Olly was not feeling to confident about his ability to pass this Potions final. But he was going to try his best and hopefully not disappoint either of his dads by completely failing. He didn't have to be perfect or anything, but he wanted to be able to at least pass. He studied his potion card and went to the front of the room to gather his ingredients first. Most of them were fairly straightforward and he selected them with ease, but a few were less easily recognizable. A few he lifted up and sniffed before making a selection. But eventually he made it back to his seat with what he hoped were the right ingredients.

First things first, clean the equipment of course. He cast a quick scourgify over his cauldron, measuring equipment, and stirring spoons. When he was satisfied he'd gotten everything cleaned it was time to start brewing. All he needed to do was bring some water to boil, which was simple enough. He measured out three litres and filled his cauldron. Then he cast incendio to start the fire under his cauldron. While that was boiling he could prepare the next ingredients.

2 cups of horklump juice. He was pretty sure that ingredient was the right one. He'd worked with it before and was pretty confident he'd been able to properly recognize it. That was ready in his measuring cup for when the water was boiling. Most of the rest of the ingredients did not need much preparation, which saved him some time. He scanned down the list until he got to wolfsbane. It needed to be roughly diced, which was something he could do while he waited. Olly used his clean knife to dice it. It was nice that it said roughly diced, so he didn't have to be too careful.

Then it was time for Olly to pour one cup of the horklump juice into his mortar. To that he added the mucus, seven fangs, and slime. The fangs and slime he was pretty confident about, but the mucus was less certain. He'd chosen what he thought most looked like mucus and hoped it was correct. That one he hadn't used or studied as much. With those four ingredients in the mortar he crushed them until it was really gooey, and also had turned purple. By that time the water was boiling so he dumped the goo into his cauldron. Also the rest of the horklump juice. Why hadn't that also gone into the goo? It just needed to be added separately which Olly didn't really understand but obviously there had to be a good reason.

Rip the sprig of mint in half? That was weird. Why would it make a difference if it was two half sprigs or just a full sprig? Wasn't it exactly the same thing. But Olly didn't argue with instructions. He simply ripped his sprig of mine in half and added both halves to the cauldron. It certainly made it smell better. Did it serve any other purpose?

The next step required him to wear gloves, which he scourgified before putting on. He held the stewed mandrake in one hand while he used to other to drop seven drops of honeywater on top of it. When that was done he cut the mandrake in four fairly equal pieces and added them all to the cauldron. Alright, that had been easy enough and he felt confident about both of those ingredients. The next one he was less certain about. He'd chosen two ingredients that looked mucus-y, but he really had no idea which was the flobberworm mucus and which was the sloth mucus. He decided at random so he had a 50-50 shot of getting it right. As he added a cup of what he hoped was the sloth brain mucus he hoped nothing too horrible would happen if he had, in fact, mixed them up. Because that was very likely.

There was not a lot of pausing while making this potion. He just added ingredient after ingredient without stopping to stir or let it brew or heat up or cool off or whatever. At least it kept him busy. Olly dropped in two moondew drops then stirred twice. First counterclockwise and then clockwise. That was it, then it was time to move on to the next ingredient.