He did confuse it for the jinx.

Daehyun nodded at professor Noble's explanations, letting out a puff of air in relief when he'd said the potion was less claustrophobic... but then it struck him that the potion would likely turn heads into pumpkins instead of encasing them, which meant that it was very likely that his own head would become a pumpkin by the end of the class.

... he suddenly wanted to evaporate from that class.



Pushing the thought of his head becoming a pumpkin to the very back of his mind, Daehyun focused on the new instructions, scribbling everything down on his parchment. He walked to the front desk and picked a particularly large petal and a small one and, once back at his desk to measure them, he chopped off the little extra to have exactly four grams, which he then scrunched lightly in his hand as they'd been shown.

With that out of the way, he chopped the four grams of petals and dropped them into his cauldron, and counted the counter-clockwise stirs. One... two... three... fou- and the potion turned into a dark shade of purple, which stopped him from stirring. Awaiting new instructions, he moved to the sink and scrubbed his hands well, since he had the habit of rubbing his eyes often. Wouldn't want to give the Healer more work than she'd already had cut out for her.

She knew him well enough to know that Abey wasn't completely okay, but he was reacting now, which was promising. Junia gave him an encouraging nod and handed back the pestle so he could pick up where she'd left off. It meant getting back to her own potion, but she'd still be keeping an eye on him.

The sixth year had missed the questions being asked, concern for her cousin being her primary focus, but she was able to jump back in to brewing thanks to the updated notes. Thank Merlin for those. Carefully, she added her moth powder to her cauldron and after cleaning her stirrer, she began the clockwise rotations. It didn't immediately turn green, which worried her, but on the second pass around she could see it, the color changing. A sigh of relief escaped her and she nodded to herself. This was good, she wouldn't have to start over. By the fourth stir, it was completely green and she allowed herself to stop worrying as she set the stirrer down so she could double check her measurement of bouncing bulb before adding it in. With another careful stir, she was confident things were progressing as they should be and she did a quick cleanup of her station after durning down the heat and setting her timer. She had thirty minutes now to carve, and that was more than enough time for her.

"Diffindo!" Exaggerating the features, the Slytherin began working on the face of her pumpkin. She carved wide eyes, a cute little nose, a toothy, lopsided grin. The whole process was putting her into a good mood, a mood she often associated with being creative. She wanted to ask Abey what he thought of it so far, but she didn't want to get him off track. Instead, she glanced at him and gave a tentative smile, hoping he was doing a little better now that their classmate was being tended to by the healer, and everyone had settled back into their work.

"I'm just going to go grab a few petals for the potion, I'll be back." She knew Abey might not have needed this warning, but she wanted him to know she wasn't abandoning him. It felt necessary to her.

Between her researching and reading about the Pompion Potion, Skylar was well distracted and it was really a wonder that she didn't blow up her cauldron. Perhaps it was attributed to her five years of potion brewing in her able to carefully monitor her brewing while multi-tasking. Which included, of course, in keeping an eye on her new young first year friend, Jessi. Who seemed to have stupefied the bouncing bulb with success. Thumbs up to the young lioness.

Oh, wait, her potion was simmering, which meant she could add the moths and bulb now. Into her cauldron went her finely ground moths and stirring it clockwise. Grass green? Was that like Slytherin Green? Because it kind of sounded one and the same to the sixth year, but of course Noble wouldn't say that ... which did make her wonder, if he had gone to Hogwarts, and what his house preference was .... One stir, two stirs, three stirs, four stirs. Oh, look, green. Guess she ground it enough. Grinning, she added her pre-measured 100 grams of bouncing bulb, lowered the heat and set the timer for thirty minutes.

It was sometime then, while she was deliberating on what to carve into her pumpkin, that she noticed her fellow sixth year on the ground. UH .... UH... WHAT? What exactly happened and why was she just noticing Ronan Carter now? Obviously, Skylar was oblivious to the fact that he was allergic to pumpkins and truth, how'd she know? Her main interaction and bonding with him occurred last year when they were victimized by one Kaysha Stewart for targeting her and wanting a fair game. And had he not already been overcrowded with Jessa and the Professor and then healer, she might have offered help, but alas, more crowding for someone bleeding and unconscious was probably NOT helpful. So she instead just watched. Which of course, caused her to miss Noble's next question. Why use a potion over transfiguration? OH, that's what the Pompion Potion did?! How had she missed that?

Obviously if you were more skilled in Potions Brewing, it made sense to do that over Transfiguration, but to be honest, Transfiguration was quicker. A flick of the wand, and done. Whereas potions brewing took careful time and precision. Given the step they were on took thirty minutes and that was just one step. So yea, she had nothing to add to why do a potion over transfiguration, because she personally would choose transfiguration.

As far as substitutions for the pumpkin? Any type of fruit or vegetable and she really liked Vivian's suggestion of the watermelon. Kudos to you, wifey. Right, back to her carving, to which she finally settled on something simple. A heart, with an arrow sticking out of the top.

And just like that, her timer buzzed and it was time to pick some fresh foxglove flowers. Could they not wear gloves instead of washing their hands once done handling? Or would that maybe interfere with the potion? Figuring it best to observe what Noble was instructing and to not add any necessary fuel to the fire, she picked a few petals from the plants at the front of the classroom and returned to her seat. Plucking the petals off the green sepal and adding it to her scale, she watched as it went up to four grams and then set the remaining off to the side. If anyone wanted them, she supposed they could have them. Time to crush, which was actually kind of soothing, crumbling the petals between her fingers. And then, chopping them a few times, she used her knife and her fingers to slip them onto the blade and into her cauldron. Three counter clockwise stirs later and the contents changed to a dark purple, reminiscent of eggplant.

Which meant time to wash her hands because she did not want any unnecessary visits to the hospital wing; that new healer lady kind of weirded her out.

There were things going on around her, lots of things and Z was trying the best she could to keep up with it all. Like Ronan was still on the ground, was it bad she had the best headline for her gossip column for this? She could see the story writing it's self so easily. Then there were other students in here that were just making her article writing so simple, really who could call it work at this point.

