Potions Championship II 'Twould Be A Folly Otherwise Colin Mccoire

"But!" Colin sighed.

"Being cautious is not a losing strategy, Woofy." AngelFyre had a way of being both right and definitive about it. Colin was practically chafing at the bit to do something unorthodox, which would probably get them both killed or even put in hospital. So naturally, it was AngelFyre who had to inject the needed doses of restraint and common sense. Except that her common sense was inextricably bound up with muggle talk. Of course, Colin knew about hair plains. They were like combs. Muggles used them to keep their hair smooth and flat, but why anyone would want to back up and shoot a hair plain, Colin had no idea.

"Wait." This had to be sorted. "So, you want us shoot hair plains with burn paste? That sounds sus, even for a Muggle, Fyre! After all! It's a potion! We're supposed to slather it on, right?" But AngelFyre would not be budged. She insisted on shooting hair planes with burn healing paste. He didn't feel much like arguing the point. After all, potions was more AngelFyre's thing, and Colin reckoned she knew what she was talking about.

As she talked, he glanced around to see if any of the other teams had hair plains they were going to shoot. "Hmm. You might be on to something, Fyre. June and Prat and Peri, I know, they're Purebloods. They'd be unlikely to use a comb that way. Mind you, Piérre is Half, he might know this trick you're cooking up. Wait. I'll bet you're going to engorgio the comb! Trap the ashwinders that way, right? That's brilliant!"

Colin beamed. AngelFyre, somehow, didn't seem to share Colin's confidence in her plan. But that still lay in the future. For now, they settled on roles. Colin would again run off to fetch the ingredients whilst Fyre would get everything set up properly. Colin nodded enthusiastically when she reminded him of the dittany situation. With a flash of a smile, he was gone. All for the better, he thought, as he loped over towards the storage cupboards again. He didn't want to risk cracking a cauldron or splitting a spurtle whilst getting their equipment ready.

Fortunately, burn healing paste was a potion Colin actually had some familiarity with. Sniffing out the Cretan dittany proved to be no great obstacle. He'd brewed this for the racing team before. Came in handy too! In short order, he had murtlap tentacles, seaweed, a jar of honey, flobberworm mucus, and said dittany in a basket ready to be expertly prepared and made magical!

And Fyre was ready! She already had a knife in her hand, waiting like some beautiful assassin, prepared to slice any renegade seaweed that came her way! Plopping the basket on their work table, Colin got to sorting things out. "Right! First thing's first! In you go murtlaps!" Colin began. He dropped three of tentacles into the cauldron as AngelFyre sliced and chopped the seaweed into small pieces.

Colin watched eagerly as she crushed the seaweed into a paste in the mortar. She had to add a bit more, and Colin looked over one shoulder, then the other until she had four spoonfuls tipped into the cauldron.

With a casual whistle, Colin took up the spurtle and stirred the mess around thrice clockwise, bumped the heat up to high and waved his wand over the cauldron.

And then time stopped. This was always the worst thing about potioneering! He looked at the fire. To make sure it was still there. He looked into the cauldron. Yep. Seaweed and murtlap were in there. Colin sighed again. "Why do potions always take so long?" Colin looked into the cauldron again. Nothing had changed. Not one single thing. "Why can't it be like cooking, where you just throw everything into the pot and it cooks!"

Colin crouched down on the floor.

Colin stood up.

Colin talked with AngelFyre.

Colin looked around at the other potions brewing.

Colin thought about what had happened in Hogsmeade the other day. His gaze drifted up into the stands where Cursa was watching the proceedings. He wondered what the American lad was thinking. He gave Cursa a smile. At least he was here. After all he'd been through...

"I should take him to the broom races this weekend," he said to no one in particular. AngelFyre was sure to have heard, as she was right next to him, trying to keep him sufficiently distracted and focused at the same time. A herculean labour and no mistake!

