'Did you invite Sirius?' Ginny asked, lounging in one of the comfortable chairs in Morgana's office. Hermione glanced up from the papers spread across her desk, irritated by the interruption.

'Not yet.'

'You should ask him soon. He'll need some time to wrap his head around it.' Ginny advised and Hermione sighed, pushing the papers aside. They were giving her a headache and Ginny was correct - Sirius Black had a deep seated aversion to anything traditional and he'd need every minute of the three hours until the Yule ritual to get his head around it.

Then she hesitated at the doors, realising she had absolutely no idea where Sirius might be. The werewolves would be moving in on Boxing Day, so he was probably taking advantage of his last days of the freedom to be able to be in his human form. Either that, or he'd realised that the castle was more than big enough for him to never see one of the new employees and he was still sulking about the fact they hadn't had time to search the Marauders Map for Pettigrew before the end of term.

'We need a way to communicate.' Hermione announced, throwing open the doors without drawing the runes on them. They opened to their real location - the roof of the square tower that she'd climbed with Gellert on her first visit. It was the second tallest tower in the castle, although perhaps it couldn't be counted as such because it backed straight up onto the tallest. She strode to the edge, cloak rippling over crisp snow and picking up it's own frosting of glitter. Ginny followed, then overtook Hermione to press her hands up against the crenellations and lean over precariously. Hermione took a moment to observe, marvelling at the difference in the young witch. It was just over a year since they'd first met but Ginny had grown; physically, she was taller and stronger - Harry had been helping her train as a chaser to try out for the team next year, but she also held herself differently. Her hair now tumbled in a wild wave of fire, darker and healthier than it had been on the train. It was held out of her eyes with a headband, decorated by sprigs of conjured green holly. But even bigger that the physical change was the on in her magic and in her attitude. Ginny had taken to wandless magic like a phoenix to fire which was unsurprising when one realised that it was even more volatile than Hermione's, although fortunately easier to control and less likely to take it's own initiative. Ginny was already turning into a formidable witch and she was only twelve.

Her parents hated it, for some incomprehensible reason. Her mother thought she looked like a delinquent and her father thought she was disgracing the name of Weasley by supporting the dark side. Hermione dreaded to think what her parents would say if they ever found out that she was actually performing rituals with them.

'There they are.' Ginny eventually announced, raising her hand and pointed at two tiny black specks up in the sky. One of the tiny figures suddenly dove, pulling up abruptly before twisting and darting back to the other.

'Flighty. Have Katana pick me up, please.' Hermione ordered to the air. Her elf didn't appear, but Hermione knew that she would send one of her younger minions to let the Longma out of his stall.

'Want to come with me?' Hermione offered, but Ginny shook her head.

'I'm not a fan of the flavour of your shampoo.' The younger witch informed her as Katana shot up over the rooves of the castle. In barely two beats of his wings, he was alighting on the rooftop with them. His wings threw up a massive spray of snow, which deflected harmlessly off the shield that Ginny cast.

Hermione clambered up onto the crenellations, then slipped up onto Katana's back. Annoyingly, even with a saddle, he was still too tall to mount from the ground. He was trained to hold his wing just so, so that the sturdy talon at the top could act like a step if necessary, but she didn't want to use that until he was properly back in shape as it took a lot of strength in his wing muscles.

'I'm going to get a beast, some day.' Ginny vowed as Hermione settled in place.

'I thought you liked brooms?'

'I do.' Ginny laughed, 'but I think a beast would be even better - something interesting like yours.'

'Maybe I'll find you something.' Hermione laughed, petting Katana's neck and squeezing his sides with her knees. Snow swirled around them as Katana tested the space between the crenellations, then they surged upwards.

Unlike with broomsticks, Hermione loved flying with Katana. Despite the difference in his age, it was like they became one when they flew together. She understood what he was going to do before he did it, or perhaps he did it because she'd thought about it. She wasn't really sure anymore, although logic suggested that such a bond was impossible. Wind whipped through her hair and snatched at her cloak as they rocketed upwards at a speed that even Harry's nimbus would never have been able to reach. She leaned forwards, reducing the drag and hooking her elbows over Katana' wing joints to stop herself sliding backwards over his slippery scales. His angle steepened accordingly, his wings clawing at the air to hoist them higher and higher until the castle was a little white snail shell nestled into the mossy green island, surrounded by coldly dark water.

