A/N: Hey there everyone, between my last update and this one I officially turned 22, and I am actually starting to feel old. Anyhoo, I hope that you enjoy this chapter, it's heavily Teddy/Vic based (although there is some Xavier), but I think it's fun to see a normalish day of both of theirs' at work.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.
Crossover
Wednesday, September 21st 2022
9:45 AM
Teddy felt tired.
Worn out.
Exhausted.
It was an odd feeling, especially considering that he had had a full night's sleep the night before and a –mostly– relaxing evening with their friends. He still felt a little frazzled about the brief discussion they had the night before about him and Victoire getting their finances in order for their impending marriage, but he knew that those were insecurities that he could push aside until they physically had to go to Gringotts and deal with it. He had noticed that night, before they went to bed, that Victoire seemed preoccupied, but she was back to herself that morning so he had assumed that she was probably just thinking about what they had learned that night at dinner.
They had yet to have a conversation about what they learned about Chris and Giavanna Tracey, but Teddy was rather happy about the news, if only because it meant that Chris wouldn't be able to think that he had any chance with Victoire once he was married.
"I don't know what to do with all of this free time that we have right now," Kurt commented from across the office as he spun around in circles on his wheelie chair.
Teddy, Hayden, Kurt, and Jilly still had their desks and work set up in the same closed in office space that they had been given way back when the investigation started, and Teddy had been idly wondering whether or not they'd be able to keep the space once they officially closed the case in a few days.
"Don't say that too loud," Hayden commented as he walked into the office with a half-eaten yoghurt cup in his hands. He sat down at his desk next to Teddy's, "If one of the supervising aurors hears you, you can be sure that they'll hand you a stack of cases filled with low-priority suspicions of dark magic."
Hayden was just finishing extracting the last scoop of yoghurt from his plastic cup when Jilly walked in and used magic to send memos shaped like paper aeroplanes to each of the men in the room.
"What's this?" Kurt asked her curiously, not even bothering to unfold the aeroplane.
Jilly sat down in her chair, "It's a copy of the memo that Mr, Penzik sent me, it's for our individual records. We're to meet with him at one o'clock to go over the evidence for the last day of the trial tomorrow."
Hayden and Teddy both pinned the note onto their bulletin boards, Teddy going one step farther to copy the message onto his desk calendar and day planner; while Kurt just dated the wing of the aeroplane, opened up a desk drawer, and set the new piece of paper into his 'memo hanger' that held all of the other memos that he had received over the past few months.
"So what do we do until then?" Kurt asked the room at large, going back to doing circles in his desk chair.
"Well," Hayden began as he opened up a file and flipped through it, "Even though we are going to lock away a half a dozen people in connection with this smuggling ring case, there are still some loose ends that can be followed afterwards to try to find even more people involved."
Jilly nodded and started to flip through the thinnest file she had on her desk, "Kurt and I have a few leads left, but most of them are from way before we got our break-through lead with Patient Zed."
"We have a handful, but oddly enough, our best lead is the one about the stupid maple leaf we found in some of the Moche ruins," Hayden commented as he flipped through his file and found the photo he and Teddy took of said maple leaf back in February when they were in Peru.
Teddy sighed, "Ugh. I doubt we'll find anything from that. We looked into the tips Victoire and Ally gave us back in June, but we still couldn't find anything."
The four aurors were just making sure that they had all of their papers in order for their meeting with the prosecution lawyer at one o'clock, when Harry Potter strolled into the room and tossed a file onto Teddy's desk.
"Want to go on a short fieldtrip?" Harry asked him pleasantly.
Teddy picked up the file and frowned when he saw that there was only one small piece of parchment in the file, "What's this?"
"Read it and then grab an auror-in-training to bring with you," Harry told him just as he turned around and left the room.
"Is that rather important?" Hayden asked his partner as Teddy started to read the writing that was on the parchment paper.
Teddy let out a sigh, but it was accompanied by a small smile, "Not dramatically. It's just a low-priority suspicion of dark magic, but it is something that I specifically should deal with."
He stood up and started to collect his cloak and the file Harry gave him, "I haven't had much contact with the aurors-in-training besides helping out with a few concealment and disguise demonstrations. Is there one in particular I should want to bring with me?"
The others shrugged in response, but before he left Kurt added, "Oh, if you take Ainsley Bryant with you, just don't bring my name up in conversation."
Teddy sent Kurt a scowl in response, and left just as Jilly started to give Kurt a lecture about the perils of hooking up with trainee aurors. He walked towards the lifts, and stopped around the bullpen that housed the aurors-in-training. He stared at them all for a few seconds before deciding just to take a leap of faith and pick the trainee closest to him.
The auror-in-training in question seemed surprised to be accosted with a curt, 'Hey you, you're with me', but he got up from his desk and hurried after Teddy anyway. When they entered the lift, the auror-in-training asked 'Auror Lupin' where they were going, and Teddy spared the younger man's badge a quick glance before replying.
"We are just going to check out a citizen's report about dark magic use Trainee O'Toole," Teddy explained.
"Oh."
The trainee auror's tone didn't sound as excited as it had before, and Teddy bit his lip to hold in a smirk.
10:01 AM
"Ugh, why are we even here? We have a by-week, they whole point of a by-week is for us to be anywhere but at this damned place," Clark moaned as he lay out face down on one of the benches in the Puddlemere United locker room.
Mark rolled his eyes and leaned up against his locker since there wasn't room to sit on the bench because his fellow beater was occupying the majority of said bench. "Actually, I think the whole reason for a by-week is because it's a by-product of how the league schedules the games . . ."
"You're definitely a buzzkill right now Mark," Clark complained, his face still pressed against the wooden bench.
Xavier eyed the two beaters warily, "What's up with you two today? You don't exactly seem like your normal cheery selves."
"Clark had half a dinner with his parents last night," Mark explained as he leaned forward and patted his friend on the head.
"Half a dinner?" Xavier asked confusedly.
Clark groaned, "My parents are awful and I'm amazed that I even made it through half of a dinner with them."
