Lina sat in Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlor, staring at the letter in her hands. It wasn’t that she was reading it; the words were burned into her mind. No, she was searching the folds and wrinkles of the paper for some kind of otherworldly inspiration.
Meanwhile, Hagrid, old man Florean, and all the other patrons stared at the mound of empty dishes in front of Lina, the similar mound by Gourry, and most disturbingly, the only slightly smaller pile by Harry.
“Hagrid,” Lina spoke up, “you sure we can’t find a tavern?”
“We call ‘em pubs here, Miss Inverse, an’ I don’ think a lass of your age has any business walking into one.”
Lina laughed. “My age is exactly the problem, isn’t it?”
The letter was addressed Ms. L. Inverse, c.o. Mr. R. Hagrid, The Street, Diagon Alley, London. If that wasn’t sufficiently strange on its own, the letter had her convinced this world was, to put it mildly, barking mad.
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Dear Miss Inverse,
We are pleased to extend to you and your companion Mr. G. Gabriev an invitation to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Due to your specific circumstances, however, we feel that certain steps must be taken to prevent undue disruption among the student body. Should you decide to attend, please immediately head to Madam Pimpernelle’s Beautifying Potions and deliver the included letter addressed to Madam Pimpernelle. You will then be provided with an anti-aging potion sufficient to reduce your apparent age to eleven, whereupon you will be allowed to attend as a Hogwarts First Year student. See the attached list for all necessary school supplies.
(Monthly potions will be provided at Hogwarts to prolong the effect throughout the school year.)
Mr. Gabriev has been allowed a post of Assistant Groundskeeper which will place him working with Hagrid and our caretaker, Argus Filch, as needed. I believe this will satisfy his protective duties.
Term begins on September 1. Due to the unusual circumstances, you only have until your 41st sundae to make a decision.
Yours sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore,
Headmaster
Lina glanced up and counted forty devastated confections surrounding her. “I guess I can’t put this off for much longer. Hagrid, you know anything about this potion?”
Hagrid shook his head. “Can’t say as I do.”
“Begging your pardon, Miss Inverse,” Florean interrupted, “but I think I can put your mind at ease a bit. Ms. Pimpernelle is a kind lady no mistake, but she isn’t the most powerful witch in the world. Sells quality merchandise no mistake, but nothing she brews is going to do anything you can’t have undone quick and easy.”
Lina frowned. She was well aware that her entire reason for going with Harry was to learn an entirely new style of magic, but she wasn’t quite prepared for transformation to be taken so…lightly. “Are you sure?”
“Oh quite sure,” Florean said with an easy laugh. “She’d be quite out of business otherwise. More than a few young witches magic their hair some strange color thanks to her. Their parents would create quite the row if it wasn’t reversible.”
Lina blinked. “Wait. These are cosmetics? Magic cosmetics?” Back home there were more than a few sorceresses (and sorcerers) who altered their appearance with their magic, but to turn such exacting processes into a commodifiable potion was a shocker.
Florean jumped to the wrong conclusion. “Muggleborn, eh?” he said with an understanding nod. “Guess I shouldn’t be surprised; we always get a good number this time of year. No worries, lass, you’ll take to it quick enough.”
Lina gave Florean a strange look. She couldn’t get mad at the well-intentioned man, but being taken as a novice, or less, irked her. She sighed; at least people would be used to dealing with cultural ignorance. That would help. “I guess I should see Madam Pimpernelle, then.”
Madam Pimpernelle was not what Lina was expecting. The store’s interior decoration had so many light colors and pastels that she was expecting a kindly old grandmother figure to come out of the back. Instead, she got a tall, leggy, blonde 20-something knockout that could have been making a living as a model. She smiled. “Hello, dearie. What are you looking for? A natural blush, perhaps? Or maybe some eyeliner? I imagine you would look stunning with eagle eyes. Or maybe something for your hair? A coursca perhaps? Oh, maybe something for your chest.”
Lina blushed at this last and scowled. “What’s wrong with my chest!?” she demanded.
Pimpernelle frowned. “Now look here young lady, I’ve been in this business for fifty years. You aren’t the first young lady unsatisfied with her natural talents, and you won’t be the last. Now keep a civil tongue in your head or you can get out of my store.”
Lina looked like she was going to put up a fight for a moment, but she needed this lady’s help after all and painfully swallowed her injured pride. She held up the letter from Dumbledore. “I have this letter from Hogwarts…”
“Oh a First Hogwarts Special, why didn’t you say so?” Pimpernelle said with a laugh, taking the letter. She opened and read it quickly, nodding and mumbling to herself. “Of course of course. Well come along to the back, lass, no sense doing this out here where everyone can see.” She turned around and strolled into the back.
