To make a Polyjuice potion one needed a lot of time because some ingredients needed to take on certain properties through prolonged exposure to some factors.
As an alchemist I knew how to change the properties of any material to whatever I desired at a fundamental level however, thus making ingredient preparation through alchemy a trivial task.
Though maybe it was only Nicholas who could truly claim that such a task was trivial.
I took out one of my robes, laid it out on the floor and transfigured it into a quadratic stone surface similar to a blackboard in schools.
Next I conjured some chalk and mixed it with the dragon blood, forming a light red chalk stick out of the resulting paste. Conjured chalk had no special properties, all it did was binding the dragon blood into a paste that could be used in drawing alchemy circles easier than with liquid blood, so it didn't matter that conjured objects could not be used in rituals or potions.
Adding powdered dragon bones into the mix would have made the circles re-usable to some extent, but I didn't have that yet.
Using the blood chalk I drew a classic alchemy circle for extracting the essence of something and creating a purified and more potent version of it, discarding any unneeded properties in the process.
The first ingredient was the lacewing flies that needed to be stewed for 21 days. I placed both sets inside the circle and simply activated it by tracing magic accurately along the drawn lines.
This ingredient was rather simple to process because the entire procedure of stewing it for 21 days was to extract specific properties that would be needed for the Polyjuice Potion, through alchemy I could simply extract those properties directly into a Lacewing Essence that resembled a more potent version of the end result that one got after the stewing was done.
I poured the lacewing essence into two bottles, which I placed into the Pocket Space so they would remain in stasis and removed the previous alchemy circle which turned from red to black after use.
After inspecting the other materials I noticed that the Fluxweed was really picked during a full moon, so the shopkeeper did not swindle me, making my opinion of that witch rise a notch.
I decided to still treat the Fluxweed alchemically to enhance its potency even further and match the Lacewing Essence. An imbalance in potency of ingredients would result in weaker potions.
I did the same with all other ingredients, only leaving out the final component which I did not even have yet, a hair from the person I wanted to turn into.
With all ingredients in a refined state, the last step would be easy too and would not even need me to go through any brewing processes, I could simply combine it all through alchemy.
The alchemy circle for that was quite complex and I ended up using up the second Hebridean Black blood vial in the process but it also helped the potion ingredients to fuse more thoroughly, enhancing the potency once more.
The final result looked nothing like the usual Polyjuice Potion , it was a shimmering green liquid without any clumps or imperfections.
I could probably sell this for at least 10 times the price of a regular polyjuice potion to the right buyer, the effect would last several days at a time , maybe even up to a week.
But money was not a concern for me and I needed it for the next steps, for now however I poured the finished potion into two vials and put them into the Pocket Space to keep them fresh.
With how fast I was working it likely wouldn't be a problem to leave it out, but Nicolas always pursued perfection in his craft and I agreed with that mindset.
I took out a few Galleons, and placed them into a new alchemy circle. They might look like pure gold, but there was barely any gold in them. Goblins were not stupid, if Galleons were truly made of pure gold, any wizard could sell them to non magicals after melting them down and then exchanging for more Galleons with that money.
After activating the purification circle I had various pure metal beads lying inside the circle where the coins used to be. I only got 3 fingernail sized gold beads from the galleons and I bet If I were to sell them to the goblins I would only get half the galleons I used to make them.
The rest of the beads were just copper and zinc. I put a few of them aside and stored the rest. It might come in handy for some other experiments maybe. And if not I could just turn them to gold with the philosopher's stone once it was safe to use.
After cleaning up the last circle again I started to get serious. It was time for the magnum opus of today, for that I will need more room.
I shrunk down my furniture and stored it into my Pocket Space to have the entire room empty, next I enlarged the stone platform I used for my circles to cover the whole room.
Mixing up the last vial of dragon blood, I started to carefully draw a circle of mind boggling complexity, the lines needed to be extremely precise and even the thickness of the lines needed to be perfect because it was the conduit for the magic and regulated how much power certain processes would receive.
At the center of the room spanning circle were three smaller circles. I put one vial with the finished Polyjuice potion into one of them, though it was probably better to call it an elixir at that point. The other two contained 3 gold beads and 4 copper and 2 zinc beads for the brass alloy.
I carefully positioned myself at the edge of the circle and started to infuse it with magic and direct it to spread evenly across the circle and circulate with a carefully measured pace, all while imbuing my magic with a mental image for how I wanted the end result to look like.
The green liquid rose from the vial and began condensing into a crystalline substance that looked like an emerald, it flattened out into a disc and started to take the shape of a miniature alchemy circle.
Next the gold turned liquid and started encasing the green crystalline circle and forming the bottom half of a locket that looked like it had an alchemy circle made out of emerald at its center and a small golden bowl where the alchemical ingredients would be usually placed.
