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Chapter 7
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A different view of chapter 10 of Runaway Dragon
http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=431805&chapter=10
Market day. Crowds, heat, jostling, keeping track of packages and people and that damn dog. But it has to be borne, the food's too expensive elsewhere.
I am not, I suppose, poor. With my salary, restricted as it is, and the various things Albus gives me with that innocent air I am probably better off than most in this forgotten little hole called West Hogsmeade. Despite the Ministry's best endeavours. But oh... I remember. I remember when food was just there, and clothes were just there, any beautiful things seen in a shop window were to be had for the asking. It used to jar Sarah, way back at University, when I bought any book I wanted instead of camping out in the library because all the best ones were on 4 hour loan. Some of them I saved, or rather Albus did, but most have gone wherever my furniture and candlesticks and fine shirts have gone. What would the Ministry do with The Chemical Data Handbook of 1980?
Ah well, let us make a virtue out of necessity. If worst comes to worst, Draco is going to be as badly off as I am, and without Sarah at his side to show him how to survive when you can't just go to Gringotts. He'll need some idea of how to live when money isn't something other people have to worry about.
We organise all the essentials, even that damn dog, because he'll just wreck the place if we leave him. First job for Draco then, maybe they'll wear each other out!
Sarah plans the attack as usual, I follow and run interference as best I can. None of the pickpockets and sneakthieves bother us, word spread some time ago about me, and what I'm capable of. They don't bother Sarah when she's on her own now either, I wonder if it will rub off on Draco? Although he's more likely to be seen as recruit than victim, there's very little of the moneyed oldblood about him now, if he doesn't open his mouth. Less than skin deep this vaunted civilisation. From aristocratic princeling to blue-clad tearaway in less than a week.
I keep him close while I can, while the crowd isn't so thick, so he can see how the job is done, how to bargain, what to do, and with luck he'll also see what not to do.
I wrestle with a bored and thus destructive Billy, and turn round to see that Draco most certainly hasn't seen what not to do. Should have known, he's not going to hang around with those kids without learning some bad habits. I can just hope they also teach him how to avoid being caught at it!
More people. More congestion. Whiny teenager. This is not doing my temper any good at all. Calm down Severus Snape, apply intelligence to problem. Solve the dog problem and that should solve the teenager problem, nothing will solve the crowd problem except maybe a full circle of Death Eaters and a battery of Killing Curses. Never mind how nice that sounds, it isn't going to happen. Draco can handle dog and Billy, leave me free to handle the bags.
Damn! I seem to have thought him more capable than he is, it's not as if he's had to handle crowds like this before. I hope he has the strength to deal and not to fall apart, he has Billy after all, what a fool I was! I am tall enough to see, but one teenager looks much like another in the heat and crowding.
"Draco! There you are!" She's seen him, and seen me opening my mouth to blast him, at least I think that's what that hiss and the elbow in the ribs means, so I tone down from Angry Bastard Snape to something less intimidating. He seems to be more capable of dealing than I thought, so I just load him up with more packages and we continue on. Not for long, dog and boy (and, to be honest, man) are getting a bit tired of this. Although man is more used to it than either dog or boy, judging by the wriggling of one and the face of the other.
Done, done, all done, and not before time too. I steer everyone towards the less crowded section of food alley, and head off to find drinkables, damn it's hot! In muggle stories, wizards can wave a wand and food and drink appear. Well yes, but cardboard transfigured to steak is still cardboard, as you'd know if you'd eaten it. So no foolish wand-waving for me, just balancing several cups of cold juice in a crowded alley. I switch on Intimidating Bastard Snape, no one jostles him if they can help it.
I settle down, glad to be off my feet, sharing my sandwich with Munin. Not that I have a choice, if I didn't give it freely he'd steal it as blatantly as he steals the dog's sausage. And I'd probably lose a finger in the process, if only to remind me of my responsibilities. Which apparently include keeping a greedy little raven in the style to which he wishes to become accustomed.
We all of us collapse into tired lumps, Draco sprawling against the wall, Sarah and I leaning into each other. I curl my arm around her, even after years of it I still feel faintly amazed about that. Took me a surprisingly long time to learn how nice it is to have your arm around someone who wants you to do it and leans into it in that oh-so-delightful way. Of course it took me a surprisingly long time to find someone who wanted it... She says that it just took me forever to notice someone wanted it, and that even now I don't notice the sheep's eyes being made at me by all sorts of people. That's as may be, I only need to notice when one particular person looks at me like that.
Well, can't stay here all day. Still work to be done, and Billy won't be asleep forever. I disentangle myself and we get to our feet. Sarah goes to one boy, I to the other. "Come on, Draco. We still need to buy potion ingredients, tea and some more clothes for you."
He looks confused. Typical teenager, he'd wear the same things till they fell off him if I let him. That's one of the reasons for school robes of course, it's far easier to have a schoolful of teenagers vaguely presentable when they just have to throw on house-elf cleaned robes over whatever they grab while half asleep.
Hah. not your gang boy? All those years in Slytherin and you are still not fit to be let out on your own, not your gang indeed. Lucius really did ruin you with those bodyguards and teaching you to buy your companionship. Learn they are your gang Draco, because if you don't live up to the responsibilities which go with that hat...
