CW: Child abandonment and related issues
Blackwell's School of Spells was a very small school of magical children, located on Lundy. They'd taken over the old Marisco Castle on the island, enchanted it to look like dangerous ruins to the muggles, and lived there.
"There's only like twenty muggles who live on the island," Andy told Hermione. "They see us sometimes, but they know enough to leave us alone and pretend they didn't see. They're a superstitious lot."
Blackwell was called a school because students learned magic there, technically, but it was much more like a home for abandoned magical children than an actual school.
"If you have magic, but not enough to flag for a letter from a real magic school, you end up at Blackwell," Andy explained. He gave them a wry smile. "This is the first time I've met anyone who went to an actual magic school. It was only rumor, before, that other magic schools even existed."
"How can that be?" Hermione asked, incredibly confused. "You brought a piece of the Daily Prophet with you. Surely you know about Hogwarts."
"We found it," Ooly said, stubborn. "It jus' floated outta the air this morning', reekin' of Fae magic—"
"It was sent to us," Andy corrected. "We presumed it to be a Faerie trick, but—" He paused here, shrugging. "Well. We were bored, and we figured we'd risk it."
As the boys spoke, a picture began to emerge – a place where children with weak magic, children who had been thrown out by their families, lived together and taught each other the best they could. They were all Muggle-born, but from different social classes in their muggle lives.
"We've got one adult right now, and we think he's trapped there," Gabbro said. "We call him 'Iron' or 'Iron Man'. One, 'cause he's our hero; two, 'cause he kinda looks like Iron Man; and three, 'cause he can't hop the lines. He's stuck on the island."
"He can't take a ferry?" Hermione asked, incredulous.
"Can't go over running water," Gabbro said, shrugging. "Like we said – stuck."
At Blackwell, the 'students' learned to make magical staffs that they could use to channel the magic of the ley lines. They learned some spells, ones that had been passed down, scribbled onto the walls and into notebooks, but mostly they just roamed and tried to survive.
"We've hid a piece of the island from the muggles," Andy said, shrugging. "We grow food there, with magic. It's this massive garden, really – one of the girls, Variol, she figured out how to make it so the ground is good and can grow all kinds of things – and we've got a magic orchard behind it."
"You know weather magic?" Luna asked, surprised.
Ooly looked confused.
"No?" he said. "She jus'—I dunno—grows. She don't control the weather, really. On'y helps the plants'n'stuff."
When the mysterious invitation had arrived from nowhere, all of Blackwell had discussed it and argued over it, finally deciding it had to be a trick from the Fae. The three boys had broken away from the others and decided to risk it, even if only to break up the monotony of their everyday routine.
"An' now we're here," Ooly finished proudly. "Wit' food."
"Well, now that you know we're not a faerie trick, why don't you go get your friends?" Luna suggested. "If you can all jump the lines, you have several hours before they close. We have more than enough food. And we can all celebrate the equinox together."
"And I can tell you what the magic world is really like," Clover emphasized. "The world you guys didn't even know existed."
Andy looked at the other two boys, mischievous grins spreading over their faces.
"Deal," he said decisively. "We'll be right back."
Hermione was having an existential crisis.
On one hand, she was incredibly impressed by the ingenuity of what were, essentially, a bunch of orphaned Muggleborns. The fact that there was any place for weak-magic Muggleborns, and the fact that people made it there, based on rumors from others living in the streets… that was rather incredible, as was the fact that a bunch of children continually managed to survive with very little aid. Their independence and ferocity were admirable.
On the other hand, they were a bunch of abandoned children, and the fact Blackwell existed at all made Hermione want to cry.
Somehow, Hermione had ended up over with Blaise, who was hugging her to his side.
"What can I even do?" she whispered. "They're just kids, Blaise. Look at them."
Andy and his crew had returned with twenty-some other children. The oldest of them was nineteen, helping to corral the younger as they descended upon the refreshments table; the youngest was only six and missing a front tooth when she smiled.
