Staring at the list of ingredients on the board, Katarina quickly jotted them down. She then did as instructed and filled her cauldron up about 1/3 of the way with water from her wand, not lighting it yet. Katarina then sat back and waited, not having any questions to pose quite yet.

Alex listened with interest as the Professor explained the history of the fire breathing potion. So she was totally on the wrong track with her answer. And she would have never thought of the potion as having curative properties. Alex took careful notes and was exited to start brewing the potion. Wait, what was going on here? Excited and potions were two words that did not go together in the same sentence for Alex.

She went up to the Professor's desk to get the ingredients for her potion. Some of them sounded pretty nasty, but it was kinda hard to escape ickiness in Potions class. Alex returned to her desk and carefully placed her ingredients on it. Then she took out her wand and said, "Aguamenti", filling her cauldron with the appropriate amount of water. She stopped to ponder whether or not she had any questions for the Professor.

Ritualistic purposes, huh? That actually made a lot of sense. It must have been really exciting for those people to be able to harness the same sort of power a dragon has and use it to not only honor the creature, but help protect themselves in the meantime. Ella scribbled down some notes on the subject with a smile before glancing back up to get the instructions for starting the potion. She then wrote those down neatly too.

Scribble. Scribble. Scribble.



Alright, time to get started.

Ella cleaned her cauldron first and foremost because it was ingrained in her by this point. "Scourgify." And then, after checking that she'd done a good job, she focused on filling it 1/3 of the way. "Aguamenti." She bent down a little to get level with the cauldron as she filled it, stopping when she was satisfied with the water level. "Finite."

Not having any questions yet, the eighteen year old simply sat up straight and listened, ready for the next steps.

Oooh. They were going to brew a potion? That was so cool. Apart from Grace really didn't know how to brew a potion. This was her very first potions lesson after all. She was going to try her very best though. She wanted to get her house some points. She jotted down the ingredients, before following the rest of the students, and collecting all of them. She bit her lip though when she got back to her bench. She had a problem now. Grace literally had no idea how to get water into her cauldron. Well obviously. She knew how. It was a spell. But she was a first year. She hadn't been taught that spell yet.

"Professor...." The girl murmured, raising her hand, feeling a little embarrassed. "I'm not too sure how to do that spell... I haven't been taught it yet..." Hello. She was only 11.

With a rather loud ,exaggerating sigh he flipped open his notebook and began to scribble down the writings that were on the black board. The side of his face supported by his hand as the elbow was on the table. When he was done he placed his feather down and stood up from his chair to grab the ingredients at the Professor's desk.

He returned back to his seat and placed his cauldron in front of him, grabbed his wand and stared. Okay...water....how did one make water magically? He refused to ask for the Professor's help so he looked around at the older students as they filled their cauldrons with water. Aquamenti? really? THAT easy?

He pointed his Phoenix feather wand inside the cauldron and said "Aquamenti!" .........nothing. He grumbled. "aquamenti!" he said again. He clearly heard them say aQuamenti! Why was his cauldron not flowing with water huh? His different colored eyes flashed to the Professor, clearly he was thinking about asking for help but he was too stubborn for that. "Aquamenti!" ...nothing... stupid spell!

A grin crossed his face as the professor said that there were some people who would try to drink the potion. He was the some people. Hand shooting up he gave book boy a glance before looking back to the professor. "Professor can I drink it when we are done? I'll do it!! I think my friend here will do it with me if you need two people." He smirked at the back of Ian's head and quieter leaned forward, "Unless you're scared." because that would make him baby book boy instead of just book boy. There was one thing that Bart wasn't and that was scared of things.

IT WAS TIME TO BREATH FIRE!!!!! or at least start brewing it. Bart was freaking out he was so excited about this. Almost forgetting about the ingredients and steps altogether until he saw them on the board.

