Chapter 11—Brewing Medea's Draught

Harry carefully tipped a quarter of the vial of mercury into the cauldron, and then leaped back out of range of the fumes the book had said that step would produce. Every other time he'd done this, the potion had promptly thickened and started eating through the bottom of the cauldron. The book hadn't said why, but Harry thought he'd probably added too much mercury.

This time, nothing happened, other than the potion's color shifting very slightly until it reached the shade of a ripe apple. Harry smiled and let himself bask in his success for a moment before he examined the book for the next step.

More acid.

Harry carefully picked up the foaming vial of golden liquid and measured out three drops on the cork as best he could; it wasn't an ingredient, like blood or water, where he could have counted the drops out onto his skin. He placed them in a triangle pattern around the surface of the liquid, as the book also instructed, and then once again stepped hastily back.

The potion sighed, like the brush of a silky robe along a corridor, and then settled. Harry nodded. He still had five steps to get through before he could start stirring the cauldron again and preparing the potion for storage, and he would probably falter on one of them. Even if he didn't, the book warned against trusting the first vial of Medea's Draught too completely. There were two results that looked superficially like an effective poison, but in one case it was stagnant and in another it killed too quickly. Harry would have to examine the thickness and the color carefully before he could be sure it was what he wanted.

That didn't matter. That was all right. He still had several weeks, and he had done much better with the brewing so far than he'd suspected he would. It was a pity he couldn't test it beforehand, but anything that drank it would die.

And in a highly nasty way, which was one of the reasons Harry had chosen the poison. The acidic ingredients of the potion would attack his liver, spleen, and other internal organs, breaking them down the way that Medea had broken down the lives of her victims. But they would do it slowly enough that Harry could reel Voldemort in like a fish first.

Harry smiled and reached for the belladonna leaves.

Rufus coughed and shook his head. So much dust floated around this little-used section of the Ministry archives, clogging his lungs and covering his cloak, that he felt as though he'd never be clean again. He scrubbed at his gritty eyes with one fist, and then scanned the shelves.

The records claimed that the papers pertaining to Potter's guardianship had last been seen here. Surprisingly, or coincidentally—though, by this point, Rufus would only have thought it was a surprise or a coincidence if he weren't dealing with Dumbledore—the paperwork from the non-trial of Sirius Black had last been seen in the same place. The only way Rufus expected to find them was close, detailed work, staring at every box or folder until it revealed its secrets to him. Sending someone else was out of the question, both because he had to worry about Dumbledore's spies in the Ministry now and because someone with the best of intentions would probably grow impatient and not find what he wanted.

Finally, a box caught his eye. It had a name on it that Rufus vaguely recognized as belonging to a criminal sent to Azkaban about ten years ago, but beneath that name had once been another. He peered closely, tracing the curve of the letters with a finger when he wasn't sure, and then nodded. Potter.

He pulled the box out of place, and was rewarded with an even more enormous puff of dust for his troubles.

Rufus felt a tremble of discomfort when he saw the books, envelopes, scrolls, and pieces of individual parchment that filled the box. He would have to look into this—and on his own time, as the duties of the Ministry and the pressure to "do something" about You-Know-Who and the Death Eaters grew worse every day. And even someone who didn't serve Dumbledore might not be able to keep a silent tongue when he examined some of what Rufus fully expected to find in this box.

As he pulled back, his bad leg buckled a bit, and the precious burden shifted dangerously. Rufus had to drop into a half-crouch to retrieve his balance. When he looked down, he caught his breath. The cascade of loose papers on the top had shifted enough for him to make out what looked like the edge of a silver basin.

A Pensieve.

Perhaps he wouldn't have to spend as much time searching for the necessary information as he'd thought he would.

The potion had taken the belladonna well this time. Harry had to grimace and shake his head when he thought about his confidence a week ago. No matter how hard he tried to rationalize his speed, and assure himself he still had time to recover from mistakes, it was intolerable that his own impatience had made the potion convulse and explode in poisonous slop all over the room. He'd managed to raise a Shield Charm that protected him from the worst of it, but he'd had to spend a lot of time cleaning up and making sure that he hadn't swallowed any of it.

He'd swallow it eventually, of course. But not until the moment he chose. The point of the exercise wasn't to kill himself. It was to kill himself and get rid of Voldemort at the same time. If he just died, then he would deserve the selfish label that Snape had slapped on him. Of course he couldn't die and just leave everyone else in danger.

