Sellaphix Apothecary, Knockturn Alley
Friday, shortly after 1pm


There was the tingle of a shop bell as Ligeia entered the establishment, closing her parasol as black as her elegant dress as Buzzard rustled on her shoulder. She scratched the fine feathers under his chin. "They'll be a bag of newt eyes for you later, don't go eating out of the trough too soon!" The minute eyeballs were like caviar for vultures.

She had been window shopping along Knockturn before slipping into her favorite place to buy potion ingredients in years past. She inhaled deeply: a musk of dried pulverized powders, thick in the air to force each breath a to come as a choke, the rotting of plants in the bottom of bins and animal parts pickled in sour solutions, worse than drinking vinegar, the spores of fungal growth and mold that could be merchandise or a sign for interior renovations, a dank stale mustiness.

Such a fine aroma! Ligeia wanted to take some home in a bag to use as an air fresher.

"Dear Figaro!" Ligeia greeted, the Hufflepuff in her year a consistent presence to the apothecary. "Fine to see the place in business again."

Figaro Sellaphix was dozing at the far end of the shop, elbow propping up face lest it should fall onto the high countertop framed in iron spandreling.  He was wearing a smock as he'd been ordered too.  The jingle of the door woke him up and he was just raising his head and opening his eyes when Ligeia greeted him.

Ligeia Canterbury, a girl in his year who was stark white and always dressed in black.  He wasn't so excited to be here as Ligeia was to see him there, but just the same, they had a customer.  Business was slow.  Too slow.  Zelda Sellaphix, his mother, was upstairs in the office cooking the books, toiling as she did daily to find a way to keep the business open and afloat now that Rafe, Figaro's dad, was in Azkaban.

"Yea," he said with a shrug.  It seemed like it was in business, but in name only.  Either way though, he was stuck working.  He stretched and yawned and then suddenly noticed the giant bird on her shoulder.  He'd thought it was an owl.

"Holy -!  Shite, Ligeia, do you have to bring that in here?  It eats things. And bites." 

---

wearing

A lofty chuckle at Figaro's overreaction, hidden ladylike behind a gloved hand. "Of course Buzzard eats things, we all must at one point or another. But he wouldn't harm a fly. He doesn't eat them, but if he did it would be a quick snap of the beak and a painless death. No teasing by ripping out the wings or legs." That reminded her to double check the price of Lacewing Flies, although it wasn't on her shopping list.

In demonstration, Ligeia removed a glove and coaxed buzzard with a pale finger. The vulture grabbed the finger in his sharp beak. "See? Only a playful nip," she smiled, as Buzzard's "playful nip" just about drew blood as finger and beak parted.

"Have you been having a marvelous summer?"

Figaro was not at all convinced of the bird's safety features as demonstrated by Ligeia and looked on with obvious skepticism before Ligeia prompted some polite small-talk.  He leaned on the tall counter, resting his elbows on the worn wooden surface, and laced his fingers together. 

He said, "Truly adventurous," but mimed cursing himself in the temple with an imaginary wand.  "Stuck here.   Got decent O.W.L.s though, which is why I'm still alive.  Trolled Herbology and History, which is why I'm not in Egypt." 

He sounded more complainy than the usually cheerful, robust Figaro most of his classmates knew.  But then, they'd never seen him so under the thumb of a mother who was nearly strung to bits with stress and importance.  Inside, Figaro was glad for the company, even if it was as strange as Ligeia Canterbury.

"Who'd you fare, Ravenpants MacSmarty? Fat stack of O's?"

"Trolled Herbology? I would have thought your family's business would have given you an advantage. Or do you only get the plants after they've been picked, cut and dried?"

"I might have gone on the Egypt trip," Ligeia said, hands rested on the closed parasol, point down. "It would have been altogether too much sun for me, though. After a month of dessert sun you'd probably find me a poached egg, burnt until the skin is peeling and I flake away in the wash. But I would rather finish school first. Thought Papa Argyle's collected numerous treasures bought from Egypt. We have a two-headed five-armed skeleton on display in the den."

"Who'd you fare, Ravenpants MacSmarty? Fat stack of O's?"

"Only half a sack," Ligeia said. History of Magic, Potions, Care of Magical Creatures, Charms and Defense had been Outstandings; Astronomy, Divination, Herbology and Transfiguration Exceeded Expectations. "I nearly thought I would do Poorly on Herbology and Transfiguration. The examiner said I was bit overzealous with the pruning, and when I transfigured a boar into a simple puzzle box decorated with bones skulls and gargoyles," she still hadn't figured out why everyone in the hall had flinched when they saw it happen, "another examiner fell out of his chair. Do you think if an examiner had a heart attack you wouldn't actually get your grade at all?"

