Bill Weasley
18 July, 1994
Salt Lake City, Utah
11:15 P.M.
Bill Weasley stood atop a building, in the shadow from the ancient sodium street lights. Across the street was the target building. Checking his watch, he saw that it was still fifteen minutes until Mission Active.
Sighing heavily, he ruminated a bit on how this all came to be...
8 July, 1994
Gringotts Bank
Bill was fresh from the Chamber of Secrets job. He walked away from it with quite a few magically created copies of ancient manuscripts, and a very nice small dagger that Harry had caught him eyeballing and told him to go ahead and take.
In the break room, people were discussing the Inheritance Test Project. Bill himself was the creator of the testing spell matrix, and others had been crafting the indexing spellwork. Having Lara as a rough tester had been yet another great idea from Harry, and it allowed a lot of cleaning up of the spell work and runic frameworks.
"So, when are we going to the other banks with this?" a goblin gem appraiser asked as he stirred a bowl of... something.
"Up to the Board," a witch in Security answered before taking a bite of her muffin. "We're down in the pits; they're the ones who wrangle all that out."
"I wonder..." commented Keller, a fellow Cursebreaker from the American branch. "Bill, you're on the testing, right?" Bill nodded as he poured himself a mug of coffee. "I had an idea. We've been testing by magical signatures. What if we tested by DNA?"
Bill blinked at that, then reminded himself that Keller was a muggleborn. "I know almost nothing about muggle science. I know what DNA is, but not anything like how it works."
Keller sighed, leaning back in his chair. "It's like this. Genetic material, the blueprint of the body, right? What if we were to test that? Get that down, open up the index, and we can track entire genealogies."
"Okay, smart guy," Bill said as the room went quiet, paying attention, "explain it to me."
"It's like the spell used for paternity. It senses by genetic similarity." Bill nodded at that. "Well, every person who's made a contract with Gringotts has left us a blood sample on the contract itself."
"Yes, but all the magic is removed by the contract," Bill argued. "It's considered neutral in all respects. We couldn't even use it for polyjuice."
"Not what I'm saying, man. The magic isn't there, but the DNA is! And thanks to the preservation cabinets, it's all dry, but still essentially fresh! So we work up a version of the indexing matrix, modify the paternity testing spell, and there we go."
Bill blinked at that, the concept churning in his mind. "In theory, it might work," he admitted. "How far can we go with this?"
Keller grinned, sharklike. "Fucking everywhere, man. Do you know how many organizations have DNA databases? In how many countries? In the US, the Mormons have a massive one. That's just the one I know about."
"And how do you know about this?" someone asked.
Keller sighed at the question. "My dad is a biochemist, okay? He deals with this stuff all the time. He has to get specialized permissions to use certain databases and resources. He bitches about this all the time."
A goblin then piped up, "Wait, aren't you the one with gay parents? Which dad?"
Keller gave a long sigh. "Yes, I'm the one with gay parents. My dad is gay, my mom is a lesbian. They aren't sexually attracted to anyone else of the opposite gender. Stop fucking asking, dude.
"Anyways, if we distribute teams, we could easily raid most of the DNA databases of their information. And we won't be stealing, just copying," Keller reminded the room. "These groups put a lot of time and effort into gathering this stuff, the least we can do is not disrupt what is in some cases decades of records."
-End Flashback-
And that's how Bill found himself in Utah, with the hot, dry desert air sucking the moisture out of his flesh.
Three hours later, he and Keller were at the safe house in California. As it happened, Keller was a dab hand with computers and digital science. "Dude, I was raised on this stuff. Computers, chemistry, the works."
Bill himself was boggling at the incredibly small box that Keller had used to store all of the information. He'd read up a little on computers after the Chamber of Secrets, and he'd seen the similarities that Lara had found in the basics. But the 'external hard drive cluster' was a new concept. And when Keller started getting technical, talking about 'Raid Arrays', 'Micro-ATX', and such, the man certainly seemed to know what he was talking about.
Bill and Keller worked on the spell matrices, Bill on the identification spells, Keller on physicalizing the digital records. Fascinatingly, the process was remarkably similar to simulacra construction in practice, and there were plenty of books on the subject. Within a week, the pair had the system modified to not only identify vaults by blood and magic, but also a genealogical tree. If a person's DNA was on record with the various organizations, or their blood was on a Gringotts contract, they could be positively identified.
Meanwhile, word from the Board was that negotiations with other banks were in progress. They all saw the potential of the project; the only real sticking point was the percentage. After all, Gringotts created the method, the spells, done the legwork. The asking percentage per test was the only haggle point.
Thankfully, Bill now had a bit of time off.
15 August, 1994
Croft Manor, Surrey
Bill walked up to the gates of the stately, ancient manor. He'd done his research; the Crofts had been landed gentry since the early 1300s, and their property reflected it. He boggled a little that Harry grew up in the same county, and the house he came up in couldn't be more different than this.
When Dobby had approached him in the bank, he couldn't quite believe that Lara had already returned. She'd apparently just gotten out of the paperwork morass from the insurance and investment manager on Whitman's side.
