Term 5, Year 2, Lesson 1

Lucia walked into the storage room of the dungeons and looked around, finding the necessary ingredients to the potion the second years would make today. She smiled, waved her wand and maneuvered the ingredients onto her desk. She sat down behind the desk, waving her wand again, but this time at the blackboard which quickly wrote down her name and the name of the class, as well as the potion they would make.

Blackboard:

She leaned back in her chair, waiting for the students to assemble in a soft silence, very patiently.

Evan liked dungeons even less than high towers: he didn't like climbing stairs much, but he felt really bad underground. I hope I get used to it one day. People tend to get used to things. Evan had never been here before, but luckily finding a classroom wasn't a problem for him. Walking in these corridors alone is really disturbing. I hope I have a company on my way back. Evan entered the classroom, gave professor Henley a nod, and took a seat.

Maya made her way through the dungeons, glad that she didn't have far to travel. She was used to the colder temperatures this far below the castle, but she spotted students from different houses shivering as the cold began seeping in through the stone walls with the glaringly obvious change in season. Maya sighed to herself before she trudged through the door into the potion's classroom, she didn't rate potion's as highly as other subjects as waving her wand and incantations weren't a big part of if. Maya was slightly taken aback when she spotted the professor seated comfortably at her desk. She smiled automatically at her. She had heard that there was a new potion's professor, but she hadn't realised that it was Professor Henley. Maya proceeded to a desk near the middle of the room, happy in her new discovery about the professor. Maya had her for Herbology last in first year and it quickly turned out to be one of her favourite subjects. Feeling more hopeful and enthusiastic about the class Maya turned and gave Evan a warm smile.  

Maya piled her equipment in front of her and dragged her cauldron to the side of the desk, hoping that she was up for today's class task. She glanced at the board and was informed of their task; the swelling solution. She bit down on her lip, she had never even heard of that and she immediately became dismayed once more at the thought of having to brew a potion. She wasn't too confident in her skills.

Darcy walked from the Gryffindor tower with a sort of reluctance. Sure, she really thought she'd like Potions, but it was in the dungeons... She really didn't like the dungeons. She had avoided it as much as possible, but now she had to walk down there. She sighed soundlessly as she reached the entrance hall and took a left, down the stairs. Shivers ran up and down her spine, though not all of them were for the creepiness. It was also rather cold.

She ignored the shivers and felt almost relieved when she reached the classroom, knowing she'd be safe in there. She blinked to herself and almost laughed. She was being totally ridiculous. She gave a smile at Maya and Evan, and sat down near them both, looking up at the previous Herbology professor and waited patiently for the class to begin.

Lucia straightened and cleared her throat when three of her students had assembled. She gave them all a friendly smile, recognizing two of them from Herbology. "Good morning. I am Lucia Henley, your Potions professor this year. Some of you, I suppose, do remember me from teaching Herbology last year, but this subject is the one I truly burn for. But enough about random trivia," she said, feeling really happy to be able to say that she was truly the potions master. Or mistress...

"Let's go straight to business, shall we? Who here knows what the Swelling Solution is, what the antidote is and what the key ingredient in the potion is?" she asked, wondering if anyone would know the answer to all, if even one, of her questions.

"Who here knows what the Swelling Solution is, what the antidote is and what the key ingredient in the potion is?" asked professor Henley.Technically these are three questions. Maybe I can help Darcy with some. God, she's great. Evan torn a sheet from his sketchbook and wrote some lines, then he stood up to answer, passing the paper and hoping that his standing up concealed that he passed the sheet to Darcy. "Swelling solution is a potion, that makes things grow on contact," he said. I would prefer to give her all the three answers, but I needed a distraction. Eh. "That's everything I know about it." Now all Evan could do was praying that Maya didn't know the answers or needed some time to think about them.

Evan's paper:

Maya turned her head in Evan's direction as he stood up and appeared ready to give an answer. Maya cocked her head to the side, questioningly when she spotted Evan slipping Darcy a note. She wondered what that was about but kept her thoughts to herself. Maya returned her gaze to Evan and wondered why he didn't answer all the questions as she thought that he would have known. Well seeing as there was three of them and three questions, maybe she should give an answer. Maya wasn't too sure about the ingredients but she did know what the antidote for the potion was. Maya chose to raise her hand over getting to her feet and answering. "The antidote is the deflating draught professor." Maya didn't know anything else on the subject so couldn't elaborate further. She sat silently waiting for someone else to answer the professor's question.

Darcy was about to rise her hand when Evan rose and said his answer. He then slipped her a note. She got distracted by it and read it, raising her eyebrow. Was he trying to help her? Really? Sure, sweet and all, but she actually knew a lot about Potions. And there the second question was answered by Maya.

She quickly raised her hand. She knew which was the key ingredient and she had known that well. "The key ingredient is puffer-fish eyes, professor," she said politely and scribbled something on the parchment, sneakily sending it back to Evan when the professor wasn't looking.

Parchment:

She sent the smiley to be nice, so he wouldn't feel bad. She didn't want him to feel bad for trying to help. She just wanted him to know that she could do this on her own.

Evan heard Maya answered the second question. Only one is left for Darcy now. And I don't actually know the right answer to it. For Evan's great relief Darcy answered the third question, and by her confident tone he guessed that she knew the answer. Then she returned the note, which Evan read instantly. Well, she could do fine without my help. Maybe I even decreased the amount of house points she earned. I shouldn't have doubted her knowledge after all. Evan became a bit sad, realizing that he probably ruined Darcy's triumphal answering. Oh. She drew a smiling face to prevent me from being sad about all this. Can't say if it works, but I appreciate the effort. He hid the note in his pocket to make sure professor Henley wouldn't look at it and read it during the lesson.

