Chapter Text
“Mister Weasley, it’s so interesting of you to visit us, considering your work in another country and your mother’s complaints that you keep skipping holidays.”
“One holiday a year, I skip one holiday a year, you’d think I was avoiding her letters or something.” The oldest Weasley son, Bill, was sitting in Headmaster Dumbledore’s office, waiting as the man skimmed over the letter from Gringotts with a small frown, so Bill gave him a moment to read it before he started asking questions.
“Ahh. A probable curse in the DADA classroom other than the one no one can figure out how to break. I’m not actually sure anyone’s placed a new one, recently, but the reasoning is sound.”
Bill nodded, crossing his legs as he considered the facts. “I’ve got reason to believe it’s either undetectable under the right conditions, or not actually on the room, but on Mister Potter, to begin with.”
Dumbledore considered that as well. “That’s… unfortunately possible. Mister Potter has had a rough year so far, but you must not discount that it could be that his scar is reacting to something.”
Bill nodded. “Yeah, that’s also possible. It was Ron that originally brought it up to me, in a letter. When I reached out to Madam Pomfrey she said she couldn’t give me details of his condition, but she could request a curse breaker. Mum demanded I come home for break this year, so I put in a transfer request at the same time, so they’d bump the request up with an immediately available curse breaker.”
“Ahh, that does explain how this got bumped to the top so fast, but I would be remiss if I didn’t caution you, this very well could be a reaction from his scar towards something in that room, which wouldn’t exactly be a curse.”
Bill shrugged. “Still needed to come home for the holiday, wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t put in the request to check on things myself. From what Ron said, Harry’s scar is in a permanent state of renewal, yes? No sign of healing?”
Dumbledore nodded. “It’s always been very… irritated looking. He says it’s always been that way, I assume with a permanently open scar, it’s probably always got some level of infection in it, but I’m not a healer, so I’d ask Poppy’s opinion on that. She has him put a coating and numbing balm on it, from what I’ve seen.”
Bill nodded. “If you have no complaints, I could get started today? Lessons are out in a half hour, I’d like to speak with Harry. I’ll get Ron to introduce me, look a little less intimidating.”
It would have been easier not to be, a few years ago, before that last growth spurt evened out and he stopped looking gangly.
***
Harry was smaller than most of the other kids, and Bill wondered if he was eating and sleeping right, but he likely wasn’t sleeping much at all. Sickly pale for someone with skin that tan, eyes red and itchy with his scar looking particularly bad. Bill stared at them from a distance, noting the way even Ron was frowning, which meant this wasn’t usual, and there was a girl with curly brown hair at his other side, lifting up Harry’s fringe to look at the particularly bad looking scar underneath, before the boy gently batted her fingers away, looking exhausted.
Bill came fully around the corner, deciding to put the boy out of his misery and find him a place to sit down. Preferably in Madam Pomfrey’s tender mercies, because that was not a nice looking scar, but he’s had to deal with ferals over the years, and this one looked like a biter.
He’d put money on it, in fact, by the eye the child eyed him up as he got in view, before Ron’s chubby cheeks -pinchable cheeks, squishable cheeks, cheeks that an eleven year old should have instead of that gaunt little wraith between the others- turned up in a grin. “Bill! What are you doing here?”
Bill grinned at him, moving to sit in a window alcove in front of the three of them, where they’d been watching the snowfall outside. It was three days to winter break, and he had that long before Mum would demand him come home for holiday gathering. At which point, he’d be stuck investigating a couple days a week, till it was either holidays over, or having figured out the likely curse.
“I asked Madam Pomfrey about that curse you mentioned, and she said it was possible and she’d put in a request for a breaker, Mum wanted me back for holidays, so here I am.”
Ron snorted. “Bet that pleases her.”
“Sure does. I wasn’t sure I’d have the workload to come back this year. Three years in a row and I’m sure she’d have a fit.”
