Definitions of Dark Magic
Colloquial
- Either inherently evil magic, magic cast by evil people, magic that influences the caster toward evil, or some combination of the three depending on who you ask/read.
Pros:
- Potentially useful for gauging public opinion & thus political climate
- Cons:
- Fickle & imprecise; useless for practical study
- Intellectually lazy, promotes willful ignorance of things that could kill you
Legalistic
- Anything legally classified as 'Dark', allegedly for the safety of the general population.
Pros:
- Vital for understanding of magical criminal law
Cons:
- Illegal for various reasons, many outdated, classist, xenophobic, etc
- Irregularly enforced. Power, pedigree, & politics often provide immunity; the Trace problem, but for potentially deadly knowledge
Practical
- Magic performed with the intent to harm. Applies to both curses that have no other use and to normally benign spells altered by violent intent.
Pros:
- Actually useful for spellcasting
- Insight into true power of intent
Cons:
- Confusing; is a wandlighting charm used to blind someone Dark? Or a banishing charm used to launch a knife?
Research:
- Alleged and actual reasons for banning of various spells & disciplines
- Source & veracity of idea of certain magic corrupting the caster
Dark magic & 'corruption', according to S.O.B.:
Torture curses require desire to inflict pain; more vicious battle-magic requires bloodthirst; Imperius curse (IC) works best when cast with powerful sense of superiority/entitlement. Repeated casting of such spells mentally correlates these emotions with success/victory/etc, allegedly fostering sadism in habitual users.
.:.
Dark mages, at least those produced and/or well-regarded by the House of Black, seemed to favor a very specific brand of mysticism. For every book (or scroll, or codex) of straightforward descriptions, there were five texts that read more like gothic odes to the cunning and brilliance of the author and/or their family. Hermione believed this was an artifact of pureblood culture rather than 'dark' magic itself, and would continue to do so until proven otherwise.
She suspected, partially due to the things Sirius would sometimes let slip after a few drinks, that the actual practice of such magics was primarily an oral tradition rather than a written one. Probably for secrecy reasons. Which seemed rather paranoid given that books could be —and often were— warded (Perhaps she was overestimating the difficulty of ward-breaking? Further research was required).
The magic was, of course, inseparable from the family history. Black had come from Blæc, which was itself a shortening of Blæc-Hyd — Black-Hide, in reference to the dragonhide armor worn by the Anglo-Saxon ancestors that carved out a bloody foothold on the Isles in the late 5th century.
Many of the spells they used to do so were chanted in Old English or its precursor, Proto-Germanic— but in the ensuing centuries they hoarded knowledge in Latin, Old Norse, native tongues like Cumbric and Cornish, and later even Arabic & Ancient Egyptian.
Also blood magic. Lots of blood magic. The Anglo-Saxons and vikings had liked their brutal, straightforward battle-spells, and made heavy use of hematurgical rituals to lay protective enchantments on both places and people. The Blacks had combined that tradition with Roman-origin Latinate spells to some very interesting (and often disturbing) effects.
Their ancestral magic was, of course, intertwined with their pagan traditions; they had staunchly (read: viciously) resisted christianization, backing pagan kings and sowing discord amongst the allies of the Church at every opportunity. They had also made a habit of abducting clergy for use in various messy-looking rituals.
Many of their deeds during that period, in fact, lined up disturbingly well with the sort of accusations that were later used to justify the burnings of alleged witches.
(How many muggles and muggleborns, Hermione wondered, had been brutally murdered for the crimes of pureblood aristocrats?)
There was some evidence of the Blacks abducting and/or fostering muggleborns before the statute, framed as rescuing them from the savages and reducing the risk that they might be murdered or weaponized by the Church. Some of that evidence was the presence of wand-wielding servants in various illustrations and paintings (Hermione was beginning to suspect that fostering may, in fact, have been a euphemism for abduction). This allegedly ended with one of those fostered muggleborns turning against them for some (suspiciously) unspecified reason and helping the Church sack the very villa in which they had been 'fostered'. This incident was immortalized in a very vivid tapestry, which seemed to be a fair indicator of House Black's artistic tastes in general.
.:.
It did eventually come out, several visits later and between bouts of furious note-taking, that Hermione not only knew Sirius' favorite cousin but had been mentored in everything purebloods didn't want her to know —and using her house to circumvent the Trace— for nearly three years.
