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Parsimony	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 14122 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 2
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this fanfic.

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Chapter Thirteen—A Potions Master’s Troubles

            “This should be everything you need,” Harry said, and used his wand to hover the blanket that was wrapped around the ingredients in mid-air. Then he cast another spell that would unroll the blanket but keep the ingredients from falling. That was the last thing he needed right now, after his careful owl-orders, for everything to fall into the fire of the brazier Snape had to keep burning.

            Snape barely looked at the leaves and flowers and vials of dust and claws and water that Harry had arranged side-by-side. His eyes were fixed on the magenta color of Harry’s face. “What did you do to yourself?” he demanded.

            “Nothing that will alert anyone else to your presence.” Harry yawned, and clapped a hand over his mouth just in time so he wouldn’t inhale the stupidly annoying order of Snape’s burning. He wondered if he would be able to go back to the Tower after this and just sleep, without someone awakening him in the middle of the night for yet another interview with the Aurors or one of the Potions masters from the Ministry. He understood why they did those at night—McGonagall and the Aurors both didn’t want anyone sensing what was going on and panicking—but they were hard on him. “So don’t worry about that. You should look through what I ordered and see whether this is what you need.”

            Snape had half-risen to his feet, something Harry couldn’t remember happening before. He had thought Snape needed to stay still so that the ritual or the smoke or whatever was really keeping him in this half-state would continue to work. “What potion did this?” he asked. “It must be a potion, or you wouldn’t have come to me for help.”

            Harry stared at him, then snorted. “The fuck are you talking about? I came here to bring you the ingredients you wanted me to gather. Believe me, there’s no way I would ask you for help, when the thing that would have been most helpful is letting me tell Malfoy about you, and you wouldn’t let me do that.” He swung his Invisibility Cloak over his shoulders and turned towards the door.

            “Potter.”

            Harry hesitated in spite of himself, looking over his shoulder. Snape had used the same tone that he had when he was telling Harry the truth about his state, or when he had leaked out the memories of his childhood for Harry to use and understand. He wouldn’t say something like that unless it was important.

            “Tell me,” Snape said. “It was a potion. Tell me.”

            Harry hesitated again, but then nodded. He could see where Snape was coming from. He didn’t want to owe Harry a debt for getting the ingredients for him. This way, if he could tell Harry something that helped, there should be no debt, even in Snape’s mind. And Harry knew better than to tell him that there was no debt right now. He would scoff, and they would enter on another argument that would prevent Harry from going to sleep on time.

            “All right,” he said. “It was a testing potion that was supposed to tell them whether Greyback’s blood had infected me. But this is the color my face turned, instead of either blue or green.” He gestured at his face. The intense shade had faded a little over the last week, but not enough to make him look normal.

            “Greyback’s blood,” Snape said, and Harry wasn’t sure which word he was giving the more weight to there, or if he was supposed to be able to tell.

            “Well, yeah,” Harry said, and rubbed at a spot behind his ear that itched. “What else was I supposed to do when he was attacking people? Sit him down, give him a nice cup of tea, and ask him how his holidays were?”

            “You should explain why you were near Greyback in the first place,” Snape whispered, and this time there was definitely a word in the sentence with more emphasis. Harry shrugged impatiently, then winced as that made a muscle in his side pull. There were a few consequences of his adventures at the Ministry that he hadn’t noticed at the time, in all the crazy running around.

            “All right,” he said. “We were at the Ministry sitting in on the interrogation of the Death Eaters we helped capture, and there was Macnair…”

            Snape listened to the recitation in silence. That made Harry blink, because he thought Snape would have lots of questions. But instead, Snape waited to the end and then shook his head with tragic slowness. “You should have come to me in the first place, Potter,” he said. “I could have told you that this is not within the normal range of reactions for the potion.”

            Harry had to roll his eyes at that. “I’ve figured that out for myself, thanks,” he said. “But what is it? And I didn’t want to bother you when I had nothing to trade for the information, like the ingredients you asked me to get in the first place.”

            “Nothing to—” Snape’s lips thinned, but he said nothing. When Harry thought he could see the storm building, Snape shook his head and said, “Very well. If you wish to handle it this way, we will handle it this way. Bring me a clean vial, a clean cauldron, a stirring rod, three cups of water—”

            “All stuff I’ll never remember,” Harry said, and another yawn made him wish he could cast a sleep spell on himself that would have a chance of working. He was pants at that kind of stuff, as he was at a lot of subtle magic. That was the downside of his power that Klein never saw. She seemed to think he could do anything, and that was why he was dangerous, while Harry knew he was dangerous because he was good at defensive magic and people kept trying to kill him, which was why he needed to defend himself in the first place. “Can you write it down? And can I bring it to you tomorrow night?”

