It Only Takes A Few Minutes: Love Potion Memories – Rating T
Summary – Part of the It Only Takes A Few Minutes series. Arthur Weasley harbours a secret from his days as a student at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...he used Love Potion to make Molly Prewitt interested in him. Little did he expect his son, Ron, and Rons best friend, Harry Potter to ask questions?
Pairings – Molly/Arthur
Warnings – Contains Arthur Weasley bashing, along with swearing.
-Love Potion Memories-
The Leaky Cauldron, Charing Cross Road, London, England
31st August 1993
Arthur Weasley, his son Ronald, and the best friend of his son, Harry Potter, was sitting at the bar in the Leaky Cauldron, a public house that serves as the gateway to Diagon Alley. The Weasley family had just arrived back from a holiday Egypt where they met up with Bill Weasley, a family member who was a curse breaker with Gringotts.
Ron was sitting there drinking a bottle of Butterbeer when a thought came to his head. Every time he had asked about how his parents fell in love with each other, Arthur Weasley, his father, would ignore him. 'Maybe he has something to hide?' Ron thought, confused. Gathering up the courage, he approached his father.
"Dad. Could I ask you a question?" he asked. Arthur looked at his son inquisitively. "I know I keep asking you, but how did you and mom fall in love with each other?"
"Well Ronald, your mom and I were in our Sixth Year at Hogwarts, three years ahead of your Uncle Fabian and Uncle Gideon, when I fell in love with her." Arthur said, remembering entire thing as if it were yesterday. "I liked her for a few months but I was scared of talking to her. Anyway, we were in NEWT Level Potions with Professor Horace Slughorn. Ironically Professor Snape was a First Year, along with James Potter, Sirius Black, Lily Evans and Remus Lupin at the time.
"Anyway, I was quite interested in potions as one of our ancestors, Augustus Weasley, created the initial recipe for Veritaserum, a potion that we use in the ministry for interrogation of prisoners. That allowed him a membership of the Most Extraordinary Society of Potioneers, working with a famous Potioneer called Hector Dagworth-Granger." Arthur continued, "Anyway, that day, Professor Slughorn took us into the first lesson of NEWT level Potions."
Potions Classroom, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
6th September 1971
The dungeon was, most unusually, already full of vapours and odd smells. Arthur Weasley, Molly Prewitt, and their fellow Gryffindors sniffed interestedly as they passed large, bubbling cauldrons. The four Slytherins took a table together, as did the four Ravenclaw House members. This left Arthur and Molly to share a table with two Hufflepuffs.
They chose the desk nearest a gold-coloured cauldron, one that was emitting one of the most seductive scents Arthur had ever inhaled. Somehow, but he wasn't sure, it reminded him of homemade stew and the perfume that Molly Prewitt wore. He found that he was breathing very slowly and deeply and that the potion's fumes seemed to be filling him up like a drink of Butterbeer. A great contentment stole over him; he grinned across at Molly, who grinned back to him.
"Now then, now then, now then," said Slughorn, whose massive outline was quivering through the many shimmering vapours. "Scales out, everyone, and potion kits, and don't forget your copies of Advanced Potion-Making, we shall begin.
"Now then," said Slughorn, inflating his already bulging chest so that the buttons on his waistcoat threatened to burst off, "I've prepared a few potions for you to have a look at, just out of interest, you know. These are the kind of thing you ought to be able to make after completing your NEWT studies. You ought to have heard of them, even if you haven't made them yet. Anyone tell me what this one is?"
He indicated the cauldron nearest the Slytherin table. Arthur raised himself slightly in his seat and saw what looked like plain water boiling away inside it.
One of the Ravenclaw House student's hands reached the air before anybody else's; Slughorn pointed at them. "It's Veritaserum, a colourless, odourless potion that forces the drinker to tell the truth," said the Ravenclaw, smiling.
"Very good, very good!" said Slughorn happily. "Now," he continued, pointing at the cauldron nearest the Slytherin table, "This potion here is pretty well known. Who can —?"
Molly raised her hand, smiling at the professor. "It's Polyjuice Potion, sir," she said.
Arthur too had recognised the slow-bubbling, mud like substance in the second cauldron, but did not resent Mollu getting the credit for answering the question.
"Excellent, excellent! Now, this one here … yes, my dear?" said Slughorn, now looking slightly bemused, as Mollys hand punched the air again.
"It's Amortentia!"
"It is indeed. It seems almost foolish to ask," said Slughorn, who was looking mightily impressed, "but I assume you know what it does?"
"It's the most powerful love potion in the world!" said Molly.
"Quite right! You recognised it, I suppose, by its distinctive mother-of-pearl sheen?"
