Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl. Chapter Two: Beginning Potions

DISCLAIMER: Daria is the creation of Glen Eichler and is the property of MTV Viacom. Harry Potter is the creation of JK Rowling and is the property of JK Rowling, Warner Brothers, and Wizarding World. I own neither franchise, nor do I expect or deserve any financial compensation for this work of fiction. I am writing for my own amusement and ego gratification, not for financial remuneration.

Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl* Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl* Daria Ravenclaw: The Year of the Owl

Daria joined her first potion-making class a week later. It was held at Mrs. Ocampo's, but not in her home. Instead it was held in a building behind it. Daria, along with several other young witches and wizards, walked through the door and found themselves inside a room that looked like a cross between a very big kitchen and a high school science laboratory. There were two long benches work tables with four small cauldrons set next to ring stands and burners opposite a smaller work table with another cauldron and ring stand and a black-board behind it.

"Welcome," said Mrs. Ocampo. "I'm Marta Ocampo. I'll be teaching this class." Mrs. Ocampo was an older lady, a little heavy, but not too much, about medium height with gray hair tied up in a bun. She wore glasses, which made Daria happy. She didn't dress the way Daria thought witches would dress; instead, she wore s long-sleeved blouse and dark, loose pants.

"Before we get started, I want to find out how much you know," she said.

"Let's begin with some questions," said Mrs. Ocampo. "How many of you have any experience with potion-making? Raise your hands if you have." The Aldrete sisters' hands went up; Daria's, Raven's, Joe Don's, Ramon's, and Crystal's stayed down.

"Now, how many of you have any experience with cooking?" asked Mrs. Ocampo. The Aldrete sisters' hands went up, as did Raven's and Crystal's. Daria's, Ramon's, and Joe Don's stayed down.

"I see," she said. She frowned.

"Well, I see we're going to have to start at the beginning. We'll start by naming tools."

Connie Aldrete raised her hand and said "Maestra?" She then said something in Spanish that Daria didn't catch. Mrs. Ocampo responded in Spanish, Connie pouted, and then sat down.

"I told Connie that since most of you children are English-speakers and because most of you are beginners, this class will mostly be taught in English," she said.

Despite Mrs. Ocampo's reassurance, Daria began to feel nervous.

The first part of Daria's first day of potion class was spent first being shown the tools most commonly used for potion-making: cauldron, scales, mortars and pestles, knives, and other tools. Mrs. Ocampo also gave them a list of their Spanish names. Mrs. Ocampo strongly urged each child to buy their own small cauldron and that they buy their own mortars, pestles and cutlery. She recommended granite mortars and pestles for home use. She also recommended that they buy their own scales.

She then instructed them in proper lab procedures: having tidy work areas, keeping clear spaces to sort and store potion-making ingredients, the need to keep their tools and cauldrons clean between use as well as having someplace to keep their instructions. She told them that the smartest thing was to copy down the instructions on paper, then make a check list.

Mrs. Ocampo was also a believer in using burners fired by propane or natural gas. "Those Hollywood movies where those actresses are always stirring those steaming cauldrons are ridiculous!" she said. During the course of Mrs. Ocampo's brief rant, Daria learned that many potions were ruined by dirt and cinders before most wizards and witches first shifted over to charcoal, then eventually to burners fired by natural gas or other fuels..

Daria spent the next part of her first class learning how to prepare ingredients to go into actual potions. Mrs. Ocampo had them grind, chop, or crush substitutes instead of actual ingredients. "You guys first need to know how to prepare your ingredients first," she said. "Then we can make some potions."

Daria's second class was spent slicing, chopping, dicing, crushing, weighing, and measuring. By the end of class, it was clear that the Crazy Twins were well ahead of everybody else. Mrs. Ocampo set them to work on their own potion project to one side. The Aldrete sisters would be brewing real potions and Daria, much to her surprise, found that she was jealous. Both Connie and Sarita saw her glaring at them and smirked.

