A/N: This is to warn you that there has been/is a major upheaval in my life. I do not know yet if it will prevent me from posting or writing, but there is a significant chance of it. Hopefully I will know and update everyone soon.
The new moon for March fell on March 1, which somehow felt auspicious despite it being a complete coincidence. The ritual they'd done on January 1 had been dramatic and successful though, so Hermione decided to take it as a good omen. The spring equinox, Ostara, was still three weeks out, giving Hermione not only time to figure out what she wanted to do about Tom, but also what she wanted to do as a ritual for Ostara, which meant she could safely push both matters to the back of her mind for the time being and focus on the here and now.
Hermione had decided that for this new moon, they would do a ritual – a ritual to purify and cleanse the remainder of the goblins' land. Theo was confident he'd synthesized enough antidote to finish purifying the groundwater in the area, and Neville had methodically picked, ground up, and collected enough toxic mushroom substrate to cover the entirety of Hermione's lands of Exmoor. And while Hermione suspected people wouldn't be hugely surprised that she wanted them to do a ritual…
…she did think they would be surprised to discover who all would be there.
"Who is this?" Terry Boot demanded, pointing down at a goblin, who was sneering at him.
"That is being Fleshaxe!" a House Elf said, indignantly.
"And who are you?" Terry asked, incredulous.
"I is Mopsy," the House Elf said proudly.
"And why are you and Fleshaxe here, Mopsy?" Anthony Goldstein asked, a little more politely. Hermione glanced over at the little cluster, ruthlessly eavesdropping as she helped move chests of materials into place.
Mopsy brightened.
"Oh, that is being easy," Mopsy said dismissively. "We is here to be helping with the magic to be purifying the goblins' homes."
"Purifying the goblins' homes?" Marietta Edgecombe sounded terrified. "Aren't—aren't the goblins threatening rebellion right now?"
"If they are," Theo interjected, giving her a cool look, "wouldn't it be good to make sure you're not on their bad side now?"
Hermione hid her smile as she continued to help set things up.
It was funny to see how the different groups of people interacted with each other. The Ravenclaws were very thrown by the presence of goblins and House Elves, but they were attempting not to show they were rattled as best they could. In contrast, the Durmstrang crew was amused and curious; they seemed to be treating the House Elves like small children you would humor kindly, while avoiding the goblins altogether.
The hedgewitches, though, were excited.
The hedgewitches were openly fascinated and made conversation with the goblins, asking them questions about where they lived, why their teeth were so pointy, and what it was like to live in caves. Clover was fascinated with the concept of their venom and their way of life, while Jerran was curious about what plants could grow so deep underground. The goblins seemed highly suspicious of these questions, but as they answered the hedgewitches' questions, Hermione was able to see their suspicion move more towards confusion. It took her a while to realize what had thrown the goblins off so badly.
The hedgewitches were treating the goblins like people.
The Ravenclaws and those from Durmstrang knew goblins and knew wizarding history. They were accustomed to goblins being 'lesser'. The hedgewitches, who earned very little and had no need for a bank that kept gold in hard-to-access vaults, had very little experience with goblins. And upon seeing goblins and house elves and learning that Hermione had invited them directly, they had accepted them without qualm – embracing them as equals.
It warmed her heart and made her smile, to know she wasn't the only one.
When a contingent from Lundy showed up on brooms unexpectedly about an hour before dusk, Hermione was thrilled to see them embrace the exact same attitude – curiosity about the others, excitement to meet them, but with a strong undercurrent of equality between them all.
It was bolstering to see. Hermione knew if she wanted to build a strong future where everyone would be treated as equals, she would need to start from somewhere, and beginning with her own lands and vassals seemed like a good place to start.
As the sun began to set, Hermione climbed up on top of a small dais she'd conjured so she could see out over everyone.
"We are going to be performing a ritual to remove the toxins from this land and purify it," she told them all. "We will be doing this by using these magical flakes—"
Flakes wasn't exactly an accurate term for the ground-up mushroom substrate Neville had made, but Hermione didn't really want to pause and answer questions about mushroom biology that she didn't fully understand herself.
"—and these potions of purification," she said, gesturing to the bottles Theo had assembled on another table. "You will all be led in a chant while you push your magic into the flakes and the potion, which will be used as elements to power the ritual."
To her dismay, Hermione saw more people coming out of the woods and joining the crowd. More hedgewitches, she presumed, but why were they showing up now? Were they just late but still wanted to participate? Was she going to need to repeat everything again?
