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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 Eight—Outlines of Friends and Enemies

            “I’m sorry.”

            Draco kept his gaze fixed on the cauldron, and didn’t turn to look at Potter, even though he had already Vanished the potion that clung to him and he could hear actual contrition in Potter’s voice. That wasn’t quite enough groveling.

            “I really am sorry,” Potter said a few minutes later, earnestly, but with none of the exasperation in his voice that Draco would have expected from having to say the same thing twice. “I don’t know what I can do to make it up to you, but I’m willing to try.”

            Draco turned to face him, leaning his hip against the table. Potter had Vanished the potion in his hair and covering his face, as well. He looked apologetic, but not sheepish in the way that Draco had envisioned him looking.

            The way he should look, Draco thought irritably. The man he was without the potion would have. This Potter—he’s too confident, too settled. Is that what the potion does for him? But he hasn’t had to be that much of a public figure since the war. Potter had effectively told the Daily Prophet to fuck itself six years ago, and the reporters hadn’t yet recovered from the ringing reverberations of that statement. You’d think he’d have something he loathed about himself more than his own nerves.

            “Apology accepted,” he drawled, at last, when nothing changed, and Potter continued to look at him with that calm face, only slightly tinted with pink. “Perhaps you should stay on your potion until we’re finished brewing after all, if being without it makes you that jumpy and distracted.”

            Potter’s smile flashed out, as suddenly as a clumsy Potions apprentice’s knife cutting ginger root, and he laughed. Draco stood up straight, blinking. He hadn’t even known that Potter was capable of expressions like that. It changed his whole face, and made him seem an ideal compromise between the infuriatingly calm man he was now and the agitated one who had greeted Draco when he entered the flat.

            “I was doing all right, until I started thinking about what would happen in the next few seconds.” Potter shook his head ruefully and stepped past Draco to study the anemone petals again. “I need to not think to make any kind of progress.” He darted a sideways glance at Draco, his eyes bright. “Imagine what wondrous feats we could be accomplishing if I were drugged!”

            I don’t understand you, Draco thought, but was careful not to let that show in his face or eyes as he conjured more water back into the cauldron. Displaying weakness in front of anyone, whether it was Cordelia Nott or Harry Potter, would result in problems for him later. “I prefer that you have some of your wits about you,” he said. He paused, and then added delicately, “The potion didn’t seem to affect your ability to comprehend why I’d want to bring anemones in.”

            “I like to think it doesn’t affect my intellect,” Potter murmured absently, occupied in building up the fire again.

            Intellect. There had been a subtle emphasis on that word, so gentle that Draco doubted Potter knew he had put it there. He narrowed his eyes. Emotional, then. But I still don’t understand why he would feel he was a criminal, or incompetent to judge in matters of right and wrong, as Granger said he felt.

            Draco wanted to encourage that perception, because it meant that Potter was less likely to join Granger in putting obstacles in his way as they developed a general potion. But he also wanted Potter off the potion, or at least open enough to tell him about what it did. There had to be a secret there that would affect the production of the Desire potion. The relationship between a potion’s base and its variants was deep.

            But the only way he thought he could get Potter to open up and trust him was to seem open and trustworthy himself. Which was almost always more trouble than it was worth.

            On the other hand, he thought, as he nodded to Potter to begin the sequence of spells again and stepped back, this is a Gryffindor, not a Slytherin. There are fewer risks with him. And he’s only interested in his own life and getting Granger back to normal. I doubt he’d much care about what I’d use the knowledge of him for, even if he did know why I wanted it.

            So Draco waited until Potter had proceeded through the steps of the potion as far as he could—resulting in a large puff of foul-smelling blue smoke that consumed everything in the cauldron after he added the copper and had to be dissipated—and then said softly, “There’s at least one thing we have in common, you know, despite all the differences in our lives so far.”

            “What’s that?” Potter gave him one of those absent glances that seemed endemic to him when he was on his potion, more interested in making sure that none of the blue smoke had drifted under the door into the room where Granger slept.

            “Neither of us did what anyone expected us to.” Draco folded his arms and gave a challenging grin at Potter’s raised eyebrow. “Really. You didn’t stay the media darling and hero, and I didn’t become the idle ideal pure-blood that everyone was expecting. I didn’t let the war permanently discourage me from a good evaluation of my own capacities, either. I was fairly pathetic that last year.” He could admit it; he had forced himself to come to terms with the memories one by one, over a period of months. “But that doesn’t color me now. I’ve become successful, even though they didn’t want me to.”

            “Who’s they, Malfoy?” Potter still didn’t sound very interested, but he was listening and hadn’t dismissed Draco’s confession out of hand. That was all to the good, as far as Draco’s ultimate goal was concerned.

