Missed the previous installment? Huuugghh… here you go.
We’re getting deeper into autumn, and my body is craving more fats and sugars. I still have to suffer through pumpkin spice punishment. I’m still reading Draco Dormiens. So what kind of recipe can I do that will satisfy all three criteria?
This recipe comes from The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook by Dinah Bucholz. This is a pretty fun adventure through the books in recipe form. I know there are other Harry Potter-inspired cookbooks, but this is probably the most popular one out there.
Because of potential copyright issues surrounding a book still in print, I won’t post the recipe. Instead, I’ll encourage you to pick up a copy for yourself. It’s worth making a few of the recipes even if you’re not a Harry Potter fan.
As for the bread itself, it’s nothing short of heavenly. While it’s baking, the bread fills the air with a savory perfume you can almost chomp on. The bread is best served warm (try it with a pat of butter), but it’s versatile and can be eaten chilled or at room temperature. The spices don’t mess with your palate, it doesn’t crumble in your hand, and it doesn’t immediately cake all over your teeth as soon as it enters your mouth. It’s the perfect texture and amount of spice.
I would have gotten a picture of the loaf itself but… well… I couldn’t keep it in one piece long enough. It’s that delicious.
Let’s tuck in some warm pumpkin bread as we… *sigh* Let’s just get on with it.
Chapter 9: Lucius and the Death Eaters
Draco greets Lucius, who “was still looking like someone had force-fed him a lemon that happened to be taped to an enormous brick,” which is the perfect description for a parent discovering that their son had been transmogrified into Voldemort bait as well as something that sounds like it’s been lifted from a more professionally written piece.
The Dark Lord himself seems nonplussed. “He really does look like you, Lucius. Especially around the eyes. Pity I’ll have to burn them out.” Good hell, what for? Cruelty for cruelty’s sake?
But we get our answer. After Lucius tries to explain to his master that he had no knowledge of Draco posing as Harry, Voldemort declares that Draco is a traitor. You’d think that someone as highly intelligent as Voldemort would seek answers before acting, but, well, fanfic reasons. But for all I remember, Voldemort may have been this stupid and brazen in the original books, too.
Lucius convinces Voldemort to use the Veritas curse. Down to clown, Voldemort agrees. Draco, who had previously been snarking in the face of danger, doesn’t have anything smart to say as his chest is figuratively ripped open for truth-boring purposes.
After the usual “where is Potter” stuff, Voldemort asks Draco why he protected Hermione. Draco admits that he loves her. And here I’d be asking more questions, like “Why?” and “Since when?” and “Are you seriously equating hormonal impulses with a deep, selfless concern for another human being?”
Amused by this embarrassing revelation, Voldemort orders Draco to tell him how he and his new friends arrived at the manor. For whatever reason—the power of love, the power of friendship, the power of bluh—Draco does not obey. Instead, he suffers to the point of biting through his lip and bleeding like a ketchup packet.
Draco begs his father for mercy. Like any father coming to realize the fragility of their mortal offspring, Lucius asks Voldemort if he could zap Draco again. Cripes, just drive glass splinters under the boy’s fingernails and dunk them in lemon juice while telling him his favorite pet died.
Mean-fecking-while, Harry and Hermoine are still dashing through the underground, presumably having gone through at least five more discussions about their non-existent relationship, when Harry gives an “almighty” yell and falls. I’d make a joke about Harry being compared to messianic figures in philosophical discussions, but all my brainpower is now being used to slog through this document. But I do feel obligated to make a religious reference here, so, Jesus cakes or whatever.
Harry has returned to his original form and Hermione couldn’t be more elated.
Good lord, you need to be slapped for that one.
But here, Clare wrote something that I appreciated: “It was so strange to see his face as his face again; his familiar features once again animated by the intelligence that lived there and belonged there.” It’s so poetic and endearing that I find myself hoping this came from Clare’s own mind and not a secondhand source.
Harry doesn’t have his glasses. Hermione offers to temporarily fix his eyesight with a Correctivity Charm (Clare’s own creation). Since the glasses are more or less a trademark, Harry has never had his vision magically corrected. Come to think of it, why aren’t most things magically fixed in this world?
With an “Oculus,” Hermione casts the spell.
HERMIONE: Yo.