Xavier sent Mark a questioning glance, and the beater just shook his head as if to say 'it's-best-not-to-ask-any-more-questions'. Clark stayed face-down on the bench until two of the team's chasers came in and forced him to move so that they could sit on the bench.
Once there was room for everyone to sit on the bench, Nadia Cassano stalked into the room and sat down heavily on the bench next to Xavier.
"Aren't you supposed to be in Italy?" Clark asked the chaser when he seemed to finally stop sulking over his own problems.
Nadia had planned to spend most of her by-week in Italy so that she could visit her family, and specifically her friends Dante and Annalisa Azzarà as Annalisa was set to give birth to their fourth child in a few weeks.
"I got a message saying that I needed to get back here right away, no other information than that," She replied a little grumpily.
She had been looking forward to her mini-vacation in Italy, and now that it had been cut short she would probably have to stay in England for the rest of the week, and add to the fact that her boyfriend Malcolm Wood wasn't in England, but off in Brussels doing research and writing an article, she didn't enjoy the way the week was turning out.
"We don't know why we're here either," Mark told her comfortingly in reply.
Seconds later the team's seeker walked into the room along with the coaches.
"Thank you all for coming in even though this is supposed to be a by-week," Their head coach began.
He then turned the floor over to the team's seeker, who was unobtrusive as he explained why they had all been called in that day. He reminded his teammates that his parents, who lived in Sweden, had been ill for some time and that it didn't look like they were going to get any better. He swallowed thickly before admitting that he had agreed to take a spot on a quidditch team in his family's hometown of Arboga so that he could move his family and be closer to them. His teammates looked sympathetic, but they did all seem taken aback when he said that his trade would become effective by Thursday.
"So, the reason why you are all here," Their coach said, picking up the explanation, "Besides to hear about this trade, is because we have heard from the league that our by-week will end early, and a new game has been scheduled against the Falmouth Falcons at their pitch for Friday night."
Clark immediately raised his hand, "But if we're losing our seeker on Thursday, how are we supposed to find a replacement for him for Friday?"
The coaches shared a look before one explained, "Since we are losing our seeker on such short notice, Puddlemere's second string seeker will be filling in until we pick the permanent replacement."
The players all nodded their heads and then the coaches said that they expected all of the players to be ready for practice by one o'clock that afternoon, and then excused themselves. They all spent a few moments so that they could speak to their seeker and wish him well, and when they were done, they slowly started to leave the locker room.
As a Xavier walked out of the locker room with Nadia, Clark, and Mark, Nadia started to grumble.
"The coaches better find a permanent replacement for our seeker soon. I don't know Mullin that well, but if he's still dating Tracey's daughter there is no way that I'm going to be able to handle having her around and trying to stick her prissy nose into the team's business."
"Unfortunately Nadia, I have a feeling that Chris's tenure as our seeker might end up becoming permanent," Xavier commented as he thought about the discussion he had had with his friends last night. Sandra's comment about Giavanna wanting to marry someone who had more money or was more famous stuck with him and was now running through his mind.
Nadia made a face, "Why would that be?"
"Because Giavanna is marrying Chris, sooner rather than later too," Xavier explained quietly.
Nadia looked like she wanted to hex something or, more likely, someone, "Blech. I can just see it now, Miss Richie-Rich is probably going to nag her father until he puts pressure on the coaches to give her fiancé the starting seeker position."
Clark and Mark wisely stayed silent while Xavier patted Nadia on the back, "We don't know for sure what will happen, so let's just get through this each day at a time."
"Fair enough. But if I have to see Giavanna's smug and snobbish face more than twice a week from now on, I am definitely going to hex someone."
10:04 AM
"So we're here to check out a sighting of dark magic in Engollan?" O'Toole asked Teddy more than a little incredulously as they walked through the small town.
Teddy understood the younger man's suspicions. Engollan was a very small muggle town in Cornwall, and not exactly known to be a popular haunt for dark wizards.
"The man who owled in the sighting this morning is from here, and as you know it is important to check the viability of all sightings sent into the department," Teddy recited in a very proper tone as they walked down the main street.
O'Toole nodded his head and mused, "I just thought that once you have as much experience as an auror as you do, that you were no longer required to answer low-priority sightings of dark magic."
"There's no task in the Auror Department too small," Teddy replied, "Besides, I have experience with this particular person."
They were just coming up to a small cottage, and Teddy noted that there were no security spells or wards around the property like most wizarding homes had.
"What experience?" O'Toole asked inquisitively.
Teddy didn't reply, instead he just knocked on the door and then took a step back. An elderly wizard with silver hair and a stooped posture opened the door widely and almost toppled as he leaned through the front door to get a look at who was at his front step.
"Ah Theodore," The wizard exclaimed jauntily as he squinted through the lenses of his thick-framed glasses, "What a nice and unexpected surprise this is. Have you stopped by for a visit?"
Teddy grabbed the man's hand and gave it a firm, yet still rather gentle, shake, "I am afraid that this isn't a social call Elphias. I'm here because you contacted the Auror Office this morning about an incident that you witnessed that involved dark magic."
The old wizard looked a little surprised by Teddy's words, but then he quickly started nodding his head, "Yes of course . . . I remember doing that. I just didn't expect you to get here this quickly."
Teddy nodded his head and then gestured to O'Toole, "Mr. Doge, this is trainee auror O'Toole." He turned to O'Toole, "O'Toole, this is Mr. Elphias Doge."
O'Toole nodded his head and muttered something about being pleased to meet him while Teddy and Elphias mostly ignored him and walked into the house. Mr. Doge ushered the two aurors into his cozy living room and then asked them if they wanted any refreshments. Teddy and O'Toole told them that they were fine, and then Teddy started asking Mr. Doge questions.
"Elphias, your message to the Auror Department said that you saw someone using dark magic this morning, could you explain what you saw please?" Teddy asked him gently.
Mr. Doge frowned and spent several moments as he tried to think. Teddy waited patiently for a response, but it seemed that the silence just made O'Toole antsy.
"Mr. Doge, in your report you mentioned something about your neighbours. Which neighbours did you mean?" O'Toole questioned the silver haired wizard firmly.
