A/N: Hello people and sorry for the long absence, I took a vacation amongst other personal matters, but I'm back. I'm sorry, again, and I hope to make it up by posting for two weeks straight, daily - this is day 13 of 14!

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Bold = Parseltongue

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"Another day and more blood magic, huh?" Joseph asked as he slammed shut the entrance to the room of requirement behind him.

Sammi nodded once, stoic and serious as ever while in his presence; she still didn't seem to trust him as much as she trusted Peverell. "Yes, I should hope that's the case if you want that deal of ours to continue."

"Oh come off it," Joe said, waving his hand as he pulled out the book they'd be sharing for the day. "You know, I think I'm starting to grow on you as much as I usually do on people. It's hard to dislike somebody as wicked as me."

"If you didn't know as much as you do, you'd probably be expelled," Sammi deadpanned, letting that linger in the air for a few seconds before she patted the spot beside her. "Come on, I'm not going to wait forever, you dolt. I have my Prefect patrol to cover tonight, so the quicker we start the better. Hopefully, you'll finally be going over some cooler magic too, enough of the juvenile prankster stuff."

"Juvenile?" Joe repeated, offended as he flipped to the page he intended to start them on.

Sammi nodded once. "What else would you call whole blood rituals with special runes and in-depth incantations only for the usage of pranks? You could do so, so much. I may not know as much as you do, but I know enough to understand the possibilities."

"Too bad I haven't used the one that makes you nicer, huh?" Joe asked with a laugh, raising his hands when Sammi narrowed her eyes at him.

"I like to think your time with me is a reward enough," Sammi said, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she shot him a triumphant look. "You come here with an anticipatory look on your face whenever I'm supposed to be here. I've watched you a few times when I was running 'late', I had to make sure you wouldn't bring friends."

"Fine, fine, agree to disagree. You like me, I like you, why don't we ju—" Joe didn't get to finish before a stinging hex hit him in the elbow.

"I'll hit you with another one if that's how you're going to ask me out on a date," Sammi warned, her nose held high as she glared at him. "I expect a gentleman to do so, and a gentleman does it with flowers, chocolates… need I go on?"

Joe shook his head. "Nope, point taken — I'll have 'em next time, promise," he wrung his hands, cracked his neck and pointed at the page then, earning a nod from the girl.

'Protections through sacrifice,' read the top of the page.

"This one looks a lot better than the last half dozen or so we've gone over," Sammi said off-handedly, her hand outstretched to flip the page. "I hope you brought something to sacrifice, else you'll have to make do."

Joe snorted at her words, laughter almost coming out before he refocused on reading.

'Sacrifices need not be at the cost of a soul. Animals, Magicals, Muggles, all of them are of different strength. Should one sacrifice the blood of a dragon and do the same with a Muggle, the ritual user should note that the Draconic blood would empower the desired effects while the Muggle blood would give a very weak, nearly undetectable result. Duration is also partially correlated to the blood or level of sacrifice, as a Muggle soul would be nearly the same worth of Dragon's blood.

Should one understand that and not be needing a more in-depth comparison or chart, the next step are the types of protection. One could specify physical damage, such as that from a blunt weapon or explosive, while on the other hand, one could attempt to achieve a limited type of spell resistance within your skin. Thus far, nearly no effects have been found to last indefinitely; those that are will be on page one-hundred ninety-six.'

"Have you used this magic yet?" Sammi asked then, shaking Joe from his thinking.

"Nope," He said, shaking his head. "I've never needed it, but I guess I will be if Grindelwald comes knocking. It'd be pretty obvious too, especially with the amount of blood needed… well, unless we come across some Dragon in the woods or a dying Muggle. Since I don't see either of those two things happening, I'd be very gray and tired on account of drawing too much blood."

Sammi nodded a few times, looking down at her elbow. "I can see why they'd heavily frown upon and outright ban most of these books — the costs would likely result in people hunting each other for their blood. That's if they decide to not outright kill them too," Sammi looked through narrowed eyes at him then. "Your family's known for this type of magic, they haven't been doing any sacrifices lately, have they?"

"Pfft, as if. Mum's not very into it and dad's been too busy. We barely have family blood-magic days over the summer break anymore, it's depressing really," Joe said with a solemn shake of his head.

"Uhuh," Sammi said, nodding slowly as she watched him.

"What? I'm telling the truth, we don't really do as much as people think we do," Joe said with a laugh as he held his hands up like how he'd done earlier.

It was needless to say that Sammi didn't entirely buy into that. Not with how talked about Joe's family was when it came to blood magic.

"If you say so," Sammi eventually said, sighing as she flipped the page and started looking at the crudely drawn chart. "Don't forget what I said earlier, either. If you're going to try it, you better do a good job."

Little did Sammi know, those words would resonate within Joe the next time they met.