Confused, Lina followed. She found herself in a room filled with cauldrons of various sizes, some on fires and some buried in ice, some bubbling with strange colored liquids and some suspiciously empty. Lina peered closely at a small cold cauldron half-buried in ice with what looked like boiling silver inside.
“Ah-hem,” Pimpernelle called Lina’s attention. “Now Miss,” she glanced at the note, “Lina Inverse. I’m not going to ask why you’re in this situation, but it’s best to know what you’re getting into with something this precise.”
“This situation?” Lina asked. “And what do you mean first Hogwarts special? Other people go through this?”
“A few, Lina, a few. Mostly muggleborns that decided not to pursue magic, but after a couple years found they couldn’t control their powers enough on their own. Too old to join Hogwarts normally, too inexperienced to make it as Third Years, too detached from the wizarding world to get tutors.”
Lina nodded slightly. “And no one wants to be outside their peer group at Harry’s age.”
“Or yours, dear. Now, here we go.” Pimpernelle held out a vial of something yellow-pink and a little too bright. “This will take a few years off for a month. I will make sure Professor Snape has the recipe for you, and the antipotion as well.”
Lina took the vial. “And I’ll need to be on this for seven years?”
“Oh no, not that long. We wean it off gradually, you see, to make you look like an early bloomer. For you, I think you’ll be off it completely by your fourth year.”
Lina thought of four years of being too young and blanched.
“It is a little uncomfortable,” Pimpernelle agreed. “The good news is after so long on the potion, you look a few years younger for most of your life.”
“Um, if you don’t mind me asking,” Lina started, gesturing at Pimpernelle herself.
“I’m a metamorphmagus, dear,” Pimpernelle interrupted.
Lina blinked. “A what?”
“It means I can change how I look as much as I want,” she explained. “It’s a big help in this line of work; I can test all my potions and even if something goes wrong, I can set myself right again.”
Lina nodded slightly. “You mean you experiment here?”
“Of course,” Pimpernelle said proudly. “Everything I sell has been exhaustively tested. I take random samples from all my products every day to be absolutely sure.”
“But I mean, you do it here?” Lina asked. “Not in a laboratory?”
Pimpernelle chuckled and gestured at all the cauldrons. “What do you think this is?”
“I guess I was expecting research to be done somewhere more…secluded,” Lina said. She looked the vial over. To her, it represented a difficult magic that few sorcerers could manage, and would be developed in remote laboratories buried deep below the surface to contain any…mistakes. Yet here, it was something one made in the middle of a city, a very crowded city, with little more than a brick wall to protect the neighbors. And it was made as a commodity to boot. Which brought up another point. “How much will this cost?”
“Oh don’t worry about it,” Pimpernelle said easily, much to Lina’s surprise. “I have an arrangement with Hogwarts. This kind of thing isn’t a big state secret, but it’s best for everyone if it doesn’t spread too far. They’ll cover the fee, no doubt out of your tuition.”
Lina winced slightly. She’d have to owe Harry for her tuition. Or Gourry; the big lug would be paid for his work. A debt to Gourry she could handle with ease. Harry, though, would actually collect. “Nothing for it, then. I guess I should, ah..”
“Down the hatch, Miss Lina,” Pimpernelle nodded.
Lina raised the vial in a brief toast and downed it in one quick gulp.
“Haaaaaah,” she complained. “Gleck!” It wasn’t the worst thing she’d tasted, but it was close.
“Are you okay, Lina?”
Lina nodded and looked up…and up at Pimpernelle. “I, uh, I…”
Pimpernelle smiled and crouched a bit, making sure she didn’t loom over Lina. “It’s a little disorienting at first, I know. Afraid I can’t help with that, but I can adjust your clothes for you. You’ll want Madam Malkin to do a proper fitting, though.” With that she pulled out a short stick, waved it, and muttered something quite incomprehensible. Lina felt her clothes shift closer to how they should have felt, but it wasn’t quite right. Seeing a tailor was going to be required.
“Um, can I…” Lina trailed off. She wanted to see herself, but she knew her undeveloped figure would be devastating.
“A mirror?” Pimpernelle said knowingly. She waved her wand at a bit of wall and a mirror emerged from the brickwork.
Lina looked at herself, stunned. She was nearly a foot shorter, her hair a bit shorter…and that was it.
“I think you can get off the potion by your third year,” Pimpernelle said kindly.
Lina twitched. A lot.
Harry’s jaw dropped. “Lina? Is that you?”
Lina scowled unhappily at her now eye-level brother. “You know anyone else dressed like a proper sorceress?” she snapped. “Why did I even agree to come here anyway?”
Gourry scratched his head. “But Lina, didn’t you want to OOF!”
Lina retracted her fist while Harry and Hagrid stared at the large swordsman brought low by a preteen girl. “Well, at least I haven’t lost my touch,” Lina said happily. “Come on, I need to get my clothes properly fitted.”
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(Posted Mon, 08 Aug 2011 05:42)
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