Everything went so well until now. That was what Richard was thinking as he looked down at his now turquoise potion in cauldron. Well...he had just started actually and what could go wrong? The turquoise colour looked fine enough. The sight of was satisfying so the Slytherin grinned proudly. Still this did not meant he had accomplished anything as he had just started. He just needed to be very careful during performing the other steps so his potion could be as perfect as it should be. The matter of brewing a potion was like the matter of girls; one needed to approach and tend to it VERY carefully.

Still wearing his gloves, he carefully picked up one of the four containers of doxy eggs, which had the measure of three eggs in it just like the other three, and added the eggs into the potion. Still it seemed there was no need to be stirring so he just watched the egg stuff vanish into the turquoise liquid. Next, he was supposed to heat the potion again. So poking the burner again he started to heat the potion. His gray eyes did not leave the cauldron until the liquid inside finally turned pink. Good. Yes, this was still going fine.

Sierra nodded along as the directions were being given. She jotted down the list of ingredients then headed for the storeroom. She collected the dragonfly thoraxes, set of fairy wings, seahorses, and doxy eggs. Now, all she needed was that one extra ingredient.

"Ginger," she finally whispered to herself, and then she grabbed a selection of it and turned from the storeroom. She'd chosen ginger, because it was used in the Wit-Sharpening Potion. If she added it to her Girding Potion, she'd have endurance and smarts. Not that she wasn't already smart, but this would make her even smarter. It was just a win-situation.

She went back to her workstation and laid out all her ingredients. Then she set up her cauldron. Time to clean it out. With a wave of her wand, she said, "Scourgify!" With her cauldron now clean, Sierra added some water with a quick "Aquamenti!" Finally, she lit a fire under the cauldron. Now, time to add in everything she'd gathered.

That thing about how a watched cauldron never boils? It was apparently true, because Mo was watching and watching and watching, and his cauldron wasn't turning any color in particular. Water-colored, actually.

Mo poked at the flame a bit, and then he yelped loudly when he peeked back into his cauldron and found that the liquid had suddenly turned a vibrant turquoise. FINALLY. He held his robes up out of the way and he leaned waaaaaay in to check on how the liquid was merrily simmering away, and then Mo lowered himself back to the floor.

What next? One measure of doxy eggs... which was three of the little eggs. Funny thing... if he didn't stick these in a pot of boiling water, would he be able to grow up his own doxies and have incredibly vicious and loyal pets? HMM? Guess he'd never know, 'cause he dropped those three eggs into the cauldron and waited for the potion to turn pink.

Hecate turned around and was able to cast a shielding potion protecting herself and some of the students from the exploding liquid... some, but not all. "Miss Carter-Hope. I'm not sure why something as simple as peppermint would make your potion explode... you must have done something wrong in your brewing. Sit down and watch someone."

She looked over to the girl and said "You have potion in your hair..." She pointed out. Her hair would become stronger, but she was sure she didn't want goo in her hair the whole day...

"You're ok, get back to brewing..." she said.

"Yeah, you have it on your back..." she said pointing it out. "Harmless really, it'll just make it hard for you to cut your robes... not that you would..."

"Lovely, now that everyone is better acquainted GET BACK TO BREWING!" Sometimes children just weren't her thing...

She looked over and to the girl and said, "Evanesco it, and start over. Might have been contaminated by the potion."

Mmmm... Turner was doing well... odd.... She didn't take him for someone who seemed talented with potions, maybe she was wrong about the boy.

Breathing a sigh of relief when the professor the potion was harmless and she had it on her back still she pulled a face trying to look back over her shoulder. Harmless, but EW! Her eyes widened as she told told them to get back to brewing and quickly went back to her cauldron and bit her lip dropping her head as she evanesco'd it as told. Blasted exploding potions!

Frowning she used scourgify again and went back to collecting her ingredients to do the potion once again.

She couldn't help the glare she sent over her shoulder at the person who had gotten their potion in her hair and into her potion ruining it.


Filling the cauldron with water once again she added the two fairy wings and waited for the potion to turn turquoise as it heated.

