Love Potion

Ermis, Erik and Troy

The potions lesson went by quickly. I powdered manticore spines and shredded imbily weed and squeezed out mugwort plants and chopped up carbuncle meat in perfect one inch by one inch squares... Gilbert was very nice and easy to talk to, and our table made comfy conversation for the most of the lesson - the other boy on our table didn't say much, but sometimes Gilbert coaxed him into the chat. They seemed to be friends, though comfortable in their lack of speech.

My potion went well, I thought. I thought it was the coolest thing I had I ever done, and found it quite easy not to let my eyes once wonder to the table where Viper sat, which I had before sworn not to do. I followed the instructions to the point: I boiled the cauldron to exactly one hundred and ten degrees, before adding the juices of mugwort plant (wait until bubbling), and then stirring in manticore spines in anticlockwise, clockwise stirs, until the potion turned brown. Then I added two drops of doppelganger tears quickly followed by the imbily weed, and stirred quickly until opaque green. Next, dropped in toadspawn in swirls of strands, stirred the potion in crosses until dissolved, then added carbuncle meat one cube every one minute, dimmed the flames, and waited until the potion was clear sea-green. While waiting, Master Gaga quizzed us on potion-related questions, and with pride, I found that I could answer a few of them. I gained a good fifteen house points for Snellicary after answering what a Flask of Furtum would do (turn the drinker invisible), where you would find imbily weeds (along the brinks of dirty ponds in Scertland and Britannia), and the countereffects of drinking Strength Juice (fur, spines or lumpy skin around the knuckles, neck and sides). 

It was when Master Gaga directed a question at an 'Alfrick Lullaby', the boy with wings on our table, that I at last recognised him as related to Hester Lullaby - it had taken me long enough! They had the same big nose and dark, shaggy hair; not to mention their wings! I whispered to Morgaine that I had met Hester Lullaby, and how that was surely her twin brother, and just what they were. Morgaine whispered slightly aversely back, "Alfrick and Hester are harpies. They have other forms, very powerful and dangerous ones, but they're not allowed to transform anywhere near school grounds. They're the most powerful pair in the year. They're kind of frightening. Even people like Killian Viper try not to bother them."

"They're so intimidating!" Pip added in an excited squeak. "You know, I heard they used to work as bounty hunters in that famous guild, the Blackrings, but escaped here when they got a bounty themselves..."

"That is the tallest tale I ever heard," Morgaine hissed. "They joined in the third year, they were not capturing wanted outlaws at twelve years old! And you really must stop gossiping, Pip!"

Pip pouted and stirred sullenly at her potion, which was a gloopy sick-green. When Master Gaga came round to inspect our table, she made a little eeky face at Pip's gunk, and congratulated her for trying. Morgaine was awarded five points for her perfect, clear concotion, as was Alfrick Lullaby, who only nodded at Gaga's slightly timid bestowal. Gilbert's didn't go too well, whose potion was "opaque, and cerulean-green, though I rather like that colour, it's my favourite after yellow, orange, warm brown and indigo." However, when she came to mine with a watchful face, it broke into pleasant surprise, and she congratulated me for "a solid Breath of Water potion, well spiffing for the first potion you've ever brewed. A touch dense, however." At this I beamed, and Gilbert sighed, "I think this finally proves to me that I am horrific at potion now that you did better than me on your first try."

My next lesson was study of magical creatures, and I bid farewell to Gilbert, Morgaine and Pip as I navigated my way outside, and to the massive angel oak tree that sat on the skirts of the forest, beyond the moat. This tree was hollow and home to lessons of magical creatures and the wizened teacher, Amadeus. He was a man of fifty years or so, but fighting and adventure had aged him much further - he was once a famous daredevil and somewhat hero, capturer of evil and discoverer of magical creatures. He had written 'Discovering One Hundred and One Miraculous Beasts' and 'The Travels of a Traveller', and had most famously freed an evil institute that was capturing magical creatures and strangelings (humanoid magical creatures, like harpies, werewolves, elves, whatever Fae is, etcetera) and performing barbaric experiments on them. He was a hero of his time, but now, old, scarred and tired, had settled at Greamelts School of Magic to pass his discoveries onto the next generation.