Lesson 4 - Basic Level

Sam nodded and looked at the ingredients, "Looks like we have them all," he said with a smile, filling the cauldron with water and lighting a flame, moving the cauldron over the flame to begin to heat it. "Ok, i'll start on the Dragon Thoraxes and flying Sea Horse preparations, you can do the other two, then we'll add them to the potion," he said cheerily, grabbing one of the flying sea horses and begining to cut it up, as instructed. "Not a bad potion to know how to brew, this one," he said as he sliced them up.

Keith frowned. "I don't understand..." he muttered to himself. "I'm...not a girl...oh." He sighed. This was one of those teachers. He turned reluctantly to his partner, a hufflepuff he vaguely remembered from charms class. "I'm keith," he said, making no move to shake the boy's hand or anything like that. Instead he pulled out his potions kit, along with his book, out of his bag and flipped to the appropriate page. "Sliced pixie wings... mistletoe..." he said, looking at the first two items on the list. "I have the mistletoe, but I'm out of sliced pixie wings. You got any?"

Brayden watched the boy pull out some things and nodded as he asked if he had sliced pixki wings. Looking through his things he found it shoved in his book but they were perfectly fine to use still. "Here the little devils are" He said smiling placng them on the table in front of him and Keith. "Anything else needed? he asked not knowing

"Sounds fine to me," Andrew said. He double checked the directions and took a sharp little knife from the worktable and prepared the fairy wings. He frowned, when that was done and he double checked the directions. "Now, wait. It doesn't really say. I'm guessing we need to, basicallly, scramble these eggs? If not, we're just going to have a kettle full of weird looking sunnyside up Doxy eggs, aren't we?"

Andrew had seen breakfast prepared often enough to know that heat applied to eggs that weren't altered in some way just simply made breakfast. And he was sure that wasn't what Doyle was looking for. Andrew, personally, didn't like their potions book. It was often vague and sometimes, from what he'd seen in some of the books in the restricted section, misleading. And unfortunately for him, he hadn't read up on the potions for today's classwork in any of the "offlimits" books.

"I think I'm going to send an owl to my neighbor at home and ask him to send us a really good potions book, Sam," Andrew said very quietly to Sam. "This book stinks. My neighbor likes potions. I bet he has something he'd loan us. You ought to come visit over the holidays, even for a night or so. We'd have a great time. They're pretty amazing. You have no idea!"

''Your neighbor is probably a bigger idiot than you! Although, I do like you, you have wit, boy. But still, I don't know your name, unlike Grigori, whose name has become some sort of a symbol within these walls'', Doyle commented. ''Now, it does seem that your book may be a little slow, but that is why you are using it. Learning the art of Potions is not just copying the instructions from the book, it is much more than just that. That is why these basic level classes ought to be educative in the way that they should be giving you an insight on how things work. Your goal isn't to make it faster, it is to make it correct and you all are still on that level where fast just does not go with correct. So, just follow the instructions and get back to work'', Doyle said.

"I understand"Xemnas said picking his head back and turning around to find a seat.He had noticed this one student didn't have a partner and it wasn't just any student it was his friend Aurora."Hey aurora mind if I be your partner for potions."He asked her.Then he had turned around to notice the student he was looking at before in another class was in this class as well.Xemnas thought that he must be the one giving gryffindor all the house points.He then turned back to Aurora for an answer.

Sam chuckled and thought about the offer. "Sure, sounds like fun, if i don't stay here at Hogwarts that is," he said with a grin. "And that could be a good idea," he added, before the headmaster started his ramble again. As usual he had to throw in some mean, snide little comment before individualising one of the students, and walking off.

But this time, he didn't, there was some good in his little speech, there was a level of meaning, and it was quite a good meaning, very true. "Ok sir," Sam said, turning back to his ingredients and continuing to prepare them. After a few minutes he scraped the first one into the cauldron and stirred, turning away for a second as steam billowed out of the pot.

On the 3rd counter-clockwise stir Sam added in his other ingredient, frowning as it went yellow, instead of green, but continuing to stir until it went the right colour. "Your turn," he said with a smile, gesturing to the cauldron

Andrew just turned his back on Doyle and did his best to ignore him. As usual, Doyle's overly large need to stroke his own ego had gotten in the way of truly listening to Andrew and understand what it was he had really said. Andrew just rolled his eyes, frustrated with him. If there was one thing Edgar Doyle did not have issue with, it was low self esteem. Doyle seemed to ahve more than enough of that to go around--for himself and a significant portion of the student body.

He still was going to get a better book to study from. It had nothing to do with doing things faster. Where the heck had Doyle gotten that asinine idea, anyway? Andrew hadn't ever mentioned the word "faster" in connection with making a potion. Andrew wanted to learn to do them right. And this stupid book did not explain things in very precise terms. It usually gave a list of ingredients and simply assumed one would somehow "throw them together." When it did give instructions, it was incredibly inprecise. Andrew got more satsifaction and answers by either what he found in the library, or by what he found the scribblings in the margins of other, older classmates texts.

Andrew added the last of the ingredients to the cauldron and watched it appear to take shape. One thing about it, these things never seemed to smell like hot chocolate or spiced cider or anything remotely desireable to drink. "Have you noticed how all these things generally stink, Sam?" Andrew asked quietly.

''No, they smell like lilies! Of course they should stink? Have you ever seen delightful bat's eyes? Bloody hell, from what deluded place do you come from? Scotland? Please'', Doyle barked. ''You know, people, I tend not to be invasive, as you may have noticed, but do lift your little heads up, look at the watch that does not exist in this classroom, and wrap up what you have started! It is time...'', he ordered.