Chapter 37: Cursed

"Anything yet?" Riddle asked through gritted teeth.

Amalia mutely shook her head and closed the volume she had just finished reading. She was sitting on a puffy cushion on the floor, books and notes chaotically scattered around her. Between them, they had brought the equivalent of a miniature library's worth of magical encyclopedias and reference books, covering as many branches of basic and rare magic as they could, both Dark and benign. They'd scoured the most pertinent volumes for any information on curse-breaking, but so far they hadn't been successful in isolating the nature of the curse currently threatening Riddle's life.

Amalia sighed and placed the book onto the growing tower of useless texts next to her. After her initial confidence that they would be able to figure their way out of this mess, she was starting to feel the first pangs of real anxiety on Riddle's behalf. She'd almost gone through her entire collection of books on Dark magic, and she'd found nothing useful. They'd tried a couple of spells already, but the curse was strong and seemed to have been purposefully crafted to kill its victim rapidly... and painfully. Already, it was fighting the spell Amalia had used on his arm to slow its spread. She found herself wondering just who on earth had set this up – whoever the mysterious wizard was, he wasn't afraid to use some pretty Dark magic.

Riddle had already gone through all his books – even the ones from the Restricted Section of the Library, which detailed almost every known curse and their effects. There were many curses that resembled this one – a spreading numbness from the original contact point, accompanied by severe pain, eventually resulting in total paralysis and death – but none of their counter-curses seemed to have any effect.

"There was a reaction in the knife when we cast the counter-curse for Perniciosa," Amalia mused, thinking aloud, "I still feel like that's our only clue as to the nature of the curse…" she chewed her lip, and then sighed and picked up another book from her collection.

She unenthusiastically scanned the chapter index, but the subject matter was venomous animal bites, not cursed wounds. Having found no mention of anything resembling their current predicament, she tossed it aside, frustrated.

After a moment of thought, she grimaced and picked up her Healing Compendium again.

"You have an idea?" Riddle demanded from his position nearby, seated on a large, four-poster bed. The inside of the tent was lavishly decorated and much bigger than it seemed from the outside – there was an expansive kitchen area, three different bedrooms and a sitting room, and even a lavatory enchanted with workable plumbing. "What are you looking up?"

Amalia shot him a grim look. "Amputation."

His already pale face seemed to drain of what little colour remained, and he stiffened. "We are not cutting off my arm." He hissed. "There has to be something else we can try-"

"I'm being realistic." She cut him off, for once deadly serious. "Arms can be regrown – but you only have one life to lose."

A complex expression of mingled disgust and anger flitted across his face, as if the mere thought of his own loaming death absolutely repulsed him. His magic flared like a dark cloud around him, adding to the stress Amalia's spell was under to hold back the curse.

"Be careful!" she warned crossly, instantly on her feet.

He scowled, but quickly got his emotions under control again, his magic subsiding like a fading electrical storm. She quickly approached and inspected his arm – her magic was holding, but barely.

She let out a breath in relief.

Pain made his brow contract, but then his gaze snapped up to meet hers, and she read only determination in his dark eyes. "What if there was some kind of way to draw off the curse – like you draw poison from a wound?"

Amalia considered for a moment. "I don't know…" she said hesitantly, "This curse is strong- And if it's already entered your bloodstream…"

"It's behaving like a poison – we've determined that much." He argued stubbornly. "Let's try and cure it like one."

Amalia hesitated a while longer, and then shrugged. "Sure," she said, "Why not? We can give it a try." She turned and went back to her books, sitting cross-legged on the floor again and pulling her Healing Compendium closer with frown. "Let's see… poisons…"

Riddle got up and moved to join her, sinking slowly down to sit on the thick carpet across from her. He was reluctantly grateful for her intellect… and her company... on this quest. Of course, if he'd had his way, their positions would have been reversed, and his own life would never have been in any danger at all.

"Okay." Amalia said decisively, having found the chapter she was looking for. Several illustrated pages detailed poisons and all the various methods of their removal. Some of the incantations were complex, but she had more faith in her ability to cast complicated spells than she did brewing any cure in the form of a potion. They didn't have the luxury of ingredients or time to even start exploring that option, anyway.

