recanteddeatheater:
Family Bonds and Brewing
No surname, Draco noticed but did not comment. That was interesting, if not exactly unprecedented – although the fact that the truncated introduction was accompanied by an offered hand added an uncommon layer. So this “Edward” wouldn’t give his full name, but he was willing to shake Draco’s hand – not something he had in common with all of St. Mungo’s staff, and Draco had learned a long time ago to stop offering his hand unprompted if he could avoid it. Proper manners might have dictated otherwise but there were many who considered it far more rude to be pressured to take a Malfoy’s hand than to skip over the requisite social ritual (usually those wix whose upbringing lacked the awareness of the historical roots of said ritual, e.g. a demonstration that said hand was empty of wands or other weapons, not that Draco was prejudiced against such wix any more of course). Draco always found that slightly amusing, since the people who were most adamant about not shaking his hand were almost always also those who seemed most convinced that he couldn’t be trusted not to cast a Curse at the earliest opportunity. One might have thought that they would want to be assured that his wand wasn’t in hand, but ignorance would have its way…
So, was Edward a Muggle-born who was avoiding giving his surname for fear that Draco would somehow recognize his blood-status and react unpleasantly – as though he kept a list of all known Muggle-borns in Britain memorized!? Even when he’d been a passionate advocate of blood-supremacy, he hadn’t done that. It had been, what, nearly a week before he’d realized that Granger wasn’t some crass know-it-all half-blood? That was one possibility, although Edward could just as easily be a half-blood or even a pure-blood from a family whose surname Draco would recognize; a family that had fought on the other side of the war, perhaps…or one from his side that had spent the last twenty years simmering with anger over the Malfoys’ betrayal of the Dark Lord? Draco could detect nothing but sincerity in Edward’s tone – honored, indeed – but that didn’t mean it was genuine. He told himself it didn’t matter; told himself that whatever Edward’s personal feelings were, they were irrelevant right now.
Draco had had a long time to get used to ignoring the way people felt about him personally – and there was brewing to be done. Still, he eyed the younger wizard sideways as he turned his attention back to the worktable in front of him. Learn from the best, he said. Was it sarcasm or sycophancy? It didn’t matter, he repeated again silently, mental voice firm. They had work to do.
“It’s not a Curse-breaking potion,” Draco said, tone a little harsh. It was just semantics, yes – but sometimes semantics mattered, and this boy was a Healer. He ought to have more respect for the fine details. “There’s no such thing. You can’t break a Curse with a potion, only with another spell. The potion is to undo the effects of the Curse – which is well past the point of being able to be broken, anyway; it’s already done its damage. Now we work to mitigate the results.” It wasn’t his mother he felt that he was echoing now, but his own late and lamented potions instructor: one Severus Snape. Well, Edward had claimed he wanted to learn from “the best” after all…so whose footsteps to better walk in?
“You need to be aware of those differences,” Draco continued as he lifted the bat wing and gave it a careful visual inspection. “Otherwise you risk doing more than confusing your patients or your co-workers; you’re apt to confuse yourself about what’s possible and what isn’t, and that can lead to disaster. Now,” he thrust the bat wing at Edward, “scrape some skin-shavings from that into this dish and be careful not to cut deep enough that you nick the veins. The wing isn’t fresh so you aren’t going to have any spurts of blood, but even some dried flakes will weaken the final draught.” After watching a few seconds to make sure that Edward was following the instructions he added, “When you do this on your own in future, you’ll want to make sure that you’re using a pearl-inlaid vessel to catch the scrapings. Anything else risks contaminating them too early – and it must be real pearl, none of that cheap Muggle imitation stuff, and no Transfigured products either. The magical influence of a Transfigured item can unbalance a delicate spell.” Edward ought to have known that much already, of course – but one could never be sure what level of potioneering instruction these junior Healers had received, nor how much they’d retained. Better to be overly-detailed now than risk disaster later through undetected ignorance.