Last the copper and zinc beads liquified and merged, turning to brass and forming a chain and upper half of a locket, which finally merged with the gold encased bottom half of a locket.
I stopped the circulation of magic in the circle and it turned to dust, vanishing completely without me having to clean it, the magic potency in the blood completely spent.
If I didn't have the "Time-Savers" perk I would likely be completely covered in sweat at this point, this part was really exhausting, but looking at the locket lying on the stone surface I thought it was completely worth it.
I still needed to test whether it worked the way I imagined, but purely relying on Nicolas Flamel's knowledge and experience I could tell that success was pretty much guaranteed.
With this locket I could transform into anyone I wanted. All I had to do was place a hair, or a drop of blood into the bowl at the center of the locket and make sure the bottom part of the locket touched my skin.
The best part however was that It was re-usable and not limited by time, if I wanted to change into someone else I just had to replace the hair within the locket. The emerald like crystal would also draw on the user's magic to recharge itself and never lose its effect.
And because it was not a charm or enchantment, the only way to break the transformation would be to physically remove the locket from my skin. Even a non magical could use this locket but only for a week before the crystal would need to be recharged by magic.
It was time for dinner by the time I finished cleaning up my room and placing all the furniture back where it belonged and I decided to use this opportunity to test the locket.
I magically picked up and severed a single strand of hair from Sister Clara while nobody was looking and put it away.
After finishing up dinner I said goodnight and went to my room to test whether the first Alchemical item I created truly had the effect I envisioned.
I placed the strand of hair inside the locket and closed it. There was no outward indication whether this part was successful so I pulled the locket over my head and placed it on my chest.
The transformation was immediate and much smoother than with a Polyjuice potion, but I quickly realised that I miscalculated one thing, I was wearing child sized clothes while transforming into an adult.
Needless to say, my clothes did not make it out intact and I removed the torn pieces shamelessly while walking to the mirror.
Who knew Sister Clara was hiding such a sinful body under all those nun robes.
The locket certainly worked perfectly fine and after taking it off and putting it on again to confirm whether the effects can be stopped and re-started without issues I decided to have some fun with it.
A pervert? Guilty as charged.
If there was a guy who would say that they would never even think about masturbating as a woman, they would be lying however.
Luckily a silencing charm prevented the orphanage from wondering why Sister Clara's moans were coming from an orphan's bedroom, averting another potential scandal for the Catholic church.
As fun and academically interesting as that experience was, I wasn't interested in making that a regular occurrence, so I threw out the collected hair. In the end I was most comfortable in my own body.
Well rested and feeling much more relaxed after weeks spent only reading and studying. I fixed my ripped clothes and cleaned up the bed the next morning.
I still had an entire pile of 2nd year books to get through while waiting for an eventual reply from the witch in Knockturn Alley regarding the dragon bones.
Thankfully with the help of Occlumency I only needed to read a text once to remember it and without the trace restricting me I could actually practice the magic freely with the full effectiveness of the Soul Talent assisting me.
Because I was already familiar with most of Zygmunt Budge's potions, which are mainly taught in the Hogwarts curriculum and knew my way around Herbology thanks to gaining Nicolas's skills who had his own herb garden with all common and many rare and exotic plants, I only had to read up on the newer recipes invented in the last two centuries.
Transfiguration was equally easy as it heavily overlapped with alchemy and I could likely teach Professor McGonnagall a thing or two on the subject instead. But I still read through everything in the books just to make sure my overconfidence wouldn't cheat me out of a new discovery.
Charms was the most useful to me and I made sure to practice everything while using a wand, something I was lacking experience in. Thankfully I was good enough at magic manipulation to power down all spells to a level that would not cause too much destruction when practiced indoors. Because of that I was not entirely able to gauge my own maximum power but I guessed it was around Tier 5 now, which was on a level of regular adult wizards.
It only took 3 days to finish the 2nd year books and I was back to where I started before trading in my own magic knowledge against that of Nicolas Flamel. I even surpassed my past self thanks to being able to practice the spells freely with the assistance of Soul Talent, allowing me to learn every first and second year charm to a nonverbal standard.
In that time I received another 2 credits from Contractor Interest and the Knockturn Alley witch, who's name I should figure out next time, contacted me through the coin, signifying that she managed to get the requested dragon bones, so I'd make another trip there in 4 days.
Meanwhile I got started with my 3rd year books, making annotations as I did with the other years and adding some of Nicolas's personal experiences and knowledge where they fit while practicing the charms.
Unfortunately the 3rd year curriculum had many additional books due to the electives, so I took a break on the 4th day to not miss my appointment.
