Chapter Ten - The Midas Touch

Sunday 30th July, 1989

It was pointless even being here, Bertha Jorkins thought as the man sat next to her got called in by the Healer. He'd come in after her, for Merlin's sake! She silently debated whether or not she should just not bother. Literally anything would be a better use of her Sunday afternoon than sitting in the St Mungo's waiting room on a horribly uncomfortable chair for hours on end.

On the other hand, she'd never hear the end of it from her sister if she didn't get seen, and frankly she'd had enough of Edith's constant nagging that she needed to go and get checked out. It had started about three months ago when the sisters were having their weekly tea and Edith was updating her with some of the gossip she'd heard at her job at Slug and Jiggers Apothecary, but Bertha swore blind that she hadn't heard any of the gossip she was supposedly being updated on.

They'd argued for a short while, because Edith was insistent that they'd spoken about it for an hour just last week, while Bertha was certain that this was the first that she'd heard of any of it. With her sister being far too stubborn to just admit she was wrong, they'd just moved on from the disagreement, and had a conversation about two weeks worth of gossip instead of one.

From then on, though, Edith had kept a closer eye on her and kept telling her that she was acting funny. She huffed mentally, anybody would act differently if they were being constantly scrutinised in the way that she was. Telling her sister that hadn't deterred her though; if anything, she started watching her even closer.

It had all come to a head last weekend, when Bertha had gone out to buy a magazine, but forgotten what she'd come looking for and went home empty handed. Then she did it again the following day. And the next day too. After the third time, Edith had tearily begged Bertha to get herself checked out because something was "obviously not right". Really, couldn't someone just be forgetful without a visit to the hospital?

Nonetheless, the waterworks her sister had put on had worn her down enough to agree to seeing a Healer, and so here she was: relentlessly fidgeting because her butt had gone numb about an hour ago.

'Must be something pretty serious if you're scowling like that over it,' spoke a voice on her left. So busy was she in her frustrated ruminations that she hadn't even realised someone had taken the vacant seat beside her. Looking around to face the man, she realised who he was just in time to catch herself before telling James bloody Potter to mind his own business.

'Oh, uh - ha - no, it's nothing really,' she stumbled, trying desperately to regain her wits.

'Didn't look like nothing to me. Bertha, isn't it? You were a couple of years ahead in Hogwarts if I remember correctly.' He spoke conversationally, like they were old acquaintances, and not practically strangers. This was crazy. The Potters were practically wizarding royalty these days, and here was the King of that family making small talk with her. Next to him sat the boy himself, Harry Potter: the de facto Prince of wizarding Britain with the Queen sat on his other side.

The Potters' rise to fame was a story that practically every magical person and being in Britain knew about, and probably a fair number of people beyond the border too. It was spectacular in no small part in that it was completely accidental on their part. The events of Halloween 1981 had been a source for hundreds of articles full of guesses and speculation surrounding the mysterious defeat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. The Potters had remained resolutely silent on the matter, though, and no details beyond those that were uncovered immediately following the event were released for years.

That was until somebody within the Ministry leaked a report from the Obliviators' Office, which detailed a muggle Auror investigation that had required Ministry intervention because it had been garnering too much attention. The investigation detailed reports from Godric's Hollow, where a number of muggles had heard a series of loud thunder-like sounds, bangs, cries, and had claimed to have seen several flashes of green accompanied finally by one loud cracking sound before everything went silent. The muggles had no idea what had happened, and couldn't find any signs of a struggle but for some charred rubble that had rained down onto the street following that final crack.

The leaked report had been printed as the first Extra edition of the Daily Prophet since Dumbledore's defeat of Grindelwald in 1945, and the public went absolutely crazy over it, lauding the Potters as the second, third, and fourth comings of Merlin and Morgana. The Obliviators having been involved finally gave the Wizengamot the chance to call the Potters for a public inquiry into the events of that night, and with the public interest, they'd had no choice but to agree.

Their testimony in that inquiry, along with that of Sirius Black's, would go on to become legend almost instantly, despite the fact that everybody knew they were still leaving out more details than they were sharing. The revelation that all three Potters had survived the Killing Curse had done enough to distract everybody from asking many further questions, though. The Minister had immediately announced that all three would receive an Order of Merlin First Class for their heroics, making Harry Potter the youngest recipient ever to receive the award.

