Harry Potter was scowling. Hermione called him on it. "Harry, you are scowling again."
"I can't believe I am forced to attend this stupid feast just for Dumbledore's ego." Harry snarled, glaring at the garish pumpkins surrounding the great hall, their leering faces making it appear like a muggle version of Halloween spooky.
Hermione looked at the great hall, then pointed to the first and second years who were laughing and giggling. "Look, the little kids are really enjoying the Halloween festivities, I have never seen so many so happy."
Neville fingered his beater bat, the cold iron bands around the stout oak were battered, scarred, and very real. Hermione had eyed him askance for wearing it openly at his belt, not concealed within the spatial expansion pouches but Neville looked nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs.
"So many happy laughing children. Honestly Hermione, count the bloody things." Neville said looking nervous and clearly sweating.
Hermione counted, then frowned. "Did we invite extra guests? Hermione wondered, noting all the first and second years in their garish costumes and realizing there were about twice again as many as there should be.
Harry Potter slammed his goblin silver dagger deep into the oak of the table and snarled like a feral beast, the rage making his green eyes blaze unnaturally.
"NO Hermione, we did not. Dumbledore did. For all that Dumbledore has forbidden the old rites and denied any instruction of the old ways, the rules and the magic of the ancestors still rule the holy tides, Dumbledore just made sure all of us are ignorant as muggles about them.
This is Samhain night. The veil between the real and the unreal has never been so thin, the veil between the living and the dead may as well not even exist with this much fairy magic pouring out of the Cauldron of Dagda sitting right in the middle of the hall.
Hermione looked over to the Ravenclaw table and noticed Myrtle Warren and Luna Lovegood giggling and feeding each other fork fulls of pumpkin pie with improbable amounts of whip cream. Myrtle smiled happily with a dollop of whip cream sitting on the tip of her nose from Luna's more enthusiastic than accurate attempts to feed her.
Hermione blinked. "Is that Moaning Myrtle, the ghost from the second floor girls loo, you know the one from the Chamber of Secrets entrance."
Neville fingered his beater bat and nodded. "In the flesh, for one night only." He smiled wanly, his attempt at humour failing to move even him.
Hermione began to object. "Isn't she dead, I mean, she is dead, and I know we can't touch her, can't even really affect her with magic. How is Luna feeding her pie? How can she have pie? This can't be real."
Harry snarled again. "It isn't real Hermione, don't you get it. Tonight that doesn't matter, the real and the unreal, the living and the dead, on Samhain night the veil between them grows so very thin that the old rites treat this as one of the most powerful and sacred nights of the year, treated with reverence and ceremony so that we give due honour and respect to those spirits, both of the dead and of the wild magic, who come to our doors this night.
Our ancestors would greet them at the door, and offer them gifts so that they would leave in peace."
Hermione blinked again. "Trick or treating! Kids in costume come to the door and you give them candy."
Neville shrugged. "Sure, kids won't be harmed by that which walks this night, because kids surrender to the wild, surrender to the unreal and just follow along. They dance to whatever tune the fairies play, follow the rules of whatever games because its fun, and because for Samhain night those that follow the rules are safe because greater powers even than the fairies set the rules. The adults gave treats to whoever came to the door, because you couldn't be a hundred percent sure it was a child shaking you down for a gift, it might be a fairy, a goblin, one of your own dead family members or an angry god checking to see you still feed the hungry that come to your door like your ancestors swore you would ten thousand years ago when they made bargains just to get through a starving winter."
Harry muttered. "Of course if you know the rules, you meet them at the door, give them a gift, and send them on their way. You don't let them past your threshold, you never invite them in, and you certainly don't set them up in the Great Hall inside every bloody ward meant to keep you safe."
Hermione began to look around the hall in alarm. "So all those extra kids are fairy?"
Harry laughed. "Or dead. Hogwarts has never been safe, old Dumbledore's strongest magic has always been propaganda. There are enough students who have died here that we all can name to fill a table, but if you search the Daily Prophet archives, or Hogwarts a History you won't find them. Even Moaning Myrtle over there only survives because the record of Hagrid's expulsion and Tom Riddle's award had to mention her. If they could have swept her all the way under the rug we wouldn't even know about her."
