Author's Note: So, I'm starting to write a fanfiction. I want to make it clear that I'm only writing it for fun, and to improve my English, so please don't take it too seriously, because I won't. If you want to give constructive criticism, feel free, but know that I could feel like not taking it to heart and implement it. To be clear, constructive means that when you say that you don't like this or that, you also say why, and maybe how you would improve it.
The story is supposed to be a single point of departure fic, so the butterflies may take some time to spin this tornado. Let's see how it turns out.
Grammar and spelling checks are more than welcome, as is Brit-picking. Please help me imbue with britishness my writing. My reference are the books, Word Of God when what Rowling said is not completely incoherent and in contradiction with what was in canon, and I doubt movie stuff will come out at all (aside from the first and second movie, because I've seen them before reading the books, so they're sorta canon in my head, and also because I've only re-read them once, a lot of years ago). I'll also try to figure out how some things that are difficult to fit together could, but I'm not at all sure I'll manage. If you find inconsistent stuff, point it out, I might even fix it.
Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit fan-based Parody. Dragonball, Dragonball Z and Dragonball GT are owned by FUNimation, Toei Animation and Akira Toriyama. Please support the official release. And by the way, I'm not getting any money out of this, nor do I intend to.
The first field on the moor, the one their tent was in, was filled with scattered tents that wouldn't have been mistaken for Muggle tents by a drunk Muggle at mile's distance.
If they weren't given away by the fact that too many people were brazenly flowing in and out of them, like many little triangular clown cars, then it would have been the various chimneys, bell pulls and weather vanes, not to mention the animated shamrocks on the Ireland team flags affixed to nearly every tent.
Harry was loving it. The air was filled with growing anticipation for the Quidditch final, the wizards and witches were progressively letting go of restraint and any semblance of trying to maintain their mundane facade, street side vendors were starting to pop everywhere to sell knick-knacks and baubles, and people were discussing animately the incoming match.
Harry had just finished buying three Omioculars for himself and his friends, when they heard a commotion nearby. Approaching, they saw that a circle of people had formed around a middle aged wizard, covered in green from head to toe and cradling a small cauldron filled with a gleaming bronze fluid, that was arguing with one of the ministry employees appointed to monitor the World Cup's grounds.
"It's not for the players, you dumb bureaucrat! It's for myself! If I drink it then I'll be luckier, and nothing will be luckier tonight than seeing Ireland win! A sip of this, and our boys are sure to show it up to those continental logs! Not that our guys need it, of course, but a little help won't hurt them."
"I don't care who you say will drink it, sir", replied the ministry employee, managing to twist that 'sir' into an insult, "Felix Felicis is prohibited on the stadium and in the vicinity of any official competitive events, no exceptions. You wouldn't be the first if you tried to mist it in the air above the stadium, in the hope that the players would get a whiff of it, or some other ill-advised thing like dispersing in into a cloud that suspiciously only rains on one team and not the other and the spectators. If that wasn't enough, yours doesn't even look like proper Felix, seeing as it has the wrong colour and smell to it. Who knows what would happen if someone were to drink it, it's quite likely that some great misfortune would befall them."
At that, the face of the man in green had become completely red, which oddly enough went really well with his attire. "Are you saying that I'm a bad potioneer? I'll have you know that I came top of the Hogwarts potion tournament of 1957", he added indignant.
"You could very well be Damocles Belby, and I would still have to confiscate it", the ministry wizard retorted. "Now be nice and give it here."
The other wizard evidently concluded that the verbal spar was a loss, because he swiftly turned on his heels and sprinted away, toward where Harry, Ron and Hermione were standing among the crowd. The Ministry wizard promptly palmed his wand and pointed it at the legs of the fleeing offender, and Harry had the time of a blink to realise what was going to happen. He had barely the time to see a rope flashing out of the wizard's wand and twisting itself around the green-clad calves of the fleeing man, and to bring his arms uselessly in front of his face, before the whole content of the cauldron was flung at his shocked face.
Harry had the time to notice a few things. First, that the liquid was strangely cool on his skin, in the relative warmth of the day. Second, that it felt slightly sticky. Third, that it had a faint aftertaste of lemonade. He didn't get the chance to make a fourth observation, as shortly after a tremendous headache hammered him behind the forehead so strong that his whole world became pain, and he didn't even consciously register Hermione screaming his name before is consciousness sank away.
