One by One Dante added the berries until he was done. These steps he could handle when he cared. Though he had noticed all these ingredients numbered in 8 and here he thought 3 or maybe 7 was the magic number. But who knows he does not pay attention in arithmancy as well as he should.

Sprinkling the alihotsy leaves was fun until he to do the whole drawing a clockwise circle. Necessary he knew.

Just he did not like this part. He waved his wand and boom look at the Dark Red.

Doing Good so far, Professor C.

You know, the sound of making a love potion was WEIRD. LOVE potion. LOVE. Or, as Phillip was going to start calling it, the SNOGGING potion. He imagined that that was what it would lead to eventually and he didn't like it. One Valentine's Day in a school full of TEENAGERS was enough for him, thank you.

But enough of that, there was a potion to be made. Picking up his quill, the first year started noting down the ingredients on the board, along with the first few steps. Sneezewort -- AHAHAHA -- Ashwinder egg, salamandar bloo--

............................

...........................................

NO.

Phillip STARED at the ingredients list and then at his supplies and then back at the ingredients list. There was a look of pure DISGUST on his face when his eyes landed on that one word. Blood. They. Had to. Use. Blood. BLOOD. The thing that should be in BODIES and not flowing freely to GROSS PEOPLE OUT AND MAKE THEM FEEL SICK TO THEIR STOMACHS.

MERLIN.

He immediately recoiled and slowly inched his arm up in the air. There had to be a way past this. Just HAD to. He wasn't going to take a no for an answer because he certainly WASN'T going to touch THAT. "Professaaaaaaah! Do you think you could come here please?" This was important especially if he didn't want puke everywhere .

In the meantime, however, he was going to start with the next few steps and just forget that that even EXISTED. Nope. No blood near HIM. First came separating the sneezewort petals, which was the E A S I E S T step ever. Didn't even take him long to do it. Then came the chopping part so, grabbing his knife and cutting board and giving those a CLEAN, he started chopping away at the leaves.

CHOP CHOP CHOP!

When THAT was done, he moved onto the next step: crushing the moonstone. Phillip cleaned the mortar and pestle before starting with the crushing process. For a little first year with a LOT of energy, this was NOT a problem whatsoever. In fact, it almost felt GOOD to crush the moonstone into tiny little pieces. Look at it getting smaller and smaller and SMALLER.

Was that enough? Yeah? YEAH. MOVING ON, he was going to CLEAN the cauldron now and add purified water to it. Merlin, with this number of cleaning going on, it was as if he was back at home and being nagged by his mum to clean his room. But this wasn't nagging: this was ESSENTIAL if he didn't want to mess up the potion ENTIRELY and cause a huge explosion.

But, you know, an explosion would be COOL.

And IN went the petals. JUST the petals.

Next step? FIRE! F I Y A H!!

At the mere mention of it, Phillip took in a deep breath and could ALMOST be seen rubbing his feet back and forth against the floor. All in the name of EXCITEMENT. He did as he was told, a wide BEAM spread across his young face when the fire was lit at maximum beneath his cauldron. He could stare at this FOREVER but, uh, there was a potion to be made. So, in went the sneezewort heads before he looked up at the blackboard again.

The next step? Stirring. Which included MORE cleaning.

While he was in the same house as his mum, he hadn't gained her gift and knowledge in Potions so the change in stick material was NO bother to him WHATSOEVER. To him, it was just a different stick. Big deal. He still cleaned the metal stick and started stirring his potion eight times clockwise. It wasn't a hard step but keeping up the concentration level? Now THAT was hard. Especially since he was sitting in a CLASS full of people who were each going at their own speed.

Was the blood step next? No? GOOD.

When he was done with the eight stirs, Phillip started adding in the berries one by one. At this point in the potion making process, he wasn't even SURPRISED that there were eight of these. There was a pattern here and, you know, this was much easier to remember than having lots of different numbers listed.

Uh. So the next step was hard. Sprinkle leaves while drawing a clockwise circle? But that required MULTITASKING. Which meant two lots of concentration levels, something that Phillip could NOT do. He found it hard enough to concentrate as it is but this? This was going too far. The boy rubbed his nose and furrowed his eyebrows as he looked down at the leaves and then his wand. Good luck, indeed.

Little steps, Romalotti, little steps.

Keeping his wand in his right hand, the Slytherin picked up the leaves that had been chopped before. His eyebrows were still furrowed as he started sprinkling the leaves into the potion with one hand while waving his wand around in a clockwise circle using his other hand. It was a slow process and it wasn't long before he felt a headache coming on. How did people DO this?!

Okay, that was all the Alihotsy leaves gone. The next step was, thankfully, MUCH simpler. Just a wave of the wand. Nothing EXTREME.

So, Phillip waved his wand over his cauldron.

And he STILL wasn't looking over at the salamander blood over there. No.

