Class Roster
►Pepper, Ambrose √
►Taylor, Lua

►Byrne, Talia

►Norling, Alvis
►Rockwell, Addison
►Todd, Connor √
►Torret, Zoe
►Watkins, Kelvin
►Zamperia, Juni

►Báthory, Amara √
►Dark, Erin √
►Desrosiers, Bastian
►Morrell, Esther √
►O'Doherty, Casey
(D): detention; (Ø): zero mark; +/-: points

The middle of the term had arrived quite a bit sooner than Lucrezia had expected it. Time seemed to escape you when dealing with Hogwarts. That wasn't to say she hadn't been prepared for it, quite on the contrary, she had everything in place for the midterms[1]. Of course, she could evaluate them once they returned from their spring holidays as a particularly pleasant surprise, but by the time they returned they usually hit rock bottom and started to dig. She preferred them at least focused, if not competent. Competency was a rather debatable topic when it came to this lot, anyway.

It had become obvious to the Potions Mistress, that her instructions on being constantly alert during their brewing process had completely bypassed the fourth years. So it was with this in mind that she planned their examination. The class was organized rather differently than usual. For one, the door to the cupboard was charmed shut and locked. Fully equipped individual brewing stations were arranged neatly in four perfect lines with considerable distance between one and the other, on all sides. At the front of the classroom - right in front of her desk - stood four small tables each littered with a variety of ingredients placed in various recipients. There wasn't a trace of the Potions Mistress, but Soma, her faithful familiar stood on a high pedestal atop the professor's desk, intently watching over the classroom.

The blackboard at the front of the dungeon was decorated in the neat, spiked writing of Professor Di Luca. In dark forest green, with an eerie glow about it, the message instructed:

Welcome to your Potions midterm evaluation. Leave all your belongings, except for your protective gear at the back of the classroom and pick a brewing station.

Notice the four tables at the front. Each table carries a number of ingredients with which you can brew one of the potions we have studied so far this semester[2]. Careful, however, two of the ingredients on each table are impostors.

Your midterm evaluation consist of:

1. Correctly identifying which potion can be brewed with the ingredients on the table you have chosen[3].
2. Correctly identifying which ingredients are those used in the potion and which are the impostors.
3. Retrieving the correct amounts of ingredient for brewing a full standard size 2 cauldron of potion.
4. Correctly brewing the potion identified at the beginning.
5. Complying with the time limits announced throughout the examination.
6. Properly dealing with the minor obstacles that you will encounter during the evaluation.

When you hear the first gong, all students will orderly move to the front and examine each table. After careful observation of the contents on every table, each student will pick a table, retrieve the correct amount of ingredients for the potion they will brew and return to their stations, where they will wait until everybody else is seated. You will have sixty minutes for both preparation and actual brewing of your potion. The second gong will announce the end of the first phase of the evaluation, at which point you will put away all utensils and place a Stasis charm on your cauldrons. Further instructions will be announced in phase two.

I will remind you that this examination makes up 25% of your final grade this term. Good luck.

2.	Found in the Class Overview, Records and Protocol. Carefully give the syllabus a look.
3.	You may choose one table, any table of the four, having to work solely with the ingredients on that table.

Little did the students know that just because their Potions Professor wasn't visible, it did not mean that she was not present. Sitting at the back of the classroom, under the effects of a heavy Disillusionment Charm, Lucrezia Di Luca[4] was attentively overseeing the incoming students. A small, pleased smile was hanging at the corner of her lips, her wand was tightly clutched between her fingers, while an unremarkable gong and mallet rested on a little end table to her left. She'd teach them vigilance and focus, whether they wanted to learn or not.

As soon as the clock struck half past two, the door to the classroom closed with a loud bang and the click of the  lock followed it closely. It was five minutes after, that Lucrezia touched the mallet to the gong, the sound reverberating throughout the cold dungeon. As inconspicuously as possible, the disillusioned professor drifted through the students to reach the front of the classroom.

