Chapter Four of 'An Alchemical Discontent'- Point and Counterpoint
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Chapter Four-Point and Counterpoint
Draco woke slowly. He lay with his arms twisted behind him and chained-or tied, he thought, when he pulled; the material had the yielding feel of rope-together. A blindfold lay over his eyes, but when he turned his head to the side, it slipped off. Something sticky and cold was drying on his belly. He craned his neck until he could see, and grimaced. It looked like a mixture of blood and semen.
And of course his mind was as blank and smooth as the black cloth Daphne had used to blind him, ignorant of what they had done, under an expertly applied Memory Charm.
“Awake, dearest?”
Draco shivered in revulsion, but managed to turn a pleasant expression towards Daphne. It wouldn’t be wise to upset her, with the rope writhing in tightening knots around his fingers and his arms full of small twinges and aches. Daphne sat in a plush chair near the bed, regarding him with an expression in which banked fire smoldered. Her blonde hair hung loose down her back; her cat-like eyes were narrowed with appreciation. She wore a small wreath of thorny roses in her hair and nothing else.
“I see you are,” she said, with a smile for Draco’s groin. She stood, took a rose from the wreath, and trailed it down his belly, thorns out. Draco controlled the impulse to flinch. She would score him with worse than a few light, bloody lines if he moved.
“And ready to play, too,” she said softly into his ear, and laughed, probably at the expression on his face, as she moved to cover him.
Draco spread his legs obediently, and hoped that the impatient crowds waiting outside the shop for the Desire potion wouldn’t batter down his door before Daphne let him go.
*
Harry slowed as he came in sight of Draco’s shop. He couldn’t believe the door was still shut when it was almost ten in the morning. Had something gone wrong? Had Nott or Diggory waylaid Draco, perhaps?
Harry hung back, a cloak over his head, glancing around warily. He wasn’t out of place; at least half the people in the crowd seemed intent on disguising themselves so no one else would realize they were buying Desire. Harry saw no flash of white-blond hair, though, and no sign of Charlemagne Diggory, whom he could have recognized from the back now.
What he did see was the young man who had followed him in Diagon Alley a few days ago, just before Draco had put Desire on the market. He was standing with his hands in his robe pockets, continually fiddling with something. Harry narrowed his eyes and edged a few steps closer. Since the neat line was dissolving into grumbling, complaining clumps of wizards, no one really noticed. Harry pretended to pause at the outside edge of a group and nod along in sympathy with their words whilst aiming his wand at the young wizard under the edge of his cloak.
“Sinus aspectus,” he whispered.
His field of vision narrowed and turned white, then jerked forwards as if he were a fly being tugged along on a strand of spidersilk. Harry held still; he had found that if he moved too much when he used this charm, he got sick to his stomach. One of the more unpleasant side-effects of having less control over his magic thanks to his own potion.
His vision dived, and suddenly he was seeing into the pockets of the young wizard, the images side by side like a divided screen on a Muggle telly. One was empty. The other contained a glass vial filled with yellow flakes. Nine years ago, when he’d still been taking Potions classes, Harry never would have recognized them. Now, since he did regular shopping at apothecaries to purchase the ingredients he needed for his brewing, he did.
Fool’s saffron. It was a variant of true saffron often used in joke potions. It caused foaming at the mouth and intense reddening of the eyes and cheeks. But the effect wasn’t instantly recognizable, and someone who watched a person take fool’s saffron might decide he’d been seriously injured.
Harry could see the intended result of the flakes as if the young wizard had turned and described them to him. He’d go in, buy a vial of Desire, take it in front of everyone-as people were still doing when they wanted to test the efficacy of the potion immediately, or make other people watch as their loathed characteristic disappeared-and then slip the fool’s saffron into the vial at the same time as the potion. He’d collapse foaming at the mouth and probably screaming about something worse, hallucinations and the like. Certainly he’d put the more timid souls off Desire at once, and probably create the excuse for a Ministry investigation.
Harry growled under his breath, and paused a moment to think over what his best course of action would be. Draco still hadn’t told him who this man was, and intercepting him might carry hefty consequences. Nor, with the nervous way he was fingering his vial, could Harry simply Summon the fool’s saffron out of his pocket and hope he wouldn’t notice. He’d probably run away, and the next time he came back, someone might not be in place to counter him.
Before Harry could decide, white-blond hair flashed through the crowd, and several people turned and cheered. Draco raised a hand to them as he limped past-
Limped?
Harry canceled the Pocket Vision Charm so he could get rid of the distracting images bobbing in front of his eyes, and stared at Draco in concern. Yes, he was indeed limping, moving as if a muscle in his upper thigh had been strained. And his face seemed paler and bonier than usual, his eyes haunted. But he still waved and smiled courageously, and Harry felt his own face soften in something suspiciously like adoration.
