Adamo Fidelitas

Disclaimer The Harry Potter books and their characters are property of JK Rowling.

Adamo Fidelitas 03

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Hermione and Ron entered the Great Hall with the first rush of students. \"You know that if that slimy creep is bugging you, all you have to do is tell me and I\'ll knock his block off,\" Ron was telling her for what must have been the fiftieth time. He stepped quickly in front of the petite girl to block her path. \"He wasn\'t bugging you was he, Hermione?\" Ron asked again in a concerned tone, looking hopeful for any excuse to rush to her rescue.

Hermione understood the way that Ron pressured himself as a result of his very distinguished older brothers. He had to follow up two Head Boys, a Quidditch Captain, and the two most popular jokesters to ever come thr Gry Gryffindor. Ron desperately needed to have recognition of his own, and it was very difficult for him especially when his two best friends were the famous Harry Potter and the Head Girl, Hermione Granger. His latest idea had been that he could excel as Hermione and Harry\'s protector. He\'d become something like a big brother to most of the Gryffindors in the past year and a half. It was a little much sometimes.

\"Ron, I promise I\'m fine,\" Hermione reassured him, noticing the stubborn set of his jaw. \"Malfoy was just complaining loudly about not being able to find some book for his Potions paper. The only advice I could give the nasty git was to talk to Professor Snape,\" Hermione lied smoothly. She generally didn\'t like to lie, but it certainly didnmeanmean she couldn\'t lie when needed, as if their encounter with the mountain troll first year hadn\'t proved that. This was more of a half-truth anyhow. \"Of course, you know how much Malfoy loves to complain,\" she finishe

Ron crooked his arm through hers and led her over to the Gryffindor table. \"My poor, Mione,\" he sighed with a hint of laughter as he crooked his head to the side to rest his cheek on the top of her head. \"What a rotten start to the morning, having to listen to that pasty wanker piss and moan because of a book!\" Ron chuckled. \"If you want to wait until a more decent hour, I could go to the library with you and keep the whiner in tow.\" Ron offered brightly, holding Hermione\'s elbow as she took her seat.

\"I can take care of myself very well, thank you. I had to do some extra work on my History of Magic paper after spending so much time goofing off last night,\" Hermione told him. \"Not that I woulade ade goofing off last night,\" she grinned, as Ron sat down close beside her with his left thigh touching her right. \"I really needed to unwind, and I love spending time with you,\" she said truthfully and nuzzled Ron\'s cheek affectionately. Ron gave her knee a playful little squeeze beneath the table in return.

The memories that stirred at Ron\'s action made the brainy witch t up up uncomfortably, and Hermione couldn\'t have felt any stiffer after a full body bind. She quickly pushed Ron\'s hand away, privately wishing that she\'d had a chance to shower and change her knickers after the scene in the library. Hermione was wracked with a mixture of guilt and fear. She wasn\'t sure if it would kill Ron to know what had happened before his arrival at the library, or if Ron would simply kill Malfoy. Underneath it all, Hermione was most ashamed at the flicker of desire that still smoldered at the memory of Malfoy\'s strong fingers secretly stroking her beneath the table and her own willingness to caress him back. No matter how many times her rational mind reminded her that it was wrong, it still sent a very guilty thrill through her that she didn\'t want to be reminded of now.

\"What\'s with you?\" Ron asked. His brows drew together in confusion, but he sounded rather miffed as though she\'d just rejected him. Hermionew shw she had overreacted badly. He was looking at her critically, as he tried to figure out the reasons she would act so standoffish. Hermione looked around frantically over his shoulder for anything to help trigger an excuse. She wasn\'t sure if she may have let out an audible sigh of relief when she recognized two familiar forms making their way towards them. Ron was too busy concentrating on her to follow her gaze.

\"Harry and Ginny are heading this way,\" she told him.

\"Hang Harry and Ginny!\" Ron retorted, going pink in the ears. \"It seems you\'re making a habit of pushing me away suddenly, and I wasn\'t even doing anything! Besides, we fight in front of Harry and Ginny all the time. I doubt it\'s going to offend them suddenly.\" He\'d obviously misinterpreted her statement to mean that he should drop the subject because Harry and Ginny were coming.

