Chương 178: Ch170- Love

Cassian stepped into the classroom and dropped his bag onto the desk with a thump. The seventh-years were already seated, looking back at him half-expecting another show and half worry. He walked to the blackboard, picked up the chalk, and wrote in large block letters... Amortentia Then scratched a deep, satisfying X through it. He turned to face the class, brushing the chalk off his fingers.

"Right. Let's talk about one of the oldest, most dangerous potions ever brewed. Since some of you have apparently been trying to play Cupid with cauldrons, thinking love can be bottled, I figured now's a good time to explain why I crossed that particular pile of sentimental sewage you all call love." Clearwater tilted her head.

"Amortentia is a love potion, right?" Cassian looked at her.

"That's what the name wants you to think. Bit of Latin, bit of perfume, swirl it in a pretty bottle. It creates fixation, Miss Clearwater, not love. You know what obsession plus magic gets you? Murder. At best, jail. At worst, a ghost who can't stop singing about your hair." A few students shifted in their seats.

"Let me give you a bit of history. The original version that predates Hogwarts." Cassian waved his wand and the air shimmered to some nameless medieval village, all crooked rooftops and squat cottages with walls of packed earth and timber. The village had no town square, no tavern, no walls. Just a river and a few goats... He pointed at it with his wand.

"Before it turned into the stuff you lot keep trying to sneak into pumpkin juice, Amortentia began somewhere like this. Well, it wasn't love hearts. Or sparkles for that matter. Just hunger and a woman with no patience left for either." He turned to the class.

"Her name was Gwena. Lived on the edge of the creek, kept to herself. She had no family left. Just a hut, a kettle, and a limp that got worse in winter. People called her the Hag of Lower Hayle, which, bit rude. She wasn't old, just out of favours. And too clever for the village's taste." He tapped the illusion. The river began to move, thick, lazy water drifting past bundles of reeds. Then the fish started jumping. Before zooming in on a woman washing clothes in the river.

"One day, Gwena noticed something odd. Local wildlife, mice, ferrets, even a cow once, kept wandering off into the creeks near the southern bank. Disappeared. Every time. Nobody cared. They blamed wolves or fae or a drunk farmer with a broomstick problem. Gwena didn't." The illusion zoomed closer to the riverbed, where enormous clams clung to the rocks, their shells slowly cracking open.

"These," he said, pointing, "are Hushed Clams. No one paid them much attention. But Gwena realised something, they weren't just opening. They were releasing something. A powder. Faint. Silvery. Drifted on the water softly." Penelope leaned forward.

"Pearl dust?" Cassian gave her a finger-gun.

"Pearl dust. Not like the refined stuff in potions today, this was the raw enchantment. The clams used it to lure animals close, drag them under, eat them whole. Efficient predators. Charming, really." Someone in the back gagged. He ignored it.

"Gwena bottles some of the river water. Tests it. Realises it's got mild compulsive effects, enough to draw things near. Spends the next thirty years of her life messing about with it. Goat blood, cinnamon bark, her own spit, proper madwoman phase. Tried to distil attraction." He paced across the front, arms crossed.

"Problem was, she kept testing it on animals. At one point, she had a dog so infatuated with her it refused to blink unless she blinked first. Died in her arms. Romance." Oliver Wood shifted uncomfortably. Cassian carried on.

"She doesn't crack it until she's already lost her already less-than-stunning looks, her money, and two-thirds of her hearing. Then, breakthrough. Discovers heat changes the reaction. Pearl dust + basil root + moon-flower extract + very specific boiling technique = obsession. Perfected form." He turned to the board, writing. Original Recipe (Non-Human-Approved): Pearl Dust, Basil Root, Moon-flower, Charred Beetle Husk. Do Not Attempt.

"She uses it to test. A local butcher. Marries her. Builds her a new hut. Two years later, he walks into the sea trying to follow the scent when she drops a vial of it on the shore." A few students made strangled sounds. Cassian sighed, dragging a hand through his hair as if this next bit pained him on a moral level.

