Apprentice Potter
A Giant Problem
By Draco664
A Giant Problem
It was fairly late in the evening when Zab and I stepped out of the fire at the Hog's Head. This was a calculated risk on Zab's part. While the disreputable tavern did attract those who paid attention to the comings and goings of others, in Zab's experience, it tended to be specific, targeted spying. Sitting in the dim tavern hoping someone important would come through the floo assumed that the hypothetical spy would have someone to sell the information to, and that he wouldn't be targeted himself. As such, regulars here tended to keep their eyes to themselves and ignored the comings and goings of others. At least those who could fight back. More as a survival trait than anything else though.
Wordlessly we left the pub, not even getting a glance from the bartender. I did make sure that none of the three patrons even looked up at us though. Just to double check. I didn't want to make the same mistake again as I made with the DA.
Zab tilted his cowled head, indicating that we should head down one of the many lanes nearby. I followed him, having one last look up and down the dimly lit street. Only a single tipsy couple were in the middle of the road, and they were walking unsteadily away from us.
"We need to wait for a few more hours, until the night gets dark enough for us to slip into the Forbidden Forest unseen," he whispered.
I looked around surprised. "I can hardly see the other side of the street. Isn't that dark enough for our needs?"
Zab looked down at me. "We just stepped out of a brightly lit building."
I blinked. "Oh. So we did. Our eyes are not adjusted to the low light yet. Although, many people would disagree with you on your description of the Hog's Head as brightly lit."
Zab smiled easily. "True. But at this moment, you need to step out of the line of sight of someone walking down the street."
Obediently, I moved over to Zab's side and leaned against the wall. He nodded at me; I assumed he was pleased that I didn't argue or take my time.
"If there was a building nearby we could hide in until moonset, that would make our task easier, you know."
"I trust you know of such a place, and are not just making conversation."
I nodded. "The Shrieking Shack is on the outskirts of Hogsmeade. If you apparate there, I can use my invisibility cloak to make sure no one sees me."
Zab frowned momentarily. "I think not. The shack you refer to does not give us a clear path to the forest that we can take and guarantee our remaining undetected. Not to mention that it is haunted."
"It doesn't need to, and no, it isn't."
A flicker of annoyance crossed Zab's face. "Explain. Quickly."
I took a deep breath. "There is an underground passageway from the shack to the base of a tree near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. And the rumours that it was haunted were started by Dumbledore about twenty-five years ago when he allowed Remus Lupin to stay there when he had his monthly changes."
Zab slowly looked away, then back to me again. "Lycanthropic transformations?"
I nodded. "Yeah. I guess you'd call them that."
Zab ran his fingertips around the edge of his goatee. "Very well. I shall apparate there directly. Meet me there in ten minutes." With a soft implosion, he disappeared.
I pulled my cloak out of my backpack and tossed it over me, then made my way to the Shrieking Shack.
Without a slavering animagus and a howling werewolf, the inside of the Shrieking Shack was really not too intimidating. Though derelict and thoroughly uninhabitable, the structure itself was well built and solid. Intentionally that way, I suppose, since it was designed to house an adolescent werewolf.
Zab was crouching down in one corner as I entered, examining the scratches and bite marks on the few sticks of furniture that remained. He ran a thumb over one deep gouge in a shattered chair leg, obviously deep in thought.
"Albus allowed a werewolf to attend Hogwarts and to transform here?"
I nodded, though Zab's back was to me. "Remus was a friend of my father. And my godfather."
Zab stood, still holding the chair leg. "I cannot believe that man."
Was Zab a bigot? "You don't think a werewolf deserves an education?"
Zab waved away my question. "Don't be absurd. You're reading something into my words that I certainly never put there. Everyone deserves an education. But putting a werewolf into a house from which escape is trivial is truly idiotic. To house a dangerous creature so close to both a school and a town is simply diabolical."
I stared intently at him, realising that as cold as he sounded, he was thinking of the rights of the community at large, rather than the rights of a single unfortunate individual. I guess this was the major fundamental difference between him and the old man.