When Harry's senses started to come back, he felt that someone had transported him to Mr. Weasley's tent, as could be inferred by the smell of cats. He seemed to remember having a dream that had something to do with explosions, but that was gone now. He didn't feel the immediate need to open his eyes. There was no hurry regarding the Quidditch match. He felt calm around him, which meant that either it was too late and they had gone already, or there was still plenty of time.
If it was too late, nothing to do. It would be a disappointment, but Mr. Weasley was the one that kept his ticket, so he wouldn't get a chance to enter the stadium, and he had a suspicion that he'd even encounter some difficulty in finding his seat. Certainly nobody inside would move to let him take their place, and the chance that there were free standing spots was low.
If there was still time, there was time enough, otherwise Ron would be all over him trying to wake him up, without worrying if it was even possible, or advisable; seeing as nobody was shaking him, if it was still early it was early enough to give himself another moment.
He knew that Ron would have gone see the match come the end of the world, possibly with the excuse that he had the responsibility to watch it for Harry too, because Harry would have wanted a recount given by the expert eye of his best mate. The funny thing was that he'd mostly be right.
He also knew that Hermione would never leave him alone when he had just been doused with an unknown, possibly lethal potion and had lost consciousness. He suspected Mr. Weasley wouldn't either, which meant that Harry had to reevaluate the possibility of them entering the stadium late. But would he send his children out alone? Yes, Bill and Charlie had come, and they seemed to be somewhat reliable. He still didn't want to open his eyes just yet.
He concentrated on the subtler noises around him. Mr. Weasley's tent was enchanted against outside noises, but he could still hear the rustling of human activity outside. Good, still in time and no rush. Then he listened some more. There it was, the slow breathing of multiple people.
They weren't talking. What this silence entailed was evident: they had already spoken about what had happened, ad had taken all the necessary measures they reasonably could, and the only thing left to do was waiting. Also good, so he would have some answers when he decided it was time to ask.
And then, finally, came the realisation. Harry was not thinking like usual.
That was extremely worrying, because the wizarding world had a bounty of ways to mess with your head, and few of them had the tendency to end up in your benefit. But he had never heard of a potion that made you think more, and just so clearly. Observing his own thinking, he felt like some kind of fog that had been there for a long time had gone away, like a curtain that was between his mind and the world had been yanked aside. If this potion was well known, he had no doubt that many people would want to use it on a regular basis, and the wizarding world didn't look like it had a lot of clear thinking people in it.
Maybe it was extremely expensive? No, the Ministry wizard had said that whatever that potion was intended to be, it had come out wrong. So this was likely to be an accident, and, like most potions, a temporary condition. Had that Ireland fan said something about luck? He didn't feel particularly lucky at the moment, but then again, do you feel any different when you're lucky? Harry suspected not. Luck certainly wouldn't give you clear thinking. Or maybe it would. Maybe you became lucky by taking more clever decisions. But then how would that influence the outcome of the match? Maybe the guy really did want to somehow give it to the players.
Too much things to take into account at once, too many unknowns. Harry felt he had reached the limit of what he could gauge with the things that he already knew, so he opened his eyes and tried to sit up.
It was worth nothing though, as his field of view was nearly immediately obscured again by a mane of bushy brown hair, as Hermione flung herself at him with a hug, screaming "Harry!" basically right against his eardrum.
"Easy with the ribs, Hermione, I think I've landed on some rock on the way down" he said.
"Oh, sorry!" she squeaked, again by his ear, and hurriedly let him go. Strangely, he hadn't really felt the embarrassment that usually came with being hugged by Hermione. It was not that he didn't care, like it was meaningless. He just felt the relief of having a friend near and worried about his well being.
"Finally, you're up! We were worried sick, mate. A botched Felix Felicis ain't something that you shrug off like nothing." This had been Ron, slapping a hand against his shoulder.
Looking around, he noticed that in the tent it was him, Ron, Hermione, Ginny, Fred and George (who had apparently just interrupted their game of Exploding Snap), and Charlie, who was looking at him with a certain amount of badly concealed worry. They had settled him on a lower bunk bed, above the old blankets.