It is adoration, and you know it.
Harry shook his head a little as he stepped briskly through the crowding wizards and witches to get to Draco’s side. He had never experienced the process of falling into infatuation so fast; usually he dated a witch for a few nights, laughed and joked with her and asked her questions, before he proposed a more formal commitment. Was it just the business partnership between him and Draco that made this so different? Or was it really because Draco was male?
He shrugged off the thoughts and caught Draco’s hand just as it touched the latch of the door. Draco flinched when he turned around, and outrage poured through Harry like hot wine. Who did that to him? I swear, if it turns out this investor he bargained with to save his shop is hurting him-
But in the next moment, Draco had recovered his balance and his poise. Harry knocked the hood from his head so other people could see him, and Draco turned around to hold Harry’s hand high. “Along with the Desire potion,” he announced, “Harry Potter will be signing autographs this morning!”
The fervent cheering followed them into the shop. Draco kept hold of Harry’s hand all the way, and murmured as he started towards the counter, where a desk for Harry to sign was set up, “What is it?”
“The same wizard who followed me before,” Harry whispered back. “Fool’s saffron.”
He didn’t need to say any more than that; Draco’s head jerked a little, and then his eyes glowed, as he undoubtedly went over the same possibilities Harry had.
“I know who he is,” he breathed.
“Who?’ They were almost to the counter and the desk now, and with the people behind them already shouting impatient orders, this was nearly the last chance they would have to speak.
“Theodore,” said Draco, and sneered. “Cordelia’s half-brother. Let me handle him.”
And he swept behind the counter with a flourish, leaving Harry to settle behind the desk, wondering and worrying.
Will he really catch him when he comes up? What if he manages to palm the fool’s saffron after all, and Draco doesn’t notice? What if-
Then Harry forced away the crowding thoughts, and the concern he felt for Draco’s limp, too. He would have to trust in Draco. For the moment, he needed to sign the parchment being thrust towards him by a witch who looked like a blonde Mrs. Weasley. Harry smiled at her with some effort.
“Who should I make it out to?” he asked, as he took up the quill Draco had provided and dipped it into the fresh ink.
“My daughter, Megan Whitbread,” the witch said, and mopped at her eyes with a handkerchief. “Oh, she’s never going to believe this!”
Harry froze the edges of his smile and wrote, telling himself that he was not watching the counter out of the corner of his eye.
*
Theo? Well, well.
Draco had suspected the truth the moment Harry told him about his follower, and now it hardened into certainty when he caught a glimpse of that stringy, pale face in the crowd, though Theo immediately waved his wand and cast a glamour to hide himself. No one was going to notice, not when they were gazing with rapt eyes at the vials of Desire on the counter.
Cordelia could control everyone in her disgraced family if she wanted; her access to money and the fact that she hadn’t been tarred with the brush of the Death Eater ensured that. Theo, the last Draco had known of him, was desperate for a little respectability, but he’d take Galleons over that. If his half-sister told Theo to come here and pretend to have an “attack” thanks to fool’s saffron, he would.
Draco could, of course, simply wait until Theo was about to play his trick and then reveal the vial in front of everyone, but he didn’t want to. For one thing, that would let Cordelia and Diggory know he knew about one of their pawns, and they’d find another-perhaps one less recognizable. For another, there would be people who would become more cautious about buying from him if they realized he had rivals. Foolish indeed, but many wizards and witches were reactionary enough to fear any touch of controversy.
No. He preferred a solution relying on his quick wand hand and his knowledge of Potions ingredients. He was, after all, an artist.
He glanced to the side, shifting his weight uncomfortably-Daphne had left him just enough memory of this morning’s encounter to know it involved a net and trident-and peeked at Harry, even as his hands continued the business of exchanging vials for Galleons smoothly. Harry was signing parchments and books for the most part, though sometimes handkerchiefs or broomsticks or wands, all the while keeping up a flow of light chatter.
Draco snorted. The Gryffindor Golden Boy never could have done that.
But it was all so easy for him with the potion, wasn’t it? It took him away from the situation, made him rational and calm. He’d be able to decide that pandering to the public’s insatiable taste for Harry Potter was worth the prize he’d earn: greater publicity for Desire and more patrons for Draco’s shop who, once inside, might choose to buy something else, too.
Draco ground his teeth. He disliked that potion. Harry ought to suffer the same consequences as everyone else. He ought to be scowling as he signed, turning disdainfully away from some of the things he was offered, eyes flashing.
But there was nothing to be done about it at the moment and perhaps not ever. Besides, Theo was getting close to the front of the line. Draco grinned as he watched the man palm the fool’s saffron. Not at all subtle. He might have been warned even if Harry hadn’t spotted him.
