Be Careful
33: What Trouble You Brew
By Anne B. Walsh
"One, two, three, switch," Draco chanted under his breath, stirring the contents of the cauldron rapidly. "One, two, three, switch." The green potion, swirling counterclockwise, frothed around the stirring stick as he changed directions again. "One, two, three, switch." With his left hand, he scooped up a tiny handful of gnat wings and dropped them in. "And one, two, three, stop."
Quickly, he pulled the stick out of the potion and turned up the fire with his wand. The potion bubbled furiously, the level of liquid in the cauldron dropping at a rate Draco would have found alarming if he hadn't known it was supposed to happen.
"This potion, properly made, is thicker than honey," he recalled Snape telling the fifth-year class in his precise tones. "The excess liquid boils away very rapidly in the last step. Be careful not to allow your cauldron to boil dry, as the residue is highly flammable."
And of course, what did Longbottom go and do?
Draco snickered, thinking of the line Ginny had written for Neville. I'll have to find out what exactly he's done. Compare notes on the two of them.
The mark he'd made on the side of the cauldron came into sight, and Draco doused the fire with a flick of his wrist. The thick green goop remaining in the bottom didn't look appetizing in the least.
Good thing it's not for me. Now, for the bit Meghan suggested…
He upended the cauldron onto the marble workbench beside him and spread the potion across it with his wand as though he were frosting a cake. When it formed a thin layer of glistening green across most of the table, he pointed his wand sharply at it. "Glisseo!"
The potion solidified instantly, the Freezing Charm counteracting its residual heat and leaving it hard and dry.
Perfect.
Draco opened the bag he'd brought with him and hung it at one end of the bench, then aimed his wand at the hardened potion again. "Relashio," he said softly, concentrating on making the spell low-power. Just need enough to make it—
The potion shattered in place, the shards jumping apart but not flying across the table or through the air.
Draco released a breath he hadn't been aware of holding. "That could've made a real mess," he said aloud.
"Indeed it could," said a voice behind him.
Draco jumped a foot and came down looking the other way. Snape stood in the doorway behind him, regarding the interior of the room with one lifted eyebrow. "Getting a head start on your homework, Malfoy?"
Don't lie, he can ask Slughorn for the curriculum, besides I've always suspected he was a Legilimens… "No, sir, it's…" The other world came to Draco's rescue. "An independent project. I was hoping to get a bit of extra credit from Professor Slughorn."
"Did you ask him for permission to use this classroom?"
"No, sir, but I was under the impression we were supposed to be learning all we could while we were here." Draco rounded the end of the workbench and swept the potion shards into their bag, then unhooked it from its magical holder and pulled the drawstring top tight. "I wasn't planning to leave a mess, and I haven't taken any supplies I'm not supposed to."
"I was not accusing you." Snape entered the room and headed for the cauldron. "What were you—"
"Scourgify," Draco said under his breath as he gathered up his supplies. His wand, held seemingly carelessly in his right hand, jumped slightly, and the smear of green he could see along the cauldron's rim vanished.
"—making?" Snape reached the cauldron and looked in. "Or would you prefer not to tell me," he finished, his chill tone making the words a statement instead of a question.
"Nothing illegal, or poisonous," Draco said, dumping the jars and bottles into his schoolbag. "It's for personal use."
"And that use is?" Snape barred his way as he made for the door.
Draco met the Headmaster's eyes for an instant, and allowed a partial image of the truth to cross his mind—the memory of Ginny Weasley glaring up with hatred at Blaise Zabini.
"Personal," he said, just as coldly as Snape, and stepped around his former Head of House to leave the room.
Let him believe I'm after her for myself if he likes. Maybe it'll keep him from working out what I'm actually up to…
For one second, Severus considered calling the boy back, but decided against it. He will only be insolent, and I can work out what he was making easily enough. An unusual method of transporting it, but depending on what it was, he may be able to reliquify it before he uses it, or there may be no need…
A quick charm netted him a handful of potion dust, and a quick sniff and a cautious taste told him what he needed to know. The boy had told him the truth—the potion was neither illegal nor poisonous when properly made, as this one had been.
