Chapter 52. The Ritual
From the day the goblins finally completed their part of the deal, a truly long time passed for us.
One would think that, having a fully functional ritual at hand, it would be easy to just follow the instructions and get the result, and that with the headmaster's help, formalizing such a ritual should have been simple. Only it was nothing of the sort.
While we didn't have the egg, we were like blind kittens and could only build theories that were, in truth, only conditionally tested by our prophetic gift — after all, the most important part of the ritual was missing. And only with the appearance of the egg did everything truly start moving forward.
Any researcher would probably be willing to go to great lengths for the opportunity, as we had, to predict the results of attempts without having to lose precious materials. For Dumbledore and me, everything boiled down to first spending several days preparing the ritual's theoretical base and then, using the skull-incense burner, calling forth a vision of the near future with the intent to use that ritual.
Whatever we tried, we constantly got some kind of nonsense. And if we hadn't foreseen that achieving a result was actually possible, we probably would have already dropped everything and gone to work on Metamorphmagus magic instead. This went on for several months, which for us stretched into nearly a full year because of the time-turner. And, however surprising it may seem, it was Hermione who came up with the idea of how to solve the problem — thus earning praise from the headmaster and genuinely joyful hugs from us.
The solution turned out to be so simple that it seemed incredibly stupid we hadn't thought of it ourselves. Since the problem lay in our dual nature, we either had to become a single whole, which was… not ideal, as we had already seen the results of that and hadn't liked them, or we had to bestow a dual nature on the egg, so that its essence could calmly split into two bodies without coming into conflict with the fact that there was only one soul.
This time having a much clearer picture of the path ahead, we began preparing a second ritual, which would ultimately be combined with the main one. And so, by the Easter holidays, everything was ready.
Hermione had been warned that our joint lessons would be cancelled for a while, and we were now in the basement of the headmaster's house. In Godric's Hollow.
"Are you ready?" the old man asked with a grim face. He clearly didn't like the atmosphere that had settled in the basement of his own home, nor what it all resembled. And he was quite understandable.
"We're ready," we answered confidently and, without a single scrap of clothing, lay down on the cold floor. All around us the floor was covered with symbols drawn in blood. Just above our heads lay the egg, which had been resting for a week in a bowl filled to the brim with blood — the same blood that had been used for the symbols, and it was ours as well.
To be honest, the whole ritual somewhat resembled the drawing of a mad artist.
"I hope I won't regret this," Dumbledore exhaled nervously before stepping up to the starting chain of the ritual beside the ice phoenix egg. Pressing his wand to a bloody point, he began to chant.
Dumbledore's voice, usually soft and melodious, now sounded cracked and strained, vibrating with the power he was pouring into it. With every Latin word, the air in the basement grew heavier, as if turning into thick jelly.
"Una anima, duo corpora…" he began, and the first rune by our heads flared with a deathly pale light.
The blood in the bowl and the blood drawn on the floor began to pulse in time with our hearts, which were synchronizing with each other. The cold of the floor stopped being a mere physical sensation — it began to seep inward, beneath the skin, saturating our bones.
"Ignis glacialis in partes finditur!" the old man shouted, and the tip of his wand, still pressed to the bloody point, shifted toward the egg.
The ice phoenix egg in the bowl trembled. The blood around it began to boil, but instead of steam, a frosty rime spread from it. In that moment our consciousness faltered. We felt our very being begin to shudder. A fear rose in us that we were about to be torn apart, but Dumbledore continued his chanting, his voice booming, not allowing us to slip into the abyss.
"Ex uno fonte, gemina essentia!"
The shell cracked. The sound that rang out in the basement was like shattering crystal. Blinding, azure-blue flame, stripped of all warmth, burst from the bowl, splitting in the air into two even streams. These ghostly ribbons of ice and magic struck us in the chest, in that very place beneath the ribs where our hearts were beating.
The world before our eyes dimmed, and we seemed to plunge into icy darkness.
Dumbledore didn't dare stop halfway, continuing the ritual incantation without a single mistake while watching in mild horror as the appearance of his wards began to change. Their hair, once like spun gold, rapidly lost its color until it became pure snow-white. Their already not-very-rosy skin grew paler, but it was not an unhealthy pallor — rather, it made them look unusual, as though they were winter court fae from a fairy tale.
As soon as the transformation of their appearance was complete, a wave of cold began to spread swiftly from their bodies, instantly covering the floor with frost, while the bloody lines of the ritual turned to ice. That cold raced toward the old man reciting the spell when, suddenly, in a burst of flame, Fawkes appeared before him.
The phoenix let out a melodious trill, and flame burst from his body. For a moment, the cold retreated, only to collide a heartbeat later, in the form of a white mist, with the fire in open opposition. At the same time, it seemed as though this mist was being fed by the heat it was absorbing.
This struggle continued for a full hour before everything finally quieted down.
With a weary sigh, Dumbledore transfigured himself a chair and then flopped into it.
"You've saved me again, old friend," the old man smiled tiredly.
Meanwhile, Fawkes landed on the back of the chair and gave his head a harmless peck before trilling melodiously — a sound that, surprisingly, conveyed the mythical bird's irritation very well.
"All right, all right. Next time I'll definitely take you with me," the old man couldn't help but smile, and at his promise the phoenix nodded with an air of great importance.
Allowing himself only a minute's rest because of the wave of weakness that had washed over him, Dumbledore rose from the chair and, with a single sweep of his wand, covered the teenagers' naked bodies with a sheet. Then he stepped first up to Regulus and then to Andromeda. Only when he was certain that their hearts were beating and their breathing was even and calm, suggesting they were only asleep, did he finally exhale in relief.
What he had feared had not happened. His conscience had been spared yet another tragedy.
"My friend, may I ask you for your help once more?" the old man looked at Fawkes.
Shaking his head in an amusing way, as if rolling his eyes, the phoenix swooped down straight onto the sleeping teenagers, who, thanks to Dumbledore's efforts, were now lying pressed close together — and then vanished along with them in a burst of flame.