The horribleness of the entire thing weighed heavily on Hermione.
"I want to get them help," she said. "But I know they won't accept it – they clearly don't trust non-magical adults at this point, and the magical adults won't help them – their magic is too weak for anyone to give a damn. Especially for Muggle-borns. But I can't just leave them there…"
Blaise rocked her gently, squeezing.
"You can't fix everything in the world at once," he told her softly. "Look, Hermione – they might be abandoned, but they're safe, happy, and healthy for the most part. That's more than they had at home."
Hermione clenched her eyes and fought tears back. She didn't want to think about what kind of abuse would have caused some of them to run away, or what kind of evil, hateful person would abandon their own child.
"We're going to heal your land, remember?" Blaise told her, nudging her. "Once you have your lands set up, you can invite hedgewitches to move in. Then you can start setting up your little magic schools, planting druid groves, making an orphanage for Muggle-borns, whatever you want. But you have to get there one step at a time, love." He squeezed her. "Right?"
"One step at a time," Hermione agreed, sighing. She closed her eyes. "It's just—it's so hard, Blaise. It's so hard."
Blaise rocked her. "I know."
Everyone else seemed to be having a blast at least. Harry and Theo had bonded with a bunch of the Blackwell boys immediately (maybe connecting over having abusive parents, Hermione thought), and they were telling them how broomsticks worked. Jerran was taking kids up on his broomstick one at a time to fly around, and Clover and Susan were in animated discussion with most of the girls who had come.
Derek and Draco were getting the sacrifice ready for the celebration – a goat – while Pansy and Luna stomped a ritual circle into the grass. Hermione was really not looking forward to the actual killing of a goat, but she still had a hard time articulating to herself why. She ate meat, didn't she? And she used dead animal parts in Potions all the time. If she went fishing, she would clean and eat the fish she caught, wouldn't she? So why was killing and eating a goat any different? She tried to push the matter out of her thoughts. She felt uneasy about the whole thing, but she didn't want her reservations to taint the celebration somehow.
Maybe it was just because it was so messy. That much blood and gore was enough to make anyone somewhat squeamish, wasn't it?
The ritual circle ended up being very big, with all the newcomers from Blackwell. Aurican had flown off to the Abbotts' land nearby and returned with a small crowd of his own, and suddenly there were nearly fifty people for the ritual, milling about, chatting, getting ready.
Hermione pulled a couple of her friends aside.
"Tracey, do you think you can go back and get more snacks from the House Elves?" she asked quietly. "One goat isn't going to feed everyone, not entirely. And Pansy—" she looked to Pansy, hesitating a moment "—can you get the daggers you found in the Room of Requirement? All the obsidian and silver ritual knives?"
Pansy's eyes gleamed in comprehension, and with a nod, she and Tracey both disappeared, hopping the line back to Hogwarts. Hermione waited a moment to make sure they'd left successfully before moving over to the group once again to mingle, where Derek was loudly telling the Blackwell students about how awesome Hermione was.
"—taught us how to channel magic," he said emphatically. "Before her, our magic, all we had was weak. We don't have staffs like that—" he said, pointing to one of the students' staffs "—to hold magic for us." He paused. "That is what it does, innit?"
"Kind of," one of the Blackwell girls said, giving Derek a lopsided smile. "They hold magic, sure, but they also help us channel it. It's a lot easier to make a staff than a wand – only old Iron Man's got one of those."
"How'd you all learn how to make staffs?" Worm wanted to know.
"It's been passed down, written down in notebooks," the girl said. She seemed surprised. "How else?"
"I dunno." Worm seemed wary. "Do you all read, then?"
The girl's eyes widened. "Of course."
Worm looked away. Hermione say comprehension flash in the girl's eyes, and the girl offered Worm a tentative smile.
"I can teach you our magic if you teach us yours," she offered. She stuck out her hand toward him. "I'm Taco. Short for Tachylite."
