They moved to the back garden for the ritual, to a little gazebo which wasn't obviously a ritual circle, but definitely actually was when Andi levitated the wooden part and moved it aside. She also did something to the wards, Harry thought, so the neighbours wouldn't notice anything amiss — they suddenly became much more solid, in terms of not letting the ambient magic flow in or out of the garden — and cast a sleeping spell on the dog. Danny, being a big softie, tried to pretend he wasn't crying, petting her as she drifted off, curled up in the centre of the circle.
Harry took his cue from Andi, pretending not to notice as she directed them to their places, sitting in a little triangular formation around the sacrifice, close enough to hold hands, though they didn't actually do so. She laid a wicked sharp looking knife beside her right knee, and set a small silver bowl between herself and Harry, on her left.
"For most magical rituals," she explained, fingers playing absently with the sleeping dog's ear, "the participants, which would be all three of us in this case, and the sacrifice and the ritual tools are expected to undergo a purification ritual first. This extends to low ritual such as brewing potions as well as major workings like the Hogwarts Samhain ritual. I imagine Professor Snape has warned you against bringing extraneous magics into his laboratories. It's very much the same concept. For high ritual, it's generally considered a sign of respect, like washing your face before visiting your Head of House, and also serves to put one in the proper mindset, focused on the ritual.
"This particular case is somewhat different, as we are invoking the Dark, which is strongly aligned with the profane. Entering the circle as we are, coming straight from work or school or our daily lives in general without drawing a sharp metaphysical distinction, breaking one of the most fundamental ritual conventions, is therefore acceptable."
"Yes, one must break the rules properly," Danny drawled, putting words to exactly why that sounded so funny to Harry. "Because when the Dark is good, everything is backward and inside out and worshipping it is sort of like making fun of the normal way things are supposed to go."
Andi nodded, apparently unbothered by the interruption. "The phrase we used to use was 'embodying a contradiction'. To worship the Dark is to love a thing that one hates. It is to live for death, to find joy and pleasure in pain and suffering, to see beauty in desecration and ruin. It is to prosper at the expense of others, and to constantly undermine the foundations of one's own power. It is to rise spectacularly and fall even more spectacularly, to find opportunity in chaos and build one's greatest achievements around a tragic flaw, one's inevitable undoing shaped by one's own hand. It is to deceive and to be deceived, to transcend reality by questioning the very existence of truth and find clarity in madness.
"It is a fundamental aspect of human nature, one which we are taught that we must reject in order for society to function, but one which underlies and motivates much of the order of that very society. Certainly society would not function if everyone were to fully embrace the Dark, but everyone does harbour some degree of darkness in their souls, regardless of whether they choose to indulge it."
And it was listening, or at least Harry thought it was. There was definitely a sense of...something in the magic around them that hadn't been there before Andi started talking about it, at least. An expectant sort of something.
"When we celebrate the Dark, as we have gathered to do tonight, we recognise it within ourselves. We acknowledge it, that we have it in us to cause pain and suffering for our own benefit; to choose selfishly; to kill not only as we must to survive, but willingly, that we may flourish. We also recognise the Light within ourselves, our capacity for love and our willingness to care for others; to forgo our own wants in favour of meeting another's needs; to accept an outsider as one of our own and care for them as we would our own Family, asking nothing more than for our affection to be repaid with affection in turn.
"And we choose the Dark."
Danny, sitting on Harry's left, grew noticeably tense as his mother continued to speak, calmly and precisely, and the expectant something grew almost painfully excited. Harry was finding it very difficult to keep from fidgeting, feeling the energy building around them.
"We choose to reject unconditional affection and the love we hold for this innocent creature, who walked blindly to her death — trusting in her apparent safety, that we who have housed and fed her these many months, who have played with her and are fond of her company, would not betray her loyalty with pain. Socks is a good dog. A beloved companion. But we choose greater power and strength for ourselves and our Family over her companionship and our love for her. And with this sacrifice, we demonstrate that choice."
The knife was in her hand faster than blinking, blood spilling into the bowl and over the stones, spreading quickly to soak the knees of Harry's robes, hot and wet, though it cooled quickly in the chill December air. It smelled like life. Not like the life he needed, that the Little Crow needed, but close enough to make sitting here, resisting the entirely barbaric urge to lick it off the rough, grey pavers, almost painful.
