On the twelfth night, they invoked the deep magic.
Bellatrix had never been much for the old rites. Many of them were just for show, anyway, a means of showing those lesser than them why, exactly, the old families were better than they were. Most of them stank of masculine pride, and Bellatrix would have been happy to let them die slow, painful deaths.
But the twelfth night ritual was different. The old families — those that were left, anyway — gathered at Malfoy Manor, in the chapel, where the stones were far older than the Manor, and still rung with centuries upon centuries of magic stored deep in the rock. Magic and blood and music and sex, that would bond the families together, stronger, for another year, another century.
As much as the old families liked to go on about good breeding and manners and propriety, when it came down to it, it came down to this. Very, very old magic, preserving power into a sink of magic and stone, weaving themselves together.
The men were welcome to stay. Their presence helped, for those inclined that way. But they weren’t necessary.
The chapel was a small-ish stone building, set apart from the Manor proper. It was simple, rustic, even, with a dais of stones in the center of the floor, and a hole in the roof for the smoke to escape. A set of stone steps led up to the dais on each side.
A daughter of each house would join the circle. The younger ones had been sent to bed. The older ones, the married ones who no longer cared to contribute (or who had husbands who would mind) would observe. Everyone would feel it.
Bellatrix had been representing the Blacks since she left Hogwarts. The young women gathered in a circle on the dais, while the Families ringed in a circle around them.
It was dark and cold in the chapel, the only light the moon filtering in through the hole in the ceiling, the old, colored glass in the windows only letting in the barest slivers of light.
Incendio
Bellatrix’s mother lit the fire this year. Flames erupted to life on the dais, casting flickering shadows on the faces of the women crowded around it. Even in the crowd, the men had retreated to the darkened back corners of the chapel.
Bellatrix was leading this year. Her co-leader, standing beside her, was a Malfoy cousin she only knew by reputation and the odd party as a child, a rare Ravenclaw, with the trademark silver blonde hair and pale blue eyes. Pandora.
Pandora turned, and without speaking, tilted her head back and narrowed her eyes, a challenge. _You ready?_ It said. Bellatrix was ready.
She took a deep breath. She lifted her wand.
Salva nos, stella maris
Et regina caelorum
Pandora joined her voice to Bellatrix’s. It was higher, clearer.
Salva nos, stella maris
Et regina caelorum
Sparks erupted from the fire as the rest of the circle followed their lead, sending magic into the flames.
Salva nos, stella maris
Et regina caelorum
Bellatrix alone.
Que pura deum paris
(Salva nos, stella maris)
Pandora.
Et per rubum signaris
Nesciens viri thorum
(Salva nos, stella maris
Et regina caelorum)
Each time the choir joined, Bellatrix could feel the magic building, in her voice and her body. She knew witches from the crowd would join in as well, remembering their days on the dais, and lending their magic to the fire and the ringing sound thrumming now through the stones and crackling in the fire and spiking up Bellatrix’s spine.
Louder, and louder, faster and faster. Over, and over again. Pandora’s eyes, out of the corner of Bellatrix ‘s eye, were half-closed, glazed. She was swaying slightly from side to side. Bellatrix felt the opposite of how Pandora looked. Awake, alert, more alert than she’d ever felt. Electricity running from fingertip to fingertip. She could feel Pandora’s body heat, so, so close to her.
Pandora’s eyes opened, suddenly, so suddenly that Bellatrix almost lost her rhythm. She held Bellatrix’s gaze, fire reflected in pale blue.
The room was one voice, now, chanting magic into the stones and the people housed beneath them.
(Salva nos, stella maris
Et regina caelorum)
Everyone knew what came next, the second part of twelfth night. Magic alone was good, but magic, even magic bolstered by the song and the group casting. Words and wands were conduits, not the real thing. Music helped, the group helped, but the real power was in the unlocked, raw, emotion and _feeling_ that erupted in a crowd soaked in magic and fire. Now that it had been unleashed, it needed somewhere to go.
This was the point at which the married couples might stumble away, and the reason the young ones had been sent to bed early.
(Salva nos, stella maris
Et regina caelorum)
The final refrain rang through the chapel. At this point, some would keep singing, round and round. Some would dance, some stopped singing immediately and looked for husbands or partners or lovers in the crowd. The air would keep ringing all night with the buzz of their magic. The fire continued to spark and pop and roar. The crowd undulated, a dark mass of shuffling bodies.
Bellatrix grabbed Pandora’s arm and all but dragged her off the dais, into a dark corner of the chapel, slamming her up against the rough stone wall. She pressed her hand to the stone over Pandora’s head, savoring the rush of tingling energy she felt there. She ran her fingernail gently down the side of Pandora’s face, down her neck.
Pandora gasped and leaned her head to the side, giving her more space to maneuver. Then her eyes did that thing again where they focused in, disarmingly focused, on Bellatrix.
“Don’t you think you’re the one in control here, Black,” she murmured, and grabbed a fistful of Bellatrix’s dress robes at the neck, dragging her in for a messy kiss. Bellatrix couldn’t help but yelp a bit. People weren’t usually so forceful with her. Usually they were scared, honestly. It was one reason she liked Rodolphus. He wasn’t afraid to be rough.
Pandora wound her hands into Bellatrix’s hair and tugged her head back, sliding up the wall so she had more leverage.
“Shut up, Malfoy,” Bellatrix gasped, winding her own hands into Pandora’s blonde hair, pulling her back down.
She twisted, so that Pandora was pressed between her body and the wall. Pandora’s left leg found its way around her hip, Bellatrix straddling her other thigh. They were both breathing hard.
The rest of the night was rough, intense, and involved very little talking.
Tomorrow, things would go back to normal. And the Families would go back to their usual tea parties and manners and meetings dominated by fathers and sons.
But for tonight, for twelfth night, this was for them.