XV. Fear
Hannah and Barbara sat together at the same table brewing a specific potion. The table was littered with flasks, a couple of Bunsen burners and a myriad of dry and 'wet' ingredients. They were mad that Diana wasn't in their group, she was paired up with Akko.
"I hope Akko doesn't hold Diana back. The plan was for her to increase her magical abilities. Not babysit. " Barbara said looking over at the pair.
Hannah followed suit narrowing her eyes at Akko.
"Yeah, but between you and me, it's probably for the safety of us all. Diana's the only one who could probably reign Akko in so nothing explodes or catches fire."
After adding grounded up goat's eye and troll's skin to the cauldron the witches turned on the burner and took turns stirring.
Diana looked over at them and then back at Akko. Bless her heart, Akko was pretty terrible at this. Their goal was to make a simple alteration potion. They had been studying this all week but Akko was clueless.
"Okay how about quail's egg, brownie dust and this red gloopy stuff? That sounds right! Let's try it." Akko said with enthusiasm.
Diana signed with relief Akko had picked at least one thing that could be used. Brownie dust would factor toward a nice alteration potion. Specifically a copper to silver or a silver to gold one. But which to choose. Diana had to admit it was hard to think with her crush blabbering on about things. But God, it was so cute.
"We'll use the brownie dust. Now hand me the centaur hair and lynx oil." Diana said as she added the dust to the calderon.
Akko pouted and scrunched up her face. "Aww but want about the red stuff that looks more fun! Sucy used it yesterday and her potion turned ultramarine. It was so cool!"
Diana giggled Akko was just awed by the smallest things. "Akko, that was probably of some sort of poison. A higher caliber one if it turned a darker shade." Diana explained as she adjusted the burner.
Akko scooted closer to Diana, their arms touching.
"How do you know that? Sucy isn't always that mischievous." Akko said staring right into Diana's eyes. Her chocolate brown eyes made Diana blush. God, Akko was just so endearing with that innocent look in her eyes.
"Because Sucy or not the laws of alchemy still hold fast. The "red gloopy stuff" is the amber of a Woodworm tree, it's toxic to humans." Diana explained as Akko handed her a flask of lynx oil and centaur hair in a bowl.
Akko looked down toward the table as Diana mixed the ingredients. Diana looked over at Akko's face and sombered up. Had she done something wrong? She needed to remind herself not to be so harsh with Akko.
"I'm sorry if my tone sounded harsh. I didn't mean it to be so abrasive." Diana said ruefully.
"No, it's not you! You didn't do anything wrong." Akko said gripping Diana's free hand. "Yesterday I got Sucy to make me a potion for you and she put some the Wormwood amber in it. I didn't know at the time but I guess it's ruined." Akko said producing a small vial of light blue liquid.
Diana took the vial and held it up to the light. There were traces of sparkling compound in the potion that caught the light. Diana then looked Akko who was uncertain.
"Sucy said that it makes objects come to life, but I guess she was lying. I'm sorry." Akko said dejected.
Diana grabbed her pencil from the other side of the table, opening up the vial she poured a couple of drops on the pencil.
Within moments the pencil grew stick legs, arms and a smiling face. It leaped up off the table and started to dance joyfully. The pencil throughout it's dance started to spell out a message onto the table. Diana watched with wonder as Akko's face lit up.
The pencil finished it's message and posed happily for Diana.
I Love You Diana! You are the best witch at Luna Nova and beyond. You light up my life and I'm so happy that you are my girlfriend! ❤️
Diana blushed and smiled. The pencil then flung confetti from seemingly out of nowhere and jumped up in the air, landing flat on the table. It's limbs and face disappeared, it was a normal pencil again.
Akko giggled. "Did you like it? I asked Sucy to brew something that would make you smile. I never get to see you smile, except at the ball and that sucks! You have the best smile ever and I want to see it more. So get ready!" Akko smiled and hugged Diana tightly.
Diana smiled. This reminded her that for all the chaos Akko caused she really did care about Diana.
How could she forget that?
"Thank you Akko. I… I've been really hard on myself lately and your positivity helps." Diana said.
Akko gave her a big toothy grin and looked at the caldaron. "Hey it looks done! We did it Diana!"
Diana looked over, the potion was indeed ready with a pure yellow color and a characteristic Halo of light yellow light surrounding. Diana smirked and nodded at Akko who scooped up a cup full to turn into the professor.
"Wow! We really had the right stuff for this one! Sorry for all the confusion starting out, I guess I was afraid of messing up." Akko admitted bashfully.
An idea started to grow in Diana's mind. What if she found some form of magic that would make Aunt Daryl fear her? Maybe with a potion or spell. Yes, a spell that would scare her Aunt into giving up on this whole conversion therapy. It was so crazy it might just work. Diana would have to extend her abilities in illusion magic to make it happen.
"Diana. Diana." Akko called. Diana whipped around and saw Akko in line with all the other pairs of lab partners.
"Come on! We have to turn in our potion." Akko said waving Diana over.
Diana got up and stuffed the Akko's potion into her pocket.
Later that night Diana found herself in the library flipping through another page of a spellbook. She had been burying her face in several tomes focusing on illusion spells.
It was nice to actually be able to pursue this, she had spent the entire day learning about the boring run-of-the-mill magic. Now she was attempting through sheer willpower to ascend to a higher level of illusion skill.
It was late almost 10 at night and Diana had been here for 3 hours. She had taught herself a little but she could feel her brain slowing down with fatigue. She knew there had to be a spell that would send her Aunt packing. A fear spell or an illusion of her worse nightmare, that had to be it. She just had to find the right one. But what was Aunt Daryl afraid of anyway?
Diana paused watching, a shimmering green orb that she had conjured up from a previous spell. She had never thought about that. Was she afraid of losing face? She seemed to talk about that a lot. How she was supposed to act like a Cavendish. Diana looked at all of the open books on the table and decided that instead of allowing herself to be overwhelmed by the complications of spells and hexes to look at the problem a different way. What if she didn't need magic to beat her Aunt? If Daryl could predict what her approach would be, then she needed to adopt a strategy that was un-Diana like. Something unpredictable.
Diana cleaned up her books and decided to check out two of them. As she was exiting the library, she overheard a conversation, it drifted from one of the big tables. Diana ducked behind in an alise of books and listened in.
"Yeah I heard it from Lena. I'm pretty sure she's right." Said one student.
"No. I mean come on it's Diana. I don't know." Said a student with a higher voice.
"Okay hear me out. She's pretty, talented and smart but she doesn't have a boyfriend. She only hangs out with girls and she lords over everyone all the time. She's obviously hiding something." Said the first student.
"But does that really mean she's a lesbian?" Said the second student.
Diana felt herself getting red with anger but she kept listening.
"She showed up to the ball in a suit! A suit and no guy. She's gay. She could have any guy she wanted, but she chose to dance with Akko."
"Okay, I'm starting to see your point. I mean I guess that's not a bad thing. She just denies it all the time."
"See! See! She's trying to cover it up. God! I wish she would just admit it already."
Diana heard enough and started to walk away. Shit. Was it really that obvious? It was. Damn it. God this was so going to reach Aunt Daryl.
"So is she a top or a bottom?"
Diana blushed and walked faster to the front desk to check out.
"I think she's a top and Hannah and Barbara both have crushes on her."
Jesus, Diana thought, some people had terrifying imaginations.
"No. I think that Hannah and Barbara are a thing."
Good grief, Diana thought tuning out the rest of the conversation.