The dog, still sleeping under Andi's spell, didn't so much as flinch as its life flooded out of it.
Danny, on the other hand, did, violently, even though he had to have known as well as Harry what was coming. Better, probably. He had done this before after all.
And the heavy, anticipatory magic in the air practically crackled around them as Andi raised the bowl to the centre of the circle.
"As we partake of the blood of the sacrifice, her life and its potential becoming one with our souls, raising us higher and binding us together, so too let the Dark partake of our pain, growing stronger with the affirmation of our continued allegiance.
"By the grace of the Dark, so shall it be," she finished firmly.
The magic descended on them with an almost-audible whumph, tingling through Harry's veins as he waited impatiently for Andi to take a sip from the bowl and Danny to raise it to his lips and not take a sip — Harry was watching (impatiently), he didn't swallow — cold and strong, rushing through him and– and then something very peculiar happened. What it was, exactly, Harry didn't know, but it felt like something breaking — some magic, stressed beyond the breaking point, splitting at the seams, shattering and falling away.
The magic that had been keeping him from the Dying Lady all these years, the invisible wall the Little Crow had been trying to reach him through as long as he could remember. It cracked under the pressure of trying to contain the Dark on Harry's side as well as the Little Crow on theirs, the tattered remnants washed away in the flood of magic which was the Little Crow finally, finally making contact with him, finally!
In the few seconds between Andi passing the bowl to Danny, and Danny passing the bowl to Harry, Harry managed to comprehensively lose track of what was going on, his conscious, rational mind drowned out by the presence of the Dark and the Little Crow and their triumph and—
He did take the bowl, moving entirely on instinct. Blood was life, and they needed it, and they weren't at home, so spilling it on the stones wasn't enough, and even draining the bowl wasn't enough — not nearly, the Little Crow almost wanted to cry, because they were so close, but that was a dog and not what they needed.
What they needed was a human. Or a goblin. Or a house elf, even. Something sapient, preferably several. Not that one, it was the more powerful of the two humans within arm's reach, but it was theirs...or should be, there was something wrong with it — it smelled like theirs, their blood, but they couldn't feel it, which was wrong and no, it wouldn't do them any good. The little one, though—
It yelped as they leapt upon it, a delightful sound, made them laugh, even though it was flailing at them, making it hard to bite it, to reach the sweet life hiding beneath its skin — why didn't they have talons? or claws? They should have claws, that would make this much easier.
But then they were flailing, as the bigger one, the one that was half theirs but not helping them, grabbed them from behind, by the shoulders, pulling them away from their yelping prey. They snarled at it trying to twist and scratch at its face with their little human nails, biting at it when it pinned them to the ground, helpless against its size. Why?! We were so close! And this one is supposed to be ours! Why isn't it helping us?!
It said something to the little one, still holding them down, hands on arms and legs on legs, too heavy to move even when they pushed at it with magic. It must be using some magic of its own to hold them, too. They flailed even more desperately — they'd just gotten away from awful human magic keeping them trapped, keeping one half of them trapped away from the other!
The little one said something back — English, new English, too fast, didn't catch it. Had to focus.
"Harry!" the big one said, its face too close to theirs, and yet not close enough to bite it — they were quickly coming to hate this traitor human. "Harry, can you hear me?"
"Oh, he can hear you," a laughing voice said. They knew that voice. It belonged to the magic in the air around them, the magic that had broken the wall and before that had broken them, tearing itself away from them and laughing as they fell. They froze, uncertain whether the Dark was friend or foe tonight. "He just doesn't know that you're talking to him, at the moment. He's a tiny bit possessed, you see. Do you remember me, Crow Child?" she asked, in much more familiar words.
"Yes. Are you here to help us, or to hurt us again?"
"Shite!" the human still pinning them to the ground said. "Is that the Black Family Magic?"
The Dark laughed at them all, kneeling beside them. "Yes. It's dying. Starving to death, slowly and painfully." She drew a line on her wrist with a finger, blackness welling forth, offered it to them. "Peace offering. I want to talk to Harry, so drink your fill and let him go."