            Snape was silent for some moments. Harry let another yawn through, not bothering to conceal it. He knew Snape would refuse, so there was no reason to try and look alert.

            “Tomorrow night, then,” Snape said. “I will have a list for you. You will come to retrieve the list at no later than half-past nine. Do you understand, stupid boy?”

            Harry smiled. Even the insults were almost familiar, and he could pass off disappearing at such an early hour as going to bed early, since his friends knew about the interruptions. “Yeah, sir. Thanks.” He stood up and drew his Cloak around him fully this time, heading for the door.

            Once, he heard Snape pull in his breath as though he would say something, but in the end he didn’t. Harry heard the sound of counting and clinking as he began to sort through the ingredients, and hoped that he would find what he needed in the mass of packages. The thought of having to owl-order things again or go searching around in the Forbidden Forest for items made Harry feel more tired than ever.

            He did stagger back to his bed and fall headlong into the bliss of sleep, though, so there was that.

*

            “There’s no sign of them?”

            Harry kept his voice down; he already knew how Hermione felt about her private business being aired to the other tables. He watched her swat her hair out of her face, and winced. Her eyes were red-rimmed with crying, and she looked as though she had spent more nights in a row awake than Harry had.

            “No,” she whispered. “I used—the charms I used should have made them go towards the coast, somewhere. I never said anything about the interior of Australia being pleasant. But I looked in all the big coastal cities with those devices I have that should tell me when they’re near, and they weren’t there! They’re huge Muggle places, I know, and I could have missed them, but I should have found a trace somewhere. And there wasn’t.”

            Ron rested his hand on one of Hermione’s shoulders as she buried her face in her hands. Harry rested his hand on the other one, already thinking.

            “Was there any city where you picked up a trace of a trace?” he asked at last. “Something that made you think you were near, and it turned out you weren’t?”

            Hermione sniffled and made an obvious attempt to force herself back to the present. “Sydney,” she said at last. “The glasses lit up, and I thought they would lead me straight to my parents for a few seconds. But then they sputtered and died.”

            Harry nodded. “You told us the devices home in on blood,” he said. “That they could tell you when family is near.”

            “Yes,” Hermione said indistinctly, and pushed her hair out of her eyes again. “I thought the glasses lit up like that because I passed someone who might be distantly related to me. I know I had a few great-great-uncles or something who went to Australia.”

            Harry shook his head. “But family means more than that. You and Ron are family to me, but we’re not related by blood. What if the glasses work because they’re related to something like that? To people who carry an image of you in their minds, who know you and love you?” Ever since Hermione had shown him the devices that she was hoping to use to find her parents, shimmering crystal balls that filled with green or pink light (or were supposed to) when she was near the people they were tuned to, Harry had wondered about that. Blood seemed limited, and too simple for the glasses to find when they were that expensive.

            Hermione’s mouth fell open. “The book that came with them said something about that,” she murmured faintly. “But I didn’t read it all the way through.”

            “You?” Ron said, and looked as shocked as though Harry had announced that he and Ginny were really getting back together. He let his spoon fall back into his cereal and stared at Hermione with his mouth open.

            She was upset enough not to notice. “I didn’t,” she said, and swallowed. “So much in the wizarding world is different—it’s based on blood. I assumed the glasses would be like that, too. I thought—I thought they would have a hard time finding someone related to me who was a Muggle, but the book did say they could find Squib relatives and bastard children who weren’t on a family tapestry, that’s what they’re usually for, so I didn’t worry too much about it. But if it’s family like that—Harry, I erased their memories!” Her voice rose to a wail that made more than one other person look at the Gryffindor table. “How are they going to come back from that? And how are they going to feel about me when they do?”

            Harry and Ron tried to soothe her, while people continued staring. One of them was Malfoy, but his eyes were dull again, and he hadn’t spoken a word to Harry since they came back to school from their adventure with Greyback, so Harry ignored him. If Malfoy tried to taunt Hermione about this, he would get Harry’s wand up his nose, and that right quick.

            “I think I might have an idea,” Harry said, when Hermione had stopped crying enough to listen to him. “There was a spell I found the other day when I was researching.” “When I was researching the curse Malfoy may or may not have had cast on him,” he could have said, but Hermione didn’t appear eager to question why he had been in the library.

            “What?” she demanded, leaning forwards nearly enough to pitch off the bench.

            “A spell that depends on what the caster thinks about and who they love,” Harry said. It was the opposite of the spell Malfoy described, really, but he had looked it up anyway, to find out if it had a countercharm that could be twisted around and used on Malfoy. Not really, it seemed. He was glad he remembered it now, though. “So it doesn’t matter if the family you’re looking for knows you or not. Sometimes it’s used to tell people who their real friends are, or find a surrogate family. But. Er. I think I could use it to find you if you were Obliviated and didn’t remember who I was. So it might work for your parents, too.”

