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Because Potter Is Allergic to Poppies	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Draco Views: 9586 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter and I am not making any money from this story.

Chapter List
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Chapter Five—Promises and Passions

            “Malfoy.”

            Draco stifled a yelp and turned around from the wall he was cleaning as though he had expected Sabian to be there. He offered him a cool nod, while wondering how in the world the boy did that, to get so close and speak his name before Draco heard him. “Sabian. Do you have some information for me?”

            He felt some of his self-confidence return as the boy preened under his words. It’ll be easy enough to keep ahead of him as long as he feels like he’s participating in something important by assisting me. Which he is. There’s nothing more important in hospital right now than saving Harry Potter’s life.

            Of course, Draco immediately thought of a dozen people who would disagree with him, all Healers with their own particular cases. Healers did get possessive of their patients, Draco thought with wonder. He’d never had a chance to experience it before, since no one had trusted him with a patient of his own.

            He tried to put the thought aside—as well as his suspicions that more than professional possessiveness drove the thought—as he listened to Sabian. Sabian crowded close to him and looked over his shoulder before he replied, which meant he probably did have information.

            “Only one person saw Ron Weasley after he supposedly left hospital,” Sabian murmured hoarsely. “It was Haagedorn.”

            It took Draco a moment to remember who that was, and then he frowned in astonishment. “The Squib? You’re sure?” Sabian nodded. “And how do you know that he was the only one who saw him?” Draco continued, gaining confidence. “Someone else could have seen him, someone you didn’t talk to.”

            “Well, if you’re going to distrust all my evidence like that, then I have no reason to try at all,” Sabian said, and stepped back, giving Draco such an offended look that Draco could see his prospects for gaining knowledge vanishing like seeds on the wind.

            “No, I didn’t mean it that way,” Draco said, even though he had. “I’m sorry.” He smiled. “What was Haagedorn’s evidence?”

            Sabian regarded him with a jaundiced eye for a moment, then seemed to decide all was forgiven and stepped back close to him. Draco’s gaze darted to the door of the room they were in. He hoped that no one would open it, see them standing this near, and come to the wrong conclusion, especially because rumors would probably reach Potter before Draco would.

            And that’s the last thing I need to be thinking about, he told himself sternly, again, and tried to clear his mind the way he would when he was getting ready to practice Occlumency before he listened to Sabian’s report.

            “Haagedorn said that he saw Weasley step out of an alcove on Potter’s corridor,” Sabian murmured. “He acted as though he’d been standing there for hours, rubbing his neck and stretching his arms. He even brought a strand of hair down in front of his eyes like he was checking it was there.” Sabian snickered.

            Draco nodded, but didn’t laugh in return. In fact, those symptoms sounded familiar. It was the same kind of thing he would do after transforming with Polyjuice, to make sure it had taken.

            “He walked along to Potter’s door and stood there a minute. Haagedorn thought he was listening for something inside the room. He called out, wanting to know if there was something he could do for him, and Weasley turned around and shook his head. Then he walked around the corner and vanished. Haagedorn didn’t think about it for a while.

            “Then he happened to mention it to someone else later that day, and found out they hadn’t seen Weasley. In fact, they were positive that Weasley had left hospital earlier that day and hadn’t come back. Haagedorn asked a few other people and found out the same thing. He thought there was something strange about that, but he didn’t find anyone who believed him.” Sabian rolled his eyes. “Most people thought he was drunk.”

            “That was stupid of them,” Draco said. For his own reasons, Haagedorn disapproved of alcohol and wouldn’t touch it. Draco thought it had to do with his belonging to some Muggle religion or something like that.

            “I thought so,” Sabian said with a satisfied tone, as if his agreement was all that was needed to make Draco’s thoughts true. Draco had to smother a smile. “So that was odd. But where could he have gone? The corridor off Potter’s room leads to the entrance of the ward. Do you think someone’s being bribed to keep his entrance and leaving a secret?” Sabian rapped his fingers against the wall, leaving some prints that Draco would have to clean off later. “Or maybe Weasley’s cheating on his wife!”

