Mad World Mods (madworldmods) wrote in madworldrp, @ 2007-10-01 12:12:00 |
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Entry tags: | septima vector, severus snape |
Septima & Severus
LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY mathandphysics)
who → Septima and Severus
(Roman history nerds everywhere squeal and wish for a Ship just for the name "Septimus/Severus")
what → Septima needs help with potions
when → Monday @ 4pm
where → Empty classroom in the dungeon area.
warnings → Probably not. At all.
status → Incomplete
Septima let her backpack fall onto the floor as she took a seat at one of the tables in the cold, empty classroom. She fumbled through her backpack and grabbed her notes and book, flipping to the page on Confusing & Befuddlement Draughts. She had been using all the right ingredients but had messed up somewhere in the process. something in the mix of sneezewort, scurvy-grass, and lovage it turned green and began smoking, and just made her situation worse because at least the fumes were confusing, but the potion was all wrong in the end.
Septima had only come a few minutes early, and she hoped Severus wouldn't forget. It wasn't in his nature, but she hated to ask for help, and it would only make her feel worse if he were there all night trying to explain a simple potion to her.
Severus was in a hideous mood, although it wasn't likely to be noticeable to anyone who didn't really know him. After all, a scowl on his face was absolutely nothing new, and only Slytherin's and a few others actually knew that he didn't scowl all the time and could in fact smile and even laugh. His conversation with Lily the night before hadn't improved his mood at all.
He turned around the corner and hurried towards the classroom. It was somewhat gratifying that at least someone recognized that he was useful and competent in a subject. Septima's request for his tutelage, far from being annoying to him, was one of the few good things that had happened to him in the last month.
Why was it only Slytherins who seemed to appreciate his talents? Well, Slytherins or purebloods as Enid seemed to appreciate it well enough.
He pulled the door open and stepped into the classroom, sniffing and wrinkling his nose. "What'd you kill?" He asked wryly as he stepped across the room towards Septima and her potion.
Septima tried not to glare at him for suggesting she'd killed something in attempt to make the potion. She picked up a glass full of sneezewart and held it up, examining it.
"I think it's this stuff, but really I don't have any idea what I'm doing wrong here, I'm glad you could help."
Septima normally hated asking for help, she was supposed to be good at this; but Severus was usually nice so she didn't feel stupid. or as stupid.
"I mixed the right amounts, and for the right time - I think - it just always turns out like this."
She sniffed a bit, it did smell a little dead.
"You followed the instructions in the book, didn't you?" Severus said, looking over the potion in her cauldron. "Number one mistake, you've got to feel potions, not go by what's in the book. It might work, under the precisely correct circumstances, but there are usually better ways to do it." He grinned slightly. "I realize that's not much assistance, but let's start this again."
He took out his wand and muttered 'evanesco' so that the cauldron was clean and ready to go.
"Right, so, the sneezewart is a bit sensitive really." He shrugged, "Which is something you would only know if you've memorized plant properties, which isn't something most people do. So yes, um, go ahead and let's look at the book again. It's mostly right, but you can do things a bit better than what they've got there."
He pointed to the page. "Let's go through again - show me what you were doing and I can tell you some tips to help it turn out better."
"When have I ever done something not by the book?" Septima said, mostly making fun of herself. She was a numbers girl, everything by the number.
She pulled her book close to herself as she leaned on the table over it, flipping through the same three pages to see if she'd missed anything. Septima set the glasses of ingredients in front of her, and took a breath before starting to measure them out and into the cauldron.
"Sneezewart and Scruvy-grass in first, then the Lovage once those settle. How am I doing so far?"
"Potions isn't quite like Arithmancy," Severus said with a smile. "You have to feel it a bit more." He pulled up a stool and sat there easily, waiting to see what she'd come up with.
"So, right, you'll want to add the Lovage - but how long did you let them wait the first time? The book doesn't really say it, but Sneezewart and Scurvy-grass have an interesting reactive property - you've got to give them plenty of time to get used to each other. Let them set for at least five minutes here - and while you're doing that you can chop up the Lovage so it's ready."
Whatever awkwardness Severus might usually feel around most girls, he tended to lose when he was tutoring. And Septima, although very much the sort of girl he'd usually feel awkward around, was no exception.
"If only," Septima mused, "I'm glad you know what you're doing."
Although, it was humbling to know that there is someone better than her in a subject; she'd probably never master Potions but it could be worse; it could be Transfiguration.
"I don't think I let it set that long; Actually I probably didn't," She began cutting the Lovage, an almost disgustingly sweet scent rising from the plant.
She finished cutting and looked, waited for the five minutes to pass.
"How do you know if it's ready or not? I mean, I couldn't tell you what's going on in the cauldron right now."
Severus thought for a moment about how best to explain it. "Think of the Sneezewart and the Scurvy-grass as a very odd named girl and boy. You wouldn't just throw them in together and expect them to be best mates or have a nice snog, would you? You've got to give them time to adjust to each other. That's pretty much what we're doing right now."
He pointed to the edges of the mixture. "Also, if you watch the edges you'll see that they turn this vaguely green colour? That has to do with the reaction of the acid in the sneezewart with the Scurvy-grass."
Severus loved potions, they were simple to him - possibly because they were the first thing he'd ever learned as they didn't require wand magic.
"When it turns that darker green, like it's turning now, you'll know the mixture is ready to be added too." His cheeks were flushed with the excitement of the potion and the chill of the classroom. The flush did nothing to add to his overall attractiveness.
Septima smiled at his metaphor of a couple snogging, despite it making her feel somewhat sick to her stomach. snogging, puh!
