[A/N: Thank you to Calamity Owl and Darsynia for beta-reading this chapter! Fair warning: this one's a cliffhanger.]


Harry settled easily into his new routine of coming home to dinner with Sirius, Remus, and Hermione, no matter when he got done with work. That did cause him to miss an impromptu after-work trip to the pub with a colleague once, but he thought that was a good trade-off for regular family suppers. By Sunday morning, when Hermione and Remus laid out their plans to use his two days off in a row to perform some rituals on her, Harry was almost sad to see it end. He did miss being in his own place, though, and he knew it wouldn't be safe for them there much longer with the full moon only a few days away.

After they finished their Sunday breakfast, Sirius lit his wand with a Lumos Charm and led the rest of them down to an old ritual room in the sub-basement he'd spent the previous day preparing for use again.

"You should have seen it," he said. "There was enough blood scattered about that I wonder if my mother sacrificed my father in there." Beyond them, the main hallway of the sub-basement stretched into the foetid (and presumably spider-infested) darkness.

Hermione laughed, then stopped when she realised no one else was.

"It's alright." Sirius patted her on the head. "I thought it was kind of funny, too. It would have served him right for being dumb enough to marry that abusive old hag."

"Don't worry," Remus added, "we won't need to sacrifice more than a little blood for this ritual."

"You're serious. Blood?" she asked.

"No, I'm Sirius," Sirius said as he opened the door to the ritual room. "Yes! I've been waiting all week to catch her on that."

Hermione pouted. "You only got me because I was distracted by the suggestion of actual blood sacrifice."

"It's pretty normal," Harry said, taking in the room. It was built of old Portland Limestone with lighting runes carved all the way around the walls about a foot below where it met the walnut ceiling boards. Sirius touched his wand to the runes as he entered and they all lit up like a series of dim magical LEDs.

Sirius said, "Nox" and cancelled his light spell, leaving their eyes to adjust to the dimmer rune light. "It could be worse," he said. "Some rituals need to be performed skyclad."

"Wait, what?" Hermione asked.

"Starkers," Harry said, both to be helpful and to see the look on her face. She did not disappoint.

"What?!" Hermione's mouth fell open. "That's a thing?"

"Indeed it is," Sirius said, and let his eyes rove suggestively from her to Harry. "Better luck next time, Pup."

She blushed bright red.

"Stop traumatising our guest," Harry said. "Knowing ritual magic, this is probably going to be uncomfortable enough without that sort of thing."

Sirius rolled his eyes and gestured for Hermione to sit down in the centre of a ritual circle he'd prepared. Her place was in the centre of a square drawn on the stone in thick red chalk, which was inscribed in a circle of green chalk that was itself inscribed in a circle of blue chalk. Harry didn't recognize the runes written in white chalk where each of the shapes overlapped, but he did recognize Remus's handwriting in them. Which was for the best, since attaching Hermione's magical core to runes designed by Sirius would probably be the equivalent of hooking the feed block, action, and ammunition magazine of a Vickers machine gun to the barrel of a water pistol.

"She's not some blushing innocent, you know," Sirius said. "She basically organised multiple rituals for herself that would be illegal if the Ministry ever found out about their existence."

"Illegal?" squeaked Hermione.

"It's alright, dear," Remus said. "We simply won't get caught."

"Oh, that's fine, then," she said, her voice still high-pitched.

"Wait," Harry said, "why didn't you organise the ritual plan?"

Sirius snorted. "Do you think I have any idea what's in the Black Library? It combines the two things I hate most: studying and my family."

"Moving on," Remus said, "shall we start with the ritual to remove the beacon ward?" He held out an ancient mahogany box and opened it to reveal a polished silver athame.

Hermione eyed it warily. "That's not just for show, is it?"

"I'm afraid not," Remus said. "We'll all be using it."

"Wait, 'all'?"

"It's OK," Harry said. "Wizards and witches are immune to all of the diseases you're thinking of. There are some magical diseases we'll need to get you vaccinated for now that we know what you are, but the three of us are vaccinated against those, so you're fine for the moment."

"Oh," Hermione said. "I'm sorry, I'm not used to being able to thumb my nose at germs."

"Germs?" Sirius asked.

"Later," Harry said firmly before Hermione sidetracked them with an introductory biology lecture. Not that Sirius didn't need one, of course, just that it wasn't the time.

Remus held the box out to her. "You should go first. Take the athame in your left hand and cut across your palm, then press the cut into that rune at the centre of this circle. When you're done, pass the athame to Sirius and he'll put his blood into the runes between the circles and the outer square, then we'll do likewise. I'll heal us all when we're done."

She nodded, set her jaw, and drew the athame from the box. "Let's do this, then," she said. She scooted back a few inches so she'd have access to the central rune and put the knife across her palm. With one smooth motion and a hiss of pain, she made a shallow cut about two inches long from the meat of her thumb horizontally across her palm, then placed the dripping wound on the rune. When she withdrew her still-bleeding hand, the rune glowed with a red-gold light.

"Nice work," Sirius said as he accepted the athame from her. She accepted the compliment with a nod and a bit of a wince.

The others did likewise, and, when all three had applied their blood to the runes, red-gold light flowed in a triangle connecting the three men and lines connecting each vertex of the triangle to the central rune, and then in a circle inscribed in the triangle that also circumscribed the outer square. "Good job, everyone," Remus said. "The circle of magic is rising. Your hands, please."

They all held out their hands to him and he healed them with Episkey charms. Once he'd healed himself, as well, he sat back down in a cross-legged posture and said, "Hermione, do you remember the opening blessings?"

She nodded. "Lord of Magic, please bless our circle with your strength. Lady of Magic, please bless our circle with your protection."

The men repeated after her and the red-gold light glowed even more brightly.

