Lesson 3 - N.E.W.T. Level

Bloody hell, he came here only to be the Headmaster, and to think that he had almost been denied that promise, and now he is limping to the Dungeons to teach Potions... all over again, to hormone raging brats who have absolutely no interest in these bottles filled with colorful liquids. Yes, he had been some sort of puppet Headmaster, but he did actually have far more authority than anyone thought, which made him a powerful nemesis to those who wanted to control him, but more on that later, right? He sat on top of his desk, starting to play with his cane, waiting for the brats to arrive.

Jack had rolled out of bed late and sleepwalked down to breakfast, late. It seemed she was set up to be late, so when she stumbled into Potions she did not expect to see an empty classroom. She stopped and blinked as few times before muttering, "Well this certainly is a strange turn of events." She shrugged and moved to take a seat in the back.

She had been doing much better in this class than she had expected. Sure, she had discovered a secret little tip for the Draught of Living Death by accident, but it had been nice to see Amelia looking at her as though she knew something she did not. Jack did not care for being on top of the class, she did not try. So when she worked her way up there, it was a cool little change.

"Ahoy, captain," she said in casual voice, directed at the professor, though not really expecting a reply. She was not a suck up, so she did not expect her teachers to get along with her. It was okay; chances were, she would not get along with them. She set about dragging her bag onto her lap and pulling everythig out she would need, before letting it flop onto the ground with a thud.

Ever since her last experience in Potions class, Amelia had made several trips to the library, hoping to add to her already considerable knowledge base on the subject. It had been frustrating beyond measure to have her potion turn out anything less than perfect, especially when another student in the class had managed to do it better.

It was with these thoughts in mind that Amelia had devoured close to a dozen potions books, and was now feeling more confident as she entered the potions dungeon. Jack was the only other student in the room, and the headmaster was watching with his usual look of passive disinterest. Not bothering with greetings, Amelia took her usual table on the right side of the room and set her bag down, pulling out the things she would need for today's lesson, which was sure to be another practical one.

''Aaaarrrrgggghhhh! Me lassie! Ye want to swab the deck or the head, maybe? Bilmey, there's much of thee present today! Lassie, I am sorry, but you have to swab the deck... I can't assign it to anyone'', he said. ''Now, as for today's lesson, you two could, if you're up for it, I shan't force you since... well you know. Today's lesson should have been the Draught of Peace. You have the ingredients in the books, so if you want, you can make it and if not, you can leave and I shall consider this class dismissed. But, congratulations for the two of you, since you actually decided to attend'', he said.

Jack grinned as the professor returned her words with a pirate-y welcome of his own; she wondered how Adam's, her Beauxbatons friend, pal Peter would respond to this. He would probably cry with happiness, that awkward person... Amelia walked in after Jack, punctual as always.

The professor seemed to think they would be the only ones attending the class and gave them either the option to work together or to skive off the class. While the other was much more appealing, she was already here and had little else to do. Also, she had been surprised to find she was not dreadful at the subject, and she was not too worried about suffering through just one lesson. She turned to Amelia. "Whaddya say? Partner up and make a damn good Draught of Peace?" She smirked.

Amelia was just setting down her cauldron when the professor started yelling something, which nearly made her drop the heavy black container. By some stroke of luck, she managed to catch the cauldron before it fell, and she was careful to grip it more strongly as she listened to the headmaster carry on in some odd accent she had never heard him use before. What he was saying seemed to be more or less rubbish, a bunch of words all strung together nonsensically, but after a few sentences he seemed to regain some sense of decorum and intelligibility, at which point Amelia thought it safe enough to put down her cauldron.

The headmaster seemed to be disappointed in the lack of attendance for today's lesson, but Amelia was rather pleased with it. She would much rather there be fewer people just about everywhere she was, but she had to admit to being glad that Jack was around right now. If not, the headmaster may have tried to rope her into another one of his 'let's-try-and-figure-Amelia-out' conversations, and Amelia wasn't particularly in the mood to be psycho-analyzed.

When the headmaster made his offer that the pair of them could either make the potion or make a run for it, Amelia was immediately leaning on the side of staying to make the potion, but she didn't want to answer too quickly or commit Jack to something she didn't want to do, lest she seem like a teacher's pet. Jack, however, surprised her when instead of merely sauntering out of the classroom, as was her usual tendency, she turned to Amelia and asked - although quite uncouthly - if she would like to join forces to complete the task.

"I... yes, of course," Amelia managed, still somewhat taken aback by both Jack's willingness to do optional schoolwork and by the way in which she had made the offer. Amelia wasn't particularly keen on working in groups, but the task had been set, and Jack seemed to be proficient in potions, producing an even better brew than Amelia had last class period.

Hastily, Amelia put her potions kit and book into her empty cauldron and took it and her schoolbag over to the table where Jack was sitting. It was odd to share a table with another person; usually she sat alone at her table, not having classmates that felt enough - or any - affinity toward her to consider sharing such close proximity.

"I have the ingredients here," Amelia began, getting right down to business as she unloaded her cauldron and flipped through the textbook for the correct page.

