Legal Disclaimer: I own my stuff, but not the original source material. That belongs to whoever. Also, the opinions and interpretations I use here may not reflect the same in said whoever that owns the source material. Look, I'm just a poor college librarian. Suing me isn't going to get you anything but tears.

Warning: This work may be offensive to some readers. Feel free to back out if need be.

Author's Note: I'm listening to a playlist where the villain is the protagonist because I need to manually update the audio drivers and I haven't had time yet. That is what I'm blaming for this.

Submitting Info:
Stacked with: Hogwarts (Term 14); MC4A
Individual Challenges: Knightly Era; Old Shoes (Y); Bucket Listing (Y); Short Jog
House: Slytherin
Assignment No.: Term 14 – Assignment 04
Subject (Task No.): Ritual & Ceremonial Magic (Task#1: Write about an ancient ritual being performed by someone for the first time.)
Other Hogwarts Challenges: Fantastic Beasts [174](Rowena Ravenclaw); 365 Prompts [148](Ravenclaw); Scavenger Hunt [11](Founders Era); Days of the Year [Dec 25th](something that makes a day unforgettable); But Can You Spell It? [P](Past); Stop! Hamper Time (Chutneys)[Tamarind](Rowena Ravenclaw); Fantasy February (26)[Magic Stops Working]
Other MC4A Challenges: Hang [06](n/a); Chim [Karma](Copper); Fire [Hard](Who's Your Family?)
Representation(s): Rowena Ravenclaw; Broken Found Family
Primary & Secondary Bonus Challenges: These Boots; Misshapen Pods Second Verse (Ladylike; Not a Lamp); Chorus (Hot Stuff; Some Beach)
Tertiary & Generic Bonus Challenges: n/a
Word Count: 1042 words

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The Night Magic Died
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Rowena raised her copper dagger as she summoned guardians for each of the four elements. She wasn't sure that that the ritual would actually do what she wanted it to do, but she had to try. She couldn't let her school fall apart. After Salazar had exiled himself in the wake of Helga's death, she had struggled onward with Godric by her side.

Things had been hard, but they had been good. They had been working. The school had been drawing in students both children as well as adults. They had all been sorted by the same hat that Salazar had once stolen right off of Godric's head and enchanted with a bit of each essence from each of them. The hat had a bit of Godric's chatty nature but also the badger-like fierceness that Helga had embodied while she had been alive. It made the hat a bit of a problem.

Because the hat had talked about the past.

It had told Godric of what it had witnessed that night. Rowena had been careful covering her tracks, making it seem like Helga had died of some other cause. The mystery had eaten at Salazar, who had lost himself to grief after his bondmate's death. Eventually, it had driven him from the castle that had been their home for so many decades. Rowena had not let that persuade her from confessing her slip of wand due to a momentary temper. She had kept the same story she had told after cleaning up any sign of her presence.

She had just forgotten the thrice-cursed hat.

Godric had been thunderous in his dismay over what he called a betrayal. Oh, how he had raged about it. Not just about how she had cursed the life out of Helga in a fit of anger, but how she had covered it up and how she had not come clean as Salazar destroyed himself in mourning. It had been very annoying.

The way that the wards of the school had fallen when Godric had left her had been even more vexing.

Rowena had been forced to design an entirely new ritual to raise more, because previously it had taken four of them to do it. The magic circle shimmered as her summoning worked as it should have. She smiled for the first time since the confrontation with Godric over what that stupid hat had blabbed.

"Hear me, O Great Magic," she intoned, "raise a shield around those I seek to protect and let no harm come to them while they dwell in my keep. Take from them what you need to feed this justice so that all may share the burden. O Great One, I beseech you! Do what must be done to serve the Greater Good!"

The air shimmered around her ritual circle. The great monoliths making up the outermost circle reflected the full moon overhead, even down to the red cast spilling across it like blood spreading through water. The wind whistled over the land before it sped up even further, turning into a mournful howl like a werewolf denied the comfort of pack and mate. Lightning crackled across the sky despite the lack of clouds, brightly purple and fiercely blue.

The display pleased her. It was a sign that her magic had reached as far as was needed. Ritual magic had always been more Helga's area of expertise than Rowena's. The other witch had also been the one who had designed the ritual that the first set of wards had been based upon, along with hundreds of little functionalities that made the castle suitable as a school for children just beginning to grasp the reins of their magic. To have bested Helga one last time filled Rowena with the warmth of a thousand suns.

It was fitting that Rowena did so by fixing something that Helga had cracked in the first place.

As the display faded and the moon began to return to its normal paleness, Rowena felt as if her strength was leaving her. It was not the tidy removal of slivers that she had felt when she had done the ritual the first time with Helga, Godric, and Salazar to share the burden, but it was the violent ripping that she had experienced when performing the ritual that had cleansed Helga's body of any trace of Rowena's curse. Rowena dismissed the sensation as the natural product of performing such a powerful rite without any support.

Not willing to risk Apparating with her rapidly growing exhaustion, Rowena started walking back to the castle proper. She stumbled a bit in the dark, but when she lifted her wand, she could not even get a small flicker of light. She must be more tired than she had realized if she could not even light her wand.

No matter. The task was done now, and she would recover her magic after a decent night's sleep.

The castle was dark when she arrived. The torches charmed to be always lit were as spent as if they had never been charmed at all. The ceiling in the Great Hall did not reflect the night sky outside, only the blue-gray stone that the entire castle had been made from. No house-elves responded to her summons. When she started towards her tower suite, the stairs didn't move.

And when she came face to face with the griffin that guarded the door to her chambers, it did not respond to her password. Thankfully, Salazar had insisted on mundane components to all security features, so she was able to slide a decorative panel and open the door without magic. Yet once that was done, the stairs did not move to carry her upwards.

In the office that she had once shared with her friends—those she had called family despite their lack of shared blood—none of the portraits moved. They were still within their frames, as animated as those produced by Muggles. Her heart began to pound with the first traces of fear.

In a gilded frame above the unlit fireplace, Helga stared on as she would forevermore. The tiny smile on Helga's heart-shaped face seemed to mock Rowena. It was infuriating.

At least that damnable hat could no longer speak.