---

* For an easier time for everybody involved, I would ask you if you could please fill in this spreadsheet with your character's name and the ingredient table they chose.
* Please disregard what other players may have written. This is about your character and his or her level of understanding and the manner in which they would deal with this examination.
* Assume your character is on time and present. If the character has reasons for being late, please notify me via PM.
* If you are a new student or if your character is not on the roster, please go ahead with posting and notify me via PM to modify the roster.

1.	General information on how the class is conducted under Lucrezia may be found here
4.	Courtesy of Libertine Ltd.

Erin had actually forgotten mid-terms.  She dreaded this.  She was not a test-taker person.  The precise measurements required in the alchemical classes coupled with her innate hyperactive mind meant she struggled in this class more so than others. <GONG>.  That was different.  It caused her to look up at the board and made her realize that there was something she was supposed to brew.  In a potions final.  'Joy' Erin thought, wondering if sarcasm could be telepathic.

However, after looking up at the board and at the tables, she realized she was in luck.  She had actually somehow gotten roped into making this potion a number of times before in a number of her photo-shoots.  Though she wondered if the beautification potion would be used or tossed aside.  Erin was of the opinion that they were for lesser models.  Without preamble, she measured out the necessary quantities.  After checking the freshness of the rose petals, she set the ladies mantle aside, and cast a warming charm on the surface, because it looked like they needed to be slightly drier.  She then ground out three fairies wings.  She honesty had no idea what the fluxweed or knotgrass, but remembered to look at the board.  She figured she should probably write down do the first part of the test now.

Table 1:
Beautification Potion
Ingredients:
Fairy wings
Morning dew
Rose petals
Lady's mantle
Unicorn hair
Ginger roots

Unnecessary:
Knotgrass
Fluxweed


She started by placing the three fairy wings in a cauldron and stirring at a snails pace.  She had done this enough times before, that she could practically do the potion on autopilot.  This was good, because there was no other way she was probably going to pass the class.  The only part she had to semi-concentrate on was popping all the bubbles.  It was kind of annoying since this particular potion required that step to be performed three times, but she had made this potion a number of times before.  It took her a while (and she got distracted a number of times), but eventually she managed to get to the point where she waved her wand over the concoction, finishing the potion.  Erin breathed a sigh of relief.  She thought for sure she would fail this.  She then read the board again had dread come over her.  The test was only half-done?  Idly, Erin wondered if she should have made this potion extra-strength.  She had no idea if the professor had a boyfriend or not, but by god Erin was going to find her one, or something else to distract her.  Maybe two boyfriends?  Erin did not particularly care, but it was obvious that the professor needed a hobby besides torturing students.  Because these tests were evil, even though they were inanimate objects.

If Hogwarts had lacked staff, Amara would understand the newest trend of holding classes without an actual instructor, but this was just getting ridiculous. Taking her seat at the front of the class, the Báthory heiress spelled her hair into a tight, if imposing bun, at the back of her neck and set to carefully and thoroughly read the instructions the Dungeon Dweller had left. With a long sigh and a frown on her face, Amara decided that had been about as useful as a grave robber in a crematorium.

As the rest of the class helplessly panicked in the face of a midterm -which they should've expected sooner rather than later, with Di Luca's tendency towards sadism- Amara turned to her left to give Dark a scowl, upon noticing her presence. That girl was a pitiful caricature of a Slytherin. How pathetic. When the first gong came, Amara lazily gathered up her scales and other measurement instruments and set to inspect the tables. Upon reaching the second table, Di Luca's creepy crawler gave her a rather violent hiss and Amara raised an unimpressed eyebrow in response. Like master, like familiar she thought with a rather peculiar smile.

At the fourth table, the Slytherin stopped and laid out her utensils. Humming quietly under her breath, she used a measuring cup and her scales to only take out ground scarab beetles, Armadillo bile and  cut ginger roots. Upon finishing she rechecked her amounts and eventually satisfied, decided that should be enough for one standard batch of Wit-Sharpening Potion. Returning to her table with her ingredient bowls levitating behind her, Amara threw Morrell a small smile and a nod of her head. When everybody else was seated, she turned up the flame under her cauldron and waited for it to come to a boil.

