IV. POTIONS AND PASSIONS

Hymenea was on her way to the Potions laboratory during the period between classes. Students in groups of two and three passed her without giving her a second glance; the pile of books she held to her chest was an effective shield against unwanted conversation, at least from the typical students her own age. But as she rounded the corner, she glimpsed an individual who wouldn't be put off by such a simple device: Professor Shaghorn, standing outside the main lecture hall, greeting his incoming class--especially the nubile coeds--as they entered. If he saw Hymenea, he would press her for conversation: when would she be able to visit for a "private consultation" on her wand? Hopefully never, Hymenea thought, but she needed to get her plan moving before the password to the Slipperin common room that he had given her changed.

She ducked around the corner of the nearest hall before he saw her; if she went through the hall around the gymnasium she could take the long way to the laboratory without unwanted company.

She didn't bump into the figure lurking against the wall so much as partially pass through it. She jumped back in surprise at the same time as the semi-transparent man whom she recognized as Nearly Blind Barney, one of Hogwallow's many ghosts. "Oh, excuse me . . ." Barney said, squinting as he struggled to recognize ". . . Hymenea."

"No, excuse me, I didn't mean to interrupt," Hymenea answered. "What were you doing?" she asked as she realized they were standing next to the girls' changing room.

"Nothing! Nothing at all!" Barney said hurriedly, scratching the excessive hair that covered his palms. He quickly changed the subject: "What brings you this way? . . . Joining the hot yoga class, perhaps?" His big eyes blinked as he continued rubbing his hairy palms.

"No, no, just heading toward the Potions lab."

"Ah, well, watch out for Lord Meany," Barney warned, referring to a mischievous poltergeist among the Hogwallow ghosts. "He's escaped from his barrel again, and is bound to cause trouble. It's a shame some of my fellow phantoms are so antisocial."

"Yes, quite," Hymenea said. "Well, I'll let you get back to . . . whatever." Barney said his farewells and then merged back into the wall. As Hymenea continued down the hall, she felt the impact of bumping into something unseen and thought she heard a soft grunt. "That sounded like Gary," she thought. Funny how the mind plays tricks when someone's on your mind. She continued until she passed the door to the girls' changing room: just as Barney had predicted, a crowd of young women in tights and leg warmers were heading to the hot yoga class. "I wonder how he knew that?" she thought.

+++

The potions laboratory was empty when she arrived. Professor Crepe didn't have class this hour, and when he wasn't teaching he could reliably be found doing "research" in the Adults Only section of the library or writing morbid poetry in the graveyard (if the weather was sufficiently cloudy). The laboratory was a cavernous cellar with walls of stone, filled with vessels of the most esoteric components, as well as the equipment to heat, chill, mix, separate, distill, and dilute the various potions students were required to make in class. The only natural light came from a row of ground-level windows far above; the rest of the illumination came from candles set into skulls and other macabre bric-a-brac and the glow of the many phosphorescent liquids in jars that filled the shelves. The whole room was suffused with an eerie half-light, like being underwater.

The password Hymenea had gotten from Professor Shaghorn wouldn't be enough to infiltrate the Slipperin common room, she knew. If she and her partners wanted to get in there to confront Vandecamp, they would have to impersonate some of the Slipperin students who were allowed to be there. She already had a few possibilities in mind, but she wouldn't be able to take their place without a little magic. Moving quickly, Hymenea consulted her spell book and found the well-thumbed page with the "Polymorph Self" spell and started gathering the ingredients: chameleon scales, octopus ink, ground doll's eye--all the standard stuff. She usually had supplies like that on hand herself, but why shouldn't Hogwallow shoulder some of the financial burden--this was a school project, wasn't it? She took a few boxes of paper clips and pens while she was at it. The last ingredient was a small snare of silver cord, to capture part of her subject's shadow: now, that was a little rich for her budget. Crepe must keep that kind of thing locked up, she thought, rifling through the various shelves.

She turned to Professor Crepe's desk, a heavy slab of hardwood marked by years of spills and burns. The drawers were locked, so she got to work; like all the professors at Hogwallow, Crepe was too smart to lock up his secrets without magic-proofing the locks, but not smart enough to anticipate a student with a good set of non-magical lock picks.

She had just jimmied open the third drawer, in which she found the coveted spool of silver cord, when she was startled by a rich, velvety voice: "Miss Gunger! May I ask what you are looking for in MY desk!?"

Hymenea's heart nearly stopped: it was Cleverus Crepe himself, aspiring necromancer and the dark master of the potions lab! She hadn't heard him come in at all, much less noticed him standing behind her. "Er, Professor, I--" she haltingly began, her mind spinning to come up with an excuse, but Crepe interrupted her.

