Chapter 10:

The Undelivered Message

At dinner, Victoire was aggressively normal toward him, even throwing a Weasley Wheeze at him (an exploding marshmallow chick), though she looked away quickly rather than helping him wipe it off of his face. No one seemed to notice anything amiss. Ruthless sat beside him and told him about a particularly good defense spell she'd found in Mum's book which she wanted to try out as soon as she found someone willing to be temporarily rendered magic-less.

"That was one of Mum's?" Teddy asked, surprised.

"No, just in the book. I think it was older. I've heard of it - Spell-Binding - but no one uses it anymore. Too many defenses against it; made it not worth it. But now that no one uses it, no one learns the defenses. So maybe it can be used again."

"That almost made sense," Teddy said. "Except that Granny told me that no one did Spell-Binding anymore because it never worked properly in the first place."

Ruthless looked disappointed. "Well, it's tricky, but..." She sighed. "I suppose if it had worked, the Aurors would have used it against the Death Eaters, wouldn't they?"

Teddy nodded, thinking that it would have been quite convenient if Mum had taught it to Dad, and Dad had used it on Dolohov instead of tossing his wand to Dean. Then Dad wouldn't have got hurt, and Mum wouldn't have been so distracted that Bellatrix could creep up on her.

Ruthless shrugged and moved on to a brief note she'd found on magical seafaring, which she thought might be useful in Teddy's search for Brimmann. During this, Teddy happened to look up at Victoire, who was frowning at him, her lips pressed tightly together.

He dreamed of being aboard Tirza's ship again that night, but dearly hoped that it wasn't a dream his parents were eavesdropping on, as it had featured Ruthless as the captain and Victoire as the navigator, and for some reason, they only had one skimpy uniform between them, and Teddy's job as cabin boy was to take it back and forth, and help them in and out of it.

The next day, he asked Jane Hunter if she'd go to Hogsmeade with him at the end of the week. She looked suspicious, but said yes.

"Well, it's a clean sweep of the Houses, anyway," Donzo said that night, Summoning several books to the nook in the Restricted Section where they were working by the light of a rock Teddy had charmed to glow. "Ruthless in Gryffindor, Laura in Hufflepuff, Lizzie in Ravenclaw, and now you've got a Slytherin girl."

"Yes, that was just the point," Teddy said. He pulled a few books off the top of Donzo's pile. They weren't spell books, or books from the Marauders' Animagus collection; they were books about birds, opened to the articles on hawks. Teddy scanned the first few, then said, "I kissed Victoire."

Donzo looked up, not quite following. "Was it the first time?"

"Yes! First, last... you know. Just an idiotic thing."

"Hmm. I'd reckoned she'd been after you with mistletoe since she could walk." He shrugged, unconcerned about the subject, and peeled a rather thin book from a pile on a chair. A gold bird on the cover was flapping its wings, and the title was Hunter, Messenger, Omen: The Magical Properties of the Common Hawk. "Have you read this?"

"McGonagall said not to pay a lot of attention to how other people read the symbols."

Donzo shrugged. "It might trigger something for you. It's interesting, anyway. I didn't know how much magic there was in messages. They used to use hawks to deliver messages sometimes, and one of them got caught in a magical eddy for a hundred years because it didn't get its message to the person who was supposed to get it. One day, it just blew out of a windstorm and gave it to the bloke's great-grandson, then died."

"That's comforting." Teddy took it and flipped to the page Donzo had been holding open. It was a sensationalized version of the story, and the author had put a warning into a red box to never send messages lightly, as messages which were undelivered or garbled could take on vast power as they rolled along, and would often find their way to an intended recipient through his or her weakest point. Teddy rolled his eyes - he could just imagine a note passed between girls in Divination, dropped on the floor, gathering power to possibly make one of them giggle inappropriately on some later date. Dreadful power, indeed.

"Why is it a hawk for you? Just because of your dad's memory when he was little?"

"I don't know. Probably. Why is your Patronus a raccoon?"

Donzo laughed. "When I was very little and I lived in the States, there was a raccoon who used to travel with the Pondhoppers. He just followed them around at first, but eventually, they sort of adopted him, like a dog. They called him Mask. When I came along, he took to me for some reason."

