Practical Potions

Piper hated Peeves.

Some people though he was hilarious. Not she.

She had spent the past three minutes in the bathroom trying to wash her hair as she ran to class. But he ha been pelting pieces of a suit of armor at her, preventing her from getting past him. When she had finally gotten past him, he had floated over her and dumped an inkwell over her head.

She was pissed.

When she entered the Potions classrooom, it was to no surprise that her blonde hair was still dripping with ink and she had a helmet in her hand. "Professor, could I get a towel?" she asked. "And what should I do with this. Mister Peeves decided it did not belong upon its body. I'm sorry for my lateness." She sighed, seeing a few people giggle. Someone pointed and she shot them a scowl.

Way to make an impression.

Amelia was still waiting for someone to step up to the plate and answer her most recent ingredient-related question when the door to the potions classroom swung open heavily and another student entered the room. At first, Amelia thought the darkness on her hair was a result of the shadowy nature of the dungeon, but as she came further into the room, Amelia recognized Piper Handler and could see that the shadows on her hair were dripping.

“Oh,” Amelia said, taking in the younger girl’s situation and adjusting to the interruption in her lesson plan. Amelia wasn’t accustomed to being stopped in the middle of things, and she was momentarily torn between continuing the lesson and helping the late student, until her subconscious knocked her straight.

Are you seriously going to deny help to someone who has just been attacked by Peeves? How many times did that dreadful poltergeist torture you during your time here as a student?

Fair point, Amelia conceded, It’s really a wonder he hasn’t found me yet as a professor.

“I’m sorry about Peeves,” Amelia managed, though her apology – as with nearly all of her apologies – did not come across as completely sincere. Amelia often struggled with sympathy, even when she knew what it was like to be in the same situation; probably a result of repressing her feelings for so many years.

“I can take that helmet from you and return it to its proper owner later on. As for the towel, I can do you one better if you’ll allow me?” Amelia posed the question, raising her wand and an eyebrow to gain the blond girl’s permission. Meeting no resistance, Amelia twirled her wand in the direction of Piper’s hair and shoulders. The ink slowly writhed its way out of Piper’s hair, collecting in a floating blob in front of the Slytherin’s torso, until all the ribbons had been removed. Then, with a carefully steady hand, Amelia drew the ink across the classroom and into an empty bowl on her desk, where it liquefied once more.

“So, now, that that’s, um, taken care of…” Amelia stuttered, trying to figure out a way to segue back into the lesson. Graceful transitions had never been much of her strong suit, “…maybe you would like to join the lesson by answering the question that was posed just before you arrived. Do you know of any ingredients that are known to have a calming effect?”

Smooth. Put her on the spot. You always loved that ever so much when you were a student.

It’s harder from this perspective. Give me a break.

A good quick kick in the arse is what I’d like to give you, Amelia’s subconscious replied, forcing Amelia to concentrate on maintaining a straight face as she waited for Piper’s response.

Piper seemed to have thrown Professor Lyons offguard, but Piper was too busy wallowing in her own situation to empathize with anyone else's. The woman apologized for Peeve's behavior but internally Piper was just motioning for the professor to help her out. She could feel the eyes of her peers on her and she wanted to get out of this limelight. She felt like she had a target painted on her back, and the longer she stood, the more accessible she was.

The professor offered to take the helmet and Piper strode forward, holding it out to her, carefully shifting it into Lyons' hands. She supposed the professor meant to help her so she nodded and Lyons raised her wand at Piper. It was a natural reaction, Piper's head turned slightly and her eye squinted, as though bracing herself for an attack.

The ink slipped out of her hair and she relaxed, watching it leave. Piper nodded and muttered a thank you, before adjusting her bag and hurrying off, sitting at a back table and dropping her bag. The professor continued to address her and her head popped up. Eyes turned to look back at her. Just great.

She thought for a second, absentmindedly wetting her lips as she tried to think of potions that calmed people down. Finally, after a few moments of quiet, she suggested, "Hellebore? It's in the Draught of Peace..."

Well that worked out better than I had hoped, Amelia thought when Piper took her seat and responded successfully to Amelia’s question. It took the girl a few moments to come up with the answer, but she was successful when she did. Perhaps this teaching gig wouldn’t be so stressful afterall.

Don’t count your chickens before they –

Yeah, yeah. I know.

