Participants:
Scene Title | In With The Old |
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Synopsis | The Students try an Aging Potion. |
Location | Potions Classroom, Hogwarts |
Date | December 12, 1994 |
Watch For | A stallion, baby! |
Logger | Snape |
Ah, good ol’ Potions class and the mind-numbing terrors that it entails.
Laid out on the tables are a series of ingredients, many of which have already been half-way prepared for the younger students while the older students are going to have to make due. Cauldrons set and ready to boil and on each desk there appears to be one overlarge scarab beetle that is quite dead, spindly legs curled up in front of it.
And, just for a change of pace, there is a recipe meticulously inscribed upon a piece of parchment and placed alongside each beetle. The gothic script at the top details the ‘Draught of Aging’ - a brew mentioned but not covered in the texts.
Julian steps into the room, finds his normal seat, and notices that the room is double-sized again. "Bloody hell," he mutters to himself. "Another big class. What's he gonna do this time?" He loves the science of the potions, the mixing weird things to get results, and Snape is his favorite professor, but he has discovered that he hates potions class. Mainly because of what the potions do. He looks down at the paper, and frowns. "Aging Draught. That shouldn't be too bad." He slides his bag from his shoulders, and sits, noticing that some of the ingredients are already prepped. That'll help immensely.
Luna had arrived just a touch early for this class, finding a spot right in the middle row. Shouldering her bookbag off of her shoulder, she sets it down by her side, scooting it beneath her desk with a push of her foot. Taking a moment to settle into her stool, Luna sends a vague smile in the direction of Julian, before finally glancing down at what lies upon her desk. Canting her head a bit to one side, the smile leftover on her face from what she did before falters, the girl bringing her hand up towards the beetle. Clutching it, she drags it to the very center of the desk, and arranges the rest of the ingredients around it in what one might consider a decorative fashion. If one were both colorblind, and highly random, if not outright mad.
Another Ravenclaw arriving early is Kyrie, her face set in the same sort of expression that most students who don't like this class tend to wear when they get here. The dead scarab on her desk gives her pause, and the girl curls her lip in the first throes of her next favorite Potions-class expression, the one most often described as 'eww, gross'. However, she keeps her mouth shut and glances over toward Luna and the latter's… original… sorting abilities.
Ginny arrives a few minutes before class was due to start, her brown eyes roaming the desks before she selected one in the exact center - right next to Luna. She smiled at her friend's arranging techniques, then eyes her beetle sympathetically. As she notices the ingredients, her eyes alight on the title, and she smiles. /This/ should be interesting.
Behind all the other students arriving is Ron, who immediately heads to the back of the dungeon in the furthest corner once he's inside. While he normally dislikes Potions, he's absolutely dreading it today. He would really prefer to not be selected for any crazy experiments of Snape this time. His plan for today is to keep his head down and out of sight, as he goes over the recipe laid out on the desk before him. As long as he can follow them to the letter, everything should be fine. Right?
Melissa follows closely behind Luna and Kyrie, sitting on the other side of Luna from Ginny and looking over the day's setup. "Aging…" she says, looking down at herself, then at Luna. "Do you think Professor Snape is going to give us bigger clothes? What if we go through a growth spurt?" she asks. If so, then this should be fun. If not… then, well, it could lead to… embarrassment.
Rene appears during the 'better get to class before you're late' rush, huffing and plopping into the stool next to Bean. "I lost track of time." Which probably means he ran here from wherever he was before. Judging by the flush on his face, it must have been quite far. It is now that he looks at the supplies and paper, wincing at the irony of what he had just uttered.
Snape stalks his way into the classroom as usual, a glare here and there prompting any misbehaving students to sit down and be quiet. Upon reaching the front of the class, he crosses his arms over his chest and stares forward - no questions today.
"The Draught of Aging will age you ten years," Snape begins, neglecting to point out that an inaccurately-brewed potion (which the students will, in all likelihood, make) is decidedly more random, "You will be testing your own potions again this lesson so it is suggested that you get it right or face the consequences. The effects will last for three days. You will be marked on how precise and true to the described effects your potion is. Follow the instructions on your page and begin."
