The very first thing that Aveline noticed about her parents when they arrived back in London was how happy they were. It was not the sort of forced smile that she knew they put up when Uncle Adams was around the house, or when they had to calm her down after a nightmare. Rather, it was the radiant smile of someone that was truly and utterly in bliss. Like Aveline was after eating a large strawberry cake with lots and lots of chocolate to follow it up with.
The second thing that she noticed was that her other mother, Lucille, seemed younger somehow. She'd seen her use the disgusting-smelling hair dye to keep her hair a dark brown, which did its job and hid every little bit of grey that was coming through but left her smelling worse than when she came back from a day in a hospital. She'd also seen her use all of the weird bits of make-up that she dabbed, brushed or scraped onto her skin to hide her wrinkles and lines. As far as Aveline could see, there was nothing of the sort on her this time around.
The same was also true for Amanda, whose fair skin was practically glowing with radiance, and her bright red hair resembled rivers of liquid copper, shining in the winter sun. The lines and wrinkles that had started to form on her face at the start of the year had all but vanished. Aveline could not help but wonder exactly how did they manage to do that. Asking Amanda had only resulted in her receiving half an answer; something about a secret that existed in the vault that used to be Phineas Black's. Other than that, her mother had flat-out refused to answer her, with a clear warning in her eyes to not ask any more.
A week flew past at the Flynn household. Orianna had kept both Aveline and Zoe fit and trim with their daily morning runs at Hogwarts, and she showed no intention of ever stopping, even for Christmas.
On the day before Christmas, however, the girls decided to tell their parents about the events of Halloween. Both Lucille and Amanda were horrified when Orianna had reported the troll attack on Hogwarts. In fact, Lucille had paled and collapsed into the nearest chair when she heard that the troll had even managed to hit both Orianna and Zoe and sent them flying hard enough to crack walls on impact.
"You are...not unwell?" queried Lucille, who began examining Zoe immediately after she stood up. "Do you experience any pain while I press...'ere?" she said, pressing her fingers against Zoe's ribs.
Zoe promptly giggled and fell over in laughter. "Mum, stop!" she gasped, "That tickles! The troll didn't do anything to me. Ori got hit harder, but even she's okay!"
"Is zis true, ma fille? You are...unhurt?" said Lucille sharply, spinning around to face Orianna.
"It is the truth," Orianna replied with a shrug. "A little painful after the initial impact, but otherwise I seem to have healed within the hour. I did feel hungry afterwards, though,"
"Hm. If I was not part of your muzzer's team when she was creating you, I would zink you would need an X-ray image taken, and likely more than a few casts. Still, it is good to 'ear zat 'er modifications 'ave proven useful,"
"Of course. It would take much more than an impact from an overgrown troglodyte to damage my daughters' ultra-dense ceramo-metal bones," sniffed Amanda imperiously. She looked rather proud of the three. "Though I am not amused by the fact that you decided to engage in an uncontrolled test of your physical durability, Orianna, Still, I am glad that you are unharmed. Even more glad am I to hear that you three have been looking after each other throughout the year. Zoe, Orianna, Aveline; come here.
The three girls looked at each other curiously and approached their mother. Amanda threw her arms around each girl in turn, giving them tight hugs. "Above all, I am proud of you three. That was not a situation any child should be in, yet you handled yourselves well. Should I be considering whether or not to move you to another educational institution?"
"No!" yelled all three of the girls in unison, taking Amanda aback with their sudden yells. "We're okay, mum. Even Ori's okay, and she was the one that took the hardest hit," pleaded Zoe. "And for once, we're actually having fun. The classes that we're getting are interesting! And—Ori's actually making friends!"
"Yes, I heard as much," Amanda hummed, glancing over in Orianna's direction and smiling a little. "I'm pleased to hear that. But your safety – the safety of all three of you – is my paramount concern. From what I have read of Hogwarts Castle in books, it is supposedly the safest place in magical Britain. Yet somehow, a very dangerous creature was loose inside of the castle. What happened to all the wards, the supposed shields that protect the castle from attackers? From your descriptions of its intelligence, I doubt that such a dim-witted creature could be able to open doors. I would be more inclined to think that someone has purposely allowed the creature in. Have you thought of that, Orianna?"
