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The Potions classroom was much as it always was: cool stone walls lined with shelves of labelled ingredients, cauldrons sat prepared at each workstation in precise arrangement, ingredients not included in students' standard kits have been measured out with Professor Cox's usual meticulousness and laid in neat rows across his desk, awaiting later distribution.
At the front of the room, however, beside Professor Cox’s own cauldron, sat something decidedly unusual: a large Mason jar filled with rigid plastic hands in assorted colors.
Professor Cox, naturally, offers no explanation whatsoever.
So file on in and take your seats quietly. Conversation is permitted for the moment, provided you are ready to give the lesson your full attention the instant it begins.
lesson index
Q1. If you were afforded an ability beyond your current limitations — a superhero ability, if you will — what would you select?
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OOC: Hello and welcome to the Potions lesson thread! A reminder to please check out Professor Cox's rules for for important IC tone and reminders, as well as a general guide to OOC conduct
This lesson has not yet begun, but will do so in approximately 24 hours from the time of this post. This lesson has officially begun! You are welcome to join in at any time To do so, please RP as though your character has been present all along (catch-up posts are alway welcome!). You may post your character arriving late if you wish, but only do so if you are also willing to accept IC consequences that may range from point loss to detention depending on the manner in which your character arrives.
As always, if there are any questions or things that need clarifying OOC, please feel free to reach out to me via VM or PM and I will be happy to help out!
Adrian rounded the corner of the sixth floor with one hand shoved into the pocket of his robes, expression already settling into the particular brand of resignation reserved exclusively for Professor Cox’s class. Which was saying something, considering he still wasn’t entirely sure whether his irritation stemmed from Potions itself or because of Marina or the added variable of Iris.
Upon arrival though, he slowed immediately. Marina stood several feet from the classroom door, rigid in a way that didn’t suit her. She wasn’t fidgeting. Wasn’t scrolling through conversation or leaning against the wall with her usual sharp-edged ease. She just stood there staring toward the doorway like she was arguing with herself internally and losing.
Adrian’s jaw tightened slightly. Ever since the feast, something had been off. The goblet. The way she’d vanished afterward. The increasingly deliberate evasions every time he tried to talk to her since. Marina avoiding someone took effort. Marina avoiding him took intent.
And he hated that he couldn’t tell whether she was angry, spiraling, or simply trying to disappear before anyone noticed something was wrong.
“Marina.” Her head turned at the sound of his voice. For half a second, something crossed her face. Not guilt exactly. Not fear either. Just… caught.
Then she looked away first. Adrian took a step toward her just as a cluster of younger students pushed past into the classroom, forcing him to move aside toward the doorway. By the time he looked back, Marina had apparently made whatever decision she’d been standing there trying to make.
Because she turned sharply and walked away down the corridor without entering the room.
“Marina!” Too late. She didn’t stop. Didn’t even look back.
A frustrated breath left him through his nose as he stared after her for another second longer than necessary before finally dragging himself into the classroom with visible reluctance.
The cool dungeon air hit immediately. Shelves lined the walls in severe, meticulous order. Cauldrons sat prepared with almost military precision. Ingredients were arranged so neatly across Cox’s desk that touching any of them suddenly felt like a punishable offense.
And then there was the jar. Adrian stopped mid-step, eyes narrowing faintly at the enormous mason jar filled with rigid plastic hands in violently assorted colors.
Pink. Blue. Yellow. Green.
He stared at it.
Then at Professor Cox.
Then back at the hands.
Absolutely not.
Whatever psychological warfare this class had planned already felt personal.
His gaze swept the room once before he moved toward an empty seat with the air of someone accepting a prison sentence, dropping into the chair and leaning back just slightly while one thumb tapped once against the desk.
Restless.
Distracted.
And despite himself, still watching the doorway Marina had failed to walk through.
__________________
......................let's be reckless, unaffected, running out until we're breathless ...............let's be hopeful, don't get broken, and stay caught up in the moment ♥
Cat had, as per usual, been on the lookout for Marina. So, she hadn’t missed the commotion between the two Garcia Masseys in the corridor. She did hesitate, debating running off after her friend.
In the end, she entered the classroom. She couldn’t miss class. She couldn’t miss Potions. She knew that. She knew that Marina knew that. It didn’t stop a now-familiar ache from appearing between her heart and lungs, as if a dragon was sitting on her chest.
You’re not responsible for Miss Garcia Massey’s emotions. The adult voice in her head was clear, unmistakable. And, of course, it belonged to the professor at the front of the classroom.
“Hello, Professor,” Cat greeted in a significantly less cheerful tone than she usually had when entering her favorite class. She found her seat easily - center and second row from the front. Her eyes traveled from the… hands (what??) to the older boy, then to the door again. Maybe she’d be surprised, and Marina would come back?
