Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

An Alchemical Discontent	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 10911 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- 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.

Chapter List
- 14
- 15
- 16
Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Fifteen—Theodore Nott’s Story

            Nott woke whilst Hermione was still in the loo, and just a moment before Draco limped out of Harry’s bedroom to see what was going on. Harry, watching Nott’s face, saw his eyelids flutter, and then he went very still and tightened his fingers around the ropes, as if he thought he could break out of them without a wand.

            “I wouldn’t try that,” Harry said conversationally. “Given the wards you’re behind and the wizards looking at you.”

            It took an extraordinary effort for him to speak calmly. His fingers were clamped shut, so he wouldn’t grab his wand and jab it into Nott’s throat and demand to know what he had been doing, right now. The rage that had hovered under the surface of his mind when Draco’s shop was destroyed had no chance to transform into concern now, because he knew Draco was alive and well. It clogged his throat and made his eyes hot and itchy.

            “I did have good reasons, you know,” Nott whispered. “You could even say that I was helping you, if you—“

            He stopped, because Harry was laughing.

Harry himself barely recognized it as laughter. The noise tore out of his throat and hovered in the air of the room like a harpy. Harry bent over with his hands on his knees and concentrated on making the sound, because it soothed the tight band of fury across the middle of his stomach, and it was better than launching out with one foot and trying to cave Nott’s ribs in.

“Yes,” Harry said at last, straightening, “of course you were.”

Nott flinched and looked at the floor.

            Draco’s hand came to rest on Harry’s shoulder. Harry gritted his teeth. He hadn’t ever liked people touching him when he was angry; he wanted to make violent, abrupt movements to soothe himself, and he couldn’t if someone was holding him back.

            But you don’t really get angry anymore, remember? And anyway, you have to calm down, even if the potion has stopped working altogether.

            Harry clamped his lips between his teeth and told Draco, “He’s the one Hermione brought back. She was all over blood, so she went into the loo to clean up.”

            Draco stared at him for long moments. Then he shook his head and said, “That doesn’t really explain anything, you know.”

            “It explains enough,” Harry said roughly, and turned away. His rage was not subsiding, even when he breathed through his nose and rubbed his hands together in the way that had often calmed him before. He didn’t want to hurt Draco by accident.

            He wanted to lash out. He wanted to hurt. He wanted to—

            He felt his magic stirring, and that frightened him enough to chase the rage away. He wanted to kill, yes, but the last thing he could do was concentrate too hard on that wish, lest his magic took it as a literal invitation.

            He locked his hands around his elbows, a position uncomfortable and awkward enough that he had to think about it instead of thinking about what he wanted to do to Nott.

*

            Draco stared at Harry’s turned back, for the moment more astonished by his behavior than by the fact that Theo had had the nerve to do something permanent to his shop with the Local Earthquake Spell. He had seen that particular flush of Harry’s cheeks and the violent spark in his green eyes only once before: the day Harry had forgotten to take his potion.

            But no, that hadn’t even happened the day Harry had forgotten to take his potion. It had happened several days afterwards, giving the potion some time to work out of his system.

            And now Harry was facing his anger again, exactly as if the potion had never existed, and Draco’s hands shook with the urge to turn him back around, make Harry explain, and then start kissing him as a way to help him deal with the rage.

            But the door of the loo opened then, and Granger came out, flinging a strand of wet hair over her shoulder. She was scrubbed clean, not just charmed clean. Considering what Scourgify usually did to the skin, Draco couldn’t blame her. And blood was harder to get out of clothes and off the person with a spell than something like water.

            Granger gave them all a bright, leonine smile, and then turned back to Theo and drew her wand.

            Theo immediately began to babble like the coward he was. “I’ll tell you without any coercion! You don’t have to—you don’t have to threaten me! Please, please don’t cast—“ And he moaned out some incantation that Draco couldn’t understand, precisely because his voice was a moan.

            “I won’t cast that one again,” said Granger, and made several sharp passes with her wand, which resembled poking someone in the chest. Draco blinked, impressed when a white glow took hold around Theo’s body. It was a charm that mimicked the effects of Veritaserum, but he’d never seen that particular set of movements before. He suspected it probably strengthened the effects of the magic.