"You probably dropped food for him."

"Quite possibly." Donzo went back to his books. "At any rate, when I was about two, some genius stagehand thought I'd bring a good ransom. Went to grab me out of a play pen in the middle of a show. Mask jumped at him and bit him, and he screamed, and the day was saved for fans of great music everywhere."

"And you remember that?"

"Well, no. But I've heard the story enough; it must have stuck. And I have a picture of me slobbering all over the poor thing."

"What, you mean it's not your own memory?" Teddy grinned, and Donzo gave him a sheepish grin. Teddy laughed. "Honestly, you actually even have a good Animagus name already. You've got to do this."

"Why?"

"Because it's fun. And I have that reliably from other people's memories."

"Of course."

They spent the next hour going through the books on hawks. Teddy paid attention to their wing span and thought about Buckbeak trying to teach Dapple how to fly; Donzo kept trying to make comparisons between Teddy and hawks, some serious, most not ("Well, hawks are Gryffindors, definitely - no room for a brain in that thick skull"). Teddy started Summoning books on raccoons, and Donzo cheerfully bent his comparisons to himself ("Look, I wash my face all the time, too! It's practically a mirror into my soul!"). Teddy didn't think it would take much more persuasion to actually get Donzo to try the spell.

They left the library at two o'clock, when the Marauder's Map showed Filch and Mr. Norris headed for them ("When does he sleep?" Donzo muttered, Banishing the books back to the shelves), and after getting Donzo safely back to Ravenclaw, Teddy returned to his room. The Fat Lady wasn't particularly thrilled to be awakened, but she had yet to turn any Gryffindor in for curfew-breaking, so Teddy wasn't worried. He quickly put his finished homework in order for classes tomorrow, then dipped into the Maze for another Brimmann hunt. This one showed a path where he went into retirement on an island, but was murdered by locals when they found out who he was. The edges had an odd, fuzzy look to them, and Teddy thought that meant the Maze considered this a much more tentative notion than some of the others. Still, when he left, he carefully noted everything he'd seen. He wasn't sure how he was going to research these possibilities, but maybe there would be a clue that crossed from one to the other that would tie everything all up neatly.

He went to bed thinking of little but Brimmann and his unlikely island life, but dreamed again of the ship in the forest, with Hagrid steering it along, pointing out various landmarks along the way. "This 'ere's where yer Dad an' Mum brought the cubs through... over there, Sirius Black an' James Potter tried to raise billywigs... yer granny and granddad used ter come out here for a bit o' privacy..."

Teddy stood at the prow, dressed as a pirate, looking out through a scope. As Hagrid mentioned things, he could see the people - Granny dancing barefoot in a meadow while Granddad played a guitar, the Marauders and a swarm of billywigs, Mum and Maddie running down a path. All of them shimmered insubstantially, like ghosts among the living. Teddy shimmered as well. A hawk circled overhead. It was carrying a message, but it didn't come close enough for Teddy to see. It was solid, like the trees, like the ship, like the figures walking nearby, smiling, gathered around Uncle Harry, who was quite distinctly not smiling. He was bloody and filthy. Sirius and Dad and James and Lily guarded him. The leaves rustled. In their whisper, the words, "Tell Teddy..." seemed to carry through the night, but there was nothing to follow it.

"Nothing to see here!" Hagrid called out cheerfully, and the boat suddenly swung around, hard to starboard, the trees looming like enemy cannons. Teddy saw the huge tree in their path just before they struck it, and then he was falling...

He woke up when he hit the floor. He'd managed to put out one hand to break the fall, but it hadn't done a very good job. A few bright spots of blood were on the wood, and Teddy could feel his nose swelling.

Perfect.

He tried to morph the break back into place, but it didn't work especially well.

"Episkey," someone whispered, and something cool brushed against Teddy's shoulder.

The break didn't heal, but it did stop hurting. Teddy went to his mirror and pointed his wand at his face. "Episkey," he said.

It healed.

He wiped the blood away, gathered his books and homework, and went downstairs for breakfast.

