The large barn owl tossed the newspaper through the open window with an expert flick of its beak. A rolled-up copy of the Daily Prophet landed with a muffled thump on the kitchen table, which still doubled as a laboratory table and desk despite Mrs. Figg's protests.
"Who's managed to survive this week?" Ginny asked without looking up as she carved a rough-hewn wand.
"Don't forget, I bet you a sickle that Bulstrode would be gone by the end of September," Luna said. The two girls were seated across from each other at the table, which was currently so strewn with papers and experimental detritus that it did not seem possible it could also accommodate the breakfast Mrs. Figg was preparing for them. Ginny was surrounded by tools and a pile of wood shavings, but Luna only fiddled with a large dark stone, rolling it back and forth on the table.
"Now, girls, this is no laughing matter. Politics is serious business, life and death for some people," Mrs. Figg chided them. She pointedly ignored the newspaper as she brought them a tray of porridge, sliced apples, and tea and set it precariously over the bits of wood and crumpled balls of parchment that looked the least important.
"Yes, Mrs. Figg," Luna and Ginny droned in unison.
"Oh, go on, then." The older woman unfurled the paper and began reading, but Luna was quicker to scan the headlines as she craned her neck over Mrs. Figg's shoulder.
"Aha! Bulstrode resigned yesterday. I'll be collecting my winnings at the end of the business day, thank you very much."
"No, it wasn't just that Bulstrode would resign. You specifically said that Macmillan would double-cross him," Ginny reminded her.
"I'm afraid you're not in luck, Ginny. Bulstrode resigns from Department of Magical Law Enforcement, replaced by former deputy head Rhea Macmillan," Mrs. Figg read from the headline.
"Ha!" Luna said again, twirling the stone and letting it spin like a top.
"We'll need to talk to Gwenog and Niamh about what this means for Squibs United. Macmillan has been somewhat sympathetic to the Squib cause in the past, so maybe she could finally put a stop to that ridiculous task force the Improper Use of Magic Office has got investigating Squibs..."
"What difference does it make? She won't last long; none of them do anymore. They get ousted like clockwork," Ginny said.
"Well, if you must know, young madam, times of transition and instability are critical negotiation opportunities for us. If we can get just one sympathetic official to concede a few points, then we've set the precedent. And it will be harder for their successors to undo, especially with all the other chaos they have to contend with."
"There's nothing like a power vacuum for making change," Luna observed, then frowned. She thought this was something she had once heard her mother say, but she couldn't remember precisely when or where. Luna was surprised to find that this bothered her, for some reason. Perhaps it simply sounded like the sort of thing Cressida would say.
"And I'd appreciate if you didn't make light of such a serious situation!" Mrs. Figg pursed her lips as she sipped her tea.
"I'm not making light of it! We can talk to Rhea Macmillan if you think it's best."
"Sometimes I worry you girls are too sheltered. You don't think any of this affects you now, but it will someday. You won't be so eager to make bets then."
Luna bit the inside of her cheek. She wanted to snap, to demand that Mrs. Figg explain how she could possibly think that Luna and Ginny weren't affected by any of this. But she knew that nothing good would come of continuing the conversation.
"I think I'll eat my breakfast outside," Mrs. Figg sighed and rubbed the crease between her eyebrows, "I'll leave you two to your work."
The argument hung undissipated in the air like a misma.
"Thanks a lot," Luna glared at Ginny. It was unfair that she had to bear the brunt of Mrs. Figg's foul mood when it was Ginny who had been annoying her in the first place.
"Oh, come off it. You've been making bets, too. We'll apologize at dinner."
They both knew Mrs. Figg was right, at least partially. They were making light of a serious situation, not because they were sheltered but because it was easier to laugh at the constant uncertainty than it was to face it. The Ministry had been on the verge of falling apart for months, ever since Cornelius Fudge resigned after receiving a vote of no confidence in the Wizengamot, the victim of backstabbing within his own party. Rufus Scrimgeour had succeeded him, but his star fell even quicker than it rose. Now there was a constant rotation of ministers, warlocks, and other officials, a veritable game of political musical chairs.