\"That\'s not what I meant!\" Hermione insisted. \"I just didn\'t want you fondling me under the table in front of everyone,\" she huffed, crossing her arms and turning towards her glass of pumpkin juice. \"I\'m not making a habit of anything!\" she said as she stabbed scr scrambled eggs loudly against the plate.

\"Really?\" Ron snorted. \"I seem to remember you sending me some very mixed signals last night. First you nearly ravished me, and then you backed away faster than if you\'d been burnt. Now you tell me how much you love spending time with me, but when I try to be affectionate you get all icy again. It seems an awful lot like you\'re either a tease or there\'s something wrong that you\'re not telling me about,\" Ron fumed. \"So which is it?\" he demanded. He\'d straightened his back as he spoke to look more commanding, but the corners of his eyes still twitched nervously as though he wasn\'t sure he wanted the answer.

Harry and Ginny tried not to look at the rowing couple as they slid into seats on the other side of Ron. As they moved Hermione caught sight of Malfoy walking in behind them. He was listening with obvious amusement in his pale eyes, and he was sniggering at the trouble between her and Ron. He probably was giving himself credit for it Hermione reasoned. He took a seat at the Slytherin table where he could easily watch the argument unfold, and Hermione didn\'t feel like giving him the pleasure of watching her have a spat with Ron because of him.

\"Which is it?\" Ron nearly yelled, repeating quesquestion to get her attention. This time he did follow her gaze, and she immediately looked away. He\'d already figured out the person at whom she\'d been staring though. \"Hermione?\" he prompted her again. \"Does Malfoy have something to do with this?\" he sounded very angry now.

\"Only in so far as he and all the other Slytherins are now over there laughing it up over you shouting personal details about us in the middle of the hall!\" Hermione yelled back, feeling the prickle of tears in her eyes. This was humiliating. Not only was Ron accusing her of leading him on, but also he was doing it in front of the one person that she least wanted to hear this. She grabbed her books off the table and sprinted out of the hall without bothering to finish eating.

Ron made a move to go after her, but thought the better of it. He looked down into his plate miserably. \"Why do I always overdo it and put my big foot in my mouth, Harry?\" he sighed, pushing a kipper around the plate with his fork.

\"And more importantly why haven\'t you choked on one of those monstrously huge feet of yours by now?\" Malfoy shouted at Ron from his spot among the Slytherins, who laughed appreciatively. \"Of course, since your parents probably couldn\'t afford food for all their brood when you were growing up, I suppose you had to eat something,\" Malfoy mused further. Harry stood up and shot him a threatening glare, which only made the pale wizard raise his eyebrows and grin more broadly at the challenge. However, the tensing of the copper-haired boy\'s shoulders did make him drop his gaze and return to his food. It was always a better idea to only provoke fights when there were no teachers around to see.

Harry sat back down looking triumphant. \"Hermione will get over it in no time, Ron. And if she doesn\'t you can always make it up to her by sending her a singing card or a really early singing Valentine,\" Harry suggested brightly trying to pull Ron out of his funk.

\"Only if he wants her to be mortified to death!\" Ginny interjected with a grin. \"I think one Weasley making the mistake of singing cards is plenty in the family. Things will work out fine, Ron. You and Hermione obviously love each other,\" Ginny assured him, as she took a bite of toast. \"And if it doesn\'t work out, you could always send her the card as revenge,\" she teased with a glint of Fred and George\'s mischievousness in her eyes.

\"You are evil!\" Harry laughed, wrapping his arm around Ginny\'s shoulder and pulling her close for a quick hug before releasing her. He elbowed the tall red-haired wizard until Ron flashed him a grin in return, and the three continued to josh around as they ate. Ron ate noticeably less than the others, an observation that pleased Draco immensely. He was still feeling put out over Ron\'s interruption in the library.

Draco was distracted from watching them further by the flurry of hundreds of owls entering overhead, as the morning mail arrived. He spied his eagle owl swooping down towards him with a letter clutched in her beak. He hadn\'t been expecting any mail and immediately wondered about it. Draco gave the owl a nibble of bacon, after taking the letter from her. He examined the envelope and recognized his father\'s precise and elegant writing on it. Draco broke the seal with a quick flick of his finger, and he pulled the carefully folded letter out and began to read.

