A/N: I would like to remind readers that everything in this story is seen through Hermione's eyes, and as such, it's often a tinted portrayal of what is actually happening. The objective truth of what's going on may differ from Hermione's subjective perception of reality.

Anything Hermione may have forgotten doing or testing, Hermione has forgotten - the author has not. You all understand, yes? :)

While the first members of the Umbra meditated in a large ley line not far from outside The Yard, Hermione sat nearby at a picnic table, writing furiously.

—Hogwarts is hosting it, and it sounds like there's only one champion from each school, but anyone who wants to try can come. I think it's the study abroad opportunity your teachers were hinting at last year.

It sounds really dangerous, honestly, and there's a death toll, but it also sounds like they just let anyone enter before, and now they're only letting people of age enter to reduce that danger. But anyone who comes will stay for the entire year, I think. It's not clear if they'll attend the Hogwarts classes or just learn from their own teachers but abroad.

I'll look up more about it as soon as I get back to school – I can't find much about it not in a library, but—

"I got it!"

Hermione looked up from her parchment sharply to see Harry, looking very dizzy but triumphant.

"Hermione, I think I've got it," he said, sounding excited but also very strained. "Can you check?"

Hermione hurried over to the group and sat down, reaching out with her own magic to feel for Harry's. Sure enough, his magic had matched the resonance of the ley line's.

"Ooh, you do!" Hermione exclaimed. "Well done, Harry!"

"Great. Now what?" Harry said breathlessly. "I don't know how long I can keep this up."

Hermione bit her lip. "Try to let the energy go slowly and retreat back into yourself. After more people get it, we can try creating lines. But I don't want you to try that alone."

"Right." Harry sounded relieved. He began putting back the ley line magic that had swept into his core and returning his core to its own speed, and Hermione had to smile fondly as Harry gradually relaxed as he emptied himself of the extra magic.

"I can do it too," Pansy said, snide. "I didn't realize we were supposed to have you check our work when we were done."

Hermione rolled her eyes. As expected, when she reached out with her magic, Pansy's had matched the ley line's resonance perfectly. Pansy seemed in much less distress than Harry had been; Hermione wondered if her magic's natural resonance was at a higher frequency that was already close to where the ley line's was.

"This is hard," Tracey complained. "I don't know how you guys are managing it."

"They're focusing," Millie hissed at Tracey, keeping her eyes closed. "Meditate, like she said."

Tracey groaned. "I'm pants at peaceful meditation."

Throughout the day, a few more of them managed to do get it – Susan, Luna, Blaise, and Draco. Theo, Millie, and Tracey were still struggling with it. Hermione encouraged them to take a break, go get a drink, and circulate with the hedges in The Yard and relax for a little while. It wasn't an easy thing, she emphasized, so they shouldn't take the fact that they hadn't managed it to mean that they'd never manage it.

Theo had rolled his eyes and made a quip that if Draco had managed it, it couldn't really be that hard, but he'd gone with the two girls up to The Yard anyway.

The rest of them followed Hermione into the woods, a ways away from the ley line they'd been sitting in.

"If there's already a line, you might end up jumping the line by mistake, without first making your own, which would be disastrous," she emphasized. "We need a new place."

Harry frowned. "So where are we going to go?"

As they settled back onto the ground, now in a small clearing in the forest, Hermione spread out the map Luna had given her and frowned.

"Wherever you want, I guess," she said.

"How are you visualizing all this going?" Susan asked her, prodding gently. "Walk us through what you're thinking."

Hermione took a deep breath.

"So you'll have to go one at a time," she said. "So… one of you takes the oath first, then makes a ley line. I wait a moment before coming after you through that same line to make sure you made it. You cry through your line, we take the resulting gem and put it into your pendant, and then we hop the same line back here so you can go celebrate."

"Oh," said Pansy. "That's much easier than I was thinking. I was imagining some kind of race." She smirked, relaxing back against a tree.

"Who goes first?" Harry asked, glancing around.

"We could go by volunteers?" Hermione suggested. "Or just alphabetically, really. It doesn't matter to me."

"Alphabetically is fairest," Luna said firmly.

"You're only saying that 'cause you don't have to go first, then," Susan shot back, but she was grinning.

"Ready, Bones?" Blaise teased her. "Prepare yourself."

Susan sniffed. "I'm ready."

With Hermione breathing with her, Susan reached into her core again, slowly changing the frequency to that of the ley lines of the earth. It was odd to watch for Hermione; she seemed to have to use her existing magic to accelerate her core, but it undeniably worked. Maybe everybody was a bit different.

"There," Susan said, breathless. Her eyes flickered open. "Where's the oath?"

The general oath for Shadows had needed to be a bit edited for the members of Hermione's coven, as they were already in an oath-bound bond together. After Susan had read her version, finishing by swearing on her life, her magic, and her honor, there was a tense silence as she looked at Hermione, who nodded.

