This lesson contains a PRACTICAL assignment. Please remain in character. Any out of character comments should be put behind spoiler tags!

Max looked at the instructions written on the board. He began gathering the stuff he needed. He realized he did not have enough Mistletoe berries and went to the student cupboard to get the amount he needed. With the right abount ofingedients he looked at the first step. First he added 2 drops of the Lethe River Water into his cauldron. Then he started to heat his cauldron gently for 20 seconds. So far so good. After turning off the heat he grabbed 2 Valerian Springs and threw them into his cauldron. He began to stir 3 times when he realized that his brew was smoking and was turning blue. Confused Max looked around and realized that he hadn´t added Valerian Springs but Mistletoe Berries into his cauldron. Grimacing he raised his hand. "Ehhmm Professor I think I might need another cauldron", he said a bit disappointed.

Max O´Conner/Slytherin

Ginny set her ingredients out across her workspace, feeling pretty confident in her potion-making abilities. She had been taking walks out in the woods alone with a field guide and notepad, gathering and studying ingredients, bringing them back to her room to fiddle around with combinations. She looked at her fingers, still spotted and purple from a botched potion she had been working on. She shrugged, "oh well, let's begin!" -drip- -drip- went the Lethe water, rolling down the side of the cauldron slowly. She pulled 2 Valerian sprigs off a potted plant placed conveniently nearby, dropped them in, and began stirring clockwise, right and done. She fidgeted, but she was confident, I can do this! She looked up slyly at Professor Mathers, who was nodding off, her spectacles sliding slowly off the bridge of her delicate nose. "There's no harm in messing with the competition a bit, is there?" Quickly she broke off a whole branch of Valerian and threw it into the cauldron of the student in front of her. POP! the concoction fizzed and bubbled, gaseous green vapor filled the room. Professor Mathers awoke with a start, to utter chaos and students screaming. Ginny smirked, and got back to work.

Ginny Spiker / Slytherin

When professor Mathers turned her back towards the students, Rox jumped up and started setting up her cauldron. Since she didn’t have much of the ingredients she needed for the potion, she walked over to the cupboard and grabbed the supplies she needed to make the potion. When she came back to her seat, she saw how the professor had written down the instructions for the potions on the board. Since the professor had told them they could start brewing the potion and she had said that it took a while before being completed, she decided to start on the potion right away. She read the first line of the instructions from the board “Add 2 drops of Lethe water to your cauldron by pouring smoothly”. She grabbed the Lethe water and dropped the amount in the cauldron, paying attention to the drops that she dropped in there. After she’d done that, she grabbed the valerian sprigs and she wanted to add that to the cauldron, but for some reason her eyes were drawn towards the board and with her hand above the cauldron, she saw the text on the board telling her to head the water first. She quickly placed the sprigs onto the table again and waited 20 seconds before the cauldron had heated up, not paying attention to the fact that it had already started to heat up before she was paying attention to the time, but the cauldron being too hot might not be a problem, what’s 21 seconds instead of 20 anyway she thought when she finally thought about the time problem. She decided that it might be a better idea to ask the professor if the time would be an issue just to be sure. "Professor, do I have to start again if I heated the cauldron for more than 20 seconds?"

[Rox Oatwood-Gryffindor]

As Professor Mathers finished talking, Aderyn pulled out her potions text and opened it to where she had a page flagged from where she’d read all about the Forgetfulness Potion the night before. She’d familiarized herself with the potion and with how the steps in its preparation were to be executed, and she was confident that she could get it right. After all, potions and herbology were her strong suits; she may have been rubbish at flying and not entirely great at divination or arithmancy, but she was right at home in the potions classroom.

Pulling out the ingredients the potion called for, Aderyn carefully set them on her bench in the order which she would need them, left to right. Meticulous organization was key in potions, and she didn’t want to make a mess of her assignment because she’d been sloppy or careless. Once her ingredients were set up, Aderyn placed her mortar and pestle, her cauldron, and her measuring implements.

Satisfied that she was ready to go, she rolled up her sleeves and picked up the bottle of Lethe river water, carefully decanting two drops into her cauldron. She set the bottle aside, recapping it, and put the cauldron over the flame, glancing at the clock at the front of the room to time 20 seconds exactly with as the water heated. Once the time was up, she turned the flame down to avoid overheating the potion and added the valerian sprigs, easily stirring the required number of times. So far, so good.

