Part Two
01:00 P.M.
Potions Lab, Udagamandalam Academy of Magic (உதகமண்டலம் அகாடமி ஆஃப் மேஜிக்), Tamil Nadu, India
25th May, 1985.
Hadrian walked to the Potions Lab, refreshed and energised after the lunch and break. He opened the door and went in, when he felt a ward of some kind was present. Gurvi Bharadwaj was standing near her desk, wearing a white lab coat, dragonhide gloves and lab goggles. Ahead of him, were rows of potion equipments kept for each student along with their nameplate. Hadrian walked up to his spot and waited for Gurvi Bharadwaj to start. When all had settled in their designated places, Gurvi Bharadwaj started:
"Welcome to the Potions Lab. Potions are magical mixture of ingredients added in a specific procedure which when consumed or used produce an effect on the user. There are certain important rules you need to follow while you are here in the Potions Lab. You will notice that each student has been provided with these materials: one Standard Size 2 Brass Cauldron, one burner, a pair of dragonhide gloves, lab goggles and lab coats, a set of brass scales, chisels with three ranges of thickness, a silver cutting knife, mortar and pestle, pair of tweazers with three range of sizes, five sizes of spoons, a set of twenty glass phials and twenty measuring beakers, a juicing board, five droppers and a stirrer. The basins are at the end of the lab. You will find potion ingredients in the shelves beside the rows and stickers and markers in the drawers to label your potion."
"In each of your place, there are space cubicles made with Dimensional Magic and variable extension charms. This means each of you gets their own required for potion making. Please refrain from using your wand as much as possible, since too much active magic will destabilize the space cubicle and this might result in an implosion. I do not want pushing and shoving at the shelves when you are going for your ingredients. Five minutes before the end of the class, you are required to clean your place and equipments and throw away unnecessary ingredients in the wastebins provided."
"Now all that being said, lets move on to talk about today's class. We shall not be doing potions today. We are going to discuss potion ingredients and their uses in ordinary potions. Potions need several factors to work. These include: base ingredient, reactor, catalyser, indicator, stabiliser, thickener, diluter, poisoner, anti-poisoner, spin of stirring, timely addition of ingredients, flavourer and septic reactions on skin. Many potions would need some or all of the factors to work. Lets talk about the first factor: Base Ingredient."
With this, she walked off to be shelves and brought several ingredients and placed it beside her own cauldron.
"Base Ingredient is the mixture which usually defines the intended effect of a potion. Lets say for example, Wiggenweld Potion. Since it is a healing, sterilising and rejuvenation potion, the base ingredient will contain something that helps in healing, energising or sterilising. Hence the base ingredient contains either Dittany or Bezoar or Horklump Juice. You will see that Wiggenweld Potion, as the name suggests, uses the bark of a Wiggen tree, Dittany and a pint of Horklump juice as base ingredient."
"Next this potion has reactors which include flobberworm mucus, Chizpurfle fangs, Boom berry juice and lionfish spines. The work of a reactor is to produce a desired change in the base ingredient while keeping its key function same. It makes the potion edible and the takes the procedure of potion making to completion."
"This potion uses six other factors. Three catalysers: Billywig sting slime, sloth brain mucus and stewed mandrake, two flavourers: a sprig of mint and moondrew drops, an indicator: salamander blood, a diluter: drops of honeywater, a stabiliser: Unicorn horn and one poisoner: Wolfsbane. There is also stirring and heating of cauldrons at regular intervals to produce a desired effect. Now there are methods of imrprovisation in potion brewing. Let's say for example Exstimulo Potion. A single spell enhancing potion. Ingredients used are Re'em blood, Bitter Root, Granian Hair and Snowdrop. Upon following normal procedures, it takes two hours to brew the potion. But two up swipes followed by a clockwise spin reduces the brewing time by 15%. Now I shall give you a demonstration of the Wiggenweld Potion."
With that, she took the bark of the Wiggen tree and with her chisel, scraped off three fine sheets of the bark. Next she took four drops of Essence of Dittany and one drop of Horklump juice and dropped those into the cauldron. With one clockwise spin, the potion became a dull grey. Next she added the three sheets of Wiggen tree bark and dropped them in one by one and gave one counter clockwise spin. The potion took a dark grey colour.
