Wand motion... right... Rowan leaned in to inspect his wand, almost too close, cause it nearly took her eye out when he made it do the shape thing.

"Oh... like this?" She tried to copy him, forming a wobbly version of the flame shape. She hadn't noticed it was slightly off though, so she just decided to try it.

...

Okay... flame shape... sorta... then... "Incendio." Oh! A little flame! It was only a small amount of fire, but it was enough to start heating the cauldron!! She poked it a bit with her wand until it got a little bigger.

"Thanks, Gabriel! You should totally help me with scourgificate some time cause I can only ever get like one layer of dirt off with it." she said, cleaning her thermometer the muggle way and placing it into the cauldron.

.

.

His smile got a little wider. Just a little, however.

"Practice will help with how consistent and potent your spells are...but I wouldn't mind that." The small Gryffindor seemed to find him at random times, anyway...So, there wasn't any harm in it.

Gabe was just....going to go back to his own potion now.

Norah took a second to scratch her nose with the back end of her quill before recording the next steps on her notes. Ta da! Now time to DO STUFF. She shot a grin at Professor Culloden, unsure if he'd seen it or not but that didn't really matter. What DID matter was that there was smiling going on, which meant this potion wasn't really turning out to be a ginormous failure. It was nice when that happened.

She picked up her wand and cast "Scourgify!" on her knife again, just in case the lovage guts weren't supposed to touch the fluxweed leaf guts because with potions you could never be sure. Or at least SHE could never be sure. The fourth year smiled at the little choppy sound her knife made as she cut the fluxweed into three pieces. She was about to add them when a closer look at her notes showed her that ALERT ALERT something was WRONG. Well, wrong-ish. APPARENTLY choppy noises were so distracting that it was hard to remember that she only needed the leaves for this one. With a scrunch of her nose she leaned over and cut the stem bits off the leaves and then added just the three leaf parts to her cauldron. Good? Good. Nobody even had to know.

She double and triple checked that everything was correct before picking up her wand for the millionth time and casting "Scourgify!" on the wooden stir stick. Glancing at the clock just to make extra sure she didn't get the stirring backwards, she put the clean wooden stick in and stirred once clockwise, then back the other way. Aaaaaand once clockwise, then back the other way. And over and over and over again for what seemed like FOREVER until all fourteen stirs were finished. BOOYAH.

As Lux listened to the next set of instructions, she cleaned her knife. Even if she was using it again right away, it was important to keep her equipment clean between uses.

Taking the fluxweed out of her kit, she proceeded to cut the leaves into three pieces and banished the rest. The leaves were added to the cauldron, and she cleaned the knife once more before picking up her wooden stick. One stir clockwise... one stir counter clockwise... Counting in her head, Lux stirred the 14 times, alternating the direction each time.

Okay, her potion was muddy and not stinky so things were going awesomesauce so far. Smiling, she cleaned the stick.

SPOILER!!: Lux's Notes

EMOTIONAL CHANGE POTION

Ingredients:

• Two sprigs of lovage
• 4 mistletoe berries
• 4 measures of fluxweed
• 2 measures of boomslang skin
• Ten newt larvae
  
  
• Happiness: 3 Alihotsy leaves
  Sadness: A teaspoon of glumbumble treacle
  Excitement: Half a handful of ferret fur
  Fear: A scoop of black flies
  Tenderness: 2 teaspoons of dog saliva
  Anger: 7 hippogrif feathers

Steps:

1. Fill halfway with pure water
2. Slowly lower your wand as if you're drawing a straight, vertical line with your wand and say Apto pressura.
3. Heat to 100 degree celcius and keep the heat at 100 and ONLY 100 AT ALL TIMES
4. Chop the lovage well and add it
5. Wait for 5 seconds
6. Add the berries right after 5 seconds
7. Cut the fluxweed leaves in three pieces and add
8. With a wooden stick, stir once clockwise, once counter clockwise and alternate like that for 7 times: so the total number of stirs is 14

   Checkpoint: It should be muddy, but not smelly.

"Smiling suits you!" she said, turning back to look at her cauldron. "And thank you!" Again.

Okay... let's get on with the potion... what was next?