They...were going to brew this potion on their own? Though not completely alone since Professor Lafay was still there, but she wasn't leading them along in the steps this time.

Well this would be interesting. Lots of things could go wrong, but hopefully nothing would.

So, first things first, ingredients. She scribbled the list down and went to retrieve them, making two trips and glancing at the list to make sure she had everything. Oh, and something random. Lafay had said something about that. So without really paying attention, Penelope grabbed whatever looked like it should go in the potion. Which...every ingredient looked like that, to be honest. But anyway. She took that to her work station too and then looked at the first step.

Add the wings. Okay.

She was about to do that when something hit her - cleaning. And water. And fire. Right. Gah. This was so hard to remember apparently...

Penelope cast a quick Scourgify to clean her cauldron and then Aguamenti to fill it with water and lit a fire under it with Incendio. Mildly pleased that she was still able to cast them all successfully, she added the fairy wings and started to heat it and wait for it to turn the turquoise...

Quote:

Originally Posted by lazykitty

Sky decided to add peppermint to her potion, not necessarily to make it more potent, but to make it taste better. Because who wanted to swallow a nasty tasting potion when they didn't have to? So, she added three sprigs of the breath freshening herb. Then she stirred. But she could not have predicted what happened next. The potion started sparking and sizzling. Uh oh. "Everybody DUCK!" she cried, diving under her own table just as....

*BOOM*

Her cauldron exploded, sending potion everywhere.

That thing she thought about nothing going wrong? Yeah, SHE was wrong.

Penelope didn't quite register the older girl yelling "Duck", as she was concentrating on her own potion, and before she knew it, something smacked her right in the head, almost knocking her into her own cauldron. Almost. The force made her lean forward slightly, but she managed to stay on her feet and avoid falling face first into the cauldron. Thank Merlin.

But...now she had potion in her hair. Meh. Could be worse - a lot worse, actually - but still. Ew.

Consider her slow, but Sophie was still gathering the ingredients and organizing them around her cauldron when the big explosion happened.

Good thing she was relatively close to professor Lafay and the woman's shield protected her from getting splattered by the potion. Phew!

Back to setting up her work station. The girl made sure all of the ingredients were there, checking the board every now and then. Before doing anything, she made sure to copy down everything she needed and the instructions too, just in case. She was pretty sure she'd be checking professor Lafay's instructions rather than the ones she wrote down, but still.

Let's start from the beginning, shall we? "Scourgify." Sophie cleaned her cauldron before pointing her wand at it again. "Aguamenti." The badger looked up at the board to make sure how much water they would need. She lifted the spell as soon as she thought that was enough water and put her wand down on the table next to some of the ingredients.

Hmm... she'd better start thinking about the additional ingredient she would add...

Twiddling her thumbs waiting for the potion to turn turquoise. Why her? Why was it it had to be right behind her? Sighing she saw the colour change and added three doxy eggs, and started counting out the 20 toasted thoraxes as she waited for the potion to turn pink. Sitting there just staring at the cauldron once again she blew hair from her face.

Plopping them in one at a time again one...two......seven.......seventeen....eighteen.. .nineteen. RED! Now to wait...once again as it heated.

As she thought about the additional ingredient, Sophie quickly looked at the board to see what would be the next step. A set of fairy wings. Lovely.

By the way, she had heard of a spell that could conjure fairies... how interesting was that?! So very interesting! She needed to learn that... imagine if she got to decorate her room with actual colourful fairies and all that?? Sweet!

Oh, Potions. Right, she needed to focus, as always. So she added the set of fairy wings after a few moments of observation. "Incendio." The fourth year lit up the fire underneath her cauldron and waited.

The thing that she truly loved about this potion they were brewing today was that it was going to keep changing colours if she brewed it correctly! Sophie was eager to see that, so she would be extra careful to not mess anything up and get it right so it would keep changing colours and being pretty. Teehee!

Humming under her breath she counted out twenty more toasted thoraxes. She breathed a sigh of relief as it turned blue and started plopping the next twenty in one...two......five.....eleven........eighteen.... .nineteen... Silver again. This potion was taking forever!

