Hair that would stick out straight for an entire day? Adi grinned at the thought of his hair like that. That would be cool! But still, he won't want Lafay to think he did not get out of the way on purpose. Nope. It would be best to keep his hair flat on his head. As he was reaching for his Sneezewart seeds he caught sight of Alec. Adi shook with silent laughter. He knew what the boy was thinking because he had this sort of horrified look on his face.

Amused still, he cleaned the mortar and pestle before proceeding to crush the seeds. Crush, crush, Cruuuuuuuuush! When he was satisfied the seeds were reduced to powder, the boy pulled on his gloves and grabbing a pinch of it, he stood back at arms length and dropped it into the cauldron. There went the puff of vapor, all right! Thankfully Adi was not hit with it.

Erm....just how much was a few...?

Lex grabbed a fistful and threw into the mortar. Her hands weren't that big so technically the portion grabbed was fine and nothing bad would happen. Gosh, and to think they said Potions was a precise art. There were so many measurements she'd guessed and her cauldron hadn't blown up yet. Disappointing but considering the Professor had once told her she'd kill her if she exploded her cauldron....she was happy with this disappointment.

The Gryffindor kept crushing away at the seeds until they were fine enough to be classified as powder. Nice--say what now??? Hair raised for an entire day....?

Alexa sprinkled the seeds into the cauldron then WAITED.

POOF! Vapor shot up from the cauldron and with it was her hair. Lex reached a hand up to feel her hair that was now going in the wrong direction. It really worked!! "COOOOOL!!!" Could she have some vapor for later after this thing wasn't so up anymore??

Sophie took a quick glance around the room and noticed nothing too exciting was happening. Come on! No Gryffindors blowing up cauldrons or anything like that? BORING PEOPLE.

She reached for the Sneezewort seeds and placed them in her mortar. Taking a clean pestle, she crushed the seeds into dust. She then used a gloved hand to take a pinch of the dust and sprinkle it into the cauldron.

She stepped back, awaiting the puff of vapor. Her hair stand up for a day? WEIRDDDD. Seeing what the professor did, she, too, ducked to avoid the vapor as much as possible.

The instruction came first. Annabeth snorted once again as if would help her to be rid of that terrible headache. As she was determinated to have the potion done no mattered what, she pointed her wand to the mortar "Scourgify!" and then to the pestle "Scourgify!", before adding a few Sneezewart seeds and putting them into the mortar. She took the mortar and checked its content. It had almost filled the mortar, so she returned part of the seeds to the original package. Anna nodded after checking the mortar content for the second time: "it will be enough", she whispered to herself, then took the pestle and crushed it quickly into dust. The girl wore her protective gloves and took a pinch of the dust, ducked her head, closing her eyes and sprinkled it in the cauldron. After hearing the puff of the vapor, she opened her eyes. Everything seemed to be right, including her hair. Without wasting time, she added the instructions about the seeds to her notes.

Sneezewart seeds, okay. Nerida looked around for those.. Not finding them for a second. She smiled when she sat the seeds next to her. Now it was time clean her mortar and pestle, and she should probably clean those gloves of hers. Picking them up she cast the cleaning spell on her gloves. A few?

Um that was vague! Okay.. Nerida shrugged it off and placed some in her mortar and started to crush them.

CRUSH....CRUSH....CRUSH....Crush....

Now to sprinkle. Pulling on her gloves, the blonde knew she had to do this quickly. Otherwise her hair would be standing up for the whole day!!! Okay taking some up she sprinkled it in.

Sprinkle. Sprinkle. Sprinkle.

She stepped back, awaiting the puff of vapor. It hadn't came immediately like the Professors so she stupidly stepped back up and right as she came back up the puff of vapor came and she was left with standing up hair... Great....

This potion was going to do WHAT to his hair? He did not sign up for this class to have his looks in danger. S'lot of things he could stand for when it came to a pretty female Professor, but not this. S'not okay.

...even if it was a small chance things would go wrong...still a chance.

Moral of the story? Ascanius was gonna be awful careful working with such beauty defiant agents. Pfft. No need to get his face and/or hair all messed up.

He took a few of the sneezewart seeds and put them in his mortar. The fifth year even swished 'em around for good measure. Then he took the pestle and began to crush them into dust, but not before putting on his gloves so that when the process was done he could move forward.

The seeds were ground down and then a pinch of it was collected and sprinkled in the cauldron, yeah? WHICH MADE ASCANIUS JUMP AWAY FROM THE CAULDRON.