Remus nodded, and Hermione pulled out a sheet of paper. "Repeat after me," she said, and led them slowly through a Latin chant. When they finished, the light rose up and swirled around her for a moment before subsiding into the triangle and lines again.

As the light swirled, Hermione closed her eyes, and as it subsided she collapsed like a balloon, falling slowly to her left until Harry (who was seated just to her left and behind her) caught her. "Are you alright?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "That took a lot out of me. Did it work?"

"I think so," Harry said.

Sirius nodded. Remus added, "Yes, you can tell because the light merely swirled away as opposed to flaring and blinking out. The ward someone put on your core to monitor for magic use is now thoroughly destroyed. Ironically, the core binding made that easier, since we'd have had to drain your whole core if it were fully unbound. As it is, we just had to drain what little had escaped around your binding."

"I understand." Hermione gave Harry a smile, lips-closed smile and up straight again. "Shall we unbind my core now?"

"Yes," Remus said. "We'll need to be cautious since, unlike everyone I've ever heard of with such a binding, you've never been trained to control your magic before. We don't want–"

"Let's just do it," Hermione said.

"Wait," Harry said, "what was he going to say?"

She sighed. "This is why I didn't want you to tell him."

"Tell me what?"

"That the book describing this ritual warned practitioners there was a risk of magical core corruption in the ritual's focus." Hermione's eyes dared him to respond.

Harry rarely backed down from a dare. "That could kill you!"

"I know, and we're going to do it anyway," she responded. "I will not let them win, do you hear me?"

"They win if you die!"

"No, they don't!" she shouted back, and all around them the room seemed to glow more brightly. "If you…you die one day on duty, criminals won't win. They've already lost because we have men like you out there protecting us. Whoever did this to me only wins if I let them, and I will not let them. I may die, but I will not let them."

"Damn," Sirius said. They both looked at him and his only response was to cast his eyes down at the blood-gold luminescent circle and triangle. The lines of light were thicker now, almost two inches in diameter, and easily thrice as bright.

Remus raised his eyebrows. "I'm not surprised Harry could charge a circle with accidental emotional magic, but this is Hermione's, too. Even bound, she's a powerful witch."

"And I don't wish to be bound anymore," she said, "no matter what the consequences. Free me, Harry."

He nodded, unable to tear himself away from her eyes long enough to formulate a response. Normally a deep brown, somehow flecks within them seemed to be almost catching fire from the red-gold light around her.

"Good." She withdrew a larger piece of parchment and took a deep breath. "Gentlemen, it's been a pleasure. Let's finish this."

Harry followed her through a more complex chant this time, and after a solid minute threads of what looked and moved like black tar began to weave themselves into the lines of light emanating from the centre. As the chant concluded, the lines of blackness spread next through the circle and finally through the triangle.

Sirius broke the silence first. "Is it–"

"No," Remus said tightly. "It isn't."

Hermione winced. "Bloody…hell…this…hurts," she panted.

"I fear whatever bound you was far more powerful than the ritual anticipated," Remus said. "We may have just destabilised it."

"How…bad?" Hermione asked.

"I'm…so sorry," he said.

"Damn it." A few tears glistened on her eyes, but she refused to cry.

"No," Harry whispered.

Sirius's eyes widened. "Isn't there something we can do?"

"I don't think so," Remus said. "The binding enchantment has only been partially pulled out of her and the circle isn't powerful enough to draw it out completely. In a few minutes, the binding enchantment is going to overwhelm and terminate the connections between our vertices, at which point it all collapses back into her and the feedback will likely kill her."

"Then why are we still talking instead of putting more power into the circle?" Harry grabbed the athame as he spoke.

"Because that will almost certainly kill us!" Remus snapped. "The binding enchantment is woven into the circle now and we'd be caught in its collapse, too."

"If it's been partially drawn out," Harry asked, "then why can't we Finite it?"

"Like I said, the enchantment has woven itself into the circle now," Remus shot back. "Every Finite would weaken the circle along with the enchantment, and there's not a wizard left in the world who could power the circle long enough for us to destroy the enchantment."

"Could Dumbledore have done it?" Harry asked.

"He wouldn't have risked–"

"Could Dumbledore have done it?" Harry shouted.

Remus's silence was the only answer Harry needed.

Sirius looked between them, horror growing in his eyes. "Harry, don't you–" was as far as the man got before Harry slashed his right palm and slammed it into the rune below his spot.

"Harry…no," Hermione gasped.

"Fuck it," Harry said. "We're finishing this." Without removing his right hand from the rune carved into the stone floor, he drew his wand from his wrist holster and cast a left-handed Finite Incantatum, focusing his intent on the tar-like tendrils flowing through the circle.

The tendrils underneath his wand faded, then returned to full strength. Rivulets of pain began to flow up his right arm, but he'd had much, much worse.

"Damn it, Harry." Remus said as he and Sirius drew their wands.

"No…please…" Hermione's voice was barely above a whisper and taut with pain.

"Yell later. Help now," Harry said.

They nodded and the three of them hammered the binding enchantment with three simultaneous Finites. The black tendrils faded tremendously, as did the red-gold light.

"Again." Harry gritted his teeth and tried to focus on only the blackness as he cast. The tendrils didn't have a chance to regain their former strength before the next set of spells hit them and they faded even more.

Harry ground his injured palm into the rock to draw out more blood, then said, "Again!"

The next set of spells withered the tendrils into faded threads even as the red-gold light around them glowed stronger. Hermione was starting to sway, though, and Harry had a feeling they'd either nearly won, were nearly out of time, or both.

"Again!" he said, and again their spells slammed into the binding enchantment. The blackness disappeared entirely, the red-gold light exploded, and the last thing Harry saw before he lost consciousness was Hermione pitching face-first onto the stone floor.