CW: Blood, pregnancy, disturbing content
"These ingredients are nasty," Blaise said, making a face as he put a bloody heart into a wooden bowl.
"We knew they would be, didn't we?" Harry said, suppressing a yawn. "Merlin, I'm tired. Do we really have to do this at dawn?"
"Dawn is symbolic of new beginnings and new hope," Luna said, sprinkling salt on the ground. "If we're going to do this ritual out of love, not hate, it's important we use as much positive imagery as possible."
Harry sighed. "That makes sense."
Hermione glanced up at the clock tower. Dawn was scheduled to be at 5:40am, with sunrise at 6:17am. They still had time left, but not much. They were lucky the Vernal Equinox fell on a Sunday this year – it would have been a nightmare, doing this and then attempting to go to class.
Well, for the rest of them at least. Hermione still had her handy Time-Turner.
"When are they coming?" Harry groused. "Let's get this over with."
"They'll be here at 5:30," Susan reassured him. "Just keep setting up. We're almost done."
The ritual elements and sacrifices they'd had to obtain were numerous, and all of them gross. Harry, in a brilliant move, had reached out to Hagrid for help with some of them, and to Hermione's relief, Hagrid had been all too eager to help Harry with whatever 'school project' he was doing. Hermione suspected Harry had led Hagrid to believe he was significantly more interested in magical creatures than actually he was, or that he was trying for extra credit in potions, but Hagrid happily hadn't asked too many questions. Harry liked spending time with Hagrid, anyway.
Hermione was hoping having body parts of animals that had died naturally, instead of ones purposefully killed just to harvest their organs, would help keep Dark magic out of the ritual. She could have killed a fawn, but when Hagrid came upon dead deer in the forest all the time anyway, was there really a need for her to slaughter her own to harvest its heart?
She'd been surprised he'd managed to harvest cuckoo eggs, though. She hadn't realized any of them lived around Hogwarts in the highlands.
"Outside, this time?"
Hermione looked up to see Jade and Milan making their way towards Hermione. Milan was supporting Jade, who looked slightly green.
"Outside," Hermione confirmed. "Better to do it in the dawning sun. Jade… are you okay?"
Jade shot Hermione a nasty look, but then she gagged, putting her hand to her mouth and shuddering, and Milan gave Hermione an apologetic grin.
"Morning sickness," she explained. "It's been… well, honestly quite bad. We're both ready for her to be free of it."
"You don't say," muttered Jade, and Milan shot her a look of exasperated fondness.
"This is going to be a weird ritual," Susan announced, holding a book in one hand and her wand in another as she came forward. "We're going to need you, Jade, there in the big circle, lying down with your head to the west, so you're facing east. Milan, you need to face her in the smaller circle at the intersect."
"Over here, Milan," Luna said, stepping forward, and she helped Milan into place, positioning her appropriately in an approximation of a birthing position while Susan helped with Jade.
"Do I have to pretend to be giving birth, too?" Jade sniped, seeing Milan's positioning, and Susan hesitated.
"We don't think so," she said. "The ritual doesn't really say much about the position of the one the fetus is being taken from…"
"You don't think so?" Jade said, her face flashing with alarm and anger. "Are you messing about with rituals again? I thought you said—"
"In the original ritual, the woman the fetus was being stolen from was generally kidnapped," Blaise interrupted loudly, "and tied down on an altar so she couldn't escape." He gave her a twisted smile. "We thought you'd be more comfortable on the ground not tied up, as you are fully consenting to the ritual procedure."
"An altar?" Jade flinched. "I thought—did they—"
"Sometimes they killed the ex-mother as a sacrifice to help magic alter the genetics of the baby to match the new mother's," Blaise told her conversationally, eyes glinting. "Seeing as Milan's genetics are already in the fetus, we didn't think that necessary."
Jade's eyes flew to Hermione, who was finishing drawing her little circle behind Jade.
"Just what kind of Dark—"
"It's not Dark if everyone consents to it and knows what they're getting into," Hermione said tiredly. "Do you want the baby out of you or not?"
"Yes, but—"
"Then it's not Dark," Hermione said, cutting her off. "We've altered the ritual to strip it of all Dark magic connotations, done our best to eliminate negative or Dark undertones from the ritual elements, and we've made sure we've got a way to power the ritual without needing a live human sacrifice."
Jade's eyes were wide. Milan looked torn between astonishment and horror.
"Well, I'd certainly hope so," Milan said, laughing weakly. She turned to Luna. "What next?"
"Now, we start," Luna told her, nodding. "Harry and I will be near you. Susan and Blaise will be near Jade. If all goes well, you should be able to feel your womb swelling and changing inside of you before the fetus comes over, but it shouldn't hurt. Hopefully."
