Juliette glided along a boulevard of laboratory tables, pale stare scrutinizing the spreads of her students as their cauldrons began a sheepish boil. “When you crush your Billywig stings, you will not want to crush them too finely, or the potion won’t be strong,” she warned. "Think of the purpose of the brew before you pick up your pestle: We want the drinker to babble away, but not clearly. It’s supposed cause nonsensical, ridiculous chatter. Precision with your ingredients does not always mean smooth or blunt.” (Though there would be blunt words, for the victors.)

She had missed it, the angry flourish of elbows and the bristle of dragonhide over parchment. Teenagers racing to out-brew one another. As knives, pestles, and wands were wielded, she remembered, with strange fondness, moments of teenage brilliance and stupidity both— the latter much more frequent.

Today’s potion, the Babbling Beverage, was less about a long list of ingredients and more about style. The prep work was particular, the brewing quick and hot. The temperature had to be near-exact. The successful ones would have cauldrons of garish pink cooling ten minutes after they added the last ingredient and performed the wand work. She had timed her lecture and the prep work so that once they were finished, they would good twenty minutes to experiment with their results.

But for now, they were still chopping and crushing, and not one of the cauldrons were whistling-hot yet. Juliette continued her rounds, offering comments here and there to familiar faces. “Pepper, this is not Divination. If you aren't schooled in the art of reading flames, use a thermometer.”

She floated back toward the center of the rows. “Remember, you'll decide whether you trust your skills enough to sample your potion once you've finished.”

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notes
assume your student is already in class and seated
assume there are four students at each lab table and each student has their own cauldron
two points for attendance and timeliness, two to five points for correct answers
the best work of the day will be awarded additional points
Juliette will hand out detentions and/or take points for those who speak excessively out of turn, cause disruptions or injuries, or arrive late
O's are not easily earned
gifs are welcome

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Rose was already deeply concentrated on on textbook and its specific instructions as to how to make this potion. She wanted greatly to get the correct results from her efforts so that she could see others make idiots of themselves afterwards, whilst also wanting to avoid making herself look a fool and avoid drinking the potion herself when it was all over.

Her mismatched eyes were narrowed slightly, her brow furrowed as she looked back and forth between text and ingredients. The current herbs under her knife were quickly looking like how they were supposed to be, according to the book's description, as well as the small and professionally drawn illustration. Setting that aside she went to work on the next ingredient. The meticulous exactness of potions was always an odd opposite in comparison to the more open ended topic of Divination. (The professor's mention of which towards Pepper put a smirk on her lips).

"Reading flames is like trying to interpret a foreign dance," Rose muttered under her breath, keeping the comment mostly to herself.

Potions always made her a bit hungry too, since the process reminded her of cooking. Part of her wanted to snack on something. Thankfully lunch was after this.

Professor Vaillancourt was back - and in Ambrose's opinion, it was the lesser of all the evils who had been around in a while. Selwyn and Di Luca had both made lessons hellish for the Gryffindor who wasn't academically all that bright. Potions was not his strong point, few of his lessons were.

"Yes Professor." He mumbled in response to the suggestion of a thermometer, glancing up. He looked about and scrabbled to find one amongst his things, catching sight of Rose's smirk. He offered her a scowl in response. She took divination, and probably knew how to read flames. He hadn't been intending to, he'd got distracted trying to figure out how to follow the recipe.

"… you'll decide whether to trust your skills enough to sample…" The Professor reminded. He never trusted his brewing enough for such, and the rate his potion was going he'd never get it done in time.

"No need to look so smug." Ambrose muttered with a frustrated scowl across the bench as he shoved his thermometer into the cauldron.

Her dad had told her that if she could cook, she could certainly do well in potions.

Juni thought that was a load of guano. Last she checked, cinnamon rolls wouldn't spontaneously combust and set her eyebrows aflame.

Still, she was glad to see Professor Vaillancourt back again. Juni missed her-- she had been nice, and patient, and helpful whenever Juni had questions. Professor Selwyn had been a total blast-ended skrewt's ass. He was a purist and for some insane reason, he hated Hufflepuffs. It didn't help that he was also a pureblood, and probably completely inbred. Didn't inbreeding cause mental defects?

And then before him, had been Professor Di Luca. She always pushed them to do work that was far too advanced for their year, and then treated them like idiots when they couldn't do it. Her grades and sleep had suffered because of it. In Di Luca's class, Juni felt constantly behind, smothered by all the work she didn't know and couldn't know.

