The polyjuice

“What!” Persephone shrieked.

“Neat!” Nitz said in wonder. “That’s supposed to be pretty advanced stuff.”

“Yeah, and like, illegal,” Persephone objected in a much quieter tone.

“It’s not technically illegal,” Bastion corrected. “I checked. It’s very frowned upon, and might get you probation or a fine if they catch you misusing it, but not illegal.”

“Well it’s close enough.”

Bastion smiled at her, then took something out of his pocket. He held it up to the others, who stared at it curiously. It was a hair. He placed it in the middle of the table, and looked at Persephone. “Want to know who that hair belongs to?”

“Why would I-”

“It’s Gasltik’s. The teacher you and all your friends have been drooling over since the start of term.”

No one said anything. They just stared at it. What Bastion was suggesting was starting to sink in.

“It was easy enough to get,” he continued. “People leave hairs all over the place. This one was on his desk. It could transform me into a perfect copy of him. Just one hair, dropped into a complicated brew that Drynn happens to know how to make, and we can look like anyone we want.” With a flourish, he gestured towards the whole of the school and emphasized again, “Anyone.”

That kind of idea is dangerous, because it burrows under the surface and puts down roots. Their little group couldn’t stop thinking about it. It was there when they were trying to study. It kept them up at night. It was one of the first things they thought about in the morning. The magical ability to look like someone else. To feel what it was like to be in their skin. Or to have access to the unattainable. For Bastion and the girls, fantasies and scenarios began to run on loop in their minds.

The only one seemingly immune to the idea, was Drynn. Much to his friends’ dismay, he didn’t want any part of it. He made it very clear that he wasn’t looking for love in this place. A failed relationship had landed him here, and he wasn’t going to let it happen again. Bastion tried to let him know he wasn’t talking about love, but it was still too close for Drynn.

The girls both said they understood, and Nitz backed off. Way off actually. For a time, they only saw her at meals. She said she needed to focus on her arithmancy assignments, which were still proving a challenge for her the second time around.

Persephone, however, did not back off. If anything, she pushed harder, even offering him a hefty amount of galleons. The answer had still been no. Bastion assured him that he didn’t have to drink any of the potion. And he promised to do as much of the prep work as possible, even helping to brew the potion once all of the ingredients were gathered. That had made Drynn laugh. He’d seen his friend make a potion once. They’d had to evacuate the school that day.

Despite Drynn’s refusal, Bastion started placing the ingredients for polyuice outside his friend’s door. Drynn would sigh every time he saw another ingredient show up. He surprised himself by not throwing any of it away, but reluctantly took them all into his room. It didn’t mean he was going to make it. It was just easier to take it inside instead of arguing about it. When Persephone started helping gather the supplies, Drynn became worried, because in a matter of days, all the materials were there, and they both began trying to persuade him with renewed vigor. Drynn’s resolve was weakening, but he didn’t want the trouble the potion might bring.

Then one afternoon, Nitz approached Drynn at the end of the day’s classes. She was very excited. They’d all just passed their disapparation exam. This meant that their right to disapparate had been reinstated, at least locally. They could now officially disapparate anywhere in the boundaries of the school and in select, discreet areas of the nearby town. This was a big deal to all of them. It was another step towards being seen as competent witches and wizards.

Nitz said they should celebrate by disapparating for a trip to the local muggle coffee shop. But she didn’t ask their friend group, just Drynn. Drynn naturally looked around the common room to ask if Bastion or Persephone wanted to celebrate with them as well. Oddly, they were already together nearby, staring at him. The second he saw them, they both looked away, and before he could say anything to them, they both disapparated from the room.

Despite what his examiners and most of the teachers in this school thought, Drynn wasn’t stupid. Based on his friends’ reaction, he smelled a set up. He turned back to Nitz, about to ask her if this was meant to be a date, but she had a pitifully cute expression plastered on her face. The kind that said, please say yes or I’ll die. Drynn sighed and decided not to ask. If there was any doubt, he’d assure anyone who’d asked that they had just wanted to disapparate somewhere, anywhere, and happened to be together. The fact that Nitz was generally fun to be around and had an ability to silence Drynn with her cuteness would not get brought up.

