Term 7, lesson 1, year 5&6

((Lucia has not yet entered the class, she will when the students have come))

On blackboard:

Sure, they hadn't boiled any Potions last year, but Aylee was too determined now to get better. She'd improved her cooking, a tiny bit. She was doing well in cooking scrambled eggs, her mother's simplest recipe, until she got scared with lighting the oven due to hear little fear of fire. Her mother had to continue the rest of the recipe. Shame, really. Her mother looked really sick and tired these days. Probably her brother's grumbling about school and girls. And Kynan's food cravings. And her book crazes. And her dad not-being-in-the-house's job. Wait, what was the point of this whole thought? Aylee shook her head as she walked through the maze of dungeons, trying to remember the location of the Potions classroom. Usually, it would be easily, but her mind was still on her book crazes. Elita Fontayne Vega had bought her a bunch of books last year for Christmas which had reduced her to tears. She was re-reading them again.

Her mind now on The Fault in Our Stars, she made her way towards the Potions classroom. Somehow, she was the first one there. Smiling to herself, Aylee found a seat at the back and started unpacking her books and parchments and quills and ink bottles. Being early usually gave her time to doodle, trying to guess the day's topic, or just stare and day-dream. Unfortunately, that day, the topic of the day was written on the board. Draught of Peace. A potion... which brought you peace? Opening her book, she decided to check out what the potion was. The Draught of Peace is a potion which relieves anxiety and agitation, she read. Hmm... maybe she needed that. Between her brother's stupid Rylee lectures, her studying and schoolwork, and worrying about her mother, she needed some peace.

Leaning backwards to rest her back against the chair, Aylee waited for everyone else to arrive.

Even though Ryland wasn't any good at potions, he still looked forward to attending the class for another year. As he entered, rather quickly and abruptly, he looked surprised that Aylee was the only one in the room. With wide eyes, Ryland quivkly changed his surprise into a smile. After all, they were friends.

"Hey, Aylee." He said as he took a seat next to her. Glancing at the board, he quickly read over what the lesson would be about. He really didn't know what the Draught of Peace was, but he hoped it'd be an easy potion. The feeling in his gut told him it wouldn't be, though. Getting his potions textbook out, he turned to his friend, completely masking his nervousness at seeing the girl again. "How was your summer?" He casually asked.

Her mind was now thinking of The Fault in Our Stars so she was in an imaginary world with Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace Lancaster when she heard someone greet her. Snapping out of her daydream, Aylee looked up and realized that it was Ryland. "Oh, hi!" she exclaimed, in a too-cheerful way. If Kynan were here he'd already be lecturing her. Again. Like he did at the start of the school year, where he had embarrassed her in front of Maya. That git, she thought to herself, when she realized that Ryland was still there. She'd been frowning. Act normal!

Then Ryland asked her how her summer was, to which Aylee shrugged. "Boring, really. I was stuck in the same house as Kynan..." She did her weird kind of smile as she said that. "It wasn't very enjoyable." Yes, because between his stupid complaints and yelling about Minecraft, he never gave me a break. "It's great to be back at Hogwarts, though... what about your summer?"

Ryland noticed the frown and Aylee's face, and he tried to not let it get to him. "Why the frown?" He joked, "Aren't you happy to see a friend?" Ever since the DADA party last term, and everything that Wade had put him through at the end of last term, Ryland had given up on Aylee. Why would she give him a chance? He still thought of her as one of his best friends, and he hoped it would stay that way.

"Kynan's not that bad....I'd rather spend my time with Ethan, though, honestly." he mentioned, remembering his brief conversation with Aylee's older brother. When she asked about his summer, he almost spilled out everything. Instead, he told her something better. "Oh! Phoenix took us to Mexico!" Ryland grinned, "I'd been wanting to try real, actual, legit Mexican food. And he finally gave in during the summer!"

Aylee let out a small laugh at Ryland's comment about her frown. "Nothing, you just reminded me of Kynan," she replied coolly. It was the truth, what was there to lie about? That he ships Rylee. "He's been bugging me out all summer!" Then she took in what Ryland had said about not being happy to see a friend. A friend. That word stuck to her brain, until she understood what was bugging her out about it. He'd given up on her. Was it wrong that she felt her heart plummet a little? Shaking her head, Aylee found herself asking, "Do you take Arithmancy?"

