Missed the previous installment? Here you go!
It occurs to me that I should have read ahead in the story and chosen drinks appropriate for each chapter. Ah, well, live and learn. Besides, since the Polyjuice is still in effect, it’s a good time as any to drink something inspired by it.
This recipe comes from Homemade Hooplah, and I’m grateful for another non-alcoholic Harry Potter drink. (I’m far from a teetotaler, but what’s with adults wanting to booze up everything related to this franchise?) Some extra love went into this one since I made the lime sherbet from scratch. I could have bought a carton of the stuff, but if I can’t make at least one food item with my own hands now, I’m an unhappy little cook. You can read about my wrist-cramping, shoulder-toning adventure here and maybe learn how to make sherbet without an ice cream maker.
The drink isn’t anything to rave about. Green food dye adds vividness to what would have otherwise been a drab, champagne-colored fizzy. I liked having the softened whipped topping touch my lips more than drizzling the drink down my gullet, only because I’ve never been a fan of ginger ale (I’ll drink it if the other option is Sierra Mist, though). The Polyjuice Potion is still worth a try, so make a batch for your next Halloween or Harry Potter-themed party.
Right, on to the next installment.
Chapter Three: Narcissa Malfoy
LUCIUS: Do you mind, boy? The grownups are plotting.
Harry keeps his cool at the mention of his name. “What about Harry Potter?” he asks, which doesn’t please the elder Malfoy one bit. He says to Macnair that Draco “talks about young Harry all the time, don’t you, boy?”
HARRY: All the time? Oh, dear, I better not find a journal with hearts scrawled round “Draco Potter” on every page.
Lucius also mentions that Harry has beaten his son at Quidditch, which makes Harry so happy that he boasts about it right there. Lucius and Macnair boggle at him before returning to their plotting. Macnair is positively giddy with evil glee. “It’s a really good scheme this time, Lucius. It’s really evil and cunning.”
MACNAIR: This will absolutely devastate him! We’ll have him sign up for a credit card that promises a low-interest rate for the first year…
LUCIUS: What is a credit card?
MACNAIR: Oh, nutterbutter.
Lucius isn’t impressed by his associate’s claim of the evilness and cunningness of the plan. It seems Macnair has had a long string of inconvenient and not very clever failures.
I think Voldemort set his sights a wee bit too high. Maybe he should have his people start off small, like waving away dust motes or stepping on grass. Begin with little inconveniencing actions before working their way up to limply slapping the living, breathing airplane black box.
Also, Hit Wizards?
Harry had had no idea these things happened, but he can sort of remember the time when Mrs. Figg from next door screamed at the sight of Dudley being sick. Not to be mean, but I think Dudley inspires that kind of terror even when he’s not spewing.
Macnair pleads for Lucius to humor him.
MACNAIR: Okay, okay… old age! We wait until Potter gradually succumbs to the natural process of living…
Team No-Nose has made other attempts to get Harry away from any protective magic. “[R]emember that time we sent him Arsenal tickets?” I had no idea what the hell Arsenal was, so I looked it up, which made the joke fall flatter than the current state of my Polyjuice drink. It’s a professional football club based in London. That’s European football, by the way, not the ball-carrying sport upon which many Americans have built a religion with levels of doomsday cult fanaticism. Clare must have looked up something Britishly sports-ish and picked the more popular team.
Macnair rambles on about how Dumbledore hasn’t let go of Potter, how everyone Harry loves is protected by charms or safely boarded at Hogwarts, and how “he loathes his Muggle family.” I’m sure he does, but wouldn’t Harry still be driven by his moral core to protect the Dursleys, being the “good” guy and all?
Anyway, Macnair has just the person to use as bait. Someone whom Harry loves dearly and “will do anything to protect.” It’s… *drumroll on the desk* Sirius Black!
Yeah, I thought it was a romantic interest, but Hermione is designated for Draco, and Cho doesn’t have a purpose other than to elicit snide giggles from Clare’s readers. (And, yes, I know Black/Potter fanfics exist. No, I’ve never read them. No, I don’t want to, so don’t send links.)
