Their conversation meandered along, finding new and different topics while the fire burned steadily. It stayed at the same height without any additional logs added onto the fire long into the night, as the crescent moon climbed the sky. As the moon neared its peak, the girls all began packing their leftovers back into the picnic basket.
They took up their positions around the fire, and Ginny was glad to see she wasn't the only one nervous. This would be the make or break moment.
Even though she had felt the lingering power of their ritual caressing her skin as they basked in the glow of the fire, and the building pressure as they had chanted and circled, Ginny had never done this before. She was worried they may have messed up something drastic.
The fact of the matter was, three witches casting the Fire-Making Spell at some dried-out logs would easily create a large bonfire. The true test was whether or not, when they reached their hands in the fire to grab a few logs or embers, the fire burned them or not.
If they had done the first rite correctly, it would be set up for them to continue to the second stage of the ritual, a purification and protection rite. If they had failed, then when they reached into the fire, it would be a normal flame.
Ginny had faith in their ritual, but there was a niggling concern about how she'd explain the burn marks to her Mum. She was already going to have a hard enough time with her new scar.
A deep breath in, and the three girls made eye contact, before plunging their hands into the fire.
It was like diving into the pond out behind the Burrow during the summer. Not hot or cold, but comfortable. Refreshing almost, in the way that it felt like exactly what she needed. Odd, considering how closely they had been huddling to the fire earlier in the night to stave off the cold of the winter air while they feasted.
Ginny grasped the first solid piece she felt and pulled out a glowing piece of firewood. It was small and slim, a broken piece of a larger whole. All three of them trailed towards Hagrid's hut, Ginny following Hermione following Luna who were each grasping their own glowing kindling. They spread out, circling the hut until they were each stationed around it, out of sight from each other.
In. Out. Breathe.
Luna's voice, serene and steady, lilting and lingering, wafted over the air to brush against her ears.
"The Winter ends, but danger abounds
We call upon the Sun, upon the light which surrounds
Underneath the Moon, the reflection of Power
All shadows cleared 'way, all taint shall we scour
Every day hence, as the Light shines brighter
Be not just replenished, but bound ever tighter."
Once more, Ginny felt the power they were wielding seep through her, into her bones and coursing through her blood. Her hair stood on end along her arms and legs, and all down her back, as she heard a high pitched hissssssssssssss.
She listened and stood still as the sound of Luna's fire-cracked log being put out at the base of Hagrid's hut was the only sound in the air. Before the hiss died down all the way, Hermione's voice joined in with Luna's and they repeated the chant.
"The Winter ends, but danger abounds
We call upon the Sun, upon the light which surrounds
Underneath the Moon, the reflection of Power
All shadows cleared 'way, all taint shall we scour
Every day hence, as the Light shines brighter
Be not just replenished, but bound ever tighter."
The hissssssssssssss reached Ginny's ears as it grew stronger again, a crescendo against the silent night, almost as though it was one continuous noise, rather than two. She could feel the log in her hand begin to heat up. It warmed quickly, becoming hotter in her grip. Her wand heated up in time with it, pleasant warmth becoming uncomfortably hot, becoming searing pain, starting in both hands but then coursing up her arms and through her body.
She opened her mouth to speak, and the voices of her friends spoke with her. She wasn't sure how they all kept in time, and she didn't care.
For all that it was a terrible pain, she endured, body stiff and hands on fire, her voice was steady as she spoke. The words were stronger than any pain, the power encompassing her. Each word acted as a balm against the scorching heat threatening to engulf her body.
"The Winter ends, but danger abounds
We call upon the Sun, upon the light which surrounds
Underneath the Moon, the reflection of Power
All shadows cleared 'way, all taint shall we scour
Every day hence, as the Light shines brighter
Be not just replenished, but bound ever tighter."
She reached forward with log and wand, pushing into the ground where it met the hut. Her wand throbbed in her hand as it touched the log, too hot to hold, but too hot to let go. She felt her fingers creak as she gripped it tighter. The snow melted away, and the log hissed as it sublimated and disintegrated at the point of contact, turning into smoke and ash. Smoke rose from the ashes and the puddle on the earth of melted snow as she pushed the log in to the ground.
The next words the witches spoke, again in unison, came out as a whisper. Ginny wasn't sure at all if she was actually hearing their voices reach her on the wind, or if it was all in her head.
"We call upon you! Arise! Become! Cleanse! Protego Malvoluntae!"
