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A Potion Named Desire	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10877 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor any of the characters from the books or movies. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

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Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Eleven—Desire at Work

            Harry had insisted they wait to introduce Hermione to the potion; he wanted Malfoy to run more analysis spells and strain the potion for unmelted ingredients before he poured the thick concoction down his best friend’s throat. Malfoy had snorted at him, his eyes showing indignation that Harry would suspect his—their—skill of being less than perfect, but he had grudgingly capped the cauldron of the Desire potion and taken it home with him.

            Now it was the next morning, and Hermione was feeling well enough to venture out and eat at the table in the drawing room beside Harry, and Harry was sipping his tea and thinking about what it meant, that they had really made this potion.

            It would change lives, and not only Hermione’s. How many people would gain confidence? How many people would learn to disregard minor problems that they had been obsessing over as if they were major worries? How many people would be like him, and trust themselves around those they would otherwise have avoided, once the potion was in their bodies and helping them to control their criminal tendencies?

            Harry smiled into his teacup. Let Hermione object that the potion was a moral cheat, or that it moved too fast and changed too much. Let the Ministry try to forbid the brewing and sale of the potion if it really wanted to. Harry was sure the same objections had been made to new models of broom, to Healing Charms, and to many useful household spells in their time. The important thing was that this potion could help people, and it filled him with wonder and awe and gratitude, to have been a part of the making.

            “Why are you smiling so much?”

            Harry looked up in surprise. Hermione had folded her arms and was glaring at him. Her face still showed the pallor and the dark smudges beneath her eyes that were a sign of her grief, but she had lines of true anger cutting her face beside her nose and mouth. He would do well to answer her before she decided to “persuade” him to talk.

            “Malfoy and I think that we managed to brew the Desire potion yesterday evening,” he said.

            Hermione’s breath caught. Then she shook her head a little. “Yesterday evening?” she said. “But I thought you went to bed immediately after I did.”

            “I might have,” Harry said, with a small shrug. “But then Malfoy showed up, and he’d had some additional insights about passive and active magic, and Potions masters, which affected the way we brewed—“



            A spark of interest changed Hermione’s face, and she sat up. “Of course,” she breathed. “Passive magic. I should have thought of that myself. The attempts to brew panaceas in the past have usually involved at least a pair of partners, sending their passive magic into the potion so it wouldn’t become an antidote for one person’s ills.”



            Harry smiled. He was glad to see that Hermione had some reason to have confidence in his and Draco’s potion. “And we managed to interact,” he said. “I did the magic. He did the actual brewing. We handled different ingredients, and we traded off magical strength when one of us couldn’t have accomplished something on our own. And it was—“ He sought for words to encompass the united feeling he’d had last night, but ended up shaking his head. “I was closer to him during the brewing than I’ve ever been to anyone,” he said. “Even Susan. Even Ginny.” His voice fell on the last words.

            Hermione gazed at him steadily. “I believe that you’re a good person, Harry,” she said. “You don’t need this potion to be one. You never did. That’s the main reason why I object to your drinking it, you know. It means you keep thinking of yourself as weak and dependent, and you’re not. You could survive without it.”

            Harry sidestepped the inclination to argue back. They’d had this discussion many, many times, and they never came to any sort of agreement. “Well,” he said. “Last night was—intimate. I think Malfoy was angry with me when I ended it.” That was a slight falsehood. He knew Malfoy had been angry. But since it had been the best thing for both of them, he wasn’t sorry. “But it also produced a potion that we can be proud of. Nothing inferior could come out of a brewing like that.”

            Hermione smiled wanly. “Why, Harry,” she said. “Is that enthusiasm for Potions as a subject that I hear in your voice? After you swore up and down you hated it for itself, not just because Snape was teaching it?”

            “If they were all like that, I wouldn’t have minded so much,” Harry said, refusing to be baited. “And besides, you know full well what I’m trying to do, and it’s not show that Malfoy’s made a convert of me to his art.” He reached out and put his hand on hers, holding her eyes. “Will you, Hermione?”