Ron turned to look at the clearly exhausted boy, who was looking at them in vague interest while the girl at his side let him lean against her, looking awed about it for some reason. “This is Bill, he’s my oldest brother, a curse breaker. I told him how you keep getting scar pain in DADA so he’s going to check if it’s a curse in the room.”
Harry nodded, before letting out a yawn. “I think I need to get more scar balm from Madam Pomfrey.”
Bill nodded. “Yes, I saw that, it looks very painful. I’ll take you to her, and then I just want to run a few diagnostics over you after she’s given you a once over.”
Harry looked nervous for a single moment, but stepped away from Ron and the girl. “I’ll meet you two at dinner, Ron, Hermione.”
Hermione seemed to hesitate a few moments longer, before allowing Ron to pull her away from them, after grabbing the bundle of Harry’s school books. Ron was obviously the more likely of the two to delegate the babysitting to someone else. It’s a little brother thing.
Harry was shaking a little, and it took Bill a moment to realize it wasn’t fear, but just exhaustion, and he was no longer fighting so hard without someone to keep appearances in front of. Bill took a single moment to decide that wouldn’t do. “Alright, kid, two options here, I can conjure a stretcher and carry you that way, or the old fashioned way.”
The boy, to his credit, did bristle at that. “I can walk.”
Bill shook his head. “From where I’m standing, asking you to walk up two flights and three hallways would be a horrible way to treat you. Practically torture. Come on, work with me, I’m not trying to embarrass you, but you look like you’ll collapse. You have to learn to ask for help before you collapse, because if you need the help after that, you don’t get the option of who helps and how.”
The boy looked at him, much more awake now, less anger and more enlightened. He bit his lip, but that courage was still there. “I don’t want a stretcher. If anyone sees me they’ll think I’m dying or something.”
Bill didn’t point out that Harry most definitely looked like he was dying at the moment, noting that Harry’s answer wasn’t an actual want, so much as what he didn’t, and gave a firm nod, turning around and dropping to a knee. “Alright, arms around the neck, legs around my waist.”
Harry felt awkward, and Bill suddenly got why Hermione had been so awed that Harry leaned against her. Bill had the feeling he didn’t initiate contact a lot. The little hand fisted in Bill’s tunic front was too thin. The way the boy’s face pressed into his neck was too hot, far too hot, worried Bill, and he walked a little faster than he’d planned, after securing Harry with his arms under his knees. He couldn’t help it, but he could feel the pulse-like magic in the boy’s scar, and he was planning to skip the DADA classroom entirely for now, absolutely sure there was something wrong in it. Something that was trying to get out.
Harry was able to relax a little on the walk to the hospital wing, little fingers cold against Bill’s shirt front and shoulders dropping from their creeping position, Bill was almost worried he’d passed out on him, but the breaths were still uneven, so he hoped it wouldn’t get to that.
Pomfrey looked alarmed at both the look of mild panic on Bill’s face, as well as the way his scar seemed to have blossomed into red raw and infected in less than a day, from what she said. The boy was lying listlessly on the bed, one little hand in Bill’s where he’d been unable to leave the child completely. He was just too little. His hands were cold.
“These readings are still the same curse remains, but they’re getting stronger. I took readings at the beginning of the year when we realized the scar still looks fresh, it’s the same just more powerful. Like it’s growing.”
Bill frowned. “So it’s still something in that room, then? Since it’s only hurting him when he’s in there?”
Pomfrey frowned, considering. “The first time he noticed it was at the beginning feast. Professor Quirrell was there.”
Bill wanted to believe the best in people, but he wasn’t leaving this job till he looked at the man. “Maybe the curse is on him, maybe it’s on an object he’d been holding.”
Pomfrey looked at him with the same rueful expression he felt in his soul. Maybe it was more insidious than that, especially involving the boy who’s most likely to get attacked simply for existing, when the last time treachery like that was seen was the first war.
Harry whimpered, turn a bit in the bed, looking fevered. Bill rounded the bed, motioning for her to let him take her place. “Call St Mungos, even if I can figure this out and break it, he’s not going to be up for, well, anything for a while. You might need a curse expert.”