“Correct, Ms. Handler. Hellebore is known to have purgative effects, which remove negative influences from the body, so it does indeed have a calming effect. Five points for Slytherin.”

“Now for one last question to the class at large before I set you to your individual task for the day,” Amelia said, thinking it was soon to be time for her to stop talking. She had somehow managed to muddle her way through the very short list of questions she had prepared for this lecture, and the sooner she set them working, the sooner their attention would be otherwise diverted from her.

“Can someone please name for me a few ingredients that are known to have negative effects on humans? These can be toxins that are in themselves dangerous, or ingredients that become poisonous if combined in a specific manner.”

------------
Ravenclaw: 5
Gryffindor:
Slytherin: 5
Hufflepuff:

Ambrosa smiled. It was a great feeling to win the first points for your house. Plus in Potions which was one of her favorite subjects. As professor Lyons ask the next question, Ambrosa felt challenged. It was like going through the books hadn't left no note in her brain. ingredients that had a calming effect. If Ambrosa was alone she would have hit her head on the desk but now she just bit on her lip hard. At the moment that one ingredient came to her mind the door opened. It was Piper Handler. Her blond hair seemed... Well not blond. It hand inc in it.

Ambrosa really felt sorry for Piper. She herself had been tortured by peeves a lot of times. Who hasn't been. As Piper answered the question right, Ambrosa remembered everything she read. The next question Ambrosa seemed to know. She raised her hand. First the Asphodel...It is a ingredient for the Draught of Living Death and it puts you to a very very deep sleep from which you maybe would never wake up. Then the moonseed its known to be poisonous as well as the Angel's Trumpet. Another one is the Leech Juice which on itself isn't poisonous but in the wrongs mixture it could be fatal. And maybe the aconite which's leaves are very poisonous.

“Very good, Ambrosa,” Amelia replied, her words somewhat forced at having the same student answer two of only three questions she had prepared. Amelia had known Ambrosa while she was a student and knew that the girl was bright, but whenever Amelia had been in classes, she had always been annoyed by the know-it-all students that felt the need to answer every question. Now, on the other side of the situation, she was even more frustrated, because how was she to gage everyone’s knowledge level if this girl insisted on answering every question?

But the girl was right, and Amelia couldn’t begrudge her the intelligence she worked hard to maintain, even if she didn’t like the way the girl displayed it. “Five more points for Ravenclaw,” Amelia added with an approving nod, trusting her gestures more than her words. At least her house was off to a good start in the cup.

“So now…” Amelia said, hesitating somewhat. She wasn’t sure if she should try to think up more questions to engage the other students, or if she should just go ahead as planned. After a brief hesitation in which Amelia’s eyes darted down to her patent leather shoes, she decided to just stick to the schedule. Anything she had to make up on the spot was bound to be a disaster.

“…now we’ll move on to today’s task. Today, you will be preparing one of two potions. You may either prepare a potion for a friend, or a potion for a foe,” Amelia said, carefully enunciating each word she had practiced before the lesson.

“These potions are to be made of your own volition, and not from any recipe you may find in your textbook or know from any other background information. I understand that making a potion without instructions is a task many of you may not have faced before, and I also acknowledge that your proportions may not be correct. However, it is not necessary that these potions be perfectly effective. Rather, I would like you to note each ingredient you add and each step you take, and the reasoning behind it. It is the thought process, rather than the final product, that will be graded.”

“For example,” Amelia said demonstratively, “If you were preparing a potion for a friend, you might add dittany, because of its healing powers. For a foe, you might add acetone, to induce intestinal burning.”

“At the end of the class period, we will test your potions on the rats I have procured for precisely that purpose. If your potion is successful, you will receive extra credit. But, as I said, even if your potion does not achieve the desired result, you can still receive full credit if your ingredients and explanations are logical. I encourage you to use ingredients that have not been discussed in today’s lecture already, and which may induce friend- or foe-like effects I did not quiz you on.”

“If there are no questions… you can begin,” Amelia said, hesitating to give herself time to think about anything she may have forgotten. She didn’t think there was anything… was there?

It never ends… Amelia thought, distraught that even after the lecture portion of the class was over, she still couldn’t relax.

