Story Notes:

Okay... so if you've been reading this story up until this point you may have some idea of what's coming in this chapter... if you're just looking in now, well... this one needs a big content warning!

The second part of the chapter contains a huge, rather dark, Blood Magic ritual.

The ritual is hopefully not written in an overtly icky or yucky way, and I've tried to keep it as non triggering as possible. But, if you are in any way sensitive to blood, cutting yourself, (medically for blood ritual purposes, not self harm,) or anything at all to do with Dark Magic or spell rituals, then please, either read it with caution or give that part a miss. Stories are meant to be enjoyable and I'd hate to trigger anyone.

Having said all that... here it is, the big chapter! EEEEEEK!

I hope you all enjoy it... and if you do enjoy it and you leave us a little comment or some AO3 kudos, we will love you forever. Thank you all so much!

Thank you to my wonderful alpha/beta champagneandliterature for your time and help with this story.

Bring me to Life - Chapter 12

Hermione pushed her way out of the main entry doors of the D.O.M., knowing she was late to meet Blaise, Draco, and Harry for lunch. She hurried along the corridor and rounded the first corner, faltering at the sound of Harry's raised voice. "What do you mean we can't perform this ritual at Grimmauld?!" he exclaimed, looking up at the sound of her approach. Despite his apparent outrage, he turned to meet her with a kiss. "It's the obvious place to do it, surely?"

Draco frowned, fixing Blaise with the full force of his steely grey eyes. "I agree. If this is because Gareth Greengrass is still pissed at you for leading Astoria on, I will hex off your overused dangly bits, Blaise!"

Hermione turned from Harry's effortless kiss to Draco's rather stilted one, and they made their way along the black tiled corridor. Blaise returned Draco's frown as they walked. "Seriously, why must you always have a go at me over girls? I didn't lead Astoria on. She threw herself at me in a nightclub on several occasions. I gave her exactly what she wanted every time."

"No, you didn't, mate. She wanted marriage and babies. Not a series of one-night stands."

"Oh. Well, she had a funny way of showing that then," Blaise retorted crossly. "Anyway, you're hardly in a position to criticize my treatment of Astoria, are you? Lucius had you under contract to marry the girl, but you wriggled your way out of it by purposely shagging Pansy. Again."

Hermione remained quiet as Draco sighed in exasperation and continued arguing, "oh fine! Bring that up, why don't you? At least Astoria got out of a potential marriage to me alive, which is something your family can hardly claim-"

"Ahem!" Harry said pointedly as they stepped into the mercifully empty lift. "Enough! You two bicker worse than an old married couple sometimes!"

Blaise laughed, and even Draco smiled as the tension broke. "Let's leave my family out of this, shall we, Malfoy? We all know what happens to the men who cross my mother, all I did was give Astoria a few good nights." He grimaced as he pushed his glasses up onto his head and rubbed his eyes. "Let's both set aside our history with the Chief Unspeakable's youngest daughter and focus on the more pressing issue here. We need to perform the ritual in front of the arch. The readings we took from the front of the veil are identical to the readings in the bedroom. Don't forget that Sirius passed through the veil itself. We can't do the ritual in the bedroom because the veil vortex doesn't have an opening there."

"But what about the energy readings we took there? What was the point of doing all of that?" Harry was still clearly frustrated. He rumpled his hair in agitation and fidgeted with his glasses as he stared at Blaise.

Hermione shifted in the corner, thinking hard. Once Blaise had left the meeting that morning, Gareth had held her back for her end of induction review and she had gladly accepted his glowing praise for her initial work. Gareth had then smiled and ushered her out of his office before stopping her in the doorway to repeat his earlier warnings. Under no circumstances was the ritual to be performed outside of the Ministry, and what did take place within the D.O.M. was to be a heavily scaled down version of the full ritual they had spent all week planning.

Blaise closed his eyes and sighed. "We took readings in so many places to prove that Sirius is still around and very much alive. If you take energy readings from a regular haunting, the most you'll get is a record of spirit energy because the person who died now only exists in that form. The readings we took were living, full-bodied, corporeal person energy. We proved that Sirius is still alive, in some form, most notably in the bedroom at Grimmauld, probably because he's looking out for you, Harry. But he needs to come out of the arch the way he went in. The arch needs to chuck him back out again. We can't hope for that to happen if we're doing the ritual away from the arch itself."