He seemed to regard this much the same way Fred and George regarded horribly disruptive pranks, and was absolutely delighted to hear that she was far from the first muggleborn the Tonkses had helped 'stick it to the man'.
He took the revelation of Andromeda's belief in his innocence and lack thereof much less… dramatically than she had feared, merely letting out another mirthless chuckle and continuing to drink.
It was when Hermione offered to help him discreetly communicate with the Tonkses that his countenance darkened.
"You forget," he rasped, "that my family name was all the evidence most of this bloody country needed to assume my guilt. Andy's been married to a muggleborn for decades, birthed and raised a half-blood, and there's still talk in the papers about her hiding me from the Aurors. The they'll be watching her like hawks, ready to raid her house at the first sign of anything they think is 'suspicious.' Can't risk it. She's got a good life. A loving partner, a kid… I won't risk dragging them into…"
He made a vague, all-encompassing sort of gesture.
Hermione belatedly nodded. It was quite sensible— admirable, even, in a very Harryish sort of way.
But she looked at Sirius Black, once-dashing brother-in-arms of Lily and James Potter, now reduced to a bitter, alcoholic shell of a man languishing in a dark, decrepit museum of his family's abundant psychoses, and couldn't stop herself from tearing up or saying:
"But— but they're your family. Surely—"
"Harry is my family!" His hand struck the table with a startling crack.
Hermione went very still, hand clenched around her wand. The magic around them rippled, writhed, and slowly stilled again, leaving her with the subtle yet persistent impression that it was waiting for something (which was a welcome distraction from her fear).
"Fuck," Sirius slumped back in his chair and ran a hand over his face, into his unwashed hair. "Sorry. Merlin, I'm sorry, I just— sitting around this bloody house knowing Wormtail's out there getting up to Fates-know-what…"
He huffed, went to take another sip of firewhiskey, and seemed to think better of it.
"One more condition," he said, not quite looking at her.
"It seems a bit late for that," Hermione replied, glancing down at the twelfth-century treatise on runic enhancement of weapons and armour open in her lap.
"I'm altering the deal," Sirius drawled, deepening his voice. "Pray I don't alter it further."
Hermione stared for a moment as her brain mapped out the implications of that reference. "You… went to a muggle cinema in the middle of a war?"
He grinned and shrugged. "Death munchers weren't exactly staking out high streets. And we needed a pick-me-up amidst all the murders and almost-murders, y'know."
Right.
"Well, what is it then?"
Sirius blinked at her. He didn't look like he'd slept much recently.
"The fourth condition."
"Oh." He sat up a bit. "'Y'know where to get linked mirrors?"
Hermione perked up. She'd read about communication mirrors of course, but her only glimpse of one had been as Parvati showed her parents the dorms. "No, but I can find out."
"Good. There's probably a few around here somewhere, but I don't feel like digging through centuries of grimy junk, and they're probably cursed or haunted. Or both." He reached into the wine-dark motorcycle jacket he'd mysteriously acquired at some point since her last visit, and pulled out a hefty sack of galleons. "Get three. Small and portable, please. And make sure they've got room in the spellwork for extra runes, yeah? Need to key them t'you, me, and Harry."
"...Show me how to do that, and you've got yourself a deal."
Sirius smiled, took a gulp of firewhiskey, and belched significantly more fire than it was supposed to produce— for several seconds longer than she'd seen the effect last before. Hermione found herself leaning forward, drawn by the sudden warmth in the air, which drew a raised eyebrow from Sirius.
"Can I try some of that?"
Thankfully her Baba was pleased enough by her sudden affection for the head-wraps his cousins had sent her over the years that he didn't ask what brought it on, and she was able to get the scorched hair trimmed away with no one the wiser. Her mishap had also made Sirius laugh, which made her feel slightly better about having convinced him to stay in a house that was clearly exacerbating his psychological issues.
Potentially useful combat spells
Slæsik— lit. "I strike you". Scales from slapping hex to bludgeoning curse, depending on power/emotion/intent.
Brjót— bone-breaking curse.
Lacero— tearing curse. "The serrated knife to diffindo's smooth edge." Effective casting incapacitates one enemy & forces others to choose between retreating to provide medical attention & letting their comrade bleed out.
Beceorfa— Anglo-Saxon 'disarming' curse.
Skjalda— Old Norse shield charm. Easily modified, i.e. 'Minskjald är drekahúð' ('My shield is dragonhide').
