FicWad

Disclaimer: I own nothing...well except for what I actually own, but I own nothing to do with the Harry Potter books.
A/N: My dear readers, I present to you this much delayed chapter with apologies for the rather long wait. In penance I have cut down my tea consumption to only a few cups a day (I refuse to admit the actual number), so I feel suitably punished.

Chapter Nine
This was the day before midsummer and therefore the day before the ritual. Harry felt almost sick with nerves when he thought about it, dragons had nothing on this, he had nothing to fight here, he just had to use the rush of adrenaline to sharpen and focus his memory and his reflexes to a far lesser extent.
‘In fact, where was a rather badly dressed minion attempting to kill you when you needed it?’ Harry mused. ‘No matter what anyone said those death-eater robes were extremely girly, which in retrospect might explain the extreme irritability of those forced to wear them. One should always consider the uniforms and their level of fruitiness before one joined an evil organisation of doom. Although it’s clear, the kill-everyone-who-annoys-me-and-who-I-think-is-stinky aside, who in God’s name wanted a life without eyebrows, let alone a nose? Absolutely foolish, there’s no way Voldemort could wear sunglasses in sunny weather and a squinting dark lord would just look ridiculous.’
Harry realised his thoughts were getting a little off track and looked at his cup of tea suspiciously, Dean was a tricky bastard and had yet to get Harry back for a few rather colourful comments and amusing incidents over the last few days.
While he acknowledged no-one can look anything other than comical as they perform an ancient ritual dance with an old woman smacking you with an admittedly stylish cane (matching her robes of the day) and yelling out her suspicions on the species and intellectual capabilities of both him and his parents, there was absolutely no need for either Dean or Seamus to consistently snicker at him over the dinner table, and the breakfast table, and when during lunch and so on and so forth. Really, that pitfall trap and the various different species of both magical and non-magical dung (on occasion generously supplied by Monster and Hedwig) that found its way into their food and beds and on one glorious occasion both simultaneously into their showers were entirely deserved.
Seamus on the other hand was less devious and more the ‘I’ll curse you so badly that you grandchildren will be humiliated and in pain’ type. Apparently there were actually were curses that were both embarrassing and painful generations later, the ‘anus cruncher’ being the most famous. On hearing the name Harry felt it best not to question the mechanics of the curse but childishly snickered in his head a little while wondering if it would be worth having to see the Dursleys again just so he could use it on them.
Monster seemed particularly keen on the idea if the enthusiastic urination on the Dudley voodoo doll was any indication, and proceeded to spend the rest of the evening giving Harry puppy-dog eyes while pushing the, now dry, voodoo doll around with his paw. Hedwig, aside from tightening her claws on her perch so much the wood made an alarming crunching noise, seemed relatively indifferent. Well that was what he had thought until he caught her hooting an impressive and imaginative variety of curses at the Dudley-doll in the few hours before Monster’s urine dried.

Again Harry noticed his mental rambling, and emptied the rest of his tea down the sink. Better to be safe than sorry. He left for the garden to read over the chant a few more times, the dance was quite tiring and required a great deal of flexibility, something which had caused and impressed gleam in Grammy’s eyes when he had shown he had little problem with the moves. After all seekers had to be able to twist and turn in every direction to catch the snitch if necessary, but the dance was long and Grammy had told him to take it easy and rest his body for the day.

The remainder of the day passed fairly quickly, in the spirit of true Gryffindor comradery, except for Hermione and Percy and their overly obsessive study habits, Dean and Seamus did their utmost to distract Harry from both his nerves and his studies using a variety of cunning techniques, one of which was to turn Hedwig purple. She didn’t appreciate this and Seamus had spent the next few hours entertaining Dean and Harry as he ran away screaming from the homicidal owl, Harry having confiscated his wand claiming it was for his own protection but really his screams of pain when she finally caught him were incredibly amusing.
Dinner was fairly quiet as only the teens ate together, well Harry did not participate as he was not allowed to eat and all he was allowed to drink was an odd combination of both tea and potion. He called it a tea as neither the ingredients, nor the texture or the taste made him want to vomit, something slimy or chunky is always repulsive no matter the taste, he had learned through the vast amount of experience he had with potions being shoved down his throat in the hospital wing. He had seen that sadistic gleam in Pomfrey’s eyes, she liked it when they resisted the potions and she got to use force, no amount of lecturing could convince him otherwise.
Seamus had spent most of the meal sulking and flinching whenever a bird flew by the window, while Harry stared into space reciting the chant in his head and Dean chuckled quietly, amusing himself by flicking peas at Harry who was too absorbed in his memorisation to notice. Seamus’ parents were currently busy helping Grammy casting the necessary last minute spells on her ceremonial robes and at the Finegas Academy to set up the various ingredients needed for the ritual the next day.

