21: It's no sacrifice

Once upon a time, in the suburbs of Wizarding Brittain, there lived a great Wizard and his Witch wife. The two longed for children, but remained barren for 10 years following their marriage. No Healer could seem to help them conceive. The Wizard having come from a long line of Wizards was desperate for a child to pass on his knowledge of the occult. The Matriarch, his mother was wrathful, pointing at the Witch, who was born magical, yet from muggle parents.

Finally, the Witch, unable to bear the terrible weight, returned home one day to her muggle mother.

"Oh, Mama!" she cried. "Why am I cursed with barren-ness? What evil has bestowed our family?"

To which her mother replied, sagely, "You should come see the OB-GY at my hospital. We have a new guy who can work wonders with IVF."

"Oh, Mama!" the Witch cried, "Dost thou not know that muggle born sorcery does not pass with those of bewitched blood!"

To which her mother replied, less sagely, "Jinisha, I swear that if you utter one more word of crazy I will never see you again. Do I make myself clear?"

So one day, the Witch decided to cross over to the muggle world to see if the magic-less denizens of the glamourless life could somehow find it in their art of Science to treat her. The unsuspecting muggle healer probed her with his cold instruments in his darkened lair. He stuck her full of needles. Until finally one day, she was able to conceive, not only one, but two beautiful daughters.

Thus was born to the noble Wizarding family of Patil, two daughters, Padma and Parvati.

On her birth, the Matriarch of Patil, my Nana, foresaw, "One will be the light, and another the shadow."

On hearing this, the muggle mother of the Witch swore never to see Nana until she croaked twice over in her grave. Having earned two beautiful daughters, Lady Patil now placed all her efforts in raising her two beautiful children. And the mother and daughter became ever more estranged.

I only have the vaguest memories of Mother's Mother, Doctor Sadangi. She rarely visited, but now in retrospect, I wonder if she were rarely allowed to visit. Nana had always been quite an overbearing presence, and as my old memories resurface like an objective palpable thing before me, I find I am scrutinizing what I had once known to be true. And in retrospect it seems more likely that the lovable cuddly Nana had always been somewhat overbearing and nagging towards Mama. Or was it perhaps Mama who had denied her own mother's visitations?

I can't outright judge my mother for it, if that were the case. Those were dark times, and the Dark Lord had spread fear and distrust in the world.

The ancestral Patil home had been in Woldingham, atop the North Downs on a concealed 18th century estate refurbished when the Patils first arrived from India. The Patils had been a family of sorcerers to the Maratha Empire in Karnataka region where they had coexisted with the 'muggle' Patils, though I doubt that they had such modern distinction back in the day.

After settling in Woldingham Chateau Patil, handed down from father to son. My Father, Dev Patil, met my mother Jinisha Sadangi at Hogwarts. My maternal grandmother, Doctor Sadangi, had raised her daughter on her own, and not even my mother knew who her father had been. Father, like all male Patils had been before him, was Slytherin. He was generally laid back and easy going, as I recall my early memories of him was playing dollhouse at his feet as he studied ancient Runes in his library. Father had refused the call to become a Death Eater in Voldemort's heyday. I remember some days at Hogwarts where he had been agitated at the thought of keeping us there. Recently he had passed away, and since his passing, Uncle moved into the estate. Our home had become an empty nest and for a while three women lived together below the Chateau near the muggle village in a moderately well furbished house. Even then, Nana would come down from the estate to visit us often. I always remember Nana as a kind old witch, bent and slightly toothless. She was always laughing and cheerful, gnarly as an old tree. My recent reevaluation of my memories, however, makes me conclude that she might have practiced the Dark Arts in her youth, as well. Perhaps she had even been a follower of Voldemort. Who knows? Nowadays even the Malfoys do not associate their names with the acts of Voldemort.

One thing had always been clear, she had never liked Mother. Mother was a mudblood, daughter of a single mother, alone in the magical world. I have no doubt that Father, in his easy manner had protected her from much scorn in the family. Is that how fairy tales begin? The deep dark recess of desperation makes us wish for things that we cannot earn on our own. Perhaps the odd tale of our birth did deserve some merit.

Whatever happened in those days, Padma and I grew up in the estate, and our new home near the village never seemed like ours. Even now I associate it more with Padma's place than my own. Like the contrast of my life before Hogwarts and after, I remember growing up with an excess of pretty things to an adulthood of a lack of such. I recall, in my youth, I had always been showered with presents, and I always wanted more.

