Capítulo 11: H4P Meeting 2
The potions room was prepared, and waiting to be used. A potions book open to the stain remover. She was going over the instructions with a frown. There were more effective ways of achieving the same results. This stain remover would be troublesome the way the book wrote it.
Natilee sat cross legged on the floor with her cauldron and added the ingredients, adding a drop of pine essence. The figure 8 stirring method made more sense to her, so that's what she did. Twenty smooth strokes later, the door to the hall opened and Astoria walked in, one hand over her mouth. Her other hand was outstretched, using a levitation charm to carry a… something. Natilee wasn't 100 percent sure if it was some sort of discussing and furry swamp creature that had rolled in sewage, or a cleaning rag. In Astoria's other hand was a tin pale with the less offensive rags that needed cleaning.
"Mr. Filtch kindly offered us his worst rag." Astoria offered pinching her nose to keep the smell out of her nostrils. It made her voice comically nasally. Natilee nodded, she was lucky enough to be seated behind the cauldron. All she could smell was woodsy pine.
"That should be the perfect test." She replied calmly, and began dipping several ladles of the potion into a jar. Astoria directed the rag into the potion. Natilee picked it up and swirled the jar around so the rag tumbled in the liquid. Within seconds, the milky colored liquid was filled with streaks of colors that settled in levels. Some sort of black on the bottom, tar or oil maybe, and then various oranges and browns probably food spills, and the bottom layer thick red. "Hmm why would there be so much blood on the rag?" Natilee asked looking back at Astoria. She seemed to think for a moment, then her eyes widened.
"I wonder if that's the rag he used to clean the chamber of secrets messages off the wall?" Astoria offered. It would make sense why it had still been untouched in the bucket. After Misses Norris had been petrified he had not wanted to deal with it again. Thus, he had left that bucket and rag in the corner to gather dust and filth. It would naturally be the dirtiest rag he had.
"Oh yea, I heard about that. Dad came home randomly one night that year and held me for hours. I fell asleep with him there, when I woke up Mom hadn't even known he was here and his clock hand showed him at work again." Natilee replied sighing. Their muggle blood was a well guarded secret, but in truth she knew her father feared her being persecuted for it. He didn't guard it for himself.
"I didn't realize it affected the Professor." Astoria replied raising an eyebrow. Natilee chuckled, glancing at the younger girl as she pulled the rag from the potion remnants.
"You would be surprised what affects the Professor. He can't show that side to his students because if he shows fear, then how will you feel?" Natilee asked, raising an eyebrow at her. Astoria seemed to consider this for a moment as Natilee laid the rag out and used a spell to dry it.
The once disgusting fabric was a soft beige color now. Judging by the stitching, this was the fabric's correct color. Natilee picked it up and smelled it. The soft smell of young pine trees filled her nose. Perfect.
"Well, it's a bit stiff, but the stains are out. So, I think we can go into this meeting confident we can show Hermione what's up." Natilee pointed out and Astoria nodded.
"I can't believe it's that clean." Astoria replied, having only seen House Elf magic clean that well. Natilee smiled.
"Practical Magic is a thing of beauty." Natilee replied as she picked up her book and began scribbling down notes. The color, shade, and method changes joining the original musings she had.
"Natilee, the potion says it should be clear with a tinge of white… why is ours Milky?" Astoria asked noticing this small flaw.
"Honestly, I am not sure. The thing is, the first rag in the clear solution didn't come completely clean. I feel like its a concentration issue, so I reduced the amount of Ocean Water and it works better but is milky." Natilee explained sighing a bit. Astoria nodded as the classroom door opened and the two Gryffindor members of the club peaked in, being as they were a bit early for the club meeting.
"Come on in, we were just adjusting the potion a bit. We have an issue." Natilee welcomed them both with a warm smile. To her delight both girls were in Jeans and muggle shirts. Ginny's was a powder blue t shirt and Hermione wore a purple Hoodie. Curious both girls walked over and sat down next to her.
"Is that your test rag? Filtch?" Ginny asked curiously seeing as the two girls had been inspecting it when they came in.
"Yea, it worked perfectly but the appearance is off. It's milky but it works really well. We just need to figure out why." Astoria handed her the rag. Hermione turned and took a jar from her bag. It was clear with a tint of white. Astoria smiled.
"Did you figure it out?" Astoria asked curiously. Hermione sighed and shook her head opening the jar. Astoria used wingardium Leveosa to move another rag into the open jar.
