Chapter 13 Marriage, medicine and murder

Once again Harry woke up from a major magical shock to the system, lying on his back while a face slowly resolved itself into recognisability. This time, it was Ted's face. "What happened?" Harry asked.

"You've been unconscious from magical exhaustion. Hermione asks you not to tell me if you start remembering. And not to do any magic, which I will tell you as well, so be sure to check with me before you decide to do any more ... I'm not sure what adjective to use; I'm happy to accept that you're trying to make us safer, so I know that it's not justified to use adjectives like foolhardy, irresponsible or childish, and also that we might be better off not knowing, but magical exhaustion is not like physical exhaustion, so if you are considering to do something similar, be sure to have me available to monitor you, and don't assume you can try again simply because you feel fine."

He nodded to show he had understood and accepted the warning. The first bit had managed to jog his memory. Hermione had had the idea of protecting an undug tunnel with a Fidelius charm, hoping that the digging itself could be done by magic and stay undetectable. They had had some prior indication that it might be possible when they had cast a Fidelius on their floo network, which had hidden the new connections that they had added after casting the Fidelius. The only additional challenge had been that an undug tunnel had nothing to distinguish it from the surrounding subsoil except the intent of the spellcaster, so it required enormous concentration to create a magical boundary where there wasn't yet a corresponding physical boundary. And the Fidelius was a very taxing spell to begin with. He'd have to wait for Hermione to come back to find out whether he had at least been successful. However, what he asked was, "how long have I been out."

"Five days."

Harry made a grimace. Andromeda, Hermione, Efrain Prewett and Harry had been going to go to Mondragon in Spain two days before to learn about a collective of collaborating co-ops, after which Harry would stay to work with the Spanish, French and Italian aurors to try and coordinate their efforts to dismantle the local chapters of the British smuggling ring, while the others went to Copenhagen to buy potion ingredients, and pick up Noêmia and Lilian on the way back to Britain.

"We asked Cicely to tell the Spanish Ministry of Magic that you were ill, and the others went on the trip you had planned."

Harry slowly nodded.

"It will be a few days yet before you're ready to travel. Once you are well enough to walk, but not recovered enough to go portkeying all over Spain to go on raids, maybe the two of us can go and talk to the 11-year-olds. Get that task out of the way."

Harry hummed in acknowledgement. The days when he couldn't wait to leave the hospital wing as soon as he woke up were over. The previous year had been hectic. Then, as soon as the pupils had left for the summer holidays, he and Hermione had tried to cast the Fidelius. If Remus had managed to teach him anything, it was to pay attention to what his body told him, and it was quite clearly telling him to drink and eat and then go back to sleep.

Once Ted was satisfied Harry was fully recovered, Harry went to spend a month in Spain, France and Italy. Over the previous Christmas holidays the Spanish aurors had wanted to use the same approach as Harry had used during the raids in the summer, but Harry had convinced them that because they hadn't been successful in every country, that approach would have been quite thoroughly analysed, and counters for every part would have been found. Therefore, he had done a detailed study of the British smuggling activities in Southern Europe.

Harry had received some incomplete accounting of import taxes, and Hermione, with her attention to detail and ability to see patterns from only a few of the parts, had suggested the border patrols were artificially keeping an antagonistic working relationship with their foreign counterparts, so that they could accept bribes, but blame the irregularities in the accounts on their foreign colleagues. When the aurors in the various countries tried to collaborate to arrest the smugglers, they made sure that the evidence was mysteriously always somebody else's responsibility.

Harry had gained quite a name for himself by getting 8 countries to collaborate in a single operation. Thanks to that, Hermione's analysis, a fear that Voldemort's influence would spill out of the British borders, and the fact that he was not a resident of any of the countries that were used to keeping a wary eye on each other, he could push for a multi-country audit that led to the arrest of quite a few corrupt officials, and a temporary freeze in smuggling activity. This led to a pile-up of goods that couldn't get to the intended destination and which could then sometimes be traced back to producers doing under-the-counter business.

