As Belle added her nettles and other ingredients from the first step. She looked in her notebook for the second step.

SPOILER!!: Belle's Notebook

2) As the colour of the water turns amber, add two generous pinches of cayenne pepper, a generous drizzle of neem oil and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Stir occasionally.

As Belle reread the step twice, she noticed her potion was turning amber. YES! She was doing it right. Belle went to find the cayenne pepper. She remembers her mom using this spice to cook foods with.

As she got the pepper out, she lightly tapped it into the palm of her hand. She got one pinch and put it into the potion. The next pinch afterward she put in too. She used water and cleaned off her hands.

Then she got the neem oil and added a generous drizzle. Then she added a splash of apple cider vinegar. She stirred all the contents in the potion occasionally. She was glad she was following the steps right.

So the water should be boiling... Vickers then turned his attention from the Professor to the water in the pot, having applied the Chaudensis charm several times. And indeed now it was bubbling and steaming. Time for the first step....

He reached out for the tea leaves and read the labels on them before nodding to himself and grabbing a large pinch of the chrysanthemum leaves and dropping them into the boiling water. After a few seconds he took the nettle leaves and sprinkled them across the water's surface, taking hold of a stirrer and swirled it around the pot a few times.

Hmm, it was starting to smell like tea time around here....

"Oh nice! Lovely!" Jayden encouraged the girl as she tended to her own pot. It was time for step number four.



Jayden grabbed a decent sized garlic bulb from it's container, placing it on the table as she raised her wand with her left hand. "Diffindo!" Good, a clean cut! And look! She hadn't even managed to mess up even the garlic bulb!

Fabulous.

"So, why couldn't you grow magical plants? Are your parents Muggles?" She asked curiously, raising a brow at the younger girl.

Right...boiling. That would be a good indicator that the water in the pot was indeed the right temperature for the pot. Gideon checked his water as Professor Bentley continued to speak explaining the task at hand and saw that it wasn't quite there yet so he left it be for a little while longer as he listened. It seemed what they would be doing was less like potions and more like...cooking.

Well cooking he could still do, his mum did work on teaching them a few things.

Bubble...bubble...bubble.

It seemed his pot was calling to him, his gaze moving back over to it and confirming it was indeed boiling. Time to add the first two items.First the chrysanthemum with a a stir or two and then sprinkling the nettle tea leaves into the boiling water as well. Stirring once more almost as if brewing the tea.

Sarah's water in the was being to boil, yet before she did anything she scribbled down some notes:

She then added the chrysanthemum.. She had once done a science experiment with them... turned a white chrysanthemum blue and stuff. The pot's gurgling brought her back to the present and she added the nettle tea leaves. She wondred what nettle tea tasted like anyways. As she stirred the brew, sstopping and starting... She was happy that amounts did not matter this time... That was the thing that drove her mad in potions... the measuring

Finally! Her water had turned completely amber now and Nessie was ready to move on to next few ingredients. With her eyes switching from the instructions, to the ingredients, she made sure she had the right amount of each thing she added.

First the two pinches of cayenne pepper. The red head pinched up a whole bunch of the pepper and added it into her pot, she made sure not to add too little. She then pinched some more pepper and added it too. Two pinches were now done. The oil was next. Just a big drizzle, that was all she put as that's what it had said. She eyed the contents and then added the last thing for now which was a splash of apple sider vinegar.

Stir. Paaaause. Stir. Paaaause. Stir.

She began stirring every few moments, just like before.

Paause. Stir. Sniff.

Out of curiosity, Renesmee leaned a little closer and smelled what her mixture semelled like. It smelled odd, and nothing Nessie was too fond off, which was why she removed her nose almost immediately and then crossed off step number two.

As she did so, her water began to darken more and more.

Now it was time to add the chopped garlic bulb, lacewing flies and the bubotuber pus. Eww.

Jayden grimaced as she plopped the garlic bulb halves and the lacewing flies into the pot. Bouncing on her heels and trying not to breathe in, Jayden added a big, fat, nasty looking plop of the pus. "GROSS!" She grumbled, a disgusted look on her face. This had to be the worst part about working with plants. Sometimes they were just so... HORRID.

