FicWad

Disclaimer: I own few things and JK Rowling owns many things, including all that you recognize.

Duality: The Scrying Potion

oOo

Malfoy was still in the infirmary on Monday and he couldn't find Daphne at breakfast. The map said she was in her dorm, so he couldn't very well talk to her about Dumbledore or about what Nott said. It seemed as if she were deliberately trying to avoid him ever since their conversation after the Quidditch game.

Harry debated sitting behind her in Potions class, but thought against it because it would look too suspicious sitting in the Slytherin section unless forced. As he walked past her, she threw him a grin before putting up her usual indifferent façade that she kept in class. Ron plopped down in the seat next to him just before Slughorn started off with his lecture on the final potions project and Harry thumbed through the Prince's book, trying to look for an interesting potion that would take less than two days to brew and would meet Slughorn's requirements.

"Now I want you to work in pairs for this project!" Slughorn ignored the series of groans that came from the class and continued, "Therefore, when I call your names, please join your partner."

Harry dutifully kept searching, knowing that he couldn't search in front of his partner, just in case his partner saw the Prince's notes and inquired about them. It was a bit like cheating, having an annotated book, after all. But it was bloody useful! Muffliato was a fantastic spell as well. The Prince was a genius.

Ron got partnered with the absent Malfoy and didn't look too pleased with it. "I hope the git dies in the hospital wing," Ron muttered sullenly, pulling out his cauldron and setting it down hard on the scrubbed wood table.

Harry sniggered.

"Mr. Potter, you will be working with Mr. Nott," Slughorn said, regarding him with a nod.

Frowning, Harry shut his book. He had a feeling that would happen. Slughorn did say that he would keep them in mind for the final potions project, and all over a handful of bloody bilommeal grass and whatever Nott did to his potion. Looking over at the weedy Slytherin boy, Harry packed up his stuff and moved to sit by Nott.

"I think we should brew the Consano Elixir," Harry said once he was seated, keeping his heavily annotated textbook closed. The Consano Elixir only had a few notes written in the margins and only took a day to brew. It wasn't that he didn't want to work with Nott; Harry just didn't want to reveal the Prince to Nott. That would probably be quite disastrous.

Nott shook his head. "That's child's play," he said quietly, pulling a book out of his bag that was bound in red leather. "I say that we go big with this."

Harry read over Nott's shoulder as he flipped through the pages of his little red book. "A Scrying Concotion?" Harry's brows furrowed. "Why in the world would you want to make that?"

"Slughorn said we could make anything that uses three different skills that we've been taught this year. Why not make something that uses every skill he's taught us?"

"It's time consuming," Harry pointed out, grabbing the book from Nott and looking over the instructions. "And it'll take three days, not two."

"Then get us an extension," Nott replied with a smirk. "Slughorn wouldn't turn down his golden boy."

"I don't see why we need to do that when we have plenty of options to start off with in the textbook…"

"How is it going, boys? Have you made a decision?" Slughorn's booming voice interrupted and Harry almost jumped, not realizing that the plump professor was standing right behind him.

"We're thinking of doing the Scrying Concoction," Nott said in a very polite tone. Harry narrowed his eyes toward him for a brief moment while the professor walked round to the front of their work station.

"Ingenious idea! I knew you two would make a fine match as partners."

Harry spoke up, "The thing is, Professor, it's going to take three days, as I was trying t-"

"Yes, of course. Then you would need an extension for that," Slughorn interjected and Nott nodded vigorously. Harry wanted to sigh. Didn't Nott have a lot of homework from his other classes to do instead of brewing a ridiculously time-consuming potion? Harry glanced over at Hermione, who was partnered with Daphne and currently glaring at the Slytherin girl. He hoped that he could get her to help him with his homework if he was going to be roped into brewing the bloody scrying potion.

Harry looked back up at the professor while Nott spoke, "If it wouldn't be too much of a bother, Professor Slughorn."

