A/N: Hello everyone, I decided to update a day early because, well because I felt like it ;) Remember this early update when you consider reviewing the end of this chapter!

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.


Back to Work

Thursday April 14th, 2022

7:48 AM

Victoire could already tell that she would need a lot of tea to get her through the day, perhaps she'd even attempt a cup or two of coffee is she was feeling extra desperate. The late night rune translating party had ended around one-thirty in the morning and they had all made it back to the camp shortly after that. Normally Victoire would have went back with Teddy and spent the rest of the night in his tent, before waking up even earlier to sneak out and get back to her own tent. However, since it was already so late, Victoire decided that she wanted to get as much sleep as possible. Therefore, she decided to go back to her tent with Tasha and Caitlyn for the night. The former was still not speaking to her, but more in a resigned fashion as opposed to a passive-aggressive one like before, and the latter had warmed up to her through the night to even be considered as acting civilly towards her by the end.

All three women passed out into sleep before much conversation could be had, and when they woke up in the morning, they were slow to speak as they were all still half-asleep. Victoire had finished getting dressed, having waited to go to the bathroom last so that the other two could go before her and so that they could avoid an early morning argument, and started to read one of the letter's her family sent. She had placed them in her bedside table, so she rummaged around and took out the first one she touched. It was Cecilia's letter.

She had just gotten past the first paragraph when Nathan and Teddy wandered into the girls' shared tent.

"What are you two doing here?" Caitlyn asked them, having been closest to the entrance of the room.

Teddy opened his mouth to answer but was interrupted by Nathan letting out a hacking cough.

"That's why we're here," Teddy replied when Nathan had finished.

Victoire took that as her cue and set her letter down so that she could go see Nathan. The minute she took a step toward him, he took a step back.

"I'm fine."

"That cough says otherwise," Victoire replied walking right up to him.

"It's just a little common cold," Nathan said holding his hands out in front of him.

Victoire touched the back of her hand to his forehead, "You feel like you have a fever."

"Maybe," Nathan said noncommittally

Teddy walked by the pair and called out to Victoire, "You left Eliza's letter in my room last night."

Victoire nodded to him, "Thank you, just place it in the drawer of my bedside table please."

He moved to do so while Victoire turned back to Nathan, hands on her hips, "The common cold does not come with a fever Nathan. That would be the flu."

"Well then I have the flu," Nathan retorted.

"Or you could have something worse," Victoire countered wanting to run diagnostic spells on him, but also not wanting to without his consent.

"Can't you just give me a pepper-up potion? We need to meet the muggles in a half-hour and I can't take the day off," Nathan pleaded.

Victoire sighed and agreed against her better judgement, "Fine."

She summoned said potion to the tent and had just handed it over to Nathan when Teddy called for her attention once again.

"Vic?"

"Yes?"

"What is this orange envelope in your table? It's addressed to the both of us?" Teddy said holding up said, noticeably unopened, envelope.

Victoire swallowed thickly but before she could respond, Tasha spoke out very loudly.

"Where the Hell did you get that?"

Victoire ignored Tasha and answered Teddy directly, "I received it before I left England. It is addressed to the both of us as it is an invitation and I guess I just forgot to tell you about it."

Teddy nodded lightly, "And why did Tasha just freak out a minute ago?"

"I'm not freaking out," Tasha interrupted, "I'm just confused, and pissed off."

Victoire folded her arms behind her back and started to tap her foot, "Um, well I assume that she's recognized the envelope as she probably got one herself months ago. It's an invitation to Charlotte Cole's wedding."

There was a loud silence and Victoire could tell by the look on Teddy's face that he was busy trying to morph away a blush.

"And how did you end up with an invitation to Charlotte's wedding?!" Tasha asked outraged.

Victoire's foot started to tap faster, "We've ran into each other several times over the past few months when I was helping Sandra Collins and Kyle Line plan their wedding. She introduced us to her fiancé, he struck up a conversation with Kyle, one thing led to another, and now their fathers' companies are doing business with each other. Sandra felt obligated for this reason to invite Charlotte to her wedding and Charlotte decided to return the favour and invite Sandra to the wedding as well as hand me an invitation for myself and Teddy."