Sarah's arm was aching, yet the water seemed to be turning an orange colour.. which was the simple word for amber. Sarah liked amber over orange... yet she did not like the colour orange.

With her gloved hand she tried to add cayenne pepper.. it was much harder to add a poinch of something when wearing gloves... Sarah observed. And she also was observing that she was being much too stingy with her pinch... so in the second pinch she was overly generous. Then there was the stirring part. Sarah stirred some more. Stir occasionally was much too much a vague instruction.

a generous drizzle of neem oil ... what was up with the genrous part. And drizzle reminded her too much of London. Taking the neem oil and uncapping it, she tried to drizzle it on. Yet here again she was too stingy and it hurt her to be generous with these ingredients. Yet she did it anyway.

Then more stirring.... Blocking her nose Sarah reached for the apple cider vinegar... She hated the smell. Yet orders were orders and she splashed the putrid smelling liquid into the mixture. Cue more stirring

Laura looked at the Professor and decided that she would stay calm, all she wanted to do was shout some more and call the Professor stupid but she knew she would get into loads of trouble if she did, but surely the Professor had heard about her problem with her wand. "Sorry Professor." Laura looked at the Professor.

Laura looked at the Professor, minus 10 points was a bit steep, it wasn't her fault the Professor hadn't given her enough time to speak, she was trying to keep up but this Professor always rushed through her lesson it was like she didn't want them near her plants.

Laura smiled at Kurumi and gave the Gryffindor a great big hug. "Thank you Kurumi." Laura really couldn't believe her friend was leaving soon, she really wished that Kurumi would stay on a couple of years, couldn't she stay a seventh year for 4 years.

Laura turned back to the Professor. "I am sorry for shouting at you Professor." Laura blushed. "I just thought that you would have known about my situation with the wand." Laura now felt like using her wand it would be fun.

Ella eyed her pot, looking down with a small smile as she saw little bubbles coming to the surface of her water. Cool beans. It had worked! Grin. She then turned her attention to the Professor, quill in hand so she could take down the instructions. The third year thought it was going to be a bit hard to not measure things, having been so terrified not to because of Lafay used to operating that way. It was habit by now, though she could see why it wouldn't really be necessary for this sort of thing.

So first up, adding the Chrysanthemum and Nettle Tea Leaves to the water. Ella smiled a bit, thinking tea would be quite nice right now with this cold weather. She shook the thoughts from her mind though, knowing she was meant to be concentrating on what she was doing. First the third year picked up the Chrysanthemum leaves, placing them in her boiling water and giving them a small stir. She then picked up the Nettle tea leaves, adding them to the mix as well. Stir. Stir. Stir. Nice. Step one done.

Jayden sighed, running her hands through her long, black hair. Finally, she reached the homestretch! She made sure her pot was at a reasonable simmering temperature, stirring clockwise around the pot a few times. Turning on her heel, she left the pot to cool while she cleaned up her work space. She gathered all of the ingredients up, placing them in their respective spots inside of the stores cupboard. She then wiped down the table, making sure that any left-over residue from her working with the ingredients had been picked up. Now it was just more of the same waiting game. Only this time, she only had to wait long enough for the Minsecticide to cool so that she could then strain it into the spray bottle.

Minerva looked back at her notes:



Generous?? What kind of measuring was that? Minerva looked at the paper and tried to figure out what that actually meant. Well.. she had to just do it whether she understood it or not. Looking back at her pot she noticed it changing to Amber, well at least the color was correct.

Taking the Cayenne Pepper she looked back to the pot. Generous...Looking up she tried to see what others were doing for this type of measurement. Well it's time to do this or your going to get lost. Sprinkling the pepper into the pot she added it and then added a little more. That seemed like a generous amount to her. Hopefully it was at least.

There was that word again, generous. Shaking her head at her notes, Minerva picked up the neem oil and put at generous, well what she felt was generous amount in to her pot. Setting the oil aside she picked up the vinegar which the smell went up her nose and stung. She remembered that happened with her mom when she would help her in the kitchen. That brought a smile to her face. Adding a small splash of the apple cider vinegar, Minerva went back to her notes and scratched out step two.

