Minnie will be fine with it? Was he absolutely sure? Because Alec was sort of freaking out over how his psuedo!older sister was going to react to this. Like really. But he gave the boy a grin and a nod at his words. It was... slightly reassuring, actually. Just a bit.

He was going to make sure to steer clear of Minnie though. Just for a bit.

And now to see whether the potion actually worked. Alec gave the boy an apologetic look before looking down at the bruise and the potion thingy that the boy was applying to it. Was it working? Or was it not going to do anything at all? ... If it was the latter...

BUT IT WAS DOING SOMETHING! Alec GRINNED WIDELY at the boy's upper arm and then at the boy himself. "How AWESOME is this?" Answer: VERY awesome! Nearly as awesome as FREE ICE CREAM. "And it doesn't hurt, right?" And the boy didn't get hurt, yeah? Okay... samples. Alec nodded and scooped up a small sample into an empty flask. He then scribbled down a label on it that read:

Quote:

Deflammation Demulcent
Made by: Ethan McCarthy and Alec Summers
Potions Homework

Grumble, grumble.

He had to do potions homework today. See, Ascanius had been putting it off for DAYS now mostly because he was dreading it, but now he actually had to buckle down and get it down. Wasn't that he didn't like the subject, pfft, if anything it was one of his favorites, it was just that homework in general was... Well... Homework.

But he had someone convinced himself today was the day and, jeez, he was gonna do it. Cause he was awesome and stuff. Smirk.

The fourth year walked into the Dungeon and looked around for what he needed. It took a second, but on the board Lafay, the really sultry looking one, had stuff written down for the to follow. Amen.

Following the instructions on the board, he went and collected his ingredients and then made his way to a station. Once he was there he started to write everything down just so he could follow it better and then... Well... He got ready to start, yeah?

Dylan...was finally entering the Potions Lab. No, he had NOT forgotten about the Potions homework. He'd simply had a busy couple of weeks and because of that, his time had been limited. Quidditch did that, though. Vigorous training and practices trumped everything for periods of time. He knew Lafay understood.

She used to play, after all.

Making his way over to a workstation, the Slytherin Captain quickly began setting up. He was already cutting it TOO close with time. So...there was none to waste. Cauldron out, ingredients set up, utensils removed from bag...Dylan worked quickly and efficiently to prepare.

...and then he removed his notebook, flipping through pages upon pages of potions notes. Aspen Odessa was the only other person to see this notebook. She'd even completed things in it...It was his Holy Grail of all things. In fact...it was probably time for a new notebook...There were hardly any pages left...

Turning to the page he was looking for, Dylan went ahead and scourgified his cauldron, utensils, workstation counter...All that...

Flipping the burner on, it was time to begin.

"Aguamenti!" As per usual, he filled the cauldron and then whispered, "Finite!" It was his experience that the best potions started with step...

After lining up all of his ingredients in a row, that way he could access them better when it came time to use them, Ascanius went back to the part of the room to collect all of the supplies that he was going to need for the work station. All of which that included utensils, the cauldron and some extraneous vials and stuff. See? He knew what he was doing. Pfft.

Bringing it back to his station, he tried to remember that one spell that they had JUST learned with the Knox lady and smiled. Yeah, he got this. Okay, so maybe he wasn't the world's BIGGEST fan of magic, you know? But he knew what he was doing 99% of the time. 'Cause he wasn't stupid. Deadpan. No really.

So he drew out his wand and pointed it at the SEEMINGLY clean cauldron, could never be too sure and stuff.... rather be safe then sorry, and said, "Scourgify." Clean as a whistle. He went through and did that to his other supplies and then prepared to do what he needed. Ahem. He was awesome.

Next he filled his cauldron with water. JUST LIKE HERBOLOGY, he had wished that they had watering cans, but he could do this spell too. He pointed his wand at the cauldron and said, "Aguamenti." Ascanius remembered that one now. Brows. Awesome.

Once it was filled, he went ahead and prepared to heat it up. Now WHAT was the spell for that again? Think and think and think some more.

After the water had come to a boil, Dylan went ahead and slipped his gloves on...and then pulled his goggles into place. He wasn't working with the most dangerous ingredient yet...but it seemed logical considering there were others in the lab that could've made mistakes...and caused explosions. After all...not everyone had his talent, of course.

Ahem.

Knowing the steps by heart...since he'd wrote them...the Slytherin went ahead and began preparing the dittany plant. He'd already scourgified all his things, knives, stirring rods, dropper...So, all was good to go.

