Chapter 42: Wherein there are a few rituals.
Summary: Warning. Author is actual ritualist.
"Who gives this child Hermione in marriage?" Minerva quietly asked, standing just to one side of the Seat stone at the head of the crowd around the stones. Only two figures stood within the circle, each robed in white, facing each other, standing on the ley line between the Seat stone and its opposite standing stone, and only one within the Curtain sat - an old, elegant lady in a crown and quite a fancy fur-lined cape.
"We, her parents, give this child Hermione in marriage."
"Do you certify and promise she has not been given nor taken in marriage before?"
"We do."
"Who gives this child Viktor in marriage?" Minerva asked, following the simple ritual, holding only a long length of white grosgrain in her hands.
"We, his parents, give this child Viktor in marriage."
"Do you certify and promise he has not been given nor taken in marriage before?"
"We do."
"Who witnesses this marriage between these children, Hermione and Viktor?"
"We do!" all assembled cried out with strength. Only the merfolk whispered.
"Hermione, child, do you come to this marriage without encumbrance and of your own free will?"
"I do," said the barefoot woman in white wearing a crown of fragrant white roses with an ancient sword strapped to her hips.
"Viktor, child, do you come to this marriage without encumbrance and of your own free will?"
"I do," said the barefoot man in white wearing a crown of fragrant white roses, unarmed.
"Hermione, child, do you take Viktor to be your husband for a year and a day?"
"Nay, ma'am."
"For the duration of your mortal life?"
"Nay, ma'am."
"Until such time as your souls be rent asunder one from the other?"
"Aye, ma'am, until our souls be rent asunder."
"Viktor, child, do you take Hermione to be your wife on her terms?"
"Aye, ma'am, until our souls be rent asunder."
"So mote it be. Come and have your hands bound fast. Clip the ribbon you may, break the knot you will not."
They both walked toward her, walking the weak but discernible invisible line of magic and life and then stood side by side, he on the left, she on the right, each with one foot still straddling the line. With fingers interlaced, Hermione's left hand and Viktor's right, backwards in some respects, to tradition, Minerva wrapped their wrists and hands around and around, and then tied a tight knot. Then she stepped aside and a middle aged man briefly took her place.
"Kneel down before your God," he bid them, and they did so, hands bound together. He leaned over the low stone and placed a hand on each of their heads. "May your love only grow, may your union inspire others, and may you be open always to God's will in your lives. I bless you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen."
The middle aged man moved aside and the elderly woman took over again.
"You may seal your agreement with a kiss, and be not distracted by other things today, for you must consummate your agreement by midnight tonight."
Still kneeling, the two kissed and most people cheered, though everyone applauded. No one had noticed the photographers discreetly documenting the ritual and no one objected to gathering around the happy couple for a photograph.
Someone broke out the champagne and the toast was to the life and health of Viktor and Hermione, Hermione and Viktor, and when it was time to cut the ribbon from their wrists, Viktor held it steady with his free hand and Hermione very carefully held Excalibur, Sword of Legend, unsheathed against the sturdy white grosgrain.
Viktor's floral crown was gone as he sat in the front side facing row off to the right, replaced by a white gold circlet adorned with a moonstone over his third eye. The chair next to him was empty, but when Queen Elizabeth II sat down once more, it would be there she sat. He was still barefoot and for now there was a warming charm, and on Hermione's feet as well, but he would cancel them before they got into the stone circle.
There were, perhaps, not quite ten thousand people in attendance, muggle, squib, witch and wizard, elf, merfolk, and centaur, and all of them were quite silent.
Both he and Hermione wore their matching white wedding clothes, but now over both of them were matching dragon cloaks lined in ermine. Both he and Hermione wore torcs around their necks, hers a thick yellow gold, his a thinner but still substantial white gold, both adorned with the same stones but hers perhaps a thousand years older.
Hermione wore her wand strapped to her waist on the other side of her sword until she pulled out the latter and handed it handle first, elegantly sinking to her knees in a move she had practiced many times with him, and with her friends. And so she had knelt in front of the old monarch and spoke clearly her vows of fealty, their voices amplified behind them and out of the enclosure, though from where Viktor sat, he could hear her voice perfectly well, strong and pure.
Elizabeth recognized her service, her sacrifice, and her valor and proclaimed her the first of the Knights of the Order of Merlin.
Excalibur touched her shoulders one by one, and then the monarch returned the sword, hilt first, and it was sheathed in leather once more.
Elizabeth invoked God and proclaimed Hermione Her Royal Majesty Queen Hermione, Regent of all Avalon. She put an unadorned gold crown on her head, that regardless of its lack of diamonds, velvet, and fur, seemed still to have the weight of responsibility in it.
A chime sounded, and Viktor put the water plugs into his ears.