Hermione shuddered. "I always thought you didn't come to the feast because it was the anniversary of your parent's death. I didn't know it was because you had a cultural or religious objection to Dumbledore's muggle Halloween."
Neville looked at her in surprise. "You do remember the Troll from first year right? Twelve feet tall, stank of poo, tried to murder you in the bathroom? Halloween didn't just kill his parents, it has been actively trying to kill us every year we have been here. Samhain didn't become less dark and powerful because Dumbledore and the Ministry are trying to wipe out all of our ancient culture, stealing from you Muggle-borns something you don't even know you lost. It just meant that when terrible things happened because we broke rules no one taught us kids died surprised."
Hermione eyed the "goblet of fire", now revealed as the Cauldron of Dagda, the Cauldron of Brave deeds and shuddered. She didn't need to take divination to know that Dumbledore's choice to have the champions selected on Samhain night, his precious Muggle Halloween was a bad idea.
As if that thought was a signal, a beaming Albus Dumbledore in purple robes with flaming jack o lanterns floating about on the fabric laughing as if to a joke only they hear, stood and strode to the center of the hall. He gestured, as if in summoning, but it was neither spell nor demon he summoned, but a group of reporters and photographers to record this shining moment of the Ministry of Magics planning.
"If I may have your attention. Tonight, students of Hogwarts, of Beauxbatons, of Durmstrang, we come together to celebrate the once in a lifetime opportunity that our joint Ministries of Magic have offered you lucky students! A chance to compete in the Tri-Wizard's tournament for not only the honour and glory of demonstrating which is the greatest school of witchcraft and wizardry in all of Europe, but who among all of you is the champion worthy of eternal glory (and a thousand galleons!)"
The great hall roared with enthusiasm, for terrible ideas and bad decisions almost always are greeted thus. Dumbledore's face was a mask of elation as he drank in the cheers as if they were fine wine. On the head table, Filius Flitwick looked tired and worried, Severus Snape sneered in towering contempt, Minerva McGonagall's eyes swept endlessly over her House Table as if terrified she would lose a student if she stopped, and Pomona Sprout, the ever cheerful Hufflepuff house leader simply looked sad.
"As each champions names are called, they will walk past the Head Table, and walk with your Headmaster or Headmistress to the press room at the end of the hall for your briefing with the Ministry of Magic officials as to your first task, and for your first introduction to the press as Tri-Wizard champions!" Dumbledore cheered.
With a flick of his wrist, Dumbledore produced the Elder Wand, the Death Stick, the first and most terrible of the Deathly Hallows, and as if this was a wise idea, used it to strike the Cauldron of Dagda with a bolt of pure power and cause it to ring like a bell, and give forth its chosen.
The cauldron tolled like a bell, deep and chilling, causing a susurrus of fear to wash around the hall, a wash of cold like the hand of a corpse trailing down the spine of each and every cheering student as the first name came forth.
A gout of blood red fire shot from the corpse pale flames that danced over the goblet of fire, and a smoking piece of parchment landed in Dumbledore's hand. With a smirk, he read the first name.
"The first champion, from Beauxbaton Academy, Fleur Delacore!" Dumbledore shouted, and the whole hall roared it's appreciation. Those who noted that the Beauxbaton table barely even clapped for their Veela champion could be forgiven their surprise. The unparalleled French beauty drew thunderous applause from the rest of the student body.
With poise and grace that any pure blood would kill to match, Fleur strode to the head table, turned and curtseyed to the crowd, before following her giant headmistress to the room at the end of the hall.
As the applause died down, Dumbledore smiled as the goblet flared scarlet a second time and a second flaming bit of parchment came out. Dumbledore read the name and boomed out.
"The champion for Durmstrang, is Victor Krum!"
This time the entire hall rang with not only applause, but starting from the Gryffindor Quidditch fanatics and spreading throughout the hall came the chant "Krum, Krum, Krum!"
If the cheers moved him at all, he did not show it. Shrugging off his heavy cloak, the well-muscled boy marched like a soldier on parade to the head table, gave a precise right wheel and marched to the end door, sparing neither cheering hall nor simpering headmaster a glance.
Dumbledore was beaming now, ready for Hogwarts moment to be the final and thus most remembered of the champion selections. The goblet of fire spat out another flaming comet of parchment. Dumbledore snatched it from the air, and his voice rang out again like a trumpet.