Now that Professor Vaillancourt was back, though, Juni felt like she actually had room to learn, without being looked down on when she made a mistake. Juni was a hard worker, and Vaillancourt had always recognized that. It wasn't like she was lazy or careless when she made mistakes.

Juni followed the directions in the textbook carefully, though some parts were coffee stained and a little difficult to read. Her own fault, probably.  Regardless, she was nearly done prepping the last of her ingredients. According to the thermometer, the temperature was just right. Sampling the potion was going to be fun-- they didn't usually get to sample what they made. She suspected that Professor Vaillancourt had some bezoars and antidotes on hand just in case.

The witch glanced up, eyebrows furrowed when Vaillancourt spoke directly to Ambrose. Well, of course he'd need a thermometer, but that was easy to forget sometimes. Tallesin, however, looked like she enjoyed his humiliation.  Wasn't she supposed to be a Hufflepuffs? Juni supposed that not all of them were nice, fluffy bunnies like Ji Hyun. Moira wasn't exactly an angel, either.

"Wipe that smirk off your face or I'll hex it off." Juni said sweetly, not caring at all if points would get docked off for it. She had little tolerance for condescending people in the classroom. At least she gave Rose a warning. Third year Juni would not have been so kind. 

It wasn't often that Rose got threatened, but they never really bothered her. Few people ever really fulfilled them. Slytherins were more likely to, but even then, unless they were slightly unhinged it wouldn't be the worst. So, when Juni threatened her with a hex due to her amusement Rose kept her little smirk on her face, matching Juni's good natured expression.

"Not much of a threat when I've seen the occasional maddening vision or dream ever since were you being potty trained." Her tone was sweet and her smirk grew to that of an equally sweet smile as she spoke. "Besides, the professor's mention of divination is what made me smirk, not her comment towards your boyfriend." She glanced at Ambrose for a moment before looking straight at Juni.

She let that hang for a moment before she dropped it all and went back to being serious. "How are those seeds coming along? Do you think we'll need a vial for the oil, or just let it drip into the cauldron?  Book doesn't exactly specify right here..."

Personally, it didn't matter to her. As long as the potion had the desired result she figured some vague details wouldn't be much of a problem. Though, she couldn't say if that was alright with the professor, since the previous ones had been worse than sticklers for everything to be done just right. It had driven the girl nearly mad before. It was in those months that Rose really thrown herself into everything but potions.

Juliette came to a stop beside Juni. She leaned in a bit, her wand milimeters away from the girl’s nicely crushed ingredients, a cascade of red blocking her lips from view. “I didn’t hear that, Miss Zamperia.” Lips pursed almost in amusement.

Juliette knew jealousy, especially in its teenage form, and not just because she taught children how to make love potions.

If it went any further, points would be taken. She didn’t have a high tolerance for misbehavior. But she did like the Ravenclaw, whose hard work and judiciousness— and quick tongue— were valued in front of a cauldron and when she’d assigned team work.

Today’s potion, though, valued individualism (something Miss Zamperia— and Taliesin and Pepper for that matter) also had.

Staking one’s claim over a boy and protecting that asset also had its lessons. (And she suspected, in this case, it was more of that and less of jealousy.)

“This is not a class from dreams or toilet training,” she warned the pair of them, eyes sweeping from the Ravenclaw— whose spread of prepared ingredients offered a nice bite— to the Hufflepuff, who also seemed skilled, and cautious with the instructions, but whose. Visions wouldn’t help here. Nor would Ambrose Pepper, it seemed. “But if either of you are offering to train your classmate, I’m sure we can arrange tutoring sessions.”

If he lacked with a cauldron, Mr. Pepper seemed to be wooing plenty of his classmates. Hadn’t he been with Tapendra’s daughter a while ago? Juliette could see the look on Landis’ face if she brought up such gossip. (All the more reason.)

“You’ve done well with the knife,” she added to Taliesin, quickly appraising her herbs, and left her to figure out the oil on her own. It was part of the lesson; those who were confident in their work would test it out, or persuade others to. The short lecture had been enough to give them the gist and remind them of the properties of the potion. Those who had been studying and improving upon their foundation— and paying attention to Juliette at the beginning of class— would figure out anything that wasn’t explicit in the text.

As they began to add things to cauldrons, a sound like a steam engine went up; those who had got it correctly had a nice roiling boil of flushed pink in the middles of their brews. And red smoke, like something that looked like it could have come from a very angry professor’s ears.