Draco,

It\'s come to my attention that ymothmother sent you a rather unorthodox care package recently. I\'m curious about your plans for it, since I know those ingredients were not on your Potions list fogwaogwarts. I am also anxious to hear how your relationship with Miss Parkinson is progressing, as your mother is under the impression that this package was directly related to your association with the Parkinson girl. The arrangements for your future are moving ahead nicely, and I will send you future instructions soon. I expect your prompt response by owl.

Don\'t Disappoint Me,
Father

Draco bit the inside of his cheek hard enough to taste blood. He would be damned before he told his father just how catastrophically awry Draco\'s plans for those ingredients and Pansy had gone. Draco crumpled his father\'s meticulous letter into a wrinkled ball and shoved it into his pocket. He would have to speak to Snape before responding to this letter, or else he would have no idea exactly how much lying to do.

Hermione\'s anger hadn\'t abated any by the time Double Potions rolled around. She\'d ignored Ron throughout Charms, and she didn\'t even glance in his direction when she flounced into the dungeon and walked past him to the seat on the other side of Harry.

Draco\'s eyes followed her every movement covetously, despite his best attempts not to stare. He was fairly certain that the sway of her hips wow iow indelibly emblazoned upon his memory. He didn\'t like the way Weasley watched her too. She took her seat beside Neville Longbottom.

Neville had developed into quite a powerful wizard after their fifth year. Voldemort had broken open Azkaban and the Lestranges were among those whom the dementors set free. Neville had been forced to face them all too soon. The anger and fear that the Death Eaters would further torture his family, who\'d been stolen from him when he was a baby, was enough to galvanize Neville into action. He\'d finally tapped into a deep magical strength that he\'d been born with, and he was the most enthusiastic member of Dumbledore\'s Army now--eager to face Bellatrix Lestrange again face to face. Yet for some reason, Snape still intimidated Neville into melting cauldron bottoms without Hermione there to back him up. So she always partnered with Neville, much to the benefit of both of them.

Ron tried unsuccessfully to catch Hermione\'s eye, and managed to earn a round of laughter from Malfoy and his Slytherin cronies for the effort. He turned around and shot a few foul words at the Slytherins, which began budding into one of the classic Slytherin vs. Gryffindor grudge fights. \"Hi, Neville,\" Hermione greeted Neville cordially, while ignoring the ruckus around her.

\"Hullo,\" Neville returned quietly. \"I really should remember to use a cheering charm before this class. It\'s too stressful,\" he confided. He broke off with a gulp as the door swung open hard enough to hit the wall, and Professor Snape stalked into the class in his bat-like black robes. The Slytherins immediately quieted leaving only Ron\'s last retort hanging in the air like a black cloud, and Snape stopped in front of Harry and Ron, singling them out as the nuisances responsible for disrupting his class.

\"I do expect that I have made my feelings clear about troublemaking in my classroom,\" Snape snarled, curling his lip and fixing Ron and Harry with his cold and glittering black eyes. \"Ten pointsm Grm Gryffindor,\" he announced with satisfaction, before sweeping up to his desk and turning to face his students. The Gryffindors had come to expect this as a normal beginning to Potions.

\"Today we will be starting on the Switching Potion, a particularly complicated potion that will take the next four classes to finish,\" Snape explained in his stern manner. \"Any tomfoolery today could affect your potions, and it is highly doubtful that any of you would have the fortitude of mind to catch those mistakes two weeks later. Remember that you will be drinking these potions to test them.\" Snape leered. \"Incorrect switching potions can lead to some very painful consequences.\"

He turned his back to the room as the class began preparing their ingredients. Hermione smiled encouragingly at Neville as she handed him the bloodroot to cut. She began to grind their dried salamander skin. \"Could you imagine anything worse than having to share a Switching Potion with Malfoy?\" Ron whispered to Harry. A tiny splash alerted them to the fact that the object of their conversation had managed to flick at least one chameleon eye into their cauldron. \"You slimy git!\" Ron called out turning to face his least favorite person as Harry attempted to fish the eye out of their potion before it could dissolve. Ron grabbed the bottle of dried lizard eyes and threatened to chuck it at Malfoy\'s face.

