Potions- Lesson 3 (Years 1-5)

Today he figured that he would be giving a lecture to help the older students transfer over to the more advanced spell work. Being the last lesson of the year, he figured that the best use of their time was to create a conversation, talk about poisons and its importance and it's use in the wizarding world. Writing on the board Detecting Poisons he sat down on his desk, waiting for his students to arrive. He already had a feeling that some of them would not take kindly to actually talking and not making a potion, but he wanted to hear their opinions on the subject, show more than just potion work, but their minds and creativity.

Thus the class lacked any cauldrons, the tables clean, shining brightly with no hint of any phials had touched the surface. Today was an experimental idea, seeing if he would want to continue these kinds of lessons.

Odd.

It was the first word that popped into Elysia's mind when she entered the Potions classroom. The room looked clean. No phials, no cauldrons, nothing. Just.. Empty.

"Guess this means it's a discussion lesson", she muttered to herself quietly, eyes doing a quick sweep of the board as she moved to take her seat.

Poisons.

'Heh. This could be interesting.', the young Raven thought as she took out her quill and some parchment, readying herself to take notes.

As Natasha entered the potions classroom, she was slightly taken aback by the lack of cauldrons on the desks. The set-up was so different to what she was used to, and she had been expecting the usual, to make a potion. But then, she supposed, with poison, the teachers couldn't risk anything going wrong, there were some nasty things that could be made. She was content with a theory lesson. She took a seat and waited for class to start.

Violet wasn't pleased that they wouldn't be completing a potion this lesson, as gathered through the lack of cauldron's on desks. Theory lessons were, at best, unnecessary. Why devote a whole lesson to something you could read about? She took her usual seat at the back of the classroom, slinging her bag down on a seat next to her, without waiting for class to formally begin or anything, she spoke up "One way people detect poison is through taste. I'll happily provide some sir, for educational purposes," she said sweetly, that way she'd be able to make a potion at least.

Louise slipped into the room with the crowd and took a desk off to one side but fairly near the front of the room, distracted for a few moments till she looked around and seeing they weren't going to be doing prep work took out a notebook and quill, just waiting patiently and quietly for the lesson to begin and ignoring the Hufflepuff that always seemed to get on her nerves. Poisons huh? This felt somewhat like old ground but she supposed no one could be too careful.

As students began to file in, Mycroft made a note to see that there were the usual students and some that lagged arriving to his class. He wasn't going to wait for everyone, thus promptly as the bell began to ring, he closed the door and figured he could start class. Before he could even begin to introduce the lesson someone began to talk.

"One way people detect poison is through taste. I'll happily provide some sir, for educational purposes,"

"Nice of you to volunteer your services Miss Lynch, I'd rather have you volunteer your taste buds than your potion skills" he replied to her snide comment.

Clapping his hands for the lesson to start, he cleared his throat and leaned back on his chair not even bothering to get up. This was theory, and he wanted to see what was behind those fishy gaze that some students gave.

"Now today we're doing theory, I know try to hold in your disappointments of groan. But I'm doing this simply because I want to see what your brain cells can come up with. Hear your voices not see you spill ingredients on the table and make some barely passable concoction. Now tell me, what makes a poison unique? If you could create a poison, what would you want to highlight, hide, would you go to a natural route? Or would you instead be creative. Come now, I want to hear, how would you poison someone?"

For once Louise managed to not roll her eyes at the oddly placed Hufflepuff and listened to Victoria. It was a classic use of poison to be sure but perhaps something with a little more finesse would be appealing. "I think I'd like a poison that works on contact, something small like a hair thin needle that can be darted at the victim, the coating or perhaps an internal channel of slow acting poison would make it appear like a bug bite, or sting. And a venomous one at that, if it mimics something natural no one would be the wiser until it was too late. That and it could be used in close or long range if say blown from a dart or propelled by magic at the victim to make sure no one could claim to have witnessed you were even there. You could even leave it somewhere where the victim could come into contact with it by accident, like a chair cushion." The thought wasn't too pleasant but thinking about it in theory was interesting.

"Nice of you to volunteer your services Miss Lynch, I'd rather have you volunteer your taste buds than your potion skills"

She'd expected a retort from the Professor, but said no more as he begun the class, not in the mood for any argument.

"Now tell me, what makes a poison unique? If you could create a poison, what would you want to highlight, hide, would you go to a natural route? Or would you instead be creative. Come now, I want to hear, how would you poison someone?"

She listened as the first girl to answer, the Hufflepuff who Violet hadn't really spoken to, Victoria answered, with a notable tremble in her voice, and the assurances that she, being all sweet and good, would never, ever poison poison someone, spoke about it being undetectable. The next to answer was Grey, who would take the natural route, making it seem like a bite from some venomous animal. With no others speaking up, Vi decided to share her input.

"I'd be creative," she leant back in her chair "Make it specific to the person. Find something they like a lot, make it smell and taste like that particular thing… Kind of like how that love potion, Amortenia, how it smells like what that person loves most. Just make it completely irresistible. And depending on the person, whether I'd want to poison them slowly, or get them out of the way quickly, would determine the concentration of poison I'd give them. Although, perhaps if I did poison them slowly, without their knowledge, ideally it'd be in the way to make it target a specific organ, perhaps a kidney, and just make it look like it stopped working. Though, that'd be difficult to figure out. Perhaps then just something, like an acid, that deteriorates the body.

"So, to conclude, it would lure them to take it, without question, and target something specific, to look like an ailment of some sort," she finished her musings on the topic.

While it was obvious that this was not a subject that some wanted to talk about. He didn't particularly care, to be quite honest, whether or not they liked the subject. He just believed that some needed to understand that potions meant more than just following directions. It took tact, thus as the students began to answer, he signaled them to go.

The first was Miss Newbury, and as usual, she lead the discussion. Except this time she was clearly uncomfortable. Still as she spoke, her legitimization that she wouldn't create a potion was obviously a coping mechanism, so he didn't comment on it.

"Good lead Miss Newbury, five points. Next,"

Miss Grey was next and her comment brought more intrigue. A natural way to poison someone was much more advanced and more feasible, at least from a perspective of getting away with it. A hint of a smile rose on his face and he clapped.

"Very clever Miss Grey, ten points for creativity. Next."

Then Miss Lynch began. The way she thought definitely was something that he found intriguing. While annoying and full of snark, she had definitely some creativity involved and he smirked. She thought of it like a plan, framework of how it would work.

"Very good Miss Lynch, ten points for creativity. Now, I want for all of you to push your theories. I want a scroll worth of essay writing where you push for your point. If you have a new way then sell it. There is another ten points to me given if the work is complete. Now begin."