---

POINTS SO FAR
+2 Amrose Pepper for attendance
+2 Rose Taliesin for attendance
+2 Juni Zamperia for attendance

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"Wipe that smirk off your face or I'll hex it off." Juni snapped at Rose which took Ambrose by surprise. Juni was one for fiercely protecting friends, but he hadn't anticipated it like that just then.

"Not much of a threat when I've seen the occasional maddening vision or dream ever since you were being potty trained." Rose replied, Ambrose was confused at how visions were scarier than Juni's incredible hexes. He stopped and stared between the two girls. He might not have enjoyed Rose's expression, but there was no reason to have a cat-fight.

"Besides, the Professor's mention of divination is what made me smirk, not her comment towards your boyfriend."
"Oh - what - er-." Ambrose's protests were incoherent, not sure what the girls were on about as Rose changed the subject back to their task.

"This is not a class from dreams or toilet training." The Professor interrupted, and looked from Juni to Rose. Ambrose cringed, anticipating they'd be in trouble. "But if either of you are offering to train your classmate, I'm sure we can arrange tutoring sessions." Ambrose's shoulders sank at the suggestion. Juni was already helping him out more than enough in charms. He felt like such a burden.

"Don't fight over me." Ambrose protested quietly once the Professor moved away. "I shouldn't have assumed you were smirking at me - I just - it's what people normally do if not getting as far away from me as possible when I'm near a cauldron." He shrugged and shook his head, "And I don't blame them. Me and cauldrons don't mix." He gestured to the warming cauldron before him, missing the fact he'd made a pun.

"Crushing billywig stings then, that right?" Ambrose asked almost rhetorically, gathering his things to attempt it, crushing them with more force than was required.

"Not much of a threat when I've seen the occasional maddening vision or dream ever since were you being potty trained....Besides, the professor's mention of divination is what made me smirk, not her comment towards your boyfriend."


Juni let out a delighted laugh, easily brushing off Rose's strange words as some kind of joke. She opened her mouth to reply, but Professor Vaillancourt cut in, interrupting Juni's retort. She held her tongue, and was delighted to discover that she wasn't in trouble.  Her relationship with Rose was generally a friendly one-- the witch appreciated her forthrightness, even when it pissed her off. Still, that didn't mean that they never exchanged barbed words from time to time. At least Rose didn't take it personally the way some other people could.

Juni wouldn't mind offering Ambrose some tutoring sessions-- but truth be told, she worked hard enough at potions to begin with. It wasn't her strongest subject, but she tried. Plenty of her accidents led to delightful (and not so delightful) discoveries in Potions club.

"Don't fight over me."
Juni didn't realize it could've been taken that way, and gave him an apologetic look. That look quickly turned into an amused one, lips curled into a smile when he made his little unintended pun. She bumped her shoulder against his playfully before focusing back on her cauldron.

She put her ingredients in the cauldron, and was glad to see that the cauldron's contents turned pink. However, the smoke was not red, but rather deep shade of purple. Juni cursed under her breath. She double checked her temperature,  it was exactly where it needed to be. Did she misweigh an ingredient..?  "Noooo." Juni groaned, "I fu--" She paused, "Made a mistake."

Kelvin ignored his classmates as much as he could.  Unless one of them was offering help.  But, he had a hard enough time in potions without the distractions offered by some of his more temperamental friends.  And he thoroughly hated potions like the Babbling Beverage.  Be exact with the temperature but not too exact with the crushing.  Don't crush it too fine.  But no one ever said what was too fine.

Wand work Kelvin could get.  He could recount details of battles most of his classmates didn't even know happened.  But potions just didn't make sense.  And for whatever reason, it usually resulted in explosions of varying degrees.

Of course, ignoring his classmates was never met with complete success either.  And the distraction always came at the most inopportune time.  He added the last of the ingredients to the cauldron and nothing happened.  He leaned forward to look at the definitely red, and blood red at that, and not pink.  And no smoke. 

"Not again,"  he said with a sigh just before there was a loud pop and a yellow cloud of smoke shot from the cauldron, spraying the blood red mixture into the air and onto Kelvin.  He couldn't wait for O.W.L.s.  Sure he'd fail potions but he'd be done with the class.  He was tired of replacing robes ruined by errant potions.  At least his cauldron hadn't melted.  And the potion wasn't eating through his robes.  That would be beyond embarrassing in front of his classmates.

"Professor," he said dejectedly, "I'd rather not to try mine."

