IX
The Potions Master
That next morning, Teddy awoke in his bed in Gryffindor Tower to find a note on his pillow:
"I'm glad you figured out the cloak.
In case Hagrid didn't tell you,
you were set up by me and him!
He told me what you said.
And I AM proud of that!
We'll discuss the rest...later?"
-GH
"Later," Teddy nodded, dreading that coming conversation. He looked around the deserted room and decided that he'd have breakfast with Kreacher.
Kreacher was delighted to have him, although he did point out that "students in the kitchens is a violation of the rules."
Teddy didn't care, though. As far as he was concerned, it was a much more pleasant dining experience than the tables above, which he found that he could see when he looked up at the kitchen ceiling.
All he could really see were the bottoms of the tables and where plates and dishes were sitting. Above that, he could see the upper bodies and faces of those sitting at the various tables as well, but that was all. As he looked up at the Gryffindor table, Teddy realized that he could also hear them talking if he concentrated on their faces.
"Who cares where he is?" Ciaran was saying.
"Yeah, and I'm tellin' about that dog, too!" Lee said.
"You want another broken nose?" Freddie asked him, and for just a moment, Teddy felt better.
"You just wait," Lee went on, "You ever been around him when the moon gets full, Cuz?"
"Yeah, you ever seen him when he's ... like that?" Ciaran almost whispered.
"One good nip, an' you're right in it with him!" Lee put in, "In fact, all four of us could be!" He paused. "An' what about what they're sayin' ‘bout Jack?"
"I'm not ashamed of it! I'm scared ‘o the both of ‘em!" Ciaran agreed, "An' his bloody dog, too!"
"Th-they'll do something with Teddy," Freddie fumbled, but Teddy just sat down, hard, when he saw the look on his cousin's face and heard the tone of his voice. "They'll lock him up somewhere, just like at home! They won't let him get us. Uncle Ron wouldn't allow that."
Teddy's glass fell from his hand, shattering on the floor.
"Master?" Kreacher asked, moving to put his hand on Teddy's arm.
Teddy looked at Kreacher's sincere face. Then he looked back up at his roomies' faces. The rest of the house elves gasped as Teddy then hugged Kreacher, holding him tightly, as the boy just sat and trembled. For as bad as he felt as if he wanted to cry, though, the tears just would not come.
"K-Kreacher," Teddy then whispered in a voice breaking with pain, "C-call Grandma Andromeda. I w-wanna go home!"
* ^..^ *
@
Friday's course load consisted of single Charms and double Potions, with the afternoon free. And for as upset as Teddy already was, he was still hurt when Freddie simply greeted him with a cool "Hey, Teddy," and didn't even ask where'd he'd been at breakfast. What also made him wonder was that his Uncle Harry hadn't yet tracked him down for that talk. But Teddy put it out of his mind as he headed to class, he and Jack bringing up the rear of the group of students.
Charms didn't go too badly. After all, Teddy had already picked up most of what Hermione was talking about, but he was a bit disappointed when the points for first successful attempt at making a feather fly went to Jack. Seeing as how it made Jack smile, though, Teddy couldn't begrudge him that. When the bell rang, Teddy levitated his books into his bag.
"He needed that, didn't he?" Teddy asked Hermione, his book bag floating happily beside him.
"It's so good of you to see it that way," she told him. "And where were you at dinner, and breakfast?"
"I'm glad someone noticed," he answered flatly.
Hermione's eyebrows went up. "Teddy, why don't you see if Jack would like to go to Hagrid's with you this afternoon?" She then bent down to whisper. "I hear the others are avoiding him, since he got out of Hospital?"
"I know the feeling," Teddy nodded sadly. "I think they're onto him."
"Oh, no," Hermione sighed, as Teddy headed out.
Teddy had thought of asking Jack already, but he was too scared. He still felt terrible about finding out that Jack had been bitten and was now infected, and asking him to clarify what he'd overheard in Hospital was just out of the question. He'd been planning on asking Freddie along, but when he arrived in the dungeons for Potions class, Teddy saw that Freddie was already partnered with Sammy Keith from Ravenclaw. Teddy looked around, saw Ciaran and Lee sitting together, as well as some other paired off Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws. He also noticed that the Slytherins were there, too.
Sitting alone at the back of the room, near the door, was Jack.
"Hey!" Teddy greeted him, "You mind?"
Jack looked surprised. "No! No, n-not at all?" Jack smiled as Teddy sat.
