Potions Championship II Unusual Methods Finished

Given his task, perhaps the fire breathing potion was not the most usual of brews, but Cyrus was not about to be deterred by the perceived absurdity of his solutions. He had to, first and foremost, be true to himself. He was not one to use the invisibility potion, while he recognised its merits, and he already had some traits he believed other potions would give him. Really, he wasn't sure how much he would need his potions to get through the task as long as he did his very best.

But he did still want to try. His second potion, then, would be unconventional, perhaps even more so than his first. He was relying on his iron constitution, on his stupid past deeds gone right, on his sheer will to live. Sure, the potion could affect him, but... it would be so worth it if it didn't.

It was with that determination in his mind that he began to assemble his ingredients once again. He acquired a branch of Devil's Snare, four dried poppy heads, one jar of honey, two horned slugs, two beetles' black eyes and three sprigs of lavender. This potion would not be quite as appetising as his last one, but he supposed it wasn't really meant for him.

He glanced up at the candles that glowed along the ceiling and decided that, for his purposes, the Great Hall was well-lit enough. Then, he began to chop the Devil's Snare into cubes. He felt like something of a mad scientist while doing so—if he had remained in no-Maj schooling, perhaps he could have become a botanist. As it was, he had no idea what he wanted to do with his life. Perhaps he would find out someday.

He weighed two ounces of the Devil's Snare and added it to his standard size cauldron. Like he had earlier, he murmured, 'Incendio,' to warm the cauldron, and then he glanced at his pocket watch with a lighthearted sigh. More waiting.

The time did not go by quite so quickly, not even when he began to hum My Country, 'Tis of Thee under his breath. Immediately when it had been 45 minutes, he reduced the heat to low, ready to get back to business. His new favourite hobby was probably using the mortar and pestle—he added two of the poppy heads to the mortar and ground it to a fine dust with an expression of newfound joy on his face. The way flowers could take different forms was almost like art. Man, what if he could make a painting with flower dust!? That would be so cool!

He un-distracted himself by adding the flower dust to the cauldron and beginning to grind the other poppy heads. This time, he wasn't able to grind them into a fine dust, but that was fine—it was still neat seeing chunks of flower stick out. Ooooh, what if he could put pressed flowers in clothing!? The possibilities were truly endless.

He added the Coarse Poppy Powder (could he patent that!?) to the cauldron. Slowly, he stirred the mixture three times clockwise, proud that he did not have to check his pocket watch's direction at first (although he checked afterwards just to be sure). Then, he stirred five times anti-clockwise. It would've been super cool if he'd had a pet rat named Remy, and if he were named Alfredo Linguini, and if he wore a really tall white hat. By Merlin, he could have been Ratatouille!

He unscrewed his jar of honey and smelled it, a wide grin making his expression like living sunshine. Ah! He loved honey so much. Maybe he could also be Winnie the Pooh, or Pooh-adjacent. Whatever the matter, he poured the honey into the cauldron, a bit disappointed that he could not eat any, and stirred once clockwise before joyfully waving his wand over the cauldron.

Once again, it was time to play the waiting game. This time, he had an idea. Drumming his fingers against the table while he set his pocket watch in front of him so he could see the time, he began to sing quietly to himself. It was by no means on-key, but he did a decent rendition of I See the Light from Tangled and A Girl Worth Fighting For from Mulan. A bit worse was You're Welcome from Moana. He gave up on Let It Go from Frozen—the cold did bother, him, actually. He was not cut out to be Elsa.

Finally, perhaps to the joy of any onlookers, his beloathed thirty minutes had passed. He glanced sadly at the horned slugs—the one thing he didn't understand about magic people was that they always used icky ingredients. if you had magic, why didn't you make it clean and yummy if you were potentially going to drink it? It didn't matter, anyway. He had to do it. He dropped the horned slugs into the cauldron, reminding himself that he was not the target of this potion. But then he had to worry about the poor swooping evils who would have to deal with inhaling horned slugs. That had to be horrible for anyone.

The beetles' black eyes, too. He didn't understand that. How did eyes make someone weak? By magic logic, Cyrus would have thought inhaling eyes would make you see better. But what did he know? He plopped the two eyes into the potion, his nose wrinkling slightly as he did so, and he stirred twice anti-clockwise.

Then, it was back to his favourite part! Gleefully, he let all thoughts of bugs leave his brain as he picked up flowers instead. Mm, he adored the scent of lavender. He put the three sprigs into his mortar and began to crush them joyfully. Perhaps he should not have found so much joy in the destruction of plants, but he figured that was part of art—the plants were dead, anyway, right? So it was fine?

Once he had made Fine Lavender Dust (which he wanted to patent, and perhaps turn into a paint pigment), he turned off the heat and added the Dust to the cauldron. He stirred twice clockwise, bouncing giddily on his toes. He excitedly waved his wand over the cauldron and grinned. Oh, now he just had to see if this would work!