Special shout-out to Takou for being the 1000th reviewer.

GlassGirlCeci: Black magic and the worship of a Dark Power do not have to be related, but worshipers tend to be more open to the idea of becoming black mages. Yes, Moody reminded me a lot of Amadeus/the Black Knight last chapter.

Acerman: Do I plan all this out from the start or make it up as I go? About 50/50. One of the reasons there is so much exposition, explanation, and world-building – besides that I just enjoy it – is that I never know when a random detail I've come up with will serve as a convenient hook to tie into a future event. Sure makes it look like I know what I'm doing, doesn't it?

Secundum: The Baron wouldn't be as blatant in arranging for Voldemort's demise as popping out into the real world if Jen failed in her mission, but he would certainly interfere here and there. Good thing for him, Nyarlathotep (Voldie's patron Power) doesn't care what happens to his avatars so long as their actions provide sufficient entertainment.

"What's going on with Danny?": Patience, my friends, patience. He'll return to the story soon enough. And then you'll have proof that I'm the most awful kind of human being imaginable but it's gonna be so much fun! XD

This chapter has been a long time coming, both in terms of planning and in how long it's been since I posted chapter 20. This chapter, the last winter solstice of the series, is important. I would even go so far as to say that it's one of the biggest chapters in this book. Actually writing it has been a daunting prospect, and I spent most of the last month staring at a blank page trying to figure out how to make all the details just perfect.

Instead, what you see is what you're getting. Striving for perfection would see this chapter forever in limbo.

Chapter 21
Dark Consecration

"To surviving the term," Susan said, raising her mug of steaming butterbeer. "There were times I didn't think we would, but somehow or another, we made it through."

"Aye, that we did. To all of us getting through this bloody war in one piece."

Justin raised his mug to tap against Susan's and Morag's. "To those who have fallen, and those who while still alive have lost everything nonetheless."

"To those who have lost something more intangible than life and possessions, but have yet lost something still," Padma agreed, no doubt thinking of her werewolf-bitten sister.

"To those whose lives and futures are still in danger until we win this war," said Tracey. Like Padma, she was probably thinking of family, her Muggleborn mother in particular.

Luna's mug joined the others'. "To those on whom we rely for our safety, and to those who rely on us. May we never let them down."

Jen glanced around at the group toast and shook her head with a fond smile. Never had she expected this when she chose to enroll in Hogwarts, nor had she thought it would manifest in the motley band of friends she had somehow called together. She raised her mug. The seventh, last, and final. "To those who have lost their lives thus far, be they us or our enemies, and to those whose lives have been claimed but are yet to be reaped. For only in the Baron's eyes is all mankind truly equal."

"So the Baron is a deity!" Padma said with a laugh once the toasts were drunk. "I've been wondering about that literally since you came to Hogwarts."

"…Yes. 'The Baron' is the title Elsie used to refer to Death."

While the others stared at her, Padma just shook her head and dropped it in her hand. "You are devoted to Kali. That explains so much about you."

Unsure of just what she was supposed to say to that, Jen instead chose discretion as the better part of valor. She swallowed the last of her drink and set the mug down. "Fun as this is, I need to get back. Tonight we have a special family event."

Not entirely untrue, she told herself as she walked through the Three Broomsticks'd front door. Special event, yes. Family… eh. It would be just the women of the family at this celebration. For the last couple of years, while she was off representing the House as its heir, Cissy, Andi, and Dora had continued the solstice practice of lighting candles for those people they knew and loved who had passed. It was a nice bit of bonding, and a respect for the traditions intimately linked with the worship of her patron Dark Power. She would not go so far as to say she had missed it, for she had only participated that first winter after Sirius had found her, but she would enjoy joining in once again.

Even if it came with downsides. Her eyes roved through the nighttime streets of the so recently reclaimed Hogsmeade and towards the central square where a massive bonfire burned and all the village's residents and a substantial portion of the castle's students and guests had gathered to celebrate their renewed freedom. Tonight was bound to be a raucous party. By leaving now, she missed out on all the fun and the chance to find a couple of cute young men and women to warm her bed tonight.

And she really needed some fun to relax her.

The recent revelations she had been part of recently – to the Ministry at large, her capability as a dark witch; to Moody, her affiliation with Death – had been liberating in their own ways, but they were also so exhausting. For years she had kept these secrets under lock and key, revealing only bits and pieces to select individuals, and such diligence had served her well.