No touchy the hair. Puff

..Interesting. With the risk on their hair that is. Wade blinked, considering it. Well, he already had this somewhat-sleek style going on lately instead of his usual curls. Hm, perhaps this could be useful..elsewhere..? He looked for his hair-ruffling mate, Spiffy Lec, who he saw was staring at him.. Was he also imagining how their hair would look standing like a tower? Heh. Looks like they had the same idea, so Wade sent him a wink. They were so keeping a note on this ingredient for future reasons.

But for now, Wade took a few of the Sneezewart seeds to add into the mortar. After scourgifying the pestle clean, he crushed them into dust. Into lots of itty bitty little dust speckles.

Now came the risky part. Donning on the gloves, he took a pinch of the dust holding it at arms length away from him before sprinkling it into the cauldron. Then just as quickly he took a few steps back away just as the vapor started to appear and surround it.. and Wade's hair being far enough away was still looking the same. Sweet. Though he would admit, Lex's tower hair did look really cool.

Kace heard the professors next set of directions. He looked up and saw she had the the sneezewart seeds in her hand. He chuckled at the weird name. He probably was gonna remember it for a while. He placed them into his mortar. He found his pestle but it did seem a little dirty. He clean it with, "Scourgify!" and then it was pristine clean. He began to crush his seeds.

Crush...crush...crush...crush....crush...and more crushing....

Then he found his gloves and took a pinch of the dust and sprinkled into his cauldron.

Sprinkle...sprinkle....sprinkle....

He remembered to stay back. He actually made it just in time! He narrowly missed it. It went POOF!! And his reflexes made him jump back.

Whew...that was a CLOSE one. But his hair already did stick up so it wouldn't have made a difference. Shrugging he went onto waiting for the next steps.

Hecate closed her eyes and rubbed her temples... "Alright, let's move on... take your silver knife and clean it... then lie out your bunch of knottgrass and slice, don't chop, SLICE it. Do not cross cut, just slice one way." And she sliced and sliced... "Then add it to the mixture, it'll turn your potion red."

As instructed, Mo dropped several of the seeds into his clean mortar and then carefully cleaned the pestle too. It took some serious elbow-grease to crush the seeds into dust, although Mo checked his mortar carefully to eye the progress. How small does it have to be pulverized to count as dust, hmm?

When it looked fine enough, Mo checked his dragonhide gloves before taking one very careful pinch from the mortar and adding it to his cauldron, sprinkling the powder across the surface. Now he just had to duck to avoid the vapor.

Oh, hello, girlfriend. Mo had just finished adding his powder when Cat ducked behind his shoulder, and he turned his attention to her. She got a grin and a discrete nuzzle (since his hands were gloved and powdery), and only then did Mo remember to duck from his vapor.

Or he would have ducked, if he had remembered in time. The sneezewort created a puff of vapor right at Mo, and he turned a frowny face to Cat. "How bad is my hair right now?"


And ugh, it was already time to move on. Mo cleaned his gloves and his knife at the same time, taking a long moment to try to catch his reflection in the silver knife. Was his hair standing up? Was it bad looking? Sigh. Siiiiiiiigh.

Mo laid out the knotgrass on his cutting board and carefully sliced each one as instructed. No cutting, no dicing. Just. Slicing. Got it. It took longer than he wanted to slice each one, so he was pleased as anything to dump the whole mess into the cauldron. And...? It turned red. Whew.

But like... his HAIR, ok?

Her assumption that they were supposed to let the water alone to heat up seemed to be correct, anyway, and Kendall had turned back toward professor Lafay when the woman had spoken again, giving them the next step. She hadn’t wanted to do something wrong this early in the lesson, but then, she’d rather not do anything wrong at all. When it came to Potions, at least. She valued her existence too much to risk it. Therefore, after writing down the steps that had been added to their brewing procedure, she silently took her silver knife and a cutting board out and Scourgified both. Just to be safe, since she didn’t want to be accused of not caring about her potion. Either that or end up creating something that permanently changed her into some weird creature. She liked being herself and staying in one piece.

