Hermione and Ron were killed early in the Second Blood War. Harry only had Luna Lovegood, Neville Longbottom and the Weasley Twins to assist him on his journey to destroy Voldemort. They weren't always together; Harry had rescued Luna from Malfoy Manor where Hermione had died by the hand of Bellatrix Lestrange. Harry and Ron rescued Neville from Longbottom Hall as Augusta Longbottom dueled ferociously with twenty Death Eaters, only to be cursed in the back by an imperiused Hannah Abbott (Neville's fiancé) who then turned her wand on herself with a cutting curse. In Diagon Alley; Harry, Ron and Neville attempted to rescue the Weasley Twins from their shop and made it through the morass of curses and other unmentionable magic to only lose Ron in the process.
Thus Harry, Luna, Neville, Fred and George gathered around the table of Bill and Fleur's cottage by the sea to grieve over their loved ones. Neville led the others in a Longbottom family ritual with Mead for his grandmother, pouring a horn of mead upon the sand and then cutting his palm he made his oath, "Wherever Death Eaters stand, I will stand against them. Wherever Death Eaters live, I will destroy their homes. Wherever Death Eaters hide, I will show them true fear." Everyone could feel the magic in the air building. He then drew the Elder Futhark runes Thurisaz, Hagalaz and Isa with his wand over the shallow indentation in the sand and said, "Galdur, ég krefst réttlætis fyrir ástvini mína!"
The magic in the air around them became almost tangible, a rainbow of colors swirled around them. The others repeated the oath, binding together their blood with the cleansing power of the honeyed mead, demanding justice from Magic herself. As soon as the last one finished the blood oath, the magic swirled around them feeling like warm and comforting water.
Hecate, the goddess of magic and crossroads (and a multitude of other domains) felt the connection to herself from the mortal ritual. Deciding that she needed to see this for herself, she left her temple and froze time to take in the scene she arrived at. Bill and Fleur were standing on the cliff nearby watching tearfully. Harry was the last to complete his oath and still held his clenched bleeding fist in the air along with his other hand holding up his wand, alit with the power of the ritual. Neville, Luna, Fred, and George all held their bloody clenched fists up along with their wands – all of them focused on Harry. Harry having lost the most, hurt the most, dealt the worst hand among them was almost on fire with magic pouring off of him.
Hecate was almost intimidated by the looks upon their faces, but she then smiled with recognition and wanted to exult with glee at the joy she felt – realizing who was in front of her! She calmed herself and slowly unfroze time to make it seem like she was materializing in front of them. Once they were back on standard Earth real time, all five pointed their wands at her with amazed looks on their faces. Hecate had decided to show partial divinity, which would admittedly hurt their eyes a bit, but she justified that it would be the fastest way to prove who she was.
Harry stepped towards her with a confused look upon his face, his wand arm wavering a bit as he looked at someone who he could feel he knew somehow, but she also had to be the most powerful person he had ever been around. Including Dumbledore and Voldemort as they slung around arcane energies like candy.
"Do I know you?" Harry asked as he decided to completely lower his wand. The others were having similar feelings as Harry and lowered their wands as well.
Hecate responded with a slight smile upon her face, "Yes and No."
Luna nodded and said, "So we haven't met you yet, within our current place in time and space, which means that when we do meet you that it echoes across our timelines…" she trailed off with a speculative look on her face. Luna then froze in place and her face paled, "You're a goddess!"
Luna quickly kneeled before Hecate and said, "Please excuse my poor behavior in aiming a wand at you and not recognizing your divinity."
The others, recognizing that Luna had just puzzled out something that would have taken them… well, a long time to figure out – knelt as well and repeated what Luna had said. Harry added, "and I apologize for speaking to you out of turn." All magic users, whether they be Light, Dark or Grey knew how to instinctively speak to Divinity – it's a survival instinct for them after all!
Hecate was quick to reduce her divinity so that she was shown as a 30-year-old woman in a toga with light brown hair and green eyes. She quickly knelt in front of Harry, whose head was bowed, and brought him back to a standing position. She did this with the others as well and then said comfortingly, "You, of all sentient creatures, do not ever have to bow to me."