“This is not a class from dreams or toilet training.” Professor Vaillancourt's comment took Rose's focus away from Juni and Ambrose and fully back onto the matter at hand. She actually had to bite her tongue to keep herself from back-talking the professor. Though she didn't usually have that kind of control over her tongue she could force it to work in her favor, depending on the situation. Classes were always considered such times. Yet when the professor turned around to give a compliment to Rose's management of the potion ingredients so far she gave a small smile to herself and gave a pleasant "thank you" in return.

But then that was the end of that, because once Rose finished following the instructions to the potion she watched how the potion's solution turned to that desired shade of pink. However, instead of sending off red smoke it, instead, hissed a flimsy vapor that dissipated quickly into the air. Also, it wasn't red but the same shade of pink as the liquid in her cauldron. Close, but not quite.

"Bugger," she muttered as she watched the vapor rise, pouting as well as scrutinizing so hard it was as if her hard stare would force the vapor to change into the desired red smoke. "So close too..." She immediately went to looking through the instructions in her book again, now scrutinizing the book with an intensity that would have made the corners of its pages curl in retreat. "What did I do wrong?"

Rose ignored what else was happening around her as she scribbled little notes in a scrap piece of parchment about what exactly she had done so that she could compare with what the book said. This was going to bother her for a while, but she was going to figure out what needed to have been done differently so that it would go right next time.

The contents of the cauldrons that swirled and smoked beneath Juliette’s eyes were nearly as diverse as the Valentine’s specials as Fortescue’s ice-cream shop. Reds of many degree, cotton candy pink, even lavender and a violent plum, more the color of someone choking than a successful induction of boundless babbling or that specifically scarlet smoke.

A squeal went up as a young girl dived away from Kelvin Watkins' cauldron; her pigtails weren't so lucky to escape, but it was the brewer who bore the brunt of it. Juliette waved her wand, and the battle spoils began to dissipate from his robes and skin. “That's more likely to cause an explosive temper, Mr. Watkins. Crush the ingredients finely, not as if you intend to torture and murder them.”

As the bulk of the class began to temper their brews, or wearily attempt to poke at the mixtures with shy ladles, Juliette reminded them of the risks and rewards of sampling their would-be Babbling Beverages.

“No more than a vial each. I don’t want anyone going to dinner still driveling on about things that might earn detentions from hungry professors,” she warned. (No doubt, some smart mouth would try to get his sticky fingers on more than one little glass of the stuff. But Juliette had counter measures and punishments both for such creatures.) “And if your next stop is the library…” Do say hi to my husband, she thought, somewhat villainously. The picture of him watching the stampede brought delight to her eyes. “I hope you’ve paid attention to Professor Donovan’s lessons on Silencing Charms.”

“This is voluntary. Forcing one’s classmate will be met with equal punishment.” An anticipation of bright ideas. “As always, you might benefit from your bravery now if this should happen to reappear on your exams…” Her eyes landed on Kelvin. 

“Miss Taliesin, how much root did you add?” She asked, walking by again and studying the girl's cauldron as if it were under-ripe fruit. The right shade, but it had not let off the proper smoke.

"Noooo." Ambrose replied in a low voice at Juni's exasperation, not wishing to draw too much attention. "You're in gooood cooompany." He gestured to his cauldron, as yet not exploded. "But I'm sure you can figure--"

POP

Kelvin's cauldron was billowing yellow smoke and exploded potion up into the air. Ambrose's jaw hung open at the sight a moment before he started to laugh. Watkins was clever and all but Potions wasn't his strongest and these sorts of incidents had a way of making Ambrose feel better about his own inadequacy.

"Professor, Id rather not try mine."
"Look like you sort of have," Ambrose pointed out with a cheeky grin. At the approach of Professor Vaillancourt to the table to assist Rose he attempted to study the instructions again, lagging behind his classmates, now heeding advice to crush everything finely.

Rose kept her displeased scowl at the appearance of her potion even as the professor questioned her. The concoction released a single bubble with a 'buloop' sound as if it were reacting her expression, and attempting to say it was sorry for failing to meet her expectations.

"I put in the quantity the book asked for, professor," Rose said, looking to the witch. "I did everything the book said I should."

Had she been off with her timing when adding the ingredients? Had her flame been just a little too low, or a little too hot? The precision necessary for potions had always bothered Rose, because the slightest flaw would ruin the whole thing and Rose wasn't the kind of person to needlessly scrutinize every detail of her work to figure out where she'd messed up. But, at least hers hadn't blown up in her face. She couldn't help but snort at how Kelvin looked once the steam and smoke cleared.

