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The Bill-meister
Flat 5b
16 Sharia El Nil
Gezira, Cairo,
Egypt

December 24, 1997

The Lovely Hermione Granger
Gryffindor Tower
Hogwarts
Scotland

Fair Queen Hermione ~

Happy Christmas to you! I hope you are well and having a lovely white Christmas as I am enjoying the warmth of the Egyptian night at the moment. I do wish I could go home for Christmas this year but yet even with apparating that’s not possible. I am sure you are aware that Mum and Dad and Ginny have gone to visit with Charlie. I am going to try and join them for a bit tomorrow, but apparating to an unseen location is a little trickier than going to the Burrow. But it should be an enjoyable day nonetheless.

You are right about Ron. You must have mentioned that you had written to me because within a week of your last owl, I received one from him demanding to know what I had been writing to you about. Obviously he felt he needed to defend your virtue or something. Hopefully my answers about your research needs satisfied him because he hasn’t written back yet.

People who are true friends, after school, never lose touch with each other. I am sure that you and Ron will find a way to make your friendship last. I am sure that not being forced to write all the time will give Ron more of a chance to exercise his own prerogatives when writing. Ginny though is a good correspondent and so am I, I care to think. So hopefully the genes will hold out once he has time on his own as you said. And so far, your correspondence has been wonderfully entertaining and highly intelligent, both of which make it something to definitely appreciate about you. I certainly hope, after I have answered your questions, you continue to send owls. It’s nice to have someone to write to who encourages my intellect.

I am glad to know that you never take your research lightly. It was good to hear that you have been in touch, probably, with most of the books I would have recommended on the curses, just as background reading. I admit that 400 sounds like quite a few books. I admit to being an avid reader on many subjects myself, but I don’t think I’ve ever quite reached a mark like that! I commend your dedication though and certainly will do my best to aide you in whatever way possible. The curses aren’t particularly well documented for a lot of reasons, most of which I am sure you can understand. Just make sure and get your hands on a copy of Beyond Pain by Morgana (I believe). That was one of the ones that I found to contain the most information when I was doing some work on them for Gringotts. I figure you have probably come across that one in your 400, but I figured it was worth a mention.

Your answers were very well-written and well received. I think I can now explain a little bit more about what I know about the curses. I’ll reference them to the questions I asked so that you might connect them a little bit better with why I asked those particular questions.

1. Okay. I can understand with DADA lacking in that you don’t know much about the wards and traps. Reading doesn’t help much with wards and traps because you need to understand with practical experience. I can’t believe that they haven’t even instructed you in what they look like! I’m completely and utterly appalled! I’d come back there and run the class myself if I thought it would make some kind of difference. I’m sure it’s not Harry’s doing, but one does tend to think that bad luck follows the boy like some kind of aura. Not that he’s a bad kid or anything, just rotten luck that seems to spread to others at times.

Let me give you a simple explanation of each then.

• A trap is a spell that allows you to capture magic, spell usually but it could work on keeping an item in a place, into a receptacle of some kind. Most of the trap spells I see are used on sarcophagus so that when you open the lid, the spell goes off. I have encountered most of the instances with the Unforgivables in this kind of instance. It can be tricky to disarm a trap spell because you need to find the origin point of the spell. Most of the time it is the Cruciatus curse that is used this way, merely because it is more effective at causing damage. And usually people are trying to kill the person who is opening their sarcophagus, not convince them to do something else.

• A ward is a protective spell. Most tombs and such are guarded by these kinds of spells. If you have read about what happened to the Muggles who opened King Tut’s tomb, that’s a good example of what can happen when a ward is breached without removing it first. Wards can be tied to the Unforgivables but that is really rare to see. It takes a pretty talented wizard to weave an Unforgivable into a ward, but I have seen it done. It lends to the power of the ward in a certain way as well.

I wanted to make sure you understood wards and traps because that is how I interact with the curses most often and where I have seen them most. I’ve never been actively confronted by someone casting those curses at me. Feel free to ask questions about either wards or traps if I didn’t offer enough explanation. I can also explain more about creating them, but I don’t wish to bore you with details you are not interested in.

2. Good to know you have at the least experienced one of the Unforgivables. It is wise to know what you are trying to understand by experiencing it yours. Imperious does work in a very interesting way. It subverts the will that each person has inside of them. That makes it hard to subvert, for long times anyway, people with very strong wills. Beating the Imperious is all about building up your mental resistance. Since you don’t know you are under the curse, which can be hard to do. If most people were aware that this was happening to them, they could possibly fight more of the curse off. That might be a direction you wish to go. You might try creating a form of mind magic that allows you to help people fight off the curse. There really is no way to tell who is under the curse and who isn’t. Creating a way to make that distinction would also be something useful in the fight against Voldemort as I am sure you are aware. But then, I digress.

The Cruciatus curse is one I personally have experienced. I was lucky to do so though when someone else was around. They recognised it immediately and were able to counteract the spell before it did much harm to me. In fact, all that really happened is that I was sore for about a week. What it does, to the best of my ability to explain, is build a wall in-between your mind and the ability to feel pain. It creates a wall around your consciousness and the longer you are under the effects of the curse, the harder it is to shatter that wall. I assume that you can grasp that concept. So the way to break the curses hold over people, even after it has happened, is to shatter that wall. Again it involves a high degree of skill in mind magic to be able to not only find the wall but shatter it in a way that leaves the person in full control of their facilities. There may be another way to do it, but I am not sure what that might be.

3. Those are good reasons to look for a solution. I agree that being as close to Harry as you are would be a decidedly good reason to find a solution. I certainly hope though that you are spared the need to use your research on such good friends. I wouldn’t wish that on even my worst enemy. And for such a noble cause I am more than willing to aid you.

4. Thank you for the information about my brother and helping the poor sod through his work. He will need all the help he can acquire before facing the NEWTs. Make sure that you are not neglecting your studies when you are busy with your extra-curricular research. Though, I do admit that I worry less about you in these instances than I do Ron.

I understand though that you are not able to guarantee any kind of results. I certainly am not expecting anything more than some in depth research that perhaps might lead others to the conclusions that we need to fight these curses. You are quite welcome to the compliments and I am interested in hearing what questions you have for me on this subject now. I’ve always enjoyed a good puzzle and the one you have presented is amazing! Thanks for involving me in this.

Though, I just have one more favour before we continue, could you please stop calling me Mr. Weasley? The only ones who do that are Muggles who don’t know me and Professor Snape which is extremely off-putting to be looking around for him all the time. Call me Bill or anything else other than Mr. Weasley.

Thank you! I look forward to hearing from you again soon!

Yours,
Bill

PS - I had forgotten that you were there that night at the end of the TriWizard Tournament. I agree it was less than pleasant circumstances to be reacquainted in. I too wish I could forget that night but some things are beyond the mind’s ability to forget. Hopefully the next time we meet, it will be pleasant circumstances.