Since then, they'd become one of the most well known and respected families in the country, a reality that James Potter had capitalised on by championing equal rights for all magical people in Britain. His opinions on British society had led to a number of reforms across the board, and had cemented him as one of the most influential people of the century. Now he was looking at her with a bemused smile on his face, and she shook her head, mortified that she'd let her thoughts run away with her. Merlin only knew how long he'd been sitting there waiting for a response.

'Bertha, yes!' She squeaked, and cleared her throat as she felt a mortified flush make itself known. 'Bertha Jorkins. Graduated in seventy-four. What are you here for? Nothing bad I hope?'

He shook his head and leaned to bump shoulders with Harry. 'Nah, this one's got his last set of WANDs.'

She grimaced. No wonder the poor boy looked so miserable, bless him. The WANDs, or Wretched Antidotes for Nasty Diseases, were a set of potions that children had to take at the ages of three, six, and nine. They were precautionary measures for the most common illnesses, such as spattergroit, mumblemumps and ague, amongst others.

Problem was, the potions were some of the most disgusting concoctions known to wizardkind, and that was saying something. Worse still, the mixture of the different potions caused horrible dizziness for an hour, and pins and needles in the toes and fingers on the right side of the body which could last for up to four hours. Every wizard-raised child was glad to be rid of them after their ninth birthday. So unpleasant were they that even the staunchest of pure-bloods felt sorry for the muggle-borns when they had to take them at the start of the year for the first three years of Hogwarts.

'At least it's his last set,' James continued cheerily. 'I hope you're not too unwell? I can't imagine there's much danger for you to get tangled up with in the DMG.' She started at that. Not only did James Potter remember her from Hogwarts, he also knew where she worked. He smirked at her knowingly. 'I passed through the office on Thursday and saw you sat at your desk,' he explained.

'Oh, I see,' she said. 'It's nothing serious. In fact, I don't think it's anything at all, but my sister practically forced me to come and get checked out. I've been a bit forgetful over the last couple of months, and she reckons I've been acting odd. It's all nonsense, of course, but I thought I'd get a Healer to write that down for me. Maybe that'll shut her up.'

'Ah, well that's not too bad then. Excuse me a second,' he said, and turned to Harry who was pulling on his sleeve. The young lad motioned him closer and they had a whispered conversation for a moment before James turned to look at her with a look of intrigue. He turned back and murmured something to Lily, then he and Harry stood. 'Bertha, I wonder if you'd come with us for a second?'

Wait, what? She nodded dumbly and stood up, following James as he led them to an empty examination room just a little way down the corridor off to the left of the waiting area. He drew his wand and locked the door behind them, then turned to face her with an awkward smile.

'Please, sit down,' he said, gesturing to the cot in the middle of the room as moved to sit in one of the seats beside it. Not knowing what else to do, she complied and looked between him and Harry, her confusion blatantly shown on her face. 'There are quite a few things that the public doesn't know about our family,' he began, 'and that's very deliberate. Some things are much better if they're only known by as few people as possible.'

He paused and stared at her appraisingly, and she nodded to show that she understood for lack of any idea as to what she could say.

'You've been memory charmed, Bertha, and getting it removed by a Healer could leave you with permanent brain damage. Alternatively, we can help you, but I have a condition.' She shot him a suspicious glance. 'Are you familiar with personally binding vows?'

Her eyebrows shot up at that question. Whatever condition she was expecting, it definitely wasn't that. She was, of course, familiar with personally binding vows - she'd be surprised if there was a magically-raised person who wasn't familiar with them. Breaking a magically binding vow could result in the loss of a person's magic, and despite what their name suggested, unbreakable vows were breakable, just the consequence of such was the breaker's death, so you really didn't want to break it.

A personally binding vow, however, was actually unbreakable. They were typically used in old pure-blood families for familial secrets, and basically involved the person making the vow sealing a piece of knowledge with another person. Unless that other person let them reveal the sealed knowledge, they literally couldn't. It couldn't be taken from them, it couldn't be spoken about, nothing. She bit her lower lip in thought. If she had actually been memory charmed like he said, and she had no reason to disbelieve him, then this was her best chance at making any sort of recovery. 'What do you want to seal?' she asked, after a long moment of silent consideration.

