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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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Chapter Three—Things Potter Should Not Be Capable of Doing

            “I’ll need more information about the potion in order to duplicate and change it, of course.”

            Malfoy’s calm tone soothed some of the fear that had arisen in Harry when Malfoy stared at the vial in his hand for long moments. Perhaps the task was too difficult. Perhaps he would manifest some odd scruple common to all Potions brewers and refuse to touch a potion that had been modified with magic. Perhaps he would simply think better than to spend months of his time in a flat with a man and a woman he believed he had reason to despise.

            But that hadn’t happened, and Harry nodded. “You’ll need to talk to Hermione, since she was the one who offered me the original recipe. I’ll fetch her.” He turned towards the bedroom.

            Malfoy’s voice arrested him, cool as midwinter frost. “You don’t know where the recipe came from?”

            Harry turned around slowly, leaning his back against his bedroom door. This was the first argument, then. Better that he should be the one to face a possible enemy alone, given Hermione’s fragile emotional state. “No. Hermione was the one who copied it out of a book and showed it to me. Then I modified several of the ingredients with magic to produce the variant you’re holding now.” He watched Malfoy’s eyebrows climb, probably at his use of “variant,” with a sense of enjoyment. You aren’t the only one who’s gained some knowledge since school, Malfoy.

            Then Harry sternly reminded himself he didn’t really need to be this antagonistic towards his old rival. Said old rival had agreed to help them, after all. And so far he hadn’t said anything too condescending.

            As long as Harry could keep some control over his tongue, then Malfoy was unlikely to retort with the same acid. And Harry’s control was much better than it had been five years ago, as was his perspective. He could now look back on those incidents in Hogwarts and admit that he’d been at fault in some of them, too. Not nearly as often as Malfoy had, with his blatantly unjustified malice and bigotry against Hermione, but sometimes.

            “Spells in combination with potions are rare, at least for non-expert practitioners.” Malfoy’s voice offered no doubt about what category he thought Harry fell into.

            “Hermione said the same thing.” Harry watched in interest as the git’s mouth pursed. He probably didn’t want to be compared to Hermione, either. Well, he would have to get used to it. They were the ones who would do most of the theoretical work, though Harry stood ready to offer whatever practical help he could. “But she also said that the spells I chose would work. And she locked up the vials of the potion until the balance—Erfil’s Balance, I think she called it—between them stabilized. Just because I was desperate to take it was no reason to destroy myself, she said.”

            It really was entertaining to watch Malfoy’s jaw sag slightly at the mention of Erfil’s Balance. He recovered in the next moment, though. “And what exactly does this potion do, then?” He held up the vial.

            Harry smiled pleasantly. “I told you already, in the letter. It removes what the drinker loathes the most about himself. At the moment, that’s definitely her depression, for Hermione. She needs a variant of this potion specific to her in order to think and work and live normally. And of course I’ll encourage you to develop a variant which can apply to everyone, so you can market it as a general remedy.”

            “But for you—“

            “It removes what I loathe most about myself, of course.” Harry gave a neat little half-bow. “I should get Hermione now. And of course I’ll furnish you with a list of the spells I used on the potion along with the original recipe.” He turned and stepped into his bedroom, shutting the door firmly behind him.

*

            Draco scowled at Potter’s retreating back. He didn’t understand why the former hero refused to supply a simple description of what the potion did for him. It would help Draco to understand its effects much better.

            And would you expose one of your greatest weaknesses to someone you still considered half an enemy?

            That wasn’t the point. The point was that Potter had asked for Draco’s help, and he was already withholding information that might make a sizeable impact on that help.

            Then Draco bit his tongue. What kind of brewer was he, anyway? If he couldn’t figure out what the potion did to Potter from the general description, the original recipe, and a list of the spells involved, then he had no right maintaining an open shop and calling himself an apothecary at all.

