In Time
“But here
In this small space that I’ve carved
Just for me
No one else
I’m content
Full and happy”
An excerpt from a poem made by a sad Pagan after she dropped out of school. (AKA- Me)
“Stir gently, dearie, if you stir too harshly it’ll over excite the Pickled Shrake spine. Then the potion won’t be as potent.”
Lia’s arms were sore from stirring, chopping, cutting, crushing, and slicing. Though she had never felt such a calm focus and enjoyment from a task in her life. Or her last life.
Patty had drilled Lia with so much Potions terminology, information, and safety precautions she was certain that she could make some of the first year potions with her brain turned completely off and go purely on muscle memory alone. Lia had come to learn from her Granny that most Potions textbooks went over what was ‘commonly’ used in certain potions, but didn’t really cover how to make improvements on them.
As there were a variety of different ingredients that could be added or taken away that could strengthen, weaken, or change the effects of potions, but one needed precise knowledge on a multitude of ingredients and how those ingredients would react in a given potion with the other ingredients.
The base of the potion was one of the most important but easy things you could make, certain types of water and liquids were used for their minerals or other such properties. Heated for a certain time so that the ingredients would dissolve and absorb as needed, binding to one another as a wixen’s ambient magic flowed into the brew, creating magical tinctures of nearly anything you could imagine.
Potion making was a precise art, a delicate balance between a million different variables that you had to be aware of at all times. It was a dangerous practice, if not the most dangerous class she would be learning at Hogwarts. One wrong ingredient thrown into a cauldron could spell disaster or even death.
If brewing potions calmed Lia’s mind, then caring for plants both magical and not calmed her soul. There was something to be said for getting your hands dirty, repotting plants was one of her favorite things to do. If some of the plants were prone to biting back that just added a level of danger that she quite enjoyed.
Lia was nine years old now, her eleventh birthday seemed to be rapidly approaching and she didn’t know she was capable of feeling such a mix of excitement and dread. It was a strange feeling. Starting at a new school was one thing, starting at a magical boarding school where she was likely to meet her soulmates was another thing entirely.
The time she spent with her Granny Patty was filled with love and happiness, happy times seemed to pass by so quickly for her. She wanted to curl around the soft moments, pull them close to her chest and never let them go. Time was a force that slipped through one’s fingers, uncaring of how fast or slow you wanted it to be. It left only memories behind.
“Now then, I think you know what’s left to do. Just take it off the fire to cool and then bottle it up and I’ll put it on your shelf.”
Patty had a thing for keeping Lia’s potions on display, it was her Granny’s version of taping her childhood drawings to the fridge. She had made a shelf in the sitting room designed just so Lia’s potions (even her early ones that were obvious failures and likely to cause death to anyone who tried to use them) could be put on display.
Right now Lia was making the Boils Cure, not only a good way to get rid of the Furnunculus Curse it can also be used for when one is experiencing bouts of acne.
It was a relatively easy potion to make, though Patty had broken down the process of making it to somewhat of a science for Lia. Patty had deconstructed all of the first year potions, showing her a million different ways on how to make all of them. It allowed Lia to grow a foundation in asking ‘why’ in potions, giving the young witch the tools to make her own edits to common brews so that one day she may be able to craft a potion of her own.
Potions and Herbology weren’t the only subjects she was drilled on, though. She knew a plethora of first year spells as well as plenty of spells that were safe for eleven year olds to cast but not taught in the Hogwarts curriculum.
She couldn’t actually practice any of them, at least not in front of her Granny. Even after living with her for a year she didn’t know how to bring up the fact that she had been able to do wandless magic with ease at the age of eight.
Her religious practices were a more easy matter. When she brought up the god she worshiped she felt as though a weight had been lifted off her chest. She finally got to confess how truly horrible it felt to worship in secret surrounded by christian muggles, in fear that she would be discovered.
Granny Patty was a good listening ear for her issues, and very understanding.
The elder witch was a little confused however, on how a muggleborn even got into paganism in the first place. Luciferianism at that.
But Lia being a Seer witch all she had to say was ‘It just came to me, and it felt right.’
