Chapter Twenty-Six: Visitors to the Malfoys
On a sweltering afternoon in late July, Mrs. Zabini and her son visited Wiltshire.
Amidst the dreamlike, misty atmosphere, they passed through an exquisite wrought-iron gate and saw the legendary two magnificent fountains, symtrically positioned on either side.
"I had long heard of Narcissa's exquisitely designed garden, and seeing it today, it is indeed extraordinary," Mrs. Zabini said warmly to Draco, who was greeting them at the door. "Are those white peacocks strolling over the hedge?"
"Indeed, madam," Draco said politely. "We keep a few... purely for ornantal purposes."
"What kinds of flowers are planted here? This mixed fragrance slls quite lovely," Mrs. Zabini asked with great interest, sniffing the air.
"Mainly roses, wild roses, and bluebells, along with so other common sumr flowers," Draco said, turning his head slightly to nod at Blaise, who was standing behind Mrs. Zabini. Blaise grinned lazily at him.
"Mother, if we keep looking, we won't be able to attend Lady Malfoy's tea party on ti." Blaise narrowed his long, brown eyes and said impatiently to the beautiful dark-haired witch who was looking around. "It's almost ti."
"Oh!" Mrs. Zabini exclaid, smiling at the platinum-haired boy who was patiently waiting beside her. "Sorry, darling, please take there quickly."
"It's quite all right. My mother would be delighted to know that you lingered in the garden she designed." Draco led Mrs. Zabini along the neatly manicured garden path toward the manor. "The tea party will be held in the second-floor drawing room, where you can see the entire garden through the windows and balcony."
Mrs. Zabini smiled, quite pleased with Draco's impeccable manners and humble deanor. "In that case, let's hurry along."
Although the lady appeared approachable, Draco dared not underestimate this witch who was known throughout the wizarding world for her "mysteriously deceased husbands."
He smiled politely at her, glanced at her subtly, and found that she was still as young and beautiful as she'd been in his previous life.
Ti seed to have no effect on Mrs. Zabini. It left no trace on her face—she looked like an older sister to Blaise.
In the pure-blood wizarding community, Lady Zabini's na was known to all.
Unlike Narcissa, who outwardly displayed nobility, elegance, aloofness, and propriety, this lady was more outgoing and lively, and habitually used enthusiasm to mask her inner coldness.
When people looked into her charming brown eyes with their slightly upturned corners and had a pleasant conversation with her, they often found it hard to believe that the deaths of her six husbands had anything to do with her. They might even feel genuine sympathy for her unfortunate experiences and think of her as a cheerful, sincere, yet unfortunate and innocent beauty.
Draco thought that the gossip and exceptional beauty of Mrs. Zabini often made people overlook her hidden brilliance.
Based on his understanding from his previous life, he knew that most of her slightly exaggerated exclamations of praise and her innocent, carefree way of looking around were just an act.
In fact, this lady was extrely skilled at networking and resource integration, and was a powerful figure in the wizarding business world.
Using the wealth she'd inherited from her six deceased husbands, coupled with her shrewd tactics, the Zabini family had been rapidly rising in recent years as one of the new elite pure-blood wizarding families, living a much better life than so pure-blood families from the Sacred Twenty-Eight.
Thinking of this, Draco beca even more polite, answering Mrs. Zabini's whimsical questions gently, knowing that these were all tests she was giving him.
Lady Zabini had just entered the Malfoy Manor. The house-elves at the entrance bowed to them and opened the door.
As she walked through the spacious, high-ceilinged entrance hall, the lady looked up and said, "Oh, I adore this crystal chandelier. Baroque, isn't it?"
"That's right," Draco said. "Purchased in France."
Mrs. Zabini nodded approvingly, her discerning gaze sweeping over the intricately carved marble fireplace, the gilded mirrors scattered throughout the manor, and the expensive carpets covering the floors. She couldn't help but take in the antique furniture accumulated from various eras, and had to admit to herself that the Malfoy family was indeed a family with rich heritage and considerable wealth.