Today was the 27th of July and there were only 4 days left before I had to leave for Hogwarts. I'd have to get everything I will need during this shopping trip and hopefully figure out a way to help the witch with her curse.
While I hadn't planned to save every damsel in distress I've had a rather good impression of her so far and she was honest in her trade. Also, my divination was suggesting it was important to save her, though I didn't know whether it was because she might become a future partner or because of a particularly lucrative trade opportunity in the future.
After having lunch in the orphanage I once again cast a silencing charm that would last until the end of the day and transfigured myself into the same middle aged wizard as last time to not confuse the witch unnecessarily.
After checking myself over in the mirror for any inconsistencies, which I probably should have done the last time too, I once again apparated, but this time directly into Knockturn Alley.
Which might have been a mistake because I startled someone with my sudden appearance. They directly flung some unknown spell at me which I hastily dodged and readied my wand, watching them warily for any more spells coming my way.
They watched me too and seeing me not making any aggressive moves they slowly lowered their wand.
The person was under dark robes that completely hid any identifying features they might have had so I was not even sure whether it was a witch or a wizard. The only thing I could tell was that the person knew some powerful dark magic judging by the slowly dissolving spot on the wall behind me.
"Don't apparate here, people are very skitterish in this part of London."
The cloaked person said in a distorted voice, likely the effect of a charm or potion to make identifying them difficult.
"My bad, I am not familiar with the local customs"
I reply in heavily accented English while also lowering my wand.
The cloaked figure watches me warily without saying anything for a while before slowly backing away. As soon as they rounded a corner I heard the popping sound of someone disapparating.
I decided to keep my wand in my hand as I walked the rest of the way to the Potions shop and only put it away as I got through the door, thankfully without any more incidents.
When I entered I noticed that the storekeeper was once again in the backrooms, likely tending to the potions there, so I simply waited. It would be rude to interrupt her during an important step.
This time I had to wait slightly longer, but I managed to get a good look at most of the ingredients and noticed a few interesting new additions that were hard to come by like Ashwinder Eggs or Unicorn Hair.
Unicorn Hair was an essential Ingredient for a powerful Healing Potion that was even stronger than the common Wiggenweld Potion but it also required expensive and hard to get ingredients. It unfortunately could not remove curses, but maybe it could help fight against the symptoms.
Ashwinder Eggs were even more precious, they were one of the main ingredients in Felix Felicis also known as the potion of liquid luck. It was the ultimate achievement of Zygmund Budge, the greatest Potioneer to have ever lived.
I was almost salivating at the prospect of getting my hands on some Felix Felicis to try and make it into an alchemical item. Although that sort of item might be considered a cursed item too, because Felix Felicis was addicting and caused almost manic behaviour while in effect and turned highly toxic when consumed in large quantities.
Condensing that sort of potion into an alchemical essence would almost certainly count as overdosing on it. Not something I'd like to test to be honest.
The Ashwinder Eggs were quite useful for making an Edurus Potion too. It was one of the older potions that are rarely seen nowadays.
I was a little reluctant to brew that sort of potion because one of the ingredients was Mongrel Fur, which is the skin of certain canine beasts from the Scottish Highlands.
Killing dogs for their skin is obviously not something I would support, but maybe I could come up with an alternate recipe. After looking around I got the idea to use antimony, it was one of the few metals that could be made into potions and it was in stock here, though judging by the dust gathering on it, rarely bought.
It is highly toxic but with the right alchemical treatment It would complement the Ashwinder Egg's volatile nature well, and with some of the dragon bone to stabilize the concoction it could be even stronger than the original Edurus Potion.
I would have to do experiments to figure out the correct ingredient ratio… or I could cheat with divination.
While I was considering my options the witch finally came out of the backrooms and brought me back to reality.
"Welcome back Sir, I take it you are here to buy dragon bones?" She greeted me with a professional smile, still looking as tired as last time.
"Ah yes that's right, you have 2 kg of Ukrainian Ironbelly bones then? Or is it from another dragon? How much is it? Also how much for the Unicorn Hair over there?"
I asked excitedly, pointing at a glass jar with the unicorn hair, making the witch snort in amusement, which made me smile sheepishly at my childish behaviour.
"Ten Galleons per strand for the hair, and yes I got Ukrainian Ironbelly bones. While 2kg is a rather large quantity and dragon materials generally sell for a lot, bones are rarely bought as there are no potion recipes using them so 50 Galleons would suffice. I got the bones in powdered form for the ease of transport, you said that would be fine, right?"
I nodded at her question. It was a fair price too, 2kg was indeed a large quantity, but I intended to stock up on it for Hogwarts so I needed enough to last me until winter holidays.
"We also got some Ukrainian Ironbelly blood together with the bone dust, the liver over there is from the same dragon too, unfortunately the heart was already spoken for."