            He sounded indignant now, and Draco shook his head. That was all he needed, for his spy to cherish a secret passion for war heroine Hermione Granger and confront Weasley under the impression that she needed defending. “I don’t think that’s it. I think it’s related to the murder attempt on Potter.”

            Sabian stared at him with his mouth open. “But Weasley couldn’t want to murder him!” he exclaimed, seeming to forget that he’d accused Weasley of his own share of crimes a minute ago. “They’re best mates!”

            “Well, someone might want to make it seem like Weasley was a suspect,” Draco said kindly. “That’s the next thing I want you to work on. See if anyone has been spreading rumors about Weasley or reports that he’s unreliable. Talk to other Aurors visiting their wounded partners and relatives if you can. There’s gossip in the Ministry that we probably won’t hear here if we don’t search for it.”

            Sabian nodded so hard that Draco thought he’d break his neck. “I say, this is bloody exciting,” he said, and then dashed through the door of the room, leaving it swinging behind him.

            Draco rolled his eyes, and then winced as he looked up at the clock on the wall he was scrubbing. The time, if it was right, meant he had to go and bring his food to Potter.

            He told himself it was just worry, natural worry over Potter’s health, in his stomach, rather than butterflies.

*

            “I was beginning to think I’d driven you away.”

            Potter spoke seriously, but with a smile on his face that made Draco halt just inside the door and stare at him. Were they going to talk about this now? He had assumed they’d dance around each other in nervous silence for a few minutes, and then get busy solving the puzzle of who was trying to kill Potter, and then maybe have a minute or more of nervous silence before Draco left.

            But of course, that wouldn’t make much sense for Potter, he told himself a moment later. He’s a Gryffindor. He probably wonders why I ran away.

            He cleared his throat and set the tray down carefully on the table inside the door, rather than the one near Potter’s bed, so that he could cast the charms that would detect poisons. “Not really,” he said. “I’m your Healer. You won’t drive me away.”

            “Then I can do this.”

            Draco had assumed, without thinking about it, that Potter was still too weak to sit up much. Potter took him completely by surprise when he climbed out of the bed, walked over, took both of Draco’s hands, and firmly kissed the back of the right one, then the left one.

            Draco knew his mouth was open. He also knew that he wasn’t at his most attractive, although Potter looked up with faux-innocent eyes and murmured, “I do admire that view all the way to the back of your mouth.”

            Draco shook his head and managed to get his voice back. “We really can’t do this,” he said, in the sort of stern tone that he had used when discussing the murder attempts, and which he thought Potter would pay the most attention to. “They’ll take me away from you if they think I’m affecting you that way. Patients aren’t allowed to be attracted to their Healers.” He’d almost said fall in love with their Healers, but that was presumptuous.

            “I’d like to see them try.” Potter had moved his mouth further down along Draco’s right arm and was breathing on it. He watched with what looked like interest and pride as the hairs there stirred in the wake of his breath. “If they do, then I’ll throw a temper tantrum like the spoiled little hero they think I am and get you back.” He glanced up, and his smile was blinding. “They wouldn’t risk that.”

            Draco swallowed and moved a step away. “I don’t know why you’re doing this,” he said. “You can’t—I mean, it’s not sensible.”

            Potter laughed so hard that he let go of Draco’s hands so he could sag against the wall. Draco pulled his hands back and tried to tell himself that he didn’t miss the warmth of Potter’s clutch on them. “When have you known me to be sensible?” Potter finally demanded when he stopped laughing. “What part of leaving myself out as bait for a murderer is sensible? But there you are.”

            Draco stared silently at the food. The apple had a little dent in its skin today, he noticed, and wondered if that came from someone tossing the fruit carelessly onto the tray before they realize who it was for. “I’m not—that’s a different kind of lack of sense from the one I mean,” he said finally.

            “Really?” Potter cocked his head. “I could swear that you were attracted to me, too. Was I wrong? Are you upset that I forced this on you?”