            He turned to stare at the potion again while he waited for Potter to fetch Granger. He had never expected to encounter a true original in such an unpromising setting. It surprised him almost as much as Potter’s knowledge of Erfil’s Balance—no, more, because that was explicable in Potter’s learning a few parroted phrases so he could impress Draco.

            But here was a potion that didn’t exist in any of the works Draco was familiar with, and which would make him an enormous amount of money. What wouldn’t people pay for a potion that altered a loathed portion of their appearance? That suppressed particular unfortunate memories or impulses? That made them sexually potent, capable of ambition and drive, triumphant over their most significant weakness?

            Potter is a fool to let an opportunity like this go. But then, fool is another name for Gryffindor.

            A soft sound made him look up. Potter was guiding Granger into the room, leaning over her, supporting her with one arm, and fussing softly all the while, as if she were a unicorn with a broken leg. Draco rolled his eyes and stepped forwards so that he could confront the Mudblood himself. If they were to work together at all, it was essential that she understand him. He wouldn’t coddle her, not when Potter was there to do it. And nothing she did, no amount of intelligence, could change what she was. He would maintain a brusque politeness to her, and she was mad if she expected more of him.

            “Granger.”

            Her eyes rose slowly but steadily to his. There was a will of steel behind them that made Draco start. He had expected to see them swimming in tears. He’d expected—hoped—that she would fall on Potter’s shoulder and sob her heart out, which would mean she was incapable of helping him and he could act on his own.

            “Malfoy.”

            Granger’s voice matched his precisely. Draco recovered himself in a moment, though. Mudbloods had always been good mimics.

            “I’ll just get the list of spells that I used to modify the original potion,” Potter said, and lowered Granger gently to a seat on the couch in the drawing room. “And fetch the book. Where is it, Hermione?”

            “Behind those books on the practical aspects of Herbology that you never touch,” Granger told him.

            Potter nodded once, then shot a thoughtful glance between Draco and Granger before he departed. Leaving the two of us alone to see how we get on, Draco thought. Removing his presence from the room to see what happens. Presumptuous bastard.

            It again manifested a cleverness and subtlety that he wouldn’t have expected from Potter, though. Draco wondered irritably if he was doomed to be continually surprised no matter how long he spent here.

            He dropped into the chair across from Granger and folded his arms. “You can tell me, since Potter refuses,” he said. “What does the potion do for him?”

            Incredibly, horrifyingly, the depressed woman who hadn’t managed to recover from the death of her fiancé ten months after the accident gave him a look of pity. “Did you really think I’d tell you the truth so easily as that? Lost your touch for fine Slytherin manipulations, have you, Malfoy?”

            “Listen, Granger.” Draco restrained his mouth from the M-word, with decorum that would have done his mother proud. He leaned forwards. “If he’s keeping facts from me that could determine the effectiveness of the potion’s outcome, I’m not going to do you or him or myself any good.” He had put himself at the end of the sentence, too. That ought to gain him some honor in her eyes.

            Granger lowered her eyelids. “I can tell you that it’s nothing that disrupts Erfil’s Balance, Fasterned’s Heating Ratio, Young’s Cooling Ratio, or the safety of the potion in question. It was simply necessary to create a potion that would work for him. If you can figure out what it does just from watching him drink it, good for you. But otherwise, it’s exactly what he offered. A potion that works to remove what he most loathes about himself. You don’t need to know what the particular component is that the potion removes, any more than you would need to know if the hippogriff feathers that went into a Draught of Eternal Wakefulness were white or brown.”

            Draco cocked his head and sat back. “You’re sure that this gap in my knowledge will be something as small and harmful as that?”

            “I promise.” Granger shrugged. “You’re welcome to pry at him, too, but you won’t get anything else out of him. Harry’s reticent about his privacy, which I’m sure you can understand, given his history.” A pointed glance said she probably still remembered his selling information to Rita Skeeter in their fourth year.

            A gap in my knowledge. Something not dangerous, but which I can probably ask about anyway, under the sure knowledge that Potter will put all his resources forth to protect it.