Orianna flushed and slowly shook her head. "No," she ground out, "No, I have not,"
"There is no shame in that. You would have been preoccupied with your studies...and training," Amanda said, running a hand through Orianna's hair. "But this means that we can no longer assume Hogwarts Castle is as safe as it sounds. Either someone is being criminally negligent about security, or there is someone in a position of power that is deliberately putting students at risk,"
"Oui. We need to know if you will be safe zere, ma fille. Ozzerwise, I 'ave read about zis ozzer academie de magique in France. Beauxbatons, I zink it was called,"
"You can't do that!"
"Mum!"
"I can and I will, ma cheries," said Lucille sharply. The girls fell silent, and Lucille took in a deep breath. "But...only if it is necessary. If your safety cannot be guaranteed by zis 'eadmaster or 'is staff, zen I and your mother have no ozzer choice but to move you elsewhere. It iz not as zough you will not be practicing magique as you have for the past few months. You would simply be learning about it elsewhere,"
"However, that is only a last resort," reassured Amanda. "Now, come to the basement. It is time that I showed you what we have been working towards while you were at school,"
"It's not another dissected frog, is it?" groaned Zoe. "I've seen enough of those at Hogwarts,"
"No. It is not. It is...much more,"
Amanda walked over to the broom cupboard under the staircase. Leaning down, she lifted up a threadbare white carpet and folded it to the side; underneath was a metal trapdoor with a ladder leading down. "After you, girls," Amanda said to her children.
In the basement was a brightly-lit laboratory. Countless beakers, flasks and vials of every shape and size filled a vast shelf bolted to one wall. The walls and floors were covered in pure white ceramic tiles, kept so clean that Aveline could see her reflection on the floor. There were tall metal cupboards lining another wall, set up beside workbenches and sinks where a swan-necked flask sat atop a metal cradle above a gas burner. And right next to it was a cutting board with what were unmistakably magical ingredients; a wrinkled stone that Aveline recognised as a bezoar, a few silvery-white berries and a giant golden unicorn horn.
"Uh...mum?" asked Aveline uncertainly. Her sisters also looked rather confused by what they were seeing. "Are you...making a potion?"
"Indeed, I am," she said, smiling. "Did you think that I would be remaining idle while you were studying magic? No, I know where Diagon Alley is, and so does your mother,"
"But I thought you needed to be a witch to get in. I mean, you need a wand, don't you?"
Amanda's grin widened even further. She slipped a hand into a pocket in her laboratory coat and pulled out a slender stick of gnarled hazel. "Wait...you're...a witch?!" squeaked Aveline excitedly. "How did I – no, how did we not know about this, mum?!"
"No, I am afraid I am not a witch, Aveline," chuckled Amanda. "This is your genetic father's wand. On our second visit to Diagon Alley – which we needed assistance from the barkeep of The Leaky Cauldron to enter – I and your mother decided to inspect our vaults in person. We found his wand stored inside. While I can't perform any of the magic that was described in the spellbooks you bought, it still allows me to enter Diagon Alley...and brew potions,"
"Don't you need to wave your wand with magic over the cauldron to make it work?" asked Zoe, "I mean, that's what Snape told us,"
"Professor Snape," corrected Orianna. "But yes, what Zoe has described was correct, mother. It is in the textbook. There is a small magical component to potioncrafting, where we need to pulse a bit of magic into the potion to make sure that the ingredients' properties are properly bound,"
"That is correct. But the book never mentioned just how much magic was required to do this act. Which, as it happened, is extremely little. So little, in fact, that even a supposedly non-magical person could wave a wand over a reaction vessel and have it work,"
"So does that mean...we can make potions at home, and we won't get caught by...what did Daphne call it...the Ministry Trace?" Zoe asked, in awe by what her mother had discovered.
