Chapter Nine of 'An Alchemical Discontent'- The Potions Committee
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Chapter Nine-The Potions Committee
“Now, there’s a good chance that Diggory and Nott influenced Madam Wilberforce, so you’ll have to be especially careful of her.”
“Um-hmmm.”
“And what’s her name-“ Hermione flipped through several pages, swearing quietly, and Harry would have looked at her if he could have, to enjoy the unprecedented sight of Hermione forgetting an important fact. But, well, she had been at the Ministry all day yesterday gathering what facts she could about who might have encouraged Umbridge to go to Gringotts, and then up all night collating the facts, so maybe he shouldn’t be surprised. “Oh, yes, Rosa Andalucia. Be especially careful of her, too. She apparently lost some money to Narcissa Malfoy a few years ago and is very upset about it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“And then there’s Fleshly Spigot.”
“Uh-wait, what?” Harry blinked and turned to face Hermione. “Even for a wizard’s name, that takes the cake.”
“That wasn’t a wizard’s name, that was an attempt to make sure you were paying attention to me.” Hermione narrowed her eyes at him, cradling the lists of names and facts protectively in her arms. “You need to be paying attention to me, Harry, and not staring at Draco.” She spoke in a furious whisper; she was under a Disillusionment Charm so it would appear Harry and Draco were alone in the corridor whilst they waited to be called before the committee that would determine the legality of the Desire potion.
“Sorry, Hermione,” Harry murmured, but he couldn’t keep his eyes from wandering back to Draco a moment later.
The other man was leaning against the wall of the corridor, staring vacantly into space. His hands were clenched and trembling in front of him. His face was pale, and now and then he put up his right hand and rubbed at his chest. He was rubbing the left side of his chest; Harry had already noted that.
Above his heart.
Something was happening to him, and as reluctant as he seemed to be to talk about it-at least if it concerned his creditor, about whom he had told Harry not to bother him-Harry didn’t think he would be able to hold off from pushing much longer. Concern was an emotion he could easily feel, whether he was dosed on the potion or not, and now it was surging through him like warm water. All the strategies they had planned for confronting the committee and keeping Desire legal would be worth nothing if Draco was too weak to back Harry up.
But it was more than that, Harry had to admit. He wanted to date Draco. He cared for him as a friend already. And the sight of him obviously hurt made Harry want to stand like a wall between him and his tormentor, never to back away as long as Draco lived.
Or needed me, Harry thought, but his rewriting of his own thoughts was unconvincing. He wanted to stay with Draco until Draco told him to go away. He was already more to Harry than most of his girlfriends had been. He could more easily raise Harry’s spirits with a chuckle, or break them with a dark look.
Hermione sighed next to him, and touched his shoulder. Harry glanced at her in surprise. Hermione smiled a little. “Go to him,” she said. “You aren’t concentrating on the names, and anyway they aren’t that important. I can only know what their personal animosities are, and maybe who they work for, or worked for. I can’t know what their opinions on the Desire potion are. And I wasn’t able to learn about everyone who’d been selected to appear on the committee, only those two members.”
“Thank you anyway,” Harry murmured, squeezed her fingers, and then moved over to Draco.
Draco turned his head listlessly towards him and nodded once. He was trying to smile, but Harry was familiar with efforts at the same expression on Ginny’s and Hermione’s faces-and Ron’s-and knew it for what it was. “Hey,” he muttered. “Did Granger learn anything special?”
“A woman named Rosa Andalucia is going to be on the committee,” said Harry, watching his face keenly. Maybe this Andalucia was the one tormenting him? “Hermione says that she’s an enemy of your mother’s.”
Draco chuckled under his breath. “Not really an enemy, just someone who hates to lose. My mother’s lost money to her, too, before now. She’ll probably treat me with cold courtesy, but no worse than that.” He closed his eyes. His breathing was shallow.
Harry couldn’t take it anymore. He moved to kneel in front of Draco, and took the other man’s hand. As Draco’s eyes flew open in startlement, Harry leaned his cheek against Draco’s knuckles and whispered, “You’re in pain. Please, let me help. It hurts me to see you hurting. Please.”