            “My parents.”

            Draco knew he had Potter when the other man’s head came around as if he were a unicorn scenting blood. For a moment, his nostrils even flared like an animal’s. And then he was frowning and shaking his head.

            “I saw—“ He cleared his throat, as if what he were about to say embarrassed him. “I saw the way your parents looked after you, and for you, during the Battle of Hogwarts, Malfoy. I can’t reckon they’d just let you strike out on your own, no matter what you wanted to do, and not support you.”

            “Oh, they never threw me out to starve.” Draco examined his nails critically. It was easy telling this story to Potter because he’d spent months narrating it to himself, along with his memories of the war. He could weave a story that would enchant the other man, while barely exposing himself, because he’d said everything in his own hearing before. “They let me know I always had a home if I wanted to come back to it.” He looked up, and straight into Potter’s appalled, fascinated eyes. “But at the same time, I was supposed to be their heir, their support, their hope in a world which had almost no place for them anymore. I was supposed to harden in their traditions and then join those traditions to my experience among the Mudbloods.” Draco shrugged lightly. Potter didn’t even scold him for his use of the M-word, which was progress, or else a sign that he was too immersed in the story to care. “But I didn’t want to do politics. I studied Potions instead, and then I broke away from them and became a common apothecary. A successful apothecary, that’s true, but one who sullied his hands with common work. No Malfoy son and heir had ever worked for a living. They would have tolerated me having Potions as a hobby, but not making money from it.”

            Draco left out the bigger half of the reason his parents were so displeased with him: that he had gone into debt to get his shop started. No Malfoy ever went into debt, either. Money was paid to creditors so quietly, usually through the hands of house-elves, that the outside world had been fooled for centuries into thinking Malfoys simply handed over Galleons on the spot for whatever they wanted.

            Draco saw no need to delude himself like that. Those days had come to an end with his great-grandfather’s death, if not sooner. He wanted to do something, and Potions was that something.

            “I had no idea, Malfoy,” Potter said at last, his voice low and full of compassion. “How awful for you.”

            Draco blinked. He had expected commiseration, yes, but not this level of sympathy. “Awful? How? I chose what I wanted to do, and I did it. I thought you’d be proud of me for striking out on my own, away from my father’s bigoted attitudes,” he added, unable to keep a speck of spite from his voice.

            Potter shook his head, his hair flopping into his eyes. Doesn’t he ever cut it? Draco wondered in irritation. “I meant that you have a living family, and you don’t ever see them,” he said. “I’d give anything for that.”

            “I see them sometimes,” Draco corrected him uncomfortably.

            “But it’s not the same, is it?” Potter folded his arms in turn, and took one more look into the cauldron, as to make sure that none of the ingredients had escaped sublimation into the smoke. “Not the same as if you were all on the same terms and you knew they perfectly understood and approved of you.” He opened his mouth as if he were about to continue, and then shut it, shaking his head.

            “Oh, don’t go high and mighty on me, Potter!” Draco edged a bit nearer. “Say whatever it was you were going to say.”

            “No,” Potter said, with unexpected strength in his voice. “It was ill-considered—the kind of thing one schoolboy would say to another.”

            “I almost miss the schoolboy side of you,” Draco said. “Is that what the potion suppresses?”

            Potter gave him a one-shoulder shrug and a faint smile. Annoying as all hell, Draco thought, and suppressed some sharp words of his own. He glanced back at the table. “I’d let this continue, but it appears we’re out of anemone petals.”

            “So we are.” Potter just bobbed his head peaceably. “Well, Hermione might feel better in a few days. Or maybe not, but I’ll try catching her at a time when she feels stronger and asking her what she thinks of your theory about adding symbols of blood to the potion.”

            Draco knew a dismissal when he heard one. He reminded himself that it would probably take more than one conversation to get Potter to open up. He lingered long enough to say, “Make sure that she gets the complete list of ingredients. You can’t just go substituting symbols of blood willy-nilly, you know. Rubies, for one thing, would be absolutely disastrous in their reaction with the peridot—“

            Potter waved him out. Draco went, wondering if he’d won or lost their private contest.

*

            The knock came two days later, just as Harry was preparing a light lunch of soup and toast for Hermione. He opened his mouth to bid Draco come in, and then paused with a frown. The light vibration of the wards along his nerves let him know it wasn’t Draco who stood at the door. In fact, he didn’t recognize the magical signature of the wizard who did at all.

            If it’s another reporter, they’ll have to sod off, he thought, and took the lunch in to Hermione. She accepted the tray with a watery smile and began to eat the soup. Harry pressed her hand and left her, automatically letting his fiery feelings drain away as he opened the door. There was no need for them.