"No, don't turn around. As punishment, I have a special assignment for you. DON'T turn around, just do as I say, or it's expulsion for you, my dear." The voice was as smooth and venomous as a cobra; she knew it well, and didn't have to look behind her to imagine the piercing eyes of the teacher to whom it belonged.

"I understand you fancy yourself quite the mistress of magic," Crepe continued. "Shall we test your skills?" He spoke more lightly now, but with an unmistakable undercurrent of malice: "A master of potions must know his ingredients. By sight, by smell, by taste and texture. Be seated."

"If it's all the same to you, Professor, I really must be--"

"SIT DOWN! Unless you would care for me to inform Headmaster Dumplinggang about this incident. I've long known you and your little friends were UP to something, and now I've got you right where I want you!"

Hymenea grimly sat on a stool at one of the long workbenches. Best to get it over with, she thought, and if it humors Professor Crepe to give me a test, better than being reported to the Headmaster for her snooping. For what it was worth, she felt more than justified in claiming the skills he attributed to her, and she was confident she could stand up to anything he threw at her: how bad could it be?

"Your first test," Crepe intoned. "Close your eyes. Name this component by smell."

Hymenea grudgingly did as she was told and inhaled deeply. A sweet, flowery smell filled her nose. She recognized it immediately: "It's honey. Specifically, the honey of giant Albanian honeybees." She sniffed again. "Notes of clover, honeysuckle and damselwort. This is from the hive Cragrid keeps on the West side of the castle, near the herbarium." She sat back, feeling pretty proud of herself. This would be a piece of cake.

"Wrong!" Crepe said, to Hymenea's shock. "This is honey of the giant Albanian honeybee hive Cragrid keeps on the EAST side of the castle, next to the reserve herbarium. If you had detected the subtle hint of rosemary you would have recognized it. Inspect this sample, so you don't forget!" Suddenly, a cascade of thick, sticky East-side-of-the-castle honey poured over the top of Hymenea's head; it flattened her curly hair and flowed slowly down her neck, over her shoulders and chest, and dripped languidly from the sleeves and bodice of her robe. She gasped, unable to speak in her surprise.

"Next test. By sight, identify the mixture in front of you, and tell me how you would use it."

Hymenea opened her eyes; on the workbench in front of her was a cup full of a foamy white liquid. "Uh," she said hurriedly, knowing now what her punishment would be should she fail to identify it. "It looks like a soy milk, no-whip chai latte with extra foam . . ." She inhaled deeply. ". . . and a hint of nutmeg. I would bring this to you at your twice-monthly evening poetry slam--that's the only time I've seen you drink anything other than black coffee."

After a pause, Crepe said, "Correct. . . ." with obvious disappointment. The cup began to levitate away. ". . . but too slow! It's gone cold!" The cup returned, its lukewarm contents splashed into Hymenea's face. Hymenea sputtered impotently and wiped her face off: she was starting to think this test was rigged.

"Eyes closed again. This time, identify the spell component before you by touch alone. Reach forward, that's it."

Hymenea felt the edge of a bowl and tentatively stuck her fingers inside, wary that her professor might have put just about anything in it. She nervously felt several small, hard objects that tapered to a dull point. "Candy corn?"

"Wrong!" Crepe said exultantly. "Those are vampires' teeth! Prepare to face your punishment!"

"What!?" Hymenea exclaimed. This was ridiculous. She opened her eyes: the bowl was full of yellow and white candy corn. "They're not teeth!"

"They're from a vampire with a sweet tooth," Crepe said. "And now for the vampire's blood!"

A stream of red liquid drizzled across her chest and face, as if from a squeeze bottle. Hymenea smelled an intense tomatoey aroma. "Ketchup?" Something funny was going on.

"Next question," Crepe continued relentlessly. "What is the best way to fend off a leprechaun attack?"

Fend off a--? "Is this really related to potions?" Hymenea started to ask, and before she could turn to confront Professor Crepe, he exclaimed, "Think fast!" From all directions, Hymenea was squirted with a thick, milky green liquid. She held up her hands in a futile attempt to block the assault.

The green stuff was all over her, mingling and running down her body with the honey and ketchup. It had a familiar smell to it, and Hymenea gingerly tasted one of her fingers. "This is a milkshake. It tastes like . . . mint?"

"If that had been a real leprechaun attack, you would be dead, and all the gold on your person would be theirs," Crepe said. "Let us continue. After that weak performance, I hope for your sake your mixology skills are better than your fieldwork."

Crepe instructed Hymenea to get three big mixing bowls and line them up on the workbench. "Eyes FRONT, Miss Gunger! Now, in one bowl, combine the following ingredients--" He rattled off a list of not-too-rare components, most of which were stored in big canisters in bulk. Hymenea reached for a wooden spoon to stir them together, but Crepe said, "They must be stirred by HAND."