Grammy had run over the physical and somewhat variable components depending on the strength of the ritual.
‘Oak for protection, strength, success and stability, rowan for control of the senses and their protection from enchantment and enthrallment and gorse for protection and preparation for conflict, all of which I think you will find quite useful.’ She had then seemed to repress a cackle and Harry had noticed her rubbing her hands together when he had looked away, mumbling about ‘bony-nosed, interfering, dried-up wizards who were beginning to get their come-uppance.’ Harry had winced slightly at how much of the stereotypical witch from the muggle point of view she had seemed, but had quickly gotten over it when she whipped out her pipe to produce grass-scented bright orange smoke. He considered investing in such a pipe, perhaps he could also buy a deer-stalker and whip them on whenever Dumbledore expected him to solve another ‘intriguing mystery’, but dismissed it on the grounds that he would look foolish in a deer-stalker without a monocle as well and that was taking it perhaps a little too far, he had his new and rather funky glasses after all. The pipe idea seemed to stick though and Harry made a mental note to ask Grammy what she smoked.

The next morning, or a few hours after midnight anyway, Harry was dragged out of bed where he had slept fitfully and a yawning Seamus and Dean wished him luck before he port-keyed to the grounds of the Finegas Academy concealed in a large bulky cloak and nothing else. They had claimed that although they were good friends, no-one wanted to see one of their mates performing a sexually explicit dance in the buff, they had seen him naked often enough in the showers thank you very much.
Apparently a good deal of the old magics were based around sex to varying degrees and while this ritual was about purity and did not involve any sexual acts at all, they still did not want to see ‘his naked sweaty body writhing’ as Grammy had described it with great relish and an incredibly perverted grin directed at him. This caused both Seamus and Dean to turn a delicate green colour, an especially impressive feat for someone with Dean’s skin tone.
She had later mused out loud about the amount of money one of the photographs of Harry performing the ritual would fetch her from his creepy fan-girls. Harry had consoled himself with the fact that Mrs Finnegan would chastise her mother and guilt her into destroying any photos she may take, that and Ginny Weasley had no money.


Harry had only had time for a hasty greeting and hurried thanks to Professor Conaghan before he was ordered to stand in the circle and strip while Grammy checked everything was still placed exactly as it should be and painted symbols in a mixture that instantly dried on his skin.
Harry pulled off his pyjamas and kept the cloak tightly wrapped around him, shivering with nerves and the chill of the pre-dawn air. Finally nodding in satisfaction she caught Harry’s eye and nodded her head to the east, face as serious as he had even seen it.
Harry spent the next few minutes performing some of the stretches he usually did before Quidditch matches in an attempt to both limber up and warm up.
‘Harry, take off the cloak and get into position’ Grammy said, holding her wand like a conductor’s baton.
A few deep breaths helped calm his nerves, and then as the first rays of sun shot grey and pink streaks through the rich navy sky, ‘Begin’.

He began to twist his body into the first move of the dance, the opening line of the chant falling off his lips. As he moved through the dance faster and faster his senses seemed to sharpen while his mind distanced itself from his actions, and he noticed the previous grassy scent of the cool morning air replaced with the smoky tang of the burning oak. At one point in the ritual when his head was facing down his body, he became aware that the runes on his body were glowing brightly as if on fire before he was distracted by the intrusion of the sweet scent of gorse. He became progressively dizzier and thought he might stumble, before the sharp and smoky scent of what seemed to be rosemary mixed with what was probably the burning rowan cleared his head as if he had taken a cold shower. He realised the ritual was almost complete and felt exhaustion such as he had never before experienced sweep through his body. Doggedly he continued to moved as gracefully as possible and forced his tongue to coherently chant the last few lines before he collapsed awkwardly in the middle of the circle, too exhausted to even close his eyes.