She said the words methodically and almost mechanically, a fact that Teddy did not fail to notice.

"But why would she want to invite you? She must hate you," Tasha spit out venomously towards Victoire.

Victoire started to pace, "And why do you think that Charlotte would hate me?"

"Because-"

"Alright I think we should cool off and save this argument for another day," Caitlyn said stepping between the two women. If anyone thought it was odd that she was the voice of reason while Teddy stood off to the side wide-eyed and open-mouthed, no one said a word about it.

"Come with me Victoire, I believe I promised to find out what was in those clay jars we spoke about last night," Caitlyn said grabbing Victoire's arm and pulling her towards the exit.

Nathan and Teddy dumbly followed and even though Teddy wanted to speak to Victoire privately, but both men had to leave to meet Sir, and they did not expect to be back to the camp until nightfall.

Caitlyn and Victoire each grabbed a cup of coffee from the mess tent and continued on their way to the cursebreakers' research tent. Victoire and Caitlyn sat down side-by-side at the table, and there was silence as the cursebreaker flipped through her stacks of paper, looking for the correct one. Victoire had half-expected Caitlyn to bring up the confrontation she had just witnessed and was pleasantly surprised that the woman was instead acting very professional.

Victoire quietly sipped her tea while Caitlyn speed-read through the large folder of papers that she had in front of her. After several minutes, she pointed to a particular passage on her sheet and read it –mouthing the words as she did so– and nodded to herself.

"I think I've found what we're looking for," Caitlyn said breaking the comfortable silence.

Victoire leaned over to see for herself while Caitlyn explained, "It says here that those jars were opened and that there were some miniature and bejewelled totems enclosed within. There were four jars in total and each had a differently styled totem within."

"There are pictures of the jars and contents in the artifact catalogue I assume?" Victoire questioned, her hands itching to get a hold of photographs of those jars and totems.

There was a minute, while Caitlyn's eyes scanned the paper, before she answered, "There are indeed pictures. Oh, and the artifacts are still at our camp in storage, it says here that they haven't been sent on to the museums in Lima or to London yet."

"Is it possible to get my hands on the artifacts then?" Victoire asked, her hands were practically vibrating with excitement.

Caitlyn eyed her warily, "I dearly hope you won't get your hands on them, they most definitely need to be handled with gloves at the least."

It took Victoire a minute too long to realize that Caitlyn had made a joke.

"Anyway," Caitlyn continued after Victoire let out a low laugh, "I can send in a requisition form right away, and we may be able to get a hand on them by tomorrow afternoon."

"Really? That would be fantastic, thank-you so much!" Victoire commented sincerely.

Caitlyn gave her a hesitant smile, and just when Victoire was thinking that it was much easier to get work done when they got on well, Hayden and Tasha strolled into the room. Tasha gave Victoire a heated glare and sat down at the table with a huff. Hayden rolled his eyes, also taking his seat. They sat there in silence as Tasha and Hayden each reached for a pile of work. Caitlyn finished filling out the requisition form and before she could ask, Victoire picked it up and promised to drop it off with the appropriate person before heading to the med tent.

She let out a sigh of relief once she was out of the tent and decided that once she had gotten rid of the requisition that she would just work from the office in the med tent since there was no one injured or sick at the moment.

Throughout the morning Victoire got a lot of work done on translating the runes that she could see from the photographs on the clay jars, and she had done a once over on all of photographs, she decided that she'd go off to the mess tent for some lunch.

Once there Hayden convinced her to join him for lunch and she agreed because she hadn't even spoken to another person in hours.

"So," Hayden said picking a chip up off his plate and fiddling with it, "I heard about the confrontation you had with your roommate."

Victoire sighed and cast a muffliato charm around them before replying, "It wasn't a big deal, it there's anything we know it's that Tasha's crazy."

