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The Ritual

He shouldn't be here.

He should be in his bed, having a normal dream for a teenager.

He definitely shouldn't be floating above a clearing in a dark forest observing a group of… people assembled around a stone altar, chanting. That was, without a doubt, not a normal dream.

If it was a dream at all.

He wasn't too sure of it. It didn't feel like a dream, even with the matter of floating and being disembodied. He didn't recall ever thinking with so much lucidity during a dream. It all felt as he supposed it would do that thing he read about somewhere years ago, before finding out about being a wizard. Astral projection or something like that. He had daydreamt often enough about being able to do it, as he never went beyond Surrey.

But how had he come here without realizing? Or why?

While trying to work all that out, or at least understand their chant, he observed in detail the beings in the clearing. There were twenty four, all surrounding the altar in a loose ring except three, who stood besides it. There were three clearly different groups, each represented by one of those inside the circle.

One party was obviously vampires. They were easy to recognize with their unnatural paleness and their clothes way out of date. The second was something he had never seen before. They were like the werewolves portrayed in movies: hairy humans with claws and wolf-shaped heads. The remaining eight were human enough to not be given a second glance if it wasn't for a tiny, insignificant detail. They were beautiful. Too beautiful to be human. Heck, they were male and he still thought they were, and he was straight, thank-you-very-much!

He did catch another particularity about the group. There were only two women, and both were vampires. Was it only coincidence? He didn't think so, even if he didn't have a clue why he did. Perhaps it had something to do with the pretty-faced group? Were they incompatible enough to not be distracted by them while the strange werewolves were not? Or was there another reason?

His pondering was cut short when he realized some kind of symbol in the altar, probably a rune, had begun to shine and he somehow could now understand their chanting. "Touched by darkness, you of kind heart with voice heard by many and pure soul, answer our summoning, heed our plea" they repeated over and over again.

'Fuck' he thought. 'I don't know about the kind heart and pure soul, but I'm surely touched by darkness' His hand rose to rub a scar in his forehead in the curious shape of a lightning bolt. 'And I'm the bloody boy-who-lived, people hears me, even if most don't listen to what they hear' Bitterness rose when he remembered the events of his second year at Hogwarts, or more recently, Fudge brushing aside Sirius innocence. 'And I don't see anyone else here with me, so they are probably talking about me. At least now I know I have a kind heart and a pure soul if my spirit or whatever has been dragged here by their chanting' the boy laughed sarcastically.

The rune stopping its brightening seemed to be some sort of signal for the other three to begin their role. The three of them kneeled and, for the first time that night, he saw there was a trunk of some sort at their feet. The representative of the "beautiful ones", as he was forced to call them in his ignorance, reached inside it and extracted something small and gory from within. Standing and climbing up to kneel again on the altar; he proceeded to drop it inside a bowl-like hollow there was in the middle of it while reciting. "I offer the gift of clabbert's pustule, to make sure you are warned of danger". Then he climbed down and returned beside the other two, only for his actions to be repeated by the werewolf wannabe. "I offer the gift of diricawl's heart, to make sure you always have a way out" said this one, his voice more like the growl of a wolf than anything a human throat could ever produce. The cycle began again, but the vampire retrieved a vial of a dark, gooey substance. He had no idea what could it be, but he found soon enough. "I offer the gift of boggart's essence, to make you able to be whatever you want".

'OK' he thought. 'This is obviously some sort of ritual where they offer these gifts in exchange for something they wish from me, and that last one was from a dark creature' He couldn't stop the shudder at thinking of what they could want from him and if he would be able to refuse at all, with this being an obviously powerful ritual to need so many people to perform it. But the gifts where not over yet, it seemed, as now all three of them were reaching for the trunk again and carefully manoeuvring to climb and kneel on the altar while grasping another vial, whose contents he couldn't even see with so many hands surrounding it, at the same time. "We all offer the gift of dragon's blood, to bring you closer to magic itself" they said as one. What the hell were they going to ask from him to offer these things instead of money or something like that? Did they know who he was and thought he would be more receptive to ways to keep alive than any other possibility? Or was it that they wanted him to do something extremely dangerous and he would need all this? He was beginning to worry when the potential implications of this ritual listed themselves in his mind. 'But they said it was a plea, didn't they? It implies the chance to decline, right?' he wondered, hopeful.

While he was pondering all this, he failed to notice the three had never climbed down and had instead retrieved ceremonial daggers of some sort. When he caught up on it, he saw the blades were made of something whitish, bone or ivory, probably. He watched with fascinated horror as, one by one, they took off part of their clothing, leaving their torso exposed, in order to proceed with the ritual. 'I had a bad feeling about this. A very bad feeling.'

This time, it was the vampire who started everything. Rising his arm until it was above the assorted body parts and fluids, he proceeded to make a cut on his wrist and bleed over them, all the while reciting "I stand as the embodiment of the vampire nation. May all our strengths and none of our weaknesses be bestowed upon you as our ally" and he smeared some blood in another rune carved opposite the first one, which the boy realized probably stood for him, making it shine, too. The other two followed the same course of action in reverse order, with the "beautiful one" being last, stating "I stand as the embodiment of the werewolf nation. May all our strengths and none of our weaknesses be bestowed upon you as our sibling" and "I stand as the embodiment of the veela nation. May all our strengths and none of our weaknesses be bestowed upon you as our voice" respectively. But even that wasn't enough for the ritual, it seemed, as they continued at the same time with "With our blood we pay for these gifts. With our lives we close this deal. With our souls we ask for your help."

'Holy mother of Merlin!' he shouted in his mind as they raised the knives above their heads and without hesitating stabbed viciously their own hearts. Immediately after, he felt as if he was being blown up with hot air like a common balloon. It wasn't painful, but it was really unpleasant. He couldn't stop himself from thinking his aunt got what she deserved if she felt the same.

Without warning, everything stopped with a flash of brilliant light and his eyes shot open in his bedroom at number four, Privet Drive.