At Ryland's next words, Aylee actually laughed. "Ethan?" she raised her eyebrows as she said that. Then her face broke into a grin. It was funny to hear that someone would rather spend time with her older brother, rather than her younger one, without even knowing them. Then she remembered that Ryland had met Ethan once. Just once, though. Not many people knew Ethan, whereas they'd probably seen Kynan around before. It was still a bit funny.

Then Ryland was expressing his excitement about Mexico. "Is the food great, then?" Aylee replied teasingly. It would be cool to go to Mexico. "I can't believe you've been to so much countries! I've never even been outside of the U.K!" she exclaimed, acting jealous. Okay, maybe she was a bit jealous- the only foreign countries she'd ever been to were through books, and that experience was never real enough for her. She wished to go somewhere like Italy or Germany or maybe even Malta! Her mother had a penfriend from that little country who had offered them to go stay there a few times.

Morgana made her short way from the Slytherin common room to the potions classroom, her stomach halfway empty, as usual, and her rucksack packed with books. She was ready for a new year. She opened the door to the damp in the classroom and entered. She saw Aylee and Ryland already there, and though Morgana didn't mind Ryland and actually enjoyed Aylee's company, she didn't feel like walking over to chat with them. They seemed to be engulfed in their own conversation, and Morgana only wanted the lesson to start.

She looked at the board and tilted her head to the side. Was this potion going to be difficult enough for her? She wasn't sure. She'd been able to make a Draught of Living Death before, this shouldn't be much trickier, but she hoped it would be. She did, however, think she might need a potion like this. Of course, to consume it, she would need to have a potioneer like professor Henley or her father by her side. Possibly even the school healer. She just knew she needed to rest some more.

The summer hadn't gone to much resting. She had been busy with much work, which had lead to a lot of portkeys and similar to get herself to Hogsmeade. She was very tired from all the traveling, but she was glad to be back at Hogwarts. She took a seat in the front, merely giving the two other students in the room a nod as greeting. She really wasn't in the mood to talk, and she hoped they were able to sense that. She did project it fairly well.

"Bugging you about what?" Ryland smiled, already thinking of a million things that Kynan could be bugging his older sister about. He'd really only talked to her younger brother once or twice, but Ryland didn't dislike the younger Gryffindor. In fact, he thought him to be funny and lazy, the perfect combination when it came to being a guy. Kynan was cool. When the subject changed from Kynan to Ethan, Ryland couldn't help but smile again. "You know what, I'm going to visit them. Soon. Maybe I'll drop by over vacation."

"The food is AMAZING." Ryland exclaimed, feeling his mouth water at the thought of it. "Aylee, you need to see it. There's beaches and caves and many nice restaurants!" In fact, he'd loved visiting Mexico so much that we was now considering moving to Mexico and opening up his bakery business over there. "Phoenix thinks it's better if we get to know more of the world. He doesn't want us to get lost in books and movies about how things should be but aren't." he said, recalling all the times he'd tried to ask Aylee out, expecting a positive reply and ending up with only a stuttering answer. "He wants us to be able to experience things for ourselves, live in the moment or at least that's what he says."

She could hear the clock toll, but her mind was abuzz. Wasn't class supposed to start soon? Lucia's eyes were heavy and she couldn't open them. As if the muscles had completely given up on her. She heard the last toll of nine and once again thought; isn't class supposed to start soon? And then her eyes flew open. She blinked and looked at her watch. One minute past nine. She jumped off the couch she had dozed off on and almost laughed at herself. Was it seriously possible to fall asleep before one of her first lessons of a new year?

She rolled her eyes and grinned at her phoenix before grabbing her papers and walked out of her office, looking at the students as she entered the classroom. "Sorry that I'm late, I'm glad to see you've got your books open," she said with an apologetic smile. She got to her desk and put the papers down, arranging them calmly and then looked back up at the students.