Worm looked at her strangely, before giving her a roguish grin.
"I'm Worm," he said, taking her hand a pressing a kiss to the back of it. "Short for Caelum. Don't ask how it makes sense."
Taco blushed brilliantly at Worm's courtesy – a pureblooded cultural practice his mother had likely taught him as a child – and Hermione remembered that everyone at Blackwell (or at least, mostly everyone) was a Muggle-born, which made her grin. Taco had fully been expecting Worm to shake her hand, not kiss it.
Hermione hid a smile at Taco's bright face. At least the two groups were getting along.
Hermione drifted over to find Clover, who was deep in conversation with Variol, one of the older girls from Blackwell. Clover saw her approaching and immediately turned toward her, her eyes lighting up.
"Hermione! Excellent. Variol was just telling me about their staffs," Clover said, turning back to the newcomer. "She says they use trees from an old Druid grove."
"You do?" Hermione brightened, turning to Variol with excitement. "Can you tell me what trees are in it? I want to plant several groves as soon as I can, and I've done research, but that's nothing compared to first-hand knowledge—"
Variol laughed.
"I can tell you a few of them?" she said, amused. "But really, we have a map back at the school that has them all labeled, and notes on how to recognize them."
"Notes?" Clover asked.
"All we have for knowledge is mostly notes," Variol said ruefully. "We all keep a journal, where we write down all the magic we learn and what we discover. There are old journals there that we can learn from, ones handed down."
Hermione was fascinated. "Like a grimoire?"
"A what?" Confusion flitted over Variol's face. "No. Like a—hang on—Coal! C'mere!"
A young dark-skinned girl hurried over, her eyes wide. She couldn't have been more than nine. Variol gave her a smile.
"Miss Hermione here is curious about our journals," she said. "Can you show her yours?"
The little girl Coal nodded, and she pulled a composition book with a purple marbled cover from her robes. There was a ballpoint pen clipped to it, and Clover looked at it in fascination.
"What's that?" she asked. "Can I see?"
The little girl nodded, and Clover took the book, flipping through.
"This is incredible," she breathed, eyes wide. "Hermione, look—do you see how thin they've got this parchment? And it's lined – that's excellent, I always struggled with my lines going up at the end. And this featherless quill—"
Variol and Coal were both looking at Clover as if she were foreign, and Hermione tried to stifle a laugh.
"The Wizarding World is very backwards in many ways," she told them ruefully. "They still use ink pots and quills."
Variol laughed.
"No wonder stories of a greater magical community were always rumors," she said, eyes sparkling. "No one was looking back in the medieval ages instead of modern times."
It was, Hermione had to admit, a rather apt point.
Once everything for the formal ritual had been set up, it was sunset. Hermione and the other Shadows helped everyone stand along the ritual circle they'd stomped into the grass. Hermione and the other members of her coven stood at the points where the channels connected to the outer ring, forming a pentacle, and Derek and Clover stood in the middle of the circle with the goat, holding long knives. Some of the hedgewitches were looking at Hermione funny.
"Thank you all for coming," Hermione began, being sure to project her voice and speak clearly. "I know you are probably more accustomed to more of a festival to celebrate this day. Hopefully we can do that next year, once the land is purified and healthy once more. But today, we will still honor Magic and the Earth."
The hedges murmured and seemed somewhat assuaged by this, while the Blackwell students looked curious.
"This is usually done with a lot more ceremony," Hermione admitted. "But the core elements of the ritual remain the same: we will offer our blood and magic to the Earth, so the Earth might come alive in the spring once more. Does everyone have a knife?"
After making sure everyone had access to a knife, Hermione instructed them all in a breathing exercise, making them all hold hands and close their eyes. After everyone had settled into a somewhat meditative state, Hermione opened her own eyes, took a deep breath, and began.
"Life and death is a cycle,
a constant fight of dark and light.
We celebrate this today,
the balance of day and night."
