They were actually makkng Liquid Luck?! How awesome was that! He was actually excited to get started brewing it and see how it turns out. Heading up towards the front he gotten himself a tray and headed back towards his work station. Now if he could just make himself not disappear during the rest of the lesson that would be great, he didn't want to freak ouf anymore people today. Sighing to himself, he looked at the ingredients setting them all in order that they were supposed to go.


Placing the ashwinder egg into his cauldron carefully and then added his four tablespoons of horseradish with the flame on low he waited five minutes as instructed. Taking out the flame he took the squill bulb and started juicing it into the one tablespoon before adding it into the cauldron stirring it as dirtected. Looking at the board he sighed at the next part, it was always hard making it a precise length when chopping things, but it had to be perfectly one inches wide pieces. Taking his knife he cut the growth from the back of a Murtlap into wide one inch pieces before adding them into his cauldron.

Relitting the burner to low, he waited for two minutes before he added a dash of thyme into the potion before stirring it once again for one minute. Now it was time to grind up the Occamy eggshells, taking his mortar and pestle he started grinding the eggshells. As he was working he didn't notice that he disappeared again, all that was seen was him gridning the eggshells in his mortar. He didn't have time to think about that right now, he had this potion to do.

One, two, three, four, five slow counterclockwise stirs were completed before the flame was set on medium. While waiting for the contents to heat for ten minutes, Jude took the time to clean up his workstation and to reorganise his equipment and ingredients. He constantly glanced over at Keighley to ensure she was okay and at Evan to be sure he hadn’t combusted spontaneously into an alpaca. But things were peaceful so far which was a good thing.

Ten minutes now passed, a bit of powdered common rue was added before the stirring commenced. Jude took a deep breath, moving his arms really quickly and keeping his gaze on the time. Indeed his arms started to hurt like three minutes in. They might have hurt much earlier if the Puff didn’t use his arms a lot in all the dancing he did. But the five minute he got while the cauldron heated on high flame helped to soothe them.

“Felixempra!” Cue the eight-like wand womevement. Immediately, everything in the cauldron turned gold.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Freyr

'I didn't know that, so I guess I can rule out using Felix Felicis for tricking people.' thought Luther after Professor Hernandez's response.

After listening to the Professor's explanation, Luther walked towards the long table with trays filled with required ingredients and took one. Returning to his station at the back of the class, he started reading the instructions once again. Just to be sure, he read them twice more. He didn't want it to explode in his face. Even though he didn't have much hope to brew the potion correctly, he still wanted to be safe.

After ensuring he roughly memorized the recipe and calming himself as much as he can, Luther started brewing the potion by adding the Ashwinder egg to his cauldron. As he was stirring after adding a dash of tincture of thyme (he had to double check if it was a pinch or a dash of it), he realized he didn't know which direction he should stir in. However, it was too late as he was stirring in a clockwise direction already. Deciding to cut his losses as much as he can, he raised his hand and asked "Professor, should we assume the stirring direction is clockwise unless otherwise stated?"

Hoping he was doing the right thing he kept stirring in the clockwise direction. He didn't want to think about what could happen when potions and brewing go wrong. His family lost enough to that.

Walking around the room and observing as they brewed, Javi turned his attention to the young Gryffindor and listened to his question. He smiled and nodded. "You can certainly do that. Truthfully it doesn't matter which way you stir UNLESS it specifically says so," he clarified. Potion brewing was like cooking - unless it very specifically said to do one thing, there was usually enough wiggle room to do things the way you personally wanted to.

"Oh ok, thank you so much, Professor." said Luther and then thought 'I really should read Father's journals again. Maybe he has some more... there.'

After taking another deep breath, he continued grinding the Occamy eggshells and adding them to the cauldron. Then he carefully applied each step. Well, as best as he could. While stirring the cauldron with one hand for the last time and playing with his ribbon with the other, he thought 'It's not the most difficult for nothing.'

Another deep breath.

Then he took out his wand and waved it over the cauldron while saying "Felixempra!" The mixture in the cauldron slowly turned to a slightly pale shade of gold. After examining the potion from a safe distance, Luther shrugged and thought 'It's good enough for me.'