*
Draco swallowed and stared down at Harry. Harry’s eyes were wider and greener than he had known they could become, his voice soft and appealing. Once again, Draco felt as if he could fall forwards and find sanctuary in Harry’s arms, but this time, the feeling was far stronger than before.
And then the door across the corridor opened and a voice Draco recognized as Rosa Andalucia’s called, “Gentlemen, if you please.”
The moment was past-the dangerous moment when he might have abandoned his pride and endangered Harry, too, by telling him of Daphne’s existence. Draco managed to draw in his breath and release it almost at once, in an amused snort. He tugged at Harry’s wrist, urging him to his feet.
“Come on, Harry,” he said. “We need to do what we came here to do.”
“We can do other things, too,” Harry whispered, softly, urgently, even as he let himself be guided up. “Draco, please. You know I would do almost anything for you, don’t you?” He put one hand on Draco’s shoulder as if he suspected the gesture would be unwelcome. “You know that I care for you greatly?”
Draco bit his tongue in frustration. Yes, he knew that, but it didn’t really matter, not what he had to think of some way out of the Daphne mess on his own.
“I know that,” he said, more shortly than he meant to, and then stepped past Harry into the office where the committee was meeting, hoping Harry would give up his concerns and focus on more important things now.
The office itself was impressive, crowded with Orders of Merlin and documents of Mastery in several disciplines. Given that the Ministry itself awarded the Orders of Merlin, Draco was more impressed with the documents from outside the country. But he didn’t have much time to study them; he had to look at the people assembling themselves in front of him.
Rosa Andalucia was easily recognizable, and not just because Draco had seen her laughing with his mother several times during his childhood. She was a pure-blood witch, but from a Spanish family, an emigrant to England three decades ago when she’d been a child. She had dark eyes, dark hair, and a chin so firm that Narcissa had once said she could smash walls with it. She wore a shawl on top of her robes, and her eyes met Draco’s with calm seriousness.
Next to her sat Kingsley Shacklebolt, and next to him a large woman whom Draco guessed was Vesta Wilberforce, if only because she had the Wilberforce face that a portrait showing one of his great-grandmothers also did. Bright blue eyes, wispy pale blonde hair, and a long nose and thin, sallow cheeks that could have given Professor Snape competition. Wilberforce stared at him with dislike, and Draco painted a meek expression across his features in response.
Next to Wilberforce was a tall man with a harried expression and potion-stained fingers. Draco hadn’t seen him before, but by simple process of elimination, he had to be Victor Feldorsius, head of the Ministry’s Potions program. Draco nodded to him, and Feldorsius inclined his head back. That might be a hopeful sign, or at least one that he regarded Draco as a colleague.
The last man didn’t give Draco much confidence at all. He was handsome enough, in a rough, craggy way, and a pure-blood. But still, he was Amos Diggory, father of the dead Cedric and uncle, or a cousin of some kind, to Charlemagne. Draco controlled his immediate reaction and managed a tight smile.
Harry had no such defenses, of course, and might have been incapable of employing them even if he did. He stared at Diggory for a long moment, then swung his head and looked accusingly at Kingsley Shacklebolt.
Shacklebolt only raised his eyebrows back, and Draco did not know enough about him, or his political alliances, to say what that signified. Perhaps that he hadn’t been able to prevent Diggory from joining the committee. Perhaps that it would have looked suspicious to exclude him. Perhaps that he believed it would come out all right after all, despite Harry’s telling him about Charlemagne and Cordelia and how they had reason to want the potion out of the way.
Or maybe, Draco thought, disgust welling in him, Shacklebolt simply has to prove that he has no animosity towards a relative of the man who’s trying to replace him.
The Minister cleared his throat. No chairs had been provided for them, Draco noted. They were to stand before the table like defendants on trial. “This meeting is to determine the legal status of the Desire potion, now that it has killed,” Shacklebolt said. “Mr. Malfoy, I understand that you were the apothecary who managed to brew the potion. Would you please tell us how you achieved that?”
And Draco had cause to bless Harry’s stupid Gryffindor forthrightness as he had not thought he would have. He took the recipe for the potion out of his pocket and stepped forwards, ignoring the way Wilberforce and Diggory both laid hands on their wands. If they thought he was so stupid as to attack the Minister in the Ministry itself, then he need not fear them, because they would misjudge all his other actions, too.