"It is going to hurt like nothing you've ever experienced," she warned her. "Hold tight to your will and your magic, focus on your goal, and go."

Susan took a deep breath, and suddenly she was gone.

"Merlin!" Draco exclaimed, his eyes huge. "That—that's silent. That's better than Apparition, really. Did she do it?"

"I'll go see," Hermione said, reaching out with her own magic. Sure enough, there was a new ley line vibrating into existence – one that felt very new and raw, as if it'd just been torn through the earth. "Back in a moment."

She pulled aside the veil of mist and flew through the ley line, following it to the other side. She emerged into the back yard of a stately house, with Susan vomiting into the grass at the other end, her face streaked with tears.

"That was—" Susan's face was pained, desperate. "The pain – just – Hermione, please tell me it's not like that—"

"That was the only time it will ever need to be like that, except in grave emergencies," Hermione promised her, her voice gentle. "Come here – see this end you left when you fell out? You need to cry through this—"

It was all too easy for Susan to dissolve into pained tears again, and a small clutter of gems landed underneath the scar in the world her ley line had left. As Hermione gathered the gems up for Susan, the opening gradually faded from view.

"Where's it going?" Susan asked, coughing. "Underground?"

"Maybe?" Hermione said. "I don't really know. But it's a magical path you left. Now that your matter-based body is done making it, I imagine it's just going to be magical and not physical."

Susan stared at her.

"I'm sure that makes sense somehow," she said, shaking her head. "I just can't process it right now."

Hermione was messing with one of the pendants the goblins had given her, enclosing one of Susan's tear-jewels inside. It required some careful free transfiguration of the gold, but she'd gone over how best to do it with Silversmite and had him watch her practice when she picked the pendants up.

"You have traveled the Journey of the In-Between," Hermione murmured to herself, closing the hole in the pendant. "Now, in the brightness of shadow, you are seen." She got to her knees, kneeling next to Susan and draping the pendant and chain over her head. "The path of the shadows is open to you now, so long as you remember to keep your vow."

Susan laughed, though it sounded choked.

"Is that part of the initiation ritual of it all?" she wanted to know. "That quatrain was not channeling magic, Hermione."

"Not every part of a ritual need be magical," Hermione objected, face flaming. "Some words just have symbolic significance!"

Susan's smile was wry. "If you say so…"

Teaching Susan to hop the lines was much easier. Now that she'd torn her own line through reality, she was able to feel the cool veil of mist in the flow of magic. And since her line was only made between two points, she was hardly likely to get lost.

"Ready?" Hermione asked. "On three, two, one—"

Hermione drew the veil back, traveling through the line back to her friends. When she emerged, Susan had already hobbled off to the side and was vomiting, with Pansy looking scandalized.

"Really, Bones?" she said, disgusted. "Surely you can keep yourself together."

"Wait until you try," Susan vowed, pausing to heave again. "Five galleons says you puke too."

Pansy sniffed. "You're on."

Susan staggered off to The Yard to get a drink and steady herself. Hermione turned to look at the others.

"Potter, Malfoy, Lovegood, Parkinson, Zabini," she said aloud, mentally alphabetizing. She turned to Luna. "You're next."

"I think Pansy should go next," Luna said, tilting her head. "She made a bet with Susan. Let's settle that first, then we can go back to alphabetical."

Hermione blinked, puzzled, but shrugged.

"Easy enough for me," she said. "Any objections?"

Pansy looked annoyed and apprehensive, but she didn't voice a protest.

"Right, then," Hermione said. "Match your resonance first, then the oath."

Pansy's violin visualization seemed remarkably efficient for this sort of magic – she had her magic attuned to the natural note of the ley lines in short order, and she prepared to give her oath. Pansy had sworn a brief oath of loyalty to Hermione a year before, but as she wasn't coven-bonded, Pansy now knelt and read the entire oath out word for word, the first time it'd been heard aloud in its entirety from start to finish.

"I, Pansy Parkinson, swear myself to The Shadows. I shall follow the Gnomon and follow their direction, as all shadows must do," Pansy said, her voice clear and firm. "I shall not betray the shadows, the secrets of the shadows, nor another shadow to the outside. No matter what is done to me, I swear myself to the silence of the shadows; if I have an issue, I shall bring it to the Gnomon, the collective, or I will handle it myself. This I so swear, and should I betray the shadows by word or by action, may magic consume me and take my life."

Hermione looked around at the others, pleased. The oath sounded strong and proper, like a good oath should, and the others seemed to agree with its gravitas. Harry looked mildly impressed while Blaise was nodding, approving. Draco was shooting a look at Luna that Hermione couldn't decipher, but Luna was just smiling back at him, nodding slightly, making Draco turn away and roll his eyes.