            His tone was so wounded that Draco glanced up quickly and had to shake his head. “No,” he said grudgingly. “But I didn’t plan to act on that attraction. After all, we aren’t going to be around each other long.”

            “Yes, we are,” Potter said, and gave Draco a grin that could have inspired people to march out and battle the Dark Lord. Dazedly, Draco wondered why he hadn’t used it during the actual war. “That’s usually what happens when people are dating.”

            Draco felt his face pale. Potter pouted. “You don’t need to look so horrified to find out that was my plan,” he muttered, and he sounded like a sulky little boy.

            Draco licked his lips. “I didn’t—I mean.”

            “Yes?” Potter cupped a hand around his ear as if he assumed he would need better hearing to make out Draco’s actual answer.

            “I mean that I didn’t plan on this, and I didn’t think it would happen,” Draco said. “You’re attractive. I can accept that you’re attracted to me. But what powers it? Is it just gratitude that makes you want to date me? Because,” he added, and he felt a little more like himself now that Potter wasn’t touching him, “you could most effectively show your gratitude by making sure that I get a promotion in hospital.”

            Potter straightened and shook his head, face grave. “No, I like you and I like the way you solve problems and I like the way you talk to me, without the fawning that lots of people do or the sneer because they assume that all the stories are exaggerated and I can’t have done anything worth doing since the war. That’s where it started. And then I started noticing other things.” He gave Draco that grin that should have knocked someone dead long since again. “Your eyes. The way you frown when you’re concentrating. How big you—”

            “Um,” Draco said hastily. “Look. I—I don’t think I’d be against dating you, either. It’s just that it’s completely new and I never even considered it.”

            Potter gave him a condescending look. The man did know how he looked then, Draco admitted. The amazing thing was that he wasn’t conceited with it.

            “All right, all right,” Draco said. “But not seriously. Can I wait and think about this? It’s a strange thing to have to deal with all at once.”

            Potter shrugged, looking anticipatory instead of disappointed. “All right. I just want another chance when this is done.” He reached out and snagged the apple from the tray, lifting it to his mouth.

            Draco’s eyes focused on the apple’s skin. Its smooth skin, undented and unmarked.

            He lunged forwards, batting the apple out of Potter’s hand and watching as it hit the far wall. It reminded him of the way the Wilder’s Growth potion had splattered when he knocked it from Mallow’s hand. He felt a bit light-headed, thinking of the way that this might have resulted in the same thing, the murderer managing to sneak a different apple into place right under Draco’s watching eyes.

            How had he done that?

            Draco felt a strong shiver work its way up his back. They were dealing with someone who either could sneak into a room absolutely undetected by anyone there, or with someone who had mastered magic Draco had never heard of, powerful and complex.

            “What the fuck, Malfoy?”

            Draco blinked and focused on Potter. He sounded more bewildered than angry, his eyes locked on Draco with a frown between them, but he was giving Draco the chance to explain. Draco nodded.

            “When I looked at the apple while we were talking,” he said, “I noticed a small dent in the skin. The one you lifted to your mouth didn’t have that mark.”

            It didn’t take Potter long to grasp the implication. His face went pale, and he stood looking expressionlessly at the apple for a minute. Then he Levitated it over to the tray. Draco approved his caution. He didn’t think the apple would have any poison that could be absorbed through the skin, but it was possible, and Potter was finally acting as though he could take care of his own life.

            Potter took a few minutes to examine the apple, turning it over and looking for any marks, or at least so Draco thought. Then he held it out. “Test it again for poison, please,” he said quietly.

            Draco was happy to oblige. The first two charms, looking for common poisons like Merlin’s Tears, didn’t show anything, but the apple turned an angry purple with the third charm. Draco felt himself go still as he stared at it.

            “What does it mean?” Potter’s voice was soft now, all the anger gone, and he reached out and put a hand on Draco’s shoulder as if he thought that one of them would need the support. Draco appreciated the gesture even if he didn’t need it.

