Chapter 7:
Curse-borne
Halfway down to Hagrid's paddock for their first Care of Magical Creatures class after lunch on Wednesday, Maurice Burke's jaw dropped, and he broke into a run. It took Teddy a moment to register what he was on about, then he spotted the small, neat figure standing on the fence, a green quill in her hand. Teddy looked at Corky and Donzo, and they all sped up to catch up before any harm was done.
"What are you doing here, Higgs?" Maurice demanded. "You don't even take this class."
Honoria Higgs climbed down from the slats and smoothed down her robes. "Charmer business," she said. "I put off the first issue of the year just to make sure this is in it. I have it on good authority that Professor Hagrid intends to re-introduce a hippogriff banned from contact with students for his particular viciousness." Teddy looked into the paddock, where Buckbeak was, indeed, snacking on a fat ferret. His heart sank as Hagrid came out, and Honoria rounded on him. "Professor Hagrid," she said, grabbing her quill tightly. "I've just concluded an interview with a former student who alleges that this animal - which you plan to use with students - was banned from such contact twenty years ago, after it mauled a third year. Is this, in fact, the animal in question?"
"It's Beaky, righ' enough," Hagrid said. "An' yeh can tell Malfoy tha' he can take it up with the new committee on Wizarding education. Care of 'ermione Weasley. Reckon she'd love t' hear from 'im."
"So your political connections have proved useful?"
"And yours haven't," Maurice said. "Fancy that."
She turned and glared at him. "This is an important matter."
"Buckbeak's been here longer than we have," Maurice told her. "And you know perfectly well that he hasn't hurt anyone. Let Professor Hagrid be."
"The hippogriff - "
"Flew in the battle. Do you really mean to start smearing war heroes again?"
The rest of the class arrived, approaching tentatively. Tinny Gudgeon narrowed her eyes at Honoria. Roger Young ignored her entirely and started scrounging for things to feed Buckbeak.
Honoria set her jaw. "Has it occurred to you that I'd just like to get the whole story?"
"Not even for a second."
"Well, that's all it is," Honoria said, and turned away from him, nose in the air.
"Yeh picked a good day fer it," Hagrid said. "Go' something special this year fer O.W.L. students to 'ave a look at."
Teddy looked to Buckbeak, who'd now stood up, but was looking around shiftily.
Hagrid raised his wand, and the fence to the stables opened. A small hippogriff, perhaps a third Buckbeak's size, came gamboling out, taking quick, joyful leaps. Teddy had seen baby hippogriffs a year and a half ago in France, and he guessed this was one of them, probably the one Rolf Scamander had been helping Hagrid with on the day of Professor Longbottom's stag party. It pranced over to the fence and stuck its beak eagerly toward Honoria, then toward Maurice, then finally toward Teddy himself. Bored with this, it ran down the fence, flew a few yards, then hopped around playfully in front of Buckbeak.
Buckbeak's shoulders hunched and he shook his great head sadly.
"This 'ere's Dapple," Hagrid said, pointing to the young hippogriff. "'e's Beaky's boy, in't 'e, Beaky?"
Dapple cheerfully bounced around, trying to grab a ferret out from under Buckbeak's talons. Buckbeak looked helplessly at Hagrid. Teddy imagined that he was wondering how this undignified creature could possibly be his kin.
"Now," Hagrid said, apparently missing the entire exchange, "hippogriffs 'ave what yeh migh' call a division o' labor. The mothers raise the girls, and the daddies raise the boys, eh, Beaky? Dapple's sisters are all in France with their mum, and Dapple's come 'ere t' learn about bein' a hippogriff from Beaky."
Teddy wondered, somewhat morosely, who taught that to hippogriffs whose fathers had died flying into battle. Were there god-hippogriffs to teach them? But he didn't ask. It would make Hagrid feel awkward for no good reason.
Dapple ran back to the fence and shoved his face at Honoria again, apparently deciding that he liked her. She blinked at him, then, to Teddy's surprise, curtsied delicately. Dapple seemed delighted with this game, and bowed deeply to her and did a quick, twisting leap for her entertainment. She reached forward tentatively and patted his face. Buckbeak hung his head.