After all, they were one of the ancient Sacred Twenty-Eight, a renowned and wealthy family in the wizarding world, whose wealth and resources accumulated over centuries were far beyond what a few generations of wizards could match. Half envious and half resentful, Lady Zabini smiled slightly, but a fighting spirit stirred within her.
So what if they were "nouveau riche"? They weren't bad at all.
Even though she was nouveau riche, wasn't she invited by the "old guard" to enter the gates of this ancient manor? She proudly raised her head again, with a satisfied smile, and entered the drawing room.
"Narcissa, this place is truly magnificent and opulent! And the gardens outside, I'm almost overwheld by them!" Mrs. Zabini said affectionately to Narcissa as she approached, as if she'd received invitations to Narcissa's afternoon tea parties before and was a long-ti friend.
At that mont, she took Narcissa's arm and said cheerfully, "If there were such a manor, who would want to go out? One would surely spend all one's days at ho..."
"How kind," Narcissa said, glancing at her son with a hint of surprise, noticing a subtle "Yes, she treats everyone this way" look on his face.
The several aloof ladies sitting in the drawing room also showed the sa surprised expression as Narcissa, seemingly not expecting anyone to behave so familiarly.
Narcissa had no prior connection with Mrs. Zabini. It was only because her son had beco friends with Blaise Zabini that she'd decided to invite the "notorious" but sowhat wealthy Mrs. Zabini to her residence for a gathering.
It wasn't that she suddenly changed her mind and wanted to develop so kind of "close friendship" with Mrs. Zabini. In Narcissa's view, such relationships were truly "false intimacy."
In her understanding, the friendships between noblewon in the wizarding world often began with pleasant conversations and ended with poison, blades, and curses, for reasons that were nothing more than the sa few—n, money, and jealousy.
But at least, the fact that parents of fellow Slytherin students could occasionally sit down for a cup of tea, discuss their sons' education, and exchange information was not without its benefits.
However, Narcissa had never expected such an intimate gesture as "linking arms," which should only be permitted after knowing soone for many years.
"This must be Blaise?" She gave a polite smile, suppressing her deep dissatisfaction. She didn't break free from the arm of the overly familiar Mrs. Zabini but instead turned her gaze to the dark-skinned boy with high cheekbones next to Draco, praising him, "Quite the handso young man."
Blaise bowed slightly to Narcissa as a greeting.
"Draco is the one who's truly impressive! At such a young age, his manners are impeccable. He's a very patient and handso little gentleman..." Mrs. Zabini winked at Draco and gave Narcissa an innocent smile. "You must have put a lot of effort into educating him, yes?"
"You flatter ." Narcissa's mood softened a little—no mother would be unhappy if soone praised her child—she took Mrs. Zabini's arm and led her toward the sofa, saying, "Draco, why don't you take Blaise around the manor? The library, the potions laboratory, or the Quidditch pitch? If you're hungry, have the house-elves bring you so tea and biscuits."
Draco nodded to his mother, bowed to the ladies in the drawing room, and led Blaise out.
"I never expected you to be like this even at ho, so cautious and restrained, leaving no room for criticism." Blaise followed him through the corridor and asked casually, "Aren't you tired of always being so reserved and considerate?"
"It's all right," Draco said. "You get used to it."
"I don't understand you." Blaise shrugged nonchalantly. "Well then, show around. I've heard many people say that your family's private library has a rich collection."
"As you wish," Draco said calmly, walking ahead to lead the way.
Blaise Zabini.
He was one of the few boys among Slytherin's year, aside from his childhood friend Theodore Nott, who could communicate with Draco on an equal footing.
However, in their previous life, they'd beco friends too late—they'd only started talking occasionally around fifth year, and then slowly developed sothing akin to "friendship."
In this life, Draco had befriended him early on.