Entire departments were being dissolved and reinstated on a weekly basis. Mr. Weasley lost his job, then became head of a new department, then was demoted. The charm that automatically collected taxes from salaries stopped working and no one could figure out why. Hearings and meetings were being cancelled with little or no notice. Owls went unanswered for weeks at a time. Offices that provided services to indigent wizards and Squibs were stretched to the breaking point. The mermaids and centaurs did not take kindly to their emissaries being ignored. No one knew if the Department of Mysteries existed anymore.
Each day brought fresh horrors, new heights of absurdity and new lows of instability. Luna felt strangely detached from it all; it seemed like something that was happening in a book she was reading, or a story her parents used to tell her about the first war. Certainly not something that was happening in the real world, something she would have to face with her father gone and her mother as good as.
"You okay?" Ginny asked, reaching across the table to tap Luna gently on the hand.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. I was just thinking."
"Wanna go to the rowan?" Ginny kissed the rough scars criss-crossing the soft skin on the inside of Luna's wrist.
"Mm. Maybe later. I should keep working on this." The black opal still sat untouched on the kitchen table.
"Okay. Later, then." Ginny went back to whittling her wand. The cedar wood had a sharp, tangy smell.
"Do you think the rumors Mrs. Figg heard are true?" Luna asked abruptly, after Ginny had been working for a minute or two, "That someone put a curse on the entire Ministry?"
"Dunno. It would just be a much bigger version of the curse on the DADA position at Hogwarts, yeah? So it's theoretically possible. No idea how much power someone'd need to pull it off, though. Probably a boatload," Ginny shrugged.
"Yeah. I just can't help wondering. It...it sounds like something my mum would do, doesn't it?"
"You think the Circle did it?"
"Well how would I know? I'd bet you anything she jumped for joy when she heard about Fudge's downfall, at least." It was the first thing Luna had thought of when she heard the news.
"I mean, would she be wrong? You did some jumping yourself, if I recall." Ginny was right. The Lovegoods had never been great admirers of the Ministry of Magic, but after Luna had uncovered the true depths of what the Ministry was capable of, she could not in good faith support its continued existence: experiments in the Department of Mysteries, surveilling their own citizens with the Trace, colluding with Death Eaters, mass Obliviations, kidnapping and torturing her father, their treatment of Squibs and merpeople. No, whoever had placed that curse had done the world a favor, as far as she was concerned.
"No, it's not that. Just…" Luna could not bring herself to speak the words aloud. Was she truly so lost to her mother that Cressida wouldn't invite her to celebrate their long-awaited victory?
"She's probably wondering what you're doing, too. I bet she'd like to hear from you."
"I don't care what she wants! Besides, I'm much too busy with the Resurrection Stone and trying to get to the bottom of those documents with Aberforth."
"You've made such great progress with the Stone, at least. It looks nearly done," Ginny said. There was admiration in her voice, but also a shade of careful appeasement, like she was tiptoeing around a sore subject. Annoyance flared in Luna's chest, but she forced herself to swallow it and shrug instead.
"Eh, I don't know. The polishing is done and I think the faceting looks alright. But I can't decide whether I should engrave the top of the stone with the Deathly Hallows symbol."
"It can't hurt, can it?"
"No, it would probably make it more potent. And I know my dad would love the symbolism of it all. But then I'd have to decide whether to do intaglio or cameo engraving. All the lapidaries say that the carving method infuses the stone with different properties, so I'll need to do more research about that…"
"But the end is in sight! You've been up to your ears in books about gemstones and jewelry and metalsmithing and Morgana knows what else for months now. How much more research can you possibly do?"
"There's always more research to be done," Luna said, suddenly absorbed in the way the opal went from black to blue to purple to rainbow depending on how the light struck it.
"Unless you're putting off finishing?" Damn Ginny if she didn't know Luna better than anyone else.
"Don't be silly. Why would I do that?" They both knew why.
"No," Luna continued, "I just want everything to be perfect. Like you with your wands. Speaking of, what's that one for? Just an experiment?" Luna inclined her chin in the direction of the nascent cedar wand.
"This? Oh, no. This is actually for Urgnok."
"Urgnok?"
