17 17 - Experimenting and Duelling

I've been at Hogwarts for 3 days.

It's Wednesday, 6pm, Experiment #24. 'Underwater Breathing Potion'

'Add the Gillyweed Paste, stir clockwise 3 times. Wai-' all of a sudden, the concoction started fizzing. 'Uh-oh'..

Quickly jumping behind the charmed indestructible glass panel, I moved just in time for a huge amount of foam to hit the glass at a dangerous speed.

'Sigh, I added too much Bitter Root, I thought if I mixed them at the right ratio then I could enhance the properties of the Gillyweed to make the underwater breathing effect last longer but the ingredients are too volatile, I need a stabilising agent if I want it to work.. but what could work?'

'What about... Powdered Porcupine Quills? They would definitely increase the stability but.. I need to make sure they don't reduce the effects of the Gillyweed and make the potion weaker...

Experiment #36

'Finally! I think I've got the perfect ratio, if this works then I should be able to breathe underwater for 3 hours with only 1 hours worth of Gillyweed, and the texture would be a lot more pleasant.. though I'm not sure about the taste.'

'To be safe, I also brought the antidote, though I have to take 3 times the normal amount with regular potency instead of the higher potency of my potion.'

* 1 day later *

It's 7:34am.. I'm next to the Black Lake, I'm starting to think i'm a bit crazy, anything could be down there, not to mention while the potion seems to have worked perfectly, it could have any sort of side-effect.. but, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right? Besides, I'm at least 99% certain the potion will work perfectly as intended.

'Hang on... System?'

[Yes?]

'Can you tell me if there's anything wrong with this potion?'

[Processing]

[Substance is deemed non-volatile, includes Gillyweed, Porcupine Quills and Bitter Root.]

'Oh, it can do that? Well now i'm even more confident it's safe, and as long as I don't go too deep, there won't be any creatures there to attack me either. You know, I think Snape was onto something when he talked about beauty of potion-making, making and testing your own self-created potion is extremely satisfying, especially if it works.'

'Ok, let's see.. Water-Proof Pocket Watch? Check. Antidote and Spare Antidote? Check. Comfortable Swim Wear? Check. Wand? Check. Ok, I think that's everything..

..

'Well, here goes nothing'

I was already waste deep in the lake by now so, chugging the potion that tasted bitter, I dunked my head under the water and was immediately racked by pain, I slowly felt something forming in my neck, and my hands and feet were also changing.

After a few seconds I realised that it had worked. Admiring the new, strange but comfortable feeling, I slowly swam around, admiring the scenery, I swam around for what had to be hours just admiring all of the wildlife, checking my Pocket Watch, it told me i'd been here for 3 and a half hours.. 'ok, it was supposed to end around 30 minutes ago..'

I waited another hour and was starting to get a little worried, but if it got too bad, I could just take the antidote.

After a few minutes, I saw movement, looking around I realised.. that there were 3 grindylow's staring at me.. 'bugger'.

Luckily, I had a few spells that could take care of these little creatures. I quickly cast 3 soundless 'Relashio's' causing hot water to hit the little gremlins, they all scittered back and after a few more spells, they ended up leaving.

'Phew, nothing to worry about.'

I ended up waiting 5 hours before I gave up and just drank the antidote.. I felt something changing but it wasn't quite enough.. quickly realising what was wrong, I drank all 5 bottles of antidote that I had brought and after I had drank the 5th bottle, I felt myself returning back to normal.

Making my way back up to the surface and taking a deep breath, I made sure I was still disillusioned and that nobody was around before making my way out of the lake and casting a few drying charms on me and changing my clothes, like I said, i'm very cautious, I'm not going to explain why I just came out of the black lake to a random bystander.

Now.. it's 12:31pm.. My friends probably want to know where I've been.. and I also missed transfiguration.. I didn't expect the potion to be so powerful, but overall I'd say it was a success.

Making my way to the great hall, I walked towards the Ravenclaw table and sat next to Penelope, opposite Ryan and Kevin.

"And where were you?" Penelope immediately questioned me.

"I found a really cool old charms book and lost track of time."

"Where is it? I want to read it too!"

'Sigh, of course.. this is Ravenclaw, well, I expected this, I guess i'll just have to show them one of my rare charms books that I own and say that I found it somewhere.'

"Alright, alright, I'll show you later, but right now I'm starving."

I filled up my plate and started eating ravenously.. of course, I still had manners.. unlike a certain Weasley.