First, though she had to finish this potion and she couldn't help but grin when they had to go pick some flowers from the front. She was getting to walk in front of everyone again, you are very welcome potions class, and she got to work with flowers even if it was for a potion. So the blonde took her stroll up to the front of the room smiling at some as she went. She even thought about stopping at Derf's workstation, she would on the way back.

Taking a few of the pedals she weighed it out before turning and heading back to her station, though she did stop this time, "How's your potion going Derf?" Her smile on her lips she did glance at Zoyrn and gave a finger wiggle to the lion captain. She leaned closer "If you need any extra help.. you know where to find me." With that she headed back to her own workstation with Juni and Slate, she really needed to make a mental note to not sit with the couples of Hogwarts when she was trying to be single and mingling.

Putting her flowers in the clean mortar she crushed them to see the juices come out, then taking her knife she chopped them up and then added it to her potion. Stirring she watched it turn a nice purple. Once it was the correct color Z set down her tools, cleaned them off, and then cleaned her own hands.

One big petal and one small, that's what he'd said. Junia carefully plucked one of each from the plant, setting them delicately into her palm as she carried them back to her work station for measuring. Her scales showed that she was just over the four grams, so she carefully cut a small portion of the large petal and set it on the scale again. She was relieved to find that decreasing the size had helped get her to where she wanted to be and she then rolled the petals between her fingers much like Noble had, thinking this was no way at all to be treating such delicate things.

After quickly cleaning her knife and cutting board, she chopped the petals as best she could and dumped the pieces into her potion.

Stir, stir, stir...

She had to admit, she quite liked the color progression of this potion. Green to purple. She was a fan, she'd decided, as she thoroughly cleaned her instruments as well as her hands.

Patrick nodded his head as Professor Nobel mentioned his fruit theory. It was good in thought, or attempt anyways. He listened intently and took as many notes on the recipe as he could as to not screw it up. He was now down to step seven.

He needed petals. One big, one small.

He plucked the big and small petal before he began to roll the petals in his fingers. Professor wasn't too far off when he compared it to a wad of paper. His friends back in the states used to make spit balls like this. After 'crushing' the petals he began to roughly chop the petals. He was a bit nervous about how rough to chop them but figured his were chopped enough.

He dropped them into the cauldron he began to stir counter clockwise, "one, two, three," he mumbled under his breath as he peered over the edge of the cauldron noticing the purple color. He had gotten the chop right on this one. He quickly walked away in order to wash his hands.

Typically Zoryn would alternate between zoning in and out of a lesson if there were too many questions or a long list of instructions. Fortunately, the fact that she had to take care of not only her own potion, but also Derf’s meant that her mind was kept incredibly busy and she had an excuse to somehow keep concentrated on the task in front of her. Of course her work was still sloppy and not entirely careful, but she was still doing it… Which for Zoryn Spinnet was improvement believe it or not.

It wasn’t until Derf returned back to their shared workspace when she finished grinding up the moths and she gave him a BIG smile. “Thought you were gonna make me do ALL of it,” she grinned. She was, of course, joking ‘cause Derf seemed to like academia. Weird, right? Totally. Anyways, she pushed his crushed moths over to him and let him know how far she made it into the potion before looking up to remind herself what the next step of the process was gonna be. Bouncing bulb??? UH OH. This was so not gonna be easy!! Zoryn spent sometime wrestling it down to the counter, before holding up the silver knife to cut it.

Though, uh, this wasn’t working as well as she wanted it to. So unfortunately she was forced to whip out her wand. “Stupefy!” Meeeeeeeeeh. “Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!” At one point or another, her spell managed to hit the bulb and work, which meant she could move on through the process. Forgetting to peal off the purple later, she began to chop with her silver knife. The technique was kinda neat, but not anything Zoryn felt that she needed to bother with. What could be so hard about chopping, anyway? SEEEEE it was going smoothly without the finger curl, claw thing!!!

What was with doing all the steps and not being able to add anything into the potion? This was totally nuts! Zor did as was told though and measured out 100g of bulb. Well it was CLOSE ENOUGH to 100 g and that’s what mattered. Not like 2 or 3 or 7 extra grams would make a huuuuuge difference, right?

It looked like her pumpkin had finally come to a simmer (took long enough!!!!!), which meant all this extra work was finally something!!! Zoryn added all the stuff into the cauldron at once and stirred clockwise four different times. It was only after the stirring when she realized they were meant to add things in separately, but it probably wasn’t a huge deal so Zor didn’t do so much as to even break a sweat. Instructions were hard. Good thing potions wasn’t a precise art, right? Instead of taking the rest of the time to pumpkin carve while she had 30 minutes on her timer, Zoryn watched some of the drama that was going on. Things just got SO interesting.

Her attention was brought back to her Professor when he addressed the class with a question again. Not that Zoryn knew the answer, ‘cause to be honest, doing a spell seemed like a lot less work than brewing a whole potion. She chose not to say that though ‘cause her mind had already jumped to something new and this lesson was far gone. Having double potions blocks were the WORST. She only came back to the lesson when they were instructed to do MORE It was only then when she had noticed that Professor Not-So-Noble had vanished the entire contents of Derf’s cauldron. HOW RUDE.

Without hesitation, Zoryn put on her thick gloves to pick her potion up (thank Merlin the gloves kept her hands all protected from the heat) and poured half of the contents of her potion into Derf’s cauldron. ”Now you don’t have to start over!!” Sharing was caring. Derf really owed her one now. Anyways, what were they ‘upposed to do now?

Penny carefully knelt down next to Ronan and put a hand next to his head, her brow furrowed as he seemed to come back to alertness only to wheeze and grunt. “Shhh. Sugar, I’ll take care of you.” She said softly as she looked up at Professor Noble as he gave her a run down of what happened.

“Oh my, well we can get you fixed up right away.” She said as the professor administered a potion that would help with the allergy, and now for his head. “All right, lets get you up to the healers wing.” she waved her wand and levitating stretcher appeared. She kept a hand on his head and helped him up onto the floating bed.

She banished the blood from the floor and then nodded as Professor Noble as she left. “All right.” She said as she spoke to Ronan as they moved out into the hall. ”How’s the breathing? I can give you another potion for the allergy if you need it.” She said as she stopped to look at him.

OOC: Next post Healers Wing?