Text Cut: Notes

Love Potion
Phillip Romalotti
First Year Slytherin

Ingredients

• 8 flower heads of sneezewort (seperate the petals beforehand)
• 8 berries of atropa belladonna
• 8 chopped leaves of Alihotsy (prepared beforehand)
• One frozen ashwinder egg broken in 8
• 8 tea spoons of powdered moonstone
• All the thorns of 8 roses
• 8 drops of salamander blood
• 8 table spoons of peppermint

Instructions

1. Prepare the sneezewort (separate petals), alihotsy (chop leaves) and moonstone (crush)
2. Fill the cauldron with purified water and add the sneezewort petals
3. Light a fire under the cauldron and set it to maximum
4. Add the heads of the sneezewort
5. Stir 8 times clockwise with a metal stick
6. Add the berries of atropa bellandonna one by one
7. Sprinkle Alihotsy leaves while drawing a clockwise circle
8. Wave your wand. The colour should turn to dark red

Of course Adi could just play it off saying to Benny that he couldn't take his eyes off him. As a matter of fact, though it would be the truth, he wouldn't because he couldn't afford to distract the Gryffindor as he had done when they had been brewing the Cure for Boils. "I know. Still gonna keep an eye on ya. Explosions are never far behind when it involves you and Potions,'' the Puff teased.
....................

Then they were moving on again.

Adi focused his attention on the board. Okay, so berries first. One... two... three... four... five... six... seven... eight berries were added! His eyes zoned in on Benny to ensure stuff was going right before he zoned back to his own work. Taking the Alihotsy leaves in his left hand, he sprinkled them in a clockwise direction so that there was a circle of the leaves. Finally, his Hippogriff feather wand was waved.

Wheee! There was the dark red colour!

OOC: The 'Sprinkle' step should have been: Sprinkle the leaves in a circle over the cauldron in clockwise direction, so it doesn't require a wand but I haven't been clear enough, I'm sorry. I'll accept both. (And therefore, this question isn't valid unless Olly wants to ask something else?)

Moving on, then. Still no explosions. HEHE. Merlin, this was proving to be one of the easiest classes.

He walked up to the front and tapped his wand on the blackboard.

"Now the part you hate the most: Waiting. For pewter, 25 minutes. For brass, 13 and for copper, 8. You'll have a task in the meantime, however. Break the frozen egg into 8. If you break it into more, just get another egg. They will... be on my desk, hold on." He quickly walked in the storeroom to get the tray of eggs and put it on his desk.

"Once the time is up, add these pieces and stir vigorously with a metal stick until the colour is purple."

All clear?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackboard

9. Wait for 25 minutes for pewter cauldrons, 13 for brass and 8 for copper
10. In the meantime, break the egg into 8. If you break it into more pieces accidentally, get another egg.
11. When the time is up, add the egg parts
12. Stir vigorously clockwise with a metal stick until the colour is purple

Sooo, waiting. Since Adi was working with a copper cauldron as one of the cauldrons required by seventh years, he would have to wait eight minutes. And no... waiting was not something he hated. He DID have a ton of patience.

He snagged two Ashwinder eggs. One for himself and one for Benny which he stashed on the boyfriend's station. Uh, how was he supposed to do this, break this egg? For starters, he just cracked the frozen thing with the handle of his knife then went ahead to to break it into eight pieces. Great! No more, no less pieces!

Now, the Puff consulted his watch. He still had about a minute left but soon that was up and in went the eight Ashwinder egg pieces! The metal stirrer was Scourgified and then... stir, stir, stir! A wholeeee lot of vigorous clockwise stirring as Culloden had instructed until... Hello, the colour purple!

Okay. If Sophie brown thought she was fooling anyone then she was incredibly delusional.

At first he had attributed it to the girl being extra giddy about potions today. But no, he knew better. Maybe she had taken some kind of potion today. He wouldn’t put it past her. She wasn’t acting right. This was strange. Culloden wasn’t falling for it either, was he? The Gryffindor just stared from his spot in the back of the room.

He knew why she was acting like this too. And there wasn’t much he could do being so far away. He was worried for her though. She didn't have to pretend like she was okay. She was going through something hard. She was allowed to not be okay. Why didn't she let herself be not okay???

And there she went again. Merlin, Sophie Brown. You are the worst actress ever known to man. It’s a wonder how she ever made it through Glendower’s class alive.

His mind still on Sophie, the Gryffindor started to fall behind on his potion. Er. OOPS. Upon inspection of the board, he realized the class had moved on and that he was properly behind now. Cool. Uh. PANIC??? No no he’d stay calm. All he had to do was add the berries. This was FINE. His potion wouldn’t go bad because he waited too long, right? Not paying attention he may have sprinkled the Alihosty rather hastily, ignoring the circle motion bit completely.

And then quickly he waved his wand.

Everything was fine over here, sir. Potion was going fine.

Things that weren’t fine? Sophie Brown. Also, oi Yoongi what was with that look?

Brooklyn still hadn’t gone for any of the treats on Professor Culloden’s desk, although she’d glanced over a couple times to see if anyone had taken the sugar quills or lemon drops she’d left there. Just out of curiosity, since she had more in her bag so it hardly mattered if the ones she’d donated disappeared. Plus, it gave her something to do while she’d been waiting for the next steps, and she’d turned her attention back to the professor as soon as he’d begun explaining the next few steps. So she needed the belladonna berries now, along with the leaves that were still sitting all chopped up in a pile on her station. That was easy enough, although she’d wondered the same thing that Olly had, regarding the wand wave. That there wasn’t an incantation or anything they had to say. It seemed weird, like they were expected to perform a nonverbal spell without actually knowing what spell they were casting.