“This is the list of ingredients for the potion, sir,” he said politely, “along with the list of spells needed to change them as they enter the cauldron so that they brew Desire and not an explosive mess.”
Feldorsius, of course, leaned eagerly forwards, extending his hand, and after one bewildered glance at Draco’s notes, Shacklebolt let him have the parchment. He cleared his throat and shook his head, as if Draco had thrown him off the reading of an invisible script with his unexpected action. “Was it your intent to create a potion that is possibly more powerful and dangerous than any other known?”
“No,” Harry said, taking up the question, as Draco and he had agreed he should do. The more often they could alternate responses and thus the committee’s attention, the more likely they could avoid things like irritating Draco’s temper or catching Harry flat-footed. Of course, they had also worked out a few signals to alert each other if the question they had picked up was too much for them to handle. “We wanted the potion to help people. Brewer Malfoy was actually basing the potion on a recipe I’ve used for a number of years, altering it so that it would serve other people as well as I am served. My potion is specifically attuned to me and only me, mostly through the magic I use to make it. The Desire potion involves an alteration of the spells.”
Diggory stared at Harry. There was definitely fervor in his eyes, but in what cause, Draco couldn’t say. He might despise Harry for the death of his son as well as for the obstruction he presented to the hopes of the Diggory family’s favorite. “And what exactly do you take the potion to control?”
Harry gave a faint smile and coughed. “My temper. I was rather famous for it in school, and it got me in trouble several times. It resulted in a violent quarrel with my friends several years ago-so violent that I feared I’d lose them. Hermione Granger helped me research the potion, and then modify the recipe so that it would remove the part of myself I most loathed.”
Diggory slumped back, seeming temporarily defeated. But Feldorsius had glanced up from the recipe. His face was filled with conflicting emotions. Draco thought envy was one of them. He, of course, would have liked to discover this potion for himself. “Who created the original recipe?” he asked softly. “Miss Granger? I have never heard of her applying for a potions mastery.”
“Severus Snape,” Draco said, taking over. “He created it when he was young, and, as far as we know, never used it when he was a Death Eater,” he added, as Feldorsius’s face contorted with disgust. “If he had, we may be assured the Dark Lord would have acted very differently.” He shuddered. He did not even want to imagine a Dark Lord with what he loathed most-probably his fear of death-gone.
“That doesn’t answer the main question,” said Vesta Wilberforce, voice as harsh as a raven’s. “Why did you simply release this potion, without approaching the Ministry about the licensing of it?”
“That was indeed our fault.” Harry bowed his head contritely, moving a minute step forwards so the committee’s attention would shift to him. Draco approved of the modest, embarrassed expression on his face. No one could play mortification like a Gryffindor. “We believed, at the time, that Desire was simply like a greater variation of a Calming Draught. We didn’t realize its true potential-and we didn’t realize how popular it would be.” He laughed a little and glanced up through his eyelashes. Wilberforce was mesmerized. Draco experienced a tiny surge of jealousy, but what Harry was doing wasn’t quite flirting. He was merely exercising his celebrity appeal, and if Wilberforce let herself be taken in, that was her own lookout. “In fact, one of the reasons we went out of our way to advertise it is because we assumed most people wouldn’t buy it if we didn’t.”
“You didn’t even suspect the possible consequences?” Andalucia’s voice held polite disbelief. “You didn’t think it might annihilate someone’s death wish, and have them stepping out in front of Muggle traffic?”
“The Desire potion is sold with instructions and warnings,” said Draco. “Like Firewhiskey. Like love philters, which have remained legal and easy to find despite the Ministry’s many attempts to regulate them.” He hid a smile at Feldorsius’s instant discomfiture. The Potions master probably would have argued that love philters should remain unregulated because they were fairly easy to make and thus gave brewing practice and confidence to his own students, or people who might become his students. “It is not our responsibility if people misuse it after they have bought it, far away from the shop, where we can’t do anything about it. Should we have been more responsible? Yes, we should have. But I don’t think it’s too much to ask for more responsibility from our clients, as well-particularly when we sell only one dose at a time, and to have the potion last for longer than two weeks, our clients must come and buy another dose.”
