There was a set of travel clothes, with riding breeches set with buttons to accommodate her stomach. Draco conjured a screen, and she nearly tore off her surrogate robes, leaving them in a pile on the floor as she pulled the new clothing on. There was a padded gambeson coat beside her cloak, and her boots were hung over the back of a chair, alongside a pair of buttery leather gloves. Draco's heavy black cloak hung beside it.
She laced up her boots and looked up at Draco. “You have everything? You're ready?”
He nodded and she stood.
“You're not going to be in any state to guide a horse. Not until some of the potions wear off. Where should I have the horse go until you're lucid?”
Draco's expression grew more tense than it already was. “It knows the way. Just tell her to go home. Her mate is at the safe house. She won't fly anywhere else.”
Hermione nodded, her fingers twitching nervously. She hadn't ridden a horse since she flew a Thestral to the Ministry of Magic in her fifth year of school.
She braced herself, she refused to have a panic attack.
She turned back to the table and placed the silver cauldron on the stand. “I'll need you to do the spellwork for me, Draco.”
Her heart raced, but brewing a potion felt as natural as breathing.
She started with white cedar oil, warming it gently as she added crushed valerian roots. When it grew aromatic, she poured honeywater slowly down the sides of the cauldron until it was halfway full.
“I need the most intense flame you can conjure now,” she told Draco as she turned to inspect the Dittany leaves that the house-elves had minced and placed under stasis.
She used a spoon to shift the minced leaves and verified every piece was surgically precise and uniform.
The cauldron was boiling almost violently as the base was reduced to a syrup.
She set to grinding the dried nettle and yarrow until they were a fine powder. Her ears were ringing slightly, and she blinked and shook her head as she focused on the mortar and pestle in her hands.
She ground a half-dozen fairy wings in another pestle until they shone like silver dust and then sifted all the powder together.
She dipped a copper stirring rod into the potion, and when she withdrew it, she counted to three before a thickened drop collected and fell back into the cauldron.
“Cool it to room temperature as rapidly as you can,” she said in a tight voice.
The instant the surface of the liquid was still, she poured the powders across the surface in a slow figure eight. Count to ten. She placed thirty rose petals across the surface over the powder which was beginning to crystallise. Draco removed the stasis, and she added an even layer of Dittany on top.
The potion sat still for several seconds before the entire surface turned translucent. Hermione immediately added crushed geranium and stirred rapidly with an ash stir rod, dropping pickled murtlap tentacles in with every fourth rotation. The potion turned a brilliant blue.
“Simmering. It needs to barely move.”
She used a dropper to carefully measure out the tears. Fifteen. Exactly fifteen. There were two drops left in the vial.
She stared at the simmering potion. It looked flawless. Exactly the way it should.
Her hands shook slightly.
“Draco, I need a Calming Draught.”
He handed it to her without a word. She swallowed it in a single gulp. Her hands stopped shaking.
She added the tears. Even with Calming Draught, her heart was in her throat.
When the last drop was added, she stood frozen as she watched. The silvery tears slid beneath the surface, luminous, as though they were falling stars. They slowly turned blood red. The colour spread through the rest of the potion and held.
“Flagon.”
A silver ladle, dusted in powdered unicorn horn, transferred the potion into a glass flagon.
Hermione stoppered it and released a slow breath. “That's it.”
“That removes the Dark Mark?” Lucius said, staring curiously at the potion in her hands.
She looked over at him, and her stomach twisted. “No. This stops the curse from killing him after I cut his arm off.”
Lucius stared at her blankly before his expression grew murderous.
“You intend to maim my son?” He lunged against the bars of the cage as he sneered at her. “You claimed to be an ingenious healer and cutting off his arm is the best you can do?”
Hermione's heart was pounding painfully in her chest as she gripped the flagon and stared at him. A burst of heat flared in the pit of her stomach. “You may have noticed I don't have magic at the moment. It's been two years since I cast a spell, and the instant my manacles are removed, I'm on a countdown. I'll have twenty minutes to perform a procedure that should take an hour with a surgical team. I won't even have my own wand.”
Her hands started shaking violently. She set down the potion on the table. “If I had a better idea, I would be trying it. Do you think — I
She wanted to scream at him.
She turned away and pressed her hands again her sternum, fighting to breathe.