Although MACUSA had only allowed Harry to use his auror badge as a platform to stand on, but hadn't paid him for the work that didn't involve the USA, he nevertheless came away with a feeling that it was a month well spent. Indeed, Sirius confirmed that emigration out of Britain continued at a small but steady trickle, and that, although Death Eater violence was a problem, it was less of one than a shrinking economy and a brain drain of competent half-bloods who couldn't find work in an aging Ministry and businesses that had a hard time staying afloat in a society with an increasing trade deficit, increasing taxes and a lack of political impetus to adapt to the changing situation.

He also went to the wedding of Remus and Dora. The wedding had been planned around Harry's availability, as they all appreciated that leaving Britain just once a year was enough of a risk.

Meanwhile, in Britain.

"Neville, I've devised a potion," Hermione said.

"Do I need to grow the ingredients?"

"No. There is a problem, though. It might not work. Or even make the situation worse."

"What situation?"

"I don't want you to get your hopes up."

That gave Neville pause, because there was one forlorn hope that never quite left him. "You're talking about my parents, aren't you?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure the situation can get worse. Even if they die I think they would be better off."

"Does your grandmother also think so?"

"Even if she thinks so, she would never say so, because that would be improper. I'll write to her. She might agree to an experimental treatment."

"It might be best if you leave my name out of it."

"I think so too," thinking of their being in hiding, but then he wondered if she had meant something else and asked, "wait, are you saying it's like the infertility potion?"

"It has some of the same ingredients, yes," Hermione admitted. Like the infertility potion, it had magical components that increased the residence time of the muggle medicine in the body. In this case, the muggle component was infarct medicine, and it was more complicated than the infertility potion, because it also included a base of organ regenerating potion. "Therefore, it will have to be kept out of the hands of the St Mungo's staff. We can worry about that once we know what your grandmother thinks."

"OK."

"Gran agrees with me that as long as the potion doesn't cause them pain, then it's worth a try."

"Do you think she'd agree to take them out of the hospital and treat them at her home? Maybe, if she and her elves would find it difficult to give the same care as they get now, she could hire a nurse and swear them to secrecy?"

"You don't think they will either be healed and be able to take care of themselves or not be healed and could be taken back?"

"No. I think any improvement will be slow to manifest. The brain is a very complex organ. If the treatment works at all I would expect to see a gradual improvement over the course of months. Although that is based on muggle healing, so I can't say for sure."

"I will owl her. How long do you need to make the potion."

"I could make it this weekend. Do you want to wait for that and send the potion to her with your next letter?"

"No, I'll write her now, then she'll know what to expect."

"Gran said she and the elves will try by themselves first and hold the option of hiring a private healer in reserve."

"OK. I would suggest a drop a week. If there is an initial improvement, but then no further improvement for a week I would slow the dosage to a drop every two months. If there is no initial improvement after three weeks she could try halving the time between drops until she's giving them a drop a day. If there is no improvement when it's all used up then I don't think it's going to work."

When Harry came back from Southern Europe, the rest of the staff reported how they, and especially the house-elves, had been monitoring the werewolves since Harry had killed Greyback. It had taken several months, during which presumably several werewolves had vied for the position of the new alpha, but in due course a new hierarchy had been established, which had several of them still associating with known Death Eaters, led by the new alpha. Harry went out to assassinate the alpha, hoping the rest of the werewolves would get the message that this would continue until they changed. Harry was in no danger of following the path that many Death Eaters had taken, enjoying killing and torturing. However, he had had a childhood that had forced him to suppress many of his emotions, and had killed in self-defence at the age of 11, and once again during his last year as a full-time auror, and Greyback the previous year, so he had become somewhat inured to the trauma of taking someone's life. Although killing the two werewolf alphas had not been in situations of kill or be killed, he was clear that it was in defence of innocent lives that would have been taken if he'd done nothing.