þinragasblēda— lit "Your eyes bleed" in Anglo-Saxon. Unclear if causes bleeding via physical damage or just summons blood out; probably depends on intent. You can't curse what you can't see, and eyes apparently can't be repaired on the battlefield.
Ardescat— "be inflamed." Depending on power & intent, can cause anything from an uncomfortable heat to serious burns.
Saifinaar— flame-cutter. Lit. "My sword is fire" in Arabic, notably favored by Saūl al-Zahr of
Sirius was jolted from a particularly torpid round of brooding by a sharp, feminine shriek of:
"Salazar was Moorish?"
He blinked, and peeled himself halfway of the fainting couch. "What, really?"
A steady progression of thumps heralded the little lioness' approach. She marched into the sitting room with yet another tome of uncertain binding material in hand, her curls adorably puffed up, face smeared with ink and scrunched up in fury.
"According to Léofrún bloody Griffin d'or, yes!" She huffed, flipping a yellowed page. "What I don't understand is why historical revisionists—"
—A descriptor she uttered with the utmost disdain—
"—would prefer a Spanish name to an Arabic one. The Umayyads were much more tolerant than Catholics! And even if he did have a darker complexion, that shouldn't have really meant much to anyone in the tenth bloody century!"
"The inaccuracy!" Sirius gasped, clutching his phantom pearls. "The intellectual dishonesty! What shall we do?"
The lioness, tragically inured to his dazzling wit, merely shot him a half-miffed, half-amused look before returning to her dark, dark studies.
She had outbursts like this several times per visit, but it never got any less entertaining. If that was partially because he found it reminiscent of a certain red-haired hellion… well. He could occlude that away for later, as long as he didn't get too drunk.
Saifinaar— flame-cutter. Lit. "My sword is fire" in Arabic, notably favored by Lord Saūl al-Zahr of Hogeweards. (Old English. Weard: guardian/sentry. Hoge: either 'hill' or 'high'; unclear.) Blacks adopted Arabic incantation despite their distaste for monotheism because more concise than OE or ON. (More stubborn members of HB, partially out of Anglo-Saxon pride & partially to taunt opponents with long incantation, did sometimes use "Min sverd biþ fyrr.")
Thus began a brief detour into Arabic magic (specifically of the North African and Iberian variety), which the Grimmauld Place library had a sadly limited selection of. Fire-conjuring and cleansing rituals seemed to be a running theme, though that could have been more of a reflection of the author than the culture.
Misc. notes 26/07/1993 - Organize later!
Hematurgy:
- From AG 'hema' + 'turgos', lit. 'blood worker' a la 'thaumaturgos' ('wonder-worker, Xtian connotations).
- Colloquially known as Blood Magic.
- Fundamentally sacrificial— short of carving out your own heart, blood is the most symbolically powerful offering a mage can make. Freely given blood apparently more potent than stolen except for specific purposes. Menstrual blood apparently very useful for certain purposes (find: Draumlác æt Monablot by Hyades Gaunt).
- Sheep's blood on doorposts— wards? Symbolic rejection of Egyptian sheep-deity x sacrifice of same blood mixed into foundations of city?
- Ritually-prepared bone-powder chalk for economical use of blood for hemograms/glyphs (writing vs carving). For healing, fertility, and augmentation, freely given bones are best; for war-spells, use bones taken from vanquished foes. If necessary to source from graves, only use bones of biological family members.
Intent-Success Feedback Loop Rating (ISFLR):
10: AK, Cruciatus, Imperius, entrail-expellers & other vicious curses
9: Eyebleed Curse
8: TBD - Research!
7: Spells for cooking, demolition, etc used on living beings instead; requires either great malicious intent, dehumanization, or both
6: Curses that mimic effects of mundane weapons— piercing, cleaving, bone-breaking, etc. Simple, & effective, but gruesome.
5: Blasting, burning, etc (can be used on inanimate objects, not just living targets)
4: TBD
3: Cosmetic disfigurement hexes— not violent , but reliant on cruel intent; potential indicator of skill with curses
2: TBD
1: Stunners & body-binds?
- Research & rate:
- Mind-magic
- Trap wards
- Non-consensual protective enchantments
.
.o0o.
"Sirius!"
He twitched, knocking over the bucket of Scouring Solution he'd been using to assail several decades worth of magiphagic mould, and took a moment to breathe. Then he righted it with a charm, and pulled out his pocket-mirror to a view of the library's dark, pretentiously vaulted ceiling. "You rang?"
