Alex tapped the potion in front of her idly with her wand. According to the label, it was a "laughing" potion, but that was an incredibly vague adjective because there were several different potions that could be described as laughing potions, and she couldn't remember which this particular bottle contained. It was a purple-slate type colour thing, which suggested that it was more accurately described as a "hysterical laughter" potion, but based on her handwriting, she'd made it in fourth year, so it might be a better idea to make a new one.

And anyway, she didn't really want hysterical laughter to be induced. Giggling, snickering, and other mocking forms of laughter would be preferred, and although there was something to be said for hysterical laughter it was a little extreme.

Shrugging, she picked up the bottle and put it next to the cauldron that they'd be using to make their potion. Gracie could make the call on that, and hopefully she'd have a more useful potion, although it was more likely that she'd vanished anything that could be used. At least giggling potions were easy to make, because Alex doubted that a potion that had been stagnating for the past two years would be ideal.

She sighed, aware that she was probably putting too much effort into this, but she wanted it to work. They probably wouldn't see the fruits of their labours, but knowing that they'd been successful would provide a laugh, as well as providing some interesting information for potions, which was of course the main reason they'd planned this.

Over at her side of the cauldron, Gracie thumbed through her old, battered copy of Magical Drafts and Potions, an uncharacteristically studious frown marring her brow as she skimmed through the book. Unlike her other subjects, Potions was the one class she worked hardest at; it was a precise art—which didn’t mesh that well her ‘everything’s relative’ philosophy—and was all too similar to cooking, which she was terrible at. Because of this she’d fallen into the habit of treating the class the same way one would a wild animal (which was to say, with caution), although out of class it was different. For one, practicing at it for recreational purposes allowed her room to breathe.

…As well as improvise, which she could say with all honesty she was rather good at.

“We’ve got the shrivelfigs, yeah?” she asked Alex, peering over at the mess of ingredients they’d assembled for themselves on the table. A mix of bags, bottles, and jars met her scrutinizing stare. “And the porcupine quills, the mint sprigs… billwig stings…” Shuffling over to the crook of the table, she tucked the book under her arm and began picking up bottles. One by one she turned them this way and that, before unscrewing their caps—and then abruptly set the vial she held, down.

“How about throwing in some plimpy eyes?” Gracie hummed thoughtfully, the glance she slanted the Ravenclaw’s way the only sign she wasn’t just musing aloud. She held a small jar of the stuff in her hands; unscrewing the cap, she gave its contents an experimental sniff—still fresh, she decided with a wrinkle of her nose. “Cut em’ crosswise, then juice them, and then mash it all up with a pinch of dodder-” a step in the process of creating a Confidence Bolstering Potion. “It could work.” She had an idea of what they could try testing out this time around, although there was really no way of knowing just how it’d turn out.

"Sure, but add some sesame oil as well," Alex muttered, scribbling a note down in a notebook. She only used parchment for essays, it was far too difficult to find anything useful when everything was written on random scrolls of paper that were bundled together in a box. "And stir twice counterclockwise, maybe?" Stirring was one of the stranger aspects of potion making, but it generally helped. Why it mattered which direction you stirred in, she had no clue, but it did, and it was easier to just accept that than try to work out why, although Alex had tried to find some kind of answer without success.

"I'm going to concentrate this," Alex waved the laughter potion vaguely in the air, before picking up the pieces of a glass apparatus and assembling them with practiced ease. They weren't on the official list of equipment, but the school ones were rubbish, and it was more convenient to have her own set, especially when what she was working on was not entirely school related. When she'd finished, she took a sniff of the potion, which smelled like fish, before shrugging and tipping it into a different flask. A wave of her wand started a small fire, and she turned back to the ingredients.

"I might be out of sesame oil," she warned, "I think I used it a few weeks ago." Alex had made a brief attempt at recording her ingredients usage before deciding that it was overly time consuming and that her memory would function perfectly well.

Sighing, she began to check for sesame oil, wishing that it was a little easier to identify. After discarding pine sap and distilled water, she found the correct bottle and put it next to the porcupine quills, before picking a book out of her bag and flicking through it. It was overly verbose, but it contained significantly more information on the uses of various ingredients than the school text books. Pausing, she looked up at Gracie, "Do you think wormwood would help?"