Chapter 14: What?! Why?!

Percy nodded, "okay, now that we have officially finished dressing me up like a nerd, can we please begin learning about magic?"

Hecte sighed, "kids these days. No patience. Fine, let's begin, first things first, potions."

Percy was surprised, "wait, I don't need my wand for this?"

"No, you do, but not for everything. For now I'll help you out with the wand stuff, you are going to learn about potions, how to make them, spot them and if need by create an antidote for them."

"Now the first thing you should learn is about the different types of herbs you will find. You see when making a potion the ingredients you add will have different effects, both magical and physical. The ingredient we use usually have the effect we desire. For example wolf's bane is harmfull for wolves, and we use it to make the wolfsbane potion that allows a werewolf to maintain their consciousness when transformed. So you see the wolfsbane is a very important ingredient, but it is lethal. We don't want that. So we add other ingredients to tune the potions towards the effect we desire. Got it so far?"

Percy felt the band pinch his hand, his brain started spinning, and suddenly he realised he understood exactly what Hecate was talking about. Percy nodded, "surprisingly, I think I do."

The goddess nodded, "good, that means the band and cloak are working. Now let's continue. I'm going to show you different ingredients and tell you their properties, here," she snapped her fingers summoning a note and what looked like a quill and inkpot, "use these to take notes."

"Ah Hecate, this is a quill," Harry pointed at the white writing instrument, "what am I supposed to do with that?"

"Oh, didn't I tell you? In the magical world everyone uses only quills."

"What?! Why?!"

"Because it allows them to transfer their magic into their writing, that way it will be difficult to forge someone's signature. Quite smart really, though the constant refilling of ink is a pain."

"Magic is amazing, but I swear these wizards are idiots," Percy grumbled as he took the quill and unplugged the inkpot. He dipped the quill in it and carefully opened the book and wrote his name to test out the quill. To Percy's surprise he found his handwriting neat, there wasn't any botched ink spots like he had feared, it looked very clean.

"Not bad," Percy shrugged as quickly he and Hecate fell into a pattern. She would first hold up a potion ingredient from the many they had bought the day before and described what it did, what it was mainly used for, and what type of effect it had on a potion.

Percy quickly found out that he could categorize the potions and their effects. There were five categories.

The first being extremely effective, basically these were ingredients that had a lot impact on a potion, ether by effect or because they would explode if not treated properly. This included things like lion's teeth and frog eyes.

Then there were the mildly reactive items, things that would react well with any potion, but won't necessarily push it's effects into a potion.

These were mainly used to make a potion more bubbly, give things a kick start if you will. This mostly included herbs and other greenery items.

Then came the basic items, items that didn't really do anything expect support other things.

This included things like water or coffee beans. Yes, for some reason coffee beans were potion ingredients. Hecate mentioned something about making them taste better.

The fourth type were submissive ingredients. These were the most common as they were the most well used.

They were very reactive and were used to dilute or reduced the reaction rate of other items.

They also however pushed their own magical properties into a potion, this made them useful, kind of like a wild card.

And the last type were unreactive ingredients. They basically had a lot of magical potential, but to get to them you basically had to burn them with acid or cause a near explosion for anything to happen.

Hecate quickly looked over Percy's notes and nodded looking impressed, "I'm amazed Jackson, I thought you told me you were an idiot."

Percy shrugged, "blame the band. Usually I'm not good at this kind of thing, but I think the band is pushing me far."

"Then it's a good thing we got it then," Hecate nodded, "now let's continue."

The goddess continued to drill Percy with the basics of potion ingredients throughout the day. Upon his request Hecate summoned a pizza for Percy's lunch and ordered chinese takeout for dinner. And soon the day was over.

The next day Percy found himself in front of Hecate again. "Alright Jackson yesterday we covered around 1/4 of all existing ingredient. And today we are going to have a test," she snapped her fingers summoning a giant pile of paper with questions on them. "Good luck."

Percy groaned. He was about to begin when Hecate stopped him, "wait, take off the band and the cloak before you begin."

Percy raised an eyebrow, "you want me to fail?"

"Relax Jackson, you'll do fine. The cloak only works when you are learning something and the band will only serve as a crutch. You need to be able to trust yourself without it's help. So, take it off."

Percy sighed, but did what the goddess asked. He took off the band and found two red slits dug into his skin.

The band had drained him slowly, funny thing was he didn't even feel it. He then threw his cloak and band to the side and began his exam.

It took the better part of the morning, but by noon Percy was done. He sighed as he took off his quick read glasses and handed it to Hecate, "how did I do?"

The goddess looked through the paper and snapped her fingers. The paper glowed gold and a number spread over the stack, '60%' Hecate shrugged, "not bad. You got 60% of them right Percy."

Percy sighed, "oh thank the Gods."

"Right, now, time to cover the rest of them," Percy groaned and Hecate grinned.