Clearing the gate (and noting the ancient, weather worn runes on the bases of the stone fence posts), Bill finally got a good look at the manor house itself. Faded paint was peeling from the outer scrollwork, ivy nearly covering the entirety of the ancient stone walls, the lawn was a morass of weeds, and a tree had come down on one wing, plowing through a wall.
Frowning at the seemingly derelict estate, Bill still knocked on the front door. Several minutes later, Lara finally opened the door, saying, "Hello, Bill. Sorry about the wait; I was in Dad's study. Come in!"
Following Lara, the Cursebreaker in Bill took in the entryway, and then the open, marble-floored hall of Croft Manor. A few broken windows littered the skylight, covered by taped-down sections of plastic tarp. A couch and a few chairs surrounded the fireplace on one side of the hall's ground floor, while cabinets were crowded under the upper floor walkway on the other side. A great compass was set into the center of the floor, etched into the marble and filled in with gold and silver before it was lacquered; Bill could sense traces of magic in the compass as he walked over it.
"I have to admit," Bill began, following Lara up the stairs, "that this wasn't quite what I expected when you asked me over."
"Oh?" Lara asked over her shoulder as she opened a massive oak door at the top of the stairs. "And what were you expecting?"
"Eh, Well," Bill hedged out. "In all honesty? I was expecting more of a 'lived in' esthetic than a 'homeless' one."
"Ah. Yes, well, I haven't really lived here since Dad passed," Lara admitted, leading Bill down another hallway. "Roth was my legal guardian, and if I wasn't out with him, I was at boarding school, and then uni. Winston left for his retirement, and so the place was empty for a long while. Honestly, if we'd known about Harry, I would've strongarmed my uncle into opening the place up for him. Even this," she continued, gesturing at the musty carpeting and faded paneling, "would've been better than where he grew up."
"Dunno about all that," Bill admitted as Lara opened the door at the end of the hall, "but Slipshard would probably agree with you. He really likes Harry. Says he's a 'gust of fresh air in the mine'. I've never seen a goblin happier with a wizard than him."
"At least Harry has people in his corner," Lara said, gesturing for Bill to sit in a chair as she sat in her own. Looking around, Bill spotted a massive katana with a broken blade, several trinkets made of jade, horn, and bone. A couple of asian masks were on a table, alongside a toy train, a blood-stained dagger, and a silk fan. "Ah, some things I picked up on Yamatai. I took Jonah's suggestion and emptied out my moke-skin pouch. I had no idea that it could hold so much, or that I'd forget what was in there," she admitted with a hint of embarrassment.
Bill chuckled at that. "Yeah, I do the same with the one I've got. I get home after a job, and the first thing I do is clear out my expanded spaces to organize them. Granted, I don't have the kind of space that you do," Bill replied, gesturing around him, "but I have a system. So, Yamatai. Slipshard is being tight-lipped about it. All he said was that most of the crew died, and that Harry made it out mostly okay."
Lara sighed as she pulled out a water bottle. Taking a long pull, she said, "It was a shit-show from the start. Cultists who worshiped Himiko, hurricane force storms, and then the spirit of Himiko trapped in her own corpse. I know that Harry is compiling his experiences, as am I, and we plan to coordinate it all once he returns to Britain. Unfortunately, we won't be able to publish outside of the magical; there was just too much supernatural there to go properly public with it all."
"Yeah, the ICW is really strict on anything brushing against the Statute," Bill admitted, accepting a bottle of water from Lara. "We cursebreakers have to be on constant watch for representatives overseeing projects in mixed muggle-magical archaeological digs. How are you holding up?"
Lara sighed, looking around the room. "Barely hanging on, I'm afraid. Harry's lawyer got us good therapists, so the horrors of Yamatai were swiftly addressed. Now I'm arguing with my uncle about control of the Croft estate. Without an official Declaration of Death from my mother's passing, control of the estate legally stays in his hands. Harry's lawyer is also looking into that, along with her 'sponsor'."
Bill heard the quotes that Lara had used, asking, "What's the deal with her sponsor?"
"Sponsor is an accurate term in a sense," Lara admitted, adjusting herself in her chair, "but the more accurate term would be 'mistress'. Duke Emil Langley's predilections are well known in the circles that my father ran in. Intelligent, driven, busty, and beautiful are all hallmarks of the various women that he's sponsored over the years; it's a poorly kept secret that all of his sponsorships are thinly veiled sexual appointments. Granted, all of the women get the finest in education, and invariably go to highly placed professional careers by their own merits. But Emil does have a type."
"Huh," Bill replied. "I don't think I ever met his solicitor, so I don't know. Still, old gentry and all that," he shrugged out. "But it seems like you have matters well in hand."
"And then there's Sam," Lara continued, her shoulders slumping. "She is taking Yamatai harder than the rest of us. Little wonder, considering she was a prisoner for most of it. And nearly getting her soul ripped out and replaced with her ancestor's..." Lara shuddered at the memory of the visible energy of the soul transfer. "She's improving, but it's like she's slowly getting more and more obsessed with Harry."
"In what way?" Bill asked, leaning forward.
