[Alchemy] [September 03] The favourite scent (all years)

When Zviad kicked Ruslan’s bag, Zhenya opened her mouth to give the older boy a piece of her mind. She felt like she had to defend her little brother but she remembered what Galina Viktorovna had said before. It was silly to try and fight a fight that wasn’t hers. Since the Klyk Vampira student had chosen a class to bully younger kids, he’d have to answer to the professor.

Fortunately Galina Viktorovna had noticed what happened and condemned the trouble maker to many evenings of detention. Zhenya smiled quite smugly to herself. Then she turned to face Conrad, a slight smile still visible on her face, to check if he, too, liked the outcome of this. Surely Zviad would think twice before doing such a thing again - at least in class.

Zhenya’s smile faded into nothingness when she thought of the Klyk Vampira common room to which she had no access. Galina Viktorovna might be the head of Klyk Vampira house but she would hardly hang out there either. Hopefully the seventh year would not pick on Ruslan again there.

Distracted by these thoughts Zhenya hadn’t quite followed the instructions the professor had given them and she felt a little tense as she looked around, trying to figure out what she had missed. Her classmates were tidying up and writing their names on a label on their container and so Zhenya did the same, hoping that she had not missed an important detail.

When she had put all her belongings into her bag, she got to her feet, placed the container on the table and hurried to catch up with Ruslan. She really needed to talk to him and tell him not to look for trouble. He had, after all, no idea what the older students were capable of.

[out]

Gosh, Zina loved her little brother so much. His explanations and suggestions for everything were, of course, amusing and adorable but Zina smiled proudly to herself because he was just so brave. She had struggled to make her contribution when offering her apparently correct knowledge, and yet he just dove in even if he didn’t know the answer. It was so admirable.

She kept her head down as one of the seventh year students saw it necessary to pick on Rusya, though her eyes flicked between her sister and the professor, surprised that Zhenya snapped at him when it wasn’t really needed. Even though it wasn’t directed at her, she shrunk further into her seat as Galina Viktorovna reprimanded her sister. There was no way that Zinaida would find the courage to answer any more questions in class now, especially when other students were more able to provide answers.

As the parchment with instructions landed on her desk, Zina hesitated for a second on which method she was going to do. As she got up from her seat she decided that she was not confident enough to start from scratch and would just choose some essential oils instead. Even choosing the easier route, Zinaida was still terrified that she was going to get it all wrong or spill everything or break the vial. Her hands shook a little as she collected her ingredients, not daring to glance at anyone else as she did so.

Carefully she poured in her jojoba carrier oil into the vial, before gingerly adding six drops of her vanilla for the base, followed by fifteen drops of the fir needle essential oil for the middle and nine drops of mint essential oil for the top note. She hoped that she calculated those proportions correctly. Zina wanted to try and recreate the scent of snow, since she couldn’t create a coffee smell or a cotton smell but the scent was awfully difficult to pinpoint. It was only now that she looked up, scrunching her nose as she noticed her siblings both making their perfumes from scratch. Perhaps she should have done that? What if her perfume ended up smelling terrible? She liked those scents on their own, but what if they didn’t smell nice together?

She was about to label her perfume when Zina was distracted by that rude seventh year deliberately knocking over her little brother’s bag. Just what was his problem anyway?! Briefly Zina had the distinct urge to pull out her wand and attempt to hex him, but considering how Galina Viktorovna reacted to Zhenya trying to intervene, she decided it most certainly wasn’t worth the risk. She shook her head slightly, getting on with labelling her perfume, writing down the homework so that she wouldn’t forget, and packing her things away in her bag. Finally, she used her wand to clean off her desk so that it was spotless. Placing her vial down beside the others, Zina gave a timid smile. “Thank you, Galina Viktorovna.” She murmured shyly, before rushing out of the room, trying to figure out which way her siblings went.

[out]

Justýna relaxed slightly and nodded gratefully at Galina Viktorovna’s apparent approval, but resolved not to draw further attention to herself. It wouldn’t do to fail her courses – but it equally wouldn’t do to garner suspicion as to why she was limping along slightly better than her other non-Swedish peers from Koldovstoretz, which would only lead to her getting caught and potentially failing her courses anyways.

