The Caretaker Clause
It would not do to apparate directly outside the entrance to the manor with a thoroughly bleeding and by all appearances dead Harry Potter in tow. Less appropriate still would it be to be seen wrapped in his Death Eater’s robes by any one of the array of witches and wizards currently inside his home, given that all such garments had been confiscated by the aurors following the Dark Lord’s disappearance that night thirteen years ago. Of course, Lucius Malfoy had willingly given over the precious attire to the Ministry, relieved to be finally rid of it—or so he had said—upon his own admission that he had been duped, bewitched into following the Dark Lord as his faithful servant.
The one set of robes he had kept hidden in secret all those years so as to be prepared in the event that the Dark Lord rose again, as he had always promised he would—those were the robes he now wore.
Robes which were spotted with the blood of Harry Potter.
Oh, how the evening had turned out much differently than he had ever imagined!
Not more than an hour or two had passed since Lucius had felt the sting of the Dark Mark on his arm and excused himself from the little soirée that he and Narcissa had been hosting, claiming urgent, unexpected business. The night was still young, and in all likelihood his esteemed contacts and the several junior officers from the Ministry who had been graced with an invitation would still be there, no doubt still schmoozing over the rate at which dragon meat imported from Bulgaria should be taxed, considering the new trade deals that had been proposed in the wake of the Triwizard Tournament. Moreover, Lucius was not unaware of his reputation as something of a collector and the fact that guests often wandered about the illustrious home of the Ancient House of Malfoy in search of the unimaginable artefacts it was said to house, evidently having gotten lost—as they all quite predictably did—on their way to find the toilet.
Given the urgency of the task the Dark Lord had assigned to him, Lucius did not have time to waste on anyone who happened to stumble upon him and the boy while they were busy nosing their way around.
And so, he brought the boy directly to the greenhouse on the edge of the property, where he immediately cast a disillusionment and repelling charm to assure that he and Potter remained undisturbed. All that was left to do was light the candles, and before long the whole place was glowing in a muted golden haze.
In the centre of the greenhouse was a sturdy wooden table, clear but for a few sprinkles of dirt. Lucius hastily scourgified the surface with a flick of his wand, lay the boy on top of it, and spelled the bag the Dark Lord had given him to unbuckle itself and unfold, displaying all its contents in a neat row at the boy’s feet.
The bag was stocked with a wide array of potions and salves, tonics and elixiers in an assortment of brightly coloured phials and tubes, including even a small red pouch which read H3 EMERGENCY MEDICAL KIT *For Use By Muggle Healers Only* and was accompanied by the name of a muggle hospital in Surrey and a string of nonsensical numbers.
Multiple information cards characterising various emergency situations were attached to the inside of the bag with an unbreakable drawstring, but one card in particular caught Lucius Malfoy’s eye, appearing to almost glow around the edges. The title read: CAN’T ENERVATE? ACT NOW, DON’T WAIT! JUST SATE, DILATE, REGENERATE! and was followed by a series of detailed instructions for the first responding witch or wizard.
The three stages seemed rather straightforward:
First, he was to use a dropper to administer a preliminary blood replenishing potion directly into any wound or incision over 1 cm in length or depth on Potter’s person. There were five of the thin, yellow tubes indicated on the card present in the bag, each containing 15 ml of thick, shimmering liquid. A conversion table was provided to help determine how many millilitres of the potion should be applied to each wound based on size, colour and location on the body (head, trunk, limbs, extremities).
Then, he should apply three drops of a milky essence in a clear, o-shaped glass at each of the nine pulse points starting with the left temple and moving anticlockwise in order to stimulate circulation. To identify the points, all that was needed was to cast Pulsara Illustrem; a bright blue light would then appear to hover directly over the patient’s skin at each pulse point and would only disappear once the three drops had been applied and seeped into the skin.
Finally, he was to use a third dropper which held a rather grainy-looking orange fluid to thoroughly coat each of the wounds or incisions he had applied the preliminary blood replenishing potion to in stage one. That would repair any damage done to the blood vessels, veins, capillaries and other such bodily features at the site of injury; these areas were to be left undisturbed by other topical cremes for at least three hours, after which time it was permitted to gently clean them with Essence of Myrrhblossom and begin applying the salve in a jar marked with an ∞ symbol and labelled as Balmpeau.
No less than three times did the card remind the responder not to attempt to administer any of the contents of the potions bag to the Enervate-non-responsive patient orally.
According to the instructions, a dual application was required in the first phase of the treatment; the responding witch or wizard should administer steps one, two and three, immediately repeat the process, and then allow time for the magical remedies to take effect.
At the end of one hour, the responder could move on to the next phase of treatment so long as the patient’s heart had started to whistle. If the heart remained silent, the responder should repeat the procedure (again, applying its stages twice in succession), and wait another hour. If the second hour passed to the same end, a third and final dual application should be administered.
In the event that the patient’s heart still remained silent after the third hour, the responding witch or wizard should attempt to force consciousness by using either a flomweeval (a magical creature not unlike a snail) or a syringe (a hollow metal pike used by muggles to administer medicine) to inject a flaming red stimulant in a clear bottle directly into the patient’s heart, although the author of the card thought it more prudent to avoid this entirely, all but pleading with the responder to stop playing the helpful healer and bloody well take the patient to a real magical mediward. A blue-coloured mediwitch sketched in the margin wagged her finger at the reader, her expression softening and then hardening into a scowl as the phrase MAGI-MEDIC YOU ARE NOT, GO TO ST. MUNGO’S ON THE DOT! floated around her head.
As it were, Potter’s own heart started to trill out a soft, melodic tune not unlike Godric’s Lullaby only two minutes before Lucius Malfoy was set to repeat the procedure for the third time. It was about time. For optimal results, the next phase would need to be freshly mixed and inserted within 20 minutes of the heart’s first notes, and Lucius was well-prepared to do just that.
The man carefully turned the boy onto his left side, positioning his limbs in the special way indicated on the emergency card, and then set about his task using the ingredients supplied in the boy’s Medipotions Kit.
The Death Eater took a pinch and a half of what looked like powdered algae but was more likely crushed holly thorn, sprinkled it into a miniature pestle and mixed it with 5 ml of rose oil as instructed. After stirring twelve times clockwise with the tip of his wand, Lucius added three grains of water salt, then stirred seven times anticlockwise and dropped in a single thyme leaf.
As expected, the textured liquid suddenly ran smooth and turned a light shade of warm purple. With a steady wand, he moved the mixture in a thin ribbon-like stream from the pestle to a small phial shaped like a teardrop, making sure not to spill a drop. And then, with an even steadier hand, he tipped five drops of the contents directly into Potter’s right ear before putting a stopper on the bottle and setting it aside.
Twenty minutes, and Lucius Malfoy had managed it in six.
‘How lucky you are for the Dark Lord to have chosen me for your keeper,’ Lucius said, addressing the boy’s unmoving form, knowing there was nothing left now to do but wait.