Ichor wasn't blood, and the Dark wasn't alive, but it was magic — powerful magic, younger than they were, they remembered its birth, the shaping of its character, but stronger, part of the magic of the world, not just their Family — and it could save them, if it wanted to.
Or it could kill them, slowly and painfully, and laugh as they faded away into nothingness.
"Are you here to help us?" they asked again, resisting the temptation to lunge forward and take it.
"That depends entirely on Harry. If he helps me, I'll help you. If not, feeding you tonight will just mean I get to watch you struggle on for a few more years, I suppose."
It would help, then. They knew it would, because their boy, the gift of hope that Bella had given them, would do anything to save them. Anything he could. That much had been clear, even through the wall between them. They could feel it in him now, even. They were one, to save them would be to save himself.
They took the peace offering, drawing sharp, frigid magic through Harry and into themselves, as much as the Dark would give them. They barely noticed when the human let them go, or when the darkness of the magic numbed their existential fear, or that it was enough to quell their panic, letting them relax and subside enough within Harry's soul to let him begin thinking again.
It felt like waking up slowly, the Little Crow's fear and pain fading away enough for him to focus on the magic, and then the fact that he was drinking the not-blood of...something that at least looked like a girl, like an actual bloody vampire, both hands clamped tightly around her forearm to hold her in place. Not that she seemed very intent on getting away. He was sort of sitting in her lap, awkwardly, on the ground, while she talked to Andi, who clearly wasn't comfortable with whatever the hell was going on here, but not nearly as terrified as Danny, who was on his feet by the back door, his wand out, pointing defensively at Harry. Which Harry supposed was fair — he (and/or the Family Magic) had sort of tried to eat him.
He would apologise for that, but he'd have to stop vampiring the Dark's...whatever she was — maybe like a magical construct or something? The Little Crow had sort of thought of her as an extension of the Dark, or something, he hadn't really understood. And while he maybe should stop vampiring her arm like a bloody nut job, he really didn't want to. And it wasn't like Danny or Andi would believe he wasn't completely insane if he did stop now, instead of continuing to take the icy, electric magic she was offering him as long as she would let him.
Which, as it turned out, wasn't that much longer, anyway. "Alright, kid, that's enough," she said, still laughing, or maybe laughing again. "You're just bleeding it off, now." She didn't wait for him to process her words and try to understand what she was talking about, but somehow made her arm intangible, slipping through his fingers and shaking him off.
"Huh?" he asked, very intelligently. Great first impression, Potter. "Er. Hi? I'm Harry," he offered, turning to get a better look at the not-girl. He'd seen her when she first arrived, of course, but Little Crow hadn't really been paying attention to what she looked like. She was younger than the impression he'd gotten before, maybe seventeen or eighteen, and freckled, with auburn hair and a knowing smirk. He wasn't entirely certain whether introductions were necessary at this point, but he didn't know what to call her, so.
"I know. I'm Angie. I'm your great-aunt seventeen and/or nineteen times over, and an Avatar of the Dark."
"...I really don't know what that means. Avatar of the Dark, I mean." Obviously he knew what a great-aunt was (though not how she was still alive, if she was like five-hundred years old or something — mages didn't live that long).
"Hmmm...I used to be human, but I dedicated myself to serving the Dark, and my soul has grown close enough to it over the years that I am, for all intents and purposes, part of the Dark, now."
Harry still wasn't entirely certain what that meant, but he thought that might just be because there was a lot of magic buzzing around his head still, making it hard to focus. "Oh, okay. Er. Thank you. For, um." He gestured awkwardly at her arm, not entirely certain how one went about thanking someone for letting one drink their blood. "Thank you" seemed a bit insignificant, but it seemed like too intimate an exchange to discuss in more depth, with Andi's disapproving frown hovering over them and— "Danny? You can relax, I'm not going to kill you now."
Danny, being a really very normal bloke, despite also being magic, clearly did not find this reassuring. Whatever. Harry had tried. (Blaise would have found it reassuring, he was almost certain.) "What the hell are you, Potter? What's going on here?"