"Any questions?" she said finally, and several hands went up.
One Durmstrang student wanted to hear how to pronounce the chant in advance so they could practice it, as English was difficult for them. A teen from Blackwell wanted to know if it was okay to use a staff instead of a wand, and when Hermione explained that even a wand wasn't needed for this, just magic, everyone's faces shone with excitement. A few other questions were answered, mostly just repeating bits of information she'd covered earlier, and Hermione answered them calmly and patiently, determined to act like a good leader.
Finally, Cho Chang raised her hand, asking the question Hermione had been prepared for.
"This whole area is immense," she said, looking around. "How do we know where to go?"
Hermione grinned, and with a quick gesture, a glowing, opaque white orb zoomed up from a nearby table to float over her hand, gradually turning from an opaque white to a more lavender shade of light.
"These are your placement lights," she said. "Everyone will form a queue to take their magic flakes and purification potion. Once you do, you will take a placement orb, and it will lead you to where you need to stand."
There was a murmur at this, and Hermione beamed. It was an impressive feat of magic to handle potentially difficult logistics, and she was rather proud of it.
"Now!" She clapped her hands. "If everyone is ready, please form a line to get your ritual elements, then take an orb. Once everyone is in place, we will begin."
There was murmuring and discussion as people queued up, while some people stepped to the side. Blackbeard was there, looking at the queue with something akin to longing. Keenan was also there, looking distressed, and Hermione went over to her, concerned, to see what was wrong.
"I can't hold both the flakes and the potion," Keenan despaired. "I've only got one arm."
Hermione winced, making a mental note that she needed to look into magical and muggle prosthetics.
"Maybe one of the House Elves can help you," Hermione encouraged. "You could sit down to do your part of the chant and have them on your lap. So long as they're touching you for the ritual, it will work – they don't need to be in your hands."
There were other lurkers on the sidelines, people with suspicious and curious eyes. Hermione ignored these people and did her best to pretend they didn't exist, but she did check in with Luna for a moment when she could pull her aside.
"I think they're here to feel things out," Luna told her quietly. "You'd do the same too, wouldn't you? Before you joined a mysterious group?"
Hermione had to admit that Luna was correct – if it was her on the other side, she'd probably be doing the exact same thing – but much less obviously, clearly, and better, perhaps under Harry's invisibility cloak or in disguise. Though for all Hermione knew, maybe the watchers were disguised. If it was a good disguise, she wouldn't know, would she?
As the line for materials got shorter and shorter, Hermione watched as the members of the Shadows vanished one by one, discreetly disappearing into the forest. Once everyone had an orb, Hermione climbed back onto the table.
"Sonorus," she cast, touching her wand to her neck. She cleared her throat to get everyone's attention, the sound unnaturally loud and echoing throughout the area.
"The night is dark and the moon is hidden, but united we are strong, protected from harm," Hermione intoned. "For our ritual on this night, we call upon the magic of the Shadows to aid our charm."
It wasn't a real incantation – just a lazy rhyme to sound more dramatic – but when nine cloaked figures emerged from the woods bearing giant orbs of light, utterly unrecognizable, there was a collective gasp and murmur, and Hermione felt a sense of satisfaction. It might be dramatic, but if magical rituals weren't supposed to be dramatic and ceremonial, what was?
Magic like this was supposed to feel larger than life, Hermione felt. It helped people treat it with the respect it deserved.
The ritual itself was very simple – they would all link to the ley line, a source of purified magic running throughout the land, and then channel that magic into the mushroom substrate and purification potion. Once both elements were overloaded with magic, the magic would then consume the elements and take on their purification properties, before the magic would flood into the land itself.
There was no ritual circle beyond everyone standing in a loosely circle shape (more of a squiggled lasso, technically, given the shape of the land she'd been given by the Ministry), and there was no blood involved. All that would unite the group would be their chant, their magic, and their purpose – which Hermione knew would be enough.
The chant for everyone else was relatively simple, just a rhyming quatrain. Hermione had written it out on a slip of parchment in large, printed letters, and then duplicated it so people could take one. She'd neglected to realize that it was the new moon – and therefore dark, so no one could read their papers on the ground – but having the slips on them as they'd prepared all evening seemed to have helped people enough that most everyone seemed to know the words:
"What once was will be again;
Our magic calls from now to then.
Purify this land so things might live and grow
Throughout the earth; as above, so below."