"Come up here! You have to see this!"
…well, anything beat cleaning.
He was barely a step through the doorway when a flicker of orange light snapped his gaze to the left and his wand into his hand— too late for him to stop it flying out of his hand and into Hermione's.
"Merlin," he gasped, unclenching only through great force of will. "Well done, cub."
She stifled a grin, pocketed it, and started walking away.
"Hold on, did you just cast that—"
"Muffling charm on the area around me," she said without looking back. "Just because I still need to incant doesn't mean my enemies have to hear it."
…he wasn't sure when she'd started favoring the word enemies over opponents, but—
"But that's not what I called you up here to demonstrate."
"Are you going to give me my wand back?"
"Not yet," she said. "This way."
Sirius followed her past shelves laden with thick, leather-bound tomes and pure silver busts of various long-dead psychos, the word demonstrate and his lack of wand blending into simmering unease. The deeper into the library they went the darker it got, magelight sconces going up against the general aura of the place and losing. Thus he only recognized their surroundings just a second too late to stop her from marching through the archway of gnarled, rune-covered yew that led to his mother's favorite section.
"Kitten wait—"
A pale light lit the runes. The air thickened.
Nothing else happened.
Hermione turned to face him with a grin, decidedly not bleeding out of any orifices.
"What… how did you—?" He swallowed dryly, heart still slamming against his ribs. "That thing is cursed six ways to Sunday!"
"Yes, to kill anyone of impure blood that crosses through it." Her grin shrank to a very smug smile. "You mentioned."
His jerk reaction was to ask if she'd made an unpleasant discovery about her heritage, but something told him that might not be the best thing to lead with.
Hermione stepped back through the archway. Again the runes glowed, and magic filled the air. Again her blood stayed put.
"How…?"
"Well," she said, "as far as I've been able to discern, either someone used an elaborate blood ritual to alter my appearance and painstakingly altered the memories of my entire family, or—"
—she paused to breathe—
"—the curse on that archway —which hasn't faded or been undone, I did check— doesn't do what you were told it does."
Sirius's kept staring. He'd never known anything in this house to turn out less dangerous than it was supposed to be.
Her blood kept staying put.
"I do think that your inclusion of me in the wards has identified me as at least an honored guest," she went on, "but considering the… inner politics of your family, the curse should still have identified me as a mudblood and reacted accordingly…"
"You…" he shook his head, running her words back to make sure she was saying what he thought she was saying— "...think it can't tell ?
"And the family never knew because they never let any muggleborns in here to test it!" The smug smile grew back into a grin, her eyes alight with something like triumph. "Sirius, if Black Family Magic can't tell muggleborn from pureblood…"
…Circe's teats.
Sirius opened his mouth and closed it a few times before he managed to choke out: "That's…"
"Groundbreaking? Paradigm-altering? Potentially inflammatory?"
"...amazing, Hermione, but… still just one example."
She frowned. "Well, I know that. I'll have to examine it more thoroughly —my working theory is that it actually detects malicious intent towards the family, which its creators assumed any non-pureblood that passed through it would have, but I can't prove it yet— and I'll need to find other artefacts with similar purposes for sample size, but…"
"Hold on." Sirius shook his head again, feeling the annoyingly unfulfillable urge to flick his ears. "Hermione. How exactly did you figure this out?
"Oh, don't worry. I flicked some of my blood through first, then worked my way up from a fingertip to my whole body."
He buried his face in his hands. "I need a drink."
"You want a drink."
(He almost wished she would try some sort of intervention instead of just making passive-aggressive comments about his budding alcoholism)
"Yes," he grit out. "I want to get drunk. What I need to do is set some clearer rules so that you don't go and get your entrails expelled over some dusty old book."
"That seems like an awfully messy curse to put on something that's going to be in a library," she said.
Sirius turned into a dog. Dog feelings were easier than people feelings.
"Do you… want to discuss rules later, then? Because I was going to ask if you felt up to a duel."
He snuffled, and brushed past her to find a couch that didn't reek of old blood and fear.
Hermione was attempting to discern the organizational scheme (or lack thereof) of the second floor when an oddly accented voice spoke up from the shadows:
"Wes hāl."
Her wand was up in an instant, her floating jar of bluebell flames flaring brighter, casting their light on a positively ancient-looking portrait of an eerily pale witch with her gray-streaked raven hair gathered into a single ribbon-wrapped braid. Auriga Æthelflæd Black I, declared the silver plaque beneath it.
