Non Timebo Mala-I Will Fear No Evil

Chapter Three: A Draught of Peace and Dragons

Even though this is a day late it's for my dad's birthday which was the 3rd. Happy Birthday Daddy! Please ignore any errors spell check sometimes really sucks. This chapter has a little more action so read on...

Chapter Three: A Draught of Peace and Dragons

There was no possible way Professor Sedgwick could’ve made this potion more difficult than it already was. Oh wait! I forgot that he gave us faulty books with the wrong recipe! Why did he have to make me feel even more out-of-place in a class filled with the best potion chemists in our school?  But he believed that just giving us the exact recipe was too easy so he supplied us with a book that had messed up recipes.

The potion we had to brew was called the Draught of Peace. It was meant to relieve anxiety and agitation which I could’ve definitely used while trying to brew it. It wasn’t enough that the real recipe had to be followed to the tee, but we had to fix the broken recipe we were given.

According to the book the ingredients must be added in the exact order and amounts specified, and the potion needs to be stirred seven times, both clockwise and counter-clockwise. Before the addition of the final ingredient the temperature of the flames must be lowered, and the potion should simmer for seven minutes. The directions were always correct according to James; it was the ingredients that the book got wrong. So instead of getting the exact ingredients you had to figure out which ingredients actually made sense by researching the different spices, which I had done so many times James started hiding my books at night.

His advice to start editing the recipe during lunch was a great idea though. I didn’t have the time to over-think any of it and just relied on what felt right—a concept I wasn’t used to. If I added too much of any of the ingredients whoever took a sip of the potion could laps into a—possibly irreversible—sleep.

The last ingredient, according to the book was powered bicorn horn, which couldn’t be correct. It was a key ingredient in both the Polyjuice Potion and the Pepperup Potion and the side effects were usually hyperactivity, not serenity. Instead I swapped it for syrup of hellebore, the juice of a particularly pretty flower that was used to lower blood-pressure by Muggles.

After I added the hellebore the potion turned turquoise blue and emitted a slivery mist that met the same mist that was coming out of James’s cauldron beside me. I nearly started jumping around the room with joy; I had actually brewed the potion correctly. I hugged James before sitting down in my chair and pulling my hair away from my sweaty neck. Never before had I been so nervous with an assignment than this!

Professor Sedgwick walked over to our table and looked at our work with pique interest. “Excellent work, you two,” he praised gathering some of our potions into separate vials. “At least you seem to understand instructions and how to know when a book is wrong.” He glanced over to a table of Slytherin students where a thick cloud of dark grey was produced from their cauldrons. One tried to pull their stirring spoon from the mixture but the potion seemed to take on a cement-like quality and held onto the spoon, lifting the entire cauldron into the air. Sedgwick shook his head and pocketed our vials. “This was supposed to be in advanced class. Oh well, what’s done is done. Now that you two are finished with the assignment you can go back to your common rooms, this double period is nearly over anyways and there’s no point keeping you. Your homework is page 492. Try to fix the potion; we’ll be making that for the next exam.”

Before we left, I grabbed a vial and filled it with my potion. I knew at some point it would definitely come in handy. We emptied our cauldrons and made our way out of the class. I gave Kristy a wave as James and I left hand-in-hand and she was practically fuming!

“Must you encourage her?” James asked as we headed for the Ravenclaw common room. “It’s not you she stalks it’s me! And now she’s probably gonna be waiting in the common room for me so we can ‘chat’.” He shivered dramatically as if to emphasize his point.