Chapter 10
A Broken Nose and a Potion
Draco watched Hermione as she walked out of the room, shaking his head in frustration. He did not think he could ever understand that girl. How a perfectly intelligent witch could have such clueless reasoning in her treatment of house elves, he would never know. The young wizard did, however, appreciate discovering that he was not alone in his outrage over house elves' circumstances. He didn't like to show it, but he was always disgusted to see Dobby or Pimett receiving unfair and, often times, cruel treatment in the hands of his father. Draco was not, by any means, the most compassionate wizard in the world. It was his firm belief that if one was not strong enough to survive, one simply did not. However, beating a creature physically or verbally, who was bound magically to oblige him was just not sporting. It was a cowardly act; not an Englishman's way.
Draco scowled, remembering something he had wanted to do since he boarded Hogwarts Express. He walked over to the fireplace and reached for the large ceramic bowl full of green powder standing beside it. Kneeling down, he dipped a hand in the bowl, grabbed a handful of Floo Powder, and threw the powder into the fireplace. As a green ball of fire erupted above the grate, Draco stuck his head in it and said out loud: "Kitchen of Malfoy Mansion!"
In a matter of seconds, his head was hovering in the fireplace of the large kitchen at his house. A skinny creature with big floppy ears was stirring in front of the sink with her back turned.
"Pimett," Draco called out to her in a whisper that was loud enough to get her attention but low enough to not give away his presence in the house. Though he wouldn't have minded seeing his mother, he was not in the mood to deal with his father. The house elf let out a yelp and whirled around, looking thunderstruck. She rushed over to him with a pronounced limp, holding a red-stained rag under her bloody, crooked nose with sloppily bandaged hands.
"Master Draco!" she squeaked in a muffled voice. The elf had large, yellow eyes framed with dark circles of fatigue and a frame evidently too fragile for the daily house work she was asked to perform. Her nose seemed to be bleeding too profusely to be stopped up by the crumpled, soggy rag she held up to it. Crimson droplets covered her wrinkled cheeks and dribbled down her saggy chin. And although she was apparently in pain, the old elf still regarded her young charge with impervious affection and care.
"Pimett what happened to your face and hands?" asked Draco, a mixture of shock and revulsion stabbing his chest.
The creature looked embarrassed, her eyes darting in several directions in succession.
"Pimett has fallen and broken her nose, Master," she replied in a hesitant tone.
Draco arched an eye brow at the incomplete explanation and offered a skeptical stare which she did not meet.
"How did that happen?"
The elf let out a downtrodden sigh.
"Pimett's been a bad elf today, sir. Pimett forgot to bring milk when she served Master Lucius his tea. Pimett's memory is not as good as it used to be, Master."
She halted. The elf seemed to be struggling to resume her explanation, her eyes downcast.
"And?" asked Draco through gritted teeth, guessing and dreading the rest of her story.
"And… Master Lucius set Pimett's hands on fire as a punishment. So, Pimett ran to the kitchen to put out her hands when she tripped and fell on her face, sir."
Draco felt sick to his stomach. He slipped his hand in his robe's pocket and pulled out his wand.
"Come closer, Pimett."
The elf inched cautiously towards him. The young wizard pointed his wand at her nose and whispered: "Episkey." At once, the elf's nose healed and the bleeding stopped.
"Master is so kind to Pimett!" piped she, a look of gratitude replacing the one of agony on her face. Draco felt bile swelling in his throat and struggled to suppress it.
"I don't know how to heal burns," he remarked regretfully looking at her bandaged hands. "And don't mention to anyone that I did this, Pimett. Understood?"
The creature nodded her head, her huge, golden orbs beaming with adoration.
"And tell me, how is my mother?"
Pimett frowned. She seemed to be fumbling for an explanation once again.
"Her health is well, sir, except that she seems a bit depressed. Master Lucius is not... is not... treating her kindly, sir, and…" The elf stopped. A guilty expression paralyzed her blood-stained face.
"Oooh, what a nasty thing to say about Master Lucius!"
She suddenly jumped to her feet, grabbed a frying pan from the kitchen table, and started hitting herself on the head with it.
Draco yelped in panic. "NO! Pimett! STOP!"
The creature froze at Draco's command, her eyes crossed, her one hand still in the air, clutching the frying pan.
"Pimett, I forbid you to punish yourself for speaking ill of Lucius. From now on, you are to report to me every Saturday morning at the fireplace in the Heads dorm at Hogwarts. You are to give me full account of all the happenings in this house. And if my mother is hurt or sick, I want you to come and tell me immediately after you tend to her needs. Under no circumstance are you to punish yourself for telling me the truth about what goes on in this house. Understood?"
"Y-yes, M-master Draco," stuttered the elf, slowly placing the frying pan back on the kitchen table.
"Do you have something to put on your burns?"
The elf shook her head, her eyes still unfocused. "Yes, M-master Draco. Pimett's… already applied the Elfish S-salve on them... She's already on the m-mend, sir. T-thank you, sir."
Draco nodded his approval.
"Good. I have to go now, Pimett. Don't tell anyone about my visit today. And if anyone asks you about it directly, I give you leave to lie about it."