            Hermione leaned her arms on the table and bowed her head for a moment. Harry saw her shoulders shaking, and leaned forwards warily. He hadn’t meant to make her cry, and he wasn’t sure what he should do if she was breaking down in front of him. “Hermione?” he whispered, reaching out one hand and then pulling it back.

            “Thank you, Harry,” she said, and then caught him in a hug so powerful that he squeaked and flailed his arms. “That was what I needed to hear, that there was some hope, even if I didn’t know what it was right away. Can you teach me the spell?” She was already pushing the tears out of her eyes with the back of her hand, combing the other hand through her hair, and settling herself in such careful movements that Harry knew she was back.

            “Yes,” Harry said. “But come to the library.” He shot a glance across the room, seeking out the Slytherin table by habit, and found Malfoy staring at them with narrowed eyes. He was the only one who was, though. Everyone else had turned away, as though to pay attention to someone Malfoy was interested in was vulgar by default. “It’s—er, it would be easier to find the incantation again there.”

            Hermione nodded and stood up, abandoning her breakfast without a backwards glance. Ron glanced at his, sighed mournfully, and stuffed a last sausage into his mouth. But he caught Harry’s eye on the way up, and his look made Harry’s face burn.

            I wanted to help my friends, he reminded himself sternly as he hurried to the library with Hermione and Ron in tow. That includes accepting their gratitude instead of pretending that I’m not really doing anything for them.

*

            Harry glanced down at the list Snape had given him and nodded. “I can get all of this, I think,” he said, and paused with a frown when he noticed the last ingredient on the list. “What’s the difference between a clean cauldron and a really clean cauldron?”

            “You should get me one that has not been used before.”

            Snape’s voice sounded different, Harry thought, glancing up from the list curiously. He saw Snape leaning back against the wall of the Shack, his eyes shut as though he was tired, but yes, he was sitting more upright than before, and Harry could see him better. It took him a moment to realize that that wasn’t because of any improvement in his eyesight, but because the smoke from the brazier was thinner.

            “All right,” Harry said, pushing away the thoughts that said Snape could have bloody well written that down, and slipped the list into his pocket. “But that means I’ll have to owl-order one, and that’ll take a few days.” He moved towards the tunnel that led back under the tree, already thinking about how he would transport the cups of water Snape wanted to the Shack without spilling any of them. And how full should he fill the cups? Completely full, he decided, and if it was too much water, then it was easy for Snape to get rid of.

            “Shall I tell you what I suspect it is?”

            Harry paused and turned back to Snape. “What what is?” he asked, still thinking. Could he sacrifice his cauldron to Snape’s project? Well, not without knowing if he would ever get it back. He still had to be a Potions student when this was done, after all. Perhaps he could tell Slughorn that his cauldron was destroyed in a Potions accident in another room. But no, Slughorn would never believe that, not when he was all disappointed that Harry wasn’t as good a Potions student as he used to be. Unless Harry told him that he was trying to be as good as he had been before, by experimenting on his own with the potions that they were most likely to try and make in class—

            “Pay attention, Mr. Potter.”

            Snape didn’t have to shout for that tone of voice to be effective. Harry had heard it from Dumbledore sometimes. He reluctantly stopped his thoughts about the best way to get the ingredients here, turned to Snape, and nodded.

            “All right,” he said. “What what is?”

            Snape’s lip curled. It was one of the more natural and normal expressions Harry had seen him make since he found out the old bastard was still alive. “As articulate as ever,” Snape said, but shook his head when Harry stared at him, and forged on. “The magenta color in your face. I will not know what it is for certain until you bring me the ingredients and I can work on the potion that will reveal it, but I have my suspicions.”

            “Okay,” Harry said, folding his arms and then dropping them again. Hermione had told him once that that gesture made him look really defensive when he did it, and Harry didn’t want to be really defensive. “What is it?”

            “A werewolf’s blood is a dangerous magical ingredient,” Snape murmured. “Hard to harvest, difficult to work with. Even the glass that contains it must be specially made, and Potions masters must wear gloves unless they are werewolves themselves.”

            Then they could get their own blood, I suppose, Harry thought, but didn’t say it. Snape was staring off into the distance, his eyes narrow, and Harry suspected he would stop the train of thought if Harry spoke now.

            “But its most well-known property is that it tends to react to the Potions master’s personality traits,” Snape went on, his voice barely audible. “The ones that he may not know about, the ones that are most important, most deeply buried in his soul.” His eyes fastened on Harry, and he no longer sounded as if he were giving a lesson. “Traits such as the desire to kill, the lust to do so.”

            “I am not a serial killer,” Harry said.

