Blood
Saturday saw many visitors at 12 Grimmauld Place. Remus, Harry, and Hermione had spent the night so they were already there, but the Tonks family came as well as Narcissa Malfoy and Severus Snape.
They all gathered in the Ritual Room each Black-owned dwelling possessed, and Sirius and Remus performed the Ritual, of Blood-Brotherhood with all the others as witnesses and Ted as the Healer, standing by should something go wrong.
It went off without a hitch after they both had taken off their robes and shoes, to stand there bare-footed in trousers and white shirts with the sleeves rolled up and performed the short ritual.
Afterwards, the two men hugged and Sirius said rather earnestly and heartfelt, "Welcome to the family, Moony!" and handed a small golden band to Remus.
Before Sirius could stop Remus and tell him to lie down first, the man had put the ring on his finger.
All Sirius could yell was, "Lay down!" which Remus thankfully heard and complied with (kind of). He sank to his knees, and they all watched as magic seemed to move over the man's body and concentrated on his shoulder where Remus had been bitten by Fenrir. Remus started to convulse and fell forward, but caught himself with his hands. He let out a yelp-like scream and the old bitemark must have opened again, as his shirt was turning bloody and black in that area. Not a pretty sight.
Ted jumped forward and was at once waving his wand, diagnosing the wound, dispelling the clothes, cleaning the wound, and starting to cast healing spells. All within a minute.
Severus, who had come prepared started pouring potions onto the wound after checking with Ted.
It didn't take long, and Remus was healed, cleaned, and clothed again and most importantly he was looking happy.
The witnesses were calming down again as well, having had quite the adrenaline rush just by watching.
"How do you feel, Remus?" Harry called.
"Quite well! And Moony does too!" an elated and beaming Remus answered and got up from the floor. "Lighter!"
They all cheered.
They moved to the drawing room to rest for a while and Hermione asked if she could see the ring on Remus' hand.
He held it out to her, and she said, "So, it looks like Tonks or her mother's ring now. While Harry's and Sirius' are bigger than that. Especially the Lord's ring. But it looked much thinner before you put it on. Is that normal?"
Harry nodded and said, "Yes, it was just as thin before I donned mine. Sirius' ring as well.
Sirius had listened in and explained, "The rings are like proto-rings first. They check the magic of the one donning it and decide which status the new wearer has. Lord, heir, family member, or spouse."
Ted Tonks showed Hermione his hand with a smaller ring than the family ones.
"And if a family gets bigger?" Hermione asked fascinated.
"There are always enough rings. They always come from and return to Gringotts." Sirius said.
"So, are they bound to a certain family?" Hermione asked.
"Well, I always assumed that this was the case, but I don't actually know. Hm. Good question. Well, Snape and I could switch, but I'd rather not. Who knows what would happen!"
Severus nodded, "The goblins said, that they were rather powerful magical artifacts made by Merlin and Morgana themselves and I don't think experimenting with them would be recommendable."
"I wish muggle-born could get them too," Hermione sighed.
Sirius answered, "Well, you would have to marry into one of the old families or let me adopt you. Or become a blood sister to Harry here, after he gets his Lord's ring. I am not sure if you would be feasible for a Black family ring via blood siblingship with Harry before he takes his Potter one. Hm. Now that I think of it, If the rings hadn't been bound to a certain family, he would have become Lord Potter, when he put on his ring last summer…"
"Or the ring read the intend it was given with and made him the Black heir first," Severus added. "It certainly read mine regarding my dark mark."
"My brain hurts!" Sirius whined and the rest chuckled.
"Uh, if the rings come from Gringotts, how come, Kreacher had two, last summer?" Harry asked.
"He is the house elf of a Most Ancient and Noble House. And he is nearly one thousand years old, I guess he has his ways," Sirius said.
Hermione was rather distracted by this information, and they moved to other, lighter topics. But Harry promised himself, to remember to ask Hermione to become his sister after he had taken his lordship in the future.