So long as it was big enough. Huh. That was something for her to look into. Jessa made a small jotting to the side of her parchment, interested enough to have a look at this from her own angle once she was out of this lesson.

Size. "Is that in relation to the subject's head? Or is there a generally agreed upon size?" Things to be considered before she made her start. Of course, she could always try to figure this out herself but felt she could save herself a few casualties by asking the simple questions from the start.

As instructed, she moved over to the plant and plucked herself both a large and a small flower. The idea of crushing them with her hand didn't appeal to her--until the man said the flower was poisonous.

Huh.

How potent?

The Ravenclaw re-holstered the wand she'd drawn to do the crushing, now willing to do it the way he'd suggested. The first since the lesson started. With her fingers, she was sure to crush only enough to get the juices flowing, then with the poison free hand, she drew her wand to get it chopped.

Into the cauldron they went, followed shortly after by the metal spoon she used to stir. Counter-clockwise. Check. Colour darkening. Check. Before she knew it, the solution was now a dark purple as instructed at which point, the Ravenclaw leaned against her desk once more, eyes locked on her hand. For now, she was just waiting. Testing the poison. How long it would take to react to human skin, the sort of reaction it would have. You know. Typical stuff.

It wasn't funny that the class appeared to be dropping like flies, first from cutting themselves (HONESTLY, how does that happen?) to the apparent fainting spell, and Katy had to tuck away any inclination to smirk. She'd blown up her share of cauldrons in her potions career, but she'd never once cut herself. Burned, scorched, grated, and shattered a glass stirring rod by overheating it, but NEVER cut.

Once her potion began to simmer, Katy added the ground moth wing to her cauldron. The professor hadn't said which stirring rod to use, but Katy opted for a freshly cleansed metal stick, also of copper, since that appeared to be the appropriate alloy. One, two, three, four stirs, and the potion went from pale chartreuse to grass. Vibrant and really rather pretty.

Next, she added the chopped bouncing bulb, which was carefully leveled to exactly 100g. Just enough to incorporate sounded like little more than submerging the bulb into the green liquid, but she'd follow instructions. Might be interesting to test later, just to see what various degrees of submersion might do, but Katy wasn't particularly interested in the efficacy of giving people a pumpkin head.

Katy only half listened to the conversation going on around her, but again, she didn't care deeply about pumpkin heads and cared more about the practice and perfection of potion-brewing. To that end, she was interested in both crushing and chopping the foxglove before adding it to the potion, and she considered the implication as she grabbed two medium sized flowers and returned to her station. Petals plucked and measured, and then Katy crushed the petals a few at a time between her fingertips. The whole lot went onto her cutting surface, and she chopped across the pile several times until the petals seemed generally (but not uniformly) reduced.

And into the cauldron it went, followed by her stirring rod. She stirred carefully, a bit slower than normal because she wanted to watch for the color change. And... there... it was. Purple and lovely. Perfect. Now to wash her hands.

Still a good ten minutes on his timer. "Yes and no. I get the feeling a lot of people from wizarding families have been home-schooled or had no schooling when they get here. So the transition to formal classes is hard for them. For me, I went to muggle school, so that part didn't bother me at least." He already knew how to behave, how to study, and generally how to 'school,' as it were. "But the magic part, yeah. Once I got my letter my uncle let me know he was a wizard and I asked him loooads of questions. But still, I made a lot of dumb mistakes that others would take for granted." And no, he didn't want to detail all of them.




Well look at that, both he and Hanna had managed to get passable remarks to their answers. That was almost a compliment from this man. Finn followed Hanna up to get his own petals. Just like Noble had done, he three medium petals away from the sepal. Taking them back to his station, he put them on the scales. "Wow. Exactly four grams. What are the odds?" The potion mojo was with him today, apparently. Just then, his timer finally went off; a few seconds later, Hanna's did as well. "Good timing!" Finnlay crushed the petals between his fingers, then took his knife and chopped them a few times.

"Into the cauldron, little flowers." He added the petals and grabbed his stirring rod. Counter-clockwise! He stirred once, twice, a third time.. "You wouldn't call that deep purple, would you?" he half asked Hanna and half asked rhetorically. "I wouldn't." He slowly rotated his rod until it looked satisfactory. According to the clock, they needed to hurry up and add the pumpkin seeds soon, so he quickly made his way over to the water and washed his hands.

Cassie listened to the questions raised and the discussion going along with it, but she had to admit most of attention was on her work. No handling a sharp item while being distracted. The already had one student down and out for the count. Speaking of which, the school nurse had arrived to take care of the fallen sixth year boy. Wait…pumpkin allergy? Ooops, she’d feel bad for focusing on carving her eagle into her festive pumpkin…if she could really do anything for the boy herself so it was a mute point.

Oh look….Juni had a good question.

Why WOULD you need a potion when a jinx would do?

Waiting for an answer was better than feeling bad about someone being ill. Though what she got wasn’t much of anything so it was back to just carving while listening on the side. Until they were moving onto the foxglove. Cass moved from her seat to take her turn in picking flowers from the living plants. A couple of medium-sized ones for her that she brought back to her workstation and proceeded to do what the Professor instructed. Pick the petals off…roughly measure their weight….crush between her fingers…clean her knife again before roughly chopping them…add them to her cauldron…stir until deep people.

Oh and using the sink to clean her hands of the foxglove toxins.

Now this discussion was going somewhere. And Juni was here for it. This gave Professor Noble the brownie points that he so desperately needed from her. ”Because someone seen the need for a solution for something much like how inventions come about.” But really a pumpkin head. What about an eggplant head? Now that would be interesting.

Poisonous flowers, oh boy. Professor Noble wanted the whole class to in up in the hospital wing today didn’t he? Knives, allergic reactions, and Poisonous flowers? Wait no this was just another lesson at Hogwarts. No big deal.

The fourth year got the flowers, and brought them back to her workstation. She quickly got to work plucking the petal. She kept plucking the petals until she weighed out the four grams of the pedals. Then crushed them with her fingers like she was showed to by the professor. Once it the pedals were crushed she chopped them up as well. Adding them to the cauldron, she stirred until it had turned a dark purple color. After she was done with that she washed her hands.

