Acquired Taste

The next few weeks passed Draco by in a dull blur. It was the beginning of spring and his garden was taking much more precedence in his day to day routine. Many of his plants were ready for harvesting, which meant hours of preparing the right vials, bags and bottles, studying up on the newest and most stable stasis charms, and quality testing everything before he could even think about selling it to his patrons. Not that he had many patrons these days. His shop was out of the way, off the Main Street of Diagon alley so most passerby would not even know it was there. There was also a potions ingredient shop right off the Main Street. While they did not have all of the peculiar items he did, and their cauldrons were more plain, their prices for the basics meant that his shop was often overlooked by the thrifty witches and wizards of everyday potion making. Every so often a representative from St. Mungo’s would stop in and stock up on the ingredients for most basic healing potions and salves. He had garnered quite the reputation in the medical potion field as being a reputable supplier of high quality components. Most of his business, however, came from owl post. He had established rather strong relationships with many potion masters when he was staying in France and many mailed his directly asking for curtain ingredients, trusting Draco to source them ethically, properly, and legally. What Draco couldn’t grow, he would forage, something shutting the doors to his shop for a month and traveling across the world to find what his patrons were looking for.

Draco liked the travel and exploration just as much as he liked the tedious care many of the plants in his garden required. He had always been very detail oriented and proffered his own company to that of others. He was a quiet kid growing up, and then had over compensated at school to try to assume the same social legacy his father had. As he grew older, Draco became more and more ashamed of the person he had been in his early years. He had been arrogant, rude, and quite hateful to many people without understanding the implications his actions would have on him later in his life. He had paid a dear price for his mistakes. He would go to great lengths to make sure he never repeated them again.

The bright afternoon spring sun beat down on Draco as he bent over the leaves of a low hanging elephant ear plant. While not commonly used in potion making, many ingredients responded rather well to being kept in elephant ear pouches. Draco would often take a few with him on his expeditions preferring the more traditional methods to that of throwing everything in a glass bottle and calling it a day as most other commercial ingredient gatherers did. Draco wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. He rolled up his sleeves and continued pruning the bottom of the plant, making room for new branches and growths that would be sure to come in the following months. But then he caught sight of It and just as quickly rolled his sleeves back down.

He could bear the heat. He had been for the last eleven years.

He snipped a few of the ready leaves off the plant and carried them inside. The rest of his garden had already been tended to over the last few weeks and was patiently waiting for the spring sun and rain to bring new life and growth to the sprawling plant life. Draco knew other growers simulated particular environments for each plant, but he preferred to keep it as natural as possible. He only grew what he could in the weather his region of the UK had. Everything else he could forage. It felt more natural that way.

The sun was streaming in through the windows of his modest home, casting light beams on the neatly organized table tops and book shelves. The war had taken many things from him; a home being one of them. He had moved a lot in his first few years, floating around trying to find himself. He had stayed in France for a few years to live closer to the remaining family he had, but it didn’t feel right. Eventually Draco had settled down in a small town on the outskirts of London. All he had wanted was enough space for him to grow his mother’s roses and the least amount of snooping from his neighbors as possible. He had gotten only one.

As if on cue, there was a knock from his front door. Draco sighed, quickly pressing the leaves of the elephant ear blast between two larger potions tomes , and made his way to the front of his house.

“Hello, Draco!” Chirped a tall red headed woman. Her face was almost entirely taken up by her smile, her green eyes crinkling from joy. Draco had never seen her unhappy, he realized. How exhausting it must be to be happy all the time. “I brought you some muffins! I made too many again!”

Draco stepped aside and let her into his entry way as he was taught that no woman was to ever be left on his front porch, but also because her coming in was unavoidable as he had learned very quickly after moving in. He nodded to the kitchen where she headed immediately, placing the basket of freshly baked muffins on his small kitchen table. She reminded him of the youngest Weasley with her spattering of freckles and happy go lucky attitude. Somehow, the war had left her happiness almost unscathed, save for the far off look she would get in her eyes when she was reminded of her late brother. She had come into the shop once with who Draco thought must be one of her children, but she had left before he could get a word in. He didn’t blame her one bit.

“Good afternoon, Claire,” Draco said to his muggle neighbor. He was tried, but knew she would only stay for a few minutes. They had a little pattern. “Are those blueberries I smell?”

“Oh yes!” She cried, clasping her hands in front of her. Her simple jumper and simple jeans were a breath of fresh air for Draco. Many wizards had absolutely no taste in fashion, and heaven forbid they tried to wear muggle clothes. It hardly ever looked right. “I grew them in my garden! Thank you so much for helping me plant the bushes! They are just stunning and produce so many berries, I hardly know what to do with them.”

Draco gave her a small smile. “It was my pleasure.”

“Oh you look like you just came from your garden! How are all the plants doing? I swear I don’t know how you keep so many alive and thriving , I mean, London is not exactly the type of place I would have expected to see such an amazing collection! One day you’ll have to go through and tell me all of their names. I swear there are some I have never even seen before. How do you keep track of what is what?”

“Years of practice,” Draco replied cooly. She was always so talkative when she came over. Draco did not mind as she seemed to entertain herself, needing very little input from him. She was just so happy to share the treats she made with him and their other neighbors. Draco quite liked her visits, even if some times he never even got a word in. “Can I offer you some tea?”

