It was late at night and the silver moon over London made the attic of Grimmauldplace Nr.12 glow in a smooth blue light. It was used as a storage room to free the rest of the house from everything, beginning with trash and ending with dark artifacts that were too valuable or too dangerous to get rid off. Some furniture was covered in big covers of grey linen and in three of the four corners, books were arranged in stacks.
Those were the reason why Hermione Granger came here the first time and since then. One day in the summer after the fourth year, the Weasleys and herself cleared out the Black residence and while doing so, many books came on the 'blacklist', as Molly Weasley called it. The list determined if the books and tomes they found were too dark to lie around for everybody to see. After every day of cleaning, Molly Weasley would shoo them down to dinner while she hid the books and dark artifacts in the attic that was hidden behind a secret entry.
Hermione was frustrated after seeing the ancient tomes, even some papyrus scrolls and not being allowed to read them. Even if they were dark, what harm could it do to at least inform oneself? As her father kept saying, 'A weapon is but a tool that does good or evil according to its wielders wishes'. But when she was honest with herself, she didn't even care how these texts were perceived by the 'good people'. She was hungry for knowledge and Molly Weasley had decided to starve her. This wouldn't do.
Hermione tried to find the entrance to the attic for over a week, without success. Not entirely without. She found the door, alright. But what good was a door if you didn't have the key? To gather this sort of intelligence she had to go to the extreme and hired the Weasley twins. For a couple of Galleons and a free pass for either one of the twins should she become prefect in the fifth year, the two spied on their mother until they found out how to enter the attic.
'Purity prevails' was the simple phrase that made the door translucent and allowed Hermione to walk through it. How the twins found out about it, even though their mother used silencing charms whenever she said these words, she didn't know and didn't want to either.
And so she came up the attic every night, every day of the week, to read through the books she picked at random, starting with the most ancient ones. She set up a desk that was covered in the grey linen to protect it from dust and sat down on a stack of less interesting looking books about magical herbs and household spells. Books that were stored here not because they were particularly dark, but because they were just a waste of space.
The first night she read through an old book that went on about the different spells to flay, impale and generally kill people while inflicting as much pain onto them as possible. Hermione was disgusted, but far less than she expected to be. Much stronger was the feeling of disappointment that only grew with every book she opened that covered similar subjects. Kill in battle, kill as punishment, kill to set examples, kill for revenge, kill for honor, kill for money and kill for sports.
She was about to stop with her nightly study sessions when she came across an old, some would say ancient, tome that covered something new. 'The Art and Craft of Blood Magic' stood in old letters on the cover of the book. "Now thats more like it." Hermione whispered to herself while she flew over the contents of the book.
She was fascinated by the pictures of blood rituals, the way you had to cut runes into your skin for the sacrifices and the horrifying result you could get by using this barbaric brand of magic. It was like watching one of the horror flicks her father seemed to enjoy. The longer she read in the book, the more she became disgusted by the practices, but she was unable to look away. Every page she said to herself that that one would be the last just to turn to the next page. She ended up reading through the whole book. Hermione felt like vomiting once she read about the last ritual. Requiring the blood of a prostitute was a ritual that granted the sorcerer the ability to let his body form anew, extending his life. The details were disgusting and included raping the woman before cutting up her throat and hanging her on hooks above the ritual circle to bleed out onto the runes drawn under her. The author praised the possibilities but warned about doing it too often, since opening the body up to so much dark magic resulted in becoming a monster. The authors name was James Maybrick aka. Jack the Ripper. He wrote the nickname in cursive as if he was proud of it.
After finishing the book written by the famous murderer and psychopath, Hermione took a pause in her studies. She had nightmares in which she hung over a rune while her blood oozed out of her body. Mad laughter and unintelligible chants droned in her ears while she kept bleeding onto the rune for what seemed like hours to her. She woke up, wet from her own sweat and needed a few minutes until she realized where she was. If Harry's dreams where like this all the time, she thought to herself, then she wondered how her friend kept himself sane. It took her three days until curiosity regained the upper hand and she went back up to the attic. However, this time she would not just read, she would take notes.
"These spells are tools. I am a good wielder." she said to herself several times until she opened Jack the Rippers book again. She remembered reading about a spell that worked like a reducto and merely required a small wound in the palm of her hand. No incantation, no wand, just a wound and intent. It would come in handy should she ever need some wandless magic. The fact that Voldemort was alive again added to her reasoning. What if they were imprisoned and their wands taken from them? See, consciousness? This is a good thing to do!