In a delipidated shack in the woods near Little Hangleton the greatest Dark Lord of the century (debatable) was sitting on a conjured chair and scowled. He had no idea, what was going on in his world, as none of his followers answered his call after his strategic retreat from Malfoy Manor.
Aurors had swarmed it and easily caught his unfit and out-of-practice followers, so he did have no choice but to leave.
But it couldn't be, that they all had been caught! Only a few had been at the Manor, after all! Were they all too frightened of the Ministry to come to his aid?
He scoffed and sent pain to all marks, regardless of the mark-bearer's location. Those, who were in Azkaban should feel his wrath as well, he decided. He was too angry to differentiate!
A big snake brought a rabbit for his dinner, and he sent a killing curse to it in thanks. He was just so tired of rabbit roast!
The Dark Lord Voldemort roared. This was just so incredibly below his station!
The only follower he hadn't contacted yet was Snape. He was too weary of the slippery man's loyalties to call him. The chance that he would tell Dumbledore was just too great. He, Voldemort, was too vulnerable, he feared.
He sent another killing curse at the already dead snake.
A second after it had hit the carcass, he felt a strange pull within his body. Everywhere. It felt like his very blood tried to leave it!
He screamed again and gathered his magic to hold himself together, for lack of a better description.
The pull got stronger, and he had to spend huge amounts of magic to keep himself together! It felt like he was running out very fast and so he started pulling magic from his followers. A just punishment for leaving him alone!
But the pull didn't stop! He felt like it tried ripping him apart! Even though his follower's magic was starting to run low!
The only option he saw in his desperation was the magic in the ring below his feet and its brethren and so he went ahead to suck all the magic out of his soul anchors, connected to him. First the ring and Nagini, then the cup, the locket ( a very small part of him wondered why the locket was close to the cup), and then the rest.
When that well of magic dried up he tried to connect to one of the lay lines but was too weakened and in a rather unspectacular and quiet fashion, his body fell apart.
A small cloud of blood disappeared and a nearly empty robe fluttered and sank onto an enclosed rotting human hand and a human thigh bone.
No spirit left the scene, to go to Albania once more and most of the snakes just slithered away and left the area.
The hand and bones were found later by adventuring kids and posed a riddle to a myriad of constables and inspectors for quite some time.
Little Hangleton became rather famous for its mysterious murder scenes, first the unsolved murder of the Riddles and now this. Two human body parts, in very different states of decay.
The Morning After
Sunday morning saw Sirius, Remus, Hermione, and Harry at breakfast, chatting about the rituals the day before.
"That Recall of Black Blood ritual took a rather long time, didn't it?" Hermione asked. "Was that normal?"
"No, but my guess is that the dark wan…," Sirius caught Remus' scowl, "Uh... ah… Moldevort had much more magic at his disposal than the average wizard has, so he could resist longer."
The others nodded, slightly amused by Sirius' new name for Lord Voldemort.
"Good that we didn't give up even when we were starting to lose our voices from chanting for so long," Harry said emphatically. "It did work out after all. Even if it was very little blood, that came, but I remember Pettigrew only used a few drops… Anyway, I really wonder what it did to him."
"Well, Severus' dark mark disappeared, so Moldevort – I like that name! – is at least without a body, if not dead," Remus said thoughtfully.
"The bad one is being dead, Kreacher thinks," the house elf said to all of their surprise. "His Horcrux is being gone from the locket!"
"His Horcrux?!" Sirius and Remus yelled to the astonishment of the two teens, who looked at each other with incomprehension.
After a lot of emotional explanations about Regulus by Kreacher and Horcruxes in general by Sirius and Remus, the five were silent for a while.
Harry then asked, "Do you think he sucked the magic out of them, to hold himself together?"
"That would be my guess. He was anchored by and therefore connected to them," Remus nodded thoughtfully.