Once she’d thoroughly cleaned both items, she picked up the fluxweed and counted out 20 blades, laying them carefully on the board. Picking up her knife, she started slicing just as carefully. If she hadn’t thought it would be way too weird, she would have taken a ruler out to measure the little slices, but she just counted on them being small enough. Once she’d finished and slid them into her cauldron it didn’t really matter anyway, as she’d quickly Scourgified her stirrer and used it to stir the mixture. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 , 6, she counted out in her head, stirring counter-clockwise as instructed, and demonstrated. So far so good, and then it was on to the next step. If anything, it was amusing to watch people get scared that their hair would end up standing on end. She was curious if that would happen to her, when her hair was braided and pulled back out of her face to begin with, but not enough to test it.

Instead, she just got her mortar and pestle out, Scourgifying that as well along with her silver knife again just because, and then added a few sneezewart seeds to the mortar. Time to crush, and she slipped her gloves on just so she wouldn’t forget later. There were enough steps to remember that she might have forgotten, or at least just let that little tiny step slip her mind. Time to worry about that hair thing, or at least that was coming soon. First she had to crush the seeds to dust, which was oddly entertaining. She could get any frustrations out, anyway, study stress. Once the seeds were dust, she gently took a pinch of it and held it over her cauldron at arm’s length. That was going to have to be far enough, and she watched as the fine dust fell from her gloved fingers onto the potion and created that puff of vapor. She made sure to keep her head away from the cauldron, though. She wanted to watch, but she wasn’t going to look like she’d been electrocuted.

Instead, she applied herself to getting the knotgrass and Scourgifying her cutting board again, quickly running it over her knife a third time just to make sure no dust had accidentally gotten on that. Once that was complete, she started slicing again, remembering to only slice in one direction. Honestly, she wasn’t sure why they’d be cross-cutting anyway, when it always seemed like it was better to take her time when brewing Potions. It took a while, but eventually she had finished and picked up her cutting board to slide the sliced knotgrass into the cauldron. Now she just had to see if the potion turned red, and that meant getting a look at it. Leaning over her cauldron slightly, she mentally sighed in relief as the liquid turned red. It looked kind of creepy, but that was what it was supposed to look like. She’d just have to ignore the creepy part.

SPOILER!!: journal

Comantis Bestiarius
Ingredients
water
20 blades of fluxweed
a pinch of crushed sneezewart seeds
sliced knotgrass bunch
3 tbsps cinnamon
animal part (fur, scales, feather…)

Steps
1. Clean cauldron
2. Fill cauldron halfway with water
3. Place over flame
4. Using silver knife, slice the fluxweed into pieces measuring a centimeter before adding to cauldron
5. Stir the mixture six times counter-clockwise
6. Crush a few sneezewart seeds into a fine dust, then take a pinch and add to potion (wear gloves and make sure to avoid the vapor that results as it will make your hair stand on end for a day)
7. Use (cleaned) silver knife to slice the knotgrass (do not cross-cut) before adding to potion (potion should turn red)

Following the next instructions, Blair grabbed a few Sneezewart seeds and put them in her mortar. She picked up her pestle and gave it a quick clean with "Scourgify." Blair then got started on crushing the seeds into dust.

After about 5 minutes of hard work the seeds had became a fine powder. Blair popped on her protective gloves and took a pinch of the dust, careful not to drop any. She stretched her arm out over the cauldron, ensuring to keep the rest of her body well out the way. She didn't fancy walking around with her hair standing on end all day. Blair dropped the dust in and poof the vapour began rising from her cauldron. Hopefully a sign she was doing it right.

Moving on to the next step Blair lifted her bunch of knotgrass and placed in on the wooden board. The Professor was very specific that it was to be sliced and not chopped. Picking up her silver knife she carefully began slicing the knotgrass, ensuring it was all in the one direction.

Once the knotgrass was all equally sliced she added this to her cauldron. Blair was unsure if she was required to be wearing her gloves but she kept them on to be on the safe side. A broad smile crept across her face as she watched her potion turn red.

Sneezewart actually sounded funny for a potions ingredient, Kat thought. She didn't giggle or anything though because brewing a potion required concentration. She didn't wanna mess her potion at all. In fact, she'd never want to mess up a single potion. Like ever. She placed the sneezewart seeds in her mortar. "Scourgify," she pointed her wand at her pestle just because it needed to be clean and then started crushing the seeds. Crush... crush... crush. Once the crushing was done, Kat wore her gloves and took a pinch of the now crushed sneezewart seeds and sprinkled it on her potion.

DUCK.

No potion was touching her hair. NOT TODAY. Nope.

