Details for Fifth Year Potions |
Summary: | Fifth Year students try to brew Invigoration Draughts…with mixed results. |
Date: | January 31, 1938 |
Location: | Potions Classroom |
Related: | — |
Characters |
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The Potions classroom is thick with chatter, activity, and smoke. Lots of smoke. That's the unfortunate side-effect of a poorly mixed Invigoration Draught, which is exactly what one unfortunate student inflicted on the rest of the class. Professor Slughorn vanished the noxious potion, but his Ventilation Charm is struggling against the gathered cloud of thick, yellow haze. Nevertheless, he has assured the students that the smoke isn't harmful, and instructed them to continue their own attempts at the Invigoration Draught.
Ivy is brilliant, but brilliance can only get one so far when it comes to Potions; she struggles frequently with the finer points of Potions, though she can usually manage to complete the required formula within acceptable parameters. "I know Professor Slughorn's said it's harmless, but are we really sure we aren't breathing in something toxic?" she asks in a low voice to the students sharing a table with her.
The look on Eamon's face is Not Amused. He hunches down, trying to keep beneath the layer of thick, noxious smoke and still stir his potion as instructed. "I think we need…" Eamon squints at his book and wipes his eyes, which are leaking due to the smoke. "Is that an f or a t?"
There's a bit of a cough from Julian's table as he kind of glances through the smoke, furrowing his eyebrows toward the student who had mournfully messed up the mixture. He himself was just finishing weighing out and proportioning his own ingredients, scooping them together to keep them separated… and to offer a bit of the extra to his lab partner, Eibhlin. As he toys with his own portioned out bits, he scrunches his nose slightly at the fumes. Hearing some of the chatter a table or two over, he frowns a little… but says nothing in regard to it. Instead, he tends to his own potion. "'Ey, Evie," he asks quietly, adding the ingredients into his cauldron after a moment… "It -is- counter-clockwise once we start stirring, right?"
Luckily the smoke causing potion is near the front of the class, and Donovan is near the rear. He is free of the smoke, for now, but is instead having to deal with the fact that he is absolutely rubbish at potions. He glances from his ingredients to his pot, and then back to the book. "Well, time to see if I can't top that performance." He's talking about the smoke production.
Kimiko leans over Eamon's book, peering at the text. "It's an 'f'. That's 'powdered fluoruspar.'" She gives a little cough as she inhales some of the smoke. "Tastes a bit like…sand." She stick out her tongue in distaste.
Thankfully, potions is one of those classes that Eibhlin finds to be a breeze. Logical, orderly recipes that if followed perfectly result in a brilliant potion? It's perfection in the eyes of this particular Ravenclaw. She's been working on preparing the ingredients, leaving Julian the task of adding and stirring. There's a glance up from the text to the other Ravenclaw and she gives a small nod. "Counter-clockwise until the potion starts to turn reddish… It's best to stop once you see a bit of pink smoke. I've found that gets the best result." She sneezes briefly as the acrid smoke gets to her nostrils, muttering as she sets back to preparing some of the more fiddly ingredients.
Potions… Not one of Alexei's favorite classes. Shaking his head a little bit as he keeps his attention on his own potion, looking very much like he's paying full attention to that one now. Muttering something to himself as he shakes his head a bit, before he tries to blow that smoke away from him, as he lets out a few more phrases in Russian. Not sounding too happy about something.
"'Til the potion starts to turn… reddish. Got it." And Julian is on that. As he quietly works at the potion, he has begun to stir it, steadily. As he does, he glances around at some of the other students who're kind of squinting and looking at the books… Mind, Potions isn't one of Julian's BEST classes, but thankfully, he was decent… and had a decent partner most of the time. "I think that between the two of us, this won't be so bad," he remarks idly toward his partner, smiling just a little bit before turning his attention back to the mixture in the cauldron, squinting at it. "… should it be turning pink first? I know you mentioned pink smoke… but… uh…" He's still stirring… no real smoke rising from it yet.
"Eat a lot of sand, do you, Saito?" teases Eamon, and then goes about trying to get the right amount of powdered fluoruspar into the cauldron. "It's blue," he says, squinting. "Is it supposed to be blue? Oh wait, it's turning violet. That's better."
"Only once," Kimi replies without thinking. Then she looks up in a panic, cheeks pinkening. "I mean…not on purpose! Um…I tripped on the beach and…you get the idea." She lowers her gaze abashedly to her potion. At least she's fairly certain it won't judge her.
Ivy's head turns to the side, her eyes narrowing as she tries to make out Alexei through the smoke. She can't quite see him, so she's not entirely sure who she's talking to when she speaks back to him, also in Russian. Then she goes back to painstakingly making her way through the potion formula in the book.
Glancing around at everyone else's potions Donovan decides it's time to take the plunge, he nods to his partner and hands the ingredients over. "I think… you turn it counter clockwise until it turns… color. Pink or lavander or some other fake girl color." He glances down at the book, a song coming to his lips, detailing how to make the potion properly. "Thank you Sunny." He says under his breath as he grabs another bit of ingredients and begins preparing them.