Amanda, however, crossed her arms and chewed on her lip a little. "I do not know the answer for certain, but it is best to not test the Ministry of Magic's systems. I have heard about the so-called Wand Trace from Mister Ollivander, and from what I could understand, it seems to place some sort of surveillance on your wands. Meaning that if you were to attempt to use it in a place where the Ministry does not approve of magic being used, you would be subject to punishment,"
"How bad could it be?" scoffed Zoe. "I mean, we're all aware of magic here, right? There shouldn't be a problem,"
"As I said, I do not know the answer for certain. But the risk is far too great, Zoe. Would you risk your wand being snapped and your magic purged, just because you were too impatient?" Amanda chided her daughter. Zoe pouted and shrank back, disappointed. "Now, as I was saying, there are two kinds of places where there definitely aren't any issues. One kind is a public magical location,"
"Like Diagon Alley?"
"Yes. Diagon Alley and Hogwarts. The other kind is a magical household,"
"But we are a magical household!" Zoe complained. "We can use magic, and there's nobody else around to see it!"
"You three might be magical. I certainly am not, and neither is Lucille. Even if we were all magical, this house would not count as a magical household. According to Mister Ollivander, the Trace works in any house that is not listed in the Ministry as being magical. And to even be considered, we must have at least three generations of magicals living in the same household,"
"So we can't practice magic at home? That really sucks," sighed Zoe.
"There is, however, one other solution. And this solution...is for your Christmas presents. For all three of you," said Amanda, smiling wryly as she fished out a heavy purse of Galleons from the inside of her lab coat. "Are you three excited for some shopping?"
It didn't take long before Amanda regretted her decision to take her three children shopping to Diagon Alley. Her coinpurse, filled with five hundred Galleons, quickly emptied itself as her children went from shop to shop, purchasing all manner of bits and baubles. Orianna had purchased for herself some sort of earring that supposedly silenced everything else around her, while Zoe and Aveline decided to splurge on a crate of Chocolate Frogs. "It's just once in a year, ma cherie," Lucille reminded Amanda, whose left eye twitched slightly as she thought of just how much sugar the two children were devouring.
"Even so, that is not good for their health," grumbled Amanda.
The three children had complained of their telescopes being inadequate for Astronomy, and Amanda was inclined to agree. Who in their right mind would still use refracting telescopes in the modern era? Reflecting telescopes gave much higher quality images; and if they had an auto-graphing charm applied to them, all the better. Forty Galleons went into buying four of them (one extra for a certain Tracey, who was apparently fond of stargazing). A solid copper cauldron made for a fine gift to Hermione, and an unbreakable, smooth-writing quill was for Daphne.
And after a couple more hours of shopping, Lucille and Amanda found themselves going into a darker alleyway. "Uh, mum? Are we really going down here?" Aveline asked furtively, shrinking as they passed under a narrow archway. The path was a slush of half-melted snow and ice, scarcely wide enough to accommodate two people side-by-side. Several witches and wizards gave them dirty looks as they squeezed past while balancing stacks of wrapped boxes and bags; more than once, a bag or a box toppled to the ground, knocked over by a shoulder or an arm.
"Yes, we are. And...hmm...there it is,"
They stood in front of a dingy storefront. The half-rotted wooden sign bore a haphazardly retouched painting of a wand projecting several sparks; above the weather-beaten doorway stood another sign that read 'Umbral Wands'.
Amanda and Lucille walked in first. A toothless old witch with flake-covered grey hair stood hunched behind a mouldy wooden counter, using a knife to whittle away at a block of wood in front of her. Only when the small silver bell above the doorway dinged did she realise that she had customers. "I'm sure that you're lost, aren't you—oooh, wait, I remember. You were that muggle that was looking for some...special services, weren't you? The one that came with the goblins to show you around?" the witch said loudly, picking her ear and extracting a wad of sticky-looking orange wax.
"That would be correct, Madam Umbra. My daughters require something more...discreet,"
"Discreet, is it? Was it...hmm...let me remember. Did you need wands without-"
"Yes," Amanda cut her off. "One traceless wand for each of them. Custom made to suit them as best as possible. Can you do that?"