The Shadows had spaced themselves mysteriously throughout the circle with their larger magic balls, and they helped lead the chant through several repetitions until it was successful. Then, without previous discussion, the feel of the air seemed to shift, and the drain on the ley line began.
Everyone seemed to have a different level of skill with channeling ley line magic into objects, and to Hermione's mild amusement, the Hogwarts and Durmstrang students struggled with it the most. For the House Elves, it was second nature, and the goblins had been doing rituals with the house elves for enough months now to know how to mimic the skill as well. The hedgewitches had never known another way to cast magic, and the Blackwell students were familiar enough with drawing on a ley line through a staff to figure out how to do it themselves. But for others who had never done it before, it was a baffling and frustrating thing, to see others succeed around you and have no idea what to do.
Hermione was prepared for this, though - it was here that the magic of the Shadows worked, the reason they'd spaced themselves out so evenly.
The Shadows had all torn their own ley lines through reality, created new paths for magic to travel between realms and world. They knew the feel of ley lines in a way most people did not, and with everyone chanting, it was easy for those in mysterious dark cloaks to walk around the circle of people and pause when they came upon a person whose elements were not glowing, then clasp them firmly on the shoulders. The person would jerk in surprise, before they gasped suddenly as their magic touched the ley line, and then their elements would begin to glow. Never mind the fact that the Shadows were basically dragging others' magic down to find and connect to the ley line to channel it – cloaking everything in ritual and ceremony made it a magical experience, not an act of force.
Once everyone's elements were glowing and the cloaked figures returned to their own positions, Hermione's own part began.
"Land once lush, now tainted with woe," Hermione intoned, her voice carrying throughout the land. "Waters poisoned, their spirits low."
The night seemed to grow darker somehow as she spoke, though there was already no light.
"Dark shadows cast a somber shroud," Hermione went on, suppressing a shiver. "'Healing needed!' the earth cries aloud."
There was a sense of vibration in the air now, of energy gathering, hovering, but having nowhere to go. Hermione glimpsed some of her classmates' anticipatory expressions, their eyes wide.
"With magic's touch, we mend the earth," Hermione chanted. "We restore its beauty, its vibrant mirth. With shadows' whispers and spells so true, we heal the land; magic's promise to renew."
Making up rituals wasn't just a slapdash guessing game – there was an internal logic of it all to Hermione, one she felt she deeply understood. It made sense to her, and she didn't quite grasp why others struggled to follow when she tried to explain. For example, now that she had declared the purpose of the ritual, Hermione would declare how the magic would be done with the incantation, giving it its direction and method.
This time, Hermione had chosen to use the natural four elements. It was a logical choice, given the purpose of the ritual and the ritual taking place outside. Everyone present was also familiar with the four elements, adding at least a low level of subconscious understanding that would aid their focus and participation with the magic.
To begin, Hermione turned to face the north, pulling her own magic through her earth elemental as she did, before sending it out into the land to join the collecting magic of the ritual.
"Beneath the soil, where roots entwine,
Earth's heartbeat pulses in veins of ley line.
In shadows' dance, with whispers true,
Purification brings life anew."
The earth beneath their feet seemed to quiver and shake, coming alive. There was an energy in the ground now that Hermione could sense through the soles of her shoes, a potential that hadn't been there before. It reminded her of static electricity, and the ground seemed to have a bounce to it that hadn't been there before.
The magical glow in the substrate and potions intensified, growing even brighter.
The rest of the crowd still chanting, Hermione turned to face east, this time pulling her magic through the air.
"Upon the breeze, the whispers ride,
Through valleys deep and mountains wide.
With air and shadow, our magic's art
Purifies the land, a brand-new start.
A soft breeze began slowly stirring as she started her quatrain, growing into a noticeable wind by the time she finished. It wasn't strong enough yet to feel like a contained tornado, but with enough people feeding it power, Hermione thought the magic in the air might be able to get there.
People murmured and gasped as their elements began floating in front of them, swept out of their hands by strong gusts of wind, but discipline and habit kept everyone chanting and channeling their magic. The power of the ritual now had its own momentum, like a boulder starting to roll down a hill.
The next element was fire, and Hermione turned toward the south as she channeled her magic through her own fire elemental and sent it out into the area.
"In shadows' cloak, the flames ignite,
Purifying land with fierce delight.
Fire's power, shadows' embrace,
Brings renewal, a sacred grace."
There were surprised cries and a few screams as the ritual's elements all caught fire, spontaneously bursting into bright white flame. The wind kicked up a level, blowing ashes around in a spiral and swirling above them all like a hurricane, and people looked up in shock and awe even as they still chanted.