            Snape blinked once. “I would not say that you are,” he said. “Such Muggle terms do not often fit a wizard.”

            Harry cocked his head. Well, at least he believed that more than he would believe a Snape desperate to reassure him. He had shared what Klein had called him with Ron and Hermione, thinking they would laugh, but Ron had turned red and spluttered and Hermione had immediately begun making plans to write letters of complaint to the Ministry. “All right,” he said, “but you think that my face turned this color because I like killing? As much as Greyback liked killing?”

            He tried to think about that, and couldn’t make words fit around the thought. No, it wasn’t true. He didn’t want to kill anyone who wasn’t trying to kill him. He shuddered away from the thought of raising his wand against Snape or Malfoy, for example, no matter how awful they were being, and he didn’t want to hurt the Slytherins who were hurting Malfoy, either. They were under a spell, it wasn’t their fault, they couldn’t help it.

            But someone who was going to kill him? He thought about that, and immediately the cool brightness that had flooded his mind when he faced the Death Eaters in the Ministry building and the Forest was back again.

            “I don’t have any more sympathy for people who are trying to kill me,” he mumbled. “I decided this summer I could be a little selfish and only focus on the people who were most important to me, and that I didn’t have to blame myself for all the deaths. I reckon—I reckon this is part of it.”

            Snape listened without speaking, and then said, “Yes. I believe your face has turned that color because the potion is meant to test if someone has become a bloodthirsty beast, and in the moment you killed Greyback, you were that. Like him. The blood has not infected you. But it may bring out those traits more often.”

            Harry clenched his fists and took a deep breath. “All right. So I might want to start killing other people eventually?”

            Snape made a single sharp sound that Harry almost would have called a cluck of his tongue, but, well, it was Snape. “Think of who are you, Potter, and what you have done to ensure that our world remained free. No, I do not think it will increase your bloodlust. You had enough of that to kill a werewolf already, and many werewolves do target their own kind first, you know. The blood would find nothing to improve.”

            Harry felt his face burn, but he shook his head and refused to spend a lot of time thinking about Snape’s words. He didn’t even know if they were a compliment or an insult, for one thing. “All right. What traits could the blood bring out in me, then?”

            Snape stared directly at him. Harry shifted in place, missing the smoke of the brazier now. Snape murmured to himself for a moment, and then said, “The territoriality, I think. Yes, that is what the blood of a werewolf will more than likely do. Werewolves stake out a territory unless they are like Greyback and choose to follow another, Darker wizard. They defend it with their lives. Lupin’s territory was the Forest.”

            Harry nodded, distracted suddenly by the thought of Teddy Lupin, who he hadn’t been to visit since school started. He ought to do that.

            “You may find that you have more of a protective instinct,” Snape said, and shrugged. “Again, consider who we are talking about, and that you might not be able to notice the difference.” He turned back to the ingredients Harry had brought him tonight with an air that the conversation was definitely over.

            “Could you take some of my blood and test it?” Harry asked.

            Snape tilted him an oblique look, then said, “Rather Muggle,” but fetched an empty vial and tossed it to him. Harry caught it with magic and floated it in, then whispered a small Cutting Charm on his thumb. Looking at Snape, he began to drip blood into the vial, and stopped when Snape bowed his head in a slashing motion, then floated the vial back across.

            This time, when he left, Snape didn’t stop him.

*

            Harry stepped away from the Whomping Willow’s trunk, and paused, sniffing. He wondered for a moment if a side-effect of the magenta color could include keener senses, because he could smell blood. He dimmed the light from his wand and crouched down, casting the light in a series of long circles that should reveal something about his surroundings while hopefully keeping him safe from some of the nastier enemies he might have out here.

            His light ran over a slumped dark shape. Harry scuttled towards it on careful hands and knees, and made out a cloak over the face, a dumped body, one arm projecting at an angle that suggested it had reached after a wand. Yes, wood lay next to the fingers.

            Harry pulled back the cloak from the face.

            Malfoy.

            You may find you have more of a protective instinct.

            And perhaps he did, because the rage that exploded in Harry as he looked between Malfoy and his broken hawthorn wand resembled a whirlwind of fire.

*

            unneeded: Thanks. You got Snape’s best guess at the werewolf blood’s effect here, though full confirmation will have to wait for the potion he brews.

            polka dot: Yes, the Aurors, I think, would only use deadly force when they have no choice. There seem to be a lot of wizards in Azkaban.

            ChaosLady: I could see either reaction, really.

            Cyador: Thank you!

            Sp777: Klein is terrified of Harry, and terrified that no one might be able to stop him, because he’s so powerful magically and politically. She’s wondering if she’s the only one who sees the danger, too.

            Well, Harry and Draco do get more chances to act like a team later.
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Parsimony