“Thanks, Hermione.”
HARRY: So is any chance to salvage what potential relationship we could have had—
HERMIONE: Drop it.
Checking back in on Draco, we find him finally fessing up to all the doings he and his new buddies have done. Now all that’s left is to wait for Harry Potter to show up for the daring rescue.
So I guess they just wait around. I can imagine Draco lying on the ground and doing his best impression of a wet rag, Lucius scratching his nose, Voldemort glaring at him, someone clearing his throat, Voldemort looking around at the portraits and wondering why he hasn’t succeeded in killing Potter…
After that quick bit, we return to Harry and Hermione, who have caught up with Sirius in the drawing-room. Still in dog form, Sirius leads them to Lucius’s study where they find a Narcissa bawling her eyes out. Sirius transforms back into a human so he can speak, starting with telling the kids that he told Narcissa everything.
Captain Obvious then looks at Harry.
Look at that, instant promotion to Major Obvious.
The team comes to the conclusion that Voldemort has taken off the spell and thus effectively returned the boys to normal. Harry knew that might have been the case since his scar had been hurting. Hermione demands to know why he didn’t tell her, which gets her a “don’t start with me” look from Harry. Clare describes it as “irritable,” but being a married woman, I know that specific look.
Now the question of the hour: Is Draco still alive? Sirius offers the idea that Draco may have lied about being under the influence of the Polyjuice Potion, which Hermione soundly rejects. Now that she’s written off Harry as any kind of romantic interest, she’s going to funnel all her efforts into Draco.
As for Narcissa, she’s a wreck. Has been for years. Lucius had her subjected to all manner of manipulative spells to keep her under his… spell… so he could lay claim to the most beautiful girl in Hogwarts at the time. Gads, that’s more pathetic than reliving the glory of the winning touchdown of the homecoming game. But it does add yet another layer of Super Banal Evilness (TM) to Lucius for the purposes of this story.
This new bit of knowledge infuriates Hermione.
You mean like you guys should have been doing all this time?
They finally get to work, starting with Hermione looking through the Epicyclical Elaborations of Sorcery. “I have an idea,” she says. And not a fucking moment sooner.
Next up, on a special episode of The Malfoys, Lucius spends some quality time with his son while Voldemort goes to look out the window, as all scheming menaces are wont to do.
VOLDEMORT: I could go for some pumpkin bread right about now. Oh, look, a hawk.
Lucius is disappointed in Draco. In fact, he’s sad. “You have saddened me, boy,” he says, spilling all his raging sadness into such a stilted sentence.
Draco, of course, tries to be smart. “Maybe you should ground me.”
LUCIUS: I’ll ground you into feed for the house elves.
Such a promising young man has lost the Dark Lord’s favor, but it’s not too late. Voldemort can forgive, even though he would impulsively burn out someone’s eyes at the first sign of defiance, but it’s the idea that he can forgive that counts.
But Draco isn’t having it. No Death Eaters membership for him. He’ll continue defying his father because of the power of friendship.
Lucius continues to be displeased.
LUCIUS: I mean it! I’ll change our DNA so our genetic bond will be nullified!
Mean-flippity-while, Narcissa returns to the study with the Lacertus arm. How did she did get it from the Death Eaters? Why, she told them that she was taking it to Lucius. Just like that. And being conveniently stupid for the purposes of the plot, the Voldemaniacs don’t question the meek doormat coming to fetch the weapon of mass murder.
Tell Draco that all the Hollywood celebrities are wearing murder gauntlets. But I’m sure he’ll ask what a Hollywood is.
While Hermione is working literal magic, we check back in with Draco, lying on the ground in the fencing room—okay, I’ve been nitpicking this story for months now, and I should probably give up, but… shouldn’t it be the floor since he’s indoors?
Narcissa enters the room and hands over the Lacertus arm like she’s handing off a book.
Get up on your feet and make some noise for the Boy Who Lived! *raspy crowd noises*
Draco is immediately suspicious, as is his father, but Lucius isn’t about to rouse Voldemort’s suspicions again. Lucius summons his fellow Death Eaters through his tattooed walkie-talkie. The Voldketeers appear, ignoring Draco still on the floor.
DRACO: Uh, pardon, you’re standing on my… no, that’s fine, I suppose I don’t need my larynx anyway. Ack! Or my toes.