Noêmia had brought a collection of wands that she had made as an apprentice wandwright. All the first years had been furnished with wands they could use, but she had warned that some of them, and some of the older pupils as well, had wands that were not particularly good fits. She had gone to meet the centaurs in a part of the Forbidden Forest that was outside the Hogwarts wards, and had agreed on a trade of potions or potions ingredients that didn't grow in Britain for wand core materials. Centaur, unicorn, thestral and mermaid hair, hippogriff feathers, grindylow bones, she would try anything the centaurs could get their hands on. She encouraged the pupils to try out new wands as she made them, and to trade them for their current wands if they found they worked better.

"Do you remember that two months ago you suggested we need to keep adding initiatives to keep the Ministry of Magic occupied?" Hermione asked Harry.

"Yes, have you thought of something?" Harry asked hopefully.

"Not exactly," she admitted, "I tried for a long time, but in the end I had to agree with Andromeda, that hunting down Death Eaters could very well backfire, and what we're doing to wage economic war by undermining the smuggling ring and removing rare magical plants from the wild, and making supporting them more dangerous by killing the werewolf alphas has worked well so far, but I haven't managed to come up with another such strategy yet. Which made me try to think laterally, and I was wondering whether we could add a more political strategy. Which got me to think we could try to reach out to the muggle government, to ask both whether they have had problems with acts of terrorism they couldn't explain and with which we might be able to help them, and whether we could be recognised as a secondary school. We'd have to get a dispensation from the prime minister, though, that we'd not be subject to the normal inspections. The registration as an official school will probably become necessary if some of our pupils choose to focus on magical subjects and only do the minimum number of GCSEs, because then their local authority could complain their schooling doesn't meet the standards of the legally required 'full-time education'. It's probably safer to reach out before it gets to that. And my hope is as well that in time a more cordial relationship with the muggle government will help us in our struggle with the Ministry controlled society."

They had talked about reaching out to the muggle government when some of the parents had been asked about the home schooling of their children, but it was mostly the younger children who had more magical than muggle subjects, and for them school inspectors were more inclined to accept the parents' arguing that the children were focussing on learning other things than GCSE topics, and UK law was rather vague about what constituted the required 'full-time education', so at the time they had concluded they would be in a better position to look like a serious school when their first boarding students had passed their GCSEs.

"What has changed your mind about waiting until our credentials as a school have been demonstrated?"

"I thought about the logistics. The International Statute of Secrecy forbids us to talk about magic with the local authorities of each pupil, so we have to negotiate some national scheme. The only muggle I know for sure knows about magic is the prime minister, but if we send a letter to him it will be read by a secretary who's not to know. Since we can't through the Ministry of Magic, I thought our best option would be to ask Remus to go to MACUSA to ask for an introduction to the USA president, and ask him to deliver a message directly to the prime minister. All that is going to take some time.

Also, the elves tell me there are occasional incursions of magicals into muggle areas, and we might want to offer help to deal with any problems."

To prepare for possible responses to the latter problem, they agreed to install more unplottable apparation points across the country. The points they had created up to that point were mostly near muggle transport hubs, so that they could travel across the country by apparating between points, and then travelling the last leg of the journey by muggle means.

Now, they added points with the aim of being able to apparate to points near Death Eater attacks and travel the last leg by broom under Harry's cloak of invisibility. They added points until every part of the UK was within 25 miles of an apparation point. That was almost 15 minutes at top speed on a broom, and longer than Harry would have liked, but already it required 100 points to cover the whole country, and it would be difficult enough to keep the distinguishing features of each point in mind and not get splinched. Moreover, adding another 100 points would only reduce the furthest travelling distance to 17 miles, so they were well into diminishing returns.

During the last staff meeting before the start of the school year they agreed to try to contact the prime minister. When no-one else had raised the point of who was going to give the opening speech, Harry did. Neville tried to point out that Harry was the most popular teacher, but Harry objected that there was little point in all of them sharing the job of head of school unless they made it obvious to the pupils, so he proposed that everyone but him draw a straw. He'd even brought straws.