Padma, on the other hand, had been rather temperate. She was cool headed, always, understanding early on that Mother was no favourite of Nana. Padma always kept Nana at a distance. She was precocious, smart and a little more aware of what is only now becoming available to me of our family dynamics. I recall how overjoyed I was that I had been Gryffindor, because Red was my favorite color. I recall that Padma had been happy that she was not Slytherin. I was a bit of an idiot, I suppose.

It's dark in Woldingham as I apparate into the street.

The yard is littered with fallen toys battled over under the sun. My nephews were Roger junior and Ralph, and while I had first balked that none of them had traditional names, I can now see how Padma would never have named them in Hindu.

At first, Roger had objected to the idea of moving in with his in-laws, but Padma had convinced him otherwise. They weren't well off on their own, and Nana was adamant of keeping the family close together. Besides, an empty nest, leaving Mother alone would have been incomprehensible.

I pass the strewn field of fallen wizards and fake broomsticks.

I would have liked to have visited in the day, perhaps met my mother and sister. But no, I'm here for my wand.

I pull out Slughorn's wand, the ornate slug tentacles protruding at the tip. Had it been my own wand, only holding it would have resonated with my inner magical core, but Slughorn's wand didn't yield to me, and I required a lot of help from runes, or at least rune sign.

I draw Feoh, the castle, and Uruz, power, allowing magical energy within me to build up. I let the signs simmer in the wind, catching the whistling breeze of the night, before I collapse them in my palm. My hands spread forward and the signs now glow on the back of my hands.

"Muhje dikhao," I whisper.

Slughorn's wand slowly rises from my palm and hovers in the air, as though it were a pointer sniffing at the prey. The magical needle tips this way and that before it finds its target and begins to glide, just barely out of my reach. It hovers before the door, and for a moment I wonder if I should open it. But I know that the needle requires patience. It shifts slightly to the side and zooms away toward the basement.

Like a puppy, it eagerly points me to a cracked window that leads to the basement.

"Okay," I open my palm, and the wand drifts back to my hand.

I point my wand through the crack. "Accio?" I ask the world, but only silence.

I sigh. That would be too easy.

Ansuz, I draw the rune of communication, trying to channel the will of the wand to my fingers. I feel a tug in the magical strands, and for a moment I am gifted with an image of the white coral handled wand sticking out from a jar. Not around any other collection of my things, but a jar. Okay. I just need my wand.

There's a slightly more tangible feel to my wand now, as though I had just awoken it from its slumber.

Pop

What was that? I thought I heard magical noise break out in the distance. An apparation? Did someone follow me? I huddle closer to the broken window. Who leaves a window broken like that? The kids could cut themselves! Wand; need to get to my wand!

"Hello!" Someone's calling. Padma? It sounded like Padma.

I try focusing again. The house, a magical abode, runs the usual magical barriers. They're nothing complicated and theoretically I know how they work. But in practice it's just usually better to brute force your way through, and thus I'm horribly unqualified to simply accio my wand.

"Hello, is anyone there?" No it's not Padma. I haven't heard the door open.

I'm panicking. Accio dammit.

Foot steps. I can hear feet brushing aside a squishy toy as it yelps. No, calm yourself, Parvati.

"Parvati," the singsong voice calls out, noticeably dropping the act of innocence. "I know you're out here. Of all the places, did you think we wouldn't have set up alarms should you return?"

It's one of them! I sense, or at least I suspect, it's Eloise Midgen. She's come to finish the job. Kill me?

"Did you think we'd just let you wander about? We've earned our freedom with blood and tears. It's not something we can let you just putz about messing things up."

The wand, sensing my presence, begins to rattle in its jar. I feel it! I feel it responding like nothing else in this world. None of my superficial memories, my knowledge of magic, my deep stirring memories of my past life, nothing could have prepared me for it. It's like a tingling distant warmth, as though a part of me is there, torn.

"We take particular care to remain hidden, Parvati," the voice admonishes, alarmingly close. "Do you know how much effort it takes to erase our tracks?"

Snap

Something, a toy maybe, breaks under the footfalls, just behind me.

"There you are," comes the laugh. "Stupefy!"

A bolt of magic knocks me away, shoving me from the crouched position. My arm scratches against the broken glass, as a thick shard pierces my skin. But I can't even cry out as I feel the ground rising up to greet me with a thud. In my petrified state my head hits against the dirt without the benefit of reflexive motions to blunt the shock.