Naturally, Dylan started blossom first, working the knife against the delicate pieces. It was monotonous and careful business...but after several minutes, that was done...and he was able to knock out the leaves and stem, as well...Which were less time-consuming in comparison. Inspecting stuff after having finished, he felt satisfied that they were in the best condition they could be...and glanced at the cauldron. The water was boiling.

Within the next second, the dittany was being added in...

He quickly crossed out those steps in his notes, prepared to spell the offending marks away later.

Looking down at his ingredients Ascanius tried to prioritize. You know? While he still thought about the spell that he needed to heat up the cauldron. It was there, someone, in the back parts of his mind 'cause he was AT every lesson. Now see, if he listened or not was not the point, yeah? All that mattered was that he was a body in a room. Education. Pfft.

Anyway, he looked down at his notes and scribbled some things down. You know, like how he intended to DO this. He had never made up a potion before and in his professional opinion... it was dangerous. Cool.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Ascanius Stark
Fourth Year
Slytherin

Purpose: An attractive potion for unattractive people, phase out the ugly in people. I'm being a humanitarian.

Ingredients:

• 1 lock of own hair
• two teaspoons of honey
• (4) peacock feather
• salamander blood

Looking over his notes again, he smiled. It all seemed to be perfect for the TYPE of potion he was going to make. Everyone knew why anyway because Ascanius was a fan and an appreciator of beauty, which meant that he was going to try and help the people who weren't as fortunate to look like him. You know, ugly people.

AND THEN HE REMEMBERED HOW TO HEAT UP HIS POTION. The spell he meant. He pointed his wand at the cauldron and uttered, "Incendio." A small spout of flames came out and started to heat up the thing. Ugh, he was pretty much awesome.

Anyway, time to move onto to the actual potion, yeah?

Dylan let it stew for several minutes...as he'd directed himself to do, whipping out a wooden stirring spoon. It didn't really matter for right now what he used to stir this thing...The more specific things would come later...when the mercury got involved. Checking his watch, he dipped the spoon down into the potion and stirred randomly. not bothering to keep it moving. Once again, it wasn't a necessary thing. After completing that, it was time to move onto the crushing thing...

Graphorn horn time.

Moving his mortar and pestle to the forefront of the workstation, Dylan twisted the cap off the container holding the broken pieces of graphorn horn and selected a few for crushing. Adding them to the mortar, he got to work, using his quidditch muscles to grind the raw material.

Griiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinding....grinding....grinding ....grinding....

Once the powder was fine enough, the Slytherin pulled his measurement cups (that had also been cleaned, fyi) and readied himself for the next step. It was more involved than most of the others...and required concentration...so not to forget where he was with the count.

First teaspoon, Dylan paused, stirring twice clockwise...and then with the second teaspoon...He paused again, stirring twice more...and then another two times after the third...He continued on with methodically adding the powder, not missing a beat in doing so...or allowing his focus to waiver. That's how Slytherins did it, though...Total pros at life.

After it had all been added in, he was supposed to let the potion sit for another ten minutes...So, he stirred and waited.

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

Also, the notes were updated with cross outs!

As soon as the potion started to heat up, Ascanius looked back at his notes and tried to figure out EXACTLY how he was going to go about this. He had an idea in his head, but things could go one of two ways in his head and he wanted this to go RIGHT. You know? Yeah, 'cause ugly people deserved this potion. It wasn't a MIRACLE worker... it would help... but a face like his was just luck. Smirk.

Anyway, he went to looking at his ingredients and decided his course of action, yeah? The first thing he did was grab two of the peacock feathers, 'cause he had two and stuff, and went to plucking away ALL parts of the feather that were not the calamus. Or for simpletons it was the part of the feather that they used to write with on the quill.

Then once they were all plucked, he grabbed a scalpel and started to cut up the calamus into four EVEN parts. He did this on each of the two feathers he had taken apart until he had eight even parts. It was all very well and good.

Once that was all sorted, he added each of the small pieces of the calamus that he had cut up and plopped them into the cauldron. See, this was the part he didn't know of what was going to happen. He was going to put it in, but it was theoretical. It could have gone all wrong, Ascanius just hoped it wouldn't.

But nothing bad happened. The water just slowly started to erode the calamus until it was gone and dissipated in the water. It took a moment, but then the water started to tint an off-white color. No, not the kind of see-through water that it typically was... it was just straight up OFF-WHITE.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Ascanius Stark
Fourth Year
Slytherin

Purpose: An attractive potion for unattractive people, phase out the ugly in people. I'm being a humanitarian.

