Harry did not see Percy throughout the holidays, not until the day they returned to school.
Bill, on the other hand, returned to the Burrow the day after Christmas. Although he had been seriously injured, once Harry broke the magic and Essence of Dittany was applied, the wounds themselves were no longer much of a problem.
What delayed his discharge was that he had lost too much blood.
Even though Harry had used a Counter-Spell and some of the blood had returned to his body, he had still lost enough to kill him.
In the Muggle world, it was hard to say whether someone with injuries like that could be saved, even with a blood transfusion. For wizards, however, it was not nearly so troublesome.
A potion originally developed for vampires-the Blood Spirit Potion-worked wonders in cases like Bill's.
Vampires were different from werewolves. Although both drank blood, werewolves did so purely to satisfy their appetites. Physiologically speaking, fresh blood, especially human blood, was not essential to them.
Vampires were genuinely different. At least, most lower-ranking vampires really did need to drink human blood to stay alive.
Wizards had been people vampires were unwilling to provoke for many years. Their prey was therefore almost always Muggles-the two were vastly different in wizards' eyes, but to vampires, their blood tasted much the same.
But as human technology advanced and weapons grew more powerful, vampires discovered that Muggles seemed to be getting harder to deal with, too.
A hunting rifle could injure a vampire, and specially made bullets-with treated tips that caused wounds to burst open-could even kill a member of the vampire clan.
Vampires possessed exceptional speed and extraordinary regenerative abilities at night. But like all carbon-based life forms, they could be weakened or even killed by heavy blood loss. In