"I guess you would have done something different. Perhaps given Remus a timed portkey to a safe location for his transformations."
Zab nodded. "That's exactly what I have done."
Huh? "You've done that?" I blurted. His words clicked in my mind. "You used to have a werewolf as an apprentice!"
Zab nodded sagely. "Yes. Like your Remus Lupin, she was both a fairly powerful witch while also considered an outcast. Dippet wouldn't allow such a danger anywhere near Hogwarts, rightly enough, so it fell to the Ministry to decide. Typically, they chose to wash their hands of the whole thing, and voted to banish the poor girl. I took her on as an apprentice over seventy years ago." Zab sighed. "She was seduced by Grindlewald during his reign. He used her as a distraction during the full moon. During the course of five months, she savaged over a dozen people, infecting the three survivors." Zab looked over at me with his penetrating eyes to gauge my reaction.
I nodded my acceptance. "The Ministry passes laws designed to make dark creatures' lives hell. Falling in with Voldemort now or Grindlewald then may have been their only choice."
Zab shook his head. "There is always a choice. She chose poorly. I will grant that the pressures she was under were far greater than I have ever experienced. Perhaps I am being too harsh in my judgement, but I truly believe that she made the wrong decision, that she could have chosen to stay out of the fight altogether. While her life would undoubtedly have been more difficult, it would have been longer."
Something in his voice made me make a connection in my mind. "You caught her."
Zab slowly slumped his shoulders. "No. She refused to allow herself to be captured. I killed her. In the line of duty."
I swallowed. "I'm sorry."
"For what? You didn't know her."
"No. I'm sorry that you had to make that decision."
Zab nodded, then squared his shoulders, subtly indicating that the conversation was over. "Where is this passage?"
I moved over to the entrance, casting lumos as I entered. The passageway didn't seem to be as oppressive as it had been the first time I travelled down it. I had actually expected to feel claustrophobic, or at least thought that the passageway would seem smaller, but it appears that though I've grown a little since third year, I haven't yet hit my growth spurt.
A muffled creaking combined with a few earth shaking thuds indicated that we were coming close to the well guarded Hogwarts entrance. I scrabbled through the hole at the base of the Whomping Willow, and reached up to press the knot of wood that calmed the violent tree.
You know, I reckon I could make a great deal of money selling seeds for this species of willow to those self-styled eco-warriors who tie themselves to trees to protest them being felled. They could plant a heap of them in the middle of a logging plantation before the loggers come. Let the trees get revenge, in some small way.
Zab climbed out after me, and brushed off the dirt and dust that covered his cloak. "Interesting. A way past the wards surrounding Hogwarts, with no security other than secrecy. I'm amazed that Alastor didn't kill Albus out of frustration even during the few days he was here."
I smiled at the image of Moody barking his displeasure at Dumbledore in the twins' shop. "The fact Dumbledore is still alive probably means that Professor Moody didn't know about this."
"Indeed. Come, your giant awaits. Lead the way."
It took a while to find the mound where Grawp made his home, only to discover that he wasn't there. Signs of a struggle were hard to miss, considering that they included shattered tree trunks that were so thick that Hagrid wouldn't have been able to put his enormous arms around most of them.
Sticky blood trails littered the clearing, along with literally hundreds of wooden shards. Here and there, a snapped spear or bow lay forlorn and lonely. Even in the rather dim light of the crescent moon, it was obvious that the centaurs had forcibly evicted Hagrid's brother.
"Sorry Master. It looks like this has been a wild goose chase."
"Not necessarily," Zab replied, examining the far edge of the clearing by lighting it with his wand. "There are distinct footsteps over here, made by a humanoid with almost metre long feet. They do not indicate flight; this Grawp of yours appears to have left of his own accord."
I'm not exactly sure why, but I felt relief at that. "OK, but I'm not sure tracking down a giant at night in the Forbidden Forest would be less hassle than waiting for three months for the Diagon Alley apothecary to have giant's blood in stock."
