Heath was pleased that his answer was well received, despite his lack of knowledge about how instant cameras worked. Oh, and there were wizard versions of instant cameras too? That got his curiosity piqued. He wondered if his brother had one of those. Maybe that could be a Christmas gift idea… but now wasn’t the time to think about that. Mentally filing that idea away for another time, he focused all his attention on Professor Varma as she spoke. His dark eyes darted toward the cauldron at the front of the room, watching it with interest. What caused the potion to move around like that? And did the movement of the potion in the cauldron somehow affect the movement of the pictures it would eventually be used on?

The instructions appearing on the chalkboard simultaneously answered his questions and raised another. Was the spell Agitatum responsible for the potion’s movement in its own right, or did the ingredients play a part too? Never mind, he was overthinking. He could always research the answer in the library later. Now he needed to focus on the potion. He neatly laid out his cauldron, measuring cup, mortar, pestle, and dropper, cleaning each one with a quick Scourgify.

Once his materials were clean, he aimed his wand into the measuring cup and cast Augamenti, carefully eyeing the water level all the while. When it reached the 1 cup line, he stopped the spell and dumped the contents into his cauldron. Then he repeated the process for the second cup of water. With the 2 cups of water now in his cauldron, he ignited a low flame in the burner using Incendio. He watched the cauldron closely, and when the contents began to simmer, he measured out the elf-made vinegar and added that as well. One cup, two cups.

Heath counted out three dransul leaves and placed them in his mortar. As he picked up his pestle to begin crushing, he overheard Lisa’s question about the acid. Although he couldn’t stop in the middle of the task, he did move his hand closer to the top of the pestle to avoid accidental skin contact. Was it weird that he found the crushing process calming? It was like he was crushing all the things that troubled him. Soon, liquid oozed from the crushed leaves, and he set the pestle down, trading it for his dropper. Still taking care not to accidentally touch the acid, he filled up his dropper and dropped one, two, three drops into the cauldron. Then he made three counter-clockwise stirs.

Heath retrieved three billywig stingers from his potion kit and added those to the cauldron as well, watching intently as the potion’s color changed from clear to burgundy. He liked that color! After a quick pause to make sure the color transition had stopped, he picked up his wand for the spellwork portion. Merlin, he hoped his did this right! A look of intense concentration crossed his face as he aimed his wand at the potion and made a spiral motion. “Agitatum!” he cast clearly and firmly. Did it work? He peered into the cauldron to find the contents sloshing about. He did it! He took the sloshing potion as his cue to add the snargaluff pod.

Fortunately, Heath was much more confident about the next spell, having done this one before. He aimed a nonverbal Glacius at the flame, making sure it went all the way out before turning his attention back to the cauldron. As he watched the color darken and turn from burgundy to black, he smiled a little to himself. For some reason, he associated burgundy and black as Sith colors! With the color transformation complete and the potion still moving about in his cauldron, he set his timer for thirty minutes and used the cooling time to clean his instruments. As he finished cleaning, he looked to the front, awaiting further instructions.