Content Warning for Suicidal Ideation going forward. Stay safe, y'all.

I shakily held up the handkerchief Professor McGonagall had given me and had to fight the sudden urge to kiss it. I'd never washed the thing, and it had slipped from my mind so thoroughly I'd never gotten rid of it either. There, dried brown and staining an unassuming rag, was my best hope of salvation: a sample of Draco Malfoy's blood.

A healthier Hermione might have sighed in relief. A Hermione who hadn't been violated by a memory in a book, maybe, or even one who'd just gotten more sleep. But this Hermione? This me, this now?

By the time morning came, I was almost shocked that my half mad giggles and sobs hadn't managed to wake Ginny.

The First Artifice

Every single second between my sudden realisation and the sun's rising was spent coming up with a plan and theorycrafting the ritual circles that I'd need. I'd sent a quick letter to Luna asking if I could stay over at her house for the remaining two weeks of the break. Her response had been shockingly quick and equally enthusiastic, which solved the first problem of my plan handily.

Once that had finished and breakfast had passed me by in a haze of ideation and theory, Ron pulled me into his room to talk. Mrs. Weasley called up to leave the door open, prompting Ron to flush and me to roll my eyes. Even if the idea she was getting at wasn't ridiculous, she'd left her right to authority in Egypt. I'd closed the door as soon as we'd stepped into Ron's cluttered little room.

"You've got that look on your face," Ron started.

I sat down on a comic-covered stool. "What look?"

"The look where you've got a plan nobody else would ever think of." Ron had his own look. He seemed to be excited, like we were to be embarking on some grand adventure. I really wasn't sure how to take that. "So come on, what is it?"

"Well," I hesitated. Speaking honestly, Ron would likely be more of a hindrance than a help here. I did mean to steal away into a library for two weeks. That wasn't precisely his cup of tea. He meant well, but I needed to find a way to convince him to back off, which would be… difficult to manage. "It's not quite a plan, more of an idea."

"What's the idea, then?"

"You remember the story about the Black family, right?" Ron nodded. "Well, I think I know how to get into their Manor."

He frowned. "But aren't they all, y'know, evil? How could that help?"

"Because they're an old magic family and they'll have lots of books. Something in there might be helpful."

"Hogwarts has lots of books too," Ron said.

"If the answer was sitting in Hogwarts, I wouldn't be dying, Ron." That hit him like a slap to the face. It had been my intent to shake him up, but still. It didn't feel great to just use it as a weapon like that. Needs must, though. Being nice takes time, and I hadn't any to spare.

"Right," he said, now failing to make eye contact and making me feel even worse. "Makes sense, I suppose. So, I guess we're going to the creepy evil manor. Great."

"I'm going, you're staying here." Ron almost immediately made to protest. "Because I need you here, Ron," I cut him off. "Your Mum would never let me just run off, but she might let me stay with the Lovegoods who will." I wasn't quite sure about that, but failing all else it would be easier to slip out when not under Mrs. Weasley's watchful eye. "I've already talked to Luna about it. I just need your help convincing your Mum to let me go. I can't do that without you."

That wrapped it up neatly, I thought. Ron got to be useful and important, I got the opportunity to browse a hidden and forbidden library in peace. The small part of me that wasn't quietly panicking was almost salivating at the thought.

"I don't like this. It's too dangerous," he said. I noted he hadn't thought so when he was coming along. He was such a boy, honestly. There was hardly going to be anyone that needed duelling, and I was pretty sure being a fledgling Dark Lord's student beat out enthusiasm for everything else. Not that he knew that, of course, but still.

"It's this or wait for the inevitable," I said. "Don't you get it? I have to do this."

Ron heaved a great sigh. "Fine. Okay. I still don't like it, but fine."

"Thanks, Ron," I stood and gave him a hug. He stiffened up a bit, but he could deal. "Now let's go convince your Mum to let me go."

I dragged Ron back out of his room, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where I knew Mrs. Weasley would be washing up.

"Mrs. Weasley?" I asked, pulling her attention from the pots and pans scrubbing themselves.

She turned around and gave me a tight smile. "What is it, dear?"