At last, the apothecary's. More people than I expected, I pass the waiting time checking my mental inventory of the supplies at school and home. Albus calls the supplies in the flat "research materials" and "secure storage" and insists they go on the Hogwarts account, I've given up arguing. I don't like charity, but he keeps pointing out that he should be paying me twice what he is and is forbidden to, so he'll make it up in other ways.
I take my time with inspecting the wares of course. Not that Shelmerston would offer substandard items to me, but the more unusual things could have deteriorated in storage before he got them. Besides, I enjoy the process, feeling them, smelling them, even tasting some. All of my senses engaged, losing myself in the skill of it. I have been told that in the muggle world people who can do this with varieties of wine or tea are much prized, should I ever escape my captivity I could perhaps find myself a job like that.
It's over all too soon. Although not soon enough for some it seems, I send a few Arrogant Bastard Snape glares at the more loudly impatient and they close their mouths immediately. Who needs a wand?
Damn. Bread. How could I forget bread? The crowds are worse, it's going to be a hard road and a long wait. Oh well, standing here gets nothing done. I pick up Billy, make sure Draco and the dog and the bags are under control and we grit our teeth and enter the fray. Apposite word, my nerves are getting more and more frayed. Which is definitely showing on my face, I'm not even trying and people are getting out of my way.
Finally! Billy's asleep on my shoulder, and I leave him there while we redistribute the remaining burdens. I feel his weight and his warmth and relax. Years of dealing with children did not prepare me for this. Old Joe told me that it's different when they are your own, considering how many he has I suppose he should know.
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An early dinner, and seeing as I now have fresh Ashwinder eggs, I can brew the Wolfsbane tonight. Dried eggs are all very well, but you need less Deviltongue with the fresh, and the stuff tastes bad enough as it is.
I suppose this is what musicians feel like, this creating something that you have created before, hands and fingers moving as they've been trained by long experience, but every time new with a beauty that takes the breath away.
I find it almost a meditation, to be focused on colour and smell and essence, the ingredients and amounts coming neatly to hand seemingly without conscious thought. Instinct, they say, is experience gone subliminal, I have an instinct for weight and measure that needs neither scale nor glass. But I use them anyway, precision is part of the creating.
I note the boy's presence as I note the cat leaving, as I note the sun's light fading, as I note the sounds of Sarah in the other room, they are there but not important, all that is important is the creation and the infusion of power into the liquid I am concentrating on. That's why so few can brew this potion, or indeed any potion that affects the soul's essence. The infusion of power is needed in any potion, but usually the concentration needed to brew it will flow enough magic into the mix. The more complex the potion, the greater the concentration, but that only goes so far. There comes a time when the infusion must be conscious and directed, and not a function of attention to weights and measures and exact preparation.
The more powerful the wizard, the more powerful the magic that is infused into the brew, but not every powerful wizard understands the mechanism well enough to make a potion like this. Even Albus Dumbledore could stand and stare it at all day and it would be barely useful. His talents lie elsewhere.
Another frustration about teaching of course. No matter how much you tell them to pay attention, how much you coax them or intimidate them into concentrating on precision and exactitude, into focusing on the brew in front of them, they will lose focus and think about sex or sport or food or their petty feuds. And their magic bleeds away down those ratholes, they may as well be mixing coloured paint. If adding this and that was all there was to it, then muggles could be Potion Masters, but that never occurs to them.
Ah well. The only potion brewing most of them will ever do is a hangover remedy or something to get the stain out of the carpet, and those need no more concentration than the ability to stir the stuff without knocking the cauldron over.
I finish the first third, and the second, and as I start on the last third there is a change near me, it's the boy, coming to see what I'm doing. I spare him a glance, the hard work's done and it needs no more now than half my attention.
Alarm! Fingers within my field of focus, "Don't!". Marinated Hyanthus is not something he should be handling. Especially as it's a restricted substance and that residue on his fingers could get him a nasty little talking to by the Anti Dark Arts boys.
I attune a portion of myself to the cauldron and focus my gaze and my mind on the boy. He's curious, which is an oddly delightful surprise. Even if he still has those oldblood ideas about money. I distract him from potentially difficult topics with a couple of jobs, then decide to maybe see how far his curiosity extends. He was able to puzzle out the maths, will he be able to puzzle out a potion, given enough information?
"Why don't you try and ... turn that jar invisible."
I start him on the path, giving him hints as small as I can get away with. I know he's bright enough, his marks show that, but wizarding education is more about memorisation and ritual than about finding things out for yourself. It's only the rare few who go beyond the rote. Perhaps that's a failure in us, the teachers, but given the amount of trouble it is to get them to learn enough to be safe when a careless fool can level a building, making them work it out themselves is bound to lead to trouble.
I answer his questions, falling easily into chatting with the lad. A long way, this, from the careful methods of a Head of House, much more relaxing.
Even when the talk drifts to dangerous ground.
But here is perhaps less dangerous a place to talk than Hogwarts where all the walls have ears and eyes and tongues to speak of what they have heard and seen, and no doubt claws as well should they be needed.
I lead him away from who I am and what I am, and back to the safer territory of brewing. A simple enough potion this, if you approach it properly, and the results will tell me more about his potential than most of the stuff at school.
I watch him, while the part of me that is connected so intimately to the Wolfsbane potion monitors it and blends with it, and coaxes its potential into life. I feel the mixture react to me and to itself and encourage it to feel its own power, to settle down into its destiny.
And there are those who think it's just about shredding the roots finely enough!
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