Once the Adder's tongue had finally dissolved, Violet began methodically adding strip after strip of Wiggentree bark, stirring 4 times clockwise after each one, and carefuly examining the color of her potion after each one, until she saw it turn just the right shade of lime green (a nice Slytherin colour!) She had the Lionfish spine and Snakewood leaves at the ready, added them, and stirred clockwise for the last 5 times. And now, it was showtime! Picking up her wand, she waved it over her cauldron, said the incantation "Clausum" in a firm confident voice, and waited until the potion did indeed turn a dark blue and begin to smoke, faintly at first but soon it was smoking at a pretty good clip. Good. Not to be over-confident, but Violet had had no doubts that the potion would work--she had been brewing successfully long enough that, unless interfered with by somone or something (yes, Machiavelli Magpie, I'm talking to you!), they nearly always turn out right now.

Violet extinguished the flame, set the cauldron aside to cool, and began looking around for a likely partner to test it (something she was not looking forward to--not being able to talk was even worse than not being able to move, and she had definitely not enjoyed that in previous lessons).