As they entered the room,
Anne started listing what needed to be gathered. "First we need a
cauldron, we all have wands already, something to stir with, a mortar and
pestle, teaspoon, silver knife, cutting board, glass dropping tool, phial and
stopper, and everyone get dragon-hide gloves!"

All the girls rushed
around the room collecting the tools as  as Anne read them off.

"Well, we definitely
can't use the cauldron Rae's supposed to clean out. Then again," Aranya
said with a small giggle, "she might have to clean this one with a Q-tip
too if we aren't careful!"

"Oh, I'm scrubbing a
cauldron now, too? I figured it was just the floor..." Rae frowned,
thinking. "Well, he did tell me I had to clean "all" the
flobberworm mucus in the room; maybe he does mean that, too... I'm going to be
here all night."

"We can use one of
the cauldrons Professor Wolfe keeps in the storage room for students who molted
theirs," suggested Apolline. "Euh... I meant melted."

 "Okay, next we
need the ingredients," Anne instructed. 

 "Ara can you
find the Acromantula Venom and two whole live caterpillars?"

 "Ewww, gross!
Live caterpillars?" Rae made a face.

"Well I much prefer
the caterpillars to the Acromantula venom. I mean, giant spiders?" Aranya
shuddered as she made her way to the cupboards and started searching.

 "We need one
Bicorn Horn and 12 Nettle leaves Rae." Anne stated. 

 "Found
them!" 

 "Put on gloves
before you touch any of those ingredients, Rae," Adelaide reminded. 

 Sheepishly, Rae
pulled on a pair of dragon hide gloves before handing the ingredients to Anne.

 "Apolline, can you find a shrivelfig and two horse hairs please?" asked Anne. 

 "I love shrivelfigs, they're such a pretty purple colour! And
horse hairs, horse hairs...they must be beside the cat hairs from last
time  Yep, here they are!"

 "Addie, you
need to get 200ml of water from the sink over there." pointed Anne.

 "Okay!"
Adelaide grabbed a glass beaker and filled it to the 200 mL line. 

"All right, here's
some Acromantula venom, and..." Aranya set the venom on the table and then
held her hand out, showing two caterpillars climbing along her fingers.
"Two live caterpillars!" She grinned and looked over at Rae.
"Here, wanna see?" She asked, shoving her hand toward Rae.

"ARGH!!! NO!!!!"
Rae darted to the other side of the worktable, far from Aranya. "I would
rather scrub flobberworm for the next year than touch those things!"

"Here is the water
that you asked for. Where should I put it?" Adelaide asked.

"Just set it on the
table for now, we need to have everything first, then we will start"
directed Anne.

Adelaide nodded and set
the beaker onto the table.

"Everyone
ready?!" Anne was getting excited and almost yelled. It is going to take a
while, so we need to take shifts watching for Professors. It says two hours and
twenty-five minutes. 

"Well, they expect us
to be in here all day writing these essays, so I don't think we'll have a
problem," Rae pointed out. Suddenly, an idea dawned on her. "Hey!
This potion is acidic, right? Do you think it will work on the flobberworm mucus?" 

"No Rae, it is too
dangerous, what if it reacts to something and blows up! That will get you more
than detention!" Anne rebuked. 

Rae agreed, but only just.
Her curiosity was already getting the better of her, no matter what Anne said.

Now that the ingredients
were gathered, the girls got to work. As soon as the water was boiling in the
cauldron at 100º C, Aranya, making sure that Rae was watching, added one of the
caterpillars to the potion. Rae turned green and ducked below the table.
Adelaide sighed, rolling her eyes, and took over grinding the Bicorn Horn into
a very fine powder.

"Come on, Rae, get
over your fear of caterpillars. They're harmless creatures," Adelaide
sighed.

As soon as it was ready,
Anne added the powder to the cauldron. "Perfect, the potion is turning
cloudy" she smiled. 

Meanwhile, Apolline took
up the silver knife and began to skin the Shrivelfig, careful to do it just
right, before dropping it into the middle of the cauldron. The effect on the
potion was stunning. 

"Wonderful! Purple
puff and color! I do love purple" Anne said to herself. 

As Anne continued to read
off the steps, Apolline stepped up to the cauldron and took one horse hair from
the vial, letting it fall down into the potion. It was Adelaide's turn to stir
this time, as Rae was just finally coming up from under the table. "One
stir to the left," Aranya read over Anne's shoulder.