"What's this Felix Felicis thing?" he asked, though he didn't know that Ron was the person to ask to get the details he was craving at the moment.
"It's the potion of good luck. You take it, and you're lucky. But if it's done badly it can mess you up really bad, because the thing that usually happens is that it makes you really, really unlucky for a time. Only potion masters and dumb guys feel confident enough to make it, and let me tell you, that guy was no potion master."
"Erm... can you expand on that?" he asked, looking expectantly at Hermione.
She opened her mouth, but Charlie was the one to answer. "It's as Ron said, if you drink it- if it's done properly and you drink it, in the common dosage, you become very lucky for eighteen hours. More than that is considered too much, which aside from being toxic will also lead to certain side effects. Recklessness, arrogance, euphoria. If it's done badly, it's mostly tragic. Bad luck tends to come all clumped together, and it often leads to the drinker's slow and agonising death. If you only landed on a rock while fainting, it means that the version you bathed in was not as bad as we could have feared. The property of the common rue, which is one of its ingredients, is to enforce interrupted possibilities, and it takes great care and skill to invert its polarity in Felix Felicis. The bloke must have done something right, or we wouldn't be discussing it here like this.
"Hermione tells me that it was bronze-coloured, metallic in appearance and slightly bubbly. That's close to the golden hue that you would expect if it was done properly, which means that there shouldn't be too much risk of a Lethifold entering the tent in the next half an hour, but it's still better if you watch your back. I've heard the effects of proper Felix described as if you suddenly felt all the possible paths open in front of you, all with clear directions to which path leads to the things that you may want the most. Are you feeling that?"
"No, not really," Harry answered, "I mostly feel as if there was a sudden clarity in my thoughts. Like if the emotional aspect of things was still there, but it didn't influence my thoughts as much as before. It's like everything is more muted, but not really. Like when you stare at the sun in a dream, and you know that it's much too bright to look at, but you do anyway and it doesn't hurt you. But I feel no path to the things I want, only crispness to the things I already know. I'm liking feeling like this, actually. How long do you think it will last?"
"That's impossible to say, I fear," said Charlie, "the outcome of a botched potion is only divinable by a potion master -and not a lightweight one, either-, and only if they know with precision what has been done to get that potion. Even then, it takes a lot of time to figure out what worked how and where. That's why potion-making is considered so dangerous and difficult."
"Charlie got an Outstanding in Potions, if you hadn't caught that" interjected one of the twins, "our mother was really proud, bought him a second-hand Nimbus 1004 as a present."
"They even whisper that he managed to pull a whole ten points out of Snape, in sixth year", said the other one, probably George, "but he will deny it if you ask."
"Dad has gone to speak with the healers over at field five, they've been put there in case of emergencies" said Charlie, somewhat damningly avoiding to reject the accusation, "they will know how to treat a botched potion overdose as well as it can be done."
"And the guy that made it has been taken along to answer as much questions as possible about how he made it" added Hermione, who still looked at him like she thought Harry was about to spontaneously explode. Was that a possibility? "That should help narrow it down to something they can treat. Unfortunately, they couldn't just up and give you a bezoar, because Felix Felicis is not poisonous, and it didn't turn out toxic for you, despite the high dosage."
"Well, it that isn't lucky" he exclaimed, earning a glare from Hermione.
"Right mate, that's the spirit! Maybe the green genius' plan will work out and you'll bring luck to Ireland tonight."
"Except it doesn't work that way" replied Harry reasonably. It would have been a nice turn of events, but the ability to choose the right path wasn't likely to increase the odds for Ireland. "Which reminds me, how long was I out of it?"
"Just over a couple hours, still plenty of time 'till the game" said Ron.
"Cool, so we can try a few things" said Harry.
"What do you mean?" asked Ginny, who had been completely silent, and watching him intently, until that moment. It was difficult to tell if it was more because of her crush on him or because she was worried about him. Probably a fair mix of both.
Harry looked around. Asking one of the Weasleys would be insensitive, and offering one to them even worse. "Hermione, do you have a coin with you?"
"Sure", she replied, extracting one from a Muggle-style coin purse, "Knut, Sickle or Galleon?"
