan Cooper was having some difficulties; however, Evelyn knew that such things expected. As she moved towards the boy she found that D’rorah Philosophy was already taking care of the situation. A small smile crossed her face as she reached the pair, and pulled out a small bottle of murlap essence. “Here, this should help it heal nicely with little pain. Make sure that you wash your hands every hour.” She smiled at the pair but found that her attention was taken away.

Jason Cruz had entered the class nearly 10 minutes late. Something that she would normally not allow. However, today she would allow him to attempt his potion making, even though she knew it would be rushed. She continued moving through the class, noting that Cavan had made a few mistakes that would leave his potion thick and murky. She knew it wouldn’t be a great potion however; it would work for a passing grade. As she moved through the class she marked a few notes on the notepad she carried with her. Upon looking up from her notes she noticed that Caitlin’s fire was growing out of control.

Quickly placing her note pad on the nearest empty desk she strode towards the girls cauldron, pulling her wand out on the way. She smiled as she reached the girls desk, quickly flourishing her wand, and flicking it toward the pot the flames were diminished. Her smile began to diminish as she caught sight of the girls wand. “My dear, that wand is useless. You need to get I fixed, and quickly. May I suggest that you do so this afternoon?”

Evelyn was too busy with Caitlin to really take note of the most recent arrival to the class. This student was nearly 20 minutes late. How could they truly make the potion that was required with such a time handicap? She scowled, at the newest arrival, before making a few more notes on her notebook.

“Everyone should have their bile boiled at the least by now. Please make sure you are all keeping an eye on the time.”

[Keaira O'Connell]

As Keaira noticed Zane sit down besides her she let a small helpless smile escape her lips. It might be difficult being inside the room where she had experienced bonding with Dien, but having someone there to help her through it was nice. She knew that she could accomplish making this potion with little stress if her mind hadn’t been distracted. Being in this room was simply put, a difficult task.

She felt the words in her mind. Words that she knew weren’t her own. She felt the encouragement and reassurance and let her smile become a bit less helpless, and more real. Knowing that she wasn’t alone made her focus more on the potion at hand, slowly she began fixing some of the roughly chopped roots, and grinding the beetle a bit better. Her attention was mixed between her own thoughts, and the preparation of the potion.

'Thanks.'

Carefully she added the roots to the bile that was slowly boiling under her care. It wasn’t as slowly as she should have done it, but she felt the press of time on her and could not justify waiting the extra few minutes to place the rest of her roots in to the mixture. With the roots added, the cauldron began fizzing the green smoke that was characteristic of what it should be. She waited a moment to allow some off the smoke, to drift off. After a few minutes of waiting it dawned on her that she forgot to lower the flame so the smoke was staying around. After quickly mentally berating herself she pulled her wand out and quickly dimmed the fire.

It took her a few more minutes before she could continue onward with her potion. Taking a quick glance at the time Keaira slowly poured the powdered beetle in to the pot with her right hand, as she mixed it with her left. She mixed it slowly, watching the time, and keeping sure she mixed it the required clockwise stirring at the required intervals. After which she removed it from the heat, and let it sit for a few more moments. With her potion pretty much complete she worried about preparing the vial. She taped a small tag on to it, her name and house written on it neatly. All she had to do now was wait.

[Dylan Cooper]

Setting the blasted vial of potion, unbroken, aside, Dylan’s full attention returned to the blood currently flowing at a steady rate from his hand. Feeling as if he liked his blood exactly where it had been, thank you very much, he didn’t particularly wish to lose anymore and felt, before he heard, D’rorah jumping to the gun. Doing as he was asked, he allowed her to survey the damage and inhaled sharply as he felt her fingernails dig into the fresh wounds, alongside the jagged pieces of glass, to double the pain. Admittedly, however, she did aid him with a cooling charm, and removed the glass as she went, so he wasn’t complaining.

“A bit, yeah,” he replied quietly, his eyes flicking up from his damaged hand to her own grey orbs and finding them questioning his actions slightly. Not replying with anything but a hopeless sort of look, he saw her attention return to more pressing matters as she used her transfigured bandages to seal his hand from contamination. Despite realising the need of them being tight enough to keep any excess air out, he couldn’t help but grunt softly in pain as she wound the gauze around him.