She didn’t ask, though, more because the question had already been asked and she hardly wanted to sound like she was copying a first year. She just imagined she’d find out the answer as soon as she performed that step, since there were a couple other steps before then. She collected eight berries, and then stood up to get a better angle over her cauldron. She didn’t want to mess up and splash her potion after all. Dropping the first berry into the cauldron, she watched it sink before dropping the next one. Three, four, five, six, seven, and eight. All berries were now somewhere in her potion, and she collected her chopped leaves in one hand as she watched them. Now to sprinkle, as she moved her hand in a perfect clockwise circle over her cauldron so the leaves traced out the shape on the surface of her potion. That was easy enough, and she was able to get her wand ready in her other hand while she’d finished her circle. She switched hands once the leaves were gone, waving her wand over the potion as she eyed it. She eyed it all the way until it turned a dark red color, only looking away once she realized the professor was speaking again.

Glad she’d gone with her copper cauldron for once, compared to that one lesson when it had meant way more waiting than the others, she still leaned over to snag one of Hady’s peppermint treats from the desk while she was thinking about it. Leaving that at her station, she collected an ashwinder egg, looking at it closely before she carefully used the blunt edge of her knife to split it in two, and then repeated that on the resulting pieces twice more until she had eight little frozen egg pieces. Glancing at the clock, she still had a couple minutes, so she used that to take a bite of the previously claimed peppermint treat. She set it back down as the eight minutes were up, cleaning her hands off before she dropped the eight pieces of egg into her potion. Her metal stick got Scourgified again, then slipped back into the cauldron as she began stirring again, making sure she was moving clockwise again. All that was left was waiting for her potion to turn purple, as she let herself wonder if stirring counterclockwise would make the potion a hate potion. She wasn’t about to test that theory, even if she wasn’t planning on testing out her potion at all. Oh, and it was purple. She sat back down, letting her arms rest a bit. Maybe waiting wasn’t always bad.

SPOILER!!: notes

Amortentia/Love Potion
Love potions cause infatuation or obsession for the brewer or the first person seen. Amortentia is the most powerful of them.
The duration of the effects (usually up to 24 hours) vary depending on factors such as the weight of the person drinking the potion and the attractiveness of the person with whom the potion is supposed to make the drinker obsessed. The effects wear off naturally over time, but can be renewed by administering further doses of potion. Therefore, there is no overdose.
The effect is near instantaneous: the drinker appears "pale and sickly" and becomes obsessed with the brewer or the first person seen and excited or dangerously unstable towards others.
A hate potion can cancel out love potions and vice versa. There is also a proper antidote.
The brewer doesn't have to be present for the effect if it's that sort of love potion.
The drinker does not forget what he or she did while under its influence.
Love potions mature over time; so the longer it is kept, the stronger it will be.
Amortentia's characteristics are a distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen and spiral steams. Its aroma is different for everyone and reminds each person of the things that they find most attractive, even if they don't acknowledge or are unaware of their fondness themselves.
The smell of Amortentia can change as you see new things and people.

8 flower heads of sneezewort (separate the petals beforehand)
8 berries of atropa belladonna
8 chopped leaves of Alihotsy (prepared beforehand)
One frozen ashwinder egg broken in 8
8 tea spoons of powdered moonstone
All the thorns of 8 roses
8 drops of salamander blood
8 table spoons of peppermint

1. Prepare the sneezewort, alihotsy and moonstone.
2. Fill the cauldron with purified water and add the sneezewort petals
3. Light a fire under the cauldron and set it to maximum
4. Add the heads of the sneezewort
5. Stir 8 times clockwise with a metal stick
6. Add the berries of atropa bellandonna one by one
7. Sprinkle Alihotsy in a circle motion in clockwise direction
8. Wave your wand. The colour should turn to dark red
9. Wait for 25 minutes for pewter cauldrons, 13 for brass and 8 for copper
10. In the meantime, break the egg into 8. If you break it into more pieces accidentally, get another egg.
11. When the time is up, add the egg parts
12. Stir vigorously clockwise with a metal stick until the colour is purple

What's wrong with the Head Girl? She acted really weird today. She's not a noisy person but its just made her curious what made Sophie Brown acting all weird. Oh well, its not her business. Back to her potion.

Candice added the berries of atropa bellandonna one by one. She did notice that there's SO many 8s in this potion but she didn't really care as long as her potion turn up alright in the end. Moving on to the next steps. She sprinkled the chopped leaves of Alihotsy over her cauldron in clockwise direction. The next one was the easiest one, she reached for her wand and waved it. Her potion turned into dark red. This mean she did it right, yes?

While waiting for the next instruction, Candice quickly updated her notebook. Then just a seconds after she finished updated her notebook, the next instructions was up.

UGH! Waiting. She hate waiting. But thankfully she used her copper cauldron today so she didn't have to wait that long. While waiting for her potion, she grabbed the frozen Ashwinder egg. The Gryffindor was looking at her Ashwinder egg wondering how to do break the egg into 8. She reached for her knife and used the handle of the knives to break the egg. Instead of 8 pieces, she get more. After she got another Ashwinder egg, she break it again but this time she did it more carefully. And VOILA! Eight pieces. Her eight minutes was up, carefully she added the eight pieces of Ashwinder egg into her cauldron. Candice reached for her metal stick and cleaned it first before she used it to stir her potion clockwise. Vigorously! Like the Professor said.

What was with the Head Girl and correcting the Professor? This was his subject, so she was pretty sure that he knew all there was to know about potions.

Strange.