"Three days?" Bean blinks. "I hope we get it right." He rolls his eyes again, and starts working on the ingredients. "Luckily, we don't have to process all of them." He grins at that. "That'd take forever" with these small hands. He starts to crush the shell of the scarab in front of him, doing the first step, and carefully measures out the result. "Does it say to start the fire before or after we put this in?" There have been occasions of both in this class.
Elizabeth stirs the brew steadily, checking on it every once in a while before moving back to her notes on the potion. Her eyes narrow at the book, pondering before reaching for her quill and making a note on her parchment. After her percise handwriting flows over the scroll, she sets down the quill again, her sky blue eyes behind her circular glasses looking up at Snape. At the mention of the lasting effect of the potion, her eyes narrows again, her lips parting in realization that if she makes the potion correctly, as usual, she will be walking around the school at twenty-six years old. She keeps back a bit of an annoyed groan before moving back to the potion. Anything but perfection isn't possible, despite the side-effects of such afterwards.
"Three days?" Ron objects outloud, perhaps a little bit louder than he meant to, considering most of the classroom, if not all of the classroom, can hear him. Pulling his cauldron, ingredients, and beetle a little bit closer to him, it's with a sour look on his face that he begins to prepare his potion, muttering the instructions under his breath as he does so.
Luna turns her head towards Ginny as the other girl arrives, smiling so wide her nose crinkles. "Hello, Ginny." Luna says, in her decidedly dreamy tone of voice. Glancing to her other side now, she looks towards Melissa. "Oh, hello, Melissa. Are you feeling fuzzy-headed?" she asks, her dreamy tone lifting at the end with the question. One that is likely forgotten as Snape stalks into the classroom. Turning in her seat, she watches him head towards the front of the classroom with her unblinking stare, pausing a few moments after he finishes speaking. After that moment of evident 'processing', she turns her eyes downwards, following in Julian's tack by crushing the beetle shell.
Small hands, but twice as fast! Hooah. There seems to be a universal echo. "Three days?" Yeah, all pretty much in the same few seconds. The blond boy glances around behind him for the similarly reacting sources, but then quiets down again quickly, glancing at Julian with a bit of embarrassment before beginning on his own segments as well, though obviously helpful enough to relay instructions when Bean asks for them.
Kyrie doesn't start immediately. Much like reading over a musical score for the first time, which she does on a daily basis, the young Ravenclaw takes her time in reviewing things step by step, even going through a few of the motions to ensure she's understanding it correctly. Her brow is furrowed, and she makes an impressive 'oh yuck!' face at one point, all nose-wrinkles and tongue out, but she wipes it off her face quickly, for fear of retribution. However, she takes a moment to glance over at Luna and Ginny's parchments, stealing a glance or two just to ensure, upon furtive examination, that the instructions are the same as hers. With a nod of doom and a soft sigh for the potential of a three day tour as… whatever, she begins with the first line of the recipe, as meticulous as she can while her tummy is churning in revulsion.
Melissa nods with understanding to the professor and starts looking over the instructions one more time, thankful the hard part is already done with. Ten years… so for three days she'll be 21. Of course she'll still have to be in school… will it be any easier for an adult? She looks down at herself again… a 21-year-old woman definitely won't fit in an 11-year-old's clothes. She then remembers Luna's question. "Well… maybe with this," she says. "I don't know what will happen…" She starts working on the beetle shell, presuming that Snape isn't the kind of man to allow nudity in the classroom. Well, she knows for one thing that she'll be sending an owl straight home for some adult clothes after this class…
Ginny feels bad for the scarab beetle as she begins to crush its shell, focusing her mind on the methodical task at hand. At least the little creature could no longer feel anything, she reassures herself as her hands work. Three /days/. That should be interesting. Will she have to send away for new clothes?