The smoke continued to rise, and Ginny saw streams of smoke from Luna and Hermione rise as well. The three lines of smoke met at the center, above Hagrid's hut, then whirled downwards again, creating a dome around the home. Black, empty tendrils of something were sucked out of the air from within the dome of smog and filtered out as cascading smoke to diffuse into the air.
As the dome smoldered, the fumes rose and twirled, and the log in her hand disappeared into ash, the pressure holding her tight faded. The uncomfortable and painful sensations of heat ebbed away as well, and the protective dome of smoke dissipated. She was left feeling warm and content under the moonlight.
She paused, as before, to close her eyes and her mind. She centered herself once more, allowing her thoughts to come to her, recognizing them, thinking them, but them letting them float away again like the smoke rose from the ashes. It was harder in that moment than it had ever been while practicing alone in her room, but she forced herself to focus.
She stepped back.
Silently, the three girls walked towards their still roaring fire, and by silent agreement none of them spoke until they were all sitting down.
It was Hermione that spoke first.
"I am so glad we chose a ritual with three distinct rites in it. I know I said we should choose one that wouldn't last all night, but I'm glad you two convinced me. If there was even a chance that performing a ritual with a single rite would have compounded the magic we were casting? That we would have felt it all at once, instead of as three parts?" She shuddered.
"There's no way Luna or I could have ever cast a spell that strong. A long-lasting Shield Charm, anchored as a Ward, of that caliber? We can barely do the regular Shield Charm as it is! Yeah, the fact that there was enough power in one third of our ritual to cast something like that is absurd."
Luna nodded along with Ginny as she mentioned their extracurricular training in DADA and Shield Charms. The three shared a few moments of silence, as they relaxed by the fire, basking in the upswell of emotions brought on by their second rite. It was Luna, unsurprisingly, who eventually broke the silence.
"Shall we try the divinations?"
Ginny smiled, and reached into their basket to pull out the tools she'd painstakingly worked on over the past month.
"I've a set for each of us!" she pronounced, holding out the sets of small wooden staves.
She handed four each to both Hermione and Luna, keeping four for herself.
"Like the ancient wizard Dalan, who had not the Sight but had knowledge and wisdom, so too shall we find our own answers!" Ginny said in an overly pompous tone, a smirk on her lips.
Luna giggled and Hermione rolled her eyes. "I'm still not entirely convinced that Divination, even when it's not looking into the future per se, isn't just a bunch of nonsense. But when in Rome, yeah?"
"Actually, it's more like-." Luna began, before Ginny interrupted.
"Yeah, yeah, you both know a lot of history. Don't step over my one bit of historical Divination trivia so quickly! Let me have my moment!"
"Is Ginny being ridiculous?" Luna asked, as she threw her four carved sticks of yew high in the air.
Ginny couldn't help but look affronted as Luna peered at the sticks with all due seriousness, even going so far as to consult the book they'd brought with them with the different meanings of each Ogham rune. She eventually looked up and intoned:
"All signs point to yes."
Hermione cracked up then, and shortly after had to explain to them what a Magic Eight Ball was. This prompted a long discussion on whether or not a witch or wizard could use such a device to actually divine something. It was distinctly Muggle, but then again, weren't tarot cards just fancy playing cards, which were used by Muggles all the time? The only conclusion they came to was a possible "maybe, we'd have to experiment."
The night was also filled with random questions and divinations, as anytime they had a thought they didn't know the answer to, or had an opportunity to ask an interesting question, they'd throw their sticks to the air and read them as they fell.
But as the night wore on Ginny noticed Hermione get more and more tense, fidgeting more often and gripping her carved staves tighter. Eventually, during a lull in the conversation, Ginny noticed her take in a deep breath before she muttered into the night an unexpected question.
"Are Harry and Ron still my friends?"
Ginny and Luna both very carefully didn't look at the results, not wanting to intrude.
"Three to the right was Tinne, and four to the right was Coll, right? What did those mean, again?" Hermione's voice wavered as she asked.
Ginny consulted the book.
"Did you want Morainn mac Moín, Maic ind Óc, or Con Culainn?"
"All three, if you don't mind?"
"Morainn mac Moín is One of Three Parts of a Wheel and Fairest Tree respectively. Maic ind Óc is Marrow of Coal and Friend of Nutshells. Con Culainn is One of Three Parts of a Weapon and Sweetest Tree."
They stood in the silence. Ginny didn't want to make assumptions, but that all seemed like something of a good sign. But it was Hermione's throw to read, and reading into it without permission was rude, according to the book she'd read on Divination. The very book she was holding, in fact.
Luna, apparently, hadn't read that section of the book.