Turning her attention to her mortar, Aderyn picked up the pestle and set it aside, leaving the bowl open for ingredients. She swiftly added two precise measures of standard ingredient to the vessel, topping it off with 4 plump mistletoe berries. Picking up her pestle, she began to grind the ingredients into the required medium-fine powder. Her father had taught her long ago how to grind ingredients in such a way as she’d helped him with healing potions at home, and so she worked with practiced ease, getting to where she needed to be in no time flat.

Pausing after she’d ground her ingredients, Aderyn glanced at the clock as she wiped a hand across her forehead. She still had plenty of time to finish her potion, and so she took a moment to shake out the hand she’d been using to grind, getting the feeling back into her fingers. Shaking it off, she turned her attention back to her potion and carefully added two measures of her ground mixture to the potion, picking up her stirring ladle and giving the potion a careful mix, five times to the anti-clockwise.

Finishing that step, she immediately glanced up at the clock, making a note of the time and taking a seat for a well-deserved break as her potion brewed. She watched the contents of the cauldron swirl as the time passed, the potion turning from a cloudy off-white to yellow, to gold, and finally to an orange color. Before long, the half hour had passed and Aderyn extinguished the flame beneath her cauldron, looking into its depths. The potion was a little bit off color, lacking the golden shimmer to the orange that the book and her professor had said it would have, but it smelled earthy and musky, just the way the book had said it would.

Biting her lip and hoping that her potion was good enough, Aderyn raised her hand so that Professor Mathers could come and assess her work. As she waited, she glanced around the room, watching as other students finished up their work.

Aderyn Jones // Ravenclaw

Professor Jade Mathers, if we add Add 2 drops of Lethe River Water to the cauldron, and then heat it for 20 seconds, it will evaporate. Do you mean we should have a certain quantity of liquid or other matter into which we add the 2 drops of lethe river water?

Judy Sprouts of Gryffindor House

Kendra Krum listened intently to the teacher, as Potions was her second favorite class beside Herbology. When the instructions were written on the board, she began to follow them with precision. She prided herself in already having all of the ingredients, and continued on with the brewing in a cocky manner. She added two drops of the water to her cauldron and let it heat for 20 seconds, but she got sidetracked watching the other students while it was heating up and let it heat for a few seconds too long. She looked around the room wide-eyed to see if anybody had noticed, then shrugged and continued to complete the potion.

She added two sprigs to the cauldron and spun it clockwise three times, and it began to boil. As she went for the Standard Ingredient, she realized she had forgotten proper measuring instruments. She shrugged off this mistake and eyeballed the amount that she poured in. The potion turned a light blue and a bit of it splattered out onto her skin, absorbing immediately. She shook her head at what a disaster this was becoming, then eyeballed the instructions on the chalk board again. She cursed at herself, realizing she had put the Standard Potion into the cauldron instead of the mortar.

At this point she was fully intent on face-palming herself, but realized she couldn't lift her hand. She looked down to see that her arm had turned to gray stone where the potion splattered on her, and lead all the way down to her fingers. She gasped and yelled for the teacher as the stone began to spread up her arm. "Pr.. Professor Mathers? Professor Mathers!! Help!"

Rox was glad that she didn't have to start all over with the potion, so she continued with the next step and added the valerian sprigs she had placed on the table earlier. She then stirred the potion 3 times.

She carefully measured the amount she needed of the standard ingredient and placed it in her mortar, where she also added 4 mistletoe berries. “Crush into a medium-fine powder using your pestle” she then read from the board. She started to crush the ingredients in the mortar by using the pestle as was required and stopped when she believed the powder was medium-fine. Without paying attention to what the others were doing, she dropped the entire amount of the powder into her cauldron, missing the line of the instructions that told her to only add a bit of it. She then stirred the potion 5 times, paying attention to the anti-clockwise rotation that she needed to use.

After all of the ingredients were added, she looked at the potion brewing inside her cauldron, it didn’t look very appetizing, but she had learned by now already that potions hardly ever looked yummy. After just a few seconds her cauldron started to smell weird too. The cauldron began to bubble and drops of the potions began to scatter across the room, hitting students and other things. A part of it hit Rox right in the face.

After a few seconds the cauldron stopped bubbling. Rox looked around the room, she seemed to be in thought. "Why am I here again?" she then asked.