"You're here before me for a change," Sammi said as she strolled into the room, stopping abruptly when she shut the door and turned to see a giant bloody circle in the middle of the room.

That wasn't all she saw either. On the left side, there was a table with a few candles and some food already on a pair of plates. Opposite of that and on the right side of the room, she saw a series of covered bits of food. All of them looked heated, especially the two with small whisps of smoke escaping through the small cracks at the bottom.

"I believe you forgot chocolate," Sammi finally said as Joe turned to look at her. "This is nice and all, but it loses its effect without a girl's best friend."

Joe shook his head. "I have chocolate, and after you help me for a few seconds by reading the incantation over in that book beside you, our new butler will get it for you."

"New butler?" Sammi questioned as she walked right over to the old, leather-covered book with an eagerness in her steps. "I'll admit I'm pretty excited, it's not often I get chocolate, a dinner, and have a butler to boss around. Assuming everything tastes nice and the butler isn't your friend, Ash or whatever his name is, you may just earn yourself a kiss on the cheek by the time the night is up."

Sammi laughed when Joe grinned at her words, and with a final gesture from the boy, she started reading the words as they were written on that page he left out while Joe scurried all about. He ran from candle to candle, from connecting runes as the light went through them and finally, right to the front of the circle with his wand raised. For her part, Sammi continued speaking until a blast of energy sent her hair backwards as the final word was said.

She looked up once that was done and much to her surprise, there was a… vaguely butler-like figure that had joined them in the room.

"Pretty wicked, yeah?" Joe asked as he withdrew a set of butlers clothes and stored his wand. "Help me dress him, then we can start doing some commands. I promised we'd have a butler — this isn't a boring bit of blood-magic either, is it?"

Begrudgingly, Sammi would have to admit that it wasn't boring. Morgana, she didn't even know how it worked, much less where he found the thing. Aside from that, she was more than a little happy that it was her saying the incantation that made it work too. It was like they'd done their first real blood magic involved ritual. All of those other ones, the stupid prank-filled things, they'd just been practise.

"So that's really an inferi?" Sammi asked as she approached, looking at the skeletal figure with a sense of wonder.

Joe smiled smugly and nodded. "It is. We summoned the body from somewhere nearby, probably a long-dead Muggle or forgotten Wizard. It can't have been anybody important — see what I did — else there'd be more care given to him."

Sammi groaned at his pun, but she took the shirt from his arms and moved towards the mindless, still creature. "I'm doing the shirt and hat, you get the pants and boots. You better put a freshening charm or ten on him too, I don't want our butler to smell like dirt… get rid of the bugs on him too, banish them elsewhere."

"As my lady commands," Joe said with a teasing lilt to his voice as the pair worked in tandem to dress their new friend up.

It took nearly five minutes before the creature was clean, fresh-smelling and dressed to Sammi's standards, but it was a brilliantly spent amount of time.

"He looks good," Sammi finally said, walking in a circle around the inferi and adjusting the collar of his shirt. "You can show me the chocolate now, then we'll eat and if you're good, you'll get your first kiss. I'm an honest, benevolent goddess from Greece, aren't I?"

"I didn't think those Greek gods and goddesses of yours would like you comparing yourself to them," Joe said, grinning as he motioned for her to seat while he moved closer to the inferi.

Sammi shrugged before she sat down, crossing her legs in a proper way and looking at him expectantly; chocolate, it seemed, waited for nobody. Especially if it was good chocolate as she assumed Joe had gotten for her, else he wouldn't have gone through half as much trouble as he had with everything else. She had to admit to herself and give credit where it was due, he'd done a pretty swell job thus far.

"Go get the chocolate from the leftmost trunk," Joe ordered, his tone authoritative as he strolled over to the table and bowed, "Your first course will be over shortly, my lad— goddess."

"You're a dolt," Sammi said, rolling her eyes as Joe seated himself across from her, the scented candle doing a wonderful job to cover up the remaining scent of the inferi as it deposited a vast amount of chocolate on the table in front of her. "I'll admit you're a wonderful dolt though. Your goddess is pleased, though she's also a tad bit hungry."

"Let me preface this by saying the house-elves did almost all of the cooking, so if it sucks, it's their fault," Joe said as he ordered the inferi to bring over their starters.

Sammi looked intrigued, but that sense of wonder quickly turned to astonishment when the lid was removed to reveal heaps of traditional Greek food. All of it looked wonderful, amazing really, and she was struck silent for a good few seconds. The only reason it was so short was the horribly smug smirk Joe had on his face.

She didn't curse him or try to remove it though. Instead, Sammi leaned forward and placed a very light kiss on his cheek.

"Don't get used to it, dolt. You did a good job and I like to keep to my promises," Sammi said, a slight red tinge to her cheeks as she took a generous serving of lamb and placed it on the centre part of her plate.

Joe kept silent, smartly, and simply allowed his smug smile to grow.

He knew he'd done a good job.