Ethan glanced back at his ingredients at the question. What did they do..? Lots of different things, he supposed, but he was still trying to organize his thoughts on the specifics. "Well, the leeches are used for absorbing things.. um, either other ingredients or like the essence of something?" If that made sense.. He pushed his open journal towards the other boy. "These are some of the potions leeches are found in.." For each one the leeches pulled something out to make the potion effective.. like the Forgetfulness Potion, the leeches aiding in removing memory.

And about the rest.. oh, Alec had a daisy too? Well, that was okay.. they could just use seven ingredients since they had a duplicate. "The daisies, I think, have shrinking properties.. In the potions that I can recall off-hand that use daisy root, they are all used to make something smaller.." Well, in a sense regarding De-Aging..

"The chocolate frog and Mandrake leaves, I'm not completely sure.." He flipped through his book a bit. "I know I've seen them in potions, but I'm not sure how they relate to each other like the ones leeches are in and the ones daisies are in." Like those ones were related enough that he could determine the properties of the ingredients by that alone. "I'm thinking chocolate frogs are either just used for flavor or maybe something that has to do with the jumping qualities of the candy?" Or added some youthfulness.. wasn't that an ingredient in De-Aging potion too? "I know different parts of the Mandrake is used.. its used in a petrification antidote.. maybe it has antidotal properties? And its used in a hair-growing potion.." He trailed off, looking up at Alec. Did the boy have any idea about how to combine these.. or was he just overwhelming him with information?

He glanced over at the rest of Alec's ingredients as he spoke, a grin slowly forming on the Prefect's face. "Yes.. they are all found in healing potions.. that's brilliant." Oh, he could just hug the Hufflepuff boy right now, he was so pleased. He actually had the intuition to get ingredients that related to each other while Ethan had been a little more random. Maybe they could actually create something viable with this. "Alright.." he said after a moment's thought. "I think we should do some type of healing potion.. perhaps something that requires shrinking or the taking away of something?" You know, since they had daisies and leeches.. What did Alec think?

Then Sarah found a cauldron. It was a normal pewter one, yet it was just what she needed. She peered into it out of habit and then took out her wand "scourigfy" she casted cleaning the cauldron.

Maybe she should polish it as well, like just for the fun of it and all. "Poliotus' she said making an S on the cauldron with her wand. That was better.

With all that done Sarah reached for the vial of blood. It would have to do. She uncorked it and began to pour the scarlet liquid into the cauldron. It was interesting watching it and Sarah was not the type of girl to be fazed by the site of blood or spiders.

She watched Minerva set her things down and join her at the table. Relieved already she said, "Awesome!". She listened to her explain her ingredients and copied down as much as she could of what she said.

SPOILER!!: Notes

Eliza Dawnsel
Ravenclaw, Third Year
Potions - Lesson One - Homework One


Potion Ingredients
My Ingredients:

Daisy - Used in the Shrinking Solution, so it must have shrinking or compacting qualities.

Leech - Used in Polyjuice Potion and Shrinking Solution - They absorb things, namely blood, but would presumably soak up other things in a potion.

Spotted Owl Feather - Couldn't find anything for, but an Eagle Owl Feather is used in dragon tonic and must be a healing agent because it heals sick dragons.

Salt - Has healing properties. Can be used to treat scale rot, common in dragons. Used in medicines.

Minerva's Ingredients:
Lavender - stress relieving and relaxing properties

Chocolate Bar - helps with happiness, good taste. Used in the Love Spell, also helps you recover from dementors

Jalapeno - helps with focus and strength

Acorns - strengthening properties


Potion Attempt:
Increase skill with Herbology and other nature-related tasks

Once she was done writing it all down, she sat very still and considered. It did sound like they had a lot of things that would be good for healing or gardening, so it was worth a try. "Okay...that sounds like a good idea. I do think these could help a person with Herbology. The daisies and lavender could even help relax the drinker so that they weren't afraid of things like bees or thorns while they were weeding or planting." She dragged her finger down her list and flicked her eyes back and forth in her book. "Maybe the leeches would help make the dose more concentrated by absorbing it all and letting it ferment inside of them for a while? The chocolate and the salt could both help with taste, since I'm sure acorns don't taste that great. Maybe we can reduce the size of the feather so it breaks down easier too... Okay. So we've got healing salt, calming lavender, daisy, chocolate... The leech, jalapeno, and acorn could all add to the strength... Okay," she sighed. "Nothing left to do now but try right?"

She sat the cauldron on the burner and cleaned it. "Scourgify!" Now that the cauldron was clean, she lit the burner. "Incendio!" She looked to Minerva to explain, "I think the potion will break down more easily if it's boiled first. And since we have chocolate in it, I feel like the potion should be consumed while it's still hot and fresh. What do you think?" Since they were applying it to tending things in nature, fresh things, it would make sense for the potion to be hot off the press too right? Not a very long shelf life maybe? She wasn't sure. She made potions how people told her to, not created them the way she thought they would work. She chuckled a little bit. At first she'd been stressed but now she was just going to view this as an experiment. "Professor Lafay even said it was okay if it didn't work, so let's just follow our hunch and have fun, ya think?"