I gave Ron a look, and he returned it by urging me forward. Right, of course. I wasn't quite sure why I was nervous about this. It wasn't like I wanted her approval. "So ever since the Summerly Storytelling, Luna and I have been writing, and she asked me to come stay over at her place for the rest of the summer. Can I?" The act of asking grated. She wasn't even my mother, just someone trying to stand in.

Mrs. Weasley flicked her wand, and the dishes came to a halt. It seemed that I'd earned her full attention. "I'm sorry dear," she started, "but—"

"Only, she's been telling me all about her library, and I wanted to see it."

"I think that you'll have to tell her you'll come see it some other time?" I only just managed not to scoff. It wasn't exactly like I had a lot of 'other time' left, and I knew that she knew that.

"Why?" I asked.

She blinked. "I'm sorry?" Seemed like her kids didn't often ask her that question. I wasn't shocked. The Weasleys tended to go for the emotional plea rather than the rational argument. It would be a good reminder that I wasn't one of hers.

"I want to know why I can't visit Luna." From the look on her face, I had her. She couldn't admit to knowing about Healer Jameson's advice about familiar people and places.

She quickly schooled her expression. "Because, dear, that madman Black is on the loose. It's not safe."

I rolled my eyes. "So the Death Eater is going to go have a change of heart and attack the pureblood Lovegoods?"

"Well—"

"Please, Mum?" Ron interrupted with a not-quite-whine.

"Don't tell me that you want to go too," she chided.

"No I don't," he lied, "they're just gonna be holed up in books the whole time. But you know Loon—er—Luna hasn't had anyone to talk to since her Mum died."

Mrs. Weasley's face softened a bit at that, and I made a point to ask Ron about it. At the very least, I could see why the family defaulted to the emotional appeal. "Oh, fine," she said after a long moment. "But not for the rest of the summer. Only a week. We've got to go to Diagon Alley for your school things then, and we'll need to make sure you've got everything packed."

I wasn't quite happy with that, not really. A week wasn't all that long to research. I was about to speak up to push for more, to say that I could give Ron my money and he could buy my things for me, but it wasn't to be.

"Thanks Mum!" he said, the traitor. "Come on 'Mione. I'll help you pack." With that he grabbed my shoulder and dragged me out of the kitchen. Ron ushered me up the stairs and then sort of stopped. "I um, er, where were we going?"

That earned a proud smile that I barely managed to hide, and I grabbed his hand. "Come on." I pulled Ron up and through into Ginny's room. The fog cleared from his face as soon as I opened the door. I pushed him in, and closed the door behind us.

"Sorry, forgot where we were headed for a sec," he said. "Weird."

"I'm sure it's nothing," I said, keeping the pride out of my voice. "So, what's this about Luna not having anyone to talk to?" The deflection was easy. Forgetfulness wards really only worked if you kept attention away from them, after all.

"Oh, erm. Right. So, a while back, Luna's Mum died in some weird experiment. I dunno what. Only, Luna got really weird after. Ginny and her were thick as anything before, but once she went, y'know, all Loony, they sorta stopped talking."

Well that was… Okay she was rather strange, but hardly strange enough to avoid. I'd need to see about talking to Ginny. Later, though. When I wasn't on a timer. Putting it out of my mind, I started packing.

"So, what do you think you'll find out there?" Ron asked.

"I'm not sure," I said, and it was true. It wasn't like they'd have a book titled Stopping Thaumeal Inversion for Dummies, but they'd surely have all sorts of magic bolstering rituals, or potions books, or research journals, or something. "I suppose I'll know it when I see it."

A few minutes into packing, Luna's owl Octavius came back by. I scrawled a note telling Luna that they could come pick me up whenever they liked, and sent him off with a kiss on the forehead.

Not to sound like a broken record, but I hated apparition.

Mr. Lovegood had come by to pick me up within an hour of me giving the note to Octavius, at exactly 8:53. I was assured that this was important somehow. He'd shrunk my trunk down, shoved it in one of the many, many pockets on his outfit, and we'd disappeared with a pop. The sickening twisting squeezing sensation was simultaneously blessedly short and far, far too long. After it was over, I swayed while Mr. Lovegood held me steady by the arm and spoke in a gentle voice which went in one ear and out the other.