'The knowledge of everything that happened between you entering and leaving this room today.' Taking a deep breath, she nodded and drew her wand, holding it hand over hand, tip pointing upwards. Just as she went to make the vow, though, he interrupted. 'Bound to Harry.'

She looked at him incredulously, but he levelled her with an even and serious gaze. She gulped and nodded again. 'I, Bertha Jorkins, do seal the knowledge of all events between my entering and my leaving this room on this day, to you, Harry Potter. So I swear.'

'So mote it be,' Harry responded evenly, shivering as she did as the vow settled on them both. Her gaze landed on a smiling James, who just shrugged at her.

'Don't look at me, this is all his doing,' he said lightly, gesturing towards his son. His son who was now staring at her with pure black eyes. She shifted back in her seat reflexively. 'He won't hurt you, I promise. He'll just lift the charm.'

Harry smiled at her in what was probably supposed to be a reassuring way, but it was completely undermined by his void-like eyes, and she gulped. 'Lie down on the bed please,' he said not unkindly, though the fact that it sounded like he was both whispering and speaking aloud at the same time really made his tone redundant. At James nod, she did as the boy asked and he stepped up to her side. 'You can close your eyes if you want, but you don't have to.'

She did, and within moments two small hands were placed over her temples. The hands grew warm, and the sides of her face beneath them quickly followed. The darkness of the back of the eyelids gave way to a beautiful pure golden colour, and she felt herself relax completely in the embrace of whatever strange magic Harry was performing. After a moment, she felt something in the back of her mind, just a small fleeting moment of awareness like something had been brushed past, but soon the sensation returned and felt increasingly like something inside her mind was being tickled. It was the most bizarre thing she'd ever experienced, and more than a little uncomfortable as the feeling grew and grew to a fever pitch before something snapped within.

She gasped and her eyes flew open as the warmth on her face quickly receded and Harry stepped back. One single memory from just before that weekly meeting for tea where Edith had in fact told her all of the apothecary gossip. One single, hidden memory of dropping some files off to her boss' house because they needed to be filed the following day. Just one locked away memory, suddenly remembered, of Barty Crouch Jr, clearly alive and clearly imperiused in his father's house, and Barty Crouch Sr's look of panic which was quickly swept away by an expression of grim determination.

'I need to go!' she exclaimed, looking wide-eyed at James. 'Do you think Amelia Bones will be in the office?'

He stared at her for a moment, shocked at her sudden abruptness, but quickly shook himself and nodded. 'I should think so. I don't think she's taken a weekend off since she became Director.'

Bertha practically leapt off of the cot to her feet and grabbed Harry by the shoulders. His eyes had returned to their normal, brilliant green. 'Thank you,' she rasped, quickly headed to the door before he could respond as James unlocked it. She opened the door and practically ran off without so much as a backwards glance, straight past the Healer calling her name in the waiting area and out towards the floos in the main lobby, her entire focus on getting to the Ministry and speaking to the new Director of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

-oOo-

The WAND potions were absolutely the worst thing that existed on Earth, and that was just a fact. At this point Harry thought that he'd prefer to have actually gone through both spattergroit and mumblemumps rather than be lying back on this cot in St. Mungo's feeling horribly sick as the room span at pace around him. Add to that the compulsive urge to wiggle the toes on his right foot, and the need to keep flexing and right hand to assure himself that his fingers were still there. This was even worse than he remembered it being three years ago. He was sure that he'd never been so uncomfortable in his short life, which was saying something because he'd actually died as a toddler.

A sudden shiver ran over his body, and he became aware of the by now familiar sensation of needing to do something. What that something was exactly, he wasn't sure, but he'd find out soon enough. His vision darkened slightly as the room stopped spinning and regular feeling returned to his extremities, and he cocked his head and squinted as he searched for whatever it was that he was supposed to be noticing.