"What's Granger going to be doing?" Jade wanted to know.
"I'm the battery," Hermione said, folding her legs as she sat down inside her small circle. "Try to pretend to be a little grateful, would you?"
When the coven had dissected the ritual, pulling apart its parts to figure out what could stay, what could go, and what needed changed, the human sacrifice element had been the biggest part. Harry had argued that because Milan's genes were already in the fetus, there wasn't any sacrifice necessary, but Blaise had pointed out the grim truth: while the sacrifice of a life powered the genetic change, it was the blood spilled on the circle that helped power the ritual itself, and that was something they would need to figure out a way to replace.
Hermione had looked through her Dark books to no avail, and she'd been left to experiment, cutting herself and bleeding on the grounds outside as she reached for a ley line with her magic. After several attempts, changing her posture, the amount of blood, or how much magic to try and channel, she concluded that if she made a moderate blood sacrifice herself, it would suffice as a filter for her to channel the ley line magic into the ritual itself, with her as a conduit. This would be roughly the equivalent of the blood spilled on the ground as a Dark offering, only much less evil. Her friends were only reassured when Hermione had a backup plan in place, one involving Blood-Replenishing Potions and powering the ritual itself through personal magic and a song, but they eventually reluctantly agreed this was the way most likely to work.
"Ready?" Susan asked everyone, her eyes wide. "Here we go…"
Hermione took a deep breath and closed her eyes as she could hear her coven chanting. She extended her magic into the circle, joining with theirs, but once she felt it connect, she had a different job to do – they were to direct the magic in the ritual, while she had to be the one to power it.
With a grimace, Hermione took the silver blade she'd laid at her side and made a deep cut on her arm, watching her blood pool on the soft ground, and she closed her eyes once more, sending her magic down after the offering. The chanting and feeling of magic building behind her lingered in her mind, but Hermione was busy elsewhere, her consciousness somewhere in the earth as her magic reach the ley line, trying to connect to it once more.
Connecting to the ley line was painful, but with Hermione's blood as an offering, it worked as a filter, protecting her own magic from being overwhelmed as she became a conduit, funneling raw magic from the earth into the ritual. She could vaguely feel the raw magic taking a shape somewhere beyond her, molded by her coven's chants, but Hermione's eyes stayed closed as she held on, gritting her teeth as she held onto the line, still vaguely aware of blood dripping steadily down her arm.
Trying to block out the distraction, Hermione turned her attention to the ley line itself, her magic stretching out to explore it as best it could while she acted as a pipeline.
The ley lines normally felt powerful and overwhelming, a huge rush of magic that threatened to wash her away. Today, though, they felt different – instead of a giant artery of pulsing magic, today it felt more like a vein, with more sedate, slower magic. It was still powerful, to be sure, but less urgent and excited. It was more mature feeling today, almost dangerously tempting, alluring, and Hermione wondered what had changed.
Today was Ostara, she remembered – one of the four days a year she could jump the ley lines for free, without needing a faerie stone.
Maybe that's why the lines felt different today, she wondered. Maybe the ebb and flow of magic was such that today there wasn't a risk of getting captured by Fae or lost in their lands by accident, as if the flow of magic was nearly entirely on the side of the human realm, with very little in the fae realm right now.
It was all a theory, of course. There were no real books on the ley lines that Hermione could find. Not anymore. While some rituals mentioned channeling 'the power of the earth', it was never explicitly named, and unless Hermione had been taught directly, she might have never known.
She'd have to learn French, she thought. If the French had books on the ley lines and innate magic of the earth, she'd need to know French to read them. She'd picked up bits and pieces from exchanging letters with Fleur, but she wasn't anywhere near as fluent as she'd need to be to read…
Hermione could feel her thoughts becoming more difficult to form as she clung to the ley line, still channeling the magic into the ritual. Something dramatic was happening on the other side, over by where her body sat (…was she still bleeding...?), and the magic was swelling and changing and doing things, but Hermione couldn't tell what. Still, Hermione held on, though her energy was draining rapidly, her mind blurring around the edges.
Suddenly, there was a giant feeling of a rush and a POP, and one side of her pipeline abruptly closed. Hermione gasped, eyes flying open but seeing nothing, staggering, and it took her several long moments to realize that the circle had closed, and the ritual was over.
She carefully began extracting herself and her magic from the ley line, pulling it back into her, and to her relief, her mind rapidly began to clear.
"—mione? Hermione? Hermione!"
Hermione's eyes snapped open to see Harry shaking her shoulders frantically. He wilted in relief as he saw she was okay, but he was helping her to her feet a moment later, supporting her with her arm over his shoulders.
"We have to go, now," Harry told her. Hermione could see Blaise supporting Jade on the other side of the circle, with Luna and Susan helping a groaning Milan to her feet.