"Time!" she said. AngelFyre turned off the heat and Colin added the jar of honey to the cauldron. She gave it two stirs clockwise and then let it sit for ten seconds on low heat. Her watch came in very handy!

"Bleugh!" Colin said dramatically as he scooped two spoonfuls of flobberworm mucus into the mixture. "That stuff tastes worse than snot, I can tell you."

AngelFyre left the mixture to heat, stirring occasionally in a clockwise direction until it thickened up into a pastelike consistency. Colin hoped it would be pastelike enough! She turned off the heat, and Colin added one sprig of Cretan dittany.

As that dissipated, he waved his wand over the potion and poured it off into the waiting jars.

"Whoa. That's hard work, is that! I don't think I'm made for potioneering, Fyre!" Colin collapsed dramatically onto the table, his hair spilling out around his face.

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@AngelFyre McCubbin

Abilities Perfectionist 1 & 2 Fearless || Binding Mark || Ency || Sta 10 °▪︎ Eva 10 °▪︎ Str 2°▪︎

Action Brewing Potion #2 Interact: @Colin McCoire Mention: @Simon Kincaid Wis 10 °▪︎ Arc 6 °▪︎ Acc 12 °▪︎

October 2024 - The International Potions Championship

Note to Mods: This is long so the potion steps are bolded.

“But! Wait.” AngelFyre stopped immediately and gave Colin her undivided attention. “So, you want us shoot hair plains with burn paste? That sounds sus, even for a Muggle, Fyre! After all! It's a potion! We're supposed to slather it on, right?"

Now it was her turn to look at him in complete befuddlement. His own words echoed in her mind.“But! Wait.” They were never uttered, largely because her mind/mouth connection could not get its act together, so instead, they tripped over themselves on her tongue like drunken tap dancers. Neither could get its proper footing, so they both remained where they had fallen, tangled in a small heap until she next cleared her throat and then swallowed. All she could do in the time they had before the second brew was to begin was to nod mutely when he asked for affirmation that the burn paste was to be slathered onto the skin.

She knew there would be a block of time… too many minutes for Colin’s liking… for the concoction to brew during the process, and she would clarify for him what she had meant then. Few things tickled her as much as Colin’s misunderstandings of the Muggle world and its ways when he was introduced to new concepts. He must be a hoot during Muggle Studies, though she suspected Professor Galim may have wanted to throttle him a time or two.

When he made it back to their station, he wasted no time in dumping the three (3) murtlap tentacles into the cauldron. As he unpacked everything else, he handed AngelFyre the seaweed and she made short work of chopping it into small pieces. With the chopping completed, she scraped some seaweed off the cutting board and tapped it into the mortar and began to crush it into a paste. The recipe called for four (4) spoonfuls of seaweed paste, so she would be crushing for a wee bit of time. When she had crushed the pieces down to the point of making more room for even more seaweed to be added for crushing, she did so, acutely aware of the hyper McCoire lad looking over one of her shoulders and then the other, silently crushed himself that she was just a little shy of her fourth spoonful. She snickered and dumped a little more of the cut seaweed into the mortar. Another 45 seconds later she had her four (4) spoonfuls of seaweed paste which she scooped from the mortar and tapped into the cauldron.

Colin truly sprang back into life when he stirred the murtlap tentacles and seaweed paste three times in a clockwise direction, and then just as quickly set the fire to a high heat. He waved his wand over the wretchedly smelly brew, and when he had completed that step, AngelFyre delivered bad news to him.

“Okay. Now your favorite part is coming up – the waiting!” She raised her voice an octave and clapped her hands together exactly three times, bouncing a little in place, trying to sell him on the fabulousness that would be coming his way. “The recipe calls for us to leave this to brew for 25 – 40 minutes, so I split the difference, figuring the Goldilocks moment would be 32 ^1/2 minutes from now.” She looked down at her watch and noted she would be turning the heat off completely at 11:06:07 a.m. She then looked up to see Colin looking down. Not down at the ground, but down in the dumps. He was so good at so many things, but waiting was definitely not one of them.

