Brian was holding the boomslang skin in his left hand a little nervously, trying to figure out whether he should raise his hand and ask the professor if his potion was the wrong colour or if he'd gone temporarily colourblind. He was mostly caught up with what was on the board, jumping to attention the moment the new instructions had appeared but he didn't quite want to proceed because he had a really bad feeling about this.

Hearing his name, Brian jumped but thankfully managed to keep a hold of his boomslang skin. Setting it down on the table and turning around slowly, he saw the professor man there and staring at his potion like it was going to explode. Maybe it was. Was it supposed to be bubbling?!

"It is? I wasn't sure if it was wrong or if I'd heard muddy instead of murky because that's what it looks like now and all that and I really don't remember getting any steps wrong just yet and -" he had to take a breath, reminding him that he was rambling and should probably stop now. Which he did. "Sorry, professor."

After he was done with helping a few students, Cosgrach walked to the back of the class and waved his wand to reveal the last step.

He'd read them out loud, but none of them was affected by old age like a few terms ago (OR WERE THEY?) so he just chose to be lazy.

"Get a sample of the base first to be used later, then for whatever emotion you want, the instructions are on the board. Once you are finished, get two samples - one for me and one for the homework, and vanish the rest of it." Because he didn't want to be questioned for a semi-dark potion, thank you.

"Don't leave, yet. We'll discuss the antidote." In fact... "How might be the antidote for this potion?"

His eyes widened when the professor asked if he had stirred it correctly or not. "I....I thought I had!" he said in a fearful voice. Please don't say he had to start over! He bit his lip hard. He'd been hoping that it was his imagination playing tricks that it wasn't clear. If the professor said it wasn't, then it definitely wasn't! "How can I fix it?" he asked peering down into his cauldron again. Where was mum? She'd tell him right? Pleeeease no starting over!!

.

.

....and Gabriel was just going to go back to minding his own business. He had a potion to get on with, and time wasn't slowly down for anyone.

Returning to his station, it became clear that the water temperature wasn't rising as quickly as it should. How long had it taken to help Rowan? Surely, this should've been sorted by now. Not that Gabe was an expert on thermal reactions with water.

Double checking his setup, nothing seemed out of sorts...until his eyes fell on the thermometer. Had it malfunctioned? Slipping a glove on (What? He didn't know how hot this thing would be), he considered it closely. Okay...it wasn't reading any temperatures. Huh...wasn't this a new thermometer? Digging for a spare in his equipment, Gabe cleaned the second one and slipped it into the water...eyes glued to the mercury within.

STARE. STARE. STARE.

Oh. Yes. There.

Doing a bit more checking, just to make sure it was staying at an even 100 degrees, he went about chopping up lovage. The proper name for it was an interesting one, based in Italian. Levisticum officinale...since he loved languages. That was a literal translation, too. 'Lovage'. Intriguing. Much intrigment.

...and the misletoe berries. Those were on hand to be added directly after, as specified by Culloden.

Deep breath.

Adding the lovage, Gabriel held his breath...eyes transfixed on his watch. See, counting was faulty. Some words did NOT equal up to ONE SECOND as many thought...and Gabe wasn't one to be so inaccurate. THE POTION DEPENDED ON HIM.

At the five second mark, the misletoe berries suffered the same fate as the lovage and the Ravenclaw paused, looking at the next steps.

He'd been so caught up...he'd missed earning points for his helping the small Gryffindor...which was GOOD...because Gabe would've been redder than the Gryffindor emblem. AND IT WOULD'VE TOTALLY PULLED HIS FOCUS.

The final step. The final ingredients. THE FINAL FINALE.

*Intense background music*

Before Natalia added her finishing touch, she pondered deeply on which emotion she would like her potion to be. Happiness would be rather useful - who wouldn't like a small dose of happiness every now and then? Sadness... why would anyone like to be sad? EVER?! Excitement... ehhh. Why was fear even an option? Wouldn't it be some sort of... dark magic if one was forced to become scared? Natalia slightly shuddered at the thought.

Natalia was left left tenderness and anger. Tenderness was definitely the most practical out of the two, and it would be extremely useful to be utilized on her irritating younger brother. BUUUUUT... Natalia was personally curious about the effects of anger, so, she chose that.

The fourth year read the instructions and prepared seven hippogriff feathers in front of her, ready to dispose them as they just insulted her the worst way possible.

You dare call me a moron? There went the first feather.

Well, you're just a FEATHER! Two in.

What's that? My clothes don't match? Three.

I don't understand fashion? Four.

EXCUSE ME. Like you understand fashion?! Five.

You tell me that when you know how to PUT SOME CLOTHES ON. Six.