"Okay fine." Draco nodded in agreement as the lift doors opened. They walked through the Atrium and into the warm sunshine outside. "How do you propose we do it then? And why haven't you said anything at all yet, Hermione? What's wrong?"

Hermione sighed. "We've just spent the entire morning with Gareth and I'm upset because he won't approve of what we want to do. Although he admired our work and was fascinated by the energy readings and the vortex theory, he categorically refused to let us try pulling Sirius back with anything other than a very, very toned down version of our planned ritual. He's not going to risk any of us being pulled the wrong way through the arch or a repeat of what happened with the time travel experiments of a few years ago."

"He won't budge," Blaise agreed. "He hates Blood magic too. The only reason there's a room for it in the D.O.M. is because Shacklebolt wants it investigated. We can't get clearance to bring Theo or Daphne inside the department either, and I don't want to even consider doing this without them present. Now that we know what it involves, I want a healer on hand, and we all know that Theo dips in and out of the Dark Arts far further than any of us are willing to go. We need his experience to know how far to push the ritual and when to stop it before it goes too far."

Blaise sighed as he continued, "basically, Gareth turned our proposal down, and he's forbidden the use of Blood Magic too. Can you imagine what would happen if he caught us mid ritual, having already forbidden us to do it?"

Draco laughed, "I don't know what you're worrying about, mate. Daphne's not actively involved in the ritual unless it all goes to shit, so she'll have a free wand. We can just ward the door, and if he was to get through, she can Imperio him to sit quietly in the corner, then obliviate him afterward when we're all done. Problem solved."

"Harry, Hermione?" Blaise said with a roll of his eyes, "have either of you got any more sensible ideas?"

"As it happens," Hermione said quietly, "I have. But it's about as mad as robbing Gringotts and flying away on a dragon was."

Harry caught her eye and gave her his slow, easy smile, "that's my girl." She laughed at his conspiratorial wink as they made their way through the park.

A football came sailing through the air towards them. Harry blocked it with his foot then kicked it gently back to the small child who had lost it. "Thanks, Mister!" the boy shouted, making Harry grin as he gave him a thumbs up.

Hermione cleared her throat, realizing that they were all waiting for her to continue. "What if we do the ritual we've already planned at night when the D.O.M. is empty. Therefore no one is in work to catch us or to interfere with what happens."

Blaise shook his head, "we can't do that. The entire D.O.M is security warded, love. The intruder alarms will sound if we're inside. Some Hogwarts kids broke in a few years back, and there was a bit of a fight in the D.O.M…. I don't know if you heard about that?!"

"Very funny," She swatted at Blaise, and he caught her hand with a chuckle. "Okay, let me think. Our badges activate the wards, right? And we need the badges on to get into the Death Room?" Blaise nodded in confirmation. "And our badges check us back out again, so once our badges leave, the wards think we've left with them and won't pick us up if we're still inside without them. Am I right with all of this?"

"Yes. One of the rules in our contract states that we should never go anywhere without our badges. For that very reason-"

Hermione held up a hand, and Blaise fell silent. "Okay, hear me out, please. So we open the Death Room door with our badges and slip inside just before hometime. We then take our badges off and give them to someone else who takes them out of the D.O.M. and home for us. It's as if we've signed ourselves out to leave as usual. But, we stay inside the Death Room badgeless, then perform the ritual in the night without anyone knowing we're in there."

"Then we'll be stuck in there all night, Hermione, maybe all weekend since it's Friday today. We can't get out without the badges."

"Why not?" Draco challenged, looking mildly impressed by her idea. "If it's like the DMLE, you only need your badges to get in. The badges check you out when you leave, that way, the wards think the departments are empty, but if someone gets stuck in there without a badge, they can freely leave. It's a safety feature so that no one gets locked in."

"I think the entire Ministry is warded that same way," Harry confirmed. "They added that release feature after a couple of maintenance guys did get stuck in the D.O.M. all weekend. How do we get Theo and Daphne in, though? Also, who's going to take the badges out for us, and how will they get in?"