"They're a bi' friendlier when they're young," Hagrid said, then started telling the class about the habits and needs of the hippogriff species. Teddy thought it was the best class he'd had from Hagrid. Throughout the lecture, Dapple continued to prance back and forth between the fence and Buckbeak, looking eagerly for approval from anyone he approached.
After class, Teddy hung back with his friends and waited for Honoria and a few of her mates to leave. Tinny was delightedly feeding Dapple now, and asked Hagrid if she might stay, since she didn't have any more classes today. Roger wanted to do a special project.
Teddy turned to Maurice and Corky. "Will you keep an eye on Honoria at the damned paper?"
"I will," Corky said quickly, before Maurice could jump in. "I don't think we need to threaten her every two seconds on this."
"Sure we don't," Maurice said.
Corky shrugged. "The hippogriff liked her. She's always nice to things that are nice to her."
Teddy thought about his first year, when Frankie Apcarne had been perfectly nice to her, and generous, and she'd responded by writing an article that smeared him in front of the whole school and implied that Teddy thought he was crazy. But that had been first year. He couldn't think of a time since when someone had extended her a kindness and had it responded to with the vitriol of which she was capable.
Then again, she was still going to Draco Malfoy and Rita Skeeter for tasty tidbits for the Charmer, so Teddy wasn't quite ready to trust her yet. "What are you going to do?" he asked Corky.
Corky shrugged. "I'll offer to fact-check. That means I get to read everything before it goes in."
"And if she writes something horrible?" Maurice asked.
"I'll..." Corky shrugged again. "I'll stop being nice to her."
Maurice grumbled something about not knowing why he was being nice in the first place, but it was lost in the wind as they climbed the hill back to the castle. Once inside, they bade Donzo goodbye - he was off to Ancient Runes - and Teddy, Maurice, and Corky headed down to the dungeon for their first Potions class of the year. Honoria, Brendan, and Jane went in just ahead of them.
When they got in, Teddy checked the corridor outside to see if he'd made a wrong turn somewhere.
The dungeon walls had all been charmed to show a view of a mountainside on a sunny day, seen through a series of gothic stone arches. Wildflowers blew in a gentle breeze, and, as Teddy watched, a rabbit hopped toward the barrier, disappearing as it crossed out of the charmed image.
"Well, come in then," a lilting voice said. In the place where Slughorn had held court for all of Teddy's years at Hogwarts, Cho Morse was perched on a high stool, stirring a large cauldron.
The Slytherins looked around nervously, then took seats at gleaming marble tables, each of which had been fitted with a sink and several potion-making implements that were usually kept in storage. There were drawers beneath them, and Teddy glanced quickly into one to see rows of potions ingredients, neatly labeled in glass jars.
The students unpacked their potions kits slowly.
"I hope you don't mind the change," Professor Morse said. "I'm a Ravenclaw. I like things a bit airier. I never did like this dungeon."
"I like it," Teddy offered.
"Good, because you're spending quite a bit of time here. You need to see me after class, Mr. Lupin."
"Yes, Professor Morse."
The door opened, and Daniel came in. He was still wearing a talisman, but he'd actually put on wizard's robes, and looked more than comfortable in them.
"Do any of you mind my husband watching the class?" Professor Morse asked. "The new tables are actually his design. This is how smart Muggle laboratories look."
Daniel fought a grin, and Teddy guessed that the look wasn't quite right, but it seemed to make Professor Morse happy, so all was well.
"All right?" she asked. "Good. Now, today, we'll be brewing a Sharp-Eye Solution. Ironically, I'll have you put on goggles to protect your eyes from it while we're brewing it, as it's thick and tends to bubble and spit." A pair of goggles appeared in front of Teddy, and he put it on wonderingly. Jane Hunter put hers on with the air of someone who'd done so thousands of times, then looked eagerly at Professor Morse, who nodded to her. "We're going to make the basic solution first - you can find the theory of it in your textbook - then we'll try some experiments. Over the next week, you're each to try it with several different additives for improvements, and I want you to report to me on how each ingredient changes the effects of the potion, and how your eyesight changes in different environments. Keep a journal for your data!"