Hymenea almost looked questioningly at her professor, but he snapped "BY HAND!" so curtly it almost singed her bangs. She dutifully wiped her sticky hands as best she could and stuck them into the cold, lumpy yellow mixture and began stirring.

"Like this?" she asked, aware that at any moment her professor's displeasure might take the form of another bucket of gunge dumped over her head.

"Faster," Crepe instructed, so Hymenea worked her fingers into the sludge until it coated her fingers and had become smooth and uniform in texture. "Now, slower." Hymenea dutifully slowed down, massaging the stuff into a smooth ball that became firmer as she continued.

As she stirred, another of the bowls filled up with custardy-looking pink and white blobs. "This must also be stirred," Crepe commanded. Hymenea pulled her yellow-coated hands from the first bowl, but Crepe stopped her. "There can be no cross-contamination. Do you want to blow up the laboratory?"

"Well, how am I supposed to stir the second bowl?" Hymenea pleaded, flinching as she anticipated another dousing. Her robe was cold and heavy, sodden as it was all the other ingredients she had been tested on.

"You have other limbs, do you not?" Crepe said, and Hymenea thought she heard a hint of sly laughter. That was odd--Crepe never laughed, everybody knew that. And she hadn't been able to see him the whole time he had been taunting her. What could the answer to this riddle be?

Sighing with resignation, Hymenea pushed the slippers off her feet and swung her feet over the workbench. Cringing as she got one last look at her clean white stockings, she stuck her toes into the pink mixture. It was so cold! She pushed it around half-heartedly. "Like this?" she said, making a show of averting her eyes, but covertly scanning the far corners of the room.

There! Reflected in one of the jars that lined the shelves, she caught a glimpse of a reflection. It wasn't the tall, shadowy figure of Cleverus Crepe, but a small, round body, floating in mid-air: Lord Meany, the Hogwallow poltergeist! He was a master at disguising his voice, and he loved pulling pranks! Nearly Blind Barney had warned her that Meany was loose, and she had forgotten in her eagerness to collect spell ingredients. Well, she thought, Meany's not the only one with a few tricks to play!

Now that she knew who she was dealing with, she wasn't surprised when the third bowl filled up with a thick pudding by itself. Undoubtedly Lord Meany had enlisted the help of the House Imps to torment her, and she knew well that they could prepare any food at all and make it magically appear. Oh, that pervy little runt! He was worse than Nearly Blind Barney! At least she knew his weakness, she thought.

"Well?" Meany said in Cleverus Crepe's voice. "The third bowl must also be stirred." He waited expectantly.

Hymenea held up her yellow hands and pink feet. Time to play to her audience, she thought: "But Professor," she simpered, keeping her eyes averted, "how can I stir a third bowl, when I'm already such a mess?" She ran her sticky hands down the side of her splattered robes.

"I'm sure a bright young witch like you can think of something," Meany said.

"If you say so, Professor--only, it's so hot in here, I need to take my robe off first." It was easy to avoid looking behind her now: she didn't want Lord Meany to see the sly look on her face, anyway. She unbuttoned the ruined garment and slipped it off her shoulders. "Promise you won't look?" she breathed.

"Yes, yes, of course," Meany said with a haste uncharacteristic for Professor Crepe.

She let the robe drop and stood with her backside to the poltergeist. Her hair was a sticky mass of curls, and hung limply on her back, but other than her hands and feet the rest of her was fairly clean. She wore a white bra and panties and stockings with hold-ups; she ran her hands down her hips, stretching and making a show of her improved comfort, leaving streaked handprints on her bare flesh. "Oh, this bra is ruined," she moaned; "my boobs are so messy, if only you could see them, Professor." Some of the honey and other ingredients had run down Hymenea's neck into her cleavage, discoloring the lace that trimmed her bra, but Meany couldn't see that. Come closer, she thought, get a better look. She imagined the poltergeist squirming, as he had made her squirm.

"Well, I guess I'd better get to stirring," she said, and at that leaned over the table, arching her back to stick her bottom out, and dunked her head into the big bowl of pudding. She swiveled her head around the inside of the bowl, pushing the creamy brown liquid around, at the same time thrusting her bottom back and forth in time with the motions of her head.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, pulling her head out so quickly that her pudding-laden hair splattered against her back. "You didn't say if this one was edible, but I think I got some in my mouth." That was an understatement: her face was covered as thickly as if she had gotten a mud mask at a spa. She licked her lips--chocolate pudding, that's all it was--and wiped her face, smearing the stuff across her chest and over her breasts. This was kind of fun now.

"That's all right," Meany said, his voice wavering. "It's, uh, non-toxic."