Now they were out in the open, with her identity as a true black witch the only absolute secret she held. She had no control over how and to whom the knowledge would be spread, nor what those recipients would do with it. The last several days had seen her looking over her shoulders, always on the lookout for the other shoe to drop square on her head. Who would try to bring her low first? Dumbledore? The Ministry? She no longer had the relative anonymity to cut down the threats arrayed against her, for suspicious murders in the night would point all fingers at her whether she was the cause or not.

That was not to say she regretted revealing her secrets. Not necessarily. As she had told Sirius, she knew the Ministry would need to know that she was an allied dark witch were she to make any headway in getting the Dark Arts condoned in Britain. Moody could have been a dangerous enemy thanks to his influence with both the Order and the Ministry, but his suspicions had been allayed once her semi-religious motivations were out in the open.

Everything had probably gone as well as it possibly could, but still she was anxious. She honestly had no clue how she was supposed to feel about everything that had happened in only a few short days.

Jen took a deep breath through her nose, and that breath caught in her lungs when it brought with it the sweet fragrance of a very recognizable tobacco.

An indefinable weight settled upon her shoulders, and her mind raced. Why was the Baron gifting her his power? Why now? It was not the first time she had borrowed Death's strength, but the previous instances had been while she was working a ritual. That was not the case now; she was simply standing in the middle of the street!

"—en? Jen!"

She shook her head, her vision swimming for a moment. This was not right, either. She should not be disoriented the way she was. "Huh?"

Luna laid a hand on her shoulder and spun her around, but whatever words the blonde had planned shriveled on her tongue. Luna took several quick steps back, and her other friends likewise looked unnerved. Before she could demand an explanation, Tracey quietly conjured a mirror and handed it over. Raising it, Jen blinked at the sight of the black eyes staring back at her. Dilated beyond where she remembered her irises ending, she could make out just the barest rim of purple left, and she had to wonder if even that was only in her imagination.

"Oh."

The mirror broke apart into smoke as it fell from her grasp. Something not unlike the phantom sensation of a hand gave her arm a tug, and she turned her head in that direction to look again at the bonfire in the distance.

"You claimed the title," a nasal voice whispered within her skull as the fog surrounding her mind faded away.

"Now you must fulfill the role."

"If you'll excuse me," she told her friends, "I need to take care of something."

Jen's earlier assumption had been incorrect. It was not a single bonfire in the middle of the square she had seen, but the collective light of multiple. Oh, the one directly in the center was by far the largest, but a dozen smaller fires lay in a ring around it, the space expanded to accommodate the fires and the crowds of people around them. Moods varied among the different groups, she realized. Most were jubilant, as seen by the laughing clumps of revelers at the main fire and the young children dancing around the bonfire most to the north. At the southernmost fire stood thick knots of Aurors and Hit Wizards and their assorted groupies, the good mood spoiled by the anger brought about by their drink.

But it was to the east she turned her eyes. No celebration or anger. No shouts or cheers. Instead it was bent heads and above them a near-palpable aura of despair. Despite the joy of Hogsmeade's liberation, the specter of war still hung above them. They were the people who still felt the scars of what war had stolen from them.

The broken. The isolated. The lost.

"Those who desire guidance beyond what mere men can offer. Go to them in this, their hour of greatest need. You know what to do, ti kras jennès mwen."

Cold suffused her limbs as she slipped between the crowds.

A lone man drinking whiskey here. A young couple leaning against each other there. Her eyes and her magic ran over them one by one, looking for the deepest crack, the link that would break most easily. She had one chance to get this right, and just to raise the stakes she had the Baron's undivided attention while she did so.

There, a man in a drab overcoat rather than a cloak. Muggleborn or Halfblood with strong Muggle roots, then. Ring on his left hand, but nobody at his side. Widower, and recently too. Without a better plan on how to approach the matter, Jen stopped at his side and laid a hand on his shoulder. "How are you doing?"

"Gerroff!" He flung his arms out and slapped her hand away. Jumping to his feet, the reek of cheap liquor poured off him and provided an explanation for his bloodshot eyes. "'Oo the bloody 'ell d'you think you are? What d'you think you're doing?"

Had she misjudged her target? Her rational mind said 'yes, obviously', but the wintry chill pulsing gently in her chest made her wonder. Focusing on the latter question rather than the former, she told him simply, "I am offering you what comfort I can."

"Comfort?" He let out a mocking laugh, gaining the attention of those around them. "Doing a bang-up job of that, you are! I don't need your stinking tries at being 'comforting'. I just want you to piss off and leave me alone!" He took a step forward, the fire flaring as though with his anger. The flames flickering in and out of her sonar's grasp distracted her, and her brow rose in incredulity at what she could not possibly be seeing. "Are you listening to me, you little slag?"