"No, I have no problem giving you one; just let me make a note of it. I'll be looking forward to your results!" With that, Slughorn bustled off to his desk at the front of the room and Harry finally let out a sigh.

"Well, look at it this way, Potter. The potion will only make you more valuable to him and that's exceedingly useful," Nott muttered quietly, pulling out his huge potion's kit that seemed more overloaded than usual. "Slughorn's well connected – an excellent resource."

Harry read into his words, looking between the lines. "That's why you want to make the Scrying Concoction," he whispered. "You want to get closer to Slughorn and use him. That's why you want to go to his Christmas party!"

It all made so much more sense. "So why exactly do you want to get close to Slughorn?" Harry asked in a low voice, leaning close to Nott while he helped him set up the brass scale.

Out of the corner of his eye, Harry watched a smirk pull at Nott's lips. "You're starting to get pretty good at this, Potter," he said with a small breathy laugh. "I'm impressed."

"That wasn't an answer to the question," Harry replied, measuring out and crushing a handful of beetle eyes with his pestle and trying to keep his eyes on Nott while he did so.

"Yes, but I still have a choice whether to answer or not," Nott said, rummaging through his potions kit and pulling out a bundle of spider's webs.

"Why won't you tell me then?" Harry asked calmly, pouring the nearly liquefied beetle eyes into the cauldron while Nott added a gram of spider's webs.

"Because you're Harry Potter and everyone thinks you always do what you think is the right thing. So if I tell you what I want to do, you'll probably go run and tell Dumbledore on me because what I want to do isn't exactly within the rules."

"I don't tell Dumbledore everything," Harry said, rolling his eyes. Did everyone really think that he was some kind of snitch? Was that why Daphne didn't want to tell him what was going on? Because they were breaking the rules? However… she did tell him about getting out of the wards, so that couldn't be it. Nevertheless, he didn't tell on her and he wasn't going to. It was bloody frustrating. Why couldn't he make sense of it all?

After a moment where he was focused entirely on stirring in the spider's webs, Nott commented, "And that is likely to be the truth, but I don't trust you, or anyone, for that matter. Now help me with the argent solution."

Harry stirred while Nott poured a vial of the sliver fluid into the cauldron, trying to keep it from crystalizing as it heated up. "Then why do you say that everyone thinks I'd tell on them to Dumbledore?" Harry asked quietly, keeping an eye on the contents of the cauldron.

"I said 'do the right thing', which doesn't mean that you'd tell Dumbledore, exactly. You simply seek to right all the wrongs and stop all the 'evil'."

"I'm not bloody Spiderman," Harry muttered back as Nott plucked the wings off a pile of lacewing flies.

"What?" Nott stared at him with an incredulous expression.

"Right… that's a Muggle thing."

"Halfbloods," Not muttered, rolling his eyes and going back to plucking the wings off of flies.

Harry let out a tolerating sigh and Nott poured the lacewings into the cauldron while Harry stirred the mixture anti-clockwise. Glancing over at the instructions on what to do next, Harry asked, "So… where did you get the book?" He noticed that it wasn't from the library, because those books often had stamps on them and were usually in worse condition – especially potions books.

"Oh, it's from my private collection. I had a feeling I was going to need it for the final project when I was looking over the syllabus last week."

"You actually read that thing?"

"I like to be prepared."

"It's surprising that you're not at the top of the class," Harry said, gazing at Nott in a calculating manner. "You're probably the only student that reads the syllabus aside from Hermione, and you're actually good at doing this stuff…"

"But you forget; Slughorn and Snape don't like me," Nott muttered, "and they both play favourites. You would know – you've been on both ends of that."

"Yeah." Harry nodded, waving his wand to increase the heat output underneath the cauldron. "I didn't do so well under Snape though, in general. Had no motivation to actually learn." He probably wouldn't have any still if it wasn't for the Prince's book, but Nott didn't have to know that.