"Yeah. If you think about it, he really risked a lot to steal those papers. He didn't have to do that, you know? I was thinking about how to thank him and I realized. Goblins have always wanted wand rights but the Ministry's never allowed it. And guess who's an apprentice wandmaker with nothing left to do after making the Elder Wand?"
"You're much better than an apprentice, I'd say," Luna said, smiling and linking her fingers through Ginny's.
"Bah. Anyway, now seems like the perfect time. Our wands don't have the Trace, so no one has to know. And the Ministry's a shambles anyway, I doubt they'd be able to do anything even if they did find out. You don't think Urgnok will be offended, do you? It's sort of a stupid idea but I just wanted to do something small. And then that got me thinking that if he likes it, maybe I could make some more. For goblins and centaurs, if they'd want them."
"I think it's brilliant. I think you're brilliant." Luna squeezed Ginny's hand, "Hey, let's go to the rowan tree."
"You sure? I thought you wanted to work more on the Stone. And I guess we should apologize and help Mrs. Figg strategize about Rhea Macmillan."
Luna shrugged. It suddenly seemed silly to fuss over the Stone and her mother and the Ministry's latest political drama when Ginny was here with her warm brown eyes and flaming hair, begging to snog her. They had both agreed that now, with the world falling apart around them, was not the time to figure out what they wanted their relationship to be. It was surprisingly easy to carry on as before, as best friends and co-conspirators and collaborators who snogged sometimes. Was this what it felt like to be Ginny's girlfriend? Luna had no idea, but she knew she was happy.
"Definitely. After all, you do owe me."
Ginny smirked, and the constellation of freckles on her face stretched and creased in new ways, "And how many knuts is a kiss worth?"
"It's negotiable." Luna snaked her arms around Ginny's neck. The black opal lay forgotten on the table.
Everything was coming up roses for Lavender Brown. In fact, everything was going well for the entire Circle of Peloresow, and it was all thanks to the raven queen. Bellatrix was giving them an invaluable gift by teaching them how to truly unlock the raw ancestral power of their bloodlines. Everything was much more pleasant and harmonious now. Gone was all the bickering, gone was the sarcasm and petty squabbling, gone was the raven queen's resistance to fulfilling the prophecy she was bound to fulfill. How could a Seer scorn the gift she had been given? Lavender would never understand. And on top of it all, Luna had been cruel. She didn't care about anyone but herself and Ginny. Bellatrix would never yell at Lavender the way Luna had at the Rook. All in all, everything was better under Bellatrix's benevolent rule. Even the food tasted better.
Best of all, the new raven queen was more discerning than the last had been; Bellatrix had an uncanny ability to separate the wheat from the chaff. Only her most devoted followers were allowed to stay and reap the blessings of membership in the Circle. Slowly but surely, the doubtful and the unworthy began to fall away: Madam Bones, Professor McGonagall, the Muggleborns. At long last, Lavender's loyalty and potential were being recognized. She was one of the raven queen's closest confidants. Bellatrix trusted her so much that Lavender was recruited especially to donate samples of her blood for Bellatrix's particular use.
The only downside to the new and improved Circle was the presence of Draco Malfoy. Lavender still remembered him as a weasley little bully from her brief time at Hogwarts. Despite the raven queen's trust in him, Lavender felt unsettled in his presence, for he was always eager to lurk behind corners and give the girls searching, knowing stares. And he seemed to take a perverse pleasure in fulfilling his duty of collecting Lavender's blood for Bellatrix. Sometimes he bled her until Lavender felt faint. She never dared say anything in protest. It was an honor to serve the raven queen.
As the summer wore on, Draco demanded more and more blood of Lavender. His cuts grew deeper and he bled her for longer. Lavender never asked what Bellatrix needed the blood for because she didn't need to. Each time, Draco asked her to close her eyes and flood her body with thoughts of strength and vitality. Lavender's scars never quite healed, so they took on a rough, braided texture, like rope binding her wrists. But her scars were nothing compared to the raven queen's. There was hardly an inch of Bellatrix's skin that wasn't marked. She had already sacrificed several fingers and toes, so had taken to ripping out her own teeth and hair. A martyr to the quest for knowledge, all that blood magic had clearly taken its toll on her. Her skin was sallow, her face gaunt. Lavender never mentioned the potions that Draco kept in his pocket and surreptitiously slipped to Bellatrix when her eyes glazed over and she became unsteady on her feet. But she noticed them all the same.