Ethel Cwen Ravenclaw

Ethel was far from a potions whiz. This long-acknowledged fact, along with Professor Mathers' stern countenance, meant that she was especially determined to follow the assignment instructions to the letter. So, armed with a tablefull of ingredients and a sense of purpose, Ethel turned her full attention to the act at hand.

"Two drops of Lethe River Water," she muttered under her breath. That seemed easy enough! She plucked up the eye dropper and in the drops went to her cauldron. Well, so far this seemed easy!

Her success made her bold, and as she waited for her cauldron to heat she eagerly prepared for the next step. At the end of 20 seconds, she was ready with the Valerian Sprigs. The instructions didn't mention what would indicate success or failure at this point, but nothing had exploded, so Ethel was cautiously optimistic.

That optimism crumbled when she read the next step. "Two measures?" She exclaimed. "What the heck is a 'measure'?" Frantic, Ethel flipped to the index to check for an explanation but found none. "Oh dear!"

There was no time for hand wringing. Figuring that speed would make due for lack of knowledge, she hastily dumped some Standard Ingredient into her mortar. The stuff sat innocently in the bottom of the bowl. "Well... so far so good." Ethel looked around to check the progress of her classmates, then popped in the berries and began carefully to crush the lot. "No explosions, yes!" She cried, but her jubilation was short lived.

"Oh no! More measures!" Her voice was full of despair. The instructions didn't give her anything else but this. Would her potion turn orange right away or gradually? What consistency would it be? Would it steam or spark or bubble? How would she know if she was getting closes to the vaunted Two Measures?

Ethel shuffled nervously from foot to foot, then slowly began to pour the berry / ingredient mixture into her cauldron. Everything was going swimmingly until the entire mess caught fire.

"Eeep!" She shrieked, flailing backwards. "Ah, er... Professor Mathers?" she cried. "My potion is orange!" Fire-orange, not golden orange, but maybe she would get half credit? If she was lucky, her potion would work out and she could use it to forget this whole ordeal.

Emelia chewed on her lower lip as the Professor spoke, idly playing with one of the valerian sprigs she'd already taken out of her potions kit. She was not the greatest at potions but she wanted to do well, and she focused on the professor's words, trying to absorb them thoroughly.

When they were told to start, she opened her potion kit and began to take out the ingredients she needed, realizing too late that she only had two mistletoe berries left. Cursing under her breath, she hurried off to the cupboard to grab a couple more, already a bit flushed by the time she got back to her desk. She exchanged a look with Aderyn, who was working beside her, who gave her a small smile before going back to her own potion.

Emelia began to squash and crush her berries and the standard ingredient into a powder, grunting slightly with the effort as she attempted to make the powder fine enough. After several long minutes she'd managed it, and she let out a sigh of relief.

She quickly added the lethe water and heated it for the twenty seconds, keeping an eye on her watch for the timing. She added the valerian sprigs and stirred three times clockwise, like the instructions said, before adding two measures of the berry mixture. She then stirred 5 times, like the instructions said, in a clockwise direction.

Emelia went pale as she realized she'd stirred clockwise the last time rather than anti-clockwise, and immediately began to sweat. Had she completely screwed it up? She glanced over at her friend's potion, which was bubbling merrily along, and then looked at the clock. There was only about forty minutes left of class, no time for her to start over.

With a heavy sigh, Emmy put her cauldron back on the flame and watched glumly as it bubbled, wondering what repercussions her mistake might have.

Half an hour later, her potion was actually not as bad as she'd imagined it might be. It lacked a distinct orange colour; instead, it was a golden yellow. She peeked into Aderyn's cauldron and found that aside from the lack of orange, the consistency and everything else seemed the same. She let out a sigh of relief and put up her hand, though she was now feeling nervous again because she was going to have to admit her mistake. She chewed on her tongue as Aderyn recieved praise from the professor, assuming that she would be disappointed upon checking Emmy's potion after such a good one from her friend.

"Professor, I'm finished. I... accidentally stirred clockwise at the end, though." she admitted, not meeting the professor's eyes, hoping she wouldn't be too mad or disappointed with her.

It was a little hard for Magnus to focus. He was very overwhelmed but still he set his cauldron up with a bit of trepidation combined with excitement. Spending a year at Saint Mungo’s and relying on Wolfsbane potions to keep him sane in his werewolf transformations had made him very excited to learn more of potions. Despite taking a long time at the shops in Diagon Ally and picking out his supplies it took him awhile to gather the ingredients. Deciding he would lable them later that night he finally figured out what the Standard Ingredient, Lethe River Water, Mistletoe Berries, and Valerian Sprigs looked like. “Add 2 drops of Lethe River Water to your cauldron by pouring smoothly,” he read from the board. Exactly how much a drop was didn’t seem overly intuitive to him at first, pouring most of it in his cauldron as the water came out a lot faster than he had anticipated. Sighing, he managed to get the water into his bottle and tried again. This time he took more care and got the two drops in smoothly.

