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[alt_sirius]

Weasleys: How are you all? Poppy said she brought your potion yesterday, Bill. Courage, mate. We'll be a little busy tonight but come by the garden if you're in the mood for company, you and Charlie. Molly, you'd be welcome, too. Dora'd love to show you all she's done with the place.


Next: As far as that meeting Remus asked us all about, it's going to be a couple of days, at least. Well, more than a couple. Bill's busy tonight, of course, and so are Moony and I, and the weekend's a terrible time to leave Ellie alone at Laszlo's Unlimited.

But it's also going to be a while before Minerva's up to it.

We've been at her New London house since last night - Poppy and Severus and I, that is. They tried to intervene in her drinking for good and all and ... it didn't go as they'd hoped.

So, they've spent the last night using slower methods to purge her system, but in the meantime, they plan to brew what amounts to a highly complex potion, which I gather they've not tried before because it could have disastrous results. I guess we've reached the point where the risk is worth it.

Dora, when you can free Ellie or yourself, we need someone to go round the apothecary's on Camden Road. The one near Holloway? I'm reasonably certain they'll have the ingredients our shop hasn't got. I've got a list I can give you. (If buying them doesn't work, then Poppy might have to try to sweet-talk Horace into fetching the items from the Potioneers' Guild and we'd really rather not have to go that route.)

Anyway. With all that in mind, I propose postponing our gathering until after the 1^st. Other than that I'm not fussed about the date, so if anyone else has a preference, let's hear it. (Hermione, that includes you, kiddo.)

Oh, and if anyone else would care to come take a shift, particularly this evening, I'd be grateful.

Comments

[alt_nymphadora]

Ellie can go straight away if you'll hand that list through the fire.

When you say the potion they're trying could have disastrous results, what do you mean, exactly?

[alt_sirius]

Yeah, it's in the drawing room by the grate. Be right there.

Apparently my brain is far too simple to grasp the intricate details (according to someone) but the potion's one of that class where there's no way to be sure it's been brewed correctly short of taking it. (Presumably that's if it's close within a certain margin. I'm sure there are ways to brew it so horribly wrong that anyone would know it's not correct. But I didn't offer that option.) Anyway, the point is that if they're off even by a hair, it not only won't be effective it could have lethal consequences. So you see why Poppy's been resistant to the idea.

[alt_nymphadora]

So does that mean-

I think I'd best go for those ingredients myself. I'll make as sure as I'm able they're selling me the best they've got and not passing off near-substitutes.

Ask Poppy if there's anything I need to be especially careful of?

[alt_sirius]

You're asking me to wade into a professional debate, you know. I think watching Poppy and Snape row over who's better equipped to brew this would be comical, if the stakes weren't so high.

As it happened, his highness the repugnant prince insisted on answering. Says the myrrh resin's got to be as pure as possible, no additives, oils, perfumes or thickeners, no enhancement of any kind. If the saleswitch claims it's 'extra strength' or anything like that, probably not what we need.

The calamus must come from the Himalayas, Mongolia, or Central Siberia (which I think I already noted on the shopping list but twice told, etc.) and the cardamom we had was 'all wrong' according to his nibs. It's Indian. The strain he wants (needs?) comes from Bhutan or Nepal. In fact, it's black cardamom he really wants, not the other kind. That means the black or brown pods, not the green ones. (Amomum if you need to be technical about it. Sorry but he keeps shouting new information at me, which if he'd told Aleks probably would have saved us all a lot of - hang on.)

[alt_sirius]

Right.

Oh, and. Probably goes without saying, love, but being this precise in what you're trying to get might point to what we're trying to make. So you might want to think of a story, should the shop ask loads of questions about why it's so specific.

And maybe when you get back you could stay for a bit and I'll go back and take a break. Mordred, if sitting on Ridley wasn't half this frustrating I don't know how Kingsley and the others managed it.

[alt_nymphadora]

Right. Got my instructions.

I'll come there straight away. And, yes, of course, you may go home. I'll stay.

[alt_severus]

Black, that you remain incapable of retaining even the smallest bit of information for more than five minutes shall never cease to amaze me.

'Cardamom' are two distinct genera of plant, Elettaria and Amomum. They are both used in cooking, but only one can be used in this preparation. Miss Tonks, it may be called 'black cardamom', 'red cardamom', or 'Siamese cardamom'. The myrrh must be pure resin, unadulterated and untreated; the descriptor used to be 'ingestable' but in the past several years has started to become 'brewable'; if the price is less than three times the 'unguent' preparation it is not suitable.

The calamus must be Acorus calamus and not Acorus americanus; the easiest way to ensure this is, as Black already noted, to source it from the Himalayas, Mongolia, or central Siberia.

Those are the only three ingredients that must be sourced so exactingly, but the remaining ingredients on the list do of course need to be natural and not transfigured or adulterated.

If you are questioned about the potion it will be used in, you may say you are assisting a friend who is uncertain about the paternity of her child or that a customer believes he or she has been reunited with a long-lost parent and is attempting to brew a potion to confirm: all these ingredients are also used in ancestry potions.