"Finally, our last and if I may be so bold, best champion, the Hogwarts champion, is Cedric Diggory!"
The hall exploded in cheers, for the golden boy of Hufflepuff was loved by many, respected by all, and hated by none. He really was all the virtues of Hufflepuff, a wizard of power and skill, a leader, a mentor to his youngers, one of the best seekers in recent history, and one of the best-looking boys in the upper years.
Blushing as if embarrassed by the applause, Cedric walked to the front of the great hall, nodded to the Headmaster and walked to the room at the end of the hall with the champions and the press.
Minister for Magic Bartimous Crouch Senior walked past him, his eyes bright and almost feverish. He walked to stand beside a confused Albus Dumbledore who had turned to ask the Minister why he had left the champions room when the goblet flared again and a fourth scrap of parchment landed in Dumbledore's hand.
The room fell silent, save for the one shout from the the Ravenclaw table, where Luna Lovegood's eyes had gone wide and terrified. Her shout of "Oh bugger!" was the only sound heard before a shaken Headmaster Dumbledore read softly a fourth and final name.
"The champion of the Goblin nation, Harry Potter."
A chorus of shock, and outrage ran around the room, starting from his own Hufflepuff table.
Harry stood up, strode to the middle of the floor and refused to advance to the Headmaster.
"I REFUSE!" He shouted.
"It is a binding magical contract. You cannot refuse. Your life and magic are forfeit if you do!" Shouted back the Minister of Magic, his eyes bright, as he licked his lips and trembled in the grips of some emotion that no one could identifiy.
Harry Potter drew upon his magic, calling upon all of his power. The light in the hall darkened until the only light that seemed to exist was the blue corpse flame from the Cauldron of Brave Deeds and the reflected burning light of Harry Potter's curse scar, the goblin silver of its Soweillo rune blazed with burning and terrible blue light as Harry Potter put his will against the Cauldron of Dagda.
"I WILL NOT!" Harry Potter shouted, but the Cauldron tolled again, and chains of blue flame shot from it, and lanced into his flesh with bright hooks.
Harry screamed as it dragged him forward, and with each step he was dragged forward, a shining ghost in blue corpse flame stepped from the cauldron. Step by step as he was dragged forward, another ghost stepped from the cauldron. Their robes were old and strange, some Hogwarts, some Durmstrang, some Beauxbaton. They bore the wounds of their death, their eyes hollow, their faces sad, for they were the souls of those who had been bound to the Goblet, those who had taken up the challenge and fallen in the doing. Bound and damned forever to the goblet of fire.
Harry screamed as he was dragged before the Goblet of fire, a kneeling figure surrounded by those older, wiser, stronger than him who had taken up this challenge for hundreds of years before, and died.
The voice of Minister of Magic Bartimous Crouch rang like a sentencing judge.
"It is a binding magical contract Mister Potter, you have no choice."
Harry Potter looked up at the tall thin man, and of all the hall, only he could see the wide mad grin upon the generally stoic and humourless minister's face.
Dumbledore stood shaken, as if from a trance, and staggered over to Harry where he knelt. He helped the boy to his feet, noting the blood running down arms and chest where the hooks from the cauldron's flaming chains had pierced the boy, and the tears running down his face, and the headmaster winced.
"Forgive me Harry, but the Minister is correct. The time for choice is past. Your name has been pulled from the goblet. You are bound to compete, or lose your magic at a minimum."
The Headmaster looked at the empty eyed ghosts of fallen champions, each connected to the Cauldron of Dagda by the chains of their selection and shuddered. "Or your life."
Ludo Bagman, head of the department of magical sport was holding court with the three champions describing the nature of the tasks and the various public relations obligations of the champions through the long months of the tournament itself when the door opened again and a bloody boy staggered in, wounds in both wrists and shoulders where the meat hooks of the fairy chains had bound him still oozing blood.
Fleur shot to her feet, wand out. "This child has been hurt!"
Harry found himself on the ground, and her wand already casting diagnostic and medical charms with the precision, if not speed, of a trained mediwitch. She hissed.
