8 This Way Which Way

Snape was not the type to torture, despite how he portrays himself. Alice could cast the Levitation charm now and learns some key reasons why she heard that spell in that memory.

"I thought you couldn't cast this spell on something as heavy as a human body," Alice said, practicing directing her feather with the tip of her wand.

"You're correct," Snape said as he was sorting through the pensive vials. "The teacher had cast it on the clothes of that student. The uniform slowed down his fall, but if I remember correctly, he did suffer from whiplash for a few weeks."

Alice looked bewildered. Quidditch was a dangerous sport. It was the football equivalent. Professional players probably have to suffer brain damage if they weren't careful.

"People like violent sports a lot, huh?" Alice said as she gently lowered the feather. "What would I be seeing for Wand-lighting charm? Are you going to show me a memory of someone that is blinded by it?"

"Don't be silly," Severus said, "You don't need help with something like that. For some spells, knowing how they work is good enough."

Alice sighed in relief, but then remembered that she had broom lessons with the Gryffindor this week. She does not want anything to do with the high-speed chase through the skies. She doesn't even want to look at them because of that Seeker's memories.

"Why did you have to show me this week?" Alice asked as she held her hands to her mouth.

"What? You're not going to fly," Snape said. "Not many families teach their children how to fly a broom. It's only going to be basic maintenance."

Alice frowned. She knew of two students that will fly as soon as the teacher is distracted by Neville Longbottom. The only way she could probably resist that was to snatch up the Rememberall before Draco Malfoy did and hand it back to Neville, but if she did that she would alter the story for Harry. The Golden boy needed to become a Seeker. The result was everything.

Still, Alice didn't want to just watch or go into autopilot whenever the Golden trio decided to be in the limelight. She started to scribble some ideas down on paper.

"Professor Snape?" Alice said as she looked at him. "Does enchantments interfere with the potion's effect."

"I'm not sure," Severus said. "You can't keep the runes on liquids very well since it can't keep its form. Most runes need a flat surface to work properly because it's difficult to get the proportions of the runes on a rounded surface."

"If you were proficient in charms, then you could establish some sort of effect on the container," Severus explained.

"So the best container for the potion would be a flask if I wanted to use enchantments," Alice said. "Wait a moment. I have an idea. Can I use one of the empty glass vials?"

"Just one," Snape said. He was curious about what Alice was doing. He didn't encounter a lot of enchantment runes outside those that assisted charms.

Alice took a piece of paper and folded the paper along one of the shorter sides. She creased the fold with her nails and then folded it the other way to crease the paper. She tore the strip of paper off.

She took the paper strip and wrapped it around the vial. She marked when the paper overlapped with a line of ink and proceeded to write the rune enchantment for space expanding. Alice then reached into her school bag and got out Juno's enchantment needle.

When Alice channeled magic through the needle, the tip would heat up enough to engrave runes into materials that were thicker than a sheet of paper.

Alice wrapped the paper around the neck of the vial. She made sure to match up the line perfectly and with her non-dominant hand, she held the enchantment in place. She took the enchantment needle and started to slowly trace the runes. The tool's tip glowed red hot as she poured her magical energy through it. The magic tool burned through the paper with ease and melted the runes into the glass. Alice was glad that the sharp point of heat didn't catch the paper on fire or cause the vial to shatter in her hand.

Since the process was a small test run, Alice did not spend that much time writing what she needed to.

"Oh clever, turn a single line two dimensional enchantment into a perfect looped three-dimensional enchantment," Snape said as he examined the craftsmanship. "I wonder if you're good with enchantments since they follow strict rules and require little magic input."

He also was surprised that Alice even knew runes. Snape knew that Alice had Juno's beginner sack of tools, but if you gave an eleven-year-old some oil paints, she shouldn't be able to paint the Mona Lisa.

"Let's test it," Alice said as she brought it to the nearest sink. The potion lab had to have one since boiling water was needed in most of the potion to help dissolve ingredients in the heat. Alice just filled the vial until it was visibly full and then borrowed more vials that were neatly secured in a wooden vial rack.