            “This looks for strong poisons,” Draco said, “the ones that are meant to mimic natural events like blood bursts in the brain and heart attacks.” He cast a few more charms to narrow down the incidence. “I can’t be sure which of the two poisons it is—they’re very similar and closely related—but it would have killed you with no more than one or two bites.”

            Potter closed his eyes for so long that Draco started to turn towards him in concern, but Potter said simply, in a calm, flat voice, “Then you’ve saved my life yet again. From the Wilder’s Growth potion, from the Merlin’s Tears, from the base of Peleus’s Revenge, and now this.” His eyes snapped open.

            Draco was more concerned than ever. He wondered if Potter had finally grown so angry at his murderer that he wanted to go out and hunt him himself. Draco couldn’t blame him for that, but he did think they should wait and plan. He opened his mouth to say so.

            He didn’t get the chance. Potter was on him in a silent rush, pushing him backwards, driving his mouth into Draco’s and lashing his tongue out so that Draco’s open lips had to take it in. Then they were up against the far wall, and Draco’s hands were helplessly on Potter’s shoulders, and Potter’s were, much more firmly, on his, and Potter snogged him hard enough to make Draco gasp in silent pleasure.

            Potter pressed closer and closer, his eyes half-shut now, that expression of furious determination still on his face. Draco surrendered and let himself be kissed. Now and then a warning thought arose, such as worry about what someone walking past the door might see, or concern over the murderer’s second line of attack that had to be showing up shortly, but always they melted away again and he was kissed.

            Potter finally pulled back. “There,” he said, or rather panted, his eyes still too bright. “I trust that convinces you I’m serious?”

            Draco licked his lips dazedly. Then he nodded. “But I still think that you might only like me because I saved your life,” he had to add.

            Potter smiled. “That’s the basis of it,” he said frankly. “But I really do like you for you, and I’d like to date you.” He cast a glance back at the tray of food as if he had just realized that there might be other poisons in it. “When we’ve cleared this up.”

            “Of course,” Draco said, amused by the qualifier, weak though it was. He stepped back towards the tray and began casting the charms that would find the second poison, if there was one and the second line of attack wasn’t something else. Potter wandered up behind him and draped himself casually over Draco’s shoulders.

            Again Draco felt a thrill of anxiety, but he couldn’t quell the pride and the happiness that came spilling out in his smile. Potter—perhaps Draco should call him Harry now—noticed it and laid his head on Draco’s shoulder with a small sigh of contentment.

            “You’ve won me,” he said. “You have every right to be proud.”

            “Still arrogant, I see,” Draco said mildly, and at that point his next spell made the porridge glow with such a strong purple glare that they both had to shield their eyes. Draco lowered his hand and stared bitterly at the porridge, all the fun fled out of him.

            “And what does that mean?” Harry asked in his ear.

            “You would have died once you touched it,” Draco said. “That’s the light of a personal poison. It was tuned to you, and only you.”

            Harry licked his lips. “I don’t know how that could have happened,” he said carefully. “I mean, I’m not exactly sure of the process that you have to go through to tune a poison to someone, having never wanted to do it myself, but—it would require prolonged personal contact with that someone, wouldn’t it?”

            Draco nodded. “Even that’s more than most people know. Knowledge of you, contact with you, and access to a piece of your body, usually your hair.” He paused and waited for Harry to reach the obvious conclusion, but when he didn’t, he added, “I would understand if you suspected me.”

Harry turned his head and gave him a look of contempt that made Draco shiver. “Of course not,” Harry said. “You could have killed me directly by now, so many times over that it’s not even worth asking the question about how you would have done it.”

            “Weasley might suspect me,” Draco said, so affected by the fact that Potter didn’t think he was the murderer he felt dazed.

            “It doesn’t matter if he does,” Harry said. “Any more than you can suspect him. I don’t want to hear about your private little quarrels with each other. I just want you to act politely towards each other when I’m around.”