"Yes, s-sir. It's so good t-to see you, M-master," the elf affirmed with a trembling voice. And as Draco pulled his head out of the whirlwind of the green flames, the tiny creature wobbled on the spot and collapsed on her knees, cradling the rapidly swelling spot on her head with her burnt, bandaged hands.
Monday morning brought the first mutual class for the Head Boy and Girl. When Draco entered the dungeon for his first double-Potions class of the semester, he quickly realized that he would have to choose a seat from the few remaining ones with extra care because students typically made their permanent seating arrangements on the first day of the class. After searching the room and finding no seats left up front, he proceeded to scan the dungeon for Granger and located his target sitting next to Potter in the second to the last row with her back to the entrance. They appeared to be talking about something funny, for at that very moment they both burst into laughter. Draco felt a twinge of annoyance at seeing the two Gryffindors already seated and having a good time and immediately diverted his attention to finding a seat in the back of the class. To his dismay, he found no seats there either. A slow brewing panic began to plague his thoughts. What if they noticed him standing there like an idiot with nowhere to sit? He imagined Granger and Potter pointing and cackling at him and was surprised to find his stomach drop with anxiety. He took a steadying breath to stifle his panic. Why did he care about what the bloody Gryffindors thought of him? When no conscious response came from his mind, Draco's anxiety tripled. He frantically looked around for an empty seat and, by some luck, spotted his fellow Slytherin, Blaise Zabini, in the right corner of the room behind the two Gryffindors, waving a hand and pointing at an obscure seat next to him. Heaving a sigh of relief, the Head Boy rushed over and popped his books on the table.
"Blaise," he said, unintentionally donning an even frostier façade than usual to mask his anxiety.
Blaise greeted him with a similar air, though a bit less frosty.
"All right, Draco? I saved a seat for you when you didn't show up last week."
Draco dipped his head to express his gratitude.
"Good thinking. Did I miss anything important?"
"Not really," Blaise replied and nodded his head to indicate Granger. "Just the stupid mud blood acting like a bloody know-it-all. And I think we're going to start a very difficult potion today. Anyway, that's what Snape said last time."
Draco couldn't help but wince when he heard Blaise call Granger a mud blood. He felt the twinge of annoyance tugging at his chest again. What was wrong with him today? Why was he so twitchy about anything concerning that bushy-headed witch? But before he could ponder on his oscillating mood, the Head Boy snapped out of his reverie as the Potions Master glided in, his customary outfit, the black robe, fluttering on either side of him like a bat's wings. The class, as always, sunk into a deep silence in the professor's weighty presence. Snape walked over to the black board, his wand already in this hand. He waved it once and a neatly written, lengthy set of instructions appeared, covering the whole of the black surface. He spun around dramatically to face the students who were now gawking at the board, flabbergasted at the amount of ingredients and specific instructions this new potion required.
"Today you are going to learn a new potion," Snape hissed. "It is the hardest potion you have ever attempted to brew in your short history in Hogwarts. It is beyond the N.E.W.T level requirements. So I suggest you pay attention."
Draco observed that Snape's last sentence was accented with a sneering gaze directed at Potter, his favorite prey in the school, and enjoyed a gleeful interruption in his upset mood. However, the brief pleasure that he derived from watching Potter suffer Snape's abuse quickly evaporated as he also observed the look on Granger's face as she glimpsed at Potter with deep sympathy and affection. The young wizard felt yet another twinge in his chest. But what he felt this time was not annoyance. It was something else that he couldn't put his finger on… for the moment. While the young wizard cursed his rattled nerves inwardly, Snape continued his lecture.
"Madame Pomfrey specifically asked for this potion as she is running very low on her supplies. I must warn you that only the most skilled Healers and Potions experts can successfully brew this particularly complex potion. It is called the Omnis Auxilium. Its uses are simple, yet extremely valuable. This potion can heal nearly all magical and non-magical, external and internal injuries to the body within minutes upon drinking it. The only exceptions are a severely damaged heart or a brain. The wizard who seeks to benefit from the potion must be alive. Therefore, it will not work for bringing back the dead. However, even if you are an inch from death, this brew can bring you back. It is, as you see, a very difficult potion to make as it requires 33 ingredients and it is, therefore, very expensive. It will take you approximately three to four weeks to make it.
"Now, each of you copy down the information on the board and begin preparing the ingredients. I don't expect any of you to be able to successfully brew the Omnis Auxilium, however, the first individual who pulls it off, by a miracle, to my satisfaction, he or she will be awarded top marks, a letter of recommendation, and one vial of the potion to keep. The rest will be donated to the school hospital. I require that each of you work separately on this project. And since I don't anticipate success from any of you, no marks will be taken from those who predictably fail at their attempts."
After throwing another furtive look at Potter, Snape pulled up a chair and began going over the parchments on his desk. The students, taking this as a hint, lined up one by one in front of the unusually stocked up ingredients cabinet. As Draco tagged onto the end of the line with Blaise in tow, Granger stood only a few students ahead of him, reading the instructions on the black board with an ill-concealed, ambitious anticipation. It was easy for him read her thoughts, as they seemed to be mirroring his. He wanted to be the one to brew the Omnis Auxilium and get the awards. Potions had always been his strongest subject and he was always the best in Slytherin. Although he frequently tied with Granger in this class, this time he had no intention of letting her do that, let alone win. Draco made up his mind. The winner, no matter what, would be him.