Rusty started chopping up the lovage as her cauldron heated up. Chop chop chopity chop. It was like preparing things for food back home, super easy. She liked doing the chopping bit, but it was a little strange not having an adult keeping a very-close-eye on her. But she was being careful, so no fingers were lost. She also arranged the berries just next to her cauldron so she could pick them up and drop them in when she needed to.

........ After waiting a couple of minutes, Rowan's cauldron had FINALLY reached 100 degrees.... wait... no... 102. She prodded the fire with her wand again and it shrunk the tiiiiniest bit... until the temperature dropped to 100 degrees again... and stayed there. Then she added in the lovage.

1 elephant...

2 elephant...

3 elephant...

4 elephant...

5 elephant...

After five carefully counted elephants seconds, Rusty added the berries to the mixture, then ticked off steps three to six.

Next... fluxweed. Okay.. Rowan cleaned the knife she had used to chop the lovage, then very carefully cut the fluxweed leaves into three pieces. She almost added it all into the cauldron, but remembered to remove the non-leaf bits at the last second so they didn't go into the mixture. Okay. Tick for step seven.

Now for the stirring. Rusty grabbed her wooden stick, remembering to make sure it was properly clean, then placed it into the cauldron. Stir clockwise, anti-clockwise "one..." clockwise... anti-clockwise "two..." clockwise... anti-clockwise "three..." and so on, until she had done that seven times. That was fourteen stirs in total, and her potion was actually looking like it was supposed to!! Yay! She ticked off step seven with a flourish, and smiled widely at her potion. Look how well this was going! And she wasn't going to have to use aaaany animal bits. Well, not ones they still needed, anyway.

Berries all in now. Cinna kept her eye on the temperature of the water. Knowing that it had to stay right at 100 degrees,made her nervous very nervous. She kept eye on the temperature. She scribbled down the next two steps down in her notes.



So she cleaned her knife again. Grabbed up the fluxseed leaves. She cut them into the three even pieces. She tossed them into the cauldron. Next she took the wooden stick, gave it a good clean. As directed she stirred once clockwise 1... and once counter clockwise 2... Clockwise stir 3... Counter clockwise 4... She kept this up until she had made seven clockwise stirs and seven counter clockwise stirs. Fourteen altogether. Her arm was tired and that took foooooreverrrrrr. Oh and it was muddy! GOOD

Kace breathed a sigh of relief when Professor C didn't catch him making any mistakes. That was progress right there! He remembered he made a mistake once and he needed to redo his WHOLE potion. Thankfully it wasn't one of those times. Right onto the next set of steps to add to his notebook.



Right now he needed to cut his fluxweed leaves into three pieces. He got out his knife and noticed it was dirty. Welp time to clean it. He waved his wand and said, "Scourgify!" and then it was presto clean! He smiled and then sliced the leaves three times.

Slice.......slice........slice......

Once he was done with that, he looked at his next set of directions and realized he didn't need to add it in yet. Hmm....interesting. He looked around and noticed other people throwing them in. He threw them in and cleaned his wooden stick really quickly and stirred once clockwise and then once counterclockwise. Now he needed to do that for fourteen stirs alternating. He shrugged and began....

One stir clockwise........one stir counterclockwise.....

One stir clockwise........one stir counterclockwise.....

One stir clockwise........one stir counterclockwise.....

Then he repeated that till he got a total of fourteen stirs. After that he noticed his potion was getting muddy. Checkpoint reached.

Potion brewing wasn't terrible challenging; Tia just compared it to cooking with her mum back home only the effects of the products varied slightly more than with cooking, which generally left the consumers feeling full and satisfied. Though she had to question Culloden slightly on his choice of potion brewing this lesson; emotional change with TEENAGERS? Really, did he not know from his step-son that teenagers had the emotional range of a teaspoon which changed about every five seconds.

Amused at the irony with the potion, the fifth year pointed her wand at her cauldron, first performing a quick cleaning spell on it, before murmuring the basic aguamenti, as a stream of water filled up, casting finite once there was enough water.

"Ap-toh press-soo-rah" Tia recited a few times in effort to get the pronunciation down before actually casting it. Because last thing she needed was over-boiling her potion - even if no doubts she would feel anger without a potion. She then practiced the wand movement, as the Potions Master had specified.

And putting it all together, picking up her wand again, she slowly lowered it straight down, "Apto pressura."

Now time to heat up her cauldron and wait. 100 degrees.