SPOILER!!: Juni’s notes

Pompion Potion

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin innards, densely packed (sorted so no seeds)
3 flitterby moths
100g fresh bouncing bulb, stunned if necessary
4g fresh foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) flowers, petals only
10 fresh pumpkin seeds

Instructions:
1.Use diffindo to cut open the pumpkin.
2. Using a metal spoon, scoop out the innards, pulling out the seeds and putting to one side.
3. Put two densely packed cups of pumpkin innards in the bottom your cauldron with a cup of water. Set over medium heat.
4. Whilst waiting for the cauldron to come to a light simmer, grind 3 dried flitterby moths to a fine powder in your pestle and mortar. Add these to the cauldron and stir clockwise until the contents turns grass green (4 complete stirs should do the trick).
5. Stun your bouncing bulb. Peel off the purple skin, and chop finely with a silver knife. Weigh out 100g. Add to your cauldron and stir enough to incorporate.
6. Let your potion simmer for 30 minutes. You may carve your pumpkin whilst you wait.
7. Pluck the petals from the foxgloves, and weigh out 4g. Crush to release the juices and chop roughly. Add to the cauldron, and stir until potion changes to a dark purple. Wash hands after handling the foxglove - it is toxic if consumed alone.

SPOILER!!: Zoryn

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArianaBlack

Typically Zoryn would alternate between zoning in and out of a lesson if there were too many questions or a long list of instructions. Fortunately, the fact that she had to take care of not only her own potion, but also Derf’s meant that her mind was kept incredibly busy and she had an excuse to somehow keep concentrated on the task in front of her. Of course her work was still sloppy and not entirely careful, but she was still doing it… Which for Zoryn Spinnet was improvement believe it or not.

It wasn’t until Derf returned back to their shared workspace when she finished grinding up the moths and she gave him a BIG smile. “Thought you were gonna make me do ALL of it,” she grinned. She was, of course, joking ‘cause Derf seemed to like academia. Weird, right? Totally. Anyways, she pushed his crushed moths over to him and let him know how far she made it into the potion before looking up to remind herself what the next step of the process was gonna be. Bouncing bulb??? UH OH. This was so not gonna be easy!! Zoryn spent sometime wrestling it down to the counter, before holding up the silver knife to cut it.

Though, uh, this wasn’t working as well as she wanted it to. So unfortunately she was forced to whip out her wand. “Stupefy!” Meeeeeeeeeh. “Stupefy! Stupefy! Stupefy!” At one point or another, her spell managed to hit the bulb and work, which meant she could move on through the process. Forgetting to peal off the purple later, she began to chop with her silver knife. The technique was kinda neat, but not anything Zoryn felt that she needed to bother with. What could be so hard about chopping, anyway? SEEEEE it was going smoothly without the finger curl, claw thing!!!

What was with doing all the steps and not being able to add anything into the potion? This was totally nuts! Zor did as was told though and measured out 100g of bulb. Well it was CLOSE ENOUGH to 100 g and that’s what mattered. Not like 2 or 3 or 7 extra grams would make a huuuuuge difference, right?

It looked like her pumpkin had finally come to a simmer (took long enough!!!!!), which meant all this extra work was finally something!!! Zoryn added all the stuff into the cauldron at once and stirred clockwise four different times. It was only after the stirring when she realized they were meant to add things in separately, but it probably wasn’t a huge deal so Zor didn’t do so much as to even break a sweat. Instructions were hard. Good thing potions wasn’t a precise art, right? Instead of taking the rest of the time to pumpkin carve while she had 30 minutes on her timer, Zoryn watched some of the drama that was going on. Things just got SO interesting.

Her attention was brought back to her Professor when he addressed the class with a question again. Not that Zoryn knew the answer, ‘cause to be honest, doing a spell seemed like a lot less work than brewing a whole potion. She chose not to say that though ‘cause her mind had already jumped to something new and this lesson was far gone. Having double potions blocks were the WORST. She only came back to the lesson when they were instructed to do MORE It was only then when she had noticed that Professor Not-So-Noble had vanished the entire contents of Derf’s cauldron. HOW RUDE.

Without hesitation, Zoryn put on her thick gloves to pick her potion up (thank Merlin the gloves kept her hands all protected from the heat) and poured half of the contents of her potion into Derf’s cauldron. ”Now you don’t have to start over!!” Sharing was caring. Derf really owed her one now. Anyways, what were they ‘upposed to do now?

Yes, he’d noticed some of Zoryn’s corner cutting – the lack of peeling, the inaccurate weighing, adding the moths AND bulbs together. It was enough to earn her a vanished potion of her own. But he didn’t make a move for his wand, not just yet, because he was quietly amused by what he thought might happen in the next few minutes.

A smirk played upon his lips. Yes, that’d make a worthy teaching point indeed.

Question was…would one cauldron explode, or both?

SPOILER!!: Healer Macmillan

Quote:

Originally Posted by Penelope Macmillan

SPOILER!!: Ronan And Professor Noble

Penny carefully knelt down next to Ronan and put a hand next to his head, her brow furrowed as he seemed to come back to alertness only to wheeze and grunt. “Shhh. Sugar, I’ll take care of you.” She said softly as she looked up at Professor Noble as he gave her a run down of what happened.

“Oh my, well we can get you fixed up right away.” She said as the professor administered a potion that would help with the allergy, and now for his head. “All right, lets get you up to the healers wing.” she waved her wand and levitating stretcher appeared. She kept a hand on his head and helped him up onto the floating bed.

She banished the blood from the floor and then nodded as Professor Noble as she left. “All right.” She said as she spoke to Ronan as they moved out into the hall. ”How’s the breathing? I can give you another potion for the allergy if you need it.” She said as she stopped to look at him.

OOC: Next post Healers Wing?

“Thank you, Healer Macmillan,” Noble replied gruffly to the Healer returning the nod. Now maybe they could return to some less distracted brewing. Yes, he saw those that were trying not to look, but totally were out of the corner of their eye. With a flick of his wand, the door shut closed again behind them, and Noble returned to his desk.

SPOILER!!: Jessa

Quote:

Originally Posted by DaniDiNardo

So long as it was big enough. Huh. That was something for her to look into. Jessa made a small jotting to the side of her parchment, interested enough to have a look at this from her own angle once she was out of this lesson.

