1994-10-13: Sharper Wit

Participants:

Derek_icon.gif Ginny_icon.gif Mhairi_icon.gif Rene_icon.gif Snape_icon.gif

Scene Title Sharper Wit
Synopsis The 1st and 3rd Years attempt to brew the Wit-Sharpening Potion.
Location Potions Classroom, Hogwarts
Date October 13th, 1994
Watch For The first attempt at using the Potions: The Brewing mini-RPG! Can you tell?
Logger Snape

The Potions Classroom stands ready for a class as it so often does, ingredients and other required equipment arrayed on the tables. Those tables up the front reserved for the First Years, made obvious by the fact that many of the ingredients have already been prepared while the Third Year tables to the rear play host to whole scarab beetles, untouched ginger roots and what can only be described as a small creature's stomach.

Potions. Mhairi wears a pensive look as she makes her way into the dungeons, shivering a little at the usual damp chill that permeates the underground stone. She sets her bag down next to her usual seat, near the front but off to one side of the room, and eyes the items set out on the table somewhat warily. Each Potions class brings a new and nasty surprise, and the nastiest surprise is seldom the ingredients, but she says nothing, settling into her chair rather gingerly and waiting for class to start.

Derek smiles as he enters the potion classroom he doesn't see the teacher so he can tell he's not late, moving forward he takes a seat in the middle of the front row and looks at the ingredients in front of him. "I wonder what were making today?"

A chill runs down Ginny's spine as she enters the dungeons. No matter how many times she came down here, it always gave her the creeps. Ginny would take warm and sunny any day of the week. She entered the classroom in a gaggle of fellow third year girls, taking a seat in the back of the classroom with them and glancing towards the head of the class.

As Rene reaches the dungeons, he first aims himself towards where he usually goes to sit, only to spot some already having taken it. As a result, he is left to try and find a place near the back. The blond ends up just a table next to Ginny and her flock, glancing towards them uneasily- like they might turn around and shoot flames or something. Older students are not bad on their own- it is when they get into cahoots with each other that they seem to cause Rene more headhurt than anything else.

Snape enters once the class have found their seats, stalking up the side of the classroom towards the head of it. Lifting his head, he stares down his hooked nose at the class haughtily before folding his arms over his chest and addressing them. He does not raise his voice, expecting his presence to bring about the silence he wishes for.

"Judging by the ingredients displayed before you, who knows what we will be brewing?"

Derek grins as he knows the answer just by looking at the stuff in front of him. He raises his hand in hope Snape calls on him.

Ginny glances at the ingredients, brow furrowing as she calculates. Then her hand goes slowly into the air. She's not entirely sure of the answer, but she has a solid idea of what it could be.

Hand up! Rene does have a reason for sitting in at least the front row. People block him from view when he sits in the back! It's not because he wants to sit in the front- it's because he has to.

Mhairi surveys the ingredients before her skeptically, but it's not common to her, judging by the look on her face. So, she sits back and waits for the others to answer, glancing occasionally at her year-mates.

As the hands go up, Snape points a bony, white finger at Rene - lip curling slightly. For once, the littlest Slytherin is not lost amidst the crowd and the fact that a First Year seems to know the answer is interesting to say the least.

"D'Allemagne."

Derek mumbles as he is not called but at least a fellow Slytherin might get it and lower his hand and takes out some paper, his ink well and a pen to write it down.

Ginny lowers her hand as Snape calls upon the small first-year. There is a slight smile on her face, for she's actually had pleasant dealings with the little Slytherin. She dips her quill into her ink, readying it for notes.

"The Wit-Sharpening Potion, sir." Rene sits up straight when he is called, and delivers a rather straightforward answer. He cannot help but glance over to his left afterward to check if those older students might have had their hands up. Sure, he knows what it is, but hopefully when he actually brews it- it does not end up some sort of Lobotomizing Potion. Whoops, that would be a bad day.

“Correct. You will be preparing the Wit-Sharpening Potion today as a practical examination and I should note that this will count towards your final grade for this year. It would not be wise to fail. As the Third Years already have experience with this potion, they will be preparing the ingredients from scratch – First Years need only perform the final preparations.”

Snape pauses for effect before continuing, “Open your texts to page three-hundred and twelve. Following the instructions as they are displayed. First, grind the scarab beetles. The First Year beetles have already been ground and only require you to subjugate the large pieces of shell that will hinder the potion. Third Years, you will grind the dried beetle into a fine powder. Begin.”

Ginny gets her mortar and pestle out of her bag, placing the mortar onto the desk and carefully putting each beetle into it, then grinding with the pestle. The result is finely ground power, with only a few chunks. Ginny carefully grinds those chunks down, then reaches in to pick each shell out of the powder.

Derek nods and he starts to removes the shells, one by one, he get's a few big pieces out even after double and triple checking at he pulls ever last piece of shell out.

Having little fingers helps when you're doing this kind of stuff, right? Maybe. Rene picks through his shells, seemingly getting them all after practically zooming in way too close. It looks fine to him, so there we go.

Ugh. Gingerly, Mhairi starts picking through her own collection of beetles and shells, discarding a number of larger pieces of shell and eyeing it before nodding to herself. Looks good enough to her.

Snape lurks back and forth as the First Years pick through the powder and the Third Years make it. Once he's satisfied that they've had enough time for that, he makes another proclamation from the head of the class.

"Set the ground beetle to one side and take up the ginger root, cutting away the white growths and then dicing the remainder. First Years, you need only cut up your ginger root - it has already been prepared."