After what stirring for a couple of minutes. Cassia knew that she had to proceed to the next step. Though she was enjoying the stirring. But she couldn't just stir until the class ends. Oh how she wished she could. Reading the next step to herself, Cassia's forehead wrinkled seeing the garlic word. They had to slice garlic! But it had an awful smell.

Cassia glared at the bulb of garlic laying among the ingredients. How could she now notice it before? Well, even if she had it wouldn't have made any difference.

But wait they had to use their wands. So she could try and forget about it. She only had to touch it when she wanted to drop it into the pot. The second-year reached for her wand and aimed it at the garlic. Luckily she could do this slicing spell. Because they had already practiced it at the previous Astronomy lesson. And Ari taught Cassia how to do it. Silent gratitude to the lioness Ari.

"Diffindo," She uttered and the garlic was cut onto two parts. And no they weren't equal at all. Who cares! This wasn't potion and Bentley doesn't set students on fire, right?

With only her forefinger, Cassia started pushing the two pieces of garlic towards the pot. Unfortunately she had to touch it and drop it into the liquid. Covering her nose with one hand, she reached for the garlic with her other hand and dropped them. She flailed her hand in the air just to get rid of the garlic scent. Ewww..

Nope, not Potions, but still Sierra wondered if she'd find herself measuring things perfectly just out of habit alone. She shrugged off the thought the glanced up at the blackboard. Once your pot of water has begun to boil... Sierra turned back to her pot and watched it for a couple of seconds. In no time, it started to boil. Good. She didn't want to have to start all over.

...start by adding the chrysanthemum and nettle tea leaves.

Sierra glanced across her workstation and spotted the leaves. She picked them up carefully, because the instructions never said anything about crushed leaves. Nope. She added in both types of leaves. Afterwards, she began stirring the mixture, stopping every once in a while to check on things. So far, so good.

Ella twiddled her thumbs as she waited for the color of the water to change, chewing on her lip absentmindedly. She was a bit bored, though not with the class, just with the amount of time this color change was taking. Was it normal to take this long? Meh. In an attempt to make herself more excited, the third year imagined she was on a very energetic cooking show. Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Ella's Corner, where the awesome food only enhances your mood!

Looking down, the third year saw that the water had finally started changing colors and smiled, reaching for the cayenne pepper. Alright now once your water has changed color, you need to add two pinches of cayenne pepper. Be generous with your pinches, people. No skimping on the pepper. And she added the first pinch, watching as it went in. Bam! And she added the second pinch with a small smile. Boom! Stir. Stir. Stir.

Next on the list was the neem oil. Ella picked it up and held it out in front of her like she was showing it to an audience. Now this, my friends, is neem oil. You're going to want to add a generous drizzle to your pot, don't be afraid to get fancy with it. And the third year then added a generous amount of the oil to her mixture before placing the oil back on the table.

Next came the apple cider vinegar. Ella picked it up and eyed it curiously before taking a whiff. HMMM. Interesting. She raised an eyebrow before adding a splash of it to her mixture, then stirring the concoction once more. And with a nice splash of apple cider vinegar, you're on your way, ladies and gents!

Giving the pot one last stir and seeing that it turned a lovely amber colour. She added two generous pinches of cayenne pepper, a generous drizzle of neem oil and a splash of apple cider vinegar. Orr stirred it once.

It hadn't yet changed colour.

Looking over at Jayden's pot and seeing that she was ahead of her in the steps, Orr asked "Jayden, how long does it take to change colour?"

Jayden was just about to start preparing for the straining process when she heard her name being called. "Hey Orr, it should only take about another five to ten minutes, if it doesn't change, then you may have a problem." Merlin. She could only hope the girl had done everything correctly. It was really going to suck if she had to start over. But the girl WAS a Ravenclaw, so she had something going for her.

Now for the straining.


Jayden used a thermometer, checking to make sure that the Minsecticide had indeed cooled to a decent temperature. "Yup! Just right!" She chirped, working with the strainer, pot, and spray bottle so that everything was going into the bottle correctly. A nice, steady stream of the liquid was going directly into the water bottle, no spills at all... at least until the last bit.


drip.... driiip... driiiiiiiiip.....


