The Banebrewer

Rated PG-13 for references to the Dark Arts.

At first Ariadne made slow progress in reading the book from Hippocrates Smethwyck. She had good intentions; she dutifully opened it on the evening after her visit to Azkaban, and she read a page every evening for the next week. But by the time she finished a page, her eyes were always glazing over. She had no expertise in genetics, and she did not understand how this fifty-year-old text was supposed to be relevant.

Reading time was precious. In addition to being the mother of two children, Ariadne still worked twenty hours a week at St Mungo's. One third of her free time was devoted to brewing an illegal potion, co-ordinating its secret distribution, and monitoring and hiding the movements of twenty-four werewolves. She wanted to invest her reading time in information that relieved the stresses that their situation laid on them.

However, after the October full moon had passed uneventfully, Ariadne had to accept that the situation was never going to be less stressful than it already was. All the werewolves had found ways to transport themselves to whichever location she nominated for distributing the Wolfsbane Potion - in this case, her friend Richard's house in Reading. Richard may or may not have guessed that Remus was a werewolf, but he played along with the line that Remus "helped with distribution", and he made a point of never being in the kitchen for long enough to see exactly who was drinking the potion. Richard had married Ariadne's cousin Felicity, who had staunchly declared that she "was not frightened of werewolves by daylight." Felicity was very clearly ignorant of Remus's status in the werewolf community ("Would you like to come out to dinner with Richard and me at full moon, so that we'll all be out of Ariadne's way?") but she accepted Remus's excuse that someone who wasn't watching over two dozen wolves needed to babysit. Richard kept Felicity out of the kitchen too.

When Remus and Ariadne returned to Nottingham, their neighbour Mrs Ponderator mentioned that a "shaggy" man who sounded suspiciously like Fenrir Greyback had been hanging around their house, but that he had gone away when she had questioned him. It was bad - if inevitable - that Greyback had worked out where they lived, but if he had been in Nottingham, he obviously did not know that his prey had been in Reading.

The following Saturday afternoon, Ariadne reminded herself that she could not dishonour Healer Smethwyck's wishes by failing to read his book. Remus was marking a pile of grammar drills and both children were asleep at the same time. Ariadne had nothing to do but drink a cup of wit-sharpener and settle herself on the sofa with It's in Your Blood open at the first page.

You are controlled by your blood.

Your genes are in every cell of your blood. They are in all your other cells too, but don't worry about those. Whatever is true of your blood will be true about the rest of you. When you know what's in your blood, you know exactly what is controlling you.

These genes determine your height and colouring, the degree of your intelligence and magical power, and what illnesses you will suffer. When we say a person has "bad blood", we mean he has bad genes in his blood (and in all his other cells too).

You inherit half your blood from your father and half from your mother. This is a very important fact. It means the same blood is running through each family member. When we say, "The Squizchortles are all very stupid - that family has bad blood," we are telling the literal truth. It is indeed the badness in their shared blood that makes the Squizchortles stupid.

This much seemed hardly worth stating. But just when Ariadne wondered why she was bothering with it, the text jumped to complicated new ideas. Suddenly it was all about chromosome codes and dominant alleles, and Ariadne wondered if she understood it at all. She was distracted by full-colour illustrations of children with dark hair and fair, enticingly captioned, "The secret to the colour of their hair lies in their blood." It was a very deep secret, for it was followed by the question: "If Gaius marries Sylvia, can you calculate how many of their children will have red hair?" The only answer that Ariadne could give to this question was, "I cannot."

Ariadne had to re-read the second and third chapters, and pause to memorise the new vocabulary, but she found that she did understand Phoebe Constellis's explanations. The fourth chapter was called "Inheriting Magic".

Magical talent is coded on the seventh chromosome. That means your magical powers are in your blood. If you lost all your blood, you would lose all your magic.

There was a great deal about recessive genes and magical enzymes. The fifth chapter was called "Bad Blood".

Some people have bad blood. This is because their genes have been damaged.

Since the power of good is stronger than the power of evil, good blood is stronger than bad blood. So you will not suffer any handicap if you inherited bad blood from only one parent. In other words, a healthy person can have bad blood without knowing about it.