"She constantly asks if I've heard from him, if there's any new word. She has collected all of the photos containing him, and if I didn't know Sam so well, I'd swear she was building a shrine to him."
"I know that Harry has a phone now," Bill admitted, "so contacting him should be easy. Satellite telephone," Bill explained at Lara's questioning expression. "Apparently one of his investments was to buy out company on the brink of bankruptcy, and he got his own phone company."
"Interesting," Lara considered. "Of course, I told her to write him, but she keeps hesitating, claiming that it 'isn't perfect'. It's like she's thirteen and has a nervous crush on a boy, I swear."
Bill frowned, considering it all. "Out of curiousity," he began, "and knowing that you aren't allowed to talk about a lot of the Yamatai stuff, can you tell me how you stopped the whole 'getting her soul replaced' thing?"
"Oh god, it was horrible," Lara breathed out. "Harry and I had to fight scores of cultists, and a lot of the Stormguard. We finally got to the ritual center, and Mathias shot my bow before jumping me. Harry cut his leg off, but he still had me on the ground before Harry shot him in the head. I grabbed my torch to set Himiko's body ablaze, and Harry grabbed Sam to get her clear. The entire ritual shut down, and the blue energy that was flowing from Himiko to Sam slammed into Harry, as if the entire energy of the ritual was sucked into Harry. He dropped like a sack, and Sam began slowly coming to. Harry later told me that he had absorbed Himiko's entire soul."
"Holy..." Bill paused, considering the angles of what he'd just learned. "I think..." he slowly began. "I think this may be a case of an extreme life debt. If what you said is accurate, then Sam not only owes Harry her life, but her very soul. Life debts are a pretty odd subject," he began in a lecturing tone, "that not a lot of people like to talk about. Consider them the oldest form of magical contract, that should help." Lara nodded at that. "Now, depending on the severity, the life owed, so to speak, that dictates how strongly the person who owes will respond. Some low-end life debts are paid off through a bit of assistance, or a small cash payout. The upper-end ones get a little chancy. Hmm, how to put it... Ah. In Sam's case, she owes Harry her soul, not just her life. That could lead to the kind of obsession that you're describing, I'd think. If Harry was around, she'd likely want to be near him at all times, do things for him, possibly even get into a formal relationship.
"Mind you," Bill warned, "this is a lot of guesswork on my end. Not a lot of people really understand how life debts work, and I could be completely wrong about what's causing her obsession. I know that my sister Ginny owes Harry a life debt; without him, she'd have outright died in the Chamber of Secrets. To hear Ron talk, their friend Hermione may as well because of a troll in their first year. Ginny still sighs longingly over Harry, and Ron always said that Hermione joined Ron and Harry full time as friends after the troll. But she'd need to be examined by someone who specializes in this sort of thing, and I haven't a clue as to who that might be."
"God," Lara breathed out, leaning back into her chair. "It does fit her behavior. Still, that's a horrible thought, and I only feel better knowing that Harry isn't the sort to take advantage."
"Harry's a good bloke," Bill agreed. "Now, while I'm glad that you made it back okay, what are you wanting to do?"
Lara smiled at him, standing up while saying, "Well, since the Crofts are, were? a squib line, I thought you and I might work together on revealing the secrets of the manor."
Four hours later, Bill had yet to find anything outright magical in the house. There were faint emanations everywhere, but nothing that could be triggered. The library had the strongest emanations (and the locked door was no challenge for the Thief's Friend), the cellars had some very odd readings that Bill had never seen before, and the wing with the branch through the wall had Lara in tears; according to Lara, Richard Croft sealed off his wife's personal chambers years ago when Lara was about seven. Finally, between Bill's 'radar' spell and Lara's pulse, they found weak points in certain walls.
Of course, the pair had not simply worked in silent seriousness. There were jokes, old stories, and little flirtations constantly going back and forth throughout the entire time. When they finally broke off for a snack, they were in good cheer and comfortable.
"So what are you going to do about the spots we found?" Bill asked before taking a sip of his tea.
"There's a peculiar thing in archaeology," Lara begin, slathering a bit of toast with some jam. "You see, sometimes you have to break an artifact in order to get to the deeper mysteries. I read about a site in Italy where they unearthed an exquisite tile mural floor from an ancient bath house. The problem was that they knew that there were levels beneath the mural. So once they got all they could from the floor, they broke out chisels and sledgehammers, opening a hole through the mural."
"That must've been painful for them," Bill commented.
"But it had to be done. They discovered that the lower levels held a treasure trove of artifacts as well as the original piping for the earliest incarnation of the site. They're still studying that site to this day."
"So you're saying that we'll have to break some of the walls in your house," Bill noted aloud. "Isn't that some kind of rebellious childhood dream come true?" he asked with a smirk.
Lara laughed at that. "Oh my God, yes! I think every child has had a dream of tearing out a wall just to annoy their parents. So yes, I was thinking we just open those spots up. And it's not like I can't afford to get them repaired."
"There is that. There is also the repair spell. Whatever we break, I'm pretty sure I can fix it. And if I can't, I can definitely transfigure it into something that'll look like it's always been there."