Lucia grinned at them all. They all knew something about this potion. Wonderful! "Brilliant. Five points to each of you!" she said happily.

"But to get down to business. You're going to brew this potion now, and you're going to need the key ingredient as well as two more ingredients, namely dried nettle and bat spleens. When you've read the instructions on page 87, you may come up here and collect the ingredients from my desk. All right. Turn to the page in your book and start reading," she said softly.

Page 87:

"All right! Now come get the ingredients and begin the brew," she said, ready to watch them work and to figure out what level they were on.

"I'M HERE! I'M HERE!" Kynan yelled as he burst into the Potions classroom. He was soaking wet and his schoolbag was half-ripped. He was panting hard as if he had just ran a marathon. Which he probably did, as he had raced through half the school. A lot of students were brewing a potion and a lot had stopped to stare at him. How embarrassing, he thought. But he didn't care, he walked towards the Professor.

"I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed. "I got lost trying to find my way down to the dungeons and then... um... Peeves..." he trailed off, thinking that the word Peeves was enough. Everyone knew what trouble that poltergeist was, and he hoped that Professor Henley would understand.

Darcy paid close attention to what professor Henley was saying, and thought to herself that she could make this potion. Maybe not perfectly, but she would do her best. She walked up and fetched the right ingredients, happy with the points she had gained. Then she turned her book to page 87 and put in the dried nettles in the mortar as well as the  other ingredients that were to be crushed. When it was crushed to a nice powder, she was ready to use it.

But she jumped sky high as Kynan burst through the doors, speaking rather loudly. She frowned and looked at him, standing there soaking wet. She felt a pang of understanding and pity as he mentioned Peeves. That was no fun. She hadn't had the misfortune of meeting the poltergeist yet, but from what she'd heard, she wasn't very keen on getting to know him either.

She looked up at professor Henley, having forgotten her potion and just hoping the professor wasn't going to punish him for being late.

Only a minute after Lucia had given them the work they were to do, did mister Walters rush through the doors. She felt her heart race a bit at the exclamation. She then sighed. "Yes, Peeves is a meddlesome one, indeed. However, that does not give you the excuse of shouting in my class, Mr. Walters. Five points from Gryffindor," she said softly, not very keen on taking points, but knowing it served as a lesson. She had noticed how miss Wilde had jumped at the sudden noise and broken her concentration.

"Now, read through page 87 and start working on the potion there," she said, her voice much kinder now, "And I hope you won't be stopped by Peeves again."

Darcy quickly finished the first part and left the brew to itself for a while. When she returned from reading through her book, she added the one bat spleen -yuck- and then stirred anti-clockwise. This wasn't so difficult after all!

And then she was warming it. Oh, that was much more difficult. She had a feeling that if the potion heated up too much, it would be ruined at once. So she kept trying to get it right and hopefully, she succeeded. But when the thirty seconds were up, she waved her wand instantly, and the potion settled down into a nice, lilac color.

Kynan entered the classroom, breathless and wet, making Darcy jump up on her seat. It costed him five House points. Good. This was good for Ravenclaw in the House Cup competition and for Darcy in Griffindor Student Award.

Evan opened his book on page 87 and started his work. He crushed all necessary ingredients in a mortar, heated the potion and left it for an hour. As Evan had a whole hour of free time, he opened his sketchbook and started drawing scenes about how Peeves could make Kynan come late. He had finished about a dozen of different sketches with different poltergeist pranks by the time his potion was ready for further manipulations.

After an hour of sketching and waiting Evan made the rest of instructions and the Swelling Solution was theoretically ready. It was some kind of thick black liquid that smelled like sulfur. Evan looked at Darcy's potion and frowned. Seems like I messed something up.

"Sor-ee," Kynan muttered a bit loudly, as he dumped his bag at a table and went to the Potions Cupboard to find his ingredients. He brought five of each, as there weren't any measurements on the ingredients list. When he got back to his cauldron, he started adding the right ingredients to the mortar, leaving him with three dried nettle and two puffer-fish eyes. He decided to throw those away later. After some time, he managed to survive until step 7. Then he had a free hour.

During that hour, he watched everyone else.

Evan, in front of him, was doodling in his notebook, and Kynan couldn't help but glance to see what he was drawing. It was Peeves causing trouble for Kynan himself. Seeing this caused him to frown and want revenge. I've been trying to be friends with him but he doesn't want it! Ungrateful demon, he thought and looked around. He saw the left-over ingredients so he grabbed one puffer-fish eye and threw it in Evan's potion when the Professor wasn't looking. Grinning, he threw in the rest of his left-overs. It was a surprise that Evan hadn't noticed yet.

When his hour was up, Kynan could see Evan look confused and hopeless. Hm, he thought as he turned to his own potion and continued until step 11. After he waved his wand, his potion turned to lilac too, and he grinned. Evan's was black. That'll teach him. He'd been trying to get back at Evan ever since the Charms incident.

Lucia looked up from her desk and blinked. Was the time really that much? It was way overdue. "Time's up everyone!" she quickly said and rose from the desk. She took a round, stopping at Ms. Wilde's potion, and smiling nicely.

She then reached Mr. Evans' potion and frowned lightly. She then continued on and smiled again as the lilac potion of Mr. Walters was shown in front of him. She checked Ms. Winchester's potion as well, and then returned to her desk.

"Five points to Mr. Evans for the good try, though it was slightly unsatisfactory. And ten points each to Mr. Walters and Ms. Wilde for a very well done potion. A few minor mistakes, though, as the potion was supposed to turn a pale blue. One too many dried nettles, I believe," she said with a soft smile.

"But well done, all of you, even though some might need more ground-work. Now, class is dismissed. Have a good holiday, everyone!" she said happily, dismissing them all with a soft smile.