Julian finishes brewing his potion and eyes it, hoping he's made it correctly. On a whim, he decides to stand up, perhaps to show off a bit, and perhaps to make room away from the others in case something else goes wrong. He frowns, uncertain about this, but he'd rather live in old skin for three days than to get house points taken away from him. He downs the dosage, and …
All of a sudden, he's stretching, growing taller and taller, wider and wider. He's no longer a gangly little thing. He's nigh on seven feet tall. And there is an expression of pain on his face as he looks down at his clothing. They fit, but something's hurting. He gingerly touches his arms, trying to find out where it hurts. After a moment, he discovers it's his joints that are aching. Much like … well, much like most of him did before he started eating properly. Joy. Three days of this. He looks down at his professor, and gives a small sheepish smile.
Luna finishes with her own potion, taking a few minutes later than the majority of the class to do so. Glancing towards Julian, her eyebrows lift as he goes up, up, and up… "…I think this is a growing potion as well." she says, confidentally, to the girls on either side of her. Showing a little less trepidation, however, she downs her finished potion, blinks.
Likewise, Luna starts to grow taller and wider. Unlike Julian, who had lost his gangly appearance, Luna ended up on the slender side, with long arms and legs. A bit bird-like in build, all told. Blinking twice, she glances from one side to the next, smiling vaguely up at the ceiling. This was all well and good, although her hair was stark white and pepper grey - as if she were 60, not the late twenties the rest of her features suggested.
Melissa looks down at herself one more time. "Well, goodbye for now, 11-year-old me," she says, and drinks up. She cringes as she feels herself grow, her clothes tightening around her body. She opens her eyes and looks down, surprised to see that she's still changing… for about twice as long as Julian had. She's now also quite tall, not quite as much as Julian though… and she looks definitely mature. "Oh my," she says in a clipped tone. "I must be… almost as old as my mother now… I wonder where I went wrong." She went over the process in her mind, verifying it against the recipe, scratching the side of her head.
Ginny carefully works over each step of the Potion, paying special attention to everything. The last thing she wanted was to be stuck at 50 for the next few days. When Snape encourages them to drink, she does so with less trepidation than the rest.
Ginny changes. While she is not as tall as Bean, she is quite tall for the woman in her early thirties that she now resembles. Her red hair goes all the way down her back, and there are new lines on her face: crow's feet around her eyes, laugh lines around the corners of her mouth. Thankful for the fact that she didn't burst out of her clothes, she looks down at herself, and blushes slightly. It seemed she'd developed in many /different/ ways, indeed.
Having been silent and very out-of-the way, few noticed Jacen the Firstie as he spent (too much) time with his aging potion. Grimmacing at the overcooked glop on hand, he shrugs and downs the concoction without a second thought. Eyes widening as he shifts, his tan deepens as he grows, then turns rapidly to liver spots on loose skin. The clatter of his chair rings through the dungeon as Jacen scampers against a wall, wide-eyed and wild-haired as a man nearing a century! He must have REALLY messed up. Leave it to a Muggleborn.
When Kyrie's potion is complete, it's obviously Not What It Should Be. It doesn't smell right, it doesn't look right, and it takes a Gryffindor-like courage for the girl to pick up the sample and down it, her nose pinched and one eye scrinched shut. Perhaps she should have had both eyes closed, because as the potion takes effect, her red hair grows out over her pointed ears. She grows taller as she remains sitting there, gripping the table hard. Before everyone's eyes, the girl ages beyond 10 years. Beyond 20. In fact, she ages beyond anything anyone sees here around Hogwarts, other than Professor Dumbledore himself. Alarm reigns on her face as she opens her scrinched eye and stares down in horror at wrinkles and liverspots and gnarled knuckles. It should be no surprise to hear her suddenly let out a piercing scream… or as much of a piercing scream as a witch older than McGonagall can let out. Her wrinkled face still echoes some of her childlike beauty in a vague sort of way, but the tears are a new feature.
The change is quick, painless, limbs growing with just a few more inches as curves become more apparent underneath Elizabeth's clothing as they stretch. Her midnight black hair remains long, her features of graceful age of a noble woman in her fifties. The Ravenclaw holds up her hand in front of her, skin aged, wrinkled just slightly. The girl, or in this case woman, sighs, lifting that hand to push up her glasses habitually. "This is going to be bothersome for a few days…" she murmurs to herself, her voice lower, with a mature tone to it.
