 Stuck inside with Sirius | *Splish-Splash* | bamBAM | ☁ Spooktacular ☁
Noble watched as the students continued on with their potions, already knowing that the next step would prove problematic to some. Even the usually confident Eiji seemed overly perplexed by the braid; clearly he hadn’t ever been coerced into braiding his younger sister’s hair, going by his second visit to the front desk for more lavender. Noble nodded at his two word explanation, before watching Fiona and Chloe having a much easier time of it. “That’s a good question, Claudine,” he responded to the second year. “The strands represent the entwining mind, body and soul…and thus braided together give the essence of connectedness and calm…bringing order to the previous disorder, both mentally and physically.”
His gaze moved to Bernadette now…who seemed to be chopping up way more than the required tablespoon of chamomile leaves. “Did you measure those, Bernadette?” he questioned, a warning tone in his voice as he raised an inquisitive eyebrow at the Gryffindor. “I said a tightly packed tablespoon, not a heaped spoonful.” She should perhaps think carefully about starting again if she hadn’t bothered to measure it out appropriately.
A glance over to Isla and Carsyn suggested they were doing well enough, but then Noble’s gaze fell on Cora and his nostrils flared. “Five points from Gryffindor for defacing school property,” he said, moving over to her work area. As soon as he had, it became very clear that she had neither measured her flobberworm mucus, or bothered to pick up the chamomile leaves from the front desk when she’d picked the lavender. Unconvinced he’d gotten her attention with the points loss, he slammed his hand down on the desk in front of her. “Either you start paying attention and doing this now,” he said, grey eyes serious, “Or you can come back and do it with me in detention after dinner. Do I make myself clear?”
He sure hoped he had. He had many many things he’d rather be doing than supervising detention. One of them being his new alchemy experiment. Which made him think of Eiji…who once again wasn’t at his desk, and was picking more lavender heads. “Perhaps you’d like to try Jillian’s technique?” Noble said to the Slytherin quietly as he passed him on the way back to the front. He’d noticed her ingenuity with the piece of string, to keep the stalks all in place and help with the tension of the braid.
He might have suggested the same to Cole too, but it seemed Naya had him covered with her demonstration. And with some trial and error, it seemed that Heath and Tom weren’t too far behind in getting theirs done too. As he watched Jina complete her two stirs, it was time to be moving on.
“Now add three sprigs of Valerian, turning up the heat and adding one whole sopophorous bean once you see the first bubbles forming on the bottom of the cauldron and starting to rise to the top.” He dropped the sprigs into his own cauldron, and turned up the temperature, waiting a few moments before the liquid began to bubble. He then added his sopophorous bean, and picked up his glass stirring rod. “Leaving it whole, rather than extracting the juice, lessens the soporific effect…instead making it more of a relaxant. The potion should turn a turquoise blue at this point, and once it has you’ll need to stir briskly seven times clockwise, until the mixture turns a pale blue-grey.” He did so, using what could perhaps be described more as a whisking action than a stir. “Then turn off your burner, and leave to cool for three minutes…it which point you’ll need to sweep your wand over the top of the cauldron, keeping your movements smooth and calm, and your wrist flat.” He demonstrated, finishing off his own soothing solution in the process.
"Please continue."
ooc: thank you all so much for your patience for the next step! I've been travelling these last few days, and it was so exciting to get back online and see all your replies <3
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