Sirius had insisted that they return home for the Yule break. He had, objectively, too much Christmas spirit. Their normally spooky cottage was decorated in a vomit-inducing mess of tinsel and baubles. He managed to fit three different trees inside the house. It was, without any doubt, jolly. Harry had not experienced a jolly winter season before and he thought it was all lovely.
"We are not muggles, there is no need for this nonsense," Alabasandria growled. Sirius had her in a headlock while Harry tried to shove a festive sweater over her head. They were interrupted by a knock on the door. The minions were here.
She had promised them some festive Christmas necromancy after all, and the children had presented their ideas earnestly. (Hermione handed over an entire research paper, complete with multiple sources, whereas the others showed her the page from the book they were copying from.)
"You have all the blood you need, right Hermione?" she asked.
"Oh yes, Professor. I have loads. I managed to get some from Headmaster Dumbledore."
"Bloody hell, how did you steal from Dumbledore?" Ron asked. Hermione grinned and did not clarify. Her chosen ritual used the blood of those who understood a language to transfer that knowledge to the caster.
Luna had picked one of the few truly nonviolent rituals to grant mage sight, or the ability to see magic itself. It was pure animancy, requiring a complete understanding of one's body and soul to perform, something that was extremely difficult to achieve, especially in a child, but Luna was confident in her ability.
Ron had picked a very obscure ritual. It was described as granting the Caster the energy and fortitude to master any skill of your choosing. The Caster will be overwhelmed with a single-minded purpose to engage in said skill for upwards of 365 days. It is highly recommended, for the Caster's Sanity and preservation of will that the ritual be cast only once.
"What skill were you thinking," she asked critically.
"Er, I wasn't sure." He admitted. "I'm not sure how I feel about the skills that require human sacrifices." As eager as Ron was to embrace his evil sidekick status, he was pretty queasy about the thought of murder.
"I'll get shot down if I propose Quidditch," Harry said. Everyone else besides Ron complained loudly.
"No, no, that would be an absolute waste. What about dueling?" Alabasandria suggested.
"Dueling, wicked!" Ron grinned.
"I would never claim to be an expert, but I held my own during the war pretty well. I could spar with you," Sirius offered. "It's not something you can properly learn from books. I think it would be useful for all of you to learn, actually. It's one thing to know how to handle a formal duel, but if you're ever in a real fight, then you'll need to know how to fight dirty."
The children cheered in agreement.
Sirius cajoled the children to sing Christmas carols while setting up their salt circles and carving blood runes, turning it into a festive and cheerful event. Hermione, Ron and Luna began their rituals simultaneously, setting up their stations across the yard.
Hermione's was the simplest. She set up her circle, lit incense at each point of the pentagram, and then droned out a long, poetic incantation in Latin. She pulled out eight vials of blood and poured them all together into a bowl.
"Ugh, I did not think this through!" She complained.
"Do you want some eggnog to mix into it?" Sirius offered.
"No!" Very reluctantly, she drank it, gagging all the while. Nothing particularly exciting happened, and she stepped out of the pentagram with only some nausea to show for it.
Ron, meanwhile, was wrestling with one of his three goats, a knife flailing around in his grip as he tried to stab the goat in its heart. It bleated in outrage, giving him a swift headbutt and making Ron curse up a storm.
"You have to kill them by hand, not fight them!" Alabasandria laughed. "Stupefy!" The goat dropped to the floor.
"Er, thanks." He stunned the other two and calmly went about killing them. Then, he began to field dress the animals and removed their hearts. These were spread out in some important mathematical runic symbolic thingy Ron did not understand. He flipped to the required page in 101 Spells to Become the Next Dark Lord and began to say the incantation (which he also did not understand). They watched as the hearts shriveled up and dissolved into nothing. He wiped the blood off his hands and joined his friends who were now waiting for Luna to finish.
Luna was sitting cross-legged in a salt circle carefully drawn to resemble the World Tree. As the shadow of the moon fell over her, the girl fell limp in a dead faint. It was a bit worrisome, but Alabasandria assured them she was fine, so eventually they headed inside for snacks. Luna woke up after several minutes.
"Alright, Luna? It took you a while." Alabasandria broke the salt circle and came over towards her. The necromancer looked as creepy as usual, although she was followed by an otherworldly shadow, full of snapping jaws and reaching hands, all surrounded by a sickly, neon-green glow. It worked, Luna could see magic. She offered Luna a handkerchief and the girl realized she'd woken up crying. "People underestimate the intimacy required to reach into their soul like that."
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