Title: Beware of Potions
Disclaimer: I own nothing
Summary: Fred and George create a new product in the summer before their 6th year, but when one of them samples it, they find that it has far different effects than they'd hoped for.
Phoenix158 – lol you can count on my to NOT have romance (I don't understand it, therefore I don't write it) hehe – glad you like it!
TeamGredAndForge and Magicgirl29 – Thanks! I'm glad I can make Percy seem awesome! He's not so bad, really : ) Anyways, he may play a good-sized role in this story, but I haven't decided yet…
Sxcsami – ARGH you spoiled the movie – I'm kidding! lol – I'm glad you like it so much and that I write a decent Severus – I'm a bit worried about it…
Lucy – I pretty much heart your reviews. You are such a sweetheart! I swear I'm dedicating this entire story to you and how much you make me smile!
Chapter Ten
"All I'm saying, Albus, is that it can't be that hard to hang one of my portraits in the top box at the Quidditch World Cup!" Phineas Nigellus Black stated from his portrait near the headmaster's desk. "You're going! You can bring it with you!"
The man in the portrait gazed at the elderly wizard before him and then asked with great resignation, "You're not going, are you?"
"No, Phineas, I'm afraid that I have –"
"– Other matters of great importance to attend to. Yes, I'm sure…" Phineas finished for him. If Albus didn't know any better, he might have thought the previous headmaster was rolling his eyes. "Just what is it this time that's so important?"
Setting down his quill, Albus leaned back and eyed the portrait over his half-moon glasses. "We've discussed this before, Phineas. That event will make too big a target for any ill-intentioned visits, and –"
Just then, the floo roared and both Albus and Phineas turned to see who was arriving. Out from the green flames stepped a pale Arthur Weasley who, as soon as he stepped out of the fireplace, immediately searched out Albus and walked towards the old headmaster.
"Headmaster, I need to speak with you –" The man spoke quickly, but was cut off with a friendly wave.
"Please, Arthur, call me Albus. I haven't been your headmaster for almost forty years. Take a seat and have a lemon drop," Albus suggested. Arthur's momentum lost a bit of its energy and he let himself drop into the seat before the headmaster's desk. His face and, most especially, his eyes still showed the panic that he felt inside. Albus knew the man was incredibly distressed after having one of his sons abducted by Lucius Malfoy and hoped that this visit didn't mean that worse news had reached the Weasley family.
"Albus, there's – how do I explain this?" Arthur asked, more to himself than to the headmaster.
"The beginning usually works best," Albus offered with a small smile. He noticed that Arthur didn't return the smile at all and knew without asking that the visit wasn't to bring good news.
"My twin boys, Fred and George, were experimenting a few days ago with some potion and one of them drank it," Arthur said distractedly, recalling the event as though it had occurred weeks ago rather than a few days ago.
Albus knew about the events leading up to Fred's disappearance and said as much. "Yes, Kingsley came to me and explained what happened. Lucius' actions even had a few old members of the Order concerned, so they're helping to keep an eye out for anything relevant."
Arthur nodded but still didn't say anything.
"What has happened, Arthur?" Albus asked, wondering what it could be that would upset the man so much. Perhaps they had received something from Lucius?
"Just a short while ago, Harry woke us up with some sort of a nightmare. Molly and I went to talk to him, thinking that perhaps it was related to the issues that came up last term with Sirius Black," Arthur explained. As he spoke, his voice sounded more and more doubtful, as if he wasn't sure of what he had heard or witnessed or that he entirely believed it. "What Harry described though… it was far too accurate for it to just have been a dream."
Albus considered this for a moment and then asked the inevitable. "What was it that he dreamt of?"
"You-Know-Who. He dreamt of You-Know-Who and one of his followers and that they had killed an old muggle that had stumbled upon them," Arthur explained quietly. He paused a moment before looking up and saying, "We weren't sure whether or not to believe him at first, but then he mentioned Bertha. You remember Bertha Jorkins, the girl from the Department of Magical Games and Sports that went missing?"
Her disappearance hadn't caused too much of a stir, for she had always been absentminded, but Albus nodded along anyways.