Zab grimaced. "That was merely the minimum time that their own supplier could have that for delivery. Given that your friend's mission to woo the all the giants in Europe to Albus' banner failed, it will in all likelihood mean that giant's blood will become rare to non-existent to potion brewers all over the world." He pressed his lips together. "At least to the non-Dark brewers."
I frowned and bit my lip in thought. "Well, since we probably won't have regular access to Grawp anymore, we will need to take more blood than we had expected tonight. We don't have the right containers for that amount."
Zab disagreed. "I can cast some charms to expand the internal dimensions of our container. That is not difficult or time consuming. The problem will be to convince Grawp to willingly give up that amount of blood in the first place."
I glanced down at the ground, still sticky with dried blood and gore. "That may not be a problem. Unless it needs to be collected directly from the body, and not from the surrounding landscape."
Zab growled deep in his throat. "You are fully aware that all potion reagents need to be extracted from their natural state before being sealed."
I sighed but didn't respond. For someone who was quite cynical and had a dry humour, he seemed unwilling or unable to see that sort of humour in others. We continued following the path of Grawp's escape route. Not that it was difficult. Indeed, it would have taken a rather spectacular lapse of concentration on our part to lose the trail, since it included the occasional uprooted tree.
Subtlety was not a giant's strong point.
I jumped slightly as a distant roar of pain shook the trees. Zab and I shared a glance before we started running along the trail.
The sounds of combat grew louder, until we arrived at the scene and skidded to a halt. A moderately large clearing was lit by a score of discarded torches, their flames illuminating the area and projecting disturbing shadows against the tree line. Almost a dozen centaurs were harrying Grawp with spears while others were shooting arrows into his thick hide.
Grawp didn't appear to be too encumbered by the dozens of shafts already sticking out of his skin. He snatched down and grabbed the arm of one of the spear-wielding centaurs, and hoisted him into the air. Four equine legs waved pathetically in the air for a moment before Grawp grabbed the centaur around the belly with his other hand, and hurled the creature into a trio of archers.
All four centaurs were removed from the fight, and probably from the realm of the living too, given how hard Grawp threw the first one. The dispassionate voice in the back of my mind noted that even as large as Grawp was, using a centaur as a bowling ball and scoring a strike would require a vast amount of adrenaline. Hagrid's brother was caked with dried blood, but was in no way slowed.
With a swipe of his enormous hands, Grawp uprooted a tree that was probably older than Zab to use as a makeshift club. As effective as it was crude, it drove back the remaining spear-wielding centaurs out of the effective range of their spears.
"GO WAY!" shouted Grawp, still swinging the tree trunk from side to side. "LEAVE GRAWP 'LONE!"
One centaur who I recognised as Bane struggled to his hooves on one side of the battlefield, one arm hanging limply, dislocated at the shoulder. "Aim for his eyes! Blind him!" he ordered.
The volley of arrows shot at Grawp's face mostly missed, since the giant was swaying from side to side as he swept the massive club in front of him. Even so, more than a few struck his face, one lodging in his eyebrow.
"NOT KILL GRAWP!" the giant howled with frustration.
Zab ran his eye over the scene. "Perhaps we should have made an appointment?"
I hardly registered what he said, since I was staring at the ground.
I've seen paintings of battles before. Not the originals of course, but reprints in books. There always seemed to be something missing. Now I know what it was.
The smell.
Blood. Bile. Faeces. Digestive fluids. Nothing can describe the stench of them all on a battlefield.
A centaur has the same physiology of a horse, including what looked like half a kilometre of slippery tubes. One victim of Grawp's wild swings lay just in front of us, his legs waving pathetically in the air as his heart gently stopped beating. I could tell the exact moment, since the poor creature's ribcage was torn open, revealing the overlarge organ as it ceased its life giving role.
My eyes swam and I found myself on my knees, vomiting my dinner. Zab's hands encircled my chest, and he half lifted-half dragged me away from the fight. He propped me against a tree about twenty metres from the small clearing.
"I'm sorry you had to see that."
