Gryffindor		Hufflepuff		Ravenclaw		Slytherin
Nikolas Falkenrath ☐ Ambrose Pepper ☑		Winifred Leigh Oliver ☐ Ayla Collins ☑		Baxter Fox ☐ Blake Knight ☐		Naomi Foley ☑ Bilius Clogg-Spleen ☐ Erin Dark ☑ Casey O'Doherty ☑

Please assume your character is already in class.

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Blooming Potion
Unit: Shrinking Solution, Aging Potion, and Blooming Potion

Uses:
Gardening
Crops and vegetation
Manipulation of small-scale eco-systems
Health and beauty products

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History:
Weather folklore - page 381
Crop yielding - page 381
Cosmetics - page 382

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Side Effects:
In people
Facial hair, especially mustaches in males
Acne and vocal imbalance, especially in prepubescent adolescents
Muscle cramps, swelling of limbs


In plants
Overproduction of seeds

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Additional Notes:
In the United Kingdom, the Ministry of Magic regulates the use of Blooming Potions in the food and health industries, as improper ingestion by humans can lead to serious side effects. Unlike Aging Potions, Blooming Potions are not primarily designed for people or other mammals. Blooming Potions can nevertheless be found in trace amounts in hundreds of magical products, most notably cosmetics. They are frequently misconstrued, misused, or marketed as a type of Aging Potion, despite being fundamentally different in composition and effect.

Brewing instructions can be found on page 384.

With the basics scribed in neat hand on the board, and Juliette's brief opening lecture on the Blooming Potion concluded, she gestured for them to begin preparing their cauldrons. "Each of you will be responsible for brewing your own potion according the instructions on page 384."

"You will notice similarities to both the Shrinking Solution and the Aging Potion from your previous work and readings, but keep in mind that the Blooming Potion is a distant cousin. Its uses and effects are entirely its own. Do not breathe or drink this potion. I have provided you each with masks." One would think that one mightn't have to remind a group of thirteen and fourteen year olds of such common logic. One would be wrong. Never mind that the word 'bloom' had already garnered more than one snicker from the back of the classroom, or that past lessons had required employing one's olfactory senses to make distinctions. Juliette wondered whether a standard surgical mask was enough; perhaps she should have badgered the caretaker into ordering her a score of gas masks.

"You will have until the last five minutes of class to complete your work, at which point you will each test your yield on a flower known to bloom only under the moonlight."

Ambrose was always mildly looking forward to potions. One of the classes that generally didn't require him to recite spells, he could instead memorise potion ingredients as best he could (which took a little longer than the average classmate, but he succeeded ultimately). It did of course help just a little, given he was now a little preoccupied with the thought of girls and kissing since trying things out with Freddie that he found Professor Vallaincourt rather lovely, so his tongue-tied ways had started to extend into this class. Merlin's sake!

Turning to the page, Ambrose forced himself to read through all the instructions. It was a good ploy - normally by the time he'd finished, the Professor had mentioned something they'd forgotten, or the girls in his class who were particularly clever would give him a head start by starting to chop or prepare ingredients meaning he could tell the difference between any he found a bit confusing.

"Professor," Ambrose asked, raising his hand, "Should we wear the masks from the start?"

While preparing his workstation, Casey heard the bumbling Ambrose ask "Professor, should we wear the masks from the start?"

"Gee, Ambrose," Casey muttered, muted behind his own mask that he was securing onto his face, "if the professor offers masks, you may as well wear them to calm that little head of yours."

Potions straddled a thin boundary in Casey's academic preferences. No spell work to speak of. The only consistent use of your wand was lighting the initial fire under the cauldron. And this felt like work, the kind of work he would have Dingy handle. However, from what he had observed of the house elf system of magic, the elves had a simplistic approach to alchemy, mostly a knowledge of tending magical plants and using the harvest to better the property they worked on. Wizard potions tended to be more complex and fickle then what house elves were used to. Casey might be able to instruct Dingy on this particular brew later since its primary use was for the gardener.

