As they were putting things back in the shoebox, Michael caught a glimpse of Angus' fingers where he had touched the ring.
"What's that?" Michael pointed to Angus' fingers. Angus looked at his fingers and saw a couple of black marks that were exactly where he had touched the ring, where he had had the burning sensation, and now, coming out of those marks were more marks that were spreading in a disturbingly dark looking spiderweb pattern. "Well, that can't be good," Michael frowned. Robert took hold of Angus's hand and looked at the marks
"It isn't good," Robert said. "It's called a dark soul mark. It tells me that the witch has aligned herself with some extremely powerful dark energies, and that she uses that ring the way we use a wand. It amplifies her dark arts abilities. That, plus the staff that you broke surely made her a great deal more powerful than she actually is without them. White lighters like us become, basically, contaminated if we come into direct contact with that sort of dark magic amplifying devices. Basically, for white lighters, it is the telltale mark of a curse."
"I really don't want to hear that. That explanation tells me absolutely nothing," Angus said. "How do I get rid of it?"
"This calls for someone uniquely talented at curse breaking. Ironically, a curse breaker is a full time position at Gringotts because every good treasure hoard has a curse on it, and the goblins at the bank are always on the prowl for more and more treasure. Here's a piece of trivia for you. Who do you think is the lead curse breaker for Gringotts?"
"No idea," Michael said.
"The oldest Weasley boy..." Robert said. "Arthur's eldest."
"Bill?" Michael asked.
"Yes," Robert replied. "He and Fleur have been living in Egypt because there are still many, many ancient treasures there. I'll go see if I can open a floo conversation with Bill, and see if I can't get him to pop over and take care of this before it spreads."
"Does this help Fenrir at all?" Angus asked.
"I think, if Bill can substantiate the curse on the ring itself for the Ministry, then with that, the polyjuice and all the other stuff we know, I think the great preponderance of evidence should help release Fenrir," Robert said, getting up. "I'll be back."
He was gone about fifteen minutes, and then he came back.
"Bill and Fleur have kindly consented to come," Robert told them. "I'll have Shannon prepare a room for them. There is a 2 hour time difference between here and Egypt-- they're two hours ahead of us. With the time difference between here and Egypt, their work day is already over, so it will take them a bit to free themselves to be able to come, but that's alright. Bill seems to have some ideas already about this. He thinks that if we simply cover those dark marks for now, it'll protect you from spreading it to anyone or anything else. He says this sort of curse works by contact, and that makes perfect sense to me. At this point, the marks are small enough that we can just use a couple plasters, and it'll be fine."
Angus got up from the table, a million thoughts racing through his head, the first of which was his concern for the danger that it could present for Ruby and his children. At this point, he did not feel safe in being around them if a simple touch could spread that curse to them too.
"Angus," Robert called. Angus stopped and turned to look at him. "Don't lose your head over this. Anyone or anything you touched would need to make direct contact with the mark itself, which is why I covered the marks with some simple plasters. If I believed it merited more precaution than that, I'd have done it."
"I know," Angus said. He'd had enough of all of this for awhile. He took a fresh bottle of firewhiskey from the kitchen cabinet, and he went down to the pond, sat down, took the cork out of the bottle and drank a healthy slug out of it.
Simone happened to see him sit down on the bank of the pond and saw him take a swig from a whiskey bottle, and she mentioned it to Edward. Edward looked out the window and watched him for a moment.
"I know that look," Edward told Simone. "He's had enough of chasing monsters for one day. I've certainly had days where I've felt like that myself. I'll go talk to him. Firewhiskey is always better with a friend anyway." He went outside and went over to the pond and sat down, taking Angus's whiskey bottle, taking a swig out of it and handed it back. "Oh, now that's a smooth firewhiskey. Nice. So what are we drinking to?"
Robert had always had tremendous affection for Angus, treating him far more like a son than an employee, and it was for that reason that he apparated over to Angus's back door, rather than his front door. He did not particularly want Angus to see him going to tell Ruby what was going on. Still, he believed Ruby was stronger than sometimes she even gave herself credit for, and he wanted her to hear it from him that in this case, Angus was far more protective of her and of his children than he needed to be. He knocked on the back door.
Inside, Sam and Victor looked at each other.
"Ruby? Did we just hear someone knock at the back door instead of the front door?" Victor asked.
by 