Hermione's face split into a slow smile as a plan formed in her mind. "That illegal potion Theo was making the other day. It makes you invisible, right?"

"Yes," Draco said slowly, still staring at her and looking more impressed by the moment.

"I'll ask Ron to take the badges for us," she spun excitedly on the spot, twirling around as the plan came together in her mind. "If we leave work at five, meet up, all take a dose of potion and then slip back inside the D.O.M. while we're invisible, we can all get into the Death Room with our badges. Ron can then take them home for us while he's still invisible. The potion lasts an hour, right? So if we take it at about half five, we'll be invisible inside the room when they do the security check and lock the department at six. Once the potion has worn off, we'll have as much time as we like to freely perform the ritual. The wards won't know we're there, and we can leave undetected by the motion sensors if we take more of the potion on our way out."

"Hermione," Blaise said, stopping to stare at her in abject shock, "I knew there was a reason I held out for you. You're bloody brilliant! It's a foolproof plan. There's no way it can fail."

"Still, you're mildly terrifying," Harry said with an impressed laugh. "Ron and I have always said that she's brilliant but terrifying."

Hermione smiled broadly, glowing with happiness at their praise. "Draco?" she asked, looking nervously in his direction, "What do you think of the idea?"

"Brilliant doesn't even come close." He leaned down to kiss her, "the brains of the Golden Trio indeed. Why the fuck does the plan have to involve Ron bloody Weasley though? Can't we ask Pansy or Neville instead?"

"Because," Hermione smiled patiently as she reached up to cup his cheek, "we want this plan to work. Much as I love Neville, he's hardly good at sneaking around, nor is Pansy, I would imagine. Apart from you three, there's no one else in the world that I would trust to do this more than I trust Ron."

"I think she has a good point there," Harry said. "I also think that maybe you need to get over your dislike of Ron a little, Draco."

"Oh, fine!" Draco said, "include him in the plans if you must. I'll hold back on saying I like the guy, though. Just no more hugging him, please."

"I will hug whoever I want to hug thank you very much!" Hermione said indignantly, making Harry laugh. "I've never told you not to hug Pansy or Daphne, have I? Despite your past relationships with them both?"

"I think she's got you tied up in knots there, mate. You can't argue with that logic!" Blaise held up his hand, and Hermione high-fived him, giggling at Draco's exasperation.

"She really does. I'm afraid you'll have to settle for bossing her around in the bedroom." Harry said with a laugh, "Hermione will never let you get away with it anywhere else.

"Which is far more information than I need right now!" Blaise said, sticking his fingers in his ears as Draco finally admitted defeat with a laugh.

Hermione looked around nervously. Standing in Theo and Daphne's lounge with a vial of Disillusionment Draught in her hand suddenly made what they were planning to do feel very real indeed. She was forcibly reminded of the last time they had planned to break into the Ministry. It had been during the war when they had needed to steal the locket Horcrux from around Dolores Umbridge's neck, and she had forgotten how uncomfortable the lead up to such events felt.

"So, let me get this straight, you're asking me to break approximately five billion laws here tonight, but you can't tell me what we're doing or why," Ron asked.

"Uh, yeah." Harry grinned sheepishly, "but you'll be doing it with a pair of Aurors, and we can give you a more specific breakdown of the illegalities involved tomorrow. Does that help at all?"

"Not really," Ron said, staring at him appraisingly. "Look, I have no idea why any of you want to be shut in that bloody veil room all night," he shuddered, "I sure as hell wouldn't want to be, but since it's you two asking me to do this, I'm in. No questions asked."

"Thank you, Ron. We will explain tomorrow, I promise." Hermione reached over to hug him, and as she pulled back, she kissed his cheek, catching the amusement in his clear blue eyes and the fury flashing in Draco's stormy grey ones.

Ron nodded with a grin as he fingered her hair. "It's fine. You'd better step back, though, 'Mione. One of your boyfriends looks like he's about to have a fit over how close we currently are." Hermione just rolled her eyes as Draco continued to glare furiously at Ron.