Size. "Is that in relation to the subject's head? Or is there a generally agreed upon size?" Things to be considered before she made her start. Of course, she could always try to figure this out herself but felt she could save herself a few casualties by asking the simple questions from the start.

As instructed, she moved over to the plant and plucked herself both a large and a small flower. The idea of crushing them with her hand didn't appeal to her--until the man said the flower was poisonous.

Huh.

How potent?

The Ravenclaw re-holstered the wand she'd drawn to do the crushing, now willing to do it the way he'd suggested. The first since the lesson started. With her fingers, she was sure to crush only enough to get the juices flowing, then with the poison free hand, she drew her wand to get it chopped.

Into the cauldron they went, followed shortly after by the metal spoon she used to stir. Counter-clockwise. Check. Colour darkening. Check. Before she knew it, the solution was now a dark purple as instructed at which point, the Ravenclaw leaned against her desk once more, eyes locked on her hand. For now, she was just waiting. Testing the poison. How long it would take to react to human skin, the sort of reaction it would have. You know. Typical stuff.

If he was curious as to the intent of Prefect Eagle’s question, Noble didn’t show it. He simply sniffed loudly. “The subject’s head, yes. But I wouldn’t recommend smaller than fist-sized, even for a child.”

And if he’d known that Jessa was waiting for the toxin to take effect on her hand, Noble might have just laughed. Snorted at the very least. Because the toxin really wasn’t that potent, and it needed to be ingested to take effect. So…yeah, she’d be waiting some while like that.



And now, finally, it was time for the final step. For such a simple potion, this morning’s class had dragged; he blamed their needless incompetence. Regardless, Noble clapped his hands together to gain the students’ attention once more. “And now…our last ingredient. Ten seeds. I suggest you count them out in advance.” Since the limit of many of their attention spans seemed to be not more than ten seconds, not alone ten stirs. “You need to alternate dropping a seed into the centre of the cauldron, and stirring once counter-clockwise. Drop a seed, stir counterclockwise.” He demonstrated every last one, counting as he did so. “If you’ve done everything correctly, then your potion should now be bright orange.” Pumpkin orange, even. He swapped his stirring rod (glass, if anyone was taking notes) for a ladle, scooping up some of the liquid so they could see properly. So very bright orange.

“Once you’re done, turn off the heat. I expect a medium sized vial of whatever you’ve produced to be turned in for marking.” Which...going by some of them, might be little more than air. That or slightly adulterated, lukewarm pumpkin. And of course it went without saying that said vial should be clearly labelled with their name and house, as they should know to be standard by now. “If you think you have done a good enough job, and would like to take a second vial away for testing…you should bring it to me to be assessed first.” He wouldn’t let any potions out of the classroom without having been checked, and yes…he would know. “Otherwise, you can then clean up your workstations ready to be dismissed.”

Quote:

Originally Posted by Recipe

Pompion Potion
Turns the drinker's head in to a pumpkin temporarily.

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin innards, densely packed (sorted so no seeds)
3 flitterby moths
100g fresh bouncing bulb, stunned if necessary
4g fresh foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) flowers, petals only
10 fresh pumpkin seeds

Instructions:
1.Use diffindo to cut open the pumpkin.
2. Using a metal spoon, scoop out the innards, pulling out the seeds and putting to one side.
3. Put two densely packed cups of pumpkin innards in the bottom your cauldron with a cup of water. Set over medium heat.
4. Whilst waiting for the cauldron to come to a light simmer, grind 3 dried flitterby moths to a fine powder in your pestle and mortar. Add these to the cauldron and stir clockwise until the contents turns grass green (4 complete stirs should do the trick).
5. Stun your bouncing bulb. Peel off the purple skin, and chop finely with a silver knife. Weigh out 100g. Add to your cauldron and stir enough to incorporate.
6. Let your potion simmer for 30 minutes. You may carve your pumpkin whilst you wait.
7. Pluck the petals from the foxgloves, and weigh out 4g. Crush to release the juices and chop roughly. Add to the cauldron, and stir until potion changes to a dark purple. Wash hands after handling the foxglove - it is toxic if consumed alone.
8. Add the pumpkin seeds one at a time, stirring anticlockwise between each. The potion should turn a bright orange.
9. Carefully ladle a sample of your potion into a labelled vial and hand in for grading. If and only if I deem your potion safe, you may also take a bottle from class to do with as you wish.

So, Night had done everything, and her potion was bright....purple. How could she have gotten everything so wrong? Well, class was almost over, so she decided to just turn it in and accept the bad grade. It's not like she expected anything less. Maybe it was too many pumpkin seeds? Or had she gone a few minutes over with the simmering? She didn't know, but she doubted she was likely to find out.

Daisy headed to where the foxglove plants were and plucked one big and one small petal from the green sepal and then returned to her station. She used her scales to make sure the petals weighed four grams. She then crushed the petals gently, releasing the juice and with her knife, she began chopping the petals carefully as instructed. She added the petals to her cauldron and using her glass stirring stick, she stirred the potion three times in a counter-clockwise direction. Within moments, Daisy's potion had turned dark purple. She used a cleaning charm to clean her knife, scales, stirring stick and chopping board before washing her hands thoroughly ensuring no foxglove remained on her hands.

Now, it was time for the pumpkin seeds. Daisy carefully counted out ten seeds. She dropped one seed right in the centre of her cauldron and stirred counterclockwise using the stirring stick and repeated with each individual seed until all the seeds were incorporated in the potion. She looked at the potion and saw that it was a bright orange.

Daisy then turned off the heat and grabbed a medium vial and ladle and placed some of her potion in her vial. She labelled it "Daisy Swann: Third Year. Hufflepuff."

Daisy wrote down her final notes.
Daisy cleaned her workstation, packed her things away, ready to hand her vial in. She only felt confident enough to submit the "assessment vial"

Not really having any creative ideas as to what to carve into her pumpkin, Isabel decided that she would stick with a classic. It might be boring, but she wasn't overly concerned about that at the moment; for her it was more exciting to think about what it would be to have a pumpkin for a head.