I nodded, not trusting my voice. Somehow, I just knew that nightmares involving Sirius would be replaced by a vision of something a lot more gruesome. "Thanks," I mouthed.
He simply nodded, and passed me a handkerchief with a permanent cleaning charm. I wiped away the bile on my chin, and spat in an effort to clear my mouth.
"Stay here, Harry. Compose yourself. I'll be back in a moment."
I looked up at him in disbelief. "You're going back!" I croaked.
Zab nodded. "We need that blood, and I can't harvest it from a corpse. I'll stun all the centaurs if I have to."
I pushed myself away from the tree. "I'm coming with you."
Zab took a deep breath, and looked me up and down. I had expected him to object, to order me to stay behind, but again he surprised me. "Fine. Stay behind me, obey any order I give you immediately and without argument, and if you feel faint, get out of there. Understand?"
"Yes, Master," I said, fingering my wand.
Zab nodded at my determined expression, and moved back towards the fight.
He moved differently. Before, he walked with the assured tread of the confident aristocrat. Now, he moved with the silent grace of a predator.
Zab's first spell spread a thin layer of ice over the ground at the hooves of the remaining archers, causing them to slip and slid around almost comically before succumbing to gravity.
He cast a shrinking charm on the spears held by two more centaur warriors before our presence was noticed. Bane quickly ordered a pair of centaurs to focus on the second threat.
Zab wasted no time in restraining the pair, conjuring a stream of smoke that acted like rope, binding the legs of the attackers quickly, forcing them to the ground.
One had the presence of mind to hurl his spear at my Master, but I summoned it towards me instead and stepped to the side to allow it to pass harmlessly. A group of at least six centaurs appeared on the opposite edge of the clearing, throwing Zab's odds calculations off. The situation was threatening to get out of hand.
I noticed movement behind Grawp and quickly cast "Expeliaramus!", disarming a centaur who was about to drive his spear into the giant's unprotected back. Unsurprisingly, that attracted the centaur's attention to my presence. Gritting my teeth against what I was about to do, I cast a banishing charm on the corpse in front of me, mimicking Grawp's bowling effort on the newcomers. With far less effect though.
"Shield charm!" Zab spat, before turning his wand back to the fray.
Two arrows embedded themselves into my shield less than a second after I finished mouthing the incantation. Three more centaurs appeared through the trees on the right hand side of the clearing.
I swallowed, let my shield drop, pointed my wand at my throat and cast, "Sonorus!" I then lifted my head and shouted, "STOP! NO MORE!"
Everyone, man, centaur, giant, all stopped at the sound of my voice. The fact that the trees surrounding the clearing shook with the volume made it all the more intimidating.
"ENOUGH! LET THIS END! THERE HAS BEEN TOO MUCH BLOOD SPILT ALREADY!"
Bane and several other centaurs were shaking their heads in an effort to think clearly. Grawp was staring at me with something approaching awe on his arrow-studded face. Almost absently, he began raising his tree trunk club to deal a blow to a stunned centaur in front of him.
"GRAWP! NO! DROP THAT NOW!"
The giant blinked, but continued to lift the weapon into the air.
"REDUCTO!" I shouted, anger blossoming in my stomach.
Again, the rage I felt enhanced my magic and blew the enormous tree trunk into kindling. At the detonation, every centaur dropped to their knees and covered their heads. Grawp simply stood there, blinking stupidly at the remains in his hand.
"I SAID, ENOUGH!"
Bane struggled to stand. "This is none of your concern. Leave, or we shall send your spirit to the stars tonight as well."
I snapped my head around to face him, rage contorting my features. "WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT TO DECIDE WHO DIES TONIGHT?"
Bane managed to stand, though he was swaying slightly. "This is our forest, manling."
"NO. IT DOES NOT BELONG TO YOU. IT BELONGS TO EVERY CREATURE WHO LIVES WITHIN. THAT GIANT IS ONE OF THEM."
Bane blinked in the dim light, focusing on me. "I remember you. You are the boy-wizard Hagrid calls Harry. I warned you against coming back to the forest." He grabbed a spear from a fallen comrade and hefted it in his good arm.