He applied the heat for twenty seconds and added two Valerian Sprigs. Then he stirred three times but forgot the direction midway though. Restarting, he made sure to stir clockwise when he got back to the instructions. He carefully added 2 measures of standard ingredient and 4 mistletoe berries into his mortar and crushed them into a nice medium-fine powder. This part was rather enjoyable to Magnus and he felt more confident. Stiring his concoction 5 times counter-clockwise he then heated for 30 minutes on medium heat. When he looked at his potion it was not the golden orange Professor Mathers said it would be but rather a pale orange. Obviously his potion was not 100% correct. The bell rang but he stayed behind for a moment. If he was going to learn he needed to find out what went wrong. “Professor, could you tell me what I didn’t do correctly?” he asked a little timidly.

Magnus Lee/ Gryffindor

Rowan carefully separates her ingredients to set in the order in which they must be added. So far, so good. However, the Lethe water pours in a little too much. This seriously can't be two drops. She'd like to ask Magnus or Paddy, but she'd get them all in trouble, and it isn't important enough to do that.

She attempts to pour the water back into the bottle and start again, but one drop spills over onto her foot. She manages the rest, and pours more smoothly this time, but then notices that her foot, which she always taps, has gone suddenly numb. Tentatively, she attempts to partially stand up and falls sideways as soon as she puts weight on that foot. Oh, no! Has her foot has lost the memory of function?

She looks at Professor Mathers imploringly.

Rowan MacDonald, Gryffindor

Ernessa watched the instructions appearing on the board with excitement, potions was her favourite class and something she felt she excelled at. She had done lots of reading about the forgetfulness potion after learning about it last lesson and felt that she would be able to produce one adequately. After collecting the ingredients she needed Ernessa began to set up her cauldron and lay out everything in front of her. 'Okay, time to get to work' she mumbled to herself, taking the lid off the Lethe River Water and adding two drops to her cauldron. Ernessa was concentrating so hard on getting all the steps right that she barely noticed all the commotion going on around her. Finally, after adding each ingredient, Ernessa stirred her potion five times anti-clockwise and sat back to wait for half an hour. It was then just she noticed some kids had been sent to the hospital wing and she began to get nervous about the outcome of her potion. Half an hour passed and Ernessa looked down to see a lovely orange colour in her cauldron, smiling she raised her hand to draw Professor Mathers' attention.

Ernessa, Slytherin

Finn sat near the door to the classroom. Potions wasn't Finn's favorite class -- the fumes and sounds of potions, made correctly or not, didn't agree with him. He waited a few moments to re-read the directions on the board. Hopefully he'd get the potion close enough the first try, and not have to remake it.

Finn set up his station -- cauldron to one side, ingredients in order of use to the other side. The problem with potions, he thought, was that the directions were a little subjective. He'd already poured the Lethe River Water into his cauldon (and done it fairly steadily), heated the liquid, and added Valerian Sprigs and Standard Ingredient.

Picking up the mortar and pestle, Finn began crushing Mistletoe Berries. His mind drifted to whether there was a different between using fresh vs. dried ingredients, how smooth is 'pouring smoothly', and surveyed the classroom to see the progress of his classmates' potions. Some potions were snapping, smoking, emitting strange smells, and some students were starting from scratch. Finn looked down with a turn of his stomach. The directions said medium-fine powder, but the material in his mortar was very clearly like dust -- super fine. He added an extra measure to the cauldron hoping that would offset the fine grain. Concluding the recipe by stirring five times counter-clockwise, he set his potion to brew for the next 30 minutes.

At the 15 minute mark, Finn checked his potion and frowned. It was a light brown color, not the golden orange it should be resembling. Finn raised his hand. "Professor Mathers, I think something went wrong with my potion." He waited for the Professor to make her way to his corner of the classroom.

[Finnlay (Finn) - Ravenclaw]

MG decided to wait while some of the class already tried making there potion, she didn't want to make a fool of herself on the first few days back! She looked at the professors instructions carefully, she laid out each item in correct order and started filling the cauldron...

