Chương 8: Ritualistic Interlude
On the same day in which I had received my Hogwarts letter, in the safe confines of my room, my hands were shaking as I lowered the fountain pen that I had been using to plan the summer project that I didn't actually want to accomplish.
My plans to immediately travel to the continent and to Albania in order to find Ravenclaw's diadem had to be put on hold since Hagrid's father's health had taken a sharp dive for the worse in the year that I spent at Hogwarts, forcing me to remain at home, lest he died alone.
Not that I wished to see a man die, but I was feeling guilty enough about having taken the place of his son, letting him to die alone sounded like a massive dick move. And he could be useful... I banished the thought from my mind with a snarl of rage, forcibly calming myself down before looking at 'my father' s gift to me.
I understand why canon-me brought with him a baby Acromantula in a school full of children. My finger briefly caressed the pale grey sphere that rested on one side of my desk: it was roughly the size of an ostrich's egg, and had I not known any better I would have immediately removed the stasis charms that rested on its base in order to see what would hatch.
I really don't need a giant, talking spider following me around like a dog. I shook my head, not only for the responsibility that I frankly didn't want, but mostly because I was quite worried at the idea that story would follow canon and have me expelled because of Riddle's need for a scapegoat. Ignoring the wet cough that echoed across the small hut that I shared with Hagrid's father, I sighed deeply, my mind returning to its previous musings and calculations.
My eyes returned to the tomes I had stolen from the library, and then moved upon my own notes: the idea of ripping my own soul apart in order to not die was plenty disgusting. Never mind the fact that my metaknowledge showcased clearly how Tom had turned insane by the end, the whole process was heavily reliant on the concept of 'violence'.
While one of the other books I had freely lifted from the Library, titled The Theory of Rituals: The Magick of Sacrifice, had allowed me some kind of wider insight on the whole matter.
The whole system of Ritualism could be approached by several angles, very much like any other kind of magic I had met this far. In any case, it was a form of magic that predated the Roman Empire, it was in fact one of the first form of magic, period. Wands came into being rough with the Roman Empire, Potion-making was apparently born as an off-branch of ritualism, and I could see why.
Before anything, when the first wizards were the shamans of the roaming tribes of mankind, there were rituals to bring fortune to the people: giving to the world so that the world would keep giving back. Life of the elders that were cast outside of the tribe so that the young could survive the harsh environment.
While I appreciated Slughorn's words that described each potion as a Story, it appeared like an understanding born from hindsight: like a coat of paint over the truth of the material underneath. I could see how seeing Potions under the filter of 'story' made them much easier both to understand and to use, but at their base potions were magical results obtained in exchange of the sacrifice of ingredients.
In the book, the matter wasn't explored in such a dry and cut manner, not even remotely, but my talent with potions proved enough to at least give me a perspective wide enough to have my own ideas somewhat confirmed by the words in Old English on the faded parchment.
Rituals are more often than not permanent, but they take as much as they give. I resumed my conclusions in the relatively safe boundaries of my own mind. Rituals that took a life were the only ones with any hope of creating a permanent effect, be it an enchantment, a curse or whatnot. Giving a life, or lives, in order to 'give life' to a piece of magic. That was the basic idea around which Ritualism was born.
There was a multitude of limitations and rules that dictated what counted as an appropriate sacrifice. I couldn't slay a unicorn and use its death to power up a blessing for example: no, the nature of the process, from the choice of the ingredients of the potion that would be used to revive Voldemort to the way in which they were collected was important.
In the same way a dried-up herb affected a potion instead of a freshly cut branch from a tree, the history of every single piece that contributed to any given ritual must be taken into account. From their own inherent nature to the symbolism that the user applied to them, to how they were collected, everything came to an end within the ritual.
With Magic Most Evile and Secrets of the Darkest Arts, I managed to have a rather solid example of the concept of Ritualism in the creation of a Horcrux. Creating a Horcrux in fact, started with an act of violence, a pure act of violence, one not shaped by necessity, one not brought forth by instinct, and thusly 'against nature', to use the words of Slughorn. After all, murder was a part of nature: didn't predators eat prey after killing those? But as I had recently discovered, the reasons behind the action gave it context and thusly meaning.
The murder of an innocent, of someone that represented no threat to you in any way, shape, or form. The murder had to be premeditated and carried out with the purpose of creating a Horcrux clear in your mind. It was an action that had to have meaning only in the context of the Ritual.
The anchor that was to become the new house of the split soul had conditions that defined its suitability too. Again, something that revolved around the concept of 'violence'. Not any random thing could become a Horcrux, otherwise even the megalomaniac Riddle would have seen the merit of turning a single grain of sand into one, making it indestructible and letting it float in the ocean for eternity. No, just like the splitting of the soul was a mutilation of the 'self', the anchor had to be something that you took from yourself. If it belonged to you, you had to no longer be able to 'use' it, and if it didn't yet belong to you, it had to be obtained violently, only with the purpose to be turned into a soul-anchor.