"Lupin, I'd like to see you after class."

Teddy, who'd meant to head down to supper with Maurice and Corky, then go on to Hufflepuff for a game (he was rehearsing possible scenarios with Victoire, should she attempt to mention things he would prefer not to discuss), groaned and waved Corky on. Robards waited until all of the Slytherins were gone, then moved to Corky's desk and sat down. "Brown hair," he said. "Circles under the eyes, pale skin, you didn't laugh when Atkinson Charmed the picture of the vampire to - er - show off its assets - "

"You saw that?"

"I don't care what you do with your books. You own them. If you lads want to explain that sort of thing to your children someday when they're flipping through your Hogwarts books, be my guest." Robards smiled, then let it fade into concern. "Teddy, I saw your mum through a year when she looked extraordinarily like you do now. I've seen you discouraged in the past, but this has been going on for weeks."

"I'm not discouraged!"

"Do an old man a favor - morph."

Teddy concentrated as hard as he could, meaning to turn his hair Mum's favorite shade of pink - it bothered Robards, but if he was going to be nosy, he deserved it - but judging from Robards' lack of reaction, he hadn't accomplished his goal. He frowned and held out his hand, willing the skin to develop a checkered pattern. Simple things, really. A faint darkening occurred, then faded.

"That's what I thought," Robards said. "Your mum was like that for months. Do you need help?"

"No!" Teddy glared at his hand, and the skin finally cooperated, turning itself into a chessboard. "See? I'm fine. Mum lived through it as well, and look how brilliantly it turned out on the other side."

Robards seemed alarmed by this, but didn't say anything to it directly. "I've noticed that you're doing a lot of work on the Brimmann case. Your last three essay topics have all been related to it, and Fifi LaFolle's assistant told me that was the reason for her visit. Is that what's bothering you? If it's frustrating you, stop. I'm not going to reward you for jeopardizing your health or your marks in O.W.L. year - "

"I'm fine."

"Look, your mum - "

"My mum is dead," Teddy said. "Leave her out of it."

"Teddy - "

"You act like you were some great friend of hers, but you hardly knew her, and when you did, you were only trying to - " Teddy stopped, his face hot. He'd seen some of Mum's friendship with Robards on Dad's ring, and he knew she'd respected him, but he also knew that everyone had thought Robards was out to make her his mistress... and everyone wasn't wrong. Teddy hadn't understood what was happening at first, but he'd caught onto it soon enough. Everyone had. Mum's friend Sanjiv had known and even told her, and -

"I'm going to ignore that for now," Robards said. "Consider it an early birthday present. Are you sleeping, Teddy?"

"Yes."

"Are you eating enough?"

"I'm fine."

"Are you dreaming?"

Teddy swallowed and looked away.

"That's what I thought," Robards said. "Anything you want to talk about?"

Teddy thought about the ship, slipping ghostlike through the Forbidden Forest, while dead men who had once been living boys together moved cheerfully along at the fringes of his vision, surrounding Uncle Harry. He shook his head.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It's just stupid nightmares. They don't mean anything. May I go?"

Robards sighed. "All right, Teddy. Go on."

Teddy stalked up to dinner, then went to the game with very little interest in the adventure Frankie and Tinny had dreamed up (it involved a runaway lorry, a city bus, and "Wings's" airplane). Victoire sat awkwardly by Story the whole time, and at one point, Teddy fantasized taking a swing at Story, breaking his glasses, and throwing him across the room. This alarmed him enough to make his hands shake - the idea that he was thinking of beating up a friend, even a marginal friend like Story Shacklebolt, was unwelcome. Wrath, he reminded himself. Do penance. Rebecca Nolan, a first year Ravenclaw that Story had invited, seemed to need help, so Teddy adjusted her stats for her and explained what she'd need to do to recuperate over a few turns after a failed attack on a mugger. By the time he'd finished, his hands were still and the strange, irrational burst of violent anger had passed. He wasn't even sure why it was there. Story hadn't done anything to deserve it.

"What's that scar from?" Rebecca asked, pointing at Teddy's hand.