MG waits the 30 seconds for it to turn Golden Orange, fortunately it was working! Unfortunately she yelled in excitement and the class turned and looked at her, making a fool of herself anyways! She just smiled and went to continue reading while waiting for the rest of the class to finish.

Sam sighed as she rummaged through her kit for the necessary ingredients, if only she had payed better attention when her mom made potions, instead of daydreaming about quidditch.
Re reading the instructions only made her frown deepen. How can you measure two drops if you have to pour the stuff smoothly? Pulling three different sized measures out she squinted at her moms near indecipherable writing on the handles..., OK., the middle sized one clearly said one half..., so perhaps she could use the smallest one, which must be one quarter measure, to count the two drops and pour smoothly from that. Setting aside the 2 valerian sprigs so they would be ready when needed, Sam used the full size measure to dump 2 scoops of standard ingredient on top of the 4 dried mistletoe berries in her mortar, and crushed vigorously away. Looking critically at the resultant powder, she hoped fervently that she hadn't crushed it too fine. Nothing she could do about it now though, so she lit a low flame under her cauldron and poured the nasty looking greenish black Lethe water into it as smoothly as she could. No wonder you had to make this stuff into a potion, no one in their right mind would drink Lethe water straight, she thought as she carefully counted to 20. In went the two valerian sprigs with three clockwise sweeps of the stir-spoon. She then dumped the mortar full of the crushed mixture in, with five stirs in the opposite direction. Widdershins, that was what her mom had always called going against the clock, she grinned as she waved her wand to increase the flame to a medium heat, then froze in horror. The instructions called for two measures of the crushed mixture, the four mistletoe berries made the amount in the mortar more than that. Sam had forgotten to re-measure the mixture before she had added it to her cauldron. The next 30 minutes were pure torture as Sam watched her potion slowly change color as it bubbled gently in her cauldron. By the time the half of the sands in her hourglass had poured from top to bottom, the potion had managed to turn a sickly pale pumpkin color. Samantha was no longer grinning as she snuffed the flame under her cauldron and slowly raised her hand to get her teacher's attention.

Samantha Grant, Slytherin house

As she looks around and sees all the hands raised and other students sent out for treatment, Rowan begins tapping her foot furiously on the rungs of the lab stool. She cleans her cauldron carefully with a cloth, then pours the top drops of Lethe Water again, by changing the angle of the pour. The smoothness works this time!

Tap, tap Was that a slight tingle?

The gentle (wow, that tells me a lot) heating is done on the lowest setting, and it's time for the Valerian Sprigs. She picks two of the best adds them. There isn't much moisture yet, so she stirs from above with her wand, carefully controlling her circles.

Tap, tap. Yes, that IS a tingle!

Two measures of Standard Ingredient. (How do I know what the measure is? Oh good, there's the scoop in the container. Better wipe it off first and then in between, so it's exactly two.)

Tap, tap The feeling seems to be returning.

Mistletoe Berries always crush nicely, so that's a relief. Rowan finishes that step happily and cleans the measure again before adding the ground berries, then she stirs again very carefully, her wand still above and rotating widdershins. Fortunately, the Cauldron of Requirement has added its own liquid component, so there's enough to work with.

She leaves on the medium setting to brew.

Tap, tap. Rowan lets out a barely muffled yelp as the feeling returns and reminds her that flesh usually loses when encountering metal repeatedly.

She sits quietly and massages her foot and ankle while waiting for Professor Mathers. This potion is now beginning to turn a pretty golden sunset color of gold and orange. Is it the right color?

Hopefully, her teacher will know, and take no note of her forgetful foot.

Rowan of Gryffindor

Jennifer looked around the class nervously, poitions was never her strong point. She had flicked through her books before coming to Hogwarts but she always allowed herself to get distracted. After lighting a fire under her cauldron, she lined up all the ingredients she needed - hopefully this would aid in her getting it right first time. She measured out two drops of Lethe River Water into a flask, then poured it smoothly into the cauldron. After 20 seconds, she lifted it off the fire. After adding two Valerian Sprigs to her cauldron she stired it 3 times anti-clockwise. Whilst she was measuring our her Standard Ingredient, her potion started bubbling and turned into a thick black paste. This couldn't be right. Re reading the instructions, Jenny groaned as she realised she had stired it the wrong way. Sheepishly she raised her hand to get call her professor over.

Jennifer Stonem - Gryffindor