Realizing she was lagging behind, Sierra began to rush to catch up to the others. She eyed her mom, worried that she'd see the lack of progress and go completely nuts. Hopefully not. Sierra reached for the set of fairy wings. She looked at them closely before adding them in. Fairy wings. She wondered what they did for this potion. Shrugging to herself, she dropped them in then began the waiting game.

After letting the potion heat for a little while, Sierra peered into the cauldron to check the color of the brew. Turquoise. Excellent. She measured out just one measure of the doxy eggs she'd collected then added them to the potion, as well. Insert another round of the waiting game here. When the potion had had time to heat this new ingredient, Sierra checked the color again. Pink. So far, so good.

Twenty toasted dragonfly thoraxes... That had to be the weirdest ingredient in this potion. And to make it even weirder was the fact that this ingredient was toasted. Like marshmallows. Except... no one would want to eat toasted dragonfly thoraxes with their s'mores.

Shudder.

He shook his head and started separating out the dragonfly thoraxes. The unheated ones were placed to one side first before he started separating out the toasted ones in half. Once that was done, Alec gathered up a pile of twenty toasted dragonfly thoraxes and added them into his pink potion. There. Now he needed to stir... and wait for it to turn red.

1... 2... 3...

... Wait... What if he couldn't tell whether the potion was pink or red? Because... wasn't pink really close to red? So what if it looked really really similar? ... 11... 12... 13... How would he be able to tell the difference and know when to stop stirring? When it turned completely red? ... That was probably it. Maybe. Shrug.

... 17... The potion was neaaaaarly red now... ... 18... Neaaaaaarly red... ... 19... Very very close to red... ... 20! RED LIKE THE QUAFFLE. Or... something.

That was probably a weird connection for him to make.

The fifteen year old shook his head again before letting his grey-blue eyes wander over towards his Potions journal. The next step was just to heat it until it turned blue. Awesome! So he just had to stand there and hum wait. This potion really did require a lot of patience, didn't it? Patience and waiting and more patience.

But he had plenty of that because he could just hum and wait and hum some more to the song stuck in his head.

...

...

OH WAIT STOP, IT WAS BLUE. Hello blue potion!

SPOILER!!: Journal thingymabob

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)
--> Extra ingredient!

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.
--> Add in extra ingredient

Sooner or later, Ezra was going to have to get over his bad habit of ignoring her. Edita stared at the crown of his head, thinking that she was all too familiar with it. Grumbling under her breath, she tapped the side of her cauldron with her wooden stirring spoon twice. "Fine!"

Fine! Be that way, you Grass Muncher.

There were more important things at hand that Happenstance needed to focus on, like her potion, and November's chatter--maybe. Seeing as she was told to ignore it, Edita made another face and busied herself with keeping count of how many firefly body parts she was throwing into her cauldron.

Sixteen...Seventeen...Eighteen.

She paused and frowned, waiting for an immediate reaction. The potion's color didn't change immediately, and at first she could barely tell the difference in the pink, but the color soon began to deepen, resting on a deep maroon. "Maybe two more," she told herself and dropped two more. The potion simmered slowly for a while before changing to a bright scarlet. "I think so, looks almost like mine."

Which was one was closer to being correct, Edita had no idea but if she was betting, she'd put her knutz on November. "Now we heat until it turns blue." Edita stared at the inside of her cauldron before bending at the waist and peeking at her fire. "Should I lower or raise the heat?"

Alice pulled back that sleeves of her robe, freeing her hands and allowing them to hold onto the edge of her table so she could stand on her toes and peek inside her cauldron. That was turquoise, yup, no mistaking that vivid color. She lowered herself back to the floor and began to sort out the next ingredients.



"Do girls attack your face often?" Alice asked distractedly, paying more attention to sorting out a measure of doxy eggs than to the words spewing out of her mouth. "A measure of eggs.. that's three, yeah?" She waited for Dylan's okay before proceeding to stick the first doxy egg in the cauldron. And then she got distracted again.

HE WAS GOING TO CUT HIS HAIR OFF? What? No! Alice was about to protest, but she stopped herself, on account of she didn't want it to seem like she was attacking him. Because she didn't attack anyone unless it was during Quidditch, with her teeth or a bludger. So she just attempted to give him very stern and disapproving looks from her brewing station and look very non-attackerish. And then Alice dropped the other two eggs in the turquoise potion, waiting for it to turn pink.