"Er..." That first part was a surprisingly difficult question, especially since Harry still wasn't sure it was his place to explain to Danny that he was actually Harry Potter, and Harry was (had been) Danny Black.
Angie giggled. "Naughty girl, Andromeda, keeping secrets from your ward."
Andromeda sighed. "Danny, come here. Sit down. There are some things I need to tell you."
He moved toward the hand she held out to him, apparently out of force of habit, since he clearly didn't want to come closer to them. "Um. Can we not... With Socks, I mean?"
Harry didn't see what the big deal was, it wasn't like the corpse was old enough to start getting smelly yet, but Andromeda seemed to think it was a reasonable request, rising and leading him to a patio table instead (though neither of them actually sat, just hovering tense and awkward around it. Harry and Angie followed them, Angie complaining, "You know, if you would actually do the sacrifice properly, you wouldn't care about your precious pup dying anymore. That's how it works: as you partake of the sacrifice of life, I partake of the sacrifice of your love and the pain of your loss.
"You take the energy of the life of the dog and give up a little of your innocence, your willingness to make yourself vulnerable in the future, harden your heart a bit in emulation of me. I take your pain and your explicit recognition and acknowledgment of our relationship — not a big deal from a mortal perspective, but the influence of gods stems from the thoughts and actions and feelings of mortals — and give you what aid I may in the coming year, putting a finger on the scale, metaphorically speaking, when it happens to be in your interests. It's a win-win.
"Oh, and I also help with the subsumption, in the event that your sacrifice isn't stolen by a starving cuckoo chick," she added, ruffling Harry's hair in a way which suggested she thought the Family Magic possessing him was a little adorable. She didn't seem to begrudge them what he suspected had been a lot of energy. He felt a bit weird from channelling it, actually, oddly floaty and hollowed-out. "For someone who's been doing subsumption rituals since she was seven, your mum's not really very good at it. Free subsumption, I mean."
"Few humans are," Andi noted. "Danny, why didn't you say something? If you didn't want to participate, there was never any need for you to do so. I simply thought it would be easier for you to cope with me sacrificing the dogs if you did. It was for Dora..."
"I— Er— Can we talk about this later?" he begged his mum. "I really want to know why my roommate just tried to kill me and it feels like I'm the only one here who doesn't know what's going on."
Andromeda sighed. "Of course, sweetheart."
When she hesitated, clearly trying to decide how to break the news, Angie jumped in, clearly barely able to contain her amusement. "Ooh, I'll do the honours! Eridanus Matar of House Black, commonly known as Harry Potter, meet Henry James of House Potter — no relation — commonly known as Danny Tonks."
"What?!"
"I really do enjoy Albus Dumbledore, you know. He tries so hard to walk in the Light, but he just can't help serving me."
"You mean I'm— He's— Bellatrix isn't my mother?"
"Nope. Dumbles switched us. Bella's my mother." ("Oh, thank God!") "Lily Potter sounds like she was pretty awesome, too, though," Harry offered.
"You knew! You— Why didn't you tell me? Either of you?" Danny demanded, his glare shifting from Harry to Andi and back. "Wait, no, what the hell was that?! I actually thought you were going to kill me for a second there!"
"I was, there's this whole thing with the Family Magic starving to death because all the really good mages in the House died or got sent to Azkaban and it can't reach them through the dementors and no one was making the sacrifices it needed—"
"Oh, seven bloody hells," Andi muttered.
Angie laughed. "Yeah. Someone tried to use a light ritual to cut him off from the Family Magic when they took him from Cissy. Not entirely successfully, obviously. Your ritual tonight bringing my power to focus on little Harry undermined the barrier keeping the Family Magic from reaching him. And incidentally kept the Family Magic from burning him out when it broke through, which would have been amusing, but far less entertaining in the long run than keeping him around. Especially after I went to the trouble of arranging his birth."
"Why?" Andi asked immediately.
"What, how is he going to be entertaining? That would be telling, obviously. But I mean, have you met this kid?"
"No, why did you arrange his birth? Mira told me that Sirius broke the Covenant, you weren't bound to save the House—"
"I'm also not bound to ensure its destruction. Perhaps I was feeling somewhat sentimental. Perhaps the world is simply a more interesting place when the House of Black exists. Perhaps it's really none of your business. What part of 'that would be telling' did you not understand, Andromeda Tatiana?"