Mr. Doge's hands started to flutter around the arms of the chair he was sitting in, and his face started to look flustered, "You gentleman must be thirsty. I'll get you some tea."
"Mr. Doge," O'Toole interrupted as he held a hand out to stop the wizard from getting up off his chair, "We have already declined your generous offer for refreshment. What we would like is for you to talk about the dark magic sighting you contacted the department about."
The silver haired wizard's hands started to shake and he stood up rather wobbly, "I'll go get you that tea."
O'Toole tried to stop him once more, but Teddy shook his head at the younger auror and they were quiet until Mr. Doge was out of hearing range in the kitchen.
"Let him make the tea. The routine is soothing for him and it should calm him down. If you continue to fluster him his memory will only get worse," Teddy told O'Toole in hushed tones as he glanced into the kitchen to make sure that Mr. Doge was being careful during his preparation of the tea.
"Does the man normally have such an abysmal memory?" O'Toole questioned Teddy.
Teddy took a deep breath and did his best to hide the frown he wanted to send at the other auror, "Mr. Doge has Alzheimer's disease."
O'Toole blinked and Teddy could tell that those words meant nothing to him.
"It's a disease that affects the memory. It gets worse as the inflicted person gets older. The magical world doesn't have a name for it, they lump it together with other memory problems and consider it a side effect of extreme old age, but the muggle world does have a specific diagnosis for it. Mr. Doge has almost all of the symptoms of it," Teddy explained his tone getting quieter as Elphias started to limp out of the kitchen with a heavily laden tray in his hands.
Teddy stood up and took the tray out of the man's hands and placed it on the coffee table. Mr. Doge affectionately slapped Teddy's hands away and started to pour the tea.
"One lump of sugar and lots of milk, right Theodore?" Mr. Doge asked kindly as he made the tea and then held the cup out to Teddy.
The metamorphmagus nodded his head as he accepted the tea, and decided not to voice that his tea preference was actually the opposite, and that Mr. Doge had made the tea the way Victoire normally drank it. Mr. Doge finished handing over the plain tea –as requested– to O'Toole, and then he began dressing his own cup.
Once he had put the sugar in and started stirring, Teddy asked him a question, "Elphias, were you out in your garden this morning?"
Teddy knew the man's routine pretty well, and he was almost certain that if Elphias had seen some dark magic related to his neighbours, that he was most likely outside when he saw it as opposed to seeing it from glancing out a window.
"Yes," Mr. Doge said as he continued to stir his tea, "I was in the back garden. My pumpkins are coming in lovely despite the fact that we've had less rain than normal."
Teddy nodded and glanced twisted his head so that he could see out the window in the kitchen that looked out onto the back yard. He could see a small patch of pumpkins near the right side of the fenced-in backyard.
"And were you tending to your pumpkins before you sent the Auror Department a note?" He didn't want to specifically mention the sighting of dark magic because he was worried that feeding him information in his state could create a false memory.
Mr. Doge looked down at his tea, made a surprised expression as if he had just remembered that he had tea, and started to put sugar into it, again, "I always start my mornings by tending to my wiggenbushes, they are delicate things and need to be watered and weeded first thing."
O'Toole interrupted here, "Is this when you heard an incident?"
"Well no . . . after the wiggenbushes I move onto the begonias," Mr. Doge explained, adding more sugar into his tea. He glanced at Teddy next, "You remember those, I gave you a few bulbs in July when you and your fiancée visited me last."
"Yes, and I am happy to report that those are still alive, for now, as long as I keep away from them they should prosper," Teddy replied cheerily, "Were the pumpkins the last part of your garden that you tended to?"
Mr. Doge considered his words carefully, "Yes, they were. Although usually I check my valeria last . . ."
Teddy latched onto this, "So you worked on your pumpkins, but then skipped the valeria. Did something happen that made you change your schedule?"
"I heard a noise. It was like a squeal of pain. I looked around the garden to make sure that the neighbour's cat didn't get caught between the cactuses again, but there was nothing in the backyard," Mr. Doge explained as he kept stirring his tea in uniform circles.
"So where was the noise coming from?" O'Toole interrupted, finally thinking that they were getting somewhere.
Mr. Doge titled his head at Teddy and said earnestly, "The cat seems to think my plants are overgrown scratching posts, but besides that it's a gentle thing. I wouldn't want the Milligans to get in trouble just because their cat is a little adventurous."
Teddy nodded understandingly, "We won't get your neighbours in trouble because their cat gets loose sometimes. So it wasn't the cat that was making the noise?"
"Not in my garden it wasn't. I was about to go back to tending to my plants when I heard the sound again, so I just peeked over the fence to make sure that the cat wasn't stuck between anything else."
O'Toole started to tap his quill –which he had pulled out earlier along with a notepad– against his thigh and questioned, "What did you see when you looked over the fence?"
"The younger Milligans aren't usually outside that early in the morning, but the weather was nice today," Mr. Doge expounded.
"So your neighbours were outside when you looked over the fence?"
"Just the younger ones, I thought they were playing with sticks at first, but then I saw a flash of light shoot out of one of the sticks and hit the other one."
Teddy nodded his head and glanced at O'Toole to make sure that the auror was copying down what Mr. Doge was saying.
"What colour was the light?"
Mr. Doge added more sugar to his tea and stirred again, he had yet to try to taste it, "It was the same colour as my begonias, a bright red."
"Did you hear anything while the children were playing with sticks?" Teddy asked.
"Just more grunts and squeals of pain," He paused for a moment and then shook his head and frowned, "Then yelling. The father doesn't have much patience with the children on a regular day, and today he didn't seem happy."
"Did you see the father in the garden?" O'Toole asked.
Mr. Doge was still stirring, "Yes, it was before . . . or maybe it was after . . . in any case he took the stick from the boys and then pulled them back into the house."
"The stick? Was it just a stick, or was it a wand?" O'Toole questioned sternly.
"It was crooked, not smooth, but also very firm," Mr. Doge described.
O'Toole sighed as he wrote down the description.
