| Demiguise
Join Date: May 2008 Location: Hobbiton
Posts: 24,243
Hogwarts RPG Name:
???
Ravenclaw
Hogwarts RPG Name:
Ronnie Thurkell
Gryffindor Seventh Year
  x12  x12
|  lives in a hobbit hole || Ern and Touz's Nuzzle || roflysst || looking at a seed packet
SPOILER!!: professor Quote:
Originally Posted by hermygirl 
As he heard the wheezing, Noble quickly administered the small vial of potion for the anaphylactic shock. Maybe he should have done them in the other order, but he was a Potions Master, not a Healer. At least he’d had one of the potions to hand, and hadn’t to rummage through the boy’s bag…assuming he carried even carried a vial, that was. And now he’d done that, the Healer had appeared.
If Noble was relieved to see her arrival, he didn’t show it. His cheek barely twitched at the Healer’s exclaimation. “Pumpkin allergy,” he grunted. “Quite a severe one…don’t think he even touched the stuff.” Although he hadn’t made any move to put protective gear on either, the Potions Professor might add. Now he came to think about it, it was actually quite the concern if he went down from just inhaling the smell, given the prevalence of pumpkin juice at mealtimes. Maybe he should mention banning it from the Gryffindor table to the Headmistress just in case. “His skull didn’t take kindly to the stone floor on the way down.”
Anyways, now that the Healer was there, he could return to his lesson, yes?
Good.
Walking back to the blackboard, Noble nodded at Bel. “Yes, another squash would be a straightforward substitution indeed.” A bit harder to scoop out perhaps, depending on the variety, but a good idea for a swap. “And yes, for other vegetables you would want to swap the seeds too.” The downside with things like potatoes and carrots was that the seeds would be in the flower, and thus would need to be obtained separately. Still, it showed that she was thinking about the recipe as a whole, and that made for a promising potioneer.
…and a quiet one. Well then, he guessed that was his cue for moving on. His timer was nearly at the 30 minutes mark anyways.
“If you’ve looked ahead in the ingredients list,” which he knew several already had, going by their questions, “you’ll notice it says fresh foxglove flowers. To that end, you’ll need to come pick some from the plants here.” He gestured towards the potted plants on the front desk, covered in purple flowers. No, they weren’t just there for decoration. “You’ll be needing 4 grams of the petals only, which should be a couple of the medium size ones, or one big and one small.” He picked a couple from the middle of the stem and held them up so they could see what he meant. No need for waste, nor killing the plant.
“Now you need to pluck your petals away from the green sepal, and once you have 4 grams, crush them gently with your fingers.” Once he’d plucked the petals, he discarded the green stuff and held them up to show his technique for crushing them. Not too different from screwing up a ball of paper, just on a much smaller and more delicate scale. “Finally give them a rough chop before adding to your cauldron and stirring counter-clockwise until it turns a deep purple.” For his rough chop, he rocked his knife back and forth over the petals a couple of times, much like a chef might chop some herbs, and then he lifted up the chopping board and used the knife to slide them all in. Three counter-clockwise stirs, and the contents had turned a dark purple.
“Foxglove can be toxic, so please wash your hands once you’re done handling it.” No need for the Healer to have any more attendees to the Hospital Wing from this class.
It was a BIT hard to concentrate fully with everything going on. People had cut themselves (though Bel didn't understand how since even if you weren't all that good at chopping things, it just made sense to keep your fingers out of the way didn't it), and of course poor Ronan, that older Gryffindor, was not having a good day. She was sympathetic but trying really hard to stay on task. Anyway, all the distractions, followed by the questions, and the interesting answers some of the other kids gave, meant Bel hadn't done any actual carving.
But they were moving on now anyway so that was okay. And also she was now wondering why they added the seeds last if it all went in there anyways and the same if it was a different vegetable. Bel rubbed at her face again (leaving another smear of pumpkin guts) and looked at the Foxglove plant as Professor Noble talked. Fresh flowers. Toxic. One big one small or two medium? She could do that. Bel got up and went to the plant, picking a small flower, and then a bigger one like the professor had demonstrated. Easy enough! She gave the professor a cheery smile and went back to her seat again.
She weighed her petals to check and then rolled them up between her fingers into little balls. Then she cut them up like she was cutting parsley. Was that okay? She looked around to double check, then slid the petals into her cauldron and stirred it three times anti-clockwise, watching with interest for the colour change.
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