"Hello! Thanks!" Violet beamed at the teacher as she accepted the name tag. She was uncharacteristically cheery today, because Potions was her favorite subject. She smiled over at Ashley and Mamie, who'd been in some of her other classes, but tried to sit near the second-year, Gemma, because she wanted to get to know some of the students closer to her age group--at 14, she was already older than most of the other second years.

She organized her things and carefully wrote her name on her tag with her quill: "Violet P. Blackthorne" She smiled to herself as she remembered her first year, when she introduced herself to everyone with her full name. She didn't do that any more, but she still liked to write it out that way.

She looked at the jar of curious red peppers on her desk and wondered what they were. She didn't need the warning on the board to tell her not to open it yet--she knew better than to mess around with strange potions ingredients unless you knew what you were doing (her governess, Miss Howard, had drilled that into her before she even got to Hogwarts)