"I certainly can!" she cackled, giving the three young girls a grin that made them cringe in mingled fear and disgust. "But, let's talk price first, shall we? My services aren't cheap, and I need to...let's say...grease some palms to make sure that I can still work here. A hundred and fifty Galleons for each wand seems to be a fair price,"
Aveline blanched. A hundred and fifty Galleons was a lot of money! "Mum, you don't have to-"
"I insist, Aveline," she said curtly. Turning to the shopkeeper, she said, "That price is outrageous. Surely you can do better; an Ollivander wand only costs eight Galleons. I will pay no more than a hundred Galleons a wand,"
"You must be madder than I thought, muggle. I run a great risk by making these. One hundred and forty Galleons,"
"One hundred and ten,"
"One hundred and thirty, and no lower!"
"A hundred and twenty-five, and you make the wands by this afternoon. That is my final offer. I doubt that you would find another customer willing to pay so much,"
The old hag scowled but nodded her assent. "Fine. Bleed an old lady dry, would you," she groused. "Who wants to go first? Show me your current wand, so I know roughly what I need to test you with,"
One by one, the Flynn sisters handed her their wands. She checked each of them thoroughly – for their polish, their wood, their stiffness and length, and their cores. Aveline's wand she handled quickly, as though touching it burned her; Zoe's she waved about with a curious look on her face; and Orianna's vibrated and shot a burst of acid-green sparks as soon as she touched it. "An angry wand, that one!" she cackled in amusement, handing it back to Orianna. "Well, your daughters' wands are in good condition. I can certainly make a traceless wand by the end of the afternoon,"
"Wait, you don't need us to try out wands?" blurted out Zoe.
Madam Umbra snorted bitterly. "Is that what old Ollivander does these days to check if a wand is compatible? He's growing lazy, that scoundrel. No, you shouldn't need to try your wands if they were made just for you, from materials that are matched to you,"
"Then why does he do it with us?"
"Because he's made a whole lot of wands with no definite owner beforehand!" snarled the woman furiously. "'A wand chooses its master', my chewed-up hat! If I received a Sickle for every time he spouts off that rubbish to an unsuspecting witch or wizard, I would have a shop in Diagon Alley by now. No. It's complete and utter shite-"
Lucille yelped and clamped her hands over Aveline's ears.
"-I tell you. Shite that the cock-sucking wanker spouts off just so that he can peddle his thoroughly plebeian wares! No class, no flair, no power, no finesse! Cheap is what it is! Rubbish made cheap, to please the masses! A travesty! An insult to my craft!"
"I think that we have heard quite enough," Amanda said sharply. "My daughters are still quite young, as you have noticed, and I would prefer that their language remains...pure,"
"Pah. Fine. I suppose I am working on your Sickle, aren't I? Well, I'll need one more thing. I know the wood that they need, but if you really want their wands to be responsive and powerful – and loyal – the wood needs one more material,"
"And what would that be?"
"Their blood," the hag said. An unsettling grin crept on her face as she motioned for the girls to come forward. Amanda nodded reluctantly, giving herself a mental note to thoroughly cleanse the cuts once they get back home. Thankfully, the old witch's knife was extremely sharp, and the girls barely winced as their blood dribbled down onto individual wand blanks. "Feh. Muggles. Can't use a wand to heal themselves..." she heard the woman mutter as Lucille wrapped bandages over the cuts on each of the girls' palms. "Anyway; go on, git! I'll need time to make these wands, and I don't want no distractions while I work!"
And thus the family was ushered unceremoniously out of the shop, the door closing behind them with a wet squelch. Two hours later when they returned, the old witch was good to her word. The wands were thicker than the Ollivander wands, though there was definitely a lot more work that had gone into them.
Orianna's was a yew and Thestral tail hair wand, like her original. It was shorter than her original, though at fourteen inches, it was hardly compact by any stretch of imagination. Elegant gold filigree depicting rose thorns wound its way up the wand, leaving hardly any part of the wood exposed. The moment that she touched it, all of them felt the temperature of the air around them drop several degrees; a small miniature blizzard whipped up around her, covering the shop floor with a fine sheen of frost.
Zoe's alternate wand turned out to be of walnut and dragon heartstring, and exactly one foot long. Shining silver decorated hers in floral patterns around the handle, though no further than that. Touching hers caused fragrant rose petals to shoot out of its tip like water would from a fountain; Zoe whooped and cheered in amusement as it did so – much to the wandmaker's chagrin, as the vast majority of the petals ended up scattered all over her ledgers.