Oh yeah.. work

He hated this part of everything, but at least brewing potions was something he enjoyed it wasn't really work when he was having fun. "So the longer we want to breath fire the more ingredients we use?" So could he double the potion, could that be an option. Well probably not, but maybe he could weazle his way into doing more later. "What if we want huge flames does that depend on how much we blow or on the ingredients itself?" Because he wanted HUGE flames.

They could get started.. really? He pulled out his wand and pointed to his clean cauldron "Aguamenti " As the water started to go into the cauldron he looked around to see if he should be doing anything else and when he looked back it was over flowing. "no.. no.. Finite" He stopped the water and looked at the mess. Well that's not how he wanted to start the day. Pointing again "Scourgify" He quickly cleaned up and looked, did the professor see? Hopefully not.

Hurrying up he quickly pointing into the cauldron again, "Aguamenti" and made sure to watch this time only filing it 1/3 of the way.

Now next step..

Ian was still busy scratching out the last few words of the lecture notes when he heard a whispering voice in his ear. He knew who it was. It was terribly difficult not to jerk his head backward and 'accidently' hit Bart in the nose. He turned his head partially to the right and gruffly answered I'm not afraid. There's a difference beteween fear and prudence! Stupid Gryffie. Why did he think it was brave to cause yourself pain. He certainly wouldn't have an issue causing Bart pain, but it didn't make an ounce of sense to intentionally inflict pain upon himself for no good reason other than trying to prove his 'manliness'.

As these thoughts were drifting through his head, he felt the cold feeling of water dripping down his back. He quickly turned around and yelled at the Gryffie boy, WHAT ARE YOU DOING! Can't you perform a water spell without drowning everything around you? Ian stood up and removed his robe to see how much water had landed on him.

He listened to the history of the potion. That was pretty cool. Something like that had been around so long. Ancient tribes, holy runes. Sounds fun. As for trying the potion? He would so do it. As long as the Professor was kidding about the bit of pain and it actually turned out to be a lot of pain. He could only handle so much. He copied down what was written on the board onto his notebook.



He pulled out his cauldron and cleaned it with a "Scourgify." and placed it on top of the desk. Now to add the water, "Aguamenti." He filled it 1/3 of the way. "Finite." He didn't light the fire yet. He waited for the next instructions.

Ian noted, as he got up to head to the professor's desk that no one was following or going ahead of him. Was he doing the right thing? One never knew with new professors and Ian had a habit of assuming certain things without completely listening to instructions. He looked at the professor for some sign and then back at the others cleaning and filling their cauldrons before returning to his seat.

Sander listened as the Professor gave them the answers to the question he had asked. Sander quickly picked up his quill and started writing them down in his journal.

.....and then it was time for the practical portion of the lesson. With a tap of his wand, the Professor revealed to the class what the ingredients of the potion was. Sander quickly copied them out adding them into his journal.



Sander reviewed the ingredients and when they were instructed to, Sander went to retrieve the ingredients from the Ingredient's supply cabinet. Then he walked over to the Professor's desk and collected the firecrab shell, three feathers and lastly, the fungus that kind of reminded him of something he didn't want to name right now.

Taking all the ingredients back to his work desk, Sander placed them on the table. Then he took out his potion making kit. Selecting the cauldron, he took out his wand, pointed it at the cauldron and said, "Scourgify". The spell would clean his cauldron.

He then inspected the cauldron to make sure that it was thoroughly cleaned and free from cracks before placing it on the burner. Pointing his wand into the cauldron, Sander said, "Aguamenti" and watched as water sprinkled out from his wand.

He kept an eye on how much water was filling the cauldron and when it filled 1/3 of the cauldron, Sander ended the spell. Then he picked up his quill and started adding the brewing steps in his journal.



Then he sat back and waited for further instructions.

Blair read along carefully as the Professor's instructions appeared on the board. This potion looked quite difficult, or maybe that was just because Blair's potion making skills were rather limited. Nevertheless, she quickly copied down the ingredients and instructions from the board.

