Post by Jeffrey on Aug 11, 2003 8:58:59 GMT -5
The class filed into the dark dungeons timidly. They weren’t sure what to expect with the teacher; most of the class was under the impression that he was a bit of a weirdo. The rest were positive that he would favor the Slytherins, so nobody was exactly at ease. While waiting for his arrival, they began speculating on how his class would be run or, more importantly, what he would be like. They didn’t have long to wait.
The heavy, wooden door slammed back on its hinges and crashed against the stone wall. He swept in, a long, black cloak flying in his wake. He strode to the front of the class and stopped abruptly, spinning on his heel to face the students. There was a mad glint in his eyes.
“Scared you, didn’t I?” he asked softly, then proceeded to laugh harshly at the students’ confused faces. Again, he stopped promptly, this time mid-laugh and scanned the room, his gaze seeking out each student’s own. Perhaps he was a weirdo. A psychotic weirdo…
He was pale, much paler than he would be if he only stayed inside all day. It looked more likely that he had been scared badly. The other option was that he was a vampire, and at that time, either reason could have fit as nobody had actually seen his teeth and the dungeons were probably dark enough to save a vampire from direct sunlight. His different colored eyes (one blue, one green) were lucid, but tired, and bore the evidence of many sleepless nights. The long, aristocratic nose led down to a slightly sneering mouth, giving the impression that he found the class extremely funny. Over all, he was tall and lanky in his black robes and didn’t seem to be very impressive, but either out of respect or fear that he could very well be a vampire, the class was silent.
“By the head count, I see you’re all here,” he said, resuming his quiet demeanor. The smirk still wasn’t leaving his face, but he did seem more subdued. It was only a little less intimidating. “I’m Professor Davinski, I’ll thank you to call me that and the way I figure it, the best way to greet a new class is to scare the living daylights out of them. Am I succeeding? But no, don’t answer that, I’m afraid I probably won’t like the answer, will I? Answer me this instead, is anybody in this classroom at all interested in the subject? Or would you all leave, given the chance?” He paused for a minute, finding Ellie in the sea of faces quite easily and sparing a small grin. He did half expect the majority of the class to get up and leave right then and there, and quickly plowed on, lest the class did get the unfortunate impression he was inviting them exit.
“I can’t say I’d honestly blame you,” he spoke still more lightly. He took a seat on the edge of his desk and swung his legs like bored kid. “I never much liked this class my first and second years. The old teacher was a bit intimidating and a snarky, old git to top it. Needless to say,” he looked up, a real smile lighting his ashen features, “he was my favorite teacher.
“Anyway, as the title and packaging dictates, this class is all you ever wanted to know about Potions. How to brew ‘em, the ingredients they’re made from, how to cure people, how to clean up after yourselves and lastly, perhaps most importantly, how to follow directions. I understand that you are all independent teen-agers, but that doesn’t do you a bit of good here. All it serves is to save me chore of passing out your materials for the day. This sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? If not, I truly fear for this class’s well being. Just one wrong ingredient, a missed cue will result in a rather messy situation. And I do hope you catch my drift when I say ‘messy’. You will be lucky if it only amounts to staying after class to clean up. It will more than likely snowball into a giant fiasco that will wind up with someone like myself in the Hospital Wing. As I hate hospitals of any sort, I’d rather not have to go this year.
“As if I needed more proof than this, let me indulge you with a popular and well told story of mine. You see this scar here?” he held up his forearm and pointed to a particularly white patch of skin, “This is the souvenir of a rather nasty incident. It’s my 5th year and that means that our O.W.L.s are coming up. You can see me jumping with joy at the thought. My comrades and I are at a table and we’re all brewing Invisibility Potions. One o’ me chums, a guy by the name of Stanley Katak, he’s showing the strain and hasn’t been getting a good night’s sleep. He misreads the ingredients and adds Boomslang skin to his brew. At this point, the stuff turns acid green instead of the clear purple it’s supposed to be. It begins to boil uncontrollably and gets all over my robes and forearm. Before I realize it, I’m down to my boxers and my arm almost ends at the elbow. I barely make it the Hospital Wing whereupon, I pass out and Madam Pomfrey, the old nurse, fixes me good as new. Stan, got a ‘T’ that day and for those of you not familiar with O.W.L. grades, T is the lowest you can get, Troll. I’ll save myself the trouble now and see if I can’t stop this from happening in 4 years, but DO NOT add Boomslang skin to an Invisibility Potion. The rate the stuff ate through me was really rather painful and I don’t want another occurrence.
“I’d like to expect you all to at least perform at ‘A’ level, the lowest pass grade, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Potions is one of those subjects you either care about, or you don’t. You take out of it what you can glean from your homework and class assignments. I know, you’ll all go off with your little dreams filling your heads and more than likely, you won’t ever think about this class again. Thing is, I probably won’t remember your smiling faces either, so it’s a win-win situation. Of course… I’d always hope you knew the difference between some poison and a Headache Draft… And that’s why you’re all in this dingy dungeon listening to me ramble on about this course,” he gave another twisted, tired smile.
“Another one of my beliefs is that the first class of anything is quite useless to do any learning with because it’s the first class. It’s like taking a test on a Monday. It’s a Monday; you don’t take tests on Monday. So instead, I’ll open up the floor and shut up. You can ask me, tell me anything your little heart desires about anything your little brains can think of. Trust me, this’ll be the easiest class you’ll have in this subject so make the best of it.”