Over the years, he'd gotten quite good at this, despite not really knowing what this was. Last year he had tried to explain it to his Mum. It always started the same way: a strange kind of magic would wash over his body, soon followed by the uncanny intuition that he was needed. Normal vision would fade as though somebody had turned the lights right down, but not completely off, and unseen connections between people would become suddenly visible. They were like thin threads of any given colour, tying people together.

They weren't typical connections, though - Mum and Dad didn't have one between them showing their marriage, and there wasn't a new one connected to him signifying the vow Bertha had made earlier. When he described them to Mum, she suggested that they connected people who were fundamental to each other in some way, kind of like they were fated for one reason or another. That explanation sounded about right to Harry, and he was further convinced earlier when leading Bertha through the corridor, passing a Healer who had almost a dozen threads connecting him with different people, some within the waiting room and some not.

At the moment, there were two threads tied to Harry himself. One had always been there, pure white and familiar despite his not knowing who it tied him to. He'd always had the sense that he didn't need to know who it connected him to, anyway, so he'd never sought it out. The other had appeared after his first dream about the girl, the Raven's daughter. That thread had started out as glittering silver colour, but over the last couple of years had slowly started changing to a beautiful gold. It hadn't completely changed colour yet, and he figured it wouldn't until he met her, which was probably a little while away still.

Experience told him that there was a new connection coming now, though, and it was just a matter of letting it find him. He didn't have to wait long.

A wispy, crimson thread slowly snaked its way through the ajar door and started in his direction. Harry sat patiently as it reached out towards him and gently touched his chest. A veritable flood of information made itself known to him, and he took a deep, shuddering breath as he worked his way through it. There was a woman in the hospital who was dying, and there was nothing the Healers could do for her. The illness wasn't a magical one, which was uncommon as most muggle illnesses didn't affect witches and wizards. She'd contracted it from caring for her parents, which meant she was probably muggleborn, and it had taken its hold on her. The woman had more to do though - it wasn't her time yet - which was why he needed to help her.

'Harry? Everything okay?' Mum asked.

He nodded, before turning to her so she'd see his eyes. 'Have you got my glasses on you?'

She rifled through her handbag and produced a pair of sunglasses for him. It was an elegant, if not a bit bizarre, solution to making sure that people didn't see his eyes. The last thing they wanted was more rumours and speculation in the papers about the family, particularly him. 'What's going on?' she asked as he put them on. They also provided the unintended effect of darkening his vision further, which made it easier to follow threads, which was handy.

'I need to go upstairs before we leave. There's someone in the hospital who needs help.'

'I imagine there's more than one,' his Dad interjected, chuckling at his own joke, though he stopped soon enough as both Harry and his Mum shot him twin reproachful glares. He was saved from any further reproving by the Healer coming back into the room, accompanied by a floating quill and healer's pad.

'Well those are some fancy glasses there, Harry,' she chirped as she came to his side.

'They block out light,' he explained. 'Valerian gives me a headache, always has, so I put these on to help.'

She waved her wand over him as he spoke, silently casting a diagnostic charm, and the quill started scribbling away the results. 'Ah, yes. My cousin had a similar reaction to peppermint when she was younger. We usually grow out of things like that in our teens, though, you'll be glad to know.' The quill stopped writing and she gave a quick glance over the results before looking back at him. 'Well everything looks practically perfect here. How are you feeling?'

He wiggled his fingers at her demonstratively and smiled. 'Fine, actually. Last time my fingers were tingling for hours but they feel like they're back to normal already this time.'

'Excellent! If I can just ask Mum or Dad to sign at the bottom of here for me, then you're free to go,' the Healer responded cheerfully, plucking the quill and pad from the air and passing them over to Mum. 'Fantastic. Have a good day, folks!'

'I wish I had even half of her positivity,' James mumbled as she left.

Harry snorted and swung himself off the cot, pushing the glasses up the bridge of his nose. 'Follow me,' he said, leading his parents out of the room and further into the hospital.

Five minutes later the thread had traced back to a private room on the third floor, a bit of a distance away from any other wards. Looking around, there were no Healers to be seen, so he let himself into the room.

On the cot in the middle of the room lay a fairly young woman, maybe about the age of Mum and Dad. She was slight, and quite short, and would have been really quite pretty if not for the slightly damp hair, pale complexion, and spots of blood around her mouth and on her gown. The lack of reaction to them entering the room gave away that she was asleep, or at the very least unconscious. Harry took off his glasses and approached her as James shut and locked the door behind them.