Grabbing a marker from her bag, she began to trace shapes onto her pumpkin. There were two triangular eyes, a triangle for a nose, and a jagged mouth. It took a little while for her to get the design EXACTLY how she wanted it, but she managed to erase out any mistakes she made before finally being satisfied. Carefully she carved everything out, smoothing everything out once she was finished. All and all she was pleased with her work and it had been a good way for her to kill time before getting back to the potion.

Time to move on.

Isabel made her way over to where the foxglove plants were located, and carefully plucked away one large petal and then one small petal from the green sepal. Back at her workstation she quickly weighed them to make sure that she had the exact amount before gently crushing them with her fingers, releasing the juices. With her knife she roughly chopped them up. After adding the chopped petals to her cauldron, she thoroughly washed her hands using magic and then proceeded to stir the potion in a counter-clockwise direction until a dark purple hue was reached. At that time she proceeded to give her knife, scales, and spoon an especially thorough cleaning to make sure that there were no remaining traces of foxglove on them.

At that point she added 1... 2... 3... 4... 5... 6... 7... 8... 9... 10... pumpkin seeds from the smile pile she had collected earlier, counting off each one quietly as she went, and giving a counter-clockwise stir between each one. When it reached a bright orange colour, Isabel knew that she had done everything correctly. Or at least correct enough to not have a messed up potion.

Pleased with herself, she turned off the heat and ladled some of her potion out into a clean vial before writing out a neat label and attaching it:

Quote:

Isabel Abrams
Sixth Year
Gryffindor

Confidently she placed the stopper on top and handed it in to be assessed, and yes, she wanted to take that second vial. Fingers crossed her work was deemed good enough.

SPOILER!!: Isabel's Notes

Pompion Potion - Turns drinker's head into a pumpkin

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin innards, densely packed (sorted so no seeds)
3 flitterby moths
100g fresh bouncing bulb, stunned if necessary
4g fresh foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) flowers, petals only
10 fresh pumpkin seeds

Instructions:
1.Use diffindo to cut open the pumpkin.
2. Using a metal spoon, scoop out the innards, pulling out the seeds and putting to one side.
3. Put two densely packed cups of pumpkin innards in the bottom your cauldron with a cup of water. Set over medium heat.
4. Add three dried moths to your mortar and grind them to a SUPER fine powder.
5. Use a peeler to remove the outer layer of the (stunned) bouncing bulb. Finely chop 100g of bulb (measure with scales) using a silver knife and proper technique. DO NOT add to cauldron.
6. Once the pumpkin has reached a light simmer, add the ground moth powder and stir clockwise until powder turns grass green (four rotations if done right).
7. Add the bouncing bulb and stir until it is incorporated.
8. Turn down heat and set timer for 30 minutes. During this time you can carve the pumpkin.
9. Pluck the petals from the foxgloves, and weigh out 4g. Crush to release the juices and chop roughly. Add to the cauldron, and stir counter-clockwise until potion changes to a dark purple. Wash hands after handling the foxglove - it is toxic if consumed alone.
10. Add the pumpkin seeds one at a time, stirring counter-clockwise between each. The potion should turn a bright orange.
11. Carefully ladle a sample of your potion into a labelled vial and hand in for grading. If and only if I deem your potion safe, you may also take a bottle from class to do with as you wish.

Shera was pretty sure that Professor Noble was not impressed with her answer with the way that he responded, but she wouldn't let that get to her. Instead she smiled brightly at him, because he had recognised it as not completely incorrect. For that, she could congratulate herself.

Now it was back to scribbling down the next step for the potion that they were making.

Jumping up on her feet, she skipped walked over to where the foxglove was, picking herself a medium sized petal along with two small sized petals. She was thankful when she weighed them that she still managed to make it to 4g of the flower.

Back at her table she focussed on crushing them as Professor Noble had demonstrated, before chopping up the flower as well. She was hoping that this time her potion wouldn't take much longer to change colours, as it had last time, noting that it was 3 counter clockwise stirs that took the potion to the deep purple colour.

With that in mind she poured the flower petals into her potion, stirring it counterclockwise.

1. 2. 3. 4.

4 1/2.

Shera was lightly frustrated with that, wondering if she had somehow managed to not chop the petals finely enough, like with the moths. Or maybe she hadn't crushed the flower petal properly?

Her attention was distracted from her mistake when her hand started getting itchy. Fwooper, she'd forgotten to go wash her hands immediately after touching the foxglove. Blue eyes caught sight of the beginnings of a rash on her hand. That could be ignored, for now. Abnormally calmly, Shera stood and moved over to wash her hands before returning to her seat.

She'd go to the Hospital wing after class if it didn't get any better, for now she could ignore it.

Woo hoo! The last ingredient then it would be all over. Emmalyn carefully counted out her ten seeds and placed them near her cauldron. She picked up her spoon and gently dropped the first seed in. Next, she stirred counterclockwise once before dropping the next seed in. She repeated this pattern until all of her seeds were properly added to the potion. Finally, she turned off the heat and filled a medium sized vile of her potion that was marked with her name and house.

Upon completion, Emmalyn noted that her potion wasn’t quite the correct shade of orange. It was orange, but much lighter than pumpkin orange. For as much trouble as she had experienced during the class, she was thrilled with the outcome.

Then it was time for cleanup. Thankfully, she had been cleaning up as she worked. At least she started right after Daisy reminded her and she would have to thank Daisy for the reminder. With her workstation spotless, she patiently waited for class to be dismissed.

Nothing? Still nothing? Curious.

The length of time it seemed to be taking to receive any sort of reaction didn't discourage the Ravenclaw even in the slightest. No reaction was sometimes an answer in itself. If it turned out the poison was of the more pathetic variety it would still prove interesting....though she may now have been tempted to observe a reaction time against varying doses. Something else to look forward to--especially with the lesson coming to an end.

Jessa nodded at the man's explanation. "Don't have any children I'd be testing it on." She passed on, off-handedly as she began separating ten seeds. When she did this experiment, children would not be the area of study. Many of them had a penchant of running back to their Heads of Houses, especially if the experiment didn't go well.

One. Stir. Two. Stir.