Or maybe not. I’m still a little dizzy from Daphne.
And Harry was watching. Perfect. Draco did enjoy impressing him.
Draco fought the urge to preen, handed the vial of Desire that Theo had purchased over with a smiling nod, and then cast his spell.
*
“Would you sign-“ The witch in front of him was giggling so uncontrollably she couldn’t complete the sentence. Harry was morbidly afraid of what would happen when she did. She ducked her head, and smiled into her own bosom, which left Harry to sit back and glance at Draco for a moment. The people in line behind the witch were muttering, but no one had resorted to pushing yet.
Theodore Nott, or at least a man who looked like him, in the same cloak, was just accepting a vial of Desire potion from Draco.
Harry stiffened and leaned forwards. The witch was still young enough to believe he wanted to see her breasts, and perhaps that was what she meant him to sign, because she smiled expectantly. But Harry was intent on the transaction over the counter. Draco had done nothing so far, and once again his gut clenched in worry. Did that mean Draco would do nothing? Was he going to let Theodore fall foaming to the floor, and-
The twitch of Draco’s wand was so small that Harry almost missed it. He thought he would have done so were he not accustomed to the minute motions that Draco often had to make when brewing Desire. But he saw this one, and he saw the small beam of golden light, easily mistaken for sunshine, that shot out of the wand and enveloped the vial of fool’s saffron. In a moment the flakes had become purple, the grains larger than normal. Theodore still tipped them into the Desire and gulped the potion down, apparently not noticing the change.
Harry felt a smile widen across his face so fast it was actually painful. The witch in front of him giggled again, and bounced a little, obviously trying to draw his attention back. But Harry wasn’t capable of looking at her yet, no matter how much of a bad shift it would cause in customer relations.
Draco had changed the fool’s saffron into lavender petals. They were a largely neutral ingredient to most potions, and that included the current version of the Desire potion. Theodore would have a slightly sweeter taste than normal when he swallowed, and that would be the only effect. He stood there now, looking rather like a sheep who had expected the sky to fall. He tilted the vial back and stared at it again.
An elegant solution, neat, simple. And also one that didn’t let Cordelia Nott and Diggory realize that Harry and Draco were on to them. Harry felt like applauding.
“Well, man?” Draco was saying to Theodore now, whilst behind him the line of people waiting to buy their potions shifted restlessly. “You could step out of the way and let others have what they’ve come to purchase, you know.”
Theodore mumbled something apologetic, sounding as if he would burst into sobs at any moment, and moved away. Harry hid a smirk, and finally turned back to focus on the woman in front of you.
“Sign my breasts,” she said.
Harry gave her a cool smile. “I’m afraid I don’t sign body parts,” he said. “Did you have any parchment about you?” He made sure to look at her chest with no interest, and thanks to his own potion, that was easier than it might have been.
The woman stared at him with her mouth open, then slammed down a piece of parchment and told him, rather snippily, that her name was Caroline. Harry signed it “To Caroline, from Harry Potter, with thanks for her patience.” She didn’t even look at the signature before she flounced away into the crowd.
Harry had no time to lean back and relax before the next people in his line surged forwards again, but he did cast one more lingering look at Draco. He was working like a professional now, answering questions and distributing the potion without a sign of the pain that had troubled him earlier.
I wish I was dating him already. God, what a tale of cleverness that one is! It might even impress the Weasleys.
He felt a slight twitch of pain at the thought of Ron, but a year had gone by. He had to accept that his friend wasn’t coming back. He knew his smile was slight and melancholy when he turned around again, but he corrected it before anyone in his audience had a chance to interpret it in the wrong way.
And then he saw a flash of red hair in the line waiting for Draco’s services, and hissed under his breath. He knew the length and texture of that hair, and the way the body beneath it stood.
Ginny won’t be here for any nasty reason, he tried to assure himself. She’s only come to buy the Desire potion like anyone else.
Still, he couldn’t quite help keeping an eye on her as he continued to sign. It wasn’t every day that the person he’d once thought he would spend the rest of his life with showed up in the shop of the person he was currently thinking about dating.
*
Draco kept his expression bland when the she-Weasel appeared in front of him. The best way to disappoint one’s enemies was simply not to give them the explosion they wanted. He nodded courteously instead and picked up a vial of the Desire potion.
“I didn’t come for that,” said Ginny Weasley, and damn her to hell, she’d cast Sonorus on her throat. Heads turned all over the shop, including those of people who had been clamoring happily for a chance to see Harry or picking among his Potions ingredients looking to buy something besides Desire. “I came to ask you what’s in Desire, and why you can afford to sell it at such a low price.”
