September 8th, 1894 — 1st and 2nd year potions

The faint clink of glass vials and the heavy aroma of damp stone filled the dimly lit dungeon as first and secondyear students trickled into the Potions classroom. A slight chill in the air seemed to seep from the walls, which he rather liked about his basement classroom - it was good for the ambient control of potions. At the front of the room, towering over his desk with his sweeping white beard and long pale hair, stood Professor Meserimus Valenduris.

His long, thinfingers traced the edge of an old, well-worn book as the students settled into their seats. His sky-blue eyes, flecked with white, scanned the room with an amused glint. Once the last student shuffled in, he flicked his wand—without uttering a word. The heavy oak door shut with a soft thud, silencing the whispers and murmurs.

“Good morning, young minds,” he boomed, the strength of projection belying his prodigious age. “Today, you will begin brewing a potion—simple for some, a bit more challenging for others. But that’s what makes it interesting, doesn’t it?” His lips curved into a dry, almost puckish smile.

He strode around the classroom with an effortless glide, each step soft but precise. “The Wiggenweld Potion. Familiar to those of you who’ve done your reading,” he remarked, his eyes settling briefly on a second-year who looked particularly nervous. “It’s a healing potion... a potion capable of rousing someone from a magical sleep or healing minor injuries.” He stopped beside a cauldron, leaning slightly over it as if admiring the possibilities it held - even though it was empty.

“You will work through the recipe, page 42 in Magical Drafts and Potions,” he continued, his tone shifting from whimsical to firm. “First and second, - no matter. You will each follow the instructions precisely, no improvising... unless you wish to spend the rest of the day scrubbing cauldrons,” he added with a soft chuckle that somehow lacked warmth.

With a flick of his hand, the blackboard behind him shimmered to life, revealing the ingredients and the steps, written in his elegant, looping script.

Wiggenweld Potion

Sloth brain mucus
Moly
Dittany
Flobberworm mucus
Salamander blood
Wiggentree bark

“Pay careful attention,” he advised, his tone quiet but commanding. “Begin.”

Second years indicate if you are in potions club in your post for a modifier. First years - no modifiers sorry but youre just in the door!

Show

Chloe Greene, Stella Pendergast, Ellen Ilkin, Caroline Weasley, Pip Manwaring, Ramona Pendergast, Zackary Carter, Kaatjie Spaans, Desmond Shacklebolt, Regina Pendergast, Margaret Wallace, Phineas Black II, Jameson Potter, Georgianna Shacklebolt, Caspian Pettigrew, Gideon Riley, James Callum, Philippa Rowle, Toby Seacoal, Nathaniel Gallivan II, Morgan Valenduris, Serpentine Malfoy Eilish McCarthy Amos Paxton Zackary Carter Kaatjie Spaans Desmond Shacklebolt Pip Manwaring Charles Hutton Hester Frey Regina Pendergast Margaret Wallace Stella Pendergast Lilibet Meadows Chloe Greene Miriam Hitchens Ignacio Sidonia Caspian Pettigrew Gideon Riley Ellen Ilkin Connor Sinnet

  

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Bee is amazing

Potions sounded interesting to him, Charlie decided, so this was going to be a class he put more effort into. He'd done the reading and found it might be useful to him because he liked to play rough with his brothers, and sometimes they got in the process. Looking at the board for a minute, Charles ensured he knew what ingredients he needed to gather before he went to do so. Some of these sounded really gross.

He looked over things twice and lined his ingredients up in order before he began to make the potion, checking the board each time so he knew what step he was on. Hopefully it wouldn't blow up in his face.

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Now that, Ellen thought to herself as she settled into an open seat, looks like a wizard. She set her bag down at her feet without so much as glancing away from the professor standing at the head of the classroom. Ellen always thought it odd how normal many of the wizarding folk looked, even in the relative safety of a castle dedicated entirely to them. With such power at-hand she thought she would like to dress herself in a shimmering cloak of fallen stars, but many simply wore... cloth. At least Professor Valenduris resembled a wizard insofar as being visibly older than any human man ought ever to be. He could not be a ghost-- she had seen one at the Sorting Feast and knew, now, that she could never mistake one for a living thing again. He was simply. Too old.

Could wizards ever die? Or did they simply age on and on, until their skin turned to paper and they ceased to be?

Absentminded, Ellen took her text and her notebook out without paying much attention. She was still mulling over the potentials of a truly long life when she realized she had glazed over the first of... whatever the Professor was talking about now. She sat bolt upright in her seat and began hastily flipping through the book. He'd said... forty-something. Forty-three? Forty-six? She stole a frantic glimpse at the book of the student next to her-- ninety two. Ellen kicked herself gently in the ankle with the opposite boot and thumbed her way to page forty-two.

Ellen expected potions to be... a cousin to cooking, perhaps, and with cooking she was quite familiar. With cauldrons she was quite familiar. Her family had one at home, although it was copper, and not quite so large. She knew soups and stews, and the recipe for her mother's famous mulled wine, and might someday have been a cook in a big house if--

This...

Hadn't happened.

And this was like no edible recipe Ellen had ever laid eyes on. Sloth brain mucus? Flobberworm mucus? By comparison the salamnder blood was entirely to be expected. How could a healing potion requir3e so much mucus? She made a disgusted face at her book, and may have turned just a little green, but she was determined. She would not be a worse student in this strange and marvelous place than she had been at a school of letters and simple etiquette.