The potion simmered, and Ezra watched it intently, hoping for the best but expecting the worst. He was not terrible at potions - he was actually relatively good - but it wasn't really a subject to take lightly. One little mistake and things go out in a spectacular boom. Which come to think of it wasn't necessarily bad if it was a spectacular one, but someone's cauldron had already exploded, earlier, and he didn't want to be called a copy-cat.

Regardless, he waited for the boom.

It never happened.

He couldn't say he wasn't at least a little bit disappointed.

Methodically, Ezra began to drop the thoraxes into the blueness of his cauldron, careful to not dipping them all in one go. "Hmm." When there was one thorax left, the blue shifted into an interesting shade of silver, that he eyed, speculative. Ezra was reminded of coins. Of sickles and muggle sickles (muggle sickles?) alike. "I think it looks like blood." It was as a compliment to November's potion-making skills, of course. But it'd been low enough that it probably sounded more like he was talking to himself.

Speaking of red, Ezra toyed with the flames again, and waited his potion to go back to its previous scarlet appearance. He was tempted to ask the professor what the ever-changing colors represented for the potion, but decided against it. Later. He'd do it later. Maybe.

And so Anya, with a bored expression, kept tossing those toasted thoraxes into her cauldron. Her pile looked about half gone. That meant... it should be turning red anytime now.

She dropped another in. And then waited. Nope.

Another. Wait.

Another. Pause. RED!

Brilliant. She then lit the fire again under her cauldron with an "Incendio." She then carefully watched the cauldron. She really hoped that watching a cauldron wasn't the same as watching a pot.

Of course, she wasn't going to take the risk of looking away. No sirree. Potions were serious business.

Shortly after, she was rewarded with a blue potion. She grinned to herself and ended the fire with a "Finite." She then crossed those instructions off her list.

Peyton waited for the potion to heat up and turn blue. She wondered why it was that the potion had not turned pink again. She would have asked Professor Lafay if she had been curious enough, but right now her stomach was grumbling at her. She wanted foooood.

Remembering the task at hand, Peyton looked at her parchment then back at her cauldron. Oh! The potion was blue! Her lips turned upward into a happy crescent. "Hmmm," she hummed, going over what she had to do next. Ah, the three flying seahorses.

Then she got distracted. She wanted to go flying. Maybe she'd go flying before heading to the Great Hall. Or maybe she'd eat, nap and THEN go flying? Yeah, that sounded like more appetizing idea. With that decided, Peyton got back to work, adding the three flying seahorses to the mixture.

Okay... so the next step was similar to the one he had just done. That was good because... nothing could go wrong, yeah? He just had to add and stir. Yeah... add and stir, add and stir. But no stirring in between.

Alec reached over and scooted up the rest of the pile of twenty toasted dragonfly thoraxes and added them into his blue potion. This time, things would be a lot more interesting because -- 1... 2... 3... -- the potion was going to turn SILVER! Like... the colour of proper silver? Like the metal? Or was it going to turn a sort of silver that was a lighter version of grey?

... This potion was going to sort of nearly represent his eye colour.

... 7... 8... 9...

Alec's grey-blue eyes widened slightly as he looked down at the potion. It was changing colour. It wasn't exactly silver yet but... it was starting to become a mix of blue and silver and... GRIN. This was pretty exciting, actually. His eye colour, sort of, was in a POTION. And it was only his normal one at that but... this was AWESOME.

... 18... 19... 20!

SILVER POTION WAS SILVER.

The Hufflepuff grinned some more as he stopped stirring. His eyes flew back to his journal and he crossed off that instruction with his quill. Next... he had to wait. He stood there and looked down at the silvery swirling potion, his grin now changing to that of a sad smile. If the potion was a little darker... it would remind him of a certain person. One he had never ever met before but whose eyes he had received.

...

Except the potion was red now and he certainly didn't have red eyes. Furrowing his eyebrows in confusion, Alec looked back over at his journal and grinned a little. Awesome! It was heated and red!

SPOILER!!: Journal thingymabob

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)
--> Extra ingredient!

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.
--> Add in extra ingredient

Creative potioneering? Lafay was SERIOUSLY testing fate here. It was no secret that she messed up the simplest of potions, but the fact that she was giving them a potion with a choice ingredient at the end? Oh no, no, no. This had bad written all over it in big, huge BLACK letters. Tempting fate did not even begin to cover whatever this whole experience was going to be. Ugh, merlin.

