Jasmine was disappointed that she wasn't able to answer the Professor's second question before he moved on to the next task. It was her fault for being too slow to respond. Now it was time to begin preparing their potion. Jasmine had been taking notes throughout the class. She wrote down all of the potion ingredients and the first step in her notebook.

Since Jasmine had already cleaned all of her potion supplies while waiting for class to start, she took out the items she would need for the first step. Just to make sure though, she cleaned her cauldron again. You could never be too safe where cleanliness was concerned. Grabbing her grater, Jasmine began to carefully grate half a unicorn horn into her bowl. Trying to stay ahead of the game, she cleaned her grater. Pointing her wand at it, she said, "Scourgify". "Clean as you go", Jasmine thought to herself.

SPOILER!!: Professor

Quote:

Originally Posted by StarShine

No more answers? Okay. Time to move on, then.

"Thank you for the great answers, everyone," he said as he started walking around the class slowly, "as some of you were confused, I must say: I use the word 'manipulation' with a negative meaning and I wanted to hear the potions or spells that aim to change the subject physically or mentally so that it benefits someone else.

"So, some of these potions and spells are regulated by rules, and some aren't. Today, we will focus on a potion whose usage was prohibited ages ago, and it is still forbidden to use it for formal courts and interrogations." He deliberately stopped by Sophie Newell's desk and fished out a vial of potion for her. He didn't explain anything, though - this was almost a sort of test to see how ambitious she was: would she keep listening, or would she be too distracted? Well, the professor wasn't distracted at all, and his explanation continued at a medium pace in case people were taking notes: "Its name is 'Cabeza de Turco' - meaning, a scapegoat in English. The exact date of creation is unknown, but it was created some time between 1542 - the creation of Spanish Inquisition and 1689 - the Signing of International Statute of Secrecy. For those who don't know the Spanish Inquisition: It was one of the most cruel court the world has ever seen - created by the Roman Catholic Church to punish people whose religious beliefs were considered wrong. Guilty or not guilty, the people denied their supposed sins, because..." His shuddered. The punishments WERE harsh. "As you can guess, there were also fanatic wizard priests in the court, and they came up with this potion: Take a cup of this, and you will spill the beans! It made you confess the sins you have, they said, but that wasn't the truth: It made people feel guilty. Lots. And it was extra powerful on muggles," he didn't even feel the need to explain why, "so people started confessing things they didn't do. They even -" He made a face, and skipped that part. It was nasty. Anyways. "Well, then the Statue came into effect, and it was forbidden to use on muggles. So, it was taken to las Americas." Because who would listen to the law? "These part of its history isn't very clear, but it is thought that it was used on muggle locals there for their enslavement. The rest, you know." Hundreds of thousands, dead or assimilated. Well. "But it was used for wizards. Until they've finally understood the mechanism. Now, as I've already said before, it's forbidden to use in courts."

That was some information, wasn't it? Cosgrach'd reached the front of the classroom, and took a breath.

"As West has already pointed out, some emotions are universal whereas some people just lack the others. Guilt is so, as well. Some people feel guilty a lot, some just don't care. As this is a manipulative potion, it won't affect everyone the same. Some will think that helping the elderly is a terrible thing to do, whereas the others will hardly be convinced making someone cry is bad." He looked at them. "It depends on how strong your will is, and whether you have a conscience to begin with. If you don't, it will be harder to manipulate you." He smiled then - he was curious to see who was strong and who was weak.

"And now, we begin. Please grate half a unicorn horn."

He tapped his wand on the board in the meantime, and the ingredients appeared.

The usual lecture. Leah did not bother to listen. Though she realized that there were some pauses in between the professor's speech. Her eyes were focused on the potion master, but her thoughts were drifting back and forth. Finally, people started moving and the second year caught the last bit of the instructions.

She picked up her grater and a bowl and said "Scourgify" to each of them, cleaning them thoroughly. Then she went up to get half a unicorn horn. Did people kill unicorns to get their horns? Gross. If not, were unicorns creatures without a horn? Gross either way. Leah grated the horn carefully, over and over again. She was determined to make it as small as possible.

Huh? Come again? Capede what?

Blink..Blink..Blink..

Candice tried so hard to listen as Culloden explained to them about the history of the potion they were about to make but History was just sooooooooo boring. All she got was if a person drink that particular potion would made them feel guilty. Yikes!

It depends on how strong your will is, and whether you have a conscience to begin with. If you don't, it will be harder to manipulate you. So was that mean having conscience made you vulnerable? Oh well, never mind.

Before she grated the unicorn horn, Candice cleaned all her stuffs using the Scouring Charm. Then she cut the unicorn horn into half and she began to grate it.