"Leg still hurt?" Teddy asked, for lack of anything better to say. His face and hair both turned magenta. He shifted them back before the Slytherins could see him.
"Yeah," Jack nodded. "But Madame Pomfrey says it'll stop before the year's out. But it's not so bad."
"You missed a lot yesterday," Teddy told him.
"So I heard!" Jack snickered. "Did you really turn into a white wolf with no moon?"
"Nohhhhh," Teddy drawled, rolling his eyes. "It was an illusion, with my dog."
"Bloody good one then, if you ask me!" Jack congratulated him. "Can we..." he leaned over to whisper, "...you know, transform without a full moon? I mean, like they said Professor McGonagall can?"
"Well, she's an Animagus, not a Werecat, and tha's diff'rent..."
About then, Professor Malfoy came in and smacked them both over the heads with a back issue of POTIONS MONTHLY.
"All right, how many of you know how to cook - food?" Malfoy asked, as the door slammed behind him.
A few hands went up.
"WITHOUT a house elf?"
Several hands went down.
"It's going to be a long year," Malfoy sighed, noticing that Parkinson still had his hand up. "Your mother never could cook, either, poor dear," Malfoy added wistfully.
"Tell me about it, sir!" Parkinson laughed, and Malfoy smiled weakly.
"Fine, then...did anyone even bother to look at their copy of Phyllida Spore's 1,000 Magical Herbs & Fungiyet?"
Teddy slowly raised his hand.
"No one?" Malfoy rolled his eyes, reaching down under the desk to grab a tall, slender box. "All right, does anyone know what this is then?" He then lifted the lid.
Teddy's nose began to burn at once, and his stomach rolled. Beside him, Jack sneezed.
"Lavender?" Goyle guessed, as everyone looked at the potted blooming flower.
"Close," Malfoy said. "Anyone?" Next to Goyle, the other three Slytherins were almost bouncing in their seats. "Other than you three?" He added, as he picked up the potted flower and began roaming the room with it. Teddy knew full well what it was, but he wasn't about to hold up his hand.
"Monkshood?" A girl asked.
"Yes, one point for Hufflepuff," Malfoy nodded casually. "Also known as...?"
"Aconite?" Keith of Ravenclaw guessed.
"Very good, one point," Malfoy agreed, "A key ingredient in one of the most - maybe even the most - complex potions ever conceived. Any other guesses?" He asked, "For an extra point?"
Teddy saw that Malfoy was getting dangerously close to him and Jack, and he tried to hold a sneeze in. Beside him, Jack was scratching his leg on his chair and wincing. Teddy could smell burnt spinach again, and he knew very well what the offensive plant was that Malfoy was carrying towards them.
"ACHOOOOO!"
"Not quite, guess again?" Malfoy asked, one eyebrow raised as he stood right in front of them. Then he spun around; Teddy flinched. "C'mon, Lupin, surely YOU know what this is?" He held the plant right up to Teddy's face.
On the other side of the room, everyone was staring at Teddy and Jack.
"W-W-Wolfsbane," Teddy mumbled, holding his stomach as the nauseating smell of the flower almost overpowered him and he began to itch all over.
"What?"
"WOLFSBANE!" Teddy then exclaimed, a bit too loudly. Then he sneezed. Right in Malfoy's face.
"Correct," Malfoy said in a disgusted tone, "And almost no one is allergic to it. Almost?"
"Except for werewolves, sir?" Flint held up his hand.
"Five points for Slytherin," Malfoy smirked at Teddy. "Well done, Michael!" He looked at Teddy. "And five points from Gryffindor for sneezing on me!"
Teddy swallowed a growl, seeing as how Malfoy had given no points for his correct answer.
"Three names, one plant, in a blue and yellow variety," Malfoy went on, but not before he placed the pot on Teddy and Jack's table and walked away. Both boys recoiled from it as if it were a live snake.
"As I was saying, the main ingredient in the Wolfsbane Potion, as it is known to some. Discovered about...," he held up his hand and began counting on his fingers. "Let's see, I was a Third Year, and Remus Lupin was teaching DADA, so that would make it...,"
"Seventeen years ago?" Freddie held up his hand.
"About," Malfoy nodded, but not awarding any points.
Teddy and Jack both sneezed again.
"Sounds like someone's allergic?" Goyle snickered, and everyone was now staring at Teddy and Jack.
"You two don't like flowers? Longbottom will be so disappointed," Malfoy shook his head.
Unable to control his stomach any longer, Teddy leaned over and vomited into his new cauldron. The class erupted in laughter.