She slowly made her way to the Professor's desk to collect her ingredients, consulting her list as she went along. She did not fancy forgetting anything. Arriving back at her seat Blair pulled out her wand and peered inside the cauldron. Deciding it could do with a clean she raised her wand and said "Scourgify."

Deciding that was clean enough, Blair moved on to the following step. Once again pointing her wand into the cauldron, [b]"Aguamenti,"[b]
She watched as the cauldron slowly filled with water. That looked about a third to her, "Finite."
She then looked at the Professor again, awaiting their next instruction.

Scribble... scribble... scribble...

That was a lot of history. Was it all useful? Maybe. As much of it was going down in his piece of parchment as possible, meaning that his notes were steadily getting messier and messier. The part about curing a flu within a day was particularly interesting; no runny noses and headaches for more then a day. Awesome.

... Mycosis fungus. That was one of the ingredients.

... Scribble... scribble... scribble...

And they were getting started! Alec whipped out his wand and, remembering Lafay's voice telling them dozens of times to clean their cauldron first, set about doing so. "Scourgify!" Around the rim of the cauldron. He peeked in and took a look around at the inside of the cauldron himself. It looked okay...

... which was his cue to continue. "Aguamenti!" A jet of water shot out of his wand and into the cauldron. A third... a third... The water filled right up until... "Finite!" There. Roughly a third of the cauldron was filled with water.

Text Cut: Parchment

Fire breathing potion
(^ probably not actual title)
Alec B. Summers

Ingredients:
- 3 goose feathers (chopped well to look like powder)
- 5 centimetre square of parasites (mycosis fungus)
- 2 centimetre square of fire crab shell (size depends on how much you want to brew)
- One fire slug
- 8 drops of salamander blood
- Flobberworm mucus (depends on how much rigidity one wants)


Instructions:
1. Clean and cure cauldron
2. Fill cauldron 1/3 of the way with water

RIGHT YES OKAY.

Tobias was kind of stunned into action by the people who started moving around him. The boy looked down at his parchment and noted the he had been making notes, but they were kind of difficult to read, as he had been... uhh... distracted.

But no time to dwell on that. The third year didn't have any questions, so he sat up a bit straighter in his chair and started preparing to brew the potion. He'd more or less mastered the Aguamenti charm, as it was often needed in this class, though he noted that there was a faucet in this class if he couldn't quite manage it.

But first of all.

"Scourgify," Toby cast, pointed his wand into his cauldron. "Tergeo."

After a moments consideration, Tobias did the same on the outside, because it couldn't hurt, surely.

Okay now. A third of water? Kind of difficult, because the cauldron wasn't transparent, and it was kind of hard to see when it was at the right level. Still, had to be done.

"Aguamenti," the Hufflepuff cast the spell, wand pointed into the cauldron once more. He kept a keen eye out for what he assumed was the right level, and then cast a quick 'finite' to stop the spell.

DONE AND DONE.

What next? Toby bounced in his chair, eager to show he could totally make this potion, even though it had animal parts or whatever in it which he was kind of morally against. But the professor's instructions were to use those ingredients when the time came, and Tobias was absolutely not one to cause a fuss or put his own feelings first.

It was worth adding to his notes while he waited, so that's what Tobias started to do.

*Romulus took notes on what was now on the board. When he was done he double checked and smiled. He had always wanted to breath fire. Right, now on to the fun part. After using a quick "Scourgify" on his cauldron he then went to go grab the ingredients he would need. He was very thankful the feathers were already cut up for them. That would have taken ages in class. Setting the things he needed down on his table he went over and looked into his cauldron again. Last year a student put some fire crackers in it while he was away. Best to not relive that moment. Muttering another quick scourgify just in case he sighed glad to find no traps or tricks. Using "Aguamenti" he filled his cauldron to 1/3 perfectly and stopped the water by saying "Finite". Taking his seat he looked up at the professor and waited for what to do next.*

ok, Caleb's approval of this class was going up bit by bit. He liked teachers who got straight to the point rather than skirt around everything and try to make it "dramatic" before they got to the real learning or whatever. Smiling happily to himself, Caleb gathered his cauldron and quickly jotted down the instructions so they were close to him - for some reason he had to squint to see the board, which was odd. He blamed the wall color for that one.