Ingredients:

• 1 lock of own hair
• two teaspoons of honey
• (4) peacock feather
• salamander blood

Steps:

• remove all parts of the feather on two feathers so all that is left is the calamus
• cut up the calamus into four even parts
• add them in one at a time
• water turns off-white

Next up was his blood...and Dylan was probably crazy for feeling proud for thinking of the ingredient. Blood...as an aside, was mostly used for darker potions and things of the like...but he was hoping to change that, yea?

Untwisting the top of it's vial, he lowered it down to the surface of the potion and poured it in without preamble. Blood was blood...Nothing too volatile about it. So, the Captain was confident in doing this...

After the last drop spilled out, he put the vial away and prepared for more stirring. Lots of stirring in this particular potion...Also, the concoction had turned dark blue as had been expected. All was going according to plan thus far.

Grasping at the wooden spoon, he went about counterclockwise stirring...

Once....twice......thrice.......Four times, five times, six times....seven....eight....nine...ten....eleven... .twelve....thirteen....fourteen....fifteen....sixt een....seventeen....eighteen....nineteen.....TWENTY.

Bam. Finished with THAT.

Conferring with the notes (just to be sure) Dylan turned the burner off...and sat back, deciding to use this time to flip through previous potions they'd went over in lessons. In fact...the Slytherin figured this might take a minute...So, impromptu NEWT studying happening right now...

Looking through his ingredients, Ascanius tried to figure out exactly what he was going to do next. He figured now that the water was white it could use some color and he was just running on pure instinct here. After all, wasn't that how most potion-makers created them? Trial and error? And then if it went wrong they went back to the drawing board. That was all he was doing here.

So, he was going to use the blood now because he just FELT like it needed to be there next. Picking up the vial he shook it twice for reasons to make sure it didn't get stuck anywhere to the sides and decided to put in EXACTLY half.

He did that exactly and then saw that the blood seemed to be clotting in the off-white mixture. So he he decided he was going to mix the potion so that it became more consistent in fluid. He decided to mix it counter-clockwise to break up the monotony of it and then did it FIVE times before it all mixed in nice.

Time to write this all down. Although, his potion did look pink-ish now.

He inspected all of the liquid that was now sitting contentedly in the cauldron. There was not one part left that even remotely looked like it had been blood. It was now all one in the same, which was good. He didn't want it to be chunky. When he had been at Durmstrang, he had seen someone make polyjuice over the course of a month or two. And it ended up looking HORRIBLE and like stew.

So no, his potion was going to be liquid.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Ascanius Stark
Fourth Year
Slytherin

Purpose: An attractive potion for unattractive people, phase out the ugly in people. I'm being a humanitarian.

Ingredients:

• 1 lock of own hair
• two teaspoons of honey
• (4) peacock feather
• salamander blood

Steps:

• remove all parts of the feather on two feathers so all that is left is the calamus
• cut up the calamus into four even parts
• add them in one at a time
• water turns off-white
• shake vial of salamander blood twice
• poor in half of vial of salamander blood
• mix five times counter-clockwise
• liquid turns pinkish

Dylan continued to chill as the potion cooled...He kept sporadically checking his watch and peeking in on the potion, still feeling heat coming off the surface. So, more and more study-time for him.

In fact, it took nearly an hour and a half for the potion to finally cool enough for him to move onto the next steps. The CAUTIOUS steps...The MERCURY steps. Yea, the Captain was rather excited. He'd done so much studying and reading up on Mercury as an element...and as an ingredient. Apparently it was highly toxic when heated, the vapors being enough to do massive damage to someone's nervous system within mere minutes of contact...Also, it was unanimously poisonous by all other rights. He'd once met a man that's skin had turned blue...from coming into contact with Mercury.

....All extremely interesting stuff.

Breaking out the crystal dropper (that had been cleaned earlier), Dylan carefully held the mercury vial. His hands shook just a smidgen as he handled it...whether it was from nerves or excitement, the Slytherin couldn't be sure....Yet he urged himself to work as fast as possible, holding the potion in one hand...and the dropper in the other. Extracting the two ounces he needed for the potion, he (carefully!) set that to the side and just as quickly replaced it's stopper. Yep, he'd nailed it.

Not to actually add it...That was going to be the interesting part...

Lifting the dropper up, his blue eyes stared at the liquid within...silently judging it. Or perhaps he was giving it a mental pep-talk. No one possibly observing could be sure....

