Potions class

They made their way into the room, sat down on the right side once more whilst the Hufflepuffs were seated on the left side. Once everyone was seated, the Professor stood up before looking at each of the students.

"Hello students. Welcome to the Potions class. My name is Professor Anthony Scotch and today I shall be teaching you how to make some of the more simpler potions. Since this is our starter class, we don't want to start off too hard and thus I would like it if you could pair up between Houses. Please get into groups of 4, 2 from Ravenclaw and 2 from Hufflepuff in each team." Professor Scotch said whilst smiling to all the students.

All the students stood up from their seats and began to pair with the other House. Philip ended up paired with a Ravenclaw girl called Annie, a Hufflepuff girl called Astia and a Hufflepuff boy called Ryan. Hermione and Lilith were paired with two Hufflepuff boys as their competitive spirit got ignited once more, they wanted to beat Philip in something and thus decided to team up.

"Right, now that you're all paired up, i'd like to ask for you to find a seating area together around a cauldron and begin brewing one of the more simpler potions called a Hair-changing Potion which as it states within the name, changes the colour of your hair for 48 hours." Professor Scotch spoke once more. Professor Scotch whirled his wand around whilst muttering a small incantation causing the piled books on his desk to start flying towards each of the students, they sat before the students and opened themselves up to a certain page.

When Philip looked at the page it had opened up to, he realised it was actually the information on how to make the Hair-Changing Potion and the effects etc. Firstly he read over the entire double-page dedicated just to the potion before briefly passing the book over to the others, he had already memorised it all after all. He looked out on the table in front of him and noticed that there was actually more ingredients here than what they needed.

It seemed as though it was a form of test to see if the students could correctly choose the ingredients and identify them from the rest, Philip remembered from what he had read about the ingredients as stated:

water (500 mL)

belladonna (2 g; crushed)

nettles (5 g; dried, powdered)

moonstone

Naturally, Philip instantly noticed the water and put it to the side before looking towards the piles of ingredients once more. He remembered reading before about Belladonna that it was a kind of mundane plant which had quite green leaves and a dark green stem. The flowers that would form from it were a very dull purple whilst the berries that came from said flowers were a jet black colour.

In this case, however, the Belladonna plant already seemed to be crushed and thus it was rather easy to tell which one it was from the rest. Atop the table laid a small jar filled with dark black berries coated in a small dull purple hue seemingly resting in some form of liquid. Philip knew how poisonous these plants could be and thus handled the jar and berries with care whilst taking them out.

It was rather simple really, you only had to wear gloves and not consume the berries in their natural form and you'd be perfectly fine. Once again, nettles was a very easy one to spot as it was already crushed up into quite fine leaf dust. But, if you had ever read any form of book to do with Potion crafting and the ingredients behind them, it would certainly be said that moonstone would be one of the easiest to notice.

Moonstone had a very bright milky colour which shined very brightly almost akin to a lantern if not brighter. It was already jarred as dust too, thus, Philip picked up the jar and put all the ingredients together in front of his teammates.

Annie gave a small bitter smile whilst Astia and Ryan both looked quite shocked. The fact it had took Philip a matter of seconds to gather the materials required without even having to take a second look at the book regarding said ingredients was quite amazing. Professor Scotch's eyes became much more trained onto Philip's table when he saw how fast the boy had gathered the materials.

After crushing the Belladonna, they then cooperated and started to do the process of making the Potion. The Instructions to making the potion as written within the book was like so:

place moonstone in cauldron and add water

boil water for 5 minutes

add belladonna and nettles

boil for 5 minutes

reduce heat and simmer for 5 minutes

stir, 20 full strokes clockwise followed by 20 full strokes counter-clockwise

place the clear potion in a goblet

dip the very tip of wand in potion and incant, "Coloro!" while concentrating on the color you want the hair

rinse hair in 200 mL of potion

wait 5 minutes for color change

By then, they had also realised that someone within the group had to have their hair colour changed regardless of the situation, to get a passing grade. They each elected for Philip to use the Potion which he didn't mind too much himself. After following the Instructions, they got to the part where someone had to use the 'Coloro' spell and enchant the potion with it.

Whilst Philip did know how to change the colour of the potion, he had never used it before whereas the girl from Ravenclaw called Annie had actually used the spell before. She gave the small explanation that she was from a pure-blooded family and thus was allowed to learn spells from a slightly younger age.

She hadn't stated what colour she was thinking of when changing the colour, however, she had stolen multiple glances at Philip and his hair whilst muttering under her breath. They then waited for the rest of the class to finish their potions, overall it went relatively well. Only one group had failed their potion by accidentally doing a few too many strokes, the group looked slightly dejected after but still looked on at the other groups waiting to see the effects of the working potions.

"Right then, if your group has completed the potion successfully, could you please elect someone from your group and have said person step up with the potion in hand." Professor Scotch said whilst smiling and watching as Philip, Hermione and around 7 others stepped up to represent their teams.

"Right, now if you could please pour the potion over your hair and rinse it through with your fingertips, after 5 minutes we should start seeing the effects come through." Professor Scotch said once more. Philip, Hermione and the rest then proceeded to pour the potions over their hair before putting the glass containers down and using their fingertips to rinse the potion into it.

After around 5 minutes of waiting, you could see that the students hairs were beginning to adopt a new colour. Hermione's hair began changing into a very light shade of pink, there was also a boy with bright orange hair, green hair, blue hair, red, yellow, purple and black. Philip's hair started changing shortly after as all his roots began taking on a very bright and pure tone of white.

Soon after, all of his hair had changed into a bed of pure white. If you were to say he looked quite out-of-place before, then now, he looked almost other worldly. The only person who had the same kind of hair just a bit toned down was Professor Hooch. Philip then opened his eyes and noticed that most people within the class was looking at him as he glanced around at them and then his eyes laid on Hermione.

Philip smiled when he saw Hermione's hair which caused Hermione to smile back with a small pink shade across her face which quite complemented her current hair. Professor Scotch looked slightly confused as to how the potion would change his hair to white as white isn't really even a colour. This also had made Annie slightly startled as she remembered that when she wished for a colour, she had specifically been thinking of a light brown colour.

"Well, looking at all of your hair. You've all definitely passed this first lesson with flying marks, whilst I'm not quite sure why Mr. Potters hair had changed to white instead of a colour, I must say it very suits you and since there isn't anything I can really do about it, your team will be passed too." Professor Scotch said whilst looking towards Philip's group which made the rest of the students steal even more glances at Philip, especially the girls.