CHAPTER TWELVE: Bezoar

Pansy Parkinson hated having to get along with people, especially while making any sort of plan. It wasn't her fault that she naturally didn't agree with anyone. What was even worse, the others knew she would not act accordingly to the plan, so they just tried to get her to cooperate.

Their plan wasn't the worst but definitely wasn't the best. After a few days of fighting, both Blaise and she decided to pay a visit to Slughorn after their second period and start conversation quite inconspicuously – to give him a sense of comfort. Then, if they saw he was inattentive, they would ask what happened to Weasel. It was rather hard to choose the moment because Theodore developed a very annoying habit of chatting them up whenever they decided it's time to put the plan in motion. They didn't know whether he eavesdropped on them or whether he just had great intuition. But at those times he just appeared out of nowhere and made them listen to – most definitely made-up – stories that had happened to him over lunch or overnight. Blaise would look very grumpy at those times and then, Theo would decide he needed a bit of cheering up, so he would start to make up even weirder stories. That, of course, made Zabini only more furious. Pansy tried to ignore it and eventually decided to go to Slughorn whenever they were free of Nott.

When they finished Transfiguration and noticed that Theodore headed to the Common Room, they quickly went down to the Potions classroom, hoping to catch Slughorn there. It was the first time Theo left the class before they did, so it might as well have been their only chance – they didn't intend to waste it.

They weren't disappointed. Slughorn had just finished his lesson but was still sitting in the classroom at his usual desk, sipping some kind of tea, while grading the papers.

The Potions' classroom wasn't as dim as it was back when Snape used to work here. Even though they were in the dungeons, there was a little bit of light – which slightly lifted their spirits. If they felt hopeful, maybe the conversation wouldn't end in a complete catastrophe.

'Hello, professor,' they greeted him politely as they went into the classroom.

Slughorn almost jumped.

'You scared me!' he admitted, before smiling up to them. 'What brings you here?'

Pansy and Blaise shared an uncertain look.

'Well, professor,' started Pansy, sitting opposite the teacher's desk and Blaise followed her. 'We've got a question about Golpalott's Third Law.'

Blaise gave her a thunderous look and muttered something similar to 'unbelievable'. But to Pansy, it seemed like the best way to get anything out of him, at least right now. She couldn't help but improvise.

'Yes?' asked Professor.

'If I understand it correctly, you have to know the antidote to each of the ingredients of the potion we're making the antidote to, is that right?'

'It depends on the antidote… but, in conclusion, yes. If you're not making anything more general, that is,' explained professor, still smiling.

'Well, yes, but in our third year, as Blaise here noticed, we were taught the Antidote to Common Poisons, and one of the ingredients was bezoar...'

'Yes, it is, miss Parkinson, but what is exactly your point?'

'Well, Pot – I mean, Harry – on one of our lesson a while back, used just bezoar, right? So why bother with any antidotes if bezoar alone is an antidote to almost everything?'

'Ability to brew antidotes is very important in potion-making, there might not be bezoar in stock, for example. It's used in Antidote to Common Poisons because it is, in fact, the antidote to most injuries –'

'Yes, we understand that, professor,' interrupted Zabini, finally deciding to play along. 'But then why not just extract more bezoar since it's so useful?'

Pansy almost smiled when she saw him cooperating but kept her poker face on, in case Slughorn started to suspect something.

'Most importantly, bezoar doesn't work for everything. And to create such complicated antidotes as for Veritaserum or Basilisk venom, you need to learn to create much simpler ones,' he explained happily. 'Besides, it's sometimes simply not convenient to use bezoar. It's more of a first-aid antidote. To more severe injuries and poisons, it's better to brew an antidote because it must be taken several times.'

'So… bezoar will save a life but will not necessarily cure the person completely?' asked Pansy.

'Something like that. To most poisons, however, bezoar is enough.'

'But Weasley was moved to the hospital wing either way. And it was bezoar that saved his life, wasn't it?' risked Pansy trying to keep her face straight. She had a feeling Blaise was planning her murder right about now. 'So bezoar must've saved his life, but he had to be moved to the Hospital Wing to be cured completely. Therefore, the poison must've been very strong.'