"Oh, just get out," Malfoy waved them off, "Go see Madame Pomfrey ... or Hagrid," he added with a sneer. Teddy and Jack both left their cauldrons and fled the dungeons.
"But such a potion is too complex for First Years. We need something simple. Curing boils and rashes," Malfoy then continued to lecture, as if nothing were amiss at all.
"He did WHAT?" Madame Pomfrey screeched, as the two coughing, itching, and wheezing boys came in. She began liberally spooning foul and smoking allergy potions into them, and then immediately ordered them into pyjamas and beds. The miserable boys didn't argue; they just sneezed and scratched as the Mediwitch summoned Professors McGonagall and Potter.
McGonagall was shocked and Harry was livid when the drowsy boys finished their story. He was so angry, in fact, that bottles on the shelves were rattling.
"I TOLD KINGSLEY THIS WAS A HUGE MISTAKE!" Harry roared, and several bottles exploded.
"Harry," McGonagall tried to calm him down, but Harry would have none of it.
"Uncle?" Teddy moaned weakly, fighting the fog of the allergy potion, "What...what d-did I ever do to him?" Teddy whined. Beside him, Jack had already gone to sleep.
"Oh, Teddy!" Harry sighed, taking the boy in his arms, "You didn't go anything to him! He was just being his usual nasty self."
"It...it's in my p-potion," Teddy mumbled, "...s-sick...," he managed, before he fell asleep.
"Harry, don't do anything foolish," McGonagall warned him. "Remember - we need him." She then had an idea. "Why don't you go talk to Hagrid?" She suggested with a knowing little smile.
When the last bell of the day rang, Harry found Hagrid returning to the front lawn with a group of Third Years, one of whom looked quite frazzled. The girl was complaining that she was never even getting on a broom again in her life! When Harry met Hagrid at his cabin, they both had to laugh. "Hippogriffs?" They said together, as Hagrid poured them a drink. Harry took a swig and coughed. Whatever it was, it was strong!
"Where's Teddy?" Hagrid asked, checking the clock. "I'm expectin' him after three fer tea?"
"Not coming," Harry answered; Hagrid was taken aback.
"Why not?" He sounded so disappointed, as he poured them another.
"Potions didn't agree with him. He's in Hospital," Harry replied. "Along with Jack Abbott."
Hagrid thought for a bit. "Little brown-headed Gryffindor fellow, pale and sickly?" Harry nodded.
"Malfoy exposed them both to blooming wolfsbane in class," Harry stated.
Hagrid's reaction was less than serene. Harry thought that the villagers probably heard him, and he was sure that the students on the lawn had. When he was done shouting and throwing things (with Harry casting a hard shield charm around himself), Hagrid grabbed his pink umbrella and headed for the door.
"I'll deal with it," Harry said coldly, which stopped the huge man in his tracks, "Right after dinner."
"When's Teddy gettin' out?" Hagrid asked, sniffling. For a man so huge, Harry had always known, Hagrid was also just as big of a pushover when it came to children and animals.
"Tomorrow, we hope," Harry replied. "And I'm going to have a busy day. Would you mind babysitting, Hagrid?" Harry then asked, although he knew full well that Teddy didn't need a babysitter. What Harry was worried about was staving off another bout of depression. It had been about a week since the last full moon, and Teddy had still spent most of that week in bed.
"Oh, Harry!" Hagrid choked, pulling out a handkerchief the size of a tablecloth and blowing his nose. Then Hagrid looked up. "Does that mean that the Abbott boy's...that he's...?"
Harry nodded grimly.
"TWO OF ‘EM?!" Hagrid exclaimed, as if it were his birthday and Harry had just handed him a present!
*^..^*
O
Teddy and Jack were conspicuous by their absence at dinner that night. And so was Draco Malfoy. After picking at his food for a while, Harry got up and slowly stalked out of the Hall with all eyes on him.
"There's gonna be murder," Ron whispered to Hermione.
"Neville, which greenhouse contains the wolfsbane and other plants with werewolf-repellant qualities?" Hermione asked.
"Three?" Neville answered, "Why?"
"Keep Teddy and Jack Abbott away from it," Ron suggested.
"OH!" Neville gasped. "Got it!" Then he thought for a minute. "Riiiiight!" It finally soaked in.
Harry didn't bother to knock on the door to the Staff potions lab in the dungeons. He simply knocked it down. From the large cauldron where Draco Malfoy was obviously working came a reply:
"Come in?"