“Before you start bouncing off the walls, possibly literally, I want to clear something up with you. I have no idea what a “hair plain” is or why we would shoo-…” and then she stopped cold, narrowed her eyes into a squint, and started to giggle. “Ah. I think I understand now. We were having another one of my Muggle-born malarkey moments colliding into your Pure-blood poppycock nonsense. Or vice versa,” and she gave him a gentle cuff to the head, chuckling good naturedly as she emphasized the “vice versa”. “What I was tryi-….” and she stopped in the middle of her sentence yet again, but this time it was to reach for her enchanted satchel. “Here. This may help you to understand,” and she pulled out one of her magical paper airplanes and held it up before him as she slid down the wall to sit next to him as he crouched. “You have seen these, right? It is a paper a i r p l a n e. That is what I said earlier, not “hair plain”. What the h-e-double-hockeysticks is a hair plain anyway?” and she watched him, knowing full well he had no idea either. And if he thought he did, he probably did not.

“Wizards have magical cupboards and brooms and floo powder to get around. Muggles sometimes use a i r p l a n e s to travel long distances. I know you must have seen, and sometimes heard, them flying high in the sky, leaving those white, cloudy like trails behind them. Those are large, transport airplanes that Muggles call jets. Jets carrying hundreds of people at a time from one place to another. When I said the burn paste will be our backup chute, I was talking about a parachute.”

He looked at her like she was speaking a completely foreign language to him, and honestly, she was in a way. It made her marvel at how much progress Simon had made with Clara in overcoming their language barrier so quickly. Their languages shared little in common from what he had told her, and now AngelFyre was wondering if that was actually an advantage. Things were just familiar enough to confuse Colin because he could hear something and associate it with what he knew of in his world of magic, but it was often the wrong thing. AngelFyre was steeped in magic all day long, so her fluency in it was greater than Colin’s was in Muggledom, at least at this point.

Before he could go off on a tear about shooting combs and whatever else was ping-ponging around in his brain pan, she grabbed the quill from her station, and drew him some pictures.



People need backup chutes because they jump out of airplanes from great heights. For fun. Think of it as the Muggle’s answer to broom racing, but they jump from the plane and just free fall for the thrill. Before they crater themselves into the ground as human jelly, they pull a cord and out pops their parachute to slow them down. Think of the parachute as their Arresto Momentum, if you will. In case of something going wrong with their first parachute, they jump with a second one packed on their back. That is their backup chute.

He looked it all over, asked his questions, and seemed to have a clearer understanding of it, if not a perfect one. She looked at the time. They still had 17 minutes. Twelve really, since she was going to need some time to clean their equipment.

She scanned her eyes over to Simon, but he seemed to be engaged in speaking with a young student next to him. AngelFyre wanted to keep scanning the crowd, but it was hard to miss the literal writing on the wall above Liam’s head. Well, it was hard to miss it now. Either Liam had just done it, OR she had been so caught up in looking for her Handsome Hufflepuff earlier that she had missed it entirely. She was aware with her periphery vision that Colin was looking up into the stands too. He was even wearing a contemplative smile.

“Hey, look! Liam has marketed our potion brewing team into billboard proportions. ANGELCO is on Fyre! How fabulous is that?” When it seemed like he might be looking their way, AngelFyre waved up at him and was smiling like a loon. “That brother of yours is something. I like him almost as much as I like you. I am glad you got him back, Woofy.” She had been looking up at Liam the whole time, waving as she spoke, but as soon as that last sentence left her mouth, she felt Colin stiffen next to her.