Professor looked quite shocked at this insinuation.

'But –'

'We've heard Weasley has been poisoned so we figured if it was Potter who helped him, it must've been bezoar, so it got us thinking,' explained Pansy in a slightly shaky voice.

'I'm not supposed to discuss –'

'We know, professor,' assured Zabini with a brilliant smile that bought him into most teachers' graces. 'But we wanted to ask since it's important if we were to save someone's life in the future, right?'

Pansy looked at him with gratitude.

'...Right,' said Slughorn, uncertainly. 'Yes, you've – er – heard correctly. It was Mr Potter who found bezoar and saved Mr Weasley, yes.'

'But then, what poisoned him, anyway? What would happen if bezoar was too weak to save him at that moment?' insisted Pansy.

'I'm really not sure if I should be discussing it with you, it's Mr Weasley's health we're talking about and –'

'We assure you, professor, it won't go any further, we're just asking… scientifically,' pleaded Blaise.

'I do not know what was in it, it was given to me merely as an oak-matured mead, I had no idea –' sighed Slughorn heavily.

'But, professor, aren't you afraid that it was given to you to poison you?' asked Pansy with concern.

'Me? It wasn't even for me I was supposed to give it to Alb –' he said, stopping mid-sentence, terrified at his own words.

' –us Dumbledore?' finished Blaise, looking at Pansy with horror.

She sat there as if she got petrified. She was looking at Slughorn with round eyes but after he snapped out of it, he started waving his hands.

'What are you doing, you two, you shouldn't even be asking me about this!' he bellowed. 'You think you can just poke around? You are not entitled to have that information!'

Pansy and Blaise quickly got up and muttered their apologies a couple of times and hurried out of the classroom, before he could give them detention – or worse – tell Snape or even Dumbledore.

When they disappeared around the corner, Pansy leaned back on the wall and a moment later, slipped down to the floor. Blaise glanced at her with concern.

'You okay?' he asked, watching her when she hid face in her palms.

She started laughing hysterically.

'Oh, yes, I'm perfect, Blaise!' she shouted as he sat down next to her.

'Don't even try to touch me!' she shrieked.

'Hey, I know that it's worse – well, tragically worse – than we had thought, but we can help him – stop him,' said Blaise comfortingly.

'You don't understand! He's going to do it, either way.'

Zabini's face fell for a second.

'We'll try our best, then,' he assured her, seeing her face was in tears. 'Besides, we can't be sure they're letting only one person to –'

'But why… Why would they let him do it…. His mum –' she mumbled, ignoring him completely.

'Calm down,' he said quietly, putting an arm around her.

'I will not calm down, Blaise!' she snapped, getting up to her feet. 'He will do it, he's got his pride and this fucking need to be the best –'

'He's doing it to get his parents out of trouble, isn't he?'

'Well, obviously! Trying to help them and then – such an opportunity – obviously he took it, and his parents not even trying to stop him and –'

'You don't know that.'

'Well, he took it, didn't he, Blaise, so they either didn't try hard enough or didn't try at all!'

'Keep it down!' said Blaise urgently.

'I can't!' she yelled in panic, her voice and hands shaking.

Zabini had never seen her emotional – most of the times she just acted – so has he, so it wasn't weird for him. But seeing her in that state, surprised him to that extent, that he himself started to feel a bit uneasy. What if Draco really got round to do it?

'This is too much, too much,' she said, suddenly very aware of what was going on, genuinely terrified. 'The whole thing has gone too far. We can joke here about mudbloods – but to – adult people – children – killing – it's –'

Blaise just stood and looked at her resignedly. He didn't even know what to say.

'You can see how much I'd like to say "I told you so" right now. I'm too nice to do it, though' said a voice behind them.

Pansy turned around and saw a blurry, tall figure of Theodore Nott. She felt a way of immense anger towards him.

Not thinking this through, Pansy Parkinson took off in his direction.

A/N: Hi! So for some of you who despite everything follow this story, I apologise for a long break. I had a crazy time at the university, with online classes and all. But I'm back and hopefully, you haven't given up on me or the story!