~ Mrs. Steve Harrington ~ Claimed by Bits ❤️ ~ Queen of Typos ❄ Magical Mosh Pit ❄
Another day, another Potions lesson.
But it hadn’t been Levi’s first for the day. Lesson, he meant. Which was why he was tucking a couple of books from the previous one into his bag as he slowly made his way towards the Potions classroom. Slowly, because of the task he had occupied himself with. And being the neat and organised person that he was, the Hufflepuff took care to replace them in precise order. Throughout the process his lower lip was caught between his teeth. “There,’’ he thought. “All done.” And Diallo, of course, had been patient with him as usual.
“Hi, good morning, professor,’’ Levi greeted. Obviously his lip had been released so that talking could happen. “Nice hands!” Greeting out of the way, he headed further into the classroom. He smiled in acknowledgement at Adrian and Cat before selecting a seat for himself.
SSRPG Admin Gladrags Mod Quibbler Mod Minister for Magic Alley Proprietor
Sea Serpent
Join Date: Aug 2010
Location: The Paths
Posts: 41,349
Hogwarts RPG Name: Professor Cox
Ravenclaw
Graduated
Hogwarts RPG Name: CJ Miller
Gryffindor
Third Year
Hogwarts RPG Name: Nyle Harden
Hufflepuff
Sixth Year
Hogwarts RPG Name: Iris Harden
Ravenclaw
Sixth Year
Hogwarts RPG Name: Calliope Barrington
Slytherin
Fifth Year
Ministry Department Head:
Charles Hollingberry
Minister's Office
Ministry Department Head:
Airey Flamsteed
Mysteries
Diagon Alley Proprietor:
Victor García Massey
Ollivanders
x12 x12
astronomizzle ♧ gryffinDORK | & the rest is drag ♣ #badluckDerf
Text Cut: the one who has been seen entirely too much recently
Quote:
Originally Posted by Samia
Adrian rounded the corner of the sixth floor with one hand shoved into the pocket of his robes, expression already settling into the particular brand of resignation reserved exclusively for Professor Cox’s class. Which was saying something, considering he still wasn’t entirely sure whether his irritation stemmed from Potions itself or because of Marina or the added variable of Iris.
Upon arrival though, he slowed immediately. Marina stood several feet from the classroom door, rigid in a way that didn’t suit her. She wasn’t fidgeting. Wasn’t scrolling through conversation or leaning against the wall with her usual sharp-edged ease. She just stood there staring toward the doorway like she was arguing with herself internally and losing.
Adrian’s jaw tightened slightly. Ever since the feast, something had been off. The goblet. The way she’d vanished afterward. The increasingly deliberate evasions every time he tried to talk to her since. Marina avoiding someone took effort. Marina avoiding him took intent.
And he hated that he couldn’t tell whether she was angry, spiraling, or simply trying to disappear before anyone noticed something was wrong.
“Marina.” Her head turned at the sound of his voice. For half a second, something crossed her face. Not guilt exactly. Not fear either. Just… caught.
Then she looked away first. Adrian took a step toward her just as a cluster of younger students pushed past into the classroom, forcing him to move aside toward the doorway. By the time he looked back, Marina had apparently made whatever decision she’d been standing there trying to make.
Because she turned sharply and walked away down the corridor without entering the room.
“Marina!” Too late. She didn’t stop. Didn’t even look back.
A frustrated breath left him through his nose as he stared after her for another second longer than necessary before finally dragging himself into the classroom with visible reluctance.
The cool dungeon air hit immediately. Shelves lined the walls in severe, meticulous order. Cauldrons sat prepared with almost military precision. Ingredients were arranged so neatly across Cox’s desk that touching any of them suddenly felt like a punishable offense.
And then there was the jar. Adrian stopped mid-step, eyes narrowing faintly at the enormous mason jar filled with rigid plastic hands in violently assorted colors.
Pink. Blue. Yellow. Green.
He stared at it.
Then at Professor Cox.
Then back at the hands.
Absolutely not.
Whatever psychological warfare this class had planned already felt personal.
His gaze swept the room once before he moved toward an empty seat with the air of someone accepting a prison sentence, dropping into the chair and leaning back just slightly while one thumb tapped once against the desk.
Restless.
Distracted.
And despite himself, still watching the doorway Marina had failed to walk through.
Cox had, unfortunately, heard the corridor interaction long before Mr. García Massey crossed the threshold into his classroom looking like a boy one inconvenience away from volunteering to scrape doxy residue from cauldrons with a toothbrush over being here.
The feeling was, unironically, mutual.
His gaze lifted only briefly from the neat arrangement of ingredients he had been checking over as Mr. García Massey entered. Alone.