"That could've been the end of the story. Woman brews obsession in a bottle, accidentally kills the only man daft enough to love her, goes back to her hut to knit socks and regret everything. But no. Gwena wasn't the retiring type." He leaned on the desk, fingers tapping against the wood.

"Bottled potion in her hands, the butcher's gold in her pocket and whatever pride she hadn't bartered for herbs, and went straight to the city. Hair pinned, skirt clean, a limp she didn't bother hiding. Because Gwena, as it turns out, was patient, ambitious. And very, very stubborn." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. He pointed his wand at the illusion again, and the sleepy village dissolved into a bustling medieval street. Smoke drifted from crooked chimneys.

Carriages rattled past market stalls. People shouted, haggled, bartered for carrots.

"She knew what she had. The trick was getting it into the right mouths." A Slytherin girl narrowed her eyes.

"What does that mean?" Cassian gave her a look.

"What do you think it means? You don't start with royalty. Too many layers. Too many tasters. You start lower. Chambermaids. Stablehands. Scribes. People who brush against power without holding any. People who might... pass a cup up." The illusion zoomed in on a tall stone hall with guards at the doors.

"She spent the next six years working her way in. Slowly. Carefully. Slept in laundry halls. Stirred porridge in the kitchens. Waited for chances. When one came, she slipped the potion into a wine glass meant for the Prince's steward." Percy made a noise.

"Did she... did the steward fall for her?" Cassian grinned.

"First of many. Poor sod built her a rose garden in February and wept when she sneezed. Lived to see her smile. Died trying to pickle pears in her honour." Someone snorted. Marcus Flint looked vaguely traumatised. Cassian didn't slow down.

"Gwena wasn't stupid. Six years to Steward. Another two to King. By the time she got near him, the King already knew her name. Called her his 'pearl-eyed angel.' Probably thought it was romantic. It wasn't. She'd dosed him twice before he ever saw her face." Percy frowned.

"He didn't notice?"

"Of course not," Cassian said.

"Man couldn't spell his own name without her permission by the time they met. She mixed it into candied almonds. Honeyed wine. Even a bloody tooth powder he used for royal whitening. He fell so hard he rewrote half the inheritance laws to allow 'unofficial companions' a seat at the high table."

"Did she marry him?" Oliver asked. Cassian paused.

"No. He killed her." Class froze. Cassian chuckled, swung around and tapped a knuckle against the word still etched into the board.

"Kings are figureheads," he said, "decorated knives. They shine up nice for the crowd, wear crowns, wave from balconies, but they're there to feed the machine. The real rot sits behind them. Advisors. Scribes. The bloke standing just out of frame with ink-stained fingers and a very profitable war contract." A Gryffindor girl frowned.

"So Kings weren't really in charge?" Cassian clicked his tongue.

"No, they were. Technically."

"People in the shadows hate to be King," Cassian said, tapping the side of the illusion where gold light now flooded the stone throne room.

"Even if you offered it to them on a velvet cushion, they would deny it. Being King is messy work. Kings bleed. Kings die. The real power? That's behind the throne, where the robes don't get dirty." He gestured at the robed figures now visible behind the enchanted image of the lovestruck monarch. Rows of them, old, sunken-eyed, draped in silks and smugness. Watching Gwena like she'd knocked over their dinner plates.

"These ones," he said, "these are the vultures. The men who funded the wars, wrote the laws, ran the game without ever playing it. They fed the King sugar, filled their vaults, and made sure someone else bled on the battlefield while they waxed poetic about honour from their balconies." A few students looked up sharply as the illusion shifted. The King, younger than expected, sat with his chin propped on one hand, staring at Gwena like he didn't know which part of her to thank first.

Around him, the advisors were still and sharp-eyed.

