Paper Trails

6th November 2000

 By the following week, Potter was back to his usual schedule, arriving late and leaving shortly after lunch. Theo had given up, trying to understand the man, content to hate him from a distance as normal.

The only difference was that ever present tiredness had amplified and now seemed to cling to Potter like a second skin. His head propped up on his arm as if he was about to collapse, slowly scrawling with the strange ugly purple fluffy muggle pen he used instead of a quill.

Not that Theo was looking.

He didn't care that Potter looked three days dead. He didn't care that he could see the tell tale sparkle of a glamour about to slip.

The Selfish Bastard deserves everything he does to himself.

Theo grabbed the memo he had received from the DCMC that morning and headed into the stacks. Granger had requested yet another book, and apparently he had nothing better to do than to act like her personal library aide.

Thankfully the book was easy to find, Theo headed into the stacks with a pile of scrolls. He could get some shelving done while he was picking up the book, then at least it wouldn't be a wasted journey.

Half an hour later, Theo could stretch out the shelving no longer, and he headed back to the office hoping Potter had already left for the day. He was not so lucky. Even worse it seemed that Potter had taken to using his desk as a dumping ground for whatever useless rubbish he wasn't working on.

"I would appreciate if you didn't leave your work on my desk Potter" Theo was annoyed. Not only had Granger's book already been taken out, as she hadn't the patience to wait for him to complete the request, but now he had to deal with this messy stack of papers all in Potter's illegible scrawl.

"It's for you. You were looking for notes on love potions right?"

"Yes." How did the bastard even know? He barely did his own work. "Where did you get these notes?

"I, uh, translated them, noticed it was your current area of research so thought it might be useful."

"Why did you bother, just give me the book next time." He had no time for Potter's half-baked attempts at translation. The fool probably mistranslated entire sections, endangering Theo's work.

"Uh okay" Potter had the expression of a kicked krup again. "I'm sorry, I didn't realise you could read parselscript."

"I can't." Theo snapped. Of course. Potter was a parseltongue. No wonder the DOM snapped him up even though he had never shown any particular intelligence. Theo was pretty sure Potter still hadn't even taken his N.E.W.T's.

"Let me know if the notes are any good." Potter cut in to his thoughts. "There was another volume but I didn't have time to translate it, there might be more information in it."

Theo nodded, pulling the scribbled mess towards him. At least Potter was finally doing some work around here. He glanced up and saw the man back in his usual pose, head in one hand as he slowly worked through the papers on his desk.

He really did look dreadful. The glamours were barely holding up. Theo shrugged to himself, Potter's life was none of his business, no doubt the reason would be in the papers soon enough.

Flicking through the mass of parchment Potter had left, Theo scowled to himself. The idiot's writing was barely legible. No wonder he had to resort to using those ridiculous muggle writing tools.

It best be worth my time. The prat already messes up enough round here.

Progress through the book was slow going. Aside from the terrible writing, the direct translations were in some awful ancient dialect and Potter's attempts to interpret it did not make it any clearer.

Unfortunately the book seemed to contain some really useful information. A study some six hundred years ago in Romania had looked into the effects of love potions on the long term health of both the drinker and any future children they may have, whether or not they were still on the potion.

If the translations were correct. The potion, while having long term effects on the drinker, had no discernable effects on the emotions of the child. However, it was found that the chances miscarriage nearly doubled and the risk of producing a squib increased nearly ten times the usual rate.

Theo needed that German text to see if it supported this data. If it did then that was crucial information. It was not an uncommon secret that between arranged marriages and line entrapment, many pureblood wizards were born from the effects of love potions. If the excessive use of such potions was the cause of the rise of squibs in pureblood families, then that was truly alarming news. Far from the belief that mud-bloods and blood traitors were the cause of their demise, it was their own foolish misuse of potions that was potentially ruining them.

Stretching out his aching back, Theo reluctantly grabbed a spare piece of parchment and scribbled a quick thank-you note before banishing it to Potter's desk. Grabbing the rain cube from it's home on the bookshelf, Theo started to pack his things eager to head out. He didn't have any particular plans for the evening, but that didn't mean that he wouldn't prefer to finish working through the weather charm list from the comfort of his own office.