Ted had drawn the short straw and repeated the instruction of secrecy first, followed by announcements, "Ms Viridian will take over the classes of runes, music and English Literature. Ms Araujo will take over the classes of herbology and Portuguese. Mr Longbottom will teach art & design. Ms Granger will start a class of arithmancy, which will be open to anyone who has passed at least two second-year classes. Dobby will teach apparating during weekends from January, which will be open to those who will be 17 or older on the exam dates of 29 and 30 May 2004." Although the school had only been going for a year, most of the pupils who had had a portrait tutor had managed to pass the second-year exam for either charms or runes, and some, especially among those that had had a wand for more than a year and/or had been in the advanced group that were aiming to take their OWLs in two years' time, had managed both, and Hermione had been keen to start a class in arithmancy as soon as possible, even if the class would be small.

Harry found that teaching had become much less stressful. While the previous year every class had needed lots of preparation, most of what he was teaching was a repeat of the previous year, and he only had to add the GCSE year of history, and preparing for the charms and defence classes of the advanced group of pupils.

Thanks to that he was able to devote more thought to their long-term goal of becoming the only magical society in Britain. They organised discussion evenings to talk about a legal framework for their economic policy, discussions they targeted towards their oldest pupils, some of whom they hoped would start magical co-operatives, although a few of their younger pupils also showed an interest.

Harry continued trying to cast a Fidelius charm on a tunnel that hadn't been dug out yet, and found that initially going for a shorter stretch allowed him to successfully cast it, and also that with practice he could take on longer stretches. After a few tries within the wards of the school he started short stretches of tunnel from the nearest unplottable ward he had set up in London towards the land under Diagon Alley, hoping that eventually they would hit upon a Gringotts vault or the tunnels between them.

Harry also kept a closer look on the changing situation with the werewolves, which was just as well because the leadership succession was developing faster. The previous year it had taken months for a new leadership structure to crystalise among the werewolves, presumably because Greyback had kept the others cowed while he was alive, but also had been strong enough to allow his betas to be capable leaders in their own right, so that the struggle among them to emerge as the new alpha had been protracted. This time a new alpha appeared relatively quickly. The new alpha obviously didn't have the same iron grip on the pack, though, because half of them had disappeared, either killed in the struggle of establishing a new hierarchy or emigrated. However, the new alpha still kept the association with the Death Eaters going. In response, in February Harry killed another alpha werewolf.

Harry's relationship with Hermione was ticking along. They got on well enough, but it was clear to Harry that Hermione was biding her time; that they were both avoiding the contentious topics because they couldn't afford to waste their time and energy arguing. Unfortunately, that meant that sometimes a virtual wall would appear between them, but so far they had always ended up able to set their disagreements to one side, as they were not only well acquainted with the topics on which they disagreed, but also with their shared history, and in particular that they both felt that the school had to be their priority.

Neville's parents had been improving slowly. It was uncannily similar to having a baby. They went through milestones of regaining being toilet trained, feeding themselves, speaking their first words. Alice had always been slightly more responsive than Frank, and she had also been recuperating faster. To some extent she had been pulling her husband along by getting him to copy her. They had added Longbottom Manor to their secret floo system, making it easier for Neville and Noêmia to visit. Alice and Frank hadn't visited the school yet because of security concerns. They were unsure whether their cognition was recovered enough for them to understand an unbreakable vow, and it couldn't be ruled out that the Ministry of Magic might grow curious about their leaving St Mungo's and send a legilimens to investigate their mental faculties.

The werewolf drama continued. Greyback's former pack had split, and, in addition, one lone werewolf had taken up Greyback's strategy of infecting children, who were then left to be killed or learn to survive in a hostile world, no doubt with the plan to form those strong enough to survive into a new pack. However, the magical maps conferred a devastating advantage. It took two months to recognise that the first attack had not been a random attack but a strategy, so the third month Harry went out to kill a fourth werewolf. He had started this war, so, in the absence of better alternatives, he felt that all he could do was see it through.

Seeing it through included thinking of what would happen to the infected children, so Harry went to ask Neville, "how difficult would it be to grow our own ingredients for the wolfsbane potion?"