Might as well chop the lovage up whilst waiting for the water to heat up. The fifth year peered at the water and the thermometer periodically to check on it, as she chopped the two sprigs up ..

They were moving on and thankfully Benny was ready. He took just the fluxweed leaves as instructed and cut them into three pieces like the next step said. The rest set off to the side for future disposal as the cut leaves were added into the brewing potion. Too intent was he on his own work to make sure he did things right that he hadn't noticed what was up with Angel and Adi nearby.

"Scourgify," he cast on his wooden stirer before dipping the tip carefully into the liquid. Now was the tricky part....doing the right number of stirs...in the right directions...at the right times. Benny was keeping his gaze directly between the notes on the blackboard and his cauldron. One stir clockwise...one stir counter. And back and forth and back and forth and back and forth until all seventeen stirs were complete.

It certainly looked muddy.

And finally! The water tempterature was right so time to add her freshly chopped lovage.

One Ravenclaw ... Two Ravenclaw .. Three Ravenclaw ... Four Ravenclaw ... Five Ravenclaw, Tia mentally counted out her five seconds adding an extra word to ensure she waited a full second.

Glancing at her notes, she held the book open with one elbow as she plopped four of the berries into her cauldron using her other hand. And another waiting of five seconds.

After another cleaning of her knife, she used it to carefully slice the fluxweed leaves into three even slices before sliding them into her cauldron gently. When did they add the ingredient that determined what emotion? Had she missed that part?

Hopefully not. Picking up the wooden stick, she cleaned that off as well, as she jabbed it into her potion and completed one clockwise stir, one counter ... repeating the motions.

Which if her mental counting was correct, then she was done with another step! Peering at her potion in observation, Tia was pleased to note NO odor. Just a lovely brown mud colour. What she really wanted to know is if she touched it if it would FEEL like mud too, but she was not about to risk the burns so she would just have to imagine it.

Now time to wait and consider more over what emotion she wanted her potion to simulate.

Cilla was happy with how her potion was progressing. She grabbed her wand and waved it in an "S" motion over the equipment she was using next while saying, "Scourgify." Now her knife, gloves and wooden stick were clean, she could continue.

She picked up her knife and cut her fluxweed leaves into three even pieces and added them to her cauldron. She grabbed her wooden stick and stirred the potion once clockwise and then once counter clockwise. She then alternated the stirring direction until she had stirred her potion a total of fourteen times. When that was done, Cilla looked at the potion. It was looking quite muddy but it didn't smell. She then did the usual clean of her knife, gloves and wooden stick.

"You need to focus,'' Adi chided Angel. Did she NOT know how meticulous the process of brewing a potion was? "I don't see any difference in your potion though,'' he continued, leaving his workstation and peering into the younger girl's cauldron. Still... when it came to potions, Adi did not play around even if it wasn't his potion. "Professor!'' When in doubt, call on the most knowledgeable guy in the field of the subject. He raised his hand slightly to get the man's attention. "Is the effect of the potion going to be highly disrupted if the berries were added after more than five seconds?" If it did, the Puffer hoped there was a solution because Angel may have to start all over.
....................

Fluxweed leaves, fluxweed leaves! They needed chopping! "Scourgify!'' Adi picked up the freshly cleaned knife and began cutting up the leaves, placing the remainder of it to the side of his workstation to be thrown out later. Into the cauldron went the three pieces of cut fluxweed. "Scourgify!'' Wooden stirrer in hand, Adi began the stirring process.

Clockwise... ONCE.

Counter clockwise... ONCE.

REPEAT for a total of fourteen stirs! YEAH! Adi had this!
.....................

Clockwise... SEVEN TIMES.

Counter clockwise... SEVEN TIMES!

DONE!

Was the mixture muddy? YEP!

Was it smelly? Adi took a great sniff. NOPE!

Being at the back of the classroom wasn't as strategic as she'd thought it would be. No. It turned out this was a very, very bad thing, for Sophie Brown only wanted to watch Tobes and Zander to see what they were doing once they'd all gotten started. She wasn't interested in how they were brewing their potion, but rather what they were doing and how they were doing it. Were they frustrated? Were they excited? Distressed? Bored? She liked the way both of them looked when they concentrated hard - it was a very attractive look for both of them - and before long, she realized Dot was hard at work beside her, as was the rest of the class, and she hadn't even started yet. And Culloden didn't even notice, it seemed, as she WAS in the back and he really didn't seem to look at anyone back there at all. They were invisible, the back row was, and...