Her voice echoed over the plain, only other sound that of grass rustling in the wind. There was a subtle thrum of magic through the circle they'd stamped into the grass; mostly the magic of the Shadows, Hermione imagined, connecting the others together.
"The end of a long summer approaches,
while a desolate winter looms ahead,
Our sacrifice will help the balance of the seasons,
and renew Earth's magic from where we have bled."
"We open our flesh to give our blood," Hermione instructed, taking her own knife and cutting open her palms in demonstration, dripping her blood onto the ground. "May our life restore the earth's own."
She paused while everyone cut their hands to bleed onto the earth, knives passed around and older teens helping younger children cut their hands too.
"We take each other's hands to preserve the balance," she said, taking Jerran's hand in her left and Coal's hand in her right, "in the way that Magic has shown."
"With our blood and power, we make our offering," Hermione said, nodding to Derek and Clover, "so your magic might be restored—"
Clover slit the throat of the goat while Derek violently yanked it upside-down by its hind legs. A terrifyingly human-sounding scream was suddenly cut off as blood poured onto the dirt, and immediately magic began to swell up in the circle, faint red light glowing up from the ground.
"With this offering, we plead with you," Hermione said, looking around at everyone holding hands, "Magic, come back in the spring once more!"
Magic rushed up to meet them, there were screams, and Hermione's vision went white.
There was no need to serve as a conduit this time, she realized dimly. They were right on top of a ley line that she had created, one that bore her signature in some wordless way. Her ritual and her blood, along with her words – magic had reacted immediately, reaching up and encompassing them, consuming their sacrifice – and the circle was flooded with ley line magic, the power rushing through them all. She could hear people cry out as it filled their cores, and there was a dark sense of amusement echoing in the line somehow – an energy that somehow reminded her of Eire.
When the flow of magic stemmed, Hermione felt the ley line slow to a hum and settle back down. Hermione sent her thanks to it as best she could before opening her eyes, rubbing at them and clearing the floaties from her vision.
Everyone in the circle still stood there, eyes wide. Many were examining their hands – with all the cuts healed – and the students from Blackwell seemed almost afraid.
"Am I holding magic?" Andy asked from across the circle. He sounded frightened. "I feel… inside… I feel full somehow, like I have to burp... almost like it hurts..."
"That is your magic, your birthright," Clover said viciously, still holding the knife she'd slain the goat with. "Step forward and cry 'Lumos' – and behold your ability to cast magic even without your staff!"
The students of Blackwell did so, and cries of "Lumos!" filled the air, followed quickly by cries of astonishment and shock as balls of light filled the area, illuminating them all in the growing darkness. The hedgewitches joined in, showing off their own spells, and suddenly the tension was dissolved, leaving only excited teenagers and children in its wake, laughing and shouting, excitedly jumping up and down and showing off their conjured balls of light to each other.
Hermione nodded to Clover gratefully, who gave her a nod back. Derek leapt into action, instructing his friends to grab the kindling they'd gathered before to build a fire over where they'd slain the goat. Hermione paused to help after they'd assembled their wood (Fiendfyre wouldn't be advisable here, but her fire elemental was more than up to the task of setting the bonfire ablaze), and then she moved to mingle with the others, curious.
The students from Blackwell were careful, hesitant with their magic, while the hedgewitches showed off the few spells they'd learned over the past year. A few from Blackwell grabbed their staffs, casting larger, more impressive spells, and the hedges laughed and clapped in excitement, the Blackwell students looking scared but excited all the same. Hermione watched and observed, theorizing to herself how the Blackwell students used magic, piecing together a picture in her mind.
The students from Blackwell, though in possession of both magical containers and magical cores, were accustomed to using their staffs instead of themselves. The staffs could hold and direct ley line magic, it seemed. Their cores presumably generated some of their own magic, but Hermione suspected they primarily used their cores to direct the ley line magic they channeled in their staffs. If they were weak wizards, Muggleborns without enough magic to flag Hogwarts, their containers and cores would presumably be weaker somehow, similar to the hedgewitches, and the staffs seemed to help compensate for that.