"It's nearly scientific method!" Jane said. "That's wonderful!"
Professor Morse looked deeply pleased at this. She flicked her wand at the blackboard, and the instructions for the basic solution appeared. Once this was accomplished the differences from last year faded, and it became another potions class. Teddy forced his mind not to wander, and managed a decent Sharp-Eye Solution in the allotted time. When class ended, he started to follow Maurice and Corky up to dinner, but Professor Morse tapped his shoulder.
"Teddy, I do need to see you. We'll need to talk about Neil's potion. You'll need to start brewing it quite soon."
"Oh... I wasn't... yes, of course."
"Wait a moment, if you would. I just need to take care of a few class matters."
Teddy nodded, and Professor Morse went back to her desk to clear things up. He felt someone behind him, and turned to find Daniel, who smiled.
"Would you mind at all if I stayed while you work on the Wolfsbane Potion? It's fascinating - it really mutes the lycanthropic symptoms?"
"Yes."
"I've read everything I can get my hands on about the disease. Horrendous thing. No wonder your dad looked ill so often the year he was at Smeltings. And there I was, blathering on about plagues."
Teddy had seen some of this in Dad's ring-memories - Dad had enjoyed Daniel's enthusiastic visits - but wasn't sure how to pass on the information that there had been no hard feelings. Instead, he just said, "Well, it's not really a plague. It's hard to become a werewolf. You have to be bitten. It's not, well... there are no nearly invisible fleas involved or anything. It's a great wolf. Hard to miss the cause."
"True. It's also not, thank God, airborne. I'm still trying to figure out if it's properly called blood-borne."
"It's curse-borne," Teddy said. "Granny taught me the difference. Blood-borne runs in the blood, and you get it by touching blood or mixing it. Airborne just jumps from person to person. But curse-borne diseases have to be passed by the mechanism of the curse."
"In this case, biting," Daniel mused. "Yes, I understand that, then. I just have to get used to a category like that existing. Most Muggle diseases lack intent."
"You should talk to my granny sometime. If you're nice, she might even give you a tour of St. Mungo's."
Daniel grinned brightly. "I shall have to keep that in mind."
Professor Morse finished up whatever she was doing, put several scrolls into a desk drawer, then stood up and came over. "If the pair of you are finished comparing notes, shall I show Teddy where he'll be working this year?"
"I've set aside the old student store room for you," Professor Morse said. "Now that we have the ingredients spread out amongst the tables, I only needed half the cupboard space for extra. I did the same charm on the walls in there, but if you don't care for it, or you'd like different scenery, I'd be happy to change it."
Teddy shook his head. "The meadow is fine. Really."
"Well, it's not very big, but there's space for the magically tended fire. Professor Slughorn told me that you're quite adept at maintaining it."
"Fire is easy," Teddy said. "As long as you keep the potion over it, it should keep. If it goes out, though, you have to brew another batch."
"Finicky," Daniel said.
"Just a bit. Lucky for me. It was Mum having to get Dad the potion every other minute, as he couldn't very well keep a magical fire at Smeltings, that made them fall in love."
Professor Morse opened the door to the store room, and sunlight flooded out. Teddy followed her inside. The room seemed quite a lot bigger than it had been last year. A brand new cauldron stood toward the back, and several plants were lined up on shelves beside it.
"Neville... er, Professor Longbottom... has been tending the plants, and he's happy to keep doing it. If anything seems wrong with them, let him know."
"All right." Teddy looked around. "Is there a calendar here? I haven't been keeping track of the moons as well as I ought to. I haven't needed to since Greyback died."
Professor Morse pointed her wand toward the door and a calendar came flying through it. She affixed it to the wall, where it seemed to hang suspended between two trees.
Teddy studied it. "He has to take it for a week before the full moon, so I think it'll have to be Tuesday. Can I come down on Monday after supper to get the batch started?"
"Yes, of course."
"When does Neil have Potions?"
"Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday mornings, early."
"I think... er..." Teddy flailed. "I think that's early enough for the morning dose. I mean - "
"Can he eat before he takes it?" Daniel prodded.
"Yes! Yes, he can eat anything he'd like."
"And how many doses does he need each day?"