"Accio knife." She said, waving her wand. Riddle watched as a glittering silver knife soared out of her bag, and into her left hand. The cursed stone knife lay on the ground nearby, for the moment ignored.

"What are you going to do?" He demanded. The pain was growing with every passing minute, as if his arm was caught in a vice which kept tightening, and it was getting harder to think clearly.

"To test if your idea works," she explained, "I'm going to replicate the curse in a safe way, and then attempt to cure it with the healing spell." She bit her lip. "Though I still don't think it's going to work…"

Riddle watched in silence as she pulled one of his books on curses closer, and frowned in concentration as she composed her replica curse. "Since it might be related to the Perniciosa curse, I'll just use a weaker version of it-" she placed the knife on the floor before her, and drew in a deep breath. She waved her wand in a complex pattern over the blade of the silver knife, chanting the curse's incantation under her breath repetitively, "Maledictum perniciosa, infirmao parvulus-"

It took only a few moments of casting for the knife to suddenly glow a sickly yellow, signifiying the curse was taking form. A moment later, and the eerie light faded, leaving the knife looking ordinary once more.

Amalia licked her lips. "Right." She muttered, and steeled herself. In one quick move, she picked up the knife by the handle in her right hand, and slashed her left palm in a similar way to Riddle's current wound.

Biting back a hiss of pain, she calmly placed the knife back on the ground again, ignoring the drips of blood currently running in rivulets down her arm, and turned her attention to her faithful Healing Compendium.

Before she started the spell to (hopefully) "draw out" the curse from her wound, she glanced up, and then stopped at the Riddle's expression.

"What is it?" she asked impatiently, eager to try out the spell.

His obsidian eyes gazed at her with a curious intensity. His head cocked slightly to one side. "You… cut your hand." He stated bluntly.

"Excellent powers of observation there, Tom." She drawled sarcastically, and waited.

He made no reply, but Amalia fancied she saw a brief flash of emotion in his dark eyes, as if her response confused him.

She raised an eyebrow. "And what's the problem? I need to test if the healing spell works. This is the easiest way. It's a weak version of a similar curse – and one that we actually do have the counter-curse for. I'm in no real danger."

He was silent a moment. Then he said, stiffly, "Even a wound the size of a papercut would have accomplished the same thing-"

Amalia shrugged. "I wanted to be sure the depth of the wound was also replicated. It may affect the strength of the healing spell that will be required to-"

"Very well." He interrupted her, sounding irritable. "That is... logical. Get on with it, then. You're bleeding all over the carpet." He looked away from her hand and huffed, as if the sight of her blood offended him.

She shot him a lopsided grin. "Right away, dear."

He rolled his eyes.

Amalia looked back at her book, her grin fading as she turned her considerable powers of concentration on the complex healing she was about to attempt.

"Well, here goes…" she muttered, and began.

Ten minutes later, she gave up.

"It's not working." She announced, and then coughed, her throat dry from the continual stream of spells she'd been trying. She got up and stretched, her spine cracking, and then quickly retrieved a glass of water from the kitchen area of the tent, before returning.

Riddle looked worse than ever – there was a faint sheen of sweat on his brow from the increasing pain of the curse as it struggled to break free. It wouldn't be long now – they had to make a decision. Either he lost his arm, or he would die. Even amputation couldn't guarantee success – but it was the only thing Amalia could think of.

There was another solution, and that was going to Dumbledore for help, but she knew better than to suggest it. She suspected he actually rather would choose death.

"Why didn't it work?" he rasped, his jaw clenched.

"My best guess is... I don't have enough power," she explained. "Even the weakest of curses are difficult to isolate – it's an intangible substance, after all. Magic doesn't like gripping onto magic... If only we knew more about the origin of the curse-"

"What, Perniciosa?" Riddle grunted, looking somewhat distracted by the inconvenience of his impending demise, "It was brought to Europe by colonialist, from the depths of Africa." He snorted. "As if that helps us one bit-"

"Riddle," Amalia interrupted, eyes wide with realisation, "You're a genius!" she suddenly dove into her piles of books, hurriedly searching through each stack, papers flying. "I think…! I think it's here somewhere…!"

