Chapter 12: Advanced Potion-Making

"Mr Potter, I suppose." Benveniste reached out and gave Draco a curt neutral handshake. Her eyebrow twitched upwards, and her sharp, dark eyes sparkled with friendly curiosity. "Pleased to meet you, Mr Potter."

"Pleased to meet you, Professor," Draco replied, wondering if she might try to read him. He promptly brought his Gryffindor compartment to the front of his mind.

"Ah, Ms Patil!" She handed Parvati her schedule. "We'll be seeing a lot of each other this year!"

"I'm really looking forward to it, Professor!"

"So am I."

Only now did Draco realise that he was holding Potter's schedule, which Benveniste must have magicked into his hand without his noticing.

"Ms Granger! I've heard so much about you!" Draco heard Benveniste say as he moved on to the breakfast table. He sat down and opened his schedule. Double Defence against the Dark Arts first thing, then double Potions.

"Hey, Parvati, could you show me yours?"

Parvati's schedule looked very different. It had plenty of free periods, and classes started mostly at two p.m., today it was double Divination with the sixth year, Thursday twelve p.m. a private lesson in, again, Divination, followed by another Divination with the fourth years.

"Wow! You're basically moving in with Benveniste, aren't you?"

Parvati chuckled.

Draco compared their Fridays. In the last period she had Divination with the seventh year where Potter was free. Perfect!

"Do you mind if I join you for that one?"

"What?" Parvati looked at him as if he were proposing something indecent. "I thought you'd failed your O.W.L. in it!"

"Well! All the more reason to give it another try. This is the remedial year, right?"

Draco filled his plate with toast and cheese and already braced himself for another round of comments on his diet, but just as he cracked the top of his egg, the sound of McGonagall's spoon on glass pierced his eardrums.

"We have two more announcements, which we didn't have time for last night."

The first one concerned a strict ban on all sorts of magic on the shores of the Black Lake. The reason for that was a pair of swans. No, it was not a joke. A black and a mute swan had made the south shore their home. The rare sight had attracted the attention of Muggle bird watchers and the Headmistress had not had the nerve to deny them the exceptional spectacle. Muggle repelling charms had been moved northwards, and the students were to practise vigilant self-restraint, in observation of the International Statute of Secrecy.

"Second, it might be a bit early to think about it right now, but I do hope those of you who haven't woken up yet will." She looked critically into the yawning faces of the upper years. "Some of the older students may still remember the Triwizard tournament that took place in this school four years ago. Its conclusion was marred by tragic events, but not everything that year was sad. One of the better memories that still warms our hearts is the Yule ball, an old tradition that used to be held regularly at Hogwarts but has been neglected in the last half-century." Judging by the excited whisper at the tables, at least the female part of the upper years woke up. "The staff and the Board of Governors have decided to revive that tradition. In case you are new to ballroom dancing, you have almost four months to take lessons." She threw a meaningful look at the Slytherin table. "I am sure our remedial students will be happy to help out."

The announcement was met with high-pitch cheers. Parvati looked at Draco and her face fell.

"Oh no."

The first class with Charnay had a promising start.

"Who can name the fourth advantage of non-verbal spells?"

Draco could vaguely remember that there were only three and could see same struggle with the numbers in the faces of his classmates. His old classmates. They had thrown together the remedials of all four houses. The subject being absent in the curriculum, almost no one could get their N.E.W.T. in Defence last year, with the exception of a few lucky devils who fought on the right side and got it by handing in a report on defensive spells they used in the Battle. A questionable practice, Draco thought, but he would have also grabbed the chance if he had had one.

He had to do it the proper way, with a full year of classes and a full set of exams in the end. But the same was true for all the Slytherins who bothered to come back to Hogwarts at all, and for most of the Ravenclaws and the Hufflepuffs who took Defence at N.E.W.T. level. The classroom was full of former friends and enemies. Potter was keeping a low profile at the back. Granger's hand rose shakily.

"And please introduce yourself with your name and house."

"Granger, sir, Gryffindor." The second part of what she had to say sounded less confident. "The spell you cast is not revealed to your opponent until it takes effect."

"Very good, Ms Granger, that is the second advantage of non-verbal spells. One and a half points to Gryffindor." Charnay looked coolly at the audience, playing with the muscles of his cheeks.

