Chapter 1
Draco had just been woken by a loud bang, but he didn't arise from his bed. It was a very windy night, so it could have been anything outside. A tin can clattered noisily in the road as the wind blew it around; he wished he could lean out of his window to blast it into smithereens. The gales howled through the gaps of the old, worn down building. He wasn't going to get back to sleep now. He sat up against his headboard, rubbed his eyes awake, ran his fingers through his hair then pulled his watch from the sideboard - two o'clock in the morning; he let out a moan of annoyance.
Draco sat with his head rested back on his headboard and rested his eyes when he heard that bang that woke him up. It was a person at his front door. He frowned. Very few people knew where he lived and even fewer visited.
Draco became the owner of Spinners End when his father suddenly died of alcohol poisoning - well, that's what the muggle doctors concluded anyway. His mother had died when he was in his seventh year, they told him she had 'accidentally' fell down the stairs and broke her neck. He hated living at the house, hated it; but he had no money, and the house wasn't worth the paper it's written on, so he was stuck here.
He reached under his pillow for his wand and rose from his bed. The floor was cold under his feet, but he was too wary to think of the cold right now. Cautiously, in the dark, he moved down his stairs, wand held a front.
He paused when he saw a shadow through the frosted glass in the door, a small frame, he would guess a woman.
The person knocked again. He took hold of the doorknob and slowly turned it, but the door flew open wit force from the wind, the glass rattled when it hit the wall. He held his wand up, prepared for who it may be. Stood there, was a woman he knew. Her fiery hair blew wildly, the collar of her coat pulled high up her face shielding it from the wind. He large green eyes looked up at him, she looked as if she had been crying.
'Draco?' said a voice muffled by the moans.
Draco stood frozen in shock. He hadn't seen her since school, and here she stood, three years later, on his doorstep, and at two am.
'What the hell are you doing here?' he said above the wind.
'May I come in? Please?'
There was a pause. Draco took a hesitant step aside but let her in. He battled with the elements when he closed the door then turned to follow the path the woman just went.
'What are you doing here?' Draco asked again.
She had taken her coat off, laid it on the back of the shabby sofa and beamed at Draco.
'I thought you'd be pleased to see me, Draco?'
Draco said nothing. He was not pleased to see her. He could've gone the rest of his life without seeing RonnieWeasley. She broke his heart and their friendship when he saw her laugh at Potter who abused him that day by the lake.
She tried to apologise, but the damage was done; she was no friend - a friend wouldn't have laughed at her best friend being abused, and then date him the following year. Yet here she stood, in his front room.
Her eyes scanned the room, 'It's just how I remembered.' She smiled. Draco did not return the smile.
'Can't someone visit an old friend?' she asked sweetly. Draco arched a brow high.
'Certainly. However, we have not been friends since we were sixteen if you remember! And who visits someone at two am?'
'I didn't want to be seen, Sev.' Draco rose both brows to that, shocked that she dared to call him that.
'What. Are. You. Doing. Here?' Draco pronounced for the third time. He crossed his arms stiffly, over his chest.
Ronniesighed. 'I wanted to see you. It's been too long,' she smiled again.
'Pfft. You liar. Try again,' His cold dark eyes bored into her bright green ones.
'I need your help -' she began.
'And there it is,' he interrupted with a small laugh. 'I always said that you will need me before I needed you.' His mouth twisted into a cold smirk.
'Please, just listen,' she pleaded. When Draco didn't reply she continued, 'I need a potion, a potion I can only trust in you with.'
'What is this potion?' he said matter-of-factly.
'Veritaserum,' she said quietly.
'Why? And why could you do not it, you were good at potions?' he enquired.
'That... that doesn't matter.'
'Then, I will not even consider it. Goodbye.' He turned to the front door.
'Call it, paying back your life debt to Harry,' she said quickly, Dracostopped and turned slowly.
'I beg your pardon?' He said with bitterness.
'He saved your life from Blaise That night. You owe him, in case you forgot? Call this your...payment,' Ronniesaid firmly, 'and I will observe, but not intervene,' she added quickly.
Teeth clenched and brows knitted, he couldn't contend with that, as much as he wanted too, she was right.