Quote:

•3 goose feathers (chopped WELL that they look like powder)
•5 centimetre square of parasites (mycosis fungus)
•Roughly 2 centimetre square fire-crab shell (prepared)
•One fire slug
•8 drops of salamander blood
•Some flobberworm mucus (depends on how much rigidity one wants)

Step 1 - Fill your cauldron 1/3 with water - NO FIRE

First to CLEAN it. Every good grandchild of a potions mistress knew that! "Scourgify" he muttered quietly as he waved his wand. There, nice and clean and free of possible contamination! "Aguamenti," he muttered again, watching as the cauldron filled with water.

Once it was about 1/3 full - or what looked like 1/3 - he stopped. There. Ready for the next step!

So.. they weren't going to be breathing fire at all?

They were just going to hold some, probably horrible tasting potion in their mouths and then light that on fire!? What in the name of Merlin..

Rhodes kind of just.. staaaaared at the Professor as he rambled on about things she hardly cared about, then turned to look at everyone else before giving them ALL a shake of her head. Were they all excited about this? The fire didn't even DO anything! Now, if the fire was actually hot and could actually set things aflame..

Sigh.

She pulled out a piece of parchment and a quill, and only after writing all the ingredients down that were listed on the board did she get to setting up her cauldron. Of course, it was already clean, but not wanting to have to start the whole filling up process all over again, she used her wand to give it a good Scourgifying and then used 'Aguamenti' to fill it. Once it was, what she thought to be one thirds the way filled, she stopped the charm and sat back in her seat.

Right. Don't light a fire underneath the cauldron. Merlin only knew they couldn't use real fire in this class. Pfft.

Cosgrach checked his watch. They had to move on.

"You ARE cleaning your cauldrons and mortars and stuff before using them, right?" So that they didn't forget the 'cleanness' rule? Because he'd had to correct 3-4 students already, and he didn't want anyone to fall behind because of that.

"The next step is: Add the powdered feather and stir clock wise with a wooden stick until it looks homogenous, then turn the heater to high and add culture of mycosis fungus into your mortar. I advise you wear your gloves before doing that, because mycosis fungus is a parasite that lives on your skin and may leave permanent white stains if not cured in time. The curing process is... hard, to mildly put it, and they cause odour after a while."

Could he scare them enough? Hehe

"Once they are in the mortar, crush them with pestle for thirty seconds or so, add some water on them and shake the mortar a little for them to mix better with water. Then, add them calmly to the potion."

Okay, now for the feather.

Whiiiiiiiiiiich was up at the Professor's desk, which meant he had to get out of his comfy chair to get it. Tobias was perfectly fine with that. ANY moving around was good in his books; sitting still meant his attention wandered.

ANYWAY. The third year got up out of his seat and went to the professor's desk, checking the board again to make sure he was getting the right amounts of everything. He'd written what they had to do next before even coming to the front desk, and had though to bring gloves for picking up the fungus thing. See? Forward thinking.

When he had what he needed (and glanced at the professor's FACE again), Tobias returned back to his seat and proceeded to follow the directions.

Powdered feather (already prepped by the potions master, yes good) went INTO THE CAULDRON, and then Tobias pulled out the wooden stirrer from his potions kit.

"Scourgify," he cast on the stirrer, and began stirring clockwise, until...

...

... uhhhh...

"Um... what does 'homogenous' mean?" Tobias said, completely lost, turning to those nearest to him for an answer, but also half putting his free hand up in case the Professor was upset at him for not raising his hand when asking a question. Was it in his potions text book? The boy started rifling through the tome to see if it was mentioned anywhere, still stirring and occasionally checking his potion to make sure that it was...