Lavender was more than happy to do her part, but lately she felt in need of a fortifying draught herself. She had never been a thin girl, but her clothes hung loosely on her frame now. Spots clouded her vision when she stood up too quickly, and her fingernails were brittle. It no longer felt safe to draw her own blood for learning circles or her own experiments.
"What are you doing, Brown?" Lavender grunted and squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She did not need to look to see that it was Draco, doubtless come for yet another blood drawing. Dexter and Jeremy had never been allowed to enter the girls' dormitory during their short stay at the Circle.
"Did you hear me?" he prodded her with the flat end of his blood knife until she rolled over to face him.
"I was just having a rest, Draco."
"A rest, huh? Must be nice." He sneered.
"Just take it and leave, please." Lavender rolled up her sleeve and extended her arm to him, then closed her eyes again.
"It should be easy enough for you to set your intention when you've already been lazing around doing nothing all day, eh, Brown?"
She didn't respond except for a sharp intake of breath as the blade broke her skin. Deep crimson blood filled one vial, then another. When it ebbed to a trickle, Draco dug the blade in deeper and twisted until the blood flowed faster.
"How much are you taking? I don't feel well, Draco," Lavender murmured. She tried to sit up, but her head lolled uselessly against her sweat-damp pillow.
"Hush, just lie still and think about all that lovely rest you've been having."
Lavender slipped into half-consciousness, a fugue of daydreams and Draco's nasal voice and the throbbing in her arm. She saw Bellatrix's smiling face, and Luna's screaming one. She stirred and felt Draco put a restraining arm on her shoulder, holding her down.
"Hey, what are you doing in here? Lavender, are you okay?"
"Who'ssat?" Her own voice sounded distant and warped, like it was underwater.
"Mind your own business, stupid girl!" Draco snapped. Lavender struggled to open her eyes, but only saw bleary snippets of the ceiling and flashes of movement in her peripheral vision.
"What are you doing to her? Is that all her blood? Hey, that's too much. Leave her alone!" She recognized the voice. Shrill and a bit annoying. Caroline.
"Whatever. I've gotten all I can out of your little girlfriend, anyway."
"Caroline? 'Sokay. Leave...leave usss…" Lavender slurred her words.
"Your blood is getting weaker, Brown. You shouldn't be resting so much. I'll be back soon," Malfoy patted her on the head, then she heard his footsteps leaving the dormitory.
Lavender had to concentrate very hard on her breathing as she sat up. Through her blurred vision she could just make out Caroline, perched on the edge of the bed with that famous frown on her face.
"What was that about?" Caroline demanded.
"Caro…"
"He said your blood's getting weaker. He's been doing this to you for a while, then. For how long?"
Lavender reached for a glass of water on her nightstand and sat with her head between her knees until she began to feel a bit more herself.
"Why doesn't anyone tell me anything?" Caroline demanded.
"There are some things you don't need to know about. Would you pass me a rag or something?" Lavender gestured to her still-bleeding arm. Caroline pressed a towel into the cut, but could not be deterred.
"Have you told anyone he does this to you?"
"Listen, you can't tell anyone, okay? This is serious. You have to promise."
"No, I won't promise! That's seriously messed up! Why do you let him do that?"
"I don't like it, but I need to do it. You wouldn't understand."
"Luna would never let this happen. She'd fix this, if she knew."
"Why are you so obsessed with her? She was always rude to you. Believe me, the last time I saw her she made it perfectly clear that she doesn't give a shit about you or me or any of us."
"I don't believe you." Caroline was nearly fourteen, but she could still stamp her foot and pout like a champion eight year old.
"You don't have to believe me. Some things are just true, whether we want to believe them or not."
