MSSSC: Liquid luck

Hi everyone! Here is my entry for the MSSSC for March 2022. You can find the challenge details in the related blog entry and forum thread. The theme for this month is the word: lucky.

This month I decided to change the setting and to use one of my favourite saves, and the title is...

Liquid luck

This is the story of Charlotte, and of the quest to regain her lost fortune.

"Why am I so unlucky?" Charlotte whispered, demoralized. Even her friend George couldn't deny it anymore: she slippered in a mud paddle hidden below some dry leaves, her spell backfired on her setting her cape on fire and, Merlin's beard, she was even stuck by lighting while watching the last quidditch match. And this was just what happened to her in the last three days, how could she just continue to think it could be casual?

Noticing her mood, George tried to cheer her up by saying: "Maybe we could try to study some books, I can't believe that in the whole castle there isn't anything which can help you to find some luck!" 

And so they did.

In the following weeks, both Charlotte and George spent all their free time studying the tons of books stored all over their common room. It was a never-ending work, where were they supposed to start when the definition of luck itself seemed so elusive? Yet, they felt very motivated to give it their all for the cause.

"I've asked the others, but they don't know how to help you, either" George said after twelve days of research. He still tried to sound cheerful, but the tired note in his voice was evident to Charlotte. Even more demoralized than before, all she managed to answer was: "Maybe I'm spreading my back luck to the rest of you..."

"Here it is!", Charlotte suddenly cried excitedly, after more than one month of fruitless research. Her bad luck did not disappoint, the information they needed was written as a very small note in the last book they picked up from the huge libraries surrounding them. George, who until a second before was about to give up, was in complete disbelief, and only managed to ask her: "Wow, really? What is it?"

"It's a potion, the book calls it "felix felicis". It seems quite hard to prepare, but it does exactly what I need, liquid luck which I can drink whenever I need it!"

The plan seemed complex, so many things could go wrong, but that potion also sounded like the only solution to them. So they rolled up their sleeves, borrowed the ingredients they needed from their teacher reserves, and started sneaking into the potions' classroom at night to brew that potion.

"I'm a bit worried, this potion is supposed to pass through months of brewing. How can we hide it for so long?" George commented, just before starting to add the first ingredients to the boiling water. "We are going to bottle the intermediates and continue to brew them the following night, I guess.", answered Charlotte. So many things could go wrong, even without considering her bad luck, but she did not want to surrender before trying.

"Are you alright? There is something weird around your arm!", exclamated George, suddenly. Charlotte barely had the time to say:" It's nothing, I just have t..." when a very worrisome black smoke started to whirl from the cauldron.

"My face, what happened to my face?", asked Charlotte, in shock. But George did not answer, because he was stepping back from the caldrum as the smoke became more and more dark and menacing. Her bad luck was not satisfied yet, what else was supposed to happen to her?

"Ouch!"

Seeing Charlotte on the ground, George found enough courage to get closer and check on her. When she managed to mutter: "I think I need to go at the hospital wing...", demonstrating to still be conscious, he breathed a sigh of relief and finally ran out of the classroom, looking for help. 

It took  a few hours for the school nurse to heal Charlotte's main wounds, then she left her to rest a bit as she revised some old books, she claimed she hadn't seen anything like that in a while. 

When she returned back, she introduced herself with the most unexpected phrase Charlotte had heard in a while:

"You've been very lucky, Miss Bennett". 

"What? It can't be, I'm the unluckiest student of the whole school! Look what happened to me just by brewing a potion for some hours!" snapped Charlotte, exasperated. 

Patiently, the school nurse sat beside her to explain what she had just found out.

"You've been very lucky at passing from the hospital ward tonight, who knows what would have happened if we let you around with that curse for any longer!" the school nurse said. Then, without further hesitation, she handed Charlotte an amber-coloured potion.

Charlotte was too exhausted to investigate further, so she just took that potion and swallowed it down to the last drop.

And that was the beginning of a new life for Charlotte.

"So it was a curse making you so unlucky? And it is completely gone, really?" asked George, sceptical, the first time they met again. "The nurse said so" answered Charlotte. "But we should probably test it".

"Well, winning a chess game without any weird interruptions should be a quite good demonstration, you're right." commented George. Charlotte answered by nodding happily, before focusing again on the game.

"You see, I won! I won this time!" Charlotte said, jubilant. "You beat me bad, to be honest", admitted George. 

And so Charlotte was able to defeat that unlucky curse she caught who knows how much time earlier. Once again she was not losing objects all the time, she could exercise her spells without fearing unexpected failures, fly on a broom without risking being stuck by lighting and everything else. For everyone else this was just normal but, after so long, she finally felt again so lucky!

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20 pictures, 957 words

Note: all the settings were downloaded from the gallery. Most of the content was made from giuliabuilds (the whole castle) and sims1515 (the inner part of the common rooms and the potions classroom), while the hospital wing is from Dancingqueen1313. To avoid killing my computer I used different lots for different rooms, and it seems to be working quite well.