... well he wasn't sure yet.

Robin nodded thoughtfully as the professor explained the difference between salamander blood and regular healing potions. It made sense now that she thought about it- she hadn't though that a salamander of all things would be closely related enough to a dragon to do this kind of thing but she smiled, she was getting it slowly.
She quickly wrote down the next step on her parchment and,after pausing to remember what the word homogeneous meant, added the powdered feathers in, stirring clockwise until it looked all mixed in. She turned the burner on high and put her gloves on, picking the fungus up and plopping it into the mortar. She was still nervous about the fire thing- it wouldn't explode right? She also really didn't want it to stick on her hands- she would probably cry if it did... She crushed them in the mortar and added the water and mixed it up.
She probably added it too carefully to be honest, she looked like she was making a nuclear bomb or something the way she slowly poured it in. She was scared silly.
"No...sudden...moves..."

Honor the dragons... That sounded like the best thing to Beverly. Her eyes might of glazed over a bit all dream-like. Yep. Her brother was getting a five foot letter about the awesomeness of this lesson.

Notes were jotted down at the speed of light and by the time the professor was done listing ingredients, Beverly's long brown locks were in a braid. She was ready to get down to business.

After getting up to get the ingredients they were told about, Beverly drew her wand and performed a the cleaning charm on her supplies. Dad and Grandmother were really big on that, they sometimes made it seem if she didn't do that she'd blow up and die a painful death.

Before adding the first of ingredients she filled her, now very sparkling clean, cauldron 1/3 of the way with water. Beverly probably looked like a robot. She did everything as instructed: added the powdered feathers, stirred clockwise. Then crushed the mycosis fungus in the mortar, gloves on and all. She'd gotten a hard lesson about that too back home, and she didn't want smelly fingers.

Narrowing her eyes at the mixture in the mortar, making sure she'd done just as instructed, she added it to the potion...calmly.

Her attention briefly wander over the to boy asking what 'homogenous' meant. "To look the same; consistent." She snapped her mouth close after blurting that out. She spoke in front of people...again. And it embarrassed her. Beverly turned back to her cauldron and stared at it. What was the next step? Huh, HUH?

You always have to clean your cauldron, mortar, and stuff before coming to class. It was the smart thing to do. Especially for a new potion or it can have bad effects for whatever it is you want to brew. Nigel filled his cauldron a third of the way up as directed. He really should try the non verbal spells soon. That was something he wanted to get done this year .They sounded awesome.

Now where was the feather powder stuff. The Prefect did a quick check and it was right next to his discarded books. Hmm how did it get there. Nigel added the powder and stir clock wise with the wooden stick he had in his hand already.

Homogeneous, Really. Sigh. Couldn't he had just said same.

Then following along he turned the heater. He stopped for a second to put on gloves. Even without the warning. Nigel did not want fungus on his hands. No way, no how. Next he added the parasite fungus to the mortar. Awesome now he gets to crush it. Which is usually the best part. Once crushed for the allotted time he added water and shook the mortar to mix it up. Nigel was usually calm so it was no problem calmly adding it to the potion.

When the professor reminded the students to clean their cauldrons, Ian debated whether he should do it or not. I mean, he had cleaned it at the end of last term and it had been safely packed in his Hogwarts trunk the whole of the summer until he'd unpacked it this morning before class. He shrugged and began to add the ingredients. It shouldn't be THAT much of an issue.

He wrote down the instructions as fast as he could write and then had some questions. Is the stick supposed to be humongous or is it the powdered feathers mixed in water?

He added the feathers and began to stir counterclockwise. Maybe the answer would appear.

Ian was mildly interested about the parasite. He turned to face Gryffie boy and said I suppose that might be an issue for you, if you didn't already smell The boy really did have an off putting odor about him, almost like he'd run through a girl's perfume collection trying to see which one fit him best.