Now the only question is—why was he brewing that particular mixture, and for whom?
It would not go amiss, Severus decided, to keep a closer eye on the boy.
The young man, I should say. He seems to have found some measure of maturity this summer.
Too late, perhaps, but that is the way of the world.
Vanishing his handful of potion, Severus left the classroom. Draco Malfoy, whatever he was doing, would keep. The staff meeting in ten minutes would not.
At which mine is the unenviable task of keeping Minerva and Alecto from one another's throats.
Tonight might well merit the use of one of his special potions, the sort he used to keep his worst nightmares at bay. The intriguing dreams they brought with them were a welcome side effect, featuring as they did a place where he could rest and a person in whom he could confide.
Even if she is a figment of my imagination, a commingling of the only two women in whom I ever felt any sort of interest. He smiled without any real humor. I doubt I would have dared to tell either of them about her, even if the one had lived and the other were not already spoken for…
Ginny held her head high as she walked slowly down the second-floor hallway. I can't stop them from hurting me, but I can stop them from hearing me scream. I'll bite my own tongue out before I'll give them the satisfaction—
Something slammed into her back, and a sharp pain seared through her neck where it met her left shoulder. She crashed into the wall and slid to the ground, winded.
"Why don't you watch where I'm going, Weaslette?" sneered Malfoy, stepping over her legs. "Maybe if I ask nicely, Professor Carrow'll let me put your eyes on stalks so you can look behind you. What do you think? Would Potter like a half-slug girlfriend?"
Ginny answered him with a gesture she'd learned from Charlie.
Malfoy smirked at her. "We can do that later. See you in class."
As Ginny pulled herself upright, she felt a tickling sensation against her shoulder. Fishing down the back of her robes, she discovered a neatly folded piece of parchment, smeared with blood that a probing finger to her neck confirmed was her own.
It used to be that it was enough to stick the ‘Kick Me’ sign to somebody's robes, Malfoy…
Bracing for a faceful of Gobstone liquid or some other unpleasant surprise, Ginny unfolded the paper. Five words were written on it in a neat, looping copperplate hand.
How loud can you scream?
"You'll never know," Ginny promised in a whisper, her temper rising to the point where it overcame her fear.
That slimy worm—it's not enough he pushes me around and lies to me about Harry, now he's found a way to make it look like I'm the one threatening him! If I ever get my hands on him—
"Ginny?"
"Hello, Neville." Ginny turned to look at her friend. "Is it time?"
"Almost." Neville's round face was set, making him look heroic even through a developing black eye and two or three deep cuts. "I just wanted you to know that—"
"Do whatever you have to do," Ginny interrupted him. "Don't get into trouble on my account."
Neville shook his head. "I won't hurt you."
"But they'll punish you!"
A little smile quirked one side of Neville's mouth, the sort of smile Ginny was more used to seeing on Harry or Ron. "Some things are worth getting punished for," he said. "They can hurt me, but they can't turn me into one of them unless I let them. And I won't."
Ginny returned the smile. "You're a good man, Neville Longbottom."
"Thanks." Neville offered her his arm, as though they were going to the Yule Ball again. Ginny laid her hand on it and squeezed once, comfortingly.
I still wish you'd just do what they're asking and stay out of trouble… but then again, if you did that, you wouldn't be you.
Side by side, the two Gryffindors walked into the Dark Arts classroom.
Neville massaged his left side, wincing. He was pretty sure one of his ribs was cracked, if not more, and his right knee might not get him all the way to the hospital wing before it gave out.
At least they're still letting us get patched up. How long before they decide "troublemakers" shouldn't be allowed to see Madam Pomfrey?
But whatever he felt like, Ginny had to feel worse. He craned his neck to see her, curled into a ball by the far wall. Parvati and Padma were kneeling beside her, whispering to her, but she didn't seem inclined to move. Neville wasn't surprised.
