Chapter Text
Draco held his Aunt’s hand as they walked through the wet grass towards a cluster of canopies. The ‘farmers market’ had just opened for the season and was supposed to run every weekend until fall. Apparently his Aunt liked to socialize with her friends here. He had never been to one before and was so far not impressed. It just looked like a bunch of people standing behind tables selling items they didn’t want.
His Aunt stopped at a table overflowing with honey jars. Out in the sunshine, even Draco had to admit the way they glowed was alluring but what was the point of having so many?
“Andrea! It’s so good to see you! How have you been?”
“I’ve been good Connie, and yourself?”
“We’re doing good! Can’t complain. Are you excited for Nymphadora to come home? She’s graduating this year right?”
“Mmmhmm,”
“I can’t believe it, I still remember her as that little girl pulling up my radishes. She was so cute then,”
“She was,”
The two women continue to talk while Andromeda picks up different jars of honey and inspects them. Draco continues to look around the area. Three dogs, fifteen adults, four children…He stops and focuses on the little girl walking after her father. Her hand has been tied to a ribbon stretching up towards a levitating sphere.
Was that- a balloon ?
Draco reaches up to tug on his Aunt’s sleeve, still in shock, when he notices the older woman and her husband in the middle of exchanging money with Andromeda. His brow furrows.This entire affair is weird. “Why did you buy so many?” He asks them, temporarily distracted from his previous discovery.
“I’m only buying two!” his Aunt chortles and the couple looked to smile at him.
“Who’s this!?” This man demanded excitedly
“My nephew.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, young man.” He said, tipping his hat. Draco wasn’t interested in the man’s overzealous manners though. “Why did you buy so many.” he repeats before turning to his Aunt “Is it regular practice for muggles to buy out stores to resell them out in fields? That seems cumbersome.”
For a moment, all the adults could only stare at him before they unanimously burst out into laughter.
“Drake-” his Aunt wheezed “they don’t buy them from the supermarket! They make the honey themselves! They’re bee-keepers!”
“Muggles can’t make honey. You need-” his Aunt sent him a sharp look that made him curve his language. “...” He struggled but couldn’t find a good word to replace ‘magic’. “...our stuff.” He finished lamely waving his hands. The old couple looked at his Aunt in confusion but she didn’t look at them. Instead she was crouching down to his level.
“Drake…people figure things out. They don't need ‘our stuff’.”
“But, bees!”
“Yes.”
“Do they just get stung all the time??!”
His Aunt only smiled and stood up.
“Paul would mind explaining to Drake how you make your honey?”
“Of course. Come around here young man,” he directed Draco around the table and set him on a stool. To the side, Draco heard his Aunt whisper to the woman and watched her follow his Aunt a few paces away from the stall.
“Now, beekeeping. I take it you don't know much about it.” That was wrong. Draco knew plenty about beekeeping thank you very much. But it was a wizard thing. Which include finding a wild beehive with a location spell, using magic to put the bees to sleep and then pulling the honey out of the hive with a mix of arcico and windgardium leviosa. Draco had always figured muggles had it due to muggleborns breaking the law of secrecy by sharing or selling it until the ministry was forced to supply muggle stores in order to maintain the wizard community’s hidden existence.
“Well, Bees make honey using nectar from flowers. In the wild they build their own hives but the bees I tend to live in the beehive I built for them. It’s a big box with frames inside.The bees build the honeycomb on the frames and when I want to harvest it, I take the frames out and scrap the honey off.”
Draco crossed his arms. “And you don’t get stung?”
“Nope. See I wear a special suit, it’s all white and comes with a visor. The bees can’t get me when I wear it. Also before I open up the hive I put them all to sleep.”
“You mean you wait until it’s night time.”
“I don’t need to, I use my smoker. See, when bees sense danger they release a pheromone-a smell to warn the rest of the bees. By releasing smoke into the beehive I mask any smell of danger to the bees keeping them calm.”
Paul continues to talk, explaining the different ways he takes care of the bees. He’s diving into how he starts a hive with a Queen bee when Draco notices Connie a few feet away with his Aunt, covering her mouth. Their eyes lock for a moment and Draco can see the look of horror in them before she quickly turns away. His Aunt puts her arm around Connie in a comforting manner and they continue to talk with their backs turned.
“Now, one thing a lot of people miss when keeping bee hives is that you have to be aware of your surroundings. Bees can travel around five miles to get nectar for their hive. It doesn't matter if you’ve got your hive surrounded with strawberries, if your neighbor down the road has clovers or cherries, you’re not getting strawberry honey.Too many different flavors. Of course, you hardly notice honey has a flavor unless it’s isolated. Sometimes you have to do an infusion to get the right flavor. That’s when you add the flavoring after. Here, try this. This one is an infusion and this one is natural. Can you taste the difference?”
A taster spoon is handed over and Draco pops it in his mouth, immediately the taste of tart strawberry bursts in his mouth. He stares up at Paul smiling at him. He grabs the other spoon. This one is more subtle, but there.
“Good, huh?”
The rest of the day is spent rocking back and forth on the stool behind Paul and Connie’s stall asking questions as the two of them manage their customers. Draco feels like he has a million. Who invented smoking beehives, what do you mean harvesting honey been a thing for over 8,000 years, What did people do before beekeeping suits, how do you know bees communicate through dancing, why can’t you just dance communicate back to them, can you make a queen been, the bees do what when a queen bee can’t lay any more eggs, Wait almost all bees are girls, Why do people like eating the honeycomb isn't it all just wax?
At one point Paul sets his hat on Draco’s head and happily lied to one of the old men who stopped by that Draco was his grandchild, mocking him by asking if he was jealous that his grandchildren never help him with his stall. Something told Draco the two of them were good friends by the way the two men continued to insult each other while laughing and exchanging a pile of apples for a few jars of honey.