Teddy looked down. His hand was open, and she was pointing at the odd scar on his palm, where a large pebble had got caught in Dad's ring. Teddy had been trapped in a forest fire at the time, trying to rescue Frankie and Tinny. He'd crawled into a clearing and passed out, and dreamed vividly of his mother and Prongs and Padfoot living in the Marauder's Map, and of Dad sitting beside him in the burning wood. He'd been bruised, cut, scraped, and nearly killed by smoke that day. None of the other cuts or scrapes had left scars, but that pebble must have dug very deeply into his hand, even though it hadn't seemed sharp. He could see the faint outline of Dad's ring circling a flat white spot near the place where his life line joined his love line in a companionable rope of creases. He shrugged. "Just a weird cut," he said. "It wasn't Healed soon enough, I guess."

Rebecca appeared to be satisfied with the answer, and moved away from him when Tinny told her to roll to regain some hit points.

He couldn't really concentrate on his homework when he got back to his room. Ruthless and Robards had both noticed him acting oddly. He'd kissed Victoire and was now having violent fantasies about the boy who'd asked her out. He couldn't get the Animagus spell right despite a great deal more help than the Marauders had ever got.

"That's it," he muttered to Checkmate, who mewed, then turned over and went back to sleep. "I'm finding out what that stupid dream is about."

He raised his wand at the Maze and said, "Sulci Numine."

He'd fully expected to find Uncle Harry waiting for him at the beginning of the Maze, standing there with a list of answers in his hand. Instead, he found Frankie Apcarne, thirteen years old and looking quite crazed with his search for the soul of a Demented man. He gave Teddy the obstinate, truculent look that had been so common that year, then turned and stalked away toward the Maze, which was made from the trees of an overgrown Forbidden Forest. They were laced through with the strange white vines that Frankie had found, and smoke rested in the paths like a heavy white blanket.

"Frankie?" Teddy called. "Frankie, where are you?"

But Frankie - at least as a guide - had disappeared. He was lying motionless and bloody on the Forest floor. Tinny was right beside him, and as Teddy watched, his own younger self, eyes red and face filthy, lay down on top of both of them, trying to protect them from the smoke. His hands were grasped in fists. He nearly dropped his wand, and Dad's ring, which was in the other hand. He made a wild grab for it, then fell into unconsciousness as a thin shadow appeared in the smoke. It was Dad. He looked up.

Teddy shook his head. "Not this dream. The other one."

Dad nodded and stood up (though in the image of the dream, he also remained at Teddy's side). He went further into the smoke, then turned down a path. Teddy followed him, then he wasn't in the Forest at all anymore. Instead, he was in a room in Gryffindor Tower, where four boys were hunched over a piece of parchment. They were laughing. Dad was drawing. Sirius and James were making bawdy jokes. Peter Pettigrew fretted over runes.

Teddy looked at Dad, not understanding, but the guide Dad was gone, replaced by Sirius, who went through a non-existent arch in the wall and down another corridor of the Maze. Now, Teddy was in a black room with a single table, where six men in another time were Charming the first Maze. Phineas Nigellus, who had a grin exactly like his great-great-grandson's, stood back from a spell and said, "Gentlemen - and Percival, of course - we've brought something new into the world."

"I don't understand," Teddy said. "This isn't my dream."

The scene didn't change. A red-headed man who Teddy recognized from his earlier trip as Percival Dumbledore shook his head. "I don't know, Phineas. What just happened isn't possible. How can we see what we weren't there to see? What no one was there to see?"

A short, compact man with dark hair brushed this off like a horse batting off a fly. Teddy blinked - this had to be Gordon Burke; he could have been Maurice in a Victorian costume. "It's followed connections," he said. "This is what Dedalus wanted it to do in the first place." He nodded to a very short man with a sharp gray beard. "It's succeeded beyond all expectations..."