\"What\'s the matter, Weasley? Too destitute to afford your own ingredients?\" Malfoy drawled back as though Ron had stolen Malfoy\'s bottle. It didn\'t matter that each table had been supplied with their own container. His icy eyes were narrowed nearly into slits, and he looked at Ron with the same disgust that the freckled wizard reserved for him. He snatched back the bottle from Ron\'s hand. \"You don\'t want to add chameleon eyes first anyhow,\" the blonde continued in a condescending voice, \"but maybe your ratty old textbook is missing that page. I would suggest you ask your girlfriend, but I saw you two at breakfast this morning.\"

Hermione turned and glowered at Malfoy, and Ron grabbed the Slytherins\' cauldron and prepared to throw that at them instead. Malfoy hurriedly scuttled out of the way, using Goyle for a shield. \"Ron, no!\" Hermione insisted, grabbing Ron by the sleeve of his hand-me-down robe. \"He\'s just trying to get you into trouble,\" she hissed.

It was far too late to help though, as the Potion\'s Master had appeared at the first sign of trouble and had witnessed Ron\'s outburst. \"Put down that cauldron at once, Mr. Weasley!\" Snape roared, reaching out to take the cauldron away. \"That is fifty points from Gryffindor and two weeks detention!\"

\"You know he started it, Professor!\" Ron accused, \"He was throwing things into our potion!\" Everyone knew that it was a mistake to talk back in Potions, but Ron was too angry to care at this point. His entire morning had been crap, and this was just the last straw to make him explode. Malfoy had certainly pushed just the right buttons.

\"Is this true Mister Malfoy?\" Snape asked in a calm, silky voice. It was the voice that he reserved for his favorite students.

\"Of course not, Professor,\" Draco promised him, widening his eyes as though shocked and affronted by such an accusation. \"Weasley was stealing my ingredients off the table, and when I caught him at it he tried to throw a boiling cauldron on me,\" he countered, sending Ron a look of undisguised rancor.

Hermione was furious at Malfoy for starting this. It was a really stupid time to be picking a fight. Was this part of how Slytherins buttered up their head of house? She was also furious at Ron for falling into such a transparent trap. He responded to the slightest bait from Malfoy every time. He was too old to be so volatile and insecure. The two wizards always acted like bratty children around each other. It was apparently a case of what Parvati Patil termed \"testosterone poisoning\". Lavendar Brown called it \"fuckwittage\".

By the end of the class, Hermione\'s attention had been split between her potion and watching Malfoy to make sure he didn\'t cause any more problems for her friends. It seemed to suit Malfoy just fine though, as he looked very pleased with himself every time he caught her looking. She left much of the work to Neville to perform under her instructions, but he seemed well up to the task today.

For his part, Draco was having a fine day now. His contact with Granger this morning had been enough to clear out most of the fuzz in his head, his potion was coming together nicely, and he\'d managed to goad Weasley into losing seventy house points. Having shifted Granger\'s attention off of that reprobate and back onto himself was another benefit. Lineage and lust potions aside, it could cause problems with the golden trio, and that was always fun. With the lust potion in the mix, it was quite an ego stroke.

When Snape dismissed them, Draco took his time cleaning up, waiting for the rest of the class to thin out. He and Weasel managed one last glaring contest as the gangly wizard shuffled past Draco\'s desk on his way out. Granger mouthed a silent warning at him to stop it, as she left right behind her urchin of a boyfriend. As soon as his way was clear, Draco approached the desk with his notebook in hand and waited for the professor to acknowledge him.

\"Yes, Mister Malfoy?\" Snape said after a few moments, without looking up from the first year essays that he was grading.

\"I wanted to talk to you about my thesis, Professor,\" Malfoy explained, waiting for Snape\'s reaction before saying more. When the teacher lifted his greasy black head with a look of interest, Draco knew it was safe to proceed. \"I\'ve been researching love and lust potions in Ars Amatoria, and I was planning to narrow it down to a single specific potion to explore. In this case, I chose Adamo Fidelitas as an interesting candidate,\" Malfoy continued.

Snape nodded slowly. \"Yes, that potion could indeed make an interesting study,\" he conceded. He folded his hands and leaned back into his large chair, staring over his long nose at Draco. \"So what have you come up with so far?\"

Draco opened his notebook, and passed his work over to Snape. Draco had indeed done an impressive amount of research before he\'d ever decided upon the lust potion. \"I\'ve researched the brewing of the potion itself, and I\'ve found some interesting anecdotes of its use. I decided that it would be very interesting to set up a hypothetical example to dissect in the discussion of its effects. Such an example would have to incluhe dhe dangers of such a potion and possible mistakes that could occur with its use…\" Draco continued.