Oh, look at that, I've just annihilated you all! Seven.

So nothing bad had happened yet. This was good real good. And they almost most done to two ingredients to good plus the one to make the emotion. She hadn't even thought about what emotion she wanted to make. She would have to figure that out sooner or later, right? She still had a bit more time to think about it. In the meantime she added the next two steps to her notes.



Well maybe she didn't quiet have the amount of time she thought that she did to think of what she wanted her potion to be. Anyway she got the boomslang skin. Mmmmm interesting.She added it in. Tada! And now just a waiting game. A FIVE minute waiting game.

One minute
Two minutes
Three minutes
Four minutes
Five minutes

After the five minutes were up she took the ten larvae and added them into the cauldron. 1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10. Those were all added in. Now if she had done it correctly the liquid in the cauldron should be clear like water according to the notes on the board. Now what emotion was she going to do. Mmmmm decisions, decisions.

YEEEEEEEEEES! Almost done! Finish up a potion was Zander’s favorite thing because it meant he didn’t have to worry about it anymore. AND it meant that he had completed a potion without managing to mess anything up. The boy came a long way from first year, alright? Took a while to perfect this sort of thing… Even though he hadn’t quite perfected anything yet. And probably wouldn’t ever. But um. No need to get into that stuff right now, he had a potion to finish after all!

The Gryffindor looked over at the board and considered the different options. Happiness was his first instinct, but he decided to read the rest incase. He quickly dismissed both sadness and tenderness. Thinking neither would really be all too useful. He considered anger at first, before realizing what had happened last time he took the hate potion. Um NO THANK YOU. That meant only happiness, excitement, and fear remained. Fear? Wait, why fear? Why was fear even an option? Uh. Roar, roar Gryffindor. No fear, please.

Moving on.

Happiness and excitement. Both sounded equally nice, but hm. Happiness sounded a lot like a cheering potion, so maybe he’d try that excitement stuff? Sounded kinda neat. And kinda unique too. Yeah, maybe he’d do that. Excitement. Easy enough. Plus sprinkling fur around didn’t require too much work so yeah, perfect. He took a handful of ferret fur and sprinkled it into the potion, stopping once around half of it was in there. Ahem. A little more than half, but hopefully that wouldn’t change the side effects too much. Oops.

And then stirring stirring stirring stirring MERLIN his arm was starting to hurt BUT STILL stirring stirring stirring stirring. GONE. He DID it folks! Zander Adair DID IT!

Ahem. Then he quickly poured a bit into a flask for his Professor, making sure to label it with his name and then scooped a bit up for himself. And then time to WAIT. They weren’t leaving yet? Awh man. Oh yeah, also making this stuff disappear la la la.

.

.

Now, the fluxweed. Where had he....Oh, there.

Pulling it over so he could start it's preparation, Gabe spelled his knife clean and got to work. It wasn't too difficult...removing all but the leaves. Stems and the excess were cleared away a second later...and he was left to cut said leaves. The Ravenclaw understood why this was important. It was like...getting all of the essence one could out of plant. Not exactly juicing it...but akin to that.

After finishing up that bit, Gabe made sure to pull his wooden spoon and Scourgify! it before adding them in. No, Professor Culloden hadn't said anything about IMMEDIATELY stirring...but why not be prepared to do so? Especially when he had some momentum going...

...and this stirring sequence was easy to mess up if he wasn't paying attention. Alternating between clockwise and counter clockwise...So, all the focus and concentration went towards this step.

Dipping the spoon down into the mixture, Gabe went through the stirring strokes, carefully reversing after each individual one. Clockwise...to counter-clockwise....back to clockwise....and then counter-clockwise again....repeatedly for 14 turns in total.

Gabe peeked into the cauldron. Muddy? Check. No smells? Check...

Well, even Dante with his limited knowledge on the subject knew his potion was not looking good. It was probably not suppose to be rises and smelling like it his cauldron was melting. Nope not even going to check.

Nope.

Just keep on going and hope it does not explode in his face again. A guy can hope. And he was going to go with fear. Sounded the easiest. He squished a scoop of flies as well as he could and threw it into the cauldron.

Yeah Dante was 99.9 percent positive it should not be looking like this.

Oh well definitely too late now.

Angel looked at the Professor, why couldn't he do it for her after all, he was the one that was making her get things wrong, he had given her the big smile at the start of the lesson.

Angel got to the step where she had gone wrong and then she Chop the lovage and added it into the potion, she made sure to wait just five seconds this time, before she added the berries, she had at least got that right this time even if she was still trying to figure out about the smile.