            Her eyes dropped, and for long moments she picked at her toast with one thumb, brushing crumbs away when they caught under her nail. Harry waited, and watched, knowing his patient silence was already cutting at her resolve to resist. When she bit her lip and swallowed twice, and her eyes began to glisten with tears, he thought he could count on a victory won.

            “I just—we can’t know that it’s safe, Harry,” she said. “I think we should test it more before—“

            “But there isn’t really any other way, Hermione,” Harry said. “We have to test it on a witch or wizard to know if it will work on a witch or wizard. But I trust Malfoy to take all the necessary precautions to make it as safe as possible before anyone drinks it.” He lowered his voice and stroked the back of her hand. “What I’m asking is whether you’ll drink it at all, assuming Malfoy manages to render it safe.”

            Hermione shut her eyes and shivered. “The thought of being rid of this is compelling,” she murmured. “But Harry, what if there are side-effects we don’t know about? You know very well there are some side-effects to your potion. Look at your magic, for example.”

            “That will require more testing,” Harry said. “But I’m sure that Malfoy can mitigate those, too. I just—“ He shook his head, unable to explain how much yesterday’s brewing had increased his respect and admiration for Malfoy’s skill. “I trust him,” he finished finally, and hoped the look in his eyes would do what his words couldn’t.

            Hermione again swallowed. Then she nodded. “If he can assure me it’s safe, I’ll try it,” she said.

            Harry hugged her, a swift, sudden, hard motion that made her squeak. He closed his eyes and held her for long moments, confident that the sunshine outside at the moment couldn’t be warmer than what he felt.

*

            Draco stared hard at the bottle of thick potion shimmering on his table. The potion had turned an aqua color as it settled—not so very different from the green of Potter’s concoction, but with a definite blue tinge. A simple, plain glass bottle would suit it best when they began to market it, he thought. Or perhaps a combination of a dark cork and a glass bottle. Dark colors would look good next to that explosion of purest blue-green.

            His thoughts left marketing strategies and the half-made list in front of him that contained fellow apothecaries who might be interested in carrying Desire. His mind hovered, instead, over the ultimate test.

            You know what you have to do if you want other people to drink this potion. Besides, you want to taste it, and find out what you most loathe about yourself. What better way to fulfill both need and longing than to drink it?

            But Draco had not made his fortune and attained his position—precarious though it sometimes could be when his creditors came calling—by rushing ahead like a certain Gryffindor idiot he could name. Brewing was one thing; there, dancing on quaking ground was part necessity and part beauty. But he would not poison himself simply because he was sure there were no side-effects and he wanted to see what the potion would do to him.

            He rose to his feet and walked around the table, carefully peering into the bottle from all sides and casting another series of analysis spells that would tell him if there were improper, poisonous sediments in the mixture. Nothing revealed itself. The Desire potion did slosh slightly with the currents of magic curling through it. Draco licked his lips.

            He had cast every spell he could think of. His night had been spent in feverish reading and re-reading—he hadn’t been about to ignore the lesson he’d had the day before, that he was missing out on the basics in favor of thinking about the complex abstractions—and cross-referencing spells and combinations of ingredients and symbols he was unsure of. And he had done his best to resist the lure of the delusion that, just because the brewing had been perfect, the product had to be.

            Potter.

            Draco felt his lip curl for a moment, as he snarled silently to himself. Potter hadn’t appeared to consider the consequences of cutting the connection off like that, and that was enough to prejudice Draco against him, but had he considered what would happen the next time they had to brew together? The Desire potion needed them both working together to make it, and they would need to produce enormous quantities. Perhaps in time they could simplify the process, but it wouldn’t happen yet.

            And each time, they would experience the connection between them. Each time, if they were repeated, Potter’s hasty actions could hurt them both and cause resentment in Draco that neither of them needed.