"This is the base ingredient for Wiggenweld Potion. In a normal procedure, we start with a drop of dittany, followed by one sheet of bark and one drop of dittany again, followed by a counter clockwise spin. At the last, we add one drop of Horklump juice followed by one clockwise spin. But here, I first mixed the four drops of dittany and one drop of horklump juice with one clockwise spin and finally added the sheets, followed by a counter clockwise spin. This reduced the time by 5 minutes. Next we shall proceed with the rest of the potion."
She proceeded to take five drops of salamander blood and the potion turned red. Then she took a stewed mandrake and added it to the potion. With one clockwise spin, the potion turned indigo. She turned to explain to the class, "You will see that the normal procedure entails you heat and add drops of salamander blood at various intervals which will cause the potion to go through a cascade of colours before it turns indigo. So what is the use of stewed mandrake? Stewed mandrake is also a healing ingredient which is normally used for a Mandrake Restorative Draught and helps with concussions, shocks and petrifications. We used it here to increase our potion's potency by 2% and also to reduce time by reducing steps. Now let's move on to the remaining steps."
With that, she added two drops of salamander blood and the potion turned pink. Then she left the potion to heat. In the mean time, she took the mortar and pestle and started grinding the Chizpurfle fangs. With the fine powder ready and the potion heated to a red colour, she added the powdered fangs in the center followed by Billywig sting slime at the periphery and gave one clockwise spin. She explained, "Billywig sting slime acts as a solvent for the powdered Chizpurfle fangs and helps in the proper mixing of the powder, thus it is an excellent catalyser."
Next she added five lionfish spines and heated until the potion turned yellow. Then she added another five lionfish spines. Then she proceeded to add two dollops of flobberworm mucus and the potion turned purple. Then she added one dollop of sloth brain mucus and one counter clockwise spin to turn the potion yellow. She said, "Sloth brain mucus digests lionfish spines more effectively, also it helps in reducing brewing time, hence is another good example of catalyser. Now we shall add our diluter." With that, she added five drops of Honeywater. The thick potion settled to a more fluid texture and took on a turquoise colour.
"Now we add our flavourer, followed by the last reactor: boom berry juice." Saying that, she added three drops of moondrew and one sprig of mint. Then she added five drops of boom berry juice. Then she gave one clockwise spin and allowed the potion to simmer for thirty minutes.
Then she started speaking, "Now we add the stabiliser and poisoner at the same time." Saying that, she added Unicorn Horn from one side and Wolfsbane from the other and she left the potion to cool. Then she explained: "Wolfsbane or Aconite is normally toxic due to which this is a poisoner. However it also has healing properties. So to counter act the poison, we use Unicorn Horn. So why is Unicorn Horn a stabiliser rather than an Anti-Poisoner. This is because of the Unicorn Horn stabilises the improvements added in the potion, due to which it is more a stabiliser than an anti-poisoner. Now would you look at that. Our potion is ready. It normally would have taken 45 minutes for the potion but we reduced it to 20 minutes. Wiggenweld is a simple beginner potion but it commonly used by aurors for healing injuries and healers to reverse a Sleeping Draught."
"So you can see that there are various ways to determine the end result and timing of potion brewing. This will be enough for today's class. The time is almost up. I expect all of you to brush up the potions books provided when you come in the next class. We will be starting to brew in our next class. Here is your assignment. An explanation of the Wit-Sharpening Potion. I want you to mention the required factors of the potion in a tabular form. Also I would ask you to include improvising recipes for the same. I want a short summary of the potion, its uses and drawbacks. With this, I conclude today's class. Thank you and have a nice day ahead."
With that everyone started to walk out while Hadrian remained behind. Gurvi Bharadwaj asked, "Yes Mr. Potter, you have a question?"
Hadrain nodded and asked, "Gurvi Bharadwaj, when I entered the lab, I felt some kind of ward was set up here. I just want to know what that is."