            Draco, who had in fact been about to suggest that Weasley would be the natural next one to suspect, with all the knowledge about Harry that this poison implied, shut his mouth again. And then he thought about it, and realized it would never work. For one thing, whoever had made the poison obviously hadn’t known about the Parseltongue, or they never would have sent snakes against Harry. Weasley had to know that. For a second, there was no way that Weasley would possess the complex brewing skills required to tune a poison.

            Unless we posit there’s a group of people out there, all of them working to make Harry’s life as unpleasant as possible…

            Draco shook his head. That way lay conspiracy theories. He wouldn’t think like that unless he absolutely had to. “Fine. Then we have to fit this in with all the other facts that we have about your would-be murderer. I still think it’s a Healer, because of what I told you about Pythia’s Potions, and the brewing skills that this poison would require.”

            Harry smiled tightly. “I wonder what will happen when he learns that I didn’t die from touching the food.”

            Draco paused. A plan had come to him, but he didn’t know if Harry would agree with it so soon after stating his liking for Draco.

            “Well?” Harry seemed to have noticed his hesitation. He leaned forwards, eyes bright and inquiring. “What is it?”

            “I could go out of the room and say that you flung the food back in my face and said it was shit,” Draco said. “That would give us the excuse. But then you would have to act like you distrusted me, or at least were displeased with me, and I’m not sure that—”

            “No,” Harry snapped, reaching out and catching Draco in his arms. “You’re already at risk because you’re my personal Healer. Yes, the murderer might not suspect us of such close collaboration if we act disgusted with each other, but he might also decide that now’s the time to eliminate you, while you’re away from me for a while. If you’re going to be in danger anyway, I want it to be under my eye.”

            Draco turned his head and rested his face against Harry’s palm. He couldn’t have explained the dread that convulsed him when he thought about leaving Harry, or the relief that was his now that he knew he wouldn’t have to do that.

            “No,” Harry went on in a thoughtful tone, “what we should do is solve the mystery as soon as possible.”

            Draco opened one eye and stared at him in astonishment. “Yes, of course we should,” he said when he could speak. “Because that’s so easy.”

            “I didn’t mean that it was easy, only that it was something we had to do.” Harry took his arms from Draco, to Draco’s loneliness and confusion, and began to pace up and down his room, head bowed. “If the murderer is desperate enough to try clumsy things like this—he couldn’t have known that you would be out of the room when I touched the porridge, after all—then it might mean he’s running out of something. Patience. Time. Money. We should be able to track him down more easily now.”

            “I still don’t see how,” Draco said sullenly. “Why should he leave his hiding place once he realizes that his latest attempt didn’t work? He might even give up and decide that he’s not going to try to anymore.”

            Harry turned and smiled at him. Draco narrowed his eyes. He had already learned to beware that shining smile.

            “Well?” he demanded.

            “We’re not going to pretend that the poison didn’t work because I got fed up with you,” Harry said. “We’re going to pretend that it worked, I’m dead, and see what the murderer does next.”

            Draco stood frozen for a moment. Then he rolled his eyes. “That’s exactly the kind of plan that an Auror who doesn’t know hospital routine would come up with,” he said. “Which means that I really can’t suspect Weasley, since I’m sure he’s even worse about this than you are.”

            Harry looked torn between pleased and annoyed. “Are you going to tell me what you mean?” he asked with false politeness.

            “Of course I am,” Draco said. “I mean that St. Mungo’s has wards which go off when a patient dies, and they’ve never been known to fail. I also can’t fake them,” he added, when Harry opened his mouth and Draco knew that would be the next suggestion. “Among other things, the wards have to ring in four offices at once, those of Healers and hospital administrators. So, no. No one would believe me without a crowd of other people rushing to your room and a clatter of alarms in the air.”

            Harry looked so thoughtful that Draco knew, again, what his next words would be before he spoke them. He didn’t manage to speak in time to muffle them, though. “That might be arranged—”

            “It still wouldn’t take care of the problem about the wards having to ring in the private offices I told you about,” Draco said firmly. “No.”