"Well that seems rather on the nose, doesn't it?"
"Does it?" Ginny couldn't tell if Hermione was trying to hold back laughter or tears, but either way it was a strained noise she made. "I suppose it does, though I don't think of myself as very sweet. I'm rather abrasive, haven't you noticed? Something of a nag, Ron always says."
Her voice pitched lower with each sentence.
"Isn't this just the excuse they need to finally get rid of me? They didn't need me last year when, well." She gave a quick glance at Ginny, then looked away again. Ginny resolutely ignored it.
"The scientific method, then." Luna declared.
That was enough, it seemed, to snap Hermione out of whatever somber mood had been enveloping her. Ginny just tilted her head in confusion, and questioned "What the bloody hell does science have to do with magic? Isn't that a Muggle thing?"
"Not really." Hermione interrupted. "It was first formalized by Francis Bacon, who was a Muggle, and was really a part of a whole mindset from that time period. He drew a lot of inspiration from Copernicus and Galileo, both of whom were also Muggles. But, they both worked closely with Nicholas Flamel, although that isn't well known; at the time, everyone thought Flamel had died. Obviously, Flamel was a wizard, and shortly after the Statute of Secrecy passed, he came out to the Wizarding World proving he was still alive because he'd developed a revolutionary new theory he wanted to share. So, you could say that the scientific method is both Muggle and Magical, although I don't know how common it is in current day magical academia."
"Did you even take a breath?" Was Ginny's only response. She was glad to see it caused Hermione to smile, if only slightly.
"Back on point," Luna interrupted "use the scientific method. If it was a fluke, then using different methods of Divination will provide different results. But if you can get it as a repeatable effect, say three times in a row? Then you know it's likely true."
Hermione looked up at Luna, and Ginny could see both fear and desperation shining in her eyes. So, she threw in her own two knuts as well.
"Honestly, the worst that happens is that you still don't know for sure. You've already got one good answer. If you get a bad answer, it just means it's all a load of crock and you won't know for sure, which puts you right back where you started."
That seemed to give her the resolve she needed. "What else did we have planned? Divination wise, I mean?"
Ginny was only marginally surprised when Luna looked to her to answer the question. Sure, she'd been the most interested in the Divination book they'd found, but Luna had read most of it too!
"Well, we could always do a bit of Geomancy. That doesn't require much that needs to be prepared. I only prepared the sticks of yew for us. Let me think."
She closed her eyes to think, and heard Luna whisper "It wasn't all she prepared. 5 knuts says she practiced that 'Druid Dalan, Sight vs. knowledge' line for days."
"No bet." Hermione responded. Ginny resolutely ignored both of them as she thought.
I'd planned to do some nephomancy tomorrow afternoon, but I wouldn't want to do cloud-divining at night. Too hard to see. Doesn't arithmancy have some Divination uses? Hermione would have mentioned that, though. Weren't offerings made to 'earth and sea' on Imbolc? Geomancy for earth, could we do one of the forms of hydromancy? What was that one that was about still water in a basin? Do we even have a basin? I'm almost positive I didn't bring any extra bowls! Shoot, what do we have?
Ginny slapped her forehead when she realized how dumb she was being.
Imbolc is all about FIRE and purification! We have a giant fire right here! Oh, I'm so dumb.
"Geomancy and some form of Pyromancy. Luna, hand me that book? If we want just a simple yes or no, we could always do it by smoke, Capomancy? Capnomancy? Something like that. If there's any salt in the picnic basket, we could see how it burns. You do the geomancy, and I'll keep reading."
Ginny flipped through the book and listened with one ear as Luna and Hermione went about gathering the stones they'd be throwing for their geomantic divination. They didn't wander too far from the fire, whether out of a fear of the cold or fear of Dementors, Ginny wasn't sure. Either way, they eventually came back, and Ginny had found the pages she wanted. She didn't much like her answers, but figured she'd hold off until after the Geomancy. Hermione might not want to do a third one, after all.
"Ginny, come look at this. And bring the index for Geomancy, will you?" Well that was either a very good sign, or a very bad one based on Hermione's tone of voice. High pitched and slightly strained. It wasn't often Hermione didn't trust her own memory, which was like an iron trap.
"Please count them again? Make sure I'm not crazy?" Ginny did, and it was surprisingly easy to see the deviations in the four 'rows' of tossed rocks. Usually Geomancy was done with drawn lines, but tossed stones or sticks was also a valid method for the simpler divinations where only one figure was being divined.