Eamon isn't judging! He is laughing though. "Oh, aye, just that one time on the beach." He bumps his partner's shoulder lightly to let her know it's all fine and then keeps stirring, turning his face into his elbow to cough out some of the smoke. "This is horrible. There's got to be some way to clear it out faster. Who decided to have a class like this in a room with no windows anyway?"
"Add some more of this," Eibhlin instructs Julian, passing over a small bowl of some sort of powder. "Just a pinch. Then stir a couple times. If it doesn't start darkening, try a bit more." She glances up and gives a lop-sided smirk. "But just a /tiny/ amount at a time. Can't take away, can only add." She casts a look around the room then, pausing when she turns to look over her shoulder at Donovan. There's what she hopes is a reassuring smile cast to the Gryffindor. If it weren't for the concern of the outcome.
Alexei pauses for a few moments as he hears Ivy, pausing in his work to look over at her, very briefly. Nodding a little bit at what was said, he goes back to work, a rather grim version of a grin on his face at the moment.
Kimiko peers over toward Donovan. "Fake girl colour?" She opens her mouth to deliver some sort of snappy retort. Then she closes it. Surely, it will come eventually. Eamon's nudge earns a shy, sidelong smile. "And yes, it was just that once, you big meanie. After that, I learned to turn my head when I tripped in sand."
"Yeah… you know, like Salmon, or Burnt Sienna they aren't real colors… they're just words girls use for real colors, like orange." Donovan responds to Kimiko, he does look up towards the front of the class where the smart kids hang out, but due to the smoke he can't see much up there.
Claire lacks the finesse for truely skilled potion work, but can usually obtain a serviceable result. Well, it won't kill you. Probably. She coughs frequently, being so tall she's given up trying to hunch below the level of the yellow smoke.
Eamon glances sideways at Kimiko and grins evilly at her. "Such a wise little thing you are. Though perhaps you might next want to work on not tripping." Attention returns to his book and his nose wrinkles. In goes what looks like some sort of reptile scales and then some wand waving.
Focused on her potion as she is, Ivy misses most of the conversation going on around her. She's suffering through the vile smoke with the grace she usually suffers through distasteful subjects, like when people start talking Quidditch.
Thankfully, Julian follows as Eibhlin instructed and their potion changes to the proper hue and emits the bit of smoke. There's a wait time, then, it would seem, as the redhead hunches over and flips to the next page. Reviewing the next steps of the brew.
Kimiko playfully slaps at Eamon's arm, ducking under an admonishing look from Professor Slughorn. "Sand is hard to run on!" she hisses, trying to excuse her clumsiness. "Oh! Mine's turning violet. That's right, isn't it?" She quickly consults the textbook.
Donovan glances at the potion as he partner mixes it, it's turning red. "No… I don't think that's right." He says after a minute, he returns to the book flipping through the few pages on the draught they're making. "Okay… I think it needs another couple pinches of this." He says sliding a bowl over to his partner. He glances up worriedly at his fellow fifths, seeing a few of them through the clearing smoke. He shakes his head slightly.
"I think that's right," confirms Eamon. "It should start turning… red?" He reads off the book, and then leans forward to check into his cauldron again. "And then you let it brew for, um, 20 minutes."
"Red is good," Eibhlin says towards Eamon, glancing up towards the Gryffindor. She looks back down to her potion, pondering. Her partner is left to cut some slimy things up as she starts adding more ingredients to the potion. Once she's satisfied with what's been added, she starts to stir slowly.
Kimiko keeps stirring, watching her potion for signs of shifting to red. "How red? More of a crimson or a vermillion?" She smirks, looking back to Donovan, "For the record, Gallagher, those aren't colours made up by girls. You might have noticed there are different shades and hues of every colour. They need names, just like anything else."
"I dunno Kimi, I think red works just fine for crimson or vermillion." Donovan shakes his head as he and his partner continue the elaborate dance that is potionsmaking. "I dunno, like… a pinch?" He answers his partners question about how much of the next bit to put in.
"Um…" Eamon says, totally lost, trying to decide what shade of red the cauldron might be. "Dark…red?" he tries, shrugging helplessly. A look is given to Donovan in man-thing camaraderie. What is with these girls and all these crazy names for the same thing?!
Kimiko sighs. "But then how can you tell the difference between them if you call them both red? Even dark red has different tints. That's like saying you don't need to call a lion a lion, or a tiger a tiger, because they're both just 'cats'."
"One has a mane and one has stripes," says Eamon with a blank look on his face. "They're not the same color at all."
Kimiko blinks at Eamon, forgetting her potion for a moment. "That's not the point at all, Eamon. It was a comparison. Lions and tigers have their own names because they're different, even though they're similar. The same is true of red, vermillion, and crimson. They're similar, but still different, and deserving of their own names. Goodness, if they were all just 'red', my painting would be awfully bland."