"The most difficult would be incisors of the padrafellos. They're tropical magical rodents. We'd have to dig out a new chamber to build a habitat. Figure out how big a population would give a continuous supply. We'd have to look into the age distribution we'd be aiming for. Do you want me to look into it?"

"It's not our only option. We could decide not to invite any children who are werewolves to come here. Or we could isolate them without wolfsbane. I know you're busy."

"We still have contacts in Brazil; I'll ask Noêmia to ask a few questions."

"Thanks, Neville."

After some back and forth communication, their school became a participant in a global breeding program which had been set up once it became clear, shortly after the invention of the wolfsbane potion, that the existing wild population of padrafellos wouldn't support the increasing demand. They would trade animals with the other breeding sites every few years to suppress inbreeding, which would allow them to have a population that was only as big as needed to have a steady supply of incisors.

Neville had started an animal husbandry club, with the goal of growing it in time to an OWL subject in care of creatures.

Neville's parents had agreed to join the school. The potion that Hermione had developed had run its course. The result was less than perfect but vastly better than their previous existence. They could take care of their basic needs, but they hardly spoke. Augusta's life revolved around the Longbottom seat in the Wizengamot, and managing the estate and business interests, and these things turned out to be beyond Alice and Frank's capabilities. In the school they quickly found a valued place, helping Neville and Noêmia cultivating the less dangerous plants, and they were good with the primary-school-aged children.

On the day after the final end-of-year exam they organised a discussion about where they wanted to take the school. Attendance was compulsory for boarding students, and they strongly encouraged all the weekend pupils to participate as well. To that end they held it on a Saturday, and had announced the event well in advance, so that those who normally only came on Sunday could hopefully arrange to come as well. The main topic of the discussion was whether the way the school was currently organised worked for all the pupils. They had three ways of getting their secondary education. There was the boarding option for those who wanted to live and work in magical society, and whose main schooling would be OWLs and NEWTs, with possibly a few GCSEs and A-levels. There was the option for those who wanted to live and work in muggle society, who would attend muggle school during the week and who only needed to obtain enough magical education during the weekends that they wouldn't endanger themselves or the Statute of Secrecy or give away the existence of the new society to the Ministry of Magic. It was clear that those two options together made up the majority. One of the questions they had was whether they needed to accommodate those who wanted to mainly live in muggle society but wanted to do more than the minimum to get their wandright, possibly by taking longer than 7 years to obtain their NEWTs, and who might want to come and live in their magical enclave once more amenities were available, or once they had finished higher muggle education. They told the pupils that they didn't think the converse would work, to have a mostly magical education but still do a full complement of GCSEs and A-levels later on, because it would be difficult to justify the slow progress to their muggle schooling when they couldn't tell them about their magical education. They had hoped to discuss that problem with the muggle government, but Remus' efforts to arrange such a discussion had been mired in bureaucracy.

They also asked about the classes they wanted. They could conceivably add care of magical creatures, astronomy and/or ritual magic. Or possibly more applied classes in healing or enchanting. The same question could be asked about muggle subjects, whether the boarding pupils saw it as a problem that they didn't offer classes in chemistry, physics and/or IT, because they wouldn't be able to teach the practical side of these classes at the same site as the magical classes, because the wards would short-circuit the electronics.

During the staff meeting after the discussion, they agreed that the discussion had been useful, but somewhat one-sided, being mostly a dissemination of information from the staff to the pupils. The first- and second-year pupils were all boarders, so there was some suggestion they might phase out the weekend classes in time, but it was too early to make any decisions in that respect. They had talked about further education that would expand their farming and healing capacities. They had talked about graduates going abroad to receive vocational training. There had been considerable interest in classes that relied on electronics, but no ideas on how to make that work in terms of staff hiring, setting up a secure site without wards, let alone how to manage a society that straddled two lifestyles that every other country they knew of kept separated. They agreed to have another discussion the following year, hoping that with time the pupils would start to come up with their own suggestions and initiatives.