"It was worth a try," whispered Granger once back on her seat. "What? It could be that they number them differently on the continent."

The Hufflepuff with the unpronounceable Muggle name decided to try his luck, too.

"Justin Finch-Fletchley, Hufflepuff. Non-verbal spells are faster."

"True. That is their first advantage." And Hufflepuff earned its first one and a half points.

Charnay looked around the classroom.

"The fourth advantage, anyone?"

After a noticeable silence Potter raised his hand.

"Malfoy, sir," he cleared his throat and glanced gloomily at Draco. "Slytherin." The air tensed. "Non-verbal spells can be performed under silencing."

"Correct! When the caster's speech is inhibited in one way or other. If you also master wandless magic, you can even continue fighting when fully body-bound. That's the one even experienced duellers too often forget. The consequences are sometimes fatal. Two and a half points to Slytherin for the third advantage."

"A whole extra point to Slytherin? No way." Weasley murmured. "You know anything about his political views?"

"Why is he always giving half points? What's wrong with one, two and three?" whispered Granger.

"Just wants to show that he can pronounce the English aspirated 'h'." Draco sneered.

Charnay was still waiting for his fourth advantage. When the silence got annoying he pointed at random into the unwound scroll of parchment on his desk.

"Mr Weasley, Gryffindor?" Charnay looked up and walked slowly between the rows.

Weasley groaned under his breath and swayed behind the back of Millicent Bulstrode, but Millicent's back did not provide enough cover and his miserable face betrayed him.

"Mr Weasley?" Charnay stopped right in front of him. "What is the fourth advantage?"

"Er."

"Exactly! The fourth advantage of non-verbal spells is that you don't need to struggle with pronunciation! Five points to Gryffindor."

Charnay returned to the front of the class and leaned back against his desk. The register cracked under his buttock.

"But since we cannot fully resort to non-verbal communication, let me, too, introduce myself. It's 'Greg-WAR duh-shar-NAY'. Five points off if I hear the wrong stress, ten points off per wrong vowel or consonant."

For Potions they put the remedials together with the seventh year, and paired the Gryffindors with the Slytherins, as usual. Slughorn was predictable beyond measure.

"This year you will learn how to combine potions, to achieve effects that go beyond the mere sum of the effects of the potions combined." Even the wording had not changed since last year.

Just like last year, he asked for their opinions about what would happen if one mixed a Draught of Peace and a Shrinking Solution. The most obvious one "you would shrink and calm down" came from Harper (last year it was Zabini).

"The effect of the Draught of Peace would shrink? You would calm down, but not quite as much?" suggested Dean Thomas. Draco looked around and counted only five of his year: Muggle-born Thomas, who had been on the run for eight months, obviously, then the three heroes, and himself, now portrayed by Potter. He was the only Slytherin taking remedial Potions, it appeared.

"The Draught of Peace itself would shrink." Good guess, Ginevra.

Slughorn had ignored Granger's raised hand until now, saving her for the punchline.

"You can achieve any of these outcomes. Which one, depends on how you combine," she shot out. (Last year it was Draco's line.) Granger opened her mouth for more details, but Slughorn was already giving five points to Gryffindor and moved on to the practical.

Draco got to make the Shrinking Solution, just like last year. So did Granger and Thomas. Both Weasleys and Potter got the Draught of Peace.

Draco looked at the recipe and decided not to follow it. Since Potter would mess it up anyway, there was no need for great precision. When would he get another chance to be creative?

He collected the ingredients. The leeches were writhing in the jar and the caterpillars were making desperate attempts to escape. The daisy roots and the shrivelfigs had accepted their fate and rested in a bowl next to the cauldron.

"Reducio!" Draco shrank the daisy roots and the shrivelfigs, and then all the rest of the components. The shrinking charm was listed as the last step in the recipe, but by all logic, if his understanding of how this worked was anywhere in the reach of an 'Outstanding' in Potions, then applying the charm to each ingredient individually before brewing had to lead to a stronger effect. Admittedly, shrunken caterpillars were harder to slice, and the resulting amount of potion was proportionally smaller, but Slughorn only needed one drop for the test. The pixie subjected to Draco's potion shrank to half the size of the pixie subjected to Granger's potion. Draco's attempt to ruin the Shrinking Solution in Potter's name failed miserably.