The ascent slowed, wings fanning out to either side of them and fixing rigidly, leathery membranes rippling slightly as he almost imperceptibly adjusted the digits to hold them stable. She breathed a heavy sigh, feeling like all of her responsibilities were dropping off her shoulders. She could almost see them, twirling down to earth like sycamore seeds.

'It's much simpler up here.' Hermione sighed, running a hand down the warm scales beneath Katana's mane. He tossed his head as if in agreement and dipped his left wing, bringing them into a gentle loop. She sighed heavily, knowing that as much as she wanted to, she didn't have forever to spend in the sky with Katana. Although she made a quick mental note to modify her morning training to include some mounted blade work. Katana was probably out of practice.

But for that moment...

'Let's have some fun.' Hermione suggested, petting Katana's neck again before leaning over his shoulder to spot Harry and Sirius. They were still distant specks, but now they were below here. She doubted they'd even noticed her, so far above them. With a single leisurely beat of his wings, Katana swept over until he was right over the two brooms, then with no more warning that the shift of the muscles in his back, he whipped his tail up and over their heads, the heavy weight flipping them over so that they faced straight down towards the distant sea. His wings snapped into his sides, so tight against his sides that they may as well have fused to his body. They dropped like an arrow, Hermione tangling her hands into his mane as her body lifted away from his, plastering herself lengthways down his back with the ease of weightlessness.

For a second, it was just them and the wind, tearing at her hair and mingling it with his in a stream of brown and icy white. Then Katana's wings snapped out again, the crack of the membranes filling with sudden pressure was almost as shocking as the way gravity seemed to suddenly catch up, driving Hermione into Katana's back with thrilling force. But it wasn't Hermione's first time, and she expertly arranged her legs so that within seconds she was upright again, seated as though she hadn't just almost broken the sound barrier in free fall.

At each of Katana's wing tips, blown apart by the sudden compression of air around them, Harry and Sirius were removing their balance on their broomsticks.

'Bloody, bleeding Merlin.' Sirius swore, eyeing her up like she was a mad woman. Katana give one leisurely flap to bring himself just up above the two wizards, then began a leisurely loop, unable to hover in one spot without difficult manoeuvring of his wings that would make conversation impossible.

'And you call brooms dangerous.' Harry bellowed in agreement.

'I never said that.' Hermione hollered back, patting her hair down with both hands. 'Come down. We need to talk about today.'

'Race you to the square tower.' Harry challenged. Hermione raised an eyebrow at him, despite knowing that he wouldn't be able to pick out the expression over the expanse between them.

Katana tossed his head and wiggled his wings, almost as if he were stretching them out. Hermione counted them down as a reply and the trio shot towards the castle like three bolts of lightning.

Two minutes later, Harry landed hard on the snow covered rooftop, touching down barely a moment before his godfather, to find Hermione leaning casually against Katana's shoulder.

'You're mental.' Sirius announced, alighting significantly more elegantly than Harry and climbing off his broom. 'These nimbuses are only five or so years old - they'd be able to do a hundred at least, probably over and you left us in the dust.'

'Katana is a Longma.' Hermione informed him, unable to look entirely not smug. 'He'll fly for four hours into a headwind at a hundred and we can pretty easily quadruple that in free fall when he's fit.'

'Says the witch who won't even get on a broom because she says it's dangerous.' Harry muttered, shaking his head as he reached out to pet the shining scales.

'I said that brooms are untrustworthy.' Hermione corrected imperiously. 'Katana knows his limits and won't exceed them. A broomstick's charms could fail at any moment.'

Harry rolled his eyes, swinging his broom up over his shoulder.

'What did you want to talk about, anyway?'

'I thought that we should explain to Sirius what we'll be doing later.' Hermione glanced over at the adult wizard who was looking intrigued by the mystery. She drew runes on the doors so that they opened into the stables, chivvying Katana through so that he could be met and saddled by the elves. Then she closed the doors again, reopening them so that they led into her office. The two wizards traipsed after her, waving at Ginny who was back in her chair by the fire. Theo and Neville must have made their way up at some point as well, and both boys lounged on the thick rug in front of the fire.

'I saw you dive.' Ginny informed Hermione as she returned to her desk and stacked away the papers that were spread across it. 'Can you steer at that speed, without wings?'

'Katana can. He uses his tail like a big rudder.' She answered, taking a seat and gesturing for the boys to do the same once they finished shedding cloaks and gloves.