"There now, focus on your breathing. 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and… attagirl. Sidealong's always worse. I'd have warned you in advance, but I find the anticipation of the thing's always worse than the thing itself. If you need to lose your breakfast, go ahead. Very normal. Now I think about it, I think I might have lost my breakfast too. I know I made it, not quite sure if I ever got round to eating it… "

After several long moments, I managed to find my own feet again. "Thank you, Mr. Lovegood."

"Oh, please! My name is Xenophilius. Call me that. Or Xeno. Philly, maybe. Nobody's ever called me that before. That might be fun, don't you think?"

I… what was I even meant to do with all that? "Can I just call you Mr. Lovegood?"

"Well, I'm hardly the one to tell you what you can or can't do, of course. Er, except for that." He pointed at a bush sprouting what looked to be something like radishes. "You should probably stay away from the dirigible plums."

"Yes, sir. Will do," I said absently, and took a look at where we'd landed.

The house in front of me was, well, it was a rook. Like, the chess piece. It seemed to be just one big tower, with parapets all along the top. I was left to wonder if those were there as decorative railings, or if the place actually had a history of needing the defence. Given the recency of the last war, I wasn't quite sure. Surrounding the tower were the gardens that I was quickly coming to expect from a wizarding home, all surrounded by a wooden fence. On the gate were all sorts of signs, one proudly declaring Mr. Lovegood as the editor for the Quibbler. As I understood from Luna he was the everything else of the Quibbler too, but I supposed that wasn't as impressive a title.

Mr. Lovegood opened the gate for me with a bow, ushering me into the yard. He caught up with me at the front door, opening that for me as well with a little flourish. "Welcome to our home, Miss Granger."

"Just Hermione's fine, please."

"Of course, of course," he said, seeming faintly amused for reasons I couldn't place. I took the moment to look around. It seemed as if the entire first floor was one room, namely the kitchen. The whole place was decorated in bright colours, little paintings of myriad creatures dotting the walls. Taking up the centre was a wrought iron spiral staircase leading up into the ceiling.

Mr. Lovegood turned to the interior. "Introducing Lady Just Hermione!" he called. Immediately, the distinct sound of footsteps on stairs began sounding through the house. Luna appeared rounding the steps after a moment, clad in a simple white dress stained with what looked to be paint. She met me with a smile.

"Just Hermione! You came!" Luna shot forward and wrapped me in a hug.

"Hi Luna," I said. She let me go and took my shrunken trunk from Mr. Lovegood.

"For the record, I don't think you're 'just' anything," Luna said as she turned back to the stairs. "Come on, I'll show you my room."

I followed her up through the second floor, which seemed to be a quarter living room, a quarter Quibbler production, and about half stacks and stacks of books. Luna didn't stop, though, and I kept following. The next floor had a wall surrounding the stairwell with a curved door bearing the name 'Luna' ensconced in a crescent moon. She opened it up without hesitation, leading me into what could only be her bedroom.

The room's walls seemed to be covered in book shelves. Only half were covered in actual books. The rest were holding clothes, odd spinning and whizzing knick knacks, and origami creatures of all sizes and shapes. There were two beds right next to each other, one mussed up with blue and yellow sheets, the other with red and gold. The latter bed seemed to be well made, including the books laid out in an orderly fashion on top of it.

Luna placed my trunk by the red and gold bed, and with a whispered word it expanded out to full size. That done, she plodded over to the other and sat down to watch me.

"Thanks," I said. "I suppose those books didn't fit on the shelves?" I pointed to the bed.

"Oh, no, they do," she responded with the same shine to her voice as always. "People always see a problem and say they're going to sleep on it, so I thought you might want to do the same." I took a closer look and sure enough, the books on the bed I'd been offered were all medical in nature. A few did look a bit questionable, but the thought was there.

"I don't think that this is quite what people mean," I said with a bemused smile.

"Well, maybe it's what they should," she said, sure as anything. "I certainly don't do much thinking when I'm sleeping. Maybe I should practise that…"

I moved half the pile of books over to the other side before sitting down to face Luna. "Thanks for being willing to help out," I said after a long moment. "It means a lot."

"I'm happy to do it!" she chirped. "Do I get to know what I'm doing?"