"And now you're the star potions pupil." Nott snorted and then paused looking over the instructions again. "Are you free tonight? We should, at least, work out a schedule while this boils. I'll move it to the Hall of Hexes so we can work on it in there."

Harry read a little bit ahead in the instructions and groaned. "I guess it beats having to sleep in the dungeon." That's what some of the other students would have to do if they picked a difficult potion.

"It's not that bad as far as potions go," Nott said impatiently. "I made this one potion once where I had to stir it every half hour or it would settle and eat through the cauldron. Particularly nasty, that was."

Glancing warily over at Nott, Harry asked, "What was it for?"

"An experiment, something or other," Nott answered, shrugging. Harry had a feeling Nott wouldn't tell him even if he probed further for answers so he didn't question it. "I have a break in three hours, so I can come back here to stir and add the powdered bicorn horn," Not said, continuing with their previous topic. "Could you meet me after dinner in the Hall of Hexes? We can add the second dose of argent solution then."

Harry sighed. "Okay. I was planning to revise with Hermione tonight after dinner-"

"You can still do that. We only have to meet for as long as it takes to make sure the argent doesn't solidify. Then come down before it's time for bed and we'll take turns watching it throughout the night. It'll be simple."

"Yeah… simple."

They worked on the potion, only talking occasionally, throughout the remainder of the class and Harry kept berating himself for not asserting himself more. If they had done the Consano Elixir, they'd almost be done with it by now. Bloody Nott. Harry looked over at Daphne and Hermione while Nott packed up his potions kit at the end of class. Daphne didn't look too happy and Hermione's hair was fluffed up tremendously, making Harry assume that they must have had quite the debate over what to make.

"I'll see you tonight, Potter," Nott said, taking his leave with the hot cauldron levitating in front of him. Harry nodded in return and followed Hermione out the door. Ron stumbled along behind him, keeping his distance from Hermione. The tension between them was palpable in the air.

"So, what potion are you guys making?" Harry asked, looking between his two friends who seemed as if they didn't even want to look at each other. Harry was, once again, stuck in the middle trying to bridge the gap.

"The Consano Elixir," Ron replied bleakly with a shrug of one shoulder. "Looked the easiest."

"Because you always choose the easy option," Hermione scathingly quipped, obviously not just referring to potions. Harry wanted to laugh, because Lavender was… well, easy, but he didn't because he knew it would be cruel to Ron.

Before Ron could retort, Harry spoke up, trying to be nice. "I almost chose that one. Nott looped me into this Scrying Concoction though. Bloody complicated."

Hermione turned her head toward him with a frown. "Greengrass tried to convince me into brewing the Scrying Concoction as well, but I've my Arithmancy Project due on Thursday. Thankfully, we're brewing the Compulsion Philtre instead."

Harry's lips parted and his eyebrows furrowed, but then he kept his expression in check, not certain if he wanted to go into it with Hermione and Ron around. It was too coincidental that Nott and Daphne wanted to brew the same potion, which definitely wasn't a potion in their textbook. What were they up to?

"How's that going?" Harry asked, trying not to seem distracted. He almost sighed in relief when Hermione launched into one of her anti-Greengrass tirades.

Now he just had to figure out how he should approach Nott tonight with his newfound knowledge.

oOo

Harry's usual desk that he sat in during his manipulation lessons was expanded to house the Scrying Concotion and Nott's extensive potion's kit. Checking his watch – he told Hermione he'd meet her in half an hour to study – Harry walked into the room and found the weedy Slythern boy crouched over another potion in the corner. It was sitting on a different, smaller desk.

"One potion for this project isn't enough?" Harry asked, stalking over to where Nott stood.

"Just because I'm giving up two nights to the Scrying Concoction, doesn't mean that my experiments have to be neglected," Nott replied, stirring his 'experiment' that looked rather like pond scum in a cauldron.

