Of course. Of course it was not the correct knot and were it not for her owl head being turned around backward she would have missed that branch that suddenly jabbed in her general vicinity. Owl wings tilting so she could swerve easily around it, Valerie muttered to herself recalling something berated at her about the first task. ”Just go with what they obviously want us to do.” Muttering to herself (which came out as displeased screeches from her beak) and tilting her wing and tail feathers to launch herself more skyward, the Wampus turned her keen eyes back to the vials left on her station below and realized immediately that none of those were useful for what she felt in her gut she needed to brew. Seeing as she recalled the Whomping Willow to be sentient in nature, she was going to appeal to its emotional roots. Literally.

Screeching when something hard struck her feathered back, the barn owl performed a bit of a barrel roll to avoid what she assumed were more branches coming to life. Only instead of bits of bark and twig splattering across the snowy blanket below there were splashes of color as precious and in some cases rare ingredients were shaken free from the tree. Another screech, this one of disgust, and Valerie went into a nose dive for a vial containing a clear liquid. Perhaps it was water or perhaps it was something more, but she soon had it clutched in her talons before it too shattered on the ground. That had certainly answered her concerns about whether or not precautions had been taken in keeping the vials safe. It was all a signal to her that she needed to act quickly. If for no other reason that to spare more waste from occurring.

Swooping down to her work station and carefully setting the vial of clear liquid upon its surface, Valerie maintained her efficient owl form as she circled around the Willow and used her keen owl eyes to look for specific ingredients. Done was she with collecting things that were rare and potentially useful. Now she was focused. She already knew her smaller owl form was helpful in two ways, one being that she was a smaller target and therefore more difficult to strike (not to mention far more agile and with superior senses to movement). The other in that her animal form was, in theory, something that would be less threatening to the Whomping Willow than a human form.

Veering around the eastern side of the tree brought her to a vial of snake fangs which she quickly took in her left talon. Her right soon found dried nettles and she finished off her current sweep of collection with claiming another vial of clear liquid. Taste testing would be the only way she would be able to decipher what liquid was what (which would perhaps require a bit of transfiguration work to her tongue. Or at least some charms work. But these were thought she was merely entertaining as she dropped off these three vials and did a bit of a figure eight around the table to reorient herself back towards the Willow for another sweep of ingredients. Dried daisies, fresh fluxweed, and yet another vial of clear liquid were next. A third go at the Willow (one with excessive weaving through branches as they shifted a bit more here and there) produced vials of short coarse fur her heightened eyesight was able to identify as crup fur (which she would have to test with her sense of touch once on the ground to confirm they were soft like cruppie fur rather than stiff like an adult’s), condensed kneazle breath, and the golden yellow liquid with tiny black seeds that was unmistakably passionfruit juice. Setting these on her work station, the sixteen year old animagus made one final search among the branches for any other remaining vials of clear liquids and returned to her work station with two more. Surely one of these contained the appropriate raindrops. Surely.

Listing off the ingredients to herself one last time (seeing as transforming into and out of her animagus form took a lot of energy that could leave her drained if performed with too much frequency over a short period of time), Valerie was confident enough to revert herself back to her human form so she could finally begin her brewing process. Feathers melted together and darkened into her cranberry and blue Ilvermorny champion uniform, talons morphed together to recreate her black combat boots, bones in her neck stiffened and could no longer turn the full three-hundred and sixty degrees, and the crisp cloud of white breath in the frozen air returned as the barn owl beak dissolved into her usual tight pink lips.

Valerie took a moment (rolling her shoulders, flexing her fingers, and such) to become readjusted to her standard human form, but soon enough was pocketing the vials she had collected earlier (blood and fairy wings and such) to hopefully keep for her own brewing purposes later. Quickly pulling aside all of the vials of clear liquid and lining them up before her on the table, Valerie pulled her wand from her pocket and grabbed an eyedropper from the work station. Flicking the eyedropper with her fingers to confirm its consistence, she flourished her wand over the glass and performed a nonverbal Vitrumonia to ensure no contamination would come to whatever liquid was contained within her first vial. Uncorking it and giving it a waft (which lead to no conclusive evidence of what was within) she carefully inserted the eyedropper and then squirted a tiny bit on her tongue. Certainly not raindrops. It had a salty flavor to it (a defense mechanism against microorganisms) which had the Wampus quickly re-corking the vial and placing it into her pocket for safekeeping. Repeating Vitrumonia on the eyedropper as she moved to the next vial, Valerie paused here to cleanse her mouth with a carefully placed Aguamenti before proceeding. This one had the faintest hint of rose attached to it. Enough to satisfy her need for a particular raindrop which completed her list of required ingredients. However, just to be safe, she did remove the cork from the vial of fur and twisted on of the hairs between her fingers. It too received a satisfied nod from her and thus back in went the cork.

Removing the cork from the vial holding the snake fangs and dumping them into the provided mortar since she would be needing to grind those up soon (after performing an appropriate Cleaning Charm, of course), Valerie cleaned the empty vial with the same charm as the eyedropper before filling it with water from her wand (Aguamenti). Dumping the first vial full into the cauldron, she repeated this twice more with steady porcelain fingers (a total of three vials worth of water) and lit the fire under her cauldron with a nonverbal Incendio and set the heat to low. Making quick work of crushing four snake fangs by hand (individually and setting each white pile aside on separate clean dishes) with the mortar and pestle. Venturing the occasional glance up at the Willow to check on its potential movements (and ready to shoot another Freezing Charm if the need should arise), she checked on her cauldron just in time to give it an approving nod as steam began to rise. Lacing her fingers together and stretching her arms out to crack her knuckles and therefore relieving some of the tension remaining in her limbs from her excessive flight around the Whomping Willow, she began the steady handed process of adding a dash (smaller than a teaspoon amount) of nettles into the liquid followed by a clockwise stir with her clean wooden spoon. Adding one of her ground snake fangs next and repeating the clockwise stir after, the alternating procedure of adding one ingredient after the other until gone with a stir between took Valerie’s full and undivided attention while she waited somewhat patiently for a light silver steam to begin rising.