Edward POV
"If I ever find out who invented calculus, I'm kicking him in the balls," Sam griped.
"Save me some room in your time machine, Sam," I grumbled as I finished up the homework. Math was painfully tedious, and even if I knew every rule and step by heart, it didn't make it any less boring.
"Ugh! I can't do this anymore!" Sam groaned, flopping bonelessly onto my dining room table and pushing his pile of homework aside. "Let's do something else! Talk about things!"
"Okay, like what?" I asked, gratefully for any opportunity to put down my pencil.
"Well, how goes your little chemistry experiments?" Sam asked, waggling his eyebrows at me.
"Is that a lewd joke at my closeness with Delilah, or a euphemism for potions?"
"Both," he said with a cheeky grin. I rolled my eyes at my best friend's comment.
Sam had changed a lot since I'd met him all those years ago. He'd begun wearing his hair longer, keeping it tied back with a pony tail. He'd also begun experimenting with hair dye in all sorts of exotic colors. His parents were convinced he was either doing drugs or had become a rock metal fan.
Funnily enough, the first thing was technically the closest to the truth, since I was teaching him how to brew potions. Sam loved being able to do 'actual magic' even if he needed a crutch for it like I did. He had a real knack for potions. Better than I did. He was able to correctly identify when it was time to lower the heat on a boiling potion, or when was the correct moment to add a new ingredient.
He also liked cooking magical food with Inky and was a big fan of all the wacky candy the Wizard World had to offer. I planned on getting him a magical cookbook for his birthday. He'd certainly like that.
"Delilah and I are doing fine. Haven't done much besides a few kisses, and most of our 'dates' are actually business meetings," I replied.
"You can call it snogging, you know. No need to be all prim and proper about it," Sam teased.
"Well, anyways, things are fine and dandy," I said. "I've come up with a new potion, too."
"Oh? What is it?"
"Hangover potion," I replied. "Completely made out of mundane plants, though a magical stirring stick is still needed to make it work. Unicorn horn is preferable."
I'd found that different materials for making potion stirring rods could affect the outcome of a potion. Healing potions turned out better when brewed with a unicorn's horn, while dragon's bone was excellent for improving the length of time a potion's effects would last. A stirring stick made of Grindylow spines was best for creams as it made them smoother and silkier, and a Bowtruckle's branch vastly improved the quality of purely plant-based potions.
There were many more materials to experiment with, but what I had discovered was really improving my production.
"Neat! What's in it?" Sam asked.
"Coffee beans, mint, and duckweed."
"Gross," Sam winced.
"Yeah, it's taste ain't great, but it works. Consume before you go to bed after drinking, and you won't have a headache upon waking up. Or, drink it after waking up and ten minutes later your hangover will be gone."
"How did you test that, exactly?" Sam inquired. "You don't drink."
"No, but Mr. Finch-Fletchley does. He generously volunteered to test them once I'd confirmed they weren't in any way dangerous."
"Sounds like Duncan is doing lots of overtime," Sam noted, and I laughed.
"He doesn't complain since I give him plump and juicy crickets and mealworms all the time," I said with a smirk. Duncan the toad had really pulled his weight since I'd gotten him from Diagon Alley last year. He was fat and lazy and didn't do much except sit in his terrarium, which was good for me whenever I fed him eyedroppers full of potions to see what'd happen.
Did you know that if you replaced kraken blood with powdered moon jellyfish in the Water-Breathing Potion, the skin of the drinker would turn transparent? Weird, I know. But at least that was the only side-effect. And the potion still let you breath underwater! Duncan had looked very creepy without his flesh until the potion wore off.
"Hey, Ed? Can we can talk?" Sam asked, his mood shifting a bit, and I raised an eyebrow at that.
"Sure, but just so you know, those words put together in a sentence like that is rarely a good thing," I drawled, earning a snort of amusement from my best friend, before he turned serious again.
"So, uh, don't take this the wrong way, Ed, but I don't think I want to work with you in the potion making business," Sam said, fidgeting a bit. "I mean, I like it, don't get me wrong, but I don't think it's what I want to do with my life."
"I understand," I told him, placing a reassuring hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, I really do."
"You're not mad?" he asked hesitantly, and I nodded.
"Yeah. Honestly, I'm kinda glad you don't want to work for me. Friends working together is fine and all, but it gets awkward when one friend is the boss, and the other is being hired by them. We could probably have made it work, but I don't really want to risk our friendship over things like money and business."
"True, true," Sam said, a bit of relief in his voice that I wasn't mad, and that I understood how weird it'd be if he worked under me.
"What are your plans, then, for the future?" I asked curiously.
"Cooking school," Sam said. "I want to try and become a professional chef. And someday, work in a five-star restaurant I own myself!"
"That's a great dream to have!" I said, happy for him. "I'll bet you can do it, too!"
"Thanks for the support, Ed," Sam smiled. He then gained a pensive look. "Um, what do you think you'll do for hiring people, then?"
"I'll hire some Squibs, first. There aren't a lot of us, but there's enough out there who'd take any job. And a magical one that isn't in the Wizarding World? I bet I'll have plenty of applicants," I claimed.
'Gonna have to work on creating a magical contract to ensure they can't spill the beans, first, though,' I hummed. 'I'll need to look up the recipe for Oath Binding Ink before I forget.'
No way I was going into business without finding a way to bind my employees with a magical contract!
"In other news, are you excited for football season?!"
"Damn straight. World Cup is in Sweden this year, right?" I asked, and Sam nodded.
"Yeah! And England's gonna win! I know it!"
"We'll have to see," I chuckled. "We'll have to see."
'And if things work out, I'll be filthy rich.
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