Marked by the Dark

Number 4: High Jinx, Isolda’s Story

“I didn’t even consider it dark magic, we were having fun. Until we weren’t.”

Isolda Waithe is perhaps not what one would immediately conjure up if asked to picture a key member of an illegal potion racket. Indeed, as she sits beside me on the seafront bench, bobble-hatted head down, legs swinging above the ground and tiny gloved hands gripped tight on the front of the seat, she looks more like a lost child than an experienced and adept potioneer. Certainly the passersby who look at us with indulgent smiles have no clue that she is partly responsible for the addiction problem that swept wizarding England in the years after the second Wizarding War.

“Everyone just wanted to forget. We’d all lost someone. We’d all lost ourselves a bit too I reckon. You remember what it was like, right?”

Her face is earnest, amber eyes wide, as she lifts her head and gazes at me almost imploringly. The subtle lines around her eyes and the crease in her forehead suddenly remind me that she is in fact no child, despite her small stature. Born in the early hours of January 1st 1980, Isolda is now 42, but could easily pass as being twenty years younger. I nod, but don’t speak. All of us who are old enough remember.

“My parents pulled me out of Hogwarts after Umbridge took over. My dad’s a muggle, but my mam’s sister worked at the Ministry and my mam was smart enough to see what was coming. She’d wanted me to stay home after the whole Triwizard debacle, but I kicked up a fit until she let me go back. Once Dumbles was ousted though she had me straight home. I ended up finishing my education with tutors, but I stayed in touch with the lads right through.”

I hand her a photograph clipped from an edition of the Daily Prophet, a once famous but now mostly forgotten image of a group of sweaty, red-faced males in their late teens or early twenties, grabbing one another round the neck, jumping around, and laughing heartily against a backdrop of pulsing lights. A young Isolda, eyes bright but pupils blown wide can be seen jostling for space at the bottom edge of the frame, significantly shorter than her counterparts she appears to be stretching up so she can make it into the picture. The real world Isolda’s legs still and she hesitates a moment before taking the offering, but then reaches out with a gloved hand to take it from me.

“Yeah, that’s us. I used to love this photo you know, before the bloody Prophet turned into the poster image for immorality. We had a copy blown up and put in the flat and everything.” She points to each person in turn. “That’s me, obviously, then Dave, Merc, Seb, Oggy, and…” Her voice cracks slightly and she gives a little cough, breathing in deeply before carefully touching the last face in the picture. “and that’s Ro.”

To hear the remainder of the infamous Spelixir Six referred to by nicknames is jarring, their full names having become synonymous with cautionary tales told to teenage wizards and witches, but it is clear that the tragedies that occurred and the years separating the group has not lessened Isolda’s affection.

Isolda Waithe, David Stephens, Sebastian Garamond, David Oggendon, and twins Mercutio and Romeo Andilet met when they all joined the Young Potioneers Club at Hogwarts. An extra-curricular activity designed to expand on the talents of students who showed an aptitude for the subject, The Young Potioneers Club, or YPC, gave the teens a chance to experiment with brewing more difficult or rare potions than those taught in regular classes, and also taught them how to go about creating their own potions.

“I was always the only lass. At first they all sort of treated me like a joke, but then when they saw that I could give as good as I got, that was it, I was one of the lads. I got a lot of crap for it at school like, one girl with a group of five guys all the time, but I didn’t care. I always got on better with blokes. Still do. It was Ro who really brought me into the fold, he was always so sweet. I fancied him for the longest time just because he was always kind to me. Merc and Oggy were these big personalities, would sometimes take jokes a bit too far. Seb and Dave just kinda followed along with whatever Merc did, but Ro was different. He could always see you, you know? He spent his entire life looking out for everyone else.” She nods down at the photograph in her hand.

“That picture, I remember when it was taken. Remember it like it was yesterday. We were at this club just off Diagon, Sonorous it was called back then. I think it’s some hoity toity wine bar now, but back in the 90s it was an amazing night out, proper centre of the scene. People would queue for hours to get in, and they had all the best tunes and these mad cocktails and stuff. That’s where we did most of our trade when we were starting out. That picture was taken after midnight at their millenium New Year’s extravaganza, my 20th birthday. Merlin, we were so young.”

Indeed they were. As the dust settled from the events of 2 May 1998, Waithe, Stephens and Oggendon were just eighteen years old, the Andilet boys and Garamond a year older at nineteen.