"I'm not sure I would have even noticed that, to be honest. I mean, the light green reaction. I know it turns green after a while." She checked the clock, and sure enough when the edges were a vibrant shade of dark green she added in the Lovage.
"So this is like the third wheel in the relationship? Like when Sneezewart's boyfriend walks in and Scurvy-grass gets confused, thus making it a Befuddlement?" She attempted a joke, not very good at it.
Severus snorted without thinking about it. "Something like that," he grinned. "Yeah, so the Lovage is kind of like a third wheel, I suppose, if you're continuing my pathetic metaphor." He shrugged, watching her add it. "Now wait and don't stir it just yet - it'll bubble slightly, see -" he pointed towards it.
"Then turn it counterclockwise twice, do a ten count, and then counterclockwise twice again, you'll keep doing that until you've got the twenty counterclockwise turns the book mentions."
Septima raised her hands quickly when he addressed her stirring issue, then relaxed and turned the mixture as instructed.
"Should I expect it to do anything else?" She said after the first set of counter-clockwise turns. "Oh, bugger, I should be writing this down!"
She grabbed her quill and book and began writing the directions - his directions - shorthand in the margins. It would be typical for the OWLS to have her do this potion, just because she wasn't very good at it.
"Would you mind, maybe later in the term, helping me prep for the OWLS? You know me, I can't handle academic failure."
Severus nodded. "Yeah, that'd be fine," he stuffed his hands into his pockets and shrugged a bit. It was always a bit amazing to him when someone actually didn't seem to mind spending time with him. Even when that someone was in his own house as Septima was.
"I hope this helps. If you want you can borrow my text from last year too. I don't know if it's the same one, but Slughorn doesn't usually change them I don't think. Anyway, it's got all my notes and things - and it seems you can read my handwriting in the journals so you should be able to manage it in my text. It's pretty much the same, albeit a bit more sloppy."
Septima dilligently turned the mixture again before looking back to Severus excitedly.
"Really? You'd let me? That would be wonderful, I'll take good care of it, of course."
If it wasn't numbers, it was books. Used books with notes, Well loved books; You'd think the girl was a Ravenclaw with an attitude problem.
"You know, I hate to keep complimenting you, but I'm really happy you're helping me and that you're good at this. I'm surprised I haven't asked you for help beforehand."
She mused for a second, she knew she wanted to become a professor from the time she took her first class here, but she rarely shared that.
"You should teach or something."
Severus snorted. "No, thanks. I mean, can you imagine trying to teach the lot of us? Half of the students in this school don't pay any attention to what the Professor's say, and the other half thinks they pay attention but don't. There's only a handful of people who actually give it any effort... It'd make me go half loony."
"I mean, it's one thing to help you. You're interested in learning and you've clearly got everything together, you just need a bit of assistance on the details stuff. It would be quite another to try to work with a student who hated potions, for instance."
Septima kept stirring at the ten-counts, everything seemed to be going well for once.
"Well, not that I'm for sure about it, but I think I'd like to teach. For now, at least. Maybe I'll be a better cursebreaker or something."
He did have a point, she argued enough with her peers about study habits, imagine trying to teach students. Maybe they'd listen because she was a professor? unlikely.
Severus played with the frayed edge of his pocket. He had a hole in it, he noted, not that this was something spectacularly unusual.
"You'd probably be a good teacher," he said uncertainly. He really didn't know, as he'd never actually been taught anything by Septima, nor was he likely to be as she was a year below him level wise, but it seemed like the sort of thing he should say.
"Right, so you should stop about now - see how it's sort of a silver colour? This is where you'll want to add the final ingredient, and just in slow doses. About five over the next ten minutes so that's about one every two minutes."
"I probably shouldn't be making any plans for the future, for all I know this potion could backfire and I could be rendered useless and live in St. Mungo's for the rest of my life."
Septima said this, darkly, as she added in the final ingredient.
The draught seemed to almost sparkle with the silver colour, and she admired it, not wondering why Severus liked potions - if you did them correctly they were great.
"Hopefully I can duplicate this in class, I should be able to with the notes I took. No big deal, if I've done it once I can do it again, right?" She was more assuring herself than asking Severus.
Severus nodded reassuringly. It wasn't a given, of course. He'd seen students accidentally get something right and never able to replicate the results, but he was pretty certain Septima had been paying attention, and if she followed what they'd just done, the potion would work.
"It'll be fine," he said. "You shouldn't have any problem in class."
He shrugged. "So I can get you that text anytime. I've got it in my dorm, just remind me about it. I'll want it back when you've got the notes you need, of course."
"Of course I'll give it back. I'll be in the common room tomorrow night reading, so if you have time just bring it down there."
Septima added a little to the mixture, watching the colours closely, in case they changed and she'd have to start all over again.
"That should be all right. I'll bring it down then."
He nodded at the potion. "I think you've got it, really. It's looking much better than the last attempt."
After finishing the required mixing, the potion was complete. Septima was sure to note it's colour and consistency so that when she had to duplicate it she wouldn't mess up again. She cleaned the cauldron with a charm, and packed up the materials.
"Thank you so much again for your help, Should we meet again some other time? I only assume I'll need help later, unless your notes are really spectacular and work miracles."
Severus nodded as he helped put away some of her ingredients. "We don't have to, but if you think you need to I'm more than willing. Take a look at my book and see what you think. You may very well feel like another session would be a good thing." Severus was confident that his notes worked for him, but as he'd written them primarily for himself and not for anyone else, he wasn't going to guarantee it.