| Chizpurfle
Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: EST (GMT -5)
Posts: 10,679
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Finnlay 'Finn' Cameron Muir
Fifth Year  x5
|  Ravenpuff | Cap'n Crunch | Bedtime Queen | O Minion, My Minion
Text Cut: Hanna Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessiqua  "Mmmm," Hanna could just picture herself in glory. Inventing a spell! Or a Potion! "The Ambidextrous Elixir! The Ambidextrous Charm!" That would be pretty special. "But it would be pretty hard to create something, wouldn't it?" otherwise EVERYONE would be doing it. Did Finn know the process of creating a new potion or spell? She wanted to ask but he looked like he needed to concentrate. In fact, SHE needed to concentrate too. Potions needed concentration. She'd come back to that conversation later.
Still a bit shaken up, Hanna nodded. "Right. Noted," yup. DO NOT DISTURB bouncing bulbs. Having lived first hand through this, she'd remember. No problem. She was about to apologise again, for apologising, but clamped her mouth shut. Nope. All seemed to be going well with their potions, though. It was a good thing the bulbs hadn't bounced INTO the potions.
Why as he blushing? Hanna frowned, and then realised that she was SO bad at asking questions without thinking. What if it was totally personal? NEWTON! She said to herself... but it seemed okay because Finn told her anyway. "That's pretty cool. I like visualisations. Do you cook much too? Do you think it helps with potions?" Her great-uncle said it did, so they always cooked when they went to stay with him.
WHOA! Hanna looked around at CHAOS, as Finn stepped in to help. He was a good egg, she thought. She didn't touch any of his stuff, but she kept peeking over the top of his cauldron, just to make sure that 1) his wasn't turning black or going cold or anything, and 2) so that she knew hers was still doing okay.
And then it as time to move on, and the Professor's actions and words and instructions were scribbled onto her parchment again. At least Professor Noble took care of things, and didn't get TOO mad. Right, though. It was time to add the moth powder. Her pumpkin was simmering nicely, so it was time. She added it, and then picked up her stirring rod. So, 4 clockwise turns, approximately. Grass green. Hanna LOVED outside, so she knew what colour grass green was. At least the typical grass green. There were plenty of variations of colour depending on which type of grass it was, but also whether it was healthy or dying. Hanna was an inch away from plonking her rod into the potion when Finn told her about his little trick. "Oh, that's a good one," she said. And she decided she'd try it. So, she carefully placed it through the top of the pulpy liquid, close to her, and stirred four times. It was perhaps more of a pea green, and she VERY SLOWLY did one more turn, but before she completed it... it turned a lovely grass green. So, that was where she stopped. Removing her rod from the cauldron, she rinsed it off and laid it aside.
Hanna was about to add in her 100g of bouncing bulb, when Finn asked for some clarification. Hanna put down her bowl and looked back at her notes. She shook her head, "Nope, not that I wrote down." And she remembered writing everything down. She added her bouncing bulb and, trying to decide which was to stir, she once again mimicked Finn in repeating the same direction as last time. She put her rod in, close to her, and then stirred. Just enough to encorporate it. She couldn't completely tell. It wasn't like baking a cake, when you could see that the flour mixture was all mixed in with the wet ingredients. Everything was wet! And covered in this green liquid. It still amazed the child of two magical parents and a potioneer great-uncle how the colour could change so rapidly. She wondered if, at this point, if muggles had been doing it, whether it would still change colour. The heat went down, and she put her own timer on for 30 minutes. Mostly because of precision. Finn's timer might have been on for a whole 15 or so seconds before she put hers on. She didn't want to take any chances.
Hanna saw Finn clean up his work bench, but she was much more interested in carving her pumpkin. And to avoid gashing his head off or blowing it in halves, she took her small knife to use. She put in two eyes, carved out just enough skin to create a shadow of a nose, and did the same for the mouth. She made indents where the ears should be, and did a few shallow squiggly lines for hair.