Mean-bloody-while, Draco-as-Harry has returned to Gryffindor Tower where he finds Hermione lounging with her familiar, Crookshanks the cat, and Ron reading The Art of Muggle Warfare. I hear chapter six has an entire section on slap fights and wet willies.
Draco informs the sidekicks that his body has been taken to Malfoy Manor. That read wrong, let me try again. Draco-as-Harry informs the sidekicks that his nemesis in Draco form has been taken to Malfoy Manor. This pleases Ron, who says, “With any luck they’ll never bring him back.” Somehow, I think Draco would be worse off as a result of homeschooling.
Draco reacts to this wishful thinking with a “choked sort of noise,” not realizing that he isn’t exactly trapped in Hogwarts forever, he can just sneak off to the damn manor and do a switcheroo, in fact, why doesn’t he take action instead of standing around, like maybe getting Goya or Crabcakes, whoever is the brutish strong one, to catapult him to the moors WHY DOESN’T THE LITTLE DICK JUST BULLY HIS WAY BACK HOME?
Augh, sorry. Hermione helpfully pipes up with, “[I]t’s not your fault, you only hit him because he hit you first.”
HERMIONE: You couldn’t control your basest urge for revenge and that’s fine.
Draco is beset by fears that his father will kill Harry Potter if he uncovers the truth. He remembers something that Voldemort had said: “Whoever brings me the dead body of the boy Harry Potter will be honored above all other Death Eaters.” Lucius would be exalted, so bummer for Draco. The boy would have one less mortal enemy, though, so take the bitter with the sweet, I suppose.
Ron pipes up with a non-sequitur about the book he’s reading. “Wonder if there’s any chance of getting the government to drop a what-d’you-call-it, nuclear bomb, on Malfoy Manor?” Fallout tends to be relatively self-containing. The rest of the world should be safe.
Draco retreats to the dorm when Hermione chases after him. Cripes, just tackle him already, girl.
DRACO: No, but I’m looking right at the source.
Draco is a ball of festering emotions at this point. He’s fearful of Harry’s fate at the manor. He loathes his new honor-bound role. He’s riddled with the stress of the charade he’s carrying out despite having had the opportunity to avoid all this by telling Snape about the Polyjuice mishap. To top it all off, Hermione is standing in front of him.
DRACO: Maybe I can kiss her and then yell at her. Or yell at her and then kiss her. Or kiss her and yell while our lips are locked…
DRACO: Fancy that, now a headache is developing.
HERMIONE: I really must talk about what happened between us—
DRACO: Now it’s a migraine.
Ew. Maybe Pomfrey has a potion for that.
Oh, affection.
Draco blows up. “Not everything is about you, Granger!” Yeah, it’s not The Hermione Trilogy!
He knocks her aside and bolts into the night… or daylight? I don’t care.
Back at Exposition Central, Macnair tells the reader how Wormtail tracked down Sirius Black and put a Binding Curse on him. I don’t know if this is his official personality or something Clare tweaked for her work, but Macnair tends to ramble about backstory. Lucius, like myself, is getting impatient and prompts Macnair to get on with it.
The disease-riddled lichen is a nice touch.
“Oh, thanks,” Lucius says, sounding so much like a cultured pureblood. But he’s happy with the plan, and both men share some evil laughter while Harry’s guts threaten to bubble up.
The door opens and in walks Narcissa Malfoy. Here’s a description: She was wearing not robes, but a long, black dress with a slit up the side. Just how far up does that slit go? Tastefully up to the thigh or showing side breast?
Narcissa wants to spend time with her son, but Harry wants to stay and hear more about Macnair’s plan. Lucius sternly tells him to go with his mother.
LUCIUS: Don’t make me send you into the tapestries.
Fortunately for Harry, Narcissa doesn’t seem to be the hugging or kissing type of mother. She leads him down the corridor and he tries his best to learn about the manor’s layout. I bet there are all kinds of weird rooms in this ancient Gothic homestead. Personally, I’d have a couple of walk-in shoe closets, a library dedicated to each genre, a tapestry blood effects room, a miniature tickle torture room, and a ball pit room.