"These wounds, they are cursed! I cannot close them. I must seal them or you will continue to bleed. Forgive me child, but this will scar you." Fleur whispered, eyes troubled.
She began chanting, he did not speak French, and the French she chanted in had not been spoken since the middle ages, so he could be forgiven for not understanding the words. Harry screamed again though as conjured silk threat began to weave itself into his flesh, and pull his weeping wounds shut, stopping the bleeding.
Gruffly, Krum dropped to his knees by Harry's head and in slightly accented English proffered a vial of foul smelling potion.
"Drink this, it is blood replenishment and a few extras. Keeps you in the fight and not die afterwards. I brew it myself, so trust it." Krum said and Harry drank the potion down. It burned like whiskey, but Harry's head began to clear as it did far more than just replace his lost blood. Whatever Krum's potion was, it was a medical miracle and no small gift."
Cedric Diggory was looking down in shock. "Harry? What the hell Harry, what happened?"
Headmaster Karkarov sneered at the Hogwarts champion. "You know this boy?"
Diggory snapped back in irritation. "Of course I know him, he is one of my beaters."
Diggory continued to Harry. "Harry, how did you get this torn up at the feast? You look like someone used you for target practice, and Fleur said the wounds are cursed."
Fleur snapped in irritation as she wiped the blood off the closed and sutured wounds. "They are cursed. I cannot heal them or close them with magic, I have to weave the flesh back together with silk, and let the body heal itself. That is dark magic that has no place in school. Your Hogwarts is a foul place to allow it to be used on children!"
Harry laughed softly, sounding broken and defeated. "What happened Cedric is I tried to say no to joining your little suicide club and the Cauldron of Dagda decided it didn't want to let me."
Dumbledore and Minister Crouch, still arguing, came through the door at that point.
Dumbledore descended on Harry Potter like his totem phoenix, shouting at the boy and shaking him by the shoulders, pushing past Fleur and Krum forcefully.
"Tell me you put your name in the goblet Harry, tell me the truth and tell me now!" Dumbledore demanded.
Harry snarled back at his Headmaster. "Of course I didn't put my name in your stupid suicide cup. I know what that cursed thing is. I am not binding my eternal soul to some fairy object for a thousand galleons and the chance to be the Minister's pet propaganda tool. I am FOURTEEN. Your own age line wouldn't let me past, and your own magic make it impossible for anyone else to YOU SENILE PUPPETEERING CHILD MURDERING BASTARD!"
Dumbledore had the Elder Wand in his hand, the tip blazing like a star when Fleur Delacor's shouted "Expelliurmis" Snatched it from his hand. The question of whether or not the Headmaster would have fired that spell at the helpless Potter heir was a matter of debate not settled for generations after.
The French Veela looked at Dumbledore with horror and her Headmistress Maxime moved between Dumbledore and her student as a living barrier as her wand too was out.
Fleur looked worried. "You would strike your own student? A child? What does this little boy mean about someone putting his name in the cup, we already have your Hogwarts champion, and he is no little boy!" Fleur said, thrusting her chin at Cedric Diggory, but keeping her wand on a Dumbledore clearly struggling to get his emotions under control.
It was Minister for Magic Barty Crouch who said softly. "However it happened, the goblet of fire spat out a fourth name. Harry Potter competing for the Goblin Nation. As we told all of you before you put your own names in, once chosen by the goblet, that choosing constitutes a binding magical contract. You will compete and complete all three tasks or lose your magic and your life."
The argument lasted for over an hour. Only Rita Skeeter looked like she was enjoying the event. She knew as any good reporter knew, that the picture of Beauxbaton's beautiful Fleur Delacour cradling the bleeding and broken "Boy Who Lived" and tending his wounds while Quidditch superstar Victor Krum fed him life saving potions wasn't just worth the front page, it was worth multiple reprints and whole International floo transported pallets of papers for the European markets for whom this scandal and tragedy would take the Tri-Wizard tournament from the filler section of the sports page and onto the front page.
There was no political blood in the water like actual blood. The blood of children, and the visual proof before the whole of Hogwarts that the Tri-Wizard Tournament had been little more than a fairy trick to bind the souls of all the many champions killed in competition for hundreds of years to the Cauldron of Dagda would end more than one political career, and Rita Skeeter had a front row seat with dictation quill and photographer! How many Most Ancient and Noble houses from across all of Europe would discover the fate of their best and brightest for the last seven hundred years? Such a trick, such a treat, it really was a Happy Halloween for this reporter!
