Double, Double, Toil, and Trouble

Ruby was an adventurous little girl and was always looking for a bit of fun. Once she saw this shop, she instantly became attached. She just had to go in! She looked at her parents, who gave an approving nod. "Yes!" She clapped and then ran into the shop. The sight of the shop made her smile. This was great! There were so many cool things to catch out. She had never seen anything like this before and her eyes were wide with wonder.

She ran up to a blue liquid that was in a glass bottle. "What does this do!?" She said to anyone willing to listen to her. "I wonder what it does," she said to herself. "Maybe it turns people invisible! Or it makes tongues swell! Or gives you giant feet!" There were so many possibilities.

Danielle entered the odd-looking shop, amused by all the various oddities located within. She examined the shop's patrons and saw that many of them were Beauxbatons students. She saw Ruby, the girl she'd met in the pub, running around with a bottle of mysterious blue liquid and asking anyone who would listen what it might be. Danielle laughed at her enthusiasm. She approached her and, smiling, asked, "Has anyone ever mentioned to you how excitable you are?" She examined the bottle Ruby was holding. "What is that stuff, anyway? Any idea what it does?"

"Oh, hi!" She looked from her friend to the blue liquid then back to her friend. "I'm not sure what this is but whatever it is, I hope its interesting." There were so many possibilities to what the strange liquid might be. "It could be anything, I'm not entirely sure what it does or what it is. Maybe we should ask someone." Ruby was talking a mile an hour and had to take a deep breath after she finished speaking. "Wouldn't it be so cool if it was like a love potion or something! It would be funny to make people fall in love! But then we'd need an antidote to fix the people that were effected by the potion cause it would be SUPER mean if we just left them like that. Unless they actually liked each other then we'd be doing them a favor. But people should fall in love naturally instead of taking a potion, don't you think?" She had to take another deep breath because of the lack of oxygen that came from talking so much.

Danielle laughed. Ruby was without question the most talkative person she'd ever met. "Where'd you find that?" she asked. She went and got a bottle of the stuff off the shelf and went to buy it. She paid for it and walked back over to Ruby, grinning. "I guess there's only one way to find out what it does," she said, unstoppering the bottle and holding it up to her mouth to drink it.

"Wait! Don't do that! You could get sick or something!" She lowered the bottle from the other girl's lips. "Never drink things that you don't know what they are! We should ask someone instead. Then if its safe then you can drink it." She grabbed the girl's arm and dragged her over to a worker. "Excuse me, sir. But what is this liquid?" She pointed to the bottle in her hands. "And is it safe to drink?"

"That's age in a bottle," replied the worker. "Its safe to drink and it lasts for about an hour. Instead of making the potion, which takes time, we already have it ready for customers." Ruby thanked the man and then turned to her friend. "Okay, now you can drink it!"

She smiled and chugged the whole potion. When she took the bottle away from her lips, she was several inches taller, and had the body of a woman in her late twenties. She pulled a mirror out of her pocket and glanced at it. "Whoa..." She went back to the shelf where she'd found the potion and returned to the counter with about five more bottles of the stuff. She pulled several Galleons out of her pocket and paid for them. She handed one of the bottles to Ruby and got the rest in a bag. "Try it," she dared Ruby.

Ruby wasn't sure about the potion but she didn't want to seem like a wimp. "Okay, lets do this." She popped open the bottle and chugged the liquid. She could feel her body changing, she was becoming taller and her chest felt heavy. "I'm like twenty something now!" Her voice came out smoother and it sounded weird to her. "This is weird!" She laughed. "I guess we're gonna stay like this for an hour." She giggled. "We need to try out some more stuff."

She wanted to find a love potion and play around with it. "We should see if they have a love potion and an antidote! We could totally mess with people with it!"

Danielle laughed. "Great idea." They asked the shopkeeper where they might find some, and he pointed to a shelf in a corner of the store lined with pink potions in glass bottles. The girls--or rather, women--walked over to the display. Danielle grabbed as many bottles as she could carry and brought them to the counter. She knew impulse-buying was a bad habit of hers, but once she started spending, she just couldn't stop. She paid for the potions and waited for Ruby to do the same.

Ruby grabbed three bottles and went over to pay for them. After buying them. she swore to save her money on things she needed. "Okay, so do you want to try this on someone? I'm not drinking it, I'm too young to be in love." She scanned the shop for someone that would be the perfect person to try the potion on. "I'm sure someone will understand that we're just doing this for an experiment and will agree to drinking the potion."

She spotted a guy, who was alone, across the shop. "Be right back." She walked up to eh boy and started talking to him. Once finished, she handed him a bottle and then went back over to her friend. "He agreed." Now it was time for things to happen.

The boy drank the potion then looked over at Ruby. He seemed to be staring at her like a love sick puppy. "Okay, maybe this was a bad idea. Did we even get an antidote?!"

Danielle's eyes widened. "I don't think so." She approached the counter and asked the shopkeeper if they stocked antidotes. She walked back over to Ruby. "Well, this is bad." She looked over at the boy to whom Ruby had given the potion. "They don't stock antidotes," she said worriedly. "What are we gonna do? We're first years; we don't know how to make love potion antidotes! God, how could we be so stupid? Should we maybe go talk to him? Would that work?"

"Love potions are dangerous," Ruby replied. "If they don't sell the antidote then he's stuck like that! Unless its only temporary, but who knows how long the potion will last! The guy might be in love with me forever! And I'm only eleven!" She went over to the cashier and asked him if the potion was temporary. "Phew," she said to her friend. "It only lats for thirty minutes." This was great news! Some guy wasn't going to be in love with her! "Okay, no more potions." She wasn't about to mess with anything else unless she needed it for school.

Danielle checked her pockets. "Damn," she muttered. "I spent half my money. Now all I'll be able to afford are my wand and spellbooks." She pulled out the remaining coins and sighed. "Well, where to next?" she asked Ruby. "Wand shopping?" She began heading for the shop door. "Or did you want to stay here for a while?" She chuckled at the boy who was still staring stupidly at Ruby.

"I need my wand," Ruby stated. "Maybe we should wait for the age potion to wear off before we go anywhere so no one thinks we're older than we actually are." She didn't want to get mistaken for an older person, she was only eleven after all and she liked it that way. She checked her money, she had enough for her books, wand, and whatever else she needed. She was all set and didn't have to worry about a thing.

She wasn't sure where she wanted to go next. "Oh yeah! I have to get my robes fitted next. I told my parents I'd do that right away. Then I need my wand and then my books. I also want a pet." Her main focus was now on the pet and maybe she'd get that before she got her robes.