            Harry sighed. “Then what can we do?” He gestured again at his tray. “If he tried this, he’ll try something else. And I can’t count on you to stop everything. He has skills I don’t know about, and while you might be able to identify the poisons, you can only do that if they let you stay. Would you have thought of testing the porridge for a poison attuned to me?”

            Draco sighed. “No. I’d started to think I knew him, just based on the way he’s acted so far and what you’ve told me. I would have thought that he would use subtle poisons, like the Merlin’s Tears, not these big and flashy things. Perhaps he doesn’t care about how you die anymore, as long as you’re dead. He might not even care that we can trace it back to him.”

            Harry winced and nodded. “You may be right. But where does that leave us? This is still our best chance to find him. If I leave St. Mungo’s, I might be safer for a day or two, but he can follow me around and strike from a distance again.”

            “Give me one more day,” Draco said, hating the suggestion even as he made it. He hated to think of Harry in danger. That might just be the Healer’s possessiveness over his patient coming out again, but Draco didn’t think it was. “I might be able to think about this more efficiently away from hospital, to put together the clues combined with what we’ve learned about him today.” He eyed Harry. “I just don’t know how I’m going to leave you alone and trust that you’ll be safe. I wish I could give you a Portkey.”

            “Why can’t you?” Harry asked in interest, leaning forwards. Draco thought he had never met someone who was so interested in everything. Of course, it had worked out well for him, personally. He just hoped that their would-be murderer couldn’t work out a way to use Harry’s curiosity against him.

            “Because the hospital has wards up against Portkeys, too,” Draco said, shaking his head. “Too many mad patients with a talent for creating them in the past.”

            Harry gave him a sly smile. “You forget that I have my wand, something that my murderer still doesn’t know, if our luck is good,” he said. “I can lower those wards, and I’m relatively sure I can do that without anyone noticing. And then, well, you can create the Portkey and give it to me, right? No wards are up to notice when a Healer does it?”

            Draco opened his mouth to object, and then began to grin. Then he began to snicker. He ended up by laughing, leaning against the wall, while Harry watched him and shook his head from time to time.

            “Well?’ Harry asked at last.

            “There are, in fact, wards up that alert the hospital administrators when Healers start making Portkeys,” Draco said, brushing the tears of laughter from his face. “But there isn’t the same kind of watch kept on Apprentice Healers.”

            Harry grinned back and walked over to nudge Draco’s shoulder with his. It was the kind of gesture Draco could have imagined him using with Weasley, and he swallowed with some difficulty. “I’m sure that my murderer would never have thought of that,” Harry said smugly, “even if he is a Healer in hospital. He would probably think that you were incompetent and easy to get past.” He paused meditatively. “I wonder if he thinks that I’m the one detecting the poisons in my food and escaping that way?”

            “I don’t know,” Draco said honestly. “Do Aurors have those kinds of skills?”

            “We usually pretend that we do,” Harry said. “We like to discourage people from poisoning us, after all.”

            Draco snorted, and then tried to pretend that he hadn’t. There was no reason that he had to give Harry every encouragement, after all. “I’ll create a Portkey that’s attuned to my house for you,” he said decisively. “Keep it with you at all times, but make sure that you don’t touch it to bare skin unless you need to escape immediately. Understand?”

            Harry nodded, eyes serious, and watched as Draco took a button from his robe to make the Portkey. Draco listened despite himself for any signs of anyone watching or listening at the door as he performed the spell, but no one rushed in and tried to stop him.

            When he extended the Portkey to Harry, Harry scooped it up with his sleeve over his hand and stuck it in his pocket. Then he watched Draco with somber eyes. “Just take care of yourself,” he said. “I still think it’s possible that you might be in more danger than I am.”

            “It is a big, scary world outside your door,” Draco agreed, and then pretended to think.

            Harry eyed him suspiciously.

            “Will you give me a kiss just in case?” Draco fluttered his eyelashes. “That would make it easier to endure.”

