Draco Malfoy and The Aeternum Caput | Drarry

The Pyromancer

TW: Discussion of suicide and attempted murder.

Saying that Draco Malfoy was overwhelmed was a huge euphemism. The last two days had been very odd, to say the least. His little serpent Anya was back with her mother and father, which always left him with a certain emptiness lingering around in his chest, and Draco was left with the full Golden Trio instead. Draco hated that exchange so very much! The four of them spent past two whole days in his obsidian Safe Room working on the Aurum Papilio case. And even though things were relatively calm, there were some issues.

Monday afternoon had been a lesson in humility to Hermione I-think-I'm-so-fucking-brilliant Granger, who naturally failed to make both 'the bane of will' and its antidote, as Draco expected. Not that he doubted her brilliance, but he just knew that potion had some secret not so easy to unveil. Tuesday was another lesson for her after three more failures, and she had started to behave much more nicely around Draco after that. Not that Draco had any right to complain about her attitude towards him, since his former self was the one always calling her 'mudblood' whenever he had the chance. He had to admit he was a prick growing up.

On Tuesday night, Granger claimed she needed to do research before trying anything else and hadn't come in to work with them that Wednesday morning, April 30th. Draco actually had to congratulate himself for not giving Granger a big 'I told you so' when she left on Tuesday night, and he reckoned that he was behaving just fine around The Golden Trio, especially for the terrible standards that he had set in the past.

Still, Draco was not actually enjoying the company, Merlin forbids, no, he hated having all this people coming in and out of his office! He was used to working alone, and he would prefer it to have stayed that way. But he managed to at least not set his company on fire or offend them in any major way. In his case, he considered this was a major victory.

Weasley and Potter had spent Monday and Tuesday reviewing every detail that Draco spent the last five months gathering. Both Aurors had been silent or whispering among themselves for most of the time they'd spent in Draco's presence. All in all, he could say everyone was managing to behave more or less civilly for the past two days. The thing was that in that Wednesday morning, Weasley stayed behind to question the four prisoners they captured in the Knockturn Alley once again.

So, for Draco greatest despair, it was just him and Harry Potter in his black obsidian Safe Room. Potter was still sitting quietly in a table they had conjured on Monday, writing down on his own notebook, probably organizing the facts Draco uncovered in his own way.

Thus, Draco was happy to comply with the silence, and was currently staring at his many notes on the preparation of 'the bane of will', scattered on his potion counter. He gave up on the antidote for now since it was impossible to counter the effect of something he still didn't fully comprehend. His efforts were now all directed to uncovering what final mysterious ingredient was missing in his half-constructed recipe of that cursed potion.

He stared once again at the list of ingredients he was sure that were necessary for that potion, written together with his major observations on the quantities of such ingredients and methods for potion preparation:

The Bane of Will

Dandelion roots - Two, sliced not crumbled. Potion blows up if you crumble them.

Fairy wing - Powder, 1.5 small measures at most. DO NOT ADD MORE THAN THAT! I AM TIRED OF LOSING CAULDERONS BECAUSE OF THIS SHIT!

Eye of Newt - At least two, could be more. I hate the smell of this thing.

Hellebore - Not sure how much, but it's necessary to help get the potion transparent.

Nightshade - Main ingredient for transparency. Use liquid extract, as pure as possible 5 small measures.