"They didn't like someone getting between them and the King. Especially not a commoner. They didn't say it outright, of course. Just started calling her names when she wasn't in the room. Suggested she'd enchanted him. And if she hadn't, they'd make sure the evidence said otherwise." The illusion zoomed out to a crooked stone path winding into a swamp. Mist drifted over bogwater. Shapes moved under it.

"They hired a real hag. One of the proper ones. Old blood, lived in the marshes, fed off salt and stolen teeth. Paid her a hundred peasant hearts and a cask of royal wine." Someone choked on his own spit. Nobody offered him sympathy. Cassian raised a brow.

"Don't look at me. I didn't write the recipe." The mist thickened in the image. A crooked figure rose from the bog, skin like tree bark, teeth like nails.

"She brewed something that'd burn out charm. Snap the string. Cut the thread between Gwena and the King. Poured it into incense, lit it in the royal chambers." The illusion changed again, smoke coiling around the throne, the King sitting straighter, blinking like he'd woken up from a fever dream.

"Clear-headed," Cassian said, crossing his arms, "and furious."

"He drew his sword. Stepped down from the throne. But his advisors, oh no, they stopped him. Begged him, actually." He turned back to the class.

"You see, they were clever. If she'd done this once, she could do it again. Bottled desire. Controlled kings. That was opportunity." The illusion shifted to the advisors surrounding Gwena, one of them grabbing the King's wrist, another leaning in to whisper.

"They asked him to interrogate her. Find the formula. Learn how she did it. Turn it into a weapon. Imagine a whole army dosed with it. Or better, just the enemies. Make a general fall for a hedge witch and forget how war works." Marcus Flint muttered, "Sick." Cassian pointed a finger at him without turning.

"Correct." He shook his head, dragged a line through the illusion with his wand, and let the last of the image flicker out.

"And with that," he said, turning back to the class, "it spread. Everywhere. Court halls, alehouses, your mum's secret pantry drawer, Amortentia got bottled, prettied up, renamed, and sold as love." He gestured at the board again, where the scratched-out word still sat like a warning sign.

"It's not love. Never was. It's obsession. That's the root. Love's messy, slow, irrational. This?" He pointed at the word again.

"This skips the bits that matter and gives you a puppet." A few students were still watching like they'd just been handed a crime report instead of a lesson.

"Now," Cassian went on, tone shifting, "I teach this every year to seventh-years because, inevitably, someone gets clever with a cauldron and thinks they can brew their way into someone's pants, or worse, their heart." He stepped back, eyeing the room like he could already smell the brewing kits hidden under beds.

"Let me be painfully clear. These potions are legal. That's the Ministry for you. They've banned them in Hogwarts, though, at least someone here has half a spine, but if you're caught using them outside these walls, no one's coming to punish you. Though, Occlumency cuts through it, and if your target's trained or naturally resistant, the only thing you'll get is exposed. Loudly." Cassian smiled at them, broad, pleasant, and thoroughly untrustworthy.

"But if I catch anyone holding, brewing, using, or even thinking about creating a love potion..." He paused, just long enough for the silence to bite.

"You'll be begging me for Azkaban." No one laughed. A Ravenclaw near the back actually swallowed loud enough to hear. Cassian nodded, satisfied.

"Three feet on why one shouldn't touch Amortentia with a ten-foot broomstick. Include the difference between love and obsession. If you quote a romance novel, I'll fail you for tone." He swept a hand toward the door.

"You're dismissed." Chairs scraped. Bags rustled. Percy looked like he had three follow-up questions but wisely chose life. Marcus Flint muttered something about "bloody mental" as he slung his bag over one shoulder. Cassian didn't correct him. The door clicked shut behind the last student. Behind him, the window creaked as the wind picked up over the lake. Rain was coming. The sort that clung to your sleeves and made your joints ache.

He grabbed the lesson plan off the corner and flipped through it with one finger. Plans and... counter-potions. He smirked faintly.