            Standing on his threshold was a dead man come to life.

            It took Harry a long, shocked moment to realize that this wasn’t, in fact, Cedric Diggory somehow brought back from the dead and aged. The lines of the face were very much the same, and so was the honest, delighted smile turned on him, but the eyes were a different shade of brown, and he had his hair in a sober, adult style that Harry thought Cedric never could have managed, Seeker as he was.

            For a moment more, Harry was choking with grief, as if the years between him and Cedric’s death had been stripped away. Almost as if he knew that, the man on the threshold paused with courteous dignity, his smile turning gentler. Then he held his hand out, and waited patiently until Harry could shake it.

            “How d’you do,” he said, with affability Harry didn’t think was feigned. “My name’s Charlemagne Diggory. I understand you knew my cousin.”

            The name, and the voice—much deeper and quieter than Cedric’s—and the mention of the family relationship calmed Harry and enabled him to get his bearings. Blinking, he wrung Charlemagne’s wrist and dropped it. “I did,” he said. “I—I was in the Triwizard Tournament with him at Hogwarts, the year Voldemort came back.”

            He didn’t see the expected flinch when he spoke Voldemort’s name. Charlemagne watched him intently instead, and then nodded a little, as though Harry’s words corresponded with a story he had once heard. He raised his eyebrows after that and glanced past Harry into the flat.

            Just that one glance was enough to make Harry flush and feel as if he’d excluded the other wizard on purpose. “Come in, please,” he said, almost stumbling out of the way. “Of course.”

            Charlemagne stepped past him, seeming to simultaneously admire and evaluate everything his eyes touched on. Harry was grateful he had remembered to close the bedroom door on his way to answer the knock. He doubted Hermione was up to visitors right now.

            “This visit is unexpected,” Harry told Charlemagne’s back, and waited until the man turned towards him, unhurriedly. “Are you a reporter?” He wouldn’t put that graceful, confident manner together with the occupation of writing up scandal for a living, but clever reporters had fooled him before now.

            “Actually, no.” Charlemagne’s smile reached his eyes, one of the few Harry had seen recently that did. “I’m running for Minister, or will be, officially, as soon as the elections begin.” He shrugged a little. “And I realized that I’d never had the pleasure of making acquaintance with Britain’s most famous wizard.”

            “That would probably be Dumbledore, actually.” Harry folded his arms. “Or Voldemort.”

            Charlemagne laughed, tossing his head back to do it. He was certainly the most open politician Harry had been around, though with Scrimgeour and Fudge for comparison that might not be much of a contest. “Well, circumstances conspire against my making their acquaintance,” Charlemagne said, when he finished laughing, a trace of humor still lingering about his lips. “But no, I did want to talk to you, and not simply to ask for your vote.”

            “Good,” Harry said. Smooth or not, he didn’t feel like unbending now. Politicians were the only people in his world more annoying than reporters. “Because Kingsley Shacklebolt is a close personal friend, and I know where my vote’s going.”

            “But you’ll grant me an unbiased hearing?”

            “If you’ll tell me what you’ve come about.”

            “Fair enough.” Charlemagne nodded agreeably and took Harry’s own favorite chair. Harry checked an exclamation. Just because he might feel off-guard was no reason to show it. He reminded himself of all the lessons he had learned in the past five years, of the benefits of calm contemplation and the ill results of haste. He took a seat in the chair opposite Charlemagne and waited, while once more the man glanced around the flat, this time seemingly taking in the position of the doors.

            At last, Charlemagne faced Harry, clasped his hands in front of him, and began, exuberant as a small boy. “You’ve noticed, I’m certain, that there are still restrictive laws in place that ought not to be. Oh, in practice many Muggleborns are moving up the ranks of the Ministry now, but there are still more pure-bloods in power than otherwise—especially in the Wizengamot. Members of the Wizengamot don’t have to stand trial the way we illustrious Ministerial candidates do.” He chuckled under his breath. Harry didn’t see what he had to be amused about. “The appointment’s for life, and most pure-blood wizards are notoriously long-lived. So I’m trying to get the laws changed. I want to make the Wizengamot members face election. Not so often as the Minister does, as I appreciate that would disrupt some of the good work they do; it takes forever to process a law, and I don’t want their minds more on popular favor than work that might be scut work but is still necessary. No, every ten years or so would suffice. What do you think?” He focused brightly on Harry again.