What was next....oh yeah doxy eggs. Alright... Staring into the cauldron she waited for it to turn red once again.

NOTHING was going to interrupt her this time, not even another exploding cauldron even if it landed on her a second time.

Pink. Of all the colours it had to be that one. Was it even supposed to turn that colour??? Her eyes shot to the parchment immediately and to her dismay it was right there in blue ink. Ugh. She needed to hurry up and make it change again. To do that she'd need...

20 toasted dragonfly thoraxes...she grabbed a handful of them ad began adding them into the solution. Now it was a good thing the instructions clearly said that it might not need all twenty because her solution had gone red from the 16th one. If it hadn't said so she would have gone on adding like it was the most natural thing in the world. She stared at it just a bit longer to make sure it was was red and once she was convinced she replaced the excess on the table.

Right. Now all she had to do was wait for it to turn...--EEEEeeeeep!!! It was gonna turn BLUE!!! Neat! She looked to the cauldron again, almost as if she was willing it to hurry up and change. Could she turn up the fire???

Her patience paid off soon after when she watched it turn a wonderful shade of BLUE. Grin.

Now THIS she could appreciate.

Her gaze started going around the room and even looking over at Nell and glanced back towards her cauldron. Dundedun.... RED! AHHHH here was the very point where it went wrong! Slipping the three measures of three doxy eggs each into the cauldron she started counting out the 10 nontoasted dragonfly thoraxes in next one at a time.

Now to wait....for the blue potion. She couldn't turn her eyes from it. it had to turn blue! NOT BROWN!

And... andddddd.... AND PINK HAPPENED. Mo hooted as his potion turned from turquoise to pink all on its own without him having to do any staring and grumbling and prodding at the flame with his wand. Of course, he had added the ingredients and things, so that part was all him. Double hoot.

Next up, they had to add up to 20 of the dragonfly thoraxes. The extra crispy ones, now the original recipe. Because the number could vary, Mo added the thoraxes more slowly. Thoraxes? Was that the plural? First he dropped in five and checked the color. Nothing. Definitely needed more. Mo dropped in another five and again checked the color. Stiiiiill nothing.

Now came the trickier part, because Mo didn't want to just willy nilly ruin his potion. Slowly, he dropped the next five in one at a time, watching for the potion to change before adding the next thorax. That was 15, and still the potion remained a very very pink PINK. He added another thorax. Nothing. Another. Nothing. Another, and the potion darkened from pink to a bold red.

How many was that? Mo tried to mentally tally how many thoraxes he added as he poked at the flame again. Eighteen!

She was still peering over into the cauldron her eyes wide hoping for the colour to change to blue. She didn't care what shade of blue, just BLUE! She didn't want to redo it a third time! She nearly squealed when it finally turned blue! The squeal was on her lips but then she looked up at the professor and had a feeling she probably better not squeal.

Taking the three seahorses she plopped them into the cauldron as well, and started chewing on her lip. She needed to come up with another item to put in the cauldron now. Flipping through her book she looked for something that might make a good addition while she waited for it to turn green.

Now that the potion had turned blue she was almost tempted to stop. It was a shame to have gotten such a nice shade of blue just to run the risk of having it turn something horrid again--like what if she added the next thing and it turned PINK?? She didn't think she would have been able to handle that!! Lex grabbed for the doxy eggs but then something on the piece of parchment caught her attention...

It wasn't time to add these as yet. Yeah...maybe she should start putting a line through the steps she already did because this was getting confusing. Grabbing her quill she began making the necessary changes to the parchment.

Back to brewing.

So now it was back to the 20 toasted dragonfly thoraxes...or well...another set, obviously. Just as with the first set, she began dropping them in while she counted. Slowly she saw the colour shifting until she was looking at a cauldron of red solution. But, that's what she had last time! What was the point???

That step seemed like a waste. She could have just left it red in the first place.