"Hermione," Harry said, tugging her forwards into his embrace, "do you remember the night I got arrested and all of this started? We were lying in bed together, and you told me that you missed the girl you used to be. You said you missed the girl who defeated Voldemort, who robbed Gringotts and flew away on a dragon? Do you remember that?"

She nodded. "I do remember saying that." She opened her eyes, laughing as she looked up at him.

"Well, How does it feel to have found that part of yourself again?"

She grinned. "It feels amazing. Kiss me, Harry." He did, and she held him tightly, drawing her own confidence from his calm assurance. Finally, she looked back up, and the determination in his eyes matched her own. "Are you completely sure this potion won't harm us, Theo?"

"I promise," Theo said, from where he was sharing a similar private moment with Daphne. "Although It's a bloody weird feeling when you take it, so be warned."

Draco moved across to join them with his own vial in his hand. "Ready?" he asked, and Hermione smiled as she stepped out of Harry's embrace and into his. "Kiss me, Draco," she whispered.

He slowly bent his head down to brush her lips with his own, and she whimpered, allowing him to pull her into a kiss of such passion that adrenaline shot wildly through her whole body, leaving her reeling with its intensity. When she finally stepped back, Ron looked stunned. Draco held his vial up as he gently cupped her cheek and stroked her face with his thumb. "Ready?" he asked again.

"Have you got the mysterious kit from the Manor?" she whispered, and he nodded. Theo, Daphne, Ron, and Blaise joined them, and she double checked that Theo had the bag of more Disillusionment Draught for later on that night. "On three then?" she asked, and everyone nodded. "One, two, three!"

Hermione downed her vial and waited for the potion to take effect as everyone around her did the same. Theo had been right. It was the strangest feeling in the world. Hermione's whole body started to tingle, then very slowly, her arms began to lose their color. She stared curiously at Draco, watching as he simply faded away into nothingness.

"When this is over, remind me to give you all some of this to play around with. Invisible sex is an experience everyone should have at least once in their lives," Theo said, and Hermione giggled as she felt Harry touch her now invisible hand.

"Shall we go then?" she heard Blaise ask from somewhere across the room, and she nodded, then realized that was a pointless exercise.

"Yes," she said instead and giggled again at the moments of pure comedy that followed as they all tried to find each other in the seemingly empty room. "Who's that?" she asked, feeling Draco let go of her hand and someone else take it. "Ron, where are you?"

"It's me," Blaise replied. "I'd rather hold your hand than Malfoy's."

"I'm here," Ron said, finding her wrist and taking hold of her other hand.

"What's wrong with my hand Zabini?" Draco asked, and she giggled yet again.

"He's fine with Hermione's hand, as is Ron. They're all fine. You've got me." Harry muttered. "Are we all ready?"

"Yep," Theo chirped from across the room. "Told you the potion works, didn't I?"

"We never doubted your talent Theo, only your morals. Let's go before I dwell too much on the fact that Weasley's holding my witch's hand. Again," Draco said, and Hermione's frustrated reply was cut off by the pops of apparition that suddenly filled the room.

"Ready?" Blaise asked, and Hermione pulled both him and Ron sideways into her before she twisted on the spot, apparating them all back to the Ministry.

They waited outside until someone opened the doors to the Atrium, allowing them to carefully slip inside. They had already decided that staying together as a big group was too risky. Instead, they planned to make their way in pairs to the Death Room and then reconvene inside it.

Creeping through the Ministry's halls with Blaise and Ron reminded Hermione strongly of being under Harry's invisibility cloak at Hogwarts. They didn't dare speak to each other in case someone overheard them. The Ministry was still full of people leaving work for the day. They darted as quietly as they could into the mercifully almost empty lift, shrinking into each other in the corner as much as was possible.

"Wait," Blaise whispered once they were back in the black tiled corridor, and they all froze as a pair of Unspeakables left the D.O.M. for the night. Being under the Disillusionment Drought seemed to fool the D.O.M. 's vision sensors, and since Blaise had secretly disabled the energy based monitors earlier in the day, they slipped inside without any further problems.