Don't kill us all....Don't blow up in my face.....Don't release a gas that will melt my brain...

You know...the usual stuff.

Taking a deep breath...(NOT facing the cauldron, of course), he did as was directed (by himself) and settled the dropper-tip just under the surface of the concoction. Then...with baited breath...he squeezed the rubber end, pushing the mercury out of hiding and injecting it into the potion's mass...

...AND THEN HE FROZE! WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN NEXT?!

Taking a quick look through all of the ingredients that Ascanius had all lined up for himself, he took some inventory in head. With this in mind, he glanced back at his half-finished potion and inspected it some. Now see, here was the PLAN. He wanted to save his lock of hair until the very end because it was the best part, his genes, yeah?

So the things that he COULD use now was the second half of the vial of blood-because salamander blood had special rejuvenating powers which would help with people's face reasons- two feathers left and the two teaspoons of honey. Blink. Oh perfect. He hadn't used that yet. Done and done.

Picking up the two teaspoons of honey he decided that he wasn't going to glob them in. Instead, he was going to take both teaspoons, put it on one spoon and let the spoon SIT in the water until it dissolved. That meant that he would have some downtime to wait for the honey to dissolve. And that could be a part of the process. Sure, why not?

He went to go and do that. Picking up the two teaspoons of honey, he put them both on ONE spoon and then placed the spoon in the cauldron. Now he had to wait until it was all dissolved.

Ascanius sat back on his stool and just waited for SOMETHING, anything to happen, yeah? It took about fifteen minutes until it was all good and soaked up in the water.

He made a note of that and then went back to go and look at what he could do next. This was all a process.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Ascanius Stark
Fourth Year
Slytherin

Purpose: An attractive potion for unattractive people, phase out the ugly in people. I'm being a humanitarian.

Ingredients:

• 1 lock of own hair
• two teaspoons of honey
• (4) peacock feather
• salamander blood

Steps:

• remove all parts of the feather on two feathers so all that is left is the calamus
• cut up the calamus into four even parts
• add them in one at a time
• water turns off-white
• shake vial of salamander blood twice
• poor in half of vial of salamander blood
• mix five times counter-clockwise
• liquid turns pinkish
• take two teaspoons and let spoon of honey dissolve in the water
• wait approximately fifteen minutes

When the mass of water and ingredients didn't immediately vaporize right in his face, Dylan counted that as a success! A great one, too...It meant that he could carry on with this potions business and perform the next step...which was MORE stirring, of course. SO much stirring...This stirring was of the special variety, though.

Having removed the wooden spoon before adding the mercury, it was time to replace it was a more sturdy stirring rod. A crystal one...that wouldn't do weird things when paired with interesting ingredients.

Dipping it down into the mixture, Dylan began stirring carefully, counting out the clockwise motions in turn...

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

After doing that, all that was left was to let it settle for two minutes. During this time, the Slytherin Captain updated his progress, and began cleaning up his utensils so they could fit back into his handy dandy potions pouch.

He scourgified everything that he wasn't still currently using...meaning the wooden spoon, the dropper, the stirring rod, that knife from earlier...Getting his stuff replaced back into their satin-trimmed home, Dylan turned his focus back to the potion. It was slowly turning into a rich dark red color...Almost as dark as blood.

Hmph. Interesting...

He was almost done now. After all, he had to be because he only had very few ingredients left and that would attest to the fact that he was, as he had said, ALMOST DONE. So yeah, he was almost done 'cause once the ingredients were all dried up he was putting it down and dealing with whatever it came out to be. It was all trial and error, anyway. He didn't want to leave it sitting around to brew. Heh, see what he did there?

With the few things that he had left, Ascanius decided that he was going to utilize all of the things at his disposal. That way that he didn't need to overdo everything here. So what he decided to do next was the the only thing he could think of. He took the two feathers and decided to SOAK them in the rest of the salamander blood. That way that they could do it all in one shot.

So then, yeah, he did just that. He took the vial, put in in the pan and then laid the feathers down to soak them through. Once the one side was all good and bloodied he flipped it over so that he could soak the other side of the feathers as well.

It took about five minutes for everything to be done and soaked and then he tossed the two feathers in the cauldron. They incinerated in the cauldron almost automatically. Nothing else happened to the color, it stayed that constantly pink color. Whatever, it made sense-ish for the type of potion he was making.

Not the manliest color ever, but HE was manly and that was all mattered. At least, that was what he was going to tell himself.

