Adrian Pucey: Gringotts Curse-Breaker

23 Aug 1996

Millicent and I had our first argument in ages this week. I swear I don't understand her sometimes. She's so stubborn. All I'm asking is one little thing, and she can do whatever she wants to for months before she sees me again.

I've got so much to learn - there's next to no time before I leave for Mexico, and I won't have access to decent Healers there. It'll be first aid from Harun or Muggle doctors. I'm not sure who I'd trust less!

Millicent and Adrian sat glaring at each other in Adrian's back garden. They'd managed to keep their quarrel outside the house, where Adrian's parents wouldn't hear them. Neither of them fancied being interrogated by Mrs Pucey. Adrian was surprised that Millicent hadn't got up to leave; she clearly had her temper more under control nowadays.

"I'm sorry," Adrian said finally. "I've got a lot on my mind right now."

Millicent smiled faintly. "I know. I don't mean to distract you from it."

But you're not going to apologise like I did, Adrian thought. He tugged up a few daisies from the grass, and squashed them between his fingers. He took a deep breath. "Look, if you want to spend that weekend at St Mungo's, I'm not going to try to stop you. It's just that it's my last one in England."

"You said you'd be back by Christmas," Millicent reminded him. "I'm not going to spend the whole weekend there, just the Saturday. I'll come to the... air-port... to see you off on the Sunday."

Ever since her wealthy mother died, Millicent and her father had kept up Stella Bulstrode's work raising money for the wizarding hospital in London. At first they had found it helped lessen the sense of loss and gave them something practical to think about. Since the mass break-out of Death Eaters from Azkaban and Voldemort's return to power, though, St Mungo's and the smaller medical centres around Britain were seeing many more patients. Millicent knew, although she kept it to herself, that Hogwarts' stern-seeming Matron, Madam Pomfrey, had been volunteering at Edinburgh's small clinic throughout the summer.

"I thought I meant a bit more to you than that," Adrian huffed.

Millicent gritted her teeth. How could she explain that she adored Adrian, and sometimes thought she'd never be happy again if he left her, but that he was her happiness and it would be selfish to put him above the healing of many witches and wizards? "You come too," she said. "There are a couple of doctors there from other countries, and they specialise in treating exotic problems. We could talk to them about Mexico."

"Will..." Adrian bit his lip. He thought of something. "Would you like to stay over on the Saturday night?"

"I thought your parents were going to dinner with the Hawleys that night," Millicent said nervously.

"They are," Adrian said firmly.

It was, in effect, asking her to spend the night alone with him. What was Millicent to do?

**

"You can't!" Pansy exclaimed on the Monday afternoon, when Millicent asked her for advice. "Think of your reputation!"

"The Slytherins think I'm a traitor and everyone else knows I'm a Slytherin and they all think we're dodgy. I don't have a reputation to ruin," Millicent huffed.

The pair were sitting in Millicent's cream-and-lemon bedroom watching Dementor-induced mist swirl around the window. Pansy shook her head at Millicent. "Millie, I'm talking about your reputation as a decent woman. What if something horrid happens to Adrian in Mexico? You'll need to find someone else. And with your..."

"Blood," Millicent supplied.

"With your little problem of ancestry," Pansy said delicately, "you can't afford to be known as being a bit loose too."

"Like it hasn't stopped people like Cho Chang or Ginny Weasley getting boyfriends," Millicent said."

"They're pure-blood and they haven't... you know." Pansy's eyes widened. "Someone would've known by now if they had. Anyway, with Weasley, who cares?"

"So you haven't... with Draco, I mean."

"Most definitely not!" Pansy told her. She lowered her vice to a whisper. "Nothing below the waist."

Millicent considered this. Pansy's quaintly old-fashioned advice had helped her make her decision: she would stay with Adrian for his last night in Britain.

30 Aug 1996

It looks as though Bill's request was a sensible one - I have indeed been asked to bring something back from Mexico. I'm not even sure whether I should be writing this down, but I guess I'll have months away from anyone who might care about my political views. Who knows what I could return to? I only hope Weasley keeps his part of the bargain.

One of the master cursebreakers was taken away by the Aurors this week. He'd been a bit strange for a while, and people had suspected he was taking money, but they weren't sure why. I'd always thought cursebreakers were strong-willed, but there are clearly stronger wills out there.

Adrian walked into work on the Tuesday morning feeling very pleased with himself. The sight of Fleur had failed to affect him, and he'd begun to grasp the meaning of the heiroglyphs Harun had him translating. Millicent had sent him an owl to let him know she'd be staying over at the weekend. It was odd that she'd written it down instead of just telling him, but he was glad she did. He had the note in his pocket, worn soft where he kept touching it, just to convince himself that it was really there and she really had said yes.