"Harry knew her name and there's no way he should have known about her. I mean, her disappearance wasn't extensively covered in the Prophet," he said, trailing off near the end of that sentence. Arthur nodded to himself and then said, "But what he said next – he said that You-Know-Who had found something, 'a Weasley of his very own,' Harry said. He said he wasn't entirely sure what he'd do with him…"
Arthur's voice choked up as he shook his head and put his head in his hands while Albus considered the other man's words. The old headmaster stood and looked towards the portrait that he'd been conversing with before. "Phineas, would you please summon Severus for me?" The figure in the portrait left to find the Potions Master with only a minimal amount of grumbling as Albus walked around his desk to stand closer to Arthur. He leaned against the front of the desk and pondered what Arthur had told him.
If what Arthur said was true, then this certainly was a turn for the worst. Not only would it confirm the existence of a connection between Harry and Voldemort, but that there may be something terrible planned for the World Cup, or any other sports event that Bertha Jorkins may have known about.
Gazing down at the distraught man before him, Albus also noted that if Harry's dream was true, or if it was a vision of some sort, that the likelihood of retrieving Fred would be drastically lessened. It was plain to see how the stress of the last few days was affecting Arthur. The man appeared much more pale, tired, and aged than he had been the last time Albus had seen him.
Just a moment later, the door to Albus' office opened and in stepped Severus. The Potions Master held an air of tired disinterest which clearly stated that he would much rather return to his brewing or his bed than be here. Under that expression, however, Albus could tell that the other man was slightly curious. The headmaster wondered for a moment about just how much Phineas had shared of the conversation that he and Arthur had held before.
"Severus," Albus greeted, waving the darker man forward to the chair on Arthur's left. He almost neglected to offer a lemon drop, but then changed his mind. "Would you like a lemon drop, my boy?"
True to form, Severus ignored the offer and the offending bowl of candies that Albus had picked up and held before him. He chose instead to move directly to the purpose of his requested visit. "Phineas mentioned something about Potter and the Dark Lord," he stated, letting his dislike for the boy flow into his speech. "And here I was, hoping that he would refrain from causing such a scene outside of the school year."
Albus gave the younger man a discouraging look and replied, "Harry had a dream, or rather, a vision. It involved an old muggle as well as one of Voldemort's followers. In it, he heard Bertha Jorkins' name mentioned, as well as that of Arthur's son, who was abducted a few days ago."
"I see…" he said, though Albus knew that the skeptic younger man doubted every word that was said. Albus didn't blame Severus. To someone that had trained himself to hate, loathe, despise, and distrust anything attached to the name of "Potter," it would seem a bit strange to be asked to fully believe in a mere dream such as the one Harry had. "And you would have me… do what, precisely?"
"I would have you investigate her disappearance, of course," Albus stated calmly, though that wasn't quite what he wanted Severus to do.
"Of course," Severus repeated, though his tone was much less pleasant than the headmaster's had been, showing that he understood the other's intent. "You would ask me to do this based on a claim Potter made of names mentioned in a dream he had – names he could have gleamed from the Prophet – and potentially risk –"
Albus cut him off, not wanting Arthur to know more than he needed to about what Severus was being asked to do. "I do not believe this to be a fictional story that Harry has concocted, and I will not hear any more on that subject," he stated, glad to see that Severus took the hint not to say too much in front of Arthur. "I believe that Ms. Jorkins' involvement may lead to other issues related to her career, and I wish you to look into them."
Severus nodded sharply and stood up to leave. Before he left, he said, "If I should find something of particular importance…"
"Report it to me and we will discuss any further options that can be explored," Albus replied. With that, Severus left the room, and Albus hoped that he would return safely later that night. Though he wanted to inform Arthur that Severus would be searching for his son, he knew better than to do so. It wouldn't take much of a slip to draw unwanted attention to his Potions Master and risk the man's position as a spy.
After it had been quiet for a few moments, Albus looked to Arthur again. The other man's gaze was fixated on Fawkes, who was resting on the perch behind the grand desk. He looked ready to drop at any moment, and it certainly didn't help that he probably wouldn't be able to go back to sleep for a long while yet. The first rays of sunlight were just starting to seep into the room, even though neither of the men in the office paid the pinkish light much attention.