That was all the explanation Granny Patty needed.
No need to shock the elder witch by telling her she was reincarnated and that the only reason she had so much knowledge on her religion is because she had already practiced it in another life.
As soon as Lia had bottled her potion, her Granny took the glass phial into her hands like it was worth more than any amount of Galleons could ever be.
The care with which her Granny handled her potions always made her feel warm and fuzzy. Like anything crafted from her hands was a source of great pride for her Granny Patty.
“Now,” her Granny said as she pressed the potion phial close to her chest “how about we have a nice cup of lavender tea. I hadn’t realized how long I’ve kept you in here, dearie. You must be exhausted.”
Her Granny sounded remorseful, but the elder witch knew that Lia never put up a protest when she was learning something. No matter how tired or exhausted the young witch would push through it. It was an admirable trait.
There was little doubt that Lia would either be a Ravenclaw or a Hufflepuff.
“It’s alright, Granny Patty. I like learning with you, it’s fun!” Lia grinned, so full of happiness that it practically dripped from her.
Granny Patty smiled back, though her own smile seemed to be weighted by a grief that Lia couldn’t understand.
“I'll put a kettle on, you can play in the garden a bit before it gets dark. I’ll call you in when the tea is ready.”
Lia was quick to dash out of the brewing room, as much as she loved learning potions the room was incredibly stuffy and dark. She could hear Granny Patty chuckling at her eagerness to be outside as she ran through the halls and towards the back door.
She kicked off her shiny Mary Janes and pulled her socks off soon after, stumbling down the steps with childish giggles slipping from her.
Once her feet met the soft grass she sighed. All the stress and excitement about her future seemed to melt away, as though the magical grounds simply pulled it from her. Like sucking venom from a wound.
Her life living with Granny Patty was so much more colorful than at the Children’s home.
Granny Patty had closed up her shop and moved them out to a little cottage she owned in Wales.
Living above the shop had been nice, but it had nothing on the warmth and nature of the cottage. Officially it was dubbed ‘Sprout Cottage’, it was a cozy little home with enough space for the both of them.
With earthy tones in the decor, soft well loved furnishings, and animated paintings that would greet Lia as she walked past them.
It was a sharp contrast to the Children’s home with its bleak walls and gloomy atmosphere. Where the children inside it knew there was no one in the world who would love them with their entire soul.
But here, inside this little home, there was more than enough love for Lia. When Granny Patty would give her soft smiles or hug her close to her chest with her frail wrinkled arms, Lia thought it was almost too much love.
She wasn’t sure she deserved it all. She had been picking up crumbs of love her entire life, both in this one and the last.
What was she to do now, that she had a feast of love before her. To warm her heart so much that it was burning with it.
Lia walked towards the iron table that sat under the dancing willow tree, slipping onto the cold metal barstool. The air here smelled rich, with the amount of magical plants in the garden how could it not.
She picked at her fingernails, wondering how she got to this point. She kicked her feet and closed her eyes. Willing herself to see.
It was a trick she learned from her books on Seers, one could induce dream visions in the waking hours if they had enough mental discipline. Lia had found she had plenty of discipline to spare for this task.
A pale arm, presented to her like an offering. The marking blurred, like she wasn’t supposed to see it quite yet. She gasped, unsure how to feel.—
“Excuse me sir, do you know how to get to Platform 9¾?”
The man looked down at the child who had tugged on his robes and gasped, feeling as though he had been hit in the heart with a Crucio. She looked as though she could be—
“You will take our Lord’s marking, Lucius. This is an honor, I will not have you sully the Malfoy name.”
It did not feel like an honor to be branded like cattle. To have the arm that was meant to be a canvas for marks of his platonic soulmates be tarnished by such a hideous calling card.
He had been raised to believe that Malfoys bowed to no one. Why should he kneel at the feet of a madman and willingly give himself up.
As much as he hated it, it was better than the death or torture that awaited him if he refused. So he looked into his father’s face, so twisted with insanity, and agreed.―
“What have you done?! Where have you taken my daughter?!” He raged, grabbing the man who had raised him by the collar.