"Forgive me, my Lady," Andi said, holding her hands up in a clear gesture of surrender. "I understood you to be referring to future events when you said you wouldn't say, not decisions long past."
"The past decision in question and the reasoning behind it is predicated on those future events and the relative likelihood of their unfolding with or without Harry's existence. Time is weird like that from the outside. Ask your mother when you make up with her. Now, I have places to be tonight, and while raw darkness may sate the Family Magic's desperation and halt its further dissolution, it is a living thing. It requires life to recover coherency and proper sapience. I mean, yeah, it was always a little inhuman, but it used to be more like wilderfolk than a desperate feral child or a starving vampire. So, Harry."
"Yes?"
"How far are you willing to go to save the Black Family Magic?"
"As far as I have to," he said. He didn't even have to stop and think about it. He'd known it for years: "I'll do anything."
Angie grinned, a sharp, dangerous expression, grey-green eyes sparkling with triumph, though he wasn't entirely certain why. "Good answer."
And then she bloody well disappeared!
For a few seconds, Harry had been all but certain she was about to tell him how to get to the Keep and what he needed to do, but then she'd just vanished, stepping sort of backward into the darkness around them, and— "What the hell?! Come back, damn it! I don't know what to do!"
"Don't you?" Andi asked, raising an eyebrow at him. "You seemed to twenty minutes ago."
"Well, yes, I know I have to kill people for them, because we're starving to death, but I don't know how to get to the Keep. Unless you do?"
The witch made a face. "Not overland. And I haven't been able to safely apparate to any of the Black properties since I cut ties with the House."
"Yeah, that's what Snape figured."
"Snape knows about this?!" Danny exclaimed.
Harry nodded. "Due to wacky Mabon hijinks. I didn't tell him."
"Why didn't you tell me? Who told you, for that matter?"
"Er. We'd only just met? I figured it out on the train — you know, you were drawing James Potter, and Theo asked you if it was a self-portrait? And I don't actually have Lily's eyes, like the shape, just the colour. And then Blaise confirmed it when I asked."
"Blaise knows? Why the hell does Blaise know?"
"Presumably because Mirabella confided in him. Her understanding of what is or is not an appropriate burden of knowledge to place on a child has always been somewhat...off."
"Is that why you didn't tell me?" Danny demanded, tears in his eyes, his face twisted into an expression of rage? betrayal? relief? "Because you think I'm not– that it's not appropriate for me to know that I'm not related to that– that monster? That I'm not going to just wake up crazy one morning?!"
Andi blinked at him, clearly taken aback. "Oh, honey... I'm so sorry." She moved to give him a hug, but he pushed her away. "I shouldn't have— It never occurred to me that you would think— I was waiting until you turned thirteen because, quite frankly, Mira and I have no idea what Dumbledore was thinking when he switched you and Harry, and until we start discussing the details of House management, it really makes very little difference, so— But I didn't realise you wouldn't know—"
She was cut off by a crack of apparation — a curvy, dark-haired witch a few inches shorter than Andi, wearing a cocktail dress and a scowl, appearing a few feet away. "Meda!"
Andi flinched. "Mira? What are you—"
"You tell me! Angelos Black just crashed my Yule party and told me I needed to come here right now. What the hell is going on over here?"
"Ah... How much did Bella tell you about the Blacks' Yule Ritual?"
"Enough to help her pick sacrifices the Dark would like," she said drily, taking in the scene. "I'm not entirely sure how the Black Family Magic and the Dark are related, but I understand they are to a significant degree. Hello, Danny, dear. Having a good holiday so far?"
Danny, momentarily lost for words, simply stared for a solid three seconds before saying, "Pretty good, yeah. Just found out Bellatrix isn't my mother. Sacrifices?"