In her periphery, she saw Conrad put his head down on the desk – and felt exceptionally compelled to do the same. A piece of parchment with detailed instructions then appeared on the desk in front of her, and she sighed quietly. Her translation-charmed-earring wouldn’t help her with writing, and she risked getting caught if she cast a fresh translation charm on the parchment. She studied the paper for a moment, picking out maybe 3 words at best, before turning to Conrad to ask if he had any idea what it said – but he was already pushing back from the desk and making his way to the front of the room. The Czech witch rose slowly and followed suit after a moment, watching her preceding classmates’ actions carefully. She mimicked them as best she could (with the exception of choosing different scents, of course) and returned to her seat.

Conrad seemed occupied at the moment, and so for the time being Justýna busied herself with trying to decipher the notes she’d crammed into the margins of her textbook, looking for key words to help her. The essential oils were quite potent, and so she imagined she’d only need a drop or two at most of these… she’d been tempted by the dried herbs, but hadn’t the slightest idea what Galina Viktorovna had meant by ‘bruising’ them (nor did she particularly wish to start from scratch when she couldn’t easily read the instructions) and so she’d left those at the front.

After a moment of this, Justýna sighed imperceptibly.
“Haven’t a clue what these instructions say… do you?” she breathed to Conrad in Russian, giving up on Swedish entirely for the moment. She’d spoken so quietly that no one but her partner should have heard – but it still gave the Seventh Year a bit of a thrill, to openly break the rules. She supposed Conrad could report her for it, if he so chose… but would he?


[[ FYI - have revised my previous post to make the degree of her participation more plausible - she's using a translation charm for listening comprehension 😱 ]]

Linnéa’s eyebrows went up at the mention of the day’s Alchemy lesson. It was a change from the typical potion-brewing, which she supposed was a welcome thing. As to how applicable it would be to her future career… that was to be determined. If anything, she might be able to use the knowledge to make Birgitta’s St. Lucia’s Day present this year.

When her turn came to answer Galina Viktorovna’s first question, she responded with: “Brine… like the ocean. Cloves. The crispness of late fall and early winter. Mint. Evergreen trees.”
She followed her classmates up to the cauldron at the front of the room, and nodded upon inhaling the potion’s fumes. There wasn’t much of a change from what she’d said earlier. “The same: saltwater and evergreen are the strongest.”

She returned to her seat, and listened idly as mostly younger students contribute – some with better responses than others. Linnéa knew a bit about perfumes but nothing extensive, and certainly not enough to want to volunteer an answer she wasn’t reasonably certain of. But then Justýna spoke up, and Linnéa narrowed her gaze suspiciously at the former Koldovstoretz student.
Over the years, the Quidditch Captain had come to realize that listening comprehension was one of the more difficult pieces of learning a new language – but Justýna’s seemed to be well-attuned. Too well-attuned. There was certainly a… discordance… between how poorly Justýna spoke Swedish and how well she seemed to understand Galina Viktorovna given her answer, especially because it had barely been more than a month since she would have known to start learning the language. Unless Conrad was translating for her… or she knew some Swedish previously. Though, now that she thought about it, she had spotted the Czech witch scribbling away feverishly in the Common Room or the library nearly every night since term began…

In any case, Linnéa didn’t particularly care overmuch – she herself was in relatively good standing with Galina Viktorovna, and intended to keep it that way. Perhaps she wouldn’t speak up as much in class today, but she was confident she could brew a more-than-satisfactory perfume.