“How dare you, you insolent-” The elder wizard didn’t get a chance to finish. His son had reared back and socked him in the face, as barbaric as a muggle.
The elder spit his blood on the floor, glaring at his son who still held him by his shirt collar. “I had a vision, your daughter would have been a squib. I dumped the welp off with her own kind.”
“You’re a fool and a liar. You’ve never had a vision a day in your life, you only pretend to have the gift.” The son took his wand out, pointing at his father’s face.
“Tell me where she is or I shall rip it from your mind.”
The elder grinned, his teeth stained with blood and eyes gleaming with madness. “I wouldn’t know, I had my Lord do a memory breaking ritual. Your welp could be dead in a lake or rotting with the muggles.”―
A woman with golden curls wept as she clutched a baby blanket to her chest. What had she done to deserve this?―
“My name is —- it’s nice to meet you.” The boy's face was blurred as he reached up to press his left hand to her own, his hair was so distinctly gingery red that she was certain she could pick him out from the crowds of students around them from miles away. She was grinning, she was sure.―
“Don’t leave me all alone, please…” Her voice was broken as she pushed the words through her raw throat. Her eyes burned with her tears. She was grieving.―
“No! The porcupine quills go in after you take it off the flame, if you put it in before it’ll blow up in your face!” She gripped his wrist, forcing his hand full of quills away from his cauldron.—
“Freakish boy! Get inside your cupboard this instant!” The horse-like woman screeched, grabbing the ear of a waifish and bruised underfed little boy.
He didn’t understand. Everyone else in the world deserved love except for him, it wasn’t fair.―
“Two points to Hufflepuff, for being at least halfway competent.”—
A woman with red hair, her body strewn on the ground as though her strings had been cut. Her child is crying in his crib, reaching for her corpse. Her hair is spread out on the floor around her like a halo of blood. An omen, a promise.
A man, who had once known her, was her friend some handful of lifetimes ago. Kneels down to close her eyes for her, her emerald green eyes that he’s known for more than half his life, as tears drip down his cheeks.―
Lia gasps, she leaned over to clutch her heaving chest. She hadn’t meant to see that last scene, she isn’t sure that she can ever unsee it.
Granny Patty is making her way across the garden. A tea tray held in her hands, as she makes her way towards Lia. She sets the tray on the table, not commenting on Lia’s distraught state. Simply fixing their cups as she waits for her ward to confide in her. “It’s a nice evening for tea in the garden, I think.” The elder witch commented mildly. It really wasn’t, it was a terribly chilly evening. It was just a way of saying ‘you can tell me what troubles you, I’ll listen.’
Lia takes the cup offered to her gratefully, sipping the sweetened lavender tea as she desperately tries to calm herself.
“Do you ever think…” Lia paused in the middle of what she had been trying to ask. Unsure if she even knew how to ask it.
Granny Patty’s ever patient wrinkled face simply waited for her to speak.
“Do you ever think that… That there’s so much wrong with the world? How could you ever come close to even trying to fix it?” Lia looked down at her steaming cup of tea. “It makes me very sad, especially when I see it and can’t do anything about it. Especially when some of it has already happened.”
She thought of the blonde couple who had lost their baby, of a young Harry Potter locked away in a house for a protection of love (yet there was no love in that house for him), she thought of Sirius Black withering away in Azkaban as everyone in the world thought him traitor.
It was all so much, she wasn’t sure she could bear it. Wasn’t sure she could fix it.
Granny Patty reached across the cold iron table to take hold of Lia’s hand, looking away towards the setting sun to hide her stricken expression as she spoke.
“Just because you are burdened with the knowledge of those things, does not mean it is wholly on you to correct it. Focus on what’s good and happy, write only joyful visions in your journal to lift your spirits. A gift shouldn’t make you melancholy, dearie.”
Lia’s shoulders slumped forward as she took in those words.
“I suppose that’s true…”
Granny Patty looked back to Lia, her crinkled smile hiding the wetness of her eyes. “So it is.” She said, as though she just realized the truthfulness of that statement herself.