A diary created as only escape, as your only 'support' while in Hogwarts, proof of your learning years, years in which you became something worthy of self-respect. I thought as I tried to fit my understanding of the ritualism to Voldemort's yet-to-be soul-anchors. With that point of view, turning the diary into a Horcrux had been violence against himself.
The ring was taken from someone you later framed for the murder of your own kin. I thought, imagining to be talking with Voldemort himself.
Isn't Parseltongue basically an Imperio upon snakes? I wondered distractedly as I tried to place Nagini within the frame necessary for Horcrux-making. The violence there was inherent, even more so if what I knew from the movies Fantastical Beasts was true.
The cup and the locket are obvious. Again taken through both murder and framing. The diadem was taken by betraying Helena after having played her around. The trio of Founders' artifacts, along with the method that canon-Tom had used to obtain them easily fell within the necessary parameters.
As for Harry Potter's scar-Horcrux... there was much to unravel there, something that included the fact that Harry's parents didn't defend themselves after defying Riddle 3 times. Neither James nor Lily had used their wands, and the redhead had been clamored to be the brightest witch of her generation.
In the end, to avoid death through the Horcrux method was to violate the natural order in the most abject and complete way possible. With the initial purpose, that set you apart from the rest of the world, which kept turning towards an eventual and unavoidable 'end'. With the choices of the elements of the ritual, which had to be made with the same abject violence that defined the initial purpose. With the methods used to obtain the elements necessary for the ritual.
With that information, the ritual Voldemort used to turn from homunculus into wizard was rather straightforward. Riddle avoided death through the violence inherent in the creation of a Horcrux. A bone stolen from a father that he had killed. Flesh given from the equivalent of a slave. Blood forced from a defeated enemy.
Yeah, I can see how the ritual to actually be resurrected used 'violence' as a bridge between the Horcrux and life.
Among the other things, ritualism had made me think if there was some truth about the purist movement officially promoted by Voldemort. Oh not in your everyday magic, that was obvious, but rituals carried on throughout the generations? I could see how that kind of magic was capable of growing.
Magic carried through the generations, Parseltongue was proof on its own, but was it possible that Merope's use of love potions to violate Tom Riddle Senior influenced the pregnancy? They say we are the choices we make. I frowned as the thought resounded loudly in my mind. For wizardkind, I'm starting to think that it has a more literal meaning than it has for muggles.
So it was possible that Tom Riddle was born evil. Or at least with a lack of Love. What effects that could have, especially if enhanced by the kind of childhood and schooling canon Riddle received... well, I had seen the final result.
I winced as I heard a wet coughing echo across the house, stealing me from my magical research while my eyes landed on the sunset that I could spy from my window. I really have no excuse to keep procrastinating, everything has been ready for a week. Waiting means risking this opportunity...
The reunion with Hagrid's father went as blandly as the previous summer had gone, at least for me. He had picked me up at the station, like any responsible parent would do, and we boarded the crowded Nighbus to the Leaky Cauldron, where we floo'ed back in my charming house. Receiving an Acromantula's egg had been weird, once again displaying that a wizard willing to stick his dick in a giant wasn't all that sane, while the illness of the man that I had spied in the previous summer had grown so much that it couldn't be ignored.
After a steading breath, I rose from my seat and left my room, slowly moving across the house while trying to pretend that I didn't know what was about to happen. No, what I was about to do.
Hagrid's father was a little man to my eyes, and as feverish and shaken by his wet, bloody cough as he was, he appeared as frail as a spider's web. I ignored the stench of human waste that greeted me when I entered his room, kneeling down when the man's eyes, bright with fever, found mine.
"I'm... not long for this world..." a wet spluttering cough interrupted the man from speaking, but that didn't stop him from going ahead after a few seconds of intense pain: "...I know... that we've grown distant s-since you started H-Hogwarts... and m-m-aybe it's for the best, it'll hurt less once I'm gone..."
"Da'..." I spoke to the man that very much wasn't my father while I lifted him from his bed, slowly moving across the house as I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to take a step after another, "...would you help me?"
The dying wizard had explained to me that there was nothing to do about his condition just after giving me the Acromantula egg at the beginning of the summer, I swallowed a wave of bile that threatened to slip from my lips, while at the same time I licked my lips in what I knew was insane anticipation. Am I actually going to do this?
The dying wizard nodded lightly in my arms even as a part of me suddenly hoped that he would become lucid enough to refuse me. Another part of me, I knew, was howling with mad laughter, because had I wanted this man to be lucid enough to refuse me, I could have brewed something to that effect. "I'll ...always h-h-help you..."
The frail wizard in my arms shuddered when we left the hut and started walking in the twilight, my feet striding across the tall, already damp grass without making a sound as I circled my residence and reached the area I had previously readied for this moment. While I prepared the area, I had compartmentalized my thoughts as much as possible, trying to see what I was about to do as something remote, something academic that ould never see the light of the day...
But it was undeniable that I felt some horrible sense of kinship with Riddle as I spoke to my father: "Would you die for me, Da'?"
I swallowed another load of bile when I felt the man nod against my chest.