Doing the best that she could, she collected the ingredients just as Lafay had instructed. And as she started to slowly go through her steps that had been advised to her by... people... she drew her wand and scourgified the cauldron. First step down pat. Following that she filled the potion with water. Everyone once and a while she had to remind herself to breath because breathing was relatively important in the grand scheme of things.

In the middle of finalizing her final pre-potion making steps, she heard Lafay address the class once more and she dropped her wand in a monetary moment of pure and utter panic. Who, what, where? Oh awkward... she picked that up and tuned in to what her professor was saying.

And OF COURSE she was talking about Dylan. It almost made her roll her eyes, ALMOST. But she knew if she made any outward expression to that Lafay would have made her sit at the front of the classroom again without working and being UTTERLY embarrassed. She just didn't want that again, okay? But she did not stop herself from sneaking a glance over at Dylan... and BITER?! Ahem, not cool.

Potion time. Remember to breath and not pass out. Both of them were sort of key but breathing took the number one spot because of obvious reasons. Duh.

Grabbing a set of fairy wings, she threw it into the cauldron and began to heat it up. She could almost hear this awkward song in the back of her head, which made the waiting worse DOO, DOO, DOO, DODO, DOO, DOO, DOO. Weird.

And then it finally turned turquoise. HOLY MERLIN IT WAS WORKING FOR HER. Details. She had been told to pay attention to the details. And it was working.

SPOILER!!: Potions

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)
SECRET INGREDIENT



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.

The first thing that Mika did was clean her cauldron. "Scourgify" there the potion was all nice and clean. And PERFECTly sparkly. There that was awesome. The next thing she did was fill the cauldron with water.

So the first actual step that she had to do was add the set of fairy wings into the potions...and then she heated and waited - and waited. Waiting wasn't really all that fun. She dind't like waiting. Waiting was never fun was it? She smiled to herself as she saw the potion had turned turquoise.

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.

And...red! Again! Good. One more step down, still...five more to go. Or...technically six, since she'd need to put that random ingredient in too. Where was it? Eh, she'd grab it when she needed it. Right now she had more things to do.

So, next step was adding three more measures of doxy eggs. Which...was basically just all that she had left. Yep.

Penelope picked up a full measure in both hands and dropped them in one at a time. One, two, three. Then she got another, dropped those in one at a time, and repeated it a third time. There. All nine eggs in.

Next step? Add the rest of the thoraxes. The not-toasted ones. Eh. Okay. She grabbed them and started dropping them in one at a time as well. One, two, three, four, five...six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Excellent.

And now...heating again, for it to turn blue again. Meh...

SPOILER!!: Potions

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)
SECRET INGREDIENT



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.

The first thing that Mika did after her potion had turned turquoise was stare off into space for a minute. The next thing, was to count the doxy eggs. Yep she had exactly twelve. Carefully she split them into four sets of three eggs.

Carefully she took her first measurement and added them to the potion. And then she had to heat the potion and wait until it turned pink. It was slightly coloring more now - and waiting, she just smiled to herself as it slowly turned pink.

Now that his potion was a brilliant shade of red -- really, was there a bad shade of red or...? -- he could safely add in the rest of the doxy eggs. Nodding to himself, Alec picked up the remaining nine doxy eggs and carefully added them into his potion.

So now... according to his journal, he only had ten unheated dragonfly thoraxes, three flying seahorses and the salamander blood left. So did that mean that he was more than halfway through finishing his potion? The Hufflepuff looked back over his journal, his eyes scanning the list of instructions this time. He really was more than halfway through finishing his potion! HOW AWESOME WAS THIS?

Answer: VERY awesome.

But... he needed to continue with his potion otherwise things could go wrong and he really didn't want that happening at all. Next up were the rest of the dragonfly thoraxes. He scooped up the remaining ten and added them into his red potion. There. He then dusted his hands off over an empty space on his workspace. Just... because.

...

Moving on...

Time to wait... and watch... as the potion turned BLUE. Alec rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet for a bit as he started humming quietly again. This humming was probably unnecessary, now that he thought about it, it was kind of making him feel less nervous about making this potion. Although, he hadn't really gotten to the nerve-wracking part so making this could all change. Maybe.

... Purpley... purpley... purpley... AND BLUE! GRIN.

SPOILER!!: Journal thingymabob

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)
--> Extra ingredient!