"We have to stay here for two nights?" Harry asked, curling his lip at the thought.

Nott gave him a nod. "A scrying potion requires careful handling and observation."

"Yeah, about the potion…" Harry started, taking in a long breath. "What are you and Daphne up to?"

"You're going to have to elaborate on that, Potter," Nott said, adding a vial full of slime to his experiment.

"She tried to get Hermione to do the Scrying Concoction as well. Rather suspicious and too coincidental, if you ask me, especially since that potion isn't in the textbook."

Nott threw him a smirk, making Harry think that he was pulling at the right strands of information. He just hoped he could get to the bottom of it. Nott stirred his potion and quietly muttered, "That still doesn't explain why you would think that Daphne and I are up to something."

"Because you've worked together before, investigating Malfoy," Harry responded.

Tilting his head to the side, Nott glanced up at him. "Fair enough I suppose. You'll have to ask her about this though – I'm not one to go blabbing."

Why did getting any information out of Slytherins have to be so bloody exasperating?

"It's not blabbing if I already basically know that it involves Malfoy!" That was a small lie, but he had a feeling in the pit of his stomach that the potion had to involve Malfoy in some way.

Eyes narrowed, Nott gazed over him in a calculating manner. "Interesting… and Daphne told you this?"

Harry's jaw clenched. "Not exactly."

"Well, if Daphne isn't letting you in on this, I shan't overstep my bounds. That could be dangerous with her." Nott glanced back down at his potion and then up at Harry again.

Nott's words reminded him of his conversation with Daphne. I'm known to be rather ruthless, she said. Nott also mentioned something along the lines during their last tutoring session. Harry bit the inside of his cheek. "Dangerous how?"

"She's creative and not afraid to get her hands dirty," Nott explained, throwing a bundle of sage into the cauldron. "I'll give you a safe example – Terence Higgs, he's a few years older than us. He tormented Daphne for a few years. She somehow got him expelled from school and a small sentence in Azkaban for brewing an illegal coercive potion in his dorm. Snape tried to fight it since Higgs is terrible at potions, but the evidence was apparently too overwhelming. When Higgs was led out of the Common Room by the Auror's, Daphne didn't even bat an eye at it. It's like she knew it was coming."

Nott paused, emptying a vial of brown liquid into his 'experiment'. "I'm not saying that she'd do that to me for overstepping my bounds, but I don't like crossing her at all. It's messy."

Harry's brows furrowed and he stared at Nott blankly, trying to formulate a response. "When was all this?"

"Fourth year. Higg's expulsion was kept quiet because of the Triwizard competition."

"Yeah… I'm really not sure if Daphne would do something like that," Harry muttered, shaking his head. "You have no proof that she did. Isn't that the first rule of making accusations?"

Nott chuckled low in his throat. "Yes, but I don't snitch. Just consider it, Potter. Daphne and Draco? It's a larger, more involved operation than getting rid of Terence Higgs, but it's essentially the same thing, isn't it?"

"No." Harry shook his head. "We're just trying to figure out what he's up to in the Room of Requirement."

"You've also tried getting the Aurors to apprehend him. Daphne's already gotten Crabbe expelled. The only difference with this is that she has a lot of people involved and you're in the loop. There are too many variables, too many people to protect, and too many ways to get caught in this whole thing. So if she doesn't involve you in something, there's probably a reason for it, and that is why I'm not going to tell you what we're going to use the Scrying Concoction for."

Harry let out a long sigh and glared at Nott. "It's not like I'd tell her that you told me or anything."

Throwing him a doubtful look, Nott shook his head and pulled a vial of silver liquid from his pocket. "We should get to work."

"Bloody Slytherins…" Harry grumbled under his breath and followed Nott over to the other cauldron that held their potions project. "I don't understand why any of you lot won't trust me."

"We barely trust each other, Potter, why would we trust you?"