Over and over she went, stirring counter-clockwise for every seed she dropped into the cauldron until she hit ten. That done and potion now adequately orange, Jessa bottled up a bit into a medium sized vial with her name and house. Swiftly, Jessa cleaned her work area and moved to the Professor's desk to turn it in. Heading back to her desk, she retrieved the book she'd been reading earlier from her bag. Now then, where was she?

"I'll see you later." She told Cam, giving Bel a small wave too before shoving everything else back into her bag and heading out. She WOULD be testing the potion, but she didn't mind brewing it again up in her lab. She wouldn't take any of this back with her, somewhat humouring the man's request without turning away her own curiosity. See? Compromise.

That was definitely a purple potion! Bel squinted at it wondering exactly if it counted as dark or if it was just purple. To her it seemed dark purple but maybe not quite so dark as it could be? She tried to eye it up in relation to what the professor's potion looked like and her shoulders squared up because... it looked pretty close from here! She washed her hands off for the foxglove and counted out ten pumpkin seeds ready for the next step.

So she was to drop a seed, stir anticlockwise, then drop another, and stir and so on? And if she did it right it would be orange like a pumpkin? Okay. Here was hoping.

Bel started the seed-then-stir process, dropping in each of the ten seeds she had put aside and following it with an anticlockwise stir each time. Then she watched closely for the final colour change aaaaand it was orange! YESSS. Fist pump.

Wait, was Jessa leaving already?

Bel turned off the heat and carefully decanted the contents of the potion into first one vial and then another, both labeled carefully with her name and house and year. She put them aside and cleaned out her cauldron, scrubbing it with scourgify too. That done, she packed her things away, then taking the two vials up to the professor, waited until it was her turn to approach him. She handed one over, for the grade, then offered the other one.

"Professor Noble? I don't actually know that I would have any use for this potion because I don't think it would be a very nice thing to give to someone, but you can have it if you want." Bel paused and then added hurriedly, "Not that I am trying to give you something I don't think is a nice thing! I just mean... maybe you have a use for it or can give it to someone who wants it? If its... good enough anyway." Yeah. Anyway. Whoops. "Oh also I have a question? How come we were doing all anticlockwise stirring? What would happen if it was the other way? I mean, what does the direction of stirring actually do to a potion?"

In truth, she’d been one foot out the door, mid-sentence somewhere near the end of the page when the thought suddenly struck her. Wait to be dismissed wasn’t quite the same bit of permission as “you’re dismissed”. Huh. Jessa paused with that one foot out the door considering all her options. On the one hand the class was clearly over and she HAD cleaned up her work station already making this the natural next step......but the last time she’d jumped ahead the Professor vanished her potion.

What would he vanish if she left like they were about to do anyway? Her legs? Would it be painless? How would the logistics of such a thing work? Would he be able to put them back? If not, what were her chances when it came to getting around such a place? What were the odds her family wouldn’t entirely take issue and blow this up way beyond where it needed to go? What were the odds he’d even notice?

In truth, it was that last question that finally got her to put that foot back inside the classroom and turn to head back to her seat.

He HAD noticed just about everything she’d done already, even after she’d gotten rid of the badge. Chances were it was a pattern that would continue well into the term unless she found a way to make herself invisible to him.

Yet another thing to be considered.

Jessa didn’t retake her seat, now much too restless after having been nearly out the door only seconds ago. Instead she stood behind the stool of her clean work station, nose once again buried in her book.

What honestly else did they need to do before the man said they could leave? Her potion was done. Her work station was clean. Did he want a chorus of goodbyes?

Kye was concentrating so much that she jumped when Professor Noble clapped his hands. They were working with precision, Sir, could you not?! With just a bit of an annoyed look on her face, Kye did as instructed. Counting out 10 seeds and counting again for clarity. Of course, she couldn't just throw the 10 in the cauldron... but she was almost done! She had in fact noted what the professor used, just in case it mattered, and used a glass rod for stirring.

One... stir... Two... stir... It was starting to lighten in color! Three... stir... Four... stir... Five... stir... Siiiix... stir... Okay yea it was becoming a reddish color now Seven... stir... Eight... stir... Niiiine... stir... aaaaand ten! Stir.

YES! IT WAS ORANGE!! A smile spread across her face, as she heaved a sigh of relief. Okay, so to Professor Noble, this was exactly what was supposed to happen so it was not a big deal, but Kye was quite pleased... Especially when she saw that some potions had turned completely random colors. Once her heat was turned off, Kye wrote her name clearly on her vial.

Quote:

Kye Atwater
Sixth Year
Slytherin

She poured some of her potion inside, sealed it, and wondered briefly what the heck she would do with this potion. Who would she use it on?... Maybe time would tell. She had no plans right now, but hey, why throw away her hard work??

She left the potion at her station, while she turned her vial in for assessment. She took it up to Professor Noble for his say so that she could take some extra.

SPOILER!!: Kye's Notes

Pompion Potion
Turns the drinker's head in to a pumpkin temporarily.

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin innards, densely packed (sorted so no seeds)
3 flitterby moths
100g fresh bouncing bulb, stunned if necessary
4g fresh foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) flowers, petals only
10 fresh pumpkin seeds

Instructions:
1.Use diffindo to cut open the pumpkin.
2. Using a metal spoon, scoop out the innards, pulling out the seeds and putting to one side.
3. Put two densely packed cups of pumpkin innards in the bottom your cauldron with a cup of water. Set over medium heat.
4. Whilst waiting for the cauldron to come to a light simmer, grind 3 dried flitterby moths to a fine powder in your pestle and mortar. Add these to the cauldron and stir clockwise until the contents turns grass green (4 complete stirs should do the trick).
5. Stun your bouncing bulb. Peel off the purple skin, and chop finely with a silver knife. Weigh out 100g. Add to your cauldron and stir enough to incorporate.
6. Let your potion simmer for 30 minutes. You may carve your pumpkin whilst you wait.
7. Pluck the petals from the foxgloves, and weigh out 4g. Crush to release the juices and chop roughly. Add to the cauldron, and stir until potion changes to a dark purple. Wash hands after handling the foxglove - it is toxic if consumed alone.
8. Add the pumpkin seeds one at a time, stirring anticlockwise between each. The potion should turn a bright orange.
9. Carefully ladle a sample of your potion into a labelled vial and hand in for grading. If and only if I deem your potion safe, you may also take a bottle from class to do with as you wish.