One brow arched faintly, his gaze flicking to the door again before settling, cordially, back on the Slytherin. There was a certain grim familiarity to the sight by now — Mr. García Massey appearing at locations Cox would have vastly preferred he did not find.
"They won't bite, Mr. García Massey," he offered in greeting, chin jetting out towards the jar. "They are perfectly mundane in every sense of the word."
The remark was delivered lightly enough to pass as dry observation and academic humor to anyone else in the room, though the faint narrowing of his eyes suggested an enduring source of irritation.
Text Cut: the one with the wrong impression
Quote:
Originally Posted by squidnie
Cat had, as per usual, been on the lookout for Marina. So, she hadn’t missed the commotion between the two Garcia Masseys in the corridor. She did hesitate, debating running off after her friend.
In the end, she entered the classroom. She couldn’t miss class. She couldn’t miss Potions. She knew that. She knew that Marina knew that. It didn’t stop a now-familiar ache from appearing between her heart and lungs, as if a dragon was sitting on her chest.
You’re not responsible for Miss Garcia Massey’s emotions. The adult voice in her head was clear, unmistakable. And, of course, it belonged to the professor at the front of the classroom.
“Hello, Professor,” Cat greeted in a significantly less cheerful tone than she usually had when entering her favorite class. She found her seat easily - center and second row from the front. Her eyes traveled from the… hands (what??) to the older boy, then to the door again. Maybe she’d be surprised, and Marina would come back?
His attention shifted next as Miss Webb entered, and despite her attempt at composure, the lingering heaviness from their conversation was not particularly difficult to identify.
Not that he intended to acknowledge any of that publicly.
Merlin forbid she realize even more that he possessed functioning observational skills outside the grading of essays and nitpicking brewing techniques.
"Miss Webb," he acknowledged, voice perhaps a fraction less severe than usual. His eyes flicked once toward her robes automatically, assessing for lingering pumpkin juice catastrophe before returning to the ingredients on his desk.
Text Cut: the one with the jokes
Quote:
Originally Posted by FearlessLeader19
Another day, another Potions lesson.
But it hadn’t been Levi’s first for the day. Lesson, he meant. Which was why he was tucking a couple of books from the previous one into his bag as he slowly made his way towards the Potions classroom. Slowly, because of the task he had occupied himself with. And being the neat and organised person that he was, the Hufflepuff took care to replace them in precise order. Throughout the process his lower lip was caught between his teeth. “There,’’ he thought. “All done.” And Diallo, of course, had been patient with him as usual.
“Hi, good morning, professor,’’ Levi greeted. Obviously his lip had been released so that talking could happen. “Nice hands!” Greeting out of the way, he headed further into the classroom. He smiled in acknowledgement at Adrian and Cat before selecting a seat for himself.
And then came Mr. Singh-Phora, methodically organizing books with the concentration of someone performing delicate alchemical work rather than walking to class. He watched the careful precision with a subtle not-quite-smile of approval.
"Mr. Singh-Phora," he greeted with a small incline of his head before his eyes flicked toward the collection of colorful hands beside his cauldron.
"…thank you," he said after the slightest pause. "They'll become considerably more interesting once exposed to competent brewing."
Which, judging by the room presently filling with teenagers, remained an impressively ambitious target rather than a statistically reliable expectation. Still, optimism — however misplaced — was an important component of academic perseverance.
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He waited until the final wave of students filtered inside, the low murmur of conversation and scraping stools settling into the usual pre-lesson disorder.
His pocket watch clicked open in one smooth motion and he glanced down at it once before offering another quick glance towards the doorway.
No late dramatic entrances? Remarkable.
With a quiet snap of metal, the watch shut again between his fingers and disappeared neatly back into his robes. With a flick of his wrist, the classroom door swung closed with a firm thud that carried enough finality to still most lingering conversations. His gaze swept the room, one hand folding behind his back while the other rested lightly against the edge of his desk beside the jar of rigid colourful hands, the runic tattoos along his knuckles and weaving up his arm glowing faintly.
"Good morning," he said at last, straightening a parchment stack by less than half an inch before resting both hands lightly against the edge of his desk and leaning against it with his hip. "As expected — and to the profound shock of absolutely no one — I have a question for you all."
His gaze moved slowly across the room, lingering here and there just long enough to suggest he was bracing himself to be either unexpectedly impressed or profoundly concerned by whatever answers were about to emerge.
"If you were afforded an ability beyond your current limitations — a superhero ability, if you will — what would you select?"
OOC: thank you all for coming! Class will move on in approximately 24 hours from the time of this post.
__________________
We broke into a million pieces, and we can't go back.........................................
But now we're seeing all the beauty in the broken glass.....................................