The heavy, wooden door slammed back on its hinges and crashed against the stone wall. He swept in, a long, black cloak flying in his wake. He strode to the front of the class and stopped abruptly, spinning on his heel to face the students. There was a mad glint in his eyes.
“Scared you, didn’t I?” he asked softly, then proceeded to laugh harshly at the students’ confused faces. Again, he stopped promptly, this time mid-laugh and scanned the room, his gaze seeking out each student’s own. Perhaps he was a weirdo. A psychotic weirdo…
He was pale, much paler than he would be if he only stayed inside all day. It looked more likely that he had been scared badly. The other option was that he was a vampire, and at that time, either reason could have fit as nobody had actually seen his teeth and the dungeons were probably dark enough to save a vampire from direct sunlight. His different colored eyes (one blue, one green) were lucid, but tired, and bore the evidence of many sleepless nights. The long, aristocratic nose led down to a slightly sneering mouth, giving the impression that he found the class extremely funny. Over all, he was tall and lanky in his black robes and didn’t seem to be very impressive, but either out of respect or fear that he could very well be a vampire, the class was silent.
“By the head count, I see you’re all here,” he said, resuming his quiet demeanor. The smirk still wasn’t leaving his face, but he did seem more subdued. It was only a little less intimidating. “I’m Professor Davinski, I’ll thank you to call me that and the way I figure it, the best way to greet a new class is to scare the living daylights out of them. Am I succeeding? But no, don’t answer that, I’m afraid I probably won’t like the answer, will I? Answer me this instead, is anybody in this classroom at all interested in the subject? Or would you all leave, given the chance?” He paused for a minute, finding Ellie in the sea of faces quite easily and sparing a small grin. He did half expect the majority of the class to get up and leave right then and there, and quickly plowed on, lest the class did get the unfortunate impression he was inviting them exit.
“I can’t say I’d honestly blame you,” he spoke still more lightly. He took a seat on the edge of his desk and swung his legs like bored kid. “I never much liked this class my first and second years. The old teacher was a bit intimidating and a snarky, old git to top it. Needless to say,” he looked up, a real smile lighting his ashen features, “he was my favorite teacher.
“Anyway, as the title and packaging dictates, this class is all you ever wanted to know about Potions. How to brew ‘em, the ingredients they’re made from, how to cure people, how to clean up after yourselves and lastly, perhaps most importantly, how to follow directions. I understand that you are all independent teen-agers, but that doesn’t do you a bit of good here. All it serves is to save me chore of passing out your materials for the day. This sounds easy enough, doesn’t it? If not, I truly fear for this class’s well being. Just one wrong ingredient, a missed cue will result in a rather messy situation. And I do hope you catch my drift when I say ‘messy’. You will be lucky if it only amounts to staying after class to clean up. It will more than likely snowball into a giant fiasco that will wind up with someone like myself in the Hospital Wing. As I hate hospitals of any sort, I’d rather not have to go this year.
“As if I needed more proof than this, let me indulge you with a popular and well told story of mine. You see this scar here?” he held up his forearm and pointed to a particularly white patch of skin, “This is the souvenir of a rather nasty incident. It’s my 5th year and that means that our O.W.L.s are coming up. You can see me jumping with joy at the thought. My comrades and I are at a table and we’re all brewing Invisibility Potions. One o’ me chums, a guy by the name of Stanley Katak, he’s showing the strain and hasn’t been getting a good night’s sleep. He misreads the ingredients and adds Boomslang skin to his brew. At this point, the stuff turns acid green instead of the clear purple it’s supposed to be. It begins to boil uncontrollably and gets all over my robes and forearm. Before I realize it, I’m down to my boxers and my arm almost ends at the elbow. I barely make it the Hospital Wing whereupon, I pass out and Madam Pomfrey, the old nurse, fixes me good as new. Stan, got a ‘T’ that day and for those of you not familiar with O.W.L. grades, T is the lowest you can get, Troll. I’ll save myself the trouble now and see if I can’t stop this from happening in 4 years, but DO NOT add Boomslang skin to an Invisibility Potion. The rate the stuff ate through me was really rather painful and I don’t want another occurrence.
“I’d like to expect you all to at least perform at ‘A’ level, the lowest pass grade, but I’m not going to hold my breath. Potions is one of those subjects you either care about, or you don’t. You take out of it what you can glean from your homework and class assignments. I know, you’ll all go off with your little dreams filling your heads and more than likely, you won’t ever think about this class again. Thing is, I probably won’t remember your smiling faces either, so it’s a win-win situation. Of course… I’d always hope you knew the difference between some poison and a Headache Draft… And that’s why you’re all in this dingy dungeon listening to me ramble on about this course,” he gave another twisted, tired smile.
“Another one of my beliefs is that the first class of anything is quite useless to do any learning with because it’s the first class. It’s like taking a test on a Monday. It’s a Monday; you don’t take tests on Monday. So instead, I’ll open up the floor and shut up. You can ask me, tell me anything your little heart desires about anything your little brains can think of. Trust me, this’ll be the easiest class you’ll have in this subject so make the best of it.”