            “What does that do?” Theo hiccoughed, staring at her in terror.

            “Just makes sure you’re telling the truth,” said Granger, and smiled like a jackal. “And hurts you if you don’t.”

            Draco blinked. The ordinary spell didn’t give the victim pain. Yes, this was a variation of a spell.

            “All right, all right,” Theo whispered. “Fine. I’ll tell you.”

            “The entire story of why you went after Malfoy’s shop, mind.” Granger was pacing in front of Theo, in the position that Draco would usually have taken automatically, because no one who had been in Gryffindor knew how to threaten. But Granger seemed to have learned. “Leave anything out and—“ She raised her wand.

            Theo closed his eyes and gave a fully-body shiver. Draco nearly stopped his recitation by demanding to know the story of what Granger had done to him, instead.

            But Theo began mumbling hoarsely. Granger cast a second spell that would raise his voice to normal, understandable levels and leaned on the wall, staring critically at him.

            “I know Cordelia, you see,” Theo said. “I know that she would never stop once she set her sights on the destruction of an enemy.” He half-opened one eye and sneaked a glance at Draco. “She tried to destroy you with your debts and bad publicity for the Desire potion. When that didn’t work, she decided that she would have to do something more permanent and effective. What it is, I don’t know, but she’s been planning it for a long time.”

            “And she sent you to destroy my shop because of that reason?” Draco demanded. That didn’t sound like something that would take a lot of planning.

            Theo licked his lips. “No,” he said. “I—that was my idea.”

            “Why?” Granger leaned forwards, tapping her wand on her knee. Draco thought she hardly needed the word; Theo was already babbling out the answer.

            “I was a foot soldier in her war, but even a foot soldier can see what’s coming. She would just go on using me, and putting me in more and more dangerous positions. I didn’t want to find myself trying to murder someone, or act in accordance with those subtle long-range plans that I don’t even comprehend!” And that was a wail, Draco thought, amused even in the midst of his furious analysis of Theo’s words. “She would use me. She would never let me go. I knew that. And I knew I couldn’t persuade her to leave me out of it. I’m a blood relative, and I’ve borrowed money from her. That makes me lawful prey.

            “But if I destroyed your shop, then that would take you out of the game, and that might mean Cordelia could stop concentrating on you so much. I know it’s just her pride making her pay you that attention. She should be concentrating on other things, like Charlemagne’s campaign. Get rid of the shop, and she would think about those other things.”

            “And stop using you,” Draco said, keeping his voice flat to disguise his emotions. It was not flattering to be told that he had lost his home and investments not because of a clever enemy’s hatred, but because of a lackey’s stupid fear of being used.

            Theo nodded so hard he strained the ropes binding him. “Yes! So I took one big risk, and it seemed to have worked. She’s thinking about other things now.” He shifted enough to toss a nervous glance at Granger. “And then she caught me,” he whispered.

            Draco turned to Granger. “Do tell us how you managed that, if you would,” he said.

            “Yes, do,” Harry said, unexpectedly turning around again. His cheeks were hectic with color, but the fury had faded from his eyes. Draco found himself disappointed.

*

            Harry was very glad he hadn’t been looking at Nott whilst he told his story. The impulse to attack him for estimating Draco’s life and livelihood as worth less than his own convenience was overwhelming.

            I want to hurt him. I want to hurt him so badly.

            But he couldn’t, especially with Hermione in the room. On the other hand, she had come in covered in blood, and that might have meant she had hurt Nott. Maybe the pain she had caused him would be enough to satisfy Harry.

            By sheer will, he managed to force the rage under control enough to risk turning around again. “Yes, do,” he told Hermione, and saw her regarding him wisely for a moment, her eyes narrowed. He swallowed. Explaining to her that his potion appeared not to be working any more was not a conversation he looked forwards to.

            But Hermione obviously enjoyed the chance to tell her story too much to question Harry right now. She fluffed her hair and stood up a little straighter.