She picked up her feather and reduced it to make it easier to swallow, just in case it didn't dissolve as much as they wanted. She shuddered at the idea of swallowing the feathers and how they'd slide down your throat. "Reducio!" she cast on the feather, and watched it shrink up to a cute size. "And I think water makes sense as a base, since it's the lifeblood of Herbology and plants. So let's fill the cauldron about half way with water and then let it boil." She waited to see if Min agreed, letting her do the honors with the water part.

Alec glanced over each of Ethan's ingredients as he talked about them. Leeches were first and... Alec nodded slowly in understanding. Yeah, leeches tended to feed on human blood, right? It sort of... absorbed it? "So in our potion, the leeches can be used to... absorb something from the drinker?" he asked, looking down at Ethan's journal and the list of ingredients, "Or just... take away something?" At this he looked away from Ethan's journal and looked up at his face instead. That was right, right?

... Oh! YEAH! Alec nodded enthusiastically at the boy. It kind of made him feel bad, though, that he had brought the same ingredient as the Prefect. "And maybe they can help to aid the leeches, then..." he said, smiling a little. And maybe they could keep the other daisy and its root to the side just in case something went wrong with the other daisy?

... WOAH, information overload. Alec reached up a hand and ruffled his hair, furrowing his eyebrows slightly. Okay, start with the chocolate frogs first? Before he got confused? "Chocolate frogs... so that can maybe make the potion taste better? Because... no one wants to drink something that tastes like troll bogies, yeah?" Or spinach! BLECH. "Oh! The jumping qualities won't go once added into a potion?" GRIN.

Mandrake was used in hair growing potions? The Hufflepuff perked up slightly at these words. Not... that he was thinking about growing his hair. It was just... nice to know, yeah? "Yeah... yeah, maybe it does have antidotal properties," he said, nodding, "That means that they're really good at healing things, yeah?" GRIN. "I think your ingredients will go awesomely with mine!" How awesome was this?

And speaking of his ingredients, Ethan approved of them as well? "Thanks, Ethan!" The older boy's grin was contagious and Alec found himself grinning back. Mainly because he was proud that he made Ethan grin. ... OH! "And about the Flobberworm mucus! It helps to thicken potions too so... maybe it can make sure that ours isn't watery?" Just in case. ... And the Ravenclaw had ideas! "Yeah! That sounds awesome!" GRIN. "Something that takes away... say... pain? And that's how it heals?" Shrug. It could be anything, really.

"Okay, so..." he said, flipping his journal open, "Should we figure out the steps? And how much of each ingredient we need?" ... Also... scribble... scribble... scribble...

Laura openned her eyes and looked at Amara and smiled. "NO I thought if anything went wrong, you would go and get a Professor." Laura was sure that she knew what she was doing. "I didn't want you to get hurt or anything so I thought I'd take one for the team."

O__________________o

Laura took out a mirror and looked at the her hair, it was going all sort of different colours, red, blue, black, pink, she looked at her eyebrows and saw they were doing the same. "This is so coooooooooooooooool!" Laura giggled.

O___________________o

Laura had suddenly thought of something. "How long will the potion last for?" Laura took out her wand. "Finate!" Laura said as she pointed it at her hair, but nothing happened, "It was worth a shot." Laura suddenly realized something. "What if we need to create another potion to stop the effect?" Laura sighed this was crazy.

Jory could't help laughing. Ana was being funny. "I agree,'' he replied with a nod. He was not a fan with pink. The blood red colour was better. "Nope, I don't. But you got to relax. Mistakes happen when doing anything so just concentrate and it will be alright.'' Jory understood Anna's nervousness. He had felt that for his first two years.

The Puffer also kept track of the time and was pleased to see the first year got everything right. Reaching to grab the nettles, Anna accidentally made his Potions book fall to the ground. "I'll get that,'' he said and bending done to retrieve it. He burst out laughing at what Anna said next. "I didn't realise we were two "Walls".'' How cool was that?

So now the Potion was fully pink. Time for the next step. The seventh year pointed his wand once again to the burner. "Incendio!'' Flames erupted and he adjusted it to low and waited for the potion to heat. Without any stirring, he turned off the burner after two minutes. "Look, the red's back again,'' Jory said. They were almost done now. He now added the ground up lavender sprig. "Get ready to finish up the potions, Anna. You can do the remaining instructions.'' Pointing his wand at the burner, Jory lighted it again after counting 30 seconds on his watch. "Incendio!'' He adjusted it to high.

“Oh” Sonea swallowed now that she realized that she had done something really dangerous and that she needed to be happy that she only had brown colored fingers and nothing more! “I’m sorry” said Sonea ashamed and hide her now pink cheeks by looking away from Daichi. He seemed really upset about her action and that bothered Sonea, she didn’t wanted him to be disappointed at her… He was a prefect AND the first person who had been nice to her when she was new here on Hogwarts!

