Note: Originally written today (4/20/2010)
Another unbeta'd snippet from an upcoming chapter of Being Harry Potter XCIV, likely to appear within the next two chapters.
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"But, Harry, rituals are dark magic!"
"Pfft," Harry rasperried. "Rituals are like pretty much every other kind of magic, neither dark nor light. Speaking of which, can you give me a definition of 'dark magic' in the first place?"
"D...dark magic is magic that is bound by the Minist..."
"I asked what dark magic was, not what the Ministry of Magic said it was, Hermione," Harry interrupted, leaving the girl gaping like a fish as she tried to find a definition that didn't include the words 'Ministry of Magic'. After a few moments, he continued, "I'll answer it for you, Hermione. You see, the thing is that, at its base, magic is only about two things: power and intent. Power differs from one person to another, from the levels in what we call 'muggles' and squibs, up through people like Dumbledore and Riddle. But intent. That's another sticky wicket. Intent has other names, of course, like Will - I'm sure you've read Eddings' _The Belgariad_, right? The Will and the Word? Don't be so surprised. Every concept of magic that's in existence has been exposed by non-magicals at some point or another. Control is another way of referring to it, and that's what we're actually supposed to be learning at Hogwarts - control."
"But that's neither here nor there. *Dark* magic is magic that is intended to cause harm. Dumbledore is one of the greatest dark wizards in the world. I'm a dark wizard. You're a dark witch. We have an entire class in which we learn spells whose intent is to cause harm, not that it's ever been taught very well. But dark magic, in and of itself, is not evil. What the Ministry should be controlling is magic used for evil purposes. That's a far more difficult problem, though, since judging intent is next to impossible. There are really very few actual disciplines of magic that are inherently evil."
"You mean like necromancy," Hermione said, nodding, but Harry shook his head.
"Most of our healing magic finds its source in the Necromancer's art, Hermione, just like most doctors learn from autopsying cadavers. I'm not saying that you should ignore someone claiming to be a Necromancer, but that you should look on things and question, not just assume."
"Now, to get back to this ritual. It actually would be considered dark magic, because it requires the causing of harm, even if it's only a little. On the other hand, what it can do is significant."
As Harry turned to the table, a large piece of parchment appeared, along with a biro and... a compass? Not the kind used for navigation, but the kind used in high-school math classes to make circles. Harry placed the biro into the compass. After taking a moment to eyeball the distance between the center and edges of his hand, he set the compass wide enough to draw a circle larger than the hand. Then he drew another three concentric circles each (four total) at least two centimeters wider than the one before. He drew four lines in the central circle at the cardinal points, essentially dividing it into four parts. The outermost circle gained lines at the east and north points, dividing it into two parts, of which one was three times bigger than the other. The inner circle went unchanged. Hermione, for her part, went quiet, obviously trying to figure out what these basic shapes had to do with rituals. Harry wouldn't leave her hanging long.
"Now, this particular ritual is one that I use in every world. Only the frequency I use it changes. Sometimes I only use it once a month, sometimes once a week, and sometimes daily. You really don't want to know about the worlds where I have to use it daily. Also, this particular ritual once actually killed Voldemort... though it was a particularly incautious one. Or, possibly, a particularly paranoid one." He shrugged and looked back down. Drawing his wand, he pressed the thumb of the opposite hand down in the inner circle, and then tapped said thumb with his wand, hissing for a few seconds. Hermione twitched slightly, but, almost immediately, ink began spreading around the page following the line of the circle and filling it in. It continued circling over and over and over again until all of the spots of the inner circle appeared to be filled.
"That particular parsel-spell simply describes an object in runic terms. It's much faster than me having to hand-write it. And less likely to include errors," Harry said. "Pity it can't be used for anything other than paper or parchment." He shrugged again, then hesitated. "And now comes the part that makes it dark." Flashing into existence where the compass had disappeared was a simple set of fingernail clippers, a pair of scissors, and a sharp pin. He used each of these, the first to trim some of his fingernail, the second to cut a couple of his hairs, and the third to poke his finger and draw blood. He ignored the brief look of surprised horror on Hermione's face, especially at the last, as he placed each into one part of the middle circle. Finally, he lifted his wand again and drew it along the side of his bloodied finger, chanting a spell in Latin that Hermione did not recognize.