“We’d kept in touch as best we could through the war. Oggy and Dave were at Hogwarts all the way through, and with them being Slytherins they had an easier time than most, but they both noped out when it all kicked off and just sorta hid out in Hogsmeade until it was over. The others had already left school and were all living together in a crappy flat in Camden. Two days after the Battle I got an owl telling me to meet them in London. I went down thinking I’d stay for a few days and I never left.

That first night, we were all in the Leaky and we’d thought the place would be bouncing, you know? Celebrating and all that? But nah, it was weird, like the whole world was lost and didn’t know how to find their way home. That’s all we wanted to do, honestly, we just wanted to help people find something to hold on to again, in the beginning.”

Isolda takes another look at the picture, then slides it into the pocket of her coat, her legs beginning to swing again once it has vanished from sight. She adjusts her hat, pushing a handful of hair behind her ear in the process, and stares out over the grey water as she continues.

“The first batch we brewed was just a pretty straightforward mash up of Draught of Peace, Invigoration Draught, and Euphoria Elixir. Nothing special, no activation spellwork required, just a potion you knocked back to feel better for a bit. It tasted like marmalade and lasted for about two hours, just enough to get your night started on the right foot. We made about 50 doses that first time, after we’d tested a batch on ourselves first, and that weekend we went to the Leaky and just gave them out to any Hogwarts alum that were hanging about. Word got round pretty quick and the next weekend people were seeking us out for it. We were giving it away at that point, the whole point was just to make people feel better,” Her eyebrows knit together and she looks at me again, her gaze fierce, “At the trials they made out like it was a plan all along, like we deliberately crafted a gateway drug to establish a customer base for the harder stuff, but it’s a lie. We weren’t calculating, we were hurting. Everybody was hurting and we just wanted to do something to make a bloody difference, none of us knew how it would end up.”

It ended up, as many of our readers will know, with scores of young people in a hastily devised Ministry led rehab programme, five in Azkaban, and two dead. Whatever the sentiment behind the initial potion, it is clear that by the time things came to a crescendo in the summer of the year 2000 any good intentions were long gone, and in the aftermath very few people would have any sympathy at all for Isolda or her friends.

Isolda stands up abruptly, wrapping her arms around herself and walking to the railing overlooking the sea. The wind drags her hair across her face but she ignores it. The pier is quiet now, a light drizzle starting to fall as the sky and water start to blend together in a fog of grey. After a few moments Isolda returns to stand before me and asks if we can walk as she tells me the next part of the story. As we stroll along the pier I have to strain to hear her voice before the wind takes it away.

“I don’t remember who first told us we should sell potions. Everyone always says it was Merc, probably ‘cause he’s the one who ended up running the show I suppose, but it wasn’t. It was someone from school in a club one night, came up and said something about how we could be making a fortune and only an idiot would be giving stuff that good away for free. That’s what started the wheels spinning. Then someone else asked if we had anything that lasted longer, and someone else asked if we had anything that made you a better dancer, and some else asked if we had anything that made you a better lover, and, well. You get the idea.

Suddenly we were brainstorming a business. It made sense at the time, none of us were making good money. I was a waitress, Oggy was unemployed, the others had various apprenticeships that paid sod all. Our weeks were miserable, we were living for the weekend just like everyone else our age. If we could have a good time and make money, well, that was a no brainer. It was never supposed to be dodgy though, never supposed to hurt anyone. I didn’t even know that what we were doing was illegal.

We’d been brewing together for so many years it was just second nature, and it was nice at first ‘cause it was kinda like being back at school. We slipped straight into the same roles we always had in YPC, Dave and Ro would research stuff to counteract any likely side-effects, Oggy and Seb would work together to make the bases, I would seek out unusual or hard to find ingredients and work out alternatives if we couldn’t get something, and Merc would sweep in at the last second to do the final spellwork and take all the credit. ” She laughs, a short, humourless sound. “You know, he was actually pretty shit at potions, but he was a really strong caster.”

I ask Isolda who came up with the branding, the now infamous ‘Spelixir’ name.

“Oh, that was Ro, and it came later. For the first three months or so we were just selling basic draught mixes that anybody could have made if they’d tried. In fact, other people did start making their own mixes, and that’s when it all kicked up a gear. I remember one night at the Leaky some kid tried to sell Oggy a potion almost identical to ours, daft sod. Our sales had been flagging a bit and suddenly we knew why. We ended up pulling an all-nighter thinking about how to take it to the next level, spent the next two months working on a brand new brew of our own design to make people dance harder and faster, and to stay awake longer. We had some spectacular failures, a couple of fires. One prototype turned Dave’s teeth green for a week, which was bloody hilarious. When we finally cracked it, Merc insisted we give it a name, brand it as something new so the clubbers would all want in on it. That first original brew we called ‘Party Poison’. The first weekend out we shifted about ten vials. By the end of the month we were shifting a hundred a night. We all ended up quitting our jobs, just so we could keep up with the demand of the harvesting and the brewing.”