The fire crackled and cracked.

The man's face fell slack, and his eyes widened. He sputtered a few times before he could finally whisper, "A-Alicia?"

They stepped apart to get a better look at the strange fires that their companions were likewise staring at. Flames twisted unnaturally among the tall logs, bending out and downward and reaching to the sky like desperate fingers. It looked… almost like a person? In a strange, abstract art kind of way? The drunk clearly was not looking at the same thing, because he took a couple of shambling steps towards the odd gout of flames before he could stop himself and turn back to her. "W-What are you doing? 'Ow are you doing this?"

She shook her head. She had no clue what the Baron was trying to do, but right now her choices were standing there like an idiot or rolling with it and figuring it all out later. "This is not my doing, my friend."

Logs shifted and collapsed on themselves, as burning logs were wont to do, and the fires shifted in response. All normal as far as Jen could see, but her increasing difficulty feeling the fire itself and all the people gasping in shock and staring within the flames proved that normality to be a lie. Few things were unable to be felt by her sonar, and all of them were the direct result of the Powers' meddling in the mortal world.

"This… This isn't possible," the man muttered, half to her but half to himself. "She's gone. My Alicia's gone. She can't be 'ere. This can't be real."

Jen blinked and looked at the wavering semi-figures formed by the dancing flames as she realized what the Baron was doing. Pyromancy. Normally it was just used to try divining the future by watching for shapes in the flames and sometimes by throwing in plants and correlating the omens with what was seen in the smoke, but she had never heard of it being used to see figures of the dead. Then again, most rules were chucked out the window when gods got involved. She might not be able to recognize anyone in these fires, but she was also not the target audience, and that made all the difference in the world.

"Just because it is impossible doesn't mean it can't be real." He looked back at her again, and she raised her voice so that everyone in their little circle could clearly hear her, yet her words would be safe from the people standing around the neighboring bonfires. "This is the night of the winter solstice. It is now that the Dark Powers reign and reach into our world, and in their strength they weaken the Veil between this world and the next. It is no surprise that in these dangerous times, our loved ones wish to peer through at those they were torn away from."

"Dark… Powers?" Jen turned her head slightly to find the woman of the young couple she had previously seen slowly walking towards her. Not a woman, either; a girl, and with several facial features shared by the boy she had been leaning on. Sister and brother, then, rather than lovers. "You don't mean like You-Know-Who, do you?"

She shook her head, putting on a soft smile in an attempt to comfort the girl. "No, sweetie, not like him. Nothing like him.

"There are thirteen Great Powers that reach into the world and influence it to their whims. Powers of Darkness and Powers of Light, gaining and losing power as the year progresses and their realms change position relative to our own. They have existed since time immemorial, waging their own battles for their own reasons. They were ancient before humanity existed, and they will still be here when we and all we have created have been worn down to dust.

"Long ago, our ancestors worshiped them as gods, for what else would you call beings who care not for the laws of reality or magic? We served them, and they granted us their blessings." The Baron's power quickened within her again, and the bonfire flared as the figures vanished. It distracted her audience momentarily, but when their attention returned to her it was with even greater focus. As good a segue as she was going to get, probably. "But the times changed. Man learned more and more about how to manipulate magic and the world, and the wisdom of the past was not lost so much as it was thrown away like rubbish. 'There are no gods,' men of worldly knowledge decreed. 'Those beliefs are relics of older, unenlightened ages. There is only magic and our mastery of it. We have no need to worship empty stories.' "

She shook her head. "So much knowledge, history, gone. Books of rituals and prayers burned. Shrines and temples torn down, either by action or neglect. Even magic itself was buried, the strange and varied magics that made up the core of true witchcraft all but forgotten with only the tiniest scraps still clung to.

"But denying the Powers' existence does not make them any less real. Indeed, they still watch and act as they always have, and their gifts and curses are no less powerful than they ever were." Jen stretched out her hand in the direction of the bonfire. "You all saw just now evidence of their continued vigil. This is the night of the gods of darkness, and of them it was Death who chose to give you a gift to comfort you in your grief. Death escorts all who fall from this world into the Afterlife. Those you saw? Your parents, your children, your loves? He guided them into the peace of the next world, where they will wait for you to join them in the proper time.

"You have not lost Alicia," she told the first man, reaching out and laying her hand on his shoulder again. This time he did not fight her. "You have merely been separated from her for a while."

A small boy crept forward, ignoring the chiding of his mother. Blinking big eyes at her, he asked softly, "Will the gods make this war stop?"