Both Fred and George have been unusually quiet since class start except for the occasional low mutter or glance between themselves. The twins had set to work on their potion as soon as they were given their assignments and knowing their mischevious ways, they've likely concocted it before. George finishes first and Fred barely a minute later, both looking quite smug with themselves. "Bottom's up!" They say in unison, tapping vials before tipping their heads back and downing the potions.
The transformation is nearly identical, just like the twins themselves - they sprout up in height and aging smile lines form on both of their faces before suddenly, George gets a great deal thinner and hunches over, hair pluming into a mess of white. Fred's gut bursts forth and he sits heavily in his chair as hair falls out and fades to white. Both of them look at least a hundred years old, well over their target ages. George just frowns. "Well, that's a bummer, yeah?" Fred wheezes.
It seems like everyone is at the stage where they are eyeballing the potions in preparation, and Rene is no different. He glances after Bean when he finds a more open spot, but turns his face back to his own potion before Julian even downs his. It's now or never! Rene makes a somewhat interesting gesture out of all this, holding out the vial and then tossing it back like it was some sort of hard liquor. He immediately makes a wincing face, just the same.
The boy has long enough to clutch gingerly at his stomach before things start happening, and long enough to glance off to the side at someone else growing older. His growth is far less drastic than some of them, but he gets taller and taller than he was, topping off at the shorter end of the male spectrum, and at the higher end of the girls' new heights. His shoulders grow wider, but never get to the point of being too broad; and even under the charmed robes it is clear that he is made of lean muscle underneath. The thing that seems to stay the same is his skin- staying virtually markless save for the signs of middle age, not quite at forty years. His features have gone from those tiny, feminine things, to a handsome example of someone to have just stepped out of Lothlorien- even down to the long blond hair, which is now at least to the bottom of his back, spilling over his shoulders when he leans his newfound weight on the desk in front of him.
Oddly enough, his first worry is not so much about his own state; instead, Rene finds his balance between some vertigo to stand up straight, whirling sidelong to look for Jul- whoa, Nelly! "Sacre Bleu!" Stereotypes be damned! At least Rene's voice is just as handsome as he turned out, if such a thing is possible.
Having finished with his own potion, it's with a certain amount of trepidation that Ron tilts his vial back, swallowing the contents. Nothing happens at first, but slowly a full, red beard begins to sprout from his face, growing towards the floor and turning gray as the seconds pass. He huddles over, aching in his joints becoming prominent as his hair grows alongside his beard. Taking a look at his wrinkled hands, using them to feel his face (which feels wrinked, too!), his voice is low and raspy when he speaks. "Bloody hell." He doesn't look forward to being seventy-eight years old for three days. Not at all.
Julian may only look in his twenties, but he is moving and acting like Jacen in the corner. He hurts all over, and as he steps gingerly back to his seat to lower himself down into it, he frowns. "I think I'm only a few years older, but … bloody hell…" He massages his knee. "I hurt." It might be that the normally-tiny Slytherin first year will be visiting Madame Pomfrey sometime soon.
Whatever it was on the ceiling that seemed to hold Luna's interest so well stops interesting her, the girl dropping her eyes from the ceiling to look first towards Ginny, and then the other way, towards Melissa. "Hello." Luna says, her voice still daydreamy-sounding, although it was far more mature. "You are both Ginny and Melissa, yes? I think we all look so lovely." she says, glancing over her shoulder towards the others. A curious cant of her head was given as her eyes fall upon Jacen, and then Fred and George. "Hmm. The room is a bit smaller." she says.
After her first scream, Kyrie remains hunched over, her rheumy eyes squinting around her for the teacher, only the oft-snarling visage of Snape isn't within her newly-diminished sight. Her once vibrantly-ginger hair is snowy-white, and she's developed a bit of a shake that she can't stop. As she reaches for one of her books to look up a counter-potion, her hand grasps the tome and it immediately clatters out of her weakened hold, thumping into the glassware on her desk and shattering it noisily. "No, no, no, no, no," she keeps aspirating, her voice tremulous and nothing like her usual firmly-supported tones. "Make it stop," she pleads to anyone in earshot. "Please make it stop…" And she can't stop weeping.