"Yes, but she doesn't usually fly off the handle without some sort of inciting event," Hayden pointed out.

Victoire took a bite of her hamburger and chewed slowly, hoping that he'd let the issue go. The look he had on his face by the time she swallowed told her otherwise, "Teddy found an invitation that was addressed to the both of us that I forgot to mention to him."

Hayden chewed off the end of his chip and asked, "It was an invitation to her friend's wedding?"

She shot him a look with a raised eyebrow as she took another bite of hamburger.

He shrugged, "Caitlyn and I were talking about her behind her back when she stepped out to get more ink."

"Caitlyn?" Victoire asked him suspiciously, "Since when is she Caitlyn?"

Another shrug, "She was helpful today so she was Caitlyn. Tomorrow when she does something to irritate me again she'll be back to O.A.R. number two."

Victoire accepted the answer, "Yes, it was an invitation to Charlotte Cole's wedding."

"Why was she upset that you got an invite?"

It was her turn to shrug, "No idea really. I just figured it was because she doesn't like me. But to be honest, I didn't expect the invite either. Teddy was a friend of Charlotte's at Hogwarts, but he's also an ex-boyfriend of hers so I think it's a little awkward to say the least that we got an invite."

Hayden tilted his head to the side interestedly, "You and Teddy got an invite to his ex-girlfriend's wedding?"

"Yeah."

"So is that why Tasha's upset?"

"I honestly don't know, and if it's up to me I'm not going to find out. We've had enough yelling matches between us to last a lifetime, I'm not in the mood for another one," Victoire said tiredly.

Hayden smirked a little, "I doubt that Tasha thinks the same way though. She seems to live off conflict."

Victoire nodded her head, "Yes, it's odd that I never noticed that before, even though we spent five years in the same house at Hogwarts."

"Odd's not exactly the word I'd use," Hayden muttered before stuffing his face with a handful of chips.

She ignored him and picked up her mug of tea. It was her fourth one of the day, in addition to two cups of black coffee, and she knew that if she kept it up at this rate she'd not be able to sleep until late that night. Victoire had mostly finished her hamburger, and Hayden has started to pick some chips off of her plate even though she slapped his hand each time he tried, when Caitlyn and Tasha came into the room.

While the two grabbed trays of food, Caitlyn told Tasha something that made her scowl. She didn't seem too concerned with her friend's disapproval as she turned her back on her and walked over to where Hayden and Victoire sat.

"Good news Vic, our requisition has been accepted and they said that we can get our hands on them as quickly as after lunch," Caitlyn told Victoire as she sat down beside her.

Victoire smiled, "That's brilliant! But are you sure that you have to time to look it all over? I know that you have to be there with me while I handle the artifacts."

Caitlyn waved off her concern, "With the breakthrough we discovered yesterday translating runes is going by almost ten-times more efficiently. I can afford to spend an hour or two on something else. Besides, I'm very curious as to what you think you'll find on these artifacts."

"Knowing Victoria she'll think that she can find a map to a buried treasure or something equally absurd," Tasha scoffed having begrudgingly joined their table halfway through Caitlyn's explanation.

Victoire steadily met Tasha's eyes, "There's no greater treasure than knowledge, now is there?"

"That sounds like something a cursebreaker would say," Hayden commented casually as he stole another chip off Victoire's plate.

"That it does," Caitlyn agreed, causing Victoire, Hayden, and Tasha to look at her with surprise.


After they finished their, rather tense, lunch, Caitlyn and Victoire left to go to artifact storage. Obtaining the items was rather uneventful, as Caitlyn had done all of her paperwork properly, and before long the two were sitting down in a temperature controlled room and ready to open the first shipping crate that the artifacts were stored in.

Caitlyn pulled out her wand and cast a series of spells that opened the crate, levitated one of the jars out, placed it on the table closest to them, and conjured up two pairs of gloves. They each pulled on a pair and Victoire wiggled her fingers excitedly while Caitlyn reached for the clay jar.

