Chapter 18.6- Doom Days

“Well, Rowena Ravenclaw would disagree. She was on to something.” I said, as the tome’s words began to sink in.

“Wait. Rowena Ravenclaw wrote that? THE ROWENA RAVENCLAW?” He asked, sounding gobsmacked.

“Well, she didn’t write the book itself. It’s the journal of an early Hogwarts Headmistress, but she had been working based on notes from Ravenclaw. Ravenclaw had theorized that there would be a way to create an even more powerful form of ritual by taking into account the old wild magicke rules. Phyllida Spore, the headmistress of the day, had a thing for herbology and figured that if one were to cultivate a sufficiently powerful plant, then it could be used in an assumption ritual.” I said to him.

“Assumption ritual? Why does that sound spooky?”

“No. It’s like a standard potential unlocking ritual- the kind that you and James did in your time, except focused on not just unlocking the upper limits of one’s potential but assuming the strengths of a magical being” I said.

“I don’t think either of us can cultivate any magically powerful plants, and most of these don’t even exist in Britain anymore. The strongest thing you can get here is a Mandrake.”

“I agree. But she theorizes that you can do the same thing with a magical creature, except not by raising it, but by slaying it in combat.”

“So you want to go monster hunting?”

“I don’t need to. I already slayed a powerful magical beast, remember?”

“Cwn Annwn? But the ministry took the body. How is this ritual of yours going to work?”

“Doesn’t matter. My magic remembers. The same way my magic remembers that I killed the Basilisk. I just need something to represent the hellhound and the basilisk. It should be enough. I don’t think I’ll get as much from the Hellhound as I will from the basilisk. The fact that I had help with the hellhound should make it worth less than the Basilisk in the eyes of magic.”

“This sounds like dark magic” Sirius said, trying to be flippant about things, but I wasn’t going to be falling for that.

“It isn’t. It’s old magic, wild magic. When the druids of the Old English Forests ran into magical beasts and defeated them, they would bathe in the blood of those beasts to strengthen themselves and take on the traits of the beasts. There used to be an adulthood trial among the Norse wizards of old- they would seek out a magical beast before their maturity and slay it in single combat. In the end, that creature would be used to strengthen them for their maturity. It’s ancient, but not dark Sirius. Nothing is being sacrificed here. Well, that’s untrue. The value of the ritual comes from the fact that I risked my life to kill the beasts, but that’s already happened so why not gain the benefits of it?” I could see that he was still not completely convinced, but he conceded the argument all the same, and that was the best I could ask for.