"Well, if you were to be stuck anyone this is a marvelous place to do so. You have a lovely stench of decay here," Ligeia said sweetly, "and at least you have work you're good at. I'm still not sure about a career at all."

There was something about listening to Ligeia that was abjectly depressing, except for how much joy their was behind her tightly knitted sentences.  Figaro found himself both, as we said, on the verge of depression, but entertained at the spectacle of the girl.  After five years in classes, the idea that she was putting on had to be dispelled just based on the sheer pervasiveness of the persona.  This is just the way Ligeia was, apparently.

"This is not my career," Figaro said, a little annoyed.  "And I'm not good at it."

Ligeia seemed to share the same expectations as many people.  That since his family owned this shop that he should have a) taken to the studies behind it with glee and talent and b) that he would one day continue on with the whole business.  He was kind of tired of denying it.  He worked in the shop as little as possible, and the fact that he was expected to do it make doing it all the more not-fun and in being not-fun the chances of him enjoying the study were quite slim.

Thus the failing marks in Herbology.

He sighed.  "I don't know what I want to do yet either, but not this."  He glanced upwards, not to heaven, but to where his mother was a floor above in a closed office.  Both she and his dad seemed to pretend he'd eventually come around and get with the family program.  Figaro was counting on his little brother Frank.

"Did you not have any luck with Career Counselling either? Who'd you get?"  Figaro had got Professor Reid and it had been kind of a hilarious disaster. But it probably was the reason he didn't fail more than two classes. [1]

1.	We didn't have Heads of Houses doing them exclusively.  D is for Dreadful

"This is not my career and I'm not good at it. I don't know what I want to do yet either, but not this."

Ligeia shrugged, mind easily turned over at Figaro's response. "Just a thought that there might be an advantage but it does not always appear. Nobody expects me to enter the Wizengamot because that was Papa Argyle does. Sitting in court day in and out must be drearily boring. And to verify verisimilitude I think he's gotten tired of it too, so he throws in the loony vote on occasion. Well what else excites you, boils your blood and prods your passions?" Figaro, one of those boys that opened his mouth first before speaking, didn't seem like the indecisive type in that respect.

She smiled at his question. "Since I couldn't figure anything out I decided to ask Dear Professor Cosmos to peer into my future." Ligeia was surprised that more people didn't contact their local diviner for advice about the future. Although for Professor Cosmos it was more about finding the pattern than outright prophetic vision. "Although she didn't give me a singular answer. She suggested I might do well with the Ministry's Department of Ministries, or a magizoology clinic if I didn't want a government job. Dear Uncle Griffon could help me find something, not that I would want to work under him." Griffon Manley and Ligeia Canterbury were, in an odd way, siblings but despite the shared interest in creatures they were so different in lifestyles that the "Uncle" story was much more believable.

"She also suggested healing," Ligeia said after a pause. "I only just started volunteering at St. Mungo's. I'm not sure on the first impression."

Upstairs a door creaked open and after a few footsteps, Zelda Sellaphix appeared over the ironwork balcony to look down into the nearly empty shop.  From the balcony, she couldn't see Figaro underneath at the counter, but she could see Ligeia Canterbury and her buzzard.

"Figaro, are you helping this customer?

Figaro rolled his eyes where his mother couldn't see and called up, "Yea, I'm helping.  She wants ..." he shrugged and made a look at Ligeia, "...dragon liver."

"It's with the offal[1] where it always is.  Be speedy." Then, to Miss Canterbury, "Thank you for coming to Sellaphix, dear."  She smiled and then disappeared again.

"See what I mean?" he said with a wry look.

He came out from behind the counter and slowly wandered past Ligeia along some barrels, under a rack of hanging dried herbs.  "I really dunno.  Everything seems like such a bore.  Kind of want to play in a band or something, but I don't really practice enough."

It was a common enough dream for a teenage boy, but Fig knew his limitations.  He loved music tons, but never really put his mind to it.  He never really bent his will towards anything.  If he was honest with himself, he wasn't sure what all he was really good at.

"I like Care of Magical Creatures even though O Morain was kind of a shit.  Animals were pretty cool, like the hippogryffs.  Wish we'd got to ride one.  What did you want, anyway?"

 

1.	Ew...! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offal

"Good day, Mrs. Sellaphix," Ligeia greeted as Zelda Sellaphix appeared briefly to see how her son was working.

"See what I mean?" Fig said when his mother disappeared.