I gestured to the carnage around us. "YOUR ORDERS HAVE LED TO THIS. YOUR DECISIONS HAVE KILLED THESE CENTAURS. IN YOUR MISGUIDED ATTEMPT TO CLEAR THE FOREST OF THOSE YOU CONSIDER A THREAT, YOU HAVE CAUSED MORE DEATHS THAN ANY OTHER CENTAUR LEADER. YOU ARE A FAILURE."
Bane appeared taken aback at that. Some of the centaurs were looking from him to me and back again, confusion on their faces.
"LOOK AROUND YOU!" I shouted. "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED? IS THE DEATH OF SO MANY OF YOUR HERD WORTH THE REWARD? HOW MANY FOALS NO LONGER HAVE A FATHER? HOW MANY MARES NO LONGER HAVE A HUSBAND? IS BANE'S PRIDE WORTH THE PRICE THEY PAID?"
Bane drew back the spear, aiming at me. "Go back to the world of men. We want nothing to do with you. Go now, and never return."
"THE WORLD OF MEN IS ALREADY IMPOSING ON YOU, BANE. YOU CANNOT HIDE FROM IT. YOU CANNOT RUN FROM IT. WAR IS COMING, EVEN YOU CAN SEE THAT IN THE STARS." In the midst of my anger, I shouted my frustration at the world.
Bane simply threw the spear. I prepared to step aside and dodge it, but Zab intervened. With his incindio, the spear erupted into a short-lived comet, reaching me as a brittle stick of charcoal, snapping into tiny pieces against my chest.
I casually brushed the marks from my robes. Several centaurs snapped at Bane in an unfamiliar language at his action.
"No! We need to kill this giant to ensure our safety!" Bane shouted at the dissenting centaurs.
Again I gestured towards the ground, still littered with corpses. "YOU DARE CLAIM THAT YOU ARE CONCERNED FOR THEIR SAFETY?"
Bane rounded on me. "The giant killed them!"
"HE WAS DEFENDING HIMSELF FROM YOU!"
"He is a threat to us!"
I snarled at him. "IT IS A POOR LEADER WHO TURNS A POSSIBLE THREAT INTO REAL DEATHS."
Many centaurs were muttering among themselves, though some took the opportunity to assist the wounded.
Bane glanced around his rapidly eroding support. "If I had done nothing, more of us may have been murdered."
I gaped at this. "THERE IS A FAMILY OF ACUMANTULAS LIVING IN THIS FOREST TOO. HAVE YOU EXTERMINATED THEM, SINCE THEY POSE A THREAT TOO?"
Grawp opened his fist, and dropped the remains of his weapon. "You no kill Grawp, Grawp no kill you."
Bane stared at him in disbelief, before turning back to me. "I cannot allow the giant to live."
"Bane! Too many of us have died in conflict with the giant," said the centaur I saved from Grawp's blow, blood streaming down his muscled torso from a gash in his shoulder. Two other centaurs assisted him to his hooves. Once standing, he looked Grawp up and down. "The giant is dangerous, but we can avoid him, especially if he truly wishes to avoid killing."
Bane whirled to face the speaker. "Manis, Firenze said that many centaurs would die by the giant's hand!"
The centaur named Manis nodded sadly. "Many have. Many honourable centaurs have been killed to salve your pride, Bane. That they died by the giant's hand does not change that fact."
"No! I shall not permit him to live, Manis!" Bane shrieked.
Manis sighed and nodded. "Then you shall have to take the life yourself. The wizardling is correct. It is not for the safety of the herd that you pursue the death of this giant."
Grawp cleared his throat, sounding like a gravel mixer as he looked between Manis and Bane. "You no kill Grawp now?" he asked, obviously confused over the proceedings.
Bane glared at him, absolutely livid. "This is not over, giant. I shall hunt you down."
Grawp nodded, seemingly oddly satisfied. "Little horse-man hunt Grawp later. No kill today."
