Chapter8 – The Apothecary
Zakarias Zate loathed idiots, drug-addicts, and witches in search of illegal love potions. Unfortunately, his shop saw a steady stream of these types every night. It was all he could do some days not to chuck his customers out into the street or spray them with undiluted Derbinfug venom. The needy morons certainly deserved it.
At ninety-five, Zate was well into old age even by wizarding standards, and though he likely had at least a couple of decades of good health left, he was getting very tired of stacking heavy boxes of volatile potions ingredients. He wiped the sweat off of his brow with his uncrippled hand and limped to the back of his shop to fetch another jar of lacewing flies for the ridiculous little woman at the counter who swore that the last jar she had bought hadn't been properly sealed. An assistant would be wonderful, he mused as he rummaged around through the bottles of flies in search of the lacewings. Even an unknowledgeable one could be trained if they had a modicum of intelligence.
Stumping back up to the counter, Zate noticed that another customer had entered. It was a teenage boy, dressed a little shabbily but not at all reminiscent of the hoodlums that tried to steal from him every so often. Zate wondered how many of the little twerps he would have to scar for life before they stopped trying to thieve from a Dark wizard. He was about to ignore the boy in favor of getting the lacewings to the witch, but then he noticed his eyes.
Behind the ugly round glasses, the boy's eyes were the clearest, iciest blue that Zate had ever seen in real life. He had seen those eyes before. A family, long-dead like far too many of the best of them, whose portraits were contained in the Book of Souls had had those very same eyes. The apothecary allowed his memory to coast back to his days as a student of the old ways. His grandmother had been stricter than most, and memorizing the Book of Souls had been her method of punishment for him once when he became too careless about keeping his nature hidden from the Light wizards who lived next door. The name drifted into his mind, accompanied by pictures of witches and wizards with eyes like ice.Peverell.He remembered. The last of the Peverells had been killed in the Ministry darkhunts of the 1700's. Nothing too special about them. They were a powerful family, an old family, but they didn't have the prestige of families like the Malfoys and Lestranges.
The obnoxious little woman cleared her throat to gain his attention, and Zate went to the cash register to ring up the flies. He watched the stranger as he did so. The boy seemed curious about his surroundings. He was walking around the shop now, looking into barrels and bottles with the air of someone who was inexperienced but interested. Zate noted that he kept his hands firmly behind his back. At least the teen had the good sense to realize that most of the ingredients shouldn't be touched with his bare hands.
The fly woman hurried away, clutching her jar, and Zate surreptitiously pulled his wand from his pocket. In a practiced move, he flicked it twice. The sign on the window flipped over to "Closed" and the door locked with a quietschnict. Zate stalked over to the boy, who was now examining the Gulping Plimpie aquarium with a look of great fascination on his face.
"Good as a replacement aquatic element in some potions for people who are allergic to Gilly Weed," Zate said gruffly.
The boy startled a little and turned. Zate noticed with approval that his hand was discretely placed on his wand in his robe pocket. Clever kid. The apothecary checked the boy's face carefully and was disappointed to find the skin around his cheeks and brow bones completely devoid of any markings. Still, there was a chance…
"I didn't know that," said the boy who looked like a Peverell. Ah, well, it would have been too perfect if the teen had been a potions genius. "Are you, Mr. Zate?" the boy asked.
"Indeed," said Zate sticking out his hand. "And who might you be?"
The kid smiled as he took Zate's hand. "I'm Hephaestus," he replied easily. "Hephaestus Peverell."
]
Zate's mind was working furiously as he considered the possibilities. The boy was nattering on about why he had come. Apparently, he needed to know how to send a formal letter of refusal without offending the recipient, and that crazy girlchild seamstress next door had sent him to Zate. How could the boy be a Peverell? The death of that family was well-documented, and no one had heard anything about a missing descendant for centuries.
Zate struggled with it for a while, making encouraging sounds and asking vague questions every time the boy paused for breath.The goblins, he decided finally. It had to be. This boy must have come forward for inheritance testing and been found as the Peverell heir. Highly unexpected. Usually, only the purebloods bothered to have a heritage test performed, and they would never choose the heritage that manifested over their own like this lad had apparently done. And why did he look so much like a Peverell? If anything, his old features should have blended with his new ones, not taken them over entirely. Zate needed to examine this theory farther. If there was even a chance that the boy might turn out Dark (and with Peverell blood flowing in his veins Zate bet it was even odds) then he was obligated to inform the rest of the community. There were too few of them left to pass up the opportunity to teach someone who showed promise.
"Just a moment," Zate interrupted Hephaestus as he was explaining something about how he would like to learn more than just proper letter etiquette if Zate could possibly direct him towards texts. "I'm sure I can help you, but I must go check on something right away. I've got a potion going in the back. Stay here."
The apothecary hobbled away as quickly as his gimpy leg would allow.
]
Harry frowned at the retreating figure. Robin had said that the apothecary was a grumpy old fellow, but so far he just seemed to be extremely preoccupied. He stared at Harry's face as though it held the entirety of his attention, but he had asked Harry several times to repeat himself. Maybe he was hard of hearing?