She slowly started to pour water out of her enchanted vial to the regular vial and she managed to fill all of the regular potion containers before she had run out.

"Six times the normal carry with a short amount of time used," Alice said in amazement. "Usually it's a negligible amount when I prototype. Three-dimensional enchantments are potent."

"This enchantment wouldn't be very useful," Severus said. "Some potions are very strong. If a person drinks too much then it could mean death and there isn't a way to measure the dosage properly. Most people don't even need to reduce the space that their potions take up if they have charm placed on their bag."

Snape took out the different glass containers and placed them in front of Alice. Some were rounded, but others were squared and some had some twists in the glass in a spiral fashion.

"The vials are good for small dosage potions such as the Aging potion or for concealing poisons such as the Moonseed potion or the Draught of the Living Death," Snape explained. "The latter, if brewed properly, would only take a drop to put someone into a death-like slumber."

Snape's hand glided over to the other containers. He grouped the square and rounded containers.

"These are usually for healing potions since a larger amount is usually needed and most beneficial potions don't have too much of drawback for overdosage," Snape explained. "The more peculiar glass containers are for those where the shape influences the result. For instance, there is a potion that takes shape as a gas. You would light the bottom here with a Fire-Making spell and then breath in the smoke. It's terrible to breathe in, but if you increase the travel time with spirals it'll smooth out the smoke to a small irritation."

Alice raised her eyebrows and looked at Snape. She was unsure whether it was a good idea to teach an eleven-year-old how to smoke a potion. She settled with the conclusion that he no longer treated her like a normal girl since he was deep in explaining his passions.

"But that doesn't make this vial any less useful," Alice said. "If you put a healing potion in this vial, you could get it quickly to someone who needs it onsite. Since charms that expand the space are very tricky magic and not everyone has access to it, making small portable vials would reduce weight and with my method would increase the possibility for mass production."

"What occasions would require an onsite administering of a potion?" Snape asked.

"Well let's say I was the student that fell out of the sky in that memory," Alice said. "If I hit the ground, is there a witch or wizard that can heal me right away? Are all of their tools on hand usable? Would they need to carry me to the infirmary to feed me a potion from the cabinet? In that time of inefficiency, I could die."

Snape thought about it for a moment. Currently, medical wizards and witches would mainly heal patients on beds instead of where and when they were found. Charms on a bag for expansion were useful but not widely available since it would be a security risk due to the low detectability. Enchantments were easy to see, so the ministry was more relaxed on the production.

"You make a good point," Snape said. "But how would you maintain quality with this method?"

"Easy, the enchantment doesn't activate without it completing a loop so I'd simply trace over the enchantment on a piece of paper over and over," Alice said. "For the dosage, I would find the time to enchant a vial and then have a timer to ensure consistent storage."

"And for storing the vials?"

Alice took the wooden vial holder and smiled.

"I have a plan."

---

Once Alice started her Broom Flight class, she was standing pretty confident. She had gotten a pretty good prototype of her product and she knew the perfect time to introduce it. Alice had to be patient because she couldn't introduce it too soon since Harry's path required the class to go a certain way.

Harry Potter needed to be a seeker. For him to prove himself as one, he needed to fly through the air with Draco. For those two to be able to fly, Neville needed to drop his Rememberall and Rolanda Hooch needed to leave class alone to escort Neville to the infirmary.

"Alice, you're looking pretty happy," Pansy pointed out. "Did your parents teach you how to fly a broom already?"

"No, but that's fine," Alice said. "A lot of students haven't learned how to fly yet."

"I've never done it before because of my fear of heights," Millicent confessed. "I like to be firmly on the ground, thank you very much."

The class went on accordingly. Alice had to try to summon her broom to her hand by saying up, but she knew by now that magic wasn't going to happen out of the sheer volume of voice. Unfortunately, no one told Ron Weasley about this since he was frustratingly yelling at his broom. Hermione was no better since this was more about feeling than technique. Alice did enjoy when she looked at Harry in disbelief when he got it in his first try.