Angel then cut the fluxweed into three pieces and then she added it into the cauldron before she stirred the potion once clockwise and then once counter clockwise making sure that she did this seven times each. She then checked the potion and smiled when it was right this time.

Angel added boomslang skin into the cauldron and then started to wait, she waited 5 minutes, she was starting to wonder what all the 5's were about, she then after waiting the full about of time she added the Larvae and looked at the potion it seemed right.

"Professor, Adi how does it look?" Angel hoped that she had done all that right it looked right but she wanted to double check before she did the last steps.

Add boomslang skin and wait for 5 minutes
10. Add the larvae

Toby DID give the answer by himself. He had a tendency to do that. Rambling, y'know. He listened as Culloden spoke to him, checking out his potion's temperature yet again despite the fact that keeping it steady was now probably a lost cause. Positive thinking, see?

"That makes sense," he replied, looking back up. And it did, too. Because there WERE Stasis Charms, and if they were conducive to brewing this potion, they'd surely have been instructed to use one. So it made sense that they'd NOT been told, it was more a matter of Toby being curious as to the reasons why, and in the case of potions, he felt comfortable enough to question the process, because Culloden. Normally he might just... accept it and move on. "I guess sometimes the best way is the difficult way." No problem for a Hufflepuff like Toby. Even when it was this difficult.

So, last step then, and now he had to choose which way this potion was going to go. Obviously, three of those emotions were totally out of the question. They were the big three that Toby refused to feel, and he'd probably have a breakdown if he intentionally tried inspiring them in anyone else. Happiness was the obvious choice, just 'cause... ew, dog saliva, and he didn't want to risk the excitedness one in case they were testing these potions on themselves. So happiness, alihotsy, seemed like the way to go.

First, though, a sample of the base. Toby grabbed one of the phials he'd cleaned during the five minutes' wait, then used his (CLEAN) ladle to scoop out the potion and get that all stoppered and labelled and set aside. RIGHT. Alihotsy, wherrrrrrre are youuuuuuu?

Gotcha. Toby took the container of alihotsy leaves out and, once again, levitated them so they were hovering over the potion. Now then... a happy memory. Eeeeeeeeeeeeasy. Curtis, hanging out with him and telling him stories and making funny faces and voices to make him laugh, and crawling after him all around the house like he was gonna catch and nom him up 'cause he was the Toby!Monster.

He was already grinning at the thought, but he needed to laugh, and that was easy too. So that was what Toby did. Laughed LOUDLY and PROUDLY.

"Ha... haha... hahahaha... hahAHA... AHAHAHAHA.... AAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA! HAHAHA- oh."

'OH', because he'd realised that, mid-laugh, he'd lost concentration on the spell, and the leaves were no longer floating. But NO PROBLEM, because now they were in the potion. Nice.

After that, Toby got to work on bottling up two more samples, like Culloden had said so, labelled those as well, and vanished the remainder in his cauldron: "Evanesco." He cleared up his workspace then, still listening to the professor and trying to think of a suitable answer. Antidote, hm. He... didn't know, but raised his hand anyway, and answered the question with another question. "Sir, would the antidote need to be specially brewed? Like... because the ingredients are different for each emotion, so maybe you even take the base, and work from that to make, like... an Emotional Change-BACK Potion, specific to the one that you're getting the antidote for?" It seemed less likely the more he spoke. "Or perhaps some sort of... regular mood stabilising potion?"

And now Toby was gonna shut up before he started rambling on all the many many possibilities that were coming to mind.

.

.

So, two measures of boomslang skin...

The interesting thing about "boomslang" as a word was that it literally translated to "tree snake"...according to the Afrikaans and Dutch languages. Of course, Gabriel didn't know these languages...but because it pertained to an ingredient, he'd made it his business to study up. Also, it was interesting to consider how some things were named and how they represented the ingredient in question. Some...just...didn't make much sense. But...they'd been 'discovered' in a different era...and invention and SCIENCE had come a long way.

One should never discount the importance of SCIENCE in magic. Because it WAS important. Practical applications had enhanced some very important potions, thank you very much.

Ahem.

So, after adding in the two measures...Gabe waited the allotted five minutes and counted in the ten larvae. Culloden hadn't mentioned adding them in all at once, so he didn't bother doing so. Instead, he decided to double check his counting by adding them in clumps.

Three + four + three = ten.

Accurate sum.

....and it LOOKED clear...but he could've been seeing it wrong. Water sometimes reflected light in strange ways...but clear? 85 percent sure it was....

Oh, so it was Angel who messed up the step. That made more sense than it being Adi, but it was a shame that her friend had to start over again. She'd offer to help if needed but since Adi was there, Lux felt that there was no real point to it.