Pomfrey nodded, leaving as Bill was starting a series of diagnostics for narrowing down the origins and type of curse, which could take quite a while in a lot of cases.
This was a lot easier when it was on an object, and not a child with a rising fever, but that’s why he’d asked -thought he just not realized he’d more ordered , and he would need to apologize profusely for that later- Madam Pomfrey to get a curse breaker who specializes in living beings. Harry was squirming in discomfort when Pomfrey came back with a bag of salves and Healer Tonks behind her. The man looked concerned, and his wife, a pediatric specialist, trailed in after him, already reading through the first set of diagnostics with a pinched expression.
“Are these similar to his original readings when he first got here?”
Pomfrey had the same pinched look on her face as Bill finally broke through a barrier around the curse to narrow down the category list by about half. “Admittedly he was about one stone heavier, at the beginning of the year. I had him on nutrient potions for a solid month before I considered it acceptable. I haven’t taken any weight readings since the infections started but I was asking Snape to brew a more concentrated version that’s going to last him over the break and then some.”
Andy blanched, closing her eyes for a moment before shaking her head. “Poppy, this is some horrible neglect. That is, hoping that neglect is all that is at all.”
Pomfrey nodded, and Bill moved aside at Ted’s tap to the arm, letting him take over with a different spell variant while Andromeda started pulling out a notepad, pulling Pomfrey aside so they could make comparisons and notes. Bill felt a little smug at knowing Pomfrey seemed to have already built a sizable case against the boy’s guardians.
He rounded the bed again, moving to hold Harry’s hand while the other one went to his forehead, opposite the lightning bolts that looked so painfully inflamed. Bill cringed when he finally realized that scratch looking jagged line going down his right eye was part of the scar, and looked painful to touch.
He closed his eyes, focusing on the training he used for wandless detection, knowing that while it was harder to figure out what a curse was in general, it often let you see the shape and flow of the magic. He wanted to see the curse itself.
It mirrored the scar, but it looked like it was trying to travel backwards in the head, like it was creeping in towards his mind. His eyes snapped open, going pale. “Ted. It’s a mind control curse. I don’t know what the focal point of the control is, but it’s purpose seems to be getting into the subconscious. I think the infection is because it realized he’s weaker when sick.”
Ted let out a curse that could burn a hole in the wall, taking a step back. “Andy, call Dora, ask her to get Madame Bones and some Unspeakables about a possible mind controlling curse.”
The woman had to take a second to take a breath before she was off without a word, competent as ever. Ted went back to the diagnostics, but Bill noted he was narrowing down his categories to ‘learning mind control’ which was a horrifying category to have exist.
Pomfrey came over with the bag of salves, setting it down so she could put some out. “Now that I know the category, I know what’s safe to use with their tests.” A cleansing charm had the boy twitching a little, his currently slightly inflamed eye twitching.
Bill frowned, moving out of the mediwitch’s way. “Did they have a double in DADA today? Or maybe brewed a potion he has a sensitivity towards and sped up the inflammation?”
Pomfrey blinked. “Silver binder in my office on top of the first shelf, bring it to me. It won’t open for non-staff.”
Bill could probably break that idea, but he wasn’t willing to try right now. He got to the office just as Nymphadora and Andy were coming through with Madame Bones and two cloaked Unspeakables. He grabbed the binder on the shelf and got out of their way immediately, wanting to get back to Pomfrey just as much as he didn’t want to incur the wrath of an Undpeakable he’s pretty sure he spilled an entire tray of syrup and pumpkin juice as a first year while she was in her last.
Being this good at magical signatures told you who to stay clear of while they’re in disguise.
Pomfrey moved so they could get in around Harry’s bedside instead, and handed her the binder. She opened it to the year’s time tables, scanning to today’s schedule, and sighed. “He had a double in Defense, but his other was Herbology. Possibly an allergy but I would put money on it being something in the defense room.”
Bill gave her a side glance. “Is this… is this enough suspicion to pull Professor Quirrell in for questioning? If it’s not him I’m sure he’d appreciate us being thorough when a student is becoming deathly ill from something that happened in his classroom?”