After Herbology, I was immediately confronted by Penelope, along with Ryan and Kevin, we had a free period next anyway.

After I was pretty much dragged to the library, Penelope was already on me, "Come on then, let's see this rare charms book."

'She's starting to act a lot like Hermione..'

Sighing, I brought out a charms books that I had duplicated using 'Geminio'. I can't absorb it but it's still a useful charm to have.

'Obscure charms for everyday life problems and inconveniences.'

It wasn't anything particularly amazing but better than the common books you'd find in the public library.

After letting the 3 admire and read the book, I just said they could borrow it and can give me it back tomorrow, where I promptly left.

Making my way back to the ROR and thinking of what I now call My Study, I was met with a room that could only be called organised chaos. To anybody else it would just be a mess but to me everything is exactly where I left it and exactly where it should be.

Sitting in a comfy looking chair, I pulled over a journal and started writing:

My First Potion: Enhanced Underwater Breathing Potion, Lasts: 5 hours+

Ingredients: Gillyweed Paste, Powdered Porcupine Quills, Bitter Root.

I then added the step by step instructions needed to create the potion.

After that was done, I pulled over another book that contained many different combinations of spell-chains where one spell flows seamlessly into another, there were many different combinations, some found from renowned duellists who wrote about their discoveries and the book ended up here, in the ROR, others were found by myself.

Getting up from the desk, I mentally pictured the duelling 'arena', if you could call it that, and of course it appeared. Making my way over to it I called out: 'Mode 4' / Slightly Difficult.

The 5 puppets quickly sprung to life, firing spells and moving around, I shielded 2 different orange and purple spells, quickly counter-attacking with an 'Incendio' to one of them which the puppet actually managed to block.

Sending a Banishing Charm 'Depulso', I quickly followed it up with a regular 'Stupefy' while rolling to the right as I did so, narrowly avoiding another spell, my 'Depulso' was blocked but the 'Stupefy' hit the puppet.. only this time, it paused for a few seconds before it carried on.

Swatting a spell away, I quickly cast a 'Stupefy' followed by a 'Revulshio' finishing with a 'Reducto' which was a spell chain that I discovered, the puppet shielded the stupefy, got hit with 'Revulshio' causing it to drop its wand and was reduced to ash by the 'Reducto', I didn't pause to look at it though as I ducked one yellow curse and quickly rotated my body sideways, narrowly avoiding another spell.

Rolling to the left, away from another spell I quickly shot another Incendio followed by a 'Stupefy' and then a 'Diffindo' while side-stepping to the right avoiding another spell, this spell-chain caused one puppet to dodge the 'Incendio', block the 'Stupefy' and lose its hand from the 'Diffindo', effectively putting out of action.

The remaining 3 shot spells almost at the same time with 2 at the exact same time, shortly followed by another.

I tilted my head to the right, dodging one spell, and at the same time put up a shield to block the other, while the final spell, I blocked with a 'Stupefy' of my own, quickly following it up with an 'Incarcerous' followed by a spell I found in an old book which saps the user of a lot of their strength, followed closely with an 'Expelliarmus', dodging to the left as I did so, the puppet dodged the 'Incarcerous' but the old sapping spell 'Redupio' noticeably slowed the puppet down almost completely, the 'Expelliarmus' quickly took the wand out of its hand, shutting it down.

A spell narrowly missed my chest as I dodged to the left, I looked at the 2 remaining puppets and quickly thought of an idea, I shot an 'Immobulus' followed by a 'Revulshio' and then a 'Stupefy Duo' to the right while already casting a 'Reducto' while in the motion of ducking.

The 'Immobulus' was blocked by the puppet and 'Revulshio' dodged, the other puppet blocked the 'Stupefy Duo' but was knocked back a bit and the previous puppet had no time to respond as it was reduced to ashes thanks to the 'Reducto'. Not even pausing I cast a 'Diffindo' followed by a 'Stupefy' and 'Expelliarmus' causing the final remaining puppet to try and block but eventually lose and stop moving.

By the end of it, I was breathing a little heavily but was otherwise alright and felt quite impressed with myself, 'If this is just 'Slightly Difficult' then i'm sort of worried what 'Duelling Champion' will be, this is already very difficult. In the future I plan on incorporating transfiguration/conjuration along with some Wide-Area spells that aren't just single-target ones, also, while still quite a long way away, I need to try and add Rune's into my battling skills as well.

.

'Phew, this is exhausting.. but also exciting, magic sure is amazing.'.