#14 - Trying Something Out

Elizabeth entered the room and was surprised to see a few potions in front of her. She had been expecting something more along the lines of a duelling dummy, or perhaps she would have had to make the potions. Reading the plaque in front of them, Elizabeth made a face. Two are safe? This wasn't nearly what she had thought it would be.

She picked up the potion labelled '1,' a blue potion that, when Elizabeth opened it, smelled lightly of fruit. It seemed to be a little bubbly as well. Elizabeth was not aware of all potions, and she didn't know what this one was, so she went on to open the next two, a thick and smelly purple potion and a sparkly gold-coloured potion with no apparent smell.

To her disappointment, she knew what none of them were, or even if they were actual potions. She was almost certain that they were, and resolved to go to the Library to study more advanced potions when she got the opportunity to do so.

Picking between 1 and 3, since she had no desire to ingest sludge even if it wasn't poison, Elizabeth reached for 3. She paused before drinking it. What if this was some Gryffindor's childish idea of a prank, and they were all poisons? Then again, she had needed a key to get in.

After a short sigh, Elizabeth drank potion number 3.

"Excellent" Elizabeth said when she realized she hadn't been poisoned, only to realize her voice was much lower pitched than usual. "Pardon me," she said, to check that it wasn't a fluke. Hm. Well, at least she knew what one of the potions did. She looked at the three new potions.

The first one was red and seemed a little oily. The second was purple again, though this time it smelled rather like lavender and wasn't nearly as thick. This time, three seemed to be the grossest of the bunch, a shifting yellow and green potion that smelled vaguely of butterscotch. Elizabeth weighed her options, once again frustrated by the set of potions she didn't recognize.

Eventually, she picked potion 1 and took a drink out of the bottle, wincing as she realized that it had a rather spicy taste. Blech. Elizabeth hated spicy foods.

Fire erupted from Elizabeth's mouth, though it didn't burn her or feel hot at all. She suspected that this potion or something similar might be used in a popular magical candy she'd heard mentioned before but never actually tried. She coughed a little. Well, it wasn't poison, but it might as well be. Elizabeth made a face and tried not to gag. Why did it have to be spicy?

There were yet more bottles in front of her. Why did this have to be so difficult? She'd picked a proper bottle twice now, but it felt random to her. Elizabeth didn't like random. Things had to make sense, even if they didn't make sense to her. Maybe there was a right answer that she wasn't seeing.

Again, she analyzed all three bottles. The first was a brilliant emerald green that seemed a bit more comforting to Elizabeth, but that could've been the familiarity of the colour in relation to her house. When she opened the second, it was orange and black, the stripes remaining even as it swirled in the bottle. Finally, Elizabeth opened the third bottle, which smelled like the purple sludge in the second bottle of her first round, but this one was also green.

Elizabeth felt like throwing her hands up to the sky. She hated just guessing like this, but she had no better options. She looked between the two green potions for a while before eventually choosing the orange and black striped potion in bottle 2 and drinking.