Now that the commotion was over, Jory got back to work. He added the three flying seahorses before setting the heat again. All he had left to do was to add the ingredient he had chosen. Soon though, the potion turned green. Success! The Potion had been brewed the right way.

The Puffer now reached for his ingredient- armadillo bile. It was used in the Wit Sharpening Potion so he thought it would be perfect to add to the Girding Potion. He was done now so he sat back down and waited for the class to continue.

She looked down at the red solution that was having a jolly good time keeping warm in her cauldron. The last few steps seemed a little pointless to her because she ended up with the same red thing all over again. But then...she was going to be grateful because at least it wasn't pink. She looked to the parchment that now had many lines through it...she didn't really mind because they told her that she was almost done.

Her next step was simple enough.

Eggs.

Lex huddle the eggs closer to her so she could just grab and get into the solution in a smooth go. She wasn't rushing or anything, she just thought it would have been more convenient than having to keep stretching across the table, possibly getting herself burnt just for a bunch of eggs. It was even less convenient because there were 9 of them. That would have been a lot of reaching and stretching.

After the last egg was dropped in she gave it some time to make up it's mind as to what colour it wanted to be. That's what it had been doing all along afterall; colour hopping.

She became concerned when it didn't start changing colour again but after another brief look down at her parchment she understood why. She had forgotten to add the 10 untoasted dragonfly thoraxes. No problem! She grabbed those as well and added them.

Oh! Lookit! After another minute of waiting it turned blue again!!!!!!!

She needed an ingredient... Flipping through the pages of ingredients and what they are for and used in, she kept peering into her cauldron waiting for it to turn green. Her eyes fell on an ingredient and that it gave a nice aroma! Well you wouldn't want to take a potion that smelled like rotten eggs right?

AND so far, the thing smelled absolutely disgusting!

Hurrying to the student cupboard she looked through it til she found it. Heading back to her cauldron she saw it had finally turned green! YAY! Dropping in the 'oppopanax' looking up she grinned as the smell turned much better.

Somewhere between being told not to mumble and being used as an example for the entire student filled dungeon, Edita Happenstance reached the conclusion that her Head of House sort of seemed to be obsessed with her. She also realized that the potion they were about to make had a lot of ingredients. To top it all off, it didn't seem like her Head of House wanted to be bothered by a lot of questions.

This was going to be ugly. This is why she was surely ending up in Remedials. If she survived with her eyebrows intact this time.

Ed widened her eyes at her desk companion before clearing away her parchment and quill to make room for the ingredients she was about to collect. On her way back, she avoided other moving students and did her best to not spill water anywhere but inside the cauldron.

She succeeded at that much.

"I wish Potions was like baking brownies. Brownies come in a box, and they don't take long to cook and they taste really good and don't give you weird side-effects," she whispered to Ezra, counting out the fairy wings, and throwing two into her water filled cauldron. "I mean, unless you're allergic to chocolate but otherwise I think everyone is okay with brownies."

Something exploded near him, but Ezra paid very little attention to it. There was no fire, and no one was really screaming, and Professor Lefay wasn't telling them to make the run for it. Completely inconsequential, then. Ezra brushed away the left over of something that had fallen on his shoulder, and then wiped his hand on his robes.

He piled his ingredients neatly on his work station, left the octopus powder a little on the side, and shot Edita a slightly sharp look, before resting his eyes on her cauldron. If he knew her - and he did - there was a possibility that she'd join in the Let's Explode Cauldrons club soon enough, and he'd rather get out of the way before she did as much. Ezra liked potions, and he didn't want his experienced to be ruined by having to run somewhere to wash away whatever mess Edita could potentially create inside her cauldron.

Neatly, he arranged his ingredients in his work station, but left the octopus powder a little on the side; that would be added last, or at least not anytime soon. He leaned forward, frowning at the insides of his cauldron, which looked clean enough to him, but one look around the class told him it wasn't enough. "I don't really like brownies," Ezra whispered back rather uselessly, as he cast tergeo on his cauldron for good measure. "May be allergic." Lactose intolerant, or something like that. His stomach was pretty much a toilet. It was unfortunate because he often forgot and the consequences were disastrous.