Arthur clenched his eyes shut, almost as if something had pained him, and he asked shakily, "What will I tell Molly? What about the rest of the kids?"
Albus averted his gaze to the window and replied, "You can tell them that every effort is being made to find –"
"That's all fine and true, but what good is it in the end?" Arthur asked. Albus met his gaze and saw the desperation in his eyes. "If he's really with… with You-Know-Who, then…"
"I can't, nor will I, promise that your son will come out of this without being harmed or worse," Albus answered quietly. "But I can say without doubt that any child of yours will persevere as long as they can. Knowing your twin boys, I wouldn't be surprised if young Fred is giving Voldemort a run for his money already."
Though his words came out easily, Albus wished that he could just as easily use his wand to bring the boy back home. Aside from that, they would have to put their faith in Fred's perseverance and hope that Severus might find something that could aid the boy's escape.
There was a new voice that was echoing through the air now. He strained to hear it over the dripping which continued to reverberate off the walls of his dark prison, but he couldn't make out what words were being said. He thought the new voice sounded familiar and thought idly that the dark and depressing nature of his new environment suited the speaker well. 'Wait,' he thought, 'that was why it sounded so familiar…'
Drip… drip… drip…
He mentally shook his head and thought, 'Now, why did it sound familiar again?' If he didn't know any better, he'd figure that he'd thought along these same lines at least a dozen times now. It had been quite a while since the ominous "thump" sound had occurred, and he wondered, not for the first time, if he'd been forgotten. He mistakenly let his mind wonder if everyone he knew had forgotten him and then decided that it didn't matter if they had. He wasn't quite sure, but he felt like these thoughts should upset him. In any event, he was too tired, sore, and hungry to think on it for too long.
Drip… drip… drip… …creak…
Fred lifted his head up at the new sound. His entire body was aching and he hoped that if someone was coming down, that they would bring water. A moment later he heard another, slightly louder, sound of the same nature. Another set of noises – footsteps – joined the creaks echoing through the air and suddenly, a great noise shook the room as whoever it was reached the door and started to open it. Fred jumped at the noise, more surprised than scared of whatever lay beyond the door. A long string of foul language rang out from the other side of the door as Wormtail (that voice could belong to no one else) worked on opening the door.
Another loud crack sounded as the door was thrust open. As it opened, a bright light poured into the room Fred was in, and he cringed and brought a hand up to cover his eyes. Being deprived of light for so long made the small amount of light from Wormtail's wand feel like daggers stabbing into his eyes.
He didn't even have time to react as Wormtail snapped at him to get up. A brief sting to his midsection further encouraged him and he tried as hard as he could to lift himself up. First he rolled over and then made it to his knees, but the pain in his eyes and the dizziness in his head kept him from making any more progress.
Wormtail's whiny, nasally voice cut in through the pain of trying to move too much, growling out, "Come on, get up already…"
A hand grabbing his arm made Fred cry out, for there was a bad cut there that still ached. Despite it, however, the hand yanked him off the floor and he wavered for a moment before moving to lean on the wall next to him. His legs felt like jello below him and stung furiously. Fred cracked open an eye and saw the incredibly blurry image of a skittish man standing before him with a lit wand and an anxious expression.
Before he knew it, Fred was grabbed by the arm again and forced to follow the shorter man back up the stairs. Though he tried to keep track of his surroundings, he was lost in the dizziness that came with moving and the sudden barrage of color and light that he had been denied over the last two days or so.
After a brief walk through the building, which Fred thought looked more like an old house than anything else, they arrived at the room that he'd first seen when he'd arrived. Though he couldn't make out much of the seemingly spinning room, he noticed that the same creature that was wrapped in cloth, You-Know-Who, was there along with another man who was taller and much darker. Not a second after this observation had been made did the hand holding him up disappear, and Fred found himself falling to the floor, unable to support himself after so many hours lying in place without food or water.
He tried to lift himself back up and was able to look towards the bundle of cloth seated in the chair before him. He was a bit thankful that he couldn't actually see the creature in the bundle of cloth. Fred didn't bother to look at the other two in the room.