But… She didn’t wanted to show how ashamed she was and lifted her chin proud up and looked back at Daichi. “I’m sorry, I wouldn’t do it again” said Sonea now calmly and hide her brown hands behind her back. She now was happy that she had left Little princess in the common room because if the potion had really been dangerous than she had brought Little princess in danger, and she DIDN’T wanted that!

“Eh, I will be more careful now” said Sonea while she grabbed one of Daichi’s ingredients and started to cut them in small pieces before she slowly added them to the cauldron. “I have added the Knotgrass to the potion and I will stir two times to the right” said Sonea while she started to work again.

But just when Sonea had added the Sneezewort to the potion she remembered the last ingredient, the spider! She saw that Daichi still didn’t had added it to the potion so she needed to do it, but she HATED spiders! She took a deep breath and she grabbed the jar with the spider with her hands, still hidden inside her gloves and prayed that the spider really was death… Quick she threw the spider inside the cauldron and did a step backwards, relieved that the spin really had been death! But just when she wanted to turn to Daichi to tell him that she had done it good this time she smelled something really awful… She turned back to the cauldron and saw that all the colors inside the potion were now gone, it was totally… Black?

“Eh, Daichi, if the potion has worked, we can call it DaiSon, a combination from both or names? But… I’m afraid that this is not good, look, the potion is black and it‘s smelling!”

Minerva waited as Eliza wrote things down and grabbed her own parchment to take down their notes of the potion. If they were going to make a potion, they probably should write down what they did, because if it worked then they might want to do it again. Watching Eliza carefully, Min smiled a bit, “You think it’s a good idea? I was just going by what some of the ingredients were.” Then she listened to the rest of what Eliza was saying, changing a few things just a smudge, but still it sounded good, Eliza was super smart for a third year, but Min wasn’t surprised she was a claw. As much as she loved potions Min was still grossed out when leeches were involved, well leeches and blood. Thankfully they were not using blood today.

Nodding, she was right it was time to just try. Watching her clean the cauldron Minerva turned to tink about the steps they needed to take. “I agree, boiling them together would make them mix better as well.” Giving her another nod, “Hey with using the chocolate and having it hot, maybe it will taste like a hot chocolate, so it won’t be so bad to drink?” She knew some of the potions had horrible taste to them, so she hoped theirs would not.

“Well I think with these ingredients our hunch sounds pretty good. Let’s just hope it works and if it doesn’t well let’s just hope it won’t be too horrible.” She didn’t want to make them sick or anything. Worse case hopefully it just tasted bad. Since Eliza had done the cleaning and made the flames for boiling the least she could do is fill the water. Pointing her wand, “ Aguamenti” She let the water fill to about half way in the cauldron ”Finite” Then looked at their ingredients. “Let’s let that boil for a bit.” Jotting down the steps she was doing she then turned to Eliza. “I think the next step we should put in the Jalapeno juice.” Stopping for a second she thought, “Do you think it would be the juice or juice and seeds? I’m not sure we would use the entire pepper, since it wouldn’t dissolve in the potion. I’m going to say seeds as well, what do you think?” She picked up the pepper and handed it to Eliza seeing what she thought they should do.

BWAHAHAHA!!!

Rhodes just IGNORED whatever Michael was saying about not using beauty products, and just heard what she wanted to hear. And what she wanted to hear the most right then was that he did use them. It was a shame that she didn't like any of the other people in the castle. Otherwise, she would have been going around and telling them all. She was laughing, of course, and after a minute, just long enough for the Gryffindor to be annoyed with her, she wiped at her eyes and stopped. "You so use beauty products."

And once their potion was done, she was going to SEE him use them.

Which meant they needed to get their potion finished quickly. Rhodes nodded her head at the not so much of a praise and lowered the Ice Mice away from Michael's cheek. She placed it back down into their pile of ingredients, and once she set her cauldron up on the burner, she pulled out her wand. She.. wasn't really sure about doing any types of spells, at least not in front of him, but not wanting him to know that, she pointed her wand right into the cauldron. Erm.. right. Stew the Fluxweed. She needed to clean the cauldron first. "Why don't you start writing down everything we've done so far?" He could write, couldn't he? "I'll clean this."

Because.. how hard was that going to be? Rhodes stuck her wand further into her cauldron and began to scrape the sides of it with her wand tip. That's how she cleaned.

She watched as Minerva filled the cauldron half-way with water. She was glad they got along so well and could agree on what to do next. That made things a lot easier. She couldn't imagine having a partner that just wouldn't cooperate on anything. "Cool, I'm glad we're on the same page." She laughed about the hot chocolate idea. "Yeah, it's too bad neither of us grabbed sugar instead of salt, right?" She chuckled again. Hopefully the chocolate, lavender, and daisy would be enough. "There are some teas made out of daisies and lavender, so I think the taste of those should help cover up the other less pleasant stuff." Namely the leeches, but she was hoping those would sort of melt away and maybe they'd taste sort of fishy, or just...not like anything at all if they were lucky.