The group, stood rather dumbstruck hearing this. Hecate quickly continued, "I can't tell you why, or how, but just know that in the very near future, all of you will do something extraordinary. So extraordinary, that…" she trailed off, "I actually can't say, it has to be your choice and…" she sighed, "I despise linear time, it just hurts my head thinking in a linear fashion!" Throwing her hands up in the air and storming off to the approaching tide she shouted, "helvíti það til fjandans!" and kicking a wave that approached her – which caused it to move back so quickly there was a mini-tsunami in Greenland.
Everyone immediately went down to a knee again, almost against their will (survival instincts) at the display of a minor godly temper tantrum.
Hecate seeing this, sighed and walked back towards them waving them up. They all obeyed and just stared at the goddess. Hecate took a deep breath, closed her eyes and then slowly let the breath out. Luna giggled at the display and then covered her mouth with a look of horror on her face. Hecate just smiled and went over and hugged her. Which, almost made Luna faint with the amazing feeling of love and comfort that Hecate exuded in the hug.
Stepping back, she looked at all of them and said in an authoritative voice, "Magic has heard your vow and Magic most definitely approves of your need for Justice." Everyone heard the capitalization of Justice in her voice. Luna was the only one to clench her eyes shut.
Hecate looked to the sky and spoke, "Bróðir, réttlæti er það sem við þurfum!"
Thunder boomed; lightning flashed in the evening sky. Lightning then struck the shallow indention that held the groups blood and mead; and instead of retracting, the lightning bolt held there in an extremely bright, continuous form – looking like a gigantic lightning snake. A form grew from the bolt, the lightning dimmed and so did the divine aura around the new figure. As the group found the use of their eyes again, they could see that this man or god rather, was standing quite tall with a very powerful build. His wild black hair was short and he had blue eyes that when they turned to look at the group, they felt as if he could see everything they had ever done.
"Hecate, I see why you've called me – you haven't told them anything to change the future have you?" the god said, turning towards her.
"No Thor, you know that as long as we're on the linear plane we're physically unable to speak of such things. Hint, yes – say, no." Hecate walked towards her brother and with a hand on his shoulder directed him to the group, "These five have requested Justice from Magic; Magic has approved their request, all that needs to be done is the actual deed itself."
Thor, now named, nodded, turned to the group and spoke, "You five are strong enough to accomplish this deed by yourselves."
The group nodded, disappointed and somewhat teary eyed at this statement. Then Thor held his hand up, "But, if you did this by yourselves, you would surely lose more and more until it would truly be a pyrrhic victory. Something, I would not wish on you. Especially you…" Thor trailed off, looking pensive for a moment.
The group stared back in bewilderment, collectively wondering what was next and how much more their minds could handle.
Thor looked over to Hecate, silently communicating for just a moment, then turned back to the group. He walked towards Neville, who had been the first to call upon Magic in the ritual. Thor smiled slightly at Neville and put his large hands on his shoulders, "Neville Longbottom, Magic has heard your call for Justice, Magic herself yearns to fulfill this request and this enables me to give you a divine blessing. I bless you with strength that will only grow as time moves on, I bless you with immunity to any harmful thing, I bless you to be the shield that this group of family needs you to be."
Thor stepped back, with the same small smile on his face as Neville was bathed in a white light. As the light receded, the others saw that he was a bit taller, more muscular and held himself confidently. Thor turned towards Luna and beckoned her forward. span style="mso-spacerun: yes;" /span
Laying his hands on her shoulders, he spoke again, "Luna Lovegood, Magic has heard your call for Justice, Magic herself yearns to fulfill this request and this enables me to give you a divine blessing. I bless you with a healing touch that can heal all things, I bless you with immunity to any harmful thing, I bless you to be the loving mediator this group of family needs you to be."
Luna was also bathed in a white light. As it receded, the bruising and hurts she had 'enjoyed' at the tender mercies of the Death Eaters were gone, her eyes were focused and her already ethereal beauty was emphasized further.