She rolled her eyes dramatically at Zviad’s ostentatious bullying of the youngest Shishkin boy to provoke a response from their professor, but didn’t bother to say anything: the Georgian boy would be swiftly dealt with, doubtless. Linnéa thought it rather idiotic and counterproductive, to not only pick on one's on Housemate but also to do it in his Head of House’s own classroom…

The Swedish witch shook her head disdainfully, drumming her fingers quietly on the desktop as she awaited further instruction. When it came she plucked the parchment out of the air, scanned it briefly a few times, and moved to the front of the room to gather her supplies. She didn’t find much to her liking from the collection of essential oils, but found the dried herbs more appealing. Following the instructions carefully, by the end of the lesson she was reasonably pleased with her work. After signing her name on the vial’s label, she packed up her things and placed her perfume on the designated table as she left the classroom, thanking Galina Viktorovna and bidding her good day.


[[ Linnéa out! ]]

He had sort of hoped there would be more yelling. He couldn’t stand how unflappable Gogoladze was -- even now, repeating his last year of school -- so it would have made Conrad feel better to see him taken to task. As it was, he just slouched back in his seat, now thoroughly disappointed in this lecture.

When Conrad glanced up, the professor was looking at him -- he glanced straight back down, cheeks reddening. He hunched his shoulders and curved one arm around his parchment -- it wouldn’t do much if Galina Viktorovna came over to look at it, but it would at least hide it from anybody sitting around him -- and was busily shading a checkered grid on the bottom corner when Justýna spoke to him again, barely above a whisper.

He sat up again and looked at his instructions, grateful he hadn’t written over any of the words, and frowned. It used the same alphabet as German, and thus easier to read than Russian had been, but he still couldn’t recognise many of the words. Curse Galina Viktorovna for doing their first lesson on something this irrelevant. He glanced back at the professor -- she was looking but no way could she read lips, right? -- and leaned closer to Justýna under the guise of looking at her instructions.

She’d addressed him in Russian, so he responded in kind, quietly and quickly. “Only some of it. I think you need the alcohol --” He looked over his instructions again and added, pointing with his little finger, “and I think these are percentages -- twenty, fifty, thirty -- but I don’t know for what.” He felt roundly horrible not being able to explain; here he had this girl’s last year and N.E.W.T.s in his hands and he would ruin them for her. He threw out an excuse -- “I don’t know anything about perfumes. I don’t even know what these smells are.” He gave his phial an ill-tempered prod with one finger -- it tilted so threateningly that he jerked to grab it before it could topple.

Fortunately, Galina Viktorovna seemed to be wrapping things up -- ugh -- he wasn’t going to do well on the homework, either, if he didn’t know what his perfume smelled of, and there was probably no hope for this perfume, even if he had taken the easy route. He glanced at his partner, to confirm silently that she was about finishing too, then got to his feet, crammed his vandalised instructions into his pocket, and deposited his stupid perfume on the table on his way out.

[out]

Another wave of relief washed over her as Conrad made an attempt to be helpful instead of ignoring her completely. It may have been a small gesture, but it restored some finite degree of her faith in Durmstrang-Koldovstoretz interactions. She honestly didn’t even mind that he wasn’t sure either – in fact, it almost made her feel better that she wasn’t the only one.

She listened carefully as he explained what he did know.
“Thanks,” she whispered back (though in Swedish this time, this she could maybe manage) with a small smile, shaking her head at his offered excuses. “It’s okay, nor do I.”

When he jabbed his vial so forcefully that it almost tipped over, her eyes widened – but fortunately he managed to stabilize it in time. Justýna turned back to her work, alternating between peering again at her scribbled notes in her textbook and trying to decipher the Swedish instructions in a vain attempt to cobble together something half-decent. Her ratios were almost certainly incorrect and she likely missed a step (or three), but by the end of the lesson she hadn’t exploded anything and her perfume didn’t smell atrocious – so she considered it a relative success. She packed up her things, labeled her vial, and followed Conrad out the door, following his lead and leaving her attempt at what would hopefully become a passable perfume on the designated table after a parting nod to their professor.


[[ Justýna out! ]]

Chips for this class:
Galya awards 2 chips for each post from chars that posted more than once:

Drakonya Krov: 14 posts (15 posts made but Linnéa only posted once) = 28 chips Klyk Vampira: 16 posts = 32 chips

You can still post your chars leaving but this won't change the awarded chips.

again thanks for participating! <33