Christmas had already made sure that her cauldron, mortar and pestle was clean before class she had already filled her cauldron with water third of the way up and next she added the powdered feathers and turned the mixture clockwise like the professor said and next she turned the heat up on the mixture to high and then she put on her gloves for the fungus in her potion and crushed the fungus for the alloted amount of time and added a little water to the mortar and shook the mixture up and then calmly added it to the potion

Cleaning cauldrons? Yeah. That was important in Potions.

As the instructions kept on coming, the boy scribbled them down on his piece of parchment as quickly as possible. The notes were a little messy, sure, but at least he could make them out, yeah? He was the one who was going to read them, after all. Apart from Lottie, maybe, if they were still planning on starting up study groups.

Now time to collect everything. Alec got up from his seat and headed over towards the front of the classroom. He collected up the ingredients in the right quantities before heading back towards his seat. Get down to business? Nodno--

Quote:

Originally Posted by Edward Penguin

He wrote down the instructions as fast as he could write and then had some questions. Is the stick supposed to be humongous or is it the powdered feathers mixed in water?

Question? Could he answer or...? "Erm... the powdered feathers mixed into the water. That's meant to look the same as the water," he piped up, smiling at the boy, "The stick won't affect it or... or melt or mix into the potion." Right? Yeah? ... He hoped not.

Potion. He should get back to that.

The three goose feathers were added into the potion before Alec picked up the wooden stirrer. "Scourgify!" There. Wooden stirrer was now clean wooden stirrer. Dropping an end of the stick into the water and goose feathers mix, the boy started stirring it clockwise until... what was on the instructions? Until it was homogeneous? The first part was same, yeah? And this was potions so mixtures in the same state, right? All watery?

Shrug.

Once the feathers were mixed in into what looked like a homogeneous mix, the eighteen year old turned the heat on before glancing over at his parchment. Mortar and pestle... which meant more cleaning. "Scourgify! Scourgify!" Now he had a clean mortar and pestle too. Not wanting to get fungus and white stains on his hands, Alec strapped on the gloves, wiggling his fingers as he did so. The mycosis fungus was added into the mortar before the crushing started. Thirty seconds or so, yeah?

Thirty seconds... tick tock... crush crush... thirty seconds...

Glances at his watch were made and, when the time was over, the boy stopped crushing the fungus and picked up his wand. "Aguamenti!" That was enough water, right? Shaaaaaake! And finally add it calmly into the potion. Calmly. The seventh year held up the mortar and calmly added the mixture into the potion. Calmly.

... Was there a non-calm way people did this...?

Text Cut: Parchment

Fire breathing potion
Alec B. Summers

Ingredients:
- 3 goose feathers (chopped well to look like powder)
- 5 centimetre square of parasites (mycosis fungus)
- 2 centimetre square of fire crab shell (size depends on how much you want to brew)
- One fire slug
- 8 drops of salamander blood
- Flobberworm mucus (depends on how much rigidity one wants)


Instructions:
1. Clean and cure cauldron
2. Fill cauldron 1/3 of the way with water
3. Add 3 powdered goose feathers and clockwise with a wooden stick until it looks homogeneous
4. Turn heat to high
5. Add 5 centimetre square of culture of mycosis fungus into mortar -- use gloves! Also, clean mortar
6. Crush for thirty seconds then add water
7. Shake mortar a little then add calmly to potion

Ian was waiting for some sort of answer when his house's headboy answered it for him. Ian smiled back at him and said [b]Thank you. Sorry about that. It must have seemed a silly question.[/textcut].

He worked on the mixture until he had a mixture similar to what the others had done and made the fire go to a higher level as instructed. Incendio Unfortunately, he spoke it a little more forcefully than he had planned and had to quickly stop it. FINITE! He tried again before his mixture was worthless. Incendio! There, that had done the trick.