Open Trial and Error

[Cameron Roswell]

Open after Rowan posts with Ngawaiata

Cameron frowned down at the cauldron in front of him, squinting at the recipe again and resisting the urge to just kick the stupid thing over and giving up. He should be able to do this. They already covered it last year and everyone else had no problem, so why did his swelling solutions keep coming out more like brown sludge than the purple solution it was supposed to be. Was he not grinding the Graphorn fine enough? Too fine? Not stirring fast enough? Cameron glared as the potion let out a little burble as a bubble popped on the surface, giving it an aggressive stir and then having to swear and scramble back as he managed to slosh some onto his robes, tripping over himself as the robes enlarged unevenly, tangling under his feet and leaving him in a pile on the floor. "Great, just f*cking great," he muttered to himself, picking himself off the floor. "With my luck I'll kick the stupid thing over and have to fight off giant roaches," he continued. It didn't achieve much, his voice echoing in the old bathroom, but it felt better to direct his ire out loud none the less.

 

[Ngawaiata Martin]

Returning to school was as lonely an affair as ever, and Ngawaiata felt like she was drifting from day to day. She was close with so few people in the castle, and being halfway through her time at Hogwarts it felt too late to make friends now. Especially not when she barely spent time with the ones she did have. She was trying not to dwell on how much she missed her home and her whānau when she heard the voice of the one friend she had made at school, curiously following the sound to find out what was going on. She couldn't hold back a small laugh at the sight of Cameron sopping wet and apparently fighting a cauldron. "What're you brewing?" She asked, leaning in the doorway with a small smile.

 

[Cameron Roswell]

Cameron swore again as he heard someone behind him, turning too sharply and having to step back as his legs tangled in his now too long robes and he stumbled, kicking over the cauldron and the failed potion with it as he did so. "Of course, great. Nothing! I'm brewing nothing," he said with a furious sweep of his arms, looking down where the potion had now mixed with the old dirt and water already on the ground and turned into a quietly fizzing slime. Maybe if he left it long enough it would eat through the floor and fall on Aine's head in the library downstairs or something. "It's meant to be a swelling solution," he admitted with a sigh after his temper fizzled out some and he realized glaring at the ruined potion wasn't going to do anything except maybe give him a headache. "As you can see, things are going swell!!" He said bitterly, dropping down to right the cauldron with the tip of his wand.

 

[Ngawaiata Martin]

Ngawaiata gave a small snort at Cameron's denial, studying him silently until he confessed. When he finally explained, she couldn't help a laugh. "At least you didn't swell the floor." She said pointedly, moving into the room and closing the door behind her. "That'd probably be a problem. What went wrong?" She asked, crouching to look at the fizzing on the floor below them. What on earth in a swelling solution could go so wrong as to cause that kind of reaction?

 

[Cameron Roswell]

"At least I'd know it worked if that happened," Cameron muttered to himself, quietly relieved when Ngawaiata closed the door behind her, he didn't need a bigger audience to his mess up than he already had. With just her she was quiet enough that Cameron could count on her not telling everyone else about this later. "I don't know, otherwise I wouldn't have done it would I," he answered petulantly, giving the cauldron a sulky nudge with his wand. "I can't seem to get the timing right on everything, even if I put the ingredients in right. You know this stuff, how do you do it?" He asked, frustration ceding to defeated exasperation. He hated asking for help, but Ngawaiata was better than having to ask a teacher, and probably knew just as much.

 

[Ngawaiata Martin]

As much as she didn't want to brag, Ngawaiata knew she was a good student. She cleaned the floor with a quick, "Scourgify," before moving closer to inspect the cauldron and ingredients. "I just watch the clock." She explained, trying to remember how to brew a Swelling Solution. It had been a while since last year, but she was pretty sure she had retained it well. "Let's try again, then." She said, starting to get the ingredients ready. Ngawaiata didn't know if she was much of a teacher, but she had seen Auntie Kahu explain things to people plenty of times, so she tried to channel her. "Do you have enough of the ingredients for another go?"

 

[Cameron Roswell]

Cameron tried not to sulk any more as Ngawaiata cleared away his mess with a simple wave of her wand. Scourgify was also a spell he was struggling with, just another on the long list, but he didn't need to get into that with her too. At least now he wouldn't need to try to scrub all that up later after she left, though really the bathroom was pretty grody already so no one would probably notice if he'd left it.

He also tried not to roll his eyes when Ngawaiata made it sound so simple, reminding himself she was trying to help him, and without making fun of him so far, so he could for once try to be nice, he supposed. "Maybe if we have the recipe, it'll stretch," he offered, shuffling down to help her with the leftover ingredients, producing the crumpled copy of his notes with the recipe on it and only hesitating for a moment before offering it to her to look over. He'd copied it right out of the text book so it wasn't like he could get that much wrong there.