Luna had never squinted so hard at a few pages of text in her life, not even when she ate paper to avoid having to learn how to read. Drawing inspiration from her younger self, she had even resorted to sniffing the parchment and giving an exploratory lick to the corners of each of the pages. Eventually she turned the entire thing upside down, so she wouldn't instinctively focus on trying to read the words, and took a magnifying glass to each square inch, looking for anything unusual.
As she did this, Luna noticed that the seal at the bottom of the last page was coming away from the parchment, so she jimmied it very slightly with the fingernail of her pinky finger. Aberforth would kill her if she detached or broke the seal, but she didn't care. It was an ugly old thing; she assumed the centuries had leached the once-vibrant red color from it, because it was now a worn, grayish brown. If one dinky blob of wax stood between her and cracking these odd documents, it was a sacrifice Luna was more than willing to make.
There, just beneath the seal, was a small brown stain. Goosebumps tingled on Luna's arms. It was the same sensation she had felt in the witch's cave in Cornwall, when she saw the dark stains and realized she was in the presence of old magic, raw magic, the magic of blood and sacrifice. It suddenly occurred to her that in all her research, she had never heard of wax seals turning brown; the vermilion kept them red, even after hundreds of years. Luna wet her finger, tapped the seal, which crumbled in an odd way, and brought it to the tip of her tongue. Beneath the gummy, waxy taste were the unmistakable hints of iron and rust.
"Of course," Luna breathed. The contract had been sealed in blood.
It had been weeks since Luna attempted blood magic, and she no longer carried her blood knife with her everywhere. A gaudy letter opener in the shape of a dragon from her father's desk did well enough. She only needed a few drops, anyway.
"Show me anything that's hidden," Luna whispered. A single drop of her blood fell onto the bottom corner of the page, just beneath the seal. She held her breath for a beat, then another, and began to feel silly. Then faded writing bloomed at the bottom of the page. The message appeared slowly, then all at once, like when she and Ginny used lemon juice to write each other secret messages when they were children.
She couldn't wait hours for an owl to reach Aberforth, so she Flooed to the Hog's Head to fetch him. When they returned, the hidden words still lingered on the surface of the paper like dew on a chilly morning. Luna could just barely make out the words, but did not understand them.
Seolh inn ælf blod.
"What does it mean? Aberforth?" she prodded his arm.
"It," he cleared his throat, "It means 'sealed in elf blood.'"
"Elf? Like house elf?"
"Before they were house elves, they were just elves. They mixed the seal with the blood of the elves to bind them to the contract." Luna ran her fingers over the few dozen anonymous X's marking the signatures of the illiterate, the free elves whose names were now lost.
"So are all the house elves in Britain descendants of these elves?"
Aberforth shrugged. "There have always been rumors of colonies of free elves throughout Britain, particularly on some of the smaller islands of the Hebrides. Perhaps only some of the elves signed this contract, and the others went into hiding."
"Or if some of them were released after the five generations, like it says in the contract. Or freed, like with clothes! Didn't it say that that the descendants of the elves would receive a bolt of good cloth for their service? That's why giving a house elf clothes frees them!"
"Mm," Aberforth grunted, "But look at the family names on this contract. Carrow, Flint, Crouch. They still have house elves to this day. It doesn't seem like they released them after five generations, now does it?"
"But...but they signed!"
"Do you see a second seal?"
The large blank stretch of parchment across from the elves' seal suddenly seemed imbued with new significance. A second drop of blood revealed another hidden inscription, just beneath the vast blank space that was precisely the size and shape of the first seal.
Seolh inn wicce blod.
"Sealed in witch blood!" Luna said triumphantly, "Witch didn't used to be a gendered word, I read that somewhere."
Aberforth ignored her. A single tear ran down the tip of his long nose and made a small, damp blot where the second seal ought to have been.
"Those slimy bastards."
"So they never sealed it? And that's bad?"
"The seal is what makes it magically binding. They tricked the elves. They made them seal it first, to bind them to keep up their part of the bargain. But then…"
"...No. They wouldn't, would they?" Who was she kidding? Of course they would. Bargains were still struck this way to this day in the highest circles of the Ministry, she had seen it herself. Deals made under duress, bolstered up with lies and broken promises.
"We have to do something! We have to break the contract!"
"I know just the elf."