"Scourgify," Kat cleaned her silver knife this time and took her knottgrass. She sliced it as straight as possible and in one way. Yep, she squinted and all so that it would be straight. Effort, you know. She didn't want it to go wrong and nobody liked that. No exploding cauldrons were allowed in this classroom. Nada.

Once she was finished slicing her knotgrass, Kat added it to the potion and watched it as it turned to the color red. So... at least she didn't mess up. Going on the right track.

She wondered if the closed eyes and temple rubbing was because of Alexa? She was pretty sure that it was. Considering nothing had blown up or anything maybe that was why Lafay didn't say anything. She eyed Alexa's hair with no shame. She had no idea why anybody would want to look like that. Didn't she care about her appearance? Obviously not.

Lafay was speaking so her attention was back on her. She took the silver knife and cleaned it. She laid out her knottgrass nice and neat. Then she very carefully sliced it all in the same direction. She took care not to criss cross cut or do anything that wasn't perfect. Once that was completed she too tossed them into the cauldron. She looked at the liquid hoping that it would turn the right color. Would Lafay make her start all over again? Most likely. She stared for what seemed like forever and finally there was a nice red color.

Adi was finishing his write up of the previous set of instructions when Professor Lafay moved on to the next set. He grabbed his silver knife and cleaned it using Scourgify. Next, with the knotgrass in front of him, he began to slice, slice, slice, slice until the knotgrass was all done.

Scooping them up, the firstie added them to his potion. Looky! All red now. Cool!

Curly Wade was winking at him. So, naturally, Alec winked back. He knew what this meant, especially since the wink had come after Lafay had mentioned the precaution considering the hair. Talks were going to be had, Curly. Nodnod.

Instructions? Yeah... that meant he needed to concentrate.

The boy grabbed his silver knife and cleaned that and his cutting board magically. Again. There was a lot of cleaning required in Potions, which was a bit hard to remember at first but after six years -- SIX YEARS! -- the process seemed to come naturally. Almost.

... Yeah... he was not going to be happy if he ended up jinxing himself. NEWTs, you know. They were HARD.

The Knotgrass was spread across the clean cutting board. He held up the silver knife and started slicing the Knotgrass. One way. Slice. No chopping or cross-cutting, as Lafay had said. Once he was done with that, he picked up his cutting board and slid the sliced up Knotgrass into the potion using his knife. This... was one of those all-too-familiar moments where he felt like he was cooking, as well as Potion-making.

The cutting board was put down again and Alec grinned as the potion started turning red. Awesome.

Text Cut: Parchment

Comantis Bestiarus Potion
Alec B. Summers


Ingredients:
- Water
- 20 blades of Fluxweed
- Pinch of crushed Sneezewart seeds
- Sliced Knottgrass bunch
- 3 tablespoons of Cinnamon
- Animal part of choice


Instructions:
1. Clean and cure cauldron, of course
2. Fill with water and light a flame underneath
3. Cut up blades of Fluxweed a centimetre apart and toss them into the water
4. Using wooden stirrer, stir six times counter-clockwise
5. Using a clean mortar and pestle, crush the Sneezewart seeds into dust
6. Strap on gloves and add a pinch of the dust into your cauldron -- VAPOUR! STAND BACK!
7. Lie out Knotgrass and slice one way
8. Add sliced Knotgrass to cauldron -- potion should turn red

She was doing all the steps though silently. Not that they were allowed to chat amongst themselves. Nope. That wasn't allowed and anyway there wasn't really time. The instructions needed concentration and so the fifth-year was fully focused on her cauldron and ingredients.

Next step please! KNIFE! The blond reached out and took the knife then cleaned it with a quick 'scourgify'. Surely she wasn't going to do it manually. What kind of a witch would she be, huh?And there was the fact that where would she find a towel or a rag or something. The cleaning spell did just perfectly.

Knottgrass then, the Slytherin did as the professor did and started slicing carefully. Good thing she knew how to use a knife and was familiar with the motion. Would want to mess it up and chop instead of slice. Once she had sliced enough, Cassia added them to the potion and watched the liquid closely until it turned red. So far so good.

Forrest wrote down the instructions and watched Ella first purely to make sure he got the step correctly. His eyes were solely on her hands and knottgrass because he couldn't look at her face he wanted to learn. After making sure he got it okay--more like because she had cut it all and there wasn't much left for him to watch--he turned his attention back on his silver knife and cleaned it with magic. He SLIIIICED and SLIIIICED the knottgrass too and added it to the potion.

