It's completely sanitary! PV Kage Suzuki closed

Mentioning/Interacting: @Avery Chen
Outfit
Languages: English, German, Japanese

It was the end of the day, and the end of the day meant 1) do homework, 2) practice Quidditch, or 3) dawdle around the castle until he managed to force himself back upstairs to the dorms to finish homework. Today, Suzuki chose option 3 without really giving much of a thought to it. His ribs were still sore from the last beating he took from the bludgers, and he didn't really feel like chasing small, highly dangerous metal balls around a massive stadium.

He was walking past the door leading to the abandoned toilets, an unsanitary, broken down place where Suzuki had accidentally broken part of the wall and the mirror. Actually, it wasn't really much of an accident, now that he looked back at it, when he heard someone humming. If not for his ears, trained from years of violin playing (he had originally thought that being super close to high pitched, not necessarily not-screechy notes would destroy his hearing, not improve it, but oh well), he probably wouldn't have heard the stuff.

But now the humming has piqued his curiosity. Moaning Myrtle? He had never actually met her, despite being here for a year already. Suzuki kind of doubted some girl who died in the bathrooms would hum, so he entered the worn down place.

Sure enough, it wasn't Moaning Myrtle. What he saw was way, way worse. A black haired guy had knelt on the floor, next to a book (potions book, he presumed), and a cauldron while pouring ingredient in it. Suzuki, not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, didn't really think about safety regulations, didn't consider the "what-if-this-guy-blows-up-half-the-school", but he did consider the ingredients being thrown in the pot, half-recklessly.

"That's the babbling potion, no? I think you might've done something wrong, but I don't really know. Never payed much attention," he said, with no hint of shame. Suzuki didn't really remember the lecture that day, but remembered that he had been watching the dripping faucet in the corner.

Were manual scales really more exact than electronic ones? He wondered. Manual balancing scales that were student-issue were likely not very accurate in the hands of Avery Chen. Maybe Hogwarts hadn't considered the Avery factor when they chose to issue these scales to their students. He supposed that an electronic one would be much more exact, as he scraped the ground-up ingredients carelessly into the cauldron from his scale. Some of the powder drifted onto his textbook, forming a thin layer of dust. He blew at the dust, trying to keep his textbook at least a bit clean, or free of whatever disgusting ingredients that usually went into these potions, but only succeeded in making himself sneeze and his eyes tear up. The humming of Cannon in D broke for a moment in a fit of coughing. This tune had been on his mind for a while, now. Perhaps he ought to search for enough string players at Hogwarts to form a quartet one day.

Okay, so potion-making on the floor of the Abandoned Toilets was not a very comfortable experience, but at least it was away from the prying eyes of Prefects and dormmates, and he would hopefully have a working Babbler at the end of the day that he could try out himself or feed to unsuspecting classmates. He also liked to think that he was making this attempt as a dedicated, proactive student who sought to excel in his academics, but who was he kidding.

"That's the babbling potion, no? I think you might've done something wrong, but I don't really know. Never payed much attention," a boy's voice spoke, and Avery looked up, just as he was tossing some other ingredients into the cauldron. As his initial surprise of having been found subsided, Avery examined the boy closely, and quickly decided that although the boy looked older, he did not seem to have the air of a prefect with his lackadaisical tone, or his appearance and posture that hinted he was a little rough around the edges.

Satisfied that the boy didn't seem to be the type to rat him out to higher authority, he let just the slightest hint of indignance show. "Wrong?" he asked, looking to his bubbling cauldron, trying to look absolutely aghast at the idea or at least very confused as to why someone would say that. Oh, he probably did do something wrong, as per usual in his trademark haste, but was he going to admit it? Surely not. He studied the textbook carefully, tapping his chin with a finger. "Well, it's almost done. Just need a few more moments of bubbling. It seems to be the right color, at least," he said, trying to play up the potion's positive attributes. Indeed, it was the right color, but he couldn't be sure if it was the right everything else.

He eyed the little bedside clock he had brought, and shifted more comfortably in his cross-legged position, unknowingly wiping the grimy bathroom floor a little more with the seat of his pants, and picked up some scattered ingredients to place them into respective bags to make his workstation a little neater, as much as a bathroom floor could be. A feat in futility.

"And that should be time!" he announced, and scooped a ladle into the cauldron to pour a bit into two glass vials. "Why don't you try one to see if it worked?" he asked, holding one of them out to the newcomer. "And we can see if I was wrong or not," he challenged the boy good-naturedly with a small, hopefully encouraging smile.

Mentioning/Interacting: @Avery Chen
Outfit
Languages: English, German, Japanese

The boy seemed slightly confused after Suzuki made his remark- he didn't blame him. Suzuki didn't really know much about potions, he only remembered all the ingredients and stuff thanks to pulling an all nighter before the exams. It was just for potions, too. He had spent the whole night rereading the textbook over and over while listening to vocaloids.