"You've got two minutes to explain to me what happened today," Harry warned him.
"Well, I got up and showered," Malfoy began, "Then I picked out a robe - black, with green and silver trim? I feel like I've been wearing the same thing for years now?" He offered with a smirk, as Harry blasted a shelf full of pickled ... things ... into oblivion.
"Broomstick splinters, Potter?" Malfoy offered. "I have a balm for that, although you'll have to apply it yourself!"
Harry took a deep breath of the close, smelly air of the lab. He thought he recognized it, but his temper was still up. "Explain to me WHY you exposed MY child to fresh wolfsbane in your class?" He said, very slowly and deliberately.
Malfoy gestured at the steaming cauldron. "This?"
"You can't be brewing it already?" Harry asked.
"You never were the potions genius," Malfoy shook his head, "Except for when you found Professor Snape's old textbook. I remember that well. I've got to keep a batch going. It takes this stuff a few weeks to season."
"And I'm about to give you a repeat performance," Harry threatened him, referring to the Sectumsempra spell that he'd found scribbled in the margin - a spell which had literally slashed Malfoy open as if Harry had been using a sword.
"Then I'm afraid you'll be stuck with Granger - Weasley - whatever...," Malfoy shivered, "to brew this foul concoction for the boy."
"'Boy'?" Harry asked, "There's two of them, or didn't you know?"
"Potter, if anyone knows who the werewolves of Hogwarts are, were, and will be in this day and age, it's me. Youshould know that."
"And?" Harry pressed him.
"AND - your little angel-boy can't take this potion, you idiot!" Malfoy snapped back at him with a sudden heat. "He's deathly allergic to it."
Harry just stood there.
"Don't believe me?" Malfoy grinned, "Look here, Potter!" He gestured at a few Petri dishes. "These are samples obtained from Teddy Lupin today, some magically preserved, but still viable."
Harry came over and looked at the dishes. "That's disgusting?" He said.
"That's your kid," Malfoy nodded, "Now, watch this." He then dripped a bit of some old leftover potion into the first dish.
"Saliva - in other words, ‘Lupin-spit'. He drools in his sleep, did you know?"
"Get on with it?" Harry growled, as the sample evaporated with a hiss.
"Next up, and no nice way to say it - vomit," Malfoy stated, "Recovered from his cauldron this morning, which I had cleaned, thank you." One drop of the potion did the same thing.
His next sample was clean stomach acid, magically extracted. The result of contact with the potion was almost violent. The next dish contained a blood sample, and the next, a urine sample. Malfoy had even had Madame Pomfrey collect spinal fluid and bone marrow samples magically. In all cases, the potion caused a similar reaction as it literally destroyed Teddy's samples.
Harry's face paled. "But...but he drank a metered dose?" He gasped.
"And it made him deathly ill," Malfoy explained patiently, seeming to ignore the fact that Harry really wanted to hurt him. "This is undiluted adult-strength, of course, I'll have to water it down a bit for Abbott, but still - you can visualize the scaled-down effects of a child's dosage?" Harry nodded. Malfoy continued.
"Mrs. Weasley's...," Malfoy paused. "This is confusing; I keep thinking of Ron's mum?" He shuddered, "Can I say ‘Hermione'?" Harry nodded.
"Hermione's reports say that each time he had some, young Master Lupin choked, cried, vomited, then changed form and passed out? And the usual playful puppy then went to sleep, wheezy and congested, and in need of more meds, which is totally out of the classic werewolf character? Hagrid also informed me of some other, ahhh, less than pleasant symptoms?"
Harry agreed.
"Congratulations, Potter - you almost killed your child," Malfoy informed him. "If old Slughorn had bothered to test young Master Lupin for allergies, he would have seen this right off, as I did. Good thing he retired when he did, no?"
"And that's why you brought the flower to class?" Harry asked through clenched teeth. "Not just to humiliate him?"
"That, and they make a lovely centerpiece," Malfoy joked, but Harry didn't reply. He just stared at the cauldron full of the solution that was supposed to insure Teddy's safety, and the safety of those around him.
"How...?" Harry began, but Malfoy held up his hand.
"When the potion was first discovered some years ago, there were a number of casualties in getting it right," Malfoy went on, "But even Muggle werewolves, desperate for a cure, were willing to risk it. Fortunately, in the name of speedy research, no one seemed to care how many of them they poisoned in the process. And, there was no shortage of volunteers.