"And when did you write the message to the Auror Department? After you saw the boys go into the house?" Teddy enquired as he took a sip of his tea. It was cool by then, and a little bitter, but it made his question seem more casual than strict.
"The red light looked sinister. Dark. Anything that causes a person to screech with that type of pain must be dark magic, right?" Mr. Doge asked innocently.
Teddy nodded and patted the elderly wizard's knee, "You're right, that does sound dark."
They ended their interview shortly after, and Teddy promised to stop by in a few weeks for a real visit. The pair of aurors wandered over to the house next door, the one that had the mailbox with the name 'Milligan' on it, and Teddy knocked on the front door.
There was no reply and he knocked again while O'Toole looked around at the house and property curiously.
"This town in mostly muggles, right?" O'Toole asked Teddy as he stared at the non-animated lawn ornaments.
"Yes."
"This place definitely looks muggle Lupin. I don't sense any magic but I can hear the hum of electricity," O'Toole explained.
Teddy nodded his head and cast a few spells on the house. When he was finished he came to the conclusion that there was no one in the house, and that it was definitely a muggle dwelling, with no magic.
"Mr. Doge's statement can't be correct then if these people are muggles," O'Toole reasoned.
Teddy sighed, and while he deliberated he peeked through the living room window. He could see a few photos of the family. None of them moved, and the children in the newest photos all looked older than eleven years old.
"It does seem as though these people are muggle," Teddy stated slowly.
"And Mr. Doge was wrong about the whole thing," O'Toole repeated.
Teddy frowned, "He might have confused what he saw, but I don't think that he's purposely lying to us."
"No, but you said yourself that he had memory problems. Maybe he saw the muggle children playing with actual sticks and was mistaken about where the flash of light came from. He did compare it to his begonias, which he had been watering, he might have mixed up the two concepts," O'Toole reasoned.
"Maybe," Teddy allowed, feeling uneasy as he did so, "Either way, when we get back to the auror department you should check with the muggle hospitals in the area to see if they had patients come in with complaints of pain or odd injuries that couldn't be easily explained."
O'Toole nodded, "Should I contact St. Mungo's as well? In case there was somehow a wizard involved in this incident?"
"I'll handle that part," Teddy told him.
10:45 AM
Victoire just discharged a nine-year-old boy who thought that he could fix a battered old wand of his older brother's –and then use it to make his chores easier– but instead, ended up hitting himself with an unknown spell that had knocked him out cold. Because the parents of the child weren't sure what spell their son had accidentally cast on himself, he was brought to the D. A. R. ward as a precaution.
Thankfully, the spell wasn't dark, and Victoire was able to reverse it and then send the family on their way after no more than ten minutes. Once she was finished, she went to the healers' station and finished filling out the report.
She was just about to place it in the pile of paperwork to be filed away when Cassidy came up to her and handed her a ringing mobile phone.
"Why do you have my mobile?" Victoire asked Cassidy curiously as she accepted the phone from her friend's hand.
"Because it was going off in the pocket of your jacket in the office room and it was starting to annoy Fabius. He was complaining about it so I said that I would bring it out here to you," Cassidy explained.
Victoire rolled her eyes and put the phone up to her ear.
"Hello?"
"Hello Love."
She smiled to herself and started walking towards where the stairwell was, "Well this is a surprise. Are you calling to check up on me?"
Teddy's voice on the other end of the line let out a low sigh, "I wish this was just a friendly call, but I actually have to ask you a favour."
"Concerning what?" Victoire asked him as she finally made it to the stairwell and stood unobtrusively in the corner of the landing of the staircase.
"The Auror Department was contacted today about a dark magic sighting-"
Her eyebrows rose on her forehead, "Wait, are you actually about to give me classified information?"
"Don't worry, you have clearance for this," Teddy told her with a slight twist of humour in his voice, "I need to know if any male children younger or just above Hogwarts age have been admitted to St. Mungo's for complaints of pain without obvious injury, or with odd unexplainable injuries. They would have most likely been caused by a spell, and the child could be muggleborn, or with muggle or muggleborn parents."
"I just treated a nine-year-old who used an old wand and accidentally knocked himself out cold. But both parents were wizards and even when the child woke up he didn't complain of pain," Victoire told him.
Teddy made a musing sound, "Were they from Cornwall?"
"No, London."
"Well it's not that then . . ."
Victoire nodded even though he couldn't see her, "I haven't seen all the patients this morning though. I'll look through some of the completed files and get back to you."
"Thanks, but if you can't find anything don't worry too much . . . the person who contacted the Auror Department may not have . . . gotten all of the facts right," Teddy's voice predicated.
"Why's that?"
She could hear him clear his voice through the phone, "This brings me to the second favour I'm going to ask you. The person who witnessed this sighting was Elphias Doge."
Victoire nodded again, "So you think his memory might have been muddled?"
"Maybe, if anything I'm worried enough about him that I think maybe you should stop by and see him the next chance you can," Teddy told her.
She had started making plans in her head when Teddy first mentioned the old wizard's name, "I have my lunchbreak in about an hour. I'll send a note down to the potion's department now to see if Ally can make the potion, and in an hour I should be able to pick it up from her and then apparate to his house. I should have enough time to do a quick check-up on him."
Teddy let out a sigh of relief.
"I'll keep looking for this potential victim too."
"Thank you."
They said their goodbyes quickly and then Victoire vanished her phone back to her coat pocket.
She was finally able to file away her last case report before Healer Seward came up to her and told her that the Spell Damage ward had a case of accidental magic that they suspected might be dark, and that they requested a healer to come and check it out. Since Cassidy had gone straight to the Emergency Medical ward after giving Victoire her phone, she was the only one free to take on the case.
Once Victoire got to the Spell Damage ward, she found someone named Healer Strauss and was quickly ushered into a room that was filled with a surprisingly large number of people. Healer Strauss handed her the medical file of the teenaged girl who was sitting on the hospital bed.
Healer Strauss then addressed the two adults in the room, who Victoire assumed were the girl's parents, and introduced Victoire to them.