Once she copied the instructions to the spell onto a piece of parchment she shut the book close and threw it into the darkest corner of the attic. Shivers ran down her spine when she thought about the last few pages and subsequently, her nightmares. She looked down on the parchment that now held the instructions to a blood magic spell.
'I could go to prison for this' she thought to herself.
'I'm looking for ways to protect us. Looking can't hurt, can it?'
'Yeah... keep telling that to yourself.'
'But its not like I'm going to use any of the really dark ones.'
'Well, that one on page 68 loo...'
Hermine shook her head violently as if she tried to destroy that last line of thought. No, she would never use the really bad ones, she would never hurt anybody else, let alone kill anybody as a sacrifice. It was just her brain taking a detour into dark terrain. What did she read one time? Thinking about shoving someone in front of a train wasn't insanity, insanity was to actually do it. Or something along those lines.
She stood up and grabbed another random book from a random stack. It was a slim book covered in green leather with a title in simple golden letters. 'An Introduction to Summoning by Ignatius Black' was the title of this one. This time Hermione was more careful while she read through the first pages. She wouldn't make the mistake again to be caught off guard by the contents of a book. After a few pages she loosened up. This wasn't bad at all.
"Why is this even here?" she asked no one. The book was everything but dark. It described in great detail the basics of the forgotten, since illegal Art of Summoning. The authors tone was professional and positive as he described the various types of helpful spirits, harmless demons, angels and more exotic beings that would do as the Summoner commands. It reminded her of her own school-books.
After a few hours of reading introductions and basics, the author proposed to the reader a little experiment. A simple summoning, quick and without risk, no sacrifice involved. Hermione sat stunned in front of her desk covered in linen. A quick rush of anger flew through her head as she realized that she was once again caught by surprise by another author. And damn him, she had everything she needed for this in closest proximity. What if she did it? It wouldn't hurt and the only thing it cost was an inch of parchment and a bit of ink. No harm would be done. But it was illegal, even though it was just a small, minor, insignificant wisp that would come through the circle. That didn't change the fact that Summoning was forbidden in the United Kingdom and most of the Commonwealth. However, it wouldn't be the first rule she broke out of curiosity. That Polyjuice Potion she brew in second year was maybe serving a purpose, but Hermione would kid herself if she'd deny that she had done it to prove that she could do it. Then again, Polyjuice Potion wouldn't get her into Azkaban.
Sometimes she hated her two sides. Curiosity and rules rarely played along well.
In the end she decided to do it. Nobody would find out, anyway and she really doubted that this little ritual could really be categorized as dark. It was illegal because it was a ritual, not because it was dangerous.
She carefully drew the circle on the parchment and added the three runes required to the top and on the sides, exactly ninety degrees from the top rune. On the bottom she placed her thumb and began to read the words used for the summoning. Other than spells, these words were no orders but invitations. The author made sure to emphasize the fact that until the summoned beings come through the summoning circle they have their own will and decide for themselves if they agree to the invitation. Other than some of the examples he gave previously, the invitation for the wisp was simple, even though Hermione had no idea what language it was. "Onta-cala." she said and suddenly the ink forming the circle on the parchment began to glow in a faint white.
Instinctively Hermione tried to remove her thumb, but it was stuck on the paper, just like that was stuck on the desk as if someone glued it all together. She nearly began to panic when a small, not even ping-pong ball sized sphere of light came through the circle and her thumb came free. She gasped and forgot to close her mouth while staring at the white ball that now flew in circles around her. She felt it. She knew for a fact that it also felt her. After a few laps around her the wisp stopped in front of her. Hermione didn't hear anything but she could have sworn that someone asked her what he was supposed to do. Before she could even think about answering the same sensation repeated in her head. It was like the memory of something once heard. Like when you thought about what someone said to you a second ago. This time it just stated that she looked confused. She nodded and the shadow of a sentence saying "I thought from the start that you were a beginner." came into her head.
Nervously she looked to the book and searched the pages for the line that would banish the wisp back to wherever it came from. But before she could make out the words in the book, the wisp told her through her own thoughts that the words were 'Cala heca'.
"Cala heca" she said nervously while fighting back the sudden urge to smile when words of goodbye and a strange feeling of amusement flowed through her mind. The wisp vanished through the circle and left Hermione behind in what now seemed like an unnatural darkness. The wisp's light has been as bright as a powerful Lumos. The candle on the desk felt like a sad excuse for illumination compared to it.