            Draco took a deep breath and blew his anger away. He had to consider the Desire potion, and whether he was really ready to drink it.

            But he could think of no other precaution, obvious or non-obvious, that he was missing. He had eaten three hours ago, which meant his stomach was nearly in the ideal state to receive a new substance, especially one that contained unusual ingredients. He snorted a bit and picked up the bottle.

            He had to swallow hard as the potion poured down his throat. It was thick, and sluggish, rather like trying to eat marmalade without a spoon. Draco made an absent note in his mind to work on reducing the viscosity, if they could do that without affecting the potion’s magic.

            The coldness spread along his neck. Draco thought he had swallowed as much as one of Potter’s normal doses, so he set the bottle down. He waited a moment for his balance to sway, or for his memories to change, or for his confidence to suddenly rise to undreamed-of heights; at times, he had thought that he most hated being a coward.

            But instead, his perceptions sharpened. Draco reached out to place a hand on the back of the couch and took a breath of surprise. The room opened wider, and the air shimmered and turned to crystal. He could feel the arrival of a thought before it got there. He could trace his own emotions down to the subconscious impulses. Everything else in the world seemed to be moving very slowly and deliberately; he himself was moving quickly.

            Draco tilted his head back and laughed aloud as he realized what had happened. What he most hated about himself was the indecisiveness that sometimes plagued him—overcaution. He had lost chance after chance for glory and good business because he had paused, hesitated, spent a day too long in researching or shown too obviously that he mistrusted someone. He could claim it had kept him balanced and alive where some of his competitors had faltered, but that hardly mattered a thing when most of those competitors did manage to survive and even do better than he did on individual transactions and corners of the market. If he could only know when caution was warranted and when it wasn’t, he would be able to corner most of the market and present a calm, confident face to his creditors. He would know who was a friend and who was an enemy. He would be perceptive enough to see dangers coming before they got there.

            He had achieved a balance that he had not thought he ever would, and now he could act like a methodical artist, creativity running in harness with reason.

            Someone knocked on the door of the shop below.

            Even as Draco turned, his mind was speeding, unfolding the suppositions and analyses that he would have presented himself with in far less time than normal. His shop had been visibly closed for nearly two months now, so there was no reason for an ordinary patron to arrive at this random moment. And Potter would not seek him out; he preferred to communicate by owl still. His friends and family never stopped by. If they could pretend Draco didn’t actually run an apothecary and engage in common money-making, they seemed to think they could make his profession cease to exist.

            That meant one of his creditors. And which creditor was most likely to come by just now, when he had paid his latest round of Galleons to the others on time?

            Draco went below smiling, and bowed a little to Cordelia Nott when he opened the door. He saw the way her eyes flickered, and knew she didn’t expect to be invited in, though she would consider it an insult to be made to stand on the threshold. When he moved out of the way, she frankly stared for the minutest second before her face caught up with her emotions and shuttered.

            “Draco,” she said, with a nod of her own, as she stepped into the lower part of the shop. “I’m afraid that my schedule has changed somewhat. Rather than requiring the potion of you by the summer solstice, I need it by next week at the latest.”

            Draco was sure, from the half-teasing note in her voice and the way she held her head, that she didn’t mean it. She only wanted to rattle him, and when he was spinning satisfactorily on his tentative thread, she would snap him back into place and explain she was only kidding.

            And he would have been rattled. He couldn’t see behind her mask often enough to know when she was teasing and when she wasn’t.

            Instead, now, he only nodded with an expression of polite interest on his face and said, “Indeed. How much will you need, and by what day?”

            Cordelia’s hand paused as she reached towards a barrel of dried dung beetles. Again, it was only a moment’s hesitation, but it was there, and as she toyed with the scoop that projected above the rim of the barrel, Draco rejoiced that he had confounded her in turn, but let no trace of that rejoicing slip through his mask.

            “Come now, Draco.” Cordelia had dropped the jesting tone. “We both know that your potion isn’t ready yet.”

