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Times like this, Minerva McGonagall wished she’d never taken the teaching job at Hogwarts.
Being head of house was more than just being surrogate parent to a quarter of the school’s students. There were also pacts and duties required, duties that originated from when the four founders created the school in the first place. In exchange for assistance in creating the school, certain… agreements and arrangements were made with various entities and powers. Some were as simple as rituals to renew the wards periodically, or help protect the school in times of need.
Others were darker promises to keep equally dark powers at bay and to protect the school. The Forbidden Forest gave much to the school—protection, precious supplies, seed of magic, and much more. However, in exchange every century it required something in return, in exchange. Minerva knew about the forest and its needs. As much as she’d like to not involve any of the students in these rituals, she knew the consequences of denying the forest were much greater.
It was the first new moon of the school year and the cycle for renewal of the pact had come due. With the help of the house-elves none of the students stayed up late this night despite it being a Friday night and all were sleeping soundly, courtesy of their carefully drugged dinners. So it was a simple matter for her to slip up to the 5th year’s girls’ dorms after curfew and pick her chosen student, Lily Evans. Someone of muggle blood was required for the ritual, the stronger the potential magical core the better. As much as she hated to involve the sweet girl in magic like this, she knew it was the best—no, really the only—choice she had. That there was such a compatibility with the Slytherin student sacrifice made the situation even more ideal. She could only hope that if Lily ever found out about Minerva’s involvement in this, that she could forgive her.
A couple of silent swishes of her wand and Lily was floating, still asleep, nightclothes swapped for the requisite ceremonial robes. No one stopped them as she floated her chosen student down the stairs, down the halls, and out the door towards the Forest. In the far distance she could see a couple of other lanterns held by other heads of house, dark shadows similar to hers bobbing along beside them.
As she walked along, she steeled her mind for the upcoming—dark, necessary, bloody, helpful, terrifying—ritual, attempting to ignore the roiling in her gut. There was a reason she’d had little appetite today, everything she’d tried to eat turning to ash in her mouth.
***
Lily woke abruptly to the sound of chanting and firelight flaring in front of her eyelids. Panicked, her eyes flew open and her head darted back and forth, frantically looking around her but not really seeing much at first. Her breath was harsh, shallow, until something seemed to come over her—not quite in comfort, but at least not the blind panic anymore—and she was able to stop hyperventilating at least. But, something was still very, very wrong.
Other than her head, she couldn’t move. At all.
The rest of her muscles twitched ineffectively, bound by something she couldn’t easily discern at the moment. They felt somewhat like ropes, but not. Rougher, colder, scratchy, and damp against her bare skin. Whatever it was, they pulled her arms out to the side away from her torso and somewhat to the back, forcing her shoulders back and spine curved backwards a tad, her hands in fists resting on the ground. She knelt with her legs spread, bare arse resting on her feet, all of her limbs and torso squeezed gently but securely by something very strong and quite immobile.
She knelt on bare ground, though thankfully there weren’t any rocks or such digging into her bare skin, inside what appeared to be a ritual circle of some sort. The lighting was strange, a glowing orange-red light akin to fire flickering, but other than the runes circling her and the other students, was seemingly sourceless. In the dimness she could make out a couple of dark hooded figures—the source of the chanting apparently, one each standing two paces behind the other students she could see. From the voices, she imagined that there was one behind her as well, the voice directly behind her higher in pitch, perhaps female? At the edge of her vision she could see the trees of the forest towering above her, the canopy of the forest almost blocking out any view of the moonless sky. Eyes glinted out of the darkness surrounding them, and a couple of creatures were barely visible in the dim light. Closer to her were three other students, also naked, and all bound by what first appeared to be ropes of some sort. But ropes didn’t have leaves. Then she realized they were plants—vines of some sort, that had each of them trussed up, immobile, secured to the ground.
As she looked back forward after her attempt to figure out the situation she found herself in, her eyes widened as she realized who exactly it was who knelt directly in front of her. Sure, she recognized the other students to her right and left as other students from her year, from other houses, but she knew the one right in front of her. Even though she hadn’t seen him naked before, she knew that pale skin, damp with fear-sweat, that glinted in the strange orange light and contrasting stringy black hair.
It was her first-friend, Severus.
She caught his eyes, and his widened in reply. He opened his mouth to try and say something, but no sound came out. She tried saying something as well, but it was as if her breath was caught, unable to push past her vocal cords to make any sound. That scared her more than anything, even more than finding herself tied up somewhere dark and strange. It just reinforced her powerlessness and drove home that she had no idea what was going to happen to her, to them.
The Hufflepuff to her right had tears streaming down her face, her mouth open in a silent scream, eyes wide and unseeing. The Ravenclaw to her left however had his mouth shut, not attempting to say anything. His eyes were mostly closed and his chest rose and fell in deep breaths, looking like he was attempting to keep himself calm and clearheaded, perhaps detach his mind away from the horror of it all and retreat to somewhere else in his mind.
Severus’s eyes were narrowed in concentration at this point, his head cocked slightly to the side, as if he were attempting to understand and analyze what he could of the ritual words. Lily tried taking deep breaths as well, doing her best to mirror the boy to her left, and it was starting to work somewhat as her chest no longer felt quite so tight, her heart not quite as racing.