"Hwanan cymst þū, wicceling?" She asked, narrowed silver eyes darting over Hermione's jeans and jumper. "þū eart nan mægþ min."
Hermione blinked. It was strange to hear a language she'd only ever seen rendered in fading ink spoken aloud.
"Sorry, I don't—" Her thoughts snagged on a glaring contradiction, and she narrowed her own eyes right back at the portrait. "Is this some sort of test? Speaking portraits weren't invented until centuries after Old English passed out of common parlance."
The woman arched an eyebrow. "Looke I common to thee, witchling? If a witch thou truly art."
Hermione refrained from aiming a meaningful glance at her wand or levitating jar of conjured fire, instead straightening her back and angling her chin according to Andromeda's most tedious lessons. " Common is a matter of perspective, Madam. Tell me, did the entire Black family speak Englisċ in your time, or were you trying for a bit more prestige?"
Auriga Æthelflæd's rouge-stained lips curled into a slight, amused smirk. "She walkes mine boc-hord in muggle cloths, and askes of prestige."
(Which of course raised the question of how a portrait in a house owned by violent xenophobes knew what modern muggle clothing looked like; thankfully the many quirks of the wizarding world had trained Hermione to mentally shelve curiosities for later.)
"I walk the library of Sirius Orion Black at his invitation," she said, "in search of knowledge."
"Oh? And what knowledge, pray tell, hath lured thee from thy hovel?"
…It was actually sort of fun to be insulted in such archaic vernacular— almost like being in a play or a BBC special.
"Battle-magic, hematurgy, warding…" She resisted the urge to keep listing. No one liked a know-it-all. "Magic beyond the narrow, neutered latinate canon taught at Hogwarts, in general."
The portrait's smirk grew a fraction of a centimeter. "And how, pray tell, hast thou coax'd such an invitation from an heir of Blæc?"
Hermione channeled her inner Madam Tonks, and pronounced in the primmest tone: "There was no coaxing involved, Lady Auriga. 'Twas a simple exchange. He wanted information on his chosen heir, who has been kept from him unlawfully, and asked that I relay the most useful of what I learn here unto his heir. A small price to pay for the knowledge to better protect myself and those close to me."
The eyebrow rose again. "Knowledge the Ministry would see thee caged or leashed for practicing."
"The Ministry will see no more than I let them see."
The smirk grew to a smile. "What is thy name, witchling?"
"Hermione Ijeoma Granger."
"New bloode from distant shores," Auriga mused, a distinctly appraising gleam in her silver eyes as she spotted the hamsa pendant hanging from Hermione's neck. "And a scion of the Hebrews, no less."
Hermione tipped her chin ever-so-slightly up, and felt compelled to say: "My maternal grandparents were Dreyfuses of Alsace-Lorraine."
This seemed to meet Auriga's approval, for she leaned forward (or appeared to, at least), a few stray strands of wavy black hair falling across her moon-white face.
"Tell me, Hermione Ijeoma," she whispered, "what dost thou knowe of wiccecræft?"
A shiver went down Hermione's spine. She wasn't sure if it was a good shiver or a bad shiver, but it certainly bore investigating.
"Not nearly as much as I'd like to," she replied.
She wondered how many times the family tree had branched and unbranched between Auriga and Sirius. Their grins were eerily similar.
A piercing, hateful screech stabbed at Padfoot's ears, sending an electric jolt of panic through him. His head shot up off the cushions, and his fur stood on end as the horrible, dangerous sound went on and on and—
—and the cub was out there with it.
For a moment he was frozen, trapped between the need to help and the need to get away because that he couldn't do anything to stop that voice without a—
Wand!
Sirius burst into the entry hall on two legs, ready to cast and with no idea what to cast, and stopped in his tracks at the sight of Hermione Granger standing directly in front of his mother's shrieking, ranting portrait, glaring the banshee down with half-empty bottle of firewhiskey in hand and a small stack of books on the side-table beside her. The topmost volume was entitled 101 Ways to Make Use of a Mudblood.
"SIRIUS ORION BLACK! HOW DARE YOU BRING THIS FILTH INTO MY HOME!?"
He stepped forward, reaching for the curtains— only for a stinging hex to hit him in the arm.
"YOUR BROTHER WOULD BE ASHAMED OF YOU!"