It was, likewise, fortunate in a weird way that Peeves had given Desiree wombat powers instead of mind-reading ones. If she knew how strongly Professor Hernandez would’ve felt about her plan, it would’ve shattered all trust she had in the man. He would’ve become persona non grata in her eyes, and this class would’ve shot straight to the top of her “Most Likely to Drop After OWLs” list. It wasn’t like she wanted to influence anyone’s free will or gain an unfair advantage over anyone. All she wanted to do was stop the random animal transformations that ravaged her looks and her self-esteem. She was supposed to be a beauty, not a beast! There was nothing unethical about that, and she’d stand by that view until she died or the transformations stopped, whichever came first - hopefully the latter!

For the time being, she remained blissfully unaware. More than anything, she was confused - and frustrated. If the preparation for Felix Felicis took less than a half hour, what was it about the brewing process that made it take six months? That put a huge wrench in her plan for sure, but there was too much at stake for her to give up! Maybe there was another way she could get the potion… or another way to stop the wombat transformations? There had to be!

Desiree listened to the professor with rapt attention… until he said that. That one sentence cast doubt on her hopes that Professor Hernandez might be willing to help her. And how are Peeves’s curses (because that’s what they are, not “gifts”) any less of a problem to deal with?! She thought angrily, though she was careful not to let any emotion show on her face as she went to the front to retrieve her tray of ingredients. In a way, it was good that the professor said what he did. It spared her the trouble of asking for help!

All the more determined to brew Felix Felicis perfectly, Desiree turned to page 39 in her textbook and read the directions. After cleaning her cauldron with a quick Scourgify, she placed an ashwinder egg inside and carefully measured out 4 tablespoons of horseradish, double and triple checking her measurements before adding anything. Now came the hard part! Not the Incendio spell itself - she had mastered that one long ago, but with her frustrations running high, she was liable to accidentally set the whole classroom on fire!

Okay, Des, calming thoughts, she thought to herself. Kitties, dolls, fancy French desserts… Dad, Mum, and Adam… Taking a deep breath, she aimed her wand at the burner and cast, “Incendio.” When she looked, she saw a low flame burning, much to her relief. Now she had to wait five minutes.

She set a timer, anxiously watching the seconds tick down. Don’t let me turn into a wombat now, she thought with every passing moment. At around the two minute mark, the worry became too much. She needed something to take her mind off it, so she decided to go ahead and juice the squill bulb so it would be ready to go. Just as she finished juicing, the timer went off. She extinguished the flame and measured out a tablespoon of the squill bulb juice

Before adding it to the cauldron, Desiree checked the recipe again. Stir vigorously? That instruction was a bit vague! Was there a specific number or length of time that she was supposed to stir vigorously? She really did not want to ask for help, but that was preferable to brewing the potion wrong! The hand that wasn’t holding her measuring spoon went up, and she said, “Professor, do we need to stir for a certain length of time or number of stirs for step 2? The book just says, ‘stir vigorously’.”

Having grabbed his tray and then settled back into his station and with the brewing portion underway, Evan set straight to work, placing his ashwinder egg very carefully at the bottom of his cleaned cauldron. Reaching for his measuring spoons, he carefully scooped out four tablespoons of the horse radish - his nose crinkled as he did so, loathing the smell of it. Once both items were in, he used incendio to start a flame underneath, adjusting the temperature to ensure the lowest setting he could get. He then reached into his bag, pulling out his timer and setting it for 5 minutes, so he could then multi task and get to work on his squill bulb.

The juicing was... not his favorite part of the process, but not nearly as much so as staring at the words for the next instruction - stir vigorously. Evan wasn't sure exactly what that meant but... he'd figure it out, he supposed. One a teaspoon was reached of the juice, there was only a few more seconds left to wait before his timer went off and he was able to extinguish the flame and to add it in. The stirring part he still wasn't sure what speed he needed to do it at, but he settled for something fairly fast paced and going clockwise. He wasn't sure how long he was supposed to do this for either, so he did it for about a minute before turning to his murtlap anemone.