“Oh really you are too kind, but I have to decline. I need to get the rest of the muffins to everyone else before it gets dark or I will forget to do it. But you are so kind to offer,” Claire rambled. She was already making to the door, another wide smile on her face. “I hope you enjoy the muffins! Do let me know if they taste alright or not! Actually, don’t. I don’t want to know. Just toss them if they are bad.”

“I am certain they will be wonderful, Claire. Thank you for dropping some off.”

“Oh of course! See you later, Draco!”

When he finally shut his door, Draco sighed again. He had so much left to prepare for spring, but right now all he could think about were the freshly baked muffins in his kitchen. Claire was without a doubt one of the best bakers Draco had ever met. Every treat she had brought by in the four years they had been neighbors had been delightful, and so had her company. At first he had been annoyed that she wouldn’t leave him alone, still not trusting others in his personal space after the war. But she had been nothing but kind to him. He wondered what he ever thought was so wrong with muggles. Sure, they couldn’t use magic, and many of them were rather crass, but they were people just as him. He had been such an idiot as a child.

Draco spent the rest of the afternoon pressing elephant ears and digging into the mountains of muffins.

That night Draco retried from the living room and climbed the narrow stair case to the second floor. His house was by no means large, but he had more than enough space to spread out. His kitchen was comfortable, and his living room doubled fantastically as a working space. Draco hardly ever had company over, so no one ever complained about potting soil sitting next to stacks of tomes on ancient runes. He had thought when he bought the house about creating a sunroom off the back, but the windows did a fine enough job during the summer months that he hadn’t thought it necessary after his first year.

Once at the top, Draco stripped off in the bathroom, rewarding himself with a hot shower. He watched as dirt mixed with water and trickled down his left forearm. It was covered in muddy “blood” as the mixture dripped off his fingertips.

Was this what they imagined flowed through the veins of some wizards and witches, Draco chuckled to himself. He knew all too well that everyone bled the same, screamed the same, and died the same. There were no differences in purity in any of those acts, no matter who it was.

Draco finished his shower and crossed the hall into his bedroom. A book lay abandoned on his bedside table from the morning, but right when he reached down to pick it up, he heard a tapping at his window.

Startled for only a second, Draco made his way over and invited the owl in. It swooped in, never landing, instead dropping a single piece of grass on his book. The owl was gone as suddenly as it had appeared. Draco locked the window and picked up the grass to inspect it, finding it to actually be a single chive.

Who would find him useful?

Draco slept that night with his wand a little closer than normal, wary of what the message might mean, and why the sender would be so sure he would understand it.

~~~~~~~~

Three weeks was how long it took for Hermione Granger to visit his shop again. Draco wasn’t counting, but he was much more prepared to see her this time. Her ingredient list had seemed far too experimental to warrant only one trip to the potions shop. He had thought it would be best to practice lowering his heart rate, occlude out the ringing of her horrible screams echoing inside his family’s old ballroom, and work on steadying his hands.However, he figured she could have gone elsewhere after learning that he was the owner of The Acquisitor. He would have. He would do almost anything to stay away from the nightmares of his past. It had been years since he had even thought to look up one of his old housemates. There were too many skeletons and he did not have enough closest.

“This is oddly similar to the make up of polyjuice, but you don’t have a few key ingredients,” Draco commented as he searched his shelves for the we items on Granger’s list.

Granger scrunched her face, willing herself not to give anything away. Draco remained silent and shrugged. He did not care what she was up to, but the idea of experimental potion making fascinated him. His own workshop behind the counter had a few potions brewing now. One he hoped would work as a scar removal solution, but he was still as unsuccessful as he had been back in his school days. He wondered what the base of her potion would be, as it seemed she substituted out the base of the polyjuice potion for pumpkin, and pumpkin reacted with other ingredients much better in a gold lined cauldron. However, she was also using crushed beetle wings, which tempered best with tin, although she could use a tin cauldron with a gold stirring rod for the best harmony for each ingredient.

He wondered if she knew that; if he should tell her.

As he brought Granger’s purchases to the front and began to wrap them, he lost the witch to the corner of his shop. Her hands traced the spines of ancient and new books alike, stopping every now and then, playing with the curiosity that no doubt buzzed under her fingertips.

“Where did you get all of these from?” She questioned. “It’s an incredible collection!”

“I collected most of them over the last few years, but many of the older ones were from my family’s library.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed, turning back to face him at the counter. “I had thought…”

“The ministry let me keep whatever what deemed purely educational before they burned the manor down.”

Silence fell between them, settling in the cracks of their facades that had started to crumble in the liminal social relationship between shopkeeper and customer.

“Five galleons” he said.

She left seven.

He put them in the rude customer jar.

Why was she coming to his place of business? What did he have that she so desperately needed to be a patron of his shop and not just go down the street or owl post the more rare ingredients? Why did she return after the first visit? Why didn’t he turn her away?

Her face brought so many memories he had spent so long trying to forget. His mother, her absence, Granger’s screams, his father’s execution, his idiotic childhood tendencies…why couldn’t she let him be? Didn’t she know she was at the center of so much of his guilt? Of his suffering? Didn’t she know that her melodic voice was forever tainted by by the gasping sobs and heart breaking screams he had been whiteness to? Didn’t she know that her face was the last thing he saw before he was carted off to Azkaban? Didn’t she know that she was the first and only person he had ever uttered that horrible word to? Didn’t she know how much he regretted so much of his life?

His shaking hand was barely able to wave the store shut before he turned on his heel and disapparated.