Yule was anticlimactic. Dumbledore had adopted the muggle holiday of Christmas so strongly that any who did celebrate Yule had to do so secretly in their own common rooms. The creeps didn't mind, they typically celebrated Christmas, but they also offered their room up for the coven's observance which was small. EJ and BEN were fascinated anyway.

In any case, the real celebration would be that night with the finalized coven ritual. The creeps would observe this as well, but everyone was significantly more excited for the ritual and its results than any clandestine Yule observance.

Thus the anticlimactic Yule day ended with seven young wixen in the same circle, in the same clearing, in the Forbidden Forest. Blaise and Theo quietly set up the candles and bowls, Thirteen black candles in thirteen silver bowls surrounding the coven in a perfect circle, none lit. Jazz could hear their siblings quietly whispering behind them about how this looked a lot more like proper magic. Hermione and Neville carefully poured a mixture of belladonna, mimulus, nutmeg, rhubarb, and yucca between each bowl. The twins went around the circle next, carrying pitchers of water that they poured into the bowls beneath the candles. Jazz went last, carefully arranging bundles of rosemary and lilac in the water.

All seven settled into their seats around the circle. The clearing fell into silence, an air of anticipation and static calm settling on the shoulders of all present. Not even the creeps dared to make a sound, though vicious grins were splitting the faces of all of them, including the toothy inhuman smile of the Slenderman.

"Hac nocte anulum Dominae Magicae aperimus. synagogam formare volumus." All seven began to intone broken Latin, confidently nonetheless. A rippling undertone scored their words.

There was a brief pause as the candles all lit at once and a translucent bubble began to lift around them, colors shifting and swirling wildly. "Cum unum sumus, sequi tenebras iubemus. In umbris ambulamus. Susurros audimus a domina Magia. Iuramus sequi viam Obscurae." Immediately the flames of the candles turned black, drawing light in and leaving only the coven lit.

"Ego sum princeps synagogae, constituo curiam meam." Jazz intoned this alone before the other six answered as one.

"Audimus et audimus."

Jazz gazed steadily straight ahead, "Primo milites meos eligo. Qui pro synagoga militant, et qui pugnant. Fred, George, libenter hoc crimen accipis?"

"Facimus." This time only the twins answered Jazz's chant, and Jazz turned to their right.

"Nunc eligo defensores meos, idest synagogae scuta, qui eam custodiunt et defendunt. Neville, Blaise, libenter hoc crimen accipis?"

"Facimus." Jazz nodded and turned to their left.

"Nunc eligo speculatores, aures et mentem synagogae et eos qui scientiam colligunt. Theo, Hermione, libenter hoc crimen accipis?"

"Facimus."

Jazz faced forward again, and as one the entire coven leaned forward and carefully cut the backs of their wrists, and let the blood pool in the center.

"Dominam Magicae deliberationes relinquimus et electionem eius expectamus, nunc hunc circulum eius iudicio claudimus." All seven chanted in unison, and abruptly the bubble of swirling magic went dark.

The candle's black flames flared high and twisted around the coven in a dizzying spiral, obscuring them from the view of the creeps and each other. As each was consumed by the torrents of tar like flames and trailing sparks of magic, Toby let out a choked cry.

Almost as suddenly as it began, the flames died out in a rush. Each of the coven sat there, unharmed, unmoved, and thoroughly different from before.

Fred and George were the first to change. George's hair began to flicker at the ends, turning to flame red and gold with embers rising above his head. Fred's hair had darkened at the tips, drifting into smoke and ash in the breeze as sparks danced in each breath.

Both twins had subtly glowing eyes, flickering with an otherworldly light. Their fingers were stained black from the fingertips up to the palm fading the further away. Their freckles had lightened to a soft gold and were now slowly drifting across their skin in lazy patterns.

They looked as complementary to each other as they had in the declaration ritual and when they smiled flame licked at their teeth.

Blaise and Neville shifted next. Blaise looked like the twin's element had merged into him, with sparking curls and ashy fingertips and shining red eyes that shifted with every movement.

Neville on the other hand was wildly more earthy than before. His fingers were stained a swirling green and brown just light enough to be a step away from a brackish black. His eyes had gained a green tone shifting his aquamarine to a striking teal rimmed with a deep forest hue.

The biggest change however was the small antlers, barely six inches, jutting through his hair with vines growing and shifting on them. Then Neville smiled revealing sharply pointed teeth and he laughed with an undertone of crunching leaves and slow decay.

Hermione and Theo had shifted then, Hermione all at once and Theo somewhat slower, and the circle watched them with anticipation.

Hermione seemed to stop breathing, needing less air, or perhaps no longer needing to breathe to get it. Her fingers were gray, lighter than Blaise's and just shy of the stark white of a cloud. Her hair moved in a breeze directly opposite to the one everyone could feel. She laughed and her voice echoed and whined, airy and eery and altogether breathless in its quietude.