Narcissa slowly backs out of the room as if making way for the charging heroes. In runs Sirius in dog form, Hermione, and Harry for their big damn hero moment.
RANDOM DEATH EATER: He’s even dreamier after he’s physically exerted himself!
In classic villain form, Voldemort taunts the heroes that their alleged friend has betrayed them, spilling everything.
Not with the writer we have on board.
To Hermoine’s horror, Draco has dished. Yes, even about the wardrobe session. Now that Hermione is sufficiently heartbroken and silently raging with angry tears, Voldemort gets down to the business of doing actual villainous things. Without the aid of a wand, he snaps his fingers and magicks ropes out of thin air, binding Harry’s wand arm to his side.
VOLDEMORT: Nyah nyah.
Time for the fun part! Voldy snaps his fingers to make the Lacertus arm fly into his hand. With flawless cheerleader flair, he spins it like a baton, then shoves it onto Harry’s free arm as if it’s “nothing more than an enormous, ill-fitting glove.”
VOLDEMORT: Bugger, it fell off. Probably should have custom fit it.
Harry goes through a Veritas-like thrashing as the metal arm fuses to his skin. The ropes helpfully snake away as he poses in a way befitting a big boss in an epic fantasy RPG.
And that’s just form one.
Voldemort is elated. Harry appears obedient and ready to kill. He throws an Imperius Curse on the boy and then orders him to use the arm on Hermione.
Aha! But Harry pulls a fast one. He whips around and aims his new weapon at the Dark Lord and his followers.
What, maybe you’re an idiotic boy or maybe you’re not an idiotic boy?
Blue light whooshes out of the metal arm and envelopes the crowd. With some levitation and screaming, the baddies vanish from the room.
Hermione rushes over to a collapsed Harry and magically makes the arm vanish from Harry’s arm. Turns out she had Transfigured the Lacertus arm, turning it into a much deadlier weapon that was draining Harry’s life and could have “easily killed him.” How ridiculously irresponsible of you. And the kicker? The arm, the same thing that was killing Harry, had a Whirlwind Charm replacing the killing spell. Voldy and his people were only transported to a random spot because leaving your enemies alive so they can come charging back at you with worse killing techniques is the way to go.
(Yes, we can argue about the moral ramifications of murdering adults who had every intention to turn a young man into a Muggle-murdering weapon while having his life tortuously drained away. But later. Maybe never. Let’s get through this first.)
While Sirius and Hermione are congratulating Harry on a great job, Draco is fuming that they’re treating Harry “like he was some sort of hero.” (Where the hell have you been during all these books, Draco?) Neither Harry nor Hermione will look at him, not even when he graciously returns Harry’s glasses.
And here’s probably the stupidest thing to top all the stupid things that have happened thus far:
Dumb. Ass.
But to be honest, this isn’t all of Clare’s doing. It seems that inducing and wallowing in misunderstandings is the way of the official books. Any time Harry was offered the opportunity to explain a situation or get help, he would refuse. I understand certain things need to happen in order for the plot to advance or to even give a reason for the plot, but if there’s danger at the school, and the powerful wizard headmaster asks if you have any information that could help, and you decide that you and your two buddies are better off plodding along for the rest of the school year in order to solve the mystery of the year yourselves, then you are a dumbass.
A fanfic would be a perfect way of getting around that, but… well, you see what we’re working with here.
For the purposes of drama in this work, Draco decides to sustain his own hurt feelings by not telling Harry and Hermione that he was impelled to reveal critical information. Never mind that Hermione not only witnessed but participated in Draco’s self-Veritas act much earlier in the story. You’d think she would have figured out something was up and that it made no sense for Draco to suddenly turn on them.
*sigh* Since Draco helped save Hermione’s life, the boys consider themselves even. Draco is about to take his leave when Harry sics Sirius on him. Unless Draco wants Harry and the rest of the gang as permanent house guests, he has to escort them through the property. Draco wants no part of it.
DRACO: Because I don’t want to?
But because this trilogy is about Draco, he’s forced to come along, bound in ropes, no less. But before they leave, Harry picks up a sword from a smashed display case and tucks it inside his belt. I guess the knife Disapparated out of the story.