"Eight rocks. Two for the head. 11 rocks. One for the neck. 15 rocks. One for the body. 14 rocks. Two for the feet. That makes it…" Ginny double checked her chart. "The Conjunction, Conjuctio. Things coming together, neutral except in joining or recovering things, in which it is distinctly a good sign. I think that makes us two for two. Do you believe it now, Hermione? They may be mad at you, but they're still your friends. And they'll come back to you soon enough."
Hermione bit her lip, staring intently at the stones as though they held the answers to all her problems. Perhaps they did, perhaps they didn't, but Ginny wasn't about to judge.
"One more? Luna said three, and if there's one more that says the same then I'll be able to believe it. If one's an incident, two's a coincidence, and three's a pattern, right?"
Ginny sighed.
"So, I don't know if it's just this book, but… well. Pyromancy would be best, especially on Imbolc night. But the kind of Pyromancy the Druids used isn't really something we would consider."
"Why's that?"
"It works best with a sacrifice."
She heard Hermione's gasp, and felt Luna's piercing stare, but she kept her eyes firmly on the book in front of her. She trudged on.
"We could do other methods. If we have any salt we can do that. We can check the smoke as it travels. If we hadn't chosen this particular ritual, we could have spread the cold ashes at the foot of a hearth, then checked it in the morning for markings and movements. But to get an answer out of the soot and ashes while the fire is hot? That's our best bet for anything more than just a vague positive or negative, it's called Spodomancy. The thing is, we'd need a sacrifice. And we already have plans for all the cold ashes for the third rite."
"What… what do we have to sacrifice?" Hermione's voice made Ginny looked up sharply. She was thankful that both Luna and Hermione had their gazes averted.
"It could be anything." She offered tentatively "Something personal of yours, sacrificed to the fire. An animal. A bit of blood."
Hermione mumbled something that Ginny didn't catch, but Luna obviously did by the sharp intake of breath she took.
Hermione stood, resolutely, and approached the fire. "How do I… sacrifice… my blood?"
Ginny really didn't want to answer that question, but Hermione's eyes were boring into her so fiercely she relented.
"Like before, focus intently on your question. Let it consume you; it should be the only thing on your mind. Then, at the moment it feels right, draw blood and mix it into the fire. Grab the soot and ash it mingles with, and then we'll cast it, read it, mark it, and read it again."
Hermione's walked up to the fire, firm and steady, almost resigned, while Ginny reached into the picnic basket and grabbed the extra white blanket they hadn't pulled out before. She shook it out and laid it flat. As a last minute thought, she grabbed her wand and flicked it at the white sheet with a muttered "Colovaria." The outline of a black circle appeared on the sheet. Ginny smiled to herself at her success; she was rather proud of that. She'd only just managed to get partial color transformations consistently earlier that week.
The somber mood kept her from celebrating out loud, though.
Ginny and Luna walked up behind Hermione, who was gazing intently into the fire. Wand in one hand, she pointed it towards her open palm with a whispered "Diffindo." In an instant her palm welled with blood, and she reached it into the fire. The blood dripped, and hissed in the heat, but didn't evaporate. Her blood mingled with the ashes and soot, and they gave it a few moments to fully soak in. After a quickly muttered "Episkey." Hermione reached into the flames and grabbed her blood soaked soot.
She looked at Ginny, eyebrows raised, so Ginny whispered "Hold onto that for just a moment."
Because watching her getting ready to perform the divination had awoken something inside Ginny. She couldn't put a name on it, but it was a nebulous concept that wormed its way into her mind. A feeling of I can't let her do this alone mixed with I want to try this too, so badly, I want to try this too.
Because this? This was blood magic. Simple, easy, the definition of unharmful. But still, blood magic all the same. Magic involving blood was looked upon with distrust a lot of the time. Blood magic didn't have to be dark magic. This divination certainly wasn't dark; it just was. But a lot of dark magic did involve blood, in one way or another. If she didn't take the opportunity to practice a non-dark piece of blood magic now, when she wasn't the first one to participate, when else would she?
So, whatever the reason was, she walked up to the fire as well, and pointed her wand at her opposite palm. The incantation was on the tip of her tongue, but at the last second she couldn't get it out. Her shoulder ached, lightly, where the scar resided, and she felt her gut churn in fear at the thought of sting, pain, hurt.
She grit her teeth, and flexed the muscles down her back, forcing the tension out, and forced out "Diffindo." It did sting, but not nearly so much as she remembered. Se let out a breath she hadn't realized she was holding so tightly, and focused on her question.
Am I safe at Hogwarts?