Shaking her head, Paulina recorded the next steps into her notes. These ones were as easy as all the previous ones and she had a feeling that she would pass this lesson with flying colours. Hopefully she wouldn't jinx herself, because that would be pretty awful.

One by one she added the berries to her cauldron, counting off each one as she plopped it into the liquid. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8... The Alihotsy was then sprinkled in in a clockwise circular motion. Picking up her wand, Paulina waved it over her cauldron. She had no idea what the purpose was, but at least it worked because her potion was now dark red.

It was time to play the waiting game. Paulina was glad that she had to wait only 8 minutes, because it would suck if she was sitting there doing mostly nothing for almost half an hour. Humming to herself, she grabbed an Ashwinder egg off the tray and placed it on the desk. After cleaning her knife, she caaaaarefully used the handle to break a part off. In this way she managed to collect 8 pieces.

As soon as the time was up, Paulina added the pieces to her potion. Her metal stick was cleaned and then she used it to stir vigorously in a clockwise direction until she saw the colour of the liquid turn purple.

SPOILER!!: Paulina's Notes

AMORTENTIA

Ingredients

• 8 flower heads of sneezewort (seperate the petals beforehand)
• 8 berries of atropa belladonna
• 8 chopped leaves of Alihotsy (prepared beforehand)
• One frozen ashwinder egg broken in 8
• 8 tea spoons of powdered moonstone
• All the thorns of 8 roses
• 8 drops of salamander blood
• 8 table spoons of peppermint

Instructions

1. Prepare the sneezewort, alihotsy, and moonstone.
2. Fill the cauldron with purified water and add the sneezewort petals
3. Light a fire under the cauldron and set it to maximum
4. Add the heads of the sneezewort
5. Stir 8 times clockwise with a metal stick
6. Add the berries of atropa bellandonna one by one
7. Sprinkle Alihotsy in a circle motion in clockwise direction
8. Wave your wand. The colour should turn to dark red
9. Wait for 25 minutes for pewter cauldrons, 13 for brass and 8 for copper
10. In the meantime, break the egg into 8. If you break it into more pieces accidentally, get another egg.
11. When the time is up, add the egg parts
12. Stir vigorously clockwise with a metal stick until the colour is purple

Amorentia eight.. amorentia eight... list of eight with eight bits each... Benzi chanted this over and over in his head, knowing itwould definitely be useful in his NEWT. Amorentia being the infamous potion that it is, was guaranteed to come up in the exam right? Best learn it, and best learn it now and not later.

What was next? What number where they on? And had Sophie taken something that altered her brain? Because she was definitely being very strange.

Right. The berries. Deadly nightshade. Benzi wondered, not for the first time, how one even invented potions. There were always so many poisonous plants and ingredients, how didn't potioneers drop like flies? Unless they used animals for testing... Hmm. Reagan wouldn't like that. Finding the right balance must be so annoying, he thought to himself as he dropped the berries one by one into the simmering cauldron. Plus you must be really really good at Herbology too... Basically, potioneering was not the career for him.

Chopped alihotsy leaves went in after that. Where had he read about those before............ OH. Right. Laughing potion. Alihotsy - or the Hyena tree - makes people go into hysteria. Naturally, something you'd want to put in a fake love potion for all those who are so truly horrible that only someone suffering mild hysteria could fake love them. What a nice thought. He sprinkled the leaves in a circular, clockiwse motion as instructed, then closed his eyes quickly and muttered all the steps back to himself. Got them all. Cool. With a wave of his wand, the contents of his cauldron turned a deep dark red and Benzi beamed. Long gone where his days of clumsy potionmaking. Practice does indeed make perfect.

Well, he had a brass cauldron so Benzi set his timer for 13 minutes and waited for the professor to return with their eggs. Frozen Ashwinder eggs, one egg broken into eight. One egg broken into eight. He grabbed said egg, smashed the top to crack the ice then carefully dislocated bits until he had eight frozen Ashwinder egg parts on his working station. Until his timer rang the Prefect read over the list of ingredients again and memorised them. Relatively an easy list. Polyjuice? Hard. He hated that stupid potion so much, it was the WORST to study.

And, time was up! He carefully added the egg bits into the hot cauldron and quickly stirred until, LOOK EVERYONE, the potion was a nice perfect purple. Now if only he could do all this without instructions written up on the board and he'd have himself an O.

So far so good. Completely mistake free. This was a good thing for she needed to move on to the next step of steps. Glancing towards the board Hady saw she had some berries that needed to be added now.

Gathering up the eight berries of atropa bellandonna she added them into the cauldron one by one until all eight were accounted for. Making sure that her gloved hands were once more cleaned she picked up the chopped alihotsy leaves. Carefully Hady sprinkled those leaves in a clockwise direction forming a circle over the contents of her cauldron. A nice wave of her wand at the potion confirmed it was now indeed the Dark Red color it needed to be.

Before getting a chance to do anything else the lesson was moving forward and more instructions were giving. Something about waiting now. Alright well luckily for her and her copper cauldron the wait was only going to be eight minutes. Yeah, eight. Again. What was up with that? Anyhow no time to mess about. Getting up from her seat she made way to the front and collected herself one of the frozen Ashwinder eggs.

Returning to her table she looked at the frozen egg with a moments hesitation. Breaking a frozen egg. Scanning her work area she grabbed one of her clean knives and used it's handle to break through the frozen part. It took a few moments but she got and upon doing that also somehow ended up with four broken pieces of frozen egg. This wasn't a bad thing really so Hady then continued to break each of those pieces carefully in half the best so could thereby giving herself eight pieces of frozen Ashwinder egg.