            “In fact,” Draco said, calmly—so calmly, he loved being able to do this—“we perfected it last night, Harry Potter and I. But still, the brewing takes considerable magical energy, and some hours for each batch to cool. If you tell me when you need it, and how much, then I will know how much brewing we must do each day, and how soon.”



            Cordelia had a faint green tinge to her face for a moment, as if she would be ill. Then she laughed softly. “Considerable magical energy? I hardly think this potion will repay your investment in it, then, Draco, no matter what it may do.”

            “Would you like a test sample?” Draco asked. “I could give you an ordinary vial, and you could see—“

            “I’ve never known you to be such a prey to nonsense.” Cordelia leaned towards him, her eyes narrowed just slightly. “You do not have such a potion in your room upstairs, Draco, or in Potter’s flat, or anywhere else. You know as well as I do that you haven’t actually invented it yet, and may not be able to do it even by the summer solstice. I appreciate the Slytherin finesse for game-playing, since I was one myself, but even the best games have to yield to reality.”

            “You’re right about that.” Draco folded his hands contemplatively. “Which is why it gives me such great joy to say that, in this case, the potion is the reality, and trifling about it the game.”

            Cordelia went very still. Not even Draco’s potion-enhanced mind could be sure about what extreme emotion she was hiding, but the very fact that she had to hide one, and that he could tell she was, gave him an advantage. He waited, smile abstracted, eyes cool, as though he were looking across the distance to another patron’s approach and only wished this one would decide what, exactly, she wanted.

            Cordelia finally said, “You will find that this potion may have costs you have not anticipated.”

            Draco nodded. “Getting hold of some of the ingredients alone—“

            “Not monetary,” said Cordelia, revealing a bit of valuable information in her hand and a threat at once, which proved she was thrown off-balance, and then turned and passed out of the shop. Draco triggered the wards that listened to footsteps, letting him know when she reached the end of Diagon Alley and Apparated away. He shut the door and leaned against the wall, breathing softly, listening to his own racing heartbeat.

            One test passed. The next, I suspect, will be whether Granger drinks this or not.

*

            Harry had to give Hermione credit. The moment Malfoy entered the flat, his hands carefully cradling a corked bottle of the Desire potion, and announced that he’d tested it and it was safe, she was on her feet, one hand extended commandingly.

            “I’ll drink it,” she said. “Give it to me.”

            Malfoy paused and gave Harry a fathomless look. “What?” he drawled. “No endless moral arguments about this first?”

            “I’m doing it because I promised Harry I’d try,” Hermione snapped, and snatched the vial he held out to her, and then vanished into the loo. Harry heard the distinct click that meant she’d locked the door behind her.

            That left Harry alone with Malfoy. Because he knew it wouldn’t last very long, he was willing to endure the isolation. Malfoy stared at him, but he’d done that before. Indeed, if Harry couldn’t put up with stares, he should have changed his appearance and moved to the Muggle world already. He leaned on the wall and stared back.

            He was fine until Malfoy said, “Since we’re alone, I can ask you this. What in the world was your idea, cutting off the magical connection the brewing established between us so fast?”

            Harry blinked and licked his lips. Malfoy just waited in silence, though, his gaze slightly averted, as if he knew Harry would do this better without eyes focused on him. Harry did feel as though he had more time to collect his thoughts, and after a few moments of struggle, he let the words stumble out, inadequate though he felt them to be.

            “I—it has to do with the reason I take my potion. Besides, it’s one thing to be comfortable and connected whilst we’re brewing, and another to continue that afterwards.” Harry felt himself flush at the memory he was relating now. “I licked your wrist, Malfoy. Surely you aren’t comfortable with that?”

            “At the moment, it felt good. Nearly everything did. You know that. You were part of it.”