And then the chanting changed in pitch and reached a crescendo. Pain exploded all over her skin, as thousands of tiny needles, or thorns, pierced her wherever the plant-ropes were. At which point she discovered that she could finally scream now, as could the other three, though the Hufflepuff girl’s were more sobs than screams, really. After the initial puncturing, the needles had withdrawn just as quickly as they had inflicted themselves, letting the blood well up and run freely. Blood trickled down Severus’ limbs and torso and ran down his pale skin, darkening the soil beneath him. She locked eyes with Severus, the two of them refusing to make any noise louder than a whimper. Their eye contact helped keep her grounded and she dearly hoped she was helping do the same with him.
The runes ringed around her and each of the others glowed brighter, and the blood-soaked ground beneath them also began to glow, pulsing slightly. Soon, she realized hers was pulsing with her heartbeat, or maybe her heartbeat had synced with the pulsing, since all four small rune circles were pulsing in time with each other.
And oi the magic, it responded. She could feel it, could taste it, heavy and dark on her tongue, thick and cloying in the back of her throat. Her breathing got heavier, deeper, as the air grew thicker with it. She wasn’t sure if her body was trying to breathe in as much as she could, or if it was just trying to breathe period. Not that she had much presence of mind to really analyze the situation anymore, as she was pretty much just running on pure instinct at this point, praying to the gods that she’d just survive this night. As her head began to grow faint with the loss of blood and from shock, her magical senses tingled and pulsed deliciously. She groaned and opened her eyes, apparently having closed them at some point. Across from her, her vision fuzzy and blurred around the edges, Severus’ glazed expression rather matched how she felt. However, his black eyes glowed with power, and his hair, normally limp and flat, floated around his head somewhat akin to the static electricity experiments they did as children with rubbing balloons on their heads. Which made part of her wonder how she looked, for that matter.
Just before she succumbed to everything and blacked out, she saw what appeared to be a snake of some sort crawling towards Severus’ arm, mouth open and fangs extended to strike. Then she felt pain at her own forearm, fire spreading through her veins, and then all went black.
***
Minerva sighed and wobbled on her feet, exhausted. She was just glad that it was done, and the protections and pact renewed for another 100 years. Well, that and the fact that she had the whole weekend to recuperate before classes on Monday. The centaurs had carefully, lovingly wrap up each of the students, and helped carry them back to the castle—a sign of their appreciation for their forced participation of the ritual. Minerva half leaned on the one carrying the sleeping Lily, helping her make the long walk back to the castle herself. From the looks of it, she wasn’t the only one this wrung out. The centaurs walked with them to the stairway that would take them to the infirmary, where the professors then took over, gingerly floating the students up the stairs and down the hall, into the patiently waiting care of their resident medi-witch. Minerva shook off the offer of a bed for herself to stay in, instead grabbed a pepper-up for the morning and made her own way to her own bed, thank you very much. She wasn’t so old yet that she couldn’t make the hike up to the tower, even exhausted like she was. Hrmph.
***
Lily woke slowly from a dream of pain and power, blood and brilliant magic. Bright, harsh light filtered in through the windows hinting that the day was well underway for most of the students, and the harsh smells in the air indicating that somehow she’d ended up in the infirmary. There were once-vivid images and impressions that quickly flitted away, as so many dreams before had. This one seemed to be part nightmare, but something about it was also reassuring throughout it all. But soon it was gone, and the memory turned glittery dust in the light of day. She felt different somehow though, more alive, the world a bit brighter and more vivid. If the light and shadows were right, she could swear she could see some of the wards and magic built into the objects and areas around her, but they disappeared when she blinked. Huh, odd.
The medi-witch bustled up to her and handed her a couple of potions to take, which she did, “How are you feeling, my dear?”
“Tired, and my head feels full of cotton. What happened?”
“Fine, fine, that’s normal,” Madame Pomfrey replied, nodding to herself. “All normal, nothing to worry about. It’ll pass, you’re just starting to come into your magic, don’t worry my dear. Oh, and don’t worry about your classes, you'll be out of here later today, and back to your usual schedule come Monday. You too, Severus dear, you should be out of here with no issue soon as well. You're both quite lucky it's a weekend.” She bustled away to check on the other patients before Lily could ask any other questions.
Lily nodded, that seemed perfectly reasonable, right? After all who’d know better than the medi-witch? That was her job. She turned her head and looked over her shoulder at Severus, who lay in the bed next to hers. He had plucked the sprig of eucalyptus from the vase next to his bed and was staring at it, seemingly fascinated.
“Severus?” Lily said, catching his attention.
“Mmm?” he replied absently, still fairly distracted by the plant.
“What’s that on your wrist?” she asked, pulling herself up in bed to try and leaning forward, to try and take a better look at the apparent design.
Severus’ head snapped up and the plant fell out of his hand. “Wait, what?” He pulled back the sleeve of his hospital robe and Lily could see a band of continuously falling snow encircling his wrist, but only appearing once it had landed on his skin. “Strange…” Hopping off the bed and grabbing her own arm, he pulled back her sleeve and exclaimed, “Wait, look at yours!”
Flames licked around her own wrist, almost mesmerizing in their dance, a slightly warm comfortable buzz along her skin. Severus’ fingers stroked along her skin, fascinated. They looked at each other and she mused aloud, “Wonder what this means?”
A small smile quirked on his lips, “I imagine we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we.”