Hawthorn and dittany stalk turned out to be the best match for Aveline. It was exceptionally long; at eighteen inches, she had doubts about whether to call it a very short staff or a long wand. Regardless, holding on to it caused a pulse of soothing bluish-white mist to burst forth from the wand's tip.
"Definitely pure," snorted the witch, "Well, you got your wands, and you short-changed an old woman. Hope you're proud o' yourselves. Now go on, scram. I got another wand to make for an idiot that broke his wand while de-gnoming his garden,"
That evening, Amanda was down in the basement with her chemistry equipment again. She had left Lucille to entertain her three daughters for Christmas Eve, while she completed her preparations for the night. "So many experiments, so little time," she muttered to herself as she placed a bunch of dittany into a repurposed food processor. A few pulses later, and the herbs had been reduced to a bluish-green slurry that glowed slightly. Pressing a button on the voice recorder on her workbench, she said in a flat voice, "Amanda R. Flynn, Genetics Research Division. December twenty-fourth, ninety-one. Distillation of...alchemical reagents. Reagent base...unknown scientific name, common name, dittany. Amount...three hundred and fifty millilitres of mixed liquids and solids, plus thirty millilitres of pure ethanol. Attempting distillation at eighty-five degrees Centigrade, with a seventy-nine degree second stage,"
She switched off the recorder and gently scraped the dittany slurry into the glass retort in front of her. Just as she flicked on the gas burner under the retort, she heard the creak of the trapdoor opening. A quick glance over her shoulder showed her that Aveline was climbing down the ladder.
"Aveline. What are you doing down here?" Amanda asked her green-ribboned daughter. "Does Lucille not have enough things to entertain you with?"
Aveline shook her head.
"...Are you bored?"
Aveline shook her head again.
"Then why are you down here, Aveline?"
"I want to help," she said, touching her index fingers together uncertainly. "Ori and Zoe are messing around with magic upstairs. They're having a lot of fun with their wands, but...it doesn't feel right to do that. Mum Lucille said that you spent a lot of money on our new wands. Like, a big part of what dad – I mean, Phineas Black – left us. This isn't going to hurt you later, is it, mum...?"
Amanda pursed her lips, wondering how she should answer. To tell the truth, most of Phineas' gold had been spent already through purchasing her vast stocks of potions ingredients. The new wands had drained it some more, leaving only a few hundred Galleons in the vault. It didn't help that the goblins set the exchange rate between non-magical currency and magical currency at rather extortionate rates. A single Galleon was worth approximately fifteen pounds according to them. The government allowance allotted to her and Lucille, while generous, didn't exactly let them refill the vault's contents very quickly.
Truth be told, it might well hurt them in the future. Especially if her daughters' supplies continued to rise in cost. Feeding her daughters wasn't cheap either, and Hogwarts' tuition and boarding fees had nearly caused Lucille to faint. To make matters worse, Adams had informed them that they would not be able to expect an increase in their allowance at all.
"We will manage," Amanda sighed, putting on a stoic face. The girls needed to be able to focus on their education. She would find a way. Lucille still worked as a medical doctor at the local hospital to boost their earnings; and even in the worst possible case, she could take out a loan. "Aveline, come here,"
Slowly, the girl approached her. Amanda put her arms around her daughter, gently patting her on the back. "You're my girl. If anything happens to you, I...I would rather not think about it. Spending nearly two thousand pounds on a wand that will serve you far better than your old one would be worth every penny. Think of it as my Christmas gift to you,"
"...Thanks, mum. It's the best Christmas gift ever,"
"Now, would you like to see what I was working on?" Amanda said, breaking off the hug and indicating the retort that was bubbling merrily away. The two walked over towards it; Aveline stared blankly at it, not quite understanding what she was looking at. "Do you recognise this herb?"
"No?"