'I will make you one dose and no more. One dose for one life debt,' he said stiffly, Ronnielooked disappointed but nodded. 'I will owl you. Though I see no reason why you need to observe?' He pointed out.
'So I know you won't tamper with it.'
Chapter 2
Draco told Ronniehe would owl her with some details of when he would start the potion. It took him three weeks to find everything he needed, two weeks and some blackmail. When he gained everything he needed, he sent her an owl.
Come to mine.
Tuesday fifth November.
Nine am.
Do not be late!
DM
'You are late!' Draco spat when he opened the door to Ron, who looked a lot less windswept than when he saw her three weeks ago, but her cheeks were red from the cold, he heard fireworks in the distance from the Muggles celebrating Guy Fawkes night.
'By ten minutes!' she said dismissively, and she strode past him.
'I told you to not be late!' Draco frowned.
'Ha. Coming from someone who took three weeks to get this started!' She retorted.
'Oh, I am sorry. Was I not quick enough at getting the ingredients?' Draco mocked. 'Did you think I had an endless amount of potion supplies in my pocket? I had to go through a lot get some of the ingredients.'
Ronnierolled her eyes.
'Lucky for you, someone owed me a favour,' he pointed out. 'Furthermore, we could not start this until the day of the new moon.'
She opened her mouth, as if to say something, but closed it quickly.
'Now follow me,' he ordered in a teacher-like way. Then marched towards the cupboard under the stairs that lead to a basement.
His basement was colder than the rest of the house. It was dark, dusty and gave a faint trace of damp. Phials of dried ingredients smothered in dust sat randomly on shelves next to, equally dusty, books. And on the floor there stood some large glass jars that contained floating pickled animals.
Draco strode to the workbench and pulled across an i Ronnie cauld Ronnie Onto the workbench.
'You can sit there!' he told her sternly and pointed over to a stall that stood in the corner of the room opposite him. Draco stretched over to the ingredients he had prepared on the table and took standard potioning water. He poured the needed amount into the cauldron, flicked his wand to set a flam under to bring the water to a simmer.
Ronnie Sat on the very edge of the stood, her legs outstretched, and her hands buried in the pockets of her jeans. There was a silence but the gentle bubbles of the water for a long while.
'Who is the potion for?' Draco asked.
'Does that matter?'
'Well, you come to me in the early hours of morning requesting this. It is not like it is an illegal potion. So there is someone you do not trust, and you do not want them to know you are getting this,' Draco replied, as he poured the vial of Ptolemy into the cauld Ronnie with an anti-clockwise motion. He looked up at her with curved brow. 'This has to simmer for ten minutes...Is it Potter ? Do you not trust him?'
She frowned at the way he said Potter but answered, 'No, no. It's...It's nothing.'
'If it is nothing, then why do you require it?'
He proceeded to stir in the powdered Moonstone into the mixture one spoonful at a time.
'I just need it, ok?' She snapped.
An hour later, the potion came to a rolling boil, and he dropped the Jobberknoll feathers into the cauldRonniethen stirred clockwise one time between each feather.
Draco hear Ronnie snicker and looked up, 'what is so funny?' he inquired, still leaned over the potion, stirring.
'When you're concentrating you poke your tongue out. You use to do it back in school, it amused me then.' Her face softened. Draco straightened, knitted his brows and his cheeks coloured.
'I am glad you find me so amusing,' he said sharply.
'No, I wasn't -'
'You are here for the potion and the potion only. Not to reminisce in the days that are long gone. So do not mention them.'
There was an uncomfortable silence after that. No one talked until after Draco strained the finished mixture into a bottle for maturation.
'The potion needs to be left in the bottle in a dark, cool undisturbed location for the duration of the cycle,' He told seriously. He walked over to put it on the side. 'On the night of the full moon,' he continued, as he flicked his wand to clean the work station. 'I will need to place the bottle in the moonlight to absorb the rays. Only then will it be ready to use. You can come and get it the next morning,' he declared.
'I'd rather come by every couple of days to check on it myself,' she demanded him while she walked to exit the basement.
'Why? That is not necessary.' He frowned.
'Just to be sure it hasn't been tampered with.'
'Fine,' he replied with a roll of his eyes.