Why not? During the two years when his family had fallen on hard tis, Blaise Zabini, who always considered himself "of noble status," continued to hover around him, making sarcastic remarks in an annoying way, but never avoided him like the plague.
"So what if your father went to Azkaban?" In his mory, Blaise's face showed a hint of self-mockery as he'd said to the down-and-out boy, "My father is dead! People always say my mother killed him for his inheritance! Look at , I'm still living well, living with my head held high."
"This is different..." Draco had said weakly, covering his face.
"It's not different! I don't even know if my mother ever loved my father! But what about you? Even when your father was imprisoned, your mother still waited and worked tirelessly for him. Everyone knows how much your mother loved your father! Don't tell you never cared or noticed!" Blaise had said angrily.
At that mont, his arrogant eyes had finally shown a hint of other emotions as he'd glared at Draco. "Draco Malfoy, you pathetic, pampered young master! I've always looked down on you! Because you never knew how good you had it! Open your eyes and look at reality! Even if you've fallen to the bottom, you're still much happier than most people! At least your father isn't dead! At least—"
"At least—" Blaise had twisted his usually cold and expressionless face, taken a breath, and said angrily, "At least they love each other, and it's not just about calculating interests!"
Those words had stopped Draco from crying in his past life, and he'd stared at him blankly.
Blaise Zabini, a proud, arrogant, and often self-centered Slytherin friend, had tried to salvage the weak and dying heart of Draco Malfoy, whom he despised, with harsh, sharp, and self-deprecating words.
Pulling himself out of that mory, Draco smiled slightly at his Slytherin friend. He glanced at the house-elf waiting at the library entrance, who imdiately understood and opened the door—and the two equally proud boys swaggered into the sea of books.
"The Charms section, the Potions section, the Herbology section, the Magical Creatures section, the History of Magic section, the Ancient Runes section, the Astronomy and Divination section, the Alchemy section..." Draco led him around the library, pointing out the sections. "Oh, over there are so books on the Dark Arts, so obscure and rare magical tos, and so ancient books in the corners."
Blaise followed closely behind, wandering among the exquisite wooden bookshelves and the occasional mahogany carved desks. Although he tried to maintain a casual deanor, he couldn't help but be in awe of the antique and extraordinary magical books.
"rlin's beard! Now I understand what Pansy ant." After a mont of silence, Blaise said, "She said that all the bookworms in the British wizarding world would want to co and see it. They'd be completely absorbed..."
"The way you're saying it, it's as if our family library is a Venus flytrap." Draco raised the corners of his mouth, a hint of smugness in his expression, and said calmly, "Have a seat, try out my mother's new sofa."
So the two boys sat on the leather sofa in the center of the library, drank so Earl Grey tea served by the elves, and selected a few freshly baked Welsh cakes.
Blaise leaned back lazily on the sofa, looked up at the Renaissance-style ceiling with its intricate patterns for a while, then turned to ask him, "You've been wasting your sumr holiday here? I'll wager you finished your howork ages ago."
"Yes. Those assignnts weren't too difficult, were they?" Draco said, seeing Blaise's smug smile in agreent.
Draco had finished his sumr howork long ago—sothing as trivial as that.
His attention was entirely elsewhere—he was looking for additional ways to counter Horcruxes.
Aside from Gryffindor's sword, Fiendfyre, and Basilisk fangs, wasn't there anything else that could destroy a Horcrux? Ideally, sothing with destructive power that couldn't be repaired by magic, or sothing imbued with a powerful curse.
However, he'd searched through books such as Spells of the Eighteenth Century, Curses and Counter-Curses, A Guide to dieval Sorcery, and Forgotten Ancient Magic and Incantations, but found nothing.
It couldn't be said that he'd gained nothing—after all, he'd learned so useful curses. Although he hadn't found a way to use them, it still satisfied his thirst for knowledge and curiosity to so extent.
"Is this the room your mother specially renovated for you?" Blaise asked, looking with interest at the huge workbench in the center. In one corner of the workbench were cauldrons of various sizes—brass, pewter, pure gold, gleaming silver, and jet black.