"Three. Mum used to bring it to lunch, and then Dad took it before work and with supper," Teddy said, relieved to have that memory from the ring. Why hadn't he thought about the simplest question of all? Why hadn't Slughorn told him?
"Well, then, it sounds like taking it with meals is a good dosage. Unless there's a magical component to the exact time?"
Teddy shook his head. "No."
Daniel smiled at him. "You'll do just fine, Teddy."
"I hope you'll teach me to help," Professor Morse said.
"I'll show you. I'm not a very good teacher, though." Teddy supposed that Donzo would say this was a flat lie - he'd managed to teach all of them the speaking Patronus Charm over a matter a few weeks last year - but Professor Morse would be thinking of Dad, and comparatively, Teddy thought that made it true enough. He looked at Daniel. "Speaking of which, when are you going to teach about Muggle Healing?"
"Madam Pomfrey and I are working on a presentation for next week. Will you be there?"
"Of course I will."
"I'm very excited about it," Professor Morse said. "Can you imagine? It's the first time Muggle science will be taught at Hogwarts in a thousand years."
"No pressure, though," Daniel said.
Teddy smiled dutifully. After a few more minutes of being shown around, he made his excuses and went to the Great Hall for dinner. Victoire and Marie were sitting at the far end of the Gryffindor table, and judging by the aggressive jut of Marie's chin and the agitated way Victoire was squirming, they were having another tiff. They weren't loud enough to disturb passing hippogriffs this time, though, and they weren't throwing Curses, so Teddy decided to let them be. Ruthless wasn't there yet, so he didn't really have any Gryffindors to sit with. He took his plate and wandered over to Hufflepuff, where Frankie Apcarne was putting the cutlery through a complex sort of choreography while a salt shaker hummed a waltz.
"That'll be useful in later life," Teddy said, sitting down beside him.
Frankie shrugged. "Who says everything needs to be useful?" He winked across at Tinny, who was levitating a bit of cloth to serve as the top of a tent.
Tinny flicked her wand, and the cloth developed jolly black and yellow stripes. "Lupin, as long as you're here, you'll have to think of something. We could use drummers, I think."
Teddy cast around for something to charm. Frankie and Tinny each appeared to have finished a chicken leg, so he took the bones and set them to a simple one-two-three beat. "Anything more complicated, and we'll need to ask Donzo," he said.
Further down the table, Roger noticed the game, and soon, his goblet was strolling around, making a sound like a wandering violinist. A few first year 'Puffs said, "Wingardium Leviosa" in unison, and several quills began to float around in a stately manner. Frankie's cutlery promptly flew up to dance around them, to the delight of first years, who didn't seem to care what the social status of a seventh year was, if he was willing to play with them at all. By the time Headmistress Sprout put an end to the game with an irritated, "Oh, for heaven's sake, Mr. Apcarne, you're quite old enough to know better than to play with your utensils," most of the 'Puffs had found something to contribute. Teddy settled in to eat.
"Had a letter from Mum today," Frankie said when everyone's attention had wandered. "She wants to know if you're looking well and eating properly. Shall I tell her the truth?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"That you look like something Checkmate dragged in from the garden and played with for a few hours."
Teddy started to morph away the puffy little bags under his eyes.
"And don't morph," Frankie said. "I already noticed, so it's a little late."
"Don't tell her. It's not... well, not the thing she's worried about. It's just brewing the potion for Neil, and of course Ruthless broke up with me."
"Again?"
"Yes. But I'll never recover from it this time, you know." Teddy put his hand dramatically over his heart.
"Right. She's got you on some damnably Unspeakable business, hasn't she?"
"Yes, but that has nothing to do with me being tired. Really. You don't need to pass it on. I have a problem with it, but it's... technical, I suppose. Tell her I'll write."
"All right." Frankie toyed with his food. "She also said that Dad's been looking at offices in Diagon Alley. He's been talking to some of his authors, and he's trying to buy a press. He wants to start his own publishing company. Historical things, and maybe some fiction."
"That sounds good."
"He said this summer that if I wanted to do that, I could join him. We could be partners."
"Do you want to?"
"Yes."
"Cheers, then. It's a plan."