"It was actually that idiot, Gilderoy Lockhart, in his work of utter fiction, Wanderings with Werewolves, that gave me the idea. You see, we all know he was a fraud and didn't really fight the Wagga Wagga Werewolf! No, instead he took him out to tea, and slipped him the final version of the Wolfsbane Potion. The poor bloke promptly fell over dead, right there, in the middle of his tea and biscuits!"
"Dead?!" Harry exclaimed.
"Deader than a twice-reanimated Inferius," Malfoy stated. "He was an adult, a fully realized werewolf, he was allergic, and he drank it full strength." Malfoy then made a strangling sound and did a bad dying act for drama.
Harry rolled his eyes.
"I can't believe you all didn't have the wits to test that poor child for allergies!" Malfoy almost crowed. "After all you've done to help him, then you lot almost go and kill him last week!"
Harry sat down. Hard.
"I'm taking it that last month was his first time to need it?" Malfoy asked. "Mother wrote me and told me about him, you know. Thought she'd had enough of living with werewolves, but oh well - she always was sort of stupid where little children were concerned. Although if anyone could turn a werewolf into a lapdog, I guess she and Auntie Andromeda could."
Harry nodded. "Have you seen her?"
Malfoy looked momentarily stricken, but it passed. "No," was all he said, so Harry moved on.
"Teddy never got mean," Harry explained, "But he had a bad temper and nightmares the day before."
"What does a pre-change-werewolf-boy having nightmares have to do with the caliber of his ferocity after the change?" Malfoy asked. "There's nothing documented on that?"
"There is now," Harry corrected him.
"Little Lupin is one case, Potter, not a thesis?"
"Still," Harry insisted, "I know. Trust me on that one."
"We didn't trust one another when we were eleven, Potter," Malfoy reminded him, "And it's ironic to start now. It's a bit late in the day, don't you think?" Malfoy replied, sounding a lot like his father. Harry shivered a bit, amazed that he hadn't seen that one coming. "You have a source that I don't?"
"No," Harry lied.
"Well," Malfoy then stated, as he got up to give the potion a stir, "Then I'd say it's the Shack for Teddy. Abbott didn't vomit, so that means he can take it. His rash was also quite mild. The properties of the flower, you see, they change when you add the...,"
"Spare me the lesson," Harry cut in. "So you're saying Jack can take it, but Teddy CAN'T?!"
Malfoy nodded, and Harry felt as if the chair were falling out from under him.
"Auntie Andromeda claims that he's playful, though?" Malfoy asked. "He even plays with your children? Bit irresponsible, don't you think, Potter? One nip, and bang - you've got a litter on your hands?"
"They wear special gloves, and he's trained to not bite," Harry countered.
"So, you smack his nose with a rolled up newspaper, or what?"
Harry blushed. Malfoy laughed.
"He's not a lapdog, for Merlin's sake, Potter! He's a dangerous monster!" Malfoy then said very seriously. "And the one thing that can help him - won't! It will kill him!"
"He's never gone mean!" Harry shouted at Malfoy, his anger rising again.
"YET!" Malfoy countered just as hotly. "He's twelve, Potter! He's not a baby anymore! He's out of nappies, he's eating solid food, and in case you didn't notice, he's walking," Malfoy said with much sarcasm.
"Don't you tell me how to take care of MY child!" Harry retorted. "What would YOU know about children?"
"Only what I've learned in having little Scorpius," Malfoy replied haughtily. Harry gaped at him. Malfoy smiled again, and this time, it was genuine. It was a smile that Harry knew well, because he felt it every time he saw Teddy - and James, and Albus, and Lily.
"H-how?" Harry asked.
"The stork dropped him in the pumpkin patch," Malfoy snickered, "How do you think?"
"I meant that no one knew!" Harry exclaimed, "Does Narcissa know? Because Andromeda doesn't?"
"Auntie and Mother both know," Malfoy assured him, looking wistful, "No, Potter, Scorpius Hyperion Malfoy is the best-kept secret in the history of the Malfoy line, I'd say. He's four now, same as Albus Severus, by the way. They'll be going to school together." Malfoy paused. "What a name! You realize his initials spell out the word ‘ASP'? A snake? He'll sort right into Slytherin House, you know," Malfoy taunted Harry.
"They never mentioned your son?" Harry wondered, ignoring that last comment.
"S-E-C-R-E-T, Potter," Malfoy spelled it out. "We don't want his existence publicized."
"'We'?"