"According to the catalogue this was the first jar, accounting for a standard reading from left to right," Caitlyn explained.

Victoire looked at it with reverence and gently traced her finger along the most prominent rune on the jar.

Caitlyn looked to the translating papers she had brought with her, "Between the two of us it should only take a few minutes to decode the majority of the runes along its front-"

"I've already translated it," Victoire told her a little self-consciously.

"Really?" Caitlyn asked, her voice sounding her much impressed.

If she could have blushed, Victoire would have, "I didn't do it this instant. I looked at the photographs of the jars this morning and worked on translating what I could."

Caitlyn smiled, "You did your homework then. What does the main rune mean?"

Victoire glanced at it again, "As far as I can tell it's the rune they use for what they would call a brain. I've also seen it used for wisdom or intelligence."

"Good work," Caitlyn replied appreciatively, "What about the other runes?"

"It seems to be parts of an unfinished story. The summary, in language you and I can understand, is 'Contained in this jar is the wisdom of the great and holy . . .' that's all I got. I think the other runes indicate a name of some sort, or at least a title," Victoire mused.

"The only people the Mochians are known to refer to as holy are their gods and goddesses, or their high priestesses," Caitlyn added.

"Was there a sarcophagus of a high priestess found in these ruins?" Victoire asked.

Caitlyn shook her head, "No, not in these ones. They were smaller than the other ruins and we found no human remains, mummified, buried, or otherwise."

"Can we see inside the jar?" Victoire queried.

"Yes, they left everything as it was when they found it, only briefly taking the totem out to document it," Caitlyn explained waving her wand and levitating the lid.

She gently reached in a second later and pulled out a totem roughly the size of her outstretched hand. The totem seemed to be carved out of some type of metal and had jewels inlaid around it. It seemed to be in roughly the shape of a sphere and seemed to be lighter in weight than Victoire expected. There was only one rune carved into the metal sphere and it took both Caitlyn and Victoire several minutes until they came to the tentative agreement that the rune symbolized the moon.

"If I remember correctly it's believed that the moon symbolizes wisdom to the people since they believed that the goddess of the moon was the most wise and intelligent being. It would make sense that the totem in this jar symbolized something they connect with wisdom," Victoire mused.

"I agree."

Victoire looked into the clay jar and frowned, "What's this in here?"

"They results from the spells say that it's some sort of ash. When the jar was sealed, they created it to be airtight so it had not had the chance to decompose into the organic materials of the jar yet," Caitlyn explained.

"Ash is a weird thing to put in a jar," Victoire commented.

"It is indeed."

Victoire glanced at the jar with curiosity again as her mind turned over the mystery of why there was ash in the jar, "Was there an analysis of the composition of the ashes?"

"I do not believe so," Caitlyn commented, "I don't understand why they would have thought to do so."

"It's possible to study the mineral composition of ashes to tell if they're from an animal or a plant, I think it would be interesting to see which one the jar is filled with," Victoire replied.

Caitlyn gave Victoire a considering look for a minute, "I'll see what I can do."

"That would be fantastic."

They put the totem back in the jar and Caitlyn suggested pulling out the second one. It was similar in style to the first, only the main rune was a little more difficult to translate. Caitlyn thought that it was very similar to the rune for the anatomical word for heart, whereas Victoire thought that 'love' was a better term. They agreed that it could perhaps be used for both and went on to reading the rest of the inscription. As with the other one, it was roughly decoded into 'Contained in this jar is the heart/love of the great and holy . . .' with a different name from the first being written.

"So it's dedicated to a different high priestess?" Victoire verified.

"Seems like it," Caitlyn said, not knowing much more than Victoire did.

"Were these pots made at the same time?"

"They're within the same half century; we can't be more precise than that at this stage."

Victoire nodded and they opened the second jar to find another metal totem inlaid with gems. It was in the shape of a heart, and an absurdly anatomically accurate heart it was. Victoire assumed that it had been carved so well because the Mochians were known for their blood magic and had no doubt seen and studied actual human hearts, but it didn't take away from the fact that it was kind of creepy. Inside the jar, just like the other one, was ash.