However, if both parents gave you bad blood, you have problems. Your exact problem depends on which gene was damaged. If both parents gave you a damaged Magical gene, you are a Squib.

If you are a Squib (or suffer from any other form of bad blood), you will pass on the bad blood to your children. But if only half of your blood is bad, you will pass on the badness to only half of your children.

If you and your spouse both have hidden bad blood, you will each pass on bad blood to half your children. A quarter of your children will inherit only bad blood and hence they will be Squibs (or other problem). If you are both Squibs, neither of you has any good blood, so all your children will be Squibs too. You need not worry about this problem if you have no children.

On the other hand, Muggle-born wizards always have good blood. This is because their magical powers come from the blood of both parents; if they had inherited any bad blood from either parent, they could not be magical at all. So Muggle-born wizards pass on good blood to all their children. It is impossible for a Muggle-born witch or wizard to have Squib children.

Once Ariadne had disentangled this idea, she found herself hoping that Madam Constellis was right. People like her Malfoy cousins might be kinder to Muggle-borns if they knew about it.

She was becoming interested after all; perhaps she would owl Clarissa Smethwyck, and ask how exactly this information was supposed to help the incarcerated Healer.

The tenth chapter was called "Recessive Talents".

Some magical abilities cannot be learned. No teacher can instruct even the most powerful wizard on how to become a Prophet, a Metamorphmagus or a Parselmouth. These abilities are carried only in the blood.

These abilities are separate from magical power. They are latent in the blood of many Muggles. However, no Muggle has ever practised Prophecy, Metamorphmagic or Parseltongue, for these gifts only become active in the presence of magical power. This means that the magical power in the blood ignites certain other abilities and makes active what would otherwise be latent. Don't worry if you don't understand this part. It just means that Muggles can't do magic.

These abilities are all recessive (see chapter three). You can only be a Prophet if you inherited prophetic blood from both your father and your mother, as well as magical power from at least one of them (see chapter four). If only half your blood is prophetic, that will not be enough to make a Prophet of you.

This is why Prophets, Metamorphmagi, Parselmouths, etc. are very rare. People with prophetic blood are quite rare. The chance that they would marry another of those rare people with prophetic blood is slim. And even when this does happen, only one quarter of their children will actually be Prophets.

It is hardly surprising that, according to the best estimates of our experts, there are probably only two Prophets alive in the British Isles today. Both Cassandra Vablatsky and Sybill Trelawney carry the prophetic blood of their great-great-grandmother, the famous Cassandra Trelawney.

The genealogy overleaf shows how Cassandra Trelawney transmitted her prophetic blood to her descendants. Notice that Cassandra Vablatsky and Sybill Trelawney are cousins twice over: all four of their parents were great-grandchildren of Cassandra Trelawney.

When cousins marry, they increase the chances of passing on both blood-talents and bad blood. If you are contemplating marriage with a cousin, be sure to know exactly what kind of blood is flowing through your family.

Something shimmered, but it was only clarified in the following chapter.

Sometimes your blood can mutate. That means a talent changes its form: what was round becomes square, or what was triangular becomes a star. The talent does not disappear (as it would if the blood were damaged) but it looks different.

For example, there is a mutation of Prophecy called Locospection. Locospectors are only found in families where there has first been Prophecy. As Prophets can see across time, so Locospectors can see across space...

Ariadne closed the book and rested it on a cushion.

"Learning something?" asked Remus, who had just marked the final drill.

"Perhaps. I'm just not seeing how all this fits together."

Remus put the kettle on. Ariadne went upstairs, but the bairns were still sleeping, so she returned to the sofa and re-opened the book. She had not marked her page, so she had to leaf through several chapters... and suddenly a heading leapt out to greet her.

Blood magic?

She had wasted the whole afternoon... the whole of the last several weeks.

Healer Smethwyck had not been trying to teach her the laws of heredity at all; it was simply that his wife's profession as a Genetiwitch had brought the book into their possession. He had passed it on to her because it covered all aspects of blood, including blood magic. And here were magical concepts that had never entered the Hogwarts syllabus, or had even begun to cross her mind.

Do not allow Dark Wizards to obtain a sample of your blood. They can use it to hurt your whole family.