Melissa watches the others' reactions to the potion. "Oh no…" she says, looking towards Jacen, Kyrie, and the Weasley twins, who had the most extreme reaction. "Are you sure it's safe to leave them like that?" she asks. "People that age have all kinds of health problems… We don't want them to die of old age before they reach it…" She holds her head for a bit. "Oof… I've got a bit of a headache myself actually…" She looks toward Luna. "Yes, I suppose… you came out of it fairly well, relatively speaking…"
Ginny crosses her arms protectively over her chest, and clears her throat. Her vocal chords sound different - they've deepened, smoothed out. "I think we do too, Luna." She grins at her friend. "Nice hair." Glancing over at the two tiny Slytherin boys who are no longer so tiny, her grin widens, and she waves with longer fingers than she had earlier.
Jacen just sits against the wall, feeling his own face with shaky hair. As if he were the master of the delayed reaction… …NOW he starts screaming, except it comes out as more of a wheezeing rasp through a very dumbledore-esque visage. He's NOT having a good time with it, that much is for sure, and not the smoothest first thing for most of his classmates to hear.
Rene was just about to throw his arms up when he yelled out, and so when Julian sits back down gingerly on his stool, Rene's got his hands in a somewhat surprised, defensive place in front of himself. "My god, you are- look at you-" A still slender, yet somewhat wiry hand reaches out flat over his friend's head- which is no easy task, even when the now young man is sitting down. "-you would give Hagrid a run for his Galleons. That was too much growing if you ask me, it is no wonder that you are hurting." Blue eyes settle determinedly on Julian's face, only to avert when that twiddling motion in his peripheral vision catches a swivel of his head. Oh, Ginny! Oh, everybody. Now he gets a good look at everyone else as well, hand half-raised to return Ginny's wave.
"Oh, thank you, Ginny." Luna says, her attention turning that way to give her friend a smile. Turning her eyes towards Melissa, next, she draws a breath to speak. One that is stopped by the wheezy scream of both Jacen and Kyrie. Glancing to both, Luna's lips turn downwards into a bit of a frown. "Oh, it's quite alright. Aging potions are quite temporary. Although I am getting the feeling potions will not be a favorite class for many more students…" she says, bringing up a hand to scratch at her nose. "I don't quite think mine worked." Luna says.
"You really let yourself go," George croaks at Fred, who only wheezes in return, looking down at his gut. George grumps and chuckles an old man chuckle towards Ron. Fred, however, looks over to their sister. "Whoa, dude," he says, nudging Geroge, who's eyebrow's shoot up. UM. Those should not be on their sister! "OI!" George snaps at Rene as he glances at Ginny, "Don't you dare, boy."
Elizabeth quirks a brow at the scream behind her, glancing over her shoulder to spy others as they have shifted to different ages. Seemingly at random. Her eyes only narrow as she holds up her hand again, turning it over before releasing a subtle sigh and shaking her head at herself. "Bothersome indeed. And with no way of speeding up the potions effects as well. Though I must admit, the timing for now is much better than in the future, with the upcoming events…" she murmurs.
"I think there's more to it than just the aging thing, Rene." Julian's voice is deep. "I feel old." He reaches up to grab a lock of hair. "But my hair's still black, so that's something, I guess." In comparison to some of the other students in the class, it surely is. He follows Rene's gaze toward the girl, and nods appreciateively, though he attempts to keep the appreciation off his face. "Weasley." He would lift his arm to wave, but he just got settled.
Melissa now turns to look at Rene, putting a hand to her mouth. "Rene… well, I wouldn't expect any less of your looks… It seems we've landed in a similar demographic," she says.
"You have turned into a giant, Bean…stalk. Give it a moment. Did any of us get it right?" Rene mutters quietly, looking Ginny over in a completely harmless way, before a worried set of eyes move onto the few that have gotten much, much olde- what? His thoughts are interrupted by George, apparently threatening him. That gets a piqued glower, one eyebrow lifting upwards. Excuse me? And now Melissa- who he turns his head towards next.
Slow down, they're all still twelve! "…Oh dear."
