 be curious, not judgmental
...There was a new cauldron in front of her, and her cauldron was being taken away. Sophie lifted her gaze from the point it had been fixated on in front of her to see Marigold's retreating back... and the Ravenclaw propped her head up on her chin, her elbow on her desk, and went back to staring at the new cauldron now.
Grateful, she was, that someone was looking out for her... but she didn't deserve it. And as class went along, she continued writing down the steps until all eighteen of them were in her notes... and then she processed what they said and what Culloden had said: they had to wait seven days. There were only a few steps they had to do today.
...Well. She could... probably... catch up, yeah? Maybe? Just get the first few steps done now? It wasn't like she had to brew the entire POTION now. Just a few steps. She... could muster up the will for that, couldn't she? Yeah... yeeeah. All right. Fine. She'd do it, but she wouldn't like it.
Visibly distressed as she did so, Sophie set the medium flame, heated the milk over it in a clean container, and checked her watch. Three minutes would fly by before she knew it, so she got her other things ready - cleaning her cutting knife, metal stirrer, and gloves with Scourgify, and then chopping the measure of fluxweed, too. The further into the three minutes it got, the more comfortable she felt - potion-making was kind of therapeutic, wasn't it?
When the three minutes were up, Sophie added the heated milk to her cauldron and used, "Incendio," to set her burner to a low flame, then added her already-chopped fluxweed with a clean-gloved hand. With her metal stirrer clean, too, she dipped it down into the cauldron, and hesitated to make sure she went in the right direction before stirring seven times clockwise. At the last stir, she lifted the stick from the cauldron and cast, "Scourgify," on it so the potion didn't drip all over her desk when she took it all the way out.
Then the dog fur. Still the weirdest part of the potion, she thought, and she re-cleaned her gloves again before taking a handful of the tame dog's fur - it had been about ten seconds anyway since she stopped stirring - and sprinkled the handful into the cauldron, trying to evenly coat the surface.
...Phew. She actually felt a little better now. Funny how productivity brightened the mood, wasn't it? She didn't feel like practicing the incantation like everyone else - instead, Sophie looked over at Marigold then and tried to catch her eye - and when she did, the sixth year gave the older girl a genuine smile and a thumbs-up.
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