Yeah, It's Basically Cooking
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"So, it's basically like cooking?" Iris asked as Leysritt sat beside her over the potion cauldron they were sharing.
They were going over Potion basics so that she wouldn't be confused when they started on Alchemy.
"Hmmm..." Leys raised a finger to her chin and seemed to lose focus for a second. This didn't stop her from tapping on the next stirring instruction on the book in front of them a second before it was required, signaling Iris to continue the mixing. "Yes." She said eventually, and left it at that.
"Snape always goes on about how it's some fancy art that's way more than just cooking." Iris groused while she stirred away.
"Do you remember the instruction?" Leys asked.
"Stir counterclockwise, once every three seconds until the liquid turns a fine shade of robin's egg blue." Iris recited. "Which is a dumb instruction. I don't even know what 'robin's egg blue' looks like."
Leys placed a finger to keep the page in the potion book they were working from, then flipped to the very back of the book and began scanning through pages.
"Here." She put the book down and pointed to a specific page.
Iris glanced away from her stirring to take note of the page.
The heading of the page said: "Color References - Robin's Egg Blue". Beneath that was a number of swatches displaying different shades of the color. Leys was pointing to a particular swatch labeled "fine".
"That is... very helpful." Iris said.
"You haven't read the Reference section?" Leys clarified, her voice still bland.
"Uhhhh..." Iris blushed. "No. It was never assigned reading."
Leys just stared at her for a moment.
"Homework." She said flatly, before turning to address the other member of the tutoring class. "Sakura." The girl looked up from reading her book. "Have you read the Reference section for your book?"
"No, ma'am." Sakura replied.
Leysritt stared at her coldly for a second.
"No, Leys." Sakura amended herself. "It hasn't been assigned to us yet."
The class had started with formalities being used, until Leys had complained about it feeling too stuffy. Now they were all supposed to use each other's first names.
"Homework." Leysritt nodded solemnly. "Don't memorize, just know what's there for when you need to use it."
"Yes, ma'am." Sakura replied curtly and picked her book back up..
She had barely turned her head back to her book before she was interrupted by Leys flicking a piece of chalk at her, striking Sakura's forehead.
The girl yelped and glanced up to find Leysritt pouting silently at her.
"Yes, Leysritt." She amended. Leys smiled and the girl returned to reading.
"Sorry." Their teacher said, causing them both to look up at her. She was still looking at Sakura. "It's... boring... I know." She spoke slowly, as if picking each word carefully. "But you need... basics."
"It's okay, Proff—Leysritt." Sakura said, catching herself and smiling at their teacher. "I know I'm behind, but I'm excited by the opportunity to learn."
Leys studied the girl for a moment before nodding and turning back to the cauldron she and Iris were tending.
"Your timing is off." She noted, jolting Iris into looking back at her potion.
It had been slowly becoming more and more blue, but it was now slowly shifting towards a muddied brown color.
Iris cursed under her breath and began to count the seconds in her head for the correct stirring rate. The mixture began to shift back towards blue, but brown spots remained.
They worked in silence for a moment, with Iris glancing back and forth between her cauldron and the correct color reference.
"Cooking is an art." Leys said suddenly, nearly causing Iris to miss her timing to start the next stir.
Iris fumbled for a moment to make sure the potion wouldn't mess up even more before she realized that Leysritt was picking up their previous conversation.
"The last time someone in my class compared potioning to cooking, Snape took away forty-five points and failed that student's potion for the day." It was one of the few times someone had lost more points than her on a given day of Potions Class. It was still a Gryffindor that lost them though. "He said that something as mundane as cooking could never equal the miracles potions could produce, and that comparing them was an insult to the art of mixing potions."
Leys snorted, then fell silent again, simply staring down at the cauldron they were using.
Iris judged the color to be correct and stopped stirring the mixture. Leys flipped back to the mixing instructions, and Iris grabbed a few pre-cut ingredients to toss into their developing potion.
The next instruction was to stir the mixture clockwise thirteen times. She sighed and began to count in her head as she made the motions.
"Dumb." Leys commented abruptly, causing Iris to jump a bit, and throwing off her smooth stirring. A few blooms of yellow began to form on top of her potion.
Iris quickly glanced at the instructions again. Yellow coloring was not mentioned at all. It probably wasn't supposed to do that. Her hand had kept moving though, and the yellow coloring wasn't spreading, though now she couldn't remember if she had stirred it six times or seven.
"You can create amazing miracles with cooking." Leys asserted, glaring at the wall as if it was arguing with her.
Iris kept stirring. They were still on that conversation?