Eh... did Vivian care that the Professor wasn't so content with her response? Not really. At least the watermelon suggestion was accepted in Noble's standards. She shrugged and listened to the other responses before they had to proceed with the next set of instructions. Her pumpkin wasn't exactly finished, but it looked almost like the cat she imagined in her head.

And yes, she did remember vividly that they needed fresh foxglove flowers for this potion. With that detail, and the instructions given, Vivian went forward to pick just two medium-sized flowers with roughly the same-sized petals. There were loads of flowers, sure, but there were other students as well who needed the flowers for their potions too. See? She was pretty considerate, sort of. After that, she retreated back to her work station, plucked the petals off the sepal, and weighed them. Once she had four grams of it, she crushed the petals as if she were gently crumpling a piece of parchment.

Chopping time. Vivian took again her knife and rocked it back and forth. Done over there, yes. The prefect added the now chopped foxglove petals to her cauldron and retrieved her glass stirring rod to stir the solution in a counter-clockwise manner until... tada! Deep purple. Or violet? She figured it was the same thing, honestly. She wasn't really sure of the difference but looking at the cauldron of the person beside her, it looked just the same colour... which meant she was on the right track. Hoorah! Of course, she had to wash her hands. Still, she wasn't sure if she could trust any healer unless it was her parents or Healer Reed. Sorry, miss new healer lady, but it was better to be safe.

On to the last ingredient, if Vivian could remember clearly. The Slytherin had immediately counted ten seeds from the amount she had collected from earlier and set it closer to her in case she forgot. With her right hand holding the glass rod, Vivian used her other hand to add each seed one by one to the approximate center of the nearly done potion. One seed... counter-clockwise stir... two seeds... another stir... three... yet another stir, and so on until she had finally dropped the tenth seed into the cauldron. With one last counter-clockwise stir, the blond gave out a relieved exhale when the liquid inside turned orange. Very... pumpkin-y, indeed.

Finished! Vivian turned the heat off and filled a medium vial with her potion, labelled with her name, house, and year. She also did the same with another vial, because only Merlin knew when it would be deemed necessary. She replaced the cap on both vials before moving forward to submit her labelled one to the Professor, her testing vial in the other hand.

Truth be told, Derf was getting hungry looking at his potion and he wasn't even really THAT much of a fan of pea soup. But there was also that association that potion brewing tended to have with cooking, making stew, that tended to get his tummy muscles going. The Hufflepuff was on stir, eeeeeeeer, something when suddenly the professor was shouting at him and he jumped in his seat while also dropping his spoon into his cauldron...and is sunk riiiiiiight in his split pea soup potion. Derf hardly had time to breathe let alone apologize when his potion was vanished, GONE, .........along with his spoon. "Sorry...professor," he mumbled sheepishly, ruffling his hair and looking over at the remaining ingredients at his station.

"Disastrous," he sighed as Zita strolled by. Ruffling his hair and letting out yet another heavy sigh, the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end when Zita leaned in to whisper to him. "Uh...y-yeah...sure," he nodded, watching her go back to her seat.

And then Zoryn pulled through yet again. "You're a life saver," he grinned at her while she poured half her potion into his cauldron, not yet putting together that this meant that portion control and remaining ingredients to be added would now needed to be recalculated at LEAST - considering he had no idea Zoryn had also incorrectly followed any other instructions prior to his return to his seat. "I really owe you BIG time."

Uh...what step was this potion on now? "Pumpkin seeds," he read from his parchment, grabbing a fist full of them and beginning to count them off. It was THEN that he realized he may need to recalculate. Seeing as he had HALF the potion in his that meant he ought to reduce the number of pumpkin seeds in half too, yeah? Pushing five pumpkin seeds out of his hand, so that he had five remaining, Derf plopped the first one into his cauldron and watched it sizzle and POP into oblivion with his counter-clockwise stir. That was a good thing, right? Glancing over at Zoryn with a shrug, he added the second...stiiiiiiir...and then third...stiiiiiiiir...and then fourth...stiiiiir...and then the last seed was plopped in and juuuuuuuuust as he was about stir when...

KABOOOOOOOOM

.............................SPLAT

FAILED POTION EEEEEEEEEVERYWHERE...and most of it right in the Hufflepuff's face, covering his entire body.

SPOILER!!: notes

Pompion Potion
turns the drinker's head into pumpkin; brewing time of 50 minutes

Ingredients:
2 cups pumpkin innards, densely packed (sorted so no seeds)
3 flitterby moths
100g fresh bouncing bulb, stunned if necessary
4g fresh foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) flowers, petals only
10 fresh pumpkin seeds

Instructions:
1.Use diffindo to cut open the pumpkin. ✔ ✔ thanks Zoryn
2. Using a metal spoon, scoop out the innards, pulling out the seeds and putting to one side.✔ ✔ thanks Zoryn
3. Put two densely packed cups of pumpkin innards in the bottom your cauldron with a cup of water. Set over medium heat. ✔ thanks Zoryn
4. Whilst waiting for the cauldron to come to a light simmer, grind 3 dried flitterby moths to a fine powder in your pestle and mortar. ✔ thanks Zoryn
5. Add these to the cauldron and stir clockwise until the contents turns grass green (4 complete stirs should do the trick).✔ ✔ thanks Zoryn
6. Stun your bouncing bulb. Peel off the purple skin, and chop finely with a silver knife. Weigh out 100g. Add to your cauldron and stir enough to incorporate. ✔ thanks Zoryn
7. Let your potion simmer for 30 minutes. You may carve your pumpkin whilst you wait. ✔ thanks Zoryn
7. Pluck the petals from the foxgloves, and weigh out 4g. Crush to release the juices and chop roughly. Add to the cauldron, and stir until potion changes to a dark purple. Wash hands after handling the foxglove - it is toxic if consumed alone. ✔ thanks Zoryn
8. Add the pumpkin seeds one at a time, stirring anticlockwise between each. The potion should turn a bright orange.✔
9. Carefully ladle a sample of your potion into a labelled vial and hand in for grading. If and only if I deem your potion safe, you may also take a bottle from class to do with as you wish.