Pomfrey frowned. “He’s been teaching here for years, I’m not sure the suspicion would be just. We could probably ask him to leave so we could check on his classroom and see if he’s upset with it. If nothing there, the only thing left to suspect is the man himself.”
Which was going to be an issue.
“Weasley, come here and show me how you know this is mind control.”
The Unspeakable was the one who might still hold a ten year grudge over some spilled items, but he wasn’t fully sure, so he nodded, leaving the mediwitch with some contacts to make in the school. She would know better how to organize that one than he would.
Ted moved aside for him to go to the same side as Harry’s inflamed scars, while that Unspeakable on the other side mirrored him, putting her hand in the same place.
It was a bit harder to show the other how he saw it, but after a moment she seemed to understand he was using a meditative magic flow to check inside of the scar itself.
Which… is where it got weird, since that meant his magic had slowed down enough that he thought…
“I think I see the curses' focal point.” And then, for reasons unknown to them all, he knew exactly how to dismantle it, and as it fizzled out into what probably felt like a fizzy soda headache in Harry’s head, the world went blindingly painful in his own head, before just blindingly gone.
***
Bill woke up on a hospital bed, his shoes gone along with most of his clothes, and a light shining into his eyes. He flinched back with a little hiss, and Pomfrey lowered her wand with a relieved look. “Pupils are dilating at the same rate, he doesn’t seem concussed.”
“I feel it.”
Pomfrey poked him right over the headache on the right side of his forehead. “About here?”
“Ow. Yes. Did I get hit there?”
Pomfrey put her hand up in a so-so gesture. “Of a sort. You’ve been out a couple hours, we decided to let you sleep the worst of it off, though your boss also firecalled to tell us that your contract was closed in record time for what was recorded as one of the worst curses they’ve seen in a hundred years.”
Bill squinted at her. “But… no, that wasn’t that hard to dispel.”
Pomfrey nodded. “Yes, about that, you had the knowledge and ability to dispel it, but on your own it likely would have taken a week of research to figure out what it was, and another to attempt dispelling it. I think the castle shoved a partially knowledgeable healer ghost in your direction and she used the signs to follow through the motions she knew from life. At least, we think it was Joanna Slytherin. There are also signs that another ghost was here, but other than being female, we don’t know much else.”
Bill blinked a few times, before squeezing his eyes shut, though shaking his head seemed to be a step too far and he cringed again. He sighed. “Is he okay?”
The healer genuinely smiled at him. “He’s amazing. His magic presence is stronger, his body is healthier, and the scar is healed . No lingering pain, not even lingering redness, just a completely healed scar. I woke him up before you, and while he said his head hurt, it didn’t seem to be as bad as yours. I gave him pain potions and a small meal with a nutrition potion, but then I got him back to sleep.”
She moved back a few steps, pulling the curtain between the two beds a little so he could see Harry sleeping peacefully, clean and no sign of the fever that was taking him earlier. He was turned toward Bill, a hand on his belly, round from finally eating properly for the first time in a while, and his scar stark white against his healthy tan skin now.
Bill sighed, feeling better. Harry was safe. That was so important. He couldn’t put his finger on why.
Pomfrey came back to him, keeping the small crack in the curtains so he could keep a watch on the boy, and took a seat at his bedside. “Now, I will tell you this; Professor Quirrell was the cause of Harry’s scar activating, and both that and Harry’s scar are because of the same thing. Quirrell was an active Death Eater who’s in custody now. And that’s all I’m going to say on that right now. You can get a full report from your employer later, I’m told. I need to tell you something that is much more pressing to you.”
Bill looked away from the child, giving her a nod. “Yes?”
“They ran Harry through a gambit of scans and spells, and the most important result we found… is that you are now registering as Harry’s magical parent. Meaning, that you can take full legal custody of him at any moment of your choosing. He doesn’t have to go back to the family that did… that , to him.”
Oh. Oh.