Narcissa stops once to admire some baby portraits of her beloved child. I’ll admit, this part made me grin.
Blackmail idea, Harry. Return with the cloak of invisibility.
After this crucial pause, they head to the dining room where Narcissa seats Harry and goes to get him what I hope is going to be edible nosh. The decor is… Malfoyesque, certainly. There mustn’t be a single wall outside the bed chambers that doesn’t have a portrait of the long and violent dynasty.
Dinnertime at the manor is intense. I wonder if the portraits make gagging sounds or pick their noses while the family is eating.
Narcissa returns with a plate of biscuits (European biscuits, although some fluffy white American biscuits with butter do make a filling treat). She watches Harry chomp down on a few before retrieving a blanket she’d been embroidering for her son. It’s a lovely green velvet with the Malfoy creed in gold letters.
Some people have the “Footprints in the Sand” poem for inspiration and hope. The Malfoys have psychologically masochistic samplers to keep themselves in line.
Harry is less than enthused. “It’s lovely, Mum. I bet all the other kids will wish they had a blanket with a really horrible motto on it just like this one.” Narcissa begins tearing up. If those are sad tears, then dick move, Potter. Narcissa discriminates against non-purebloods and her arrogance matches Lucius’s, but she adores her only child. It’s probably her only human aspect. Let the woman be proud of her emotionally disturbing craftwork.
Lucius and Macnair burst in through the double doors suddenly. “Narcissa, get Macnair here a cup of tea, would you?”
LUCIUS: And I want choccy bickies. Get to it.
Macnair gets friendly (not in a “bad touch” way) with Harry, even using a “fatherly tone.” He asks Not-Draco how school is going.
LUCIUS: What is a peet-sa? Is that a Muggle delicacy?
HARRY: Er, we pull what Muggles call a pizza delivery prank. We order twenty pizzas and have them sent to Dumbledore and then he has to pay for them.
LUCIUS: How gauche.
Macnair is quite impressed, praising Lucius for having “quite a fine boy” and how proud he must be. Lucius is… well…
LUCIUS: Would you like to see my father of the year awards room, Macnair? I had each of the pieces commissioned. I specifically requested that the child in each one be depicted begging for their life.
No sooner does Narcissa return with tea than Macnair takes his leave—and the teacup—by Disapparating. I know he’s a close associate of Lucius’s, but I wonder if the senior Malfoy would have Macnair arrested for theft and brought back to the manor in chains for giggles.
Checking in with Draco, we find him in the library with a book titled Most Potente Potions, “which seemed ironic to him,” given the present circumstances. No, Malfoy, it’s a funny coincidence, not irony. Can we blast that word out of the universe along with basically, actually, and baby bump?
Draco is wallowing, thinking about the danger Harry may be in and what spells could possibly be used to correct their problem. Even Clare mentions that the snot-nosed runt hasn’t considered going to Dumbledore for help because he’s “still a Malfoy.” I’m on page twenty-eight of a 207-page document. How much more of this hemming and hawing is there?
A light appears and Cho reveals herself. Round two, I suppose. The two begin some banter with Cho trying to flirt and Draco being as blunt as he can be without outright insulting her… too much.
DRACO: Perhaps as long as our stay at Hogwarts and possibly longer than that.
Cho begins running her wand up and down Draco’s arm and… eww, I hope this isn’t how wizards get it on. I don’t want to know how wands are used in their bedrooms. How old are these kids by now anyway?
DRACO: *presses palms against temples* Oh, my head. Blast all these headaches that are coming on so frequently and suddenly.
Just as it’s about to get more awkward, Hermione appears. Draco hurries to explain the situation to her and Cho suspects the worst. “So that’s how it is, is it? Finally given up on me and decided to settle?” Pomfrey better know how to do stitches because Hermione is going to need some after that deep cut.
Cho storms out, leaving a vexed Hermione glaring at Draco. She’s just learned the womanly art of the Skull Burning Death Glare. Better yet, she’s on to Draco. “You’re not Harry Potter.” To which he replies, “Of course I’m not. I’m Draco Malfoy.”
Dun-dun-DU—I don’t care.
Prep Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Cleanup