Moments later, the merfolk choir began singing and it was so beautiful it almost brought tears to his eyes. They sang of peace, of home, of prosperity, of love. It was the second time they sang. The first was to beckon everyone to gather and be seated at the beginning of the brief ceremony, and it was like hearing the transcendent sirens of legend. Even Viktor, who had prior experience with their song, had been deeply moved. Never had a crowd of ten thousand so quickly and with such order assembled themselves, first scrambling to put their water earplugs in, and then quickly and efficiently finding their seat and letting the song settle deep in their bones.
As they sang for the second time, Hermione rose and turned around to face the crowd assembled, and Elizabeth removed herself from the center and resumed her seat next to him, her hands placed calmly in her lap.
Hermione stood alone in the center, on the lowest step of Concordia, and Viktor watched her eyes alone move as she tracked all the people around her and in front of her. She stood not with hands clasped, but with her arms to her side and slightly out, hands open, relaxed, and inviting, and with the fall of the sleeves, her inner forearms were clearly visible. She held herself very deliberately, he knew. With the repeater broadcast focusing in on her, the message she sent was as clear as the word etched on her arm, a healed scar, but still perfectly visible from a distance.
Here is your Queen, wizarding world, fearless and noble. As brave as the day is long, and stronger still, and blood purity is a myth you are invited to release.
She was radiant.
In the third verse, Viktor stood up, his own circlet resting strangely on his forehead, and he stepped up to her as she stood. He wandlessly and wordlessly ended the warming charm on both of their feet and the fixing spell on her braids, and then removed her cape from her shoulders. The human master of ceremonies, Hermione's parliamentarian tutor, stepped to him and took her cape, and then Viktor's own, and Viktor offered Hermione his arm.
The merfolk choir still sang as first two elves - one tiny and elderly, one larger and younger - then two merfolk - their bubbles of water splitting off from the choir, but still singing - and then two centaurs, and then Hermione and Viktor walked and swam in a line around the steps of Concordia. They were followed discreetly by reporters and the videographers whose special cameras were connected to the rebroadcast, which now everyone would need to rely upon, even those present.
All the way around Concordia, the right hand door of the Curtain stood open and inviting into the stones beyond and two by two they entered, first the elves, then the merfolk, then the centaurs, then the humans. The reporters followed and spread out around the stones, while the eight stood within. Torches on the inner walls of the curtain were lit and cast strange shadows around the stones and the people within, but there could never have been anything fearsome about it, not while the merfolk choir sang and entranced all who heard.
When the song ended, a new one began, only this time it was only the lone mermaid within the stones who sang, Gelwyn, Chief of the Love.
Her song bade the other seven to step this way, and remember that thing, and one by one the elves, then the merfolk, then the centaurs, then the humans met in the center of the circle to mingle their blood with their mate and return to their stone. And then two by two there was blood on the stones, first the elves, then the merfolk, then the centaurs, then the humans, and when it was Viktor and Hermione's turn, he pressed his bloody arm to the stone even as Hermione's blade, Excalibur, coated with both of their blood, came to rest with a loud shiiiing in the stone.
Two by two they sat in front of their stones, first the elves, then the merfolk in their fashion, then the centaurs, then Viktor sat on the ground before his as Hermione sat on hers.
And as she did, Gelwyn sang.
Viktor gasped.
The Centaurs laughed.
The Elves giggled.
Hermione exhaled, eyes wide.
Viktor shivered as the power ran through him, and still Gelwyn sang. She sang of trust. She sang of faith. She sang of things unseen but felt, things unknown but intuited. She sang of longing fulfilled, an end to waiting, an end to fear.
And Viktor knew as he sometimes did with blood magic, that this was not about Britain. This was about everywhere. And he was somehow now tied in with everywhere.
Everything Gelwyn sang about was going into the blood ritual, which was ongoing, still, for as long as the song lasted.
Viktor, as self-aware as he was for a twenty-one year old, really didn't have words for what was going on inside of him. Years later he would realize that Gelwyn's blood magic had unlocked all the doors inside of his heart, his mind, and invited him to release all the negativity he could, urging him to sit naked in his own soul and know that what he truly was in his most inner self was something so pure and so beautiful that it would be silly of him not to imagine everyone else was the same.
And for the moment, the power running through him just left him gasping, aroused, and though he didn't realize it, silently weeping, though he would notice the tears soon enough when the ritual ended.
And he would leave them on his smiling face, unashamed, as he escorted his beautiful wife at the end of the line out of the standing stones, back around Concordia, to stand with her on the steps with the other participants of the ritual to the acclaim of a crowd that was both laughing and crying while applauding. They stood before them, their cloaks once more over their shoulders, wandless warming charms on their bare feet, though the steps of Concordia were warm to the touch even in the cold of December.
The fireworks went off behind them, and they stood smiling and laughing and so filled with joy that words could never adequately form the shape of what happened that day.