In the dead of night, the foursome traverses the “terminally deadly” Malfoy grounds. About time, too, because I’m getting tired of the redundancy of relationship talks. I’m ready for the final conclusion in the climax of this story’s denouement.
Draco stops the group as they approach a bridge. Harry asks what would happen if they crossed it.
It’s so amazing how natural and in character that is for him.
*sputters* You don’t… speak… but you… tcchhh kkkrrrkkkkxxxx…
So I guess the word bomb has never entered the wizard lexicon at any point during its long and shared history with non-magical people either?!
*deep breath* Okay, okay, let’s just move on.
Without any safe way to cross the bridge, Harry talks Sirius into letting Draco have his wand back. Sirius warily hands over the wand. Draco casts a raptus regaliter and I cast a Googlis searcharius.
Raptus Regaliter shows up a few times and here are the three most interesting ones: A Facebook user, a username on FanFiction.org, and a Lucius/Arthur Weasely slash fic archived on both Adult-FanFiction.org and Archive of Our Own. The term means “royally screwed” in Latin. That’s quite the phrase to use when eliminating a dangerous trap.
They continue, with Sirius and Draco in their own cluster. Draco is still bummed that his new and maybe former friends think he’s scum. Sirius encourages him to tell the others what really happened, but Draco is deep in the “they won’t believe me, I should go eat worms” mindset.
Rather than go the way Hermione and Draco had arrived during their first rescue mission, the team is obviously taking a scenic route back to… Hogwarts? The village? Wherever they’re going, it’s interrupted by another obstacle.
Yes, let’s prolong this. This is obviously where an action scene is going to take place. It’s not like the area before this one could have posed any danger other than a bomb.
In short, Draco is confused as to whether this scenic feature has the depth of a canyon or a ditch. But I’ll save you some time. It’s a pit. More importantly, a Bottomless Pit, with capitals.
He’s given the use of his wand again and he makes a bridge appear. This one doesn’t scatter people into bits. But the source of the sudden ominous whirring above them possibly could.
Our heroes scrunch up against the cliff—wait, I thought they were on a bridge… oh, forget it—as a blinding light accompanying the sinister sound effect menaces them. Draco has somehow worked free of his binds. He faces the threat, the light of which turns Draco’s “hair to the colorless color of lightning,” and I’m going to pretend that made sense so I can hurry the hell along.
Draco yells to the others to go on without him. Sirius morphs into canine mode and gives chase, which prompts Draco to run over the chasm. Apparently, the Malfoy property is a cesspool of all kinds of magical workings, as the invisible barrier over the chasm allows Draco to run across as if it were solid ground.
Noticing that Sirius is about to meet his end in a not very depthless chasm, Harry scrambles to save his godfather. But thoughtless Draco couldn’t put away his discarded ropes, and Harry trips over them. It’s a hell of a trip because it sends him right over the edge of the chasm.
Hermione hurries over to find Harry hanging off a convenient bit of rock. He thinks he’s broken his arm, and sounds awfully calm about it, especially considering he’s dangling into the darkness below. She grabs his arm, but there’s no way she can pull him up. There’s no one to help her, as Draco is still galloping away and Sirius is unhelpfully staring after him.
Harry slips further into certain doom. Sirius finally gets his dog ass into gear, but he can’t reach the kids soon enough. Hermione is holding on as tight as she can. The whirring is getting closer. Harry’s hand slips and she narrowly catches his sleeve…
HARRY: Look, there isn’t a whole lot I can do from my end!
But Harry smiles the peaceful smile of one so certain they are about to meet their end. If this is indeed it, he’s going to make it mean something.
Or that’s what it sounds like to Hermione’s whirring-inundated ears. Or maybe that’s the sound of wishful thinking. The “I love you,” not the deafening ear-murder sound.
With a final tear, Harry’s sleeve gives up the ghost and contributes to Harry’s potential new status as one.
HARRY: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa—*deep breath*—aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa…
Would have been the perfect time to use a Levitation Charm, really.
I have to ask: Did Clare really believe that her readers never would have come across either of these works? Did she believe that she was the only person in the entire Harry Potter fandom who may have read Hitchhiker’s Guide? It’s not like Blackadder is an obscure British comedy, either.
Prep Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Cleanup
