Medicine

This was going to be an interesting lesson, but the young headmistress hadn’t yet decided if it was going to be a good interesting or a bad interesting. Her students were bound to be a bit thrown by today’s topic, but given the circumstances surrounding the illness that was affecting most of the student population, it was necessary that some changes be made to the curriculum.

In her gently sloping cursive, Amelia Lyons had written just one word on the board behind her: Medicine. It wasn’t a word that many of her students would have encountered before, because in the magical world that field tended to be referred to as “healing” – but today’s lesson wasn’t going to be rooted firmly in the magical world, because without the reliable use of their wands, the inhabitants of Hogwarts were no longer firmly in the magical world either.

Dear god, I better make it out of this alive...

Jack cursed to himself. He wasn't feeling much better than before, at all. The Ravenclaw was stuck with some random disease he couldn't figure out. It was quickly spreading around his body. He had just applied some ointment on the parts that itched before struggling to class, and that tamed it for a little bit. He just hoped the itches didn't reach the part where it mattered the most; his jewels. Not only would it be socially awkward to scratch repeatedly, but he bet it would hurt to piss anytime.

Jack walked down the dungeons silently. He wanted desperately to just lay in bed, but he wanted to torture Amelia a bit. Maybe today would give a chance to do just that. His brown hairwas a dull color today. Jack pushed the door of the classroom opened, surveying the area and realizing he was the first kid here. Wait, first? This had never happened to Jack before. Never. He couldn't be first, that just wasn't possible! He wanted to just turn around and leave, or curl up and die somewhere quiet.

"Medicine? What're we learning today? The effects of Advil and Tylenol?"

He asked Amelia, walking down and taking a seat in the back of the class, his usual desk.

Amelia was legitimately surprised when the first student to arrive was Jack Kubin. Not exactly known for his promptness, Amelia couldn’t say Jack was her favorite pupil, and considering what had happened at the feast for her new headmistress position, Amelia was worried he might bring up a line of conversation she didn’t want to partake in.

So she was relieved, then, when instead of bringing Marcus into the conversation – as she hoped he wouldn’t – Jack commented on the title for today’s class. Amelia raised an eyebrow at the fact that Jack had known muggle medicines by name, but then, he was in Ravenclaw, and they were smarter than most.

Now if only Jack would use his intelligence for good rather than evil… Amelia thought as the younger boy took his seat.

“Something like that,” Amelia said vaguely in response to Jack’s question, and refusing to rise to the tone he put in it. Jack was trying to make trouble, and as headmistress, one of Amelia’s new goals was to stop taking the bait when people tried to raise her temper. Self-control was the name of the game.

“But you’ll have to wait until your classmates arrive to hear more.”

Amelia Lyons had failed to break in the very first lesson of term. Liesl was disappointed, but she was also very ill, so the disappointment was rather overshadowed by how sorry she felt for herself at this stage.

Liesl had never been so ill before in her life. When she was little, her mother had always waited one week before giving her the potion that cured whatever it was she had, to "build up immunity," or so she said. By now, Liesl had been ill for months.

Alright, for a month.

A horrid green rash had begun to break out around her hairline, which wasn't so bad if she could get salve on it to stop the itching. Unlike some, Liesl wasn't worried about the colour, since it she had seen some muggle television when daddy made the family stay at a hotel while he led the aurors away on a wild goose chase. There were things on muggle television that looked much worse than this tiny rash, and besides, it was house colours.

If Amelia didn't start showing the strain today, Liesl was going to run a book on it. It would distract everyone from this nasty virus. She'd be doing a public service.

Walking down the dungeons Alice was reading a book about the latest potions class. She have always been horrible at potions , but despite this she liked this class. As she opened the door and taking a few steps forward, the first thing she saw was that she was actually on time to class. " Nice change ! I´m always late for class" Alice thought with a smile.

" Hi professor! " She told her professor while taking a seat in the middle row and looking at the board " Medicine? sounds interesting" Alice added smiling.

A handful of students were already assembled in the potions dungeon and none of them looked at all disturbed by the prospect of learning about "Medicine."