Eamon continues to stare at Kimiko and then says, "Um… your potion's burning." It's gone from 'Crimson' to 'Mauve.' Definitely not the right color.
Kimiko grumbles. "Don't change the subj-…my potion!" She squeals in a panic as she gets back to stirring, hoping to bring it back to the correct colour. It begins to bubble and steam. "No, no nonononono! It's not supposed to do that!" At least it isn't spewing yellow smoke.
Eamon scratches the back of his head and looks around. "I'm sorry, Kimiko," he says sincerely. "I didn't mean to make you ruin your potion."
Kimiko glances over to Eamon, giving him a sympathetic look, distracted by those pretty eyes of his. "No, it's my fault. I-…" SPLORSH! The cauldron suddenly erupts with purplish liquid, drenching Kimiko nearly head to toe. Eyes pinched shut, she stands stock-still, stunned in momentary confusion.
Make that two shocked people, as Eamon does not seem to know exactly what to do or say. "Um." Pause, swallow. "Right." He looks back and forth, and then politely raises his hand to get the teacher's attention.
At least her potion finally turned violet. Kimiko blindly fumbles around. "Towel…something…please…" Thankfully, Slughorn spots Eamon's hand through the yellow haze, and once he sees Kimiko's condition, hurries over and quickly vanishes the potion drenching her. The girl smiles meekly. "Th-thank you, Professor. I…I'm sorry." She looks to her cauldron, wincing. That's when she notices people staring at her. Why are they staring at her? The show is over. Of course, she can't see what the potion did. Every inch of her skin has turned a lovely shade of purple.
Eamon presses his lips together, takes Kimiko's wrist and gently lifts her hand so that she can see the back of her very purple hand. "At least it's…an attractive color…" he offers, trying to be optimistic.
Kimiko's blush at the touch is amplified to a hot pink with her new skin tone. But it all fades to a pale lavender when she sees her hand. "Oh…" The growing laughter from other students announces that their initial shock has worn off. Kimi looks around desperately, mortified. She gives Eamon one last fearful look before darting straight for the door.
Professor Slughorn frowns, lifting a hand to call after Kimiko. But he stops and sigh, looking down to Eamon. "Best see that she gets to the hospital wing safely, Mr. MacCaille."
Eamon frowns as Kimiko flees and then nods sharply to Professor Slughorn. "Yes, um, of course. Professor, if you might?" he indicates his cauldron helplessly and then rushes off to be prefecty, dashing off into the hallway. "Kimiko?"
Kimiko didn't get far. Rather, in her haste, she went the wrong way, into the labyrinth. So by the time Eamon gets out into the hall, she's coming back and nearly collides with him. Hopping to a halt, she hugs herself tight and lowers her face in embarrassment, letting her hair hang down around her face. "Please don't laugh," she begs.
Eamon frowns and looks around, then reaches out and pulls her into a hug. "I would /never/ laugh at you unless you were laughing at yourself," he says seriously. "Got it?"
Well played, MacCaille. One can practically hear the swooning. Kimiko nods into his chest, curling up in his arms. Normally she'd balk at this kind of closeness, but right now it's apparently what the tiny purple girl needs. "Thank you," she whispers.
Eamon strokes his fingers through Kimiko's long smooth hair soothingly. "Shall we get you up to Madame Spleen so you can be flesh colored again?" He draws away slightly and pulls off his much larger robes to wrap around her to cover most of the purple up quite well.
Awkward as it walking around under Eamon's robes, it's far less awkward than walking around openly purple. "Yes, please," she agrees as she ducks under the cloth and leans into him. "This…isn't how I imagined getting closer to you," she admits.
Eamon chuckles and wraps an arm around Kimiko's shoulders. "Well, normally I'd want dinner before taking my clothes off," he says with a hint of a very very naughty smile. Ahem. "Right. Up we go."
Kimiko gasps, turning bright magenta under the robe. "Eamon! That's lewd!" She giggles, covering her mouth. As it's time for lessons, there is no one in the halls to point and laugh on their way to the hospital wing. Once they've reached it, Madam Spleen gets Kimiko settled on a bed while she tut-tuts off to mix a potion.
"Made you laugh though," replies Eamon without a hint of regret. "Here we are." He stands back out of the way to let the nurse gets Kimiko settled and then comes back to sit on the edge of her cot. "Purple is a good color for you anyway. Perhaps you should wear it more often."
Kimiko gives him a soft smile, shrugging. "You're just being nice. I look like a walking eggplant. Not…that I mind you being nice about it."
"You look lovely," responds Eamon grandly. He winks at her and then hops off the cot again when he sees Madame Spleen coming back.
Kimiko couldn't ask for a better bedside companion. But her cheer hits a roadblock when Madam Spleen explains that she'll have to take the potion every day for a week before the colour fades entirely. It's a hard pill to swallow, but Eamon's support makes it seem just a bit lighter.