Xana walked into the potions lab, her supplies in her duffel. She went to a table and immediately started setting up her lab, taking out her journal and supplies.

Monica leaned against the door to the potions lab. she glanced inside and saw that girl that Josh hung around with last year. She walked inside and spoke to her. "Hi."

Xana looked over to a new girl who had entered the room, smiling as she spoke. "Hello. I don't think we've met... I'm Aryanna -- people call me Xana. And you are?" She tilted her head and nodded a friendly greeting to the girl as she continued to deftly set up her lab. She began to warm oil in her cauldron to cure it while she unpacked and set up her alembic distillation apparatus, entfleurage vessel and copper condensers. She reached into her bag to get more equipment and ingredients.

"I'm Monica Black. My brother Excelsior is in your house." She smiled. "What kind of potion are you making?" She asked, curiously. "I like potions too."

"Excelsior? I've met him... he's terrific. " She smiled. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Monica. I'm not actually doing a full potion today, I'm laying the groundwork for one... I'm doing an herbal distillation of a microsorum pteropus-- a java lance fern-- and then I'll be doing the same thing over there-- she nods to her alembic - for a distillation of marsh slug mucus."

"Cool! Do you mind if I watch?" She asked softly, sitting on a nearby stool, she flipped her black pigtail over her shoulder. "So what year are you in?" She asked. "I'm repeating third year, because I was out sick half of last year." Monica said.

"No, not at all-- I'm so sorry to hear you fell ill, are you feeling better now?" she looked at her sympathetically. She'd have hated to have to miss half a year of school... "i'm a seventh year, and potions is really my passion... potions and herbology. So, I'll be in here a lot of the time. What house are you in?"

"I'm better now. It turned out that my uncle was poisioning me." She said softly. "Potions is a passion for me too, especially since last year." Monica leaned her chin against her hand. "I'm in Gryffindor, but they don't like me much because I spend a lot of time with my brother and a lot of my friends are slytherins. They kinda pick on me and say that I'm a traitor." Monica explained. "My friend Josh says I should just either ignore them or curse them all."

She nodded in sympathy. "Oy. I'm a Slytherin, and I think ignoring them is best. It's so disappointing when students do that- I'm a strong proponent of inter-house unity, myself. And please know you're always welcome with me and my friends." she pulled out a container which held freshly harvested plant material, and with a sharp knife began finely chopping the plant's leaves and stems. The sap bled and turned her fingers a light green, and a mildewy, wet smell filled the air. "I'm so sorry to hear about your uncle... that's just terrible. At least you're all right now."

She put the plant material into the cauldron and added a liquid from a flask. "What specific type of potions work catches your interest? Are there any particular things that you've played with and found interesting?"

"Yeah. You're probably right." Monica smiled. "I like making antidotes. The medicine that saved me from the poision my uncle was using was one of my creations actually." She smiled. My goal is to create a universal Poision antidote. One that can be gotten more readily than searching the stomach of a sheep for a bezor."
ooc: Better go for now, but i will catch you soon!

Alexis walked into the potions lab to find 2 people already there, she smiled at them but decided not to interrupt their conversation. once at her own table she got out her book and then all of her ingredients to the Hiccupping Solution she wanted to work on.

Xana grinned. "You are talking to the right person, then. Two other Slytherins and I will be working on that this term- we think we've got it figured out, or at least have a solid theory in place to implement, and I've done some foundation work -- research -- for the formula already. You're welcome to join our team, if you like..."

Xana smiled and nodded at the new girl who entered the room, not wanting to interrupt her as she set up a workstation.

Kai walked into the potions classroom, she immeditaly grabbed a spot in the front, she pulled out some books and placed her bag next to her chair on the floor. She then got up, gathered a few ingredients, a coldren and sat back down at her desk and began brewing.

"Let's see, antidote" she spoke quitley to herself as she pulled out the book next to her and flipped it to page 13, there on the page were instructions to make an antidote. She then began.

As I entered the lab, I noticed Kai sit down in the front, and proceded to sit behind her. Pulling out my book I spotted a potion that would be useful in quantity. Draught of Peace, yes that should be easy enough. Only these Ingredients: Powdered moonstone and Syrup of hellebore. I go up to the storage cupbord and find the ppropriate ingredients with ease, then sit back down, starting to make the potion.

Xana noticed the two new students enter the room and set up potions workstations not far from her own complicated set up. She watched the eager little students, quite likely first years, charmed at their initiative. She grinned at Monica and then looked back at the students. "Hello." Xana said softly to them, continuing to work on her distillations.

"Could I really? I mean it might help to have someone on the team with a little experience with poisions." She said softly. "I'd really like that."

She laughed gently. Oh, if you only knew my experience. "Yes, there's that." she said with a smile at the young girl. "And an extra set of hands may help. I'll of course have to check with the others first, and get their approval, but presuming there's no objections I'd love to have your assistance." She moved her brewing plant soup into the alembic and did a quick evanesco on the cauldron to begin working with the slug slime. She took out a jar of slime -- still with some slugs present-- and measured out the appropriate amount of her base material, using pincers to remove the slugs thatgot caught in the scoop of slime. "Meanwhile, what other projects do you have that you're working on?"

"Nothing really at the moment." My brother's being a bit overprotective and won't let me do more than one thing at once." Monica replied.

Pausing to see who had spoken to me I see a much older student sitting not far from me, working with a much more complicated set-up. I go back to my work after briefly returning her greeting. My draught was going just fine and I was hoping that it'd be as effective as it was to create.

Carefully measuring a pale blue, paintlike fluid into a test tube, she grinned. "Well, isn't that what older brothers are for? Being overprotective?" she grinned and cast a sedimentation spell on the tube, waiting until separation completed before carefully pouring the excess liquid into a cup and then collecting the sediment from the tube and adding it to her cauldron. "Besides, you're still so young... no need to overwhelm yourself so soon, right?" She smiled warmly at her, glancing over to her before consulting her grimoire for the next step in her process.

"So... tell me, what kind of poison was he using and how did you combat it?"

Adam was impressed. Very impressed at the amount of initiative the students were showing. This lab was a good idea, and already a number of the students had already started making potions. He sat at his desk and chewed on the end of a quill, trying to think of a potions task he could set for the students who didn't want to make their own potions.

Kai smiled at the older student "Hello, very nice to meet you i'm Kai, and this is Onikami" she said as she pointed at him. She looked back at her potion for a breif second, so she wouldn't botch it.

Xana smiled at Professor Dresden as he sat at his desk, not far from her workstation. "So nice to see you again, sir. I hope you had a nice summer holiday."

Xana glanced up at the student who spoke. "Hello, Kai... Onikami..." she nodded in greeting. "It's a pleasure to meet you. I'm Xana and this- " she indicated the girl with her - " is Monica. What are you each working on today?"

Glancing up from my now simering potion, I respond,
"I'm working on a Draught of Peace. So far so good, and I'm happy about that." I look up further to see that the Proffessor had came in and was now watching us thoughtfully. I smile as I turn back to the older student and say,
"Looks like Proffessor is trying to come up with an assignment, but with the varied levels of experience in here it's probbaly difficult." I think for a second the go up to the Proffessor, with a great idea in mind.