Bane snorted, reared onto his hind legs and galloped out of the clearing. Manis watched him leave before turning to face Zab and I. "Thank you for your assistance. I fear many of us would have joined our ancestors, had you not arrived."
I pointed my wand at my throat and cast, quietus. "You're welcome."
Manis glanced at the dark sky. Though obscured by the smoke from the dying torches in the clearing, many of the brighter stars were still visible. "Mars is bright, Jupiter gains in form while Venus wanes. War is coming, and there is nothing we can do. We must fight, or die." He looked back to me, his old eyes narrowing. "But you, manling, you move outside the stars. Perhaps you can stop this war, perhaps not. But decisions you make may well change the world."
With that, Manis busied himself in aiding the wounded. Grawp loomed over the proceedings, looking uncertain. Zab came over and grabbed my arm above the elbow.
"Harry, I swear, if you ever spring a surprise on me again that doesn't work, I'll make you wish you were in detention with Snape for the rest of your life," he said, giving my arm a shake.
I gave a little chuckle. "Sorry, it just seems that killing everyone was just stupid."
Zab let me go and shook his head with a low chuckle. "Don't apologise, my boy. Only those leaders who are insecure in their fallibility demand an apology after unorthodox tactics result in a successful mission. Just warn me in future if you are going to stand on your soapbox."
Grawp stepped gently around the fallen centaurs. Well, gently being a relative term. It still felt like a minor earthquake.
"Grawp no want kill. Grawp want Hagger. Where Hagger?" he asked, looking at me with awe, bordering on fear.
"Hagger?" Zab whispered out of the side of his mouth.
"Hagrid," I whispered back. To Grawp, I said, "Hagrid is working. I don't know where. Can you come with us?"
Grawp started picking arrows out of his skin, looking for all the world like he was picking stray hairs from a woollen sweater. "Grawp follow little Haree with big noise."
Zab glanced at me and shrugged, before turning back to the path leading to Grawp's mound. Grawp and I followed, walking back into the dark wood.
"Grawp, your English is getting much better," I offered.
An almost amusing expression of confusion blossomed on Grawp's face, still sporting a few rogue arrows. "'Glish?"
I smiled. "The way you speak."
Grawp grunted. "Hagger help."
I nodded. "Hagger-, Hagrid helped me too. He was the first friend I ever made."
Grawp grumbled deep in his chest. "Hagger help Grawp. Grawp not have 'rends too."
It took Zab and I almost an hour to remove the arrows and bandage all of Grawp's wounds. Throughout it all, Grawp sat still and silent in the dark, simply watching us work. He obeyed instantly if we needed him to raise an arm or shift his body to allow us access to his back or neck.
More disturbing than his uncharacteristic calm was the look of nervousness in his eyes when he glanced at me. On more than one occasion, he took a breath and began to speak, but stopped himself.
Zab busied himself behind Grawp, gently washing off small amounts of blood from each of the arrow wounds he bandaged. To distract the giant, I transfigured a stick into a bucket and filled it with an aqueous spell. I started washing the blood, grime and dirt from his skin, taking care not to press too hard on his wounds, no matter how much Grawp ignored the pain.
For some reason, the phrase, 'wax on, wax off' floated through my mind, causing me to smile to myself.
Zab cast a spell on a log, which levitated him high enough to treat the wounds on the back of Grawp's shoulders. As I cleaned and dressed the wounds on Grawp's legs, Zab found a wound near a vein and gently pushed a thick needle through the already damaged skin on Hagrid's brother's upper arm. He must have hit the vein first go, because the thick, syrupy blood flooded out through the needle and down the connected rubber hose, and began filling the enlarged container in earnest.
"Grawp, will you be OK living here?" I asked him, more to divert his attention than out of any real desire for an answer.
He seemed confused at the question. "'Ving?"
"Living. Um, staying here."
Grawp grunted with a small nod. "Grawp like here. Grawp stay here. No big ones."
I paused and made a guess. "No other giants here?"
Again, a grunt. "Big ones hurt Grawp. Say Grawp runt."