Collecting all the frozen egg pieces she watched the clock and counted down the last few seconds. Eight minutes had past! Adding the Ashwinder pieces into the cauldron she was ready for the last step. Grabbing a metal stick, cleaning it first she placed it into the cauldron stirring vigorously in a clockwise direction like told. Keeping a close eye on the cauldron Hady grin when it turned Purple as stated in the instructions.

The belladonna berries, all eight of them went into his cauldron, one by one. Following the next instruction, Zeke took his chopped alihotsy leaves and sprinkled those into his cauldron too as he moved his hand in a circular clockwise motion above it. The leaves fell softly into his brew. Larch wand in hand, Zeke performed the wave over his cauldron... wondering exactly what kind effect that had. In his mind it would help to combine the ingredients, but that was a guess, he could be wrong.

Peering over the brim, he examined the contents, smiling to himself at the delightful shade of dark red. It almost reminded him of cranberry juice.



And bleh, really truly he did hate waiting. Patience was still something he hadn't quite developed. For once though, he was thankful not to have brought his pewter cauldron, instead in its play he was using his brass one. Thirteen minutes. After setting his timer, Zeke took down the notes from the board that he needed to catch up on... though occasionally, every so often, he continued to peer into his cauldron.

....

With his notes done, and time still to go, he collected his frozen ash winder egg and very carefully went about breaking it into bits. Or more precisely, into eight bits.

He was careful with his movements, not wanting to crush it, or flake it or break it into too many pieces. At least though, they didn't have to be EQUALLY sized pieces, so it was easy enough to do... when exercising some control.

...

At the thirteen minute mark, his timer went off, and he added the frozen bits of ashwinder egg. The second they were in, he took his clean metal stirrer and stirred the contents of his cauldron vigorously. There had been no instructions regarding direction, so he went with what felt natural, and as it so happened that was anti-clockwise. Stir... stir.... stir.... STIR....

The fourth year Gryffindor watched closely as his potion turned from that red to purple. Success.

You know what? Potions wasn’t such a bad subject when he got the steps right. Actually, he didn’t hate the subject but he hated failing and most of the times he missed a step which caused him to ..well, fail his potion. But not today. He felt good making this potion. Not that he suddenly became good at it but maybe there was something in the air that gave him a confidence boost. Not to mention that he was actually SMILING while adding 8? Yeah 8 atropa bellandonna berries one by one in to the cauldron.

He scratched out this step with his pink flamingo quill to keep track of the steps he had already done and it made it easier for him to see which step would be the next one. Which was sprinkling alihotsy. He grabbed some with his gloved hand and sprinkled the leaves in a circle and in to the cauldron. Easy peasy. Why did he ever thought potions was difficult? Or maybe this love potion was an easy one? Mweh. Next, he waved his wand and watched as the colour turned to dark red.

Watching the Professor walking to the front of the classroom again and tapping his wand at the blackboard, Yoongi read the next few steps and chuckled. He didn’t mind the waiting though, as he knew they had to do other things in the meantime. He set his watch on 13 minutes as he had a brass cauldron today. Grabbing a frozen Ashwinder egg, the sixth year looked at it and wondered how he was going to break it in to exactly 8 pieces. Also, what was up with the number 8? He had heard Sophie telling out loud what the 8 represented but seriously, too much Ravenclaw words you know? Anyways, he used the flat part of the cleaned knife to break the egg and when it fell apart he counted the parts and sighed when he had gotten less pieces than 8. Placing his stuff down on his workstation, Yoongi moved to the front of the class to grab another egg from the Professor’s desk.

Alright, second try. He tried it again, and failed a second time. “oh come on” he mumbled to himself as he got up yet again to grab another egg. He knew SOMETHING would go wrong in this class. Apparently it was the egg breaking part. Trying it for the third time, the same method as earlier he finally managed to get exactly 8 pieces and he grinned. Even gave himself a shoulder pat. He was awesome wasn’t he?

He checked his watch and noticed that he still had a couple of minutes left so in that time, the Gryffindor pointed his wand at the egg mistakes and vanished them into non-being. Such a nice, almost clean desk he had now~ Hearing his watch go off, Yoongi clicked a button to turn off the sound and checked the blackboard. He added the egg parts and then grabbed a metal stick. He placed it in the potion and began to stir ….eh…vigorously clockwise, trying to make sure he didn’t spill the potion over the cauldron.

OOC: Oops. But they did have to wave their wands, so that's all he's asking about then

Waiting?! Culloden was right, that was Olly's least favorite part. At least there was something to do while they waited. He went to grab one of the eggs from Culloden's desk. While he was up there he also grabbed another piece of candy to eat.

The big question was how to break the egg. It was frozen after all, and was not just going to break easily. But they had tables. Olly simply slammed his egg down on the table in front of him and it broke into pieces. One, two, three pieces. But he needed...how many? Right, eight of course. He set the two smallest pieces off to the side and slammed the big one down onto the table again. It broke into four, giving him six pieces total. So Olly took two of the pieces and managed to break them in half. There, eight.

"Professor, does it matter if the pieces aren't the same size?" There was no way he was going to be able to break an egg into eight equal sized pieces. But that had not been part of the instructions, so he figured it was fine.