Ezra looked at the instructions, again, and frowned. He was supposed to add water to the cauldron, but the guide wasn't clear enough about how much of it. Steps and the right amount of everything was a necessity in potions making, that much the boy knew, but no one had asked the professor about that yet, and he didn't want to be the first to do so. He scratched the back of his head for a moment. Two spells right after the other could perhaps be a little too much for him and his wand. Ezra enjoyed potions because other than being a very hands on subject that required attention to detail, it also didn't need nearly as much spell-work as, say, Charms did.

In theory, it was perfect for him. Except for when it wasn't.

"Aguamenti," He said loudly, feeling beads of sweat form on the back of his neck.

Nothing. He tried again. "Aguamenti." A thin stream of water erupted from the tip of his wand. Ezra didn't allow himself to sigh in relief until the water hadn't filled a little over half of the cauldron. Then he looked at the board, again, and carefully took the fairy wings from his ingredients.

While Sophie waited for her Potion to become turquoise, she looked around to see what her classmates were doing and what additional ingredients they were choosing. Too bad she couldn't spot Mordred anywhere. He would surely have a good idea about that additional ingredient.

Ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!! The thing was turquoise and it was SO pretty!!! Sophie took a moment and just stared at the pretty liquid in her cauldron. Wow. Woooooooooow. Very pretty indeed.

But moving on. Merlin knew what could happen if she left that thing heating for longer than it should before she added the next ingredients...

The Hufflepuff proceeded to carefully add three doxy eggs after checking the next step on the board. She didn't want to miss the colour changing this time, so she didn't take her eyes off her Potion after having added the doxy eggs. She wanted to see every details of the colour change because it was surely going to be such a BEAUTIFUL sight!!

And she waited.... and watched.

Text Cut: instructions + ingredients

Ingredients

• Water to fill the cauldron
• 50 Dragonfly thoraxes (40 toasted/10 unheated)
• One set of Fairy wings (2)
• 3 Flying Seahorses
• 12 Doxy eggs (Divided in 4 measures of 3)

Instructions:

• Add the set of fairy wings
• Heat until the potion turns turquoise.
• Add one measure of doxy eggs. (That's 3)
• Heat until the potion turns pink.
• Add 20 of the toasted dragonfly thoraxes or until the potion turns red (sometimes it takes only 18 or 19, but never more than 20)
• Heat until the potion turns blue.
• Add 20 of the toasted dragonfly thoraxes until the potion turns silver (sometimes it takes only 18 or 19, but never more than 20)
• Heat the potion until it turns red again.
• Add three measures of doxy eggs. (That's the remaining 9)
• Add the 10 not-toaster dragonfly thoraxes.
• Heat the potion until it turns blue again.
• Add three flying seahorses.
• Heat until the potion turns green.

Penelope wiped as much of the potion as she felt she could get off with her hand as possible, Scourgifying her hand as she did a few times before noticing that the potion in her cauldron had finally turned turquoise. Well, that would have to do with the stuff in her hair for now. Professor Lafay hadn't seemed to fussed about the potion getting on some people, so it couldn't do much harm. She wouldn't be sprouting antlers or anything at least. Right? So back to her own stuff.

Glancing at the next step, it said she needed to add some doxy eggs next. Specifically three of them, which was apparently one measure. Okay, she could do that. Now seemed like a good time to put her gloves on. Penelope wasn't sure what doxy eggs did or didn't do, but gloves seemed like a good option anyway. Maybe she'd just wear them the whole time, just in case. Mhm.

So after pulling them on, she dropped one, two, three eggs into the cauldron and then continued to heat it, waiting for it to turn pink.

To be perfectly honest, November had chosen a moonstone as her additional item because it was there, because she liked the name, because she thought once she'd read that it had a lot of potions making properties. But that could have been something else entirely; she didn't entirely trust her potions judgement just yet.

It wasn't that she was bad at potions at all - she was decent, but decent was not great and only great and exceptional yielded the best results, which, frankly, left November a little bummed. The fact that they were so temperamental made them both intriguing like a puzzle and infuriating and she swung dramatically between the extremes. And given that something had just exploded, she felt herself veering closer to the infuriating.