The expression on Zab's face was almost indescribable. I suppose if you were stealing several litres of blood from someone who both claims to have been called a runt and owns an arm thicker than your chest it would seem quite surreal.
Runt though he may have been, he was still pretty healthy. Zab removed the needle and staunched the flow of blood after bleeding off about fifteen litres or so. Even after all that, Grawp didn't appear to be inconvenienced, just a little pale.
Zab nodded to me, and waved his hand in a circle, indicating that I should wind the conversation up. I looked up at Grawp, myself a little awed at the expression of awe on his face.
"Grawp, we are going now. I'll tell Hagrid to come and visit when he can."
Once more, I got a grunt, which appeared to be Grawp's method of voicing agreement. As I stood back, an unwelcome realisation dawned on me.
Grawp and I were very alike. We were both alone in the world until Hagrid came and saved us. We were both unwelcome in what should have been our homes.
We were both under threat of death in the world that had become our home.
I swallowed, not wanting to pursue that line of thought any further. "Bye, Grawp. I hope I'll see you soon."
Zab had quickly packaged everything, levitating the enlarged containers of blood behind him. "Indeed. Farewell giant."
Grawp frowned down at Zab before looking back to me and slowly nodded. "Grawp see Haree soon. Grawp tired. Grawp sleep."
I nodded, and offered a final, "Sleep well," before silently following Zab from the clearing.
Zab spent some time in the Shrieking Shack erecting wards to prevent portkey tracking before using a rare portkey that deposited him and the blood directly into Zabini Manor, leaving me to floo home myself.
I could certainly understand why he did that. The portkey would only carry one person and the blood safely; adding my mass to the trip would have been risky. The blood itself needed to be removed from its temporary vessel and stored correctly soon, or risk becoming less potent at best, or unusable at worst. It wouldn't survive the long minutes of spinning through the floo system without ash and soot contaminating it, not to mention that there was still a better than average chance that I would drop what I was carrying to save myself from harm. I was getting better with practise though.
A house elf was waiting for me with a duster, a basin of warm water and a towel. The soot was brushed from my clothes as I washed my face and hands. The water turned a satisfying, not to mention surprisingly dark, shade of brownish red.
"Master is in his study."
"Thank you, Brenan," I replied to the elf. "Have you helped him store the blood we collected tonight?"
The elderly elf shook his head with gentle dignity. The oldest elf I had ever seen, Brenan would have looked for all the world like a royal butler, if he was not dressed in a simple cloth toga. "Master prefers to work on new items himself. He left a standing order with my grandfather that he be left alone when studying a new magical item."
I nodded to myself. Given Zab's previous occupation, it didn't surprise me that he may have handled items of such danger that he determined it prudent not to have untrained help when examining said item. "Thanks again. I'm done," I said, dropping the damp towel on the table next to the bowl.
Brenan bowed deeply, and quickly vanished the cleaning tools, before popping out of sight himself. I quickly made my way to Zab's study and gently knocked on the door.
"Enter."
I pushed open the imposing door to find Zab painstakingly siphoning off precise amounts of thick red blood into prepared containers. I watched him silently, trying to determine exactly what I could do to make his task easier.
I discerned his routine fairly quickly and began preparing for each step. I did manage to spot a small smile on his face as I took spent items from his hands and handed him the tool necessary to do the next task. It actually felt good to work out myself what was necessary rather than ask myself. Even satisfying.
Despite my minor role, I felt involved as the precious blood was stored, sealed and catalogued. After almost an hour, we were down to the bottom of the container, the remaining blood remaining caked to the sides and beginning to smell.
"I believe that is all we need, Harry. A most profitable evening. I doubt there is this much giant's blood in any one place outside of," he gave a small snort. "well, a giant."
A small chuckle escaped me. "You beat me to it."
Zab smiled himself. "Yes, well, great minds and all that. Now, I believe we should both retire for the evening."
I nodded, stifling a yawn. "Good night, Master."
Zab nodded. "Good night to you as well, Harry."