The mother repeated the words 'the Dark Arts Reversal ward' worriedly while the father frowned, "I don't think that's necessary Doctor, Lygia just got hit by some sort of light. The boys weren't supposed to be using magic, but they both said that they weren't using any particular magic. The only reason we're here is because my wife wanted to make sure that the magic wouldn't cause any after effects."
Victoire frowned a few times while the father spoke, and she looked closer at the teenaged girl's –Lygia's– file. She was sixteen years old, and from what it looked like she fully muggle; it even listed the muggle school she usually attended. From the use of the father's word 'doctor'; and his awkward use of the word 'magic' in general instead of the word 'spell' when describing the situation; pointed towards the fact that the father was muggle. She glanced at the side of the room where 'the boys' were sitting almost unnaturally still, and she was surprised to see that they were around the ages of twelve and thirteen. Old enough that they should be in Hogwarts if they could perform magic.
"I apologize," Victoire started as she looked directly at Lygia, her patient, "But this file isn't making much sense to me. Perhaps you could repeat to me how up ended up here?"
Lygia opened her mouth to reply, but her father beat her to it, "The boys were in the backyard of our house. They were supposed to be playing normally, but they must have grabbed their wand on the way out. They were playing around with it even though it's against the rules, and when Lygia opened the door to join them, she got hit with wayward magic."
Victoire nodded her head, "It is late morning though, why weren't all of the children at school?"
"Lygia was ill this morning so we didn't make her go to school. She was starting to feel better so she went outside to get some fresh air, and that's when she got hit," The father explained.
Victoire noticed that Healer Strauss had noted that the patient had mentioned that she had vomited that morning and still felt a little nauseas.
"And what about the boys? If I'm not mistaken they are able to do magic and are both of Hogwarts age, why aren't they in school?"
The father's customary frown turned even deeper when Victoire mentioned the words 'magic' and 'Hogwarts', and it helped validate the picture her mind was starting to create.
It was the mother who replied this time, "Lygia is Clyde's daughter from his first marriage, and the boys' are mine from my first marriage. I am a muggleborn myself, and Lygia and Clyde are both muggles-"
The father –Clyde apparently– took over the explanation from there, "Lygia and I are both normal and we try to keep our lives as normal as possible. In keeping with this, we try to limit the amount of magic we allow in the house. We regulate it highly and it is only allowed to be used when the boys are learning their magic lessons."
"Magic lessons?" Victoire asked with a raised eyebrow.
"I homeschool the boys," The mother explained, "That way I can keep an eye on their practical magic use . . . or normally I do. The boys share a wand, and usually it is locked away tight, but they must have snuck it out this morning when they went to play outside."
Victoire nodded again and this time she glanced at the boys, "So what spell was it that ended up hitting your step-sister?"
Both of them looked down at their hands and they were silent. Clyde tried to answer for them, but Victoire stopped him and looked at the boys again.
"It was accidental magic," The older of the two finally replied in a quiet tone.
Victoire smiled softly at them, "Accidental magic happens to the best of us, but perhaps you could tell me what you were thinking about when you cast the spell."
"I wasn't really thinking about anything," The boy muttered, still not meeting Victoire's eyes.
Considering that Victoire had just spent the past few days studying up on magical intent, she highly doubted that the boy was thinking nothing when he cast the spell. She let it slide though, and glanced back down at the notes that were on Lygia's medical file.
Besides the nausea that they correctly attributed to the girl having the flu, she had come in with complaints of pain in her abdomen, and some of the distal muscles of her limbs. Healer Strauss had suggested that the areas with pain were similar to areas that were known to seize up with muscle cramps or spasms when tickling charms were abused.
Even though Healer Strauss could explain away the reasons for the complaints, she became suspicious of the actual magical cause of the pain after they treated Lygia with spells and potions to relax the muscles and take away the pain. The girl had claimed that she could feel them working, but her movements were still very self-restricted, and Healer Strauss thought that it seemed as if she was still in pain, but pretending not to be.
Victoire cast a few spells on Lygia –basic diagnostic spells– some of which she didn't need to cast but did so anyway to make it seem as if she was doing something more complex. After pretending to nod interestedly after each spell was finished, she asked Healer Strauss if she could speak to her outside of the room.
"What do you think?" Healer Strauss asked her enquiringly when they were out of earshot of the family.
Victoire folded her arms over her chest, "Well, she has elevated resting respiration, blood pressure, and heart rates, which can all indicate that she is still feeling pain."
"So she is lying about not feeling pain then," Healer Strauss summarized.
Victoire sighed in response, "Maybe. But she is also a muggle, in a strange wizarding hospital with witches and wizards figuratively, and sometimes literally, poking and prodding her with their wands. She could also be very nervous and anxious about being here, which could explain the elevated rates."
"Do you think that it's dark magic? We're told here that if the pain spells and potions don't work, that there's probably an element of dark magic in it," Healer Strauss explained.
"It's hard to tell. It doesn't sound like any of them are being completely truthful, and all of the children and the wife seem afraid of the father. It looks like they want to brush everything under the rug and get on with it. We can try to separate the girl from the parents and the siblings for a minute and see if she has anything new to say, but if she won't admit to anything, then we don't have any proof to take this any further, or to give her any additional treatment. We can't treat her if both she and her parents want her to be discharged," Victoire explained.
Healer Strauss nodded and when they went back into the room they were able to extract the parents from the room under pretense of needing them to sign some forms, and then Victoire was easily able to convince the boys to wait outside while Victoire asked their sister some more personal questions.
"Healers are like muggle doctors in many respects, just like a muggle doctor anything you tell me is confidential. If there is anything else you haven't mentioned yet, I promise that I won't tell either of your parents," Victoire told the girl in a quiet tone as she eyed the room's closed door.
Lygia shook her head and started to push herself off the examination table, "It was an accident. My step-brothers were just playing around with magic, they don't get the chance to do it very often because they share a wand and my father is so strict with them, and I accidentally walked out the back door when they cast a spell. The spell startled me and I called out in pain. Dad ran to the door after I yelled out and then the three of us went inside. There was a bit of pain with the initial impact of the spell, but it was gone shortly after. We're only here because Lauren convinced Dad to take me to this magic hospital to make sure that the spell didn't cause lasting damage."
