Kerry finished jotting down all her notes before approaching the desk to collect all the ingredients needed for her potion. Potions was not her best subject, so she was sure to detail every step of the potion making if she could. She made special notations to make sure the salt was completely dissolved before moving on with any other part of the potion.

Placing her quill and parchment near the top of her desk, Kerry was sure to give herself enough room to prepare the ingredients properly. She walked to the front of the room quietly and picked up the vial and ingredients and returned them to her desk.

She then reached down and picked up her cauldron. Then she looked down at the list in front of her. Water (200mL) Measuring this out very carefully, eyeing the 200mL line as she poured the water into her measuring cup, Kerry now satisfied she had the right amount, poured the water carefully into her cauldron being sure not to spill a drop of it.
Then taking her wand out, she whispered "incendio" and watched as a fire appeared under her cauldron.

Kerry then peered down at the list before her again as she watched to see the water begin to boil. Salt (6 g) Kerry gathered up the salt and began to measure 6 grams out. When the salt was correctly measured out, Kerry read on, "Set water to boil and add salt, stirring clockwise until dissolved." Kerry cupped her hand underneath the container she had measured the salt in to make sure none spilled out as she poured it into the cauldron, and stirred clockwise as she poured, watching the salt slowly dissolve with each clockwise turn.

After a few minutes of stirring and peering into the cauldron, Kerry was satisfied she could no longer see any grains of salt floating in the water. She looked at the next set of instuctions and took a deep breath, as the next step was a lot more exacting then the previous steps- telling Kerry exactly how many stirs to make and in what direction so that the ingredients to the potion brewed correctly, "Powder billywig stings and add to boiling salt water, stir counter-clockwise 12 times, then clockwise twice and repeat six times."

Kerry picked up the stings and added them to the boiling water. She knew she was being silly, but she reread the instructions yet again to herself to make sure she knew she had to stir counter clockwise 12 times first. "One, two, three... Kerry counted to herself, concentrating hard against the noises around her so she wouldn't lose track. "Twelve!" She said relieved. "Now what?" She asked herself, shaking her head she just couldn't keep the instructions in her head today. Glancing down, she saw next was to stir the boiling potion clockwise twice. That was easy enough. But Kerry's eyes widened as she saw this had to repeated six times!! Kerry decided to grab a spare piece of parchment and mark down each time she finished the 12 stirs and two counter clockwise stirs so she would not miss a step. When she had finally marked down the six and final time- she was ready confident she was ready to move on to the next step.

Glancing around Kerry knew she was falling behind some of her classmates, but she was confident that at least her potion was being exacted thus far. Kerry tried to put the time to the back of her head and forge on.

"Carefully add essence of firefly, one drop at a time, stirring 6 times counter-clockwise then clockwise twice in between each addition."
Kerry reached over for the spare piece of parchment she had just used and jotted herself a note to make sure she performed the stirring actions of 6 times counterclockwise 2 times each in between each firefly essence and not just once, as she knew she'd forget this otherwise.
With each essence of firefly Kerry marked her progress down as she stirred. "So far so good," she thought to herself, wiping her brow which was not perspiring over the hot flame of the cauldron. Now, what's next?" she read on.

"Reduce flame and simmer for 20 min before allowing potion to cool." Kerry reached over and gently reduced her flame, peering under the cauldron to make sure the flame was now at a simmer. She looked up at the clock on the wall to mark the time and cleaned up her desk of all the excess ingredients as she awaited the 20 minutes. Peering up at the clock again, with 2 minutes to go, Kerry prepared the vials to be filled with what she hoped was a successful potion.

"5, 4, 3, 2, 1...Kerry watched as the second hands ticked off the clock slowly. All her friends seemed to have finished their potions 5, even 10 minutes before her. Reaching down for her ladle, she filled her 2 vials to the brim, remembering that if she didn't - any splashing within the vial could set the potion off and she did not want to embarrass herself with that happening to her.

Kerry got up, and began to walk to the front of the desk. She nearly dropped her own vials as a classmates vial exploded a few feet away. Kerry brought her robes up to her eyes, blocking the blinding light, and gripping her own vials tightly as she did. As the light died down, Kerry hurried to the desk to hand in her vials before the same thing happened to her.

Returning to her desk, Kerry quietly turned off her cauldron flame and began to clean her work station.