Wait, what time had it been when he went up to get the egg? Olly really had no idea how long had passed since then. How long had he been waiting? He scrutinized the potion, as if that might tell him how long it had been sitting. Um. It seemed like a long time, so he decided to just go for it. He dumped all eight pieces of the egg into his cauldron and grabbed his metal stirrer. Stirring vigorously was something he could do. He continued to do it until the potion changed color. Purple, right? It looked alright so far.

It was time to move on and Janelle copied the next set of instructions from the blackboard. She was ready. Picking up her berries, Janelle added them to the potion one by one. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. Then she took her chopped alihotsy leaves and sprinkled them into the cauldron using a clockwise circular motion. Taking a deep breath, Janelle waved her wand. She waited anxiously and was pleased to see her potion turn dark red, jus like it was supposed to. She didn't realize that she had been holding her breath in anticipation of the change until she released the stream of air.

Now they had to wait. Just like the professor said, Janelle hated waiting. With her brass cauldron, she would have to wait for 13 minutes. Well, at least she didn't have to wait 25 minutes.......that was something. Janelle made a mental note. One day she would have to get a copper cauldron. That was the go to cauldron for the impatient.

In the meantime, Janelle checked her watch and noted the time. Then she began the next step. This part was not going to be easy. She went to the professor's desk and got her frozen ashwinder egg. Then she set it in front of her. Thinking for a moment, Janelle decided how she was going to break the egg. Now whether or not it would work was the question. Janelle picked up her clean knife and her pestle. She placed the tip of he knife in the center of her egg and gave it a push. When she felt it had slightly penetrated the egg, she picked up her pestle. Holding the knife steady, Janelle took her pestle and tapped it on top of the knife handle. She was hoping that it would crack the egg and spilt it in two. It took some some doing, but after a while, the egg began to crack. At last, the egg broke into two pieces. They weren't exactly even in size, but it was good enough.

Janelle repeated the process until the egg had been broken into eight piecees. The task got a little easier as the pieces of egg became smaller. When that was done, Janellle checked her watch. It was almost time. When her thirteen minutes had passed, Janelle added her egg pieces to the potion and grabbed her metal stick. Then she began to stir the potion, putting a little muscle into her effort. Round and round the metal stick went. Janelle's arm was starting to get a little tired, but fortunately, the potion began to turn purple. Relieved Janelle stopped her stirring and removed the stick from the cauldron. While she waited for further instructions, she cleaned her dirty equipment.

He was doing okay. So far so good and with a watchful hippogriff keeping watch over his shoulder like a protective boyfriend it would hopefully remain that way. "I know that...Funny " No distractions this time around so he should be fine. Benny looked back up at the board as Culloden moved them on, the Gryffindor writing down what was added into his notes before following through with the new steps presented. First adding the berries carefully one by one.

One...two...three...four...five...six....seven...e ight.

There definitely was a theme with the number eight in this potion. Now he took the alihotshy in his grasp and gingerly sprinkled it all into his potion in a circular motion in a clockwise direction over the cauldron. Then the wave of the wand over it all and a Gryffindor leaning in to check the color. Phew...one deep red potion.

Another tap...another set of steps.

And Benny nearly groaned at the thought of a wait, especially as Professor Culloden started to rattle them off based on cauldrons. But thankfully copper for once was the shortest. So glancing at his watch to start the time , the seventh year continued his notes before moving to head up for an egg, only to find Adi bringing him one from his own visit to the man's desk. "Thanks..." Such a thoughtful partner. With procurement of ashwinder egg complete, he cautiously broke it into pieces much like Adi had, adding them once the eight minutes were up.

And then...

Stirring, stirring, stirring...Stirring, stirring, stirring...Stirring, stirring, stirring.

Purple Potion.

Text Cut: Notes

Love Potions

• cause an infatuation/obsession for the brewer or the first person seen.
• Amortentia = most powerful
• Duration varies on: weight of the drinker, attractiveness the brewer, etc.
• Effects wear off naturally over time, but can be renewed by more doses
• There is no overdose
• Effect = instantaneous
• Drinker appears "pale and sickly" and becomes obsessed with the brewer or the first person seen; excited or dangerously unstable towards others
• A hate potion can cancel out love potions and vice versa. There is also a proper antidote.
• Brewer doesn't have to be present for the effect
• Drinker does not forget what he or she did while under its influence
• Love potions mature over time; the longer they're kept, the stronger they will be
• Characteristics: distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen + spiral steams; aroma is different for everyone and reminds each person of the things that they find most attractive
• Smell of Amortentia can change as you see new things and people

Potion Ingredients

• 8 flower heads of sneezewort (separate the petals beforehand)
• 8 berries of atropa belladonna
• 8 chopped leaves of alihotsy (prepared beforehand)
• One frozen ashwinder egg broken in 8
• 8 teaspoons of powdered moonstone
• All the thorns of 8 roses
• 8 drops of salamander blood
• 8 tablespoons of peppermint

Brewing Instructions

1. Prepare the sneezewort, alihotsy and moonstone.
2. Fill the cauldron with purified water and add the sneezewort petals.
3. Light a fire under the cauldron and set it to maximum.
4. Add the heads of the sneezewort.
5. Stir 8 times clockwise with a metal stick.
6. Add the berries of atropa bellandonna one by one.
7. Sprinkle alihotsy leaves in a clockwise circle.
8. Wave your wand. The color should turn to dark red.
9. Wait for 25 minutes for pewter cauldrons, 13 for brass, and 8 for copper.
10. In the meantime, break the egg into 8. If you break it into more pieces accidentally, get another egg.
11. When the time is up, add the egg parts.
12. Stir vigorously clockwise with a metal stick until the color is purple.