"We have to clean up the circle," Hermione protested. "We can't just leave it here—"
"We have to," Harry said, stumbling forward with her. "Someone's going to be coming any second."
"Why? What went wrong?"
"Nothing went wrong," Harry assured her, dragging her into the castle. "But—well, there was some screaming. Maybe a lot of screaming. And no one put down silencing wards."
Hermione spared the strength to roll her eyes.
"Are you seriously telling me—"
But it was no matter; Harry was pulling open the doors, holding them for Blaise and Luna, who were helping Jade and Milan respectively. Susan was staying behind, wringing her hands while the circle on the ground seemed to warp and bubble, and it clicked for Hermione a moment later – Susan was using her earth elemental, coaxing it to help her hide the ritual circle they'd left behind…
"Where can we go?" Harry asked Hermione frantically, upon getting her inside. "You're still bleeding – we can't go up seven flights of stairs with you like this."
"Kitchens," Hermione suggested, pointing. "Go that way."
Harry and Hermione hurried down the hallway, Hermione's legs still weak with her head throbbing, and as soon as Harry tickled the pear and yanked open the door, Hermione was collapsing into a chair inside of the kitchens, Harry sitting down worriedly beside her.
"You're still bleeding," he said anxiously. "Hermione, we need to—"
"Episkey," Hermione said, aiming her wand at her arm. The flesh knitted itself up neatly under her wand, and Hermione managed a small smile as she looked up at Harry. "There are two Blood-Replenishing Potions in my bag, Harry. If you would hand one to me?"
Harry flushed, apparently having forgotten the plan for after the ritual, and he fished about in her bag.
Hermione glanced around the kitchens while he searched for it. Several House Elves were hovering nearby, looking anxious, but they seemed to be instinctively hanging back while Hermione and Harry quickly patched her up.
"Got it!" Harry declared triumphantly, reemerging with the potion. "You've got a ton of stuff in your bag, Hermione," he said as he handed it to her, Hermione promptly uncorking it and downing the whole thing, suppressing the urge to choke on the thick liquid. "How do you keep track of it all?"
"Magic," Hermione said promptly. She coughed and gagged slightly. "Urrghhh…"
"Iron?" Harry said, smiling sympathetically. "I can never get over the taste."
"It's more the texture and the thickness for me," Hermione said, coughing again before she cleared her throat and relaxed back against her chair. "It's working already, though, at least. Worth enduring how nasty it is."
Harry grinned. "I would hope so. Wouldn't want you bleeding out because of a bad taste."
Now that Hermione didn't seem to be in immediate peril, a few of the House Elves were drifting nearer.
"Is Missy Hermione okay?" one of them worried at her.
"It is not being breakfast time yet!" another one scolded. "You is being too impatient!"
Hermione laughed.
"I'm okay. I'm just visiting," she assured the elves, smiling.
Hermione looked around the kitchens. The elves were all working on breakfast, humming and generally seeming very cheerful. Their attire was different, though – half of them were in the goblin robes they had gotten, and the other half were in pillowcases dyed a light blue.
Harry was listening at the door while Hermione looked around the kitchens.
"I think I hear Susan," he told her. "I'm going to check in with her and go back up to the tower. Do you think you can make it back to the Dungeons alone?"
"Not a problem," Hermione assured him, and Harry shot her a grin as he ducked out.
After Harry left, while she sat and regained her strength, Hermione's curiosity got the better of her.
"Is Tolly around?" she asked a nearby elf.
The elf sighed very melodramatically.
"I goes and gets her," it told her, "but only because I do not wants you to be bleedings everywhere and be mucking up the kitchen."
Hermione raised her eyebrows, watching the elf go. A few minutes later, Tolly came over, wearing a light blue pillowcase.
"Missy Hermione!" Tolly exclaimed. She grinned deviously. "What mischief is you making today?"
"I have no idea what you mean," Hermione said, batting her eyelashes innocently, and Tolly laughed.
"Innocent as an egg," Tolly said, amused. Her eyes sparkled. "Today, we elves are making a bit of mischief too," she confided.
"Are you?" Hermione said. "I was going to ask – with all the sky-blue robes, I wondered. The last time I saw you in one of those—"
"We were visiting the goblinses!" Tolly said, nodding rapidly. She grinned a toothy grin. "Half of the elves is going to go and be visiting the goblinses today!"
"You are?" Hermione said, surprised. "I thought you got in trouble last time."
"We did," Tolly admitted. "But this is being more important – the goblinses is our friends, our family, and they is needing our help."
"They need your help?" Hermione sat up straight, slightly alarmed. "What's wrong?"
Tolly squirmed in her chair.