Making sure his hands moved slowly this time, he placed the belladonna leaves in the cauldron, and waited for the sign that the potion was ready for more—the small puff of steam upwards—instead of tossing everything in because he was impatient. He was impatient, of course, but if he had to learn patience the way he'd learned Occlumency, then he would. It was one of his hardest lessons. He could feel his skin itching and his eyes watering with the need to do something. That was part of why he usually just dashed ahead and left practical matters to take care of themselves, he thought. Who could think, who could wait, with someone in as much danger as other people might be if he didn't protect them?

And he'd thought it was his responsibility to fight Voldemort, too. But he hadn't fulfilled the responsibility effectively so far.

Now he would.

The belladonna had settled into the cauldron. Harry relaxed, and turned to read the next part of the recipe three times over, each time forcing his eyes to really pause on and see the words, not just skim over them.

This was the part of the brewing that added a magical impulse to the Draught. When the breaking down of the internal organs began to speed up, the victim's body burst into flames, to hold back anyone who might try to get near and rescue them. That imitated the flames that came from the poisoned gown Medea had sent Glauce, the princess who'd dared to marry her husband Jason. The gown had shone, in the legend, and Glauce hadn't been able to resist putting it on, even though everyone else had warned her about the danger of trusting Medea. She'd been simultaneously poisoned and burned to death, and when her father had rushed to rescue her, the flames had caught and destroyed him, too.

This was part of the reason there was no antivenin anyone could brew for the Draught. And, just in case the worst happened and anyone came upon him after he'd consumed the poison and before it could kill him, Harry wanted to be sure they'd hesitate long enough.

Severus snarled under his breath. He'd spent part of the evening tutoring Draco in magic, as usual, and part of the evening trying to find out if the boy had been responsible for the Siren Songs two weeks ago. Given his teaching, his duties as a spy, and his efforts to create a counter-potion for the Veritaserum, this was the first chance he'd had to speak to the boy for an extended period of time.

Unfortunately, he'd betrayed his interest—perhaps because he'd brought up Occlumency one too many times—and now Draco was playing coy with him, returning cryptic non-answers to his questions. Severus had forgotten that the boy was a Slytherin and, after this summer, alert enough to realize that his position was a matter of life and death. Words that would have dragged the answer out of a younger Draco without a pause made this one look away and think too hard, trying to decide what his professor wanted.

I am delighted he is showing intelligence at last, Severus thought, the last time he asked a question about Draco's progress in his studies and received a bland description of the last few spells the boy had studied under him in return. I could have wished he would choose to show it tomorrow.

"Professor?" Draco said, when they had taken a short pause in their dueling, and Severus was wondering whether compliments were too obvious a course to take.

"Yes, Mr. Malfoy?" Severus spun his wand, which made Draco look at it instead of his face, a useful distraction just now.

"Do you think—" Draco paused a long moment, then continued, "Do you think I have it in me to be one of the best of his Death Eaters? Really?"

Ah. So that was how the boy had taken the queries about his skills, as compliments that Severus refused to give outright. That was much less disastrous than other motives he could have attributed to his teacher. Severus had feared the boy would see that he was worried over the source of the Siren Songs, and respond the way one Slytherin always did to a sign of weakness or worry in another.

And that realization put Severus back in control of the game, and able to strike at Draco's weakness himself. He gave the boy a narrow smile. "Would you call me one of the best of his Death Eaters, Draco?"

Draco hesitated.

"Or your father?" Severus made the question completely bland, and had the pleasure of seeing Draco's hands tighten into white-knuckled fists in response. He knew that, according to the reckoning of other Death Eaters, Lucius Malfoy was a fool for his failure, but Draco's family pride and love for his father wouldn't let him speak against Lucius.

"I wasn't necessarily asking for a model, sir," Draco snapped. "I was just asking your honest opinion of my skills."

And that moved Severus even more firmly into the dominant position. He had to swallow his amusement. Draco might have more skill in verbal maneuvering than he had in past years, but when he lost control of his emotions, he fell right back into the old traps that he should have escaped by now.

"You are not yet skilled enough to disarm me," Severus said. "By that measure, no, Mr. Malfoy, you do not."

