Ferinus Consanguinitas

Beta'd by Night the Storyteller

"Wakey wakey Harry, it’s almost ten." Harry opened his eyes slowly, sunlight was shining bright through his open window. He vision was blurred and he reached for his glasses on the side table. The room came into focus, Lyra was standing by Hedwig's cage stroking her soft feathers and humming a song he didn't know. He threw back the sheets as Lyra looked over at him, her face went bright red and she quickly shielded her face with her hand.

"Um...I will just let you get dressed and ready for the day. Meet me in the backyard, yeah?" She walked out of the room quickly, hand never leaving the side of her face and shut the door.

'What was that all about?' he wondered as he stood up, stretched his arms into the air, popping the kinks out of his back that the old mattress left. He walked over to his trunk to grab some clean clothes and his mouth then dropped open in embarrassment as he finally noticed the giant tent he had in his boxers.

*--------*

After a very cold shower, Harry got dressed and went downstairs, stomach growling. He made a quick stop in the kitchen then walked out of the back door with a plate of sandwiches and two sodas looking around for Lyra.

"Over here Harry." Her disembodied head was floating chest level in the far corner of the backyard. She smiled as he walked over with a confused look on his face.

"Disillusionment charm on the tent, come on in" her hand appeared then followed by the rest of her body. Hunching over and an arm holding the flap open, Harry stepped in. It was a lot like the Weasley's tent from the World cup, but this was much grander. The entry room was gigantic and looked very much like the Slytherin common room, green and silver was everywhere and snakes were prevalent in the decor. Every piece of furniture was made of rich wood and fine fabrics, three arch doorways led off the room.

"This is Lucius Malfoy's tent, I don't know whether he has ever actually used it, why staying in a tent when you can straightly apparate to the manor? It's really nice, it even has its own house elf, though she is a bit strange. The bedroom is through that door, together with an en-suite bathroom as well. That door leads to the dining room while that one opens to the potions lab." Lyra swept the room counterclockwise, pointing out the doors before she took the plate of sandwiches and drinks from Harry and walked through the archway leading to the dining room. Harry followed her and found himself in a massive formal dining room complete with a long mahogany table which sat eight and a crystal chandelier. There was another small doorway off the room, which he assumed leading to the kitchen. Harry sat down at the table beside Lyra, took a sandwich off the plate and began to eat.

"Why exactly do you have Lucius Malfoy's tent?" He had finished with one and started on another, sipping at his drink, Lyra was eating as well though not as enthusiastically as Harry was.

"I asked him, and he let me use it. The Order has promised to do everything they can to try and get his son back to him, so he is most accommodating to us."

"Draco…" the name was said very quietly as the memories from last night came rushing back to Harry.

"Harry are you alright? What’s about Draco?" the concern shown through her features and she laid a hand on his arm trying to offer comfort.

"Voldemort has him, he is alive, but he looked awful Lyra." Harry recounted his vision to her, with most detail as he could remember. She flinched at the mention of Snape, but otherwise her face remained the same.

"I need to send a message to the rest of the Order about this, just go ahead and finish your eating, then meet me in the potions lab, first door on the right of the tent." Lyra walked out of the door and Harry followed her shortly, wiping the tears off his face that he hadn't realized had formed there. She was standing by the flaps of the tent, with her wand to her side, eyes closed. She then waved her wand and two small silvery birds formed at the end and flew around the room. Harry followed them with his eyes until they flew out of the flaps Lyra held open for them.

"Scissor tailed flycatcher" She was turned to the exit, hand still resting on the flap of the opening.

"What?"

"My Patronus is a scissor tailed flycatcher, they nested around my school when I was growing up, I always wished I could fly with them, but most brooms have bird repelling spells, don't want any midair accidents." She turned to face him completely and gave him a small smile.

"Anyway follow me and we will get started on the potion, though you really should try and eat more, Harry." she walked towards the door leading to the lab, and Harry followed quickly behind. The room was almost as large as the potions room in Hogwarts dungeon and reminded him of it as well. Dried plants were hanging from racks in the ceiling and there were long tables against the back and sidewalls. Bottles filled with dead animals and their various body parts lined the shelves on the walls, and if he hadn't lost his appetite before with retelling of his vision, it would have been gone now.

"Please no magic in here Harry, many of these ingredients are very rare and I wouldn't want them polluted with magic." She walked towards the back of the room, to a table with three gleaming copper cauldrons all with fires lit under them.

"What do you mean polluted with magic?" She turned to look at him with perplexed look on her face.

"You went through six years of potion's classes and you don't know that? Magic pollution happens when you used magic on any item used in potion making, it is why you hand wash the cauldrons instead of using scrubbing charms and cut all your ingredients using a knife and not your wand. If you use magic to do these things it can change the magical properties of your ingredients and therefore changes the effect and/or potency of said ingredients." Harry's brow was scrunched up in thought.

