Horns!
It couldn't be true, but there they were, pushing out from his scalp, covered in a soft ecru fuzz and growing by the day. At first he'd merely been angry that the dark wizard he and Ron had pursued for three months had nearly gotten away, thanks to his slow reaction and total bloody lack of defense. If Ron hadn't stepped in with a killing curse, he would have escaped with three captive muggle children still under his control and feeding his grim powers. But they'd saved the day, or rather Ron had saved the day, and Harry had woken up in a daze, lying on his back, staring up at the cold December sky with the overwhelmingly bitter taste of failure in his mouth.
He didn't begrudge Ron the collar, that wasn't the Auror way. Besides, he was well overdue for a tremendous act of heroism. What kind of friend would Harry be if he couldn't be happy for his friend's success? Still, it had chafed when they'd raised their glasses to Ron back at the Ministry of Magic, and for once Harry wasn't the "jolly good fellow, which nobody can deny."
When he noticed the first bump on his scalp,he thought it was just a resurgence of teen acne, which had followed him into his early twenties, and now at the quarter century mark was only just beginning to pass. He used a tea tree tincture and a clarity charm in the hopes of whisking away the problem before it could become inflamed. But when he noticed the matching bump on the other side later that afternoon, he thought it seemed like an odd coincidence. Symmetrical acne was not something his body was known for.
The following morning the bumps had grown further, about the size of a Knut each. They weren't painful, just a pair of hard, rounded domes that were easily concealed by his hair. He spent some time in the morning researching possible causes in the spell archives, until patrol duty with Ron tore him away. He didn't mention it to his partner, it didn't seem worthy of mention.
By Wednesday the lumps had become two hard knots, as big around as a Sickle, sticking out several centimeters from his scalp. Only his exceptionally messy hair kept them concealed. On anyone with a normal haircut they would be visible as two white circles. That was when he decided to visit the Ministry Healer, the head of the Department of Magical Maladies and Wizard Health Services, the man to whom all of St. Mungo's healers reported. Surely a man of his stature would know right away what he was looking at.
"Did you hit your head recently?" the Ministry Healer frowned as he poked the bumps with his wand. "These look like lumps you get when you bump your head."
"I haven't hit my head." Harry said. He was sitting in his undershirt and shorts on an examination table, not quite sure why he was so close to naked when the problem was on his skull.
"The lumps are perfectly symmetrical," the Healer grasped his chin and tipped his face up so he could squint at him straight on. He retrieved a set of calipers from a drawer and measured Harry's head lengthwise and widthwise, then grunted thoughtfully.
"So what is it?" Harry asked. "Can I put my trousers on now?"
"Certainly, get dressed." The Healer sat at his desk and thumbed through a few books while Harry yanked on his trousers and buttoned up his shirt. He tied his tie and pulled his Auror robes around his shoulders, and finally sat impatiently at the older man's desk.
"Anything?" he asked. He resisted the urge to touch the bumps, the fuzzy lumps that he was certain were bigger now than they had been just this morning.
"Horns," the Healer looked up. "You're growing horns."
"Horns," Harry said dumbly. "Why in Merlin's name would that be happening?"
"I haven't a clue," the Healer laughed, then realized it probably wasn't funny to his patient. "Have you been hexed recently? Perhaps on a recent case?"
"I don't think so," Harry stopped mid-denial. Well, that wasn't altogether true. "Maybe. I cast a Patronus at a suspect last week and he countered with a curse, but I wasn't quite able to hear what it was. It knocked me out, but I thought my Patronus absorbed it."
"Did you capture the suspect? Could you find out what he cast?"
"He's dead," Harry said grimly.
"Well," the Healer sat back in his chair. "That makes my job a bit harder, now doesn't it?"
"Right," Harry pushed his glasses up on his forehead and rubbed his eyes. "Is there anything I can do about it? I'd like it cleared up before Christmas if possible."
"None that I know of," the Healer closed his heavy book with a soft thud. "I'll keep researching. Come back and see me if it doesn't clear up on its own."