            They couldn’t have set up a situation more designed to tempt me if they tried.

            What convinced Draco they hadn’t set out to trap him was no belief in Gryffindor honor or lapse of his protective paranoia, but the simple fact that neither Potter nor Granger was capable of figuring out the labyrinthine turns of his mind and so pinpointing what would capture his attention. That meant the situation was what it seemed, and he would have the assurance of working in safety while also being presented with the opportunity to needle Potter.

            He relaxed back into the chair, though he glanced up alertly enough when Potter stepped back into the room with a roll of parchment and a book. His face was odd, as if he couldn’t quite decide whether to be upset or not.

            He held up the book. Draco squinted at it. It appeared to be a battered copy of Advanced Potion-Making by Libatius Borage. Draco curled his lip. If they wanted him to believe that was the source of the mystery potion, then their trap had not been so cunningly baited after all. Draco could have recited the contents of the book’s recipes from memory, and there was nothing impressive in them. It was a fine enough textbook for sixth-years striving desperately to prove their Exceeds Expectations O.W.L.S. hadn’t been a fluke, but an advanced Potions-maker needed—



            He went still, though, when he noticed Granger was red to the ears. At the very least, there was an interesting story here. Perhaps Granger had enchanted the book with a glamour that Draco couldn’t see through but Potter could. He settled back, prepared to watch the play being prepared for him. Potter’s letter hadn’t offered entertainment, but Draco would take the unanticipated benefits of this strange engagement where he could.

*

            Harry would have taken Hermione away for a private consultation if he could. But this concerned Malfoy too intimately, and that meant he had to say, “Hermione? Where did you get this?”

            Hermione swallowed twice and glanced down at her hands. Her cheeks had turned pink. Normally, Harry would have rejoiced to see her getting so much color back, but the sight of the book had struck him like a punch to the gut, and he didn’t have his air or his compassion back yet. He just waited for an answer.

            “Well,” Hermione said at last, speaking so fast and so softly Harry could barely hear her, “I, er, that is. I saw it as we were passing, and I couldn’t really leave it there to burn, could I? It was a book.” She glanced up at Harry, as if to point out that books, to her, were a little like helpless children. “So I snatched it, and put it in my bag. No one noticed, and it’s not as though it added any extra weight when we were escaping.” By the end of the explanation, she was almost wringing her hands, and Harry remembered the words of the Healers at St. Mungo’s that too much excitement wasn’t good for her.

            He sighed and came forwards to squeeze her hand. “I’m not angry, Hermione,” he said. “I just can’t understand why you didn’t tell me about this when you offered me the potions recipe.”

            “Because you’ve always been irrational about that book!” Hermione’s eyes practically sparked as she looked at him. “You might demand to have it in your hands again, and who knows what you would have been up to with it? I got the recipe from a scribble in the margin. You might have tried to take it and alter it without knowing what it did. Or you could have tried the spells again, and you know I never approved of them.” She folded her arms, a figure of disapprobation that Harry doubted Professor McGonagall at her fiercest could have bettered.

            Does it really matter? Harry was already aware that he’d invoked memories of Ron, without meaning to, and Hermione was struggling hard to hold onto her tears in front of Draco Malfoy. He sighed, and squeezed her hand again. “All right,” he said. “I promise, you can have the book back the moment Malfoy’s done with it.” He smiled. “Or I’ll give it to him,” he added. “God knows he’d brood on it like a dragon over her eggs and not let me have it again.”

            “What are we talking about?” Malfoy’s voice was an expertly wielded whip, thin and precise and stinging. “I want to know what’s so remarkable about an ancient textbook I could recite the contents of with my eyes closed and my mind addled.”