'If I didn't know better, I would say you've got a familiar bond with him.' Theo shook his head in amazement and Hermione froze.

'A familiar bond?'

'Yeah, but I'm pretty sure they're only with cats and owls and stuff.' Ginny's eyebrows pulled together.

'No.' Sirius denied, taking his seat and looking at Hermione in an odd way. 'I mean, those are the most common because those are common pets, but there's no reason why it couldn't be something else. Dumbledore has a phoenix.'

'I thought it would be with Cavella.' Hermione admitted.

'There still might be one there. Again, most people only really have one pet that they're close enough to to develop the bond but there's no reason why there can't be more.'

'So what was the problem?' Harry interrupted, bringing the conversation back onto track. He hadn't taken the seat that Hermione had offered, choosing instead to wave his hands in front of the fire. Hermione took a moment to bring her mind back onto track, summoning an elf with tea for them all.

'I wanted to talk to Sirius about the Yule celebration...'

'Yule?' Sirius interrupted sharply. 'You mean Christmas?'

'No.' Hermione looked at him. 'I mean Yule.'

For a moment, Sirius just mouthed like a fish out of water, glancing between Harry and Hermione.

'Yule; that poncy pureblood ball on the 22nd for people who are so hung up on not being muggle that they won't even celebrate on the same day.' Sirius checked, a hint of anger creeping into his tone.

'No.' Hermione answered cooly. 'Yule, as in the ancient ritual designed to prevent the ill fortunes released on the longest night of the year getting into the household.'

'Yule... ritual?' Sirius looked even paler if possible, staring at Hermione like she'd just turned into a dementor. 'You're doing a ritual? Every year?'

'Rituals are not dark magic, no matter what Dumbledore may have told you.' Theo sneered. 'Up until recently, seasonal rituals, ritual funerals, marriages, births, adoptions... they were all common.'

'Ritual magic is dark magic.' Sirius slammed his hand against the table.

'Because Dumbledore said so?' Hermione demanded.

'Because everyone with a lick of sense that hasn't got their head shoved up their arse knows that!'

'You mean everyone that hasn't ever performed one and therefore has no idea what it really involves?' The young high priestess challenged, slicing her hand through the air to silence Sirius before he could interrupt her. 'Ritual magic is powerful and wandless - the ministry are afraid of it because they can't trace or control it. Of course, rituals can be used to perform great evil, but they can also perform great good just as a wizard with a wand can perform both evil and good.'

There was silence for a moment as Sirius glared at her, his eyes occasionally flicking to Harry to take in his resolute expression.

'Lily and James performed ritual magic too; the protection spell that Lily cast on Harry would have been classified as very dark by the ministry because it requires human sacrifice. But it's not evil; Lily gave her life to protect him, willingly.' Hermione pointed out.

'How do you know that?' Harry demanded from his spot by the fire. Hermione winced, then thanked Circe that at least he didn't seem angry.

'Dumbledore told me.' She admitted, Sirius momentarily silenced. 'When he called me up to his office. He wanted me to talk you into staying at the Dursleys because that's where the protection is active.'

'Lily performed a ritual, and Dumbledore knew?' Sirius asked incredulously.

'I imagine...' Hermione realised as she spoke, 'that Dumbledore probably told her about the ritual. Old, old magic like that would be almost impossible to find without access to a very traditional, very old family library.'

'If that.' Sirius' hands were white around the armrests of his chair. 'My family are about as old and dark - sorry, traditional - as you can get. We had a total of one grimoire which was kept under lock and key in my father's office.'

'Dad's got three, but that's only because the Notts have always been into history.' Theo put in, 'well, technically there's five, but two of those are actually Morgana's, so only Hermione could actually open them.'

'If my mum died to put that protection on me..?' Harry trailed off.

'I'm going to speak to Gellert.' Hermione decided. 'Dumbledore comes from very young family line, he wouldn't have access to grimoires of his own. But he could have taken some of the Grindelwald ones when he defeated Gellert. With the seal, he would have access to them.'

'What's a grimoire, again?' Ginny asked, her face almost as red as her hair. 'A spell book, right?'

'Sort of.' Sirius answered, his eyes falling on the youngest member of their little group. 'Back before the statute of secrecy, wizards used to be involved in the muggle feudal system. They were much more secretive with their knowledge.'

'Obviously.' Mordred drawled from the corner. Only Hermione, who'd felt the telltale tug on her magic, didn't jump. 'For all anyone knew, you could have been going to war with the neighbouring fife and that harmless little healing charm that you taught their local wix could be used to heal the knight who puts a sword through your side.'