It was something she'd been worrying about for a long time. She knew that Hogwarts as a whole had a lot of danger in it. The Dementors, for one thing. But the bullies for another. Heck, Sirius Black had tried to break into their Common Room. Even without the leering presence of Tom hanging over her shoulder, she could still see the cracks in the wall, could see where the 'safety' of Hogwarts was mostly a myth.
But just because Hogwarts wasn't danger free, didn't mean she wasn't safe. There were professors who were supposed to be watching out for them. They were told nearly daily that they were being looked after, that the danger was far removed from them, but Ginny didn't trust it. She wanted to know, with some level of certainty, that she could let her guard down at Hogwarts, at least a little.
It was little more than wishful thinking, but she couldn't help but feel hope while she stood in the light of their ritual fire, burning hot enough to warm, but not so hot it would burn.
With a single-minded intensity, the kind she only got through silent meditation and mindfulness, and even then only briefly, she held her question in her mind. When the question consumed her, she moved her hand into the flames. Her blood had pooled in her palm as she focused, and as she tipped it over, it all came cascading down. The scarlet flowing down her palm flashed through the flickering cinnabar blaze, mingling with the gray soot and ash, hissing as it lit up the embers.
Her head whipped up as she heard Luna mutter the same spell and saw her slice open her palm from across the fire. They locked eyes as Luna tilted her own hand into the fire. As one, they both pulled back their hands and incanted "Episkey." before reached into the roiling fire to grab their soot and ash.
"Honestly," Hermione muttered "sometimes you two are so in sync it's creepy. Now, what are we doing next?"
Ginny flicked her wand at the white sheet again, with another whispered "Colovaria" and two more black circles appeared.
"Each of us will claim a circle and toss our soot into the circle. Again, we need to hold our question in our mind as we ask. The same question, the same wording, the same cadence. Identical. This is a more advanced form of Divination, and it means we need to be more particular in how we ask the question. When the moment is right, toss it. You'll feel it."
"'You'll feel it' she says. I told you this was a wooly subject." Hermione sniffed, but her eyes were alight with an intensity that Ginny had only rarely seen. She was holding herself aloof, but only because it was so important to her; that was Ginny's guess.
The three girls stood, focusing on their questions. Getting back into that quasi-meditative state, and letting their mind focus on only one question.
Am I safe at Hogwarts?
The question circled her mind, like a broom round a Quidditch pitch, like the smoke on the wind, until she felt the world come into focus. It was like the world froze, moved in slow motion, and she felt a shiver run up her spine. Her body was almost out of her control as she flung her hand high, then sharply down, the soot sinking through the air as it settled into her circle.
She looked up to see Hermione staring down at her soot as well. Ginny couldn't remember seeing her throw it.
Luna still held her ash in her hand, and her eyes had a far away and glassy look. Then her lips curled, into something almost like a smile, and she did a twirl before releasing her soot high into the air. It sprinkled down slowly, into her circle.
"Now is the first step. Is it smooth, or clumped? If it's smoothed, it's a good omen, a positive answer to your question. Note, not positive as in an affirmative answer, positive as in the answer you would most want. If it's in clumps, it's a bad omen. An answer you don't want. We can either stop here, or make marks to divine further."
Ginny looked down and saw that Hermione and Luna both had smoothly layered, evenly distributed soot lining their circles. She looked at her own circle and grimaced. Clumps of soot, gathered together, not smoothed out at all. A bad omen; not unexpected, really, but still disheartening. Was it even worth it to follow up? She knew quite well what dangers Hogwarts presented. Why waste the time and magic to confirm her fears?
She looked at her fellow witches and gave them the instructions outlined in the book.
"If you want to read further into it, you'll need write your question in the soot. Either with your finger or a twig, doesn't much matter. Then we'll let it sit overnight and read it in the morning."
Both girls looked at each other before bending over to begin writing in the soot. As all three of them walked away, they made sure to keep their eyes away from the question that was written. They may have known what Hermione's general question was, but they didn't know the specific way it had been worded. She might have added something extra specific to the question. It was just polite not to pry.
They left their soot by the fire, a close enough approximation to a hearth, before settling back down again. After such an intense series of divinations, not a single one of them was much in the mood for laughter. Instead, each girl just lay near each other, and watched the moon as it traveled on the last legs of its journey towards the horizon. They started pointing out constellations as they knew them, and whatever stories or facts they'd learned about them in Astronomy, or from home. It was a calm, starry night, and Ginny basked in the simple pleasure of enjoying the company of her friends.