            “This was Severus Snape’s textbook when he was in school,” Harry said quietly, opening the book again. The words Property of the Half-Blood Prince stared up at him, and memories tried to overcome him. Harry shook his head and blinked them away. “He invented spells and potions, too, apparently, and wrote them as marginalia in the book, along with improvements on the potions already there. I hid it in the same room where you went to work on that Vanishing Cabinet—the room Crabbe burned with Fiendfyre.” He glanced up at Malfoy, whose face had gone expressionless. “Hermione saw it just before you confronted us, I suppose, and put it in a bag she was carrying. I think you can trust Severus Snape’s brewing work, Malfoy.”

            He tossed the book to the other man without much regret. Malfoy’s look was so acquisitive it was hard for Harry to resist a smile, in fact. When he got hold of the book, he opened it reverently and then traveled through a few pages, peering at the scribbled notes with a rapturous half-smile on his face.

            Probably thinking of all the future Galleons he can get from it. Harry doubted they would see the book again if they let Malfoy take it away, or, at least, not the originalof the book. Malfoy would copy out every recipe and brood over them the way Harry had said he would.

            Strangely, though, seeing that combination of longing and greed on Malfoy’s face reassured Harry. He was more likely to brew this potion correctly than not. He would want to have the triumph to brag over more than he would want to poison Hermione or declare that he had an angry Harry Potter on his tail. There were too many other people who could say that last.

            Finally, Malfoy nodded and looked up. “What page is the recipe for this potion on, Granger?”

            “Page 134.” Hermione was leaning back against the couch when Harry looked at her again. Her voice had weakened, and her face was already pale, with sweat starting on her forehead and tears creeping along the undersides of her eyelids. Harry moved so he was shielding her from Malfoy’s line of sight, and handed over the list of spells to further distract him. Malfoy looked up at him when the list landed on the page of the book as though Harry were taking him away from the contemplation of some beloved religious relic.

            “I’m surprised you trusted the recipe in here,” he commented, even as he began to scan the spells. “Many brewers encrypt their private notes or at least suggest dangerous and complicated techniques that the novice would have no way of implementing.”

            “It’s Hermione,” Harry said with a shrug. If Malfoy wanted to imply that Harry should have less than complete trust in his friend, he’d have to try harder. “I trusted her to figure out any encryptions Snape might have put in there. And I’m sure you can, as well. I hired you because you’re the best,” he continued, thinking Malfoy might want the compliment explained. “And you’ve already shown you have some familiarity with the way other brewers think, so—“

            He broke off. Malfoy had lifted his head and was staring at him. Harry leaned forwards, frowning. “What? Is my handwriting so horrible you can’t read it?” Susan had teased him about that more than once, and threatened to forcibly enroll him in calligraphy classes, so that at least the indistinguishable nonsense he produced would be pretty indistinguishable nonsense.

*

            There was no reason for Potter to lie about hiring Draco or his motives for hiring Draco, not if he wanted his Mudblood friend to get better. Draco had already determined that.

            But based on at least one spell on the list, he had to be lying. And Draco needed to confront him about it right away. There was no way he was letting Potter’s old grudges and misguided spite take away the sweetest victory Draco had ever tasted.

            “Tell me about the third spell down,” he said, and threw the parchment back at Potter. Potter caught it and fumbled with those ridiculous glasses until he could see clearly. Draco clenched his fingers in on each other. The fumbling gesture was one of innocence. And it did seem impossible that the Gryffindor should lie well enough to fool Draco.

            But admitting he hadn’t lied would mean—

            Draco cut himself off with a savage baring of teeth, and waited until Potter had read out the spell and glanced up at him.

            “The Diamond-Cutting Hex? Yes, of course.” He handed the list back to Draco, who took it with numb fingers. “I have to use that to slice the ingredients into the sizes the recipe requires. Three-eighths of an inch of duckweed, a piece of dragon’s scale as long as the joint of a child’s finger… I’ll never remember all that, and I’m forever mis-measuring. Besides, the Hex makes the sliced ingredients more themselves, if you know what I mean. They have some of the hardness and integrity of a diamond then, and they won’t dissolve before their time.” Potter shrugged and grimaced comically. “Of course, when I want the necessary ingredients to dissolve, I have to be careful to remove the Hex. A few times I’ve almost forgotten and ended up with sludge.”