Victoire frowned when she heard the girl's words, but since she was backing up the story her family had already told, there wasn't much more she could do. She escorted the girl out to her family, and after they shared a few words with Healer Strauss, they left. Victoire watched the family closely as they left, and once they were gone she turned to Healer Strauss.
"I can tell you one thing, it definitely doesn't look like that girl is intimidated by magic."
She asked Healer Strauss if she could have a copy of the girl's file to bring back to the D. A. R. ward, and then Victoire was on her way back to her own floor.
When she got back to the D. A. R. ward, she was going to place Lygia's file with all of the others from that day, when she paused. Looking at the stack of files reminded her that Teddy had asked her to search for a file that involved male children of Hogwarts age that were admitted with complaints of pain from odd injuries. Lygia was most decidedly not a male child of Hogwarts age, but she still had the urge to check and see if the family was from Cornwall.
She glanced at the personal information portion of the medical file, and her eyes zeroed in on the address. The family was from Engollan.
3:37 PM
Teddy ran a hand tiredly down his face as he, Hayden, Kurt, and Jilly stepped into the ministry lift. One of the other aurors pressed the button for the floor that housed the Auror Office, and then the lift started to move.
"I didn't think that going over Mr. Penzik's material would take that long," Hayden commented wearily from beside Teddy.
Jilly sighed, "It only took us a long time because he decided to explain in excruciating detail how he was able to collect all of the samples and information that Victoire had asked him to."
"Hey, I was personally impressed with how he got everything he needed to medically prove that Patient Zed was in those specific tunnels in Peru," Kurt replied easily.
"Lachapelle," Teddy corrected Kurt, "We're going to need to start referring to him by his real name and identity if we want to convince the members of the Wizengamot that Patient Zed is Lachapelle, and that Lachapelle was in Ecuador in February."
The others nodded and then they were silent again until the lift doors opened up to the Auror Office. Getting off the lift was a more difficult venture than it usually was, as the front office area of the department seemed to be cluttered with the first and second-year auror trainees who must have just come off other lifts from some sort of training exercise somewhere else in the Ministry.
Teddy was about to try to walk through the throng of trainees, when Hayden grabbed him by the shoulder to stop him, and pointed towards where the secretaries desks were. He moved his head a little, and then realized why everyone was standing in the area just passed the lifts and not moving further.
They were all watching O'Toole make a prat out of himself.
O'Toole was leaning up against the secretaries desks, trying to put on a casual attitude, and attempting to chat up a blonde woman who was standing beside him and holding a dark red file folder.
"What does O'Toole think he's doing?" Kurt asked humorously as he watched the young auror trainee try to flatter the woman who seemed to become increasingly more uncomfortable with his presence with each second that passed.
One of the first-year trainees in front of them turned around and answered Kurt's question even though it wasn't directed at him, "O'Toole said that he ran into this healer at St. Mungo's a few weeks ago. Said that she was flirty with him."
"Did he now?" Hayden asked with a huge grin on his face as he aimed his smirk specifically at Teddy.
"I don't think so though," A different trainee piped up this time, this one was female, "O'Toole likes to embellish his stories."
Kurt and Hayden started to snicker, while Jilly just rolled her eyes and let out a huffy sigh.
Teddy pinched the bridge of his nose and muttered something to himself before finally pushing through the crowd of eager onlookers and walking up to O'Toole and the blonde woman –who was out of her healers robes but still wearing her professional black pencil skirt and dark purple button-up top.
The blonde's expression turned relieved when she spotted him, and he didn't have time to say anything to either her, or O'Toole, before the woman thrust the file folder at him.
"I believe that you may find this interesting Auror Lupin," She told him with a sly smile.
Teddy smiled slyly in response as he accepted the file, "Is this about the case I asked you to keep an eye out for Healer Weasley?"
"I believe it is. Although your description left a lot to be desired, I believe this is what you meant you were looking for, even if it doesn't fully match your description," Victoire told him seriously.
Teddy's expression turned curious and he opened up the medical file and peeked at it, "A sixteen-year-old muggle girl came into St. Mungo's?"
"Is this about the case we were working on this morning Auror Lupin?" O'Toole piped up, sending Victoire a self-important smirk as he did so.
She barely spared him a raised eyebrow before she turned to Teddy and answered his question, "She came into the Spell Damage ward, who contacted me because they thought that her symptoms were suspicious. She is a muggle, but her step-brothers are wizards, and apparently they accidentally sent a magical spell at her. The spell caused temporary pain in some of her muscles. Her step-mother was the once who decided to bring her to St. Mungo's to make sure that the spell caused no lasting damage."
"And you think that this is the person from my case because . . ." Teddy trailed off.
"Look at the girl's home address," Victoire told him as she crossed her arms over her chest.
Teddy glanced at it, "Engollan."
"They live right next door to Elphias Doge," Victoire told him.
"So the old man wasn't batty then?" O'Toole asked.
Victoire's head whipped around and she gave O'Toole a glare, "Mr. Doge has a degenerative disease that sadly affects many of his mental abilities, including his memory. He is not batty, or crazy, or a nutter. He is sick and he is taking medication for his illness."
She knew that fact specifically as she was one of the people who were looking after his treatment. She had stopped by St. Mungo's apothecary on her lunchbreak, grabbed the potion that Ally was thankfully able to make for her, and then went to visit Elphias. She gave him the stronger dose of potion –which was supposed to slow down the creation of the plaques that cause his Alzheimer's disease– and then she sat on his couch and listened to him re-tell how Teddy had been there earlier, interspersed with comments about his garden of course.
O'Toole put his hands up in a surrendering gesture, and Teddy captured her attention again.
"So do you think that there was dark magic involved?"
He had scanned the file while she was chastising the trainee auror, and noted that the conclusion of the girl's injury was caused by a misfired tickling jinx. It wasn't exactly a dark spell.
"I had my suspicions but the girl and the family wouldn't corroborate them, so she was discharged. The notes at the bottom explain my reservations, but I still feel as though I don't have all of the facts in the case," Victoire clarified.