Not when I'm so close! My heart is racing.

The figure looms over me out of the dark, hooded, her wand, glowing, pointed at my face.

"Time to wipe you clean, again, Parvati," she smiles. Okay, at least she's not going to kill me. But who knows what sort of abominable state of messed up madness I'd end up this time? With Slughorn incapacitated, would I be given a second chance?

She's drawing on the ground, muttering incantations, hallowing the area of the spell. Was this what happened last time? The words uttered, I briefly snare, are Uru. Ancient Babylonian incantations before written history. Blood magic, I wonder. But her pronunciation is all wrong. She's mixing up some words. She doesn't know the incantations by heart, nor the meaning. She's just repeating what was taught to her, and even that nothing deep.

Of course, they're nothing complex. All the spells she had used, Stupefy, Diffindo, Petrificus Totalus, they were all elementary magic. The sort anyone with a wand and a Hogwarts diploma could pull off. If I only had my wand, they were all the basic sort of magic I could simply reflect back at her with a thought.

And the Runes! She had Rune patterns sewn into her clothes the last time we met. If it took that much help to arm her, she was no one formidable in herself. She wouldn't last against me had I been my former self.

A surge of pain shocks through me. She had finished drawing a pentagram around me.

No, it's not blood magic. Blood magic would have instantly sent me frothing at the mouth. It's just a poor imitation. And while some Wizards and Witches would be shocked to find an ancient pentagram drawn about them, I know that this shock is only a side effect of a magical field blowing up from poor execution of the arcane magic.

I'm no expert on Archeosorcery, but I gave a damned lecture on their significance in modern incantations! Feeling some moral boost, I reach in deep into my soul. Perhaps I can awake my chakra. It's somewhere deep down, a gift of every Patil. Though I am not in India, I am on the grounds of a place I called home, and ancient magic respects what a soul calls home. Ancient magic is alive, it is a force that resides in the Witch's most primal emotions. The tenets of the ancient covenant are simple; give and take, home is safety from the wild, night is the time of blood, the sun casts its meanings in the shadows.

Eloise is ripping pieces of written parchment and setting them on fire, letting the ashes fall about me. Unlike her own magic, these pieces are potent. I sense someone else's magic for the first time. It's far stronger than anything she's performed. It's borrowed magic. And as the ashes touch my skin, I feel the strength of my muscles weakening.

Of course, they couldn't just outright kill me. Avada kedavara is one of the most highly regulated forms of magic. Aurors in the score would apparate about us in an instant a Death magic was cast. These runes merely weakened me, just like she had tried to bleed me to death. With enough weakening, my muscles would tire and I would cease to breath.

Oh Blood Moon, I try to tap my inner Chakra, awake within me my magical core, that I may once again rise from the flame of my burnt past.

The ashes work their way into my skin, and I feel my breath becoming shallow.

Upon these hallowed grounds I call home, grant me protection.

I feel a tug within me, a brief awakening, like a taste. The moon is teasing me, as though it grants me a peep. It is demanding a sacrifice. Quid pro quo.

But I have so little to give! I have nothing. No blood of my womb has entered the world! The relations I have carry no emotional weight enough for tears. It wants something. Sacrifice.

Is that worth your life, Parvati Patil?

The voice of the moon is clear, like all sources of ancient magic, it is primal and all encompassing. I have only studied them in text, and never have I felt the primal source of magic touch upon anyone. It is as primal as the source of Harry Potter's protection. It is as primal as the ancient cavemen who sacrificed living souls. It is dark and resonates with the Night.

It is nothing that muggle science could comprehend. It is the amalgam of all these situations, my loss, my emptiness, my recovery, my family, my home, the threat to my life, coming at once in the most personal conversation that I could have with primal magic.

Give me something dear to you. it demands.

Images flash before my eyes.

Padma, Mama, Nana, Roger junior, Ralph, Slughorn, Blaise... It wants sacrifice. It is not evil in itself. It merely cannot understand the morals that civilization has built.

Quid pro quo.

I feel the air in my throat become stale, as though I'm holding breath. I can still see the idiot Eloise continuing to burn the Runes over me. She will overdo it.

No, I can't surrender anyone. A wishful thought imagines Blaise apparating into view, saving me. Perhaps even Padma rushing out to see what the fuss is all about. Even Slughorn awakening from his frailty to lend a hand. But this is all wishful thinking. Like always I am alone.