Well, really, that was good information to have stored away. For reasons. But she would just... casually get started then, okay?

She'd already written her notes down during her people-watching, so she was really all ready to go and didn't have to worry about note-taking as much. She gotten Apto pressura down, too, before she got distracted by the boys, so she went ahead to cast "Aguamenti!" into her cauldron, watching the flow of water carefully, and ceasing the conjuration of water when the cauldron was at the halfway point. "Ap-toh press-soo-rah," she confidently cast at the water next, drawing her wand in a straight vertical line, then peeked over the brim of the cauldron to see how it looked. No different for now, which was probably good, so she went ahead and cast, "Incendio," to light the flame under her cauldron. And then... she waited.

She watched her wristwatch to count the time after she inserted her clean thermometer - she knew about how long it took to heat the water in her cauldron to various temperatures, so she played a little game with herself by trying to keep from looking at the thermometer till she thought it was around 100 degrees Celsius, without it going over. Kept things interesting, while she stole glances back up toward Zander and Tobes, but eventually, she thought it was going to be close enough, and peeked at the thermometer - 87 degrees. Drat. She was disappointed in herself for not holding out longer and taking a bigger risk, but for now, she just watched as the heat climbed higher and higher... and when it reached 100 degrees, she smiled in relief. That was good, but... really. How were they supposed to maintain that EXACT degree the whole time? The water wasn't boiling, though, which was good, but... she was going to have to watch this VERY closely and keep an eye on the flame and the thermometer. That complicated things quite a bit for the duration of this brewing process. She had to alternate lowering the flame and raising it again to keep it there, but it was okay. She could multitask.

Keeping an eye on her notes to stay on task, Sophie gathered her two sprigs of lovage with clean-gloved hands and began to chop them as well as she could with her clean cutting knife. She was ANNOYED with that rule about the temperature and how closely she had to watch the thermometer, so she chopped as quickly and finely as she could before she had to slip her glove off, pick her wand back up, and work at adjusting the temperature to keep it at 100 - not 99 or 101 degrees. 100. At. All. Times.

With her gloved hand, Sophie counted out four mistletoe berries to set aside, then added the chopped lovage to her cauldron and watched her wristwatch - five seconds passed fairly quickly, and she gently plunked the berries into the cauldron when those five seconds were up. She had to tinker with the flame again, too, because the temperature was trying to change on her again, and she was pretty frustrated. It was just annoying, wasn't it? There was no room to BREATHE. Merlin. This was one she was glad she hadn't had to do her OWL on. The attention to detail it required would've made the exam far too stressful.

At this point, Sophie snatched up her wand again and cast, "Scourgify," on her gloves and her cutting knife, then the tabletop and surface she'd been cutting on, too, just to keep things spotless. When she was finished cleaning all of her things, Sophie went ahead to put her gloves back on and extracted four measures of fluxweed from her potions kit, then cut JUST the leaves in three pieces. Just three. It was easy enough, so Soph went ahead and added them to her cauldron - and the temperature had snuck up to 101 degrees on her, so she had to quickly drop her glove, snatch up her wand, and readjust the flame accordingly until it dropped back to 100, and kept it steady.

Wasn't there some sort of spell Culloden could've taught them to keep a a liquid at an exact temperature? This was exhausting.

Having the temperature stabilized for the time being, Sophie picked up her clean wooden stirring stick and, after peeking at the blackboard, went ahead to stir once clockwise... then once counter-clockwise... and then did that alternation six more times, counting aloud to herself quietly as the concoction gradually grew thicker and thicker, until she reached the fourteenth total stir, at which point she removed the wooden stick and set it aside. The Ravenclaw peeked over the brim, admiring the muddy substance in her cauldron, and gave it a nod of approval.

So far so good, right? She took the opportunity since she was finally caught up to the rest of the class to readjust her flame again to keep the temperature at 100 degrees Celsius, jot some more notes down, then vanished her leftover fluxweed parts and set to re-cleaning her tools and work station. As she did so, she kept an eye out for anyone around who might need help, but... everyone seemed to be okay, didn't they?

