Chapter 14

The meeting with godfather had been very enlightening in regards to my potions knowledge. I'd learned that potions as a subject was a hodge podge of ritualistic and scientific concepts because the discipline had started by throwing together ingredients of which one only assumed the properties of, the innate magic of a wizard then made it so in some cases, and then progressed further when one started actually finding out the properties and reactions of magical ingredients independent of the often finicky belief magic.

The result was now the stark divide between ingredients like a bezoar stone that actually had detoxifying properties and ingredients such as treant bark, which was actually just normal bark, but had a calming effect inscribed on it by the wizard using it in the potion for long enough to bind itself into the whole.

All in all the entire conversation had made me even more sure of my decision to never seek out knowledge in the potions field that was not required of me. I'd even go as far as to say it was time to groom another potions master with close ties to my family so that I would never have too.

Despite my growing distaste for the subject I had scheduled further meetings with godfather, under the supervision of Lucius, so I may learn more about the art, in a strictly Hogwarts curriculum manner, and to spend more time with my godfather. He would be a useful ally and I gleefully admitted that I liked his sense of humour, it was just as acidic as some of his brews.

After receiving my first astrology essay from Hermione I was also capable of commiserating with his pain, even if the reasons behind our suffering differed slightly. The essays he had to correct were, I imagined, often factually wrong, or grammatically incorrect. The one essay I had, was, three times the required length. I'd asked for three feet, not my favourite metric but I would be forced to adapt soon anyway, and had received a nine foot monstrosity of stapled together muggle paper. In hindsight I should have specified that it should have been written on parchment, and maybe even told grandfather to supply some considering I was unsure if the average muggle even had access to parchment.

I jotted it down in my reminder notebook, along with the reminder to provide the girl with some quills and ink pots, she'd written the entire thing with a fountain pen, which was perfectly readable, but she would be better served to adjust as early as possible. Writing with quills also had the often ignored benefit of limbering up your wrist.

The essay confronted me with a dilemma, should I nip the habit of writing much too long essays at its bud, or should I just correct it as it was. It was, factually correct, with painfully fastidious grammar, I imagined that her parents had helped, wanting to leave a good impression on the kind old wizard that my grandfather had given himself to be.

I sighed and twitched with my finger, cutting off the essay at 4 feet. Going 1/3 over the required length was within the bounds of acceptability, anything beyond that was not. Writing that down, with the remark that presenting the necessary information in a quick and efficient manner was also a skill to be trained, I also gave it a big red D, for dreadful, since with more than half the content now missing the entire thing was fairly non-cohesive.

Getting up I made my way to the owlery, and once there sent the corrected essay along with the prompt for the next one. I could have just sent a house-elf to do it, but the man who speaks the sentence must swing the sword. The sword in this case being an owl telling an eight year old girl that her essay, while technically correct, was not within the bounds of the task, and therefore, mind the language, shit. I groaned at the disgusting sentimentality creeping into my brain, its wasn't my fault the girls feelings would be hurt, the information requested in the blasted thing could have easily been compressed to two feet.

Grumbling along the way to grandfather's study, plagued by a melancholy feeling gripping my heart, I finally snapped and smacked my head against the manner walls to exorcise the guilt. That done with I walked past a house-elf that was looking at me oddly and knocked on the study door.

An "enter!" resounded from within and thus I did, glancing with boredom at the reincarnating bunch of branches held within a glass display case and then focusing my attention on grandfather, who was just done putting away some papers.

"Ah yes, Draco, what can I do for you?"

"It just came to me that it would be helpful for the muggleborns education if I were to send her some rolls of parchment, quills and ink pots. I just received an essay of stapled together muggle paper." I said, watching as grandfather sneered at the idea of muggle paper, sadly he was not yet converted.

"And?" He asked causing me to blink at him in surprise.

"Well, I was hoping you could send a house-elf to buy some and send it to them, or just pop by their house and leave it on their table." I said, unsure of grandfather's mood, he wasn't usually so short with me.

"Why can't you do that yourself hmm?" Grandfather asked, smiling at me.

"Because I don't have any mone-?" I cut off, a thought entering my head. I called for Dobby, the elf appearing in a crack wringing his hands and asking what he could do for young master.

"Buy a few rolls of parchment, quills ink pots and drop them off on the Granger's kitchen table without being noticed please." I quickly ordered, at which the elf disappeared, and reappeared about seven minutes later.

A sound managed to break through my stupor, it was grandfather laughing.

I huffed at him, "I cannot believe the irresponsibility of giving a seven year old access to the family bank account."

He started laughing harder.