Blood and Curses
V: Blood and Curses
History of Magic, or rather the professor, had been a bore as always. A ghost reciting by rote notes written decades ago, when he was still in the world of the living, did not make for an exciting class. That is not to say that Harry Potter slept through the class, as many were wont to do. If Aunt Bathilda would get even the slightest hint of that, she would yell “Sacrilege” and send him the most harshly worded Howler she could.
So as a good kid, he spent the hours working on his own little project, which Aunt Bathilda had entrusted him a year ago, at her age not having the energy and patience of writing another book. Being stuck at Hogwarts did limit one’s sources, but there were plenty of 17th century journals and books that detailed Pureblood attitudes towards Muggles prior to the Statute of Secrecy. There were quite a lot of interesting things to learn, like about Ralston Potter’s Wizengamot career, or the first Lucius Malfoy being refused the hand of Queen Elizabeth I, a fact that never ceased to be funny.
Once the ghostly professor ceased his droning, and the last period of class done, he made his way to the Slytherin common room. He spoke the password, only to be rudely pushed aside by Malfoy and his cronies. Too tired to teach that brat a lesson, Harry simply spared a sneer and went his way to the dorms.
After he put away his books, and took whatever he needed, he went out the room, intend of spending the rest of the day tinkering and studying in solitude in the Room of Requirement, unbothered by any. His great aunt, who had written “Hogwarts, a History” knew most of the castle’s secrets, and had left some out in writing the book. The Room of Requirement had been one such secret, imparted upon him by his great-aunt after he had come home the first year with the top grades in his year.
Of course, nothing could be so simple. Granger had stopped him once this day, outside Potions, and in hindsight, he had been a bit of a prick talking with her. Now it was Daphne Greengrass who had stopped him, though he was quite aware of what she was seeking.
“Any answers?” asked the girl, anxious and fidgeting, as if life or death depended on his reply. Which to be fair, was true, in a manner.
The matter not being one he could shrug off, he stopped to discuss with the witch: “Give me a minute, Greengrass, to fetch the letters from my dorm.”
A minute or two later, he returned, carrying a sheaf of envelopes with him. He handed the over to Daphne Greengrass, with a copious amount of explanations:
“I have sent a few letters the first time to a few of grandfather’s old contacts, those I believe had some competence in the subject. Then I had a hunch on the matter, and wrote my, let’s call him great-uncle, and got a satisfactory answer, so I had to write another round of letters with the latest information. I also contacted one of my distant cousins across the Atlantic. He is no expert on the matter, but as former Director of Magical Security for MACUSA, he has plenty of contacts of his own, people knowledgeable in the effects of Dark Magic. But in the summary of it – there’s news somewhat good and some not so good – it depends on the particularities of the case.”
“But you’re saying Astoria has got a chance?” asked Daphne, a glimmer of hope in her eyes.
“To explain it in short – I had a hunch, which my great-uncle agreed with, that whatever medieval wizard or witch that cursed your bloodline had no hunch of the workings of genetics. So the blood curse, malediction, whatever you want to call it, settled upon the blood itself. Now, there’s two possibilities here.”
“The first one that the curse affects the bone marrow, which produces the poisoned blood. The second one is that the blood of the originally cursed witch held the curse itself, which was transmitted to the child by the transfer of blood in the womb. This second one might explain why only some of your ancestors manifested the curse – there is a possibility that the curse manifests itself only in children with the same blood group as the original victim. But to make sure that the second possibility is true, we would have to find cases of male children in your family affected by the course and not having passed it to their children.”
“I’ll tell my parents to check any family records for any cases of it” said Greengrass, making a mental note of it.”But what your saying, that you, or your correspondents might have found out the workings of the course, that means there’s hope for curing her, not just for treating the symptoms?”
Greengrass’s face was so hopeful, that Harry hated to tell her things were not that simple. But lying would be even worse.
“This are only hypotheses at this point, and there is no procedure for curing it developed. There have been some ideas thrown about, which you will find in the letters, but you might not find them appealing.” he said at last, suddenly uncomfortable.
“If this is about the cost” said the young witch, with a resolute determination, “father will pay how many Galleons it would take. I will make sure of it.”
“It is not money, but the procedure that might be unappealing. If it is the blood itself – to be cured, Astoria will have to be fully exsanguinated, every drop of blood cleansed from her body, and entirely new blood put in. Cleansing the blood and putting it back in would not work – there’s no potion or alchemical concoction that could absolutely purify it from every trace of Dark magic except the universal solvent, but the alkahest had been the futile quest of many an alchemist, and even Flamel hadn’t cracked that one. And if it’s the bone marrow, it means she’ll additionally need to have it extracted in its entirety and new one transplanted, and her father would be the only possible donor.”
“But those procedures can be done, no?” she asked, her tone hopeful.” There’s Healers than can do that?”
“Bone marrow transplants has been done. By Muggle doctors. Same as with blood transfer. We wizards prefer Blood Replenishing Potions to that. But not even Muggles exsanguinate people – it’s a risky, deadly thing. Losing even two-thirds of your blood can lead to death. It needs to be figured out how to keep your sister alive during this.”
“I will tell father this. He will find Healers that could do that. Even if he will have to scour the whole wizarding world.” she said, relentless to the bitter one. It was admirable to hold such love towards a sibling, Harry thought, even if he lacked personal experience in having siblings.
“Anyhow, the bulk of the letters are about Potions treatments that can alleviate the symptoms and hopefully make sure she lives a long life. So such treatment can wait years before all things are satisfactorily researched. The typewritten letters, with no details on the correspondent are the one from my great-uncle. Your father cannot inquire of his name, post address, or his qualifications in the subject. He can only trust my word on the matter that his observations are knowledgeable, legitimate, and truthful.”
“Why?”, asked Daphne, keen to assuage her curiosity. “Is he some eccentric old sorcerer, or paranoid, or something like that?”
Harry, as always when it came to that particular relative, was not glad to discuss of him: “Suffice to say, that only in such condition I could offer his help on the matter. Your father would have to trust me on this.”
“If that’s all then, Potter, thank you. You’ll have my family’s gratitude as long as we live”.
Harry was preparing to leave, but he remembered one thing: “There’s something else, Greengrass. If you ever want to have kids, if you want to ensure they’re not born with the curse, you’ll have to go through the same treatment.”
Leaving behind the horrified face of the Slytherin witch, Harry went about his business.