Teddy nodded, "I feel the same way."
"So Mr. Doge did see some dark magic?" O'Toole asked just for the sake of trying to weasel himself back into the conversation. He gave Victoire a leer while he did so.
"Perhaps," Victoire and Teddy replied at the same time.
Victoire looked down at her watch and then back at Teddy, "I have to go soon and meet Healer McDavid."
Teddy smiled, "I'll call you if I have any pressing questions about this, but don't be surprised if I end up bringing it up later."
"Don't worry, I'd expect nothing less from you," She replied, stepping closer to him and stretching up onto her tiptoes.
She pressed a quick kiss smack dab on the centre of his lips and then said, "I'll see you at home later."
She didn't even bother to acknowledge a gobsmacked looking O'Toole as she turned and walked towards the lift. The crowd of trainees that had still been watching the scene parted for her, and she gave Jilly, Kurt, and Hayden a wave before entering the elevator.
Teddy turned to O'Toole, who was still staring in the direction which Victoire had left with an open mouth, and raised an eyebrow at him, "I see you've met my fiancée."
"Your . . ." O'Toole trailed off, his eyes going wide.
"Yes," Teddy replied, he glanced towards his partners and noticed that Jilly, Hayden, and Kurt were shooing the rest of the trainee aurors away. He pulled out his wand and duplicated the file that Victoire had given him, and then handed the copy to O'Toole, "There's not enough information to do a further investigation right now. But it is good to keep this on record in case something like this comes up again."
O'Toole nodded his head at Teddy's words, but before he could say anything else Teddy had swept by him with the aim to go back to his office. The other aurors scattered in different directions, and a handful of auror trainees came up to him as he watched Teddy walk away with Hayden, Kurt, and Jilly.
"He's never going to take me on a case with him again."
The other trainee patted O'Toole's shoulder a little carelessly, "That's what happens when you flirt with the girlfriends of the fully qualified aurors."
4:17 PM
Victoire and Healer McDavid had agreed that most of their meetings would take place at his home. He had an oversized office where he usually worked on his research, and he welcomed Victoire into it for the duration of their research project. When Victoire arrived, the first thing Healer McDavid did was ask her if she had caught up on the reading he had suggested. She then explained, in detail, how she had read even more than what was 'assigned' and that the extra research she did brought up some questions that interested her.
"I know earlier we discussed that if we do get to the spell creation portion of this research, that we will most likely have to make the spell from scratch," Victoire began, only waiting to see Healer McDavid nod along with her before continuing, "But I thought that it would be worthwhile to look and see if there are any spells we could build off of. To do so I ended up looking into obscure and sometimes poorly documented stories and tales about someone being extraordinarily healed from some sort of dark magic."
Healer McDavid smiled at her, "It makes sense to look at general dark arts healing when looking for something that will cure scars left by dark magic. After all, we are hypothesizing that the scars are only impossible to remove because they themselves are the remnants of dark magic still in the victim's body. Did you find anything connecting the cases you looked at?"
Victoire bit her lip, "Most of the cases I looked at were very varied in the injury itself, as well as the demographic of the victim, the geographical location, and even the time period in which it happened."
"So no connections?"
Healer McDavid noticed her pause and smiled, "There is something that you want to mention."
"In most of the cases in which someone was healed from the dark injury and didn't end up with a scar . . . it seemed as though each victim was either completely healed by, or first worked on by, someone who was not exactly a medical expert. They were almost always first treated by a family member or close friend, someone that was there when the injury first took place," Victoire explained, waving her hand and making a small notebook appear.
Healer McDavid took the notebook and started to skim her notes, "And in all of these cases the victim was healed and there was no scar left behind?"
"In most of the cases there was no scar, in the ones in which there were scars, the injury was very severe and the medial experts who looked at the cases were surprised to find out that the victim had survived it."
Healer McDavid nodded and then there was silence for several minutes as he continued to read the notes she collected, "And you don't think that these miraculous healing feats were all accidental or coincidental, do you?"
Victoire shook her head, "What if the injuries of these people healed so well because of the intent of the person who was healing them? Obviously anyone who would help someone who was injured would want to cure or heal the victim as best as they could, but perhaps the family members who healed these victims had a more personal, and therefore stronger intent when trying to save the victim?"
"You're suggesting that the magical intent of the person who was the first to try to heal the victim is the reason why so much of the dark magic in the injuries was healed?" Healer McDavid summarized.
She clasped her hands together, "We know that with all types of magic that the stronger the intent the castor has, the stronger the magic. Perhaps the purity of the intent of the familial first responder who healed the victim was more effective on healing the dark magic than the occupational intent of the medical expert who worked on the victim after."
Healer McDavid pursed his lips as he considered her, "You almost died in your seventh year, didn't you?"
"Multiple times."
"You told me one time about how you were attacked by a manticore, and that you obviously lived through it," He continued.
She nodded, "Yes."
"How did you survive again?"
Victoire shrugged her shoulders, "It's a medical mystery. Aunt Angelina still has no idea how I survived."
"Like some of the victims in the few case studies you found?"
"Yes, but my injury wasn't caused by dark magic," Victoire argued.
He looked back at her notes, "But magical theory is magical theory, it shouldn't matter what the cause of the injury is, the same principles should still apply, if those principles do work."
Victoire ruminated on this for a moment.
"Who was the first person to work on you when you were attacked by the manticore?"
"My friend Xavier, he was there with me when I was attacked. After the manticore ran away, he tried to help me. He knew that he wouldn't be able to cure me, so he cast some stasis spells on me to stop me from losing too much blood," Victoire expounded.
Healer McDavid tilted his head in her direction, "Your friend cast some homeostasis spells on you?"
"No, he knows how to heal small injuries but he wouldn't know how to cast a healing level type of homeostasis spell."
"So it would have been a basic stasis spell that you learn in fourth-year Charms?"
Victoire nodded, "Most likely."
"That shouldn't have been strong enough to keep you 'together' in time for a real healer to work on you," McDavid mused.
"Not unless Xavier had very strong intent when he cast the stasis charm," Victoire added, seeing where he was going with her earlier theory, "And that intent caused the charm he cast to hold my blood in long enough for Madam Pomfrey to get to me."