The third jar followed the same pattern. The main rune was one that stood for either food or nourishment, and the dedication, to a different priestess than the first two, was 'Contained in this jar is the food/nourishment of the great and holy . . .'. Inside the jar was a metal version of a lucuma, and again ash was present.

The fourth and final jar had a rune that represented the word 'fertility' and the dedication, to yet another high priestess was 'Contained in this jar is the fertility of the great and holy . . .'. In the jar, among the ash, was a decorated metal replica of a pregnant woman.

Victoire had convinced Caitlyn to request an analysis of the ash from each jar, and they slowly tidied up the artifacts. They delivered them back to the storage tent and continued to chat about the relics as they walked to the cursebreakers' tent.

"Well don't you two look cozy," Hayden commented when Victoire and Caitlyn walked in, heads bent over the paper they had filled out with the information they had discovered that afternoon.

"Was your examination a wild goose chase?" Tasha asked scornfully from her place behind a thick textbook.

"No, we actually found some rather interesting things," Caitlyn defended, "It will take some more time to work on, but Victoire is quite capable of doing the rest of the work if she so chooses to."

Tasha just grumbled something that wasn't very clear while the other two sat down at the table.

Hayden leaned over to Victoire and asked her to help him with translating a sentence he was working on.

"That is disgusting," Hayden grimaced as he read the sentence that she had helped him translate into English.

"But not surprising, there's already lots of proof that they did that," Victoire said.

"Seriously? I don't know what's worse, the fact that they actually did use human sacrifice or the fact that they drank the blood of their victims," Hayden complained. They had decoded a few runes that seemed to give written proof to the fact that the people of the Moche civilization had human sacrifice and drank blood.

"It wasn't always just their victims," Caitlyn added, "They also drank the blood of some of their high priestess because they believed that it would give them a portion of their holiness and powers."

"Tasty," Hayden said sarcastically.

Victoire laughed, "I'm glad that the belief in that type of magic has died down over the past few centuries."

"Me too," Caitlyn added.

The was a loud thump as Tasha tetchily closed her textbook, "As glad as I am that you've all decided to be best mates, Victoire is now doing what she always does, distracting everyone around her so that no work gets done."

"When have I ever been a distraction from work?" Victoire asked incredulously.

"How about this morning for example?" Tasha offered cattily.

Victoire placed her hands on her hips, "I wasn't even in this room this morning, I did all of my work in the med tent."

"I mean before that," Tasha qualified, "This morning when Nathan and Teddy were supposed to meeting Sir you distracted them."

"First of all," Victoire responded heatedly, "They had quite a good bit of time before they needed to see Sir this morning and they did not end up being late. Second, they came to me. Third, it was work because Nathan was feeling ill and I was trying to attend to him, or as much as he would let me."

"You weren't working when you were talking to Teddy about Charlotte's wedding invitation," Tasha pointed out, ignoring her perfect defense of her actions.

Victoire threw her hands up in the air exasperatedly, "Teddy was the one who brought up the invitation in the first place. Besides for someone who was so angry about my getting an invite in the first place you sure seem eager to keep talking about the whole ordeal."

"Are you trying to insinuate something?" Tasha threw at her.

Victoire wanted to scream in frustration, "No, I'm actually trying to do the exact opposite. You don't want me to be invited to the wedding and I don't want to talk to you about my being invited to the wedding, so how about we just stop talking about it and forget that it ever happened!"

"I can't believe she invited you!" Tasha continued.

Victoire was polite enough not to palm her forehead in vexation, but neither Hayden nor Caitlyn had such qualms.

"I can't believe she invited me either," Victoire replied steadily.

"I mean Teddy I can understand, you on the other hand-"

Victoire cut her off, "I am Teddy girlfriend, and therefore if she was sending him an invite anyway I'd have the option to go. As for it making sense that she invited Teddy, I'll have to take your word for it because I really didn't know how close they were in school until a few months ago. However, if she doesn't think that it's awkward to invite her ex-boyfriend then it's not up to you to decide if she also includes the ex-boyfriend's new girlfriend."