"It's a skin peeling spell," he said, without looking it up. "Butchers and juice-makers normally use it to, well, peel skin. Or fruit, obviously." The resulting skin was placed in the fourth section of the middle circle, followed by a quick healing spell that healed both the poked and skinned finger. Four more times, Harry chanted the parsel-spell he had before, replacing the fingernail, hair, blood and skin with more densely packed runes in each section.
Finally, he got to the outermost circle. In the smaller northeast section, he incanted briefly before the entire section flared into flame for a brief moment, then died, leaving more runes. In the larger section, there was no visible response when Harry chanted the final spell.
"Okay, now to explain," Harry said, replacing his wand and turning to Hermione. "The innermost circle is where I'm going to place my hand, and channel magic into it. It acts as the power source for this ritual. The next circle, as you may recall, describes my thumb, or, more specifically, describes the concept of 'me'. On occasion, I've engorged this to try and read all that, but it's like trying to read War and Peace in 1-point Times Roman from a distance of twenty meters. It can be done, but it involves a whole lot of headache. The next circle after that describes the four things I'm looking for - my skin, my blood, my nails, and my hair. Finally, the outermost circle tells the ritual what I want to do when I find these things. The northeastern section, where I deposited my hair in the next circle, contains the runes for a simple fire spell. The rest contains the runes for a vanishing spell. In short, what this ritual does, when powered, is vanish any nail, skin, or blood that it finds, and burns any hair. Because this is a simple ritual, its range is pretty much unlimited."
Hermione blinked a couple of times, and then asked, "Why burn your hair instead of vanishing it?"
"Er..." Harry said, a faint blush coloring his skin. "Because people who collect my hair usually end up putting it in some kind of 'Harry Potter shrine,' which creeps me the hell out. I only do the others mostly because they can be used in Polyjuice Potion."
Hermione blinked again. "Polyjuice?"
"One Polyjuice Potion plus one Aging Potion equals skeevy fangirl sleeping with the Boy-Who-Lived. Thank Merlin most worlds haven't discovered the version of Polyjuice that changes the internals as well as the externals." He shuddered. "I've dealt with more than enough paternity claims than I care for."
"Wait, you can't mean..."
"Why do you think I started using this ritual?" Harry said with a revolted shiver.
Hermione just shook her head in dismay, but went on, "Well, what about what's in your body? You don't want to burn your hair off and vanish all your skin, nails, and blood, right?"
Harry nodded, "Sorry, I left something out. Since the runes are describing items that have been separated from my body, they describe something which is considered 'dead' for lack of a better word. Anything still connected to my body or inside it is considered alive, so it doesn't vanish or burn."
"Okay," she nodded. "But... what about people who SHOULD have your blood or such?"
"Like who?" Harry asked.
"Well, Madam Pomfrey?"
"What does she need my blood for? Any kind of changes to Potions that are specific to my blood chemistry are either already made or can be asked for at the time."
"What do you mean specific to your body chemistry?" Hermione asked.
"In some worlds, for example, the introduction of basilisk venom and phoenix tears introduced a new factor. This might even be one of them." Another shrug. "Anyway, if they need my blood or other parts of my body, they can damn well ask," Harry said. "And they better have a good reason too. I'm just protecting myself here." With that, he placed his hand in the center circle and channeled his magic. Immediately, there was an answering pulse of magic and it began spreading in all directions.
In two girls dorms and two boys dorms in Gryffindor Tower (as well as several others scattered across Hogwarts), there was a flash of green flame. Noone was hurt.
In the Hogwarts Headmaster's Office, several silver devices began to shriek, blow out large amounts of black smoke, and then shudder to a halt. The room's sole occupant turned to stare in horrified dread.
In a ramshackle home just outside Ottery St. Catchpole, a hand on a certain clock fell to the ground, charred beyond recognition.