Closed Grab somebody

[January Chase]

The potion bubbled and January glared at it. She should have been so much better at this than she was, her mothers side of the family owned and ran several potions shops and she'd grown up living and breathing them for ages - then she'd started attending school and her potions grades had plummeted, though she didn't blame her lack of interest for that. It was everything that happened with August. She's still angry about it, still angry at her parents for not... what, supporting him? She'd known that was going to happen, it was obvious. Her mother was... traditional in a lot of ways, modern in some, she'd never arrange marriages for any of her children, she didn't agree with them (and January would never be able to express how happy she was about that, because it hadn't been the same with her Aunt. The Matriarch of the family who'd just sort of indebted them to another family and then disappeared. Her whereabouts were a closely guarded secret, which of course probably meant she was dead, but that wasn't really the present issue since it had all happened years ago and when she was still a baby.

Her present issue was that, for some ungodly reason, he Draught of Living Death was purple, and it was definitely not meant to be purple. She blew a puff of air out to get the hair out of her face and stared at her potions textbook. She had until next week to perfect this or she was absolutely failing this class. She'd already had to beg the professor to let her retake the class after she'd essentially failed out last year, but she was determined, she was going to get it... she hoped. She might not want to work with potions when she graduated, but she couldn't survive on duelling alone. Defence and Charms were easily her best subjects, but she needed more than that. She needed to at least pass the class - then maybe she would feel better and not like she hadn't earned anything she had. So stressed was she that she hadn't even been hanging out with her favourite Wampus, and that was a damn tragedy. Still, needs must, and sometimes must had to wait.

"Why are you even purple? That doesn't make any sense! I didn't put in any lilacs!"

@Schuyler Halliwell ​

 

[Schuyler Halliwell]

Fifth year sucked, but Schuyler was glad it would soon be over, assuming she passed the end of year exams which were far from a forgone conclusion. At least she was having a better time of it than January who was having to suffer the indignity of retaking potions, it wasn’t for lack of effort or desire but there was something about potions that had the Thunderbird blocked when it came to that particular subject.

Schuyler had been buried in books in the library for hours in an attempt to make sure she passed her worst class, history of magic. Unlike January, it was her lack of caring that was the reason she struggled with it, it didn’t matter to her what year the goblin rebellion was in England or when the Salem witch trials were or how important they were to the subsequent centuries of wizard/no-maj relations. None of that would help her when she was hunting down dark wizards with her aunt for MACUSA. Here and Now would be the only thing that mattered.

It wasn’t on the way between the library and the Wampus common room, but Schuyler decided to swing by the potion classrooms to see if she could catch a glimpse of January hard at work trying to perfect her craft, or at least develop something resembling an exam passing ability. The girls voice carried enough down the hall when she yelled in frustration which told her that January was far from being successful in her endeavours.

“I’m no expert, but I believe it’s supposed to be clear,” She smiled brightly at her favourite Thunderbird as she looked over at her from the doorway.

 

[January Chase]

January snorted in a most unladylike fashion as her friend decided to be funny. "Oh ha ha, I know that," she said, barely even glancing up at her. The moment she'd stepped in the room it had been clear to January that she wasn't here to help. Schuyler apparently liked to watch her suffer. She was at least decently good with Potions. This was something that January should have had in her DNA, but apparently it had skipped a generation with her. "Nothing in this ingredients list should make this purple," she groaned, flipping back to the starting page of the recipe. Nothing said purple, nothing in here except..."Damn it, I added too much wormwood so it won't clear up." And this is exactly why she was failing potions. She had wonderful hand-eye coordination with anything except trying to put potions ingredients into a cauldron, surely she was the worst witch of any witch to ever exist. It was probably a good thing her parents were far too preoccupied with August and his departure to ask her about how her classes were going.

"I give up, I'll never get this. Fancy that, a duellist who can't even make a simple potion," granted, the potion was hardly simple, but it should have been for her. Her mother could have made this in her sleep, so could have August for that matter. "I really can't say why I'm so bad at this." The Draught, of course, was supposed to be a light purplish colour and then go clear, but hers had not made it past the purple stage. She was afraid to even drink it, lest it actually kill her and she hardly fancied having to tell her mother she'd died whilst making a potion. Well, she supposed it wouldn't have been her having to tell her. But she could imagine her mother working out how to bring her back as an inferi just to kill her again for failing the grades. "Are your parents uptight about your grades too or am I just special?" They asked her every year how she was getting on and every year she would give them the same response. She had to admit that was one of the things she was looking forward to after graduation, getting away from all of this. She didn't like the way things were in the world, all that order, streamlined magical government. It was all so... stuffy. Sometimes people needed a little chaos in their lives to spice things up a bit.

And what was with the divide between blood divisions, seperating magical creatures from the humans and putting the muggles in a little box so they never learned anything about the truth of the world around them? Maybe someone should develop a potion for that.

@Schuyler Halliwell ​