JAMES POTTER: 27 October, 1976
Dear Cicero Ciquentio,
I borrowed your book `Practical Analgesix and Anodynes` from my school library specifically because it included the potion for a high-potency painkiller that I could make for myself.
It’s this last point that is most important.
I was making it for myself. You specified only that the person who intended to make the potion had a good grasp of Potions, and the sense to know how much painkiller is enough. I possess both.
What I do not possess is a store of supplies that would put Artemis’s Apothecary on Diagon Alley to shame, or the time to wait twenty-eight days for the potion to brew.
I am in pain now. A potion is not practical “for you to make at home” if it requires manticore skin or werewolf teeth (I can see that conversation going down well with Remus: Hey Moony, open wide while I rip a tooth or two out of your head!) A potion is not practical “for immediate relief” if I have to wait a month before I can drink it.
I suggest you rewrite the whole thing with more sensible directions. If I had the time or patience, I would go through every damn page and point out every error. But in case I haven’t mentioned it, I’m in pain and trying to do something about it.
Yours disgustedly.
James Potter.
I borrowed your book `Practical Analgesix and Anodynes` from my school library specifically because it included the potion for a high-potency painkiller that I could make for myself.
It’s this last point that is most important.
I was making it for myself. You specified only that the person who intended to make the potion had a good grasp of Potions, and the sense to know how much painkiller is enough. I possess both.
What I do not possess is a store of supplies that would put Artemis’s Apothecary on Diagon Alley to shame, or the time to wait twenty-eight days for the potion to brew.
I am in pain now. A potion is not practical “for you to make at home” if it requires manticore skin or werewolf teeth (I can see that conversation going down well with Remus: Hey Moony, open wide while I rip a tooth or two out of your head!) A potion is not practical “for immediate relief” if I have to wait a month before I can drink it.
I suggest you rewrite the whole thing with more sensible directions. If I had the time or patience, I would go through every damn page and point out every error. But in case I haven’t mentioned it, I’m in pain and trying to do something about it.
Yours disgustedly.
James Potter.