They were moving on to the last part of the potion, but first a sample of the base was required. That made a lot of sense since it kept for a long time. Grabbing a clean phial and ladle, Lux carefully spooned out some of the potion. Stoppering the phial she put a label on it so that she would be able to remember what was stored inside. Now on to finishing everything up.

Because she was planning to brew a HAPPINESS potion, Alihotsy leaves were needed. Three were extracted from her kit and added as she thought about the moment she found out she was going to be an Aunt. It was a fresh memory, and she was excited about it!! "HAHAHAHAHA!"

And BOOM, she had a finished potion!! After cleaning her ladle, Lux took out two more phials and spooned out the samples for her and Professor Culloden. They both were stoppered and labeled and the rest of the potion was banished. As she cleaned her work space and equipment, they were asked a question. As she was about to answer, Toby beat her to the punch with what she wanted to say. Yep, that boy was SMART. Raising her hand, she said, "I agree with everything Toby said." Because it was like he voiced her very thoughts.

SPOILER!!: Lux's Notes

EMOTIONAL CHANGE POTION

Ingredients:

• Two sprigs of lovage
• 4 mistletoe berries
• 4 measures of fluxweed
• 2 measures of boomslang skin
• Ten newt larvae
  
  
• Happiness: Add 3 Alihotsy leaves and laugh as loudly as you can at a happy memory
• Sadness: Think of the saddest moment in your life while adding a teaspoon of glumbumble treacle
• Excitement: Sprinkle half a handful of ferret fur and stir it as quickly as you can in the clockwise direction until the fur completely dissipates (usually takes 30-45 seconds)
• Fear: Squish a scoop of flies well in the mortar and add it
• Tenderness: Gently add 2 teaspoons of dog saliva without any splashes
• Anger: Throw 7 hippogrif feathers in as if you're angry at something and they are your relief

Steps:

1. Fill halfway with pure water
2. Slowly lower your wand as if you're drawing a straight, vertical line with your wand and say Apto pressura.
3. Heat to 100 degree celcius and keep the heat at 100 and ONLY 100 AT ALL TIMES
4. Chop the lovage well and add it
5. Wait for 5 seconds
6. Add the berries right after 5 seconds
7. Cut the fluxweed leaves in three pieces and add
8. With a wooden stick, stir once clockwise, once counter clockwise and alternate like that for 7 times: so the total number of stirs is 14

   Checkpoint: It should be muddy, but not smelly.

9. Add boomslang skin and wait for 5 minutes
10. Add the larvae

    CHECKPOINT: It should be completely clear like clean water

Extra notes:

• It's a base potion, which can be stored for a year
• The emotion to be decided after the creation of the base

Ap-toh press-soo-rah. Ap-toh press-soo-rah. Cutty repeated this both in his head and quietly to himself. He'd learned over the years to be more aware of his pronunciations of things. His thick and quick accent proved frustrating at times when it came to certain spells in the early part of his academic life.

Cutty did an inventory of the things he'd need for the potion. His cauldron sat out near the tools which included: two stirring instruments one of wood the other of metal, his thermometer since this potion was apparently hyper-sensitive to brewing temperature, measuring spoons, measuring cups (just in case) and the mortar and pestle. He started with the cauldron and the metal stirring instrument. Favouring the clean and heat method. He found it more effective and so after scourgifying them both, he used the heating charm to make sure and kill any remaining micro contaminants. Then, taking one by one, Cutty applied the cleaning spell to the measuring spoons. "Scourgify." Then hit the mortar and pestle each with it, "Scourgify. Scourgify." The spoons were next and he'd grown accustomed enough with them to make it quick.

"Incendio." He lit the burner but did not yet place his cauldron upon it. He just wanted to make sure the fire was none too big yet not too small either since it was sensitive to temp changes. Once his cauldron was room temperature again, he added the pure water to it carefully filling it to it's half way point. He lifted the cauldron by the handle and placed it over the flame.

Now came the wand work. Cutty held out his pointed wand and drew the vertical line in the air straight down whilst speaking the incantation, "Apto pressura." He picked up his thermometer, scourgified it and stuck it into the side of the potion as if it were ill and he was simply checking for a fever.

Henric gave llia a thumbs up as well because they both had finally finish adding the last step of the potion. He He grinned a little and went back to listen to the professor again for more instructions.

Henric scooped up his sample base of his potion into a flask provided and paste a label on it with his name. He made sure there were two for him, in case he messed up one later. He then put them aside and went ahead selecting the emotion inducing ingredients he wanted.