Tasha scoffed, "She's just trying to be polite."

Victoire rolled her eyes, "She's been more than polite, and like I said, it's her wedding and she can decide who she wants to invite."

Tasha opened her mouth to say something else but Victoire interrupted her.

"Now if you'll excuse me," she said standing up, "I'll leave so you can get some work done, and I'll go to the med tent and do inventory."


Teddy sighed tiredly as he flipped a page in the textbook he was pretending to be reading. Nathan was having a much more practical and useful conversation with the muggle archeologists and was trying to subtly push the archeologist towards translating one of the runes. Both Nathan and Teddy were very excited about the breakthrough Tasha and Caitlyn had made in terms of translating the runes, but when they met with Sir that morning they were informed that they were not allowed to let their muggle partners know about it.

They were told that they needed to keep their information to themselves since they came about it through magical means, which Teddy thought was total bull but he didn't voice his opinion. Therefore, Nathan was trying to push the muggle archeologists towards the same breakthrough their group had made the night before, while Teddy tried to say as little as possible so that he wouldn't accidently come out with it. It was difficult work for Nathan, since the muggles had been working on an entirely different concept to help them translate and it was hard to steer them away from the direction they were already heading in.

The pair had been working with the muggles since early in the day and they expected to spend the rest of it with them also. They normally worked with a few archeologists and several archeological students, however when they'd gotten there that morning they had been missing several of the students. The archeologists explained that everything was okay; it was just that several of their students had come down with the flu, or they expected that it was the flu since they had all had fevers.

Upon hearing this, Nathan had muttered that he had probably caught his illness –that he had up to that point been steadfastly claiming not to have– from them since they'd spent so much time together over the past couple of weeks. When they broke for lunch both Teddy and Nathan rubbed their necks, which were hurting from leaning over books and parchment paper for so many hours straight. Nathan even went so far as to privately ask Teddy whether he knew of a spell that would help the soreness in his neck muscles, to which Teddy responded that he was not the healer in the family.

After lunch, they were down one more archeologist, this time one of the leading professors. Teddy and Nathan offered to leave and come back since everyone seemed to be feeling ill, but the other archeologists begged them to stay because they were also farther behind their deadline then they would have liked. Nathan was soon able to get the archeologists on the right track and they were close to getting a few words decoded when they decided to break for dinner.

Teddy and Nathan were offered some food as always, which they accepted and decided to eat in the tent where they had been doing their work.

Nathan brought his spoon up to his lips and had a taste of the soup, he made a face when it was in his mouth, "Trust me when I say that I hate to badmouth muggles, but magic makes it so much easier to have good food on digs like these. Our preservation spells are a godsend."

Teddy stirred his spoon around his own bowl of soup, it was most definitely out of a can, "They make do with what they have . . . but I agree, preservation spells make cooking food much easier."

Nathan brought the spoon up to his mouth again only to set it back, "I don't think I can do it."

"It's not that bad," Teddy commented with a slight eye roll, "Just put a spell on it to make it taste like something else. Even making it taste like water would do."

"No, it's literally making me nauseas, plus I have a splitting headache all of a sudden," Nathan said putting his spoon down.

Teddy looked down at his watch and shrugged, "It's probably because the pepper-up potion you took has worn off by now. It's nice to have while it works, but once it's gone all of the previous symptoms come back with a vengeance. It's one of the reasons why Victoire hates taking them herself."

"I would have thought the headache would have gone away by now," Nathan replied.

"If it was just a headache it would have, but Vic was certain that you had a flu, and since you only treated the symptom with the pepper-up potion and not the cause, it's not surprising that you still have a headache," Teddy said factually.

"I get it," Nathan groaned, putting his face in his hands, "I should have listened to the healer. If I promise to see her the moment we get back to camp will you let it go?"

