Aphrodite | Draco Malfoy x Reader

20 | soul-eliciting

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s o u l - e l i c i t i n g

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It's Jan 4. There were still three days until the end of the one-month time limit but I'd decided to join Gregorovitch earlier since I'd brewed the Soul-Eliciting Potion successfully. I'd sent an owl to the wandmaker to let him know I'd arrived at around 2 pm on the next day so he could leave the terrorists' headquarter to help me sneak inside. I'd triple checked that I'd put the vial of greyish black potion and a copy of Draco's instructions inside my backpack before I went to St. Mungo one last time. My flight was going to depart at 9 pm and I had to leave the hospital at 7 pm.

When I arrived at the hospital, it was already half past six. I knew I didn't have much time left, but I wanted to take a look at Draco and tell him the exciting news. The whole thing was his idea after all. I creaked the door of Ward 47 open and peeked inside. Oddly, the farthest bed that's next to the window was empty. I strode to the bed skillfully and checked out the name card above the headboard. They still had the name Draco Malfoy on it. Therefore, I was sure that Draco hadn't got released yet.

A Healer informed me that Draco had been taken to have a thorough body check and they'd left not very long ago. He said I had to wait at least an hour for him to come back. Unfortunately, I didn't have the time. Feeling slightly disappointed, I wrote a few words on a notepad on the side table to tell him that I'd found the last element and brewed the potion. As I couldn't give him the final product, I left a small vial of the pink Aphrodite next to the note to make everything sound more real.

I read the note again and smiled before I left the hospital and apparated to Heathrow Airport.

❇

"Gregorovitch, is everything alright when I wasn't here?" I asked as I removed the Disillusionment Charm on myself.

"The Confundus Charm helped a lot. His gangs thought their leader is now away, persuading ISIS to become an ally of them," the wandmaker replied and nodded at the man on the bed. "But, Jabez isn't in a very good condition."

To let the man rest more comfortably, Gregorovitch had no longer tied his wrists together behind his back but at the front. His ankles, however, were still wrapped around by another rope tightly as before. The young man's black long hair strands were completely out of place as some pieces stuck to his sweaty forehead. His cheeks were sunken and I could tell he had lost a lot of weight. His lips were pale and slightly opened, breathing shallowly. Indeed, he didn't look well.

"What's wrong with him?"

"Akbar barely ate anything. He wanted me to force me to free him by torturing Jabez's body."

"Are you gonna release me? See, Jabez is dying," Akbar on the bed hissed with a malice smile, his eyes barely opened. The man seemed to be restrained due to the poor state of the body.

I ignored the evil man. Instead, I hurriedly looked through my bag and seized the vial of Soul-Eliciting Potion and a piece of parchment out of it. Gregorovitch stared at the potion container in bewilderment.

"This is a Soul-Eliciting Potion. In 1907, a Muggle scientist, Duncan MacDougall published a scientific study. It's called 21.3 grams experiment. He found out a patient lost 21.3g at the moment of death and he believed the weight loss was caused by the soul departing the dead body. Although the experiment is widely regarded as flawed and unscientific, I guess it's still worth a try.

"If it's true, let's say the soul will leave the body once a person dies, I wonder if we can reverse the saying - because normally when the soul leaves the body, it indicates the person's death. Thus, without the soul, there's a possibility that the brain will falsely think that the person is dead. I wonder if we can fake Jabez's death with this method in order to break the Master-Servant Bond between Jabez and Akbar. This is the only method I can think of."