            Whether Harry was punishing him for his teasing or not, Draco didn’t know, but he did know that he staggered out of the room warm-faced and giddy-headed and trying desperately to control his emotions.

*

            A calm brown owl brought Weasley’s report on the Pythia’s Potions raid that night. Draco read it shaking his head. He could have told them that the shop had wards that would be triggered to destroy the most incriminating potions the moment anyone wearing Auror robes came through the door, but he had foolishly thought that they had already known that.

            You’ll never go hungry underestimating the readiness of Aurors, Draco thought, and read to the end of the report without learning anything new. The owner of Pythia’s had said that he’d sold the base of Peleus’s Revenge to a client who looked like a Healer, but he refused to admit anything else.

            It was possible the Aurors might persuade him to take Veritaserum or supply more details, but Draco didn’t think they would. They had him in a holding cell for now, but as Weasley admitted, there was little they could charge him with, given that there were no illegal potions in the shop (no, he didn’t know that wards had destroyed them, Draco concluded). He would be out in a few days, and meanwhile, it behooved him not to upset his most important clients.

            Draco laid down the report and shut his eyes. He had to make the confusing jagged mess of the clues about Harry’s would-be murderer make sense. He ought to be able to do it even if no one else could. Why not? He was the most brilliant mind in hospital, and he knew a lot more about Healing than either Harry or Weasley. Healing was the key to solving the mystery, he was sure of it. The killer had to be a Healer.

            Which only leaves, oh, a few hundred suspects.

            Draco shook his head with a grimace. There had to be ways to narrow it down. He just couldn’t think of them right now.

            He let his mind drift, picking up fact after fact and looking at it. The enemy liked to attack with two lines of offense. One was meant to complement the other, but either could have killed. It wasn’t as though he paired a weak attack with a strong attack, which would make no sense.

            All the contingencies, Draco thought. The murderer would think about one thing and then provide against a chance happening that could reduce one of them. He might not have known for sure that the Marble Walking Curse would still be on Harry when he reached hospital, but he would have made sure the Wilder’s Growth Potion got smuggled in, because Harry’s poppy allergy assured that that would have killed him anyway. He had a lot of intimate information.

            And how had he ensured that the Wilder’s Growth potion got smuggled in anyway? Yes, he could have suborned Sabian, but Draco utterly refused to believe that he had known Sabian would be the apprentice sent to collect the potion. And this enemy didn’t seem like someone who made wild guesses and took wild risks.

            The answer was the potion. The answer was the apple today. Somehow, it had been changed right under their noses. Solve one enigma, and they would solve the other. And solve this problem, and one would solve the whole mystery.

            Draco’s conviction on that score was probably irrational, but he still thought it.

            So. What could have changed the apple from the normal one that Draco knew he had seen for the poisoned one? Invisibility Cloak? Telekinesis from a distance? Disillusionment Charm?

            No, neither the Charm nor the Cloak would do, Draco thought. Maybe in Harry’s room today, with only the two of them, but not in the desperate struggle to save Harry’s life, with so many people crowded around the bed. Someone would have bumped the disguised or invisible person and noticed.

            He could have gone in anyway, trusting to his skill to let him make it out again unnoticed, but Draco didn’t think so. Again, this enemy was not someone who took chances that he didn’t need to take.

            So. A spell from a distance. Draco had never heard that studies in object teleportation had come to anything, though, at least not without a prior connection with both objects. The enemy would certainly have touched the poisoned apple, but he couldn’t have counted on touching the ordinary apple that was placed on Harry’s tray at first.

            What kind of spell would let you substitute one object for another when you couldn’t be sure that you would have the chance to thoroughly familiarize yourself with both objects beforehand?

            A jerking breath caught in Draco’s throat. His eyes flew open, and he stared at the ceiling. The answer to the problem had slammed into his mind, and with it had come the solution to the mystery, as he had known would happen.

            A Switching Charm.