Glad that she had finished her own potion, so that he wasn’t destroying her own work in some way, he tilted his head forward slightly in what passed for a nod now-a-days. Considering the extensive damage to his head over the past few weeks… bashed into the pavement and set on fire, he had decided, or rather it had been decided for him by the excruciating headaches that followed, to abstain from nodding completely. Not generally being vocal by nature, Dylan was one to use gestures to signify his meaning, and nodding had been, until recently, an extremely useful one. He hadn’t even realised how much he had done it until the ability was beyond his pain threshold.

His bandage set for the moment, he raised himself from his previously crouching position upon the floor and, obediently, took a seat. If she wished to help him like she was, he wasn’t foolish enough to reject the aid; he quite liked having D’rorah around, and being stubborn and refusing to accept any help from her was quite out of the question if that was to continue. Smiling lightly as she cleared away his things, the smile slipped when he saw that the vial was not complete in its’ original form. His shoulders slumping considerably and his eyes closing in disbelief and negative anticipation as to what he knew was to come, he set the thought aside for the moment. If he could handle (albeit it had been close) his melted clothes being separated from his burnt skin, he was quite positive that a shard of glass being removed from his hand would be a stroll in the park compared to what he had experienced previously.

Catching the small query directed toward him, he decreased the distance between them slightly and offered a weak smile. It would do little to convince her of much of anything, really, but it would at least show that the current situation was not so dire that he could not even produce the fakest of smiles. Noticing that the professor had simply walked right past and gone to attend to other things, his opinion of her lowered. True, catastrophes were happening all over the class; Caitlin appeared to be having a supreme amount of trouble, as well as a few people he didn’t recognise and Keaira. Still… A student had been injured under her supervision, and she hadn’t even bothered to check on him. Raising an eyebrow and at the same time gaining an opposing representation of feelings, he held a small smile as he thought of how much Professor Archer had flustered about after the incident with Gat in Defence. That had been a case of dark magic, but Dylan had suspicions that the man would have acted similarly, if not just less stern, in any other circumstance, including the one in which he currently found himself.

Fully appreciating D’rorah after the weekend he had experienced, he gave her a genuine smile, although it was small for the pain in his hand was growing. “Thanks, Dee…” he commented softly, his eyes lighting up as he looked into her own. “For everything.” He wasn’t just referring to the lesson and the disastrous effects of his potion-making for the day; he was referring to everything within his memory that he might wish to thank her for. His words holding a deeper meaning than most people on this earth would comprehend, he wondered briefly if she would understand and found that it didn’t altogether matter; as long as he kept appreciating her in such ways, and showing that appreciation, he might gain the opportunity of having her around for a long time yet.

[D'rorah Philosophy]

D'rorah offered Dylan one of her best smiles, an unheard of occurrence in public. It was odd; she normally detested being addressed as "Dee", feeling that shortening her name was a rude familiarity taken upon themselves by people who hardly knew her. But there was nothing about Dylan's usage of the reviled moniker that bothered her; in fact, she rather liked the feeling of comfortable familiarity with one another it implied. "I could not possibly do less," she replied genuinely. She looked at the bottle of murtlap essence that Professor Sparrow had given her, but knew she would have to wait to use it until after she had dug the missing shard of glass from Dylan's palm. She wasn't really looking forward to that, knowing without a doubt that it would be a painful experience for him. She squeezed his uninjured hand lightly before returning her attention to their cleaned station.

"So, should I attempt to extract that shard of glass now? Or would you prefer I wait until after class? Either way, I am certain it will be an unpleasant experience."

[Dylan Cooper]

Noticing the vial of essence left on their counter, he furrowed his brows in confusion slightly. He hadn’t even noticed its presence until just now, and couldn’t remember it getting there in the first place. Pushing the disturbing lack of knowledge and memory away, he turned back to D’rorah. His smile returning half-heartedly, it brightened considerably at the smile he had, in turn, received himself. Feeling her hand squeeze his own, he returned the motion lightly, his mind turning to the prospect of a shard being removed from his hand once more.

His smile slackening considerably at the thought, he wished for it to simply be over with but doing such a thing in the middle of a classroom full of his fellow students was most certainly not a desirable prospect. He could imagine fairly well the pain involved, and didn’t feel like making a fool of himself in front of so many people he knew, especially any enemies. Weakness was not to be tolerated in such circumstances… though given that he had messed up his potion completely and topped it off with exploding his vial; that was something which was probably shining off of him in reams right about now. “We’ll wait until after class, I think,” he replied to her quietly, squeezing the hand within his own lightly once more.