Monroe himself was less sure. Though he was as yet unaffected by the mysterious illness that had been making the rounds, he had made note of it and of its general form. Like the fact that, regardless of anyone's exposure, it seemed to be most virulent among the purebloods.

Medicine might mitigate the symptoms, but Monroe doubted a cure would be any more forthcoming from that quarter than it had been from their own healers.

Destrey strutted into potions and scoffed at the writing on the board.

Medicine! Who needed it? NOT Destrey Ashcroft, that's who.

The idea of drinking blood had been hard to swallow; she was no vampire, but the idea of never catching that debilitating disease? That had been an easier sell and so she had enough unicorn blood to last until a proper cure was found. Or so she hoped.

Sam walked into the room, glanced at the board and frowned. He stood there, in the doorway, for a second or two, before making a slight shrugging motion and walking to his bench towards the centre of the room - not too far forward or too far back... maybe a little boring, but Sam didn't mind.

He stifled a cough as he sat down, went to pull out his books, rethought the action and settled to draw out a pot of ink, a quill and a parchment, ready to take notes on what looked to be a mildly interesting lesson. "Hello Miss," he added, looking up at Amelia for a moment before resting his head on his arms

As students began to filter into the classroom, the young headmistress could see the symptoms of the illness showing. Some of them were still showing tinges of green, nearly everyone looked exhausted, and more than a few people were sniffling and coughing. Amelia herself had been working hard to maintain a presentable image in light of the illness having struck her as well, but keeping herself de-greened with salve wasn’t enough to completely save face. She was paler than normal – which was a feat, considering her typically alabaster skin – and her weight loss showed clearly in the way her plum colored shift dress no longer hugged her hips the way it used to, but rather hung loosely around her deteriorating frame.

“Good morning,” Amelia said to the class at large, greeting both those who had made a point to say hello and those who had simply taken their seats in silence, “I see that many of you have noticed today’s topic of discussion, and regardless of your feelings about it, you will all be expected to participate today. No exceptions,” she added, just to make herself clear.

“As all of you are certainly aware, an illness has been sweeping Hogwarts, and many of us are without the full capacity use of our magical abilities,” the former Ravenclaw said, pushing herself off the desk she had been leaning against and walking across the front of the room, planning her words before she said them, “Because of this, our lesson today is going to focus on muggle medicine, rather than magical healing.”

“As many of you already know, medicine is the muggle word for what our healers do, though they call the equivalent doctors or nurses. Without the use of magic, muggles to a rather astoundingly good job of healing many ailments, though to my knowledge, they have never seen anything to the likes of what Hogwarts is currently experiencing.”

“That being said, today’s lesson and all those up until a cure is found for this illness are going to focus on using muggle methods of treating the symptoms of the illness. We already know there is not yet a cure, but we are going to attempt to make muggle medicines – without the use of wands, due to the unpredictability of this for those students affected – that will treat fever, flu-like symptoms of coughing and sneezing, and pain relief.”

“In the boxes at the front of the room, you will find different kits of ingredients and instructions for making these muggle medicines. You can use your cauldrons and other tools, but you will not be needing your wants today. Today’s medicine is going to be Aspirin, which is used to treat pain and fever. Please retrieve your kits and begin. If you have any questions, please let me know.”

((OOC: This website: http://chemistry.about.com/od/demonstrationsexperiments/ss/aspirin.htm can help to guide your posts in this thread. The second page is particularly helpful so you will know which ingredients to reference and how the process begins. If you have questions, ask them either in-character or to me via PM))

Monroe gave his siblings the evil eye as he walked past them to fetch a cauldron.

"Why are you just sitting there?" his look said.

Destrey looked incredibly proud of herself, just lazing in her chair as though she had no cares in the world. She was up to something, he was sure. The question was, would he have to clean up after her?

The cauldrons were kept in a cupboard under the sink and as Monroe was first to reach it, he was able to take his pick. He knew from experience that several of the school cauldrons had the remains of potions past cemented to the bottom of them so being able to choose one that didn't was an advantage.

He strolled back to his own desk, dumping two other, less pristine cauldrons in front of his siblings as he passed them.