Harry got to stirring while Nott poured the argent solution. "I am known to be quite trustworthy," he replied with a shrug. "You can tell me what the Scrying Concoction's for. I won't tell on you."

"You're going to be really determined with this aren't you?"

"Yes. So are you going to tell me what the Scrying Concoction's for?"

"And you're not going to shut it till I tell you," Nott said in a long breath, raising an eyebrow and putting the stopper back on the vial.

"Nope," Harry said, shaking his head. "You might as well tell me. I've got all night."

"Don't be irritating." Nott glared, grinding up twelve silk worms with his mortar and pestle.

Harry kept stirring. "You're the one that picked the potion that put us into this situation."

"You won't get any regret out of me, so stop trying."

"You could always just tell me what the Scrying Concoction is for and I'll stop."

"No."

"Yes."

"No."

"Tell me."

Nott added the liquefied silk worms to the cauldron and sighed. "It's going to be a long night."

"I can make it even longer," Harry remarked.

"You have to be kidding me."

"Seekers are known for their endurance."

Nott threw him a dirty look to which Harry replied to it with a grin.

"Fine," Nott gritted out. "Do you have any fags on you then?" He sighed again and took a seat on the top of the desk next to the cauldron.

Harry blinked, unsure of what Nott meant, but he was hopeful that it meant that Nott was going to tell him. Reaching into his back pocket, Harry pulled out his red leather case and handed it to Nott. He then stared at the Slytherin boy expectantly, waiting for whatever Nott was going to say after he lit his cigarette. Nott moved at an incredibly slow and almost methodical pace as he did so, not looking at Harry directly.

"It's pretty simple to figure out on your own, really," Nott said, blowing out a long puff of smoke and blinking as it got into his eyes. "Scrying Concoctions have one ability – scrying people. Pour it over a pair of mirrors and you've a way to be in contact with each mirror owner. That's useful and all, but not many people know that you can brew an additional potion that would allow you to block out your end. Do that and you have a covert way to see what the other person is doing. Since the holiday's coming up, what do you think we're going to do with it?"

A wide grin pulled at Harry's lips. "You're going to spy on Malfoy."

"Exactly," Nott said with a nod. "And I didn't even have to properly tell you."

Harry's smile then faded when he realized that there was a giant flaw in that plan. His eyes narrowed toward the Slytherin boy. "Wait… how are you going to get Malfoy to use the mirror or get the mirror in a place where you can spy on him properly?" he asked, thinking that Malfoy could just throw the scrying mirror into his trunk and forget about it.

"Unfortunately, Daphne hasn't informed me how we're going to do that," Nott said with a sigh, taking a long drag off his cigarette. "She just asked me to brew a batch of Scrying Concoction that we could use to keep an eye on Draco. I thought it would be perfect for the final project – ostensibly she did as well."

Harry let out a long breath, a little disappointed by what Nott knew. He thought that it would be this big secret from the way Nott treated it, but it wasn't that big of a deal.

"And if you tell her that I told you about all this-" Not hissed, leaning toward Harry and pointing his cigarette in his direction.

"No need to get so worked up," Harry interrupted, rolling his eyes. "I won't tell her you said anything."

"Good."

"So what else do you know about what Daphne's doing with Malfoy?" Harry asked nonchalantly, wondering if Nott would comply.

"Not gonna happen, Potter. Nice try."

"You've already told me about the plan with the Scrying Concoction, might as well tell me about everything else," Harry persevered, undaunted by Nott's reluctance to cooperate.

Nott paused, seeming to think before he spoke. "No," he said, finally.

"Then could you at least tell me what you get in return for brewing the Scrying Concoction?" Since badgering worked with Nott once, Harry hoped it would again. Nott obviously knew something.

With a short laugh, Nott got up from the desk and flicked the ashes off his fag. "I don't need to be paid for everything. Daph and I do favours for each other like this all the time – as any good friend would."