Draco lifted an eyebrow. He hadn’t counted on this. Was it revenge on Harry? Some odd social justice crusade of the kind that Gryffindors had been known to go on in Hogwarts? Concern for Harry? He had to admit the last was possible, however strange it seemed. She could have decided that Draco was dangerous, to be feared, and that it would be best to get him away from Harry as soon as possible.
“I won’t release my recipe where my rivals could benefit from it, of course,” he said. “And I can afford to sell it at such a low price because the ingredients are relatively common.”
“That’s a contradiction in terms,” said the she-Weasel, and though her eyes were flashing, she looked pale. Draco saw the way her gaze darted over to the side, and smiled thinly. So she was afraid to be in the same room with Harry, was she? Then she probably hadn’t come here out of concern for him, no matter what her other motives were. “If the ingredients are common, then you don’t need to sell the potion for much money at all. And you could release the recipe and let everyone brew it.”
Draco sighed wearily. “Weasley, what part of that would make me lose my profit don’t you understand?”
“I know that it’s changing people.” Weasley drew herself up. “Have you thought about what it costs the people who take Desire, and their families and friends, when you let them simply run away from their problems, instead of facing and confronting them?”
Granger didn’t put her up to this, did she? That position had been Granger’s in all the arguments they’d had over the Desire potion. But Draco did think, despite everything, that Granger was too good a friend to Harry to do that. He folded his arms and looked bored, which would play well with the crowd of customers watching in breathless silence. “I don’t force anyone to buy my potion. They come to my door and do it eagerly enough. And since when is taking a potion for a little while to conquer their problems the same as running away from them? Would you say that people who take Dreamless Sleep Potion are running away from their nightmares?”
That had been a shot in the dark-he really had no way of knowing that Ginny Weasley still had nightmares about what Harry had done to her-but he saw her eyes widen. Her voice sounded thinner, despite the charm, when she said, “Then you will deny the truth of the claim that Desire potion is addictive?”
“I do,” Draco said. “Show me the proof of your claim.”
“Dreamless Sleep Potion is addictive. So are many pain potions used to relieve headaches and the like.”
“Ah,” Draco said, and smiled. “But Desire works on the emotional and mental problems that people have, most of all. It changes their perceptions of themselves, or suppresses certain foolhardy feelings and impulses, like excessive guilt.” He couldn’t help darting his gaze towards Harry. If he had brewed it to get over his guilt at hurting this woman, I would have no problem with his using it at all. “In some rare cases, yes, it has been found to have a physical effect, but most of the time it simply lets the drinker live with his or her problems.”
“But it could still be addictive.”
Draco laughed. “I know a person who regularly consumes a potion that forms the base for Desire,” he said. “He has consumed it for more than half a decade now, and still it’s possible for him to forget. Withdrawal from the potion results in no symptoms.”
“How do you know that?”
“I took it myself.” Draco shrugged.
“Then one consumption might not hurt someone,” Weasley said. “But what about many doses taken over many years?”
“I told you, I know someone-“
“We have only your word on that.”
Motion off to the side, and then Harry’s voice said, “No. I might as well you tell you that I take the potion.”
Draco held onto the counter to keep from falling, and stared at Harry as he stood. His leg was aching again, but that couldn’t overcome the thrill at the sudden, unexpected show of support.
*
“I’ve taken it for six years, now,” Harry went on calmly, though he had to hold onto the desk to control the urge to sway back and forth. “I’ve never encountered any painful or addictive symptoms. As conveyed in the initial advertisements, there is some slight lessening of the control of one’s magic. But that is the only side-effect consistent from person to person.”
Ginny’s eyes were wide and moist as she stared at him. Harry stared back, calmly, without letting a hint of his inner turmoil show through. He knew Ginny hadn’t come here to sabotage the sales of the Desire potion-the thought of her being in the employ of Nott and Diggory, or still wanting to hurt him that much, was laughable-but she might have come here with some misguided idea of rescuing him from Malfoy’s clutches.
Right now, she was trying to work herself up to say something again, but her breath had obviously stuck in her throat at the sight of him, and she was a few moments away from going into a full-blown panic. Harry took over.
“I’m willing to answer questions about the Desire potion that won’t cut into the time and money we’ve both invested in this,” he said. “But I don’t have to stand back and listen to unfounded claims repeated as if they were truth.”
Ginny shivered. Then she turned abruptly and ran out of the shop.
A few patrons followed her, but not many. The rest were there for Desire, and they would stay for Desire. The more negative consequences would come later, as the news spread. Harry shivered and sat down again, accepting the parchments that were passed eagerly his way.
He could feel Draco’s eyes on him, wondering, questioning. He knew he would have to face up to the other man and admit some things later.
For now, though, he could sign, and smile, and didn’t need to do anything more complicated. And he could pretend the flush in his face was from embarrassment at speaking out in public, and that the slight tremble in his handwriting didn’t exist.
Chapter Five.