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.
--> Add in extra ingredient

It was all the color changing that was most confusing, November had decided. There were so many shades of colors and potions required so much precision and all could go so terribly awry. And this one simmered and changed colors so often it was like it had identity issues or something. All this accomplished was making November wish to paint her nails, which currently were covered by chipped, sparkly orange varnish.

At Edita's comment, she peered over into her friend's cauldron and nodded in agreement. The extra moments of simmering had helped the color, it seemed, and Ezra mumbling something about blood might have been a nod of encouragement? After all, his potion was rather silver, and unless Ezra was part-Unicorn, she didn't expect he was muttering about his potion.

She beamed to herself and hummed a couple notes, while running her finger down her instructions and checking. "That's right!" she chirped to Eddie, glancing into her own cauldron. The simmering seemed to have calmed into flat surface and there seemed to be little change in the color. She nodded and bent over to check on the flame, which had grown rather smaller. "Definitely make it hotter," she agreed in a decided tone. If it was heating to turn blue, then a hotter flame would do it, right?

...as long as it didn't blow up anything. She was becoming nervous about that.

Rising back up, she glanced into her cauldron and, sure enough, a color shift was taking place. November couldn't contain a little squeal and clapped. "Yay Yay! Yours, too, Eddie?" She smiled again, watching the shift of colors. There was something oddly calming about watching that - the roiling bubbles and their changing color. It was a little while before the color was finally a nice blue.

Puffing out her cheeks, November blew against her fringe. "Alright, back to the dragonfly thorthingers!"

SPOILER!!: Potions

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)
SECRET INGREDIENT



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.

Mika sighed as she realized she had to count to twenty of those toasted dragonfly thoraxes...really why would someone toast one of those? They were so small and it was a dragonfly for merlins sake! Did people go around toasting them specifically for potions - because that would be fine in her book...but if they toasted them to eat them then they were about fifty Ravenclaws short of Hogwarts.

One...alright she had one in her pile of thoraxes to add - and she quickly counted up the next four and put them into the pile with the first one. Repeating this again she counted until she had ten in the pile.

Really. She wanted to just put ten in but she wouldn't.

Potions was one of her favorite classes - today just wasn't her favorite day.

So she continued...eleven - and then slowly she continued adding the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth and fifth teens into the pile until there was just five more left. I wonder if dark wizards use...creeeeeepy stuff like lady fingers...wait, thats not creepy thats a food...into potions. She was just glad she hadn't said that aloud.

People would have thought her insane. She quickly counted out the last five and recounted them just to make sure...1, 2, 3, 4,5... bored...,6, 7, 8, 9, 10.... do i have to do this...really 11, 12, 13, 14,15.... snap out of it Johanson she told herself before she continued counting. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20.

Finally. All twenty were counted out so she added the toasted dragonfly thoraxes into the potion. Five added - and the potion a faded-pink color, five more and it had brightened a little...and another five more - it was just a touch under true red...and the last five added it was RED violently bright and intoxicatingly red. It was as red as a Gryffindor quidditch uniform.

The next thing she did was heat the potion some more, relax, breath, and wait. As she waited she watched as the potion turned blue once more.

"Are you asking me or talking to yourself child?" She asked the girl.

"Think about what you want to do with the potion, what's missing then?" She asked.

"Doing things wrong, is part of learning and getting things right." She said and looked over to the child who made her cauldron explode. "Just because Miss Carter-Hope exploded her cauldron doesn't mean she won't get credit for it... she will."

"Yes, it does..." She said thinking the girl was asking her.

SPOILER!!: Potions

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.

So now she took her handful of pre-counted toasted thorax into her hand and carefully dropped one in at a time. So it faded a bit - like now it was just a tad pale compared to before.

Knowing her luck she'd go straight to twenty of the toasted dragonfly thorax's everytime. Especially with her luck in potions. Her stomach turned into a knot as she remembered the last potion she had done - being nauseous wasn't something she wanted to deal with.

It was more the idea of remembering that scent. Atleast this one didn't smell like something had crawled into the carcass of a dying cow and die in there. Gag.

That had been gross. Glancing down at the potion she just sighed - nearly silver now. She had only four more thorax's left. So she dropped them in one at a time until none were left and the potion was that beautiful silver color!

So she would have to simply wait next. That would be easy.