Alice kept her voice even and monotone as she watched Draco do it with ease. She managed to not be the last person of the group to get her broom to behave. She silently thanked her experience with artificial intelligence assistants from her previous life. Alice knew that voice recognition was a tricky thing. She also found that the "with feeling" that Hooch meant wasn't tone, but was similar to what Snape was tutoring her on.

When Hooch instructed everyone to position onto their brooms, Neville had accidentally taken off and crashed more promptly than he did in the movies which made a spectacle of it. It wasn't a pretty crash at all.

As Rolanda Hooch picked up Neville and instructed the rest of the class to keep their feet planted on the ground. Alice went over to the teacher and said, "Can I help bring him to the infirmary?"

"Oh? How surprising," Hooch said, not expecting someone with Slytherin colors to help her. She slightly felt it was to earn extra points for her house. "You can't carry him, but you can come with to show him the way back when he's done. After all, it's only a broken wrist."

Alice was amused by what was considered a minor injury to them but followed obediently. They went through the corridors and ended up in the Hospital Wing of Hogwarts in several minutes. During the whole time, Neville was writhing in pain over his wrist.

"I'm surprised that he only hurt his wrist," Alice commented.

"Children are tougher than you think," Rolanda said. "I've seen several crashes in my time and it feels that the younger they are the less likely they suffer from a serious injury. Although, isn't he a friend?"

"No," Alice answered promptly.

Hooch sighed as she was confirmed that Alice was indeed a Slytherin. She didn't really care about the student's well being. She might have just tagged along for points or curiosity. It took a moment to get Madam Poppy Pomfrey's attention, but when they did Pomfrey quickly got the potion from her cabinet and started to treat Neville.

"How long do you think it took for us to get here and for him to be seen?" Alice asked.

"Maybe ten minutes or so," Hooch said. "Don't worry, we will get back to class and have plenty of time to fly."

"That's not it at all," Alice said as she looked at her watch on her wrist. "It took Fourteen minutes to walk here, three minutes to get help. A total of seventeen minutes. It only takes five or so minutes for someone to bleed out if left unattended with a grave wound."

"It's only a broken wrist," Hooch said, rolling her eyes. She was expecting this time of behavior from a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff. "Even if he was bleeding, I can put pressure on it and he would be fine by the time we get here."

"This case yes, but Neville had to suffer for seventeen minutes plus treatment time," Alice said. "But do we want this for every case? What if there was a cheap and easy way to reduce time to ensure less suffering?"

"That's interesting," Madam Pomfrey said. "The quickest way, technically, is if I was alert to every injury and was at the scene of the accident, but I have worked here and I can't be present all of the time. What would you suggest?"

"A first aid kit," Alice said as she took out a small sample of her product from her school bag. She smiled a toothy grin. "This case itself doesn't have a charm on it. It has sometimes much cheaper."

Alice opened the small box that she decorated with a cross in the same fashion as the red cross. Inside were vials that were carefully labeled.

"Not enough dosage for this type of injury," the medical witch said, immediately dismissing the idea.

"No each of these vials is the same as one of your potions, they are enchanted with runes," Alice explained. She took one out for the witch to examine.

"Hm, this is very lightweight and would make it easier for teachers to have the basics with them at all times," Madam Pomfrey said as she examines the vial. "Where did you get this? I have to order them so I don't have to shift through large bottles all of the time, plus it'll reduce the time I have to heal small injuries."

Alice smiled, pleased with the outcome. She was glad that she had paid Snape for these different potions so that she could make a convincing looking product. Not many adults would believe that Alice came up with the tech.

"Wait a moment," Hooch said as she looked at one of the vials. "If you had one for broken wrists, why didn't you break this out during the lesson?"

"I needed to know how long it took to get here," Alice said, with a blank look on her face. "It's part of researching the issue before supplying the solution."

Neville groaned in pain at this.

"You used me as a guinea pig?" he asked. He knew Slytherins were crafty and selfish, but this took the cake in his opinion.

"You only had a broken wrist," Alice replied. "Professor Hooch said it was nothing to worry about."

Rolanda Hooch sighed very deeply as she tried to mentally calculate the points that she had to give and take from Slytherin.