'Morgana's tit.' Sirius exclaimed. Mordred winced. 'You're actually him. I thought maybe your parents were just really weird, but you're actually the Witch King.' Sirius looked up at the ceiling in dismay. 'I should have guessed; there's reanimated skeletons everywhere, so of course there'd be a thousand year old undead dark wizard here too. Harry, this is mental, we've got to go.'

'Mordred's nice.' Harry protested, refusing to budge from the fireplace. The dark wizard in question sidled around to stand at Hermione's shoulder. 'And I agree with Hermione. I did the Yule ritual last year and it wasn't dark at all. Maybe you should actually do one before judging.'

Sirius tossed up his hands in surrender, heaving a resigned sigh.

'Fine. But no funny business, I'm watching you.' The convict jabbed his finger in Hermione and Mordred's direction before striding towards the door and yanking it open. He was met with a blast of wind and slammed it shut a moment later. 'Damn possessed castle. How do I make it take me back to my room?' Sirius demanded. Looking supremely amused, Mordred crossed the room and drew the relevant runes onto the door. When he pulled it open again, Sirius stomped through onto the South Gallery, where his rooms were. The doors swung shut behind him with a heavy thud.

There was a moment of silence as Mordred made his way back over and took the seat that Sirius had just vacated.

'Well that went well.' Theo muttered dryly.

'It could have gone worse.' Hermione pointed out, 'he's spent a long time fighting his family beliefs and he's built up this world of black and white. We've just gone and smeared the whole lot into grey. And you...' She tossed a small scroll weight at Mordred, who turned incorporeal and let it pass through him, 'you hardly helped matters.'

'He was besmirching the honour of the family.' Mordred protested.

'Besmirching!' Hermione cried, tossing another weight at him. Predictably, he turned transparent, she banished the chair across the room, he returned to solid again and promptly collapsed to the floor as gravity took hold. Everyone in the room snickered behind their hands, carefully hiding it from the dark knight.

'Could someone actually explain what a grimoire is please?' Ginny interrupted, bringing the conversation back. She waved her hand and the chair floated back to Mordred who sat back into it with a courteous nod.

'As Sirius was saying, we were a bit more possessive of our knowledge back then. We used to write down everything we did and discovered in books, usually protected by a number of nasty curses, which we called grimoires.'

'So they're just spell books?' Harry asked dubiously.

'Most have other things in as well, too. Handwritten spell books full of old family magic... well, they're still written, so I guess not old magic. But it's usually more traditional things, or things that wouldn't fit into a normal spell book that someone has learned or found particularly useful.' Neville shrugged, casual enough that Hermione guessed that his grandma possessed at least one of the ancient tomes.

'It's why the Gorlois family was so powerful; Lord Gorlois' talent was actually cursebreaking.' Mordred took over, 'It was quite common for muggle warlords to keep grimoires as trophies, although they were often useless. Lord Gorlois worked out how to break curses, and suddenly the Gorlois family had access to all of the other captured grimoires in our lands. Learning is exponential; the more we knew, the more we discovered. One of those was a Greek grimoire that contained the sect ritual among others. Once the sect was formed, we gained magical power, which attracted weaker families to seek our protection by joining the sect and they brought their knowledge and power, again, exponential. Then Morgana met Finvarra and won Avalon and the Fey taught us even more.'

'But what makes grimoires different to normal spell books?' Ginny asked irritably.

'It's the magic that's in them really.' Hermione shrugged. 'I guess the real difference is that they didn't really care so much about dark and light magic. You'll find a potion to poison a village well next to a charm to secure a loose horseshoe, next to a ritual to make someone have a stillbirth.'

'Some are a little more organised.' Mordred muttered reproachfully, folding his arms over his chest.

'But either way, there's probably more of them in this castle alone than in the rest of the wizarding world combined if the Blacks only have one.'

'Hedge witches.' Mordred muttered unfavourably.

'What?' Hermione asked, glancing at him.

'Hedge witches. The Blacks. They owned this little apothecary in London that sold tinctures to muggles.'

Ginny snickered.

'What?' Harry demanded, looking at her.

'It's just... well, the Blacks were like royalty... above the Malfoys. It's funny that Mordred was actually King when they were just running an apothecary.'

Mordred looked more than a little smug. 'The Gorlois children are born to lead.'