Oh, oh, oh her editors would not complain about her bill for rooming at Hogsmeade after this! There was no way Rita Skeeter would go farther from Hogwarts until the Tri-Wizard tournament was over.
-Near midnight, in the fields of Hogwarts beyond the Hufflepuff greenhouses.
The coven and clan had been filtering in. Their movements may have been covered from casual observation, but after the events of the evening, observation was no longer casual. The Headmaster was trapped in his office dealing with a lineup of floo visitors from the Ministry, and from families too powerful politically, economically, and magically to ignore, otherwise he might have been free to interfere.
Sirius Black, Griphook, and Frithweaver had neither been quiet nor subtle when they braced the Headmaster in his office, and observers from Durmstrang and Beauxbatons noted their entry, and lack of exit.
As Snape, Sprout, Moody, Lupin, and the students of the clan and coven filtered out past the greenhouses and out into the fields, followed by Sirius and Narcissa Black, Griphook, Frithweaver, Fangborn and Glitterbright of Gringotts of the Goblin nation moved back into the fields, two extra observers followed, each ignorant of the other.
Victor Krum slunk low through the grass, he did not follow them closely, for he could follow their scent. Long and lean, he wore his wolf form as naturally as he wore his own skin. Animagi and wolf as his family had always been, he hunted this Harry Potter, this strange boy who claimed to be goblin who swore that he had NOT put his name in the goblet, yet had been chosen by it. He had not come to this far foreign place to lose. He would not be pawn or puppet for those whose money and favour he needed if he could become tri-wizard champion. This was his chance to have a future of choices, where he had the freedom to ignore offers and not play until he found someone willing to put him on a team where he would not be the only player the enemy had to stop to win. A star seeker who was the only star on his team did not play long, often did not live long. A star seeker on a team that could be ignored was the only target for bludger and beater, was worth any number of penalty shots to be stuck by chasers in clear and obvious foul, because even a three-shot penalty was better than letting him get the snitch.
Victor knew his fate if he must take whatever offer he got out of school. He would be lucky to make three years uncrippled. No way would he survive long enough and become famous enough to write his own ticket as a free agent. He was too poor not to take what was offered. Unless he won the Tri-Wizard. The Tri-Wizard money meant he could wait, and the tri-wizard fame meant the best teams would be begging for him. Teams where their chasers were too good to ignore, where their beaters were fast enough to actually defend him. Teams where Victor Krum could be a star and survive.
This tournament was his future. Harry Potter was a mystery, an unpredictable element that could destroy his plans. Victor slunk through the wheat and barley fields, his wolf nose and ears guiding him towards what secrets he did not know, but must know.
Fleur Delacour moved silently. Her training in dance let her move like a ghost over the ground. Those who wrote of her background assumed she danced for the same reason she trained in all the maidenly arts expected of a pure blood woman, which she was only technically, and not quite legally.
No, she trained in dance for the same reason she trained in arithmancy and magical theory, it made her a better duelist. Fleur Delacour was a Veela. You could call her a half Veela, or quarter Veela, but the French Ministry had no illusions, Veela bred true. A girl child born of a Veela mother was a Veela, and a son was a human.
She was a witch by law, and by magic, but the Ministry and society would never let anyone forget she was a Veela, a magical creature. Human enough to breed with, and beautiful beyond measure, but not quite human enough to be anything but a bed warmer. Welcome to appear on the arm of the powerful at any event, but never allowed at the table of the powerful as a member.
The Tri-Wizard tournament was her chance. Had anyone but Madame Maxime been Headmistress, she would never have been allowed the chance. Sure every boy at school wanted to date her, or marry her, but the idea that the Veela girl should be Beauxbatons champion, let alone Tri-wizard champion and stand above all the pure-blooded "real" witches and wizards did not bear thinking about. Madame Maxime's own giant blood had left her with scant tolerance for pure blood prejudice. She took the best and brightest from her school, and if one of them was the Veela girl, then so be it.