Turquoise potion now achieved, Kendall had looked over the instructions she’d written out in her journal again before forging ahead and possibly getting the steps wrong. That would be bad, and she wanted to avoid bad at any cost. Even if it meant she took a bit more time to brew her potion than some of the other students were managing. The thought as she finally had pulled her doxy eggs closer to herself was rather amusing, though, and she smiled a little as she counted out the first three eggs and added them to the cauldron. This potion was like her hair could be if she wasn’t careful. Luckily, it was still solidly auburn with pink streaks for the time being, and as she continued watching the potion, it slowly transformed from turquoise to a pink not entirely different from her streaks. It would have been awesome if it could stay that color, but she knew it was going to have to change.

As such, she switched the doxy eggs for her dragonfly thoraxes, counting out twenty of the toasted ones before she began adding them one at a time. One, two, three, four, five… The potion looked a little bit darker, but it was still definitely pink. Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven… Still pink, although it was almost reaching a strawberry color. Since in paint and stuff, strawberry was always more of a pink than a red. Therefore, she had to add more. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen… As she dropped the eighteenth thorax into the potion, it took on a distinctively red color, so she wondered if the other two were needed. They’d been told that they might not need all twenty, after all, but she still added a nineteenth thorax in just to make sure. Still red, so she set the extra thorax aside. Hopefully she hadn’t made a mistake by not using it, but either way, she sat back to let the potion heat for awhile again. After a few minutes, she checked it again, and it was an odd purplish color, so she started doodling on her journal until it was specifically blue. At least that looked right. She would have been worried if it had stayed that purplish-plum color.

SPOILER!!: Potions journal

Girding Potion
use: to increase stamina and endurance

Ingredients:
Enough water to fill cauldron
50 dragonfly thoraxes (40 toasted and 10 untoasted)
1 set of fairy wings (2 wings)
3 flying seahorses
12 doxy eggs (4 measures of 3 eggs each)
another ingredient of my choice (1 tablespoon of chopped ginger)

Steps:
1. Scourgify cauldron
2. Fill cauldron with water
3. Add the set of fairy wings, then heat until the potion turns turquoise
4. Add one measure of doxy eggs (3 eggs), then heat until the potion turns pink
5. Add 20 toasted dragonfly thoraxes until potion turns red (might not take all 20)
6. Heat until the potion turns blue
7. Add the remaining 20 toasted dragonfly thoraxes until the potion turns silver (might not take all 20)
8. Heat until the potions turns red again
9. Add the remaining 3 measures of doxy eggs (9 eggs)
10. Add the 10 untoasted dragonfly thoraxes, then heat until the potion turns blue again
11. Add 3 flying seahorses, then heat until the potion turns green
12. Add the remaining ingredient (ginger)

Just as she finished adding the doxy eggs, Gwendolyn took her wand again and pointed it at the burner beneath the cauldron. ‘Incendio’, she said in order to light the fire and heat up the potion. Now all she had to do was wait for the content to change its colour. Gwen placed the wand back down, and started looking at her notes. Hmm. The potion should be turning…, she thought as she read the words written on the piece of parchment. Pink.

Drawing her attention back to the cauldron, the girl couldn’t spot any difference. The fire was heating up the potion, but the colour was still the same. After a while, the content started looking… pink. Pink.

Blink.

Not any kind of pink. The super bright kind of pink. Ew.

‘Finite’, she said in order to stop the potion from heating up. Gwen eyed the potion for a moment before deciding to go faster through the next steps to get rid of that… colour. Next on the list: toasted dragonfly thoraxes.

Kat had already added ALL of her toasted dragonfly thoraxes. Well, except for one. The lucky one. Kat eyed it for a few seconds before dragging her attention back to her potion. Now it was red. What's next? The Slytherin checked her notes out.

Add the remaining nine doxy eggs. Okay cool. Kat took them and added each of the doxy eggs into the cauldron one by one. 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... All done. Next was to add the unheated / not toasted dragonfly thoraxes. Sure. At least Kat didn't have to keep anymore of those dragonfly thoraxes, toasted or unheated. Whatever.

... Well, aside from that LUCKY toasted dragonfly thorax. She'll have to return this buddy with his pals later on after she finished her potion. Now to add them in. 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... Okay that was it.

Heating time. Again. "Incendio!" she heated her cauldron and waited until the potion turned blue. Once it did, Kat stopped it with a finite. Alright. She was almost done and Kat exhaled in relief. Hmm... can she just get over with this now?