"I will serve as a shadow of the Gnomon," Pansy continued. "The enemies of the shadows I take as my own, and I will help against those that would harm us, through either Light or Dark. I will respect and honor the shadows and the Gnomon, and I would trust them completely in good faith and treat my comrades without deceit. I will not deceive the Gnomon, nor shall I try to harm or hinder their aims. My arm will be their wand, my eyes their scout, and my body their soldier. This I swear on my life, my magic, and my honor."

Hermione warned Pansy of the pain, encouraging her to stay determined, before telling her to go.

It was odd – there was a sudden violence in the air, in the magic of the area, and Pansy was back on the ground, clutching her stomach and groaning. She glared at the ground with a fury, her magic still resonating.

"Are you—" Hermione began, worried, but Pansy cut her off.

"I failed; it's fine," Pansy told her. "I know what I did wrong. Hang on—"

Pansy abruptly vanished, and this time, she did not return.

"I wonder what she messed up," Harry asked aloud, blinking. "That was… odd."

Hermione hopped Pansy's new line to find Pansy in a glade, retching into a small pond. Through the trees, Hermione could just make out a house, and she wondered if it was Parkinson manor.

"Can you cry into the line?" Hermione asked gently. "It'll settle soon."

Pansy dragged herself over to where her ley line was still vibrating above the ground, tears silently falling off her cheeks. Hermione took one tiny crystallized tear from the ground and began the process of encasing it in a pendant, much quicker than she'd managed Susan's.

"I know I lost the bet with Bones," Pansy said, her voice rough. "In my defense, though – that was awful."

"Susan threw up both ways, too," Hermione reassured Pansy. "Pain can cause nausea, I know, so I don't blame either of you. Definitely something we'll need to account for in the final ritual, though – puking isn't very dramatic or climactic or magical."

"Hang on, are you saying you didn't throw up?" Pansy wanted to know. "How? Granger, that was the worst thing I think I've ever felt—"

"I've already felt really bad pain from magic a fair few times?" Hermione guessed aloud as she encased Pansy's jewel in a pendant. "New moon in February first year, I nearly broke my core at the same time I messed up my womb for a bit, and that was pretty awful. Then Beltane second year, I scorched my nerves through my arms, and that was like being electrocuted, I imagine—"

"Morgana, Granger, you really get around, don't you?" Pansy said disgustedly. Hermione laughed.

"Being New Blood goes hand in hand with trying out powerful and painful new magic, I guess," she said, amused. She put the chain and pendant over Pansy's head, pausing to settle it around her neck and give her a smile. "There."

"That's it?" Pansy asked, blinking. She picked up the pendant lying on her chest, weighing it in her hand.

"Well, normally I'd say some ritualistic words, but Susan already made fun of me for them," Hermione said, her face reddening. "We can go back, now, though. You've made your own line, so you're safe to just travel them now."

Pansy understood how to hop a ley line almost immediately, as Hermione explained it to her. Making your own ley line seemed to give some sort of unspoken, intuitive knowledge of how to travel the ley lines, and as soon as Hermione told her, Pansy vanished into the ley line, Hermione hurrying after her.

Pansy did not throw up on the return journey, though she did look very green.

"Well done," Draco praised her. He shot a smug grin at Harry. "See?"

"She did throw up on the other end," Hermione commented, giving Draco a look, and Pansy scowled.

"Whatever. I owe Bones five galleons," Pansy said. "That'll get her what, a hundred drinks from this pathetic place?"

She stalked off after Susan to The Yard, not stopping for congratulations from the rest of the group. Hermione stared after her for a long moment, before shaking her head and smirking to herself.

"Okay, who's next?" she said. "Ready, Luna?"

Luna smiled and moved herself to the center of the group. "Ready."

Luna's line didn't take long for her to make, and she didn't vomit after the creation of it either. She did cry, but to Hermione's astonishment, they weren't tears of agony.

"I've never felt so alive," she confessed to Hermione, her tears dripping through the end of the line.

"But it hurts," Hermione protested, confused, and Luna shrugged.

"What is pain, if not a sign that we're alive?" she asked. She looked at Hermione. "You might need to be prepared for more people like me – who come out of it not in despair, but in euphoria."

Hermione gave a grim smile. "Right."

Luna's hop back didn't result in so much as an upset stomach for her either, and Hermione strongly suspected her mother's heritage might be giving Luna an advantage, though she didn't say it aloud.

Both Draco and Harry threw up on their turns. Draco came as no surprise – he'd looked like he was ready to throw up during the oath, though he gave it – but Hermione was a bit surprised at Harry.

"I don't have a lot of experience with magical pain," Harry defended himself, embarrassed. "I wanted to throw up the first time I traveled by Floo, too."

"It'll get better with practice," Hermione reassured him, draping his pendant around his neck. "Ready to go back?"