Teddy sighed and took a long drink of water, he was starting to get a headache himself, but it was most likely because he never drank enough water –or at least that was what Victoire kept nagging him about– and that he was probably slightly dehydrated.

"Yes I'll let it go."

Nathan nodded gratefully and then pressed his hands into his forehead, "That was not a good idea."

The action made Teddy frown, Nathan was not usually one to complain about, well, anything.

"Do you still have a fever?" Teddy asked, leaning his hand out to feel Nathan's forehead.

"It's just warm in here," Nathan defended as he weakly tried, and failed to get out of Teddy's reach.

Teddy's eyes widened in worry when he placed his hand on Nathan's skin. He felt burning hot and Teddy was almost certain that it had nothing to do with the scorching heat of the day.

"Nathan I think we need to get you back to camp A.S.A.P."

Nathan tiredly waved him off, "I'm fine, it's just a little fever."

Teddy transfigured Nathan's soupspoon into a thermometer and shoved it into his mouth, "Don't talk until it's done."

Nathan crossed his arms on the table and rested his head on top of them, but did as Teddy asked. When Teddy had deemed it enough time, he took the thermometer out and glanced at it, "105.7!"

"Nathan that's-" Teddy didn't bother telling Nathan what it was since it seemed that the man had either passed out or fallen asleep on his folded arms. Either way he needed to get him back to Victoire quick.


"Get a bed ready!"

Victoire's head shot up in time to see Teddy and Hayden stumble into the med tent; they were carrying an unconscious Nathan between them.

"Farthest on the left," Victoire instructed authoritatively as she got up from her desk in her office. She strode over to the bed, all the while casting disinfectant charms on her hands and arms.

"Symptoms?" Victoire asked Teddy directly.

"Headache and a very high fever. He was also complaining of neck pain but I think that might just be because we were leaning over books for the majority of the day," Teddy told her.

She nodded, pulled out her wand, and started casting diagnostic spells. They weren't as precise as pulling samples and running other tests, but they gave her a good starting point when immediacy was the issue, "Did he eat much today? Drink a lot of water?"

"Water yes, and he ate lunch but he didn't eat supper. Said that the soup was making him nauseas," Teddy explained as she kept casting spells faster than he could account for.

"It's just the flu right?" Hayden asked.

Victoire shook her head, "Similar symptoms but he just tested negative for an influenza diagnosis. It was the first I tried." She looked up from Nathan for a minute to gaze at Teddy, "Is anyone sick at the muggle camp?"

Teddy rubbed his still sore neck, "Several of the archeologist students and even a few professors are ill, but the others waved it off as a flu."

Victoire cast a few more spells, a frown on her face, "Is there anything else you can tell me about his health?"

She was worried now, she had done all of the obvious and less serious diagnostic spells and was now onto casting the spells for the more serious ones.

"Teddy?" Victoire asked, looking up again since she didn't get a response from him.

"Oh, sorry I'm just . . ." He tried to explain for his sudden lapse of response, he couldn't remember her having asked him a question and his head was starting to throb even harder.

"Are you alright?" Hayden asked first.

"Just-" Teddy's knees shook and Hayden reached out to help him towards the nearest bed for him to sit on.

"Tired," Teddy finished not even brushing off Hayden's help.

Victoire bit her lip and looked back to Nathan, her wrist still waving out different motions with her wand, "Hayden, turn something –anything you can– into a thermometer and put it in his mouth."

Hayden quickly did ash she ordered, and frowned when he pulled his hand away, "He's burning up."

Victoire felt her chest constrict a little but she didn't respond to Hayden, instead she focused on her wand and cast a few more spells.

"Should I check the thermometer now?" Hayden asked reaching forward to take the instrument out of Teddy's mouth.

"Don't touch him!" Victoire yelled suddenly at Hayden, her eyes still focused on the dying flash of yellow light she got from the last diagnostic she ran over Nathan's still inert form. Yellow meant that the spell was positive.