"Ah, you must be sensitive to passive magic present here. The ward you felt is a specially placed temperature regulation ward. The thing special about this ward is that this ward is neither within or beyond the walls of this room. It is placed within the walls of this room. The reason is wards fluctuate when so many potion ingredients and the potion brewing is going on. So it is not within. It is not outside since it will disscipate after regular intervals. To prevent that, the ward is placed with wardstones imbued with convergence points and dimension magic. The wardstones create the ward within the walls of the room, thus not interfering with this plane of existence, but the intended effect is relayed to the walls which now physically acts as a thermoregulator. Since too much heat and too much cold hinders potion brewing. I hope this satisfies your inquiry?"
"Yes Gurvi, thank you for your time. I'll take my leave", with that Hadrian walked out.
2:00 P.M.
Charms and Enchanting Classroom, Udagamandalam Academy of Magic (உதகமண்டலம் அகாடமி ஆஃப் மேஜிக்), Tamil Nadu, India
25th May, 1985.
Hadrian walked to the charms classroom, deep in his thoughts. 'Potions are complex. I can do it but I do not know about the improvising part. I will have to recheck my books to see if there are any mention of it.' With that, he entered the charms classroom. Guru Bannerjee was sitting on his desk with only his wand in hand. As the class settled down, Guru Bannerjee started:
"Welcome all of you to charms and enchanting. I am Guru Harsh Bannerjee and I will be your charms and enchanting master. Charms are spells used to add properties to an object. Note that it differs from transfiguration in the sense that it does not disturb the structural molecular integrity of an object. The most important factor in casting charms successfully is intent. You need to picture what you want to happen. Enchanting is the next level of this class where you imbue objects with charms alone or charms clustered with runes to produce a desired effect, like portkeys or quills. Today we shall cover two spells: the Light Producing Charm: Lumos, and the Fire Producing Charm: Incendio. We will talk about variations based on intent. So without wasting further time, lets get into it."
With that, he brandished his wand and cast "Lumos". The wand tip flared up in a bright white light. "As you can see, the Lumos spell produces a light. Now watch carefully as I add and reduce magical energy in the spell." With that, Hadrian saw that once the light was far too bright that he had to shield his eyes and then it dimmed down to barely visible. Then it started flickering. Giving a bright light while dimming immediately in a span of one second. Guru Bannerjee explained, "This flickering is the result of the level of control required for the spell. This control will be taught in magical combat extensively when Guru Pathik will discuss flow of magical pathways. This is mainly used as an alarm variation of the Lumos spell, which is added into a rune cluster along with an alarm sound spell. For now I want all you to gradually increase the power of your Lumos and then decrease it gradually. Then I want you to increase the power intially then decrease then increase it more than the previous amount and then again decrease till you reach your maximum power. Do the same for decreasing till you reach the minimum power to maintain the spell. Your time starts now."
With that the class started their work. Most of them, Hadrian included, started with a blinding light followed by shrieks. Guru Bannerjee chuckled, "Yes this happens when you imbue too much power at once. This is a great tactic to catch an opponent off-guard during a fight. We usually use another variant of the Lumos spell for this effect called the Lumos Maxima. Now then, back to your works."
Withtin five minutes, all had successfully completed the requirements of the spell, although some were panting, some were breathing deeply, Hadrian one amongst them. Guru Bannerjee spoke, "What you are experiencing right now, is called magical fatigue. Cool down for two minutes before we continue."
After two minutes, Guru Bannerjee started to instruct, "Well done all of you on your work. Now we will move on to a variant of the spell. The colour changing lumos charm; Lumos Color Mutatio. This changes the colour of the light. This isn't really effective in any field except for decorations. But what I want to see is how fast you can change between colours. The intent required is that you have to picture the coloured light you want to produce. The intent will be clear when some of you will produce different shades of same colour and this is a proof of how intent matters for charms. Now let's get started."
And the students started with their work once again. Then, the whole class lit up in an array of colours and cascades of shades. Hadrian had a thought. He looked around the class and saw seven rows of benches. 'Perfect!' He grinned internally. He relayed his idea to his bench partner and it gradually spread to the rest of the class. Guru Bannerjee mused, 'What's going on? What are they thinking? Let's wait and watch. After all, this is their first class.'