"If I can do it. I really don't know that much about it. D'you reckon I could have some of those stories you write for James? I'll see if I can make a book of them. Just to see if I like doing it."
"Sure. Do you want some of James's, too?"
"Er... I think perhaps he's not quite old enough to make a production of it. I was going to send it to Dad. To show I can pick something good."
"You might want to pick something other than the drivel I write for James, then. Granny says Professor Morse writes good poetry."
"I'll stick with your drivel any day," Frankie said, then pointed to a roll on Teddy's tray. "Are you going to eat that?"
Feeling oddly lighthearted - a great release from the stress of Potions - at the thought of the silly stories he'd made up for James being put together into something that looked like a book, Teddy headed back up to his room, did the small bit of homework he'd got, then took out the Daedalus Maze for the first time since he'd been forced to run from Fenrir Greyback.
"Don't try to find Brimmann," he reminded himself. "Don't try."
He hoped this would make it work a bit better, though he decided that if he so much as suspected his guide was a dead cannibal with a taste for children again, he'd leave the Maze without looking around.
He opened it, and found himself beside Granny's pond. To his utter delight, Sirius Black was waiting there for him - fifteen years old, with a dangerous sort of laughter in his face. Teddy could see little James in him, and then he became James, but not Teddy's James - Uncle Harry's father. This James Potter winked from behind his glasses and led Teddy into the Maze, which was formed from the bright flowers of Granny's greenhouse, where Teddy had spent many happy hours pretending to explore the jungle when he was small. At the first turn, James turned into Prongs, then into the large black dog who was Padfoot, then into Sirius. The flowered walls were covered with mirrors, each of them showing Teddy something different when he looked into it. Just morphs, nothing dreadful. He laughed, and glanced at another mirror, in which Mum was laughing back at him.
Sirius became Dad, also fifteen, and Dad led him around another turn, where he could see the Marauders - well, Sirius, Peter, and James, anyway - hunched around their books in the library, then he saw himself and Donzo hunched around the same books, Donzo with his ridiculous mask on. Dad smiled.
Teddy continued to explore this part of the Maze, counting his turns, enjoying appearances by a very young Granny, the Weasley twins, and even his own James Potter. At ten turns, he wasn't altogether sure he'd be able to take another twist in the road, so he followed his path back, his guides morphing along with him, and finally left the maze. Sirius walked back to the pond with him, then grinned and disappeared. Teddy was laughing when the spell ended and he found himself back in his room. It was ten-forty.
So that was why Dumbledore's father had wanted the Maze in Azkaban. It might have frightening turns, but it could also do this, take him through happy things. Was happiness a Mystery? It didn't have its own division, but it could be, at that.
Teddy set the Maze back into its spot under his bed, and turned to get his pajamas on for the night. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and stopped.
He'd long ago stopped morphing his hair into absurd colors on a routine basis, but somehow, in the Maze, it had gone the bright pink that Mum had favored. He hadn't done it deliberately.
Frowning, he relaxed the morph, and let his hair return its natural shade of brown.
Teddy collected Neil at breakfast on Tuesday morning, and went down to Potions a few minutes ahead of his class. Professor Morse had apparently got bored with her mountain meadow, as the Charmed view through her windows now showed a wild, rocky Scottish beach. Gulls and terns swept the sky. It was harsh and untamed, and something in it made Teddy stop and stare.
"What is it?" Neil asked. "Is it that smell? Is something wrong?"
Teddy shook his head. "No. The Potion smells awful, but the way it's meant to. Does it smell different to you than it usually does?"
"No."
"We'll check it before you drink it, but it ought to be fine. I was just enjoying the scenery."
Neil looked at the beach with disbelief, muttered, "It looks cold," then scurried into the work room.
Teddy followed him, taking a clean goblet down from the shelves by the door as he went. He scooped it into the cauldron. He came up with a smoking, stinking mess of it, and hoped that someone would improve the recipe sometime soon. "Here," he said, handing it to Neil. "Cheers."
Neil stuck his nose in the shallow smoke, then started taking little sips. "What would happen if you drank this?" he asked.
