Okay, so, Aurora was excited about potions
all the time and needed something to tide her over until the first lesson. She had looked through the past recipes and decided to try her hand at a wit sharpening potion. She didn't intend to
use it for anything in particular. Besides, it was probably against the rules anyway. Aurora placed her cauldron on a stand and took out her wand, pointing it at her work area and muttering
"Scourgify, Turgeo" to make sure it was all clean. Then she put on her gloves and went to retrieve ingredients. She already had ginger root, fluxweed and scarab beetle in her own ingredients but would need to get the Armadillo bile from the storeroom.
She returned with the correct ingredients, measured out the right amount of bile and set up her scales. Before she began to weigh anything she poured the armadillo bile into her cauldron and, with her wand, lit a fire underneath it so that it could come to a boil whilst she measured out everything else.
Carefully she measured out exactly eight grams of fluxweed and placed it on a dish, ready to go into the potion. Then she peeled and finely chopped two and a half grams of ginger root, putting them on another dish. She glanced down at her cauldron and saw that it was beginning to boil. Aurora prodded at the fire, making it a little hotter, until the potion was at a
roaring boil, then she took a stirrer and dropped in the fluxweed before stirring it five times clockwise. When this was done she removed the stirrer and went back to measuring out her scarab beetle. She ground a couple into a powder and weighed them, nope, not quite five grams yet. She stirred the potion. Adding one more ground beetle she looked at the scales. Yep, that looked right. Five grams. Brilliant! Now to let the potion boil before she added the ginger... She flicked through her potions book as she waited, stirring the mixture every now'n'again.
After ten minutes she picked up the dish with the ginger on it and tipped it into her cauldron, checking that there was nothing left on the dish - she didn't go through all that careful weighing out for her potion to be spoiled by a stubborn bit of ginger refusing to go in. When the ginger was in she pointed her wand at the fire again, carefully bringing down the heat until the potion was at a simmer. Right, thirty minutes.
Aurora stood up and pointed her wand at the empty dish and the scales, muttering a couple of cleaning spells and replacing them to their storage. It's always good to clean up as you go along. Now that only the two full bowls and the gently simmering cauldron remained all there was to do was wait. Again Aurora flicked through her potions book... Ooh! Tickling Tincture? She would
have to try that... and that cure for the love potion! She'd probably need that when Louisa used that potion she had given her... Thirty minutes...
She stirred the potion anti-clockwise three times.
Tick tock tick tock...
Anti-clockwise three times...
Tick tock tick tock...
Anti-clockwise three times...
Tick tock tick tock...
Anti-clockwise three times...
Tick tock tick tock...
After the full time had elapsed, Aurora picked up the dish with the scarab beetles in and sprinkled them into the potion, putting the lid on.
Right... now she had to wait another three quarters of an hour... She cleaned the dish she had used for the scarab beetles and put it back into the store cupboard, then she went to fetch some phials to decant the mixture in when it was finished. She labeled each of them:
And now to wait... She suddenly had a thought, she turned to Professor Lafay.
"Excuse me Professor," she said,
"When I'm finished with this must I give it to you or can I keep it?" she asked. Because she knew that if it went wrong it could go terribly wrong... but everything seemed to be going alright so far...