He flashed his ID card at the goblin behind the security desk and answered a random set of security questions as he stood beneath sneakoscopes attached to an iron frame. The security measures had been phased in over recent weeks. Finally the goblin conceded that Adrian was indeed Adrian, and that the goblin would therefore not be removing any of his limbs. It seemed almost sad as it admitted this. Many goblins had no real love for wizards.

Adrian went to drop his things off in his office before making tea for Harun and himself. However, Harun looked serious and was stroking his neat little beard. "It's best to stay in here for a bit," he advised Adrian. "I saw a couple of Aurors coming through earlier, including that crazy old fool Moody."

"Professor Moody? I was taught by him," Adrian said excitedly, adding, "Well, I thought I was being taught by him..." He thought it was a little rich of Harun to accuse someone else of being crazy, given that his own teaching methods were about as sensible as the fake Moody putting pupils under the Imperius Curse.

"What a curse-breaker he'd have made," Harun sighed. "Why be an Auror chasing wizards when you can encounter curses and hexes and earn a good wage here?"

Adrian was curious. "What's he doing here?"

Harun shuffled some parchments, then said, "Ah, it'll all come out sooner or later anyhow. Edwardson's been suspected of pilfering for some time, but the goblins thought he was slipping cash to Fleur because he was enchanted by her. She's been checked out and is clean; the next possibility is that he's been passing on the cash to the Death Eaters."

Adrian recalled a cheery sandy-haired wizard with burn scars down one arm. "Edwardson?" he said, slightly baffled. "Surely not. Why do the Death Eaters want money, anyway? I thought they just threatened people to get what they wanted."

"In this country they often do, but they'll try to buy other people's loyalty or even appeal to their political views. Not everyone is drawn to them out of fanaticism or fear. Some just fall into line out of greed. They'll spend money on their allies. Look at Lucius Malfoy - he's never been a particularly violent person, but how many good causes did he donate money to, to make people think well of him? I'm sure there are plenty of minor Ministry officials who he gave little presents to who are now terrified that their bosses will find out they were Lucius' 'friends'."

Adrian picked up the translation he'd been working on the previous day. He kept thinking of Edwardson, though. He'd appeared completely normal to Adrian. He hadn't looked scared - but then, it was quite difficult to intimidate the more experienced curse-breakers, Adrian believed. It was nigh impossible to bribe a curse-breaker; they could just go freelance and carry out expeditions for themselves and get gold that way. What could have made Edwardson do it? Adrian paid little attention to the heiroglyphs, being more concerned with making sense of Edwardson's behaviour.

Shouts from the corridor made him sit up, and a stray spell rattled their door and melted a hole through it, making wood act like wax. Adrian crawled under his desk in alarm, but Harun got up and looked through the hole, which was still oozing slightly.

"It's the Aurors and Edwardson," he said. "Ooh, Moody's got him in a wrestling hold. He moves well for an old man."

Adrian tried to pull his chair in behind himself. "Harun, there are spells capable of melting wood flying around out there! It's not a good idea to be sticking your head through a hole in the door!"

"Ah, it's all right," Harun said cheerily. "They've restrained him. Poor old Edwardson. He's using language I'd never have believed he knew. I reckon there's an Imperius Curse on him."

"Oh, well that's all right," Adrian said sarcastically. "When your head gets melted off, at least we'll know he didn't mean to do it." Nonetheless, he crawled back out from under his desk and joined his boss. Harun moved away from the hole slightly so that his apprentice could see through it too. They watched as the two Aurors, one bleeding from a badly scratched and bitten cheek, used a levitation spell to take a stunned Edwardson from the building. A thought occurred to Adrian. "Harun, wasn't Edwardson a South American specialist?"

Harun lost interest as the Aurors and their prisoner moved out of sight. "Hmm? Yes, yes he was." He frowned. "He was senior to me, slightly." Adrian's Slytherin-honed suspicion went into overdrive.

All that day Adrian kept a close eye on Harun. With Edwardson out of the way, Harun might be in line for a promotion. Gossip among the other apprentices had said Harun was brilliant but often made foolish mistakes, so people like Edwardson got better assignments. Now Harun would be able to prove his talents, and maybe be spoken of as Hiroshi's equal. All the same, Adrian couldn't imagine Harun as a Death Eater. Perhaps he was someone who could be useful to the Death Eaters. Harun didn't seem any more or less cheerful than usual, and he wasn't acting oddly in any way, but then Edwardson had only been singled out once his thefts became obvious. Adrian resolved to reread the Ministry leaflet on identifying people placed under the Imperius Curse that evening.

Every evening Adrian packed and repacked his travelling things several times. Gringotts' curse breakers were cleared by the Misuse of Muggle Artefacts office to carry suitcases with bewitched bottoms. Just because curse-breakers travelled by 'plane in order to avoid alarming the Muggle archaeologists they were often placed alongside, it didn't mean they had to carry cumbersome Muggle luggage. Adrian's small case could hold everything he would need for several months.