            A Switching Charm could be performed that would reverse the positions of two objects, bring one close and send the other away. It would still be tricky to do when one was outside a room, but one could stand just outside the door and try it. In Polyjuice disguise, perhaps?

            And the first time, Draco saw exactly how it must have happened. Sabian had brought the right potion, the Stone Response potion that he’d been prompted to bring. He’d been told exactly where to find it. He’d been chosen for his skill to be calm under pressure, which was the reason that Draco didn’t know how he could have made a mistake, and Sabian didn’t understand it, either. The incident had been meant to be mysterious to everyone. He’d brought the right potion, and then the Stone Response potion had vanished, switched with the Wilder’s Growth potion at the last moment, right when it would have killed Harry.

            By the person who was holding it, of course. Nothing easier.

            Mallow.

            Draco didn’t understand how he couldn’t have seen it earlier. The pieces were falling into place now. Mallow had been Harry’s Healer in the past. He knew all sorts of intimate information about him, which would include the poppy allergy. He was powerful, which would explain his ability to perform a Switching Charm from such a distance. He could employ apprentices it would be difficult to suspect and he was the one who had “found” the list of accusations from “Weasley” on his desk.

            He was the one who had assigned Draco to Harry.

            Sharp shivers worked their way over Draco’s body. He didn’t know where to look or what to do next, and found that he had leaped to his feet and was striding back and forth across the room.

            Mallow would have the time to brew the Polyjuice. He could have left Varden’s list of potions in his office easily, and then prevented the apprentices from entering and picking it up until Sabian found it. Draco could see now why he had done that, and why he had made sure that the list of objections by “Weasley” was in the same handwriting. He had hoped to throw Draco and Harry off and make them suspect Varden, or whoever they thought had written that particular list, if they hadn’t discovered that it was her.

            Mallow had wanted to use the list of objections to alienate Draco from Harry. He hadn’t realized how close Draco and Harry had grown by that point.

            And it explained why he hadn’t used deeply obvious methods until now. He must have gone on suspecting that the Merlin’s Tears and Peleus’s Revenge would work long after they had stopped working, because he thought Draco was such an incompetent Healer that he wouldn’t recognize those poisons.

            And of course “Weasley” in Polyjuice disguise had vanished. The corridor Sabian had traced him to was where one of Mallow’s private storerooms lay. He could have hidden himself in one swift motion.

            Draco stopped walking suddenly.

            What would Mallow do now that Harry was alone in hospital without anyone to protect him? What if he had brewed Polyjuice and gained entrance to Harry’s room as Weasley before Harry had reason to suspect that anything was wrong?

            Draco closed his eyes and tried to calm himself. There was no reason for Mallow to suspect that Draco had figured things out. He had shown himself cautious and wary enough that Draco would be surprised if he tried a second violent attack in the same day when the first one, with the poisoned apple and porridge, had failed.

            On the other hand, his attacks had built up over the days, becoming stronger and stronger. What if he knew that Draco was the one who had figured out his trick with the apple and the porridge—and Draco thought Mallow must know by now that Draco wasn’t as incompetent as he had thought him—and would try again now that Draco was out of the way? He could have known, since he must have been standing close to the door to switch the apples.

            Weasley might have defended Harry, but Weasley wasn’t there. And Harry didn’t know the routines of hospital, the ins and outs and what was usual or unusual, the way Draco would.

            Draco flung himself towards the Floo.

*

            paigeey07: Thank you!

            EarlyDawn: I have no plans to take this down soon. Thank you!

            Enamoril: Not everything is revealed in this chapter, but enough that I think it makes sense.

            Alison July: Thank you!

            nn: Thank you!

            Shadow Lily: Well, you do get some answers here.

            SP777: Good guess!

            polka dot: Harry is a lot stronger than Draco or the murderer thinks in this one.

            Takaouto: Thank you! I would say that Draco’s not really oblivious, but he was caught utterly by surprise that Harry would want to do this.

            Thrnbrooke: Thank you!

            Bunny: Thank you!
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Because Potter Is Allergic to Poppies