And last but not least, he spotted his final ingredient. It was time to use his hair.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Ascanius Stark
Fourth Year
Slytherin

Purpose: An attractive potion for unattractive people, phase out the ugly in people. I'm being a humanitarian.

Ingredients:

• 1 lock of own hair
• two teaspoons of honey
• (4) peacock feather
• salamander blood

Steps:

• remove all parts of the feather on two feathers so all that is left is the calamus
• cut up the calamus into four even parts
• add them in one at a time
• water turns off-white
• shake vial of salamander blood twice
• poor in half of vial of salamander blood
• mix five times counter-clockwise
• liquid turns pinkish
• take two teaspoons and let spoon of honey dissolve in the water
• wait approximately fifteen minutes
• take two feathers and soak in second half of blood
• drop two feathers in cauldron

BAM. He'd completed the potion and nothing had melted or blown up. Yep, he was SO win. Not that Dylan had doubted his potions prowess for one moment.

The Slytherin started setting up vials, lids off and ready to be filled. Four, to be exact. Using a crystal ladle, because he wasn't sure what would happen if he used something mundane and regular, he began filling each vial in turn. The first...and then the second...the third...and lastly the fourth. After each had gotten their share of the dark red mixture, he sealed them up tightly and began making labels.

Quote:

Dylan C. Montmorency
Slytherin Seventh Year
Ater Tutaminis
"Dark Protection"

Once finished, Dylan began peeling them off and sticking them into place. It was a rather proud moment for him as a Potion's student, he could admit. He'd researched, put in the work, and had created something not yet in a text book. Bam.

Settling each vial down carefully into his robe pocket, he went about clearing the marks away from his notes, leaving the ingredients list and steps and procedures readable once more....And then there was the matter of cleaning up the potion itself. Vanishing it and scourgifying his ladle, everything was how he found it.

Now, all that was left was to do a write up...

Looking over at his potion, he finally decided it was time to add his hair. The best part of the whole thing- good genetics. Honestly, his jaw was like an anvil and he was trying to be a humanitarian. Maybe it wouldn't work, maybe it would. But it was the thought that counted anyway. Pfft. Okay, time to get this over with.

He picked up his lock of hair and eyed it. Jeez, even THIS was a perfect specimen. Ascanius Stark, you attractive human, you. Smirk. Okay, no no. He was done. Ha, no he wasn't. You could never be DONE being attractive.

Pushing that all aside, he dropped the lock of hair in the cauldron and laughed, "Done." Oh no, wait. It looked LUMPY now. Grumble, grumble. So he mixed it THREE times clockwise until it seemed just right.

Taking a couple steps back, Ascanius squinted at the cauldron and just watched the potion stir. It looked good enough. The color was still pink-ish and everything LOOKED real nice. Beam. Maybe his WORKED. Not that he would be able to tell or anything 'cause the potion was SUPPOSED to work for UGLY people. Make 'em look nicer and everything and, well, this face wasn't going to get any nicer. It was already at perfection. Smirk.

So maybe he'd go up to the Head Boy later and give it to him to try. WHAT? He was being a humanitarian. That guy could USE all the help he could get.

Grabbing a vial, Ascanius used the ladle and put as much all of the potion that he could into the glass container. Then he filled two or three or four more JUST be to safe. Y'know? This stuff could work and then be a sensation. If not. Well, at least he tried.

Once his samples were all nice and bottled away, he took his wand and scourgified everything clean. That mean the cauldron, the utensils, everything. And then he put them all back in their respective places.

Shoving the few vials into his bag, Ascanius looked around and nodded. Cool, he was done.

Now time to try this baby OUT. Ugh, ugly people. He was coming to help.

SPOILER!!: parchment

Ascanius Stark
Fourth Year
Slytherin

Purpose: An attractive potion for unattractive people, phase out the ugly in people. I'm being a humanitarian.

Ingredients:

• 1 lock of own hair
• two teaspoons of honey
• (4) peacock feather
• salamander blood

Steps:

• remove all parts of the feather on two feathers so all that is left is the calamus
• cut up the calamus into four even parts
• add them in one at a time
• water turns off-white
• shake vial of salamander blood twice
• poor in half of vial of salamander blood
• mix five times counter-clockwise
• liquid turns pinkish
• take two teaspoons and let spoon of honey dissolve in the water
• wait approximately fifteen minutes
• take two feathers and soak in second half of blood
• drop two feathers in cauldron
• drops lock hair lock into cauldron
• mixes three times clockwise