Healer McDavid drummed his fingers on the table, "Maybe your friend's intent to save you was stronger than just what was needed to keep you from bleeding out."
Victoire's eyebrows narrowed over her eyes.
"Maybe his intent was strong enough that when he cast the stasis charm, it not only stopped you from bleeding, but it also stopped the venom from spreading too far in your body," Healer McDavid suggested.
"Not even a medical grade homeostasis charm could stop manticore venom from spreading that well," Victoire pondered.
Healer McDavid pointed to her notebook, "But if we go along with your theory, it's the intent that makes the healing magic stronger. Your friend's intent when he cast those stasis spells might have been to stop you from dying, so not only did it stop you from bleeding out, but it also could have stopped the venom from spreading too freely."
His suggestions did seem to add to the theory she had created concerning the dark magic injuries, but everything they had was just conjecture at that point. There was no way to know for sure without doing a controlled experiment if their theory was correct. Even so, it was an intriguing, and something that might really affect their research later on down the road.
For now, Victoire just took her notebook back and looked at her notes.
"So Xavier Wood might have saved my life back in seventh-year."
Healer McDavid smiled at her, "If your theory is correct, your friend most certainly saved your life."
Victoire sighed, pinched the bridge of her nose, and muttered to herself, "I will never live it down if he ever finds out about this."
A/N: I hope that you liked this chapter :) So a few things:
1. I always find the wizarding world interesting because it seems like they are so advanced (because there is so much stuff magic can do for them) but they also seemed behind in several aspects. It seems like the concept of degenerative memory disorders would be one of those things that the wizarding world doesn't fully understand (unless it came about because of a misfired memory charm, which is probably the only one they know how to handle).
2. In case anyone is wondering, as of yet there is no cure for Alzheimer's in the real world, and I don't want you to think that the potion Victoire had Ally make is this miraculous cure. The real world does have medications that are supposed to help with Alzheimer's (mixes of medications and different doses) so this potion works pretty much like muggle medicine would.
3. In the last chapter we established that Vic and the others found out about Chris having a baby and getting married, however, as of now Colton, Dom, and Xavier are the only ones that know that he has a chance to get the starting seeker position on Puddlemere United.
4. How fun is it to see Teddy and Vic both in detective mode?
5. You guys said that you like the added magical theory, so here's some new magical theory. I know it may sound a little confusing, but we'll come back to the subject a few times later, and it'll make more sense when we build upon it and when it comes to practical use later.
So, please leave me your thoughts in a review!
Next Update: Next week.
Next Chapter: We finally get to see the end of the trial, but that means that we will have to say goodbye to Konstantin and Nikolina. Which also means that we get to see Dom, as well as Teddy and Vic. In addition, we're going to get a visit from someone we haven't seen in awhile; and that's going to lead to another discussion about the Holmwoods, and oddly enough, Vic's healing research.
Teaser for Next Chap:
"He pressed the button for the Atrium, and then the one for the floor the courtroom was on, "Should I tell Konstantin that you were looking for him?"
Dom laughed, "Merlin no. That would totally defeat the purpose of playing hard to get. Don't you know anything?"
Teddy sighed, "Apparently not.""
Thanks as always to everyone who has followed, favourited, read, and reviewed!
As especially big thanks to those who reviewed because we now have 600+ reviews!
So thank-you, thank-you, thank-you to:
AngelTwins527, Revliledpembroke, Guest (1), carbo21, Seher Syed, Beckster384, MuggleCreator, ntlpurpolia, Katie, KiMaYa, Jilly98, zvc56, Mundane, HalfBloodPrinces, rosesnlilies, cjaben1, Jennifer Jules, kawaiiotaku0405, Guest (2), and jeremiah123.
Guest (1): There was a smidgen of Clark and Mark in here, but don't worry we will see more interaction between the three of them before this is over.
carbo21: Thank you :)
Katie: And thank you for joining my wizarding world, I hope you enjoy the ride ;) I actually started writing my first story because I had an image in my mind of Teddy and Vic that I couldn't find in the other fanfictions at the time, so I just decided to write my own.
KiMaYa: I will explain later how Teddy ended up with the Lestrange family vault, but for now all I am going to say is that it occurred because Narcisssa Malfoy was very determined in what she wanted, and in the post-war world, she was really the only person who was left to claim the Lestrange family fortune. As for how long it takes to write a chapter, I really couldn't say because the time-range can vary a lot. If I've got the time in front of me and I'm really motivated it could take as little as two days, if I have much less time and much less motivation it could take a few weeks.
zvc56: Thank you, that's the range of emotions I was going for.
Mundane: You have a good memory. The search for medi-wizard from the LAH Mitch-not-Mike-Matt-or-Mack, is still ongoing, so we'll just have to see if Teddy and Hayden get any information on him.
HalfBloodPrinces: Well Al is good friends with both Scorpius and Rose, so I'm sure we'll see some interaction between them. I think what you really want to ask is if we'll see the Hogwarts kids soon. We will, in about three chapters' time. As for another Tri Wizard Tournament, I hadn't planned to write about one, but originally the Tournament was only held every so many years or so (I read this earlier online, but when I went back to find the website the page was unavailable) and to me it seemed like there were a lot of years between tournaments. Several decades even, so if another Tournament occurs, it won't be while her cousins are still at school.
cjaben1: If Andromeda read my reviews, I think she would say that's she's too old to worry about potential romantic relationships. All I'm going to say is that she and Healer McDavid are friends, but that they didn't always like each other to start.
Jennifer Jules: We get to see the end of the trial in the next chapter, and in three chapter's time we are going back to Hogwarts for an entire chapter, to check up on the kids there, if you can wait that long ;)
kawaiiotaku0405: We're going to delve more into Teddy's inheritances at a later date when they go to Gringotts with Colton to get a physical look at the vaults.
So, again, I hope that you liked this chapter,
PLEASE leave me some reviews, so if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to leave them,
Any guesses about who's going to be the new visitor in the next chapter?
Until next time, DFTBA!