A small stream of the liquid sloshed out and onto the work station table. It wasn't too noticeable but still... Jayden had to remain on the safe side. She moved quickly, straight to the cleaning supplies. Thank Merlin for paper towels!

With a flick of the wrist, and a minimal amount of elbow grease, Jayden had the small mess cleaned up and looking as if nothing had happened.

And the best news? She was finally done!

Ella looked down at her mixture, watching as the coloring slowly began to darken. Right. Time for the next step.

Eyeing her list of instructions, the third year pulled the fluxweed and knotgrass towards her. Alright, now for this step you'll need to use a handfull of the fluxweed and knotgrass. Just scoop it on up and add it to your mix. Stir when finished.

The third year picked up a handful and added it to the pot, watching as the fluxweed and knotgrass soaked in the mixture. BAM! And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how it's done!She then began to stir it round and round, making sure it mixed in properly.

Step 1.....The leafs. Jen added the chrysanthemum and nettle tea leaves, and sterred the pot.

Looking at the list of tasks, Gideon noticed it needed to turn amber for him to move on. So he took the time to copying the list into his notes for easier reference, his left hand moving the stirrer occasionally to help it along. Finally the golden color appeared and the Gryffindor checked back to see what was next. Cayenne pepper, neem oil and apple cider vinegar. Searching through the supplies for those three items, he pulled them out and began with the pepper.

Pinch...Pinch.

And then the oil.

Drizzzzzzzzzle.

And finally the apple cider vinegar.

Splash.

Oops...a little too carried away with that splash, Gideon taking a cloth and wiping away the small amount he had spilled on the workstation in the process.

Peering into the steaming pot Vickers almost asked if anyone had scones or biscuits-- he was getting a little hungry with what is essentially a nice steaming pot of tea right under his nose. But hearing the Professor prodded him to not get caught up with impromptu tea time and shifted his gaze to look into his parchment. Ok the next additions are.... something he wouldnt ever want in his tea.

He took the cayenne pepper container and poured out about a pinch's worth onto the palm of his gloves before tipping his hand over the steaming pot. He gave the mixture another stir before reaching out for the neem oil to give it a few swirls over the steaming water. Quickly he reached out for the apple cider vinegar bottle and tipped his hand over the pot before taking hold of the stirrer and swirling the mixture vigorously.

The tea smell was still there, but now so was the vinaigrette. Good thing they dont have to drink this....

After Belle added the apple cider vinegar she looked through her notebook to find the next step.

SPOILER!!: Belle's Notebook

Step 3:
As the colour darkens, take a handful of fluxweed and knotgrass, then stir.

Belle could see her potion was darkening. PHEW! Everything was going according to plan. Belle looked for the fluxweed and found it. She took a handful and put in into the pot. Belle then found the knotgrass and took a handful and put it into the potion. Then she took her spoon and started to stir.

Minerva looked back at her notes for step three. Looking down in her pot she watched as the color started to darken even more. Well at least it seemed to be working, even if there wasn't any real measurements.

Next Minerva took the fluxweed and dumped a handful into the pot. She hoped her handful was enough. She thought about how her hands were not as big as say an older boys, so would her handful be enough for the pot or would someone with bigger hands have to much maybe. She shook her head, figuring that wasn't her problem and took hold of the knotgrass and put a handful in the pot. Taking her spoon she had been using to stir, she stirred the ingredients together.

After Belle stirred in the fluxweed and knotgrass. She looked into her book for the next step.

SPOILER!!: Belle's Notebook

4) Take a whole garlic bulb, slice it in half (diffindo) then drop it into the solution.

After Belle read it she went to go look for the garlic bulb. Once she found it, she took her wand that was to the side. She put the garlic herb on the table and said "Diffindo!" and she cut it in half. Then she took the two halves and placed it in the pot.

Let's see...When the thing in the pot turned an amber color, Jen added 2 pinches of cayenne pepper. After that, she added a drizzle of neem and a splash of apple cider. Now what....Oh yeah! Jen started stirring the pot.