Slicing it didn't take too long, before Evan was then able to add it all into his mixture. Another two minutes onto the timer, a new low flame, and he was able to do some more prepwork by grinding the occamy shells while he waited. The grinding was surprisingly more exhausting than he'd thought it would be, maybe after already stirring (which he was not looking forward to doing that again) but he was able to have it finished by the time the last 2 minutes were up. Adding his dash of tincture of thyme, the occamy shells set aside, Evan set to work stirring slowly for a minute - this time watching his time telling tattoo on the inside of his wrist instead of his timer. Another minute gone by, and he was ready to add in his ground shells, which he proceeded to do so.

He stirred counter clockwise 5 times, continuing the slow pace from before, before then turning up the heat and adding another 10 minutes to his timer. This was the boring one, in which there wasn't much prep work to do. Ev took a small look around the room at his peers and their progress, before deciding to read more about the potion in his textbook while he waited. He'd nearly finished up the information, a few notes made inside the book margins, when his timer went off and he reached for the common rue to add in a sprinkle.

Now... the dreaded part. Trying to find his pace from the first minute of stirring, Evan set to work on the potion - movements going clockwise as he once again stared at his wrist to watch the time. He decided to distract himself from the odious task at hand by counting the rotations of his arm - which he did so in his head as he watched the seconds tick by.

By the time five minutes had been reached, he was definitely feeling sore and gratefully put down his arm after setting the temperature even higher and another 5 minutes to his timer. His waiting time was spent this go by slowly stretching out his arm, kneading at the muscles there for a moment to relieve. Again, another look around the room at his classmates and their various stages, before he focused again on stretching. The last 5 minutes was up, and Evan grabbed his wand in order to finish the instructions. A figure eight over the cauldron, and a clear Felixampra! and he was done. Staring into the cauldron he.. thought it looked gold ish? Not nearly as pretty as what the completed would look like but... well enough.

She wrote down the instructions and ingredients for her potion. Right. The ingredients, as in front of here, we’re now transcribed in her notebook.

Ok… What was next? With the ingredients in front of her. She made sure to clean her cauldron before beginning and then she added the ashwinder egg to the cauldron. Then she added four tablespoons of horseradish before heating the cauldron with a low flame for… She set her timer …. Five minutes.

She looked around the classroom, watching the others, before refocusing on the task at hand. Right. Time was up.

Lisa juiced a squill bulb and then added it to the cauldron. She made sure to add just the juice (at least a tablespoon worth) before stirring vigorously. While she watched the mix stir, she focused on chopping up the anemone like growth from the Murtlap into the prescribe one inch pieces. Then she heated the mixture on similar low flame. She waited two minutes. As she waited for the timer to go off, she then ground up the Ocamy eggshells. When the timer went off, she put it into the mixture and then looked at her notebook. Lisa then stirred the mixture counterclockwise five times before increasing the heat more to a medium heat.

Once ten minutes were over, she added the powdered rue before stirring vigorously for five straight minutes… She continued to stir, feeling a growing ache in her arm.

Some students were further along in the brewing than others, which was fine. They still had plenty of time to wrap things up. Javier noticed Desiree raise her hand and turned to answer her question. "No, just a few seconds is sufficient as long as you mix it well so the squill juice dissipates throughout the potion," he explained. It was a relatively light liquid, not like an oil or anything, so it wouldn't take much of the 'vigorous' stirring to get the job done appropriately.

Despite still being what some would call invisible, he still wanted to complete this potion. He wasn't going to let the fact he blended into everything around him stop him from being in his favorite class doing a potion, oh no took a lot more to takd down Tadhg O'Neill. Adding the eggshells to the mixture he started stirring counterclockwise. One... Two... Three... four... and five, ah... now that was done now to relight it on medium for ten minutes. Deciding to clean up his area some, but he kept looking at the clock ever so often to see if his ten minutes were up.

After ten minutes he added a sprinkle of cinnamon to it, now here comes the hard part stirring vigorously for five straight minutes. Well... here goes nothing, stirring the potion vigorously he kept at it until his five minutes were up. Shaking out his arm he turned his burner back on high for five minutes. Waiting for five minutes to pass he gotten out his wand waving his wand over it in a figure eight motion. "Felixempra!" As the potion turned gold he smiled happily, he did it!

