The Tale of Three Brothers, as Blaise told it, was a fairy tale: there were three brothers who outwitted Death, and Death offered them each a gift as a reward, with each gift being a trap to lure them back to his embrace. One wanted an unbeatable wand, one got a piece of Death's cloak as an ultimate invisibility cloak to hide from everyone, and one wanted the power to call back the dead and was given what came to be known as the Resurrection Stone.
"You've got to understand, this is a legend," Blaise said, apologetically. "There's always been rumors of a wand of immense power, mind you, but certainly not unbeatable. Whomever defeats whoever holds it gains its allegiance and power."
"If you defeat the 'unbeatable' wand to earn its power," Hermione said dryly, "doesn't that rather prove you never needed the unbeatable wand at all?"
Blaise laughed.
"It is a legend," he reminded her. "An innate moral is rather part of the point."
Hermione sighed.
She tabled the matter to the back of her mind. If Tom successfully integrated with the ring horcrux, then she'd just test the stone to see if it was true or not. The horcrux magic, Voldemort had said, was overriding the weird necromancy soul magic on the artifact right now. But once that horcrux was gone, it'd be easy enough to test.
In the meantime, she and her coven worked on planning the ritual to make a lasting Truth Circle. Harry and Luna were skipping out to the site between classes to work on embedding the runes they'd need, while Susan was working with Tracey on locating the specific trees they'd need for a grove.
"We'll want this original grove to be tall and really strong and powerful, of course, but if we're going to have people craft staffs, we're going to need a lot more than just thirteen trees," Tracey had pointed out. "Instead of waiting for trees to grow from nothing, it'll be a lot easier if we just interface with muggle nurseries, don't you think?"
Hermione had agreed and given them a pouch of gold, which Susan and Tracey took with a grin and a promise to get as many trees as they could.
For her part, Hermione was working on translating ancient truth circle rituals into something they could do in English. Rituals worked best if you knew what you were saying and meant it, but in order to do that, it couldn't be something in Old Gaelic or Latin. Blaise was better at translating Latin than she was, so he tackled that one while Hermione painstakingly worked through the old Druid ritual Harry and Luna had found.
For added difficulty, Hermione had to cross-reference with philosophy books to understand the limitations of what the ritual could and would do. From her experience, the Wizengamot's the Truth Circle seemed limited to binary true/false statements. Hermione would have presumed that Truth Circles acted on the correspondence theory of truth, as determined or known by the person being questioned, but she'd been prevented from calling herself a Muggle-born by the Truth Circle.
And she was a Muggle-born – or 'Muggle-borne', if nothing else – something she knew to be true, even if only by technicality. But Magic had prevented her from saying so, which meant complicated metaphysical ideas of the Truth and reality held actual weight. Had she been unable to say she was Muggle-born because she was objectively a New Blood in an empirical reality? Or was it because she'd said the words enough times that she believed them to be true?
Hermione didn't know. And not knowing things frustrated her.
She wanted her Truth Circle to prevent all lies, if she could make it - lies of body language, lies of omission as well as commission, deliberately misleading statements. But with the nature of language, she didn't know if that would even be possible. She researched more and more, but there was significantly less crossover between magical theory and philosophy than she would have liked.
Eventually, Hermione conceded that maybe she'd need to combine methods of interrogation for new members – make them drink from the Waters of Truth, which would be something akin to Veritaserum (she'd ask Theo to figure something out that wouldn't poison people), and then they would answer questions while they sat in the Truth Circle, too, so nothing would be left out.
When the full moon finally arrived, Hermione felt relieved more than excited about it. She was more than ready to be done with this part of her tasks.
Her coven planted the grove first, thirteen trees in a carefully spaced circle around a central point: alder, apple, ash, birch elm, elder, hawthorn, hazel, pine, oak, rowan, thorn, willow, and yew. To give them all sufficient room to grow, the grove ended up much larger than Hermione had realized it was going to be, but when they were done, they had thirteen 6-foot sticks protruding up from the ground, each a fair distance from the trench dug into the ground.
When it was done, the coven moved to sit around the silver circle in the trench in a pentagram.
"This is going to work a little differently," Hermione advised her covenmates, her friends watching her in the moonlight. "We're going to do the chant first with just us, multiplying and circling our power through us. This will help purify the earth here – just this earth here and out to the trees, mind you – and it will work to ensure truth in a more pragmatic, practical way. Then, after we enchant the circle the first time, we'll all tap the ley line and enchant it again through that, which will help enforce a more metaphysical abstract truth as well."