"Oh, look what I've done," Hymenea pouted, contemplating the chocolate-covered bra. "I'm soaked, it's making my nipples as hard as diamonds. I guess I'd better just take it off." She pulled the straps of her bra down, first off one shoulder and then the other, conscious of how she would appear from behind. Then, unhooking it in the front, she made a show of peeling the cups off and arching her back again as she pulled the sticky fabric away from her skin. "Ah, that's much better," she sighed. "Is there anything else?" she asked innocently.

"Uh," Meany said, thrown off-guard by Hymenea's sudden docility. If he were smarter, she thought, he might be a menace.

"Well, then if it's all the same to you I'd best be going, but I am a little wrung out, so I think I'll just sit down first. I'll admit you gave me a challenge, Professor, and here I thought this test would be a piece of cake."

She lowered her shapely bottom back onto the stool, knowing that Meany and the House Imps would never be able to resist the opening she had given them. There it was: before she reached the wood of the stool she felt her bum make contact with something gooey and thick, a big cake that the Imps had made appear just where she was going to sit.

"Oh!" she exclaimed, this time sincerely: even expecting it, it was quite a shock to flatten such a thick cake with her rear end and feel cream and frosting surge up between her thighs. The silken panties were a thin defense against the sensations it created. "Ah, oh, ahem," she sighed, settling into the mound of destroyed dessert, savoring it, and searching for one particular sensation.

She bumped and ground against the wooden seat, smearing cake and frosting alike around her round buttocks. Come on, you little pissant, she thought, and finally in the midst of some very genuine pleasure, she felt the presence of her tormentor, closer . . . closer. . . .

"Gotcha!" she exclaimed triumphantly as she looped the length of silver cord around the poltergeist's wrist, pulling him out from under the stool where he had hidden to cop a feel. Luckily, it worked on ghosts and shadows alike.

"No fair! No fair!" the little ghost whined in his own high-pitched voice. He had a round body and short arms and legs, and even in distress he had a smirk like a goblin with a juicy secret.

"Enjoy the show?" Hymenea said. "It'll be the last thing you watch for a while!" She looked around the room, the fat ghost wriggling on the end of the silver snare, until she found what she was looking for.

"No! No! Not the barrel! No fair!" Meany continued protesting as Hymenea stuffed him into his barrel and closed the lid. That accomplished, she gathered her clothes (if it weren't for the Hogwallow owls doing the laundry, Hymenea didn't know how she would function) and the ingredients she needed for the Polymorph spell.

As she left, she noticed in the first bowl, the one she had stirred with her hands, the yellow mass had dried and cracked down the middle, like a great egg. Inside it was a glowing golden ball. Hesitantly, she picked it up: "I don't believe it," she said to herself. If the descriptions she had read in her spellbook were accurate, this was a love charm. Meany had instructed her in making a love charm. Why would he do that? Was it the same perverse unreason that guided all his actions, or was it meant as a favor? Either way, this could be the break she needed to make Gary her own. She might not even need to bother with the other elements of her plan. She stuck it into the pocket of her robes.

She'd have to thank Meany some time, but maybe not until the next time he escaped. Hmm, she thought, maybe there is something I can do for him.

"Excuse me, Miss Gunger," a small voice said from behind her as she was about to put on the still chocolate-smeared bra. "You forgot to take this with you."

She turned around just in time to see one of the shock-haired House Imps hovering in mid-air, holding a gooey pie. "Courtesy of the House Imps," it said: splat, right in Hymenea's face! The Imp disappeared in a fit of giggles. Of course, she thought, as the gloopy cream slid down her face onto her chest. I wouldn't expect anything less.

+++

Hymenea returned to the comfort and privacy of her room. It had turned out to be a busy afternoon. Aside from getting the Polymorph spell ingredients, she had gotten a little "present" for her housemate Bubastis: a barrel with a big pink ribbon that conveniently covered the label "Poltergeist Containment: Extra Small." Let Meany bother her for a while, she thought. I hope he appreciates it.

And of course there was the little golden sphere, the love charm that she had made. What to do with it? Would it be sporting to use it on Gary? Would she be satisfied with that? She didn't just want Gary; she wanted to be wanted by him. Would the spell even last, or would it wear off? She would have to do some research. In the mean time, her original plan could go forward, with the love charm as a backup. She went to find a good hiding place for it, when she suddenly noticed that there were two beds in the room.

When had that happened? She looked around: there was a second bureau and a small suitcase sitting by the second bed.

"Bonjour," a feminine voice said from a corner of the room.

Hymenea spun around. "Who--?"

"Ici, cherie." She finally saw a dark-haired girl curled up on the top of the tallest bookshelf, near the ceiling. "I am sorree, I did not mean to startle you. I am your new--'ow you say?--room-mate!"