"That would explain why it took so long, right?" Hermione asked. Her mind was whirling about the implications of a soul and parts being ripped off of it.
The rest nodded and Kreacher got up and said, "The Daily Prophet arrived. Kreacher be getting it."
"It is rather late again," Sirius said. "I wonder what shocking news it contains today!"
They waited with some trepidation for this day's news.
Soon, Sirius could open the papers and exclaimed in shock, "He had another source of magic! Oh, wow! Albus! How?"
"What? His magical source was Headmaster Dumbledore?" Hermione exclaimed in shock.
"What? No!" Sirius held up the frontpage for them all to see and this time two headlines fought for the top space on the front page:
ALL
DEATH
EATERS
DEAD!
And
DUMBLEDORE
GONE
INSANE!
"What?", "How?", "What about Severus?"
"Ok, let me read the first article, or better, let me read it out loud, all right? Let's see," Sirius opened the paper and started to read, "Yesterday, late afternoon, all of the alleged Death Eaters in the holding cells at the Ministry started screaming for the third time that afternoon. As reported before, they seemed to be getting tortured via their dark marks, which they have on their arms (see yesterday's edition for more information). This had already happened multiple times while they were in holding. But this time was different. It went on for much longer and they seemed to get weaker with the minute.
"A healer – who always is on standby whenever there are prisoners in holding – cast diagnostic charms on them and reported that their magical cores were being drained but the healer could not determine the cause. The healer tried all they could think of but to no avail. The Death Eaters were all drained completely. Leaving them muggles. But it didn't stop there! As their life force was being pulled out of them as well until they all succumbed and died. – Questions were raised, who had done it (You-Know-Who?), why (Punishment? Need for Magic?), and what of the incarcerated Death Eaters in Azkaban? Well, let me tell you, they are all dead as well. Every single one of them.
"So, what did their master need so much magic for? It can only have been You-Know-Who, right? We at the Daily Prophet are shivering in our boots at the thought of such a powerful Dark Lord somewhere out there! To sacrifice all of one's (known) followers is a rather bold and horrible move, after all!" Sirius' voice trailed off.
Silence.
"We killed them all?" Harry said rather weakly.
"Nope pup, Modlevort did that. We only took back what he stole. Nothing more, nothing less. He decided to drain his Horcruxes and his own followers in order to stay in his body. He didn't have to. He was anchored to the physical world after all! Because I am sure, he drained his followers first and the Horcruxes later! And he didn't have to pull their life forces! He sucked them all dry. He could have just gone back to being a wraith and tried once more!" Sirius said vehemently.
Harry looked thoughtful and then nodded, "You are right. Phew. And Professor Snape was alive and kicking yesterday evening, thanks to the ring changing his mark. They seemed to have forgotten about him in the papers."
Hermione looked anxiously at Sirius, "And Professor Dumbledore?"
"You can't help yourself in being respectful, hm?" Sirius teased her, "All right, let's see," and he started reading again. "Albus Dumbledore, who was in a holding cell next to the ones all the Death Eaters were at, watched in horror as the events unfolded as described on page 2. When it became obvious that magic was being drained, he started calling for his phoenix again as he had done for the last few days. But again, the majestic bird didn't come. Dumbledore got more and more anxious but when the first of the Death Eaters died, he went insane! He really did! Yelling and swearing and spilling a lot of strange things.
"Here are some examples:
· No! They cannot die! They need to help reinstate the Dumbledore family as an Old Major House again! I have the money! Nearly all of it!
· Ring! I want mine back! No one should have them if I don't!
· Harry! Where is he? He needs to die! Now! It is his fate!
· Gellert, I am sorry! I tried! We should have been together by now! Young again!
"And more of that kind. Until he started frothing at the mouth and the very busy healer banished a potion into his stomach, making him go quiet and docile.