" I wouldn't really know if it's hard to invent spells and potions, never having done it before. Ask Jessa. Or a professor." But he would imagine that yes, it would be wicked hard. Then she was talking about cooking. " I like to cook with my mum. I think it helped, since I didn't have anyone magical in my family to teach me potions at all. Baking is super precise and requires some chemistry, and potions is similar like that." Text Cut: Noble Quote:
Originally Posted by hermygirl Frowning was happening, and a brief look of concern crossed Noble’s face as Jessa and Finn headed back to their work stations. A flick of his wand, and out charged a glistening rhino patronus. Properly, full on, head down, charging. If you blinked, you probably barely caught its tail disappear through the locked door and up to the Hospital Wing to the Healer. When the Gryffindor did come to, it was probably better she was here.
With an eye still on Ronan, Noble took a moment to stand up and glance around the class. It seemed like most had now added their moths and bouncing bulbs, although a few were still chopping. As for the pumpkin carving? Well he didn’t really care what they managed to draw, it was more about the knife or wand control as they did so. Up to them if they produced something that they actually wanted to keep and decorate their dorms with.
“Whilst you’re carving your pumpkin, I’d like you to think about Maxton’s question from earlier,” he started. It was probably a good thing that from here he couldn’t tell that the aformentioned Slytherin hadn’t stirred his cauldron anywhere near enough and it was a rather horrid yellow colour. Noble would have probably vanished it already if he could, but quickly scooping out the bulb and giving it some more stirs would probably do a decent job of rescuing it. “Maxton wanted to know why we might use a potion over transfiguration for turning a head into a pumpkin. Bel suggested that transfiguration is hard, and that you don’t need to be in the room with a potion. Does anyone have any other ideas?”
He knew it was a dangerous business, asking the class to use their brains and chop at the same time, but they needed to learn.
Oh, and something else to ponder over, since most of them had...what, another 25 minutes to wait? “I’d also like you to think about the ingredients we’ve already added. What might flitterby moths and bouncing bulbs do? Can you think of substitutions for the pumpkin?”
ooc: feel free to answer to answer as few or as many of Noble's questions as you want whilst you carve! Catching up is welcomed as usual...heads up that we'll be moving on with the potion brewing in about 24 hours or so.
Well, he was glad the Healer had showed up. Ronan clearly needed attention, and no offense to Noble, but Finn trusted the Healer to know what to do a bit better.
And as far the first question. Finn raised his hand. " Well, I think the potion option definitely opens up this particular piece of magic to more people. Some people probably aren't very confident in the transfiguration skills." Like himself. " And I know we don't really even begin human transfiguration until sixth year, so this lets younger students be able to do this as well." Text Cut: Hanna Quote:
Originally Posted by Jessiqua In the middle of carving her pumpkin, Hanna had a think about what Professor Noble was asking them. Why would someone use potions over transfiguration?
DOII, it was so hard!
She lifted her hand and suggested "Is it safer? I mean, Potions isn't always easy, and you could go horribly wrong with a potion, but a bad potion compared to a bad transfiguring spell... yeah, maybe it's safer." Maybe not. Hanna would rather trial and error with Potions than Transfiguration. Merlin, the stories she'd heard.
As for his other questions... she raised her hand again. "Bouncing bulbs are animated, so maybe their movement transfers to the potion to then animate the pumpkin?" When it... turns into a head. Rather than just being a plain ol' pumpkin head. "And moths... I don't know a loooooot about moths but umm maybe..." she was buying time... "Mmmmmmaybe because they are a PEST and eat things in the garden, they will... like... invade into the pumpkin to do something." She looked at Professor Noble with a very straight face, blinking a few times.
She needed to study the ingredients. That's what she needed to do. Her textbook,
and even her Herbology textbook should be help.
Woah! For a first year, she was really confident! And frankly, she had come up with a better answer than he had himself. Cue another round of flagging confidence. " Nice one!" he said encouragingly.
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