Theo had the least visible of the changes. His shadow was moving, seemingly of its own accord, and his fingers were stained the deepest black in the circle. The only other detectable change was the fathomless aspect to his eyes, as if one stared too long they might be swallowed whole by the void in his pupils.

Jazz changed last, all at once and in slow measures all the same. First their hair lengthened even further, inky and wild and flickering like shadow flames.

Next their fingers sharpened into claws, sharp and deadly and stained with black and purple. Their eyes slit like a cats, emerald and bright, and their teeth sharpened to a razor point, needle-like and plentiful not unlike an angler fish's.

Shadowed designs danced over their skin in no discernible patterns or shapes and their shadow faded from view with their presence. All of the eyes in the clearing were on Jazz yet no one could sense their presence. Jazz giggled and their voice echoed and warped in the clearing.

"Wicked," Toby breathed all seven of the coven jolted with surprise.

"We should probably close the circle," Hermione whispered, "Before we're not able to."

Jazz nodded and began chanting, the others joining in quickly, "Claudit circulus, nostrae gratiae. Claudit circulus, nostrae gratiae. Claudit circulus, nostrae gratiae."

The candles guttered all at once just like before, leaving the light from the moon and from the glowing twins and Blaise as the only light source. Obviously the changes were permanent and Jazz hummed thoughtfully.

"I think a quick crash course on glamours would be good."

Frantic nodding was the answer as the creeps all cackled behind them. Slender folded down behind Jazz, no longer glamoured for now, and stared at the coven.

"I can provide assistance. You should learn to glamour yourselves, certainly, but I will tie a permanent one to an anchor as well. Similar to what my proxies use. It will take significantly less energy."

Blaise nodded, "That'd be nice. Thanks."

The Slenderman nodded and extended his hand into the center of the circle. He turned it over to reveal six necklaces, each with a pendant of his symbol on a leather cord.

Each of them grabbed one and tied it on quickly. They looked normal immediately and Jazz was slightly disappointed to see their true face go. They did fit much nicer.

"On a nicer note," LJ rasped, "Jefferson and I started this year's Yule bonfire. You lot are welcome to join in this year."

Theo stared. "Yule bonfire? Whatever for?"

"Yule. Fuck that. It's Christmas. We do it every year," Jeff's voice was filled with scorn and he sneered at nothing in particular, "We burn the things we didn't like."

"Er." Neville was quite obviously having trouble figuring out exactly what that meant.

Masky snickered, "You right down embarrassing situations, things you wish you hadn't said, when things didn't go right, or other things like that. Then we burn the papers."

"It started as a therapy tool for Jazz. We'd burn his bad thoughts in a candle. Then we figured all of us doing it in a bonfire might be equally therapeutic."

Hermione stared at Teer judgmentally, "Was it? Therapeutic, I mean."

"Oh, I haven't a clue. It's fun though."

As they exited the wood the bonfire was clearly visible. It was directly on the front lawn, and massive besides.

"The fuck are you burning?"

Blaise glanced at Jazz sideways, "You know, your language was horrid already but I think it's gotten worse with your family here."

"Fuck off," chorused Jazz, Toby, Jeff, and Liu.

EJ waved from by the bonfire and BEN and Sally dashed over. Jazz laughed and spun off with them dancing around the fire like a group of wild things.

"What is burning anyways?" Fred asked LJ, and LJ grinned at him, too wide with far too many teeth.

"Wood, petroleum, and a great deal of fabric. We found some sheets or something, figured they'd be fun to burn. They're bright purple and they were extremely flammable even though they're taking forever to burn."

"Wicked," the twins breathed, accepting the paper and pens that were handed to them.

The next half hour passed quietly, all of them writing as much as they could. Hoodie stood up first to begin feeding his papers into the fire.

From there it was a free for all. Papers were thrown in, and were burning merrily. Sausages, marshmallows, and other small snacks were produced from nowhere in particular as Hermione and Jazz taught the wizardborns how to make s'mores.

The whole gathering was cozy, with an odd festival like atmosphere. This, of course, was thoroughly shattered by McGonagall storming into the grounds.

Slenderman, glamoured once more, intercepted her and spoke lowly, theoretically explaining. The results of this discussion were the Professor putting out the fire as Slender herded the children and proxies towards the castle.

The entire group had collapsed in the Creeps' rooms, curled around each other, and on top of each, and tangled in heaps of gangly limbs.

The Slenderman watched from his armchair in the corner and contemplated the nature of magic to have exhausted all of his wards so completely, despite most of them being mere bystanders and witnesses.

Perhaps he would need to reach out to some old acquaintances.