Dingy would be the perfect assistant, fetching Casey's ingredients while the young Slytherin concentrated on his cauldron, but he wasn't going to attempt this under the eye of Professor Vaillancourt. So while Potions was placed bellow the wand-casting classes, it was tied with COMC for marginal effort so he still did well in those courses. HoM, well, that was just a matter of finding the answers in the sea of text resources. Herbology...he slogged through it knowing how much better Dingy was going to handle the plants and fungi.

After lighting a fire under his cauldron, Casey arranged the first set of ingredients and began to chop them with a knife.

As she passed by his desk to pick out a few needed ingredients from the store cupboards Ayla placed a petite hand on Ambrose's shoulder and leaned in to whisper in his ear, mostly so the snooty little Slytherin couldn't hear what she was about to say to the clueless boy, "It's only really toxic when it's actually been brewed but I'd suggest putting the mask on now just in case." She smiled down at him before sauntering pass pulling her own mask from on top her head down onto her face.

Once the store cupboard was open Ayla loaded her arms with the ingredients she'd need for the potion. She loved brewing potions. The class was not unlike the unit she had done in Elementary school on muggle chemistry and surprisingly similar to baking - which she absolutely loved above all of her other hobbies. Much like baking, potions was very much dependent on being accurate. The right amount of spice or sugar was the difference between making your pastry a horrible affront to the tastebuds or sweet Ambrosia. The right amount of ingredients, mixed at the right temperature for the right amount of time was the difference between brewing a Blooming potion and making sludge in a cauldron.

Ayla settled back down at her desk sectioning off her ingredients and arranging them in the order of which she'd be placing them within her cauldron. With a plan set in her mind she began to cut, slice dice and weigh each ingredient to make sure they matched the exact proportions noted in the testbook she had propped open in front of her.

In all honesty, Erin should probably be kept away from potions class.  Her attention span caused her to stir the wrong way one too many times, place the wrong ingredient in the cauldron, or otherwise just find someway to mess up even basic potions.  It was a miracle that she had an Acceptable, but she knew she should probably at least try to pass.  Putting on her mask, Erin started prepping ingredients.  Unaware that she had already placed some of the reagents in her cauldron, Erin then followed the instructions in the book.  As soon as she started stirring though, she noticed that there was a faint odor coming her cauldron.  Rather than do the sensible thing and ask the teacher for assistance, Erin peered into her cauldron.  Then the smell hit her full force.  Backing up quickly, she tripped over a chair, causing the concoction to spill all over her.  Wondering how she became a model and Slytherin's keeper with the amount of grace she just showed, she decided to shutup and clean herself up.   She began casting scourgify on herself, not really caring if it was a bad idea or not.   She just wanted to get the smell out, completely forgetting about the teachers warning of toxicity.  Though her mind may have forgotten, her body did not.  She was about to cast another scourgify when Erin began emisis. 

With a mask planted over her face, Naomi was taking trips back and forth from her potions book, to the potion cupboards, to her cauldron, and then repeat. There were only so many ingredients she could fit on her desk, chop up, and properly measure, without making a large mess, and so she decided to take it slow and easy, that is until she caught site of a cauldron falling over, and Erin Dark with it.

She didn't feel like being particularly chivalrous and helping her classmate immediately, Erin was usually fine on her own, but then she saw the Slytherin began to vomit, while sitting in the mess of the toxic brew of her cauldron. Then an unnatural sense of duty arose in the Jamaican witch, (mostly because she had to share a room with the fellow Slytherin and didn't want to deal with whatever issues this may cause,) and so she first moved to change her potion entirely, (however possible that was.)

Naomi quickly rigged her potion to give of a hot heavy smell of spices and honey, disregarding how this would affect her original mixture and dragged the vomiting Slytherin up off the floor and and over to her cauldron. She pulled Erin's blond hair back as she kept her head near her own cauldron, hoping that the smell from her cauldron would ease her classmate's nausea. She didn't even care where the girl finished up her vomiting, even if it was in Naomi's own brew, but the youngest Foley made sure she was behind Erin and clear of her trajectory.

