Toby wasn't sure what it was that was pushing him on with this potion, even as careless about it as he was being. Some sort of weird, Hufflepuff need to keep on keeping on, perhaps? Being set on autopilot? His twitchy fidgety-ness needing some sort of outlet? Something to focus on? Perhaps all of the above? Whatever it was, the seventh year continued with the brewing process, though paying nowhere near as much attention as he should have been, and making no notes as he went but still doing it. Just... distracted. Or something.

The more time went on, the more fidgety Toby got (a mixture of anxiety about what might be coming at the end of the lesson and his overpowering energy), but the more faraway his expression would become. At the mention of fluxweed, he simply grabbed a handful and added that to the potion. He missed the stirring step completely, absentminded as he was, and by the time he'd thrown the dog fur in there too, Culloden had started saying all those words that weren't making much sense to Toby. It was a LOT of information, and his brain immediately rejected all the things. A THREE in one lesson on top of worrying about things was enough to make his brain basically implode. He was pretty sure it had already happened.

Without noting anything down, or practicing any spells, Toby lay his arms back down on the desk and brought his head down to join them, burying his face in the crook of his elbow. And, of course, his feet still jiggled and bounced and tapped incessantly under the desk. He was trying so, SO hard not to be too fidgety, to be quiet and still and blend into the background like he didn't even exist. But holding the energy in was taking all his concentration, and he felt fit to burst. He needed to get up and run away, but there he sat, because he'd been told in no uncertain terms that he was to stay.

Turned out, being scolded for something you blatantly DID do was about 45874683 times worse than when you didn't really deserve it, that's what Toby had come to realise. He felt so ashamed of himself (perhaps disproportionately so, though he wouldn't have agreed with that assessment), and so guilty. Somehow, he'd unleashed a barage of self-loathing thoughts that overpowered everything else. He knew he deserved the reprimand, though, and anything that was coming his way, and felt very much like he didn't deserve to be able to just shrug it off like he'd seen other kids do in the past. It had been selfish to mess about in Airey's lesson, after how awesome the professor usually was was him, and though Toby didn't know what had come over him in that ridiculous mood, it was no excuse. Airey was right to be furious with him. Toby was furious with himself.

Would anyone notice if he just... slid under his desk? And stayed there forever? Would that just make matters worse? Could things get worse? Toby was definitely considering it, depending on how things went from here, but it wasn't like he had a marvelous track record in DADA this term, either.