Because families share the same blood, certain spells cast over a sample of blood can bind every member of the family, not just the person from whom the blood was originally taken. This principle is similar to that of the Protean Charm, with the blood being the object to be modified. Blood is so powerful a magic agent that these spells can even bind people who have not yet been born.

These Blood Spells were introduced to Britain by Viking wizards in the ninth century. That is why they are usually in Elder Futhark. You can't cast most of them unless you know your Ancient Runes.

In the Middle Ages this kind of Blood Spell was very popular among Dark wizards. It gave them power over weaker people, which all Dark wizards enjoy. Some of them also enjoyed the violent process of casting these spells.

There were four or five examples of famous mediaeval wizards who had cast Blood Spells, usually to kill their enemies or keep control of their subordinates. What Phoebe Constellis did not provide was details how these spells were cast. Ariadne understood why she would not advertise the evil incantations, but there was no clue about the rituals, or even in what manner blood was involved.

I cannot write an example here. It's all far too nasty for a respectable book like this one.

The Wizengamot bitterly opposed all Protean-type Blood spells. In 1490 it commissioned Felix Summerbee to research everything that was known about them. His investigations were very successful; the counter-spells were widely published, and they were taught at Hogwarts throughout the sixteenth century. The Blood Spells became useless once every qualified wizard knew how to counteract them, and so they fell from favour.

Blood Magic requires expertise in Charms, Potions and Ancient Runes. That is another reason why not much of it happens any more. Most people are too stupid to be good at all these things at once. Only a few specialist researchers (and perhaps a few criminals) still know these spells. So watch out for the criminals, because they won't be telling you the counter-spells in a hurry.

The specialists won't be telling you either the spells or the counter-spells, because people like Grindelwald might abuse the information. Felix Summerbee's research is no longer in print, and it never was written in English anyway.

This abrupt conclusion ended the chapter. The next ten chapters were all about vampires, and then came sections on "Medical Applications" and the merits of various types of blood-replenishing potions. It all might come in useful one day, but there was nothing that seemed immediately helpful to Healer Smethwyck's predicament, and nothing else that seemed pertinent to Veleta.

"... Have you found something?" Remus had brought both children downstairs.

"I did," she said. "Here, read this..."

"Read to me!" said Matthew. "Read Nigel the Knight Bus!"

Ariadne fetched Matthew's book, while Remus read the chapter on Blood Magic. It usually took a long time to read Nigel the Knight Bus, because Matthew liked to read each volume three times over, and there were four episodes to a volume. By the time Ariadne had completed three readings (twelve stories) of "Nigel's Night Out", Remus had digested more about Blood Magic than she had.

"There's something I'm not understanding," she said. "Did the Macnairs cast some kind of Blood Spell to make their castle invisible?"

"You can't make a castle out of blood," said Matthew. "Blood is wet like water. You have to use bricks or stones to make a castle."

"You see, Matthew understands it," said Remus. "I doubt that the castle's peculiar visibility habits have anything to do with Blood Magic. That's likely to be a completely separate spell, and a relatively simple one too. I could certainly make this house invisible, and I could probably set a boundary to limit the extent of the invisibility."

"Will you, Daddy? Are you going to make our house invisible?"

"Not today, son. It might upset the Muggle neighbours if our house suddenly vanished. They might think we'd all been stolen, and Mrs Ponderator might even report us to the police. Ariadne, do you think Smethwyck was really suggesting that we try to annul a powerful and complex Blood Spell that has been in force for over five hundred years?"

"The suggestion maybe took his mind off his own problems," said Ariadne. "But where would we find the Counter-Spell? Summerbee's book is out of print, and information of that kind - even if it were in a language we understood - would not be lent over the counter in Cato's Reading Room."

"It sounds more like a Knockturn Alley product," Remus agreed. Suspicion suddenly crossed his face. "Ariadne, I didn't mean it. You didn't hear what I just said. Don't start thinking... ."

But Ariadne had already thought. The idea was lodged very solidly in the centre of her mind.

