Meserimus made a circuit of the benches, Archimedes sat, seemingly asleep on his perch, his feathered shoulders lifting and lowering in time with his birdy snores. It was possible he was faking it, trying to avoid talking to his older brother, or any of the children that were arriving for their potions class. As he passed the front of the class, Meserimus patted his brothers owly head and he opened a beady eye and gave him a withering look. ’We’re nocturnal you know’ he seethed before closing his eye again and trying to ignore the impish grin on Meserimus’ face.
When the class settled Meserimus addressed them. ’This morning we shall be working on a levitating potion’ he explained to the class, ’it is one of the harder potions to appear on the OWL’s and rather appropriately features an owl.’ he gestured to his be-owled brother who sat up straight on his perch suddenly. ’You will all need to gather your ingredients, which will include an owls tail feather’. Archimedes looked outraged, ’You bugger!’ he swore at Meserimus, prompting a laugh from some students, used to the grumpy owls swearing. ’I’m just being economical?’ Meserimus said, feigning innocence. Archimedes promptly took off to the highest possible shelf, just in case a student thought to pull a feather.
’Alright then, from the store cupboard as usual then,’ he explained to the class. ’Prepare your ingredients, list them out, remember no two potions need be the same, the preparation, not necessarily the ingredients will determine the potions effectiveness.’ he clapped his hands together. ’begin’
OWL LEVEL POTIONS- Points for each stage
9th of March will be Meserimus next post
Though he smirked at the owl-man's outburst, Elijah suspected some of the females of the class (or at least, their families, if they knew) would be less than enthused by such language. Sodomy, after all, was hardly something that was to be brought to the mind of the fairer sex.
Almost lazily, the Slytherin made his way to the store cupboards to fetch his ingredients. Though he did not particularly care about his O.W.L.s as they were more than a year away, he did generally like potions class (or at least the opportunity it provided to blow things up). Ingredients in hand, Elijah returned to sit a the laboratory bench he shared with Ramsay.
It had long ago become evident that Winslow wasn't really the hardest working of students. He wasn't stupid, persay, but he really had no desire to put in the work and effort more often than not. It was perhaps why his allowance seemed to be getting smaller and smaller with each passing year. Either way, he enjoyed potions. If not for the comical attributes of the class, the opportunity of making potions that certainly came in handy overtime.
Winslow had stayed seated as Elijah got up to grab the necessary ingredients. Leaning against the table he gave a slight shrug to his fellow Slytherin. "We're to make a list of the ingredients," he said as he sat up just a little more to take a look at the ingredients that had been brought over. "Owl feathers are obvious," he said with a smirk before looking to where the owl had fluttered off as high as he could, "Too bad we couldn't get some of his. Certainly would make for quite the interesting outcome."
RE: Funny Smells - Cane Backus - February 29, 2020
Cane listened as they were given their instructions. He glanced towards he person he happened to share the labratory bench with before going up and gathering his ingredients. He tended to work best on his own so he was glad that they weren't being made to pair up. He just hoped that his bench partners potion would not end up seeping into his shoes like the last time they had all had to brew a potion.
Alcyone couldn't help but blush a bit at the owls bad language. Why did the professor continue to allow him in here if it was going to use language she shouldn't hear, she had no idea. Getting her station in some sort of order, she opened up her textbook to the proper potion.
Cad sat at his place on the gryffindor desks making a good show of paying attention to his notes and the text book before him, so much so he missed the owls indignation before the laughter and shocked gasps brought his attention back to room. He had pretty much mastered the art of 'looking interested' - safe in the knowledge that he would probably get enough grades to get back after OWLs and he had a full year to go before his information would be tested. So to his mind 4th year was a doss year - try to get by with as little work as was wizardly possible and start worrying about making the bare minimum grades sometime around February of next year.
Cad turned to the person who shared a bench with him, and would be his lab partner by default in this particular class - 'So you know whats in this potion right?' he ask, but made a show of looking very busy should the professor happen to be watching thier bench.
Meserimus made his way around the tables and made a note as to their success thus far and made a few suggestions as to items they might consider adding to their recipes. For the most part however, the students had done a tolerable job. ’Mister Backus consider using daisy heads rather than daffodils – they will give you a better viscosity at the end.’ he suggested and returned to the front of the classroom.
’Alright ladies and gentlemen proceed to the concoction stage’ Meserimus waves his hands and the cauldrons appeared on the desks.
Glad that she seemed to be doing a good job so far, Alcyone got the water and base of the potion going. She waited for it to come to a boil, feeling like it was taking forever.
Cane took the professors suggestion and swapped his daffodils for daisy heads. Getting his cauldron ready when it appeared, he started with standard ingredient and some water.
[post]Winslow gave his fellow Slytherin a shrug. "It's not as if we have to kill the owl to get feathers," he said, still thinking plucking a few of the professor's owl!brother would be an interesting feat.
Instead, he laid out the ingredients they would need and began to prepare them for the potion. Slicing and dicing and whatever else was necessary for the potion.
Cadawalader, relied upon the boy next to hims work, and just copied his work step by step. It was the laziest approach but realistically it was the only one the oldest Selwyn boy could be bothered with. He hated potions at the best of times, it was so boring and slow in comparison to the other subjects. He would drop it as soon as he could. He just needed to get through his OWLs. But it seemed like the Ravenclaw boy beside him was making mistakes and Cad shot him a dirty look as he was forced to fix his own potion because of the others screw up.
As the first stage of the brewing began Meserimus once again took a tour of the tables. Miss Slughorns excellent start has continued as her potion bubbled the brewed and at this stage of brewing looked as it should do. He gave her an impressed nod.
Mister Winslow's potion was continue to bubble and brew as it was had been and remained a respectable attempt at the levitating draft.
Mister Backus seemed to have recovered his potion to come extent and the concuctin was looking much more healthy in colour and consistency now. 'Well done sir, nicely saved.' he remarked as he passed the boys table. Mister Cadawaladers obvious cheating meant his potion was a similar colour and consistency but didn't require, or warrant praise, since he was about as subtle as a brick.
'Well done all, please move on to the last stage of the brewing' he instructed.
Elijah worked away, glad that Ramsay wasn't a useless partner like some of their peers.
"True, but what do you think would happen to us if a not-owl owl feather was used in a potion?" he pointed out, using his wand to magically direct the flow of the potion as it brewed.
Cane was pleased as his potion improved. He looked up as they were instructed to get into the last part of brewing the potion. He followed the instruction, doing his best to make sure the potion didn't overflow.
Alcyone looked up as they were told that they were to start the last steps of their potions. Was hers turning out well? She honestly had no idea but she continued at it.