Author's Notes: Thank you for everyone who is reviewing! I know it's getting insanely long. If you can, please join me on either (Sarah Jaune) or Facebook.

Thank you to Arnel for beta'ing!
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter

Clearing the ministry used to take a solid twenty minutes but after the explosion that happened a few years before they'd worked through clearing the building in under ten minutes and Harry was pleased and encouraged to see that today they managed it in less than seven minutes. They had set up emergency Portkeys all through the building to transport large groups and it was simply a matter of the alarms being triggered and the groups gathering to leave, ensuring that no one was left behind.

Harry had been forced to evict the Minister. She was not happy with him, but she went and convened with Teddy at a secondary office they kept in Gringotts for just such an emergency.

Bill showed up ten minutes after the alarms went off trailed by another man Harry didn't know but had seen around the bank. "This is Vick Stephens," Bill told Harry as he studied Daphne's erstwhile husband who was still slumped in the chair.

Harry stuck out his hand to the stocky black man. His hair was shorn close to his scalp and his eyes, which were closer to hazel than brown, fixed on Harry for a moment as he shook his hand before he refocused on Anthony Bugatti. "The boy said he's a bomb."

Harry assumed he was referring to Rick and nodded. "Did you speak with him?"

"He came with Teddy to the bank before heading to his flat," Bill explained as he pulled out his wand, but he hesitated and stepped back. "I'm going to have Vick take point on this, Harry. He's significantly better at this than I am."

"Go ahead," Harry said as he watched the man examine him. He didn't remove his wand for a long time but when he did, he didn't do much with it before he shook his head and straightened. "Anything?" Harry asked him as helplessness threatened to overwhelm him.

This was the part of being the boss that Harry seriously disliked. He had all his plans in place for if something happened to him. His family was provided for. His children knew he loved him. He had Teddy ready to step into his shoes, if needed and he would have advisors for the first year or so to help with the transition. He'd done his best to be a good husband and father. He'd done his best to be a good man.

It meant sending everyone away when their lives were threatened and handling it himself. He hated having to involve Bill in it, but he was essentially the highest human at Gringotts and there was no way Harry was going to risk a goblin's life in this matter. He sometimes felt like he hadn't learned anything in his years at this job, but he had learned that at the very minimum it was wrong to put the others in the magical community at risk when it was a human problem.

Then Hermione walked into the room.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Harry asked her, utterly exasperated with her. She had her graying curls pulled back in a tight bun and she had her reading glasses on their gold chain that was always around her neck. "You were ordered to evacuate!"

"I outrank you," Hermione told him with a tight smile. "What's going on?"

"You do not outrank me when it comes to security," Harry reminded her grimly. "Get out of here!"

"Let it go, Harry," Hermione said on a sigh. "I'm not leaving and I might be able to help. I spoke with Rick before they left the Ministry and I have a good idea of what he saw," she told him and he knew that meant she'd also spoken to Nat. "He said it's like the man has been turned into a bomb."

"Essentially, that is correct," Vick told her, not bothering to look back.

"Do you know Vick?" Bill asked her and she nodded. "Alright, what I'm seeing is that if he dies, he's going to blow up. That's all I'm getting right now."

"Agreed," Vick said as he straightened and sighed. "If we use any major spell on him to free him from the mind control he's under, he's going to blow. This is one hell of a curse, Bill."

"Peruvian?" Bill asked and Vick nodded. Bill let out a long string of curse words and scrubbed hard at his eyes. "Damn it!"

"Peruvians used curses?" Harry asked, never having heard of that.

"Yes," Hermione answered for them. "Their ancients were the absolute at destructive curses. It's why you've never heard of it. No one has been able to crack how to break their curses without completely destroying the entire area where the curse was placed. It meant that all the hidden treasures were lost in the process. The explosions were so hot that it incinerated everything."

Harry glanced between Hermione and Bill. "But… if this is ancient magic, how in the bloody hell did Crabbe recreate it?"

"I have no idea," Bill admitted miserably. He glanced over to Vick but he wasn't answering. "The truth is no one knows how to take this curse off. Rick might be able to. It's possible his special brand of magic could work, but we'd be risking his life for a possibility and absolutely no guarantee that this gem of a human is innocent and not in league with Crabbe."

Harry felt a small rushing in his ears as he tried to work through what on earth they were going to do with him. It was simultaneously horrendous to leave a man, who might be innocent, under a spell and a curse that was going to kill him, and equally as appalling to put a very young man's life at risk to try to remove a curse that could kill them both and even if he did manage to safely remove it, the man might then be found guilty and put to death. Crabbe's associates were now under international law and nothing could save him if he were found guilty.

"Do you have any ideas on how to remove it?" Hermione asked quietly.

"I don't," Bill said quickly. "I can think on it, but I've thought about those curses for years now, ever since we were trained to spot them. They hide a vast hoard of treasure that I'd like to have been part of recovering and I've never had any luck with it."

They waited a beat, waiting for Vick to say something, but he shook his head. "I don't, but there's a woman… she's an American scholar I met many years ago and this sort of thing is her life's work. Her name is Glenna Schlager and I believe if this man has a chance, at all, it will be from her."