It was amazing, really – that this culture had endured for so long.
…it was very odd, actually, now that Hermione thought about it. Especially when they were all so young.
While people helped themselves to snacks as the goat cooked, Hermione drifted over to Variol, who looked up at her in pleasant surprise.
"You're probably one of the oldest here," Hermione said.
Variol grinned ruefully.
"I know," she said. "Right old maid I am, practically, these days."
"Still," Hermione pressed. "For you to be the oldest… why?" She paused at the flicker of apprehension in Variol's eyes, and she lowered her voice. "Variol… why are there no adults at Blackwell?"
Variol's face shuttered, and she glanced both ways. She took Hermione's hand and tugged her away from the group, sitting her down on the edge of the festivities where they wouldn't be overheard. Even in the limited light available to them, Hermione could read the seriousness on her face.
"That bad?" Hermione asked quietly.
"Yeah." The other girl's face was grave. "That bad."
Variol took a deep breath, steadying herself, before she began to speak.
"Nobody really knows what happened," she said quietly. "There were adults – once. Once upon a time. More than just Iron Man. But one day – they'd all gone."
Hermione's eyes grew wide. "What do you mean?"
"I mean," Variol said, her voice rough, "that one day, all the children woke up the day after Samhain, and everyone was gone. All the adults. All the teenagers, too." She paused for breath, trying to gather herself. "Iron Man said they'd all gone to Stonehenge that night, hoping to see if there were other witches, if there were witches doing a ritual – they all hopped a line after the children had all gone to bed. But – none of them – none of them – ever came back."
There was a slow-growing dread in Hermione's chest. "None of them?"
"None of them. Their magic, their energy… there were faint echoes in the lines," Variol said. "But it wasn't a safe day anymore. We couldn't travel to see. We don't know—we could never figure out—"
"Couldn't figure out what?" Hermione asked quietly.
Variol took a deep breath, anguished eyes meeting Hermione's.
"We never figured out if they'd tried to come back too late and gotten abducted by the Faeries," she said, her voice raw, tortured, "or if someone else had come upon them and sacrificed them in a Dark ritual done on Samhan night, and that was the reason we could feel echoes of them still in the lines."
Hermione felt her blood run cold.
"How long ago was this?" she breathed. "When, Variol? When?"
"I don't know. I was just a kid!" Variol protested, obviously upset. "Ten, fifteen years ago? I was barely four."
Memories of her classmates over the years flooded her mind, their voices hissing at her as Hermione stared blindly into the darkness. Neville's voice echoed in her mind, words he'd said long ago—
"—an old, Dark festival. Dark wizards sacrificed animals and people and used Dark magic—It's said that You-Know-Who celebrated Samhain with his Death Eaters every year, and it was on one of these days that he first raised his army of Inferi—"
Tracey's voice mixed with Theo's, chiding Hermione over her insistence that muggle holidays were silly—
"The Old Holidays are ways to do Dark magic – the Dark Lord used them to do human sacrifices. The Ministry worked hard to ban celebrations like that after he fell—people really did do Dark magic on such days—"
And finally, Susan's stark warning—
"There's a reason people are wary of celebrating Samhain now instead of Halloween—the Dark Lord sacrificed people."
Hermione had heard the claim that Voldemort had sacrificed people repeatedly over the years, but she'd dismissed it as rumor, meant to intimidate and frighten others into submission. Voldemort couldn't have sacrificed people without other people noticing, without wizards noticing that some people were suddenly and abruptly gone. The logistics of it hadn't made sense, so Hermione had chalked it up to a spooky rumor, meant to make people fear Voldemort without anyone asking too many questions about what group of people he'd sacrificed for more Dark power.
But now…
Hermione suspected she'd finally found out just who that group of people was.