“Chop the dandelion root next,” Draco instructed, stepping to his own task: reclaiming his wand from the table, he ignited the fire under the cauldron before sheathing it again and lifting a sieve so he could strain the mashed slug as he poured it in to the slowly-heating vessel. “Equal-sized pieces of one no more than centimetre thickness. Use the bronze knife.” He didn’t mention that the root’s hairs needed to be shaved before it was chopped; that was standard procedure too, and he needed to see if Edward knew that much for himself. If not, Draco was ready to step-in and correct him before he could do anything irreparable – besides, dandelion root was a common ingredient; if they had to discard this one before Edward bungled something, starting with a fresh piece would cost them almost nothing – but he needed to know what level of skill he was looking at. If Edward wasn’t up to the task of brewing the curative required, he’d have to let St. Mungo’s know to provide a more competent potioneer instead…or else continue to rely on him and him alone to brew the needed potions. Draco hoped Edward would prove sufficient to the task; while no brew this complex and precise could ever bore him, now that he’d solved the mystery of what balance of brews the patient needed, he’d rather do something new than repeat the same task over and over for the two weeks the woman would need to heal. That sort of tedium was what St. Mungo’s had regular staff for – such as, should he prove up to the task at least, this Edward Someone-Or-Other.
Ｔ. Ｌ.
“Pardon me.“ Of course you can’t break a curse through a potion, you dumb’o. Teddy facepalmed himself mentally, only trying to seem competent enough so Draco wouldn’t dismiss him immediately. He knew he could do this, and there was no point in being nervous, but even the air in the room felt tighter, or was that just Teddy? The healer hoped no knives or bat wings would fly accross the room by accident, mistakes that could very well materialise should Lupin fall to his inner demons who affirmed him that he couldn’t do it. He straightened his back, carefully listening to Malfoy and trying to take every ounce of information like a sponge. Processing would come later.
Teddy took the bat wing and held a silver knife firmly in his other hand. Don’t cut the veins, use a pearl-inlaid vessel, got it. He looked down at the little dish-like item in front of him that was conviniently placed in front of him. Was that the right vessel? A suspicious look was thrown towards his instuctor and as Teddy was holding the dry wing he leaned down to inspect the tray. The item had a bold shine, but infusions of pearl didn’t always have to produce a glimmer. It was a bold move to make, but with his decent enough knowledge of the different cauldrons, trays, their materials, and most importantly -- trick questions by teachers -- he judged that this was not, in fact, a pearl-inlaid one. The knife was put to rest on the table while Teddy confidently swapped the vessel for another which he believed was the correct one. Maybe all of this was a test. He wouldn’t expect any less from Malfoy. This entire thing could’ve been accepted as an exam more than an instruction, but Lupin liked challenges. “There.“ The shaving of the bat wing began, the vein clearly visible through the dried skin of the ingredient. When he was done, he put it back in its designated spot where it was originally taken from. He didn’t know if the procedure was done correctly and any of the vein was shaved but he was confident of his vessel of choice, at least.
The junior healer grabbed the root and the bronze knife, confidently nearing the blade to the root in a position for cutting. He stopped in his tracks, books of potions mastery and the exam list of his NEWTs coming to mind. Merlin, was any preparation for the dandelion root in need before chopping it? Teddy’s hands relaxed before he started cutting anything and inflicting himself the torment and wrath of Draco Malfoy. Cracking his neck, his brain was scrambling through the mountains of notes his aunt Hermione had once lended him for his studies. He remembered anything from the preparation of lizard tails to spider legs, cleaning the ingredients, shaving any scales from the tail before placing it in a heated couldron or removing snail shells before mashing them to a puree. Yet, he couldn’t remember this quite right. He grabbed the bronze knife and allowed his potion’s professor back at hogwarts to remind him once more what needed be done with the root.
‘And students, please remember! In healing concoctions the root must be shaved of its hairs, otherwise leave it raw. Never shave the root of a herb if used for any other class of potions.’
Gotcha!, Teddy mentally exclaimed to himself while putting a smug smirk on his face, smoothly turning the knife from a cutting position to a shaving one while maintaining eye contact with Draco’s cold expression. Carefully scraping its hairs before cutting it into said centimeter pieces, Teddy set them aside and readied himself for another set of instructions.
“I either,” he paused again, abruptly, the profanity almost rolling down his tongue”... messed up the bat wing tray or the cutting. But we’re here to learn, right?“