Lucy said:" Scourgify!" and she cleaned her cauldron and the supplies for the potion lesson..
Then she started to grate half a unicorn horn into her bowl!
"Done!"

Mentally slapping himself, Ethan smiled sheepishly and scratched the back of his head as the professor walked past him. The Slytherin got his quill and notebook out and started to take down notes about the new potion that they were going to brew. Interesting potion, really. It’s like being used to test whether or not you’re a toughie or a softy.

Ethan finished writing down his notes with the list of ingredients that they will be needing. As soon as he was done, he placed both his quill and notebook aside and got his grater and unicorn horn. Wowzers. Another expensive potion ingredient. “Scourgify!” The Slytherin didn’t need to be told on what to do first, so he went on ahead and cleaned his grater and bowl, then went on to grate half of the unicorn horn.

Grate. Grate. Grate.

Cosgrach brought two buckets full of water from the store room while they were grating, and placed them in front of the blackboard. Ugh. He had to remember to bring everything out before the classes.


So far, so good. Cosgrach didn't dare get hopeful that the class would be well, but he was pleased.

"Second step is, heating the cauldron without adding anything at medium heat for a minute. Then we add three water glasses of purified water." He eyed them all. Could they do it? "These buckets have purified water." For those who couldn't produce it.

He tapped his wand on the blackboard once for the steps to appear, and then walked to Sophie Newell's working station again.

SPOILER!!: Cutty

Quote:

Originally Posted by SlytherinSistah

Cutty threw a confused expression toward the answer given by the girl.

Greed.

Leah, sensing someone looking at her, turned around and stared back at the older boy. What, can't understand the word greed?

SPOILER!!: Step Two

Quote:

Originally Posted by StarShine

Cosgrach brought two buckets full of water from the store room while they were grating, and placed them in front of the blackboard. Ugh. He had to remember to bring everything out before the classes.

So far, so good. Cosgrach didn't dare get hopeful that the class would be well, but he was pleased.

"Second step is, heating the cauldron without adding anything at medium heat for a minute. Then we add three water glasses of purified water." He eyed them all. Could they do it? "These buckets have purified water." For those who couldn't produce it.

He tapped his wand on the blackboard once for the steps to appear, and then walked to Sophie Newell's working station again.

Grate grate grate. Stop. The half unicorn horn was nearly powder right now. COol. Leah listened to the second step. Somehow the brewing of potions was fun but the lecture was booooring. "Incendio." she muttered, bending down and aiming her wand at the bottom of the cauldron. She set the fire at medium heat.

They didn't need to add water first or anything? Aw man, she was ready to give the water charm a go especially since she managed to get it to work for her during the duel. AJ could still practice Incendio because that was what needed to be done right now anyways.

It had worked for her the last time so she hopefully wouldn't struggle with it so much this class. "Incendio." Nothing. Not again. She was not going to fight with her magical stick this time. Instead she concentrated and tried once more. "Incendio!" Moving her wand in the right way she smiled as she noticed that it worked. WOOT! No huge flames or anything. This was a success.

After waiting for a few moments for the fire to heat up a bit, Leah prepared three cups onto her workstation. She "Aguamenti"ed every cup and filled them up with water, occasionally spilling a bit of water. One, two, three. The second year added these cups of water into her scourgified cauldron and waited for it to heat up, staring at the water inside.

The second year was too busy with his own thoughts that he had not notice the Professor walking towards him. So he frowned when he realised that his shoes were standing near his desk...and facing his way. He looked up, refraining from snapping a 'what!?'.

The horn in his hand suddenly vanished in to thin air and Kevin looked down at his hand and the now empty bowl. What was that for?! He turned his gaze up, ready to glare daggers at the man but what he said next made his eyes widen instead of glare. He had ...the wrong ingrediënt?

Kevin snapped his head in the direction of the blackboard, reading the first line and gasped when he read that the first step had been a unicorn horn, not a bicorn horn. Where had he been with his head?! He got his attention back to the Professor and scoffed.

So he was arrogant huh? Kevin smirked when he looked back done at his table., searching for the unicorn horn this time. "I'm not blind with arrogance" he said. "And like you never made a mistake, Sir" He said the sir in a mocking way. Finding the right horn, the second year grabbed it. "I need to concentrate" in other words, get away. See Bentley? He COULD use nice words.

Taking his wand out of his wrist holster, Kevin used scourgify to clean the grate and bowl and began all over again. He concidered himself lucky that he had made a mistake at the first step and not at the last. He was sure the Professor would have vanished his potion.