Oh, child, if only you knew, she thought with an internal smirk. Her face reflected none of her dark humor, and she twirled a finger twice behind her back. "Why should they? This war is between men, and moreover men who do not respect or worship them." As if on cue, and it certainly was, the drunken Aurors under the influence of her magic raised their voices louder, and shouts came from their fire as a brawl erupted. She gave a breath of silent thanks that Andi had insisted Dora join the family for their remembrance, for it meant her beloved cousin was in no danger of getting caught in that mess. To continue the act, she twisted her head around in that direction before meeting the boy's eyes once again. "Do you think those people over there, those Aurors and Hit Wizards, would believe that any actions taken to help them were those of gods, or would they call it coincidence and accident and fortune? These are the same kinds of men who turned away from the Powers once. If it happened once, it can happen again. The Powers can help us, and they are willing to help us, but they do not have to. If we want them to help, we must give them a reason for them to want to do so. More than anything else, they crave to be worshiped once more."

"How do you know this?" an old woman demanded. "Why should we believe you?"

"You can believe me or not. That is your choice. As for how I know this…" She grinned. It was amazing sometimes how useful the truth could be to twist another truth. "I have served Death since I was a young girl. My family has long worshiped him or other Dark Powers, even if we could not publicize it."

The old woman frowned and came closer. "I know you. You're that noble girl, aren't you? The one who summoned the monsters that killed the Death Eaters here in the village?"

How had that become public knowledge so quickly? The crowd muttered, and she inclined her head. Either this was about to bite her hard in the arse, or… "That I did. Jen Black, at your service."

The disheveled man she had first spoken to fell to his knees at her admission, and his hands grabbed at her trouser legs. "'M sorry. 'M sorry," he whispered, creeping closer to her. "I didn't know it was you. My Alicia… We were separated when the Death Eaters attacked. They killed 'er, just 'cause she was Muggleborn. I thought they'd never get punished for it, but you did. You killed them for 'er, and you showed 'er to me again." He stared up at her with eyes overbrimming with tears. "Thank you, milady. Thank you."

That opened the floodgates, and over half of this fire's occupants came to her, thanking her either for liberating Hogsmeade or for showing them their lost loved ones in the flames. The former she accepted with all the grace expected of an heiress, and the latter she deferred as best she possibly could. Had anyone ever told her she would attempt not to acquire fame and reputation, she would have thought them fools, but taking credit for the fire would have been counterproductive. Not only would she be unable to duplicate the deed on demand, it would take the spotlight away from the might of the Baron.

The Light, Dumbledore included and especially, hated and looked down on the Old Ways. Death himself had said that Dumbledore viewed them as myths even while he carried the Elder Wand in his pocket. If the Leader of the Light was that set against religion, she would take great pleasure in forcing him to watch as the worship of Death and the Dark Powers resurged and flourished as a result of her efforts.

Finally she extricated herself from the crowd and made her way back to the castle via shadowed and empty roads, a path that would hopefully stave off the headache she could feel gnawing on the backs of her eyes. Was it the flickering firelight that had gotten to her? The smoke? Or maybe the ice-cold power still singing in her veins? The open gates of the castle stood before her, and from within came Sirius and Andi.

"Jen?" he asked as she came closer. "Where have you been? We were waiting for you for— Jen!"

The Baron's mantle vanished, and so did all her strength. The only reason she did not fall face-first into the stone floor was that Sirius dashed forwards to catch her the instant her legs collapsed. She moaned into his chest but chose not to waste what energy she still had trying and failing to stand up again.

"Jen, are you okay?!"

A turn of her head let her glare at him, her expression not nearly as impressive as it normally was. It was not his fault he didn't know, but that knowledge did little to soothe her temper. "No, I'm not okay. I spent the last hour channeling a god. Human souls aren't meant to do that."

"You did what with what now?"

She pushed herself off of him and back onto her own two feet. "One of the downsides of being a priestess," she told him with a tired sigh. "Sometimes Death decides he wants to show off, and that means I get to serve as the conduit of his power. The results are awe-inspiring"—particularly if she were lumping black magic into that vague description—"but they have their associated costs, too.

"I know we were going to have our remembrance ceremony, but can we push it back just a little bit? I really need a nap."

Alternate title: "Wherein Jen gets her priestess on".

If you want a visual of what Jen's eyes look like while bearing the Baron's power, Google "Hellraiser Pinhead eyes". Maybe I'm weird, but for me that's the creepiest part of his appearance.

Silently Watches out.