The scars are part of me, darkness and harmony
My voice without the lies, this is what it sounds like
Was Professor Cox making a joke? Cat didn’t know if it was recent events or simply her changing cognitive abilities (teenager developing her frontal lobe and all), but she was starting to realize that professors were their own people who had, like, lives and personalities and stuff. And it was happening not just with the potions professor, but with others as well.
Odd. She’d come back to that later.
For now, to answer the question he’d asked. She knew her answer immediately - she’d thought about it plenty of times. Which was… probably normal, right?
Her hand shot up. “Mind reading. But not, like, all the time. Only when I wanted to use it.” She would keep her reasons to herself, though. Unless there was a follow-up.
~ Mrs. Steve Harrington ~ Claimed by Bits ❤️ ~ Queen of Typos ❄ Magical Mosh Pit ❄
Levi bit back an amused laugh at Cox’s reaction to his comment. He had hoped that the man would be a taaad less grumpy with the joke. Needless to say that the boy was quite curious about how the ‘hands’ would come into play later on; he also knew he had to channel all his patience while he and his classmates waited to find out.
By the time the professor was checking that familiar pocketwatch, Levi had neatly arranged his books and writing apparatus in a meticulous manner that would allow him smooth transitioning between note taking and brewing and back.
Ooh. Levi liked that question. He didn’t even need to think too long. “To be able to become invisible at will.” There were deep reasons for that answer but he wasn’t keen on dwelling too much on them. Picturing himself as Miles Morales - a version of Spiderman with the powers of camouflage and invisibility abilities - was quite entertaining, something he preferred doing at present.
Adrian looked at him flatly. There was the faintest narrowing of his eyes at the professor’s tone. Dry. Polite. Irritatingly controlled. Which somehow made it worse. Especially now that Adrian knew exactly who Iris had inherited that terrifying observational precision from.
“Comforting,” he muttered back as his gaze drifted once toward the door again.
Still no Marina. That sat badly.
Worse than the weird plastic hands. Worse than being in Cox’s class while actively involved in whatever deeply complicated thing existed between him and Iris. Worse than how much Jae would enjoy watching him be entirely too uncomfortable because of all of the above.
Then came the question. Superhero abilities. Of course.
Adrian leaned back slightly in his chair, one elbow hooked lazily over the armrest while Cat immediately volunteered mind reading like she hadn’t just casually introduced the concept of legalized psychological trespassing into the room.
Eventually, when it was his turn he added: “Teleportation.”
The answer came flatly, almost absent-mindedly, but he continued after a second as one shoulder lifted slightly, “No corridors. No awkward conversations. No being trapped in social situations you regret entering thirty seconds in.” A pause. “No staircases.”
That last one carried genuine irritation.
__________________
......................let's be reckless, unaffected, running out until we're breathless ...............let's be hopeful, don't get broken, and stay caught up in the moment ♥
Little Fox | ½ of Lauralie | Ravenclaw...?? *overthinks* | #HouseNATARINA
Ah, Potions. Her nemesis.
Try as she might - or might not as was actually the case - Meinir Ellis had yet to leave a Potions lesson with the sense that she had 'improved' in any meaningful way. Potions required a level of precision and attention to detail that completely escaped her. A pinch always became a pinch and a half, for example, and three clockwise stirs were never completed successfully. She knew it was possible for older, more skilled potioneers to improvise, though she supposed that even those improvisations were calculated and made using existing knowledge of how different ingredients interacted with each other, but Mei was far from that level of experience. She was firmly in the beginner stage.
All that being said, she did find Potions interesting and looked forward to the lessons. She was simply no good at sticking to the instructions as given, which usually had... consequences - potions that hissed when they should soothe, or exploded when they should, you know, not explode...
Mei entered the classroom, which was much the same as usual - with the exception of a jar of hands, colourful, long, and creepy - and head straight over to her workstation. "Morning, Professor," she greeted him while she walked. "I guess you won't be needing a hand with anything today, huh?" She blurted out the pun before she could stop herself, but felt no embarrassment. It was funny, in her opinion of course.
As conversations faded and the door closed with a definitive thud, she fixed her attention on Professor Cox, doing her best to give him her undivided attention. She considered his question for approximately two seconds before deciding on her answer. Her classmates' answers were, in her humble opinion, rather cliché. What? No one wanted superstrength, or to be able to fly? Mei raised her hand and gave her answer with cool confidence. "The ability to become good - no, skilled," she amended, "at whatever I put my mind to straight away." In her mind, that would be an extremely useful and time-saving ability.
Not once did it occur to her that, perhaps, there was immense value in the journey of growth.
Potions [tba] 
To do so, please RP as though your character has been present all along (catch-up posts are alway welcome!). You may post your character arriving late if you wish, but only do so if you are also willing to accept IC consequences that may range from point loss to detention depending on the manner in which your character arrives.
x5
x12
Levi Singh-Phora :: Hufflepuff 