"What are you talking about?" he demanded, but despite his flat tone, a glimmer of hope seemed to ignite in his dark eyes as he followed her feverish movements.

"Ahah!" she said triumphantly, and held aloft her prize.

Riddle facepalmed with his good hand. "You've got to be joking…"

"Why? This is perfect! It's just what we need-"

"For the last time, Amalia," he growled bad-temperedly, "That is not a book written by David Livingstone-!"

She waved off his exclamation and eagerly opened the zebra-skinned book, scanning each hand-written page rapidly. "It's true, I haven't really had a chance to read this properly since I got it," she explained excitedly, "Which is why I absolutely forgot about it's existence – unforgivable, really, since this is such a rare and exciting-"

"-obvious fake!" He snapped.

"Shut up, Tom." She said briskly. "I'm about to save your life, just sit tight for a moment…"

He subsided with a mumbled stream of invective.

"There is a mention of curses!" she announced triumphantly, her eyes flying across the page. "…He was staying with some tribe, and he mentions their chief, S... sesh-Sechele?– Am I saying that right? I don't know how to pronounce-"

"GRAY-"

"Ahem, yes, well, apparently they only used one spell to remove curses – all curses. Hm." She hummed thoughtfully. "That's weird."

"Because it's not true." Gritted out Riddle, massaging his temples.

"Perhaps if I mix it with the healing spell…?" she mused to herself, ignoring him. "He's written out the incantation phonetically, so it shouldn't be too hard to-" she suddenly broke off, and a light dusting of pink rose in her cheeks, "Oh, um… and he recommends it should be, um… sung, which apparently makes the spell stronger…"

"It's not going to work!" snapped Riddle, "Don't you see, that entire book is just a sham, a worthless piece of-" he broke off with a sudden cry, holding his arm in a white-knuckled grip.

"Oh, damn." Whispered Amalia, eyes wide. The spell holding back the curse had finally given in.

"I guess amputation's off the table then... it's too late." She said with grim resignation, "Right… Right… I can do this, can't I? It's just singing. It's not embarrassing at all…"

"Gray!" he snapped, "Whatever you're going to do, do it now!" he commanded brusquely, feeling a wave of nausea as the curse spread. It was getting harder to breathe. He tried to gather his thoughts – perhaps there was another counter-curse, something he'd overlooked, another spell he simply hadn't thought of, anything-

And then he heard her voice, uncertain at first, but then gathering in confidence and speed. She was chanting the African spell, a mix of unfamiliar words and sounds, but to the tune of one of the popular school songs, last performed at a recent Quidditch match by the school choir. It was odd, but… the words had a curious power, he could sense it almost immediately. There was an ancient strength there that he didn't understand, wrapping around them both like an invisible web. The very light seemed to change, the magical lanterns scattered around the tent seeming to pulse gently in response to the spell's power, wavering as if in a heat haze.

Amalia had closed her eyes, her brow contracted in extreme concentration, but her voice rang out clear and confident. She caught and held each note quite effortlessly. Riddle found himself thinking wryly that if Professor Beery had known about her voice, he might have turned that horrendous play into an even more horrendous musical.

His mind was also clearing with each passing moment, the pain miraculously receding. He watched in disbelief as the wound on Amalia's left hand stopped bleeding, the skin turning a healthy pink and then slowly knitting together. He quickly looked down at his own hand and saw the same process happening there, albeit slower.

At last, he felt the final tendrils of the curse leave his body entirely, and with a muffled crack, the stone knife lying on the ground nearby broke in half, handle and blade separated neatly.

Amalia broke off her singing at the sudden noise, her eyes flying open in surprise, and the protective web of strong magic around them suddenly dispersed, as if blown away by a strong wind.

With wide eyes, she looked from her own healed hand, to his. A delighted, wicked grin lit up her face.

He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance. "Don't say it-"

"I told you so!" She brandished the book at him with a winning smile.

"Ugh."

She's going to be even more insufferable from now on… he thought to himself, and listened to her laughing, delighted, relieved that he was out of danger.

And Riddle discovered that, for once, he really didn't find the sound too unpleasant.

To be continued…

Author's note:

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