After a moment, the overwhelming smell of Naomi's cauldron leaked through her own mask, which was a pleasant smell, but she wondered how long that would last, knowing that anything that smelled pleasant, as far as potions went, usually were awful for consumption. A quick look at her cauldron let Naomi see that it was bubbling into a clear, steamy goop. It was innocent enough, by looks, but Naomi knew it was not something she'd feed anyone, and definitely not something she'd put on a plant.

"Shit," she spat through her mask before giving Erin a quick pat on the back, "You done yet?" Her tone wasn't as assuring as it was urgent, as there were only so many problems Naomi could solve, and there were only so many she could handle at once, a few of which she believed was brewing in her own cauldron.[1]

1.	I'm up for anything going on with Naomi's cauldron, or Juliette coming into intervene and correct anything. (:

After Naomi went through all that trouble, Erin was grateful.  Unfortunately, the smell was not the cause of Erin's vomiting, but the fact that she rather she had just taken a toxic bath.  Still, the smelling potion seemed to be doing something for the youngest Dark.  Erin did not know what, if any effect her stomach acid would have on Naomi's cauldron, but she was more worried about herself at this point. 

"Yes I do feel better, but help me clean off my c-" Erin tried to complete before vomiting once more.  This however, seemed to be the last time she threw up.  She immediately began casting cleaning spells on her robes.  "Clothes," Erin bit out between scorgifys.  As she did this, she finally noticed Naomi's strange new concoction that she had inadvertently helped create.  Wondering if she should banish it or not, Erin decided that discretion was the better part of valor.  Though Erin did admittedly wonder whatever it was that Naomi made, she had enough of potions class for today.

"Ugh, I think I need to see the Healer- would you mind walking me there - I feel like I'm about to trip over my own feet," Erin asked Naomi, figuring the sooner she could get out of here the better.

Juliette’s eyes swept silently from Ambrose Pepper to the O’Doherty boy. One gentle, genial, easily swayed, the other uptight, unyielding, ruthless. They were not the double-edged sword of adolescence so much as two weapons bidding their time around the cauldrons. Sooner or late, they were each bound to cause chaos, though perhaps not purposely. Juliette suspected Ambrose would inquire himself right into a poisonous haze if he weren’t careful.

But such were thirteen-year-old boys.

“It would be wise, yes, Mr. Pepper.” She nodded, here eyes lingering on the mouthy Slytherin beside him. “Mr. O’Doherty, you would do well to pay attention to your own work. The fumes do not discriminate.”

She did not take points from either house, but stood, swept past them, and began her rounds of the tables. Now seemed a good time to begin monitoring them more closely-- though she might have lingered at her desk for another five minutes if O’Doherty had not begun to offer embittered ministrations.

She did not hear Ayla Collins’ quiet advice, and thus could neither confirm nor deny its truth. When she reached the girl’s work station, she lingered, eyes offering silent approval of the methodic use of the knife and scales. “Note Miss Collins’ precision,” she said to the students in the immediate vicinity. She had rather strong hopes for the Hufflepuff, and not as much wariness as other students’ caused her with knives and fire at their fingertips.

From the back of the room came a sweet, seductive smell, summer dancing with autumn, swirling toward the ceiling of the dungeon laboratory. Juliette’s eyes immediately landed on the duo who seemed to be in charge. It was not difficult to zero in on Erin and Naomi, least of all because Delilah’s daughter was looming over the blonde, holding a fistful of hair while the youngest of the Dark brood projectile vomited into a puddle of half-stewed ingredients.

Juliette swept in their direction like prey, artfully missing table corners and confused children in her path. Her wand seemed to pilot the mess on the ground even as Juliette moved toward them; liquid fizzled with a last cry for mercy and dissolved into the ground. The cauldron flame ceased and hazardous cauldron righted itself, its bowels emptying in a wand’s wave. By the time she reached Erin and Naomi, only the blonde girl was a mess. Naomi’s spicy, saccharine brew still gave off heady perfume like a tide rising and falling.

