Cursed necklace

Jake had to accept that he couldn't take any house-elf with him and reluctantly agreed to settle for a wheel of mammoth cheese provided by Barnaby—one of the first that his uncle Grawp had made.

More precisely, one of the first successful ones.

The initial attempts didn't meet basic hygiene standards and weren't exactly… edible. But Grawp found herding mammoths, milking them, and making cheese to be interesting and relaxing, so he put a lot of effort into it. Thanks to his improved intellectual abilities, he soon managed to produce cheese wheels the size of millstones.

In Barnaby's opinion, they would still need a few more months of aging to be perfect, but offering a milder version might be appropriate on this occasion.

At first, he wanted to give him an enchanted ice cream tub that refilled over time, but remembering Jake's unhealthy addiction to ice cream, he dismissed the idea immediately.

Just as he dismissed the idea of Jake taking a few hairs from a house-elf for Princess Bubblegum to make copies, as that pink creature who called herself royalty was far too similar to Hermione—or maybe even worse.

She always had to find a scientific approach to magic and had a god complex as a life-giver; it was exasperating.

Now, things went on rather normally for the next period of time until another problem emerged—and a serious one at that.

It all happened in the middle of winter, after he and Tonks decided to visit Rosmerta's establishment as part of a day to disconnect from everything. Even though it was snowing outside and the snow whitened all the surroundings, they were cozy inside with warm butterbeers to ward off the cold.

"I'm telling you, whoever's been messing with the runes is getting annoying," Barnaby complained to his wife. "Last time, they almost exploded because of conflicting intentions between them!"

"Haven't the tonberries found anyone yet?" Tonks asked as she finished her drink and licked her lips to remove the foam mustache. "Strange, those guys are way more attentive than Filch."

And a bit creepy with those knives they always carry; she still remembers the fright she got the first time she ran into one in one of Hogwarts' hallways at night while sneaking around for a prank.

"I even asked Bathsheda, the Ancient Runes professor, if she could recognize the handwriting or style of the rune carvings," Barnaby continued, finishing his own drink. "But even after comparing it with all her students, there hasn't been a single match. As I suspected, whoever's doing this is entirely self-taught. And…"

"A terrible one at it," Tonks expressed what was no doubt her husband's thought out loud, barely holding back her laughter.

"Exactly!" Barnaby nodded, looking at her with a puzzled expression. "What are you laughing at?"

"You have… a foam mustache," Tonks said, wiping some off with her thumb and licking it slowly in a teasing manner.

"Don't even think about it," Barnaby rolled his eyes. "I don't want anyone else dragging me to the infirmary worried because I mysteriously 'lost weight' again; that look Poppy gave me last time was embarrassing enough."

Better to wait for the weekend when he'd have time to recover.

"At least you could walk," Tonks whispered, cheeks blushing as she briefly looked away. "I couldn't even move a finger; Sanshi and Lily had to take care of me like a baby."

The amused looks of the two creatures while they cared for her made her feel extremely shy and embarrassed.

They both looked at each other and sighed, as exasperated as they were amused—they needed to work on their self-control in this aspect; they just got too carried away and then paid the consequences…

"Shall we head home?" Tonks asked as they left the establishment arm in arm.

Not that the cold bothered them, but Tonks wasn't going to miss the chance to feel and squeeze her husband's arm muscles. And Barnaby certainly wouldn't complain about the sensation.

"Not yet," Barnaby shook his head as they started walking back to Hogwarts. "Someone's been sneaking in to take tentacula leaves from the greenhouses, and Aunt Sprout asked me to add a few charms to see if we can catch the thief."

The thief had been careful, taking only a few leaves at a time, which even the Herbology professor hadn't noticed until a while later.

Hmm? Up ahead, a few meters away, it looked like Harry's trio.

"Those leaves go for about ten Galleons on the black market," Tonks remarked. "Could be someone in need of money, perhaps?"

"I think it's more like—" Barnaby couldn't finish the sentence as they heard a horrified scream up ahead and instinctively quickened their pace to see what was happening.

"Isn't that Katie?" Tonks squinted, seeing the girl floating eerily in the air before collapsing motionless to the ground.

"Don't get close, everyone, back away!" someone shouted.

"Dad?" Barnaby turned to see his father approaching in a hurry as well.

"Barnaby, help me here," Hagrid said, nodding to Tonks in a hurried greeting. "Tonks, can you handle that?" he asked, indicating a package on the ground, revealing an expensive necklace that was undoubtedly cursed.

Hagrid made Harry and the others move back to prevent further accidents.

Barnaby drew his staff, and with a flick, he transformed the snow near Katie into a stretcher that levitated a meter off the ground. He carefully approached her and began examining her without touching her.

Tonks, on her side, waved her wand, encasing the necklace in a solid ice cube that also levitated to follow the stretcher. Through the magically transparent ice, she also began examining the necklace, flicking her wand several times.

"An opal necklace with a deadly curse on touch, one of the strong ones," Tonks commented shortly after. "But her hands… does she have any holes in her gloves?"

"Yes," Barnaby confirmed as he inspected her hands. "But it's tiny, the contact should've been minimal." He frowned as the gems on his staff glowed. "Seems like it's complicated—Katie was under an Imperius curse, and the clash between the two curses, although it saved her life, will mean months of recovery at St. Mungo's," he added, using some magic to ease the worst symptoms without touching the remnants of the curse left on the witch's flesh, not wanting to stimulate it and cause more damage instead.

Seeing her condition, she would probably miss the rest of the year at best…

"Leanne," Barnaby called to Katie's friend, a Hufflepuff who was a year older than her. "Where did Katie get the package with the necklace?"

"I don't know!" Leanne trembled at the situation. "Katie went off for a moment and came back with the package, but she didn't seem to want to talk about it. She just told me she had to give it to someone in the castle. We argued because she seemed strange and I had a bad feeling, and then…" she explained, sobbing.

Tonks approached to console her while Barnaby stared thoughtfully at the necklace.

"For now, let's head to the infirmary. It's best if both of you are seen by Aunt Pomona," Barnaby said.

Leanne, Tonks, Hagrid, Barnaby, and an unconscious Katie left.

…

"What just happened?!" Ron asked Harry and Hermione in confusion.

Not only had he barely processed what happened before his eyes—was it just him, or were they completely ignored throughout all of this?