Rings! Alex's eyes widened. Damn! Damn damn damn! She looked down at her right hand, thought about her noble house ring, and watched it materialise on her index finger in the shape and crest that marked her as the heiress of the Most Ancient and Noble House of Black. She was so stupid! That must be it! Just because she kept it invisible and untouchable most of the time, that didn't mean it wasn't there in magic, did it? She hesitated. Or did it? She wasn't actually too sure, but that didn't matter. She just had to take it off and try the ritual again to know.
Alex nodded, replaced the book in the shelf, and headed for the basement. She still had a little while before Luna arrived and she really wanted to get this sorted out.
A few minutes later, she stood again in the ritual room, but now that she was here, she felt a lot less certain.
Taking off her noble house ring felt… wrong. It had protected her ever since her father had shown her how to call it when she'd been just four years old. She fingered the ring and traced the black crest on the front. Her jaw firmed. But if she didn't do this, then she'd never know, and it wasn't as though it would be for all that long. She closed her eyes, willingly accepted the removal of her ring without outside compulsion or persuasion, and slid it off her finger.
She looked at the tiny ring of silver in her palm, placed it carefully on the table top, and shivered. Merlin, she felt so… vulnerable. Without her ring, she might as well be a muggleborn, totally at the mercy of the first idiot to catch her off guard with a confundus charm, love potion, or obliviate.
She gently shook herself, formed up the ritual lines, carefully placed the stone, dowel, and cloak at the triangle's corners, pulled off her robes and underthings, deposited them in a neat pile by the doorway to the rest of the house, turned away from the door, reached for the shelf nearest her, stunned another of the jar contained doxys, pulled out the horrible little thing, stabbed it through the chest with her sickle, and placed it, still bleeding, in the middle of the ritual space.
She stepped back and waited a few minutes to be certain the multi-armed blue pixie thing was dead, occasionally shivering in the cool basement air, and feeling far more naked this time than she had the last.
Okay, that should be long enough. Alex stepped back into the deathly hallow, put her finger to the blood drawn symbol, and pulsed her magic into it.
She took a deep breath. "Death who takes all, through the power of wand, stone, and cloak, hear your humble servant." The deathly hallow started to glow, blood red and angry. The shadows moved across the small room. Her own shadow lengthened, and was joined, moments later, by someone else's.
Alex froze, heart leaping into her throat, dread flooding her body.
She turned her head, sickle shaking in her hand.
In the doorway, stood Luna, as naked as she, and not smiling.
Alex gasped. "Lun—"
Luna moved fast, covering Alex's mouth with a hand and stopping her from finishing whatever shocked words she'd been about to say. The blonde shook her head, eyes sharp, mouth one thin line.
Alex found herself turned around and gently but firmly pushed forward towards the ritual space. She looked behind her again to see naked Luna making a 'get on with it' gesture. She gulped, knelt down, raised the sickle in an unsteady hand, thrust it into the dead doxy on the floor, and pulsed a shot of magic into it. She stood back up on weak legs and took a single, long, shaky breath. "Death who takes all, I offer you back that which the three brothers took." Her voice trembled. "To raise this container of a soul that you now possess. To bind its magic back to the aether, and to your humble servant."
The dowel, stone, and cloak all glowed red. The Doxy started to glow and then, exploded.
The red glows all faded away. Alex whirled around, now covered in doxy gore. "Luna, I swear, this isn't—Oomph!" Luna tackle hugged her, forcing Alex to step backwards or lose her balance.
Alex's heart was beating a mile a minute. She stiffened, unsure what to do with her now extended arms, one hand still holding the ritual sickle. "Luna? I don't… Luna?" Luna body shook against hers. "Stupid, Alex." "Luna?" Luna leaned backwards and glared at her. "Stupid, Alex! Why didn't you tell me?" Alex flinched. "I didn't think you'd like it." Luna's glare softened "Oh, Alex." It hardened again. "I don't like many things, but the biggest thing I don't like at the moment is that you've taken off your noble house ring!" She pointed to where her ring still lay on the table.
"I…" Alex looked at her feet. "…I thought its magic might be interfering in the ritual."
"Put it back on!"
Alex scrabbled to do so, but found it difficult. Luna refused to let go of her. Soon it was back on her index finger, where she knew it belonged.
"Alex," Luna continued, still firmly hugging her and paying no attention to the doxy remains still splattered all over her. "the Albion magics don't interfere in rituals. If they did, no one would be able to do any rituals in the entire country." Oh. She stood in Luna's arms in silence, afraid to say anything more. It seemed impossible that Luna hadn't spotted what kind of ritual she'd been attempting.
"Alex?" She took a shuddery breath. "Yes, Luna?" "Why are you doing a necromancy ritual—" Oh, Merlin.
"—without a central foci?" …
…
… Wait, what? "Huh?"
Luna turned and pointed to deathly hallows on the slate floor. "All necromancy rituals that use the deathly hallow as their ritual symbol use a central foci."
The burnt paragraph!
Alex leaned back in shock. "How… how do you know that?"
"I know all about the deathly hallows."
"But, your family is… was… light! The Lovegoods were light for generations."
Luna smiled softly. "Stupid, Alex. We were politically light, not magically. We Lovegoods have been hunting the hallows for hundreds of years. 'The last enemy to be defeated is death?' That's not just the motto of the Peverells, everywhere."
but
of
necromancers
Alex's eyes widened. "You're a…?"
Luna shook her head, causing her little radish earrings to swing wildly about her ears. "I'm not a necromancer. Neither are my parents or my grandparents. I had a great great uncle who was, but he was the odd one out."
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