Veela had gifts with charm and fire. Everyone knew that meant that Veela had their allure, the gift that drew men, and no small number of women, to chase after them. They knew that Veela could generate and hurl fire. What they ignored is that was the untrained basic skill of a magical race. Veela had a gift with charms and fire, and Veela were half human. A Veela given the gift of witch magic came to her wand with an instinctive knowledge of charms, an affinity for fire. Given the intelligence and drive of Fleur Delacour this meant she could train herself to be the equivalent of a Charms Master while still in school, and that mastery she showed now.
Wrapped in invisibility, she drifted along the ground, following the people being so very discrete and secret slipping out into the fields on Samhain night following their mysterious Boy Who Lived. It can be no accident that Harry Potter's name came from the Goblet of Fire, the Cauldron of Dagda. She was no fool, they called him Goblin Champion, and she followed four goblins out through the fields walking with no less than two of the Hogwarts head of House.
Tri-Wizard champion would be Fleur Delacour's ticket out of 'pretty Veela' and into most powerful witch in the world. This was her chance to shatter the glass ceiling and write her own future, a future built on who Fleur Delacour was, and what she could do, not simply what she was born. Whatever Harry Potter was, or was doing this night could take that away. She had to know. Unseen and unsuspected, she would know this night.
Moody's eye was rolling so madly it was beginning to give him a headache.
"I don't like this Sirius, there are a thousand terrible things awake and hungry tonight, not all of them are real and not all of them aren't letting them stop them. I haven't seen this much fairy activity since that idiot Grey and his bloody painting. I lost Aurors on that one, and it wasn't a tenth as mad as tonight, and nowhere near Samhain night."
The Auror paused, shuddered and reduced the sensitivity of his magical eye to a level his sanity could stand.
"I don't like this at all Sirius, a pack of werewolves or a giant could be within touching distance before we knew about it, Dumbledore could be riding a broom on the perimeter right now and the magic is so wild and thick I wouldn't notice him until he started casting. I want our strongest on the perimeter. Voldemort may not be the wickedest thing walking tonight." Mad Eye Moody snarled as he stumped over to the stone he would use as his seat, and pulled his massive drum from a pouch far too small to hold it.
A small blonde shape, wearing what looked like leaves and lichen, feet bare as her flanks, and a crown of wildflowers in her hair grabbed the paranoid Auror from behind in a surprise hug no other living being would have dared, and no few dead ones could explain why.
Luna Lovegood hugged Mad Eye carelessly.
"No need, no need. The wild sings tonight, and I have asked them to dance with me. I will ward with my friends, and all the wild will dance with us!"
"Merlin's bloody balls!" Shouted Mad Eye Moody as Luna released him from her hug and smiled at him, her eyes focused on something he could not see, and prayed to every goddess of bloody altar he never would.
"Drum for us, Alastor, so we may dance!" Luna commanded, and the assembled Heads of House, the retired senior Auror and several Lords of Ancient and Noble House heard her command, and bowed to it.
Luna began to dance the outer perimeter, Mad Eye giving himself to the wild pulse of the magic of the night where the real bowed to the unreal the dead as likely to call the living, as the living to call the dead, and where the magic of the land ran wild in memory of a time before men and wands and rules.
Neville Longbottom was a humble boy, growing into a very solid young man, and he was perhaps the most Hufflepuff of Hufflepuffs. He felt the madness, the chaos, the howling hunger of nature red in tooth and claw, the endless hunger of Unreality chained by the act of creation into a prison it yearned only to tear down into the primodial state of endless possibility, and reached down to create a place of safety.
Through the madness and whirl of the dance that clawed at the minds of the ritualists, they heard the voice of a boy, slow and steady.
"I call upon the guardians of the watchtowers of the North, to the Earth, to the mother from whom we are all born and to whom we all return. Set this place apart from the madness and dangers of beyond, seal and sanctify it to our purpose."
Two rows of thorns rose from the ground, one outside Luna and the dancers she led, and one inside. The dancers behind Luna gave voice to a hundred calls, from the laughter of sprite and spriggan, the snarl, cackle, and cawing of the endlessly shape changing Pooka that followed, the deep belling laughter of the cow tailed hollow backed tree women, the Huldra, and the delicate too perfect laughter of fairy ladies in gowns of gossamer and pale lords in mail of silver.