She paid Madam Alma for an hour of childcare at the Sunny House, then turned the corner into Liber Alley, where the white pillars of Cato's Reading Room stood between Hedon's Gymnasium and the Plum Tree restaurant. Sittybus Cato was used to seeing her among his stacks, and he must have noticed, over the last three years, that she was endlessly borrowing works on blood or Ancient Runes. Today he told her that Felix Summerbee's work on Cheering Charms was available in the fifth aisle, but that anything else Master Summerbee might have written would be in the locked stacks, and he could Summon it for her if she knew the title.

"I've no idea of titles. Can we not look up Summerbee in the catalogue?"

Mr Cato Summoned the S catalogue, and very quickly ascertained that the only other works of Summerbee to be archived in this library were two more codices on Cheering Charms, both in Latin.

"Then could you perhaps Summon the theme catalogue and look up ‘Blood Magic'?"

"That would fall under Medical Applications of Potions - unless you mean something along the Genetics line. But... it doesn't sound much like Summerbee."

"I'm not thinking of that, Mr Cato." Ariadne tried to think of Veleta instead of her parents. "I'm knowing now what kind of Blood Magic I'm seeking. I'm wishing to research Blood Charms of the Protean type. Probably in Elder Futhark, or perhaps in Latin."

Sittybus Cato nearly exploded. "Madam, I can assure you, I do not run that kind of a library! You won't find anything remotely of that genre within these walls. The door is that way - and don't come back!"

Ariadne fled down Liber Alley, past Lothar Hildebrand's Toys for Boys, past Madam Primpernelle's erotically-charged salon on the corner (it was not as if Liber Alley was the bastion of wizarding conservatism), back into Diagon Alley proper, past Gringotts, and across the cobbled street to the gaping entrance of Knockturn Alley.

The light really was poorer in Knockturn Alley, because the shops had been built too high and deep for the width of the lane, and the magical vibrations felt malicious. Ariadne reminded herself that there is a first time for every necessary task, and stepped into the forbidden street.

Had she thought daft Madam Primpernelle's shop "erotic"? The first establishment to her right was decorated with a full-length poster of Aphrodite sporting a salacious grin and a few strips of seaweed for clothing; to judge from the libation that she was pouring over the sea-shells, she was selling love-potions without any pretence at subtlety. The second displayed an eclectic selection of foul-smelling candles, hideous face masks and mobiles of dead Doxies, apparently all promising minor hexes. The next shop was some kind of menagerie, with glass tanks of giant spiders and vipers and billywigs, and cramped cages of miserable (and unidentifiable) furry creatures. The fourth seemed to specialise entirely in fungi. Jammed between Toxica Veneficus's Apothecary (it looked so ordinary, but Ariadne paused to wonder what was really inside the Erlenmeyer flasks in the grubby bay window) and the brash gilt signage of Borgin and Burke's was a tiny bookshop. The lighting was dim, but she could see through the single window that a shopkeeper was sitting at the cash desk reading a dog-eared paperback, so she pushed open the front door.

The shopkeeper dropped his book at the jangling of the bell and asked, "What would Madam like today?"

Ariadne was chilled by his over-eager smile and by the way his eyes bored into her, but she made herself say, "I'm looking for the works of Felix Summerbee."

"I haven't heard of him, Madam, but perhaps you'd care to elaborate?"

"He was a Charms expert in the fifteenth century, and most of his work would be out of print. But I'm wondering if you have... anything... by Renaissance Spellcrafters."

His eyes lit up. "We do have a Mediaeval section with rare manuscripts; you can always buy here what's unobtainable elsewhere." He led her down to the back of the shop. "Potions here, Curses there, biographies over that way."

He seemed surprised when she stopped at the Curses section, but he certainly had no intention of leaving her to browse alone. She scanned the authors: there was no Summerbee, and most of the volumes were indeed in Latin. She should have brought Remus; his Latin was better than hers. But if Remus knew she were here at all - That thought was cut off unfinished by a title at the end of the fifth shelf, Runic characters spelling:

She Summoned the book, too excited to remember that her Charm-work was clumsy, and opened it to the Contents page. The chapters were arranged according to spell-type, and there were spells for protection, destruction, attraction, revenge, invisibility, transportation, obedience, healing, fertility and even control of the fish in one's neighbour's pond. She held her breath at the promise of "location-binding" spells - did that include counter-spells? She flipped through, and saw that the incantations were actually written out. Before she had time to check that the spell she required was detailed, the shopkeeper was speaking.