\"Hence the reason that love potions are so questionable in the magical world…\" Snape told him. \"Something always goes wrong, and that is the reason students are banned from brewing them,\" he told Malfoy with a subtle raise of his dark eyebrow. It was an unmistakable question behind those words.

\"It would be incredibly irresponsible to bruch uch a potion, of course,\" Malfoy agreed. \"This is simply theoretical, but it leads us to my problem. In order for me to discuss the dangers and solutions to these theoretical mistakes, I need to gather some information from Ovid\'s companion book of cures, which is in your possession at the moment.\" Malfoy said with a note of hope in his voice.

\"Just what sort of mistake are you researching a cure for?\" Snape asked with sly interest, and Draco was certain that he needed to deflect the man\'s attention from just a single mistake as it could very well be taken as an admission that Draco had indeed been mixing potions against school regulations.

\"Well, there are several possible mistakes that could be worth discussing. Mistaken ingredients that interfere with the effect of the potion is one topic that might take me several books to research. I thought that if one or both of the drinkers changed their mind or if the potion were given to the wrong person gaingainst the will of another, those would also be excellent discussion points that might share a cure. Other than that there could be a mistake in the strength of the potion, and perhaps it would have to be adjusted. I\'m not sure about the validity of that one though, as there exists no anecdotal evidence for such a mistake,\" Draco rattled on. \"So I was hoping that you could allow me to take a quick look at Remedia Amoris and possibly share what information you knew on the potion so that I could determine what s ars are valid to explore.\" Draco finished, hoping that Snape was buying this.

\"This certainly sounds like very detailed research,\" Snape said with a note of respect, as he opened the second drawer of his desk and withdrew a thin burgundy book with golden lettering. He set it upon his desk and flipped to a section near the middle of the book, beforrninrning it around and passing it to Draco.

\"Well, sir, it does count for one third of our grade. As Head Boy, I need to take my grades very seriously,\" Draco replied, as he quickly began making notes about the counter potion. It was vastly more complex than the original potion, and it had to brew for more than a month.

Snape was reading everything that Draco wrote down with interest. \"Tell me, why it is that you would so fastidiously copy the details and ingredients of two potions that you have no intention of brewing?\" he asked in an oily voice, but Draco had been well prepared for this question.

\"In order to calculate the cost of such a potion and its cure in both galleons and in the time and effort expended on it, of course, Professor,\" Draco lied smoothly as he looked up for a moment, and Snape smiled in return.

\"Of course, how very thorough of you…\" Snape trailed off, as he watched Draco continue to scribble down notes. The fair wizard paused his quill and furrowed his brow as he read the final ingredient for the potion, then he looked up at his grinning Head of House.

\"Professor, I\'ve never heard of this final ingredient,\" Draco questioned after a few moments. \"What is Helios Apple?\" Draco inquired hesitantly. He was at a loss, but he wouldn\'t let himself be waylaid by one ingredient after coming this far.

\"Ah, thldenlden apple of the sun!\" Snape explained. \"It was a very rare and powerful fruit that was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans.\"

\"Then why have I never heard of it?\" Draco asked trying to hide his annoyance beneath a calm front.

\"Because very few wizards grow it, and the fruit is too delicate to be transported even by owl post. Besides, it must be used within a brief time from when it is picked. Therefore it is seldom used today,\" Snape answered with that same Cheshire cat smile that was beginning to drive Draco barmy.

\"Without a possible source for it…\" Draco began in shock. He noticed Snape studying him still, and he quickly hid his reaction to this little bit of information. \"Without a source that destroys the direction I had intended to go with the paper,\" Draco covered weakly. He was imagining a life of being forever hungry for Granger. The vision of bushy-haired, bucktoothed children on his knee while he reached helplessly for their Mudblood mother was enough to send him barking mad.

\"Oh, the fruit does still exist. In fact, Professor Sprout grows it in one of her greenhouses right here at Hogwarts,\" Snape informed him, and Malfoy brightened visibly at his words. \"However there is still one other momentous problem that an afflicted person would have to contend with in the making of this antidote,\" Snape leered, as Draco braced himself to have his hopes well and truly shattered. \"That is one of timing. Helios Apple only blooms on the winter solstice, the day the sun is reborn. The fruit needs until around the vernal equinox to ripen. So Merlin help the wizard who uses the lust potion in the summer and has to wait until the first day of spring for a cure,\" Snape finished. He relaxed back into his chair and waited for Draco\'s reaction.