"It is dittany. Used in its unrefined form, it can heal even severe gashes in seconds. You can chop the herb finely and dab it on, or squeeze its juices out onto the wound. Do you see the blue gas that is rising from the boiling mixture? That is not water. That is the refined Essence of Dittany. A jacket of water around this glass neck here-" she indicated a jacket around the swan-like neck of the glass retort, which had water flowing inside it, "-makes sure that the gas is cooled back down again, and it flows as a liquid to this beaker on the other side. Then, to get rid of the alcohol that I used to extract the essence, I heat the liquid up again so that the alcohol boils away, but the Essence of Dittany remains behind,"
"Oooh. Okay!" Aveline said, nodding vigorously. She stooped down so that she could look at the gathering Essence closely. "Madam Pomfrey, the school healer, used some on Susan when she fell from a broomstick and cut her leg. How come hers is yellow, while yours is light blue?"
"That would be because as effective as magic is, it seems that magic has stagnated in fifteenth century technology when it comes to potionmaking. Or as I really should call it, magic-augmented chemistry," answered Amanda. "That book on herbs shows you how to prepare the so-called Essence of Dittany. Pounding it in a mortar and pestle and then running it through a fine cheesecloth is hardly sanitary, nor efficient. There would be much wasted Essence still left in the plant, and if you had any other plants mixed in with the Dittany to begin with, you would have their Essences as well,"
"I think I get it! So the stuff that Madam Pomfrey has is...dirty?"
"A rough way of saying it, but yes. It might still work, but depending on what was mixed with the herbs, it might be dangerous at worst, or it might not work at all. Even having too much water in the resulting mix could greatly reduce its effectiveness. How is your hand, Aveline?"
"It's mostly healed, but there's still a line," she said, unwrapping the bandages around her left hand to show Amanda. There was indeed a thin white line still present where her enhanced healing rate had not gotten to work yet, running all the way across her palm.
"Well, let us see if this works, shall we?" Amanda said, smiling as she picked up a pipette and sucked up a small amount of the refined essence. She dribbled a single minuscule droplet on her daughter's scar, barely half the size of a small pea. The scar immediately started to fade away, vanishing within seconds. "It seems that this experiment is a success, wouldn't you agree?"
"M-hm!" Aveline replied happily. She flexed her fingers and poked at where the scar was. "It doesn't even itch, like when Madam Pomfrey had to fix up my fingers after an accident in Potions,"
Amanda's face fell. "What accident? You never told me of an accident in Potions!?"
"I—uh...I might have accidentally cut myself using a knife while cutting herbs. It was so blunt that I couldn't cut the monkshood root. I—err-kind of had to put force into it," Aveline said sheepishly. "It was a small cut. Honest!"
Amanda made a mental note to herself to give her girls – and probably their closest friends – a set of sharp scalpels each. A dull knife used to prepare potion ingredients? Not on her watch!
A/N:
Thus begins a new chapter in potioncrafting! The three girls have obtained illegal traceless wands to allow them to practice magic at home, negating the advantage that pure-blood and half-blood students have over their muggleborn peers (if they were of an academic enough bent to study through holidays). Gifts purchased for their friends, and ready to tackle a new term in Hogwarts!
NecroJake: Potentially second year for interfering with canon. First year is still mostly Harry; they still have no reason to follow him as such, and Hermione in this story has not made up with Ron. Depending on the topic being tackled, we might be seeing things from Zoe's, Orianna's, or Aveline's perspectives; it really depends on what angle needs to be shown. As for Harry's home life, probably after they see some hard evidence of Dursleys' abuse; but even that would likely trigger a certain old goat's interference.
Dragon Man 180: Yeah, the thing is that Harry's not exactly a 'friend' per se. More like an acquaintance of Zoe's, and Aveline is just so soft-hearted that she would let anyone that looks like a kicked puppy hang around her. Add the fact that Hermione's actually their friend and she hates Ron (who always hangs around Harry), and it's going to be very difficult for Harry to even stick around them. At least until Ron gets kicked away or makes up with Hermione. As for why they should care about Malfoy says, it's just as Lord Greengrass hints. Malfoy Senior is very well connected and can make their lives extremely difficult, especially as they are both muggleborn and not very well off.
Edit 1 (27/10/17): Fixed a typo where Aveline's wand was described as 18 feet instead of 18 inches. "Swish and flick!" *demolishes classroom*