"Yes, sacrifices. Humans. Muggles. Usually young, good-looking, smooth-talking rapacious arseholes. Corporate executives and ad-men, you know the type," she said with a knowing smile, sort of like they were sharing a private joke. "And of course Bella's not your mother, love. Even disregarding the fact that I met Eridanus enough times to recognise the godparent bond between us, it was obvious before you turned four that you are far too stable to be Bella's child." She turned to Harry with a grin, looking absolutely delighted to meet him — so genuinely so that he instantly mistrusted her. "You must be Harry. Blaise has told me so much about you. Call me Mira."
He hadn't really told Harry all that much about his mother, just enough that he knew his instant mistrust was probably unfounded. (Blaise obviously trusted her, and Harry trusted Blaise's judgement better than his own on matters of people.) "Er. Hi?"
Apparently that was an acceptable greeting. She nodded before turning back to Andi. "So, why am I here, exactly?"
"Ah...probably because I can't safely apparate to any of the Black properties anymore, and the Keep hasn't had a floo connection in years, I'm sure."
"Back up a bit, love?"
"How much do you know about the Black Family Magic?"
"Ehm...I know that it's oddly sentient, because it's built on..." She trailed off. Harry could almost see her connecting the dots between what she knew about the Family Magic and the situation she'd just walked into. She let loose with what he had a feeling was a slew of absolutely filthy Italian, followed by, "How long has it been since the last sacrifice?"
"It could have been before Bella went to Azkaban for all I know."
"And when did Walburga die, again? She was the last remaining active member of the House, I believe?"
"Nineteen Eighty-Five," Harry provided, when Andi hesitated. He'd been five on the first Dark Night, and he knew now that they had started when the Family Magic realised that Walburga was gone and unless they could get through to him, they were doomed.
Mirabella rewarded him with more Italian profanities. "How are you still alive?"
"Er. The Little Crow couldn't reach me until now, and then Angie gave them magic through me so we could stop panicking and trying to eat Danny. But she's the Dark. She's not alive. We need life to live. So I still need to do the ritual right, but I can't, because no one will tell me where the Keep is!"
She turned back to the other witch. "So, I'm here because you don't want to help your nephew kidnap a suitable sacrifice yourself?"
Andi flushed. "Well— I gave up that life a long time ago, Mirabella!"
"Meda. We both know you never stop being a daughter of the House of Black."
"You can cut yourself off from the Family Magic and be purged from the wards, though. I can't apparate to the Keep anyway."
Mira gave an exasperated little huff. "Fine, I'll take him."
"Yes! Good! Thank you!" Harry was supposed to talk to Snape about how to not get caught kidnapping and murdering people before he actually did it, but he was pretty sure it didn't count if he was with another adult who knew what she was doing. If it did, he would apologise profusely when he got back to school, because he had no intention of missing this opportunity by going to talk to Snape first.
"Thank you, Zee," Andi muttered, sounding oddly ashamed of herself.
Danny, on the other hand, was clearly appalled. (It must really suck being the only sane person in the room right now. Garden, whatever.) "Are– Are you serious? Mum? You– You really want Harry to just— You want him to just go murder someone? Harry, you can't... Please tell me you don't want to do this."
...What sort of stupid question was that? "Do I want to kill someone? I will admit, I'm sort of curious. Not enough to just do it for fun, but." He shrugged. "Do I want to help the Dying Lady — the Black Family Magic, whatever? Yes. Absolutely. I said I would do anything, and I meant it. Killing a stranger to save the Family Magic isn't even a question."
"I... I don't think I can be part of this."
Harry rolled his eyes, quickly growing annoyed now that Mira had agreed to help, and they were still standing around not doing anything. "No one's asking you to, Danny. It's not your problem. Just forget you heard anything about it."
"Like I'll be able to just forget my best mate is out murdering someone?" Danny scoffed.
The witches exchanged a look over the boys' heads. One of those mum-looks he never knew how to interpret, but which all mums seemed to understand.
"Danny, love..." Andi sighed. "I don't like it either. I did leave the House of Black for a reason. But it is a matter of life or death. If Harry doesn't feed the Family Magic, it will kill him — perhaps after slowly driving him mad. It won't want to, but it won't be able to help it. It's like a starving vampire, and Harry is the only source of life it can reach."
Mira, meanwhile, possibly sensing his increasing need to do something, offered him a hand, apparating them away before Danny managed to come up with a response.