Pupils and Potions

Lorcan checked the inventory of the shop stores. Most of the standard potions were in stock. There was still a run on wolfsbane. Lorcan didn't believe it would help in the way people wanted it to. It was a preventative for those with Lycanthropy, but it wasn't a good weapon against a werewolf that was already transformed. Or at least Lorcan didn't believe it was. A killing curse was far more effective, he thought. Whether the killing curse was an unforgiveable or not didn't much matter if it was the only defense one had.

Still, if wolfsbane gave ill informed wizards some false sense of security, then who was he to deny them buying it? He had, in fact, even taken to getting snazzy filigreed vials that were on silver pendant chains so that the buyers would feel like the wolfsbane was more of a fashion statement.
They were unnecessarily popular. He probably should have felt guilty about selling them, but he wasn't promoting them as a weapon. He wasn't promoting the wolfsbane at all. It was merely a matter of desperate people looking for desperate measures.

He set a cauldron on the fire over the hearth and filled it with water to make a large batch. He took a large bunch of the weed from the nail on which it hung on the thick ceiling beams, took the bundle to his worktable and laid it there, taking his knife and sharpening it before deciding to chop the herb. It seemed a simple enough potion, but when one worked with poisonous herbs, there always was a bit of a trick to even the simplest tasks. He didn't like to leave the wolfsbane for others to do. His half vampire blood did seem to be a bit resistive to the poison. It wouldn't be the same for some of the others who worked on the shop.

Brice would wonder for a second right outside the shop, checking a buying list he was carrying. The next stop would be at Slugs and Jiggers, and he was right besides it. He walked in, checking for what he would need. A potions book, and a new knife. He walked over to the balcony, while Lorcan came to the front.

Brice took around 30 seconds to quickly find a new knife and a potions book. He then turned around and finally noticed the potions master standing there, and he took one awkward second to realize he was working there. Upon realizing that, he also realized he had never seen the professor face to face, and brought the book and the knife to the balcony, asking him "Oh, you're the potions professor right? I love potions." He completely forgot about the book and knife, wondering when the first potions class would be.

Lorcan noticed the young man picking out a potions text and a potions knife. Lorcan noticed the young man had picked out a student's knife. Quite the ordinary expense.

"You're, what, a fifth year? Sixth? Something like that? My guess is that your old knife from your first year must be close to this if you love potions. They have you get a new knife because its ridiculous to try to sharpen the old inexpensive one. But--if you're to do well in potions, you really should do better. Let me see what I can do for you. Come with me."

He walked to a counter at the back of the store where he had some used equipment in a glass case. These things were usually either estate items that he bought or were brought in by wizards to help them trade up to better.

"I'm not the professor," he said. "Not yet anyway. I don't know who will be teaching you this year. I haven't heard. But I own the shop, and I know my way around a potions lab. I make most of what's in here myself. If I haven't made it, then my potioneers have."

He had several potions knives in the case--from beginner's knives to some very fine antique blades that were worth quite a bit. He looked up at the young man, sizing him up, and then looked back down into the case.

He pointed to three different knives in the case. They were better than what the young man was going to buy. One had an interestingly carved bone handle. One had a polished wood grip, and the third had a handle that was an interesting blend of wood, bone and wrought iron.

"These can all be sharpened. You won't be tossing one of these in a few years for a good blade in your 7th year. You'll be sharpening one of these. Pick one of these three, and I'll sell it to you for what you were going to buy that lesser blade for."

Brice took a little time to look between the three knives, with the words from Lorcan on his mind. He thought to himself about how great it would be to have a sharpenable knife for his next potions. Taking a closer look, the higher quality of the blades than the one he was carrying was obvious, and he looked to each of them with interest.

"Interesting... this one, of carved bone, seems beautiful... but this one... what an odd combination... Well, I think I'll have this one. It's blade seems resistant, sharp and, well, it seems beautiful. An combination of both the others, and wrought iron. I'll have it. And, since my parents always toss me a pouch with one hundred galleons like it's only worth 50 sickles, I guess you can have those 100. Perks of being wealthy, I guess. Also, I hope you get to be our potions professor. It'd be great to have someone better than the one from Durmstrang was. A fool, I tell you."

He'd then grab a pouch with a 100 galleons, and it could be seen as there were one more in each pocket of his pants. He raised the pouch so Lorcan could get it and waited.

"Now, now," Lorcan said, with a slight smile. "A deal is a deal. I told you I'd sell it to you for the same price as the beginner's blade. So, the new blade and the text. That comes to only 35 galleons." The blade was worth the 100 the young man was willing to pay, but Lorcan had made a deal. He wasn't going to take advantage of him. "Give me the 35, and we'll be square."

"You know," Lorcan began. The shop door, and one of the newsboys came in. He was a younger boy, a second year who had filched one of Lorcan's old books last school year. He'd been reading about animagi, and had been trying to practice it. The thing about it was that the boy kept buggaring it up.