Bummer.

Okay, his arm was sore. He was pretty sure that if he stopped stirring, it wouldn't actually go higher than a hundred degrees, but he wasn't going to risk it. No, actually, you know what? He was. Ceasing the motions, Brian put a wooden peg on the thermometer and stood it against the side of the cauldron so that it didn't touch the bottom or the sides. Very important, see?

Then, he got to work. Chopping the lovage very slowly so that it was fine, he stared a little enviously at the people who seemed to have no trouble with their potion. SIGH. He'd be that good one day. He'd work on it. Really! [s]As long as he was allowed to come in and fail at potions a few more times.[s/]

Sighing wistfully at his unevenly chopped lovage, he shook his head. That was as good as it was going to get. Checking the temperature, he saw it starting to creep upwards and immediately stirred again, lowering it back down to a hundred before dropping the lovage in.

One dragon sleeping, two dragons sleeping -OH MERLIN HE HAD TO GET THE BERRIES! In a mad scramble, he took a handful of mistletoe berries and counted them out, dumping them all into the cauldron a few milliseconds after the seventh second. Of course, Brian was pretty sure he'd done it in five, so it was all good.

It was supposed to be this disgusting shade of green, right?

There was something incredibly soooooooothing about potions. So long as you could follow directions it was just SO easy. Or well... it was USUALLY easy, granted there were some steps that had the potential to be quite tricky. This recipe though, was easy enough to keep up with and follow.

Noting down the next directions, Zeke followed through as instructed.

Taking the fluxed leaves and a clean blade, Zeke cut them into three pieces as instructed and added them to his cauldron. Next he cleaned his wooden stirring stick and stirred the contents of his cauldron once clockwise, then once counter-clockwise and continued to do this alternately until he reached fourteen stirs in total, seven each way.

Bracing himself, Zeke chanced a look at the consistency of his potion. It DID look muddy, which made him grin. In addition to this, he couldn't smell anything and thus assumed he had ACED it so far.

Brian was trying, okay? It wasn't easy making potions and the dungeons were stuffy and dark and he knew that Professor Culloden was trying and he'd painted it and all but he still wasn't all that fond of it. It smelled of damp and there was no sunlight and it just made him feel even less productive. Hearing the dull scratch of people scrambling to do the next step, Brian snapped out of his daydream to find more instructions on the board.

Fluxweed leaves. He was about to cut them when he realised that Professor Culloden had said only leaves. So he went about the painstaking task of removing the leaves from the stem and he was just about to cut them up when he realised that there were three more measures of it to do.

Three more measures.

With a stifled groan, he continued his miserable task, picking the leaves off until he was done with all four measures. Clean knife. Taking out his wand, he scourgified the excess lovage from the knife and made sure it was super clean before he decided to move on. Then, gathering the fluxweed leaves into a few decent looking piles, he sliced cleanly through each pile three times. HEY, THEY WERE CLEAN SLICES! Brian did a small jig as he added them to the potion until he realised that he was in class. And people were staring.

Brian flushed a little, cleaning his stirring rod before he stuck it into the potion. Clockwise, counter-clockwise. Clockwise, counter-clockwise. Clockwise, counter-clockwise. Rinse and repeat another four times and he was done for the moment. Peering at his potion, he tried to ascertain whether it looked muddy yet. He frowned. It looked murky, but not muddy. Maybe that's what he meant?

Well, at least the potion didn't smell. That was a good thing, right? Right. Totally. Brian was killing the whole potion-brewing thing.

No explosions yet was always a good thing, so Cosgrach walked back to the blackboard.

"Alright everyone," he said, "Add boomslang skin and wait for 5 minutes. Then, add the larvae. If all has gone well, it should be completely clear like clean water."

Any questions? It was fairly easy, wasn't it? Once they were done, they would be finished with the base.

Then, he walked to where the vegan girl (JustAlice) was sitting and talked in a low voice not to disturb the whole class.

"Uh, Rowan?" That was her name, right? "Add cocoon until the potion turns clear. I don't know how many it might take." He didn't even know if it would WORK.

Seeing as they were almost out of their ingredients, Zeke was confident that their work was almost complete, of course, they would still need to individualise their brews with the emotion they wanted to induce. FUN!