"You know, it's odd," Harry started and then paused for a brief second, stirring the potion slowly. "You say you're friends, but then you're afraid she'll turn on you if you 'overstep your bounds'. Friends don't do that."

Nott shallowly inhaled from his fag and shrugged. "So maybe I'm being a bit paranoid. It's better to be safe than sorry."

"Daphne really isn't all that frightening. She's just… Daphne," Harry said, rolling his eyes. "She's just as frightening as Hermione, and you probably don't find her-"

"On the contrary, Potter," Nott countered. "Or don't you remember Marietta Edgecombe? She's scarred for life because she snitched on your Dumbledore's Army. It happened out of nowhere and we were in a heavily warded room. Out of you lot, it had to be Granger's brilliance. If she can bypass magical wards like that… I wouldn't want to cross her either."

"Well, it was for a good reason," Harry weakly replied, but then commented, "I didn't know you were on the Inquisitorial Squad."

"Not exactly," Nott said, blowing out a breath full of smoke. "Umbridge needed a minor to do the hard questioning on some of the suspected students and since my father's an Unspeakable that works in the interrogation division… she thought I'd know a thing or two about effectively getting people to confess." He paused, taking one more drag off his half-smoked cigarette before vanishing it. "I do know how, but not properly. My father redacts every bloody document before he lets me read them."

"Radacts? What's that?" Harry asked, curious.

"Magically blocking out every word or sentence or paragraph that isn't supposed to be public knowledge. I haven't figured out how to crack the spell yet, but at least he lets me read something," Nott rambled, waving his wand at the bottom of the cauldron to increase the temperature of the Scrying Concoction.

"But I thought Unspeakables were just a bunch of boffins," Harry said, remembering the odd rooms that he travelled through last year, all of which held various bizarre experiments.

"Sure, they do all the top secret ministry research so there are quite a few of them that are, indeed, boffins," Nott explained, "but a majority of them are emissaries that protect the ministry secrets and gather intelligence on foreign ministries and other organizations."

"So they're kind of like the SIS," Harry guessed, trying to remember his Muggle history classes.

"What's the SIS?" Nott asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Um, Muggle government – spies," Harry said with a nod, finally coming to a proper explanation. He couldn't remember exactly what SIS stood for.

Nott shrugged. "You could call them spies if you wanted. Funny that the Muggle government would need them."

"Every government needs them, I guess." Harry, on the other hand, didn't think that the Ministry of Magic would need them – magic was much different, especially when it came to the government. The Muggle government had the SIS and Interpol and the police. Did the Ministry of Magic have something like Interpol? If they did… "The Aurors really are kind of like the Muggle police," he muttered to himself more than Nott.

"Yeah, Aurors do the lower level work that Unspeakables don't want to touch. Boring job," Nott said, checking the potion that Harry was stirring and grabbing the pewter stir stick from him.

"Doesn't sound too boring. I'd like to be one one day."

"After the fifteenth illegal brew or tea kettle arrest, you'll probably want out."

"That's not all they do – they take down dark wizards and stuff. Look at Mad-Eye, he's lost is leg and his eye doing it."

"It's not all that it seems, Potter. Once the Aurors get the dark wizards in custody, they often hand them over to the higher ups after the entrance interview for interrogation. You won't ever get to see that type of case all the way to the end."

"That's ridiculous."

"It's bureaucracy." Nott then looked down at his watch and asked, "So when are you meeting Granger?"

Harry glanced at the time and groaned. Just as he got Nott to open up a bit – and onto an interesting topic of conversation – he had to go. "I was supposed to meet her about ten minutes ago."

Nott smirked. "I thought so. Guess I'll see you tonight?"

"Yeah." With an absent wave toward Nott, Harry rushed out of the room, hitching his book bag higher up on his shoulder. Talking to Nott outside of his manipulation 'lessons' was much more pleasant than speaking with him during the lessons.

oOo

Author's Note: Thank you for reading and please review!