At first, he wanted to brew up the happiness potion...but it got him thinking, what if he could make a tenderness potion instead. He felt like some people needed that, show a little kindness and care once in a while, you know.

And so he added two teaspoon of dog's saliva into his potion, making sure none had splattered upon him. Satisfied...his tenderness potion making was finally done! Hooray~~~

He scooped more of his finished work into two more flasks and put a lid on them. He labeled them,"Henric's Tenderness Potion". It sounded funny to his ears but it must be done.

They were asked a question about the antidote. He wasn't quite sure of the answer too. Perhaps, the antidote was to reverse the emotion they were making...hmm...

Marsha was nervous.

She always was when it came to potions… because she WANTED to be good at it. She loved cooking and baking at home with her Mam, so she thought that that meant that she SHOULD be good at it now… but generally it didn’t work out that way. Magic made it different, new, unreliable and … well majorly unknown. However, so was every recipe she had tried making for the first time over the last few years. So, she tried to stay positive and decided that it simply meant that if she ever failed an exercise, she would ask the professor for time to retry it.

However, she wasn’t going to fail.

Okay. First things first, organise her ingredients and sort out her equipment just like she would do if she was cooking with Mam at home. She made sure that her ingredients were in a neat row and then she moved over to the washbasin at the back of the room to quickly clean all of her utensils and equipment. She knew that Cutty had helped her to scourgify her cauldron at the end of her last lesson but it never hurt to be careful. The twelve year old also really wished she could get some of their “simple” but often used spells down, it would make everything so much easier.

After she had washed everything, she filled her cauldron with water from the sink, and then returned to her desk. Aguamenti was another charm, along with scourgify that she was trying to perfect outside of class… She had managed a trickle of water, and one layer of dirt so far - and neither seemed helpful right now in class… However she would keep trying… she would get there.

Okay, now for the spell specific for this potion. Apto pressura. ”Apto pressura. Apto pressura. Apto pressura!” As she listened to the sounds around her, she smiled a little when she noted that she was saying it the same as everyone else which either meant that they were all right, or they were all wrong. Saying it again, for a fourth time she lowered her wand in a straight, vertical line over the cauldron as she did so.

Marsha was happy that one spell that she had managed to get going since she had started here, was incendio which she used to light a fire underneath her cauldron. As she dipped the end of her thermometer in her potion, she watched the water slowly heat to 100 degrees. A few weeks ago, the Professor had shown her how to control the temperature and it was slowly becoming more and more natural to use and perform. Hopefully everything else would follow suit.

98… 99… 100!

Now time for the next set of steps. He saw the Professor put the steps on the board for which emotion he wanted. He thought about it but he wrote them down anyways incase he wanted to brew in the near future. He used his quill and began to scribble.



He decided to go with the happy memory one. He went up to the front of the room to get his three alihosty leaves and he returned them. He wanted to think of a happy memory. He grinned and he thought of many dealing with his family. He decided on when he saw his aunt fall and slip on a banana and he thought that was the funniest thing ever. He chuckled to himself and he added in the three leaves and laughed loudly..."HAHAHAAHA!!!" and then he hoped the potion worked. I mean he did laugh pretty loud and he hoped no one would think he was crazy or anything. He didn't need to be checked in a loony bin.

After adding his leaves, the professor said he needed to stay so he stood where he was. But first he needed to clean everything first and get a sample. He took two vials and held one and used a ladle and filled it up. Then he took the second one for the professor. He filled it up and labeled it with his name. He wrote it on a name tag and then he needed to vanish his potion. With a wave of his wand he vanished it with "Evanesco!" and then he heard Professor C's question. What is the antidote for this potion? He had no idea but he heard Toby's answer and went with it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by StarShine

He'd read them out loud, but none of them was affected by old age like a few terms ago (OR WERE THEY?) so he just chose to be lazy.

"Get a sample of the base first to be used later, then for whatever emotion you want, the instructions are on the board. Once you are finished, get two samples - one for me and one for the homework, and vanish the rest of it." Because he didn't want to be questioned for a semi-dark potion, thank you.

"Don't leave, yet. We'll discuss the antidote." In fact... "How might be the antidote for this potion?"

Up to this point, Zahra had been .....MOSTLY on task. She had ingredients in her cauldron and nothing had grown a head, blown up, or smelled like boiled skunk. So all in all, she was doing pretty good. Would the potion work? No probably not. But A for effort.

OR T FOR TROLL. LIKE THAT TROLL THAT ONE TIME.... hehehe

HAHAHA

Anywho.

Hum.

Decisions... decisions.... DOG SALIVA or FERRET FUR?

....why not both....?

Zahra mixed the excitement AND tenderness. She probably needed to TENDERIZE her EXCITEMENT anyway. La la la.