"Oh, yes. Of course," I said. I hadn't quite realised until then just how little she knew. She knew I had something medically wrong with me, and given that she had searched for the terms in the books she'd sent she almost certainly knew the implications. But… "Have you told your Dad about…" I gestured to myself.

"No, I don't think I have," Luna looked up in thought. "Though he very often knows things I haven't told him, so I don't know that that means anything."

"Okay, well that's good." It meant I could probably trust her, at least. Especially since there apparently weren't a lot of people she could even tell, though I felt a twinge of guilt even thinking it. "So, I guess I'll start by saying I'm on a bit of a time limit."

"Aren't we all?" she said.

"Well mine's a bit shorter. I've only got a week—"

Her eyes widened. "But you're not see-through yet!"

"I mean, a week to finish what I need to do," I rushed out, more than a bit off balance. "I've got a year for that, and—" I stopped. Oh God, had I just told her? I hadn't even told Ron! She knew! She knew and I could already almost feel her pity. I didn't need that or her judging stares or her comments or… I stood to do something, leave maybe, but Luna's voice stopped me.

"Oh, well that's good," she said much more calmly than I was feeling.

"In what world is only having a year to live good?" I all but yelled, only just mindful of Mr. Lovegood downstairs.

"Well," she smiled at me, "It's better than the world where you only have a week."

I sat back down and slumped, tears threatening to well up. "How can you look on the bright side of this?"

Luna tossed that around in her mind for a moment before seeming to come to a decision. "It's easy," she said. She stood and walked over to my bed before sitting down right next to me. "I'm just helping. It's harder for you, but that's why you ask for help, because it's easier to help with something than to do it yourself."

I looked away from her. "I don't know if anyone can help me with this."

Luna leaned against my side. "Maybe. But then, why are you here?"

She… well, she had a point. I went to continue, to ask her about what I needed to know, but it caught in my throat. Why was it that thinking about the leap was always easier than doing it? All my planning to tell Luna what she needed in order to help seemed impossible now I was facing it. I wasn't even sure why. She didn't seem to mind my indecision, though. After another long few moments, she spoke up again.

"You're really brave, you know." She stated it like a fact, like talking about homework.

"I'm sorry?"

"You're forgiven," I could hear the slightest smile in her voice.

"I meant, what do you mean?"

"Bravery means continuing on even when you're scared."

"I'm not…" I trailed off, not even sure what I'd been about to say.

"I am. The idea of going to meet magic like that is scary." She hummed against my shoulder again. "I think that if it were me, I'd be running to Daddy's arms and never leaving. But you're looking at the scariest thing in the world and going to try to fix it. That's brave."

"How do you know I'm trying to fix it?" I asked quietly. As far as I knew, all I'd let her know was that I was sick, and that I needed her help with something.

"You're here, aren't you? You're not at home, or running around with the Weasleys, or at Hogwarts early. I think you're kind and brave, but I don't think that I'm your favourite person, and you're here anyway. So, you must be trying something." She reasoned it all out loud as if it was the simplest thing in the world, and as she spoke I almost believed it was.

"I think that I know how to get into Black Manor," I blurted out before I could stop myself. "I want to go out there tomorrow morning. They might have something in their library that can help me."

Luna perked up beside me, standing immediately. "I'll go tell Daddy that we need a linner picnic for two tomorrow. We can take the brooms out!"

I reeled back a bit. "It might be dangerous, I don't want to put you in harms way…"

"Don't be silly," she laughed. "Two heads are better than one!" With that said, Luna turned and ran her way down the stairs.

Freshening up dried blood was one of the first things that not-yet-Voldemort had taught me after I'd made my vows. I'd taken significant convincing to decide that it was something worth learning, but I was incredibly thankful that he'd bothered now that it had become relevant. He'd reminded me of the importance of power no matter the source, of what it meant to me, and he'd chided me for submitting to my fear of what other people thought, asking if I was even really a Gryffindor. Of course, as with everything he talked me into, the thing that held me back was the all too weighty stigma.