"Clockwise, that
is," Anne corrected her.

"Right, maybe you
should stick to instructions then."

At Anne's instruction,
Adelaide stirred the cauldron once clockwise, then switched direction and
stirred twice counter-clockwise. She stirred it once more clockwise before
stopping. Rae came forward and, with her gloves on, lifted the potion off of
the heat. Anne, grabbing her wand from her robes, tapped the closest edge of
the cauldron once before stealing a quick glance of the potion, nodding her
head once. Aranya, with the nettle leaves from the table, tossed six of them on
top as if shooting a basket. The leaves floated on the top, knocking into each
other as they settled.

"Okay, it has to brew
for 47 minutes. I think we should all work on our essays, and Rae her cleaning,
while we wait," Anne directed as she set the timer. The girls grimaced at
the thought of doing their essays. 

"At least we have
Prof Q's lollies, so we won't need to change jelly beans every three words!
Adelaide, did you take a cherry-flavored one?"

"Yeah, I do,"
Adelaide replied, handing Apolline a cherry-flavored lollipop.

"Lollies
schmollies," Rae grumbled as she once more picked up her Q-tip and began
scrubbing at the floor. "I definitely need to find out whether this
potion might work on stupid flobberworm mucus," she mumbled to
herself. "It's worth a try..."

The timer went off,
"Time to finish this up!" Anne said as she walked back to the
cauldron. 

Adelaide stepped up to the
cauldron and added the remaining 100ml of water to the cauldron. She placed the
cauldron back onto the heat and brought it back to the boil once again.
Adelaide, wearing dragonhide gloves, put the remaining Bicorn Horn (about two
teaspoons full) into the cauldron. Then she stirred once counterclockwise, then
twice clockwise, then another time counterclockwise. She finally grabbed the
remaining horse hair and added it to the cauldron.

Anne grimaced, "Ewww,
what an ugly dull brown, but it is correct."

Rae closed her eyes,
pretending not to hear the splash, as Aranya added the final caterpillar to the
potion. The thought of using live bugs turned her stomach. With Anne's
guidance, Apolline picked up a glass dropper and added 3 drops of Acromantula
Venom to their potion, making sure to stay at arm's length from the cauldron.

"Almost there
girls!" Anne exclaimed as a puff of white smoke showed.  Excited that
they were nearly done, Anne picked up her wand and tapped the nearest edge of
the cauldron three times, then added the final 6 Nettle leaves to the cauldron.
Trusting no one but herself to finish the job, she stirred the potion 4 times,
clockwise, as the other girls held their breath.

"Okay, all done,1
hour and 12 minutes to finish brewing" said Anne tiredly. "Back to
work on our detentions."

By the time the potion was
finished, Anne was only a few words short of finished with her essay. The rest
of the "A-team" certainly weren't finished, but had at least made a
good amount of progress since switching to writing with lollypops. Rae, of
course, hadn't started yet. She was covered with grime from the floor, and the
thunderous look on her face could have turned a Basilisk to stone. 

"This is
insanity!" she declared rebelliously, throwing down the Q-tip and stomping
on it before joining the other girls around the cauldron. The potion was
perfectly clear and scentless, resembling water in every aspect. 

"Now," Anne
said, sounding very much like a Head Girl, "you must never taste this. It
is highly poisonous!"

The other girls rolled
their eyes, Adelaide stifling a giggle, as Anne continued explaining that if
their potion was successful, they would see no steam once it was cool. And that
they needed to wear Dragon-hide gloves when pouring it into the phial. And that
it must stay bottled and stoppered for 24 hours.

"What happens if we
use it right away?" Adelaide asked. 

"If we use it right
away, it will burn through everything it touches," she cautioned.

Perfect, Rae
thought.

With the potion completed
and stored in a dark cabinet until they were finished, the girls got back to
work. Within 20 minutes, Anne was waving goodbye to the others as she rolled up
her finished parchment - all 5000 words of it (she added an extra section of
her own, for good measure). Aranya, Adelaide, and Apolline looked at each other
and sighed, their hands cramped from holding the thin sticks of the lollypops,
yet finally starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Rae was nowhere
to be seen.