11 Chapter 11- Potions Lesson and Surprise
Fun Fact: Platform 9 ¾ is not the only platform used by witches and wizards. The magical world can take Platform 7 ½ to get on the Orient Express— a train that takes its passengers to wizard-only villages in continental Europe.
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Saturday had finally come along and with it, our first Potions lesson, courtesy of dad. Waking up in absolute excitement, I sprung up and threw my pillow at Harry, yelling "Wake up you idiot! Potions time!"
"Don't wanna..." Harry muttered from underneath the pillow, still half asleep.
"I swear to God, if you don't get up, I'll shock you."
My threat was met with silence. 'Well you know what that means.' I thought as I got up from my bed. 'If you were to look at my face, you'd be seeing a real evil smile right about now.'
A low humming filled the room as a spark of electricity jumped between my index finger and thumb. Walking towards Mr Sleepyhead, I went and touched his arm with my index finger. The effects were immediate as he jumped up yelping in pain.
"Yowch! What the fu-?!"
"Language Harry! You're five!" I yelled.
"Bu-But you swear all the time?! He said incredulously.
'Oh lord, what have I done.....' I thought with dread. 'I've created a foul-mouthed Harry Potter, fuck!'
"What happens when mum hears you?!" I said. "I get dragged down with you for teaching you how to swear, is what!"
Harry's face paled as realisation dawned on his face. At that moment, dad opened the door.
"Since you boys are awake, come downstairs and have breakfast. We'll leave for Diagon Alley afterwards. Also be quiet, will you?! Your mother's still asleep and I don't want to wake her up" He said shuddering.
"N-Neither do we" Harry and I said.
'God forbid I ever disturb mum's sleep. Amen.....'
*****
Now, imagine a classic pub from 100 years ago. The dusty tabletops, the stereotypically mysteriously shady denizens of the pub; the generic bar-man wiping down cups and the barrels of alcohol behind the counter. Except where you'd have gnarly looking mercenaries you'd also see your typical scholar drinking with them. They were old, grey haired and had beards flowing past their knees. That was the Leaky Cauldron in a nutshell. Suddenly, dad turned around and cupped his hands over his mouth.
"Oi, Tom! Get over here!" he yelled across the bar.
A bald, very tall and hunched over man made his way towards us.
"Ah, Adam, what can I get you?" Tom asked.
"Nothing for me, but it's my boys' first time in the Alley so pumpkin juice for them."
"Consider it on the house then, first time and all."
He hobbled back to the bar to fix us some pumpkin juice. I decided to look around the pub and it was quite an interesting sight. There was a drunken crowd making noise that gathered my attention. I leaned over to get a better look. 'Hold on, they arm wrestling?Damn lemme go see.' I walked over towards them, obviously not too close as I didn't want to kill the mood. In the middle of the drunk crowd, there was a hairy and burly tattooed behemoth wrestling a lean, handsome, black haired man. Ironically, the burly dude was struggling to even move the arm of the thinner guy. 'Damn, either the thin dude is ridiculously strong, or the big dude has his muscles for show.' I thought.
"Yan, the juice is ready!" I heard dad call as I ran back to him.
"What were you even doing?" He asked, amused.
I decided to use my childishness to my advantage. "They were arm wrestling." I said, as if my response was the answer to everything.
"Ah, I see..." Dad said matter-of-factly.
'Indeed, everything is simple between men...' I thought, walking over to the table where the fabled pumpkin juice was.
*****
After drinking the pumpkin juice, well — Harry drinking the pumpkin juice, we made our way out of the Leaky Cauldron and walked over to the magical entrance to Diagon Alley.
"Now listen up resident geniuses!" Dad said in a horrible imitation of a drill sergeant. "With your photographic memories, it would do well for you to remember this combination for when you need to get into The Alley! The combination is: From the rubbish bin, three up and two across. Understood?!"
"Yes sir!" Harry and I said while saluting.
