Merlin's...beard...
Archie had to physically cover his mouth with his one hand to suppress the laugh that started when he heard Professor Adara's own sarcastically funny retort to Sloane's anecdote. He always loved those kinds of clapback comments, because if he were in the Potion mistress' shoes, he would've done something similar. Hearing her then do the same and offer a joke back towards the third year's own one was even better. While he wanted to do another pun, the Slytherin would ultimately refrain from doing so.
Not too long after that though, they would have their first instructions on how to start brewing the potion. But upon the young Archie hearing Ary's question on it, he'd pause on getting started, also curious to know. Then the Professor would clear things up saying that it wasn't to be heated yet, which the O'Brien was thankful for because it meant they didn't have to play with fire quite yet. However, he'd still get started.
First, he'd go about adding the water into the cauldron that he had set up. An easy step which would be shortly followed by the sound of the chopping of the alihotsy leaves. Those would be thrown into the batch after Archie felt as if they were diced up enough. Then there was some stirring, but slowly was relatively subjective; so it wouldn't be as slow as molasses, but it wasn't at least a normal stirring speed either. Next would be the laughing. He'd laugh into the still swirling small vat of soon-to-be-laughing potion. It wasn't done in excess, but he still hammed it up a tiny bit. A good laugh had to have some campiness behind it if it wasn't entirely wholehearted. Lastly, the next two steps would be done back-to-back. Grinding up the billywig wings until they were a powder, and adding that into the mix, giving it another relatively slow stir until this part was complete.
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... MISUNDERSTOOD ... DILIGENT ... SECRETIVE ... |