They made it to the door of the Death Room. Blaise checked that the coast was clear, then pressed his badge to the door, which swung open obligingly. Once they were all inside, Hermione eyed the veil with trepidation. It didn't matter how many times she came in here. It still unnerved her.

Blaise passed his badge to Ron, wished him luck, and saw him safely back out of the door with a thank you and an apology for Draco's grumpiness, then came to sit at the top of the steps with everyone else.

"Oh, I just love this department," Daphne said softly, "If I didn't like my current job so much, I'd apply for something down here."

"I know, love," Theo said soothingly. "What do we do now then?"

"Oh, I dunno. Play invisible games or something?" Draco quipped. "Couldn't you have invented a potion that wears off when you need it to, Theo?"

Theo laughed. "You give me the recipe for that, mate, and I'll happily make it."

"Hmm," Draco muttered. There was a clunk as he put a small wooden box on the stone steps. "Anyone want a look at this?"

"Fuck yes!" Theo said, shuffling forwards and opening the lid. "Oh, my sweet Merlin. Was this really owned by-"

"We think so," Draco confirmed. Hermione stared at the box with trepidation. It was strange watching the lid open, and the antique silver knife inside float out as Theo's invisible hand lifted it.

"Where are you, Hermione?"

"I'm here." She shuffled towards the sound of Draco's voice and, after a moment of flailing in mid-air took his hand.

"We think the knife and the blood collection dish once belonged to Salazar Slytherin. "Whether that's true or not, it certainly came from Marvolo Gaunt's hovel via the Dark Lord himself. Its dark magic credentials are impeccable."

"Fuck!" Theo muttered again, examining the knife and holding it out to what was presumably Blaise.

"Whatever it's history, I think cutting yourselves with it is still going to hurt boys. Have you got the pain potions?" Daphne asked.

"Yep," Draco confirmed as Hermione took the silver knife Blaise offered her with a shiver of unease. It felt frigid in her hand, and painful tingles travelled away from it and up her arm. She passed it hurriedly on to Draco with a shiver.

"You can't use pain potions, I'm afraid," Theo said, "not till after the ritual anyway. "Potions in your blood will mess with the power of the magic."

Draco sighed. "Fine. What about this invisibility one we've all just taken then? That's still a potion."

"That's undetectable as soon as it wears off. It won't make any difference."

Half an hour later, Hermione grimaced as the disillusionment potion did indeed start to wear off. Her body felt as if it was coming back to life in stages, everything tingled as it reappeared, and finally, Hermione was sitting in the Death Room with the others, all of whom were now fully visible again.

"Well, that was weird," she said, examining her newly reappeared fingers and staring at the others in surprise. "What now?"

"Now we do the ritual," Blaise said. "And we hope to Merlin it works and that nothing untoward happens.

Hermione found herself desperately hoping the same thing an hour later. "Right," Theo said, standing back to look critically at her and Harry's artwork. "That's actually not bad. I'm not convinced that blood is going to catch on as a mainstream body paint medium, but your actual drawing is pretty good."

Harry laughed as Hermione smiled. She put her paintbrush down and sat back to study Draco's chest herself. Once she had gotten over her initial squeamishness at painting in her boyfriend's blood, it hadn't been difficult to copy Sirius's tattoos from an old, topless photograph of him onto Draco's milky white skin. She squinted at the photo and then back at Draco, then gave a satisfied nod. It looked like they had done an excellent job.

"What do these runic tattoos all mean then?" Blaise asked, moving away to set up dishes for the herbs and incense they were going to burn.

"Well, this main one is the alchemical symbol for amalgamation, but it also means grey wolf," Hermione said, pointing to the umbrella shaped one on Draco's upper chest.

Theo snorted, "this is on the guy who denied being in love with Lupin all his life, right? Grey wolf. Honestly!"

"Yeah, well, Lupin admitted his feelings for Sirius the other day, for the first time ever, so there's hope for all of that yet." Harry nodded, locking eyes with Draco. "Is it weird to kiss you while you're covered in my Godfather's blood painted, runic tattoos, do you think?"

Draco appeared to weigh up the question. "Extremely," he said with a chuckle, "but this entire situation is as weird as fuck, so come here, Potter."