Red already?

Léa watched the professor carefully, wrote down the processes, quickly cleaned her silver knife with a silent cleaning charm, lay the knottgrass and started slicing it like the professor did. She looked somewhat bored with the lesson. She was waiting for a chance to entertain herself, but exploding a cauldron was too mainstream and she couldn't think of another thing.

Boredom, adding the knottgrass to the potion, boredom, red colour, more boredom.

Something inspire her?

Focus Min.. focus.. her mind just kept slipping away to other things. She had been staring at her cauldron waiting on the next when her mind must have slipped off into thoughts, because then next thing she new out of the corner of her eye she saw movement and jumped a bit. Looking she watched Wade as he had ducked away from something.

bink

Oh.. they had moved on.. and moved on a few steps.. Well oops she sat up straighter to force focus. Glancing around the room she couldn't help but to giggle a bit at Alexa and Mo's hair. Cut look guys.. really. Anyway she had to get back to her cauldron before the professor noticed she had slipped behind. Pulling her wand and doing the movements she quickly cleaned the mortar and pestle. Placing the sneezewart seed in she crushed and crushed until it was down into dust. Taking a pinch of the dust she sprinkled it above her cauldron and quickly moved back away from the puff. No need to put added attention on her by having her long blonde hair standing way to high in the air.

Glancing around she quickly looked at the board for the next step thankfully realizing she was only two steps behind and not further she grabbed her knife and non verbally cleaned it. Lying the knottgrass down she quickly sliced the pieces and placed them in her cauldron. Looking over it to make sure it was red.

.......Ooops.

Nope. The boy was supposed to ignore her. She was using him as a human shield away from the hair-raising vapor, but instead, she inadvertently distracted him from ducking himself. Cat gave Mo a sympathetic look as she cleaned her knife in preparation to use it once again. "It's not so bad, really." It wasn't like his hair was super long and sticking up all super crazy like, right? Bright side?

Carefully, she went back to paying attention to her potion. There was quite a bit of slicing of knottgrass. Slicing, one way, that was it. Nothing else. She wasn't going to mess anything up, yes. Potion making required discipline. Or something like that. She did NOT look at Mo or his hair while she was slicing. Focused.

When she was finally done, she added the knottgrass cuttings into her cauldron and peered at a safe distance, watching as it did indeed turn red. Pretty. Red was a pretty color.

It also meant she was still on the right track.

About the hair though. She passed the boy another look. It really wasn't that bad, really. Cat offered a smile.

Caleb cleaned his knife as instructed, and watched Lafay carefully as she sliced instead of chopped her grass. Ok, that didn't seem too hard. He took his own knottgrass and began to slice the grass just like Lafay had done. Then he tossed it in his mixture and watched with a smile as it turned red.

He was getting pretty good at this potion stuff.

Clean knife, check. Then came the knottgrass. Ella spread it out carefully and began slicing. SLICING. Cause, y'know, chopping was being frowned upon at the moment apparently. Slice, slice, slicing. Did Lafay see?

Time to put it in the potion. She didn't have to worry about any bad hair happenings this time, right? Meep. The blonde picked up the sliced knottgrass and dropped it into the potion.

Waiiiittttttinnnggggg....

And red. We got red, people. Score.

See, this was why Wade and Alec were such good buddies. Seeing him wink back got him smiling. They could start a winking contest right here and now. But of course, Potions came first. They could always talk afterward.

After hearing the instructions, Wade had to move a few things on his desk around for enough room. Now taking the silver knife, after cleaning it of course. If there anything to be thankful of last year was the amount of times he had to perform cleaning spells until it became a habit. Afterward, he laid the knottgrass ithe way meant for slicing.

Making sure not to cross cut or do any sort of chopping, he sliced them enough times one way before adding it into the mixture. His brows furrowed as it looked like it didn't do anything for a moment, before he saw it turn red.. red like blood. Hm, interesting.

Sophie eyed her grandmother. Was she sick...or annoyed? She puzzled over that for a second or two before turning back to the brewing process. After cleaning her silver knife, she spread out the knotgrass then began the process of slicing it. SLICING, not chopping. Had this woman not been her grandmother, Sophie would have considered raising her hand and asking 'Do we slice it or chop it?' just to bring more annoyance to the table.

She checked the cutting process to make sure she wasn't cross-cutting. Nope. All nice and in one direction. When she was done, she added it to the mixture and watched while she waited for it to turn red.