"His mother, Astoria, and I. You remember her? Miss Greengrass? And for good reason," Malfoy said, "And that's all I'll tell you. I'll have to ... trust ... you," he almost choked, "To keep it a secret?"
"You're married?" Harry wondered.
"Yeeeeesssss," Malfoy groaned, "I am! Pansy wasn't - isn't - and I did it the classic way, right after I met Astoria at St. M-...," he literally bit his tongue. "We met, got married, had Scorpius. Satisfied?"
"St. Mungo's?" Harry asked, astonished. Malfoy looked away.
"Back to your child's furry little medical issue?" Malfoy tried to change the subject.
"So the rumor about you having a breakdown was true, then?" Harry badgered him, "After the battle, and the arrests, you just disappeared! Everyone always wondered what happened to you."
"Rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated," Malfoy hissed at him, "And NONE of your damn business!"
"I am Deputy Headmaster of Hogwarts, a fellow teacher, Auror, and a parent whose child you are responsible for - for several hours a week!" Harry objected, "I don't like having sketchy information about you, and worse yet, information that I flat out don't believe about you! Besides, you wouldn't believe the hate-mail we got about you being hired!"
"You think Shacklebolt lied to you?" Malfoy shook his head. "Why would he make up something like that, then hire me for this position? I don't want to be here, Potter!" Malfoy shook his head, "But it's part of my...probation," He confessed. "As soon as we sort this mess out, I'll be taking my family and leaving again."
"Because it's too dangerous for you here?" Harry guessed, "What did you expect, Malfoy? After the rest of the Death Eaters saw how miserably you failed in your various missions, how could you possibly come back here and think that those few that haven't been rounded up - or managed to lie or buy their way out of convictions - would let you rest? What is it about you that Kingsley isn't telling me?" He paused, but Malfoy offered nothing else.
Harry stood up, and the look on his face was deadly. "If you don't start talking, I'm going over McGonagall's head and right to Kingsley with this," Harry threatened him. "You humiliated my child in front of everyone, inflamed the rumors already going on about him, and intentionally made him ill," Harry was almost shouting. "Give me onegood reason as to why I shouldn't just put the rest of us out of your misery?"
"Oh, hang up your Auror's hat for the term, Potter," Malfoy sighed. "I was cleared on everything, as your office should know." He then turned away, holding his left arm. Harry watched as Malfoy then rolled up his sleeve. Harry's hand drifted towards his wand, but Malfoy held up his arm to show him a large scar that covered the entire surface of his inner forearm. It reminded Harry of Charlie Weasley's dragon-burn scars.
"Excoriation of the Dark Mark is a long and involved - and very painful - process," Malfoy explained. "After I...I...fell apart, in custody," Malfoy reluctantly confessed, "I woke up in St. Mungo's some time later. I don't remember much of the weeks in custody at Azkaban, after the battle, but they said I...I tried to cut my own arm off," he managed, his voice dropping to almost a whisper. "Astoria called it a...a psychotic break." He took a deep breath and looked away.
"You can't know, Potter," Malfoy continued, "You can't know what it's like to try to live up to expectations placed upon you that you can't possibly HOPE to live up to, no matter how hard you try. You can't imagine what it's like to have your life depending on your success in a hopeless mission."
Malfoy then turned away, going back to his potion.
Harry watched him for a few moments, unsure of what to say. It was so unlike the Malfoy that he remembered - the boy who hadn't even been the least bit grateful (or if he had been, only for a moment) when Harry had saved his life from the runaway Fiendfyre during the Battle of Hogwarts. The very fire which had claimed the life of one of Malfoy's best friends. This wasn't the cocky and self-assured Draco that he knew and despised.
This was someone else.
This was someone who had gone into a battle other than the one that Harry remembered, but one who had emerged not victorious - but beaten and broken.
And Harry wasn't sure what to say.
"Yes, Professor, I can," Harry then finally offered, his voice calm and even sympathetic. "And now that you have a family of your own, then maybe you can understand what it was like for me, being the one who was expected to save the world - when he didn't have a clue how to do it? How does it feel to have others' lives hanging upon your every action?"
Malfoy said nothing.
He didn't even look at Harry.
Harry wondered if the shame of it all were too much for the new Potions Master to handle, but he pressed on.
"I realize you don't want to be here, Malfoy, and I realize that you're smart enough to know that you're not really welcome here by most of the staff. They don't trust you, but they also don't know your story. Not that I do, either," he wheedled, but it didn't seem to work.
"But you'd like to?" Malfoy snorted.