Hermione lowered her wand and took a swig of firewhiskey, barely even wincing as she continued to glare right back at his mother's manic likeness. Something about the set of her jaw reminded him of being strapped to a chair in an Order safehouse, clenching his mouth and mind shut as Moody gave a crash-course in resisting advanced interrogation.
He stepped back.
"KREACHER!"
In the instant before things got decidedly out of hand, he noticed that she hadn't belched so much as a puff of fire.
The first thing Parvati noticed as she withdrew from hugging Hermione (who seemed to be hiding some brand new curves under that shapeless jumper of hers) was the odd pallor to her golden-brown features. The second was less tangible— something about the way she held herself, a self-assured sort of steadiness where she'd had the distinct air of someone who would rather not be looked at. Her gaze was steadier, and her stride was more relaxed. Parvati found her own gaze drifting towards the girl several times on their way to the stadium, curious about the change, until Hermione caught her looking and smiled that same old slightly-awkward shy smile.
"I love what you've done with your hair," Parvati said, which was actually true— instead of braiding it in any of those lovely Nigerian varieties she'd left it in an unbound mane of lustrous corkscrew curls.
Hermione's smile grew more confident, and they spent much of the time before the first match continuing their ongoing discussion on the blending of muggle and magical hair-care (a frustrating exercise, as both sides of the British beauty industry were tailored towards northern European curl patterns or lack thereof). Apparently she'd done some very fruitful experiments over the summer.
Parvati was distracted from this discussion by the appearance of the French team's Veela cheerleaders… and their rather informative effect on her. Thankfully she wasn't as dramatically affected as some of the boys, managing to settle back into her seat fairly quickly before Hermione noticed… because Hermione was on the edge of her seat, sitting broom-straight with hands clenched into fists in her lap and blinking her big brown eyes dazedly.
Lavender, seated on her other side, appeared entirely unaffected.
Parvati locked her gaze on the field, and filed this information away for later. Much later.
Several yards into the forest, screams and spellfire echoing behind them, Hermione swept her wand in a wide circle and commanded: "Accio serpentēs!"
Harry and Ron both turned to her, looking around for a threat, only to yelp and hop around as several snakes came tumbling out of the underbrush past their legs.
"Bloody hell—! What in Merlin's name are you—"
"Harry," she said, "tell them to follow along and bite anyone that attacks us— and anyone wearing a mask."
Both boys stared at her for a moment, wide-eyed. Harry was the first to recover, clenching his jaw and giving her a firm nod before starting to hiss; Ron continued to stare at her.
"They're, uh…" Harry looked around at the snakes, a worried crease between his eyebrows. "Not exactly happy with you, Hermione— and they'd really rather avoid all the commotion…"
Sensible; so would she. Also inconvenient, but swiftly resolved by several applications of the confundus charm. Between the adrenaline rushing through her and the snake's much smaller brains, they were quite easily persuaded after that.
Which was, of course, when Draco Malfoy deigned to grace them with his presence. Ron and Harry bristled like Padfoot at the sight of doxies, and Hermione… stared.
She remembered the fear she'd felt in first year, when she realized he and his toadies could sabotage and harass her without any real repercussions— and in second year, when he personified the cruel intent of the monster stalking the school… but that was before she spent countless hours studying the methods and madness of his ancestors. Hours practicing some of it.
Now she looked at him and only saw another gangly, sleep-rumpled boy, masking his unease with arrogance. A spoiled little bully who had no idea what she was capable of.
"Hadn't you better be hurrying along, now?" He sneered, with a pointed look at her. "Wouldn't want her spotted, would you?"
Ron and Harry raised their voices. Draco raised his chin. Hermione raised her wand.
.:.
Roughly forty-eight hours later, she fell to her knees on a grassy hilltop, breathing through the nausea as the echoes of their apparition faded. Then she got to her feet and surveyed their surroundings. A ring of seven standing stones surrounded the hill, far enough away for the fog to blur the weather-worn channels and runes carved into their smooth surfaces. Beyond that, she could see nothing but gray.
"Alright?" asked Sirius, setting down the carrier cage.
Hermione nodded. "You're sure this is the best place you know of?"
"Nope!" His grin was strained, his eyes tired. "But I am pretty damn sure no Christian has ever set foot here, and the Blacks have been worshiping capital M Magic for at least five hundred years rather than any specific deities. I also know for a fact that this is the spot where they didn't do human sacrifices for whatever reason, so. Should do fine."