Taking the two measures of boomslang skin, Zeke admired it for a moment before adding it to his cauldron, then after the five minutes signalled on his timer, he counted out the ten newt larvae. These were fascinating too.

Once they were counted out, he popped them into his cauldron too, and excitedly peered over to examine his potion.

It looked very different to how it was only moments ago, and after a few seconds passed he registered that it was intact clear as clean water - almost as if he hadn't even been through the process after adding the water. Awesome.

A few people seemed to be making mistakes, but that was nothing surprising, really. Potions was a very precise subject, and it could be quite difficult at times. But that was part of why she loved it so much - the challenge it presented. What WAS surprising, however, was Adi's question. He...hadn't messed up, had he??? That would have been rather shocking as her fellow Hufflepuff was good at potions. So what was going on here?

Not having a chance to ask him since Professor Culloden was speaking, Lux shrugged it off and figured she'd find out soon anyway. Two measures of boomslang skin was added to her cauldron before she looked at the clock. Okay, five minutes. That wasn't too bad. Lux decided to do a little bit of doodling while she waited, and began filling in the margin of the page with a drawing of Ariel. When the time was up, she added the ten newt larvae.

Her potion was clear like water, so that meant she had done good. BEAM.

SPOILER!!: Lux's Notes

EMOTIONAL CHANGE POTION

Ingredients:

• Two sprigs of lovage
• 4 mistletoe berries
• 4 measures of fluxweed
• 2 measures of boomslang skin
• Ten newt larvae
  
  
• Happiness: 3 Alihotsy leaves
  Sadness: A teaspoon of glumbumble treacle
  Excitement: Half a handful of ferret fur
  Fear: A scoop of black flies
  Tenderness: 2 teaspoons of dog saliva
  Anger: 7 hippogrif feathers

Steps:

1. Fill halfway with pure water
2. Slowly lower your wand as if you're drawing a straight, vertical line with your wand and say Apto pressura.
3. Heat to 100 degree celcius and keep the heat at 100 and ONLY 100 AT ALL TIMES
4. Chop the lovage well and add it
5. Wait for 5 seconds
6. Add the berries right after 5 seconds
7. Cut the fluxweed leaves in three pieces and add
8. With a wooden stick, stir once clockwise, once counter clockwise and alternate like that for 7 times: so the total number of stirs is 14

   Checkpoint: It should be muddy, but not smelly.

9. Add boomslang skin and wait for 5 minutes
10. Add the larvae

    CHECKPOINT: It should be completely clear like clean water

Extra notes:

• It's a base potion, which can be stored for a year
• The emotion to be decided after the creation of the base

Cilla carefully added the boomslang skin to her potion. She waited for five minutes, no more, no less, before she added the newt larvae. "1..2..3..4..5..6..7..8..9..10," Cilla counted in her head. She peered at her potion and saw that it had the appearance of clear water. Cilla then gave her gloves and scales a quick clean thanks to a wand wave and, "Scourgify."

Some interesting things seemed to be going on in the classroom, but Zhenya didn't want to break her concentration to look around. Nope. She didn't want her potion to turn into rubbish. So once she had successfully stirred it enough times, she was glad to see more instructions on the board, so she wrote those down quickly, and listened to what the Professor was saying.



Two easy steps, it seemed, but she didn't want to be thinking it was easy. That was when mistakes were made. Lots of mistakes could be made in Potions. She reached for the boomslang skin and measured 2 precise measures, and added them to the cauldron, immediately starting her timer. She tidied up her work bench, re-re-cleaned everything and sat there to watch the potion for the remainder of the five minutes, until - YAY - it had completed. Next, she added the 10 newt larvae to the potion and watched as her potion turned from looking like a cauldron of mud, to a cauldron of clear water. Incredible.

After adding lovage and berries, Jackson grabbed his knife and chopping board again to cut the fluxweed leaves in three pieces and then he added them to the cauldron. With a clean wooden spoon, he stirred it clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise, clockwise, counter-clockwise.... DONE!

What's next? Then he checked the color of his potion. It was muddy but there's no smell in this. Good?

Next, boomslang skin. Right. He added the boomslang skin to the cauldron and waited until five minutes. After five minutes, he added the larvae. Now he's gonna watch his potion if it's gonna be clear or not...