Milicent called upon the waters of the west, the ice that was before and will be when the last invading star has died, and the outer ring of thorns grew white with frost so cold that the earth for a dozen meters beyond it froze white with frost, and gave rise to fog that sought to block eyes from seeing what passed within.
Hermione called upon the fire of the south, and the inner thorn ring burst into flames that threw off heat enough to make the inner circle like a midsummer night. Finally Harry called to the watchtowers of the East, to the guardians of the sky to seal and sanctify their rites, that no ill thing should be permitted to pass their wards to threaten the outer world.
If any watchers had any doubts about the strangeness of the rite, the sealing of evil within, not without banished them. These wards would bar a hundred Aurors from breaking this circle without a matiching ritual or complex ward cascade of their own to equal it, yet it was focused not to bar evil from entering, but from leaving.
Of course Luna Lovegood was leading the dance of creatures of wild and ancient fairy in the outer ring, and none of the wise would think to cross those pale lords and ladies of the ancient race on Samhain night without an army and holy cause worth their lives to challenge.
Hermione and Fangborn stepped forward, and above their hands flashed needles of goblin silver, dancing to mirror the fairy madness outside the circle.
Hermione's voice rang clear and strong, her body limed with flames that licked from her flesh but burned her not.
"Who comes to the coven, who comes to the clan. Who pledges their blood, their lives, their sacred magics to the cause and cleansing of this world?"
Pomona Sprout and Severus Snape stepped forward, and knelt before her. Without thought, they opened their robes and knelt bare chested before woman and goblin, and as both inner and outer circles danced to the wild magics of the Samhain night, the needles danced in skin and flesh, as power and duty were woven in flesh and soul, the lightest of the markings being the runes marking their flesh.
Othala and Algiz, family and protection bound them to the clan and coven, while the third rune showed their nature and soul, what they brought to the coven and clan.
Professor Sprout bore the mark of Fehu between her breasts, the mark of wealth, abundance, security, fertility. Head of Hufflepuff house and Mistress of Herbology, her soul was tied to the earth and to the children, giving her life to creating and maintaining a safe space for them to grow and become, even as her arts provide for their sustenance and the wealth to make Hogwarts sustainable.
Severus Snape bore the mark of Hagalaz above his heart. If Fehu is the wealth of the fields, Hagalaz or hail is its bane. Hagalaz is elemental destruction, wrath, testing' and overcoming obstacles. Hagalaz is dark and hated, yet necessary and too often the only path to salvation. The Eater of Death felt the new marks in his flesh and soul war with the Dark Mark in his forearm, and all the deeds he had done under it, and felt his magic go to war within himself.
As Professor Sprout rose laughing in joy at the power that stirred and burned within herself, Professor Snape staggered, blood weeping from the self inflicted wound of his Dark Mark and the oaths bound to it.
Noodle slithered to the center of the inner circle, there to rise and sway before the chest sitting on the bare earth, one whose foulness reached out, even through the triple warded containers that could not fully bind it. It was time.
Harry cast the charms with a flick of his wand, and the three containers opened in sequence. The ring within rose intto the night, and the moonlight wrapped around it in unholy fire, its song suddenly weaving into and through the dance of the witches and wizards with a song and call of its own. Sickly sweet the call to power and immortality, the challenge to take up the ring, to grasp the power of life beyond death, power beyond reason sang out on the night where the dead were less than a whisper away and where reality strained and groaned against the pull of the madness before creation.
Although the drummer stayed lost to the beat of the power of the earth beyond the circle, and Luna and the Fairy of the outer ring did not stop or slow in their dance, for theirs was always an existence balanced on the knife edge of madness and temptaion, those merely human and goblin of the inner circle faltered in their dance, and wavered for a moment as the temptation flowered in their mind, and flowed into their blood like so much sweet tempting liquor.
Noodle flashed forward, his fangs striking, his mind striking and inside every mind of the circle the touch of his burning venom tore the sweet temptation of power and immortality as the bitter venom of mortal flesh, and pain, and death burned into their minds and into their magics.
Where the song of the ring and its stone had been, now their minds only held the dark of scale and flash of fang.