According to 'common sense' and some of my more puritanical textbooks, blood magic was said to be addictive. It wasn't, though. Not really. Blood magic was addictive in the same way that the automobile was addictive: Not perfect in every situation, but dead useful most of the time. Even if there was a little risk—just like with automobiles—the usefulness more than made up for it. It was very easy to start to see everything as a nail, of course, but that's easily remedied by keeping an open mind; a solution that the purebloods who typically learned blood magic had significant issue with even on a good day.

And frankly, if breaking into an ancient blood ward wasn't a correct, reasonable, and justified use of blood magic, then I didn't know what was.

It was a work that was significant to me, which demanded that the ritual be performed at a significant time. For magic such as this where I was convincing magic that there had been a change from one thing to another, midnight was best. The transition from one day to the next had weight, granting the ritual legitimacy in Legacy that couldn't be denied. It would be useful given how novel the whole thing was like to be.

All that was why Luna and I spent a majority of the day on her roof. Luna claimed that her Mum had once used this very spot for all sorts of strange magics, and it showed. I'd taken the time to familiarise myself earlier, to reach out and feel the pressure of the world around me, and it was undeniable. Luna's Mum had left a mark in this place, placing more weight here than I'd felt even at the Weasleys. It was no Hogwarts, but the weight of magic upon the place would help immensely, even past that which my own disentanglement leaked into the world.

I spent some hours drawing out the spell circles and making my preparations while Luna gathered up all the materials that we'd need. First was freshening up Malfoy's blood, causing it to glob up as a liquid once more and split itself into two little vials. I corked them up and braided together some leather cord so it was just long enough to make a necklace. I split the braid at the bottom, tying one end of the split to the neck of the vial. The other end of each side of the cord was tied together into a loop. Glass was nearly thaumically neutral, being a very stable liquid that acted as a solid, and potions glass was typically spelled to be even more so. The leather was important too, as was its braiding. Leather was undeniably dead, and so served as an excellent conduit for Life aspected magics. Life fed on Death after all, and vice versa. The cord would need replacing every once in a while given that it was the only thing which would be consumed with use, but I doubted that I would need this particular bit of kit for all that long anyway.

I asked Luna to find some clay bowls, and she had just the thing. They were colourful and had clearly been made by her, but they worked all the better for it. Legacy was connection was legitimacy to magic. The clay being earthly and thus Orderly with little opinion on the whole Life/Death aspect, it also lent a great deal of stability to the ritual. Without it, the magic would try to lean far more Dark than I wanted, and would demand more price for power than I'd already factored in. That was the thing about the Dark Powers: They were easy. Chaos, Death, Time, all of these things just happened naturally. It was easier to bring them about than to do otherwise, provided you could stomach the price. Light things were more complicated, but far less inherently costly. Building something was hard, after all, and so was keeping it built.

Constantly through my preparations had I been reminded that there was a reason that most people didn't bother to learn the ins and outs of how and why magic worked. It was half symbolism (for which I was happy I had Mandy Enoch to guide me; I was pants at symbolism), and half methodical planning and set up. Ritual crafting was many things, but it most certainly wasn't convenient.

I wove together two lattices of silver wire and placed them within the clay bowls. Silver, like most of the rarer metals, served as a good conduit for magical energy. It was quite happy to take on and 'store' the properties of whatever you fed it. Gold was better for that, but it was horribly soft, and there weren't many ways of fixing that without ruining that sort of magical absorption. Silver was a passable option. It was made much more so by a quick Draught of Magical Absorption that I whipped up and let the wire soak in in the hours before midnight.

Luna had asked me to make a bit extra of the potion, citing that she wanted to use it as a shampoo to sleep on a book. I briefly entertained arguing that that wasn't how it worked before thinking better of it. Best not to scorn the girl helping me.

The ritual circles themselves were just as complicated as everything else, and I'd needed two of them. One for myself, and one for Luna. I'd quickly realised in my frantic planning the night before that a single circle wouldn't actually work. Too many things needed done at the same time. So, multiple circles doing multiple things were inscribed on a larger whole. Frankly, I didn't have the time or knowledge to design from scratch. Instead, I'd taken a couple of the rituals described in the Ritualist's Spellbook and made some heavy modifications. It wouldn't have been possible without Bill's lessons. I made a point to find a way to properly thank him later.