A voice came from bundle and Fred had to concentrate to make out what it was saying. "It seems that we have been terrible hosts, haven't we? Perhaps I should offer tea or something of the like…"
Though a part of him knew that remaining silent would be the best option, another part of him that was ruled by an anger he didn't know he had wanted to retaliate. Speaking with as much contempt as possible, he replied, "Yes, I'm sure your tea would be delightful, filled with dust, insects, and filthy rats." That last part was directed at Wormtail who stood to his left.
With a sharp look from You-Know-Who, Fred found himself in a world of pain for a few moments. Though he wasn't aware of it, his body twisted and shook and his already scratchy throat burned as he tried to give a voice to the pain. Afterwards, he had to put even more effort into pushing himself off from the dirty and dusty floor.
"Then again, perhaps I should offer something else," that hair-raising voice uttered. "Perhaps it would be best to dispose of you now, rather than wait to do it later. I wonder if you would volunteer for that. It would be the Gryffindor thing to do, would it not?"
"I completely agree, Master," Wormtail's whiny voice piped up.
Fred didn't need to think about whether or not they would follow through on the threat. He knew they would kill him, whether it occurred now or later wasn't the question. He was slightly surprised to find that he wasn't at all upset about it. Instead, he felt detached from the entire encounter, as if it wasn't really happening to him.
Knowing that there was nothing he could do to prevent this fate, he opened his mouth to say something defiant, if only to prove the Gryffindor comment to be true.
When he opened his mouth, however, he heard his voice say something very different from what he intended. "Instead of that, I could do something for you."
There was a pause and then that eerie voice asked, "You would do something for me? You would serve me? What, exactly, could you do from here?" As he finished speaking, his tone almost sounded humorous, as if he found the idea preposterous.
Fred thought for a moment. That wasn't at all what he had meant to say, but maybe – just maybe – it would work out for the best. He hoped it would. "If you give me my wand, I could –"
"Ha!" he heard Wormtail laugh nervously. "Master, he just wants an opportunity to escape!"
"My lord, if I may suggest something," that same deep voice that Fred had heard before spoke from a corner of the room. Fred tried to crane his neck to see who it was, but the room was too poorly lit. That voice sounded so familiar, but he couldn't quite attach it to a face that he knew.
"Of course, Severus," You-Know-Who said, elongating the 's' sounds on the other man's name. Fred rolled the name on his tongue for a moment before he suddenly realized who it belonged to.
"If you are willing, I may be able to utilize his assistance in making potions that you require. The boy performed decently in my class and it would advantageous for me if some of the work could be done by him in advance, so that the lengths of my absences wouldn't appear as suspicious," Snape explained, his silky voice attempting to persuade the devil to hire a part-time assistant.
You-Know-Who must have given some sort of silent gesture of confirmation to this suggestion, for Snape suddenly swooped down on Fred and hauled him back up to his feet by the arm. Fred failed to notice over the pain in his arm that Snape hadn't pulled on it more than necessary.
"I'm sure you'll see to it that he's treated enough to keep him alive, Severus," You-Know-Who directed. "And if he tries anything that seems… dishonest… then we can always resort to the first option, can't we?"
"Indeed, my lord," Snape responded.
With that, Fred felt himself being pulled after Snape as the two left the room and walked down a narrow hallway to the stairs. Fred almost groaned at the thought of returning to the room with the dripping noise, even though the dark and repetitive noise would be comforting after this ordeal.
Instead of returning to the same room, Snape led him into a sort of makeshift potions lab. Dazedly, he let himself be seated on a stool next to one of the work tables. Neither of them said a word as Snape began searching out wounds and applying salves and bandages to them. Near the end of the process, Snape finished applying a thin layer of salve over a burn mark and then slammed the jar down, though he did so somewhat quietly. How he managed that, Fred wasn't sure.
The older man narrowed his eyes at the jar and then spoke. His voice was quiet, though it still held the disbelief and outrage that a shout would have held. "What in Merlin's name were you thinking to offer to serve the Dark Lord?"
Fred glanced at him and stated, "He wanted to see a Gryffindor sort of action, so that's what I did. And it worked, didn't it?" He didn't know why, but he felt a strange sort of anger towards his professor. Fred couldn't figure out whether it was due to the fact that the man really was working for You-Know-Who or if it was that he'd had to rely on the greasy git to help spare him from death.
