And then, and angel came from nowhere to save the day. Jessi was saved. She looked up at the older girl with eyes full of gratefulness. She watched carefully as her savior demonstrated how to do the spell. Jessi made a mental note of everything and planned to write it down in her notes as soon as she could. “Thank you so much”, she said to her helper. 50 cool points for the Slytherin quidditch captain. “I’m going to give it a try.” The first year took out her wand rehearsed the steps in her head. Turning back, she added, “I’m Jessi by the way.” “What’s your name?” After all she had to know who would be receiving her coveted points.

Now though, it was time to try the spell. Trying her best to imitate her instructor, Jessi pointed her wand at her pumpkin. She made sure to direct it at the spot where the cutting ended. “Diffindo”, she said, while moving her wand and hoping to continue the cut. Well, it wasn’t a total failure. She had made a teeny weeny slit alongside the cut that was already there. At least she did something, but she would have to try again. With a sheepish smile, Jessi said, “Well, that’s a start......I guess.” She tried the spell several more times, each time making a small cut. It certainly wasn’t easy and pretty like the Slytherin’s but, she was determined to finish the job. Finally, the top of the pumpkin was completely severed. Jessi looked proudly, sort of, at her angel. “I did it. Thank you again for helping me.” She would definitely have to keep practicing that one.

Jessi took the top off of her pumpkin and put it to the side. Then she got two bowls, her measuring cup and metal spoon. It was time for the fun part. The first year took her spoon and scooped the innards out of the pumpkin. She dumped each spoonful into her bowl. She tried to scoop the seeds separately and put them away from her pumpkin goo. Jessi realized that she was going to have to get messy, to make sure that no seeds made it into her potion. So......her hands went into the bowl and began to squish the pumpkin mash. Squish, squish, squash. Her hand felt carefully for seeds and there were several. One by one she removed the seeds from her pumpkin stuff and put them into her little bowl. When Jessi was convinced that she hadn’t let any seeds escape, she stopped. Her hands were very messy, so she took a moment to clean them.

Jessi took her spoon and scooped her de-seeded pumpkin into her measuring cup. She packed it in as tightly as she could and then poured it into her cauldron. Once that was done, she repeated the process with her second cup of pumpkin. Her cauldron was ready and the pumpkin was inside. It was time to light the fire, the muggle way. Jessi guessed that the professor didn’t want the first years burning down the castle with botched Incendio spells. She was very glad of that. Jessi got a splint and went over to the professor’s burner. She placed it into the fire and lit it. Then the task was getting it back to burner without the flame going out. Shielding the flame with her hand, but trying to move quickly, she went back to her work station. Jessi successfully lit her fire and turned the heat to medium.

There was one thing that Jessi was confused about. The directions said to add a cup of water to the pumpkin. However, she had heard the professor fuss at the prefect for doing just that. If she didn’t add water, her pumpkin was probably going to burn very soon. Jessi spent a moment wondering what she should do. She looked around to see what the other students were doing. No help there. Some were adding water, some were not. She decided to hold off.......for a minute and see if she got any additional direction. In the meantime, she would have her water ready, just in case. Thank Merlin, this was one spell that Jessi knew how to do. She cleaned her measuring cup, pointed her wand at it and said, “Aguamenti”. She soon had one cup of water and put it near the cauldron, ready to pour it in quickly. Jessi then jotted down the instructions that she had been given for the Diffindo spell.