The others looked at her, before Harry slowly nodded.
"Whatever you say," he said amicably. "Whenever you're ready, then."
The ritual went smoothly – the sacrificial bleeding and building of power was customary for them all by now, as was the chanting in sync. It was when they moved to the second part of the ritual, the tapping of the ley line, that unexpected things began to happen.
The Truth Circle began to emanate a white-blue light as it was enchanted, magic whirling around and flowing through them all, and wisps of light began escaping, coalescing into beings around them, outside of the circle. They were tall and lithe, and Hermione realized she recognized one of them – one wearing armor somehow made from leaves.
"Hermione Jean Granger," it murmured to her, drifting near her. "I thought we would meet again."
Only practice and discipline kept everyone chanting. There was stark shock in everyone's eyes as they took in the Fae, who had decided to visit unexpectedly. Across the circle, another familiar figure with black horns and deep blue skin lurked in the shadows behind Blaise – the one she'd called Eire, before. She couldn't hear what Eire was whispering to Blaise, but from the way he tensed, she suspected nothing good.
As more beings coalesced, they began talking over the magic.
"What are they doing? Are they making a Truth Circle?"
"They are. Clever witchlings. Doing it properly, too."
"Lots of blood. Lucky there aren't any erklings about, aren't you?"
And then, making idle conversation and statements:
"Did you know many humans think the Fae cannot lie?" one Fae commented. It was tall with pale magenta skin. Vines wove over its skin, creating clothes out of ivy, and it wore a crown of thorns in its short hair, which was violently red. "Silly creatures."
"We can lie, you know," murmured another, one with three pairs of eyes glowing out of deep purple skin. "We just don't."
"Why lie, if the truth can hurt more?" Eire remarked. And then, cruelly, "And the truth can always hurt more."
As the magic built to a climax, the enchantment almost done, the Fae continued talking, their voices somehow able to cut through the screaming winds effortlessly, without being raised.
"Opening a ley line in a grove," the one Hermione recognized said with amusement. "Do you think they knew they were creating a pathway?"
"Oh, I think not," said the one with six eyes. It grinned, revealing many sharp teeth. "I rather think they were using old Druid magic traditions that they know not the meaning of."
"This one knew," said Eire, standing behind Luna and looking down at her. "She is of Ruari's line."
"A grove," said another. It tilted its head in thought, though the tilt was nearly ninety degrees. "Should we help?"
"Should we not?" one said back. "I see only good coming from this."
Eire laughed. "Good for everyone, good for us."
The Fae vanished back into swirls of magic, and as the ritual came to a climax, the coven's chant ending with a shout and a bright flash of white from the silver circle before them, the ground below them suddenly glowed green and rumbled.
Incredibly, the baby trees began to grow.
It was like watching a time-lapse film – the trees growing branches, extending, growing and dropping leaves as they stretched upward and outward. Hermione watched the elder tree behind Susan take shape (a much more tree-like shape than she expected, honestly) while a thick yew tree twisted up behind Luna, its gnarled trunk thickening and immediately providing a more ominous backdrop to the area.
They waited until the earth had stopped rumbling before they dared stand.
"Are we presuming that the Fae did this?" Blaise asked, looking at one of the newly-grown trees. "I know we'd discussed using earth magic in conjunction with the ley line to help the trees get a head start, but…"
Hermione swallowed.
"Yeah," she said. "That was the Fae."
"What did you know?" Harry asked Luna. "They said you knew something about them coming."
Luna winced.
"I didn't," she said. "Not really. But there are stories that they used old groves to tie their realm to ours."
"So if they grew the trees…" Hermione said, considering. "Do we think that these trees now exist in the Fae realm as well? Tying their realm to ours?"
Luna blinked.
"Possibly?" she said. "If it works like that. It might not." She shrugged. "But it's to serve magic. I wouldn't worry about it much."
Blaise scoffed. "The Fae would flay someone if it 'served magic'."
"Luckily flaying any of us wouldn't serve magic, then," Luna said calmly.
"Let's get back on topic," said Susan, who seemed spooked by the Fae. "None of us said anything to them, and the ley line is closed now, right?" She looked around at them all as they nodded. "Then all they did was intimidate us – which was probably their goal – and help our grove to grow."
"If nothing else, this is going to impress the hedges and Blackwell kids," Harry said, whistling as he walked around a mighty oak tree. "I wonder if we can get the Fae to help out like this every time we plant a grove?"
"Asking the Fae for favors is dangerous," Hermione cautioned, wincing. "I'd rather we not make it a habit."