"Well I guess that makes sense, I always thought that bastard of a teacher made us scrub the cauldrons by hand just for his own enjoyment." Lyra quickly turned her back to face the table with the cauldrons and began to sort through the plants that were laying on the surface.

"No Harry, there was a reason, though from what I have been told about your ex professor he probably enjoyed your misery greatly. But enough talk about that, lets get started. We need to add the shadow demon blood at exactly midnight on the night of the full moon. We have to add it when the potion is bight yellow but it will only stay yellow for about 10 minutes. If we don't time this right and the potion isn't bright yellow at midnight when its time to add the blood, the potion it will be ruined. That means we need to start this potion in 36 minutes, and we need all the ingredients cut and measured for the base and first few steps before we start."

"But the full moon isn't until the 20th, its only the 16th."
"Yes well that gives us 106 hours and 35 minutes to brew this potion to perfection. Don't worry too much Harry, Auntie Minnie said you did excellent last year in potions, I'm sure that you will do just fine. This potion is quite complicated, it requires precise brewing and an exact time-line, and this should be a good challenge. Though I'm afraid you and I shall be living on pepper up potion and coffee for the next five days." Lyra's eyes were bright and excited, she looked like Hermione does when she gets a new book.

"Auntie Minnie? Are you talking about Professor McGonagall?" Lyra looked over at him and nodded, took out a silver bladed knife from its holder on the wall and began cutting what looked like a green onion into small even pieces. He couldn't believe that his head of house would ever let anyone call her by that name. And if she was basing his abilities off of potions class last year, then she was in for a nasty surprise.

"What is that?" Harry asked pointing to the plant she was cutting, the knife slowed and she looked at him like he was a complete idiot.

"It is Gurdyroot, you should have used this at least a dozen times in your potions classes." She shook her head in annoyance and turned back to her cutting.

"If you could go to the wall over there and get me three jobberknoll feathers, then the bottle of cockroach eyes that is sitting on the end of the table over there." Harry grabbed the jar of cockroach eyes first, it looked like it was full of dirt, and placed that next to where Lyra had set the finely chopped gurdyroot, she was already slicing some other kind of plant into thin sections. He turned around and walked back to the shelves she pointed out and tried to find the jobberknoll feathers.

"Make sure they are pretty long and that there aren't any big holes in them, those are what we will be using to stir the potion with when we add the gurdyroot." There were at least 3 dozen different containers with various feathers in, he finally located the right ones, selected the three best looking and placed those next to the cockroach eyes. Together they got everything chopped, smashed, grounded, and began the potion right on time. After the first ingredients went in, the potion had to come slowly to a simmer, then sat for 3 hours to thicken, so they decided to grab some dinner as Harry's appetite had come back with a vengeance.

"Why were you in my room so late last night?" They both sat at the table eating a set indicating a five-course meal with cutlery that wouldn't have been out of place at a royal banquet, the house elf Sinky was so excited to be cooking for such nice masters, that she had gone all out on the food.

"Oh well I had just gotten back from Romania and Minnie had asked me to give you some dreamless sleep potion before you went to sleep. I just kinda lost track of the time." She was blushing again, looking down at her soup Sinky just placed that in front of her. She was chewing lightly on her lower lip, and Harry guessed she was thinking about what had happened this morning when she woke him up and tried to change the subject.

"What were you doing in Romania?" If anything her blush became more intense and she ate a spoonful of soup and wiped her face with a fine napkin before she talked.

"I just needed a few scales from a Chinese Firebolt, all the apothecaries around here are shut down, and I didn't have time to get permission to port-key back to the States in order to go one there. As Molly said her son worked at the dragon preserve, so she let me use the floo at the Burrow. When I told Charlie why I was there he insisted on giving me the grand tour, which was absolutely wonderful, I have always loved dragons. Then we started talking and sort of lost track how long I had been there."

"What time did you get here?"

"I think around twelve, I didn't think you would already be asleep. Merlin knows I was never in bed before one when I was your age. I knocked on your door, but there was no answer. Then I heard you crying out and when I came in, you were just starting to sit up."

"Thanks for those potions by the way, those muggle pills take so long to work, and after that I don't think I would have ever gotten back to sleep."

"No problem Harry, I can show you how to make them later if you want, always nice to have a good supply." She finished her soup and it was replaced with a salad, covered in carrots and other veggies carved to resemble various animals that were frolicking around her plate, nibbing on the greens.

"Wait, isn't Romania two hours ahead of us?" A smirk grew across Harry's face and the blush on Lyra's came back in full. Harry’s smirk turned into an evil grin and he couldn't help but laughing.

"And what were you doing with Charlie Weasley at two o'clock in the morning Lyra?" She schooled her features into something you might see on a pureblooded aristocrat, but it lost its effect as she couldn't keep a slight smirk off her face.

"I don't see how that is any of your business Harry, and you should probably eat your soup before it gets cold." she speared a cucumber bunny with her fork and delicately bit its head off, smile breaking through as she finish her salad.


A/N Thanks for reading