"Harry Potter! I am pleased to see your passion for the art of potion making has not faded. Will you tell us how you achieved this extraordinary result?"

"I don't know, really," Draco did his best at doing stupid, "I think I changed the order of steps in the recipe."

"Most certainly, Mr Potter. Let me guess. You cast the shrinking charm earlier in the process?"

Draco nodded.

"That must be it. And it holds for combining potions all the more. It all depends on the transformation stage of one substance when it is affected by another."

Next, they were invited to find a partner who had been working on the other potion and work together on combining the two. Granger and Weasley seemed to have started on the project even before Slughorn finished explaining the task. Dean Thomas zoomed over Ginevra. In response to her insecure glance, Draco signalled his retreat with a humble gesture. When he looked around for a partner for himself, there was only one left free. Of course, no one wanted to have that one.

"So, this is nothing new to you, I suppose," Potter murmured moving his cauldron to Draco's table. "Explain."

"First things first, toss your concoction down the drain."

"What?!"

"If you don't, I will."

"Explain."

"Both our potions have reached their final stable stage." Draco said, tilting Harry's cauldron above the sink. "If we mix them now, we'll get nothing beyond a mixture of Shrinking and Peace." He was back with the empty cauldron. "But if we soak the organic ingredients of the Draught of Peace in the Shrinking Solution, they will shrink, right?"

"If you say so."

"They will. Then use a shrinking charm on moonstone, and you get a full set reduced in size. Now make a Draught of Peace from that, what do you get?"

Potter was already sinking porcupine quills in Draco's Shrinking Solution.

"You get the same Draught of Peace," Draco continued, "but smaller. And more concentrated, too, that is, more potent per unit of volume."

"The potion itself will shrink," Potter repeated Ginevra's idea, but then let a sparkle of original thought strike through, "Why not use the Shrinking Charm on all the ingredients? Why bother with a second potion at all?"

"Did you listen to Professor Slughorn? This year we're learning to combine POTIONS."

Potter eventually stopped asking stupid questions, and their combined potion was on its way. From the corner of his eye Draco noticed the triangular bottle of Moonseed Poison, standing where he left it after the Battle, on the bottom row left of the door, behind which Slughorn used to hide his silver flask with the Draught of Quetzalcoatl. What would Q actually do in combining? Was the flask still there? And what would Slughorn say if he caught him looking for it?

"What is there?"

"Nothing." Draco turned his gaze hastily back to the cauldron. To be caught by Potter looking for Slughorn's Q would be extremely stupid.

After his first, fairly successful day back at Hogwarts (Gryffindor was bathing in house points), Draco sank into an armchair in the corner of the common room, and was going through his Defence notes when he suddenly felt watched. He raised his eyes and saw Granger in the armchair in front of him and staring like he was a pink Dementor.

"What's going on, Harry?"

"Nothing." Draco was used to playing roles and wearing masks. But playing Harry Potter was the absolute highlight against all his previous experiences in pretence.

"You are so silent, and distant, and you don't—" she looked like she couldn't decide between friend, mother, and interrogator of the Wizengamot. "You don't eat properly."

"I'm fine. No worries."

"Is it because of Ginny?" she said in a low voice, and Draco hoped she'd noticed his sigh which he pretended to try to conceal. "Or did something else happen?"

"No, nothing else happened."

"Why are you hanging out with Malfoy then?"

"I'm not hanging out with Malfoy! I just—"

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You spent a whole hour with him on the train yesterday."

"I didn't! It was fifteen minutes at best. I also talked to other people."

"Fifteen minutes with Malfoy is a lot!" Granger meant it. "And today in Potions? You worked together like you've done nothing else your entire life."

"Is that bad?"

"It's weird. It's just not like you. What happened, Harry?"

Draco looked into Granger's eyes and thought that there was one beautiful and simple thing in this world—the truth. He weighed his options and decided that the truth was his friend this time.

"Malfoy is up to something," Draco said in a low voice. If Granger got more interested in this project than she was in his mother's prosecution witness, it would be a triple win. What could be better than Granger's intellectual resources invested in the mystery of the Malfoy locket, and not wasted on second-guessing his mother or himself?