Cruciatus on and off for twenty minutes, then Professor Carrow put her under Imperius and made her dance with him—she fought it, though, she was tripping over her own feet and falling every few paces, and of course that just made them all laugh harder…
Neville could find only one piece of consolation in life. No former DA members had agreed to help torture Ginny. One or two Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws had tried their hands at it, and of course the Slytherins had gleefully taken turns—none grinning wider than Malfoy—but every student in the class who owned a DA Galleon had refused Amycus Carrow's order to use the Cruciatus Curse on the youngest Weasley. Ernie Macmillan had gone so far as to inform the professor that he couldn't order them to do something that was against the law.
Neville winced again, remembering the reply to this. "The law's what I say it is here, y'stupid prat! Do's you're told or you'll be next!"
And he will, too. We'll all be next. They'll keep hammering on us until we break. And it's no good to say we won't, because everyone has a breaking point. The scent of disinfectant and hospital linens seemed to pervade the room for a moment. Especially alone, without help, without hope, without something to hold onto…
Across the room, Ginny sat up, her face streaked with tears but her jaw set firmly. She looked around, her eyes landing for one moment on every person who had participated in her "punishment". Neville didn't doubt for an instant that she was cataloguing their names and faces, preparing herself for the day when she might be asked who they were, so that the Aurors would know how many cells to prepare in Azkaban.
She hasn't stopped believing. She hasn't given up. How can I? How can I even think about it?
Neville clenched his teeth, reached up, and clambered to his feet, finding his knee a little more willing to take his weight than he'd thought at first.
Harry's out there somewhere. And he's got Hermione with him, and I'd bet Ron too—awfully convenient, him getting sick just as Harry and Hermione vanish, and if Fred and George couldn't fake up a body that'd fool a Ministry inspector, I'll eat my cauldron.
Those three have never failed us yet. They're not about to start now.
He limped across the room to Ginny and the Patils. "You all right?" he asked Ginny, offering a half-smile as an apology for the banality of the words—of course she wasn't all right, she'd been tortured, no one was all right when they'd been tortured—
Ginny's wand darted around them in a circle. "Muffliato," she whispered. "There, now we can talk, no one will hear us—Ron taught me that, he learned it from Harry—Neville, I am all right, this is going to sound insane and I don't know who put him up to it but someone got Malfoy to help me!"
"You're right," said Parvati before Neville could react. "It does sound insane."
"Why do you think that?" Padma added. "What did he do?"
"He shoved me down before class, and I felt something prick me. Then I found this inside my robes." Ginny held out a small, folded note. "I thought he was just being, you know, Malfoy—but when they started cursing me, it didn't hurt. I could feel it, the way you can feel a flame when you've used a Flame-Freezer, but it didn't hurt at all. I think it was a Painless Potion, Mum used to use them on me when I'd fall out of trees, this feels like that used to."
Padma frowned. "But you were screaming…"
Neville took the note and unfolded it. "That is what it says to do," he said, holding it out for the twins to read. "Do you know whose writing it is, Ginny?"
"Yes, but…" Ginny giggled slightly. "I don't think it will help much."
"Why not?" Parvati asked.
"Because it's mine."
"Yours?" said the twins together.
"Yes, but I didn't write it!" Ginny leaned back against the wall, her giggles becoming more pervasive. "That would be a bit silly, to write a note to myself!"
"Hysterical," Parvati mouthed to Neville, as Padma bent over Ginny and began making soothing noises.
Neville nodded and accepted the note back from Parvati as she turned to help her twin. Holding it, he couldn't help but notice how Ginny's blood had smeared across its back.
But if she's right, that little pain stopped her from feeling a whole lot more. Neville stared across the room at Malfoy, who was repacking his bag nonchalantly. I don't know who told you to do that, Malfoy, but they're clever. Probably one of the teachers—they can't help us openly, but by using you, they can sneak us what we need…
We're not alone. We never really were.
Professor Carrow had his back turned. Most of the Slytherins were snickering in a corner. Neville dug in his pocket until he found a familiar size and weight. Slowly, he withdrew the gleaming Galleon and got to his feet, holding it up for his classmates to see.
The DA lives. We'll meet tomorrow night.
Bring your wand. You'll need it.
He did not notice Malfoy's small, triumphant smile.