 Lovely™ | Captain Hurted | Ariana's Bane | Resident Antagonist | Unparalleled Delight
Milo had seen Mercer, returned his wave with a finger-splayed hand-raise of his own, but he couldn't entirely grasp his meaning regarding the hair situation. Not that it mattered; with the very many portents all around at every turn these days, there was a good chance they would meet in the middle.
Behold. When Arden Toros waved at him too, Milo - who could, would, and often did cross dimensions - found himself riddled with suspicion and other such feelings he had never been very good at naming. He blinked hard a few times, quietly clattered his teeth against each other, and turned his attention instead to scraping the soot from the outside of his cauldron with his fingernails.
Milo only looked up again when it was time to work, but in those moments of quiet reflection he had already resolved to do what he often did. It wasn't enough to brew the intended potions simply by closely following the instructions, the potions equivalent to copying paragraphs as text (as far as Milo, in his thirteen-year-old wisdom, was concerned). Mr Hernandez himself liked to emphasise the importance of brewing technique and really knowing potions, which Milo could easily spin to himself as encouragement to engage experimental learning. The only kind worth anything.
As the brewing period of the lesson commenced, Milo sat quietly, mulling over the instructions for the potion and perusing the ingredients and equipment available to him in his potions kit. Requesting anything else would draw attention and put an end to his efforts far too early. Milo was not oblivious to the fact that that was likely to happen just as soon as Mr Hernandez noticed what he was doing, so the idea was simply to avoid his notice for as long as possible. Easily accomplished by remaining quiet and unobtrusive.
With ideas tumbling through his head one after the other, Milo finally retrieved the ingredients set out, returned to clean his cauldron and light the flame beneath it, and added the water. While that boiled, he lined up his ingredients in the order that he would need to use them... surreptitiously supplementing them using his own stores as he did so. This entire endeavour had two more benefits: 1. Milo was engaged and thus less likely to drift into the ether without realising, and 2. the roiling in his chest faded swiftly away, as did the ill-fated temptation to attempt parsing it.
__________________ Days of Potter 2023:___________________________ Which Bertie Botts Flavour Are You?
You are Chocolate! |