"If she wanted you any more speedy she would feed you coffee and prunes." Ligeia was off the cuff on this last comment. She'd never had a situation where it was expected she do something quickly.

"Consistency helps with practice. I'm at the organ or harpsichord most every day. But if you wanted to be in a band, didn't you hear Envy and her friend were looking for more players?"

"What did you want, anyway?"

"Oh, I do have a list." Ligeia extracted it from somewhere. "Although dragon liver and offal sound tempting, sadly this isn't a grocery list. Potions ingredients!" She read down then entries before giving the list to Figaro. "Ginger Roots, Armadillo Bile, Ground Scarab Beetles, Wormwood, Asphodel, Valerian Roots -note a double portion on that-, Sloth Brain, Sopophorous Beans, Moonstone, Hellebore Syrup, Porcupine Quills, and Unicorn Horn. Buying in bulk." After handing Figaro the list, with the desired quantities written in another column, she added, "And dish up a potpourri of different sized eyeballs for Buzzard, there will be an extra tip!"

Minus the extras, those were the components of Wit Sharpening Solution, Draught of the Living Death, and the Draught of Peace. Ligeia wondered if Figaro would recognize that from just the ingredients alone, although for how it sounded his Herbology score must have been his Potions score could not have been much better.

FIgaro snickered at Ligeia's comment about prunes.  He'd frowned and made no comment about anything concerning Envy Katakura and her equally strange friend.  Chances were very high that they'd have no end of artistic differences...

Instead, he took up the list after Ligeia had read it loud to him.  He was standing near her now, although on the side furthest from the odd bird.  He held the list in one hand, near his check which was emblazoned with the embroidered S of his apron, and he scratched the back of his head idly as he scanned down.   He bit his lip as he took a second to focus on what of this they actually had.

"Good god..." he mumbled at the vastness of the list.  She was stocking up for something big, that's for sure.  "What's all this for?"

He traced his thumb down the list.  "Have to order that..." he said pausing at unicorn horn.  He had to figure she was shopping for her parents or something.  Only the ravenest of Ravenclaws stocked up on reagents for themselves...

Now there stood Figaro, properly gobsmacked. If only the daguerreotype didn't take so long to set up.

"Practice, mostly," Ligeia said with a hand gesture, slicing the list into thirds based on recipe. "I figured having Wit Sharpening Solution on hand would not only help me master the Draught of Peace but also guide me through my first attempt at the Draught of Living Death. It's a difficult potion that may come up in our sixth year. If I can get it to store well, well then, a lady never knows when she might need to use stockpiled resources." A smile that wasn't discerning what the intent of that phrase meant. "Perhaps St. Mungo's would appreciate extra potions. Not so much with near comatose sleep but the Draught of Peace is good for anxiety."

"Although with both of those, one minor slip-up and...I've read about how the wizards of the Catskills in America let a muggle chap sip into the brew, and he didn't wake up for twenty years![1] I suppose that's one way of stopping him from poking around, though imagine the hospital bill if you were comatose for that long. Speaking of, looking forward to the Tournament? I've read up on the old American wizards and muggles so I should be well versed in Salem's ways."

The mention of the wait for unicorn horn did not disturb her. "Nary a problem, I shall be working on the first two potions first. Do I pay you up front or after the horn comes in?"

Buzzard, flexing impatiently on Ligeia's shoulder with the unfulfilled promise of eyeballs, stared down from his perch in such a way as if he was licking his lips. If vultures had lips. Or if his tongue could actually move out of his beak.

1.	Rip Van Wrinkle

Figaro, slowly at first, began meandering around the shop to serve up paper sacks, jars, and wooden coffers of the items on Ligeia's list.  As he did each one, he handed them over to her.  For the most part, he knew where everything was kept in the densly populated, near-cluttered shop.   He scooped from barrels, took herbs down from where they were hanging from the balcony, he rifled through bins, he decanted liquids, ladled goops, and did it all with a bored sort of deftness.  He'd been doing it since he was young, pulling and weighing ingredients and reagents in the proper way.  It was a that sneaky way of learning that an an apprentice does - learning by doing.  And all of a sudden, one is at home in one's craft without even being aware of it.

"Up front," he'd said quickly, his mother's voice in his hear.  "From now on, anything we need to order in needs to be paid for up front.  Can't afford not to, got it?"

Figaro could hardly believe anyone would try to brew such complicated and potent potions for fun, but he shouldn't have been so surprised about Ligeia.  He kind of laughed and shook his head as she rattled on, not sparing a word about how she was delighted to begin and bend her mind to such a challenge, in some preparation for school coming up.