"Whichever" he said, and when she went to offer him a Sickle, he clarified, "no, not me. Please toss it and hold it covered."
Hermione had the look of having caught his intentions, so she tossed the coin, catching it in mid-air and keeping it covered on the back of one hand with the other hand, waiting.
"Heads" he tried.
"Right" she said, looking at it.
"Good, so I'm not completely out of luck. Try tossing it again."
Hermione tossed it again, and waited. "Heads again", he said.
"Nope, it's tails this time. Well, this means that you're not extremely lucky either. Let's try again."
They did. Heads, tails, tails, heads, tails, heads, heads, heads. Right, wrong, wrong, wrong, right, right, wrong, right. "Well" Hermione concluded, "this doesn't seem any more lucky or unlucky than random guessing."
"Right. So whatever it was, it didn't influence my luck, or that effect is already gone, and the clarity of thinking has stayed."
"That's too bad mate, we could have gone and put a wager on Ireland winning the World Cup, and made some easy money" said Ron dejected.
"Actually, we would have put a wager on whoever the potion would suggest, and that would turn out right" said Harry, feeling the need to clarify.
"That's what I said" said Ron, in disagreement with what he had said.
"Anyway", said Charlie, "don't go outside of the tent, don't take sudden decisions, especially if you feel inspired, and we will keep on keeping an eye on you. It would seem as if you have avoided the really bad stuff, but it's better to be safe than sorry."
Was it better to be safe than sorry? What if you risked ending up being sorry because you had stayed safe? Harry could think of at least three times already, in his young life, in which he would have ended up being sorry, if he had tried to stay safe. Although his life had not been usual by most standards, and he doubted that the saying had been made with people like him in mind. But he nodded, accepting the suggestion in the spirit it was given.
He was still thrilled for the upcoming match, but it felt less sharp now, as if his excitement wasn't a blade that could cut him any more. He didn't even know where this metaphor was supposed to mean.
"Do you think we would be able to keep in contact with that guy and try to find out how what he did was differently, maybe?" Harry asked Charlie, "So people would be able to use a potion that increased the clarity of one's thoughts?"
"It's a possibility, but honestly I doubt it will turn out like you think" Charlie answered. "Even if it was the case -as it most likely isn't- that he's aware of what precisely he got wrong, then there are a lot of possible problems. For one, some of the ingredients for Felix Felicis are quite rare. Then there's a good chance that this potion you drank would have adverse side effects if taken often, exactly like proper Felix Felicis does. Then, who knows if it requires some absurd condition to work exactly as it did for you, like be taken while in a state of surprise, or on the 25th of August. This could be the greatest problem, because, remember, Felix is terrible when it goes wrong", that really was a big problem, Harry thought. He wasn't ready to risk a life in order to get the comparatively small advantage of some hours of clear thinking, to be taken no more often than twice a year, and that cost who knew how much. "And consider that there are already potions that enhance one's sharpness of the mind, which are far less risky than a modified Felix Felicis."
"Well, that settles it, then", said Hermione, "It would really be more risk than it's worth even figuring out how it works."
"Yes, that's right. So bad that we can't give a bit to Ron, though" added Ginny, deadpan.
"Hey! I have my thoughts completely clear, I don't need no flubbed potion to set me straight!" He added, indignant. Harry thought that Ron's brothers and sister would probably tease him less if he wasn't so wound up all the time. Then he thought that maybe he was so wound up because they teased him so much. Or maybe it had been that he was born more teasable, and the whole thing had become a vicious circle that both wound him up and enticed them to tease him until they had reached the maximum point that loving familiar relationships would allow. Something to think about.
"Of course you don't, Ron, you alone of all humanity would not benefit from clearer thoughts" said Hermione, with so much sarcasm Harry thought if she had her wand in hand it would have started to glow sarcastically.
"Well, I'm not interested anyway, I like my thoughts the way they are, thank you."
Harry heard Fred and George sniggering among themselves. They were using Ron's Omiocular to watch something that was apparently very funny. If Harry's suspicion was correct, a replay of the exchange that had just happened.
Anyway, he had all the information that they could give him, at least until Mr. Weasley wouldn't come back with a healer in tow, so he leaned back in the bunk bed he had woken up on to relax a little, and maybe think a bit.