With her head down and in disgusted silence, Ellen began gathering her ingredients and rereading-- and rereading-- and rereading the instructions. She shuddered whenever any of the gooier ingredients made contact with her hands, but otherwise held her protests. Before long she could almost forget what she was handling. Was it really any worse than cleaning a fish? Or the innards of a raw hen? And the Dittany did smell marvelously familiar--

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Margaret sat and looked at the ancient wizard from the past of her family, she knew of their relationship by blood but the generations that separated them meant there was no connection. Her curiosity was tempered by the fact that he was the living breathing reason that she was cursed with magic via her squib grandmother, at least that is how the girl understood it.

Potions didn't scare Maggie in the same way other magic did, it was just mixing herbs, in the same way a herbalist or apothecary might, that couldn't be too problematic. She thought this right until she saw the first ingredients and her little stomach twisted, this stuff was disgusting. And even though it was contained within glass vials, she was certain that she could feel the mucus on her skin.

Page 42, she could count, she could read, and she could stir things. She would follow the instructions precisely as instructed and hope for the best. She had zero intuition on the subject so the subtle nuances that were normally so important were beyond her. But before long, all of the weird things on the board were now in her small black cauldron.

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Meserimus Valenduris

  

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Toby could hardly focus on the recipe in front of him, his body wanting to up and move. So he quickly jotted down his supplies, his hand smearing the words as he did so, and rushed to the cabinet. Shoot. He wasn't sure what that first ingredient was... nor the next. And so it went down the list. So he grabbed what it seemed everyone else had grabbed and brought it back to the table. He read the first step and began, rather unintentionally and out of sheer "desperation" to improvise with the potion.

  

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Chloe hadn't exactly expected potions to be so.... gross. But as she looked at the list of ingredients her heart sank. Who would ever have thought of using brain mucus of anything let alone a sloth? And what even was brain mucus? She'd look it up later. For now she carefully noted what she needed from page 42 and gathered the items needed. Before returning to her cauldron and rereading the page again. It seemed straightforward enough and so she began to diligently apply herself to the task.

  

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Forsythia didn't particularly enjoy Potions. She disliked having to handle ingredients and the odor of potion fumes. Even so, she got to work when they were told to begin.

not in the club!

  

[IN CLUB]

Morgan nearly buzzed with excitement as she bounded up to gather her ingredients for her Potion. She loved Potions and it wasn't just that it was taught by her father (that fact actually more often than not made her nervous) but she was good at it and actually enjoyed the methodical nature of the entire experience. She knew what she was doing and very rarely did her potions go wrong, though the same couldn't be said for her spellwork. She got to creating the Wiggenweld Potion with confidence.

  

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Set made by the wonderful Athena

Caroline had liked the idea of potions, at least in theory. In theory she could picture herself standing magnificantly infront of a bubbling brew as it popped and burbled dramatically and let off brilliant shades of smoke that where the colours of the rainbow whilst it did a host of magical, mystical things. In practice - she found the whole thing tedious, and found her attention wandering as she realised quite how boring cutting ingredients up just so was, and how absolutely boring it was stirring it at a certain speed and consistency.

She knew she may have, just a teensy bit, not cut the ingredients correctly, and probably, just a little bit, skipped the order and put a few too many of the ingredients in at once. If she was truly honest - she didn't really care about the Wiggenweld Potion or it's properties - she sort of was more interested in knowing what happened if you did it wrong. Would it truly matter? And what differed? Her mind...... was already straying in its attempt to keep her interested in the task before hand and she was already beginning to wonder if she could add extra ingredients she knew for sure weren't in the Potion Masters recipe....

Her head popped up and she tried to catch somebody's eye. Somebody to talk to would be great and would make this whole boring thing go faster.

  

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This ticker exists as an age reminder because Jen is terrible at keeping track of time...

Pip listened as the professor spoke, wanting to get started. He did not relish the idea of scrubbing cauldrons so he made sure to pay attention to the instructions. When they were bid to begin, he got started on his potion.

not in the club!

  

It was their head of house (and deputy headmaster) teaching this class, so it felt important to do well. That, or Connor was more nervous about the practical classes, generally. Reading the instructions was one thing, but – what if he missed a step?

So he was certainly taking more care than his neighbour at the table, who must have gotten carried away chopping up their dittany stalks or moly. Connor smelled it before he saw it. The smell cut right through the pungent mix of odours in the room (the place was giving him a headache already) – but the blood blossoming from their finger was worse. Worse in that his mouth went a little dry from it; grimacing already, he instinctively put his arm over his mouth and nose to try and stop smelling it and thinking about it. “What did you do?” he whispered to them, through his sudden discomfort.

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It was quite chilly in this basement wasn’t it? And what was the original purpose for the dungeons anyways? Rorie tried to silence the questions that were milling about in her head in order to concentrate, and decided instead to review flying techniques in her head instead. When it was time for her to start mixing her potions and reading the instructions, she focused as much as she could. But instead, before she knew it she’d gotten completely carried away and - oh…

Not only had she gotten the ingredients completely wrong but she’d cut her finger and it had completely spoiled her entire recipe. Heat rushed to her cheeks as she saw the reactions from around her and she bit her lip to stifle the yelp of pain that bubbled up from her throat. “I - I don’t know, it just… it just happened!” She squeaked, looking around frantically. The boy next to her was looking a little green about the gills, and frankly the smell wasn't appetizing to her and she started to feel the nausea bubbling in her own stomach.

℅ Connor Sinnet