To Make Flowers Grow || L.Clearwater

Women in STEM

Sage felt very much like how she imagined Hermione Granger  felt in her second year while brewing Polyjuice Potion in that gross haunted bathroom. Except Sage was outside, sat on the floor of her back porch brewing the potion she needed for the Second Trial.

A low mist swirled up from the forest, which creeped into the edges of her garden. Swirling, and crawling along the mossy floor and up the wooden planks of the porch until the frosty air nipped at Sage's feet.

Sage continued to stir the bubbling concoction in her cauldron.

It wasn't as impressive as a Witches cauldron, being that it only held 4 liters, but it had been a gift from her father after he had a pleasant encounter with a coven over in Winona. The cauldron was a beautifully decorated white ceramic that was charmed to withstand burning at a high temperature in the chill of a Washington winter.

Sage stirred again. It was important to do this part correctly. Stir too many times or, heaven forbid, stir anticlockwise, the potion would explode and she'd have to start again.

Side note; Sage did not have time to start again.

Dahlia was supposed to be outside with her, but her sister had taken her cauldron (fire and all) off somewhere else. Sage couldn't exactly blame her. The potion needed to be personalized to it's brewer for it to work, but Sage didn't really understand why they couldn't be personalized separately but 'together'.

She checked her notes. Today's brewing session was about adding the final ingredients (in a very specific order) before leaving it to simmer for a further 15 days. The trial would be on the 16th day.

~•List of Ingredients• ~
•
- 5 1/2 sprigs of Water Hemlock (Stem and all)

-18 Rosary Pea's

- 1 3/4 of a White Snakeroot flower

- 7 Foxgloves

- 3 Cups of water

- 3, 5oz bags of Blue Honeysuckle tea from the Fae realm

-and Cinnamon to taste.
•

Sage had no idea which batshit crazy ancestor of hers had come up with a recipe so full of poisonous plants, but it was clearly a potion that worked for the Hallow's, so Sage followed it diligently.

The Water Hemlock had already been simmering for two days in the water and tea so now it was the fun part of adding in the other ingredients.

First came the 1 3/4 of the White Snakeroot flower. Which took Sage over 3 hours of trekking through the forest to find. And rather unnervingly, it looked a lot like Hemlock, so Sage was only 60% sure it was even the correct ingredient.

She was more than prepared to take the risk.

After all the potion was not what was marked. In fact the second Trial wasn't really marked like how the first trial was, it was more along the lines of 'Brew a potion that will help you achieve a complete connection with Nature... And or go mad trying'. If you went mad you failed. 

It was also why the potion recipe was normally passed down family lines for generations -external help wasn't cheating.

Sage dropped it the White Snakeroot 1/3 at a time, stirrimg twice in-between.

The potion in her cauldron became a more vibrant blue, bubbling vigorously before settling back into a steady simmer.

Sage smiled slightly, so far so good.