Term 5, Year 3, Lesson 1

Lucia walked into the storage room of the dungeons and looked around, finding the necessary ingredients to the potion the third years would make today. She smiled, waved her wand and maneuvered the ingredients onto her desk. She sat down behind the desk, waving her wand again, but this time at the blackboard which quickly wrote down her name and the name of the class, as well as the potion they would make.

Blackboard:

She leaned back in her chair, waiting for the students to assemble in a soft silence, very patiently.

Morgana walked from her common room and to the other part of the dungeons where the Potions classroom was located. She walked into the room and saw professor Henley standing there. She was slightly surprised to see the woman standing there, having believed the woman to be a herbologist, not a potions-master. But her surprise didn't show on her stone-cold face, and she simply gave her professor a nod before sitting down by a desk.

After spending some time in the library (since she was library monitor), Jennifer made her way to Potions, humming a song under her breath as she walked along the corridor.

When she saw the Herbology professor sitting in the class, her face registered surprise for the tiniest flash of a milisecond, but she quickly hid it. "Hi, Professor," she smiled, before taking a seat on the front row of desks.

She glanced up at the blackboard. Shrinking solution? That sounded fun. Maybe she could shrink her pet kitten and take it to classes in her pocket. Yeah.

Lucia straightened and cleared her throat when two of her students had assembled. She gave them all a friendly smile, recognizing two of them from Herbology. "Good morning. I am Lucia Henley, your Potions professor this year. Some of you, I suppose, do remember me from teaching Herbology last year, but this subject is the one I truly burn for. But enough about random trivia," she said, feeling really happy to be able to say that she was truly the potions master. Or mistress...

"Let's go straight to business, shall we? Who here knows what the Shrinking Solution is and some of the total five key ingredients in the potion is?" she asked, wondering if anyone would know the answer to all, if even one, of her questions.

Morgana raised her hand at professor Henley's question. "The five ingredients are caterpillar, shrivelfig, rat spleen, daisy roots and leech juice," she said calmly, as if she'd known it all her life. She was good with potions though. Mordred had taught her well in that department.

However, she was getting impatient; she didn't want to hear about the core ingredients, she wanted to make the potion. And this was going too slowly. In addition to this, professor Henley and Morgana had clashed. At least from Morgana's side. Detention was no good first impression of a professor.

Lucia smiled at Ms. Gaunt and said: "Yes indeed. Five points to Slytherin," she said kindly, glad to hear that she had known all the five ingredients by heart. Or, at least as Lucia had noted.

"Now, getting down to business. Turn to page 73 in your books and read the instructions. Then you will come to my desk and find your ingredients, and start to brew your potion. Note that if this potion is brewed incorrectly, it will be very poisonous," she said seriously; she didn't want any damages here.

Page 73:

"Now, you may come forth and pick up your ingredients! And begin. You have forty minutes," she said softly, ready for anything to happen with these potions in the making.

Jennifer's eyes widened when she heard Morgana say the ingredients off by heart. She only knew one of them, leech juice, but then again she wasn't the best at Potions. It had always been a bit of a struggle for her. The girl listened carefully to the Professor's instructions and then sprung into action.

After turning her page to 73, she made her way to the front of the classroom to pick up her ingredients. Forty minutes wasn't a lot of time for Jennifer, since she usually messed up somewhere and had to start again or spend ages fixing it. She stumbled back to her seat, almost tripping over more than once. But she was used to it. Clumsiness had always been one of her traits.

Jennifer sliced the five caterpillars. Icky - she liked animals. Then she added them into the pot and started to heat the potion, tapping her foot on the ground while she waited for the red colour which was supposed to appear. Before too long, it was ready for the next step. She picked up the peeled Shrivelfig and started to shake it as she read through the next couple of instructions. But how did she know whether it was ready or not? She decided to ask.

"Professor, how do I know when the Shrivelfig is ready to put in my potion?"

Lucia looked up from her book on advanced potion making and looked at miss Moss. She rose and walked over with a smile. She looked into the cauldron and nodded. "You shake the shrivelfig until you can't feel anything shaking anymore. Kind of like a beverage you have to shake until you can't hear it due to foam. Not quite like it, but it is the same strategy," she said softly.

She could tell that her two students would do well in this subject, maybe one more than the other in the start, but she knew they both had potential to grow just by looking at them. Jennifer Moss actually reminded her of a young Lucia Henley. She hoped the girl didn't feel quite as lost as she did in her third year of potions.

Lucia looked over at miss Gaunt who was in full action on adding the rat spleen into her purple potion. She knew that the Gaunt girl would do exceptionally well in this field. Most likely in other fields as well. However, talented girls like miss Gaunt often winded up with everything, yet having absolutely nothing. She hoped that lesson wasn't one Morgana Gaunt would learn the hard way.

Lucia then returned to her desk and waited patiently for her two students to finish.

Morgana was well into the making of the potion, very happy to have been sat down to make something. She thoroughly enjoyed making potions, knowing how precise they were and how horrible it could become if you made a mistake. And a shrinking solution would be poison if made wrongly.

She added the Shrivelfig upon reaching point nine and saw her potion turning a light pink. She then smiled and added the caterpillar and let the potion simmer. Within a few moments, the potion turned green, and she took out a sample in a bottle, and looked up to the professor. The time was running out. Morgana herself had barely managed to finish it in their scheduled time.

Lucia looked at the clock and rose. "Time's up," she said and looked at the two potions of the two students. "Seems you've both got a good idea of what you're doing," she said softly.

She looked at Ms. Gaunt and smiled with a nod. "Very well done, no mistakes at all, it seems. Yes, yes. Ten points to Slytherin for this work, Ms. Gaunt," she said kindly and looked to Ms. Moss.

"The only mistake you seem to have made, Ms. Moss, is not being able to finish. And that is a pity, but still. Five points to Slytherin for your work and participation," she said softly, with a smile.

She looked at the two of them. "Class dismissed. Have a nice holiday, and I'll be looking forward to our next class," she said with a smile.