Finally, after I triple checked everything, Luna had insisted that I get some sleep before midnight came around. I wanted to argue, but she simply said that not getting enough sleep would make the 'flamps' floating around the house annoyed and distract us during the ritual. It made her point in that odd way of hers, and it wasn't one I could argue with. Not that I didn't want to. Even despite how late I'd stayed up the night before, I expected sleep to be hard won. Doing anything but focusing on the mission in the here and now gave me time to think, and I wasn't too fond of where those thoughts led. I had far too many anxieties about the price of failure for that.

Blessedly, my fears were unfounded. I was out as soon as my head hit the pillow.

"And you remember what you're supposed to do?" I asked as I looked over my copy of the written incantation. Luna had lit candles and spread them around the roof, giving us just enough light to read by.

"I think so," she said.

"'Think so' isn't the same as 'know so'," I said. "This is important. We can't afford to mess it up."

She seemed immune to my stress. "I won't know if I remembered it right until it works. That's the point of tests, isn't it?"

"Just… try not to forget?"

"I'll do my best to remember that."

I opened my mouth to ask whether she was messing with me or not when a bell rang midnight. With a deep breath and a significant look to Luna, I drew a knife and began to incant.

I dragged the knife across my wrist, letting the blood fall into the clay bowl and soak into the silver wires (Luna had been surprisingly okay with this when I brought it up, for which I was thankful). I spoke of unity, asking for magic to make the silver one with my life. Pleading even, for the shedding of lifeblood was undeniably an act of darkest Death. Pain served as my price. The pressure of magic around us increased and the blood began to glow in the moonlight. There was a moment of reprieve while the blood soaked in, and I used it to bind the wound on my wrist.

"They're watching," Luna whispered reverently. "They've never watched me like this before." I didn't have the time to question it, but quickly checked to make sure her end had worked regardless. Seeing her own bowl of blood glowing, I breathed a quick sigh of relief.

The lifeblood receded, absorbing into the silver entirely and leaving it red-tinted and gleaming. I began to incant again, picking up the preprepared vial of Draco's blood. This incantation told a story of sorts, describing precisely what I needed to happen next. Holding the vial up by the cord, I lowered it into the centre of the lattice of blood-silver. The wire crept up seemingly of its own volition, wrapping itself tightly around the vial. The ends poked through the cork to feed themselves inside and weave up against the glass. Finally, two pieces of the wire rose up to meet the loop in the cord; the half of the split braid not tied to the neck. The wire formed a hook, pulling the leather tight against the cork.

It was perhaps a bit gratuitous, but bending and shaping wire into a uniform pattern like that was far easier with magic than by hand. Another check showed that Luna's seemed to be working similarly, if a bit more slowly. The magic in the air sat taut while I waited for her to finish. Once Luna had finished the wire shaping, I gave her a nod and began the next stage.

Where the rest was simply the completion of setup, this final step was the actual enchanting. My incantation spoke of hiding, of concealment, of using the certainty of life and blood to convince magic itself that I was no different from the life inside the vial. I spoke that so long as Draco Malfoy lived and I bore this artifice, my blood was as good as his.

The whole construct glowed brightly in the moonlight as I spoke, and dimmed only when I finished. The pressure all around me relaxed, like letting go of a deep breath. That same sense told me that the ritual had done exactly as I wanted. I just didn't know if that would be enough. I knew I'd be shaking with exhaustion if the magic had actually been lensed through my core, but that was the point of ritual for most, wasn't it? I wasn't sorry about reaping the benefits.

A grin overtook me despite myself. Both the joy of success and the raw irony struck me. After all, hadn't I first laid hands on Malfoy's blood when he'd accused me of stealing magic? He really had no idea how right he was. It was petty spite, but I felt I was owed that much at least.

The smile Luna gave me was far more genuine and drove thoughts of Malfoy out of my mind.

"Come on," I said. "Sooner we get this cleaned up, the sooner we can get to bed. We've got a long day tomorrow."

"My favourite kind," she said, and we got to work.

"You've got your basket all packed? Books? Brooms? Good, good," Mr. Lovegood said. He clearly doted on Luna, and I couldn't help but feel bad about deceiving him.