"Oh, thanks." Hermione smiled and swirled the jar around according to the potion instructions. A few layers of gunk separated into the jar, but no blood this time, but the rag itself was still dirty and dingy. "See? It won't remove wet ink."
"Well what did you do?" Natilee asked curiously comparing the two with a critical eye.
"I did it by the book but I stirred it 40 times instead of the suggested 20. This author preferred a larger cauldron than the standard size 2. Zygmont Budge wrote a book on superiority of a size 4 so I thought if we doubled the amount it might get the needed agitation." Hermione explained and Astoria grinned.
"I never thought of that before. Size of the cauldron can make a difference but Dad would have known that." Natilee pointed out a bit confused as she began stirring this time in a clockwise motion for 20 more rounds. It started to clear up and thicken just a bit till it was pretty much perfect.
"Oh Wow. That looks really close to what the book described?" Ginny offered with a bright smile. There was a sense of accomplishment between the four girls sitting around the cauldron. Natilee smiled and nodded rather excited that they had done this together.
"Well it is a bit thick though?" Astoria pointed out with a slight frown. It was closer than they had managed thus far and she was really rather excited about it. However, with Snape being in such a tense mood… every detail would matter.
"Yes, and I think that is because we stirred, stopped and then stirred again. I think if we combined the 2 stirring methods, half one and half the other and use the slight change to the concentration we will end up with the perfect potion." Natilee offered as she ladled more of this potion into a separate jar. Astoria obliged her by adding another sacrificial rag from the bucket. It was moldy green this time, and smelled putrid, even over the pine scent front the cleaner. Within seconds, they pulled a beige rag from the muddy water.
"Do you think it kills bad smells?" Hermione asked with a laugh and the other three laughed.
"I wish. Care to hit us with a smell be gone Spell, Astoria?" Natilee asked as she dried the other rag the same as the first. The texture of the rag had noticeably improved as well. Astoria nodded and used prestidigitation to relieve them of the smell. It was one she had used before when Goyle had revealed his love for blue cheese.
"My pleasure." Asti agreed with a wave of her wand, the smell was gone and Natilee couldn't help but smile wider. They had figured it out.
"I didn't want to admit it, I thought this was going to be a pointless gathering with a lot of arguing and very little actual potions work. However, seeing this I must say this club has merit." Hermione offered as Natilee began scribbling notes in the margins of her text book. Natilee entitled the changes with GAHN at the bottom as a cryptic hint for anyone who would see the notes should she lose the text book.
"I honestly thought it would be too." Astoria agreed as she put the bucket of rags off to the side. Though the spell of the pail kept all the nasty smells in, she really didn't want to be looking into it anymore.
"There is too much hostility between the houses and that's why I was really really careful deciding who to invite. With Susan and Penelope being head girls and then Ginny and Cedric are both known for being nice and fair to absolutely everyone I thought we had a good chance. From there it was trusting out invitees to bring good people with them that could work together. It just so happened that everyone did exactly that." Natilee explained her thought process as she bottled the rest of her potion, taking a small amount of it in a little vial and labeling it carefully with the name of the potion and the page number.
"I see, so it was all calculated then?" Ginny asked, not sure how she felt about that. Being approached with an ulterior motive, no matter how flattering could be unnerving.
"It had to be that way. If I had just invited 2 random students from every house and put them in a room and said 'this is our potions club' how do you think that would have gone? I really wanted this to work." Natilee explained knowing her Green and Silver skin was showing. Afterall, she was a Slytherin and there was a chance they would see it as straight manipulation and there was a slight twinge in her conscience as she spoke. Ginny, in particular, had been an invitation with a little more strategy but at the same time she would have been the best choice either way.
"That is true. Well at least it worked out. I don't think any of us would have got this potion right on Monday if it wasn't for this meeting." Hermione chuckled warmly, it being a bit of an olive branch to move past the awkwardness but to Natilee it was a life saver.
"That is true. I am curious though as to what changes Professor will write on the board when class starts." Natilee pointed out with a wink as the door to the potions room opened. Drenched in rain, Penelope, Cedric, and Wallace entered the potions class. The water that dripped off of them made Natilee internally groan. She was going to have to mop the entire classroom after this was over.
"What happened? I thought you all would be at the game for a while longer?" Astoria asked, tilting her head curiously. Natilee looked at Wallace and raised a pointed brow.
"Yea, the game had to end early due to the Dementors coming on the field. It was the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor game, the schedule in our dorms was wrong. Apparently a prank played by one of our people. Sorry Nati." Wallace offered her an apologetic smile and came to sit down just off to her right and a few inches behind her. Natilee nodded.