            “It was the use of logic that did it,” she began. “After all, who has been involved in attacking you so far? Diggory, Cordelia Nott, and Theodore Nott.” She had the sense not to mention Draco’s mysterious Legilimens enemy in front of their captive, Harry noted with approval. “This didn’t seem like the kind of tactic that Diggory and Cordelia Nott would have used; they prefer to work subtly and use political methods. And of course they would prefer not to leave evidence that linked them to the fall of Malfoy’s shop.

            “But Theodore Nott…”

            Hermione drew out the words. Nott gave a quiet whimper. Harry cast him a fierce glance, and he shut up immediately.

            “It was easy enough to discover, through some contacts in the Ministry, that he was under his big sister’s thumb,” Hermione continued. Her voice was soft and merciless. “And that he wasn’t happy about being there. No love lost in that family. He wouldn’t act against her, but he might try to serve her ends in a way that was safer for himself and exposed him least to danger. So I set about tracking him down.

            “And he tried to run away from me the moment he saw me. That rather confirmed it, wouldn’t you say?” Hermione gave them a smug look.

            Draco shook his head and whistled softly. Harry was pleased to see unqualified admiration on his face for the first time. “It sounds so simple when you explain it,” he said. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it.”

            Hermione shrugged modestly. “Most wizards don’t use logic that way, I told you,” she said. “And you had other things to occupy you.

            “He ran from me. I cornered him briefly in the Ministry and we dueled—that’s where I got so much blood on me, from an Explosive Cut Curse—before he managed to escape through a Floo. I went to the Ministry files and requested a complete list of the habitations of the Nott family, along with Apparition coordinates. Then I started Apparating from place to place, and casting a spell that would lead me to him.”

            “How?” Draco demanded. “Did you actually have the time to place a Tracking Charm on him?”

            “Let’s say that I adapted a tactic our enemies have used in the past,” Hermione said, and made a subtle gesture at her sleeve. Harry remembered the Flutter-Ear that Nott and Diggory had attached to her robe. He wondered for a moment, nervously, if she was wearing it now, but he doubted Hermione would have been so stupid. She had probably discarded it the moment she started seriously hunting Cordelia’s brother.

            Again Draco was nodding, though this time the expression on his face was more judicious. Harry was sure he was trying to figure out all the ways Hermione could have tracked Nott, and how he could better them. “And what happened when you caught up with him again?”

            “Oh, that was when I had to cast the Gallbladder Curse,” Hermione said cheerfully.

            “Hermione,” Harry said, shocked in spite of himself. Hermione had made up the Gallbladder Curse when she was studying for her N.E.W.T.’s, and threatened to use it on anyone who interrupted her attempt to recall three hundred Potions ingredients in alphabetical order. She never had used it, so far as Harry knew, but the description of it had been awful enough to convince Ron to leave her alone for three whole days.

            “He deserved it,” Hermione said lightly. “Trying to cast the Unforgivables at me. I ask you.”

            “What is the Gallbladder Curse?” Draco demanded, with so much petulance in his voice that Harry looked sideways at him. Draco’s lip was curled. Harry hid a smile, glad to feel some of his returned rage leaving him alone. Draco apparently hated not knowing things.

            “A curse that fills your entire body with bile,” Hermione said cheerfully. “Your mouth has the taste of it. Then it starts pushing against your organs. And then your actual gallbladder starts to ache, and feel as if it’ll burst. Extremely unpleasant, I’m told.”

            Draco blinked, and tried to prevent himself from doing so, but he looked impressed. Nott whimpered softly from the floor to add credence to Hermione’s testimony.

            “He got in one more curse that hit my leg,” Hermione said, slapping her knee, “but he fell down after that. So I incapacitated him, made sure no one had heard the fight—we’d run into a Muggle area—and then came here.”

            “So now what do we do with him?” Harry asked, glad to feel he could make a contribution to the conversation.

            Draco turned and stared at Nott with a tremendously unpleasant expression. “How much do you know about your sister’s plans?” he asked.

            Nott squeaked and shook his head. “Not that much, really!” he said. “Just that she was looking into other brewers’ operations and offering them money. I think she was trying to bribe them not to carry the Desire potion.”