The guide had become Phineas, who gave Teddy Sirius's devil-may-care smile and led him onward, through other groups of witches and wizards, all of them bent over some sort of mischief or other. Wizards in a desert colony tried a potion to make the sand bloom; wizards in wide ruffs set up a private magical performance for a queen with a powdered face; witches plotted to place a king on the Scottish throne; a lone wizard came out of the woods with a notion to find the High King. Teddy barely got glimpses of these. Phineas had other priorities, which also didn't seem to coincide with Teddy's question. He turned again - Teddy realized that he was hopelessly lost and would have to use Ariadne's Thread to get out - and Teddy found himself in the great hall of a manor house. Three young men were studying near the fire. One had a piece of wood, another a loom, and the third, a box of stones. They were speaking, but they were far enough in the past that Teddy couldn't understand them; the language the spoke was closer to German than to English. Phineas looked at Teddy significantly.

Obediently, Teddy studied the brothers. The tallest had a cocky, arrogant look to him. The one with the stones was studious and sallow. The one at the loom had a shock of unruly black hair, like -

"Uncle Harry!" Teddy said.

The brother didn't look up, but when Teddy turned to look at Phineas again, he was gone, and in his place, finally, was Uncle Harry. The Invisibility Cloak that James liked to play with was draped over his arm. He opened it, and invited Teddy under it.

Together, they walked on, and the walls became trees again, and Teddy could see James - the first - and his wife Lily, and Dad, and Sirius, all around them. Dad turned and said something, but the wind snatched it up. It seemed to have shape and form. A bird swooped down and caught it, and flew away with it.

A hawk.

Teddy looked at Uncle Harry.

He didn't say anything.

The world kept moving around them, and Teddy was in the clearing again, the one where he'd nearly died his first year, only it wasn't overgrown with white plants. A tall man with white skin and red eyes unfolded himself from the shadows, and his wand came up and he said, "Ava - "

"Home!" Teddy yelled, and Ariadne's Thread yanked him backward, through everything again, finally throwing him out onto the floor of his room in Gryffindor Tower.

He took a deep, shaky breath. A message. All of it was about a message. Some message from Dad that Uncle Harry had forgotten about.

Teddy would just have to ask about it.

It was from Dad.

It wouldn't be anything dangerous.

Teddy felt like a stone had been lifted from his shoulders. Whatever message had been forgotten was just from Dad, through Uncle Harry, and Uncle Harry could just pass it on when he came. It didn't explain everything Teddy had seen in his dream, but sometimes, dreams were just dreams, as he was reminded over the next few days, as his dreams became light and frivolous again. He spent time on the island he'd imagined for his parents, sitting in the garden with them and talking about his girl troubles (in his dreams, Mum laughed a great deal about him kissing Victoire, which somehow made it less embarrassing). He flew with Sirius and James looking down on a calm ocean with no Maze-lines in it. The woman he took for Lily Potter was also there, and, even better, Fred Weasley, who was even more amused than Mum about the incident with Victoire, and kept threatening to get a message to Bill. He also dreamed of Buckbeak and Dapple, so fully real that he nearly went down to Hagrid's upon waking up because he thought he was meant to have a lesson flying Dapple. He was halfway there before he realized it had been a dream.

In waking hours, he felt more cheerful and stronger. He watched a Quidditch practice, during which Ruthless got into a screaming match with the captain of the team, and turned out to be right. He went to tea at Hagrid's with Roger Young and Maurice, who'd both asked to curry Dapple. Teddy himself chose to curry Buckbeak, who seemed grateful for the attention. He nearly asked Hagrid if he could take a flight, but the afternoon was short, and night was starting to fall. The moon was waxing, so it wasn't entirely dark, but Teddy thought a first flight really ought to be sunlit.

Of course, the waxing of the moon brought him back to Neil, and the room behind Professor Morse's dungeon. Professor Morse let him in after supper on a Sunday night and helped him chop the wolfsbane. Daniel came along a bit later and joined them.

"Nothing wrong with my knife hand," he said, grinning.

Professor Morse frowned. "Nothing wrong with the rest."

Daniel raised a hand in surrender. "I have to watch my wording," he confided to Teddy, then went back to chopping. "I asked Neil if I could study his blood this month."

"What?" Teddy asked. "What do you mean?"

"I brought my microscope. I wanted to see if there were any cellular changes with the moon phases."

Teddy frowned. "Any what?"

"Changes in the little things we're all made from," Professor Morse said. "I should lend you some of Daniel's books. You might find them interesting."