"Yes," Draco said. "She's going a bit overboard, isn't she?"
Right now, he was showing Blaise around the potions laboratory in a corner of the cellars beneath Malfoy Manor.
"It's more than just a bit—it's downright extre." Blaise's face twitched as he carefully examined the four walls of the room.
On the walls on both sides of the room, various rare and hard-to-find potion ingredients were neatly arranged on marble shelves, preserved in different ways—soaking, drying, room temperature, low temperature, and so on.
He turned around and looked at the bookshelves on the wall where they'd entered. There were many books on Potions, and judging from the titles, they were even more ancient, difficult, and esoteric than those in the library upstairs.
"I'll wager if our Head of House were to visit here, he'd be over the moon," Blaise whistled, his tone laced with amusent.
"Perhaps." Draco's fingers lightly traced the row of potion books, and he couldn't help but recall the scene when Professor Snape had co to visit a few days ago.
At that ti, Professor Snape had stumbled upon a long-lost forbidden book among these bookshelves, and his usually pale and cold face had revealed undisguised delight.
"What's this?" Blaise walked over to the workbench and asked, looking at a cauldron that was brewing sothing.
"So small, private research," Draco casually blocked Blaise's hand as he tried to lift the lid. "Nothing worth ntioning."
Blaise raised an eyebrow, withdrew his hand, and asked no further questions. He continued walking a few steps forward, finally arriving at the most eye-catching wall, seemingly captivated by the bizarre array of bottles and jars there—various sizes of transparent phials and hundreds of dazzling crystal bottles, so empty and so full. Each one reflected an ever-changing, enigmatic brilliance in the flickering candlelight.
"I'd better keep him away from that cauldron—no, away from the potions laboratory," Draco thought.
Blaise Zabini wasn't the kind of visitor who would obediently listen to his host. While he appeared to be intently examining the crystal bottles, he was probably plotting how to sneak a peek at the potion in the cauldron.
"Want to check out the Quidditch pitch behind the manor?" Draco asked with rare enthusiasm. "Fancy a bit of Quidditch?"
"Lead the way!" The re ntion of Quidditch overshadowed the allure of potions and cauldrons. Even a self-proclaid arrogant boy like Blaise couldn't help but sound excited. "Do you have any spare brooms?"
"There are several. You can choose whichever you like." Draco calmly stepped aside and followed Blaise out, firmly closing the door of the potions laboratory, which was decorated with protective runes.
"It was only then that I realized you weren't just a bookworm obsessed with academics, but a genuine twelve-year-old boy," Blaise shouted in the air, throwing a Quaffle at Draco.
The latter didn't answer but focused on nimbly catching it and speeding away, throwing the Quaffle through the hoop.
"Not bad!" Blaise exclaid. "You've been practicing a lot at ho, haven't you?"
"You're not bad either." Draco flew to the other side of the hoop, caught the Quaffle, and threw it back at Blaise.
Draco certainly practiced a lot. At this ti in his previous life, he'd practically spent every day on his broomstick, practicing with all his might, hoping to join the Slytherin House team as Seeker, single-mindedly focused on defeating Harry Potter.
In this life, he still took a flight every morning on the newly built Quidditch pitch behind his manor. But he could no longer be as passionate as he'd been in his previous life.
It wasn't that he didn't want to be able to run and soar freely on the pitch seven days a week, but rather that he had so pressing tasks to complete in order to resist the Dark Lord: investigating the Horcruxes and researching the Elder Wand. In addition, the Chamber of Secrets of the Slytherin heir was a mystery he couldn't ignore.
He was past the age of being willful. He had to remind himself that those "minor tasks" were far more important than his beloved Quidditch.
In the evening, after seeing off the Zabini family and Narcissa's other visitors in the entrance hall, Draco said goodnight to his mother and returned to the potions laboratory in the cellars.