Today, here he was, coming back to Lorcan for help again. He'd buggared himself up and was half cat and half boy. Lorcan rolled his eyes.

"Gotten yourself stuck again, have you?" Lorcan asked. The boy wanted to speak and ended up making a bit of a distressed meow. "Oh, for the love of Merlin," Lorcan sighed. He drew his wand and flicked it at the boy, putting him back to rights. "You need to be careful about doing magic off school grounds. It is forbidden, you know. The tracers will detect it, and the ministry will be looking for you if you keep this up. I told you that last time."

"I...I know. Sorry, Mr D'Eath. I'll...I'll leave you a paper, shall I?"

"No, no," Lorcan said. "I got one this morning. Just be more careful. Now, be off with you."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir," the boy said, dashing out.

"My apologies," Lorcan said, looking at the young man. "I believe you were about to finish buying a blade?"

Brice would look at the door through which the boy left, and then turned back to face Lorcan. Of course, he was offering him a deal, but he wanted to actually give him the hundred galleons. So he opened the pouch with galleons, took thirty five of them and put it on the balcony. He'd then turn to Lorcan and ask

"What was wrong with the boy? How did he end up as a half-cat and half-human?" Brice did know the answer though, he wanted to make sure since it might of have been just a failed spell. He'd then put the pouch in his pocket, and from there grabbed the one full with a hundred galleons, without taking it out so Lorcan couldn't see it.

"He pilfered one of the used books last school year. Had it in his head that he wanted to learn how to be an animagus. Not a bad idea, but he took the wrong bloody book. He took one that gave him just enough information to get into trouble. He isn't ready for it, but he keeps trying and getting himself stuck in some sort of halfassed transformation. A beginner's mistake to be sure, but doing it over the summer could get him expelled," Lorcan said.

Lorcan noticed the galleons and slid them into the cash drawer with no ceremony whatsoever.

"I can be somewhat helpful. I'm a metamorphagus, so it all works slightly different for me. I'm just trying to keep him in school where he belongs. So when he scrambles himself up and gets stuck, I merely undo it and send him out to do it again. He'll get the hang of it sooner or later."

An animagus, yes. Indeed, like Brice, an animagus in training, except he was doing it wrong. He did find the Metamorphagi quite interesting though. Still having his left hand on his pocket, he decided to say:

"Animagus, huh? He seems small... he should of have at least waited until third year. He is just like I was, though, so I can't judge. I always wanted to become an animagus. In all means, he's like me, except I didn't have to steal most of the time. Anyway, an Metamorphagus? If I recall correctly, you have control over your appearance, right?" And before finishing with his last question, he took some seconds thinking. "Oh, and you said he tried to filch a book about Animagus and got it wrong? Do you still have the book?" He'd release the pouch, leaving it in his pocket to when he went to leave the shop.

Lorcan couldn't help a bit of a laugh. He wasn't surprised that the young man also wanted to be an animagus. It had been a fairly common desire when Lorcan had been in school, but it took a great deal of courage and discipline to start fiddling about, willfully, with one's original form. Few actually had stuck with it to master the skill needed.

"He is small. Too young," Lorcan said. "At that age he barely knows the business end of a wand from the handle, let alone how to shapeshift. And, yes, I can change at will. The principles of how to transform are basically the same. The only difference is that the animagus adjusts to one form and concentrates on that process. Or so I'm told. The metamorph needs to know how to use, more specifically, the transformation process itself rather than the form, in order to avoid getting completely scrambled. We metamorphs could get rather patchworked into any old combination otherwise.

"As for the book, I still have it but not in the shop. I couldn't trust he wouldn't try to come back and swipe some more. I might be able to come up with it, though, given a day or so to look in my library."

Brice would nod, kind of losing himself on thoughts about who he would ask to train him. He realized that he had spent too long on the store, talking to Lorcan. He had to go on, buy the other things, and go home to have his daily quidditch training. He then looked at Lorcan and said:

"Well, I think I must go now. I still have to buy other things. If you can get me the book, I'll be back tomorrow. And, er.. I gotta ask you a favor. Can you teach me some of the potions you all brew here in England? I don't know if it's much different, but we usually learned more about poisons than about actual potions in Bulgaria." He'd say that with a slight comical tone, maybe it wasn't wise to say that they actually brewed poisons as an mix of potions and Dark Arts.

It came back to his mind that he should leave the a hundred galleons to Lorcan, but he thought he'd leave it to the next day in case Lorcan agreed to help him. Formulating many things, amongst them trivial things like the time he would get home, what stores he should go to next, and others on things like the thought of helping Lorcan brew potions. Most of his "evil" ways of thinking were gone, like it happened when he tried to be friendly. He also thought about that, and his mind multitasked before he got back to his senses and looked at Lorcan, waiting for an answer.