"Not again! We've been through that."

"But Harry was right in the end, wasn't he?" Weasley moved a chair into the circle. "He was saying right from the start that Malfoy was a Death Eater, and we didn't believe him, and now we know he was right all along."

Granger bit her lip.

"So, what is it this time?" asked Weasley cheerfully and looked at Draco.

"What can he possibly be up to?" Granger said. "Look at him. He's a wreck. He's betrayed everyone. He has no friends, no allies. He used to stand for something, now he stands for nothing at all. He's a hole in the tapestry."

Thanks for the summary, Granger. Straight to the point, as always.

"He still has his family..." Weasley said.

"In Azkaban!" But even before Draco replied "Exactly!" a realisation showed on her face: "You're not saying he—"

"No, I'm not. Kingsley is." Luckily, Draco could shove it all onto the Minister. The name clearly made an impression. "He asked me to make friends with him and to keep an eye on what he's doing."

"And what is he doing?" Weasley said.

"Researching his family history."

"Well, that's exactly what you would expect from a git like him. Now that pure blood is out of fashion, he's trying to find some Muggle-born ancestor."

"Right," said Granger, "and how would that help him do, ehm, what he's planning to do?"

"I don't know," Draco lied, "But I'd rather find out before he does." He gave a summary of what he'd learned in the Ministry Archive, made sure to drop Shacklebolt's name every so often, and not to mention the locket. The mysterious simultaneity of the Malfoy sisters' death got Granger thinking.

"So you think their deaths are not what they seem. In reality, it's how Aurelia escaped from Azkaban."

"Maybe, I don't know."

"And he wants to smuggle his parents out in the same way." Granger fell into deep thought. With a bit of luck, she was already making a mental list for her next visit to the library.

Weasley stared at him with an amused grin.

"By the looks of it, you've made enormous progress in making friends already. How did you get him under your thumb in Potions today? You'd think you'd been married for twenty years. That's weirder than all the mysterious deaths in the entire history. Don't you think?"

Granger woke up from her deep reflection and suspicion returned into her face.

"And seeing the result, I wonder where your great prowess in potion-making comes from this time."

"Oh, that was Malfoy!" Draco was telling the truth again. "He was the brain behind it, I was just following."

Ginevra Weasley floated silently into their corner and sat on the arm of Granger's armchair.

"That's not how it looked. You tossed his potion into the sink and were bossing him around for the rest of the class."

"And he was obeying, too!" Ron said. "How did you do it? Did you Imperius him, or what?"

"Or did you find the book again?" Granger asked grimly, and looked up at Ginevra, who shrugged innocently. "If I were Malfoy, I'd kill for that book."

"What book?" —did Granger think he'd kill for? He probably would. And by the way, Ginevra knew something about it.

"Please, Harry! Snape's copy of Advanced Potion-Making, of course! Did you get it back?"

Snape's copy of Advanced Potion-Making? What the hell were they talking about? Draco sat there digesting the news and had little left to do than to trust his company to interpret the silence to his advantage.

"C'mon! It burnt in the Fiendfyre!" Ron Weasley supplied the next little piece of the puzzle. "Hope Crabbe is having fun with it in the underworld."

The book had been in the Room of Hidden Things. That much was clear.

"That's not funny, Ron. Besides, I wouldn't be so sure."

"It's true," Ginevra's voice came from above Granger's armchair. "Dean—" she looked hesitantly at Draco. He gave her his coolest blink. "Dean told me that he found his— well, something he'd hidden there two years ago, and it was intact." Ginevra looked down at the three of them from her elevated position. "Well, it only makes sense, right? Every time you enter the Room, it's different. When we had our DA practices it was almost empty. It must have been putting all the stuff somewhere."

"I read in Challenges in Charming," Granger said, "that the Room recompartmentalises itself in response to the requirements of those who use it, and if Snape's book happened to be in an inactive compartment at the time of the Fiendfyre—"

"—then it could still be there!" Ginevra finished Granger's sentence and it sounded like she saw opportunities behind this conclusion.

"Harry, you must not use it! After all the disasters it had led to!"

"I don't have it." Draco had nothing else to say, but he knew exactly what to ask Potter when he got a chance.