            “Hmmm.” Draco narrowed his eyes like a cat offered a chunk of liver and glanced at Hermione. “What do you think, Granger? Your spell ensures that he tells the truth, but it doesn’t tell us how best to use him against his sister.”

            Hermione nodded. Harry fell back a step and hid another grin. It was fun to watch Hermione and Draco working together to play Good Auror, Bad Auror.

            “Family sentiment isn’t very strong among the Notts, that’s true,” Hermione said, spinning her wand idly over in her hand. Nott stared at it in dread. Harry decided then and there that he never wanted to experience the Gallbladder Curse. “All my sources agreed on that.”

            “That means that Cordelia is unlikely to want to pay to rescue her brother,” Draco said thoughtfully. “Or to care very much about what we do to him.” He brightened. “I could take my revenge on him, then. There are some experimental potions whose effects I never got to observe because I couldn’t find someone to volunteer to test them, and of course I wasn’t about to take them myself.”

            “Well, that’s a good plan, but I think we can think of something else,” Hermione said, above Nott squealing in dread. She knelt down so that she was looking into the bound man’s eyes. “Unless, of course, he doesn’t know anything else, not about his sister’s plans right now but about his sister in general, that would mean she’d pay to rescue him.”

            Nott’s face looked stricken and indecisive for just a moment. Hermione held her wand towards his throat in a casual manner.

            “All right, all right!” Nott cried, cowering. Harry wrinkled his nose. He hoped he was imagining the scent that seemed to indicate Nott had wet his pants. “There’s—I know why she’s associating so much with Diggory. Would that be enough? Will you treat me kindly, and then let me go?” Tears were streaking down his face by the end of his sentence. He really was a coward, Harry thought in wonderment.

            “That would be very good,” said Hermione, turning the wand over thoughtfully. “As to whether it’s enough, tell us, and we’ll decide.”

            Draco dropped into a crouch beside her, looking fierce. Nott shot him a glance, but continued to keep most of his attention on Hermione. In his place, Harry thought, he would have done the same.

            “All right.” Nott cleared his throat and still had to swallow before he started talking. “Charlemagne tried to woo her once. She usually draws young men in when they’re doing that and destroys them—drains away their money in buying her presents or makes them despair and just give up on life. They usually commit suicide.”

            Harry felt himself stiffen. At the moment, he hardly liked Cordelia Nott better than he liked Draco’s mysterious enemy.

            “I knew that,” Draco said, softly enough to make Nott hurry into the next part of his story.

            “But Diggory found out—he found out that she’d done something to get the money from our aunt,” Nott whispered. “I don’t know where he got the evidence. But I think she put Imperius on our aunt and had her leave the legacy to Cordelia like that. And after that, she worked with him.”

            Draco made a snorting sound. “I’ve seen the way they work together. Diggory isn’t just blackmailing her.”

            “No,” Nott said, and licked his lips. “I think she likes him for being smart enough to figure her out.”

            Harry rolled his eyes. There were some things about Slytherins he would never understand.

            “How certain are you of this?” Draco asked, his voice as cold and precise as the sting of hail in the first storm of winter. “If you are making more of a rumor than should be made—“

            Harry wondered if either Nott or Hermione knew Draco well enough to notice the rising hope in his voice. He really did think there might be something to this new story, and he was striving to hold himself back from leaping to conclusions and basing too much on it.

            “I’m certain,” Nott whispered. “I overheard enough conversations when Cordelia was keeping me to cool my heels in her big house.” A flash of bitterness there, Harry thought; Nott probably didn’t mind betraying his sister that much, though he was afraid of her. “And of course she would quiet him with a laugh whenever he brought it up, but it was the laugh that meant she was listening to something near her heart.”

            Draco glanced up and caught Hermione’s eye. A moment later, Hermione waved her wand, and Nott slumped into sleep, his mouth hanging open unattractively. Hermione cast one more binding charm to ensure the unconscious man couldn’t get out of his ropes, and then they moved into Harry’s bedroom and shut the door. The lingering stink of whatever potion Draco had been brewing last still hung on the air. Hermione sniffed, and Harry thought she would ask awkward questions, but instead she folded her arms.



            “We have the basis for a strategy against Diggory and Nott now,” she said. “The question is, what do we want to do with it?”