With a twitch, Amara felt a breath at the back of her neck, and turned around almost violently to realize there was nothing there. That was certainly odd, she could've sworn Di Luca had warded her dungeons against ghost access. Frowning in confusion she eventually turned to look down at her station, but... There was something wrong here. Her eyebrows climbed at the top of her forehead, set on climbing up in her hairline and live there, as she noticed one bowl missing, namely her  cut ginger roots. She knew it, because the glass was of a violent shade of purple. Amara never could've accounted for her her governess' tastes. "Is anybody else missing something?" she asked quietly, but with a firm voice.

Turning down the flame under the cauldron, she muttered something in Romanian and got up on her feet, inspecting the rest of the classroom with a lot more focus on the stations around her. There would be blood if somebody was playing a prank on her. A few stations behind her, she noticed the small purple glass bowl and her face was immediately wiped of any expression. "You" she said with a dead-calm voice that was more ominous than if any sort of emotional fluctuation had been used in pronouncing it. "May I have my ginger roots back? Please" she continued, a spark of something cold and horrifying in her eyes as her hand drifted towards the thigh holster where her wand practically ached to be used.

---

Right next to the accused's station, with her wand in hand -having just finished surreptitiously move the bowl- and an amused sort of smile on her face, Lucrezia Di Luca was standing by, both pleased at herself and rather on her toes, in case the Báthory girl would react rather more violently than expected.

Ambrose had been dreading the midterm for potions to the point that he had twice turned away from the corridor and tried to head away from the classroom thinking he'd prefer not to turn up than to make an arse of himself. Though, he reasoned, quite often he would be better not turning up to a lot of his lessons.

However, he had good classmates who had bundled him along in the crowd, giving him no option but to carry on and join them in the midterm. Di Loopy was nowhere to be seen, but she would undoubtedly make an appearance later, just as Ambrose suspected. Why not, she would be there to scrutinise their attempts and sneer at them, just like she loved.

Ambrose took a look over the tables and settled on one with fewest ingredients that he had a chance of identifying. He was pretty sure this table contained one of the potions they'd studied, though as he retrieved all of the items in general amounts he figured he'd work it out once he got back to his desk. She was in here, and he found it hard to concentrate on potions at the best of times.

While his classmates were already setting up cauldrons and slicing and dicing their ingredients, Ambrose settled on his stool with a thoughtful but frustrated expression. He didn't get this, however hard he studied or tried to learn things by wrote for potions it just didn't seem to stick or make any sense. He felt quite defeated before he'd even seen the task.

Oh well. There was definitely a potion that had ginger root in it, and the scarab beetles, or was it just the armadillo bile? What was this weed? Newt spleen was used for quite a few things too.

His eyes wandered. If he could glimpse another student's work from the same table he might be in with a hint. His desperation meant his wandering eyes were not so subtle.

Ah, over there, someone wasn't using the weed, good well that one was ruled out. Ok, so it was ginger, the armadillo, and then was it the beetles and the newt spleen? He had a memory of using beetles for sure.

Oh well, it was something along the lines of the ginger, then one of the other ingredients, then another, and another and then the ginger again wasn't it? Fed up, and with now everyone cooking, he gave a shrug to himself and tossed in ginger root, the the beetles, the newt and the bile. He'd forgotten it was two ingredients that were misleading.

The stench his cauldron gave off wasn't good at all, and the heat was too high. So he turned it down and poked at it with a stirrer, which came out black. It was at this point he realised he should have put aside two ingredients, not just the one and landed his forehead on the desk beside his chopping board giving his adjacent classmates a start.

Above his head, the black gloop in his cauldron had begun to smoke profusely, not that Pepper gave a damn.

"Yeah, this is pointless." He uttered to himself, though rather loudly, and propped his chin on his hand, debating internally whether to walk out. He should have turned away when he had the chance. Not turning up was less humiliating, and Di Loopy's detentions were part of his weekly timetable these days.