As for an antidote? UHM.... "Probably tea... uh of some sort."

Norah's eyes got wider and wider and wider until they were probably almost the size of her entire face. If that was possible, which it wasn't, but y'know what exaggerating was a lot harder than it seemed. Good thing she was an expert. THE Sophie Brown had voted for shorty-pants Norah for Ms. Hogwarts? That was one for the history books. One day the History of Magic classes could act out a skit all about it. It was a BIG DEAL, okay? Very big. She beamed at the Ravenclaw and and opened her mouth, letting it hang open as she tried to think sort through the million and five replies that came to her head because you couldn't say just anything when the importantest event in the history of ever was going down. 'Cept then she was leaving. The fourth year spun around to watch her go, deciding it'd be a bad idea to cheer for her for class disruption reasons. She caught the thumbs up just as she was pushing some more hair out of her eyes and returned it with a double thumbs up, complete with excited wiggle.

And then Professor Culloden spoke and she had to spin around and stop watching. With a glance at her thermometer to check that her potion was still at the right temperature, she wrote down the final step. She threw a grin over her shoulder back at Sophie because THREE POINTS! COOOOL! Of course now it was decision time. Norah read over the options with her expression scrunched up into her thinking face. As much as fear was a horrid emotion 'n all that, smushing bugs sounded reeeally nice right now. Smushing things was the best, when they were already dead and you didn't have to be sad and give it a funeral. Not that she wasn't good at insect funerals, 'cause she was practically a professional at those too. She picked up her wand and cast "Scourgify!" on her mortar and pestle AND on the scooper thingy mabob whose name she'd forgotten, before scooping flies into the mortar. Or was it the pestle? THE BOWL THING, OKAY? Grinning, she smush smush smushed them until they were just a bunch of squishy bug guts, and added them to the sample of base she'd set aside. RADICAL. Once that was all cleared away to two labeled vials, she lifted her wand again. The vanishing spell. She KNEW this one. It worked...usually. "Evanesco!" The Hufflepuff peeked hopefully into the cauldron and beamed at its emptiness even though emptiness was usually boring.

And an antidote? Nope, Norah didn't know this one. Sophie probably did though, so he could call on her for sure.

His thermometer soon read 100 degrees Celsius. That's when he remember it. The cutting board. Cutty had almost forgotten. He reached into his bag and pulled out the blade and the cutting surface and as he did so his dragonhide gloves made their appearance flopping onto the surface of the table. He grabbed them and stuck them on.

He normally didn't do it, but after spotting the red headed Marshian doing it he decided to flirt. Which he almost never did and certainly never did in any serious manner with anyone his own age. He lined up the fluxweed, the berries, the lovage, the boomslang skin, and the newt larvae.

With his hands busying themselves lifting the cutting board to scourgify it, he kept his buggy, dark eyes on Marsha until she'd look up at him. At which time he'd wink at her as if to say thanks for the idea, kidda. He took up the knife by the handle and took his wand to it. "Scourgify."

Cutty took out the lovage and began to chop. Longways at first and then again, until it was fine enough to be considered chopped, but not quite small enough that an onlooker would call that minced. Lifting the cutting board, Cutty used the blade of the knife to slide the ingredients into his cauldron. He supposed Apto pressura bought them brewing time. He wondered exactly what else it could do.

He cleaned the cutting board whilst he counted off in his head. 1 hippogriff, 2 hippogriff, 3 hippogriff, 4 hippogriff, 5 hippogriff. He then tilted the container in which the berries were held and watched them tumble into the cauldron creating little plops as they cut through the surface.

The fluxweed was next, but first the hapa-djinn had to clean his tool once more. He lifted the cutting board and scourgified it, then followed after with the knife, which he placed aside. His fingers held the fluxweed by the stem and pulled separating the leaf part from the slightly firmer stalks. He took his clean knife and sliced the leaves into three and one by one added them to his cauldron. He then took the wooden stick he'd cleaned earlier and gave the potion a clockwise stir, followed by another singular anti-clockwise stir for one, two, thee, four, five, six and the seventh was clockwise. Then again, one clockwise, two anti-clockwise, third was clockwise and fourth was anti-clockwise, five and then the sixth again was anti-clockwise whilst the seventh was done in a clockwise motion.

OKAY.

So, she had the water at the right heat, and now it was time for everything else.

First things first, the lovage. She took her knife and chopped up the two sprigs well and she sprinkled it into the cauldron. Then she slowly counted to five. As she did, she separated the four mistletoe berries that she would need to add once she got there.

FIVE!