"Who do you think Charlie Weasley was coordinating with here, on the Isles, while you were on the continent?" Harry asked. Malfoy turned to look at him again. "He didn't tell you that?" Harry laughed, "Not surprising, considering they didn't tell ME who was on the other side of things until almost opening day here!"
Harry shook his head and sighed. "Poor Charlie, the liaison in the legendary Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter feud!"
"It is almost funny, in a rather perverse way, isn't it?" Malfoy smiled wanly. But his eyes - steely and colorless like Harry remembered - weren't laughing. And while he'd only seen Malfoy crying once, as a boy, it hadn't been that much of a scene. Malfoy had quickly shrugged it off, replacing it with anger and an attempted attack. Still, Harry thought he might imagine it by overlaying Malfoy's boyhood face onto Teddy's.
And to his surprise, Harry found that it hurt.
"Why they chose me for this, I'll never know," Malfoy sighed, as he sat down at the desk and watched the Wolfsbane Potion bubbling. "My extent of knowledge of werewolves came from being up close and personal with Fenrir Greyback, ugly brute," Malfoy snorted. "Having him lurking about the Manor, never knowing where he was, always wondering if he...the Dark Lord...had sent him out to bite some innocent little kid." He paused, shivering; he moved closer to the fire. "Wondering, each night when the full moon rose, if he were coming for me? Knowing that he wouldn't kill me, but consign me to something even worse?"
"You were never an innocent little kid," Harry joked.
"Oh, I don't know, Mother says differently," Malfoy replied, "I can't believe you didn't have a seizure when she made up with Auntie Andromeda? Narcissa Malfoy, mother of your boyhood enemy, living with your precious Teddy?"
"We spoke," Harry conceded. "You do know that it was she who turned the tide of the Battle of Hogwarts?
"You spoke? Once in how many years?" Malfoy looked astonished.
"There's nothing more to say between us," Harry justified it. "She made her decisions, I made mine. I have no reason to believe she's a threat to Teddy." He paused. "Or should I?"
Malfoy shook his head. "No, not Mother. It's not HER you have to worry about, Potter.
"Now?" He got up, gesturing at the blackened and ruined Petri dishes that had once held Teddy's samples, "Before we got sidetracked talking about mine, we were talking about your kid?"
Harry joined him at the table again, staring at the ruined samples and feeling nauseated. How close did we come to killing him? He wondered.
"To review, what you saw was the adult strength potion applied to samples from a child," Malfoy explained, as if talking to a new First Year. Harry bit his tongue, but listened. "In each case, bodily fluids were badly damaged upon contact, and then totally destroyed as we chatted."
"Apparently?" Harry eyed one of the dishes in disgust.
"However," Malfoy then grinned, and this time it was a genuine grin, "This just might lead to something that will win me the Paracelsus Prize for Potions, to say nothing of all the other accolades," Malfoy then gestured to a contraption on the other counter. Harry recognized the behemoth of lenses and mirrors as the wizarding equivalent to a Muggle microscope.
"Don't start polishing the trophy yet," Harry advised, "What is it?"
"Take a look at this," Malfoy put a slide into the machine, then activated it with his wand. "This is human, rather, wizard's blood - mine, in fact. Fresh, and still alive." Harry looked at it. It looked like the pictures of ordinary blood cells he'd seen before. So much for the Pureblood hypothesis, Harry thought.
Malfoy changed the slide. "This is plain old ordinary wolf's blood, preserved, of course, with magic." Harry looked at it. The wolf's blood was a different coloration than human blood, and the cellular structures were different.
Malfoy changed the slide. "This is Jack Abbott's blood, when he's human," Malfoy said. Harry looked at it. It looked like human blood, but with an odder coloration and a mix of cells. Where the human cells collided with wolf cells, however, there was an even different discoloration to the blood plasma not found in Malfoy's blood.
"Different cells interacting with one another?" Harry asked. Malfoy nodded. "Almost symbiotic?" Malfoy actually smiled as he might with a Slytherin First Year who'd done well in class.
As Malfoy changed the slide again, he showed Harry some of Jack's blood taken during his last transformation. Harry didn't ask how he'd gotten that.
Jack's werewolf blood wasn't quite the same as Jack's human blood; there were many more wolf cells and they were much more active.
Malfoy changed the slide. "Now this, this is Teddy's blood," Malfoy explained. Harry looked at it.