On the subject of enemies… where was Gat? He didn’t appear to have shown up for class. Dylan considered it, and it was, in fact, quite odd. Most of the people who normally shared classes with the dirty Slytherin knew quite well of his allegiance, and surely announcing himself publicly in Hogsmeade wouldn’t have altered his attendance rate. Perhaps… perhaps he had died on a mission for the Mage. One could only hope.

[Zane Lucifer Bishop]

Zee felt little motivation for his current activity and thus his roots were unevenly cut and his scarab not fully ground. Still his potion seemed mostly on track as he boiled the bile and added the roots. He was even attentive enough to turn down the heat at the proper time, and while the mostly powdered beetles were added a little quicker than would have been optimal, the trouble didn't really start until he was supposed to begin stirring every two minutes.

Given two minutes of nothing to do, Zee's mind immediately drifted off to imagining what his training would be like and how he would use it to make Wyst's killers pay. It was maybe five minutes after he'd first stirred it that he realized what he was doing and immediately gave the stirring ladle a few hard swishes through the thick goo. For about a minute he watched it carefully, but then his thoughts moved away from the dungeon, up the seemingly endless stairs the castle held, all the way up to the astronomy tower, where in his mind Wysteria was always waiting for him.

There he stayed, his memories of the times he'd shared with her under the moon infinitely replaying in his mind. He forgot all about his potion, his classmates, his shadow warrior, or the loose plans to go find Alessandro. Everything faded away as he stared into those deep green eyes.

((He'll hastily throw some of his probably worthless concoction into a bottle when you say class is over and hand it to you. I can post again or you can just godmod him. I trust you to not make a complete fool of him. Just mostly a fool. ))

[Jason Cruz]

After several small coughing fits and a few frantic wavings of his arms to clear away all the insect dust, Jason looked up at the board again then carefully cut his roots into perfect little even slices. Jason really had no intuition for potions at all, but he could follow instructions very well so he typically did well in the class. Now though he wasn't sure if he had quite enough time. He may have to cut a few corners to make sure he had something to turn in, though the thought of doing so made him twitch.

He brought the bile to a boil and couldn't help but take a long whiff of it just to see how disgusting it was. Human stomach acid was nearly added to his potion. Jason managed to stifle his gag reflex though and thought it might be best to just trust the professor next time, knowing full well that with the next supposedly vile potion he'd sniff it again. Jason's curiosity was incorrigible.

Adding the neatly sliced roots was simple enough and Jason smiled as the concoction began to bubble and fizz lightly. Turning down the heat, he was a little dismayed at the lack of smoke. There was one rather large bubble however, and it seemed to be growing. Glancing around a little nervously, Jason gingerly poked the bubble with the handle of his ladle, causing a small amount of the liquid to splash onto his arm and thick green smoke to erupt into his face.

A small yelp, a slightly panicked wiping off of his arm and another small coughing fit followed. Once everything seemed to have been taken care of however, he spent the few minutes in which the potion settled staring at his arm and mourning the few splotches where the hot liquid had scalded away the hair and left the skin a little irritated. With a sigh he turned his attention back to the potion and carefully added the ground up scarabs to the mix. He wanted to stir them in but after several glances up at the board he managed to resist the seemingly logical desire and simply followed the instructions, letting them mix in a bit on their own before giving the whole thing four clockwise stirs.

For two minutes Jason stared intently at his watch, then gave it another four stirs. This process was repeated five times until there were only three minutes left of the fifteen minutes. Class was almost over and Jason wasn't sure it would have time to finish if he let it sit on the fire any longer. He turned the heat off completely and let it sit for about four minutes while he reread the board again and again, checking it with his memory to make sure he hadn't missed anything. Gazing down into his cauldron, Jason wrinkled his nose slightly. It looked and smelled bad, like a thick gray gruel, but the potion wasn't nearly as odoriferous as it had been at the beginning. Feeling fairly confident that he hadn't botched the whole thing up at least, Jason bottled a small amount without incident and labeled it. It was still a little warm and seemed maybe a little too thick, but it should pass at least.

You've really gotta stop this being late thing. You used to be such a good student.