Juliette helped the girl stand right, placing a firm hand on her shoulder. She murmured soft incantations, Scourgifying clothes, which turned damp and shiver-inducing for all of two seconds before drying as if they’d been placed on a stone in the sun. They were left with the scents of floral soap and softener identical to those used by the elves at Hogwarts. “No. I must speak with Naomi. Another student will help you to the Healer,” Juliette explained.

She pointed a finger, summoning the nearest person who seemed to have abandoned his or her cauldron to watch the show in the back of the room. Juliette turned her gaze on the student. “Take her into the next room.” It was much closer than the healer’s hut, a logical stop. Juliette kept a fresh pitcher of water, clean glasses, and standard potions of the head and stomach. She was not the school-sanctioned healer, but she would not send students to faint on the woman's doorstep. She was better trained than that, and Juliette could handle an upset stomach without breaching protocol. “I know you feel awful, but you shouldn’t walk across the grounds without rehydrating. It will only make things worse. Drink a glass water from my desk, and ask the elves for something fizzy for your stomach. Ginger soda, something simple. I will summon one. I will let Madam Nagde know where you’ll be, and we’ll have you on your way to her shortly.” With luck, the girl could nurse off the rest of the unpleasantness in a cool cot. She displayed no signs of lingering ingestion-- by now she would have broken into a rash or begun to grow hair in strange places. Her stomach had turned out the best of it.

Juliette watched as Erin was led out before she turned back to Naomi. “Tell me what happened.” She moved toward the now-fermenting cauldron, the one that had not been cleared out, and peered in with careful eyes. “Did you make this?” Her eyes darted to the girl, and she studied her face carefully before taking a vial from her pocket, magicking a deep spoon to ladle a sample, and filling and stoppering the tube mid-air. Another wand wave, and the contents of Naomi’s cauldron vanished, but for the sample Juliette held. She pocketed it. “You may start a new cauldron if you wish, or assist Pepper with his cauldron." Merlin knew they did not need two spills in the span of ten minutes. The boy was willing to learn, and Juliette would prefer to let only the disinterested ones sink. If he needed a nudge in the right direction or a watchful eye, so be it. It was part of learning. She had not noticed Ayla offering him help the first time around, and thus sent Naomi in their direction, should she choose. "And wear a mask,” she added pointedly, as if the girl who would make such things in times of peril would step more than one toe over the line. She was, silently, impressed. She needn't gesture to the fresh replacements for the one which Naomi had been wearing. "We will talk more after class."

Once Naomi's classmate seemed to stop puking and regain her composure, Naomi felt more relieved, and then Erin asked her to accompany her to the hospital hut.

Stay and attend an onry cauldron or sneak Erin out to the Tulojow? The Slytherin witch chose the latter, and uttered a "Sure," and began to turn to leave with her classmate before the potions professor descended upon them like the cork to a salve.

Naomi instinctively ran her fingers through the tight bumps in her long braid, pursing her lips and letting her eyes wander as Juliette told Erin she'd like to speak with her; Naomi wasn't sure she could agree with that statement. But once the teacher addressed her again the green eyes landed on her teacher accompanied by a monotonous response, "Her cauldron spilled--Yeah."

The teacher's gaze jumped to meet hers and Naomi wove her braid over her shoulder and a hand behind her back, she couldn't help but look away again. More instructions were given as the Slytherin began to draw her foot back onto its toe, calculating the moment up until the professor was done. Finally, she gave Naomi the choice to stay there, or to retreat as far as she could from her gaze, and the young witch pivoted on her toe as chose the latter. But there was an 'and.'

Naomi turned back as the professor told her to get a new mask and that they would talk more after class, and the witch could only press her lips in disappointment that that wasn't the end of the talk--she was sure she was in some sort of trouble, but she kept her posture, and turned to go grab two masks and whatever ingredients she saw Ambrose didn't have. Once she got to his desk she pulled her new mask over her face and handed him his.

"Here," she sighed as she peeked at his cauldron, "Where you at, wit' dis?"