"Would your rather skin frog legs or extract flobberworm mucous?" Amelia asked brusquely, knowing that neither task was particularly attractive, but from what she had seen of Jack's liking of dirt over the summer, she didn't think the Gryffindor girl would cringe at the prospect of doing either of them. Amelia perhaps would have made a complaint if those had been asked of her in a non-academic setting, but she was generally a no-nonsense type of person. If no-nonsense meant juicing flobberworms, so be it.

Jack could hear the hesitation in Amelia's voice and felt the side of her mouth go up in her characteristic smirk. Most people were uneasy around her as it was, and Jack knew that while they had only been friendly, she had not made a great impression on Amelia when they had spoken over the summer. They were both smart, though in drastically different ways. They both had different ideas of being blunt, and of how one was supposed to behave.

Basically, this should be interesting.

Amelia wasted no time in getting to business, saying that she already had all of the ingredients that they would be needing. "Right-o," Jack said, pushing her bag out of their way with her foot and dropping the Potions book onto the table with a thud, before flipping through the pages until she found the one with all of the ingredients and directions she would need.

Amelia gave her the option of extracting flobberworm mucus or skinning frog legs. Jack closed her eyes and mimicked a conflicted expression. In a torn voice, she said, "I just can't choose. They are both so very tempting." She smirked and flicked open her eyes, knowing she had better watch out or she would soon have a very irritated partner.

"I'll take the frog legs for two hundred." Jack was not sure if Amelia would catch the reference or not, but she gathered the frog legs and took out her silver knife. She began to live the legs and carefully take the skin off, a feat she did lazily but with skill. There were some skills she had she just did not need to work at; skinning frogs, being one. Useful, eh?

When Jack replied, Amelia actually had the urge to ask her what language she was speaking. Her confusion at Jack’s words was evident on her face, via raised eyebrow and slightly baffled open lips, but Amelia could find no appropriate response to Jack’s words because… well… she hadn’t understood them.

Sometimes, Amelia had to wonder about this girl, who seemed to be eternally bouncing off the ceiling or yelling something or another that was disruptive, rude, or legitimately insightful. She was like a walking contradiction. Amelia knew she was smart, but Jack wasn’t particularly good at showing it. Amelia would liked to have said that Jack’s method of speaking was evidence of her not showing her intelligence, but the Ravenclaw knew that would by slightly hypocritical; when she found herself in social situations, Amelia was about as unintelligible as they came.

Whatever Jack’s language had been, however, she did not hesitate to get down to business, so Amelia took her lead and took out a jar of flobberworms, pulling out a few of the white, writhing things and getting to work. The worms were slippery between her bony fingers, but she managed to push the edge of the paring knife down on the first worm and slid it along the length of the writhing cylinder hard enough to squish out the yellowish liquid it contained. She repeated the action with several more flobberworms until she had the appropriate amount for the potion.

Setting this aside, Amelia grabbed her cauldron and filled it magically with water. She then hung it over the small bundle of sticks that would serve as the base to their fire, and crouched down to light the fire with her wand. A few sparks quickly turned into flames, and Amelia fanned the small fire with a bit of spare parchment to encourage it to grow higher and hotter.

“How are the frog legs coming?” Amelia asked from her crouched position, unable to see Jack’s progress from this perspective.

Amelia stared at Jack as though she was from another planet. Jack sighed. "Jeopardy? American muggle show. No? No." She sighed, though there was the trace of a smile on her face; she always thought it was funny when she made an obscure muggle reference and the wizarding people around her remained completely baffled by the references.

Jack continued her work, wiping her hand against the desk to clear it from some of the bodily gunk- she always preferred academic language- that the legs were oozing. She glanced over to watch Amelia's progress and found her self musing. She said aloud, "I find it funny that we are required to take care of flobberworms in Care of Magical Creatures and try to keep them alive.. all so we can harvest their mucus. Gotta love the circle of life."

She chuckled and looked back down at the legs, only having gotten through half of what was needed. She pushed the ones she had finished out of her way and then pulled the other closer to her. She carefully slit long cuts down each leg and set about peeling the skin away on each leg. Amelia asked how she was doing as she skinned the last leg. "Huzzah. Done."

Amelia smirked at Jack’s highlighting of the irony of raising and then slaughtering the flobberworms. Amelia hadn’t taken Care of Magical creatures since she had finished her O.W.L. year, so she had been relatively flobberworm-free since then, about which she had not been disappointed. Although she could appreciate the variety of magical creatures and the many benefits that came along with knowing about them and their properties, Amelia hadn’t been interested enough to take it as a N.E.W.T. level course.

“Great,” Amelia replied when Jack announced she was finished with the frog legs. The Ravenclaw girl had just gotten the fire to the proper intensity, and so she stood back up, returning to her stool and glancing back at the textbook once more before taking the cutting board with her flobberworm mucous on it and bringing it over to the cauldron, whose water had just begun to boil. Careful to get all of it, Amelia scraped the yellowish pus into the cauldron, turning the water a pale orange color as it hissed at the new ingredient.

“You can add the frog legs now,” Amelia said, returning to the table and looking back at the book, “I’ll get the moonstone.”

Following through on her promise, Amelia grabbed another bottle from her potions kit after replacing the one with the flobberworms. This second jar contained a sparkly white powder, and Amelia opened the container slowly so as not to spill any onto the table. Taking out a measuring cup, she began pouring the powdered moonstone into it, watching the line that, when the powder reached it, would indicate that she had enough of that ingredient.