Davie was doing the potion right! FOR ONCE, he was getting it right! Yay! His potion had just turned to dark red when he set his timer for 25 minutes, since he had the standard size 2 pewter cauldron. Now time to break the ashwinder egg into eight pieces... easier said than done. The first egg Davie attempted broke into all jagged, ugly pieces, about twelve or so pieces. That wouldn't do. Fortunately, he had plenty of time to re-do that, so he got another egg and gave it a second try, breaking it into half, and then each half into half, and so on until he had eight sections.

Time to do... some more waiting. Sigh. Davie leaned in and rested his hand on his chin, watching his potion slowly swirl around his cauldron. He was almost startled when his timer went off, and he added the eight ashwinder egg pieces. There. Easy. Davie grabbed his metal stick again and started stirring clockwise, watching and waiting for the pretty red potion to turn purple.

They Now for the part they hated the most?

Oh. He was right.

That was the part he hated the most. Four for you Professor C, you go Professor C.

So without checking to see what color his potion was, the Gryffindor turned around to chat with whoever was beside him. Waiting it out. Oh, and he also checked the time just to make sure he didn't wait too long. And of course, they weren't allowed to just wait. Nevermiind person he was sat next to. Conversation was lovely, but Zander Adair had an egg to break. Into 8. That was a lot. A lot of egg bits.

And finally once the waiting was up, he went ahead and threw the egg bits into the cauldron, before picking up the metal stick to begin swirling again. Clockwise. Can't forget the direction. Apparently that was important. Potions were sensitive creatures, geez.

EVERYTHING WAS FIIIIIIIIIINE.

She did say so, Culloden, and she smiiiiled up at him in reply. Case closed. Sophie Brown: 1, Culloden: 0. Making him SO PROUD, right? Yeeeeeeees. Naturally. He was DEFINITELY super thrilled with her bravery to go against what he was saying AND her analysis of the sneezewort ingredient. Totally earning his approval, just like she hoped.

...That was one way to deal with a parental death.

The smile remaining on her face, Sophie put on her clean gloves to add the eight berries of atropa belladonna one by one, then sprinkled the chopped alihotsy leaves in a clockwise motion around the surface of her cauldron, not minding anyone else and not noticing how many people were looking at her suspiciously. Good thing she didn't, really, or else she would've no-doubt acted even weirder. But nope, for now, she was content to work diligently in accordance with the professor's instructions, next taking her gloves off to wave her wand over the potion. The potion turned a deep, bloody red, and Soph took a quick moment to note these steps and instructions on her parchment.

No commentary on any of this. Yet.

She only had to wait eight minutes since she had a copper cauldron, so Soph went ahead to use her time wisely and wrote down all the necessary steps so far, clean anything at her work station that needed it, then stared down the Ashwinder egg she collected, considering the best method to break it into eight pieces. She glanced around and behind her to see what methods other people used and how they found success... and, ultimately, Soph's wand was in her hand and she cast one deliberate, "Diffindo," cutting the egg down the middle, then repeated, "Diffindo! Diffindo!" She cut each half one more time so there was four total pieces, then repeated the spell four more times to split each of the four pieces to give her eight pieces.

There. That would suffice, yeah? It was a good stress-reliever doing it like that anyway, breakin' stuff up. Cool activity, professor.

She still had a few minutes left, so Soph fidgeted anxiously where she sat, her legs jiggling underneath the table, and when Culloden came around, she stopped him with a low, "Hey," and gave him an expectant look, gesturing down to her potion and her sliced egg bits. Ehh? DID SHE HAVE HIS APPROVAL? There was a biiiiiiig, hopeful smile for him. HOW WAS SHE DOING?

That was not a very happy face Culloden had on. She gestured at her desk to show off how lovely and ink-free it was (didn't he APPRECIATE how quickly she'd cleaned it up? It had to be a world record), and gave him an angelic smile. Everything was grand over here. Nothing was exploding. Maybe he was just upset about how good her cookies were. She saw he was eating them, mmhmm. Maybe they really WEREN'T dreadful this time! That'd be one for the history books, if nothing else.

With one last glance at Yoongi--still alive, imagine that--Norah added step after step after step to her notes, taking care not to knock her ink over again. That'd been weird enough the first time, she didn't really need to relive it. She lifted her wand and cast "Incendio" so a big ol' flame appeared below her cauldron, and made sure the burner was on maximum before adding the sneezewort heads in one gloved handful. Heh. SNEEZEWORT. That'd never not be funny. She shed her gloves to pick her wand up again, using it to cast "Scourgify!" on her metal stir stick. That's right. METAL. She wasn't going to mess up her stirring this time, no sir. Professor Culloden looked disgusted enough as it was, or at least he had before. His between-the-eyebrow wrinkles were a little calmer now that he was talking to Sophie, who was smiling a whole lot more than seemed natural. Maybe she was really really happy! For REAL! That sounded like quite a miracle, considering the circumstances, but everybody knew that Sophie Brown was way better at the whole life thing than everybody else. Norah gave the older girl a proud smile (look how okay she was! Unbelievable) and used her metal stick to stir 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 times in the clockwise direction.