By the end of the third class, Daria felt that she was ready to take on a real potion. She'd been chopping herbs. Mrs. Ocampo looked at her handiwork and told her not yet, but next time she and her classmates would be able to add their ingredients to a large potion she'd be brewing up front. There were times when Daria thought that this class pace was Mickey Mouse: she was ready to move on to the big time.

During the fourth class, the whole class participated in making a potion in a large cauldron that Mrs. Ocampo had set up front. Not that they did the actual brewing: instead, they'd all participated by chopping and preparing the ingredients. Daria had been partnered with Joe Don Bollard. Joe Don was a careless worker content to slide by with a little bit of dicing; Daria had had to bully him to get him to chop the herbs fine enough. But they'd done it, and they'd managed to get sixteen ounces of dried sage and oleander ready to go. Daria checked the weight, then dropped the contents into a paper box and marked it with a number 3 using an ordinary ink marker. Mrs. Ocampo glanced at it, nodded approvingly, and rewarded both of them with a smile. It was a good feeling.

It felt even better when Mrs. Ocampo got started. The children gathered around the cauldron as close as Mrs. Ocampo would let them and watched as she slowly led them through the steps she was taking to brew the class project: in this case a potion for healthy skin. At the end of it, she'd brewed into a pleasant-smelling liquid that she'd left to cool to one side. Despite the fact that she wasn't a fan of beauty products, Daria couldn't help but look at the cauldron's cooling contents and think "Eat your heart out,
Quinn!".

-((O-O)))—

Daria didn't brew her first potion until her fifth lesson. Mrs. Ocampo had divided them up into pairs; she was working with Raven. Daria and Raven had both had a long day; Daria had been working on her schoolwork while Raven had been helping her older sister cook dinner before class. Both girls looked at each other and came to the same conclusion: this potion looked easy enough so they could just follow the instructions on Mrs. Ocampo's blackboard. They gathered the ingredients, both girls readied them for brewing, then Raven added them to the cauldron. Daria started stirring once, twice, three times like she was supposed to, but the potion congealed to the thickness of thick paint, then turned rancid.

Damn, she thought.

Both girls stood there and looked at the contents. This wasn't supposed to happen.

Mrs. Ocampo saw that the girls had stopped work and came by to see what their problem. She looked at the cauldron, looked at the contents, and shook her head. She pulled out her wand and said "Evascio!" and its contents disappeared.

"OK, girls, what happened?" she said.

"I think we rushed it," said Daria. "I'd had a long day, we thought we could wing it, so we just copied from the blackboard and went at it."

Mrs. Ocampo shook her head in disapproval. She'd told both girls, she'd told her class, that they shouldn't rush their work. Daria looked like she knew why she'd ruined her potion.

"Miss Raven?" she said.

"Yeah, we were rushing, ma'am," Raven replied.

"All right, ladies, why don't you go up to the blackboard and write down the instructions?" said Mrs. Ocampo.

"But we messed up," said Raven.

"Yes, you did mess up," Mrs. Ocampo replied. "But if you find out just how and where you messed up, you've got less of a chance of repeating your mistake."

"Oh," said Raven. She hadn't thought of that. When she messed up at home or at school, nobody ever pointed out just where she'd screwed up: she was supposed to know as soon as she screwed up, and if she didn't know just how she'd screwed up, nobody ever bothered to tell her. That was part of the punishment.

Mrs. Ocampo turned away to see how the other kids were doing. Sarita had been paired with Joe Don and had taken the lead on her team. Daria had just enough time to guess that Sarita had plumbed her depths and found her inner bully. Joe Don looked cowed but pliable. Sarita's approach looked like it was working: their potion looked like it was on track.

Daria went up to the blackboard and started writing down the ingredients, their quantities, and the directions for brewing their failed potion. She reviewed what she and Raven had done and found where they'd gone off the rails—Daria had added ground cricket legs before stirring three times instead of adding them afterwards, and to make matters worse, she'd stirred clockwise when the directions said counter-clockwise.

She was the one who'd screwed up. It was not a comfortable feeling. She looked at Raven and blushed. "I think I found where we went off the rails," she said. "I was the one who messed up."

Raven rewarded her with a frown.

"Here," said Daria, "let me show you where."