"Nothing new is being wrong," she admitted. "But they is having old wrongs that we are being able to help with, today."
Neemey was lurking nearby, Hermione noticed, large violet eyes piercing. Hermione gestured, inviting Neemey over, and Neemey sat, smirking.
"You're back," Neemey commented, examining their long nails. "Don't you have any human friends?"
"Oh, shut up," Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "You're going on this expedition too?"
Neemey looked down at themself, plucking at the sky-blue pillowcase they wore.
"I suppose I am," Neemey commented. There was a daring glint in those purple eyes. "Someone has to tell the house elves how to do this ritual properly."
Hermione's eyes grew wide.
"You're doing a ritual?" she asked Tolly, excited. "Like you did on Wassail Eve?"
"It is being something like that, maybe," Tolly said, considering. "Mostly we House Elves is only doing rituals when it is being a special day, and we is doing them to honor Magic and the Earth. Today, though, we is going to be doing a ritual to help heal the goblinses from their wounds."
"Their… wounds?" Hermione tilted her head. "What wounds?"
"Goblins have an innate magic that has been damaged," Neemey said, a dangerous smirk on their lips. "When the wizards last waged war on them, the goblins all but lost their natural cores. They can still use their magic to shape and work with metal, but that is about the most of it."
"We is going to help them," Tolly said proudly. "We is hoping that when we is using our magic to help theirs to be fixing, that they is either able to be using magic again, or they is at least being able to help us be doing the ritual for the rest of all the goblinses." She made a face. "There are being a lot of them."
Hermione felt shook, listening to their story. All this time, and the goblins had been stunted? Magical creatures, and the Ministry had purposefully blocked them off from using magic?
"I didn't… I didn't realize," she said, somewhat horrified.
"Didn't you?" Neemey purred.
"No!" Hermione objected. "How could I?"
Neemey arched an eyebrow, a peculiar-looking expression on an elf with very thin eyebrows and very large eyes.
"You let the goblins use your gold to rebuild themselves back up," Neemey said. "You visited their Hold, as a human. You helped them repair their homes. You helped write legislation to allow them to trade – the goblins are well aware it was you behind it – so they could get what they needed, helping them to grow…"
Neemey's eyes seemed to glow.
"And then you followed the legend of a disgraced brownie," Neemey said softly, "using your connections to introduce the goblins to an alleged distant relation, one who could still use magic, who might be able to help even more."
"Tolly—Tolly wanted to go," Hermione protested.
"She did," Neemey acknowledged, nodding. "And you… you introduced her as an ambassador, a pipe dream of an elf that would have gone nowhere if you hadn't risked your reputation and leveraged your connections – leveraged them for a House Elf," Neemey said. "And now, having learned the goblins' magic is stunted, and having more of a connection to Magic that the goblins still possess, the elves have selflessly offered to help heal their kin, to help restore their own magic to them…" Violet eyes glowed at Hermione. "…and it's all just a marvelous coincidence, I'm to believe?"
Hermione gaped at Neemey.
Put like that, it sounded like she'd had a giant scheme to help restore the goblins from the very beginning. She almost wanted to lay claim to it, to admit to the alleged scheme, which was much cooler than the truth – that she'd just been trying to help.
"You is not being mean to Missy Hermione," Tolly admonished Neemey crossly. "She is being an ally."
Neemey rolled their eyes melodramatically.
"New Blood, Heroine of Hogwarts, and Ally to the House Elves," Neemey said, scoffing. "Forgive me if I rather think one title doesn't belong."
Tolly was clearly ignoring Neemey at this point.
"You is practicing popping today, isn't you?" she asked Hermione. "I is remembering."
"Jumping the ley lines? Yes," Hermione confirmed, nodding. "I'm probably going to take a nap first, and then do it. It doesn't seem like a wise thing to do when tired."
"You is needing to make sure you is eating a big breakfast!" Tolly stressed. "Popping is taking a lot of magic."
"It does?" Hermione asked, baffled. "But you do it all the time!"
"Tolly is an elf. Tolly is small," Tolly informed her. "It is not taking much magic to be popping something small. But Missy Hermione is much bigger. It will be taking much more magic to be popping a big person's body." She eyed her up. "Especially if you is going to be doing it over and over and over. You is going to be being tired."
"I got sick last time, I remember," Hermione said thoughtfully. "I don't know if I got tired, exactly? I thought I got exhausted from the nausea."
Tolly made a face.
"Please be being careful, Missy Hermione," she begged. "Today is being safe for practicing popping, but…"
"But?" Hermione prompted.
Tolly exchanged a loaded look with Neemey.
"The lines may be safe for you to travel today, Hermione Granger," Neemey finished, eyes glowing, "but you never know who is watching."