She had not said it by accident. She knew it was touching on a painful theme for Colin. Loss. One cousin, Pollux, was killed just days ago. Another cousin’s fate was unknown. No matter how much they played at potioneering right now, she knew those heartaches were just beneath the surface. Perhaps talking about it in the few minutes they had, without committing to too awfully much, would be a welcome thing for him. People did not talk to her, really, after the loss of Grandma Ruth. The silence on the subject was worse. She knew the silence came from a loving place... not wishing to remind her of her loss and pain... but the thing was, it was there regardless. Talking about her grandmother was comforting, and more often than not made her laugh. She wondered if Colin had been able to talk about any of it.

If he wanted to scratch the surface, he was about to have that chance. “Is that Cursa with him?” There was a softening, distant kind of quality to his voice when he did speak. “I should take him to the broom races this weekend.” She nodded her head and then leaned over, resting it on his shoulder. “That sounds like a lovely idea actually.” They just sat there like that, in silence, until AngelFyre got up to scourgify the mortar, pestle, knife, spurtle, and cutting board.

Looking at her watch, their 32 minutes and 30 seconds worth of brewing time would arrive at 11:06:07 a.m. Mentally counting down the last 10 seconds, she finally chirped “Time!” and killed the fire beneath the brew altogether. Colin was at the ready with the jar of honey and poured it into the cauldron’s mixture. When the last drop dripped, AngelFyre stirred it all in with two (2) clockwise revolutions and then turned the heat back on to low, letting the contents sit for 10 seconds.

She nodded to Colin who approached with the worst smelling ingredient yet, and it was the flobberworm mucus. If they needed a thickening agent, why could it not be a banana? Or a potato? I mean... ewwwwwwww... mucus? She involuntarily shuddered. And then she tried not to gag when Colin added two disgustingly smelly spoonfuls of the wormy mucus into the cauldron, advising her that, “That stuff tastes worse than snot.”

She shot him a horrified look and shook her head in disbelief. “How... why...?” Why would he be privy to that bit of information?!? That was the unfinished part of her question, and she shuddered once again as a cold chill ran down her spine. If Simon had wanted to ease her into a comfort zone with his diet... not that she had ever been uncomfortable with it... he could have led with a comment similar to that just made by Colin. Blood has nothing over flobberworm mucus when it comes to the “ick” factor.

Then it occurred to her that Simon’s problem with it would one day be her own childrens’ problem as well. Maybe leading with the “Flobberworm Mucus Stratagem” as it would henceforth be known to her, might be a light-hearted ice breaker on the subject. AngelFyre tucked that notion away in her gray matter filing system, under the category of “Ideas”.

She reached for the spurtle once again and moved closer to the cauldron to give it a stir in a clockwise direction. The instruction on this step was very imprecise compared to the other steps. No set time and no set number of stirs. She decided she would stir it, in a clockwise direction, if she saw an occasional bubble surface. Only 2-3 did appear over the course of a few minutes, and when they did, they were swirled about clockwise. With each stir, she could feel a tightening in the brew, almost a resistance of sorts.

It had not started pulling away from the sides of the cauldron, nor had it come close to having a bread dough consistency, which would have been well beyond what they were looking for in her opinion. Her mother had told her that if you wait for something to cook through thoroughly in an oven, you will have it overcooked. It is best to remove from the heat and let it sit as it will continue to cook for some minutes thereafter. Something told AngelFyre this situation might be like that. It was by no means a liquid, but it had definitely thickened up. She turned the heat off and stepped back, allowing Colin room to complete the final steps.

He tossed the sprig of Cretan dittany into the cauldron. It did not sink as it would have in a liquid, but instead rested atop the mixture for about a minute and 45 seconds. It discolored the area immediately around it as it broke down and was finally subsumed into the paste-like brew. It may have been her imagination, but the flobberworm mucus was no longer the prevalent smell, and that was a very good thing. As soon as the sprig disappeared, Colin waved his wand above the cauldron, imbuing their healing paste with his magic.

AngelFyre had the jars waiting. She handed Colin the dragon hide gloves to wear as he poured their brew into the jars. Like the Black Fire Potion, she would label the jars once they had cooled.