In the next moment, he saw each row had a colour of the rainbow while the students in the same column, produced different shades of the respective colour. Guru Bannerjee smiled widely, "Excellent! Well done students! This is fabulous. I am glad to see co-operation between students. And you have successfully cast the colour variance spell along with shades. Again well done!" The students had grins on their faces and patted themselves mentally. "Now let's move on the last variance of the Lumos spell which I will be teaching today. This is the light condenser. Instead of the light coming out of the tip of the wand, what it does is launch a condensed shape of light from the wand which hovers around and can be moved here and there. The incantation is Lumos Condensatio. Let's try it."
The students then started their light condensing spell, with varying levels of success. Hadrian maintained it for two minutes before it snuffed out. Trying again, he casted it and started zooming it around him. Guru Bannerjee could see cubes, spheres, rings and whatnot shapes of light floating around. After ten minutes, he called out, "Okay that will be enough. Well done all of you. Take some rest and just listen to what I will be saying next. We will not be attempting the Incendio charm today but I will demonstrate you the variations."
With that, he tapped his wand which started glowing like a hand light. He spoke, "This is a wandless casting of a variant of the Lumos called Lumos Illumens. It lights up the entire object which you have in mind. This is normally used to read a book in the dark. There is also a variant of this spell itself. That is Lumos Illumens Loco. It is mainly used as a locator spell, since it envelopes the object you want to find in a pale light, making it easy enough to stand out and not to get blinded by the light itself emanating from the object. The only drawback is that you have to know what you are looking for. It is highly inconvenient for objects you have not seen. With this, our Lumos variant is complete. Now we shall move to the Fire Producing Charm."
Guru Bannerjee started with the fire producing charm and casted, "Incendio" Bright orange flames erupted from his wand and stopped before it could reach the students. Snuffing it out, he explained, "As the name suggests, this spell produces bright orange flames with heat. Now the main focus of this spell is control. Lets start with the first element of control and first variant of the spell; the fire whip spell. The incantation is Incendio Flagellum. Let me show you how it looks like."
With that, he brandished his wand in an arc and casted, "Incendio Flagellum! " And with that, a long fire whip erupted from his wand. He maneuvered it around for a while before dissipating it. He spoke, "This spell is a common spell used in combat and is useful when there are opponents surrounding you or there is a large combustile target. Now we will move to the next variant spell. Flame Condensation Spell and a variation of the variation, Flame Animation Spell. The incantations are Incendio Condensatio and Incendio Condensatio Animatus. The first one produces a condensed shape of flame as the name suggests and the second one produces a flaming animal which has a certain sentience and can be directed to offensive attacks. Let me show you."
With that, he first casted, "Incendio Condensatio! Incendio Condensatio Animatus! " And there was a mace and a horse made of flames infront of the master. The class looked it awe as the mace swung and the horse neighed. "Looks cool doesn't it? Now give me an armour and a sword, I'll look like a right ponce", said Guru Bannerjee. The whole class broke into giggles.
"Okay settle down, settle down. Now we will move on the next variant of the spell. The one that will remove the flames but will keep the heat. It is a powerful variant which is dangerous in combat since one, it cannot be seen and two, the energy required to produce the colour of the flames will be used in increasing the heat, due to which it deals far more damage than a normal Incendio. The incantation is Incendius Calor. I will not be showing the spell."
"The last variant is the colour changing flame spell. You might wonder why is it that changing the colour would be the last variant. Because the colour of the flame changes the heat of the flame too. And this is one of the reason why the previous variant is dangerous since you are forcibly removing the colour of the flame. The incantation for the last spell is Incendio Calor Mutatio. This produces various levels of heat and their accompanying colours among which white is stated to be the hottest while purple to be coolest. I will not be demonstrating this spell too."
"Okay class, with this, we will end today's class. Your assignment would be the water conjuring charm; Aguamenti. I want you to give a tabular version of the variations of the spell with possible uses for the variant. Thank you for your attention in the last few minutes and well done for your performance today. Good day to you all."
With this, the class departed, one by one. Hadrian was in awe of the intricacies of magic present that was being taught. Who knew there are so many ways and uses for doing different things? With that, he went for his next class, Runes and Warding.