| Demiguise
Join Date: May 2008 Location: Hobbiton
Posts: 24,239
Hogwarts RPG Name:
???
Ravenclaw
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Ronnie Thurkell
Gryffindor Seventh Year
  x12  x12
|  lives in a hobbit hole || Ern and Touz's Nuzzle || roflysst || looking at a seed packet
SPOILER!!: prof Quote:
Originally Posted by hermygirl 
“I couldn’t have put it better myself,” Noble answered as Bel responded to Maxton’s question. “Transfiguration is bloody hard. Especially when brains are involved.” Lots of important synapse connections that it’s really not a good idea to mess up. “And yes, it requires you’re there in the room. A potion, however…well, you can put that in someone’s drink anytime you like...” As long as it was within the period of the potion’s stability, but that wasn’t a particular worry here. The pompion potion had a decent shelf life.
...oh, had he forgot to mention that if he deemed that they'd brewed the potion properly, they'd be able to take some away?
A question about the water. The water which he hadn't told anyone to add, but apparently at least half the class had because they were following the recipe, and not him. He didn’t know to be reassured that they’d read the recipe carefully, or peeved that they’d decided to skip ahead.
Apparently they hadn't noticed the contents of Jessa’s cauldron by vanished. Alas.
He supposed he could vanish everyone's that had decided to not listen carefully, but unfortunately that would mean over-running into morning break. HIS morning break. So, instead, with a grumble and a grunt, he raised his voice.
“If you haven’t already added the water, you should do that now.”
If the boy didn’t want to get up and put any protective equipment on, then…well, it wasn’t exactly his fault as Professor, was it? Especially with the amount of pumpkin goop that was getting flicked around.
“I accept English and Latin responses in my class only,” Noble replied. This was Hogwarts, not Beauxbatons…no need to be sarcastic in French at him. “And 5 points from Gryffindor for your cheek.”
Now hopefully he’d get on with the lesson and maybe, just maybe, shut up.
Noble’s eyes narrowed at the Tenacius, a snarl on his lips. The Head Boy. The one who was meant to set a good example. No, the best of examples. “If your lip as much as twitches upwards again this lesson, Mister Head Boy, I will see to it that you’ll share the joke with me in detention. Understood?”
That dealt with, for now at least, Noble turned his attention to the rest of the classroom. Only to hear about another student, Amanda, with an possible allergy. Seriously? Since when had pumpkin, pumpkin, been so prevalent as an allergen? Gah. Noble rubbed his temples, and in the meantime Derfael went to help. Noble nodded to the Hufflepuff Prefect.
Was she...? Noble watched the Hufflepuff for a few moments longer. Yes…she was. She was putting the seeds in the cauldron, and the pumpkin innards that were meant to be in there were still decidedly in the pumpkin. Apparently she’d decided things elsewhere in the classroom were more important than his demonstration.
“Start again, Mara,” he said, vanishing the seeds from her cauldron. Hopefully she’d have enough left in the pumpkin for the final step of the recipe. “Pumpkin pulp and water only in the cauldron so far.”
Lots of students seemed to be progressing…he wasn’t sure he’d say well, persay, but at least not terribly. So that was…something. Yes. Nods and appreciative grunts happened.
Yes, grunts could be appreciative.
And the older students had really picked up the gauntlet when it came to helping. Let’s see…there was Daisy helping Emmalyn light her burner…Finn working with Hanna…Miranda had stepped in to help Josephine…Skylar was demonstrating to Jessi…Junia was getting Abraham back on track…and Harriet was fixing Dorian’s cauldron.
Hang on, what? No. That wasn’t right! Grumble grumble. “Thank you for helping, Harriet,” Noble said, from the front of the class. “But I’d suggest you use one from the cupboard for today, Dorian.” Cracks were weaknesses, and he had enough to get through without an exploding cauldron in the mix. “See me after class, and I’ll have a look at fixing it.”
He wasn’t unreasonable, okay?
And since they all seemed to be done with the pumpkin pulp, Ignatius clapped his hands together. “Okay then...whilst we’re waiting for the cauldron to get up to a simmer, we need to prepare our dried moths.” He held up a beaker of them so they could see what they looked like. “Put three in your mortar, and grind them to a fine powder.” He counted three out, before giving them a good (and loud) pounding with the pestle. “If you think you’re done, I recommend you go back and pound some more.” He meant a super fine powder.
“You can also start chopping your bouncing bulb. These are fresh and not part of your standard kit, so please fetch one from the front.” He gestured to the lidded crate on the desk. “A bouncing bulb does just as its name suggests...bounces. Please do not start to prepare it until you have stunned it!” He did NOT want to have to be sending people to the Healer. “So first, a Stupefy,” which he demonstrated, “and then we’re going to peel off that outer purple layer and chop it finely with a silver knife.” Again, he did this using a peeler from his potions kit, before placing the bulb on his chopping board. “Good chopping is all about technique. Curl your fingers under and into a claw like this, and use your knuckles as a guide for the side of the knife. Push down smoothly with the blade for a safe clean cut.”
He really hoped they were paying attention. Some of their cutting skills had been woefully poor in previous lessons. His cat could probably do it better, honestly.
"You need 100g of bouncing bulb. Weigh it out ready, but don't add it or the moths just yet."
ooc note: I'm loving all of your responses so far! <3 This is just a preparation step, no need to add anything to the cauldron. If you missed the last step, you're welcome to either a) proceed as if you were here and had completed it, or b) catch up. Please keep any catching up to a single post if possible so as not to confuse the general order of things.
Wait, was the professor implying they should put potions like this one into someone's drink? Like as a prank?
Was the professor condoning pranks? Professor Noble just got more and more interesting in every class, didn't he? Bel was pleased and relieved that he hadn't got mad at her for instinctively responding to Maxton. She was a bit behind though, and quickly returned her attention to the work,scooping the pumpkin guts out of the pumpkin (who knew it could be so messy?) and then de-seeding said guts. The metal spoon went to one side in favour of the measuring cup, which she packed with the guts once, and then twice, going into the cauldron, followed by a cup full of water. Round abouts anyways.
Unbeknownst to Bell, there was still pumpkin innards on her cheek too.
The hardest bit about all this was trying to juggle doing the potion with writing down instructions. All Bel had written was the name of the potion. But then the professor was giving all the instructions anyway so that was okay, she was sure.
Grinding moths didn't sound too nice, alive or dead the idea of ingesting powdered moth was kind of gross. All the same, she put some elbow grease into it, getting her grind on with the three dead dried moths and pummeling them into a powder that was cornflour-fine.
Wait wait. Bouncing bulbs? Bel looked up. Okay. Fetch. Stun. Peel. Chop. Sounded doable? Should she get a couple for her table mates also? She wasn't sure she could manage to carry three of them back if they were going to be bouncing all that much. She went to get her own one from the crate, careful not to release any of the others by accident, and almost having to juggle it to keep hold of it on the return to her table. Jessa and Cam got slightly apologetic looks about not getting them one but honestly, one at a time was plenty to deal with!
Keeping hold of the top of the bulb, Bel wrestled her wand out.
"Stupefy!" She was careful not to aim for her fingers that was for sure. The bulb stopped its bouncing and Bel sat down again with some relief. Where was her silver kni--oh there. Good. And her peeler? Yes. She started peeling off the outer layer, leaving an intact purple spiral of skin on her desk. Now for chopping! She didn't mind chopping. It was a bit like helping her dad in the kitchen, really, chopping spuds and carrots.
CHOP.
CHOP.
Her tongue poked out a little bit in concentration.
CHOP.
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