“Out,” Snape demands, he’s not having this in his classroom, “Starr. Phoenix. To the Hospital Wing immediately.” If they’re going to scream and be terrified, they can scream at and terrify Madam Pomfrey.
Everyone else is dismissed with the same wave of his wand, the tables beginning to clean themselves up.
Well, even old man Starr doesn't argue with Snape. The only thing keeping the Firstie from outright bolting is the sheer fear of breaking a hip. Still, pretty spry for a nearly 100 year old man. Pomfrey's going to have a heyday…
Julian takes his sweet time packing up his ingredients. His limbs don't seem to want to work, and they're taking forever to do the simplest tasks. "Once again, Professor Snape. It was an … interesting lesson." He barely prevents himself from rolling his eyes. He stands up, finally, attempting to sling the bag over his shoulder. With two strides, he's at the back of the classroom, and out the door, not waiting for Rene or anyone else, for that matter.
Still visibly distressed, Kyrie shakes her head over and over, but it's a painful sort of motion. With weak grasping motions, she manages somehow to get her books pushed back into her bag, but she simply can't lift the weight anymore. "Can… can someone help me… please?" she asks, turning her gaze on her fellow students. Her hearing's not so good, not anymore, but she did hear something resembling her name, and she was already trying to storm out… but it's hard to storm out when one's now the oldest person in the room, and the best she can manage now is a shuffle. "What if it doesn't wear off?" she asks fearfully.
Melissa stands up after her things are packed, shuffling along in her now-tight skirt towards the exit. "Stairs are going to be a problem, I think…" she says. "It's to the owlery with me…" This class didn't seem quite as fun as the last few, but… well, once she got into her grown-up clothes she could get used to this.
Luna rises up from her desk, glancing towards Ginny and Melissa. "I'll see you all later." she says, the lankier woman brushing her much longer hair out of her eyes. It was more messy and rumpled, if that could be believed. Stepping towards Kyrie's side, she helps the other woman pick up her bookbag, turning her head to say - although Luna's slightly quiet tone was raised some, it may still be hair to pick out. "Snape just asked us to go to Pomfrey's. We'll have to take the long way, which is best." she says, offering her slender arm to Kyrie to use as support.
It doesn't matter that buff-Rene is glowering at him, both Fred and George glower right back as well two ancient old men can. "You set one hand on her, so help me, D'allemange," comes Fred's wheezing threat, George slapping the table in front of them with a wrinkled hand, nearly falling over in the process, moving to clean up their area.
"Go see Pomfrey, Bean." Rene says this as close to a whisper as he can manage for Bean, who is now at least a foot overhead. "If she can't reverse it, she can numb it." He sounds confident in that, as the other boy leaves. Rene seems to have learned to take his time in following Julian Legume places. So for now, he gathers his things and keeps a mockingly sly look on The Weasley Twins, before turning a jaunty little grin to Ginny. "Care for an escort, miss Weasley?" Where? Who cares- he is obviously using this opportunity to mess with her brothers.
Elizabeth shakes her head at herself, her slightly wrinkled hands reaching out for her things as she gathers them and arranges them neatly in her bag, adjusting to the length of her arms and fingers. The growth was just slightly, but it was enough to be noticable. Especially when moving around. Closing her bag, she slips the strap over her shoulder, the weight feeling odd as she pushes back her chair and stands to her feet. The height is noticable as well, struggling somewhat as she stands. The Ravenclaw girl brushes her hands over her clothes, smoothing them out and getting a better look at the curves she gained instantly. She just shakes her head at herself again.
Kyrie leans on Luna gratefully, and shockingly, she doesn't feel very heavy, withered like only the elderly can get if they were skinny to begin with in their youth. Her steps are uncertain, her back still hunched, and it's obvious that without someone to escort her, she'd need a cane or a walker or something. Step by step, she allows Luna to lead her out, and she wheezes a terrified sort of thanks.
Ginny is about to assist Kyrie and Luna, her face sympathetic for the now-older woman's clear unhappiness, when there's a no-longer-tiny firstieat her side. She blinks, then a grin slides across her face as she notices her brothers' consternation. "Why, I'd love one, Mister D'allemange." Taking Rene's elbow, she grabs her bag with the other, making for the exit.