Dimly he was aware of steps approaching him before he felt a soft cloth covering his body as he was gently lifted, then all was dark.


He woke feeling as though Hermione had felt the need to savagely beat him with some of her ‘light reading’ all over his body, his head pounding most of all. A goblet was pressed into his hand and cracking open his eyes, he winced in the light but recognised the goblet to contain a common but potent headache potion. A sniff confirmed it. God knows he had drunk enough of them, what with his unfortunately frequent bouts of unconsciousness, through bludger-related concussions and other dark lord related matters.
He downed the potion in one gulp and closed his eyes, enjoying the blessed darkness until the potion came into effect. A few minutes passed and he opened his eyes, blinking until his glasses were passed to him.
He realised he was curled up in a large wicker armchair in a rather large and airy room that seemed to be serving as an office. The room was one of the more unusual and obviously wizardly he had been in, not just due to the sprinkling of magical gadgets, but largely due to the fact one of the walls seemed to be solely made up of vines, twisted around to create large arched windows through which Harry could see the early sunshine of the dawn had been replaced with a soft grey drizzle. The room’s other three walls were a light grey stone but seemed to mimic structures and features commonly found in nature, and overall the room gave a light, refreshing and open atmosphere despite the dull weather outside. It made you almost feel as if you were sitting in a sheltered forest glade or very open cave, something so different to the strong rigid structure of Hogwarts.

The sound of a throat being cleared drew his attention to the man he had earlier greeted, now sitting across the desk from Harry and gazing at him with the same interest he had viewed the room with.
He gave Harry a moment to collect himself
“Mr. Potter, it truly is a pleasure to meet you, but I must apologise for the haste of our earlier greeting. I am Professor Fionn Conaghan, former headmaster of the Finegas Academy and now the most highly qualified librarian and curator in the world.” He began with gentle hunour.
Harry’s mind raced as he tried to recall all Malfoy’s interactions with those he respected, and then to filter out the arrogance and general ferret-ness.
“The haste was necessary, but the pleasure is all mine” he replied with a respectful bow of his head. Like Dumbldore when he was angry, power seemed to radiate from the man seated across from him, and he had truly done Harry a great favour.“I would like to thank you for all you have done, I am truly in you debt“
“Not at all, Lucy here has hinted at some grave injustices visited on you by Albus Dumbledore,” he replied, gesturing at Grammy seated beside Harry “and as you may or may not know, there is no love lost between Albus Dumbledore and I.”
“Ah, I have heard rumours.......” he replied, delicately trailing off
“Rumours supplied by that excuse for a human being” Grammy interjected roughly
The old man smiled and Harry was relieved not to see a hint of a twinkle. Sitting across from Harry in his unusual office, he looked nothing like Dumbledore. Aside from the thankfully absent twinkle, his robes did not look like he was maliciously planning to induce a fit in innocent passersby. His expression was benevolent but there was obvious sharp intelligence in the smoky blue eyes surrounded by a great many laughter lines. Like Dumbledore he was tall and thin with a beard, but his silver beard was short and well groomed and both his words and gestures careful and cultivated. In all he had a very different presence to Dumbledore, something which Harry catalogued in the back of his mind.
“Now I do believe we can count the ritual was success, otherwise you would be dead or at the very least permanently a different colour. The only person I ever knew to survive a slightly botched ritual turned a vibrant shade of orange with slight purple overtones, an unfortunately unattractive colour to be stuck with,” the older man mused.

The next few hours were spent in discussion, rarely touching on delicate matters like the reason for the ritual and Harry end his visit to the former school with a tour given by Professor Conaghan himself.
Only on their way to the portkey site did Grammy discuss the ritual
“Harry, there is a chance, depending on how deep the connection between your soul and your wand is, that the ritual might have least weakened the spells on your wand. I think you should re-brew the Revelation Potion.”