Dark, Twisted and Time Turned

Chapter 43: Blood Rituals

"Hermione?" Tom mutters, looking slightly sick and pale. She looks up from her book; she had been reading about darker spells, ones that may assist her tomorrow.

"Yes?"

"We need your help. Quickly. It's Cyriss " She stands and hurries after Tom, who leads her to Cyriss's room. "He just started crying and shaking and I didn't know what to do." Cyriss was on the floor, spasming in a fit of a sort. Tears rolled down his face. Hermione used his weak state to push into his mind using Legilimency, to see what was hiding in his head.

She didnt stay in his head long. Screaming. Agonized, tormented screaming, someone laughing at the pain, at the blood beginning to roll down Mulciber's cheek from his mouth. She yanks herself from his memory.

"We need a ritual." She mutters, and Tom looks at her, interested.

"A ritual?"

"I need salt and a shit ton of candles." She replies, moving Cyriss to the middle of the room as Tom runs off to fetch what she requested. She draws a circle around him with her wand, and then pouring the salt over top of that once Tom returns. "Sit there too." She tells him, and he obliges.

She had read about rituals, a long time ago, before she came to this time. She knew what they required, and she knew the cost of them, yet she was willing to do it. Many rituals were far more complex, and she'd need a book to guide her through it, but this was not a proper established ritual and therefore following express directions was not required.

One by one, she lights the candles, before transfiguring a thin candle into a dagger and hands it to Tom.

"A drop of blood, from each of you. Drip it onto the salt." Tom pricks his finger, and drips it onto the salt, in which the full circle magically turns red. He then does the same to Mulciber and hands Hermione back the dagger. She pricks her fingers, and drips it onto a near candle. The flame turns black before she begins to speak.

"I call upon Erebus, to come to us tonight, and take back what is yours. I summon you to collect your darkness. I summon you to remove your shadows." The black flame grows taller and the room grows darker, and then Tom collapses within the circle. Black spills out of the mouths of Cyriss and Tom, first as a liquid, before rising up into the air and painting dreadful images or pain and torture.

Cyriss's darkness soon dissipates and he falls into a peaceful sleep, but Tom's continues to spill out, images of a great, terrifying snake rising up, the body of a young girl sprawled out on the bathroom floor, image after horrible image flickering in the air. And then, they too disappear and Tom falls into a sleep. As Hermione moves to blow out the black candle, darkness begins to curl around her fingertips. The cost of performing a ritual.

The darkness seeps into her skin, staining the tips of her cut fingers black, as if she had dipped them in ink. And once it has entered her, it pools in her palm, in her wand hand, and it settles there to be used. A shadowy figure grins from the corner before it disappears. Erebus, the old God they had summoned. She blows out the candle. Every other candle extinguishes, and then Hermione too leans onto her back and falls asleep.

~*~

Smoke curls around her, dancing in the air around her, and what seemed to be hundreds of other witches and wizards, who all stared up at the smoke expectantly. She realizes why when the smoke begins to form shapes and images.

Shapes of people, shooting deadly green spells at one another, dozens of people engaged in a deadly duel. Muggles running, screaming as their homes burn, and children crying out for their parents. Figures hidden on rooftops, in alleyways, shooting spells at their enemy. Lightning crackles as rain falls down amongst the fighting.

"A battle is brewing!" Someone shouts, and Hermione looks up to find the source of the voice. Tall and blond, dressed in blue robes, Gellert Grindelwald looked intimidating, yet he commanded the audience with grace and poise. "Yet it is not our battle. I must depart. I will be gone for only a few days. No one need come with me, your place is here, amongst safety. Vinda will be accompanying me. I trust you all to remain safe."

"Hermione!" Someone whispers, and though she looks around aimlessly, she cannot find the source of the voice. The world is shaking, shaking, though no one else seems to be affected. "Hermione!"

~*~

"Hermione." She suddenly awakens from the dream, to find Abraxas leaned over her. "How's the weather down there?" She glances around to see she's still on the floor of Cyriss's room. Theon is moving all the candles out of the room, and Chyllie is on her hands and knees attempting to fix the burnt, bloody circle in the floor. Carnell is helping Cyriss into bed, and Tom was arguing with Perseus as he tried to walk on his own.

"What are you all doing here?" She murmurs, and Abraxas grins.

"Well you see, we were all just kind of hanging out in the parlour downstairs, when some blood started dripping through the ceiling, and this weird black smoke drifted in. We were right below this room, and since you three idiots were missing, we decided to come check on you all." She sits upright to nestle herself in his chest. "What the hell were you even doing?"

"A blood ritual. I called upon Erebus. Tom and Cyriss, they're traumatized from whoever tortured them. Whoever poisoned Tom. So I asked for their darkness to be removed. Not their memories, just the trauma and restlessness and constant fear." He lifts her hand, the tips of her fingers blackened. "Theres always a cost to blood rituals." She murmurs, and he takes out his wand to heal the cuts. Instead, the darkness fills in the cuts, leaving black lines instead of her whole fingertips.

"This looks like it was a very stupid idea."

"Maybe." He looks at the black lines again.

"What is this? What does it mean?" He traces over the lines.

"I'm not sure. I think... I think it may be magic, that's trapped itself in me. But I'm not sure."

"No more rituals unless someone else knows. Please. You have no idea what it was like... you were missing, there was blood and smoke, and then i find you on the floor not moving. I thought you were dead, my love." He holds her tight.

"I promise. Not unless someone else knows." They hold each other for a few moments, and Hermione forgets her dream. It was just a dream, afterall.