"Oh. Were there? Serl... er... changes?"

"Cellular. Not a thing. There's nothing abnormal at all about Neil's blood. Type A-positive. There may be some genetic abnormalities - I don't have the equipment I need - but nothing glaring, and there's no change with the lunar cycle."

"All this because he didn't believe us about it being Curse-borne." Professor Morse winked, then scraped a pile of chopped wolfsbane off the table into a box and picked up another plant.

"I believed you," Daniel said. "But I wondered what the mechanism was. How the Curse worked. What it did to make the physical changes."

"I don't think you can spot things like that when the change is magical," Professor Morse said.

Teddy finished his plant and started another. "Could you fit my hand under your microscope? I could morph while you watch."

Daniel's eyes lit up, and Professor Morse laughed. "You have a friend for life, Teddy," she said.

"Unfortunately, I don't know if I really could fit your hand under it. Have you ever seen a microscope? I have one of the old fashioned ones."

"I've never seen one," Teddy said.

Daniel did a final cut, then dashed off. He came back a moment later with a square black box and set it on the table. "I have much better ones that work on electricity," he said, "but of course, they don't work here. This one was my great-grandmother's. She worked as a technician in a laboratory. I rescued it from the attic when I started reading medicine." He opened the case and drew out a strange black metal contraption, with a tube rising up from a curved arm, all resting on a heavy base. "Cho, would you mind?"

Professor Morse flicked her wand at a tilted mirror in the base, and it sent light upward.

"It works in the sunlight without magic," Daniel said, "but in here, I'd need an electric light, or a bit of help." He fished for two thin pieces of glass, then said, "Excuse me," and yanked out a few strands of Teddy's hair. He put them between the glass bits, then slid them into the scope. "Have a look."

Interested, Teddy peeked down the tubular scope that Daniel indicated. Three scaly logs appeared in a circle of light. "Is that my hair?"

"Neat, isn't it? Want to have a look at the wolfsbane?"

Teddy nodded, and the three of them spent the next half hour looking at the wolfsbane, at some pickled murtlap, at a drop of Teddy's blood, at nearly everything they could find that Daniel could fit on a slide. Finally, Professor Morse consulted her watch and said that they needed to finish the potion before Teddy's curfew.

"You've got to take this up to Ravenclaw," Teddy said. "Of course, they might try to keep it. What is it for?"

Daniel picked up a bottle of dragon's bile and started measuring it into several small phials (it had to be added in specific increments). "Mainly what we were doing. But when you look at things like that, you can see what causes illnesses sometimes, and then you know what to do about them."

They continued the conversation, and Teddy went to bed thinking about small life forms that caused diseases, and he was still thinking of them when he met Neil after breakfast to start the month's dosing. Neil was as morose as he'd been last month, but it seemed more normal. The other Slytherin first years were planning an adventure on the grounds while the older students were in Hogsmeade on Saturday, and he'd be stuck in France, preparing to transform.

"Well... you'll get to see your Mum Evvie and Dad Nate, though," Teddy said.

"I guess." Neil sighed. "I sort of wish there weren't any werewolves, though. Then Mum Evvie and Dad Nate would be fine, and I'd have my real mum and dad." He gave a self-conscious shrug. "Sorry."

"Why? I'm on your side."

"I want to go back in time and punch whoever started this curse on the nose," Neil said.

"That'd be a trick."

"It was someone in Greece. Some king got cursed. They said by the gods, but it was probably just some really stupid wizard. It was supposed to be a punishment just for that king, and now I can't go into the closed dungeons."

Teddy, who had a goblet half-dipped into the cauldron, stopped. "What?"

Neil looked at him like he might be a bit slow, and said, "If I weren't a werewolf, I'd be able to go to the dungeons. Gavin says we might even find a new way into the Chamber of Secrets."

But Teddy wasn't concerned about the firstie Slytherin adventure. His mind was trying to snag on something. He finished dosing Neil, sat through what seemed an excruciatingly long Charms class (Flitwick assigned partners, and Teddy wound up working with Lizzie, which turned into a forty-minute recitation of his faults as a boyfriend), then an even longer History of Magic class with Binns.