'And they will again when Hermione has her coven.' Ginny said, smugly crossing her arms across her chest. Every head whipped around to face her fast enough that Hermione could almost hear the snap.

'What?' Theo asked, his voice low. Ginny rolled her eyes.

'Well it's pretty obvious, isn't it?' The young witch looked around the others, meeting gobsmacked gazes. Theo looked more surprised by Ginny's blasé acknowledgement than the idea that Hermione would be creating a coven, Harry looked more surprised than unhappy about it and only Neville was unreadable. 'Oh come on... we're bringing back the old ways, right? The old ways were literally rituals, wandless magic and covens and Hermione is clearly our leader, so she's going to be our High Witch.'

'I thought you already had one?' Harry asked, glancing over at Hermione.

'I have a sect.' Hermione corrected.

'Sects are scary stuff.' Theo interrupted with an apologetic look and Hermione shrugged, allowing him to continue with the knowledge that he could probably explain in a more comprehensible manner than she could when to her the differences were so tangible. 'In a sect, you basically create a slave link between yourself and the leader. It's permanent and can't be broken, even by death, when it just goes inactive. A coven is more temporary, so you can leave if you want to and you still maintain complete control over your magic.'

'Think of it like each wixen is a castle and magic is soldiers.' Mordred interrupted, 'A sect is like a castle swearing fealty to a king in his castle, at which point the king builds a portal system between your castles. You share troops very quickly, but the king commands it. If you want to do something, the king might send soldiers for you to command, if the king wants to do something you have to send soldiers to help him. But if you refuse to send soldiers, or break the king's law, he can limit the number of soldiers that you're allowed to keep or take them away entirely.'

Several heads nodded, clearly following what Mordred was saying.

'A coven is like several castles forming an alliance. It's not as permanent so you don't bother building portals, but you build a road so that at least troops can ride a bit faster between castles. The individual castles can request aid, in which case the other castles can choose to respond or not. It's not as quick, easy or efficient but it's far more... what was the word?' The dark knight glanced at Hermione. 'For when a king is only a temporary king?'

'Democracy.' Hermione supplied, a wry smile dancing across her lips. Mordred's analogy was a good one and the other seemed to understand it.

'Well, we're going to make a coven, right?' Ginny asked, looking between everyone in the room. Harry nodded eagerly.

'I'm in.' Neville promised, conviction ringing through his voice. 'My Gran's always telling me stories about the old covens. I've dreamed of joining one since I was a kid.'

'You know I'm with you.' Theo vowed.

'Who else do you want?' Ginny demanded eagerly. 'Twelve, right? That's what they have in the stories.'

'Me, you, Theo, Neville, Harry.' Hermione began to obligingly tick them off on her fingers. 'Berg, Anneken, and Lord Nott.'

'So there's four more spots.' Theo noted.

'I was hoping to get Gellert too. He's one of the most powerful wizards in history, and he'd be a huge asset.'

'And when he's young and fit again.' Ginny winked at her and Hermione flicked a mild jinx at her, which Ginny deflected with a snicker.

'Three more?' Neville prompted. Hermione felt her stomach uncurl in relief; she'd been worried that her friends would object to Gellert joining the coven but they seemed more than okay with it.

'Sirius. He'll be hard to persuade but he's strong and experienced. And maybe Daphne, I'd like to talk to her about it. And... well, I was hoping that you might be able to join us, Mordred.'

Mordred blinked in surprise, looking at every young face in the room. Every expression was bright and hopeful.

'I'm not actually alive...' He explained awkwardly.

'But you can join like this, right?' Theo gestured to his form.

'Well yes, I suppose that I could. But the Priestess can already call on my magic through the sect, then you can use that through the coven. Not to mention that my reserves are naturally depleted because I'm not exactly alive. You'd be better off with someone living.'

'Oh. Maybe we'd be better off, but we like you more.' Ginny waved her hand dismissively. 'Besides, you're the Witch King. How wicked would it be to be in a coven with the Witch King?'

There was a general noise of agreement around the room and Mordred huffed, sounding flattered at least.

'We should get ready for the ritual.' Hermione pointed out, tapping her watch. Mordred faded away and reappeared a moment later in a crimson cloak and tunic, absent of any iron or silver. Hermione rolled her eyes at him and headed up the spiral staircase to her rooms. Meanwhile, the other queued up to take their turns drawing their symbol on the door and vanishing off to their own respective rooms in the south gallery and the square tower.