Hermione turned to the west for the last element, pulling on the water elemental of her own.
"With rain's soft cadence, our shadows dance,
Water's magic, a cleansing trance.
Purify the land, with nature's flow,
In shadows' embrace, let purity grow."
This verse, Hermione intoned more quietly, though her voice still echoed loud enough for everyone to hear. Above her, flecks of ash combined with hovering drops of potion, forming water droplets that gleamed unnaturally in the darkness, before a steady warm rain began to fall.
The rain didn't last long, and it seemed to magically avoid hitting any of the ritual participants, instead landing on the earth and soaking into the ground. Each drop flashed white as it landed, before being sucked into the earth, as if the earth was thirsty. Hermione watched along with the others as the land accepted the purification magic gratefully, greedily, taking everything it could from the rain.
Once the rain was done, the group's chant seemed to soften, as if everyone could sense the end of the ritual approaching. All that was left now was for Hermione to summarize and conclude the ritual for the group, which she was ready to do.
"Our spells and magic, with shadows' might," Hermione intoned, "Have cleansed the land, restored its light."
As she spoke the last quatrain, she could feel people naturally letting go of the ley line as she chanted, even those who had never worked with ley line magic before.
"No more poison, no more sorrow," she finished. "Now purity reigns, our brighter tomorrow."
A quiet hung in the air for a long moment before dissipating, and suddenly the noises of the night came back – the chirping of crickets in the grass, the calls of owls in the woods, the sound of the wind in the grass over the land. Hermione hadn't noticed the lack of natural sounds until they came back – it'd been like everything around them had been quietly respectful during the ritual, the earth holding its own breath, until it was safe to exhale again.
People began milling about, talking and conversing excitedly about the ritual. The House Elves were enthralled, and the goblins were suspiciously bright-eyed but determinedly not talking about it. Hermione couldn't blame them – they'd soon be able to finally return to their ancestral homes.
The wizards were excited, several of them baffled by what had happened to the phials the purification potion had been in, and Hermione watched as people approached each one of the Shadows, trying to talk to them and draw them into conversation to ask them questions. It was with a distinct sense of satisfaction that she watched each Shadow vanish silently, slipping away through the ley line into the forest as easy as you please, leaving stunned people gaping behind them.
Once everyone else had left and her friends had re-emerged from the woods, Hermione and the other Shadows lingered to clean up, with only Hermione's close hedgewitch friends, Neville, and Daphne remaining behind. They Vanished the tables they'd conjured, gathered up all the slips of paper with the chant on them to get rid of, and walked around to check everything over, picking up any mess anyone had left behind.
People conversed idly as they did, brainstorming what to do next new moon, talking to the others about their confidence with working with ley lines so far, theorizing about the potential goblin revolt now that the goblins and House Elves were gone. Theo seemed almost eager for a goblin revolt to happen, which struck Hermione as very, very funny in a twisted way, while Millie was insistent that they should try and push the goblins to delay as long as possible so she could get a fortress built in time before everything went to hell.
It was only when Hermione had straightened up to do a last check around the area that she noticed there was still a person lurking by the woods, watching them.
She hadn't noticed them before – their cloak was so black that it blended into the darkness of the woods like a perfect camouflage, and it was only now that the figure had taken off their hood that Hermione had seen them at all, the faint light of the stars reflecting off the pale skin of their face.
She had no idea who it was, or how long they had been there, watching, listening.
Hermione suppressed a shiver and began walking toward them, her stride determined and unafraid, and the figure gradually grew clearer the nearer she got to them, though their features were still partially obscured in the dim light.
They were tall – nearly six feet tall, Hermione guessed, and thin, almost unnaturally so. The person was bald – entirely bald, with a head that looked more cursed clean than shaved. They had dark, sunken eyes and dark eyebrows. They wore large black silk robes with a hood, though the hood was down, and they were clearly waiting for Hermione to approach.
"Hello," Hermione said, once she was nearer. "Can I help you?"
The figure smiled.
"You are Hermione Granger? The New Blood?"
The voice was that of a woman, though the figure looked androgynous, emaciated and cloaked in oversized robes and shadow as they were.
"I am," Hermione said, her voice steady.
The figure smiled. It was an unsettling smile, something about it distinctly uncanny and oddly familiar to Hermione.
"I am Eve," the woman told Hermione, her dark eyes glittering. "And I would like to join you."