Ash privately wondered if any of the students were going to try brewing liquid luck themselves... she wouldn't put it past some of them for the idea, and she knew a few potions students who could probably actually do it right. She doubted she could do that, and besides... she was strongly opposed to the use of the potion. She opened her textbook to the proper page and got started.

She began with the Ashwinder egg(thinking about Ion's ashwinder tattoo, a tattoo he'd gotten for her). She added the horseradish too, then heated it for almost exactly 5 minutes. She always tried to be precise... potions were not her main interest, and she didn't know how much difference a few seconds would make. She prepared the squill bulb juice, added and stirred, wondering aloud about what a squill bulb was.

Ash thought murtlaps were very fascinating, but she also thought their anemone growths were kind of gross to look at or touch and she tried her best to hurry up with the cutting. Only her hands were sort of unsteady, and she had to start all over, slower this time. She added it to the mixture and heated. She added the thyme and stirred at what she thought was an appropriate speed. She added the ground occamy eggshells... stirred... heated for ten minutes... added the rue... stirred vigorously... and this was where she encountered a problem. She couldn't stir vigorously for that long. After the second minute, her arm started tiring and she just couldn't do it. She raised her hand, frustrated. "Professor... I can't stir like this for this long. Is there a magical way to do it, or...?" Because her arm was NOT cooperating.

Quote:

Originally Posted by astrocat

Ash privately wondered if any of the students were going to try brewing liquid luck themselves... she wouldn't put it past some of them for the idea, and she knew a few potions students who could probably actually do it right. She doubted she could do that, and besides... she was strongly opposed to the use of the potion. She opened her textbook to the proper page and got started.

She began with the Ashwinder egg(thinking about Ion's ashwinder tattoo, a tattoo he'd gotten for her). She added the horseradish too, then heated it for almost exactly 5 minutes. She always tried to be precise... potions were not her main interest, and she didn't know how much difference a few seconds would make. She prepared the squill bulb juice, added and stirred, wondering aloud about what a squill bulb was.

Ash thought murtlaps were very fascinating, but she also thought their anemone growths were kind of gross to look at or touch and she tried her best to hurry up with the cutting. Only her hands were sort of unsteady, and she had to start all over, slower this time. She added it to the mixture and heated. She added the thyme and stirred at what she thought was an appropriate speed. She added the ground occamy eggshells... stirred... heated for ten minutes... added the rue... stirred vigorously... and this was where she encountered a problem. She couldn't stir vigorously for that long. After the second minute, her arm started tiring and she just couldn't do it. She raised her hand, frustrated. "Professor... I can't stir like this for this long. Is there a magical way to do it, or...?" Because her arm was NOT cooperating.

"You could switch arms?" Javi suggested. If her arm was really hurting her that bad she could switch to the other one. "You can cast a locomotion charm on the spoon, but you'll have to concentrate hard to make sure you're able to move the spoon at a decent pace for the remainder of the time," he explained. "If you want to try that, you're more than welcome to!"

He glanced at the clock. Time was ticking down and it was almost time to wrap things up!

OOC: You have about 7 hours left till I close up shop here!

Ash nodded and switched to her right hand, then eventually just used magic for the rest of the time. She used the 5 minutes of heating the cauldron to take a little break and eat a granola bar(sorry professor, she needed an emergency snack!). Then she cast Felixempra and was very relieved to see that the potion was definitely gold. Good... it looked like other people were wrapping it up too and she'd gotten it done just in time.

With five minutes passed, Rajesh moved on with the potion, extinguishing the low flame he had been heating the ashwinder and horseradish with. Then after cleaning his knife, he cut up a squill bulb and juiced it, adding the juice into his cauldron and stirring as directed. Cleaning his knife once more, he sliced the growth from the murtlap before chopping it up as the instructions mentioned. 1 inch pieces he was very carefully to get as close as possible. Once that was done, the Ravenclaw added them all to his work, raising a heat under the cauldron once more.

So far so good.

Two minutes later, he added the tincture of thyme, stirring once more as he counted out another sixty seconds. Then the eggshells were carefully ground up and added to the mixture currently brewing. One…two…three…four…five slow counterclockwise stirs, Rajesh biting the inside of his cheek hoping as he raised the temperature that all was going well. They might not be getting the chance to finish brewing everything and keeping their work, but that didn’t mean he didn’t want to do his best at it.