Snape sneered at him and said, "You think what you did just then was a move worthy of a Gryffindor? If anything, it was a distinctly Slytherin tactic for you to try. I would expect to see something like this from a Malfoy, not a Weasley."
That thought sent Fred's mind into a spin, and he wisely chose not to comment on it.
Snape's sneer faded away, only to be replaced by one that screamed 'you are an idiot.' He leaned forward and spoke quietly, "Do you have any idea what you've just done? You've practically signed yourself up for this, and there's no going back from that."
To be perfectly honest, Fred knew it was a horrible idea. All he had done was to prolong his existence for as long as he could make himself useful. He still didn't know for certain why he'd suggested that he do something, though he had a pretty good idea of what could have made him say it. It seemed to be the same reason why he kept saying and doing things that he'd never even consider before.
Lost in his thoughts, Fred shook his head to find that Snape had started to speak again in that derisive tone that the man used when someone acted without thinking through the consequences at all.
" – do manage to keep this up, you could end up causing more harm than good for everyone involved, including your friends and family." That simple comment, which Fred knew to be true, made his blood boil.
"Well then why don't you go tell him to finish me off before it gets too out of hand?" Fred snapped back at his professor. "Or, better yet, I'll go tell him myself!" With that he made to jump off the stool so that he could walk back to that room, providing he knew where it was. Right now, he was so angry that he couldn't quite see straight.
His impromptu plan was going well until his feet hit the ground. The second he tried to hold himself up his legs crumpled below him and he fell to the ground with a loud thump and a painful gasp. Snape may have healed many of his hurts but it didn't do anything to compete with the exhaustion and weakness he felt in his muscles.
As he lay on the ground trying to catch his breath, Snape turned and started putting the various bottles he had grabbed back into a tall cabinet. Fred just barely made it back to his knees when the other man grabbed his arm and pulled him up to his feet. Once again, neither spoke as Snape directed them to another room.
He leaned Fred against the wall and went inside a room that vaguely looked like a kitchen, though Fred was too tired to lean over and look through the doorway. After another moment, Snape came back out and, with a tight grip on the younger boy's arm again, led them to a familiar set of stairs. At this point, Fred was so tired that he didn't even bother trying to argue against the inevitable.
Snape opened the door and directed him inside. Almost in relief, Fred sat back down on the ground with his back to the wall. The professor knelt beside him and pulled out a jar of water and several pieces of bread that he must have gotten from the kitchen.
"I should be able to return by tomorrow, but if I don't, then it'll be the next day," Snape said, and Fred almost thought that there wasn't any sort of sarcastic or derisive tone in the man's voice as he spoke. Still, the man's tone wasn't anywhere close to caring or concerned.
Fred semi-consciously felt himself nod in response as the presence of the other man moved away. A few moments later, the door shut and he found himself cloaked in darkness again. He knew that he was going to fall asleep any second. He was too exhausted to eat anything right now, and he actually felt as though he wasn't freezing for a change.
Patiently, he waited until he heard the "all-clear" signal that he had come to rely on. He couldn't explain why, but he knew he wouldn't be able to sleep in this place unless he heard it.
Drip… drip… drip…
Fred laughed a bit. "At least they didn't fix it yet," he muttered as he drifted off to sleep in the dark room.
Severus Snape shut the door slowly after leaving the exhausted teen in the dark. Though these weren't the conditions that he would prefer to leave anyone in, whether or not they were a Weasley, he knew that there was nothing he could do about it right now. Despite that fact, he had cast a light warming charm over the area to make sure that the boy wouldn't get sick from the cold.
He made his way up the stairs and paused before entering the hallway. Wormtail was in the kitchen, if his ears weren't lying to him. Severus quietly walked over to stand in the doorway and watched as the rat-like man, whose personality so perfectly matched his animagus form, snatched up pieces of bread and cheese to make what might have resembled a sandwich in another lifetime.
Just as the blundering idiot was about to take a bite, Severus commented silkily, "See to it that our guest isn't bothered much until I return." At his words, Wormtail jumped and nearly choked on the sandwich as he spun to face the taller man.