His Aunt returns with her bags full later, and that's when Draco stupidly realized she had left him there to do her shopping. He hopped off the stool and raced over to her, grabbing the bag out of her hand to help. (That was something new he had picked up from staying with muggles. Without house elves or magic, people had to carry things themselves. Usually they would share the chore with those they traveled with and his Aunt was no different. During their visits to the grocery store she would call him over to carry lighter items. Now it seemed he did it without being asked.)
“Was he good?” Andromeda asked, unbending from the weight of the bag Draco was struggling with.
“The best. You leave him here whenever you please.”
“Might take you up on that. Come on Drake.”
Draco put the bag down to wave, at which point his Aunt picked it back up again. Fishing out a wrapped pile of carrots and cucumbers she handed them to him to hold. They were much more manageable than the bag.
“Can we go to the library?” he asked as they settled into the car.
“Hmm, I suppose so. But just a quick visit. I have some refridgables.”
That was fine. Draco had become an expert on finding the books he needed. With Mrs. Lynton's help he could be out in ten minutes tops. As they drove down the road Draco remembered the girl from earlier.
“I saw a witch at the farmers market today.” he reports.
“You did? ” His Aunt’s voice pitched, looking in the rear mirror at Draco. It was clear she was thinking of the disasters magic-folk could cause in muggle towns. “Were they making a scene? What did they do?”
“Well, a witch-to-be I guess. She was younger than me. She had a balloon. ”
The car goes quiet for a moment “...And?” his Aunt prompts him.
Draco furrows his eyebrows “She had a balloon ” he says slower, what was his Aunt not getting?
“...Drake, do you…do you think balloons are a wizard-only thing?”
“Yes!” Draco shouted in frustration. “I mean,” he tries amending his tone “They’re levitating items. You can’t tell me muggles just ‘ figured out’ how to make things levitate.”
His Aunt lets out a sigh. “Oh boy, ok.” She takes a breath “Let’s talk to Mrs. Lynton when we get to the library. Ted explained it to me once but I don’t remember all of it. Basically muggle balloons are filled with Helium, which is a type of air that is lighter than normal air. Because they’re lighter than normal air they float.”
The car goes quiet again.
“That doesn’t make any sense!” Draco cries, throwing up his hands.
“I know, I know.”
“How do you even get the Helium in the balloon? How do they know which air is Helium air? You can’t see air. You can’t touch it!”
“They…what was Nyphamora’s science project again?...They cool it down. You know how when you have a cold glass out on a hot day there starts to form droplets on the outside?”
“...yes?”
“It’s kind of like that. They get a bunch of air and cool it down so it turns into liquid. Then they separate the liquid Helium out, put it in jars, heat it back up to a gas and sell it…I think” She muttered the last part to herself but Draco still heard her.
Draco turns the information over in his head. “That doesn’t sound right.”
His Aunt sighs as they pull up into the library's parking lot.
“Let's go talk to Mrs. Lynton then.”
—
“-Aaaand here’s a book on Chemical engineering. It’s probably a bit too advanced for you Drake, ” Mrs. Lynton comments “But it goes more in depth about the process your Aunt mentioned. Just don’t worry if you don’t understand all of it.”
“She was right?!” Drake exclaims from the tower of books he’s under, packed high with chemistry and beekeeping.
“Somewhat, you’ll find out more as you read. But I think that’s all of it.”
“Sherri, I thought the library had a three book limit?” His Aunt protests as they walk to the counter.
“Usually, but I put Drake on the student plan.” Mrs. Lynton remarks with a skip “They’re allowed to check out more books when it relates to their studies. Which all of these do.” Draco heaves the books onto the counter for Mrs. Lynton to scan. “He’s a one of a kind kid Andrea, bending the rules a little isn’t a big deal if it keeps fostering his curiosity.”
“I-well, Thank you.”
“Of course. Drake, do you have your card?” Draco pulls his library card out of his pocket and hands it to the librarian who quickly swipes it.
She smiles at his Aunt as she stacks his arms with the mountain of books. “You just keep bringing him back with more questions.” She says “And the books of course. Return them on time. But you always do.”
“Bye Mrs. Lynton” Draco calls as he wobbles out of the building.
“Bye Drake, see you soon!”
—
On the way home from the library Draco, who has grown more accustomed to the car, turned the page of his new book on beekeeping. Paul had talked about how the beehives were boxes but the book had much more detailed photos of the hives. Even going into detail on the history of how beekeeping evolved over the years.
Draco looked at the pile of books next to him. Everything he had learned about muggles far surpassed what he thought he knew about them before.
He had grown up with mantras his parents repeated like fact
“Muggles are idiots.”
“Muggles are vile”
“They’re dirty”
“Weak”
Backwards”
“Useless”
Draco ran his finger over the page detailing beekeeping suits over the years. Keeping bees was a thousand times better than wandering around for days looking for a wild hive. Paul could keep dozens of colonies, could channel the taste of the honey they produced, he could even make he own queen bee if he wanted to. Muggles could make so much more honey with less effort. If anything muggles were…smarter than wizards.
Next to him the chemistry textbooks bounced as they drove. They actually knew what they were doing. They understood everything down to the tiniest detail and built things wizards were centuries away from and they were…kind.
With wizards, all they ever did was wave their wands and let things happen. No one knew why. No one even really knew how. It was just something that worked. No wonder his Aunt didn’t question when she came here, there hadn’t been a need to before. Magic was alive and powerful, it breathed existence into them but even without it Muggles had survived. They continued to progress where wizards had stopped. In a way, perhaps magic had made wizards complacent.
“You alright back there Drake?”
“...Yes.” he lied “I’m fine.”