Harry paused in front of him and studied Draco's body himself. "These ones here symbolize trees, this is the yew, and this the ash. This is the runic symbol for setbacks. Sirius told me the meaning of those himself. These two are Viking symbols," he pointed to Draco's left pectoral, "this here is a binding rune, and this one symbolizes needs and wants."

"Why do these ones translate to nearly human?" Draco asked, squinting down at his own body.

"Oh, come on!" Theo exclaimed incredulously, "it's symbolizing Lupin again, surely! You've got need, want, binding, grey wolves and nearly human, if he doesn't pop out of the arch and get it together with the guy, I think I'll personally throw him back through."

"Don't forget that Sirius was also an animagus," Hermione said, watching Harry and Draco kiss for a moment. "So it could refer to that too. It's your turn for the blood painting now," she said, turning to face Theo.

Theo nodded and settled himself obligingly on the stone steps to take his top off. Hermione looked at him apologetically as she doubtfully fingered the icy cold, silver knife. He took it from her with a cheeky grin. "You don't look right wielding that, my love. Daph, can you do the honors medically again please, you know I'm too much of a wuss to cut myself."

Twenty minutes later, they were ready to begin the ritual. Hermione fought against the prickle of unease that kept threatening to engulf her. No matter what she said out loud or told herself internally, she was currently knee deep in heavy and dark blood magic, and she wasn't at all comfortable with the situation.

She took a deep breath and peered critically at both Draco and Theo. They had painted replicas of Draco's tattoos onto Theo and added three sets of painted, protective runes to each of them.

"Right. Let's check all of our intentions for this spell," Blaise said as Daphne started to light the herbs and incense with her wand. Perfumed smoke rose into the air from each dish as she moved around the room. "What intention are you using to cast this Draco?"

"I want this for Harry," he said simply. "I've been secretly in love with him and Hermione for years, so I can hardly comment on Sirius and Remus hiding their feelings for each other. I know I have dark magic inside of me, but my intention is pure. If I can use my power to do this for the man I love, then I will. My other intention is to keep myself tethered to both of them and not to slip the wrong way through the arch."

Blaise nodded once. "Hermione?"

She stared in surprise at Draco for a few moments, and the swell of happiness his words caused pushed back some of the fear in her heart. "Same," she agreed, putting the paintbrush down and picking up Sirius's old leather jacket. "I love Harry, and I just want to bring Sirius back for him. I've also fallen in love with Draco, and I want to keep both him and Harry safely tethered to myself and to this world and to ensure that nothing bad happens to any of us during the ritual."

"Harry?"

Harry looked deeply affected by both of their words, "I want my Godfather back, so my intention for that part of the spell is simple. I am also in love with Hermione and Draco, so my other intention is to keep them safely tethered to myself and to this world."

Blaise was smiling softly as he nodded at all three of them. "Daph?"

"I have no part in this spell. Therefore I need no intention for it. My only intention here is to keep you all safe and to heal anyone who needs it. My care for you all should help hold you all to this existence as well."

"Theo?"

Theo smirked but sobered as Blaise raised an eyebrow in warning. "Alright, I'm saying nothing, I'll behave. I want to use Draco to hook Sirius back, and I want to keep you all tethered together and to this plane of existence. I won't lose any of you through this damn arch."

Blaise nodded. "And I want to prove my theories. If I can also bring back someone who should be alive and means a lot to my friends, well, I guess that's a bonus. I also want to act as the full grounding tether to pull you all back when it's needed." He looked around the room, locking eyes significantly with Theo and then Draco as everyone nodded. "So we're all clear with our intentions. Let's get into position. You ready?"

Draco stood in front of the veil with Sirius' leather jacket on the floor in front of him. Hermione moved to stand at his right, and Harry took up position to his left. Theo stood directly behind Draco, and Blaise stood behind Theo to act as the last anchor should it become needed. "You ready?" Draco glanced back at Theo, who nodded determinedly.

"I've got you, mate."

"Same," Blaise said quietly.

Daphne waved her wand, and several small pieces of parchment hovered in the air in front of each of them. "Check you've all got the right incantations, please, Theo, Blaise, you should have the anchoring ones. The rest of you should have the pulling incantation."