"And the steam rising in characteristic spirals," said Molly enthusiastically, "and it's supposed to smell differently to each of us, according to what attracts us, and I can smell rubber ducks and new parchment and —" But she turned slightly pink and did not complete the sentence.
"Amortentia doesn't really create love, of course. It is impossible to manufacture or imitate love. No, this will simply cause a powerful infatuation or obsession. It is probably the most dangerous and powerful potion in this room — oh yes," he said, nodding gravely at Lucius Malfoy, one of the Slytherin students, along with his friend, Abraxus Nott, both of whom were smirking sceptically. "When you have seen as much of life as I have, you will not underestimate the power of obsessive love. Anyhow," said Slughorn, "it is time for us to start work."
"Sir, you haven't told us what's in this one," said Simon MacMillan, pointing at a small black cauldron standing on the desk that Slughorn used. The potion within was splashing about merrily; it was the colour of molten gold, and large drops were leaping like goldfish above the surface, though not a particle had spilled.
"Oho," said Slughorn again. Arthur was sure that Slughorn had not forgotten the potion at all, but had waited to be asked for dramatic effect.
"Yes. That. Well, that one, ladies and gentlemen, is a most curious little potion called Felix Felicis. I take it," he turned, smiling, to look at Molly, who had let out an audible gasp, "that you know what Felix Felicis does, Miss Prewitt?"
"It's liquid luck," said Molly, having heard of its effects from her brothers Fabian and Gideon. "It makes you lucky!"
The whole class seemed to sit up a little straighter "Quite right, take another ten points for Gryffindor. Yes, it's a funny little potion, Felix Felicis," said Slughorn. "Desperately tricky to make, and disastrous to get wrong. However, if brewed correctly, as this has been, you will find that all your endeavours tend to succeed…at least until the effects wear off. And that, is what I shall be offering as a prize in this lesson."
There was silence in which every bubble and gurgle of the surrounding potions seemed magnified tenfold. "The prize is one tiny bottle of Felix Felicis," said Slughorn, taking a minuscule glass bottle with a cork in it out of his pocket and showing it to them all. "Enough for twelve hours' luck. From dawn till dusk, you will be lucky in everything you attempt. Now, I must give you warning that Felix Felicis is a banned substance in organized competitions. That, for instance, means sporting events, examinations or elections. So the winner is to use it on an ordinary day only…and watch how that ordinary day becomes extraordinary!
"Anyway," said Slughorn, suddenly brisk, "How are you to win my fabulous prize? Well, by turning to page ten of Advanced Potion-Making. We have a little over an hour left to us, which should be time for you to make a decent attempt at the Draught of Living Death. I know it is more complex than anything you have attempted before, and I do not expect a perfect potion from anybody. The person who does best, however, will win little Felix here. Off you go!"
There was a scraping as everyone drew their cauldrons toward them and some loud clunks as people began adding weights to their scales, but nobody spoke. The concentration within the room was almost tangible. After an hour passed, Professor Slughorn checked his watch.
"And time is now up!" called Slughorn. "Stop stirring, please!"
Slughorn moved slowly among the tables, peering into cauldrons. He made no comment, but occasionally gave the potions a stir or a sniff. At last he reached the table where Arthur, Arthur, Molly, and Simon were sitting. He smiled ruefully at the tar like substance in Arthur's cauldron. He passed over Simon's navy concoction. Molly's potion he gave an approving nod. Then he saw Arthur's, and a look of incredulous delight spread over his face.
"The clear winner!" he cried to the dungeon. "Excellent, excellent, Arthur! Here you are, then, here you are — one bottle of Felix Felicis, as promised, and use it well!"
Arthur slipped the tiny bottle of golden liquid into his inner pocket, feeling an odd combination of delight at the furious looks on the Slytherins' faces and guilt at the disappointed expression on Molly's. Noticing the Amortentia in the cauldron, he knew he had a way to get Molly Prewitt to love him. They way he got her to notice him…Amortentia.
The Leaky Cauldron, Charing Cross Road, London, England
31st August 1993
Arthur was shaken out of his memories. Allowing Ron and Harry to depart from the bar, he began to plot to make sure that Harry would end up marrying his daughter, and that Ron would end up marrying Hermione. Little did he expect his plans to fail!
-Love Potions Memories-
A/N – Based on characters, themes and ideas from the Harry Potter series by JK Rowling, with text adapted from Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling. All rights are respected.
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Please check out the sequel, It Only Takes a Few Minutes, which Hermione finds out about Arthur, Ron and Ginny dosing her and Harry with Love Potions. It takes the death of both Harry and Hermione for everything to come out…