She put her gloves back on again and counted out eight berries to add, and then the eight alihotsy leaves that she'd chopped up into horribly uneven pieces while she'd been purposely staring at the floor in an effort to stop looking at the back of Yoongi's head. Nobody had to know that, though. They were all consumed by the potion now, so HA. All sprinkled on in the shape of a circle so nobody'd ever have to know. Norah wiggled her gloves off her fingers for what felt like the three thousandth time, and waved her wand over her cauldron. Red? Red? RED. IT WAS RED. Man, it was like the blood of her ENEMIES. If she had any of those, which she didn't think she did. Maybe mean people, but only if they really deserved it.

She scribbled the time onto the corner of her parchment so she'd know when to add the egg. She offered Culloden another ginormous smile as she retrieved her egg, pausing on her trip back to her seat to give Yoongi a thumbs up. Was his potion red like the blood of his enemies TOO? She'd have to ask later, 'cause right now she had an egg to break. With as much caution as she could muster, she set the egg down on her desk and whispered "Diffindo." The egg broke in two. "Diffindo, Diffindo, Diffindo!" All was well until that last incantation, which came out a bit too enthusiastic and ended up breaking the egg into a whole lot more pieces than she needed. Uh. Oops? Maybe Soph's enthusiasm was just contagious. What was with that, anyways? On her second trip to the front of the room to try another egg, she eyed the Ravenclaw, but said nothing in fear of falling behind and never completing the potion. Not that she wanted it. It'd just be...interesting. Y'know. For science.

This time she succeeded in breaking the egg into exactly eight pieces, which she added once her 25 minutes were up. She cleaned off her stir stick and stirred and stirred 'till the deep red had turned purple.

Ava was kinda glad that she hadn't make any mistakes.... yet. Well, better not. The young lioness looked at the next steps. Okay, the belladona berries. She added the berries one by one like the Professor had instructed to. And then moving on to the alihotsy leaves in circle motion in clockwise direction. Woah... Did they really HAVE to sprinkle it in clockwise? Well, better to follow the instruction, huh? Finished with the sprinkling, she waved her wand and... the color became dark red. Fiuh...

And then.... the next steps had been posted. Whut?! How could she work so slow? But when she read the next step... Oh, waiting for 25 minutes. Okay, she waited. While she was waiting, she broke the frozen egg EXACTLY into eight pieces and then she added them AFTER 25 minutes of waiting. And then she stirred vigorously with the metal stick in clockwise direction until.... Hey, the color had changed into purple!

As the copper cauldron owners added their eggs, Cosgrach revealed the next steps: "Sprinkle the moonstone in the middle of the cauldron and afterwards, throw all the thorns in quickly. Then, add the 8 drops of salamander one by one and note the change towards the mother-of-pearl sheen."

They were almost done!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Blackboard

13. Sprinkle the moonstone in the middle of the cauldron
14. Throw all the thorns in quickly
15. Add the drops of salamander blood one by one: with each drop, observe that the potion turns to its distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen.

Were they done yet? Olly felt like he'd been in that dungeon for ages. Well, classroom. He actually had been in the dungeon itself for a long time considering he lived there. But that was not the point. The point was that he wanted to get out of that classroom and do something...different. He was growing bored of brewing that potion, and he had started to fidget in his seat. Though now there were more instructions to distract him.

Moonstone, he had that prepared. He picked up all he had prepared and sprinkled it into the middle of the cauldron. Wait, should he have measured it first? Oh well, too late now. The next instruction had the word quickly and it frightened him. He grabbed the horns and threw them in as fast as he possibly could. The potion splashed a little, but Olly backed up so none of it got on him. There was a little bit on his table though. He would take care of that later.

The last instruction in this bunch was the salamander blood. Eight drops, added one by one. There was no way to add eight drops at once anyway. Olly dropped them in quickly, one after the other. It probably did not matter that there was barely time between them as long as there was at least a little bit of time. "Scourgify." He cleaned the drops of the potion off his table and waited for the last instructions. Could he leave yet?

Ava did watch the Head Girl acted so strange. Maybe she had a withdrawal or something. Dunno, maybe she just stressed out with her NEWTs or other things. It wasn't her business anyway.

And then... moving on to the next steps. Moonstones, right. Like the instruction said, the young lioness sprinkled the moonstones RIGHT in the middle of her cauldron. And then as she had added the moonstones, quickly she threw all the thorns. Then the blood. Ooooh, she's not really afraid seeing the salamander blood though. Being someone who often got injured, blood was such a common thing she saw. Using the clean dropper, she added the salamander blood one drop at the time and observed if the color had been distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen.

No explosions happened from Benny so far. Goody! Adi watched him finish the remainder of his steps, nodding in approval. The boyfriend was definitely getting better at potions which really pleased Adi. He was a good teacher, wasn't he? Woops, there went the minor head swelling as he mentally complimented himself.

But looky! More instructions!

Adi sprinkled the moonstone in the middle of the cauldron as instructed then carefully but quickly added the thorns. Alrightey! What now? Oh, the salamander blood! The eight drops were added using the cleaned dropper one after the other until there were eight in total. Wheee! So far, so good! And yes, he had been observing that mother-of- pearl sheen so this was confirmation that he was still doing everything correctly.