Something about Fifi LaFolle.

Something.

After History of Magic, he skipped lunch and went up to Gryffindor Tower. Fifi's research notes were on his desk, now buried under other things. He scanned them for anything that would stand out, and stopped near the top of the second scroll.

The Gambia. Brimmann's crew caused havoc with their last known act, when they cursed the local populace with Blistering Blood-Spots. Three villagers died of the illness.

Brimmann's crew caused...

Some king got cursed. They said by the gods, but it was probably just some really stupid wizard. It was supposed to be a punishment just for that king...

"That's it," Teddy whispered.

He got the Maze out hastily and entered it without any fanfare. The Guide took the form of Fifi LaFolle - young, corporeal, and dressed in a brilliant shade of pink. She took him through a battered wooden gate to a West African village, where Roderick Brimmann and several pirates were sprawled out on the ground, passed out among bottles of Firewhiskey. There were a few bodies scattered among them, and several frightened villagers huddled in their huts. One of the bodies - a young witch with horrible cuts on her face - suddenly stirred. She put her hands to her ruined cheeks, then let out a scream. Brimmann mumbled something, but didn't wake up.

The witch scuttled forward on all fours and grabbed a knife from beside Brimmann's hand. She raised it, then hissed and put it down, grabbing instead for Brimmann's wand. With a complex motion and a sudden, downward stroke, she spat out a Curse. Blood erupted from several places on Brimmann's face, and he woke up now, screaming in fury. He grabbed the witch by the throat and threw her across the clearing. She landed by the fire, her head at an impossible angle, the flames already beginning to creep up a beaded strand of hair. Brimmann stormed through the village, waking the other pirates, and Teddy felt an odd tingle in the air behind him. He turned to find Tirza Malone instead of Fifi LaFolle, and she was standing on the gangplank of a ship. Teddy followed her up it. On deck, several pirates were draped over the cannons, dead and bleeding. Brimmann, lashed to the wheel, was all but unrecognizable beneath his red mask. He steered recklessly, blindly.

Teddy looked at Tirza. "This is it, isn't it? This is the real path. They didn't curse the village. Someone cursed them, and they just shared the wealth. They all died on the ship."

Tirza didn't answer. The guides never did.

Teddy thanked her, then followed his steps backward and came out of the Maze. He wasn't sure how to prove it, but he thought it might be a good idea to research ghost ships - or at least what Muggles called ghost ships - not to mention the nature of the Blistering Blood-Spots curse. Robards gave him permission the next day to use several books in the Restricted Section - Teddy had been afraid he wouldn't, after their last conversation, but he seemed excited by the idea - and he spent most of his spare time there over the next few days. When Friday came, he was so distracted that he almost didn't understand why Jane Hunter was asking him where he wanted to meet. She rolled her eyes and said that he could always find someone else to go with. He opted not to. The dreams were gone, and he felt on the verge of solving everything, even the puzzle of the message he'd seen.

He took Jane into Hogsmeade, and they had a fantastic time. Jane turned out to have a good sense of humor, and a keen interest in her own quest for Robards' class. She'd already borrowed Daniel's microscope to examine what she called "trace evidence," and she had a huge notebook filled with theories that she was systematically eliminating. She was delighted to have a chance to use logic in a Hogwarts class. They had lunch at the Hog's Head, and visited Lee and Verity at Weasleys' Zonks, and somehow found themselves on a bench of the local play park at the end of the day. Teddy could think of no reasons at all to avoid kissing Jane. She didn't seem to be looking for reasons, either. They walked back to school hand in hand (Ruthless, a bit ahead of them on the road, kept looking back and rolling her eyes; Teddy didn't see Victoire anywhere, and was glad), and Teddy left her at the stairs leading down to Slytherin. She started down then came back for another kiss. Teddy smiled as he watched her disappear.

Behind him, someone coughed.

He turned.

The visitor was looking assiduously away, but grinning. "I thought you might have forgotten that you were supposed to meet your poor old Uncle Harry for tea."

Teddy smiled.

Everything would fall back into place soon.