With a smile, she added the four berries into the cauldron, each giving a very small plop! as it did so. She wanted to stir it… it seemed like she should stir it, but the Professor hadn’t said anything about that so she didn’t touch her stirrer, instead watching her cauldron wearily as she kept an eye on the temperature. Oooh, look the springs and the berries were melting and mixing with the heated water. That was so cool!

Right, Professor Culloden what was next? Hehehe.

Fluxweed. Cool.

Pulling the Fluxweed towards her, she picked four of the leaves off of it and cut each of them into three pieces. As she looked at the twelve pieces on her work surface, she grinned at how alike and similar they were. Yay for things being carefully cut to be so perfect. Hehe. She then added them to the cauldron as well. OKAY.

Was it cold in here? Her skin was prickling, like her hairs were standing on end... weirrrdd..

Right, YES. Potions. Stiring. Good.

Remembering the muggle recipes, she nodded silently as she remembered that they always had a few ingredients in the bowl before they started to mix. After all, you couldn’t mix only one item - you obviously, needed to mix it with something else.

Taking her wooden stirrer, she slowly stirred the potion clockwise. Then, she kept the same speed and moved back, anti-clockwise. Clockwise. Anti-clockwise. Clockwise. Anti-clockwise. Clockwise. Anti-clockwise. Clockwise. Anti-clockwise. Clockwise. Anti-clockwise. Clockwise. Anti-clockwise. Okay! She lifted the wooden stirrer from the potion and took a quick glance at the board.

Why was her skin tingling?

So we were going for a muddy colour of potion… The red-haired girl pushed her hair out of her face as she peered into the cauldron again. YES! Muddy! Check. Annnnnnd it shouldn’t smell. Hmm, off. She leant close to her cauldron, smelling the fumes and grinned wide as she couldn’t smell anything. YES! Okay, checkpoint one, passed!

As she waited for Professor Culloden to let them know what to do next she whistled a little to herself. Oh! Next part. Boomslang. Awesome. She took the skins from her kit and paused. Wait, did they just add it or did they need to do anything to it? ”Do we have to cut it up or chop it or… smush it up in some way? Or do we just add the two parts of skin to the potion and then wait?” She looked around, hoping that either the Professor or one of the other students who were standing close by would be able to help her.

As she scanned the room, she hoped someone was looking up and around, so that she would be able to get an answer. She didn't want something to go wrong with her potion when it was going so well so far. Hold on, she raised a hand to tickle at her skin - she... did she feel someone looking at her? Looking around again, this time slower she found Cutty sitting in the row behind her; grinning. Fine, if he was looking at her - he could answer her question. "What do we do with the boomslang?" she repeated, asking the Slytherin for clarification.

And... How long had he been looking at her? Had he been trying to get her attention for long enough that she had felt him looking at her? Na. Surely not.

Dot's potion was absolutely perfect, even if she was so far back in the class that no one would notice if she caused a small cauldron melt down. Still. Perfect. Clear and ready to be used as a base for whatever emotion she wanted to pursue. The internal debate was real as Dot carefully filled one phial.

What should she add as her ingredient? She considered her options as she cleaned and packed her other utensils. Happy and excited were her resting state, but fear and sadness sounded like bummers. Anger was so... hard to control, if she really did end up mad. Tenderness? What would that even look like? And it meant she had to drink DOG SPIT, which didn't make her feel very tender at all.

Gross. Two gently added teaspoons of DOG SPIT, no splashes, and then Dot was able to fill the next two phials. One for the professor, and one for homework. 'Cause apparently they were drinking dog spit for homework.

Vanish the rest of it? She didn't WANT to vanish the rest of her potion, since she'd worked so hard on the potion. It was an awful waste of potion... even if it meant that Professor Culloden was going to prison. Such difficult decisions to make.

Sigh sigh sigh. "Evanesco," Dot banished the contents of her cauldron and cleaned out the bottom of her now-empty cauldron. Siiiiiiigh. "Maybe the opposite potion, Professor? Sadness on top of the happy potion." No, that was kind of dumb. Compounding the problem.

When Professor Culloden revealed the next steps in the potion brewing process, Janelle was ready. She updated her notes and put down her quill. Then she looked at her notes and tried to decide what she wanted her emotion to be. Going through the choices, Janelle settled on happiness 'cause she wasn't really feeling the other options.

Janelle grabbed three vials from her supplies and cleaned them thoroughly. She took the first one and filled it with a sample of her base potion. Then she got three Alihotsy leaves and dropped them into the potion. It was a good thing that she had zeroed in on her happiest memory for Defense Against the Dark Arts Class because she was able to retrieve it quickly. Thinking about something funny that happened during her happy time, Janelle had no trouble getting a good laugh going. It took some effort though, to make the laugh very loud. She did the best she could pump up the volume. Once she got going, it was kind of hard to stop herself from laughing, but Janelle was eventually able to do so.