'Hello.' He didn't know whether she could hear him or not, but he thought that if she could, it might be nice for her to at least hear what's going on. 'I'm Harry Potter,' he said softly. 'I know you're really ill, but that's okay. I'm here to help you. You're going to be just fine.'

The crimson thread joining them split in two before it connected to her, indicating where she needed healing - her lungs. Stepping up to her side, he gently placed his hands on her chest and took a deep breath, concentrating on identifying the issue. A golden glow spread from beneath his palms over her chest, and he felt it probing within her. It became clear to him after a moment - her lungs were almost half full of fluid. The poor lady was essentially slowly drowning.

'Dad, can you help me roll this lady onto her side? Mum, can you conjure a bucket? Sorry, but I think this is going to be a bit disgusting.' Immediately his parents did as they were asked, positioning the patient onto her side at the edge of the bed, with a bucket right below and next to her head.

Harry screwed his eyes shut and focused first on clearing her lungs. It wouldn't solve the problem, but he figured that she'd be a lot more comfortable if he did that immediately. Slowly, he felt the fluid clearing from her lungs and coming up through her airway and to her mouth. He reached out and opened her mouth for her, and Dad held either side of her head, positioning it. It really wasn't pleasant, but he imagined that it was even worse for her, so he ignored it and guided the fluid out as best he could.

It seemed to take forever but eventually it had all cleared out. He nodded to his parents, and Dad carefully put her head back on the pillow while Mum vanished the bucket and its contents. Returning his hands to her chest, he concentrated now on fixing the damage done to her lungs, and it was extensive. The golden light grew brighter than it ever had before. It took a few minutes of intense focus before the damage was healed, and by the time the damage was fixed and he started to withdraw from her, Harry was breathing heavily and his hands were shaking.

He stepped backwards and dropped heavily into the chair beside the cot as the thread connecting them turned blue before fading away and his vision slowly returned to normal. His parents rolled the woman back onto her back and fixed her covers.

Mum turned and crouched next to him, looking over him with concern. 'Are you okay?'

'Yeah, I'm just a bit shaky. I'll be okay in a minute,' he tried to reassure her, but she didn't really look convinced.

She was distracted by Dad bursting out into laughter behind her. They both turned their attention and he held up a hand as he calmed. 'Do you recognise this woman, Lily?' Mum stared down at her for a moment with a look of concentration, before looking back at Dad and shaking her head in confusion. 'I didn't either because she was so pale,' he continued. 'What if I said the words my uncle smells like wet dog too?'

Mum looked down at the woman with a look of realisation and grinned at Dad, who started laughing again.

'What's going on?' Harry asked, slightly frustrated that he was clearly missing something.

Dad looked as though he were going to respond, but glanced down at the lady and started laughing again. Mum walked back over to him and patted him on the shoulder. 'Your father has been wanting to thank this lady for years,' she said, as though that explained anything at all. He huffed as he realised he probably wasn't going to be let in on the joke. Rolling his eyes, he got up from the chair and made his way to the door.

'Let's go home,' he instructed. 'I'm tired.'

A/N: I've been looking forward to posting this chapter for weeks. It's the first time we actually get to see anything from Harry's perspective (other than him as a baby), and it also marks the start of things starting to get shaken up outside of James' activism.

I'd like to preempt a question that could be raised by a detail in this chapter, and that is: If personally binding vows are a thing that exist, why didn't the Potters have Peter make one so he physically couldn't share the secret without their permission? The answer is simple, really, and it falls down to the same mistake they made in making him the secret keeper - they thought he was their friend and trusted him not to betray them, so the thought wouldn't have even occurred to them as necessary.

A quick thank you to Crazy and Dragonfly from the HMS Harmony discord server for their help in naming the WANDs.

As ever, there may be mistakes or inconsistencies in this chapter because I'm an imperfect editor. Please do let me know if you spot anything.

Thank you so much for reading, and for the kind reviews and messages you've been giving for the last ten chapters. It really does mean a lot.

Peace and love, amidland.