"So, are you guys ready for a new year?" she asked, and then shook her head, "Not that it matters, ready or not, school has started," she added with a grin. She walked around her desk and waved her wand in the direction of the blackboard. Everything except the name of the potion vanished. "Let's get started, shall we?" she asked rhetorically and leaned against her desk. "What do you know about the potion 'Draught of Peace'?" she asked the class, "And what are the ingredients to this potion?"

Morgana looked on as professor Henley entered the classroom. She raised an eyebrow at the statement of being sorry for being late, but she wasn't the most fault-free person either, so she didn't judge. Even though it was a professor.

She raised her hand calmly as the questions was asked and replied: "Draught of Peace relieves a person from anxiety and agitation. It's basically a relaxation potion. This potion is pretty difficult to make, because the least mistake can make the person who drinks it fall into a deep sleep that might not be reversible. In other words, everything has to be done exactly as the instructions says. The ingredients are syrup of hellebore, powdered unicorn horn and powdered moonstone."

She fell silent again and waited somewhat impatiently for them to get to start to make the potion; she didn't like potion for the theoretical, she already knew that, she liked it for the challenge, and now she craved a challenge.

Lucia nodded at Morgana's long and fulfilling answer. "Very good, Ms. Gaunt, 10 points to Slytherin. This is very correct. One must follow the instructions as told here, and one mishap will destroy it. I will inspect the potion when it is done, and decide whether it is drinkable or not. Don't worry, I will not be mistaken when I inspect it," she said with a smile.

"So, if you could all open your books to this potions page and read through the instructions a couple of times before fetching the ingredients and starting to brew it. When you have read through it at least three times, you may go and find the ingredients and start to brew the potion," Lucia said and made a hand gesture that said 'get to it'. She sat down behind her desk and inspected as they started the work.

Morgana read through the instructions thoroughly, just as professor Henley had ordered. And she was very pleased with this potion. It would be perfectly tricky as it was and it would be a very nice challenge to Morgana. After having read it three times, almost memorizing it, she went to fetch the necessary ingredients.

As she returned to her desk, she quickly got to work heating the cauldron and added the powdered moonstone until the color was perfectly green. She stirred the potion a few times around, watching as the potion slowly turned to an turquoise color and finally going blue. She continued adding the moonstone and the potion turned purple.

As she waited for the potion to turn pink, she took a glance around the classroom, wondering if she would get to drink this potion. It would be nice to feel completely rid of agitation. Homework, as much as she enjoyed it, was taking its toll on her, and she didn't get as much sleep as she often did. This had nothing to do with the homework, though.

She continued the potion as it turned pink by adding the syrup of hellebore until the potion turned turquoise. letting it simmer again, she came to the conclusion that she liked that color. Turquoise. There was something very drinkable about it. She didn't like the in-between color of turquoise and purple, though, but as the potion slowly turned a nice purple, she started shaking the porcupine quills in a vigorous manner, knowing just what they should look like when they were done.

She started adding them and the potion took some time before it became red, but it did get red. She smiled, happy that she had yet to make any mistakes. Not that Morgana actually did make mistakes. She stirred the potion until it became orange, and she suddenly didn't want to drink the potion. It was a very distasteful color. She was just glad it wouldn't stay that way.

The potion went from orange to turquoise again to purple and then to pink as she added the powdered unicorn horn, and then back to red and then purple before she continued to add moonstone and it turned grey. That was an interesting color for a potion. Then she let it simmer until it became orange again. Ugh… When she put powdered porcupine quills in it, it turned a nice white, and she knew the potion was done.

She smirked to herself, turned off the heat and took a sample. She walked up to professor Henley with the flask and sat down by her desk, waiting for further instructions.

Lucia looked up as Morgana gave her a sample. She accepted it and nodded. Just as expected. Perfect. Not a single ingredient misplaced. This girl had a knack for potions. Though this person seemed to have a knack for about everything...

"Well done, ms. Gaunt. 15 points to Slytherin for this potion," she said. She then looked at the clock. "The time is up and the class is done," she said, much louder now so the two others would hear it as well. "Thank you for today!" She rose from her desk and excused the class.