She let the water boil for a bit until it was clear that it was pretty darn hot. She figured that would be good because some of their ingredients were pretty hearty and would take some time to dissolve. "I think...yeah, we should add the seeds too, and the juice, but not the flesh of the pepper. That might be too much of it, you know? And I like the juice idea for some taste, and the seeds because, well, Herbology and all, so that makes sense?"

She put some protective gloves on, just in case the juice tried to makes its way into any cuts she may have on her fingers, and began squeezing the pepper over the cauldron. The skin of the green plant cracked under the pressure of her hands and began leaking the strong smelling liquid into the cauldron with loud pops and sizzles for every drop.

After that was done, she pulled the pepper apart with her gloved fingers and scraped the seeds into the cauldron as well. The little strips of them came off easily and soon there were roughly twenty to thirty little seeds floating around on the surface of the potion. She was pretty sure she needed those to sink down so she said, "I think I'm going to stir it clockwise until the seeds sink, so they can start to absorb the water and dissolve. Sound good?" Seeing Min's agreement, she went ahead and did so. She stirred it with her clean wooden spoon about seven good times before they all looked like they'd drifted down more.

She looked back at their ingredients. "I think maybe we should add the reduced feather next, since it's so solid in the middle and I don't think either of us want to choke on that," she added with a chuckle. "I already shrunk it, so I'll just drop it in, okay?" Again waiting before she acted, she then took the feather between her fingers and dropped it low into the cauldron, careful not to let it blow out. It sat on the top for a few moments, obviously pretty buoyant. "What if we stir it down in a windy motion? To mimic the roots of nature? Vines and things like that?" It made sense to her. Maybe potions could be a little more like poetry and art than she'd thought before. She waited to see if Min thought that was a useful idea or not.

While she let her mull that thought over, she had another suggestion. "And maybe when we add the acorns, we should just use the meat? So it's not so tough." She pushed the spoon, acorns, and a clean knife over to Min so she could do what she thought was best. After all, she was older and wiser with potions.

SPOILER!!: Eliza's Notes

Eliza Dawnsel
Ravenclaw, Third Year
Potions - Lesson One - Homework One


Potion Ingredients
My Ingredients:
1 whole Daisy including roots - Used in the Shrinking Solution, so it must have shrinking or compacting qualities.

2 Leeches - Used in Polyjuice Potion and Shrinking Solution - They absorb things, namely blood, but would presumably soak up other things in a potion.

1 Spotted Owl Feather - Couldn't find anything for, but an Eagle Owl Feather is used in dragon tonic and must be a healing agent because it heals sick dragons.

1 pinch of Salt - Has healing properties. Can be used to treat scale rot, common in dragons. Used in medicines.

Minerva's Ingredients:
1 pinch of Lavender - stress relieving and relaxing properties

1 Chocolate Bar - helps with happiness, good taste. Used in the Love Spell, also helps you recover from dementors

Seeds and juice of 1 Jalapeno pepper - helps with focus and strength

2 Acorns, meat only - strengthening properties


Potion Attempt:
Increase skill with Herbology and other nature-related tasks

Potion Procedure:
Clean cauldron and workspace
Light burner
Fill cauldron half way with water
Squeeze all the juice from Jalapeno
Add seeds, stirring clockwise
Reduce the feather to a small size
Add the feather to the potion & stir in a winding motion (like twisting vines)
Crack acorns and knife out the meat of the nut

Jory showed her that the potion was red again and she smiled. Shortly after, he turned on the burner. Annabeth knew it was time to stir nonstop the potion clockwise for a minute. It was so hot and the lilac steam that was rising up into her nostrills had a slight scent of lavender. It was good.

She checked her watch, it was almost time to turn off the fire. This time she didn't wait for Jory to do it: she grabbed her wand, pointed to the burner and said: "Finite!" The fire was extinguished and she smiled, thinking: it works!

The Hufflepuff girl, feeling confident about what she should do, added 13 drops of Flobberworm mucus into the cauldron, then began stirring again, anticlockwise: "seven, six, five, four" she could feel her own heart beating faster while she noticed that the potion was about to get ready, and she was rising her voice when she finish counting the stirring "three, two, one!"

Quickly she withdrew the wooden spoon from the cauldron, putting it on the work station and said loudly, jumping up and down with excitement: "It's done, Jory!!! It's done!" Then, without planning, she twined her arms around his waist and hold him tightly. When she noticed what she was doing, she became a bit embarrassed and relaxed her arms, lowering her eyes and saying: "Sorry for that, Jory. I just got carried away... It's my first potion..." Then she managed changing the subject: "Now I know exactly what Professor Lafay was intending when she didn't give me any tip about what to do... She wanted to me to find out that I was able to do things that I thought I was not." She grinned. "So, now, what we have to do?"

Mo added all six feathers as Lex suggested, letting them catch the water and slowly sink beneath the surface. Once they disappeared, he stepped back and nodded at the cauldron. The once clear liquid turned a milky color. "How many hairs did you find? I think you should put six Abraxan hairs in there, unless you found fewer. We can leave the rest for Lafay to use in future potions. And then stir it six times clockwise and six times counter-clockwise."

