Content notice: This story involves slipping love potions to someone unaware of it, including experimenting with new love potions on unaware subjects.

Also, let me throw out there that Laverne is not a character of my own creation. She's in the Harry Potter video games and also mentioned on Pottermore.

Laverne walked through the dark, her shoulders hunched. Attending a meeting of potion makers had been her dream. It had taken months to convince her husband she could travel to London alone. He'd been sure she'd be laughed at; she had been sure the best of the best in the potions field would recognize her talent.

She had been wrong. The residue of their laughter rang in her ears as she walked along the street to the hostel where she was staying. The trip back to Wales in the morning would be a long one, and she wanted to return even less than she had before.

As she walked, she kept her eyes on the stars, determined not to look as distraught as she felt if anyone happened to walk by. A star streaked across the sky, and she had just enough time to overcome her surprise and whisper a wish before it disappeared from view.

"I wish men would believe me when I say I'm good at brewing potions."

It was too good to come true, but that was why it was a wish for a star.

She was still determined, but she could no longer work on the dragon pox cure the other potion makers had laughed at in front of her. Hopefully, one day, she would find the strength to return to what she loved most, but she couldn't stomach it with the sound of their laughter still echoing in her ears.

For a year, Laverne only made potions when necessary. Her husband was just fine with this development. His meals came on time because their cauldron wasn't being used for dragon pox cures, and the house was cleaner than it had been at any previous point in their marriage because Laverne had nothing else to do with her time.

It didn't matter to him that Laverne was quieter than she'd ever been too. He didn't say a thing about the lack of constant chatter as he scoffed down the food she put in front of him. He'd always been a quiet man, but that had been fine when Laverne plenty to talk about herself. Now there was only silence, and Laverne was bored.

So, she pushed the previous rejection from her mind and pulled back out her potions ingredients. She still couldn't bring herself to work on her dragon pox cure, but there were plenty of other potions one could brew. She flipped through her old potion book, content with copying the work of others after a year spent away from her cauldron.

She hadn't meant to turn to the section on love potions, but when she saw it, it was as if it had called to her. The silent meals spent with her husband, the long periods of time she would go without seeing him at all as he traveled for his business... It all flashed through her mind as she stared at the introduction to the three measly pages the book devoted to love potions.

Many don't consider the field of love potions a true part of the academic study of potions. However, they do provide good practice for young potion makers, particularly young women who can't be expected to undertake more rigorous potion work.

Laverne scoffed at the book. There was nothing about love potions that made them less difficult to brew than other potions. The only reason the men who made up the academic circles believed they were inferior was because they were too concerned with their own potions to understand why someone would want a love potion in the first place.

The latent need for revenge reared its head. She smirked at the book as she realized exactly what she was going to do.

It took Laverne a year to invent a love potion that worked better than any that she'd encountered before. That year was full of a lot of potion testing on the only subject she had: her husband.

He was none the wiser as she slipped potion after potion into his glass at dinner. The exercise allowed her to become excellent at disguising love potions, too, for more effective usage. She didn't see any harm in it, as she was careful not to do anything that she saw as ultimately harming his wellbeing.

Over the course of her experimentation, he became easier and easier to deal with. In her first iterations, the effects wore off quickly and weren't that strong. They were enough for her husband to give her a kiss, but then he was blinking as if he wasn't sure why he'd touched her.

The good potions came later with time. Laverne molded her husband into someone many women would want to marry. He was attentive and caring. For once, he began coming home before the late hours of night because he wanted to spend time with her, even if she was bent over a cauldron for a significant portion of that time. That didn't phase him as her love potions worked their way through his system.

One year of hard work, and she knew she had something people would pay a lot of money for. The key was capitalizing on her success in the right way.

She couldn't do that from her home in the countryside. Furthermore, she couldn't do it with her husband breathing down her neck. Before the love potions, he would have been against the idea of her becoming a businesswoman. As it was, he was too attached to let her go. He wouldn't take kindly to her leaving for long periods of time to sell her inventions, and she had no desire to drag him along with her as she travelled.

It had been nice, the attention the love potions gave to her, but she was well aware of the true source of her husband's so-called love. Before the potions, she'd thought she'd craved his attention, but having experienced it, she realized her desire to create new potions had always been stronger than any feelings she held for the man who had reluctantly married her.

So she did the only thing that felt logical: she left him behind entirely.

Her potions would be enough to make a living, of that she was sure. Her husband had provided for her, it was true, but he had also been a lacklustre man during the best of times. She felt little guilt as she closed the door behind her, one bag of her possessions slung over her shoulder. Her husband would return home to find her letter, but she hoped she would be too far away for him to find her by then.

In several days, the last of the love potion would fade, and he could take to pretending she had died. Perhaps he'd remarry.

He wouldn't miss her, but Laverne had her potions and newly founded business. That was more than enough.

Prompts:

Hogwarts Challenges and Assignments

Seasonal Challenge - Ravenclaw Prompts: Laverne de Montmorency

Seasonal Challenge - Astronomy: Orionids Meteor Shower: (scenario) wishing on a shooting star

Word count: 1,149