"Does Madam wish to buy that codex?"

Her hour was running out, so she would have to acquiesce to his lust for a quick sale. Twenty-five Galleons! That would be difficult to explain to Remus unless the book proved to be very helpful.

"I will wrap the book, since my patrons rarely wish to admit to having visited me."

She thanked the bookseller, despite a strong feeling that he had cheated her over the price, and stepped out of his shop with the brown paper parcel under her arm. The door had hardly closed behind her before an indignant voice exclaimed:

"Ariadne! What are you doing here?"

"Buying a book," she said, more calmly than she felt, for she understood exactly how her presence here must look. "Why are you here, Dreadnought?"

Ariadne's cousin Dreadnought Macmillan was now nineteen years old. In the three months since he had left Hogwarts he had styled his shocking red hair in a spiked Mohawk and had pierced an amber stud through his nostril (Ariadne dreaded to think what Aunt Macmillan had said about that!). Today he had three cameras slung across denim robes that were almost Muggle in cut.

"I'm at work," said Dreadnought, "but what's your excuse? You're wanting to be careful, or you'll have the whole family talking about you."

Ariadne wondered how they would know if Dreadnought did not tell them, but she began to thread her way through the street-hawkers of Knockturn Alley, leaving him free to follow or not.

"I work for the Daily Prophet now," said Dreadnought. "If you're really wanting to know, they commissioned me to take pictures of that pawnshop - they say it's time for an exposé. I can't wait to see what Madam Skeeter writes about all the stuff I've captured. But on to the next job. I also have to cover the book-launch over at Flourish and Blott's."

"Oh, what's the book?"

"Gilderoy Lockhart's latest - you know, the adventurer who travels the world to battle Dark creatures. He'll start signing in ten minutes. I'm not wanting to be late, because he's very photogenic, and I can take some great mug-shots."

Ariadne had time to collect the children from Madam Alma's before accompanying Dreadnought to Diagon Alley's largest and most respectable bookshop. Behind a wide mahogany desk in the centre of the foyer sat a grinning blond wizard holding a huge peacock quill. Mr Blott was stacking a pile of hardbacks on the front of the desk, and Gilderoy Lockhart was saying, "Just a little more to the right... forward... no, back a little... perhaps make the stack a little higher? We don't want to look as if we don't believe we can sell them, do we? No, just two volumes; that third is hiding my face, and of course the readers want to see the author clearly."

Dreadnought shouldered his way inside. "I'm the press - can you let me in?"

"Welcome, welcome, you're just in time for a preliminary portrait," said the writer. "I expect you'd like to shoot it off now, before the crowds thicken." He lifted his chin and smiled rakishly. Dreadnought's camera flashed.

"Did that man write Nigel the Knight Bus?" asked Matthew.

"Oh, the little man has his priorities right," said Mr Lockhart. "He likes to meet famous people, and especially famous writers. I didn't write Nigel, little boy, but I did write this fine thick book. It's a very exciting read. Perhaps a little scary for someone of your age? But you'll grow into it. Tell your mother to invest in a copy now."

"It's not Nigel," said Matthew dispassionately, "or anyfink with wheels."

Mr Lockhart did not hear this, for he was already signing a fly-leaf and instructing Dreadnought to keep photographing while he did it. "Here, Mr Camera-man - why don't I give the very first copy to you? Hot off the press, and a ten percent discount too."

Of course, Dreadnought was too busy to lug a heavy book around the shop, so as soon as Mr Lockhart looked away (distracted by the glint of his own reflection in the shop window) he shoved the volume into Ariadne's arm.

"Here, take this. It's not the kind of thing I read anyway - but Mercy and Felicity are both daft about him, so it'll maybe amuse you."

Ariadne staggered for a moment, swayed by the weight of Elizabeth on her right arm and now two heavy books on her left. Then she noticed the title that declared the nature of the famous writer's adventures, and suddenly her heart leapt to a gallop.

Wanderings with Werewolves.