That was not entirely true; some people had bought two vials, as long as they signed a parchment stating that one of the vials was for someone else. But they would be guilty of lying if they had personally taken both doses. Draco didn’t see what more he and Harry could do than providing the parchments for them to sign; refusing to sell more than one vial at all would earn them even worse publicity.
Of course, the committee might not see it like that.
“That sounds reasonable,” said Andalucia, and Draco realized with a surge of relief that she was on their side, after all. Of course, she was still stern-faced and frowning, but that didn’t matter; it was necessary, to fool the other members of the potions committee for the moment. “They have taken what precautions they could-“
“It is not enough!” Diggory leaned forwards, his face flushed. “Don’t you see, Andalucia? Don’t you see how they’re getting away with it again?”
“Again, Amos?” Andalucia turned and frowned at him in perplexity. Draco kept his mouth tightly shut and caught Harry’s eye. Harry grinned at him and was still. He could evidently see, as well as Draco could, that Andalucia was luring Diggory into a trap for them. “What do you mean? I am unaware of their previously having tried to sell any potions together, even love philters.”
“Harry Potter always gets away with everything, because he’s Harry Potter.” Diggory spat the words and reared up like a cobra. Harry took a step nearer to Draco, eyes cool and calculating. Draco would have been pleased with that if he hadn’t known Harry was working out a way to protect Draco, and not himself. “He was never even tried or charged with the murder of my son-“
“That old grief, again?” Andalucia sighed. “As sad as it makes me to say, the main reason your son’s death is notable is that he became the first victim on the night You-Know-Who rose again.”
“No one killed him but Potter!” Diggory roared.
Draco felt a warm glow in his chest. He was sure it had seemed a stroke of genius to Charlemagne Diggory to put a relative on the committee which would investigate the legality of the Desire potion. But Amos couldn’t control himself and was simply betraying his unreasonable bias. Draco just waited, and listened to his enemy condemn himself out of his own mouth.
“You don’t know Harry Potter. You don’t know him like I do. You don’t see the evil hiding behind his eyes.” Diggory pointed a shaking finger at Harry’s scar. Harry watched him with a blank green gaze, but Draco could see from the pinched lines at the corners of his mouth that he was hiding grief. “He carried You-Know-Who in his head more than once. And Malfoy was a Death Eater!” He turned around, and his hands spread. “The Desire potion, it’s called. Why shouldn’t it grant the greatest desire of both their hearts? To bring him back!”
“I’ve examined the recipe,” said Feldorsius sharply. “It does nothing like that. Unless you’re about to accuse me of complicity with them, Amos, I suggest you sit down.” He sounded more embarrassed than anything else.
Diggory opened his mouth again, but Shacklebolt lifted a hand, and in the end he sank back, frustrated and angry. Draco bit very hard on the inside of his mouth, and managed to present an innocent face by the time Diggory looked at him.
“I suggest we refrain from wild accusations,” the Minister said dryly. “Now. I have provided you all with a Pensieve memory of Harry’s testimony, in which he denied having anything to do with the death of Dolores Umbridge-under Veritaserum. We do have testimony that claims to counteract that.” He turned and nodded to Wilberforce. “What did you want to say, Vesta?”
“I knew Dolores well,” Wilberforce said, sitting up, “and spent much of her last few weeks talking to her. She was suspicious when she heard about Harry Potter’s involvement in some new publicity stunt, since he spent so much of his time in the last few years lying low.” Her eyes pierced Harry, but what for-reappearing just when the wizarding world had started to safely forget him or not remaining around in the first place-Draco didn’t know. “She found out about the Desire potion, and took it herself, because she would not have exposed any of her underlings to danger. She went wild the moment she took it. It was murder, what was done to her, and I cannot believe it was a coincidence that Mr. Potter made such a fuss about the potion that did it. He had to have known that Madam Umbridge would hear of it, try to stop him, and die in the process.”
Shacklebolt looked at Harry, who lifted his head and spoke with quiet force.
“I could have punished Umbridge at any time in the past eight years, if I wanted.” Harry’s face was a brilliant red, but he kept his voice calm. Draco wondered if he would be made to appreciate Harry’s potion yet. “My cachet was so high right after the defeat of Voldemort that it would have been easy. I wanted her punished for what she did to Muggleborns during the war-and maybe for what she did to me during school. I’m not going to lie. I disliked her.