            “But afterwards?” Harry looked straight on at his former rival. “We had to use Veritaserum and a blood oath to trust each other just a week ago. That’s not something friends do. And I don’t feel comfortable entering a strange half-relationship, not friends and not business partners. I want rules, Malfoy. I want to know what offends you, what hurts you, what pleases you and what actively damages any bond we build. I want to know. And just letting the connection urge us into something we hadn’t considered and that didn’t have rules doesn’t fit my definition of knowing.”

            Malfoy closed his eyes completely. Harry wondered why. Perhaps he had to struggle to master his emotions, and didn’t want Harry seeing them. Well, Harry could understand that.

            “Do you know,” Malfoy whispered, “what you described yourself as wanting does actually resemble a friendship?”

            “Er,” Harry said. But Malfoy was right. He had certainly known what subjects not to bring up with Ron—a brief throb of loss traveled through his gut—and he knew how to keep Hermione comfortable and happy, whether it was in her depressed state or her normal one.

            “And friendships can survive shocks, once they’re established,” Malfoy went on, opening his eyes. They didn’t pierce Harry. They just regarded him calmly, and he found himself relaxing under that gaze as he had relaxed around no one in a long time. “For now? We’ll go slowly. But I do think we need friendship, at the very least, when we’re going to spend an awful lot of time brewing this potion and becoming intimate with one another. Imagine severing the ties as suddenly and shockingly as you did each time, Potter. Does that appeal?”

            “No,” Harry admitted.

            “Well, then.” Malfoy smiled and stepped forwards, holding out one hand. When Harry hesitated, he added, in a tone more like his normal one, “Oh, for God’s sake, Potter, we won’t change everything at once. And this relationship will hardly be without its difficulties. But I want this, and it would make sense for the business we need to accomplish.”

            Harry blew out his breath and clasped Malfoy’s wrist. “All right, then,” he said. “We’ll try.”

            The door to the loo flew open. Harry dropped Malfoy’s hand in shock and wheeled around, imagining that Hermione had been poisoned or hurt by the potion.

            Instead, she was smiling. Really smiling, for the first time since Ron’s death. And she whispered, “Harry, it’s gone. The mountain’s gone. I want to—“ She shook her head, curls bouncing around her, eyes wide with wonder. “I want to read.”

            Harry sprang forwards and flung his arms around her. He felt himself choke as his head dropped onto her shoulder. He was relieved and gratified and washed with delight and startled and—

            And happy.

            For the first time in what felt like a long time, terribly happy.

*

            Draco felt like curling his lip as he watched Potter and Granger, but the impulse was only a faint one.

            All the words he had spoken had been true. And they had been the ones most effective to opening Potter’s heart.

            His potion-quickened mind had warned him when he should keep insulting remarks back, and when he was tempted to add some innuendo to Potter’s innocent statement about pleasing him, it had counseled him to stay silent. Draco had exercised a modicum of self-control, and what did he have in return?

            A brewing partner. Someone who might become a friend.

            Someone who, if he did, had the political and the magical power absolutely necessary to face the challenges that would pour in from every quarter when they began to market the potion.

            Draco folded his arms and smiled at Potter’s back.

            We are going to change the world, you and I. And I’d like to see someone stop us.

*

            Birddi: Oh, I see. Well, even if he had charged Harry enough to pay Cordelia, he would still have other creditors to worry about.

            Lilith: As you can see here, Harry does feel he can be close to others- but he wants rules.

            Mangacat: Thanks! I think Draco is going to be even more dangerous and persuasive now that he has the potion. And the Incident is explained next chapter.

            WhinnieRichards: Thank you! In this case, the romance extends across a trilogy, and starts really building in the second story.

            Thrnbrooke: Here it is!

            Amiyom: Thank you for reviewing!

            Purple-er: Thank you! I don’t know about “more complex,” but it’s definitely a setting and plot where they get to talk and express themselves more and at length.

            Harry did not rape Ginny. The Weasleys wouldn’t have tolerated that, and Harry would have probably run away or killed himself or something. But you’re heading along the right track.
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A Potion Named Desire