-------------------
Ravenclaw: 10
Gryffindor:
Slytherin: 5
Hufflepuff:

Cecilia walked into the Potions Dungeons. “Um, Sorry, overslept,” she said quietly before taking her seat. This was the first class of the year and she was already showing up late. She looked around the down at her hands that she had clasped together and now rest in her lap. She had know idea what she was suppose to be doing. Just that the class wasn’t going to last much longer. She looked at her watch then up at the professor. “may be i should open my book,” she said to her self before doing so and looking around again.

Amelia felt a sharp pang of annoyance when Cecelia Krum walked into her class late, mumbling what Amelia considered to be an insufficient excuse. Tardiness was one of Amelia’s biggest pet peeves, which was only exasperated now that she was a professor. Cecelia being late meant she had not been present for any of the class’s discussion and did not have any of the necessary instruction to complete today’s task. If it hadn’t been the first lesson of the year, Amelia likely would have asked her to leave and receive an incomplete, but instead ,she bit her tongue and took a moment to control her ire before responding to the girl.

“Your tardiness will cost your house five points, Miss Krum,” Amelia said clearly, her frustration growing when Cecilia didn’t even bother to ask what she had missed or what she ought to be doing, “And if you do not find someone to fill you in on today’s lesson, you will likely undo all the points your Housemates have earned in this class period. Please find a way to enlighten yourself to today’s subject and get to work,” Amelia concluded, giving Cecilia a look that conveyed how serious Amelia was. The new professor didn’t want to be taking points away from her own house, but she wasn’t going to play favorites, either. She knew how easily that would make her the target of other houses’ students, and Amelia didn’t need any additional animosity from her former peers; she had quite enough of that to deal with already.

“That applies to the rest of you as well,” Amelia probed the rest of the class, her eyes flitting from one student to the next, encouraging them to get started.

------------------------
Ravenclaw: 5
Gryffindor:
Slytherin: 5
Hufflepuff:

The professor started talking to her and she looked up giving her full attention. “Could you fill me in?” Cecilia asked tilting her head to the side. She didn’t really wish to speak to the other students. Those who where in her house would probably be mad at her for losing points and the others looked like Syltherin who she just didn’t like. “I’ll be fine if you’d just tell me what type of ingredients or what ever you where talking about,” Cecilia glanced down at her hands then started running them though her hair she had failed to brush before coming to class.

ooc:: sorry these post are so suckish i haven't rped in 3 or 4 weeks.

All I wanted was to get through my speaking portion of the class… Amelia fumed when Cecilia asked her to be the one to explain the lesson, And I did that. I did it even though I wanted to run out of the room. And now, I am being asked to repeat myself because someone couldn’t bring themselves to get out of bed on time.

Without meaning to, Amelia was showing visible signs of exasperation. She was pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger while closing her eyes, focusing on not giving a sarcastic remark to Cecilia. This whole, “being the respectable head of the class” deal was going to be harder than she thought. Amelia had tried to learn from her mother to hold her tongue, but whenever Antoinette wasn’t around, Amelia found that her barbed wit got out of its box. Just like it was about to right now.

“If I was going to fill you in, I likely would have done that instead of asking you to find a classmate to help you,” Amelia spat before she could stop herself, immediately regretting the words as soon as she had said them. She didn’t want to give a full demonstration of her lack of social graces in the first class, but Cecilia was already pressing Amelia’s buttons by being tardy, not asking about the lesson to start with, and then not following Amelia’s explicit instructions. With a sigh, Amelia lowered her hand from her face and tried to be more gentle with her former classmate.

“What I’m saying is… I have already covered the instructions for the lesson, and I won’t be inconveniencing myself on your account to explain them again. You were late to today’s lesson through your own fault, and now, because you are a responsible adult, you can take the appropriate steps to make sure you are caught up enough to participate,” Amelia said, still coming across a bit harsh despite her best efforts. Amelia in a state of annoyance wasn’t ever a great person to run in to.

Well this is taking a definite turn for the worse... Amelia's subconscious intoned, half distraught at what was unfolding and half amused at what else might be to come.

((Cecilia – just so you know, this is nothing personal against you. I am just writing Amelia as her personality warrants, and I am also trying to get students to interact with each other in class. I don’t want classes to become places where you just post “I did this thing right, yippee”, and then leave. I want it to serve as a genuine RP experience, and for that, you need to interact with your fellow students as well as with me.))