AngelFyre noted with satisfaction that the brew was orange, just as it should be. Before she could think much more on it, Mr. Dramatic flung himself on their work station, proclaiming that potioneering was not for him. She had to chuckle at that. “I suppose you are right. Maybe the performing arts might be more your style,” and she chuckled some more, wondering if his acting could be any worse than her singing? Doubtful.

“The good news, Woofy, is the worst part of this is behind you. The next stage is the adventure!”

------- ---------- -------

Follow this link to Part 3, the conclusion of the Championship and see how they do with their final task, AFTER reading Colin's post below! - 'The Wizarding Schools Potions Championship" (aka The Final Task)

Reducio

OOC: Colin and AngelFyre have given permission to each other’s writer to godmod their characters.

For Moderation: Link to Potion II sign up with division of our actions

Colin practically died when AngelFyre said it would take forty whole minutes to wait. "This isn't magic. This is torture," he said under his breath. "Why can't it be more like spells? You just point and shoot!" She said something about Goldilocks and thirty two and half minutes. Colin slumped. "That's really no better than forty minutes you know!" he said. But AngelFyre knew better than to pay his carping any mind.

In fact, she didn't give Colin any time at all to fret over the long wait. She knew him well. Keep the boy occupied and you can hold him all day long! AngelFyre launched into one of her patented Lectures. This one was about hair plains. Colin crouched down and listened attentively. He giggled when she cuffed him and said 'Muggle-born malarkey moments' and 'Pure-blood poppycock nonsense'. AngelFyre had a way with words that Colin vibed with.

She seemed to have some difficulty getting her lecture started, but then decided to use props. Those always helped! Especially when it came to Muggle malarky! She showed him an enchanted paper aeroplane from her satchel, asking if he knew what it was. "Well of course I know what that is Fyre! It's an enchanted paper aeroplane! You can write notes on em and then throw them at the person you wrote the note to! Kind of like if you don't have Archimedes with you, you can just just draw little hearts all over this ---" Colin made little throbbing heart motions with his fingers as he smirked "--- and throw it at Simon! It's very basic magic, Fyre." Colin nodded knowingly. He sighed. He'd really have to get one of these. The paper aeroplane was much classier than wadding up a piece of parchment and throwing it at Clair to get her attention!

But then Colin got confused again. Because AngelFyre asked him what a hair plain was. Colin's eyes widened and he gave her a shrug. "I--- Wait. You don't know? Isn't it like --- er." Colin sought for an explanation. "It's some kind of comb or something?" Colin hadn't used an actual comb in more than a year. Ever since he'd learned some hair fixing spells, there was just no need!

But AngelFyre launched into her Lecture proper. Everything was going well, so long as she was talking about sensible things like floo powder. But then she started talking about clouds. And the kinds of brooms that Muggles fly in. And how the brooms make clouds. Colin scratched his head. "Nah. That can't be it! You mean those long stringy clouds? Those are thunderbirds, Fyre! They fly really high up! Maybe Muggles just don't know what they're seeing? And how do Muggles get inside of brooms anyway? Oh wait! Or is it Muggle magic, like with their hand boxes? And the telly pewter! I've seen those. Brilliant! They've got wee people inside the boxes that you can talk to! I saw one once, too!"

And then she clarified what she meant by shooting the burn paste. Colin had that all wrong! Finally the light dawned on his face. He gave Fyre a grin, showing off all his fangs! "Oh I understand now! It's not shooting anything! It's a pair of shoots! Like when you plant seeds and all. They grow into shoots!" Colin shook his head, as he thought about AngelFyre's explanation. "But Fyre. I-I don't have any growth potion with me! I know it's taught in herbology, but I don't think we have time to brew any growth potion just to a grow a pair of shoots so we don't have to shoot the burn paste!"

Colin's face turned all confused. His lovely green eyes stared at AngelFyre's. It's like she was talking an entirely different language. "Why does Muggledom have to be so complicated!?"