The old man returned less than a minute later, took one look at Harry's face then bent double in a kind of strangled coughing fit. "Are you alright, Mr. Zate?" he asked in concern. He reached out to touch the choking wizard, but Zate waved him away frantically.
A moment passed while the apothecary straightened out his robes and stared at Harry as though he had never seen anything like him before, then he said "Quite alright, young Peverell. I'm more afflicted with old age sometimes than others. You want me to teach you how to write a letter of refusal you say? And possibly more of the…I take it that by saying etiquette you mean the traditions? The cornerstones of…old wizarding… society?"
Harry nodded. "If you can, sir."
Zate smirked. "I certainly can teach you that, boy. I can teach you that and a lot more."
Harry opened his mouth to thank the elderly wizard, but he was interrupted.
"But I won't do it."
"What? Why not?"
"I just haven't the time, lad. I'm running this shop from sunset to sunup all on my own. Whenever would I teach you?"
"But, Mr. Zate I really…"
"No, no. I'm afraid it can't be done. I'm sure you've seen the sign out front? I'm in desperate need of help, boy. I can't devote myself to teaching you with the way things are going unless…"
Harry noticed the glint in the apothecary's eyes, and he had a premonition of what was to come. "Oh no, Mr. Zate, I couldn't possibly…" he began.
"…you could come and work for me. A lovely idea I think. I could teach you in between customers or after hours. If you do well I might even…"
"I'm a horror at potions. Really, I am. I don't know what half the things in here are and I would probably blow up…"
"…make a decent assistant out of you. Yes, that's the only way that I would be able…"
"…your shop. Isn't there some other way you could?..."
"…to do it," said the apothecary. "Really, lad. That's my only offer."
Harry sighed. Was it really worth it? The letter, in itself, wasn't that important, but he had gotten it into his head that he really wanted to learn this sort of thing. It would likely determine his success or failure in certain circles later in life. But working for the apothecary? Snape would have an apoplectic fit at the thought. Harry might not be naturally terrible at potions like his professor believed, but he hadn't put any effort into it since that disastrous first lesson. How would he keep up as an apothecary's assistant? If it didn't work out he could always quit.
"Are you sure you want me to work for you, Mr. Zate?" he asked at last. "I'm really not the best with potions ingredients, and I would need at least three days a week off. I have other things to do this summer." This last wasn't strictly true, but Harry didn't want to spend his entire summer working.
Zate flapped his hands irritably. "Tuesday through Friday you're mine from an hour before until an hour after dark," he said, "but I can handle it the rest of the week. I'll pay you fair wages, minus the time I spend teaching you."
"Alright," said Harry, arriving at his decision. "I'll see you tomorrow night I guess."
The apothecary nodded, shook Harry's hand, and pointed him toward the door. "Mind you're not late, boy," he said. "I don't suffer the idle."
Harry nodded, wondering what he had gotten himself into. As he reached for the door, he thought he heard the sound of the lock shifting, but he didn't think anything of it. As the light from Zate's windows faded into the night behind him, the sign on the door swung back to "Open."
]
Zakarias Zate loathed idiots, and he was very much afraid that he was becoming one with old age. He blinked his eyes, trying unsuccessfully to get rid of the gluey feeling that accompanied the Sight-Unseen potion he had taken. It was a clever potion, the kind that any Dark wizard appreciated in these troubled times, but it was devilishly hard to make. Zate himself couldn't do it because he only had one fully-functioning arm. It had peculiar results if the potioneer made the slightest error.
Severus Snape had made this particular potion and given it to the apothecary last month in exchange for his usual hideously expensive supplies. If it had been any other potions master, Zate would have thought it was malfunctioning. The Sight-Unseen potion was useful because it allowed the drinker to see the true nature of the things and people around him. It came in handy when he suspected that one of his "customers" was actually a Ministry lackey checking for illegal ingredients, which the shop was full of. He had taken the single dose of the rare potion, which was worth more than an entire week's earnings, to determine whether his theory about the young Peverell boy was right.
The boy was a Peverell, sure enough, and he had the potential, plainly visible with the potion, to turn away from the lies that the self-proclaimed Light wizards fed the masses. He really ought to get word out to the community about the boy. Normally, when a new wizard turned to the Dark or when one who seemed likely was found, there was a celebratory atmosphere throughout the entire group. Even the most uppity of the purebloods became giddy at the thought of welcoming a new member into the dwindling brotherhood. He remembered how excited everyone had been when a much younger Severus Snape, half-blooded but very powerful, had informed his friend Lucius Malfoy that he had decided to practice the traditions. So many of the Dark ones had congratulated him or sent him gifts of welcome, that they almost frightened the taciturn teenager out of the idea.
Yes, thought Zate as he rubbed at his temples, he really ought to tell the others that he had found the Peverell heir. But Mighty Morgaine! He couldn't possibly tell them that Hephaestus Peverell was also Harry Potter!