The pair appeared in a vacant square that had enchantments on it that made muggles not see it properly, especially if someone just seemingly materialized out of thin air. From their it was a hundred yards to a quaint little coffee shop. They walked in and placed their order, and Drynn insisted on paying. The problem was he still hadn’t figured out muggle money. Apparently, he hadn’t brought near enough. He thought the paper money was worth more, but it turned out some of the papers were worth more than others. Nitz assured him it was okay and handed the cashier a piece of rectangular plastic. Drynn was amazed as the pretty barista behind the counter took it as if it were the most normal thing, and that seemed to do it. But she didn’t keep the thing, she gave it back to Nitz. Drynn had so many questions.

As soon as they were out of earshot at a table with their drinks, Drynn asked, “So, you just show them that card thingie, and they give you whatever you want? But they don’t keep it? They give it back to you?”

“I don’t fully understand it either,” Nitz said. “Persephone gave it to me the other day and said it had plenty of muggle money on it. She said I just needed to present it to whoever takes the money, and that should be that. It worked just like she said it would! We don’t give muggles enough credit sometimes.”

“No, no I suppose not. So…have you gotten caught up with your arithmancy?”

Nitz’s face reddened. “Not really. I hate that subject so much, and I worry that I might fail again.”

Drynn smiled at her sympathetically. “How can I help, Nitz? You want me to tutor you or-”

She scrunched up her face and blurted out quietly, “I’d like you to make the polyjuice potion!” She saw that he was about to protest, so she hurriedly added. “I’m just so stressed out right now, and when I think about what we could use that potion for…” Nitz’s face reddened.

“Yeah, yeah,” Drynn said dryly. “You could sex away your troubles by banging one of Dungus’s hottest students. Or teachers.”

Nitz looked at him intently for a moment, then bit her lip as she looked away shyly. “I…I wouldn’t need to use the potion if I thought the person was at all interested in me.”

“How could they not be? You’re great Nitz. And don’t let this go to your head, but you’re pretty cute.”

Nitz sat up straighter at that and beamed at him. She started to reach across the table for his hand, but he became distracted by someone yelling outside at the far end of the cafe. Drynn thought he saw movement through the large glass window, but couldn’t make out any particular face or what was going on.

He refocused on Nitz and continued casually, “If I weren’t still trying to put my shattered heart together after last year, I might have made a move on you myself.”

Nitz’s hand froze a hair’s breath from the hand that held Drynn’s coffee. Drynn did notice this, and saw her hand slowly retreat back to her side of the table. He also noticed her whole countenance change. She looked sad, or hurt. Had he said something offensive?

“That’s sweet of you to say, Drynn,” she said quietly. She began fumbling with something in her bag. “I just, look, if you’re still worrying about getting in trouble with the whole polyjuice thing, I’d be willing to lend you one of my family’s magical artifacts to help you out.”

That piqued Drynn’s curiosity. “A magical family heirloom! Cool! I’d love to see it.”

Nitz looked around to make sure no one was paying attention to them, she pulled on a chain that she always wore around her neck. Drynn had never seen what was attached to it, but as it came out of her shirt, he saw that it was a small golden hourglass. She gently put it on the table in front of her.

Drynn knew what it was immediately, and wrapped his hands around hers to hide the object from view. He spoke in a hushed voice. “Nitz! That’s a time turner. How do you have a time turner? The Ministry of Magic destroyed all of them.”

Nitz was looking at Drynn’s hands. Drynn’s hands that were on hers. She made no move to pull away. “They destroyed all that belonged to the Ministry. This one has belonged to my family for centuries.”

“But…aren’t they illegal to own now?”

Nitz giggled, and glanced down at their conjoined hands. “More like highly discouraged. Sort of like polyjuice potion. Would you like to try it out?”

Nitz had no idea how much Drynn wanted to try it out. He had wished he’d had one a thousand times over the last year. He wanted to undo so much. He took his fingers, and gently pulled Nitz’s hands apart to peek at the time turner. He’d heard about the dangers of time travel with these things, but he would have gladly faced them to undo so many regrets. He never thought he’d get a chance to see one, and now he was being offered the chance to use one.

“I would love to try it out,” he whispered. “That is, if you think we can do it safely. When should we…”

Before he could finish, Nitz had taken one more quick look around, then leaned forward and gestured for him to do the same. When he did, she looped the chain around his head, connecting them.

Drynn began to panic. “You’re not going to do it right here are you?”

But his question was answered a second later, as Nitz gave the little golden device a turn. Drynn felt very odd, like he was sitting on a broom that was going very fast, but also very backwards. He also felt like his stomach had left his body. And then the table felt solid again, and the seat didn’t feel like it was moving underneath him anymore. Their drinks had vanished, and the barista was focused on taking the orders of a woman that had just appeared.