Derek nods and he starts to chop up his root, he's glad he took up cooking when his mother was sick so he knows how to chop, he works on the root choping it into fine pieces then choping that untill it's good and fine

Putting his beetle-bits aside, Rene takes up his knife and root, taking his time in cutting. He's dextrous enough with a knife, but the utensil seems a bit big for his hand in the first place.

Ginny carefully cuts off each bit of white from the ginger root, putting each bit of white onto the side of her desk. She chops it finely enough, gathering the bits.

Yay, Gore. Rene doesn't seem to mind it much, and at least he doesn't need to cut anything with the misfit knife. He'll have to find a smaller set of tools, hm? Getting the bile out is easy enough, though the tubular duct does make a rather rude noise out loud, and the boy can't help but sputter as he tries not to laugh. Goodness.

Derek looks at the duct and makes a sour face at it, he picks it up and tries to squeeze the bile but it's so slimy and nasty it slips from his fingers a few times, he looks like he's going to be sick as he works but he empty the bile into the phial and sighs.

"Now introduce the ingredients to the mix as instructed by the text, making a counter-clockwise stir for every three clockwise ones."

The final instruction given, Snape steps back and waits to see how the potions will turn out. His lip curls slightly, hands folded - he can already see a number of mistakes being made. But he leaves them be, simply watching.

Derek shakes off the sick feeling but he adds his powder scarab beetles his fine root and his vial to his cauldron and starts to sturr it, he follows Snape's order and does a counter-clockwise stir for every three clockwise one, his potion is a lemony yellow color and it's sparkling and bubbling merrily, he looks around to see what everbody else potion looks like.

Yeah, okay, that does not look right at all. Rene ends up with a potion that frankly- looks more like something one might stumble on after someone's forgetful trip to the loo. Ew. Rene wrinkles his nose at many points during the process, and only when it is nearing completion does he look up towards Ginny's direction with a strange expression. One that seems to say 'man, this is so much fail, isn't it'?

Ginny gives Rene a look back to as if to say, 'If yours is fail, is there even a word for mine?' Her potion is the proper color, but it seems to be, well.. a lot more excited than everyone else's. It's sparkling and blinking like mad, and when Ginny peers closer at it, the bubbles tickle her nose. It seems to have somehow gotten fizzy.

Snape quirks a brow as he patrols back and forth, watching the potions as they are mixed and surveying the results. As someone with a potion much like Rene’s attempts to drink theirs, Snape extends a hand to slap their wrist.

“Unless you want to spend the next week feeling as though a troll is several rungs above you on the intelligence ladder, I wouldn’t try your potion. That goes for all of you.”

He gives Rene’s a look before his lip curls and he moves on to look into Ginny’s, “You’d be thinking too fast for the rest of you to keep up. You would be bouncing off walls.” Pausing to look at Derek’s, he shrugs his shoulders, “A moderate effort but nothing astounding.”

Derek sighs when Snape called his potion nothing astounding, he will have to do better next time.

At those words, Rene leans back enough to hear his stool scoot back an inch or so. Don't get close, it might jump out at me! He mutters something to himself in French, a sigh out of his noise quick to follow. At least Ginny's was exciting.

Ginny looks properly sheepish, making a note on her parchment. "Sparkling: Bad." She promises herself that she will do better next time. Her brown eyes look to the illustration of the potion in the text, which seems to be rather calm in comparison to hers.

"Homework," Snape begins once notes have been taken, is an essay on what the Wit-Sharpening Potion is intended to do and why yours succeeded or failed."

He leaves it to the students to decide whether they succeeded or not based on the description in their books, announcing "Class dismissed!" before stalking toward the corridor.

Derek finishs writing down his homework and looks around, he takes out a small vial from his cloak and tries to sneak some of the Wit-Sharpening Potion out without Snape seeing him.

Ginny takes a number of detailed notes about her potion, as well as Snape's words about it, filling up the parchment with her somewhat tidy scrawl. Then she corks the ink well, stows it, the parchment, and the quill into her bag, along with her mortal and pestle. She walks to the head of the class to brush her fingertips against Rene's shoulder. "Better luck next time, yeah?" Ginny has her back to Derek when he tries to sneak something out.

Rene is already on his way around the tables when Ginny intercepts him, and the boy looks up and gives her a sheepish smile. "I hope so. I have gotten lucky before." He does try his best. "Yours would'ave made a rat'er interesting …prank. As if children need more hyper-activity." He takes a few steps away from it all, talking to Ginny at the same time, assuming she's heading out too.

It is indeed terrifying just how fast Snape can move when he wants to, an attribute that has led to many prevalent theories around Hogwarts that he may be a vampire. Suddenly looming over Derek, he reaches to grab his wrist as he waves his wand and spirits the potions in the classroom away to who-knows-where.

“Leave.”

He then releases the First Year’s wrist, turning about once more to stalk towards the dungeon doors.

Derek gasps as his wrist his grab just before he has a change to get the potion, he wimpers and nods as he packs up his stuff and get's out of there like quick as lighting, pushing past Ginny and Rene as he does.

Ginny grins at Rene, and nods. "It's harder to duplicate mistakes, though," she comments. "Which is all very well, I suppose. You want to stop by the Great Hall and see if we can beg a snack from a house elf?" She asks the smaller boy.

Unprecedented! A Weasley and a Slytherin. Hope she doesn't get a howler. Rene nods once and walks out with Ginny. "Aboslutely." Sounds like fun- plus, he's never met any of these elves. Are they less uptight? Hrmmmmm.


This is the 1st-3rd Year Potions Class for the 3rd week of May, 2009.


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