"I don't really want to find out," Teddy said. He watched Neil drink for a little while. "How has school been? Corky said you were in the Common Room the first night."
"Oh. That. Right. There's a boy in my dormitory - H.J. It's short for Harold James, and he thinks he's named for your uncle Harry, and I told him that the name wasn't right, but he didn't believe me."
"I wouldn't bother with that. You can't do it in any way that doesn't sound bad. Let it be."
"Trust me, I will. But I didn't at first, and they didn't like me. So H.J. comes out with a piece of a newspaper. He said he brought it because he just knew I'd be in his year, and it was about how my family got attacked and I'm... you know."
"Yes, I know - a boy who's not drinking his potion."
Neil wrinkled his nose, then took two large gulps and made a soft gagging sound. When he'd managed not to bring it back up, he said, "So they all know. And they started making growling noises at me. Mum Evvie says I shouldn't lose my temper at people, so I left and went to the Common Room."
"Your mum Evvie is a smart woman," Teddy said, and watched Neil struggle to get down the rest of the potion. He'd watched Evvie and Nate do it several times, and he guessed that the taste must be truly vile. "Is it getting any better with your dormitory-mates?"
Neil shrugged, still trying to force himself to swallow.
Teddy sighed. A part of him had hoped that Neil would be very popular, and the social curse on werewolves would finally end. It would be like watching Dad get a second chance. But Neil wasn't Dad, and this H.J. would most likely have found something other than the lycanthropy to pick on about him if it hadn't been handy. "Well," Teddy said, "do you think it'll work itself out, or am I going to have to start Cursing firstie Slytherins?"
Neil polished off the potion. "Maurice Burke already did. He said that Slytherin - "
" - takes care of its own problems now," Teddy finished. It was Maurice's personal motto, and it had been all Corky could do to keep him from carving it above the Slytherin fireplace.
"Just so," Neil said. "Maurice says that we'll have enough trouble after Tom Riddle's war without... er... he said, 'renewing our reputation.'" Judging by his face and tone, Teddy guessed that Neil had very little idea about "Tom Riddle's war" or what reputation was being renewed. "It's stupid, really," Neil went on. "Why should Maurice have to run around Cursing people just because someone else did something bad a long time ago?"
Teddy had no answer for this that seemed fair, when it was put in those terms, so he changed the subject. "Where are you going to transform? The Shrieking Shack, er..." The Shrieking Shack was a pile of burnt and rotting splinters, and the tunnel to it a mile-long shallow ditch. Teddy thought he might have done well with counsel not to lose his own temper. "The Shrieking Shack isn't there anymore."
Neil, who'd been in the sanctuary and had probably never heard Dad's house named, looked at him blankly, then said, "I'm going to the gate after lunch on the day of the full moon, and Père Alderman or Vivian will meet me and take me back to France by Side-Along Apparition. Mum Evvie and Daddy Nate haven't quite got the hang of the thing yet."
"Oh. I hadn't really thought of you leaving altogether," Teddy said. "That's a good way to handle it."
"If I can ever catch up on my homework after. It's very hard."
"Is there anything special you're having trouble with? I could help."
Neil looked at the floor and shook his head. There was a rumble of noise outside as the other first years came in. "I'll be fine," Neil muttered, and scuffled out to a table, where he sat with a girl with greasy pigtails and a skinny boy with an overbite. The boy looked at him nervously, then, with what appeared to be a great effort of will, smiled and passed him several sunflower petals. They started to turn these into paste with a mortar and pestle, and Teddy left, hoping to make his History of Magic class before Binns noticed that he wasn't in his accustomed seat.
He needn't have worried. When he got to Binns's classroom, Daniel Morse was leaning on the desk, looking nervously out at the five Ravenclaws who'd already arrived.
Teddy blinked at him, then said, "Sorry I'm late. I had... business to attend to."
"I'm aware of it, Mr. Lupin," Daniel said. He squeezed a piece of chalk he was holding hard enough that it broke with a loud crack. "Please take your seat."
Lizzie Richardson, looking conspicuously away from Teddy (as she had when he entered a room since the day they'd broken up), raised her hand. "Dr. Morse? Where is Professor Binns?"