"I'll get in touch with her," Hermione said quietly. "Where is she studying?"

"She's based out of Boston," Vick told her, "but she could be anywhere in the world. You will have to try to get her information from the Americans"

They watched Hermione leave and Bill's scarred face scrunched as he considered the other man. "I feel like I've heard of her. I thought she was German."

"I think she was German," Vick agreed with a dry chuckle, "but she decamped to America during the war and hasn't forgiven them for that. She's a Muggle-born Jew."

"The war?" Harry asked, absolutely confused. "What war was…" then his voice trailed off as he realized what war he must be referring to. "World War II?" At their nod of confirmation, Harry let out a whistle. "I mean, we live a long time but how old is she?"

"I think she's only a hundred and forty or so," Vick answered with a shrug. "Give or take a decade."

"So… quite old," Harry said as he considered the matter before looking at Bugatti and wondering, yet again, if it was even worth trying.

Then again, the man might explode in the Ministry, killing all of them, so it was a moot point. If he wasn't killed then, he'd have to be kept in isolation for the rest of his life and somehow Harry thought his very powerful and wealthy family was going to object to that.

An odd sense of sadness filled him as he thought of Daphne's face and wondered if this man had actually loved her or if he'd used her. She'd been targeted by the Death Eaters when she was young because her parents were complying in a way they wanted and she'd never recovered from it. Why would her first real shot at love end in such a spectacularly bad fashion?

"You okay?" Bill asked him quietly.

"Daphne's going to be devasted by this," Harry told him.

Bill's quirked brow reminded Harry that his bother-in-law didn't know the whole story. "Scorpius' aunt?"

"This," Harry told him with a nod towards Anthony Bugatti, "is Daphne's husband."

Bill let out a low whistle and Vick glanced between them, clearly confused. "Am I missing something crucial?"

"My son-in-law's aunt is married to this man," Harry explained quickly as he carefully pulled out a chair and sat before realizing what he was doing. It wasn't as though sitting in a chair was going to set off the curse! He internally rolled his eyes at himself and shook his head.

"Oh," Vick said with understanding. "So this is a family matter for you."

Harry had not considered that until he mentioned it, but damn if the man wasn't right. He was now related to Bugatti by marriage and that meant he was about to either be part of saving the man or watching him blow up.

Of course, if he blew up, then odds were good he was going to take Harry with him and that did seem like something family would do, especially the weird in-laws. His in-laws were Draco and Astoria Malfoy and despite having years and years to get used to the fact, it still never really sunk in.

There was a sound at the door and Harry scowled at Rick as he came back in. "What the hell are you doing here?"

"I was bored at the apartment," Rick told him, referring, he assumed, to the flat he and Al shared. "Al went to your place to hang out with Nat and I figured I'd be better off here where I can help."

Harry rose and was on the point of ordering him to get out when Hermione appeared behind him with a very old woman. She was short with iron-gray hair and thin wire spectacles. She had on deep green robes and she walked in without any hesitation or sign of her age, even though it was written in the lines on her face. "I'm Glenna Schlager," she said to the men in the room with a low, raspy voice.

"Thank you for coming," Harry said as he walked around to shake her hand and introduce himself while the other men did the same.

The old woman nodded in greeting before turning to Rick. "Why do we have a child here?"

Rick, rather than looking offended, grinned.

"This is Patrick Hassel," Harry explained. "He's an Augmentum Imaginari," he explained, referring to the magical ability he and Nat shared, "on loan from America and he was just leaving because his boss will kill me if I get him killed."

"An Augmentum Imaginari?" Glenna sniffed as she eyed him. "He can stay," she said with finality. "I may need him." She pulled out a wand and moved over to the man. "What do we know?"

Harry considered the man's handsome face and sighed. "A few days ago my son-in-law's aunt came to see me, to tell me she was back in town. I found out later that she was running from her husband, this man," he said, indicating Bugatti. "I didn't even know she'd married, the aunt, I mean. Her name is Daphne and she's my age. Anyway, to make a long story short she spotted her husband and Daphne's aunt Isabella Crabbe in a conversation in their home in Italy. She left immediately."

He wondered if any of that actually made sense because as he finished, all he felt was confused.

"You're related to Isabella Crabbe?" Glenna asked with a small chortle. "Oh, if the papers knew that!"

"I think they knew," Harry said and then realized he honestly didn't have a clue. He hadn't spoken to a journalist willingly in years. Most of the time he punted that off onto Hermione.

"They know," Hermione told her. "But it's through marriage and she's been estranged from her family for a long time so no one brings it up. She's her own problem and not theirs."

Glenna nodded and turned back to the man slumped in the chair. "How did you know you could knock him out?"

"I told them," Rick said quickly.

"Alright," Glenna said slowly, not turning to look at Rick. "How did you know you could safely knock him out?"