With a mix of dread and excitement, Esther stared at the tables before them, eyes flitting from table to table. Ingredients cluttered their surfaces in neat, tidy portions; from afar, they made incomplete combinations that nonetheless stirred memory. But up close...

Her things waiting for her back at her station of choice, the Slytherin hovered by the second table now, craning her head as she peered down at its contents critically (their esteemed professor’s familiar politely acknowledged and then firmly ignored). Powdered moonstone, syrup of hellebore, porcupine quills—recognizing them not individually, but together, Esther made up her mind and began gathering her portions, measuring to the exact unit. A Draught of Peace wasn’t, say, as easy to make as a Cure for Boils, but she had made one before. She could do it again, definitely.

Ingredients safely in hand, Esther prepared to return to her station, intent on beginning as soon as possible. Catching Báthory’s eye, she mirrored the other girl’s smile with one of her own, reaching her station with a lighter, more confident heart.

Ignoring the ubiquitous feeling of being watched (for they were; there was a snake sitting at the front of the room where their professor usually did, doing an excellent job of mimicking said professor), she waited for her cauldron to boil. There was no room for distraction, and there were so many already in the form of her classmates. Ingredients were disappearing, her ears caught, or clattering noisily as they were handled by nervous hands. There were even smells wafting through the room, heavy and unpleasant with the scent of failure–

Her potion was just about to orange for the last time when Báthory’s tone carried through the room, cold and forbidding; Esther paused, weaknessinstinct for gossip momentarily overturning good sense. And then she very nearly ruined it all when a certain Ravenclaw’s piped up, confused but annoyed.

“Uh, yeah?” Connor eyed her housemate; she’d caught him mid-pour of an ingredient, and he looked bemused by the interruption until that look narrowed dangerously. “Hold on, I didn’t take your swotty roots. Are you sayin’ I did?” Eyes on Amara, he added more ginger roots –from his own bowl!– aggressively.

Esther quickly turned around and cast a Stasis Charm on her cauldron.

Lucrezia grew weary the second Pepper had returned to his seat, her fingers curled intently around the hilt of her wand. With one eye on Báthory and the way her lips had twitched rather ominously at Todd's - of course - fussy reaction, and the other on Pepper's increasing confusion and subsequent idiotic responses in the manner of his brewing. Ezia was sure that if anyone were to give Pepper a knut for his thoughts, you'd get change back.

She would've nodded approvingly at Morrell's evolving potion and focused brewing, had her eyes not been immediately drawn to the pale-haired girl leaving her station, walking determinedly slow and looking as if on her  way to war. Ezia was forced to take a few steps back from Todd's station so the Syltherin girl wouldn't find herself bumping into her. Her wand was already raising, a frown on her face, but she relaxed minutely as Báthory merely swiped her ridiculously colorful bowl, glared at Connor - she was reminded of Soma when in her petulant moods; Lucrezia scowled - and returned to her station, muttering.

It was at that moment that the smell of putrid and smoke hit her nostrils and Lucrezia immediately turned on her toes with eyes the size of small golf balls, shocked at having not noticed it earlier and rather irritated at having almost, just almost failed following her own lesson in vigilance. Relaxing at the realization that the only danger Pepper's failure posed was to the cauldron and himself, she sighed exasperated just as the little miscreant's head landed on his desk. With a faint nervous twitch at the corner of her mouth, Lucrezia swished her wand, the foul contents of his cauldron disappearing with a little pop.

Moving closer to his station, she raised her wand in the direction of the blackboard, neat spiked writing appearing under the instructions in a violent shade of red. PEPPER, YOU HAVE 25 MINUTES TO COME UP WITH A SEMBLANCE OF A POTION OR I WILL FAIL YOU. With a small huff, she glared behind Pepper and couldn't help herself flick the top of his head with her fingers, before taking off for the back of the class, dress billowing behind her. Pepper was surely depriving a village somewhere of an idiot. Once there she sat in her chair with arms crossed and waited.