It looked neither like Malfoy's nor Jack's blood. The cells were all different shapes, no two the same, and muchmore active. They were also more saturated in a unique red, and pulsating, as if in a flurry of activity. As Harry watched, the cells also tended to change size and shape. The plasma had the same odd tint as Jack's, but that was where the resemblance stopped. As Harry watched, he saw the human-shaped cells, shifting as they were, randomly bump into wolf cells - and merge into something new.
"Because Teddy's a Metamorphmagus?" Harry asked.
"There's hope for the Gryffindor yet!" Malfoy nodded. "Now this," he changed the slide again, "Is a preserved sample of Nymphadora Tonks' blood. I got it from Madame Pomfrey."
Harry looked at Tonks' blood, a lump rising in his throat, and saw that it was similar to Teddy's - furious activity, cellular shape shifting, but not similar in color to Teddy's. There were also no wolfly cells. Tonks' coloration was more like Malfoy's, while the color of Teddy's and Jack's blood was more like that of the wolf.
"Do you see the pattern, Potter?" Malfoy asked.
Harry nodded.
"Now watch this," Malfoy said, as he magically summoned a microscopic drop of potion with his wand and dripped it into Jack's blood sample.
Harry watched in wonder as Jack's hybridized blood changed back to a more human color. It then paled a bit, and cellular activity slowed. The wolf cells then began to die off.
"The potion works on the blood, you see," Malfoy explained, "Returning the cellular makeup and plasma to a more normal, human state. It sort of causes a wolfly-anemia, and that's why the wolf becomes more tractable and goes to sleep, or at least, isn't so rough and wild."
He then put Teddy's slide back in.
"Brace yourself," Malfoy warned him, as he applied the potion to Teddy's blood.
ALL of the violently moving cells slowed down. The wolf cells began dying first, and the plasma turned very dull. The furiously shifting human cells then began to slow to normal human levels, and stopped absorbing both living and dead wolf cells. Then they, too, began lose color and die.
Finally, there was nothing left but the hybridized human-wolf cells. They were redder than any of the others, and it seemed as if they wanted to shift, but couldn't.
Then they, too, died.
"Oh my God," Harry breathed in horror.
"One more thing?" Malfoy asked, "No, you better stay seated, Potter," He warned him.
"We know that Teddy is unique," Malfoy said, and Harry thought he heard something like sympathy in his old nemesis' voice. "But we didn't know just HOW unique until now."
"What IS it?!" Harry almost cried, wondering if Malfoy were then going to just up and leave without telling him.
"This is a special slide that St. Mungo's gave me. It's charmed to operate in a sort of accelerated mode, of sorts, like a Time Turner. They use them for research. Once I activate it, you're going to see a much speeded-up view in there, so watch closely; I've only got this one left."
Malfoy then filled the slide with Teddy's blood, more than before, and placed it in the microscope. He then activated it with his wand, which activated the slide. As he did that, he placed a dusty gray rock near the beam of light as well. "The Ministry got this from the Americans, it's a piece of the moon," Malfoy explained to an amazed Harry.
"Luna lux lucis," Malfoy then said, and the rock lit up with the glow of a full moon.
On the magically accelerated slide, Harry watched as something odd happened. Teddy's wolf cells went as frantic as his other human Metamorphmagus cells, and began overtaking the human and hybrid cells. Not only did they hybridize more, as before, but this time it was totally different.
The wolf-structured cells were rapidly and totally taking over the hybridization process.
Very quickly, only furiously moving hybrid wolf cells were left. They didn't look like pure wolf cells any longer, but they also didn't look like Metamorphmagus cells - even though they acted just like them.
They were something totally new.
"What does this mean?" Harry gasped.
"It means, Potter," Malfoy said, as he switched off the machine, "That Teddy is slowly transforming, unawares, into something that we've never seen before. With each full moon, he must transform. But when he changes back, his blood is permanently altered more. Each moon, each change, more alteration, with his wolfly cellular structures literally becoming mutated Metamorphmagus cells.
"You see, Abbott has a hybrid bloodSTREAM. Teddy now has hybrid blood cells, and they're overtaking his human and wolf cells and mutating them into something of their own agenda. And this new ‘moon-regenerative blood type' feeds every single organ and tissue of his body, thus changing them as well."
"And?!" Harry almost begged, with fear evident in his voice.
Malfoy sighed. There was genuine concern on his face. Harry knew that wasn't good.
"In time, Potter, Teddy Lupin will cease to be the boy you know now. He's slowly evolving into something else - something that the Muggle or Wizarding World has never seen before!"