Draco was fairly certain that all the blood had drained out of his already pallid complexion, and he was vaguely aware that his jaw was hanging slack. \"Merlin help him, indeed…\" Draco repeated, closing his notebook and trying to gather his suddenly scattered wits. \"Thank you, Professor. I think I just got more than I bargained for with this paper,\" Draco told him quite sincerely as he gathered his notebook and made a hasty retreat from the room.

\"Let me know if you require further assistance, Mister Malfoy,\" Snape called after him, and Draco nodded quickly before dashing out the door. Snape lightly fingered the thin book with a thoughtful expression, before sliding it back into his desk.

Once he was safely on the other side, Draco closed his eyes and pressed his back up against the wall. \"Bugger!\" he cursed, rapping the back of his head against the wall of the corridor. \"Bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger, bugger!\" he repeated, matching each word with another tapping of his skull against the dank stone wall.

He headed up the stairs and past the lof sof students filing into the Great Hall. Granger was already waiting for him in the library, when he arrived. \"Well?\" she asked sharply, as he dropped his belongings onto the same study table. He picked up the notebook and handed it to her with a nod.

\"There is a cure. I copied it from Snape and as much information as I could get along with it, but there is still a problem,\" Draco told her listlessly. He held a hand up to silence her, when she started to speak. With a steadybreabreath she flipped through the notebook until she reached the newest pages, and she began to read as Draco watched her reactions.

\"This is an incredibly difficult potion, but so far it seems like it\'s possible to make it,\" the brunette witch offered as she browsed the instructions. \"The Adam and Eve root will be expensive, but I\'m sure you can take care of that,\" she told him. \"Unicorn horn, dragon heart, Hippocampus eggshell,\" Hermione rattled off the ingredients as she mentally prepared herself to brew the potion. \"More of your blood, I see…\" she paused, and Draco knew that she had finally come across their problem. \"Helios Apple?\" she asked with a puzzled look.

Draco nodded without looking at her. \"Helios Apple,\" he sighed, \"And therein squats the toad.\" He repeated what he had learned from Snape as she silently listened with pursed lips. When he had finished, she pitched the notebook at his head. He scowled in response. \"I\'m not happy about it either, Mudblood.\"

\"Malfoy, you idiot! That\'s the end of March!\" Hermione spat in a low hiss at the frowning wizard who sat on the table in front of her. \"Don\'t you know what that means, you dunderhead? What on earth are we going to do until then?\" she demanded petulantly. \"I am not about to sleep with you,\" Hermione clarified, \"I\'d rather snog a skrewt!\"

That was too much. Malfoy rounded on her viciously and dropped his open notebook in front of her. He kept his voice at an equally angry although slightly louder hiss. \"After Weasel\'s very informative statements at breakfast, I\'m sure you\'ve already figured out what happens when we are with anyone else. Let me make one thing perfectly clear right now, you Muggle nit. I have no intention of befouling myself with you! I don\'t care if that means I go loonier than Benedick the Eternal Bachelor,\" he growled pointing at the story in his notes.

He felt a stirring of satisfaction that she looked as offended as he had felt over the skrewt comparison. Granger grabbed her satchel off the chair and pushed past him towards the exit. Malfoy knew that despite his statements by March he would be begging to befoul himself with her. He would be begging to befoul himself with her long before March.

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Author\'s Notes Apples of Helios is something I lifted from Greek Mythology, and refers to a golden fruit reminiscent of the sun. I think it was the fruit offered to the fairest beauty among Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite during a dispute between the goddesses. When Aphrodite offered Paris who was acting as judge the most beautiful woman in the worldexchexchange for choosing her, he agreed. She gave Helen of Troy to Paris and thus starts the Trojan War. I wish I could find my mythology book from which I first heard about the fruit. The name has been suspected to refer to the orange, but for this story I decided to keep it as it\'s own magical plant.

For some reason Lavendar Brown seems like a Bridget Jones fan to me, so that\'s my reasoning behind her using the term fuckwittage.

Also, Benedick the Eternal Bachelor is my own tongue in cheek reference to Benedick of Padua in Shakespeare\'s Much Ado About Nothingah, ah, I see a little Benedick and Beatrice in the constant bickering between Draco and Hermione. ;)