After Harry's turn left only Blaise, he and Hermione sitting alone in the forest while Harry chased after Draco, intent on informing him how he only threw up once, not twice. Blaise gave her a look and raised an eyebrow, and Hermione grinned.

"Ready?" she asked him.

Blaise grinned back. "Always."

Hermione sat with Blaise as he matched his magic to the tone of the ley line, which went smoothly. As he recited his oath, though, it was immediately obvious that something was wrong, and he stopped in the middle, eyes wide.

"Do you feel that?" he asked her. "That's—"

"It feels like a rubber band snapping at me," Hermione said, blinking. "Like it's mad and doesn't want to link up."

"Did any of the others feel like this?" Blaise wanted to know, letting his magic settle back down to its normal speed while they pondered, the incomplete words of his oath falling away.

"No, none," Hermione admitted. "Not even the covens'."

Blaise and Hermione looked at each other quizzically, both puzzled.

"You never did let me give an oath of fealty, did you?" he asked.

"I don't think so," she said. "Maybe loyalty at some point, but Pansy had done one of those too, and it didn't feel like that with her, either."

They looked at each other, both deep in thought.

"…is there a way to examine it?" Blaise ventured finally. "Like, we clearly have an oath or bond or something already that's in the way of a new one…"

"If there's some kind of spell to reveal what magical bonds a person has, it's new to me," Hermione said. "We could try and feel it out, though? Maybe that would help."

It was as good an idea as any. Hermione and Blaise both closed their eyes, and, holding hands, centered themselves and their magic, before tentatively reaching for the bond they'd both felt before, the one that'd objected to Blaise's oath.

It was hard to find, in a way that was hard to articulate. The primary bond between Hermione and Blaise was the coven bond, but she knew that hadn't been what she'd felt before. After discussing it, she and Blaise both removed their coven rings, setting them aside on the grass before joining hands once more.

Without the coven bond, it was immediately easier to find – there was a bond between the two of them that felt like a silver rope, woven between them, silver straw poking out from the braid. Somehow, though, the rope felt odd.

"What is this?" Hermione wanted to know. "Do you know?"

"I don't," Blaise admitted. "I know it's not a marriage bond – those are gold – and it's not a bond of loyalty – those would be purple, for the color of your magic. If it were fealty, I'm fairly certain it'd be green, the color of my magic, which leaves…" Blaise shrugged helplessly. "I don't know."

"Well, it's definitely magical," Hermione said decisively. "Though – it doesn't quite feel complete to me. Does it to you?"

"What do you mean?" Blaise said. "It seems pretty sturdy from my side."

Hermione bit her lip. "…here. Reach your magic out the rope to me. Just be aware, when our magic touches without the coven rings, it might feel…" She glanced away, clearing her throat. "Well. Just stay focused."

As Blaise reached his magic out to Hermione along the bond, tentatively, Hermione's own magic touched his. She shuddered as her magic touched his, and Blaise jolted where he sat with a gasp.

"Here," she said, her voice strained as she guided his magic back to her core. "If you follow the bond from this direction, can you feel how it frays?"

"It does," Blaise said, rather breathless. "It doesn't feel like that at all from my end, though. Here—can you feel—?"

After some experimentation going across the bond form both directions, both together and separately, Hermione was breathing rather hard, determinedly staying focused on her magic and not the way Blaise's magic left her body tingling.

"So at some point, something happened," Hermione said, her voice decisive, not wobbly at all. "And it created a bond between us."

"Moreso," Blaise said, his voice slightly shaky, "whatever it was, I completed it, whereas you didn't."

"I started it," Hermione said. "I think, at least. And then when you did your part, you completed it, but I never completed mine."

Blaise shook his head. "I've got no idea."

They sat there, pondering. It was clear the strange bond they'd discovered superseded the oath bond Blaise had been ready to make, but Hermione couldn't remember what this was. She ran through every ritual they'd done together in her head, dismissing each one in turn.

"Hermione…" Hermione looked up, and Blaise met her eyes, his own looking a bit spooked. "Whatever we started – whatever words we said – we clearly didn't finish it for a reason." He paused. "Could we have been memory charmed? Could someone have come across us in the middle of a ritual and interrupted us, and then Obliviated us to not remember making the bond?"

Hermione's eyes grew wide.

"I have no idea," she breathed. "I always thought—I thought that the Occlumency ritual we did would prevent that from happening – that it'd protect us from Memory Charms. I'm not sure why I thought that, though. It's not like we've ever tested it. Is there any way to know if your memory's been tampered with?"

"Not if it's done by an expert," Blaise said, his gaze serious. "If someone who doesn't know what they're doing goes in and does it, yeah, it can be detected, but Snape? Dumbledore?" His eyes were grave. "We'd never know."