Now, if the textbook was off about how to properly prepare these potions, then that was a whole different story and Rose would be more than irritated if she found out. She had heard of a potions book that had notes from a long-previous student to help make every potions recipe within perfect. Why hadn't she lucked out with that one?

The cauldron was more or less its proper color, though Hattie knew the shade was open to interpretation. She sat up straighter as Professor Vaillancourt passed, looking peacock proud as the woman appraised her potion. The lack of a negative comment surely meant it was safe to ladle into a vial, take a mouthful, reap the benefits...

Hattie was thinking only of her marks and the post-Christmas praise her parents might lavish in the form of Hogsmead spending money. She did not consider that the Babbling Beverage might turn her into Marigold when she tilted back her head with a swish of waist-length blond and swallowed the mouthful.

Her usual glittering, gap-toothed smile was premature as she right herself and set her sights on Ambrose. “Maybe if you add some of the patchouli oil Taylor bought you, it will smell like a potion, at least,” she offered loudly. It was something she would say ordinarily, but she hadn’t intended it to be in listening range of the professor. Still, Hattie couldn’t help the lack of filter as she carried on.

“The professor was a perfumer.” Innocent enough. Even buttery. “Does your hus—” Hattie covered her mouth with both hands, realizing too late what she was about to say. And finding herself utterly unable to stop the flow of ridiculous. Even with her fingers pressed desperately to pillowy lips, the chatter escaped her tongue, only slightly muffled. She made a fist against her mouth, in vain. “Bahhhnd—” No hope.

The words seemed thoroughly unbothered by the poor barricade. In fact, they sounded somehow more incriminating with each damning syllable. The notes of that particular word, husband, were drawn out in gleeful luxury, all songlike and horrible. These were the things Hattie giggled about in her common room, but would never voice where she thought a teacher could hear. It was as if her diary had come to life. As if what she whispered with caution, over the top of her textbook and half-written essay to Esther during a library session, had been amplified and freed of conspiratorial carefulness.

“—Wear cologne? What kind? Does he sleep in his robes, or silk pajamas?” She heard herself ask. “Naked, maybe? I can’t imagine Morgan sleeping at all, let alone in pajamas, but I heard my cousin tell Jordyn Dimbleby that he has his—”

Tears came to her eyes now. Not out of fear, but a battle of her own will. As if she were sucking lemons to stop herself from saying the words. Hattie drew a hand from her mouth only to grab her wand from the tabletop: and in a flash, she had pointed it at herself, blessedly mewed “Silencio,” rather than the word that the Babbling Beverage had wanted her to say.

Peering into the Ravenclaw’s cauldron, Juliette deciphered silently where the girl had taken a wrong turn. It was not quantity (or quality— the epidemic of bad ingredients had escaped Hogwarts this time), but preparation. Her painstaking crushing of beetles, to be exact. “Instinct, Taliesin. You should rely on yours more.” Her eyes moved up to the girl, their wan color unmistakably expecting the child to hold her gaze. “The book won’t tell you exactly how finely to chop or crush something. You need to determine that through practice. Again, too fine or too rough and you won’t attain a babble. It seems the former, in this case."

It was a balance, telling Taliesin to be less thorough with her crushing and to tell Pepper, in the same breath, to chop something more finely. It was why the potioneer had begun her previous September lessons without cauldrons and with a focus on the basics: using one’s senses, trial and error, understanding the elements. There was a reason the best of them had extensive notes in the margins of their books, formed their own recipes for things. One couldn’t be too terribly afraid of explosions or rashes or minor leaps of good judgement and hope to escape Potions with an O.

As she moved on to the next table, she watched the cooling smoke, the wary ladles. Already, the potions classroom was beginning to sound like the Great Hall at the peak of lunch. Woolfolk took the gamble, much to the teen's own dismay. The Silencing Charm was delivered a bit prematurely, and if Juliette was disappointed, it did not show on her face. “I’m sure Professor Donovan would agree that your choice was judicious.” The redhead held her own wand with airy lightness; if it were not as obviously integral to the cauldron as other branches of magic, it was still what enabled their art. And, in Hyacinth Woolfolk’s case, the saving grace.

“And yes, Miss Woolfolk, he does have a—” Juliette stopped herself, quite purposefully, and grinned before turning to another student.

---

POINTS SO FAR
+2 Amrose Pepper for attendance
+2 Rose Taliesin for attendance
+2 Juni Zamperia for attendance
+2 Kelvin Watkins for attendance
+ 2 Hattie Woolfolk for attendance

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