Then she paled, she was either on the twelfth or thirteenth stir now, but she was betting on the twelfth.
She stirred once more, then grimaced as the potion began to coagulate into a thick, syrupy substance with brown and yellow dots mixed in among splotches of different blues.
She removed the stirrer and put out the fire under her cauldron with a wave of her wand and a soft incantation.
"I'm not arguing with you." She told Leys, who was now calmly examining the resultant mess in their cauldron. "A good cook can definitely create miracles." Like Shirou somehow managed to do for three square meals a day over the summer. "But—."
She was interrupted by the classroom's door opening to admit Sella, who stepped into the room and looked around in surprise.
"Sella." Leys said with a touch of cheer in her normally moderated voice. "Did your class finish early?"
"Leysritt." Sella pressed her hand to her forehead. "Your class should have ended fifteen minutes ago. I was coming by to see how your first class went."
Leysritt brought her left wrist up to her face and examined her watch for a few seconds.
"Oh." She said eventually. "Class went well." She nodded. "Sakura is dutiful and smart. Needs the basics before we can do anything though. Might be better to give her homework instead of making her come to classes."
"Leys." Sella frowned at her companion. "The girl is right there."
"Right." Leysritt turned to face Sakura. "What do you think? Come to class, or get assignments and meet sometimes?"
"Whatever you think is best, Professor." Sakura answered sincerely. "I don't want to be a nuisance."
Leys's mouth twisted into a frown as she looked at the girl, completely ignoring Sella indignantly trying to explain that it wasn't what she had meant. Leys stared for a solid ten seconds before Sakura caught her mistake and squeaked.
"I meant, Leysritt, ma'am."
"Mmmmm." Leys hummed. "Homework. Self-study. Come to me when you have questions or need more work. I'll give you an assignment tomorrow." She nodded to herself.
"Iris is good." She carried on. "Not great at getting the concepts by reading." Iris glanced away. "But picks it up quickly with hands on." Leysritt made some grabbing motions with her hands and hummed. She then glanced over to the mess of a potion they had been working on earlier. "Gets distracted easily though."
Sakura laughed lightly, while Iris tried to glare at the professor through the rising blush on her face. Very few people complimented her ability to learn things, especially with the company she kept. Shirou would compliment when she was training with him, but it felt nice to have someone who wasn't a friend say something nice about her that didn't have anything to do with slaying Voldemort.
"That's good." Sella replied, her eyes tracking Leys to see if she was going to start blurting things out again. "Things seem to be going rather smoothly here." She smiled at Iris. "I guess Professor Snape is more of a book teacher than a hands on teacher."
Iris's giddy excitement at being complimented died a small, cold death.
"And he hates me." Iris commented.
Sella was a bit taken aback by the blunt remark.
"It can sometimes seem like that when a teacher is handing out bad grades." Sella attempted to mollify her. "But it is probably just a misunderstanding."
Iris scowled at her.
"I regularly lose points in that class for 'taking notes too loud' or 'being a distraction.'" She made air quotes as she retorted.
"I think—." Sella began to reply before she was cut off by Leys raising her hand.
"He's an idiot." She said bluntly.
"Leys!" Sella chastised.
"Severus is an idiot." Leys nodded and turned away as if the discussion were done. "Class dismissed."
Sakura and Iris sat silently for a moment, trying to catch up with the transition.
Leys made little shooing motions with her hands, and the two girls began to gather their materials to go.
"Leysritt!" Sella hissed. "You can't just call another professor an idiot in front of students."
"He hadn't assigned reading the Reference section of his potions books."
Iris was turned away at that point, but she could practically hear the surprise in the air from Sella. Sakura was already at the door, and Iris hurried to follow her.
"But that's so elementary!" Sella said, forgetting to keep her voice down. "How could he forget to do something so simple?"
"He took points for someone saying potions was like cooking. Said they were incomparable."
"What!? But they're practically the same thing!"
"Idiot." Leysritt said, causing Iris to smile as she reached the classroom door.
Iris tapped the doorframe on her way out. Leysritt was hard to keep pace with, but she was quickly working her way up to being her favorite teacher.
"Iris." Leysritt called out before she could leave.
She hummed a questioning tone as she turned around.
Leysritt seemed at a loss for a moment as she thought out her next words.
"If you need help," she paused again, "I'll help."
Iris stood in the doorway for a moment while she waited to see if there was anything else the teacher wanted to say.
"Thank you?" She cocked her head, wondering how to interpret Leys's words.
Leysritt just smiled and began to clean up the station they had been working at, so Iris took it as her cue to leave.