When he wasn't packing his belongings, Adrian tidied and rearranged his room. It had to be perfect for the weekend! He took his Quidditch posters down with regret. I'm a man with a career now, he told himself. Posters are for boys. I don't want Millicent coming in here and thinking I'm just a boy...

In the evenings he also spoke to Millicent through the fire. His father liked Millicent. His mother hadn't been keen on the pair of them getting together until she'd met Millicent, and while she remained surprised at her son's choice of girlfriend, she'd decided the girl had been brought up properly, and the Bulstrode link would be good for the Puceys.

Adrian watched Harun when he could, although he was having to cram so much learning in during his last few days in England that he didn't get many opportunities to spy on his boss. With Harun and runes occupying his thoughts, he headed out on the Wednesday to do some last-minute shopping. He thought he'd treat himself to lunch at the Adder and Arithmancer, a terribly old-fashioned old chophouse on Knockturn Alley. It was quite tatty nowadays, although his grandfather reminisced about the days when it had been fashionable. It was like a fragment of another time, refusing to modernise and slowly crumbling away.

Sitting on a leather-padded chair that had seen better days at a rickety little table, Adrian waited for his steak and kidney pie to be brought to him. He considered Harun's promotion, which had happened after Edwardson's removal. Harun had barely seemed to notice it, so focussed was he on beating Hiroshi to the Mexican treasure.

"Hullo Pucey," a deep voice called from a nearby table. Adrian looked up to see Marcus Flint, accompanied by a man whose troll-like features suggested he and Marcus were closely related. Marcus was wearing very fine robes, and looked like whatever he'd been doing since leaving Hogwarts he was making money at it.

"Flint," Adrian nodded, hoping Marcus would leave him alone. Marcus came over, bringing his glass of beer with him. He sat opposite Adrian, and the old wooden chair gave a strained creak.

"I hear you're at Gringotts," Marcus said conversationally. "Was it your Quidditch that swung it for you?"

Adrian resented the intrusion. Marcus had never bothered with him at school away from the Quidditch pitch, and Adrian didn't want to be hassled by him now. "My NEWT results had more to do with it, although I think the man I'm doing the apprenticeship with wanted someone with a bit of daring."

Despite his lumpen looks, Marcus was no fool and Adrian was wary. Marcus screwed up his face in a Gregory Goyle-like fashion, but Adrian wasn't fooled. "You know," Marcus said conversationally, "a little bird tells me you're off to south America."

And so it starts, thought Adrian. "Middle America, actually. I'm going to Mexico." He looked around the chophouse, hoping that the waiter would bring him his pie and get rid of Marcus.

"I've got this girl," Marcus said airily. "Can't name names, but she's from a good family. Anyway, she's got this thing for hats, especially feathered ones, and I was wondering if you could do me a little favour..."

"Bring her back a Mexican hat?" Adrian asked.

"Feathers," Marcus said with a smile. "There's this bird, called a quetzal. Pretty thing. Anyway, she saw a picture of it in a book and has set her heart on having the feathers from one, but I don't know anyone who imports them, so I thought you might be able to manage it. You could bring me a few home, eh? For old time's sake."

"Sure, I'll try," Adrian said cheerfully. "Quetzal, eh?"

"Resplendant quetzal," Marcus added. He beamed. "Ah, the things we do for our lady-loves, Pucey. Keep it quiet, though. I'd hate for her to know I'm getting the feathers for her."

No, Adrian thought, I bet you don't want anyone to know you've asked me to bring things back from Mexico for you. The pie finally arrived and Marcus left, but Adrian was no longer hungry. After eating enough of it to avoid upsetting the staff at the Adder and Arithmancer, he paid his bill and left. He wouldn't have thought twice about Marcus' request if it hadn't been for Bill's equally odd one a couple of weeks previously. As it was, he made straight for Bill's office as soon as he got back to Gringotts and told the older man about the feathers Marcus wanted.

Bill frowned. "Quetzal feathers?"

Adrian nodded. His attention was slightly distracted by the moving photographs of Bill inside various tombs, including one of the good-looking wizard doing battle with a furious mummy.

"It could really be a whim," Bill said thoughtfully. "I don't know if they have any magical uses. To be honest, I'm more of a practical magician - we all are here. Problem solvers, fighters. That's what Gringotts staff are. I've got a couple of people I could ask about it..."

"I'm helping you. You'll make sure Millicent's okay," Adrian insisted.

"As far as I'm able," Bill assured him.

As Adrian walked back to his office, he realised that if one person cared the slightest bit about quetzals or quetzal feathers, it would be animal-loving Millicent.