Thor beckoned Fred and George forward; laying his left hand on Fred and his right on George. Thor smiled a mischievous grin and spoke, "Fred and George Weasley, Magic has heard your call for Justice, Magic herself yearns to fulfill this request and this enables me to give you a divine blessing. I bless you with Psychometry to discover all the secrets you need for inventing and engineering, I bless you with immunity to any harmful thing, I bless you both to be the strong foundation for the others to support and comfort them with your humor and steadfastness that this group of family needs you to be."
Fred and George were both bathed in the white light, as it receded all of their injuries were gone and they truly looked identical again. Looking at each other, they smiled as they realized they could hear each other perfectly in their minds, where it was only a whisper before. Giving each other a hug, they then hopped apart and said, "Oi! You need to wash your hands after doing that!" Realizing what they had said, they quickly clasped their hands behind their backs, started whistling and walked away trying to forget THAT had happened.
The others, including the two gods, stared in shocked horror before laughing. Thor shook his head, smiling, while he walked over to Harry. Placing his hands on Harry's shoulders he spoke, "Harry Potter, Magic has heard your call for Justice, Magic herself yearns to fulfill this request and this enables me to give you a divine blessing. I bless you with power to overcome any obstacle your family comes up against, I bless you with immunity to all harmful things, I bless you to be the sword that this group of family needs to purge your enemies in any shape or form."
As Thor finished, he didn't take his hands from Harry's form as Harry was bathed in a white light, he spoke again in a louder voice, "I also take something from you that has tainted you for almost 16 years, the piece of soul that has attached itself to your scar!" They all could hear Harry scream within the white light, then they heard another scream replace Harry's – that, as the light receded, also diminished and then finally ceased.
Harry had fallen to his knees and was panting. His first thought was that the Cruciatus curse had nothing on having a soul piece ripped from your forehead. His second and more wondrous thought was that he felt so light, so powerful! A pain that had always been there, was very noticeable from its absence. He traced his fingers across his forehead and felt unblemished skin. His eyes opened wide as he quickly stood and foregoing his natural survival instincts, hugged Thor.
Thor stood there being hugged by a much healthier and stronger version of Harry, he quickly returned the hug and was teary eyed – thinking of things to come. Harry, realizing he was hugging Thor, quickly let go and tried to sink to his knees to apologize profusely. Thor immediately grabbed him and spoke loudly and authoritatively, "NO! None of you five will ever kneel to any god or goddess, neither will you kneel to any aspect of our universe – such is your gifts and your rights!"
Hecate watched Thor speculatively, thinking on how he could state something she couldn't and then realizing in that same instant that he hadn't. For all intents and purposes, it would just seem like it was a great honor to the five. She had the same giddy feeling bubbling up inside of her and barely kept herself from giggling, just thinking of what was to come and what has passed. 'Linear thinking is such a headache' she thought to herself.
Thor released a still stunned Harry, who still almost sunk to his knees, and walked back to stand next to Hecate. As he reached her and gave her a smile, he turned to the five and said, "I believe, we shall definitely see you again. You have all the power and knowledge you need to finish this war and to…" he then trailed off, coming to the same frustrating restriction that Hecate had run into.
Thor sighed and said, "Anyways, one last thing before we depart: be wary of the people you fight for. Those who wield great power, can easily sow fear among the weak minded." He nodded his head and with a crack of thunder and lightning his last words were barely heard, "þar til við hittumst aftur…"
Hecate smiled at them all and with a swirl of rainbow color, disappeared.
Runes (in this context, their meanings are fairly varied):
Thurisaz – Directed force of destruction, defense and conflict
Hagalaz – Wrath of nature (in this case, Magic)
Isa – Reinforces runes around it, represents a challenge/frustration and a grievance.
Translations:
Galdur, ég krefst réttlætis fyrir ástvini mína – Magic, I demand justice for my loved ones
helvíti það til fjandans! - Fuck it to hell!
Bróðir, réttlæti er það sem við þurfum! – Brother, justice is what we need!
þar til við hittumst aftur – until we meet again