Daniel took a deep breath. "As I understand it, he was called away to adjudicate a matter on the Council of Ghosts. Something to do with an unorthodox haunting. Quite interesting, really. But sudden. Headmistress Sprout isn't accustomed to finding History of Magic substitutes, so she asked if I might keep your attention with some of the historical material I've been working on with Madam Pomfrey."
"About normal medicine?" Geoffrey Phillips asked.
"Well, Muggle medicine, at any rate. I imagine that magical Healing is more normal here."
"They entirely refuse to accept any advances," Geoffrey said, leaning forward conspiratorially. "I'd certainly rather be ill in the real world."
Daniel frowned, then shrugged and said, "I suppose there's some validity to that. But I'm not really going to talk about Muggle science just now. This is a history class. As it happens, I love history, and I'm very excited to learn a whole new corner of it."
Geoffrey looked less than thrilled that not even an actual Muggle could be pulled into his tirades against the Wizarding world, but refrained from further grumbling. Teddy supposed he was making up some reason for such a dastardly betrayal of common cause. He wondered what Granddad - a Muggle-born who'd fallen in love with a Black and yet somehow managed to also fall in love with computers - would make of Geoffrey and his mad notions, and decided to see if he could find out by using the Maze.
Daniel turned to the blackboard and wrote "The Galdreward Quarantine," then turned back to the class. "Does anyone know about this?"
Donzo raised his hand tentatively, and Daniel nodded at him. He said, "Didn't it start with a Muggle disease? Cholera, or smallpox?"
"Yes. But it was actually a plague outbreak. Not the big one, but a later one." Daniel smiled to himself, and Teddy thought of Dad's memory of Daniel as a child, delightedly giving every gory detail of that particular plague while they shared biscuits in his ugly Smeltings office. He supposed Daniel was thinking of the same thing, as the plague itself wasn't exactly a smiling sort of subject. Daniel went on, "Quarantines have a long history in the Muggle world as well as the magical world, but until then, neither had been able to achieve a perfect one. Galdreward's quarantine actually magically sealed off infected areas upon the first infection - one of them was here at Hogwarts. No one could get in or out, and neither could anything that was carrying it. The school Healer at the time was able to cure the infected boy, and there were no further cases, even though it was raging all around the school."
"And they just left the Muggles to die," Geoffrey said. "Typical."
Daniel made what looked like a Herculean effort not to roll his eyes, and didn't entirely succeed. "Mr. Phillips, is it?"
"Right."
"Magical Healing works with a witch or wizard's natural magic, much to my disappointment. All the spells and potions in the world won't work on a Muggle disease in a Muggle body, if they don't have something to work from. I've seen witches and wizards in many parts of the world risking the Statute of Secrecy and their own health in an attempt to help their Muggle neighbors, but it never works. The only time magic works on a Muggle is if the disease itself is magical in nature, or curse-borne." Daniel sat back lightly on Binns's desk. "Now, after the plague passed - that time, anyway - Galdreward worked to improve his quarantine, so it would take effect any time a certain danger threshold was passed. I don't pretend to understand the magical mechanics, but in terms of magical history, a series of quarantines in the seventeenth century contributed greatly to the success of the Statute of Secrecy in Britain..."
Teddy listened as the last of Daniel's nervousness melted away, and he once again became the boy who'd been Dad's student, thrilling to the dark turns of history, exploring the innovations that made it possible to come through on the other side. It wasn't like a lesson with Binns - Donzo was scribbling all of his usual notes, but Geoffrey gave up his muttering entirely. Connie Deverill looked nearly star struck, and Lizzie broke her Teddy-boycott to ask for a new quill when she managed to wear down her nib taking down points of interest. Franklin Driscoll was occupying himself with sketching, as usual, for his Charmer comic strip, Hoggy Warty, but instead of the usual unrelated panels, he seemed to be designing a character for Daniel (as far as Teddy could tell, he was drawing Daniel as a human, instead of the anthropomorphic animals that represented the rest of the staff and students). Teddy wondered if this was what it had felt like to sit in one of Dad's classes. He decided to ask Uncle Harry.
When the bell rang, for the first time since Teddy had started taking History of Magic, he was sorry to leave.