"You can imagine our horror after witnessing this too! (As you know, dear readers, the press can enter the holding cells at the Ministry, but not directly engage with the prisoners.) Now, the former Headmaster was later assessed and one of the trainees muttered, 'He has snapped, all right'. Well, dear readers, we are rather speechless by now. Snapped? What does that mean?
"Unfortunately, the DMLE hadn't yet interrogated Dumbledore and so his words were all that we can get for the time being on the question of why the formerly so respected man had done all of these illegal things he has been accused of... We will keep you updated in the coming days!"
The silence after Sirius had stopped reading was even longer.
"…" Harry tried to say.
"Yeah…" Sirius answered.
"That's heavy…" Remus answered.
"Who did he mean with 'Gellert'? I only know of Gellert Grindelwald," Hermione's brain had started to engage again.
"Uh…"
"Is that what he wanted all that money for? To change the status of his family from a Minor to an Olde Major House? Can one even buy that?" Harry asked.
"I think there was some scandal last century with the family, and they got downgraded to a Minor House because of that and they lost the ability to use their rings. One can pay, to get one's House reinstated again after one century. But it is shockingly expensive. I think the Weasleys had the same problem."
"Wow… Talk about 'dark and evil', huh? He wanted back into the higher spheres of society. What a hypocritical moron!"
"Well, let's take it all with a grain of salt, all right? After all, he seemed to have a psychotic break or something like that," Remus cautioned. "Maybe the healers can help him, and he can be questioned about it all, later."
"Yeah, right. They have such an amazing track record, after all," Harry groused. "Let's not suggest Gringotts to them. He can stay crazy for all I care if he wants me dead!"
"Right!"
"You bet!"
"Oh, Harry!"
Harry was engulfed in a rather tight hug by a teary-eyed Hermione.
Sirius swore to himself to tell all the others in the know not to insist on Dumbledore being brought to Gringotts. He figured they wouldn't be able to help the man anyway, but still.
At lunchtime, a smiling and surprisingly handsome-looking Severus entered the kitchen.
"Something is different," Hermione muttered.
"He is smiling!" Sirius, who sat facing the door now, said and Remus nodded.
"You took the potion!" Harry exclaimed.
"Huh?" Sirius blinked. "Oh! When did that happen?"
"A few days ago. But no one noticed, until now."
"Well, in our defense, you used to snarl and pull back your lips baring your teeth, in earlier years. But not anymore. And you don't smile much either…" Harry explained.
"I know Mr. Potter, I am not disappointed no one noticed. I mean, no one seemed to have seen the difference in your appearance, either."
"That's not true," Hermione protested, "I have noticed his new glasses and clothes!"
"But not the most important thing," Severus said.
Harry sniggered.
"What?" Hermione stared at Harry. "No. Everything else is the same! Right?" Hermione asked Remus who nodded just as clueless.
"Do you think, it might have been a Horcrux as well, Severus?" Sirius asked.
"A Horcrux? What are you on about?" Severus looked shocked.
"Right, sorry! Let me fill you in. You see, Kreacher here…" And with that Severus was filled in, while Hermione and Remus stared at Harry, trying to figure out the change, but listening in.
When Sirius had finished, Severus said thoughtfully, "So, you think he tried to make another one but was involuntarily stopped by toddler Harry? And that it latched onto the baby? Hmm… quite possible. But the Dark Lord wouldn't have been able to finish the ritual and therefore the family ring was able to purify it. That's what happened, am I right?"
Harry and Sirius nodded, and Hermione and Remus were frowning at them, until Hermione exclaimed, "Your scar!"
Harry nodded grinning and swept up his hair, to show her his forehead with the nearly invisible scar.
"Oh, Harry!"
He got hugged tightly again.
A/N: Well, that is about it. Some more already-written chapters are still to come, but the main part of this story is done! I cannot tell you how happy I am, that I managed to finish it. It was not easy to get back into the mood and pace of this story after such a long break.
The rest will be posted in the next few days. Thank you for your favorites and follows and for reviewing! Even if I rarely answer, they are all read and appreciated!