Lee raised hishand once more "Emm potion vials to store finished potions in?"

Selena wondered to herself "maybe the next slide will be of the great potions master Severus Snape" she thought "or maybe of a potion brewing." looking at the slide show apprehensively "or maybe students brewing a potion" laughs to self

Nadia tucked a strand of hair out of the way, and moved appearing to be organizing herself. She seemed quite uncomfortable and concentrated for some reason. Yet she never spoke up, not so far, and now they were reaching the vials. A part of her wondered if the class could go any swoler. She felt, excuse the expression, like in kindergarden. Her hand flew to her pocket and she awaited the next question. Second later she seemed to changer her mind and raised the same hand up.

"Professor, may I ask, are we going to brew something today, and if that's the case, what potion will be studing?"

This has got to be a joke, Natalya thought, scowling at the slides and the visible cookies up front, an glaringly obvious bribe. "Um, excuse me, Professor," she said in a forced cheery voice. "I know I'm diegressing from this very informative lesson, but I am quite curious. What value do these 'gold stars' have? Do they equal house points at any given value?"

*Jessica looked over at Natalya, nodding, agreeing with her question and looked up at Miss Metila*

Make nice Ashlie kept reminding herself. Make nice. Make nice. Gold stars? Why gold start? MAKE NICE!

"Professor?" she asked, raising her hand. "May I ask what.. well... gold stars. I'm assuming that that is your choice of reward. Usually, most Professors would use House Points. Is there any reason that you use Gold Stars....?"

The Prefect tried to keep her voice calm and friendly. She didn't like this woman being in the room. She didn't like the Gold Stars. But... at least she wasn't as horrible as Professor Borr. Still... she was replacing Professor Airlia.

MAKE NICE! MAKE NICE!

Terry sat quietly and watched this ridiculous slide show. "What planet did this woman beam down from," she wondered to herself. This day had already been too weird to believe. An urgent owl to report to Professor Perry's office immediately, a Potions Lesson that was way below her aptitude, and some more of those poisoned cookies. What was going to happen next?

"Very good. Kali, Luna, Francis, Meghan, and Lee all get gold stars," Sophie smiled, reading the names off the list she had made when the students answered the question. "These are vials and we use these vials to store potions and potion ingredients in."

She listened intently as the students asked their questions and then, answered them in turn. "Actually, I believe it is much too soon to actually begin brewing potions this class. Potion brewing can be very dangerous and we don't want to rush things. There are first years in this class, after all.

"I prefer to hand out gold stars for personal achievement rather than house points because when I was at Hogwarts there was much too much competition between the houses. In fact, I think I'm going to petition Nora... I mean, Miss Leiden," Sophie blushed at her use of Nora's first name with the students. "To see about cancelling the House Cup race. I prefer all the houses to live in harmony and the only person anyone should be competing with is one's self. Therefore, in my class, you will earn gold stars which, in turn, will earn you other rewards which will remain a surprise."

"Now, back to the lesson:"

Deciding it would be best not to voice her opinion, Anelreas raised her hand and mumbled. "That's a stopper to put on vials or bottles."

Lee raised his hand again

"It looks to me like its a cork, which you would place over the vial to make sure that all the ingredients or potions stay in the vial and also stay fresh"

Lee was unsure of this but answered anyway.

Meghan peirced her lips because she was getting very annoyed. "A stopper to put on top of vials so the potion wouldn't spill...?"

Jaren continued to make notes, all the while appearing attentive to the class, ignoring what he suspected was mounting indignace of the students around him, expecially those in his year and higher, who would (supposedly) have to deal with OWLs this year. He raised his hand to answer the question anyway.

"It's a glass stopper, used to seal the vials containing potion. There are rubber stoppers as well, but as those tend to react to some potions, glass stoppers are usually recommended," he said in a neutral and serious voice, though at this point of time too preoccupied writing to look up.

Lee could sense anger and suspense within the cass, because an 'intruder' wasteaching. However Lee took kindly to Melita, she was about the only one he did respect. He was sure he would be put in detention, made to write lines or even get suspension off of Shwmae. He decided to go by her office after class.

Terry looked over at Jaren as he answered the professor's ridiculous question. "It figures she would be on a first name basis with Miss Leiden. I imagine they even swap cookie recipes. Miss Melita probably provides the poison," Terry thinks to herself. Under the circumstances, Terry saw that her fellow fifth year students and herself had no other choice. They would have to get Professor Airlia to tutor them in Potions, or else they wouldn't stand a chance of passing their OWLS.

Since others already answered the rather easy question, Kali listened for the next question which, probably, was going to be just as simple as the last.

"Wonderful, absolutely amazing. Anelreas, Lee, Meghan, and Jaren all get a gold star each. It is indeed a stopper to prevent potions or ingredients from spilling from vials or bottles. Jaren gets an extra gold star for his excellent information pertaining to the different types of stoppers and their uses. I have just a few more slides, I think," she said before pointing her wand at the projector to bring forth the next slide."

"Scales," Ashlie replied, raising her hand. "They're for weighing ingredients to be used in a Potion. The exact weights are vital and can mess things up. Usually, in one side, you place little weights of the measurment you wish to use and then you place the other ingredient on the other side until both of the scales sides are evenly raised up."

Meghan raised her hand. "Scales or called a balance. It is used to measure your ingrediants..."

kass was tacking all the notes that they were suppose to

Alicia raised her hand "A standard set of brass scales used to measure and wiegh ingrediants, It also looks like there are some small wieghts on the side of the case. These could be used to make sure that a measurement of an ingrediannt weighs as much as it should."

Nadia's both eyebrow raised raised at the explanation wbout taking out the House Cup tournament. And truth was, she knew how it would be a good idea in some way. But of course, she was not about to say that out loud in one hundred years.

Raise hand. "Scales is a weighting equipment. It's used to weight the ammount of ingredients needed depending on the subtance. Liquid is usually meassured with vials, however. Powder and more solid structures are used better with scales. We use a virtual weight in one of the sides to aid us meassure things better."

*raises hand and waits for the teacher to call on him*

Oh!

*retracts hand at the excessive responses to the obvious question*

Jaren stotically continued writing, glancing up only to view the next slide, the fact that he had two gold stars failing to make any impression upon him.

*wonders why there is such a long period of silence, turns around and loks to see if this teacher has dissapeared also*

"Gold stars for Ashlie, Meghan, and Nadia. They are scales and we use them to measure out our dry ingredients. Very good. How about this one?"