"Tournament's gonna be a riot," he said as he donned a glove he'd use to fetch the porcupine quills.  "Chaos.  Can't wait.  Perfect year for it - no O.W.L.s, no N.E.W.T.s.  We can just sit back and watch the Champions fall all over themselves to impress each other."

He paused and looked at her.  "Wait - you're not going to put in for Champion are you?"  By the look on his face, it was clear Figaro thought it was a crazy-errand.

With each ingredient labeled and portioned, Ligeia began to count up the appropriate amount of coins from her purse. A good way to make it much lighter to carry. "Up front," Fig replied, and she also stacked up the amount for unicorn horn.

"I never thought of it that way. People usually think going to NEWT level makes school much more difficult. But depending on what classes you take you could have plenty of free time." Free time meant to deal with the amount of homework from those classes. And in retrospect Ligeia did not narrow her classes all that much. "I wonder what sorts of Tasks they will come up with. It would be a pity if it matched the last one."

"Wait - you're not going to put in for Champion are you?"

"Me?" said Ligeia, her own face a pale mirror of Figaro's. "I thought you would sign up to try the tournament, actually. Seemed like something you might do. Earn a bit of glory, skip out of a few class periods, show that it takes more than knowledge to make it in the world." Figaro was someone, Ligeia thought, that wanted to prove he could do something useful even more than her own hopes.

But as the suggestion struck her, she pondered it. "I suppose it would be fun. The intrigue of not knowing what doom approaches you...although I'm sure their be extra careful to avoid death. Though if I was to compete," quite honestly, Ligeia did not dress like someone ready to dodge dragons or run through hedgerows of strangling creepers, "I would have to find more flexible outfits. And sunblock that doesn't leave my skin so slippery."

"Yea, that does sound like quite the obstacle..." Figaro agreed not really sure, again, if Ligeia was being serious.  He'd heard she was an actual albino, but then, some also said that was just a euphemism for part vampire.  Yet others said that was utter bollocks and he tended to believe them.  He wondered sometimes what her excuse for being so strange was though.  "I'd be a laugh to take your umbrella into battle," he suggested.

They were slowly but surely working they way through portioning out Ligeia's list.  But at that moment, another customer walked into the shop.  Figaro stopped to watch what he'd do, and when the customer walked straight up to the counter, he handed over the half-measured bag of Sopophorous Beans.  "Just a sec," he told Ligeia, and stepped back over to help the older witch.

Coming round to his side of the counter, he recognized her as a woman who'd come in all the time before they'd had to shut down - an old regular who apparently couldn't be scared off.  She was there to pick up an order, her usual bundle of herbs, tea, and always a single bezoar, the largest in stock.  On the job, Figaro probably looked quite different than his friends saw him at school - he kept mostly quiet and just offered one or two friendly smiles to the customer, and used 'ma'am' plenty of times.  "Yes, ma'am.  We've got it here."  He pulled up her package that was already prepped and wrapped for her from under the counter, and then he slid out the very large tome of a ledger.  Very carefully, he etched in tiny, tight handwriting the transaction where it belonged.  Then after silver and copper changed hands he smiled and she left.

"Sorry," he said returning to Ligeia.  "Here."  He held out his hand to ask for the beans back.

As if nothing had happened, he was eager to return to talking about the Tournament.  "But hell no - no way you're going to catch me putting my name in for all work.  I'd be shit at it, anyway.  All that pressure? Not for me.  I gotta focus on making the Quidditch team."

Figaro had an annual goal to get on his house's quidditch team.  And each year, it never happened.  He wasn't at all bad on a broom, but the lad lacked focus and played fast and loose with the rules.  He just wasn't a reliable player - but always a loyal fan.  He'd even been allowed to play in one of their last matches last year, after most of the team came down with some nasty pox. 

"Oh, my parasol is for more than just decoration," Ligeia said, "It has more features than you realize. Although to call it battle ready..." Her voice trailed off. Perhaps she should give it a tune-up before the fall term.

She had to grin seeing Figaro Sellaphix go about his work with such ease and purpose, a contrast to the sometimes unattentive student always on the edge of trouble. She almost thought Figaro was asking for the beans back, as if that was part of the old woman's order, but he was simply pausing in her order to attend to another customer.

"So focusing on only quidditch then would be less pressure, in comparison? I think you'll have a shot, what with the fresh crop of second years coming in that look interested from what I've seen. But tell me," her smile softer, "what happens to this Figaro I see before me the other nine and a half months of the year?"