Before he even had a chance to explore the illogicality of Muggledom any further, AngelFyre decided that visuals would be helpful. Colin had to admit that, when it came to Muggle things, visuals really weren't all that helpful at all. It was just a different dimension of confuddlement! But she seemed certain that he would learn, so they pressed on. She drew a picture. It looked like a bird with a comb for wings.

Colin smacked on hand with the other and gave his bestie that 'see, this is exactly what I was talking about all along' look. "See! This is exactly what I've been talking about all along! A hair plain! Only this one's attached to a bird! Look!" He pointed excitedly at the object on the parchment. "See? It's got teeth!" He stuck his hand out, fingers extended. Then he ran it through his hair. "A hair plain comb thing!"

She drew more pictures. There was a grey bird. Maybe a goose? And a yellow bird. Must be a duck. And then a girl with a colourful umbrella tied to her back with strings. "Hm. Looks like someone cast a tying charm to her umbrella. I bet she'll never lose it that way! I've always thought Muggles were pretty smart. But if they had enchanted satchels, then they wouldn't have to tie everything to themselves!"

Colin nodded in perfect understanding!

Then AngelFyre said something that compelled complete and utter attention from Colin. Muggles leapt off of their brooms with seedling plants --- for fun!? Colin's jaw dropped and his eyes widened with the possibility. "Wait. Wait! You're saying that Muggles jump off of brooms for fun!? Whoa. WHOA! I've so got to try that Fyre! That sounds like so much fun! Mind you! I don't think I'm going to carry a pair of shoots with me. That doesn't make any sense at all. Even for something Muggle. But! Arresto momentum should take care of the problem of meeting the ground at an accelerated rate! Hmm." Colin's eyes lost focus for a while as she went on about Muggles jumping off of brooms with hair plains and greenhouse paraphernalia strapped to them. Maybe the plants got more air high up? He reckoned it would all come down to proper timing of the spell. Before actually hitting the ground that is.

"Hey look!" AngelFyre nudged him out of his reverie. She pointed up into the stands where Liam and Cursa were watching the competition. He gave them a wave. His body stiffened slightly when she said she was glad he had gotten Liam back. Of course, he was! His eyes were on Cursa. The memories of the previous days came flooding back to him and he just stood there. He didn't answer her. AngelFyre asked if that was his cousin. He nodded. Colin turned back towards their work bench, pretending to tidy up as he said he should take the boy to the races at the weekend.

Colin sighed deeply.

"We still don't know how Castor is doing. They took him to St Mungos, along with the other kids that were hurt badly. I reckon Cursa's parents must be in London by now. I wonder..." His voice trailed off. He hadn't said anything to Fyre about what happened this summer. Only that his little brother died and Ci was still in St Mungos. He never said anything about his parents or sisters or any of the rest of it. They'd have to have a talk soon! Up at the sacred place.

It had also been on his heart that he'd been ignoring his bestie for what seemed like a whole year. There was a lot going on in his heart; yet he couldn't help but feel like he needed to be there for AngelFyre too. As they finished up their potion work, Colin's mind drifted to what he knew of her story since last year. He honestly couldn't think of much. He knew that she'd suffered some deep losses in her family, but wasn't quite sure on the details. He had the bad feeling he never even asked her. That would gnaw at him until they could finally sit together and talk.

AngelFyre sure had some wacky Muggle ideas, but there was nothing like opening his heart to her knowing she'd open her own to him. Sometimes the best thing, when two people were broken or hurting, was to just be each other's crutches. Fortunately, AngelFyre always had a way of making Colin feel better! And, as he lay sprawled out across the work bench, nothing could make him feel better at the moment than when she said: "The good news, Woofy, is the worst part of this is behind you. The next stage is the adventure!”

Colin perked up! The interminably long centuries of waiting were over! "OWOOO!" he cried. "I'm ready for an adventure!"

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