Draco narrowed his eyes, nostrils flaring. Severus knew the question he wanted to ask: how many of the other Death Eaters could actually disarm his teacher? But to ask it would be to betray a shade too much eagerness. A student might want to know his progress, understandably enough. But only a child constantly demanded comparisons of himself to others so that he could know their skills. An adult was expected to observe and understand, or pick up gossip, sift through it, and separate the truth from the rumor and the envy.

Draco glanced up for one moment more, caught between the understanding that he must ask no more and the resentment that it should be so, and Severus was able to snatch a perfect glimpse between his Occlumency shields.

His student was incapable of performing the Siren Song.

Severus kept from exhaling in frustration, but it was a hard thing. He was sure that Albus would not run about amusing himself at the students' expense. But, besides himself and Draco, Albus was the only Occlumens in the school—

No. Wait.

Severus tilted his head to dismiss Draco, and, when he was alone, spun and cast a curse at the far side of the room, destroying a light wooden chair he kept there for that express purpose. Splinters exploded from it and flew across the office, one scoring a light cut near his eye. Severus snarled under his breath and cast both the necessary healing spell and the Reparo for the chair in the same moment.

Potter was trying to train himself in Occlumency. That did not mean he had succeeded, but Severus knew he had tried, and the Siren Songs had been used on him and Draco—two people Potter would have no compunctions against injuring.

Severus had assumed the Dark Lord was possessing him. But what if that wasn't true? What if the boy had, somehow, acquired the strength to tug on the mind of another Occlumens?

His every memory of the boy revolted against the knowledge. Potter was incapable of the focused concentration necessary for Occlumency. Severus had seen that through five years of teaching Potions, an art very similar to Occlumency in some ways. And he had not tried in their lessons last year, when the threat of the Dark Lord invading his mind had made no impact. What would have changed his reluctance to determination? What could have been a greater impetus to his studying than losing the integrity of his own mind?

The loss of Black. Of course.

Severus bared his teeth. If he had had Potter in front of him, he would have hexed him then and there.

But that was mostly to keep from hexing himself. He had been a fool, and every time that happened, he promised that he would not be one again, and if anyone in the world was capable of keeping that promise, it should have been him.

His instincts went deeper than his memories, and they sought the simplest and most persuasive explanation, and that was that Potter had decided to learn Occlumency at last, in memory of Black, and then decided to use it as a weapon against the Slytherins he despised. He must have known it would cause them immense headaches. He had not counted on being found out.

Well, now he will be.

If the boy was truly an Occlumens, he needed training in any case. Ministry laws prohibited learning the art except under an experienced teacher. In those rare cases where a person managed to learn Occlumency spontaneously, on his own, he needed guidance to tame his wild talent so it wouldn't hurt him or others. Severus doubted Potter was a wild talent, but either way, he had an excuse to interfere.

There was also a bit of curiosity beneath the rage, which wondered how long Potter had been learning and thought, from Severus's memory of the sleek Occlumency walls in Potter's mind a few weeks ago, that he must be very good indeed. But he would never show that curiosity or that appreciation.

"Point Me Harry Potter," he snapped to his wand.

Harry sighed and corked the vial of Medea's Draught in his hand. It had finally worked. Two weeks devoted to little else but brewing had paid off, and while he regretted the loss of time to practice his Occlumency, he'd thought he should secure the poison that would kill him first.

In the final stages, the book said, Medea's Draught broke the body down completely, the way that she had encouraged the daughters of King Pelias to cut up their father's body and throw it into a cauldron, under the idea that this would bring him back to life and make him young again. Of course, it had simply killed him, and when Harry's chest split down the middle and his limbs parted from each other as if he were being drawn and quartered, the same thing would happen to him.

Harry silently thanked the person who'd invented Medea's Draught. One method of killing him might not have been enough, but the other two surely would be.

He'd just put the vial in his robe pocket when a loud wail sounded in his ears. Harry jumped, and then turned to stare at the door. It was the alarm spell he'd cast to tell him when someone drew near the room where he brewed the Draught. Since this corridor was so far from the rest of the castle, it was rarely triggered.

Now, though, someone tested the locking spell he'd put up, and a voice said, "Open this door, Potter, now."

Shit. Snape.

Harry whirled to face the cauldron and his ingredients.