He caught up the three cockroaches from their container and made sad faces at them before dropping all three, still living, into the cauldron as well. The potion went from milky white to an opaque gray. It looked a bit like wet cement, which was NOT appetizing at all. "After you put in the hairs, we'll see how it looks. We should let it simmer for a little bit, y'think? And then we can decant it and see if we don't die when we take it." Merlin, it was dangerous sounding.

"Good job,'' Jory commented. He was startled when the first year threw her arms around him. He turned red again. "Don't worry about it,'' he said. "You'll have tons more potions to make before you're through with Hogwarts.'' They were done! Whether the potion worked was another story. But Professor Lafay had said it was okay if they failed.

"Well, now we just have to bottle up the Potion and clean up,'' the final year said. Yes, do everything the right way just as they had been thought in class. He retrieved a bottle from his bag big enough to hold the potion and used the clean ladle to fill it with their potion. Once he was done, he scribbled a tag for their bottle:

Using a Sticking Charm, Jory stuck it onto the potion bottle. "Now, we clean up,'' he said. He pointed his wand at the cauldron. "Scourgify!'' He did the same with the instruments they had used; the knife, ladle, spoon ecetera.

"Well, that's it,'' the boy said, turning to Anna. "Thanks for working with me.'' He began to repack his stuff. "So, I'll see you around, then,'' he added with a grin. He placed the bottle in the center of the table. He didn't want anyone to knock it over.

Minerva chuckled, “Yes sugar would have been nice, but your right I have had tea with those ingredients. So that is a possibility that we can get lucky.” Hopefully, then the question hit her which would try it. She didn’t want to put Eliza in danger of getting sick if this potion were bad, maybe she would just do it, but they could figure that out later. There were still a bunch of steps to do yet before the potion would even be done.

Smiling that Eliza agreed about the pepper and watched as she squeezed the juice and seeds into the cauldron. Scrunching her nose to the smell of the pepper she had never been a fan. She wondered if Eliza needed one a knife to cut the pepper, but she looked like she was doing a great job, so Min just stayed quiet and watched. “Clockwise does sound good.” and then Min made sure to count the number of times she stirred, seven. Hmm that seemed like a good number, she made sure to write that in their notes.
Oh doing the feather next did sound like a good idea, it would have time to dissolve before they were finished. She liked Eliza’s thinking. Putting that in the notes as well, Minerva turned to the ingredients as Eliza spoke again. “Umm that sounds like a good idea” picking up the wooden spoon Min pulled her wand and cleaned it before putting it back in the cauldron. Stirring the potion more cross wise then the typical clock or counter clock ways to make the motion that Eliza was talking about. Minerva did this motion back and forth three times. “Like this?” It seemed right at least.

Finishing with the stirring Minerva cleaned the spoon and set it down just as Eliza was saying about the next ingredient and handing her a knife. “I completely agree, we would just need the meat of the acorn, but I’m not sure if a knife is going to get the acorn open. I’m going to use a mortar and pestle to crack it open first.” She reached over and took the mortar and the pestle cleaning them first. Then set the first acorn inside. Pushing down on it a few times she heard the crunch of the shell. Then she pulled it out and using the knife opened it the rest of the way. Making sure to be very careful she placed the meat inside the cauldron. Repeating the process with the second acorn. “Now I think we should continue with the clockwise stirring pattern we started.” Taking the stirrer, Minerva stirred clock wise four times. That seemed like enough, right.

After writing these steps down, she looked at the ingredients, “I think we should do the daisy and lavender one right after the other. Maybe that should be the next two steps, what do you think?”

Lex began counting the moment the amount was demanded of her. "I'm seeing 12 so that 6 could work just fine." She reached over and separated six from the once tangled cluster then dropped them in, one behind the other.

Lafay getting the rest didn't sound like such a bad idea. Merlin knew the woman needed it more than they did. What would they have done with the excess? Exactly.

Now for the stirring bit. Six then six. No problem, except...this stuff was thick. Ugggh, it was taking a lot for this to get down. "Sweet Circe, I don't know how we'll swallow this stuff. It's rather thick." It wasn't so thick that it could barely be stirred but at the same time, jeeeeez, if she didn't know any better she'd think they threw...ugh, she didn't even know!! This had better had been easy to go pass the throat! The colours weren't helping either.

"And now we leave it to simmer...right?" Then...the tasting...

Just as Rhodes ignored what he was saying, Michael IGNORED her laughing and her comment about him using beauty products. He knew that she wanted him to react and he was not going to give her the satisfaction. Besides he really didn't care what she thought, he would just have to remember never to introduce Zahra to Rhodes, not that he thought that occasion would arise, because his BFF had the biggest mouth ever and she would no doubt tell embarrassing stories about him.