*

            Draco told himself not to put too much stock in the hope Theo had offered. He could have misunderstood something, and even if Cordelia hadn’t bothered to restrict what he overheard because she thought her brother was too scared to betray her, it seemed incredible to Draco that she would leave a spot open on her flank like this.

            And he couldn’t put too much hope in the way Harry’s eyes passed tenderly over him and flashed, either. The potion might start working again at any moment. It had changed in unaccountable ways so far. Draco would have said that it was altering to follow Harry’s priorities because what he hated most about himself had changed, but Harry too obviously feared the freedom of his magic and his rage. What could have replaced his intense desire to keep them stifled?

            “I doubt we could bring down Diggory with this,” Draco said. “He will have hidden the evidence he found too well. And he’s too popular at the moment. What we can do is try to pry Diggory and Nott apart. They’re a very strong force together. Without her money to support him and her presence at his side, he would be more vulnerable.”

            “Could we trust her to keep any bargain she made?” Harry asked skeptically.

            Draco chuckled. “There are ways.” His efforts at keeping himself calm were of no use. His hope was soaring upwards. “Unbreakable Vows are at one end of a very long continuum. There are other things pure-bloods use, curses that would ensure we kept our silence about her casting the Imperius Curse and she ceased to act against us.”

            “Keep our silence?” Granger sounded horrified.

            Ah. No matter how much a master of rather fearful strategy she is, she’s still a Gryffindor. Draco gave her an indulgent glance. “Of course. Do you really think forcing this into the open courts would be any use? The trial would take longer than Diggory’s campaign. And with him firmly seated as Minister, he would be able to influence the judge to decide for her in any case. No, Granger, this is something to be the subject of a quiet bargain. And of course we’ll have to do something about Theo, too, since he’s been so useful to us.”

            “I don’t think this is the right thing.” Granger folded her arms.

            “Is bringing Theo here instead of to Azkaban the right thing, when he used Unforgivable Curses against you?” Draco asked her. “I know that the Ministry requires any use of Imperius, at least, to be reported to them at once—even any suspected use. You disobeyed that. And I can’t imagine the Gallbladder Curse isn’t Dark magic.”

            Granger opened her mouth, then slumped into silence with a scowl.

            “I’m willing to follow Draco’s plan,” Harry said firmly. “If we don’t strike a bargain with Cordelia, she’ll just fight us harder. She’ll have no choice, if we even hint we know about what she did to her aunt. And taking her out of the game will be easier than taking Diggory. She’s not the one running for Minister.”

            Draco took a moment to peek at Harry, and was startled to see those green eyes resting on him in turn. The shine of the devotion in them made Draco want to preen, or pant.

            “Two against one, Granger,” he said instead, turning back to face the woman. “Just as it was when we brewed the Desire potion.”

            Granger huffed and folded her arms. Then she gave a short nod. “If it will keep Harry safe,” she said, “and you with him, Malfoy.”

            Draco winked at her. “Starting to care? That sounded dangerously like it.”

            “I care about you because Harry so obviously does,” Granger snapped.

            Draco looked at Harry again, who was flushing. But at least he didn’t stammer a denial, which would have been tiresome. In fact, he looked at Draco again, and there was something extremely like lust in his eyes for just a moment.

            Feeling as if he could have cleared Harry’s building at a bound, Draco said, “So this is the way it’s going to work.”

*

            Pendragon6644: Thanks! As you can see, Draco has one theory on what’s happening to Harry’s magic, but he’s puzzled that the magic seems to be going against Harry’s desires.

            Mangacat: Draco does consider the idea that the potion can change here, but there’s not a good candidate for it to change to. (And, well, he did have a lot on his mind in the last chapter).

            Lilith: Thanks!

            Thrnbrooke: Theo, as you can see, acted for himself.

            Yume111: Thank you! Harry and Draco are becoming more comfortable with one another. Draco’s reaction to it (or lack of reaction to how unguarded he’s become) is largely because Harry has let him so far in.

            I doubt Draco would think the potion was helping no matter what!
- 14
- 15
- 16
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

An Alchemical Discontent