Milicent Bulstrode snarled as she stepped forward, her wand stabbed like a spear as she drove her will, her rune and her rage into the magics of the ring. "Isa!" She hissed, and the stillness of the cold before the first fire drove into the ring, stilling the runes and enchantments of its binding.
With the ponderousness of a mountain falling, Neville Longbottom stepped forward, and from his wand the golden sickle of Jera flashed and he spoke its name and he gave the stroke of the reaper to sever the connections between soul and flesh. "Jera" he spoke, as he struck.
Hermione let the primal fires of creation, the purifying fire of the phoenix fill her fingers as she held the ring and let the purifying flame destroy it. "Kenaz" She spoke, as she gave primal fire to the Gaunt family ring, and the scrap of Voldemort's soul bound therin.
Voldemort rose from the ring screaming, it this day of the dead, his soul fragment was so close to live that his magic clothed himself in living flesh to stand before his nemesis, wrapped in flesh and power as a will far beyond the merely human tore power and existence from the madness of this most dangerous of nights.
"Harry Potter." Hissed the Dark Lord, as he gathered his might for a test of magic that would not come.
Harry Potter smiled, took his goblin silver knife, and cut his hand. Making the wand movements of Avada Kedavera, he splashed his own blood upon the newborn flesh of Voldemort in the same lightning shape of his scar. Speaking a single word, Harry Potter named the rune that had marked him since Voldemort's killing curse met his mother's sactificial magic, and failed.
"Soweillo" Harry spoke, and Voldemort screamed, a golden and scarlet light growing from where the blood touched him. Harry continued speaking as if the Dark Lord's death meant nothing.
"You used it for the killing curse, because to you all that rune represented was power. That is what all the wand wizards since Merlin use it for. My mother taught me the other meanings of the rune though Tom.
Honor, Victory, Cleansing.
Her Honour, My Victory, and of course, your Cleansing."
As Voldemort fell in flames and screaming, another spirit rose. She was clad not in glory, nor magical wonders. She wore faded blue jeans and a green sweater. Her red hair was gathered in a pony tail with a simple muggle hair elastic. Her eyes were the green of the killing curse and her face was too full of character to be conventional beautiful.
Stepping forth, she cupped Harry's face in her hands and looked down at him and smiled.
"I am so very proud of you Harry. I gave my life so that you could live. When the time comes, remember, I chose this price, and you have made me proud of what you have done with it. Do not falter at the end."
Harry's eyes burned with tears, and he let them fall unashamed as his mother let him go and turned to walk away.
Severus Snape lay where he had fallen, left arm outstretched to reach the side of his fallen Dark Lord.
He looked up at her and his voice was a broken thing.
"Lilly." He spoke softly.
"Severus." She said flatly, then sighed.
"Your mistake cost two lives, and one soul. The lives are already lost, and the soul is mine. He does not get yours. Do you hear me Severus? HE DOES NOT GET YOURS!"
Lilly Potter reached down and grabbed Severus Snape's left arm, and ripped the Dark Mark from it with claws of otherworldly rage. The darkness of the mark writhed and wriggled in her hands like serpents of pure foulness, and she raised them to her lips and devoured them.
Her eyes shone like beacons of jade fire as she looked down on Severus Snape, and her voice was loud as thunder.
"I have forgiven you your debt to me, but not to my son. I have freed you from your obligation to the mark you chose in your rage. I leave it to you to decide how you will honour the marks you chose in your regret."
With that, Lilly Potter turned to the stone that remained on the ground, looking at the Resurrection stone that even phoenix fire could not destroy and sighed.
"This is too much temptation for my son to carry. I have no right to ask it of you, but will you do it?" Lilly said, taking the most toxic of the Deathly Hallows into her undead hands and turning to Noodle.
"$ Speaker is mine to protect. $" Noodle said simply then struck.
Looking at her empty hands, and the swallowing Rock Viper, she smiled sadly, and turned to herr son.
"You are loved, and will be when I am gone. Remember that." Lilly spoke, and with the speaking of the last word, she was gone.
As the circle fell, and a distracted group of humans and goblins began to talk about that most potent and strange ritual, in the darkness beyond, two champions stalked away into the night, headed to the Durmstrang ship and Beauxbaton carriage with much to think about.
The Tri-Wizard Tournament had begun, but it was far from the only game being played.