It had been one tough night. Actually, to be fair, it wasn't that bad, because he had been listening to vocaloids.

Whatever.

It was pretty bad.

He continued watching, lowering himself to a squat as the boy resumed his perilous looking potion. He finished rather quickly, and offered Suzuki a small vial of the stuff of the stuff, to his alarm.

"Why don't you try one to see if it worked?" He spoke, with a slightly hopeful, slightly evil looking smile.

Suzuki was alarmed. He had Quidditch games coming up soon- and if this stuff-
But as he kept processing the dangers of drinking this mysterious Babbling potion made in the dirtiest place in the whole castle (was that leftover feces in the toilet?), he found that he didn't really care. When it came to this, everything sensible left his brain. All that remained was the incredibly risk taking, street fighter, delinquent Kage Suzuki.

" Sure, why not? Heads up."

And with that, he threw the stuff down his throat.

He was testing his persuasion skills to the max when he offered a vial to the older boy. He put all the charm he could muster into his encouragement for him to give the potion a try. Anyone could see that this was not a sanitary potions-lab, and the way that he had haphazardly dumped in the ingredients with questionable measuring skills would've sent anyone else running when offered a vial of the stuff.

To his surprise, however, the boy accepted the mixture with little hesitation and downed it like a shot of baijiu. He stared at the boy briefly, admiring his sheer recklessness. Surely, he didn't have a death wish? Avery was ready to spend at least an extra few minutes trying to persuade a stranger to take this shot with him, perhaps by reassuring him that he wasn't failing potions, that he was a generally reliable eleven-year-old, and that it could be a fun experience, or maybe chide him a little if all the above didn't work, etc. etc., but the boy seemed to have little regard for consequences, maybe even less so than Avery Chen himself.

Once he was done staring, he shrugged with a grin. "Cheers," he said, raising the vial before pouring the contents down his own throat.

The stuff tasted alright as the grapes and valerian hit him first. It was like a juicy tea. But then the Aconite flower heads (he supposed that's what it was) hit him with a bitter flood. Bleh! He swallowed again just to get the taste out of his mouth and his face was overtaken by pure disgust. Soon enough, his mouth felt like it was on fire and he breathed quickly in an out through his mouth as if he just ate a Carolina Reaper.

"Whaha! (Water!)" he garbled, already starting the feel the effects of the Babbler. Or was it just because his mouth was burning? He snatched up his water bottle from his book bag and took a large swill to calm the flames in his mouth. "Ayr! (Here!)" he said, tossing the bottle to the older boy in case he needed a swig to save himself.

Next, his mouth was so hot that it became numb. All of a sudden, he couldn't taste the bitterness anymore. Did he just burn off all his taste buds or what? His heart rate slowed as he calmed down from the effects of the mixture. He smacked his mouth and swished his tongue along the inside of his mouth, but didn't taste anything. Luckily, he didn't feel much different physically, either. No immediate vomiting. Perfect.

"Ow hoo hoo eil? (How do you feel?)" he asked the boy. "Ee ah dwol oo di ood bwurg! (See I told you it would work!)" Was the potion only half-working? If one listened intently enough, and added a tad of creativity, they could probably understand him. Mostly. God forbid if the boy misinterpreted his words and thought he said something scandalous or horrible.

Mentioning/Interacting: @Avery Chen
Outfit
Languages: English, German, Japanese

He was obviously wrong about something wrong in the potion, because it worked well. Surprisingly well. One might even say too well, because both boys started babbling like crazy.

His throat burned. It tasted terrible. He wanted to hurl but for the fact his lunch wouldn't look very pretty coming out. He grabbed the bottle of water the boy tossed at him, and chugged the rest down.

He made a note to never chug random potions down ever again.

He choked and gagged for a few seconds before swallowing rather painfully. The stuff had burned a hole through his throat. Suzuki grimaced.

" Whe geg hag ir we is he ha re (shouldn't have drank it so quickly)" .
He highly doubted the other kid could make out what he was saying at all, but maybe the potion came with some type of gibberish deciphering.

His answer came promptly.

Out of the other boy's mouth issued forth a wave of consonants, nothing made sense at all. Suzuki shrugged.

" Ig gag ri het fe ha (no idea what you're saying)". It was pointless, so Suzuki found a crumpled roll of parchment in his pocket, and a Muggle pen he never even knew he had. He scribbled out No idea what you're saying on it, and handed the pen to the kid.

"Ho we hu regeg fe jag jap? (how long does this last?)". On instinct, he tried to talk. No luck, so he scribbled that down on the paper too.

Sorry about the late reply, I've been busy!