"Severus! Why, you know I can't… If he says…" Wormtail stumbled over a few more words before Severus cut him off.
"The boy won't be of much use to me if he's too ill or injured to work. Therefore, I need him to be in a remotely good condition when I return," he explained as if speaking to a particularly slow child.
Wormtail seemed to get the picture and nodded briefly, losing a piece of cheese that had been hanging from his mouth. Severus sneered in disgust and spun to leave the dingy kitchen. Behind him, he heard Wormtail hasten to clean the mess, as if it mattered that he'd made one in the filthy building as it was.
Once he was outside, he spun on the spot and apparated to the Forbidden Forest. Walking back through the forest, which was still dark despite the amount of sunlight that would be out at this hour. The treetops weren't about to let anything as trivial as sunshine through to touch the forest floor.
He sighed in relief as he made his way up to the headmaster's office, glad that no one had seen him or tried to stop him to talk. No matter how unapproachable he made himself seem, several staff members (such as Minerva or Hagrid) continued to believe that they would someday be able to hold a conversation with him that would be a pleasant experience. Severus nearly rolled his eyes at the mere idea.
As he reached the gargoyle and uttered the password (Milky Way), he found himself pausing. He vaguely hoped that Arthur Weasley had returned to his home by now. It would be much harder to give an accurate and detailed report while trying to hide his role as a spy from the man. Just as the staircase brought him in front of Dumbledore's office door, he silently cursed the Weasley twins for recklessly accelerating his involvement with the Dark Lord in this second war.
He gave a brief knock on the door, after which he didn't bother waiting for a response, and then walked in. He noted thankfully that Arthur had apparently decided to return home. Albus met his gaze as Severus walked to one of the chairs in front of the old man's desk and sat down. He noticed that he wasn't offered a sweet this time.
Not wanting to wait to be questioned, Severus launched into the first part of his report. With more than a bit of distaste at having to admit it, he stated, "The Potter boy's dream was accurate. Bertha Jorkins was killed by the Dark Lord a short while ago, as was an old muggle earlier this evening. I'm afraid that her disappearance wasn't as random as we would have hoped. He didn't say anything specific, but hinted several times about game and sport events that need to be planned for."
Albus nodded, the sparkle in his eyes having faded away much earlier in the night. "He intends to cause a stir at the World Cup then…"
"And possibly another event, though he didn't mention any particular details," Severus added.
Once again, the old man nodded and then gazed at Severus over his glasses. "What about Arthur's son, Fred?"
Severus all but snorted in response to Albus' question and, at the look he then received, explained, "The idiot boy all but bartered for his life by offering to help the Dark Lord. I don't believe he entirely understands what that entails…"
At those words, Albus took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes tiredly. "Did his actions seem strange to you? Did they seem out of place?"
Severus stopped to consider the idea and then replied, "Indeed; some of the things he said and did seemed to possess an almost Slytherin quality. I assume it's being caused by the stress, for I've never seen him retaliate so angrily like he did tonight. It's almost as if something else entirely was affecting him."
"Something else is affecting him, though we're not sure what," Albus stated. He then began to describe the potion that the two boys had made and what had led up to Fred's abduction.
Severus tapped his fingers on the arm of the chair for a moment after Albus finished explaining this potion and then commented, "That explains why he'd offer to work for the Dark Lord."
Albus nodded and then asked, "Do you think you'll be able to reverse it, if you were able to get a list of ingredients that they used?"
"Yes," Severus nodded, "though it may be completely unnecessary. The Dark Lord mentioned using the boy during whatever chaos he intends to let loose at the World Cup."
The two men were quiet for a moment before Albus noted quietly, "The Cup is being held in two days."
"Hopefully the fool won't volunteer to do anything for it," Severus growled out, honestly hoping that the captured teen wouldn't make this more difficult than it needed to be. He somehow doubted that he'd be that lucky, however.
Review?
So, what did everyone think of the Deathly Hallows part 2? I haven't seen it yet and I hate theatres, so I'm debating whether I want to go spend money on it. Sxcsami told me that there's a lot of Severus (YAY) in there so that's at least something to look forward to.