            “I think you’re doing this for more reasons than just to show favor to Muggleborns.” Harry was caught in spite of himself—Hermione had sometimes talked about becoming a member of the Wizengamot, before she found out how hard it would be to unseat someone—but he couldn’t quite believe Charlemagne’s innocent spiel. “You’re a pure-blood, I know, and your family’s strong in the Ministry. Why would this matter to you?”

            “You want to know what my stake is.” Charlemagne actually sounded pleased, not insulted, as Harry had fancied he would. “Good. I can see that you’re not so blind and naïve as most reports make you out to be.”

            “Thank you,” Harry drawled.

            “Well, some of the things people said made me think that I’d only have to waltz in here, start talking up an orphanage, and sob a bit to get you to extend your purse.” Charlemagne gave him that open smile again.

            “My money is different from my time and my political support.” Harry stared at him. “What’s your stake?”

            “And you cling to the point!” Charlemagne made a lazy motion with one hand. “This is predicated on my thinking that I stand at least a decent chance, and probably more than that, of winning the election. I want competent servants. The majority of the people in the Wizengamot right now are lazy and so traditional that they’ll be horrified to see a Diggory taking office just because no Diggory has taken office before. Yet it’s hard to challenge them. By changing the laws, I can ensure that new people come in and the ones remaining become more alert.”

            “That makes sense,” Harry admitted. There was probably more political theory and a good deal of rhetoric behind the proposition that he hadn’t heard, but shorn of that, it sounded like a reasonable and worthwhile goal. Always assuming that one thinks this man should be Minister, of course. “But I still don’t see where I come into it.”

            “Your name is still powerful,” Charlemagne said. “And though I don’t know your friend Hermione Granger personally, rumor and solid observation convinces me that she would be one of the best candidates for the Wizengamot.”

            “She’s only twenty-five!”

            “There’s actually never been a restriction on age, as far as becoming part of the Wizengamot goes.” Charlemagne shrugged. “It’s simply that most wizards and witches settle down young, raise their children first, and then use their middle and old age for the pursuit of politics. I think she could do well.”

            “And that’s still her. That’s not me.”

            “If you were to announce that you support the new laws, that would be enough for some of the people who might not care otherwise to become interested.” Charlemagne winked. “I’m more interested in the groundswell of popular support you’d stir up than in you as yourself. I’ll tell you frankly, I have no interest in a figurehead.”

            “And I should support you because—“

            “Because I’m doing a good thing, and because you’d receive political sponsorship for your friend in return.”

            Harry shook his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

            “Why not?”

            That was unusual, too, Harry thought. He didn’t see outrage at his dismissal on Charlemagne’s face, only simple good will and intense interest, as though he were sure Harry had a good reason but not what it was.

            “Hermione’s been depressed since her fiancé, Ron Weasley, died a year ago in May,” Harry said.

            “I did hear something about that. Awful thing.”

“I’m taking care of her,” Harry went on, determined not to be drawn into any political digression. “And she won’t be ready to become a member of the Wizengamot for quite a long time. If ever.”

“The Ministerial election isn’t until October,” said Charlemagne. “Count on at least another year from that point until I can get the laws changed. So she wouldn’t be required to test her wings right away. But who knows what can happen in a year? If she’s out there before then, making her presence known through me and you and her own hard work, her name will be in people’s minds. That’s half the battle won.”

Harry worried his lip between his teeth. On the one hand, it was the only kind of political work he could ever see himself doing: work that benefited other people, not him. It was the same impulse that made him want to improve the Desire potion. He knew it had changed his life. Could he keep that from Hermione, or anyone else who wanted it?

But he wasn’t sure he should be promising such things, or even considering them, while Hermione still lay ill and depressed.

“I can’t promise you my support yet,” he said.

Charlemagne stood and bowed. “You’ve done a great deal just by giving me a chance to talk with you and see you face-to-face,” he said. “I find that I judge people better when I meet them this way.”

Harry held his eyes and waited until the practiced politician’s smile had somewhat dimmed. “I won’t be just a tool for your hand,” he said softly.

“I would never think of you as just a tool.”

With the echoes of that barbed phrase still ringing in his ears, Harry escorted him to the door of the flat. Charlemagne nodded to him once more, smiling again, and then strode down the corridor.

Harry frowned and leaned back against the wall, debating as to whether he should tell Hermione about any of this. On one hand, this might give her a goal besides simple recovery; on the other, it was probably too soon.

He would have an amusing story to tell Malfoy, though.

*

Mangacat: Thanks! And yeah, we’re getting closer and closer to the revelation.

Lilith: Your thinking is certainly in line with Draco’s!

QueenBoadicea: As you can see, Malfoy might have learned to appreciate Gryffindor tactics. Maybe.
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A Potion Named Desire