"Alright," she said, unmoving.
Testing nonviolent charms on birds was one thing. This was another entirely— an unmistakable line that any good Jew probably, definitely wouldn't cross. That a good Jew wouldn't have spent weeks seriously considering, much less planning. But her parents couldn't just move in with the Tonkses or Patils or the Temple in Hogsmeade, and even if they did they'd still have to spend most of their days at the Clinic, with their name on the signage and no protection whatsoever against magic. The mere awareness of it was a vice around her chest, creeping into her dreams and stealing her sleep. Proper amulets cost more than her entire school supply budget, and were legally required to also be muggle-repelling. She could've asked Harry for the money, but she couldn't bring herself to exploit his generosity— he deserved better, after a childhood with those people.
No— she had to do this, and her research clearly indicated the potency of one method over all others.
She could handle the knowledge of her transgressions, could deal with any guilt that arose and the shame and censure if either of her congregations found out what she'd done, but her parents going the way of the Evanses or the Fenwicks or countless others just because she hadn't been willing to do enough to protect them?
That she would not be able to deal with.
Besides, she'd taken steps to make it as okay as possible while still violating some of the most fundamental Halakhot, under the circumstances.
"Hermione?"
She breathed deep of the cold, damp air— only for the smell of wet grass to bring the memory of those muggles to the fore, dangling helpless in midair, twitching and writhing as spells struck them—
She gave Sirius a sharp nod. Padfoot appeared in a twisting squinch of ultraviolet magic, walked around in a circle several times, and started digging as close as he could reckon to the centerpoint of the henge. Hermione knelt down, took off her rucksack, and began laying out her supplies on a brand-new blanket: one long, razor-sharp knife with no point, a bottle of kosher wine, a small sack of barley, a bundle of firewood, a small stone bowl with a spout, two carefully carven moulds, a handful of silver coins, and two plain linen robes— one of which she took with her down the hill and past the edge of the circle to change.
By the time she returned, barefoot, covered in goosebumps, and uncomfortably close to nude, Sirius had reverted to human form and was just finishing up the arrangement of the firewood in his freshly-dug pit. Then he scourgified the dirt off his hands, grabbed the other robe, and apparated away.
Hermione poked the very tip of her wand through a hole in the carrier and reversed the transfiguration, quickly withdrawing as the scream of a very disgruntled goat echoed over the hilltop.
"Stupefy."
It fell silent again, save for the clunk of its horns against the plastic.
Sirius returned with a sharp crack. "Ready?"
She didn't reply— just carefully pulled the goat out onto the grass and stowed the rucksack in the cage, which she levitated and banished it at a high angle so that its arc carried it beyond the boundary of the henge. The wet earth and fog muffled its landing.
Then she breathed deep, pictured her parents' hearth, and silently incantedאֵשׁ.
Familiar warmth bloomed in her chest. She let it swell until it was just on the verge of too hot, then pursed her lips and blew a stream of blue flame onto the firewood. At the first flickers of orange she shifted her incorporeal grip on the magic, letting her dragon-breath dissipate to stoke the fire from afar. As the logs began to crackle she recited a prayer found in one of the more obscure tomes of Professor Babbling's collection, memorized and re-memorized until she could imbue each Hebrew word with her knowledge of its meaning:
"Blessed art thou, Adonai our God, who bestows upon us the magic by which we kindle this holy flame."
Next she examined the knife, searching its blade for nicks, blemishes, and uneven spots; there were none. She carefully, briefly ran her little finger along its edge. There was no pain, yet blood pooled on her fingertip.
Perfect.
"Scourgify."
She raised both knife and wand overhead. Sirius knelt in front of her, and placed his hands over hers. A moment later she felt a strange, subtle pressure through that contact, sort of like phantom static— Sirius' raw magic offered freely in lieu of risking any potential side effects of an agnostic goy reciting Jewish prayers. It was Hermione that did the chanting:
"Praise be unto thee, Adonai our God, source and soul of life and magic, for sanctifying us through the Commandment of Slaughter."
Then she slid her wand into her messy bun and repositioned the goat's head to stretch out its throat, which Sirius palpated until he found the large cartilaginous ring of its windpipe— the highest point at which she could cut without rendering it Unfit. He kept one hand there, and used the other to pin its body. Hermione found herself viscerally grateful that Stupefy caused no injury in and of itself; she didn't want to test her ability to kill something that was struggling to escape while the air was full of half-formed spellwork. With her right hand she picked up the knife, breathing deep and slow until it was perfectly steady. Then she held it just over the goat's subtly pulsing neck.