As soon as the 25 minutes had passed, she almost too forcefully hit the gong for the second time and directed her wand to the blackboard, instructions changing softly under a shimmering glow.


Under Soma's supervision, the students could only take take the two vials. Otherwise, instructions had been given to not really attack, but certainly make her familiar's displeasure known. The vial was rather special; it held the purpose of shielding the color of the potion from view, neutralizing it's smell, but not its taste, consistency or effect. Which left only one manner of identifying the potion. The Potions Mistress, hidden under the Disillusionment Charm, was smiling anxiously, eyes falling to the neat row of antidotes placed nest to the gong. She'll administer them. Eventually.

---

* Even if you haven't managed to post with your character before the second part of the assignment begun, please go ahead and post, mentioning briefly how they did on the first part, following the instructions in the first post.

(((OOC: Edited per Amara's request)))

Most did not realize it, but when Erin was working her time was a valuable commodity.  Changing clothes, changing makeup, and changing hair styles all took valuable time, especially during a fashion show when designers had to get the next visual out on a clock.    She also knew that it was far better to save this potion than to let one of her classmates use it.  She knew her coworkers could use this.  Still, without preamble she walked up to the black vials and a sheet, grabbed a couple and went back to her station.  She had nothing to lose by asking the question though.  She was about to ask the professor to cast a preservation charm to let her keep some of the concoction, but the professor still was not there. 

"Where is that professor when I need her?  There to take off points - no problem.  There to terrorize students - 100% attendance.  The second she approaches something useful - gone like a snidget.  It is like she wants us to fail, hate potions, or both." Erin grumbled. 

She did her level best to ignore whatever the heck Pepper, Morrell and Báthory were fighting about.  She had the distinct feeling that it only spelled trouble, and Erin had enough of that with academics.  She knew she got lucky this time, she probably would have gotten a T or P if the professor had not provided a potion she knew how to make.  Still, Erin was happy to catch a break considering she had not studied at all for her exams. 

"Whatever, lets get this over with.  Hand me that potion Bathory" Erin half asked, half-demanded.  She thought for once her academics would actually help - and not hinder - her career.  She was a little bit disappointed in that it was not the case.

Something flicked the back of his head, and he looked up with a start, a hand going to the back of his head to check for something there but found nothing.

What he did see was red chalk and his name on the blackboard at the front of the class, which intensified his irritation and despair.

He peered back at his cauldron, but saw there was nothing there, which was odd as it had been a right mess only moments before.

Great, so Loopy was somewhere in the room, but hiding herself. Made sense.

With a sigh, he heaved himself off his stool and headed back to a nearby table of ingredients to try and figure something out.

Needless to say the person who would have been on his left was doing everything to not be by the time the twenty five minutes was up. His potion wasn't in any state finished, or correct, yet again. Extracting it out of the cauldron was tricky as it had become sludge.

"Don't taste it." Ambrose gravely informed the person on the next desk as he landed the bottle there.

"I know you weren't, but don't."

The Dungeon Dweller was certainly around, but it struck Amara as odd that she'd single out Pepper to dole out another chance. Because in essence that's what it was. Even if the sodding idiot was too much of a dunce to take advantage of it properly. She ignored Dark, as everyone should for the sake of their sanity and for the sake of keeping out of Azkaban...

But when she was barely done bottling and Erin demanded she hand her potion, Amara simply raised both eyebrows in question, hand slowly extending towards Dark's station. She should've thrown it. She rolled her eyes once the exchange was done and turned to look at Esther, tilting her head in question. When in possession of her fellow Slytherin's potion she took a long breath and uncorked the vial.

She expected a small, a color, a vapor—something. But looking down the inside of the bottle there was only blackness. Did she expect them to actually drink it? What if she'd gotten Dark or Pepper instead of Morrell? Was she really out to kill them all?! Swallowing tightly around a knot in her throat, she eventually threw her head back and took a swig.