            Draco shook his head and chose his words carefully. Potter was starting to look suspicious now, and better Draco admit his confusion than that Potter force the truth from him. “Potter, you can’t cast the Diamond-Cutting Hex in the way you’re describing. First, it takes an enormous amount of power, and it leaves you a sodden mess. The other spells you’ve got on the list would demand more magic than that. Second, you’re talking about casting it on multiple targets, on multiple scales, which as far as I know can’t be done. And then, removing it from multiple targets, but not all of them, later…” Draco clapped his hands. “That’s impossible.”

            “Um.” Potter flushed. The look wasn’t attractive on him, which Draco thought numerous Daily Prophet photographs of him looking embarrassed ought to have proven. “It’s not impossible for me. Maybe it’s just because I’ve been casting the hex for so long?” He ended on a hopeful note, as if he wanted Draco to confirm that for him.

            “No,” Draco said flatly, and Potter’s face fell. “This isn’t a spell you build up that kind of tolerance for. Besides, even if your absurd theory were true, you would have destroyed the potion on your first attempt, when you weren’t used to it.”

            Instead of getting angry, Potter just gave a single hard nod. “That’s rather a problem with my theory, yes,” he said.

            Draco blinked.

            “So I suppose I’ll have to help you brew the potion, at least at first.” Potter shrugged. “Or perhaps you can just watch me brew the next batch of my own, and get an idea of how you can create a variant where the Diamond-Cutting Hex isn’t necessary?”

            “I thought—I thought Granger brewed your potion,” Draco said, and then cursed himself for the slip.

            Potter didn’t pounce on it, though. “No,” he said, calmly enough. “I do it. I’m due to make a batch in a few days. Do you want to come back then? That should give you some time to examine the recipe and the list of spells, come up with ideas, and decide if you do want to help us after all.”

            Draco rose slowly to his feet, conscious of the way that Potter shifted to keep his body between Draco and Granger, but not really caring. He was seeing Potter with new eyes, and wondering how he could have been so fooled.

            Of course a more self-possessed man, and one who had survived the loss of a person Draco had always assumed would destroy Potter if he died, would be more likely to be able to admit his mistakes. And of course Potter could attain expertise in making something he really desired, which this potion clearly was. Whatever the loathed thing about him was, Potter wanted to get rid of it.

            And Draco had seen what Potter did to the things he really wanted to get rid of.

            The power…that was less explicable. Draco should have sensed magical power sufficient to cast the Diamond-Cutting Hex the moment he walked through the door. But it was possible Potter didn’t use his magic for anything else so strenuous, which meant that only during the brewing process would it be alive and active.

            Draco was now more curious than ever to see said brewing process.

He made an abrupt little bow that seemed to startle Potter, who eyed him warily. “I think that sounds like an excellent idea,” he said amiably. “Is it two or three days from now that you brew?”

“Three.” Potter’s eyebrows bent down. He peered at Draco again, this time more thoughtfully.

“I’ll come back then.” Draco deliberately leaned around Potter to nod. “Granger.” And he let himself out of the flat, the list of spells and the book burning in his hands, and new-formed ideas burning in his head.

And an interest in Potter burned in his soul, too. The git would have to help. It was inevitable.

But it need not be unpleasant, or uninteresting.

*

            Roozette: Thank you! I think you’ll find Draco proud throughout this story, but like Harry, he can make concessions when it suits him.

            And yes, Draco needs Harry’s help.

            Lilith: Thanks for reviewing!

            Mangacat: The Incident and the thing Harry’s removing from himself are both revealed at the end of this part of the trilogy. Lucky you. ;)

            Pywacket: Thanks for reviewing!
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A Potion Named Desire

Chapter Three—Things Potter Should Not Be Capable of Doing