Again she chanted, pouring her magic into her voice—
"We return this spirit unto thee, O Adonai, parted from its flesh without pain or cruelty."
—and slid the blade smoothly and lightly across, severing the carotid, jugular, esophagus and trachea, but leaving the spinal cord undamaged. Blood spilled steaming into the grass. Had the beast been awake, it would have passed out in seconds.
For a moment Hermione just stared at the droplets staining her plain white robe. She had expected to feel… well, something visceral. But there was nothing except mild relief that she hadn't botched it. She chose to view the lack of revulsion as a blessing; squeamishness would have made cutting the goat open and examining its innards for deformities quite the ordeal.
When she was confident it had been just as healthy on the inside as the outside, and she was coated to the elbow in quickly drying blood, she took hold of her wand again and cast another spell from Professor Babbling's library, carefully drawing its sciatic nerve and a portion of its veins out like thread from a spool. Exsanguination was much quicker, though she did have to stand back first.
Still kneeling in the blood-soaked grass, she wrapped her will around the cooling corpse, lifted it into the air, and laid it atop the crackling logs.
She didn't know the proper incantation for this part— she hadn't thought to look for it before term ended, and while House Black had historically held a certain regard for Jews (if only as perceived allies against Christendom), any literature about Jewish ritual they may have collected was not, as far as she could tell, present in Grimmauld place.
Instead she stoked the fire with her magic and sang:
"Eli, Eli
She lo yigamer leolam
Hakhol ve hayam
Rishrush shel hamayim
Berak hashamayim
Tfilat ha'adam."
Sirius, who had become Padfoot again at some point, began to howl along.
"Eli, Eli,
I pray that these things never end
The sand and the sea
The rush of the waters
The crash of the heavens
The prayer of the heart."
Entering the magical world had altered her understanding of divinity. The song had long spoken to her of the oneness of creation, the presence of God in all things; now magic was part of that too, a sacred gift with which to better provide and protect for her friends and loved ones— and it was protection that concerned her now.
"Eli, Eli
She lo yigamer leolam
Hakhol ve hayam
Rishrush shel hamayim
Berak hashamayim
Tfilat ha'adam…"
God was in her magic and everything she did with it— one small part of the spirit of the cosmos, hers to shape and command. It was in the fire she had breathed into the wood, burning hotter and brighter with every word she sang, swiftly consuming skin, fat, and meat. Into the flames cast handfuls of barley and splashes of wine.
"Hakhol ve hayam
Rishrush shel hamayim
Berak hashamayim
Tfilat ha'adam."
When the offering had been reduced to blackened bones, she put the silver coins in the stone bowl and levitated it over the fire. Padfoot became Sirius once more, and lent his magic to steadying the crucible. As they held it up together, Hermione found herself swaying in small, slow circles. Sirius was doing the same, his eyes half-lidded, the air around him faintly shimmering.
They knew without any discernible sign the instant the silver was fully melted. Together they floated the crucible to Hermione, and poured the molten metal into the two moulds that lay in the grass before her.
Hermione raised the fingertip she'd sliced at the beginning, and squeezed it over the moulds. Into one tiny glowing pool she dripped three drops of blood, and incanted: "Shlosha avot ."
Three are the fathers .
"Avraham, Yitzhak, v'Ya'aqov."
Into the other she dripped four drops, and incanted: "Arbah imahot."
Four are the mothers.
"Sarah, Rivkah, Leah, v'Rakhel."
Then she sang the Hashkiveinu, with the pronouns slightly altered. It was not her or Sirius who she begged the divine to shield from every enemy, plague, sword, famine, and sorrow, to remove the adversary before and behind, to shelter in the shadow of its wings— it was Joëlle and Amadi Granger.
Seven times she sang the verse, more and more magic suffusing her voice and swinging her body in slow, mesmerized circles, 'til her throat was sore, her fingertips were tingling, and the silver was no longer glowing with heat.
There was no thought behind her movements, now— her hands moved seemingly on their own to pick up her wand.
.
.o.
The next morning, Joëlle and Amadi were delighted to be given two gleaming silver hamsa pendants, each engraved with the Shield of David.
Hermione smiled, looking simultaneously exhausted and flush with energy, dark bags under her eyes and a bounce in her step.
"Can I put them on you?"