I briefly hesitated, unconsciously holding the feverish man tighter to my chest while I let my eyes roam over the preparations for my ritual: at the west of the hut, I had cleared out an area from which I could see the horizon, and I had dug a circular hole in the dirt, at the bottom of which I had lit bluebell flames that were, like in all potions and brews I had attempted thus far, symbolizing both the power that would fuel the change and the change itself.
If one of my brews that focused sunlight was a paragraph that described a particular concept, the potion that used it was enriched by its presence, earning a depth and a direction that it would have otherwise lacked. A ritual shaped around a potion, very much like Voldemort's resurrection, was a Metamorphosis. From homunculus to living body, and now, from living body to... what I was hoping to obtain.
I lowered my father on the ground before staring in the crystal clear potion that filled the pit that would take the place of an iron cauldron for the Metamorphosis I wanted to obtain. At the bottom, bluebell flames danced eagerly, as if aware of their purpose: I had lit them at dawn, and for the whole day, they had worked the magic that I tried to infused them with in my brew.
"Wand of the father, knowingly broken. Will birth the tree."
I took my father's wand and I snapped it cleanly, lowering it in the pit until its broken sides dug between the bluebell flames into the ground underneath.
"Blood of the son, willingly spilled. Will shape the magic."
I cut my palm open without flinching, spilling 7 fat drops of my blood in the transparent concoction, which turned from crystal clear water lit by the bluebell flames into a rich, murky brown, that somehow let me still see the light coming from the bottom of the pit. Now I could feel the sheer potential of what I was building.
I was hating myself even as I lowered the dying man into a firepit filled with the potion that I spent the previous month brewing. It was a collection of minor things that went to describe the effect that I wanted to obtain with the ritual. The potion gave structure to the magic that I wanted the ritual to accomplish, and I had activated it with my blood. "Father, will you die for me?" I asked loudly at the man in the pit, who was staring me with wide eyes incapable of understanding.
Nevertheless, like the loving father that he was, he croacked: "...Yes..."
"Absolute sacrifice, obtained through deceit. Will empower the ward."
Hagrid Senior... exhaled, his lungs stopped drawing in the air, and he... died.
I took a shuddering breath while I saw his eyes turn into crystal-like orbs that shattered into black smoke without spilling a single drop of blood, a tearing sound of ripped flesh thundered in my ears as roots pierced from my father's body, and I took a step away from the circle of stones. And with the last ray of the sun, just as we entered the twilight, a tree sprouted from the ground.
Twin yet joined trunks sprouted from the two halves of my father Ashen wand, the core of dragon heartstring powering them one last time as they drank the purpose I had imbued my potion with, while the willing sacrifice of my father breathed true life in the ritual. The ash tree that grew, with its trunk made like a double helix, soon stretching itself towards the sky, as high as an ash tree could go, while he sprouted fresh leaves.
Only that they weren't leaves. Instead of green, they were of a purple-black colour, and looked almost shadowy while the tree took the direction that my half-giant blood gave him and soon surpassed 30 meters of height.
And in the twilight, the shadow of the newborn tree grew like a fan spread over the surroundings, swallowing me along with the rest of the property, and from a second to the next, I disappeared in the shadows along with my house.
AN
Sorry for the blatant worldbuilding of the Rùnda in the previous chapter, but it was the fastest way I've found to get it done. I did say we would jump straight outside of Hogwarts in this chapter, didn't I? Sadly, the best-laid plans and all that, the MC is forced to postpone the travel to Albania, and he remembers that it will be bitchy to travel in war-torn territory, wizard or no wizard.
And canonically, Hagrid's father died either now or shortly before 3rd year, I decided to not pretend to care about him, and to spare myself the pain of building up something with a character that was going to get so little exposure.
And yeah, the MC kind of abused the love that Hagrid's father had for him, and cooked up a ritual out of his knowledge of potions and strange rituals that he figured out from the books he took in the Restricted Section, and did something that is... somewhat horrible? Hagrid's dad was already dying, and the MC can rationalize a lot, but he can't escape the hypocrisy... he plans to kill Riddle, but he starts out with a ritual empowered by the self-sacrifice of his own 'father'. Power is a slippery slope...
Anyway, we'll see the consequences of this chapter spread across the rest of the story, if only because of its psychological impact. What do you do when you can do everything?
I explained the lore of Voldemort's metamorphosis within the terms I've set, can you explain the terms of Hagrid's ritual?
For the people that suggested me making Hagrid into some sort of giant that barrels through death-eaters... I really don't see the point in writing about magic if my MC turns out to be some sort of sword-waving berserker, so no, I'm not giving Hagrid a mixture of sense-enhancing charms and I most certainly won't turn him into Naruto. That would murder any hope of magic I have for this fic.
Having said that, the MC is very much aware of the unique advantages of being half-giant, and he will eventually improve on those, but there won't be the classic 'ritual' with runes on the floor, spilled blood and random ingredients to turn the MC into a half-dragon immortal with basilisk eyes and an elder wand instead of a dick.
So, this chapter was a filler of sorts, with the next, we go on in the second year, and we'll see the effects that the first bombings of London (summer '41) had on Tom.
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