One….two…three….five….eight…ten minutes of heating and waiting.

A sprinkle of powdered rue then Raj braced himself, stirring vigorously as directed. Giving a sigh of relief when he was finished, he raised the heat of his cauldron once more to high, letting it set for another five minutes. Once the time was through, he pulled out his wand once more and took a deep breath before casting the figure eight over his cauldron. “Felixempra” Then it was a wait and baited breath for the change…

But yes…that was a goldish tint.

Okay, so stir a few seconds until the squill juice dissipates. Good to know! Desiree spared the professor a polite nod before turning her attention back to her potion. She poured the measured squill juice into her cauldron, stirring until it was thoroughly mixed. What was next? She consulted her textbook. Right, chop the Murtlap growth into one inch pieces.

As she picked up the growth from her tray, a thought occurred to her. Would it negatively affect her potion if the pieces weren’t exactly one inch? She wasn’t willing to find out, so she rummaged through her bag until she found a ruler. She carefully chopped the growth, measuring each piece to make sure it was exactly one inch. When she was satisfied that all of her pieces were exactly the correct length, she added them to the cauldron and ignited a low flame in the burner with her wand. Now to set the timer and wait two minutes.

Desiree’s blue eyes hardly left the timer as the moments ticked down. Every second she had to wait was a second she might turn into a wombat in front of everyone! Luckily that didn’t happen in the two minutes it took for the timer to go off! As soon as the timer finished, she added a dash of tincture of thyme and stirred for one minute. She was so anxious to move on to the next step, lest she transform before she could finish it, that she had to remind herself to stir slowly. One don’tturnintoawombat, two don’tturnintoawombat… she counted to herself until sixty seconds had passed.

When she finished stirring, she checked her textbook again, Next step: grind and add three occamy eggshells. But what consistency was it supposed to be? Fine? Coarse? The recipe didn’t say! Uncertain, Desiree opted for a medium consistency. She paused periodically, checking the contents of her mortar. When she was confident that the powder inside was the right consistency, she added it to her cauldron and gave the mixture five slow, deliberate counterclockwise stirs. One, two, three, four, five.

Desiree adjusted the flame to medium and consulted her textbook again. Now what? More waiting?!?! And this time it was even longer than ever! Seriously, what was with all the waiting for this potion? Time was a factor here! She set the timer for ten minutes, hoping against hope that she’d make it to the end without transforming. Please, not now! She thought, her eyes frantically flicking between the timer and her cauldron. I’ve come too far to start over!

It seemed like an eternity passed before the timer went off! Wasting no time, Desiree added a sprinkle of powdered rue and set the timer again, this time for five minutes. Yes, her arm did hurt as she stirred the mixture - so much so that she had to switch from her left to her right about halfway through - but it would be worth it in the end (she hoped!). The pain in her arm was nothing compared to the emotional pain that accompanied each wombat transformation! Speaking of which, the thought was never far from her mind that she might transform at any time!

Finally, the endless stirring was finished, and Desiree checked the recipe one last time. Okay, almost done, she thought, Just five more minutes without turning into a teddy rat, you can do this! She set the flame to high and set the timer for the final five minutes, intently watching the minutes tick down. Eager to finish, she already had her wand in hand when the timer went off. She waved it in a figure-8 motion and said clearly and firmly, “Felixsempra!”

Before her eyes, the mixture in the cauldron began to turn gold. Not a metallic gold, but it was definitely a shade of gold! Whew, she did it! Somehow she made it to the end without any pesky wombat transformations!

Javier was quite impressed at the students - almost all of them that had gotten to the end of the brewing process had the perfect color of gold sitting in their cauldrons! Alas, it was time to wrap things up. "Alright everyone - it's time to wrap things up. I'm going to come by and collect a sampling for grading from all your potions, JUST to be sure all of it is properly disposed of afterwards. Don't want anyone getting any ideas about smuggling any!" he joked - well, mostly joked. He highly doubted any of these kids would try and do something that stupid but...safety first!

"For homework, simply write out your opinion on Felix Felicis based on this lesson. A short paragraph is all that is required," he added. With that, the class was dismissed!