After finding the ingredients she had to use next, the sixth year looked back at the pink potion. Gwendolyn picked up the thoraxes one by one and started adding them to the cauldron.

...1…

...2….

...3…, she counted as she tossed the thoraxes in the cauldron, looking carefully at the content. By the time she got to 17, there was no change in colour, which was good, since it wasn’t supposed to turn red yet. Mkaaay. Moving on. 18…19…, she went on counting and looked at the potion… which slightly seemed to start changing its colour.

…20…

By the time she got to add the twentieth toasted dragonfly thorax, the potion turned red. Mkay. To her relief, the potion wasn’t pink anymore. Yay.

Once again, the potion had to be heated up, so Gwendolyn picked up her wand and used another ‘Incendio’. Now the content should be turning blue, the girl thought, but didn’t look back at her notes to check if that was right. It had to be blue. No doubt about that.

Now all she had to do was wait.

. . .

Soon, the potion’s red colour started changing into blue. Grin. After stopping the fire, the sixth year looked back at the piece of parchment. Hmm… The other 20 toasted dragonfly thoraxes had to be added to the potion.

For now, Kat was actually really pleased with her performance today. She didn't mess up her potion and it was a HUGE relief to the Slytherin. As if she's messed up a potion before you know. I mean, people say (it was conceited of her to even process it) she was good in Potions. But bighead Kat says she's not just good at it. Like she expected more praise from people.

Alright that was enough of that. She had a potion to complete. She looked at her parchment for the next set of instructions. It seemed like she's forgotten one part of her potion: the extra ingredient. Kat scribbled that down.

The thought of flying seahorses made Kat bite her tongue so that she didn't laugh at the name of the ingredient itself. She imagined flying seahorses and it was... funny yet weird. However this was the wizarding world and all the weird seemed natural to them, but to Muggles it seemed ridiculous. She'd know that, because she has Muggle neighbors at home. It will seem like fantasy in story books to them, but the magical people it was true. All those things that happened were true. In a way.

Kat added three of the fly seahorses into her cauldron one at a time. Then she heated her cauldron. "Incendio!" For the last time, that was it. After her potion turned green, she stopped the fire. "Finite." Okay, so one last ingredient to add. A mystery one at that.

"The measure indicates three." Dylan offered before saying anything else. He was also distracted...pulling his next ingredient and dividing them into four sets of three...He only needed one measure for now, though...and quickly added it in, resting back for a moment to let the potion heat itself to a pink color.

If he were being honest, the Slytherin kinda liked it this way...having all the directions and ingredients laid out before him...and working at his own pace. It was nice. Perhaps Professor Lafay would hopefully give them this opportunity more in coming lessons.

"They definitely try..." He was thinking about Logan, of course...and the time they'd all been chilling in their common room...and she'd attacked his face. Beezus wasn't in the picture at the time...but still! Apparently his face was a danger due to the fact that it was rather pretty...

Also, Dylan noted that Alice was doing a great job so far with the ingredients and told her as much. "You're doing great." Positive affirmations.

When he seen that the concoction had turned the mentioned pink color, he prepared to move on.

Just a few more steps before he was done with brewing the potion. Everything had gone fine so far and he intended to keep it that way. He silently congratulated himself for not getting distracted so far. Who said he would not be able to do anything without getting distracted thinking of girls? There he could do it and once he was done with the work, he could be back to thinking about them.

*grin*

Feeling much more cheerful, he pulled the 10 not-toasted dragonfly thoraxes closer to himself and picked up one with a gloved hand. He dropped it into the currently red liquid and did the same with the remained nine. Once the thoraxes were added, it was the time to heat the potion again. So he poked the burner again and watched the potion. It was supposed to turn blue and when it did and he was satisfied with the colour, he poked the burner again and looked for the flying seahorses on his working station. There they were...next to the empty container. Too bad the seahorses were not able to fly anymore. He took them and added all three into the potion.

Well that was interesting, adding a secret ingredient? West was immediately completely intrigued by the possibilities, and therefore totally in his own world as he began to focus on his work. He cleaned his cauldron first and then went and collected the ingredients, at least the ones listed. He'd think about the additional one while he started following the recipe for the base.

Starting with water of course. West filled his cauldron and added the fairy wings and then watched it heat up on the burner, already starting to think more on what to add. What did he want to be... all girded in? Or whatever? Turquoise and three doxy eggs went in, and West watched for the next colour change.