"They caused some issues for Astoria and I this morning. Chased us down by the lake. I don't know why those beasts are allowed so close to the school." Natilee growled obviously upset. The other potions members sat down after sufficiently wringing themselves out. Wallace lazily waved his wand, making most of the water disappear in a puff of steamy smoke.
"You know the Professor's rule against foolish wand waving." Astoria reminded him with a frown. Natilee nodded her agreement and he sighed.
"I will work on my form. Better?" He asked doing the same motion again but this time how it was intended to be done.
"The bloody bugers ruined the game completely. Huffelpuff won but it was only because Harry fell off his broom. If I had seen that ahead of time I never would have caught the snitch." Cedric fumed as he flung himself down. "I want a rematch. I want to beat the Gryffindor Quidditch team fair, not like this."
"Is Harry alright?" Natilee asked her heart beating faster, concern etched onto her face.
"Yes, he is fine. Just dementors. He was caught before he hit the ground. Still frustrating though." Cedric replied running a hand through his dark golden hair. Natilee relaxed a bit and nodded.
"What do we have going on here?" Wallace asked, picking up the small vial of the Cleansing Potion the other three had worked on earlier. Natilee snapped out of it and took the tiny vial away from him.
"That is the sample I have to turn into The Professor." Natilee explained setting it back in the little stand. "So Hermione, Ginny, Astoria, and I decided to do a little pre work while you all were at the game. We think we have figured out why the potion wasn't working quite right and made a few adjustments."
"Oh? Like?" Penelope asked her eyes lit up as she took the jar with several layers of sludge in it and looked it over. "Interesting."
"Very, Thanks to Mr.Filch we were able to test them and so far it seems to work really well. All that sludge was on this rag." Astoria offered and handed her the rag they had cleaned. Penelope passed the jar to Cedric who looked it over and sniffed it, wincing as he came to regret that decision.
"We ended up changing out the rations a little. I think the book calls for too much Ocean Water and then Hermione figured out that there needed to be more passes with the ladle because of the cauldron size." Natilee offered as she took the spare piece of parchment Astoria had taken notes on and passed it around to the others.
"That is fantastic. I never would have dreamed the color would be due to the stirring. Granted a figure 8 stir does make quite a bit more sense being as it does create a more even mix." Cedric offered and Natilee smiled beaming a little excitedly.
"So I guess all there is left to do is test it again?" Penelope asked, honestly just using it as an excuse because she wanted to see it work. Natilee nodded, but stopped Astoria from levitating a single rag as they had been doing. Natilee picked up the pale and dumped the pail of rags into the cauldron, tossing all of them into the solution at once. Natilee stirred the rags for a few moments before extracting them from it after using a spell that cleaned the cauldron of all the remaining spell goo. All of the rags looked brand new.
"That is perfect. Wonderful. Just wonderful." Penelope couldn't help but clap as the little Ravenclaw heart in her chest fluttered in excitement. This was new knowledge and a fantastic use of the afternoon. Almost as good as a new book, almost.
"Impressive. Especially since our Slytherin and Gryffindor classmates did this on their own. Well done." Cedric teased, his little jab wasn't lost on Natilee who signed internally. She hoped that maybe, just maybe he will eventually give up on categorizing them based on house alone. However, that hope was a little small.
"I am going to suggest we start doing this. Picking out a potion, relatively safe potion of course, from the book and studying how it's made. Maybe we can come up with improvements? That or at least get a better idea on how different changes affect the potion?" Penelope suggested, seeing some major merit in researching potions methods. Natilee nodded at the excitement, you could always rely on a Ravenclaw when knowledge was involved.
"I think that could be fun. I mean we had a blast working on this one." Ginny pointed out and Hermione nodded grinning a bit.
"Then let's do that." Natilee agreed more than happy to let this be the focus of their little group. It was the type of ingenuity that would be a fantastic addition to their group. "No consumable potions though. Only potions that act on inanimate objects or can be tested on them. I don't want anyone getting poisoned." Natilee added knowing her father would insist on such a requirement.
"Of course, I am good with that. Some potions can be finicky depending on what you add to them." Hermione pointed out, she scratched her nose a bit and remembered a time when there had been much more hair on her face due to one such mistake.
"Then that will be the plan. I am really interested in the effects different stirring techniques can have on potions. Should we make that our next focus?" Natilee asked and there was no objection. With that decided, the second and very successful meeting of Houses 4 Potions came to a close.
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