“But I could never have known that she would buy the Desire potion and take it herself. She could have studied it-sent a sample to the Potions master here.” He nodded to Feldorsius. “It was not a murder plot. I’ll take Veritaserum again if I need to, Madam Wilberforce. I don’t know what else I can say to make you believe me.”
Fool. But Draco bit down on his tongue. The offer to take Veritaserum was politically the best move Harry could have made at that particular moment, though Draco was indignant he should have had to make it.
“That sounds reasonable enough to me,” said Feldorsius, “particularly with the Veritaserum testimony. I don’t believe it was a murder plot, either. I would have tested the potion if Dolores had only brought it to me.” He leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers together, looking pleased. “I’ve had a chance to study the recipe, Shacklebolt. Really, I don’t see any reason to treat the Desire potion so differently from many other possible potions, say Dreamless Sleep or the Draught of Living Death. Those require an expert skill to make, which is one of the reasons they’re restricted. And this is the same, Kingsley. The major exception is that the ingredients themselves aren’t poisonous, and none of them are illegal. And I don’t think that anyone in the whole of Britain but these two young men could brew it, no matter how much they studied the recipe.”
“Really?” Shacklebolt blinked. “But surely you yourself could produce Desire…”
“I do not have the magic.” Feldorsius looked almost affectionately at Draco. He realized the older man had a kind of triumph in his eyes, as if he admired any brewer who managed to somewhat escape the punishment of the law. “This is a very, very rare alliance, between a master brewer and someone strong enough in magic to make the potion happen in the first place. And I agree they should not be held responsible for what happens after they have sold the potion. Some more restrictions on its sale are necessary, yes, but I think we can modify the ones that control the Draught of Living Death right now and produce a satisfactory compromise.”
Draco was dizzy with relief. They hadn’t even had to suggest the laws they’d like. Presenting the recipe and being perfectly honest about how hard it was to brew the potion had worked.
Just as Harry had said it would.
Draco briefly caught Harry’s eye and grinned. Harry smiled back, quietly, faintly, and Draco felt irritation surge to the fore of his own emotions. Damn it, without the potion he would probably be whooping and clapping and catching Draco in his arms for a kiss. This victory deserved one.
Harry frowned, probably catching the shift in Draco’s face and not understanding it, but the Minister spoke again before he could say anything.
“Does anyone disagree?” Shacklebolt glanced down the table. “All in favor?”
His hand rose. So did Andalucia’s and Feldorsius’s. Diggory sat with folded arms. Wilberforce hesitated, then sniffed and put her hand up. Draco heard her mutter something about only believing it because of the Veritaserum.
“Excellent.” Shacklebolt nodded. “Then Feldorsius shall draw up the new regulations and send them to you by owl in a few days, gentlemen. Congratulations to you both.” He rose and gathered up the parchments in front of him, adding dryly, “I do hope, next time you invent a miraculous new potion, you show some more sense in distributing it.”
*
Harry caught up with Draco as he walked towards the lifts. He knew something wasn’t right. Draco had looked sour even when Harry was smiling at him. It had to have been something Harry had done, but he was tired of not knowing what.
“Well?” he demanded.
Draco turned around to face him, crossing his arms. “Well, what?”
“Who hurt you?” Harry said. “Why did you seem so upset when I was smiling? Can you please just tell me what’s wrong? I want to know.” He reached out to put a hand on Draco’s shoulder.
Draco knocked his hand away and turned to the lift. Harry sighed as his rage reared and then drained off. He folded his arms and leaned against the opposite wall, his gaze fixed broodingly on Draco.
He couldn’t see any other option but to go on trying to talk to Draco. It wasn’t as though he could force the truth out of him. He had hoped the success of their honesty with the potions committee would cause Draco to see that it could succeed elsewhere, but apparently not.
“Harry!”
Hermione was hastening down the corridor towards them, her eyes bright and her arms open, and Harry had to catch her in an embrace and tell her all about what the committee had said. By the time he thought to glance around again, Draco was gone.
Harry checked a sigh. Of course he was going to keep on wooing Draco, difficult prickliness and all. What else could he do?
I care too much for him.
Chapter Ten.