No, Blood Moon, I sacrifice no life. Instead I sacrifice my own memories. I snarl at the moon. Give me back my strength, and I shall forfeit whatever tenuous grasp I had on my past.

I feel cruel laughter shaking through me. The primal magic ridicules me.

Is it yours to give, Parvati Patil?

But despite its laughter, I feel calm. Despite being suffocated by my own breath, I feel vigor return to my lungs.

So be it!

A crack rips across my forehead. I feel a burning sense etched into my forehead, as though someone had just branded me.

But with it, I feel power, more power than I could possibly imagine.

"What in the name of the Fay..." Eloise curses.

The strength granted me is immense. It's as though I am overcharged. Magical energy crackles about me as though the ground was scorched. My wand flies to me, shooting out of the basement like it was attracted to a great magnet. But the power the wand augments me with seems puny.

And slowly I rise from the ground, levitating with a simple will of thought. I see Eloise, and the fear in her eyes. No, her eyes are hidden. More accurately, I can sense her terror. I feel the strands of my hair spray out as though I were shocked with electric energy.

Eloise Midgen backs away, stumbling. She raises her wand, apparating. But it's so puny, I stretch out into the field of apparation she disappears through and pull her back, tossing her to the ground like a broken doll.

I feel elation, as though I am hungry for blood. I see her small figure sprawled on the ground. The moon demands blood.

The pact is not complete, it tempts me, you can spill her blood in my glory, and I will grant you this great gift forever.

The feeling is intoxicating. It just requires a death spell. Nay, it simply requires I slash her blood.

Quid pro quo, Parvati, I feel a voice like my own in my head. She tried to kill you before. Just do it! Kill her and you can rise like a phoenix. You will be reborn. You will be great among the Sorceress of all Wizarding history. You will be worshiped, renown, prayed to. Become a god! Become your namesake!

With the flick of my wrist, I imagine, I can pour her blood onto her own pentagram. I will finish her own ritual for her, turn the tables and burn her to ashes.

No!

I scream to the moon.

I sever the bond.

Immediately my mind feels empty.

Once again, I am on the ground, being deprived the breath. The temptation of the primal urge to survive has passed. Nothing has happened. It was just the temptation of the moon. My wand , in the distant, still rattles in the jar.

The aching in my forehead is gone, though. It has passed. And as though to show its disappointment, the distant moon hides behind a passing cloud.

Once again, I am gagging in my own stale breath. I feel my consciousness loosing.

But things are different. I am content. Like I had always been, I refused to sacrifice anyone. I refused to give up who I am.

I am Parvati, Parvati Patil, I whisper.

It is like a jolt of magic, just like the boon of the Blood Moon, but only gentler. I am not overcharged like a monster, but the power I feel is familiar, like an awakening. I feel warm, like someone is holding me close, tenderly.

Slowly I feel an awakening, as though I had walked through life one eye blind.

Finally, I feel stong. I feel the shallowness of amateur magic trying to desperately suffocate me.

I cough.

Eloise is startled, and she stops setting the runes on fire.

Like flimsy cobwebs, I slash away at the elementary charm that held me in paralysis and groggily sit up.

"Damn," I mutter, my muscles aching from the electric signals that suddenly return like a life force.

"How did you-" she falters. I see the fear in her eyes. No, not because I sense her terror, Blood Moon, but because her hood fell back this time. Screw you and your sacrifice!

"I'm a Professor of Hogwarts, you Imbecile!" I snarl. "Accio!"

My wand, propelled by my command, sears across the night and lands purring in my grasp.

I don't need words for spells. With a complex calligraphy of magic, I charm my spells without words and send a binding spell at Eloise Midgen.

I struggle to my feet. My calf muscles immediately lock down from a spasm, and I topple over. Again, with effort, massaging my legs, I get up. One step. Another, another foot forward. Slowly but surely I stand.

And in defiance of all that had passed before me, my defeat, my loss, and the temptation to turn to Evil, I am truly reborn. My memories are still lost, but I can still hope to regain them. I did not give in to the sacrifice.

I stand above her, tall and mighty, my wand in my hand. I'm back.

And out of the darkness a door creaks open. Into the night, the voice of my sister cries out.

"Hey! Keep the noise down or I'm calling the police!"

Yeah, Padma, you are bloody helpful.