“C’mon. Out the back. This way!” Nitz said excitedly as she pulled him from the table. They went out the other door at the end of the shop, and Nitz pointed at the window and told him, “Okay, now look.”

Drynn was at a loss. “What? Did we…are we back in time? What am I looking for?”

Nitz looked at her watch. “Shush. Just give it a second or two, and…there. Look who’s coming through the door.”

Drynn watched as identical copies of himself and Nitz walked into the coffee shop. He watched as they placed their orders, and watched the other version of himself fumble with muggle money. “This is so weird.”

“But cool, right?” Nitz asked hopefully.

“Oh, so cool!” Drynn agreed. “Can we go say hi?”

Nitz shook her head. “No, because you don’t know I have this yet. Something could go terribly wrong, like you could accidentally kill yourself. I’d be fine, because I know I have this. I’ve interacted with myself loads of times.”

“Really? What have you gotten up to with yourself?”

Nitz went red and began to stammer, “Nothing, just…stuff. Just like, helping organize my room or doing homework.”

“You’re joking!” Drynn said with a twinkle in his eye. “If you actually used it for homework, we wouldn’t be here.”

“I always, uh, mean to help myself with homework, but I often get…distracted.”

Drynn cocked his head and looked at her. “You distracted yourself from doing your homework? How did…” As he noticed her face get even redder, and how she couldn’t meet his eyes, he finally got it. “No way! You used time travel to get yourself off?”

“Shut up,” she hissed. “It’s…it’s just like a form of masturbating, just with more hands. And a mouth that know exactly where to…” She sighed wistfully, then shook her head. “Let’s just drop it, okay.”

Drynn did not want to drop it. If anything, he wanted every detail imaginable. But this was not the time to ask. Because he had just traveled back in time, and it was awesome. “I don’t think I’d kill myself. I think I’d be fine,” he argued.

“You really can’t know for sure. It’s very possible you’d try to attack yourself, or create a whole paradox of some sort.”

“And nobody wants that,” said a familiar voice behind them.

“What the-” Drynn yelled. And then he was being pushed away from the window by identical copies of himself and Nitz.

“Careful,” the copy of Drynn said. “You almost saw yourself in the window there.”

Drynn’s mouth fell open. It had been his future self he had heard earlier at the table. “This is so cool! But when did-”

“You really wanted to say hi to yourself,” future Nitz said with a smile and an eye roll.

“Of course he did,” Nitz agreed.

“When?” Drynn asked.

“In the future, dummy,” future Drynn laughed. “Right after this conversation.”

“I…is it always this confusing?” Drynn asked.

“You get used to it,” future Nitz said.

“Has Nitz told you any more details about her hookups with herself?” Drynn asked.

Future Drynn smiled, but before he could reply, two very red faced Nitz’s exclaimed, “We never should have told you that!”

Then future Nitz looked at her watch and said, “Oh, we need to get out of this area. You’ll be time traveling soon.”

“Right, thanks!” Nitz said, as she put the chain over Drynn again.

“Wait, so is this…is this when we time travel again?”

“Stop asking so many questions and just go with it,” future Drynn said.

“Yeah, you don’t have time. You’ve got some polyjuice potion to make,” future Nitz grinned.

Future Drynn nodded slowly and said, “I suppose I do.” A second later, he and future Nitz disapparated out of sight.

“You ready?” Ntiz asked.

“This is so bizarre,” Drynn said

“Welcome to time travel,” she grinned.

“And you’ll just…you’ll just let me borrow this thing?”

“Yes,” she said.

“If I make you guys a batch of polyjuice?”

“That’s the deal.”

“Only if I get to say hi to myself.”

Nitz laughed as she gave the device a little turn.

As time rewound around them, he saw a blur of the events that just happened. The sound was warped and backwards, but as it slowed, he heard a voice, Nitz’s voice, say, “It’s very possible you’d try to attack yourself, or create a whole paradox of some sort.”

Drynn cut her off by saying, “And nobody wants that.” He remembered what came next. Even as he heard his past self yell, he looked into the coffee shop, and sure enough, his past past self was about to look their way. He shoved himself out of view. And then he had a very familiar conversation before he eventually said, “I suppose I do.” And then he and Nitz turned, and vanished on the spot.

[An Outfox Stories original by Kripto. See more of Kripto's stories & continuations here]