That got my attention, I would need some dragon liver for the potions I had in mind too, thankfully a single one was more than big enough for several potions.
I looked up at the witch and studied her for a moment, considering whether I should sell her the other vial with polyjuice elixir. There were many things I wanted to stock up on for Hogwarts but didn't have enough money for it all yet. The 600 Galleons I had left were a lot but certainly not enough to buy out the ingredients here, not even close.
"May I know your name? I think I'll be visiting your store quite often in the future and I can't keep referring to you as "that pretty lady from the shop" in my head forever." I decided to ask first, adding the second part on a whim, curious about how she might react to a little teasing.
"Flattery won't get you any discounts, but my name is Lysandra, no family name." She slightly blushed at first but her voice had an edge of resentment when she mentioned family. I was quite surprised that she would actually blush, apparently she doesn't get complimented often.
"Don't worry, your prices seem quite fair, there is no need for discounts, if I need money I can just sell an elixir or two, which kind of brings me back to what I wanted to discuss. Do you want to buy a Polyjuice Elixir? It was put into stasis as soon as I made it a few days ago and was not bound to any specific appearance yet."
There was a lot to unpack for her in that statement and her face went through various emotions, from doubt to amusement to doubt again and finally settling on astonishment as I pulled the Polyjuice Elixir from my pocket space and held it out to her.
She quickly hid all of her emotions again and professionally inspected the offered vial, even taking out some kind of test paper and dropping a tiny drop of the elixir on top of it.
The paper began going through a kaleidoscope of colors for nearly 2 minutes during which Lysandra stared at the paper as if in a trance.
"That's an elixir alright." She finally said dryly before explaining.
"Polyjuice potency is tested based on how big of an area on this paper a single drop can affect. I have never seen an entire paper being affected for so long, but I can confirm its polyjuice. How much do you want for it?"
"I'd like to trade that one for materials if possible. Other than the Dragon Bone Dust I'd like 3 strands of Unicorn Hair, 1 Ashwinder Egg, 1 jar with Dragon Liver, 3 sets of Wormwood, 1 bottle of Bubotuber Pus, 3 sets of Dittany and the Antimony over there. Oh and 2 Vials of Welch Green blood and 3 vials of Ukrainian Ironbelly blood."
I just listed everything I needed for three healing potions and an experimental Edurus Potion in addition to the dragon blood I'd need for the alchemy.
Lysandra thought for a moment, likely doing some mental math before hesitating and letting out a sigh.
"As much as it pains me to say it, but I would still be shortcharging you even with all that, I can probably sell the elixir for twice or thrice as much as those ingredients would cost and I don't like owing favors."
"How about this then, add one more set of polyjuice ingredients and help me reserve 3 ashwinder eggs and the remaining dragon blood together with 4 mandrakes and 30g of unicorn horn powder. I need to perform an experiment with the Ashwinder Eggs and if it is a success I'll trade another polyjuice elixir for the ingredients I just listed and the rest of your dragon blood tomorrow."
"Alright that's acceptable, but I can really only keep them off the shelves for a day, the stasis charms on the eggs are a hassle to maintain. The faster they are sold the better."
I briefly debated whether I should give her a page from the communication book but decided to wait and see how the trade goes tomorrow. I had an idea for a small gift that might help stabilize her situation so I could just give both at once.
"Alright that's it for today, thanks Lysandra, see ya tomorrow."
"Goodbye, Mr Stranger"
She said with a mixture of humor and annoyance, making me realise that I haven't actually introduced myself despite asking for her name. I briefly debated whether I should give her a fake name but decided against it.
I highly doubted she had any dealings with Hogwarts and that was the only place my name had a chance of being recognised from. Besides with my 40 year old appearance currently it would be quite a stretch to link the me she knew as a highly skilled alchemist to a 13 year old Hogwarts student. At best she would assume the other Darick Night at Hogwarts would be my son or family member of some sort.
"It's Darick Night, and yes that's my real name, but it is somewhat inconvenient for me to be seen or recognised around here, so please don't talk about me with anyone, or at least don't mention my name, my apologies for the secrecy. This isn't my real appearance either."
Since I had already decided to be honest about my name I told her about my appearance being fake too, I hated lying to people I liked and Lysandra was someone I was quite intrigued about.
Lysandra just nodded in acknowledgement, not prying about it despite having a thoughtful look.
I disapparated as soon as I left the shop to avoid dealing with any more trigger happy Knockturn Alley residents, reappearing in my room at the Orphanage.
As soon as I appeared I started adding a ward against apparition to the room and keyed myself in, just to make sure nobody would follow me.
I forgot that I am not the only person capable of apparating and it was in fact possible to follow someone through the magic traces they leave behind when apparating, better to be safe than sorry.