Their new venture, she explains, came with more perks than just money, as they quickly became the ‘It’ kids in the clubs and bars of Wizarding London. Suddenly the group found that they were no longer the YPC nerds, for the first time in their short lives they were considered cool.

“That was the best time of my life right there. We could get into any club in London, wizarding and muggle, without paying or queuing or any of that bollocks. We had automatic access to all the VIP areas, and I don’t reckon I paid for a drink for a year or more. Every weekday was spent on the brews, and every weekend, all weekend, we just danced and laughed and lived. It was like the war had never happened, like nobody had ever died and we were all going to live forever. We were untouchable, and it was bloody beautiful. We were absolutely coining it in too. Moved to a bigger place, got a better brewing set up which halved the time it took to make Poison. Life was really good. Really bloody good.”

We reach the end of the pier and Isolda turns, leaning her back against the railing and grinning at me, a youthful gleam in her eye. I’m almost sorry to spoil it, but it’s getting cold and I need to hear how it all went wrong, so I ask her again about ‘Spelixir’. Her face drops, eyes hardening.

“Merc came home one day, I think it was like February or March time in 99, and said he’d had a bespoke request for a potion, that some bigshot pureblood had offered him an obscene amount of money to create something unique just for her. She wanted a potion that did everything Poison did, but that had a second wind, a next level. I wish he’d never met her, wish we’d never branched out. Maybe if we’d stuck with Poison everything would have been fine.” She drifts away for a moment, then shakes her head harshly, bringing herself back to reality, pushing away from the railing and striding forward back along the pier. I have to hurry to keep up with her.

“I’d never heard of a potion with a delayed element. None of us had. It wasn’t something any of us knew how to create, but Merc wouldn’t let it go. He wanted the payday, and he wanted to rise to the challenge. That was Merc all over. Always the mouthpiece, always the big shot, but he could never have produced anything like Spelixir without us. I never once saw him back down from a damn thing you know. Ro, he was different, a creative soul, quiet. He just wanted everyone to have a good time, but Merc was all about the limelight. We told him we couldn’t do it, that it wasn’t possible, to just chill out and enjoy himself but he wasn’t having any of it. Insisted it could be done. Insisted we work it out.

It was Dave who found the answer, which wasn’t surprising. He collected these weird books, old potion texts, antique stuff. For weeks him and Ro had been shut away going through books whilst the rest of us kept up with the regular brewing. Then one day I was making tea and he just comes running into the kitchen with this rotten old book in his hand and he’s waving it about and yelling, Ro following him like a curious puppy. That book was proper weird. Creepy you know? It was written in some weird ‘olde worlde’ English which was a bitch to read, but he’d found this section about how to imbue potions with dormant spellwork. We didn’t know where the book had come from, and I know he got in proper trouble for it but to my very soul I swear that Dave never knew it was a Dark Arts thing. Dave was a sweetheart. He’d never knowingly do dark magic. I know it.”

The book that Stephens had uncovered was a banned text, originating from Latvia in the 14th Century and banned in England and most of Europe in the 1850s. At trial Stephens testified that the book came into his possession as part of a job lot of antique potions texts from an auction, and that he had no notion that the book was outlawed. The Wizengamot were not convinced, and laid an extra charge against Stephens for possession of banned material. The Quibbler has chosen not to publish the title of this book, to prevent others from seeking it out.

“It took us a couple of tries to get the hang of it, our bases were coming out fine but just the same as always. Seb cracked it in the end, and though he swore down it was from a thorough re-read of the book I’m pretty sure it was by accident, but that was Seb all over. I won’t tell you how, but essentially he added a dormant spell part way through the brewing process and through a bunch of proper complicated wandwork assigned a trigger to it. It took two people to do it properly, which is where we’d been going wrong. If you got it right, people who drank the potion would have the basic effects until the trigger spell was cast, and then that would activate the dormant spell which would set off the second effect. Merc was so freaking excited when we nailed it. We tested the first one on Seb as a reward for cracking the nut. He had a higher tolerance to potions than us, probably because he was bloody massive, so he made a good test subject for early prototypes. That first one, the one for the pureblood party, it was a base of our usual Poison brew, but it had a mild Stinging Jinx and modified Arresto Momentum built in at the dormant phase. When the trigger spell was cast, the person who’d drank the potion felt like all their nerves were lit up, but like in a good way not a Cruicio kinda way, and simultaneously they felt as though time had slowed down. Basically, it made a period of about five minutes feel like it was happening in slow motion and made you tingle the whole way through. I’ll never forget Seb’s face when we triggered it, it was like all his Christmasses had come at once.