Michael was just about to pull out his wand when the Slytherin began ordering him about and he was just about to tell her that she could write down the stuff they had, which was basically nothing at this point when she went on to add that she was going to clean the cauldron. He was rather sick of cleaning, so he put his wand onto the workbench and pulled out a quill and some parchment and began to write.

Quote:

Beauty Skin Mask

Ingredients.
Ashwinder Egg
Fluxweed
Glumbumble parts
Murtlap essence
Dirt
Spider web
Cat fur
Ice Mice

Step 1.
Clean cauldron.

Step 2.

Before Michael could even start writing out step 2, he had to pause as a very annoying scraping noise could be heard and he looked up to see Rhodes trying to clean the cauldron with the tip of her wand. Placing his quill down, he heaved a very deep and LOUD sigh. "You're going to destroy your wand doing that." He pushed her hand out of the way and then balling up the bottom of his robes, he proceeded to wipe out the cauldron before sitting back on his stool. "Now you can fill it with water."

He was doing everything else.

Momentarily stopping with smashing the knotgrass in to a pulp with the use of the mortar, Daichi glanced towards the younger Slytherin and sighed. He apparently had a soft spot to the once who were innocently sorry. "It's okay, i'm not angry or something" he said as he now continued to smash the knotgrass. "I was just concerned"

And that was probably the exact reason why people called him a Hufflepuff but he didn't care. If he cared about someone he wasn't afraid to show it. He grinned however when the girl suddenly lifted her chin up and Daichi threw the knotgrass in to the cauldron.

He was about to reach his hand to the jar with the spider in it when Sonea suddenly did the same. He blinked at her as he watched her how she opened the jar. So...was she afraid of spiders or not? He decided not to comment on it though because they had just used all of their ingredients.

"DaiSon?" he repeated and thought while scratching his chin. It had a nice ring to it. "I like it, it kind of reminds me of that Muggle vacuum cleaner Dyson" he joked and chuckled.

His chuckles dissapeared and a frown appeared on his face when the second year suddenly said something else. The potion was black and smelling? Stepping closer, the Prefect looked inside and sure enough the symptoms that Sonea told him were all there. Only she had forgotten one thing.

It now started to bubble like it was boiling. The watery potion suddenly began to rise for unknown reason and the Slytherin had a bad feeling in his stomach. A very bad feeling.


"GET DOWN!"

He yelled as a warning as he tried to grab Sonea by her robe. The potion inside the cauldron suddenly exploded with a loud BANG! before it toppled over and fell off the working space. Splatters of potion flew through the room , some of it landing on his pants and shoes and even arms... he just hoped his hair was okay!


...oh and Sonea of course..heh...

Ethan watched Alec as he processed all the information he was giving him along with all of his thoughts, nodding here and there as it seemed the younger boy understood what he was saying. Or at least about the leeches and daisies.. yes, they were on the same page here. Though he did chuckle just a bit as it seemed maybe the Prefect had offered too much information?

"I think the jumping qualities might stay.. depending," he said after a moment's thought. He wasn't completely sure on that, but depending on what was done to the potion, it did happen to be a magical element of the candy that might affect the rest of the potion. And then he listened as Alec gave his thoughts on the mandrake leaves and he slowly grinned. Yes, having antidotal properties was very much related to healing properties. "Good thinking," he grinned at the younger boy. They were well on their way to having a decent potion out of all this. "I think you're right," he nodded. "We chose some pretty good ingredients to partner together." And he had originally thought his ingredients were too random..

He tilted his head curiously as Alec mentioned the flobberworm mucous, coming up with an idea of his own. "Yeah, that's a good point.." he trailed off, musing aloud as the wheels started turning in his head. He grinned widely at Alec and nodded. "That sounds like an awesome idea. We can create our potion to take away some sort of pain.. maybe inflammatory? The daisy root can help in shrinking the inflammation.. And I was thinking, since we're using the mucous to thicken, maybe we should make it more of an ointment to be applied topically instead of something to be ingested.." He paused for a moment and glanced at Alec to see what he thought and to make sure he wasn't getting too Ravenclaw on him.

The Prefect glanced down at his own journal, scribbling a few notes in it as Alec did the same. Steps and amounts.. that was a bit trickier.. "Um, yeah.." Ethan started slowly. "Well, we should probably start with filling the cauldron with water.. maybe not fill, halfway or something? Then add the flobberworm mucous to make a nice, thick base.. I can chop up the daisy roots and mandrake leaves while we figure out the rest of the amounts and steps.. what do you think?" He gave the Hufflepuff a glance, interested in his thoughts, then pulled out his wand to get started.

Practicing non-verbal spells in Charms made him want to try a couple of the basic ones non-verbally. Concentrating fully on the cauldron, he cast a silent Scourgify, smiling a bit to himself as he noticed it become visibly cleaner. Then he tried the same with Aguamenti. His head hurt from concentrating so much, but all he managed was a thin trickle. "Aguamenti!" he commanded and a stronger stream of water emitted until it was halfway full. "Finite!" He didn't bother trying with the fire charm, just muttered, "Incendio." He set the cauldron on the fire and let it set there while he and Alec figured out the rest of the steps. "Maybe once it starts boiling add the mucous?" he asked, wanting the other boy's input. Or whatever he thought, really..