"Well…" Rick hesitated and then shook his head. "Honestly, it was instinct. I could see something was wrong immediately, but I didn't know what. I just knew that he was dangerous and sensed that him being awake made the risk greater. Dreamless Sleep Potion really only shuts the brain down. It doesn't do anything else to the body, so that felt safe."

She nodded as she pulled out her wand and began to chant a spell in a language that Harry had never heard before. She kept it up for at least ten minutes before she beckoned to one of the chairs and sat when Bill pulled it out for her. "He is under the curse you suspected," she told Bill and Vick. "I have never, not once, seen it on a living human being."

"Do you know how to help him?" Harry asked her quietly. What he really wanted to ask was how they were going to get out of this, all of them, alive.

Glenna let out a long sigh as she sat back in her chair. "Can we transfer this onto something else?" she asked Rick. When he hesitated, she added quickly, "Don't think, just answer."

Rick nodded slowly. "You mean you want me to move it from him onto something else?"

"I'm not asking you to do it," she corrected. "I'm asking if you think it can be done."

To Harry's surprise, Rick nodded. "Yeah, it's not anchored to him."

Harry could only guess at what that meant.

"If it had been me," Glenna mused with a small smile. "I'd have said that the Dreamless Sleep Potion would have been enough to set off the curse." A clear unease settled between them as they considered that. "But you knew it wouldn't, even if you can't explain why. This curse is unstable, which is why it was used by the ancients and why we've never managed to break the curse. We aren't going to break it, now, but I think maybe we can transfer it over to something we don't mind blowing up."

"That seems extremely risky," Vick told her. "We're risking all our lives on this maybe."

She huffed impatiently and shook her head. "The Egyptian curses, they all have staying power. They will stick around where they were placed and persist for eons because they are stable. Frankly, I found them very boring which was why I went off to study the Peruvians' handy work. I liked their style much more. I've seen the aftermaths of when a curse was triggered and I've seen them still in place. There aren't many left that are active, primarily because they've all been set off. They're unstable."

"But transferring it to something else could destabilize it enough to set it off," Bill pointed out.

"Yes," was all Glenna said.

Which was extraordinary in itself.

"We can move him out of the building, right? We brought him here while he was cursed." Harry turned back to the man and waited for Glenna's answer.

"Yes, we can and should move him out of here. He, alone, could destroy not only the ministry but an entire block of London surrounding it," Glenna assured him. "This man was sent in here as a weapon and they were likely hoping you'd use Veritaserum on him or if you'd tried to remove the Imperius Curse that would have done it, as well. I think that would have set off the Peruvian curse and it would have blown everything."

"Well damn," Harry said as he let out a low whistle. That's pretty much exactly what he would have done. It would have been procedure.

"Should we wake him?" Bill asked her as he considered the man. "I can move him, but it will be harder with him asleep. No, wait…" he shook his head. "If we travel with him through the Floo, it's likely to set it off, isn't it?"

"Correct, same with a portkey," Glenna told him as she made to stand once again and waved off Vick when he offered to help her. "No, I have this, but I appreciate it all the same. You," she said, turning to Hermione.

Harry hadn't really looked at his sister-in-law since the entire crisis started, but now that he was looking, he didn't like what he saw. She was quiet, which was always a bad sign, but more to the point she was pale and drawn, the skin around her mouth pulled tight as she tried to hold everything together. She didn't want to be here. He could see that as clear as day.

"Can you arrange a Muggle car for us to take us out into the country? We're going to need a very large area that's uninhabited."

"That's a little difficult to do in this country," Bill pointed out before Hermione could answer. "We have almost no places that aren't inhabited."

"Nonsense," she waved that off. "You have that abandoned dragon reserve up in Wales. No one can get in there."

Harry had no idea what she was talking about and when she looked to Bill, he also shook his head.

"It was… it was a place where the ministry was testing things for the war," Hermione explained quietly. "It's closed off to everyone because there are still unexploded traps and curses there. It's dangerous."

"He's dangerous," Glenna pointed out. "And worse still, we can't take him through the magical veil that protects the old sanctuary, but these two," she said as she pointed to Bill and Vick, "along with this young man will be able to remove the protections enough to get us through. Then you will close it after me and I'll either come out with this young man alive or we'll set off all the traps in the sanctuary with the explosion."

"I don't want to be rude," Harry said, knowing he was going to be rude, "because I appreciate you risking your life for this, I really do, but what if all the explosions destroy the protections around the sanctuary and just blow everything to hell and back?"

"If that happens," Glenna told him with a small twist of her lips, "Then it happens. We're either going to blow up this building, blow up a square mile outside of this building, or try to blow everything up in the sanctuary."

"I have a question," Hermione asked her with a small tremor in her voice. "How did you know about the sanctuary? You were in America during the war, weren't you?"

"I settled in America," Glenna corrected. "I came to England, first, to help with the war efforts against Grindelwald. I was already studying curses and I was part of the program to find weapons to use against him. I also helped the Muggle government. I was very angry about what Hitler was doing. After I'd done my part, I left. I didn't like the damp or the cold, here. I live in Arizona where it is hot and sunny all year long."

"But… you…" Hermione let out a small breath. "Alright, I'll find us a car."