He glanced at the lidded cauldron, where a wisp of steam was peeking out, and secretly breathed a sigh of relief.
Since the start of the holidays, he'd occasionally used the potions books at ho as references to try to replicate so advanced potions. The notes that Professor Snape had given him as a Christmas present ca in especially handy.
The Potions Master's ideas and techniques for improving certain potion recipes always benefited him greatly.
To be honest, these notes were much more useful than Hogwarts's textbook—that enormous volu, Magical Drafts and Potions.
However, what was brewing in this cauldron was neither a long-lost legendary potion nor anything to do with the improved recipes provided by Professor Snape.
The potion he was brewing was much simpler than those ntioned in obscure and difficult potion books—of course, even an ordinary seventh-year at Hogwarts would admit that this potion was an extrely challenging assignnt.
He was trying to brew Mandrake Restorative Draught.
The Malfoys had recently acquired a batch of mature Mandrakes from Southern Europe and resold them to Slug & Jiggers Apothecary in Diagon Alley. Narcissa had ntioned at the dinner table that she specifically wanted to keep a batch for her son, who was obsessed with potion-brewing, to practice with.
"Cissy, at his age, he doesn't need complicated potion ingredients like Mandrake. He's only going into second year—how much advanced potion-making knowledge can he possibly have learned?" Lucius had patiently advised his willful wife, glancing at Draco with a slow, deliberate look. "How far have you gotten? Can you even brew a Swelling Solution yet?"
Draco had nodded obediently in front of him.
"Even if we don't need it, our son should have what others have." She'd said proudly to Lucius. "Rember, have them pick out the best ones and bring them ho."
"Fine, fine, Cissy, just spoil him..." Lucius had said helplessly, glaring at his son.
Draco had remained expressionless but inwardly had been quite pleased. His mother's indulgent ways, if used correctly, could be very effective.
For example, this ti, it had saved him a lot of trouble. He'd originally wanted to obtain so Mandrake but had been worried about how to broach the subject.
Mandrake was a key ingredient in most antidotes. It could be used to make powerful restorative redies to restore people who'd been transford or cursed to their original state, and thus could cure those Petrified by a Basilisk.
Draco was preparing so Restorative Draught, just in case.
He couldn't forget that in his second year, the Chamber of Secrets would be opened, and a terrible incident would occur. Although he, as a pure-blood wizard, wasn't in any real danger, there were always so Muggle-born students who would fall victim. For example, that troubleso little girl—Hermione Granger.
She did have so conscience. She'd written him a letter and even given him a birthday present before leaving school—a Broomstick Servicing Kit. Draco's birthday was June 5th, which coincided with Hogwarts's exam season.
If it weren't for Hermione's gift, he would have almost forgotten about his "birthday."
What was there to rember? He didn't even know whether he should celebrate his second physical twelfth birthday or his psychological eighteenth birthday.
However, it always felt good to be rembered. Especially by her.
She'd even rembered his birthday, which was quite different from his past life.
Out of a sense of courtesy, he had to take special care of this know-it-all girl who cared about him quite a bit.
No other aning intended. Just in case.
He simply didn't want to see Hermione Granger as a stone statue. He also didn't think those lively eyes would look any better as so kind of emotionless, stone-like substance.
At that mont, Draco wearily rubbed his temples and put down the stirring rod.
His progress wasn't very smooth. He'd discovered that certain subtle differences—a gram more or less of the ingredients, errors in the size of the Mandrakes, and slight fluctuations in the heat—could have fatal and imasurable effects on the final result of the potion.
People always said that Restorative Draught was difficult to brew, and there was good reason for that.
It required extrely precise and demanding proportions—not a bit more or less was acceptable.
Let's try again.
He couldn't just give up like this.
He couldn't stand those vibrant eyes looking lifeless.
Not even for a mont.
The platinum-blond-haired boy gritted his teeth, waved his wand, switched to another clean cauldron, and continued to work through the dwindling pile of Mandrakes.
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