Let's do It Right This Time, Chapter 2: The Ritual
Shopping took most of the next week, as his suppliers in Knock Turn Alley had to procure a number of rare ingredients (Mongolian death worm slobber, phœnix eggshells, Stygian water, bonnacon earwax, and hen's teeth, as well as a genuine mummified monkey's paw.) Needless to say, Harry was not looking forward to drinking the potion. The ordinary Diagon Alley suppliers, moreover, such as Higgins Apothecary and Potion Supply Inc. had to send away for his more exotic orders. His vault supplied the ten flawless emeralds, and the Brazilian Batwing scales were a gift from Charlie Weasley, after He mentioned to Ron that he needed them. He even had to mail order a thunderbird feather and three plumes from a winged serpent from the Americas. The expense didn't matter. He needed to do this, and if it took all his vault, well, technically it was the Potter vault, so he didn't care.
The next thing he had to do was render the basilisk. It took 36 hours, 4 teams of goblins, Minerva Mcgonagall's permission, and another 3000 G, but once he'd removed the venom sacks and sold the carcass, it more than paid for itself. Besides, Harry had four gallons of basilisk venom, more than enough for the ritual, and had he had to buy it, he would have needed to bribe someone to get him a permit or buy it on the black market for unseemly prices.
Now all he had to do was do the ritual, and he had to admit that he was a bit scared. However, he was too much of a Gryffindor to back down now, and too much of a Slytherin to think of wasting all the ingredients he had bought.
So on a rather unassuming Tuesday, he mixed a Casus Secundus potion on his kitchen stove, thanking Merlin that he'd gotten potions tutoring the year before (he was willing to spend whatever it took to see this through, but it would be downright stupid to waste 346, 892 G because he blew up his cauldron).
The potion took eight hours, but it was only complex for the first hour, and only hands-on for the first four, so that by the end of the day, he had successfully brewed a midnight blue potion flecked with grey, which smelled like decomposing seaweed and over-steamed green beans. Harry decided to call it an early night; the potion would keep for up to three days, so there was no hurry to start the ritual.
Very early on Wednesday, Harry munched a scone he'd bought the day before last, went over the chant in the book until he had every word memorized, and could recite it without stumbling over the Gaelic (it was a very old British ritual, and had never been Romanized- hense the blood magic) and then went over it another ten minutes to avoid doing the ritual for as long as possible. Then he used the thunderbird and quetzalcoatl feathers to draw the runes and ritual circle in his own blood. And then, shaking slightly with nerves, he stepped into the circle.
The incantation was long and hard to pronounce, but he had practiced it more than enough, and he chanted for half an hour without stopping, all the while drawing the required symbols in the air. As his voice rose to a shout, he picked up the goblet of Casus Secundus lying by his feet, and on the last word he tossed it back. He immediately wished he hadn't. It tasted of burning tires, rotting seaweed, and, for some reason peach, with a hint of camel dung from the Mongolian death worm slobber. Eyes streaming, he doubled over as the potion scorched its way down his throat like over-aged firewhiskey. The world spun as though he'd taken a long-distance portkey...and, in a way, he had. Faster, and faster, and then nothing.
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