Twenty minutes in to the simmering process, Violet had produced a slightly crooked but still quite recognizable snake on her pumpkin. Sighing, she put down the knife she'd been using; she supposed that was about the best she could do. Besides, it was time to be getting on with things.

Picking up a foxglove, she began to pluck the petals, one by one, dropping each one onto her scale. "He kind of likes me, he kind of likes me not..." she murmured to herself as she worked. When the scale measured 4 g., she placed them on her cutting board, took the edge of her potions knife, and began crushing the petals until the juices ran out of them, then chopped the whole pile of them up. Just then, her timer went off, and she swept the entire pile of petals off the board and into her cauldron. She stopped briefly to thoroughly wash her hands and by the time she was done, her potion had returned to a simmer, so she stirred it until it was a nice eggplanty-purple.

Ten pumpkin seeds, one at a time, ten counterclockwise stirs in between each one, and the potion turned a bright orange, right on schedule. There, done! Violet extinguished the flame under her cauldron and got out a couple of vials while she let it cool a bit. Then she carefully poured out a couple of doses of the potion, checking it carefully to make sure it was really the right color. Ha, orange potion, orange pumpkin. Cute.

Violet sat back, still looking at the vial she still held and trying to decide if she had the nerve to take it. On one hand, she HATED looking foolish, but on the other--oh well, then, she just couldn't resist finding out for sure that her potion really did work. She tossed it off in one gulp, then waited nervously to see what would happen.