Yay! It's clear like a water. Hehehe.

Rowan was inspecting her muddy potion, wondering why they had to make something that was such a gross colour. Wouldn't a gross colour potion do gross things? ... She supposed the meaner emotions were gross, so that could work. But then Professor Culloden said the next step should make it clear, so the muddy colour didn't matter... right? Okay to be honest, Rusty was still struggling a little with the concept of potions, but she was trying REALLY hard to make it make sense to her. Maybe if she could complete one that worked it would be easier...

"Oh, okay, thanks professor." she said as he addressed her, and went to grab a bunch of silkworm cocoons, taking a quick second to check there was nobody inside any of them. Didn't wanna ruin anyone's day by dumping them in a potion.

Okay... step nine, boomslang skin. She looked up at the clock and added the skin, careful to note the exact time so that she could put the cocoons in after five minutes. ... She still felt sorta bad using the snake skin and the cocoons and stuff, but she just kept telling herself it was like when she used found feathers on her masks and charms and stuff, and she could just be extra kind to the world later in thanks.

...

She watched the clock closely, thinking about whether she could make a ton of other potions without animal bits and if it would work or not. Maybe someone had looked into it... or maybe it was something she could do when she was older. After all, if you could make perfectly good meringue without eggs, then surely you could do anything without animal products if you just found the right replacement.

Okay. Five minutes had passed, so Rowan started by adding ten cocoons to the potion......

It wasn't clear. It was a little less muddy, but it was certainly not clear as water. Hm... She tried adding another five, keeping track of the amount she was putting in on the corner of her parchment.

....

Still nope...

Another five..?

OOH OOH that was MUCH better! Not totally clear yet, but it was more like dirty water than mud. So she started adding the cocoons one by one, counting under her breath as she did so...

one...

two...

three...

four...

OH.. OOOH!! IT HAD GONE CLEAR!! She made a note next to her ingredients list that it had taken twenty four of the cocoons to make the potion clear, then set down her quill and watched the potion in the cauldron, checking that it was still heated to 100 degrees. Yep! Goodness this was so EXCITING!

Angel felt like she was going to cry... Adi was telling her off, which in her case was right though she had been distracted but it was the Professor fault... why had he smiled like he had at the beginning of the class, she was so pre-occupied with that she started to cut the fluxweed up, she cut it into three pieces and then added it into the cauldron, she then stirred clockwise and counter clockwise 7 times each.


O_________________________________________o

Angel looked at the potion, this didn't look muddy at all, it actually looked weird it was like brown goo or something similar to that. Angel thought about continuing but then decided it probably was best to get the Professor to take a look at it. So she raised her hand.

Just when Leah thought she was going to have a bit of rest before the next few steps came, the instructions appeared on the Blackboard. This happened EVERY SINGLE LESSON. Ugh. She cleaned her cutting board and knife again, then placed her four fluxweed onto the board. Chopping she did, with the parts OTHER than the leaves banished to the big, grey trash bin by the door. There, they were in three pieces now. She added these into her cauldron. Step 7 done!

Wooden stick. If the fifteen-year-old faced difficulty in finding basic ingredients, she spent AGES searching for her stick. Hmmm, where could it BE - oh, there it was! On her... classmate's desk? Straaange. "Scourgify, scourgify, scourgify." You never know what others might have done to her supplies. Now for the fun part - stiiirrrrring. Clockwise, counter clockwise, clockwise, counter clockwise, ten, eleven, thirteen, fourteen, STOP! She stopped herself just in time. Although she knew stirring one more time would not cause serious damage, but she wanted this to be PERFECT.

... Ewww. Muddiness. That one was for sure. As for the smell - Leah leaned in just a tiny bit and sniffed. Nope, it just smelled hot. Y'know.

It was not as difficult to find her ingredients afterwards as there weren't much left to grab. Leah took her two measures of boomslang skin and added - WAIT. Timer ready? Ready. Okay, NOW you can go into the cauldron. As soon as they were safe in the water, she started the timer and waited.

People watching going on here. Nothing unusual in a Potions lesson.

Time's up! She hurriedly poured all ten newt larvae in, slowing down when she realized that she was not very behind after all. As the steam cleared, she gasped to see clear water. Only a couple of minutes ago she was ewwwing at its somewhat dirty color.

MAGIC.