Luna had told him that we'd be spending the day flying out into the countryside and reading. It was technically true, though incredibly lacking in specifics. I'd had enough of a guilty conscience to tell Luna that I could go on my own, but she'd shot that down quickly. I didn't actually know where Black Manor was, after all. She was quick to point out that she did.

"I think we've got everything," I said. "I've already triple checked." The sun was just barely risen, and I was impatient to get going.

"Oh yes, yes, but one more thing!" Mr. Lovegood reached into his pockets and pulled out what looked to be two matching earrings with full sized dice hanging from them. He whipped out his wand, and tapped it against each of them in turn. "Portus! There we go. Can't be too safe with that Sirius Black about. Just say 'Flobberworm', and you'll be brought right back here.

He offered one to each of us, and Luna put hers in without hesitation. "Er, Mr. Lovegood?"

"Yes, Ms. Hermione?"

"My ears aren't pierced." My parents were against piercings of any kind, and I'd never much seen the point myself. It just seemed like something for the girls who didn't have anything better to do than talk about boys. I wasn't boy crazy like that, and I didn't much care to be. Seeing that Luna wasn't like that, though, and she'd had her ears pierced… It made me reevaluate for a moment. It was something to think about later. When I had time.

"Ah! Well. I'll make it a clip on, but I'll have you know that it's hardly secure. Someone could grab and pull, and then where would you be?" He wiggled his wand and the earring shifted to a sort of clip on cuff. I took it and put it on.

"I'll um, I'll think about it," I said. "Thank you."

"No need for that. Now, you two girls have fun! I'll see you by sundown."

Luna hugged her father and mounted her broom. I did the same, albeit with markedly less confidence. She shot me a smile, and we kicked off.

The flight was longer than the one to the Storytelling had been, made worse by the fact we had to circle wide to avoid the Burrow. Luna's constant and intentional weaving through the air slowing her down didn't much help either. After a moment, I realised that the flying wasn't as bad as I'd feared. I wasn't going to be playing quidditch anytime soon, but the Lovegoods' brooms seemed to be much better behaved than the Weasleys'. The flight quickly grew monotonous.

I'd been pointedly not giving myself time to think for the past few days, but I didn't dare to push the broom to go any faster. The weight of what I was doing struck me then. I was breaking into an ancient magical manor of one of the darkest families the UK had ever seen. Sure, the 'dark arts' were mostly a legal classification for criminalised magics that had little to do with the actual polarity of the spells in question, but… Inaccurate and infuriating terminology aside, Voldemort and his followers were still hardly nice people. I didn't dare to think that the particulars of the story that that Fawcett girl had told were accurate—it was almost certainly just a scary story exaggerated from known facts for the explicit purpose of being scary—but Voldemort had told me all about the sorts of wards the oldest pureblood manors had, and the Blacks were one of the oldest of them all.

If anything that people had been saying about Sirius Black were true, then the Black family had been mad in every sense of the word for a long, long time. No part of me believed that their wards were going to be the gentle sort. With that much madness, that much hatred for so many years? Well, magic followed minds, especially magic tied with something so close as blood. Even if they hadn't been planned as such, their wards would be just as cruel as their masters. According to Bill, that was why the Weasley family was never able to keep up wards around the Burrow for long. The people inside were just too welcoming.

With a hatred for the 'impure' that had burned so brightly for so very long in that home, the wards would almost certainly be carrying that enduring hate for as long as they could. No, it wouldn't be the strength of the defences that decayed; it would be the ward's perceptiveness. That's what I was counting on. Certainly, a healthy blood ward would spot me out. Draco Malfoy was from an offshoot family, for one, and had likely never been introduced to the 'family magic'. A healthy ward would almost certainly need to be introduced to each new member of the family by one it already knew, like a skittish dog. The comparison wasn't even all that farfetched. Blood was about the most Life aspected thing that existed. According to my research, old enduring blood magics had a tendency to take on a life of their own for just that reason. On top of that, wards that had been so finely tuned for so many centuries would almost certainly catch on that I was lying to them.

That was the thing, though. All of that was if the wards were healthy. Fortunately for me, I was almost certain that the Black family magic and I were kindred spirits. What I was betting on was that the wards were near enough to dying to accept my lie of another Black greedily, to not have the strength to subject Luna and I to more than passing scrutiny.