"Brownies sound fantastic right about now," November murmured a bit morosely. "Ought to have nicked some biscuits from the last meal." Frowning at her instructions, if she and Ezra were to voice their concerns, they would find the similar perplexities of how much water and, much like Ezra, she didn't feel terribly eager to ask.

Their professor didn't seem to... care... much about the teaching aspects of her job.

Scratching the side of her cheek, she hazarded a glance at Eddie and offered her what she hoped was an expression of understanding (Potions is so much effort!) before watching Ezra. He seemed much more confident in potions than she felt, at any rate.

Copying him (with quicker ease, thank her wand) she filled her cauldron until it seemed to match the amount in his, and then grabbed for the fairy wings.

"Here goes this, then," she said out loud, pinching them between her fingers. Before dropping them in the cauldron, she offered them a cursory glance. "Exactly what do these do?" she wondered out loud, frowning once again. If she happened to grow bored enough, perhaps she'd look it up in her Potions text.

It wasn't long until the turquoise of her Potion started being replaced by an almost lilac shade - which was SO beautiful, by the way - before getting lighter... and it was now... pink!

Lovelyyyyyyy!!!

Sophie beamed at the pretty Potion in front of her and admired it for a bit again. Maybe that one would become one of her favourite Potions just because of this whole colour changing scheme. That was PURDY! Truly purdyy!!

But then again, she needed to focus. This one she could not mess up otherwise the colours wouldn't change that well, because who knew what could happen if she got something wrong.

RIGHT. Next step. Whoa, that was a lot of dragonfly thoraxes... and they were adding way more than that later on, from what she could see. Sheesh. The poor things... But Sophie didn't give it that much of a thought and started adding one by one.

Meerliiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnn!! This was so beautiful she couldn't even! Sophie was amazed and her eyes sparkled as the Potion gradually darkened as she added each of the dragonfly thoraxes. When she dropped in the 19th thorax thingy, she eyed the mixture for a bit, deciding whether or not to add the last one. It was a beautiful shade of red, but... maybe it could get even prettier???

It was worth a try!

So Sophie added the 20th dragonfly thorax and her eyes widened and her mouth was now ajar. The red that she thought was pretty got even more beautiful and strong! Meeeeeeeeep!!

Yep, it was official. Coolest Potion ever!

Text Cut: instructions + ingredients

Ingredients

• Water to fill the cauldron
• 50 Dragonfly thoraxes (40 toasted/10 unheated)
• One set of Fairy wings (2)
• 3 Flying Seahorses
• 12 Doxy eggs (Divided in 4 measures of 3)

Instructions:

• Add the set of fairy wings
• Heat until the potion turns turquoise.
• Add one measure of doxy eggs. (That's 3)
• Heat until the potion turns pink.
• Add 20 of the toasted dragonfly thoraxes or until the potion turns red (sometimes it takes only 18 or 19, but never more than 20)
• Heat until the potion turns blue.
• Add 20 of the toasted dragonfly thoraxes until the potion turns silver (sometimes it takes only 18 or 19, but never more than 20)
• Heat the potion until it turns red again.
• Add three measures of doxy eggs. (That's the remaining 9)
• Add the 10 not-toaster dragonfly thoraxes.
• Heat the potion until it turns blue again.
• Add three flying seahorses.
• Heat until the potion turns green.

Eventually...finally...pink! There it was! It was a nice pink too. Hm. She did kinda like this potion so far, if only for the colors. Would it taste better than other potions because of the colors? She wondered...

But anyway. Need to make the potion first before it can be used.

Next on the list was...adding twenty of the toasted dragonfly thoraxes so that it turned red. Penelope liked that color. And not simply because it was one of Gryffindor's colors though that was part of it. This would take a little while though wouldn't it? There were twenty after all...unless her potion was nice and turned red on the eighteenth or nineteenth ones. Hopefully it would. Less work for her...

But here we go.

One...two...three...four...five......