She was here.

Ella walked right over to where she'd left her ingredients and flopped down, placing her notes beside the collection of items. She really had no idea what she was meant to make with her items but luckily enough, she had forced convinced Sophie to do this assignment with her. Two heads were better than one and all that, yeah? Yeah.



So...yeah. Where was the best friend, anyway? They could get started as soon as she showed up. BEAM.

Sophie walked through the dungeon door with her bag dangling from her shoulder and a Potions book on her arms. She thought it might be a good idea to have something that could... somehow guide them throw this. Well, hopefully it would guide them!

"Hey!" The Hufflepuff greeted her best friend with a smile as she sat down next to her and put her bag on the floor and the book on the table in front of her. "I thought this might be helpful." She shrugged, bending over to get a parchment from her bag. "I took some notes of the ingredients I collected... but I still have no idea what to do with them."



Sophie handed her parchment to her friend and took the blond's to read. After she ran her eyes through her bestie's notes, Sophie looked back up at her. "We seem to have a lot of medical ingredients! Maybe we can make a... some sort of... healing Potion for... dragons?" Not because it reminded her of Mordred of anything, but y'know. Eagle owl feathers; dragon tonic and all that.

Grin.

"Hey Soph!" Ella greeted, giving her best friend a small smile as she sat down. She eyed the book the brunette had brought curiously and nodded, "That'll definitely be helpful." Had she mentioned she had no idea what they should make? Cause really, homegirl was clueless. Apparently Sophie was too which was a relief. At least they could have no idea together. There was something comforting in that. "Here are my notes too...at least we came prepared?" Bright side?

The blonde scanned Sophie's parchment and noted that both of them had Eagle Owl feathers. Huh. Lots of medicinal ingredients, yeah? And just as she was thinking this, her best friend stated it out loud. BRAIN TWINS. "I was just thinking that too..." Minus the dragon thing. Smirk. She knew why Sophie had gone the dragon route. She totally knew. "But..I think we're meant to test it. I mean, so we know whether it does something or not." That was part of the assignment, yeah? "Some of the ingredients have to do with memory...so we could do a tonic for your head? Like...to cure headaches or something?" Did that make sense? Eh. Sort of. "What do you think?" Hmmmm?

Sophie shrugged her shoulders and flipped the book open. "I hope so." She added, trying to find the chapter of Medicinal Potions. "I saw something here the other day, maybe we can try and figure something out..." She had no idea, though. They would see what they came up with at the end of the brewing, she supposed. Prepared? Haha! "Yeah, we have somewhere to start, at least!" The girl chuckled and looked back at the book.

Oh, lovely! They had thought of the same thing! The perks of doing homework with your best friend and brain twin. Sophie smiled at Ella and nodded at her friend's comment on testing the Potion. "Well, yeah... you have a point there." The brunette replied, giggling as she noticed the blonde's smirk. "Oh, come on! Dragons are cool!" ...Said Mordred. Sophie didn't really care about them all that much. But ANYWAY, Mordred thought they were cool, so they WERE somehow cool. It was law. LAAWWWW.

Ahem. Hehe!

The badger sat up straighter and got ready to start working. "Yeah, that's actually a good idea!" She exclaimed, looking from Ella to their ingredients. "We could try and make something like... to make people get more relaxed and... I don't know, learn things faster?" Since it had things to do with memory, yes? And the relaxing bit could help with headaches as well? A 2 in 1 sort of Potion thing? Sounded good enough!

"I think we should start with water! Yeah? We can use my cauldron." Sophie said, Scourgifying it non-verbally. TEEHEE! She was getting good at those! The Hufflepuff took the water that Ella had amongst her ingredients and poured into the cauldron. "Do you think this is enough? Or should we add more?" She asked, looking at the inside of the cauldron.

It WAS a bit thick, but Mo nodded anyway. "Yeah, just... let it simmer for a bit. At least it stopped being... gray." Now it was more porridge colored, with the thickness to match. Mo eyed the potion with trepidation before heading to the front of the room for a few phials.

After several minutes of simmering, Mo offered an empty phial to Lex. "You fill one, I'll fill one, we'll try it. If it seems to work, we'll turn it in to the professor. If not... we'll go to the infirmary. Deal?" This was SUCH a bad idea.

Still. Mo quaffed the first phial he filled in one swallow, gagging a bit over the texture as he did so. Lex's turn.

Eliza nodded about the tea flavoring, really hoping this all turned out all right. She would hate for them to have to taste something dreadful. "Maybe we should have a backup snack just in case this destroys our taste buds...and stomachs. Like some peppermint toads or something." They'd worked for the noxious potion, so maybe they'd help here too if need be.

She tried to go slowly so Minerva could copy down what she was doing. She seemed to have it all in her notes though, so she wasn't too worried. Min was good at taking notes. She nodded as Min stirred the cauldron in a more wobbly way than they had been doing it before. "Yeah that's how I imagined it. Not such hard circles like before, more...free spirited I guess?" Min seemed to understand what she meant, so she wrote down how many times she stirred it that way, which was thrice.

