After a few minutes, Austin checked the consistency of his paste. It was smooth, like the professor wanted, so he figured that was enough mixing. He made sure to carefully add it to his cauldron, careful not to let anything splash. If there was one thing he learned, it was that letting the potion splash could cause one of two things. One: you could throw off the balance of your potion, and mess everything up. Or two: you could burn yourself. Both have happened to Austin in his five or so years of potion making, and neither were fun.

Once that was added, he took out his stirrer, cleaned it, set his timer for three minutes, and began stirring clockwise. The professor said there should be about 8 seconds in between each stir, so he went to counting. "One of Merlin's beard hair... Two of Merlin's beard hairs..." and on it went until he reached the number 8. When he reached the number eight, he reset to number one. On and on it went until the three minutes was up.

Ding!