When he was finally done with the first step, the Gryffindor looked at the blackboard and read the next step carefully. He didn't want to make a stupid mistake like that again.

Heat at medium for a minute and then add three glasses of purified water. Did that mean that Aguamenti wasn't the right way? He wasn't sure but he decided to play it safe and get some out of the buckets of water. Walking back to his working space with the glasses of water, he placed them carefully down on his desk and waved his wand under the cauldron. "Incendio" he said. A minute huh? He quickly set his watch to a minute and waited.

While he waited, the boy looked around to see what the others were doing and his attention went to Sophie. What had that vial been that the Professor had given her? He HAD to find out somehow. He was just curious. The alarm of his watch was heard and the Gryffindor clicked it to make it stop. Now adding the cups of water and then he waited. Or had he made a mistake again eh?

Adi cleaned his cauldron next, glancing over at AJ occasionally to see if she needed any help. But he was pleased to see that she got the flames going without any problems. Go AJ! He turned his attention to his own burner. "Incendio!'' Adi said pointing his wand to it. Flames appeared and he adjusted the burner to medium heat.

Eye on his watch, the Puffer allowed the empty cauldron to heat for precisely one minute. While he waited, he quickly cleaned a glass to measure out the water. After the heating was done, using the Water Charm Adi measured three glassful of the water and added them to his cauldron.

Lucy was about to begin the second step.
She said:"Incendio!" and she set the fire at medium heat..
Lucy thought:"I have to wait for one minute"..Meanwhile I can prepare the glasses".Then she put three glasses on the workstation..

A minute had passed and it was time to add some water. This time they were using purified water so she it was looking like aguamenti would have to wait for another time. AJ needed to clean her glasses first. "Scourgify." Errr... she didn't think that it was working. Sne sniffed the glasses and they didn't seem dirty. Thinking that it was most likely a good idea to make sure, she tried the spell again. "Scourgify." It worked that time, she was almost positive.

Measuring out the water in the glasses, the first year added them to her clean cauldron. She was done and started looking around to see if her sisters were having any trouble because for once she may actually be able to help. All of that extra practicing was paying off.

Once he was done grating half of the unicorn horn, Ethan placed the bowl of grated unicorn horn aside, and cleaned his cauldron and cup for the water. “Scourgify!” He placed his cauldron on top of his burner, ignited it with fire and placed it on medium heat. While waiting for a minute, he stood up and walked up front to get himself 3 cups of purified water. He’d have to research though on how to make water pure with magic. It seems to him that it’s as important as applying the cleaning spell in potions all the time.

A minute passed and Ethan added the purified water into his heated cauldron. Easy peasy.

While waiting for the next step, he raised his hand and tried to get the attention of the potions master. “Professor? Is there a counter…potion for this?” he asked as he pointed at his cauldron. “I mean, it is prohibited in courts and such, but for good measure…is there a potion that can be given to an individual to make sure that such potion won’t work prior to testifying?” Think…sneaky people slipping in a drop of two of this evil genius when people aren't looking. Surely, they must cover all the bases, you know.

Angel was having serious trouble and was very confused about what she had to do. She looked around and saw her sister had already started. She had to what? What on earth was a Unicorn's horn didn't the Professor know they didn't exist, she had cried for a few hours when her friend told her that she had to grow up and stop believing in the make belief and now the Professor was in on the plot as well, well he wasn't fooling her, no sir, he might have fooled other but not her.

Lucy said:" Aguamenti"! Then she filled up with purified water three glasses...
Lucy added three glasses of purified water into her cauldron..
Lucy said to herself:" It's ok!"

"Pssst, Angel." She was having troubles and it looked like she was about to have a meltdown, oh yeah... those were crazy eyes. "You're fine. I'll help." First things first yes? "You remember how to clean your equipment from last time right?" Not waiting for a response she went ahead and walked her through it. "Use scourgify and concentrate." She wouldn't be able to accomplish anything if she was freaking out. "Go on."

This class was making Toby think about all sorts of stuff. Just, you know, manipulation and what he knew about it and whether it was good or bad and why on earth anyone would want to manipulate someone else and why was Culloden teaching them this and oh it was probably because it was on some sort of curriculum and he had no choice but to teach it and 'oh I hope we don't have to test the potion' and didn't anyone realise that negativity was terrifying and guilt was awful and Toby wasn't-



The sudden poke in the ribs was enough to jolt Toby out of his racing thoughts. He found himself doing a weird sort of half-flailing/half-shrinking motion and let out the tiniest of 'eep's in his surprise.