After she'd done that, she watched Min take the acorns and listened to her idea. "Oh, yeah that does make more sense. Der!" She laughed at her oversight about cracking the nuts. "Good thing you're hear, or I'd have wasted some time on that," she said with a smile and watched Min crack the shells in the mortar and then scoop out the meat with the knife and add it to the brew.

"Okay, sure, clockwise again sounds good to me too." She counted Min's rotations and marked it down. Four times. She looked into the cauldron and saw it was starting to blend together pretty well. "Hey, I think this is really starting to come together, don't you think?" She was getting more optimistic about their concoction with each step they took.

"Okay, I think that makes sense," she said, picking up the lavender in one hand and the whole daisy in the other. "And adding them together at the same time should symbolize some sort of unity with the plants and maybe that will come through in our potion, giving the drinker a unity with nature too." She dropped both handfuls into the cauldron rather unceremoniously and watched them begin to take on water and sink down. "Looks like they're melting down to me. Our cauldron is pretty hot. I think maybe we should turn it down some and add the leeches next. That way they can sit in the bottom like in a crock pot and let the other ingredients settle in, sort of like marinating with the leeches." She was actually starting to have a little fun with this potion. She hoped Min was too.

She gauged Min's reaction and then went to work. "Reducio," she said quietly to the fire in the burner under the cauldron. "That should be a lower heat, let it simmer some...." Then she looked at the leeches and made a face to Minerva. Leeches were gross. She was pretty sure everyone could agree on that one. She skewed her face and squinted at them before saying, "Well...at least I have gloves on." She forced a chuckle and dropped the two leeches into the cauldron with a small plop, one right after the other, and let them sink to the bottom to do their work.

She shuddered once all over before she spoke again, "Now that that's over with...I think it should set a few minutes and then maybe we could add the chocolate, for taste..." She checked their remaining ingredients, "And then that just leaves the salt, right?" And the spell. There was always a spell.

SPOILER!!: Eliza's Notes

Eliza Dawnsel
Ravenclaw, Third Year
Potions - Lesson One - Homework One


Potion Ingredients
My Ingredients:
1 whole Daisy including roots - Used in the Shrinking Solution, so it must have shrinking or compacting qualities.

2 Leeches - Used in Polyjuice Potion and Shrinking Solution - They absorb things, namely blood, but would presumably soak up other things in a potion.

1 Spotted Owl Feather - Couldn't find anything for, but an Eagle Owl Feather is used in dragon tonic and must be a healing agent because it heals sick dragons.

1 pinch of Salt - Has healing properties. Can be used to treat scale rot, common in dragons. Used in medicines.

Minerva's Ingredients:
1 pinch of Lavender - stress relieving and relaxing properties

1 Chocolate Bar - helps with happiness, good taste. Used in the Love Spell, also helps you recover from dementors

Seeds and juice of 1 Jalapeno pepper - helps with focus and strength

2 Acorns, meat only - strengthening properties


Potion Attempt:
Increase skill with Herbology and other nature-related tasks

Potion Procedure:
Clean cauldron and workspace
Light burner
Fill cauldron half way with water
Squeeze all the juice from Jalapeno
Add seeds, stirring clockwise seven times
Reduce the feather to a small size
Add the feather to the potion & stir in a winding motion (like twisting vines) three times back and forth
Crack acorns in mortar and knife out the meat of the nuts
Scoop meat of acorns into cauldron
Stir clockwise four times
Add the 1 pinch of lavender and 1 whole daisy w/roots in cauldron simultaneously
Let them sink to bottom, they will dissolve
Then lower heat on burner
Add leeches whole, let simmer and marinate in the potion for 3 minutes

Well, would you look at that!?

Rhodes didn't even have to raise her voice, threaten or physically harm Michael to get him to do what she wanted him to. Not that she thought writing a few things down was hard, unless the boy really couldn't write. But he was listening to her and that deserved a smug look. Although, that look disappeared once she noticed the quill down on the table, and her eyes narrowed as he pushed her hand away. "Heeeeey." What was that for? She was cleaning! "If I destroy my wand, I'll just get another."

Fine, though. Fine. If he thought he could do a better job.. Rhodes glared at the Gryffindor, and even peered over his shoulder to make sure he was doing a good job before sitting back down on her stool once he was finished.

She didn't think it was fair that she had to use a spell to put the water into the cauldron, since she was cleaning the thing out first, but not wanting to let Michael know that she was nervous, she placed her wand back into the cauldron. "If I do this, you have to light the fire on the burner." Because that was fair. And she was hoping he'd accidentally blow himself something up. Rhodes took a deep breath and turned away from Michael before saying the incantation. "Aguamenti."

And what do you know!? It WORKED! On the first try! And since she was too busy congratulating herself on a job well done, she didn't notice that the spray of water was not only landing inside up her cauldron, but it was landing on Michael as well.