Gathering Courage

Hermione, however, did not go to bed after leaving the infirmary. Rationally she knew Harry was right and there was nothing any of them could have done to help him tonight, but that still did not help her feel any better about the fact her friend had been alone going face to face with Voldemort while surrounded by Death Eaters . Worse than that, Harry had actually been hit by the killing curse. Again. Even Harry's luck was bound to run out eventually if he kept getting into dangerous situations like that.

The war had begun again tonight, that much was certain. Harry, and all those close to him, would be targets for the reassembled Death Eaters and their master. They would need every advantage they could get their hands on. In other words, she would also need every advantage she could get to protect herself and those she cared about. Despite the training she had been doing for the past few months she knew she was not ready to face a skilled Death Eater alone and certainly not more than one. She worried for her family as well. During the first war Voldemort had a habit of attacking the homes of muggleborns even if they had done nothing to oppose him, how much more danger did her parents face because of her friendship with Harry?

'There is something I can do about it though…' she suddenly thought, but immediately tried to ignore the thought. It would not go away however. She had the knowledge and supplies needed to complete the Ritual of Heron. It was dangerous to attempt an unknown ritual, but on the other hand no one that had studied it believed it was a particularly dark ritual. She had struggled with decision since she began studying the ritual, but the bulk of her reason for wanting to do it then was to satisfy her curiosity. Now it had taken on a greater significance to her. It had come to symbolize all of her hopes of making it through the second war with Voldemort. Harry's 'death' had pushed her over the edge and convinced her that the ritual was necessary.

Hermione made a quick stop by the Gryffindor dorms to pick up the supplies she would need for the ritual. Harry had been able to conjure everything she needed, even the hard to find items. He, of course, did not know what Hermione's true reasoning had been for wanting them. The only part he could not conjure was the gold she would need and that would have to come from one of her most cherished possessions: a bracelet that her mother had given her. It saddened her to lose the bracelet, but she decided it was being used for a good purpose. After gathering everything she would need Hermione made her way to the Room of Requirement, which she had decided would be the best place to perform the ritual.

"I need a place to perform the Ritual of Heron." Hermione thought as she walked back and forth in front of the spot on the wall where the door to the Room of Requirement would appear. As she past the third time an ornate door slowly formed, just as she had expected. When she entered the room it was far different than she had expected. The floors and walls were all a dark stone instead of wood as they normally were. The room was quite small compared to what how the room normally appeared. The four walls were all approximately equal in length and Hermione guessed they were each about twenty five feet long. A single torch was placed on each wall and as a result the room was still quite dark. Seeing the intimidating room, Hermione had a moment of doubt about whether or not to go through with the ritual. But eventually her doubt faded and she proceeded with the complex ritual.

The room had evidently prepared the first step of the ritual for her. A perfectly circular ring of white sand was waiting in the center of the room, just as she needed it to be. The first step was for her to draw the nine runes in the correct order on the ring. As she drew them she thought about how it would have been impossible for her to complete this without the book she had found. For one thing the runes she was currently drawing were not actually runes at all, at least not like modern witches and wizards were taught. The runes the school taught students were of Germanic origin but these were much older Phoenician symbols, although they were used for similar purposes. This, of course, made sense to her considering the ritual itself was older than the runes she knew of.

Once she was satisfied she had drawn them properly she began placing the elements on the runes they corresponded to. This step had taken her months to finally get right, and the excitement of finally seeing it completed was indescribable. Finally they were all in place and she was ready to begin the ritual. For a moment she stood in the center of the ring looking at what she had done feeling slightly anxious about what she was about to do. As far as she knew she would be the first person in two thousand years to perform this ritual that had been heavily sought after ever since.

After a few moments Hermione decided it was time to complete the ritual and began chanting the words that were required. It was in Greek and was long enough that she had spent a week translating and memorizing. It was not a spell exactly, in fact it was worded more like a very poetic prayer asking permission to face judgment and expressing hope that they would be found worthy. Once she had finished the prayer once she began again, as the book had instructed. As she did so she pulled a small knife out of her robes and made a small cut on her hand. The blood quickly began to pool in her palm as she walked over the first rune slowly, careful not to spill any of the blood on the ground. She slowly tipped her hand over, allowing a few drops of blood to land on the rune. As soon as it landed the small amount of nickel laying on top of the rune burst into flames and was absorbed into the ring of sand. Hermione took that as a sign she had performed that part correctly and repeated it on the other runes. Soon all of the runes had been activated and all of the elements absorbed into the ring.

For a moment nothing happened and she feared that she had made a mistake, but a second later the torches on the wall went dark and the sand ring began to glow. A strong wind began to blow, but strangely none of the sand that made up the ring around her was effected. In the darkness Hermione almost missed seeing a black circle forming on the edge of the ring. It stood vertically and was completely dark, in fact the only indication it was even there was that she expected to see something in that direction and didn't. Finally the wind died down and she saw some shape moving at the center of the circle. She looked closer, trying to figure out what it was as the shape grew larger and larger. Eventually she recognized it to be a person walking towards her. That is when the realization that she had created a portal hit her, however she had no clue where it went. She was now past what the book knew about the ritual and was completely on her own.

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