After dad had entered the combination, the bricks he had pressed went inwards as the wall seemed to collapse into itself, forming a grand archway we could walk through. I stepped through the passage and was mesmerised by what I saw on the other side.
'I've got to say Diagon Alley is a sight to behold. This looks even better than the movies!'
Walking down the cobbled streets, there were a multitude of shops and street vendors. There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes, shops selling brooms, windows stacked with barrels of bat spleens and eels' eyes, huge piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, bottles of potions and nearly any insane or weird item you could think of.
'Lord, this is like a looney bin. And look at their outfits! Mark my words, I shall not be caught dead wearing a robe... suits all the god-damned way!'
Suddenly, I was approached by a haggard old lady who shoved a derelict bronze idol into my hands.
"L-Little boy, will you help this poor old woman and buy this idol?" She asked pitifully, her hunger evident on her face.
"We don't want it!" Dad said harshly, but his face softened as he looked at her. "But here, take this." He said, giving her a galleon.
"Thanks you, young man." She said as she hobbled away.
'We've been had. And I should know considering I worked at a corner store in my previous life, I've been duped by homeless people so many times that I know who's hungry and who's going to feed their addictions. So here's a hint, this lady's the latter.'
"How much you wanna bet that she's gonna spend it on alcohol?" I asked dad and Harry.
"She doesn't look the type!" Harry said in indignation.
"Those are the ones you've got watch out for..." I said sagely, stroking my nonexistent beard. "And dad, if she was hungry, why did you give her money? You could've bought her food. At least then you know your money is actually helping her instead of feeding her addictions and bad habits."
"O-Oh..." Harry and dad said. Their faces frozen in shock.
'Ha, if this were my previous life, there'd be a K.O. sign right about now.' I thought, amused.
*****
After walking for quite a while, dad stopped us in front of a single floor building that had lots of windows. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot! He opened the door and what greeted us was a well ventilated room that looked quite similar to a laboratory with a single cauldron in the centre of the room. Behind the cauldron was a blackboard and on its left, a desk. To one side of the room were two cupboards containing what I presumed to be ingredients and equipment. To the other, three boxes full of goggles, gloves and aprons. Once we settled down and had the proper equipment on, dad gave us a general health and safety speech on Potion making that sounded almost the same as the ones given before school science experiments.
"The potion you'll be brewing today is one of the first that you will make at Hogwarts, the Cure for Boils potion. I'll show you how to make the potion once since you'll be able to remember and replicate it due to your photographic memory." He instructed. "In the case that you don't pay attention, the instructions are on the board."
I looked up and it read:
1) Crush 6 snake fangs in the mortar.
2) Add 4 measures of the snake fangs to your cauldron.
3) Heat to a high temperature for 10 seconds
4) Wave your wand.
5) Allow to brew for 45 minutes.
6) Put 4 horned slugs in the cauldron.
7)Add 2 porcupine quills to the cauldron.
8) Stir 5 times clockwise.
9) Wave your wand to finish.
'Huh, seems easy enough.' I thought as dad readied his station for his demonstration.
Oh boy was I wrong...
*****
Turns out I learnt two things today. One: Being able to visualise something and then do it are two different things and Two: I suck at Potions. Weell~ suck is rather strong, I'm moreso average at Potions but I refuse to believe that I'll be stuck at average. I'm a firm believer that everything, like skills, can be learnt and trained, at least to a degree.
Harry, on the hand, was a wiz at Potions. Go figure, not like he had his nose buried in a Potions textbook in his spare time. No, most definitely not...
Anyways, we were on our way out of the lab when dad stopped and said that he wanted to show us something.
"Harry, Yan come with me, I'm going to introduce you to two of my dear friends." He said and refused to elaborate further.
Before I knew it, we were at St. Mungo's. We passed multiple wards before stopping at the Janus Thickey Ward.
'Oh shit, it can't be what I think it is....' I thought.
We entered a room and there on two beds lied the mentally broken and destroyed figures of a couple.
"Yan, Harry, meet my two best friends, Frank and Alice Longbottom." Dad said morosely.
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