Tobias' first thought was that SOPHIE had poked him; she was the only one who knew how ridiculously ticklish he was, and it made sense that she'd pick POTIONS to remind him of that. But she was sitting somewhere entirely different, and the culprit who sat next to him was............ Kyroh. Oh, okay, yeah.

The Hufflepuff gave his firstie!friend and big smile, despite the whole potions inner conflict he was having. Kyroh had served as a good disraction too, as Toby was brought back to the lesson and out of his thoughts which were beginning to spiral. And in good time, too, because it looked like they were starting.

Toby opened up his potions journal and quickly jotted down all that was on the board so far, gathered all the ingredients he could and magically cleaned out his cauldron before starting.

Okay, so... grating a unicorn horn.

After rummaging through his potions kit, Toby came across a grater that looked perfect for the job. He cast 'scourgify' on the instrument and a bowl, and immediately got to work at grating down the expensive ingredient into the bowl, making sure not to lose any gratings. It was always good to have a physical job to do, right? The Hufflepuff was so enthusiastic he was already making short work of this.

First step completed, Jasmine wrote down the next steps in the process as the Professor presented it. She retrieved her glasses first. Since she had alredy cleaned them she was good to go. Bending down to light the fire, she readied her wand and said, "Incendio". Once the fire was going, Jasmine turned the heat to medium. Straightening up, she checked the time on her watch. She set the timer for one minute so her timing could be exact.

While she waited for the cauldron to heat, Jasmine quickly went to get her purified water. Would she be able to get it and get back to her cauldron in one minute? She sure hoped so. Jasmine decided to use the water from the bucket because wand water did not sound purified to her.

Racing to the buckets, Jasmine measured three glasses of water and returned to her work station just in time to hear her watch go beep- beep. Her one minute was up, so she added the three glasses of water to her cauldrqn. Steps two and three completed, Jasmine waited for the next set of instructions.

Angel smiled at her sister. "I do remember the spell." Angel was a bit worried now, taking out her magic stick, she pointed it at the cauldron and concentrated really hard. "Scourgify." Angel beams as the cauldron became clean, why couldn't potions be as easy as Defence against the dark arts or charms, those were two easy lessons whilst these were just plain hard and really demanding." Angel pouted, she really didn't like potions one bit.

"Perfect!" She knew that her sister had it in her, all she needed to do was believe in herself. "Now grate half of the unicorn horn." That was pretty self explanatory right? "Put that to the side and heat your cauldron." She waited to see if she could get through those steps before the last one. She eyed the professor to make sure that he wasn't about to move on with Angel still way behind.

Not her sister as well, "Unicorns, don't exist, everyone know that!" Angel rolled her eyes at her sister. "They are fairy-tale creatures from books, my friend told me that when I was younger, I stopped believing in them two years ago, I've never seen one." Angel though found a horn and decided that she would grate it, she wanted to know what it really was though. She had written horn on the notes but not Unicorn Horn because well it couldn't be a Unicorn Horn could it?

Angel looked at her sister as she then realised that she was telling her to hear her cauldron, she put the grated horn to the side and then she took her wand and smiled as she pointed it. "Incendio!" Angel was glad when the fire lit under her cauldron. "I did it!" Angel beamed.

Really? Was she really wanting to have this conversation right now during class? "Oh course they do. I want one as a pet." She wouldn't discuss it anymore right now though because she finally had Angel on track.

"Told you, you could do it." Now all she needed to do was gather the water. "Time for water and you are all caught up." Look at AJ being all helpful and stuff.

Angel smiled. "Oh I am?" Angel was happy about that, she didn't like being so far behind and she didn't believe her sister with the unicorn thing, but they could discuss it later. "Aguamenti"! Angel smiled as she filled up three glasses of purified water and added them to the cauldron, she was totally happy. She just wished that she could keep up but she really struggled with Potions for some reason.

Tora wasn't sure what to think about this particular potion. A guilt potion? What did she really have to be guilty about? She fiddled nervously with her quill as she continued taking notes. Maybe she would be guilty about not being overly nice to the twins over the summer? Or perhaps she was guilty about sneaking outside for the last couple nights to go stargaze... She decided it would be best not to say that one out loud. She didn't want to lose points after all! While she was contemplating all the horrible things she had done to break school rules that simply could not be admitted to, the class had moved on.

Scrambling to catch up, Tora pulled out her wand and did a quick "Scorgify," to her grater and collection bowl. Unicorn horn... Unicorn horn... She spotted it and picked it up to begin grating. It was tougher than she had thought it would be. After a minute of hard work, she had grated the very last little bit into the bowl and sat back with a sigh. But it was time for the next step already! She looked up to see what was next and continued on with the potions making.