I could certainly relate. I was self aware enough to realise how much more insular I'd been since reading that letter.

It was a massive risk, though. If I had messed up making the blood-masks, or miscalculated just how close to death the wards were, then Luna and I would certainly die. Painfully. If we were lucky. I'd warned Luna for a reason, even if her presence lent me strength I wasn't sure I'd have otherwise. The only painful part of Thaumeal Inversion was the knowing, at least. According to Healer Jameson, fading from existence was supposedly rather peaceful. There was a choice to be had there, and it weighed on me.

As we flew, and as I thought and worried and planned, I was reminded of the hundredth birthday party for my great grandmother, Grand-Mère Granger. I'd been small then, only seven or eight, and she'd been reading to me while the other kids played. She was hooked up to machines of all sorts, the sort which I doubted I'd be able to name even today and that the telly told me ought to have been beeping instead of silently whirring away. Grand-Mère Granger had read me poem after poem before closing that book of hers and giving it to me. She told me to keep it, that she wouldn't need it anymore. She said that she was tired, and that she would need help going to sleep.

"On the back of those boxes there, look for the switches," she'd said to me. "I can't very well get any decent sleep with the lights on, can I, little angel?"

My Dad had seen me, and run over to smack my arm away. Me and the rest of the kids were ushered out of the room. The door was closed, but I couldn't help but hear some of the words being said.

"Because I'm tired!" she'd cried out. "Save me the sanctimony! It's coming whether I like it or not! Don't make me do all this horrid waiting to satisfy your own guilty conscience. I know how this book ends, just let me skip the last few pages!"

I hadn't understood then what she meant. How could I have? I was so very small, and the ending always was my least favourite part of a book. Now, though, I think I was starting to get it. I wasn't like to go looking for my end, no, I had too much to do. But if in searching for a fix I accidentally skipped the last few pages? Well, that was barely a loss at all.

Luna pulled me out of my thoughts by calling out and stopping. "Look, there it is!" I followed her pointing finger to see a messy structure maybe a mile away. "Can you feel it?"

I closed my eyes and opened myself up. After a few long moments, I realised what she was talking about. From some ways ahead of us there was a pressure, yes, but emotion too. The magic carried feeling with it in a way I'd never felt before. The emotions clearly weren't my own, but still they riled up inside of me. I wondered at how very potent it must have been to make such an impression at such a distance.

Never before had I felt blind hatred like I could feel emanating from the Black Manor.

"The wards will kill you if the necklace doesn't work," I said. Before it had been conjecture, but now I said it with certainty. Nothing that hated that much would do anything else. "It'll probably hurt a lot."

"Then I'm happy that the necklaces will work." For all her bravado, though, she seemed unnerved too.

"I wouldn't be mad if you wanted to stay out here."

"No, I'm staying with you," she said. The cheeriness that she normally kept in her voice seemed to disappear.

"You don't have to."

"But I'm going to."

I sighed, clearly seeing that I wasn't going to convince her. Had I a wand I might have stunned her, checked my work on the blood-masks myself, but it wasn't to be. As it was, I just had to grin and bear it. "Okay. Fine. In that case, time to put on the necklace. Make sure it's all the way against the skin."

I pulled out my own, wobbling on the broom slightly and putting it on. A very thorough check to make sure that I didn't have any fabric between me and the necklace later, I looked over to Luna. It seemed like she'd poked feathers of all different sizes and colours into the braid of the cord. The effect was admittedly rather pretty, and a quick mental run through assured me that the feathers wouldn't interfere with the function of the blood-mask.

"Okay," I breathed, "Let's keep going."

We approached the Manor at a sedate pace, something that was almost entirely unnecessary but made me feel better about the whole ordeal. The overgrown fields surrounding it were in sorry shape. The closer we got, the more the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I didn't know how much of that was my nervousness and how much was a reaction to the sinister magic in the air.

Finally, I felt the wards. They formed a nearly tangible barrier around the grounds, slowing us nearly to a halt. I swore that I felt the magic judging us, looking somewhere inside to see if we were worthy.

And after far too many long, tense, horrible, anxiety-ridden moments…

The Black family wards let us through.