Potions, First Lesson (Seventh Years)

The door to the Potions classroom slammed open, and Frank Stein stepped it. Clearing his throat, he slowly turned, calmly grabbed the door, and then slammed it shut with much more force than necessary. He thought the poor door might even have broken if he did it harder.

"Good morning, class!" Frank said, skipping over to his desk and hopping up to sit on it, looking with a creepy grin over his students. "To those of you who don't know me, I am the new Potions Professor, Frank Stein. You will refer to me as Professor, or Professor Stein. If you don't... I'll strap you to a table and cut you open." He said this with perfect calmness, the creepy grin still on his face, showing his students that yes, that was exactly what he was going to do to them.

"Now, you're all in your final year, and since my predecessor had his lesson plans on his person when he had his... unfortunate accident... I will be spending the entire year improvising our lessons. I can't be bothered to remember the exact lesson plan from near thirty years ago." Unfortunate accident... That was one way to refer to Pinkman being eaten by a dragon when trying to harvest dragon tears...

"So, for starters, does anyone have any questions? Any at all? Come on, don't be shy now!"

Anna, sitting lonesomely at her table stared up at the new professor. She wasn't always one to grow fond of professors unless they allowed themselves to connect to her in some way or conversation. She was always a great student no matter the less.

"Good morning, class!" he had exclaimed with an unsettling grin perched on his face. "To those of you who don't know me, I am the new Potions Professor, Frank Stein. You will refer to me as Professor, or Professor Stein. If you don't... I'll strap you to a table and cut you open."

Was he being serious?

Anna's imaginative mind wandered off to partially stage set it into her view- being cut open by the professor. Her azure eyes still remaining focus on the professor quickly averted to her ring as she twirled it with her fingers. It was the ring her brother had given her 3 weeks before he passed on...

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Interrupting her sorrow-filled expression, the teacher began speaking again, "Now, you're all in your final year, and since my predecessor had his lesson plans on his person when he had his... unfortunate accident... I will be spending the entire year improvising our lessons. I can't be bothered to remember the exact lesson plan from near thirty years ago."

Anna, who was now frequently staring over at the other students to examine their reaction, was amusing to her. She liked when students cringed and widened their eyes, I guess that's what could have partially put her into Slytherin as well as other reasons...

"So, for starters, does anyone have any questions? Any at all? Come on, don't be shy now!"

Anna almost made eye contact with the professor before looking to her ring again to avoid his roaming eyes. She never liked asking any questions no matter what the professors expected. She valued her shyness in certain situations. She much enjoyed staying silent at all times and unsociable. She never was like this until just recently. It still bothers her that she doesn't know why...

Concluding to herself that she were to keep her thoughts and queries internally, she lavished a hand to her cheek and looked expectantly to the other students.

Seeing that no one was asking any questions, Frank's grin widened, and he clapped his hands together. “Alright then! For starters, I had been hoping we could dissect one of the wild Acromantula living in the Forbidden Forest!” he said happily, waiting for the students to react to that statement. Then, he frowned. “But because of the Headmistress' objections, and the fact that it's not part of the subject, we'll instead be doing the Dragon Dung Fertilizer!”

He pointed to the large sacks by the blackboard and grinned. “Everyone come up here and grab seven chunks of dragon dung. Don't worry, I've already sliced it up for you! Who knows? If you're lucky, you might even find a ring or something that once belonged to the late Professor Pinkman!” Frank said excitedly, probably the only teacher who could be happy at the prospects of finding a body part in dragon poo.

“Now, first thing is to set your fires! Get them burning nice and hot, alright? Once you've done that, pour in your stewed mandrake! Allow it to boil for... um... five minutes, I think, then add the sloth brain!” He cackled a bit maniacally. The hesitance regarding the time would make some take too long, resulting in an explosion of odorous smoke, or too short, which would make the brain absorb the potion, creating a black lump where used to be a potion.

Frank stood in front of the students, menacingly wringing his hands and cackling.

Anna, who perched a frown on her face at the lesson, sighed greatly before standing up to recieve her materials. An unruly shiver ran up her spine as she touched the slightly moist feces of the dragon. Anna had been a germophobic as soon as she hit 3rd year at Hogwarts. She believes it was the fact of maturing that made her so careful and determined to be immune to any pitiful things. It was a shame to her that in order to obtain appropriate and satisfying grades, she must go beyond her limits of staying "clean".

Anna made it clear to stare at the teacher with an attitude of dislike. She would still show respect overall, but since she always bottled up her emotions, her way way of coping to release a little stress was to glare. The students never seemed to notice when she put her scorn into action considering she wasn't the brightest of all, but only just slightly would a teacher heed her expression.

Her eyes flashed to her cauldron and flicked her wrist which held her wand to create the fire underneath. Furthermore with great memory she had, she no longer needed to ask how to make Dragon Dung Fertilizer or search in her book for the recipe. Even though she could reminisce the steps, Anna faced a bit of a difficulty along the way...

"Alright," Frank said, clapping his hands together happily. "If you've all added your sloth brain nice and proper, you should see your brew turning a nice, sickly green. That's your cue to add one, I repeat, one of your rat spleens!"

Frank nodded, seeing some sick expressions on the faces of some of the students. "That's right, we're working with rat spleens today. Make sure to only add one, or your potion will explode, kinda like this..." To demonstrate, Frank fished a vial filled with a blood red liquid out of his lab coat and threw it into the ground in front of him, causing it to explode in a cloud of dark purple smoke.

Waving the smoke away, he grinned rather widely. "Make sure you only add one spleen. Don't wanna see your faces melted off..." his grin widened in a way that showed that he'd really, really like to see that "...do we?"

Anna was looking over her classmate’s faces of both disgust and confusion that continued to bicker. She heard the teacher say something about adding one rat spleen and then suddenly a startling explosion sounded nearly causing Anna to drop something unnecessary into her progressing potion.

“So far, so good,” she murmured.

Casting the levitation charm, the miniscule spleen rose and dripped unfaithfully onto the table with exhaust. Anna could feel the ick rising in her throat, but with a tough stomach managed to keep it down. She was predicting that if she did vomit, the teacher would be ecstatic the way he acted. Anna didn’t want him to be too pleased at all. She already had some hatred for him because of the assigned potion and the nasty ingredients she had to utilize.

After the spleen plopped into the cauldron creating a greenish hue, Anna’s eye went to the teacher who was almost prancing with happiness. If only his happiness would falter for a moment…