"Take at least five large steps away from Teddy's bed and cast disinfecting spells on every part of you that touched Teddy or Nathan," Victoire instructed in a firm voice as she tapped her own wand to each of her wrists. A pair of sterile gloves suddenly appeared on her hands.

Hayden fearfully did as he was told and looked helplessly at Victoire, who had walked over to Teddy's side by then. He was unconscious, probably having passed out no more than a few minutes ago.

"What do they have?"

Victoire gently pulled the thermometer out of Teddy's mouth. Her eyes darkened and her mouth tightened. She read the very high temperature and answered Hayden's question at the same time, "Nathan just tested positive for meningitis."


A/N: Ohhhh. Meningitis. What do we think?

If any of you have questions about meningitis, I'll be happy to answer them, however, in next chapter there will be a lot more explanation. However, feel free to google search the illness in the meantime if you are burning with curiosity.

Please leave me a review or comment about this chapter, I didn't get as many reviews for the last chapter as I was expecting, so I would like some feedback on how you are liking (or even disliking) the story so far.

Some of you have asked about whether or not I'm planning on writing another story after this, and the answer to that would be that I would like to, so we'll just have to see if I end up with enough time. But please, let me know if you'd be interested in another story after this one, and if you would like another one, who do you most want to see?

Next Update: In a week! :)

Next Chapter: Victoire gets into her healing mojo and starts to take care of Nathan and Teddy.

Teaser for next chap:

"Mortality rate is only 5-15% in cases such as this with just muggle medicine. That number lowers greatly in the wizarding world."

"Nathan should be fine?" Hayden repeated. He didn't miss how Victoire had only said the one name.

She nodded and bit her lip again, "Teddy's case is a little more difficult."

"Define difficult," Tasha demanded angrily."

I want to thank everyone who has followed, favourited, read, and reviewed this story!

An especially BIG thank you to:

Nerdbird18, MuggleCreator, Autumn, TimberWolf, SoccerDiva, GryffindorsRock, no cure for crazy, jeremiah123, Manydifferentfandoms, PrettyLittleWinchester26, Flossie, Brook-Lucas-Fan-23, loverloverlover, Proseoffiction, DaughterOfTerpsichore, Ranger, moozga, and silverlover02.

Nerdbird18: I am considering writing another one, would you like that? If so who would you like to see? As for the wedding, I don't like spoilers, but this shouldn't really ruin any plot, so I will tell you that I always planned to have Kyle and Sandra's wedding in this story.

Autumn: I've already told someone else, I have always planned on having Sandra and Kyle's wedding in this story, as for when our favourite duo will get back home, I can't tell you yet because I haven't written that part yet. You'll hear more abotu all the others when I do write that part, and as for Teddy's proposal, you'll just have to keep reading to see what happens.

TimberWolf: The next story won't be the next generation yet, and these stories are very much Teddy/Vic.

no cure for crazy: Your question about any other disease hit the nail right on the head ;) Good job!

Manydifferentfandoms: 1. I can't tell you ;) 2. Still can't tell you 3. Yes. 4. No. :) I hope that helps, any other questions?

Flossie: Thanks for letting me know!

loverloverlover: Fevers above 104 degrees Fahrenheit are very serious and dangerous, but they are not fatal. I'm glad you've picked up on how Victoire's matured from Try and Tri Again. Don't worry, we'll hear more about Malcolm and Nadia later.

Proseoffiction: Victoire tries to be confident, but she does have her own issues, and there are some parts in which she's self-conscious. She hasn't talked to him about it yet, because she is so self-conscious, and she's so worried that she might not like the answer if she brings it up to him. However, they will end up talking about there future at some point in this story.

DaughterOfTerpsichore: Thanks so much, I really appreciated reading all of the reviews you've posted as you read the stories.

Ranger: The mission will definitely be finished at the end of this story.

I hope you enjoyed this story,

Please let me know what you guys thought of this chapter,

Also, let me know if you'd like another story, as well as who you'd most like to see,

Until next time, DFTBA!