Eleven - Deflating Draught

Have you ever seen a balloon with all of the air sucked out of it?

Just a limp mess of folds laying on the floor. A little sad. A little pointless. Not very appealing if you are trying to decorate a birthday party. Just an empty flap of rubber.

Or nylon.

Or pixie silk.

Or whatever else balloons might be made of.

Now imagine that…

…but a human.

How he managed to produce a potion that literately deflates a person is a mystery since the intended potion would be more accurately be described as a shrinking draught, which as you are no doubt aware is intended to counteract the effects of a swelling solution.

By some miracle, although this potion is lethal on its own and useless for treating a regular swelling solution it does for reasons unknown work perfectly well as a treatment for the version of the swelling solution Longbottom created as detailed previously (number ten). I can only assume this is a miraculous coincidence and not intentional otherwise I might begin to suspect the boy is doing all of this deliberately and is in fact a potions genius and I'm not sure I could cope with that.

Potion is produced by adding four toadstools into the cauldron at the end of the brewing time instead of two at the mid-way point then bringing the brew rapidly to a boil and simmering for twenty minutes.

Twelve - Skele-gro

Humans are not meant to have exoskeletons. There is a very good evolutionary reason for this. I am not a biologist so I could not say what that reason is. Perhaps you could consult Mr Newt Scamander on the subject.

I do know for certain however that humans are not meant to grow hard bone shells outside of their skins. They will die.

Produced by dropping a few ants into the potion. It took me a while to figure this out, technically what he dropped was a chunk of bread and jam that had been stuck to the sleeve of his robes. I saw the bread go in and wasted a lot of time experimenting with quantities of soft crust and strawberry preserve before I realised there had been ants on the food and that they were the key ingredient.

The bread and jam itself had no effect on the potion so their inclusion is optional. Personally, I favour raspberry.

Thirteen - Stain remover

Everything remover.

Dissolves everything it comes in contact with.

I mean everything.

There is a hole at the edge of my classroom where a cauldron once stood. Thank God we were in the dungeons and there was no one below us. I don't know how deep the hole is now. For all I know that puddle of slime is still making its way down to the core of the Earth.

Do not brew.

I'm not even going to tell you how. Just know it was done once and should never be done again.

Fourteen - Toothache remedy

Thankfully I know better than to trust anything Longbottom produces by this point because I almost believed for a while that this potion had been brewed correctly.

Anyone unfortunate enough to consume it would find that their breath begins emitting a particular scent which if they were ever to come in contact with a tree fairy would induce in the creature a crazed hunger for that person's teeth. They will murder the individual to get them.

One of the more bizarre indirect methods of death in this list.

The potion itself will successfully cure a toothache and if the recipient never encounters a fairy will cause no harm.

That is however as they say; a big if.

Produced by adding around a half cup of milk into the potion just before the mint leaves.

I feel I need to point out that food and drink are not actually permitted in my classroom but somehow, he still finds ways to bring them in and drop them in his cauldron regardless.

Fifteen - Veritaserum (Truth potion)

You will start talking. You will not stop.

You will admit every lie, confess every sin, voice every errant thought that ever passed through your mind. You will begin telling your life story in painful detail.

Death will result from a mixture of sleep deprivation, starvation, dehydration and anything else that could inevitably be expected from a complete inability to stop talking.

Produced by dropping an invigoration draught into the brew whilst stirring counter clockwise just before adding the Jobberknoll feathers.

I think he was taking the invigoration draught (presumably brewed by another student) to help counteract tiredness from staying up last night revising for this brewing assignment. Had he not dropped it in, the brew would have been just good enough to earn a passing grade. Not very well done but above his usual standard at least.

I doubt he will appreciate the irony as much as I do.

Did anyone pick up on the Alice in Wonderland nod? (Toadstool, in a shrinking potion)