Janelle guessed that she was finished with her potion because she didn't see any more brewing instructions. Soooo, taking out the two clean vials, she filled them with her happiness potion. Once they were filled, she closed them and set them aside. Janelle was afraid to vanish the remains of her potion just yet. In the meantime, she cleaned up her work station and dirty supplies.

Just then, the Professor threw out another question. She thought about the possible antidotes for her potion. Raising her hand, she took a wild guess. "If I have to add Alihotsy leaves to make a happiness potion, would I add glumbumble treacle to make the antidote? Since that makes a sadness potion, maybe that could cure a person of their happiness." Well, it was a thought anyway.

Taking her wand and trying to be confident about her potion, Janelle said, "Evanesco". There was no turning back now because her potion was gone. Janelle cleaned her cauldron and waited to hear her classmates' responses to the question.

Three points to Ravenclaw.

That's how it was done.

Sophie saluted Culloden and his gracious praise to her in the form of house points before sending a salute forward to Norah, who she was eternally grateful to for giving her the opportunity to even earn those extra points. Spot-on TEAMWORK, Hufflepuff Cutie. Soph fully intended on repaying Norah for her cuteness later on.

Jotting down some last notes before moving onto the last part, Sophie phialed a sample of her completed base, corked it, and labeled it while considering: what emotion did she want her potion to invoke? Looking over the ingredients list with applicable emotions... Sophie snorted at one in particular - ferret fur. Her eyes flickered up to meet those of Culloden's briefly, considering... things, before deciding to go with that one, based upon her affinity toward ferrets. With a clean glove, Sophie tinkered with various handfuls of ferret fur, trying to figure out... what was HALF? She kept dropping some, then picking more back up, trying to figure out what seemed like HALF a handful, until realizing... an exact measurement for this kind of ingredient probably didn't matter so much; rather, it was probably just the difference between more excitement and less excitement, but even still in such miniscule amounts that it probably wouldn't even matter too much. Nothing to stress over, at least.

So, once she decided upon what half a handful looked like and didn't think on it too much longer, Sophie sprinkled the ferret fur onto her base in the cauldron, then stirred clockwise as swiftly as she could with a light hand so the potion wouldn't splash. It was a lot like cooking, this felt like, and her arm was getting tired as she peered curiously into her cauldron, watching as the ferret fur gradually dissipated... until it had completely disappeared.

Success.

Sophie collected two phials of her excitement potion and labeled them as such with her name on them, then moved to vanish her potion when Culloden posed a question about an antidote. Hmmm...

Her hand went up after considering her classmates' replies, especially Tobes' response. "Personally... I dunno about needing SEPARATE antidotes to cater to each emotion. I mean... it makes SENSE that you'd wanna try to rid the affects according to the SPECIFIC effect this potion has, but like, at the same time... wouldn't the idea of an antidote in general be to just revert the drinker's emotions back to a neutral, normal state? Not necessarily the anti of it or an opposite - just more a stabilizer? I mean, the bulk of the potion is the same with that base, but with the one ingredient difference to differentiate the emotions..." she brushed a thoughtful hand through her hair, "I'd be interested in seeing if one general antidote intended just to stabilize the mind and body back to a neutral state... would be as effective for countering the affects of each potion as well as an antidote made specifically for a potion would, y'know?" DID THEY KNOW?

She shrugged a shoulder. What did she know? Maybe the back of the classroom was getting to her head. Even LUX was agreeing with Tobes, and she was an aspiring potioneer, too, so... maybe Soph was just way off in left field. Whoops. You couldn't win 'em all.

Cilla wanted to make sure that her hard work was not in vein so she was very careful with completing the final component of the potion. She grabbed three phials and a ladle and made sure they were nice and clean with a cleaning spell ("Scourgify") She carefully ladled some of the potion into a phial and labelled it. She gave her ladle a quick "Scourgify," before continuing.

Cilla decided to make an "Anger Potion" so she grabbed seven hippogriff feathers in her clean gloved hands and furiously threw them into her potion. She then grabbed her two phials and ladle. Carefully, she ladled some of her potion into the two phials and labelled each phial.

Cilla took off her gloves and waved her wand in an "S" formation over them, along with her ladle and said, "Scourgify." She then pointed her wand in her cauldron and said, "Evanesco." The cauldron was now empty so Cilla cleaned her cauldron.

She thought about possible antidotes but her mind was drawing a blank.