Hermione checked her parchment and confirmed that she did, indeed, have the right set.

"See you on the other side then." Draco reached out and squeezed both Harry and Hermione's hand, then stroked the silver knife once more across his palm. He squeezed his hand closed, and Hermione winced as blood pooled in his palm. As he started to voice the words of his part of the spell, Theo and Blaise began to murmur the anchoring spell aloud. Draco squeezed his hand closed, and blood droplets began to fall onto the leather jacket as his voice grew more assertive.

"Producturus eum cedens Canis occidit astro.

Sanguis sanguinem meum. Afferte huc illum ad me.

Ianua regni alteri abicitis victimam meam et videbis

Sirius Black, sit omne

Reducere vitam

Bring him forth, the dog star.

Blood of my blood, bring him to me.

Open the gates to the other realm.

See my sacrifice,

Let Sirius Black be whole.

Bring him back to life!"

Hermione gasped as after Draco's first repetition of the incantation the veil started to flutter more obviously. Harry's eyes widened as he stared in alarm at the archway. A gentle breeze stirred in the room, apparently coming from nowhere, while the lighting flickered several times.

"Draco, if you want to do what we've agreed, repeat the incantantion but drop your Occlumency guard," Theo said quietly. "You're blocking the spell with it. You need to trust me. I'll not let you go."

"Nor me." Blaise agreed. Draco took a deep breath and gave a nod. He repeated the spell twice more, and gradually the gentle breeze strengthened until it turned into a raging tempest. The lights went out entirely, and Daphne lit some windproof candles with her wand.

"Again," Theo said. "Louder this time. Call the power you're afraid of and use it. Mate, you know how to do this. Keep the intentions pure by focusing on Harry and Hermione, then let the Dark Mark's power in. We've got you."

Hermione gasped as Draco staggered. "Don't move Hermione!" Blaise's voice held such a warning that she obeyed without question. "We've got him, I promise. Harry, Hermione, if you want to help him, you need to add your power in as well. Add your blood to Draco's and put your wands to his. But be sure about it. You've all voiced an intention to be tethered together. If you add your blood here, you will be blood bonded, and that can't be undone, so be sure."

Daphne passed Harry the knife, and without hesitation, he cut his own palm and added a few drops of his blood to Draco's before touching their wands together. Draco was panting with exhaustion, a thin sheen of sweat was coating his face, and he looked as pale as a ghost. Theo gasped behind him and swore quietly. Hermione saw Blaise brace himself and step closer to Theo. "Hermione, either join in, or we need to drop the spell right now," Theo said. "Daph, I need you too, get behind me, hold Blaise's hand and touch your wand tip to his."

With a shaky cry, Daphne hurried to Blaise's side, and Hermione held her hand out to Harry. "Do it!" she said, crying out as the sharp knife sliced through her sensitive palm.

"On three then, and be warned, this will be huge. You're a magical triad. The magic is waiting for your sacrifice as well, Hermione," Blaise said.

"Everyone chant their incantation loudly," Theo said, "It's now or never. One, two, three, go!"

Hermione wiped her palm over Draco and Harry's and pressed her wand tip to theirs. The wind in the room howled, and as they chanted, both the summoning spell and the anchoring spell somehow blended together as one. The candles blew out, the herbs scattered into the air and fell as smoldering ash to the floor. There was a blinding flash of light and a loud bang that made Daphne squeal. "Blaise, help me hold him!" Theo shouted, and Draco collapsed to the floor unconscious.

"Nobody move!" Blaise commanded as the room fell silent except for Theo, Blaise, and Daphne, who were still chanting one more repetition of the holding spell.

When they fell silent, Harry lit his wand with a Lumos spell. Hermione couldn't help the sob of relief that escaped her as Draco stirred feebly on the floor.

"Wha-? What happened?" he asked quietly as Theo dropped to his knees and rubbed his hands over his sweaty face.

"Absolutely nothing at all as far as I can see." Theo glanced around the room at their shaken faces and the perfectly still arch and shook his head, looking annoyed. "Fuck!"