She hadn't been ready for the taste, what with the rest of the properties neutralized, but she'd identified the potion even by the taste after the first drop reached her taste buds. She and Draught of Peace were long time friends. And this was a well brewed one too. It wasn't as if she hadn't been calm before, but now there was a sense of serenity about her person. Once the taste had been washed away with some water she pulled out her quill and  filled in the label with neat, spiked writing.

Brewer's name: Esther Morrell
Proposed grade: O
Grader's name: Amara Ecaterina Báthory

Erin accepted the potion from Bathory.  Not really particularly caring what she was swallowing, Erin downed the thing in a single gulp.  She felt smarter for a brief second.  Ordinarily, a wit sharpening potion tended to have that effect.  However, Erin's hyperactive mind did what it usually.  She still trailed from one thought to another, but now she was slightly more lucid in her explanations.

"Hey Bathory - do you ever wonder why we fly on brooms?  I mean - who seriously thought that was a good idea.  Hey - lets get up in the air with nothing but twigs and straw between our legs.  What could possibly go wrong?  Sometimes I wonder how we have not forced an extinction upon ourselves.  On a related note - who thought it was a good idea to teach a bunch of phermonal teenager - ourselves included - a large range of poisions, potions, and charms?  How we have not swamped the hospital wing I will never know.  Oh - right your grade.  Eh - I"ll give you an EE.  What else.  Oh right - Esther -this potion is for you.  If at all possible save some for the professor - she could use a boyfriend and this should help.  Anyways, I'm outa here," Erin stated, leaving a parchment with the necessary information.  She left the potion on her desk.  She figured Esther was probably competent enough to figure out how to drink a potion without herself. 

As she skipped out of the classroom, she just hoped that she could avoid any more incidents in this class.  At least until summer ended at any rate.

At the sound of the gong, Esther poured out a sample of her brew and passed it onto Báthory, capping it quickly before handing it over. A moment later, she was doing the same—or rather, the opposite, as she received the sample from the girl on her other side, a pretty, dark-skinned Ravenclaw who flashed her a quick, friendly smile.

And Esther returned it. Although a part of her was still apprehensive at the idea of testing each other’s work, it was, honestly, merely a reflex, an instinctive flare of alarm at the very idea. This classmate, she knew, was a competent brewer, even if she didn’t advertise it.

Of course, she had been counting on being able to see the vial’s contents, but… Scent did just as well. Esther wrinkled her nose, grimacing at the foul odor. A Girding Potion.

And there would be no telling if it worked until she drank it. Drat. Taking a breath, Esther squeezed her eyes shut and downed it. Eugh.

She gave it a moment, and then another. When it became clear that she would not be sick (aside from the slight but minute churn of her stomach—practically unnoticeable, really, that it could be easily attributed to the cheap perfume of a housemate), ever, she silently let out a sigh of relief and turned the bottle over, plucking her quill from its well to fill in the label. O, she gave her classmate, as well as an equally dimpled smile.

As soon as Pepper had passed his vial of potion to his colleague, Lucrezia released her Disillusionment charm and moved to the front of the classroom, eyes focused on all the potion exchanges, wary for a sign of poisoning. Surprisingly everything appeared to be unfolding smoothly and she couldn't help blink in surprise. With a slow push she left the desk and started walking between stations, collecting the vials placed on the right corner of their desks as per her instructions.

She'd have quite a headache to look forward to when testing, and respectively, grading them. Morrell, Báthory and, as much as it pained her to say, Dark seemed to have all done well and she gave a nod to each of them, gesturing towards the door, a sign they could leave. Once all vials have been directed to a basket on her desk with a levitation spell she moved to the front and clapper her hands once.

"Your midterm examination has officially concluded. Your final grade will be an average between your classmate's grade and my own. You will receive your results after the break" she said in a rather bored tone, straightening an imaginary crease in her dress. "You are dismissed and enjoy the summer solstice" she then inclined her head and turned around to sit at her desk, going through the vials.

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This class is now officialy over! Thank you all for participating in it and making it so fun! House points will be posted soon, stand by.