Merc said we had to brand it, like properly brand it not just name the brew, and that’s when Ro suggested Spelixir, just pulled the name out of thin air. ‘Like spell and elixir mixed together’ he said. Well it fit perfectly, so that was it, from then on everything we created was under the Spelixir brand, and then a ‘flavour’ name. That first one was called ‘Spelixir, Tick Tock’. Merc took a whole box of it to the pureblood bitch and she gave him the money. A week later, after her party, she sent us a bonus of another 100 galleons and a list of people who wanted to hire us on the down low.”

With Mercutio Andilet leading the charge and making the deals, the Spelixir brand became an underground sensation. Bespoke potions were created for exclusive parties or events, and then once the event was over the potion would be subsequently mass produced and sold quietly in the bars and clubs in London. By the beginning of the year 2000, the group were employing old schoolmates cash in hand to sell the potions in clubs as far afield as Glasgow. They also employed part time brewers to create the base potions, though the secret of the dormant spells was never shared with anyone outside the original six.

“Merc insisted on it. The trigger spells were what set us apart from other peddlers. Nobody else knew how to replicate it and Merc didn’t trust anyone but us to keep the secret. Whenever a batch in one of the potions labs was ready for the dormancy phase to be added two of us would portkey or apparate to wherever it was being brewed and add in the dormant spellwork, then go home again for the brewers to finish their process and bottle it all up. We had a rota for it, and were making a ton of money for about three hours of work each a week. Living the dream, I guess.”

However, it was mere months later that the dream turned into a nightmare. When we get to this point in the story, Isolda heads for a bench and sits again, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

“The one that brought it all down was called ‘Spelixir, Weak At The Knees’. It was a base of Euphoria and low potency love potion with a dormancy layer of mild Rictusempra and Supersensory Charm.” Suddenly she reaches out and grabs my hand, squeezing it between both of her own. “You have to believe me, if I had thought for even one second that it would make people…. that it could be so… well I wouldn’t have let him make it. I would have shut down the whole operation myself. Nobody was ever supposed to get hurt. Never. We were trying to make people feel good.”

However, therein lay the problem. The potion did make people feel good. So good, in fact, that they found they could not face the realities of post-war life without it. ‘Weak At The Knees’ quickly became Spelixir’s best-selling potion, massively outstripping all of their other brews. The reason? A miscalculation in the base ingredients caused the euphoria and supersensory dormancy to combine and create an extremely strong addictive effect. Users of the potion found themselves unable to function without a dose in their system. Before long, despite employing additional brewers across the country, supply could not keep up with demand and the Spelixir team were struggling to source enough base ingredients. As vials of the potion became harder to source, users began to go to extreme lengths to procure it.

On Saturday 6 June 2000 a desperate user, Richard Tiere, recognised Isolda and approached her on the crowded dancefloor of Sonorous nightclub, insisting that she give him more potion. When she told him that it wasn’t possible, he attacked her, grabbing at her to try and locate the potion he was sure she must have somewhere on her person. On witnessing his friend in distress, Romeo Andilet stepped in to protect her and was swiftly hit with a killing curse by Tiere. As clubbers stampeded for the doors in a panic, Mercutio Andilet stood in the centre of the chaos and cast a Cruciatus on the man who had killed his brother, a spell cast with such ferocity that Tiere never regained consciousness and ultimately died six months later.

The surviving members of the Spelixir Six were all tried in front of the Wizengamot for charges including use of the Dark Arts, handling and distribution of unlicenced potions, and public endangerment. Mercutio Andilet was also tried for manslaughter. Andilet received a life sentence in Azkaban. Waithe, Garamond and Oggendon each received fifteen year sentences, with seven years suspended, and Stephens, on account of the additional charge relating to the banned book, received eighteen years with seven years suspended. Isolda refuses to talk in any detail about her time in Azkaban, shutting down as soon as the prison is mentioned. After several minutes of silence, however, she does pass one comment.

“I saw their faces every day. That man, Ro, Merc. The three of them, one after the other, unconscious, dead, twisted. Every. Single. Day.”

In the failing light I see Isolda flinch as I put my hand on her shoulder and ask her the same question that I ask everybody that I interview. I ask her how she has been marked by the dark. She doesn’t look at me when she answers.

“Indelibly.”