Harry agreed, but he knew he was just getting lip service. Of course it wasn't going to clear up on its own. Nothing ever did.
0oOo0
When the fuzzy nubs started to peek out through the thicket of Harry's hair, he finally had to come clean to Ron. They shared a flat, after all. And they were partners. And they were best mates. So of course he needed to know.
"Horns," Ron frowned as he looked up from the ice box. "Are you certain?"
"What does it look like to you?" Harry bowed his head and flattened his hair with his hands.
Ron took a sip from his beer bottle and approached slowly. He touched one of the lumps with the tip of his finger, sending a tingle down Harry's spine.
"Why would you be growing horns?" Ron shuddered and backed away. "If you grew scales, I would understand that."
"For Merlin's sake, why?"
"Well, you being a Parselmouth and all," Ron shrugged.
"I guess," Harry didn't think that sounded understandable at all.
"But horns, I don't have an explanation for that."
"Neither did the healer," Harry sighed and dropped into a chair. "I'm going to have to start wearing hats."
"Maybe Hermione would know what to do about them," Ron suggested. "She's back from her trip to Norway. The Centaur conference went well."
"I'm not ready to tell anyone else."
"But she might-"
"I know she might," Harry said. "It's just too embarrassing. I can't tell her."
"All right," Ron eyed him dubiously. "But when they start curling around your head like a ram, maybe you'll consider letting her have a look."
"If it gets to that point, I will," Harry said. "In the meantime, let's see what we can come up with on our own."
And that was why Harry, who laid motionless in bed staring at the ceiling, was now bald.
0oOo0
"You don't have to tell me where your eyebrows went, but you will take your hat off," Kingsley was low on patience and nothing Harry said would deter him.
His eyebrows were slowly growing in, twin lines of black stubble, and his eyelashes were starting to make a reappearance as well. He had used up all of his sick days waiting until he looked semi-human again, but of course that meant the horns had had the opportunity to grow significantly in that time.
He reluctantly lifted his stocking cap and revealed the two pale protrusions, which now stuck as far out of his stubbly hair as the length of his index finger.
"Well," Kingsley sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "That's interesting. When did that happen?"
"About a week ago, sir," Harry was miserable.
"A week?" Kingsley shot straight up in his chair and scowled. "You've been walking around with a curse for a week? You know better than that."
"Sir, I apologize but I didn't think it was serious enough-"
"Serious enough? Great Merlin's ghost you're growing horns!" Kingsley rose to his feet and pointed at the door. "You get yourself to the Healer and don't show up for duty again until you're cleared of all spells."
"Yessir," Harry hung his head and slouched out of the Minister's office. Belatedly he pulled the stocking cap over his head to conceal his buzzed hair and the unmistakable shapes growing from his skull.
Unfortunately the Healer was no closer to identifying the cause of the growth than he was on the first visit. He grunted and squinted and huffed and sighed, he poked and prodded and scraped and pulled, but offered no answers.
"You know what this looks like," he murmured as he held an illuminated wand above Harry's head and peered at the growths through a magnifying lens. "Deer velvet."
"What's that?" Harry flinched and covered his horns with his hands as the doctor scraped again.
"It's a soft, almost velvety sheath that covers antlers when they're first growing in," the Healer murmured as he leaned in closer. "It's used extensively in vitality magic. It increases testosterone and stamina."
"Does that mean it comes off?" Harry was too distressed by the lack of answers to get his hopes up again.
"It might," the healer said. "Try scrubbing it in the shower. And if it comes off will you bring it to me? I could put it to good use."
"You want to make a potion from my-," Harry couldn't finish as the gorge rose in his throat.
"If it's normal deer velvet, I don't see what the problem is."
"I have to go," Harry scooped up his shirt and ran for the door.
He misjudged the width of the doorway and clipped the tip of his right horn on the frame, knocking him into the opposite wall. He clutched his skull where the growth emerged and seethed while his vision spun. That wasn't any fun. And the fact that they were getting big enough to run into things was terrifying. It was time to haul out the big artillery.
It was time to go see Hermione.