ACT5CH19 - WHERE POISON DWELLS PART 2

It was time. Daphne stood alone in the preparation alcove — a narrow, rune-etched corridor branching from the ritual chamber. The stone bene

It was time.

Daphne stood alone in the preparation alcove — a narrow, rune-etched corridor branching from the ritual chamber. The stone beneath her feet pulsed faintly, as if attuned to her heartbeat, or perhaps to the ancient blood running in her veins. The Greengrass blood. Cursed. Marked. Waiting to be rewritten.

Surprisingly, her hands were steady.

Daphne glanced at the clock. It was nearly six, and the world was still submerged in darkness as far as the eye could see. It would not be before another hour that the first ray of sunshine shone over British shores.

There was a gentle knock on the door.

“Come in,” she said.

Joshua Greengrass looked more put together than she expected. Better than the right bundle of nerves from the very moment they had returned to Cinnamon Grove. Between what had transpired at the Wizengamot, the follow-up, Summer claiming and manifesting in her preternatural divine form in front of everyone, the episode with the Black Lar and everything else that Harry had shared with her. 

On second thought, that he hadn’t outright fainted was a surprise.

She glanced at his hands. They clenched, unclenched, and clenched again.

…Okay, perhaps not as composed as he’d have her believe.

“It’s time,” he said. “The bath is ready.”

She nodded. “Thank you.”

He lingered a second longer than necessary. “There’s… the special oils. And the herbs Harry requested. All precisely measured. I had the elves read it back to me thrice, just in case.”

“I’m sure it’s perfect.”

“It is the eighteenth of December, right?”

“Yes.”

“...ah, good. Good. Can’t be too certain. Merlin knows what sort of madness can happen from choosing the wrong date.”

Daphne breathed.

“I checked in with my old Astronomy books too,” her father kept rambling. “Today falls under a Moon in Taurus. An earth-sign.”

“And our family totem,” said Daphne. Technically, a bison wasn’t the same as a tauros, but the symbolism worked. Both were earth-signs and thus, symbols of vitality, endurance and grounded strength.

“Harry said that Taurus is ruled by Venus,” Joshua went on. “And Venus is the goddess of —”

“Love. And with serious connections to the Moon,” Daphne replied. “It is why he chose the day, Dad.”

“...Right. I would've paid attention to Astronomy if I knew it was so bloody important! Seriously, why don’t they teach all of this at Hogwarts? Harry said that the ritual will start exactly at thirteen minutes to seven, so you have some time to take your bath and get ready to get to him by six-twenty and —”

“Father, breathe.”

“....”

“Breathe,” Daphne repeated.

Joshua followed her directions. 

Inhale.

Exhale.

Inhale.

Exhale.

“Feeling better?”

“...Little,” he confessed. “I swear this is making me crazy. All these years searching for a curse and now, suddenly… all of this is….”

“What did I say about breathing?”

“...Right. I mean, of course.”

“Now, can I go ahead with my bath? Time’s ticking. Wouldn’t want to be late and botch up the ritual, right?”

“Right… right,” her father shook his head like an old elephant and left, carefully closing the door behind him.

Daphne exhaled. Her fingers loosened the knot at her waist. 

The robe fell in a whisper of cloth.

The bathing chamber beyond was carved directly into the stone, circular and deep. The water inside shimmered faintly, and floating atop it were petals and roots and slivers of pomegranate peel. A spiral of steam curled upward like incense.

She stepped in.

It was hot, but not enough to be searing. Insistent. Focussed. Like a hand urging her to wake up. The oils clung to her skin, slick and fragrant, and the herbs tingled faintly where they touched.

She dipped under, once, fully — hair, skin, soul.

When she rose again, her breath came slow and centered. The ache in her limbs, always lurking, had dulled to a whisper. The curse didn’t like the heat. It never had.

She closed her eyes and let it soak.

This wasn’t comfort.

This was preparation for war.

She would walk into fire — naked, yes. But not unarmed.

And on the other side of this pain…

She would be free.

....

....

The chamber smelled of heat and metal. Quicksilver shimmered faintly in the outer circle, casting a pale sheen across the stones. The inner circle was blood-red, or just blood, come to think of it. 

Still. Two circles? She had believed that like everything else, they would certainly take Arithmancy into factor.

Unless… they weren’t. Daphne didn’t know. Rituals weren’t her forte.

Astoria was… somewhere, she supposed. Nobody except her and Harry would be present during the ritual. Apart from the obvious reasons of avoiding magical interference or the slightest chance of the curse attempting to grab at something or someone, the major factor was that she was supposed to be naked for this.

Not because revealing your private parts made the magic work faster. It was just that Harry would be invoking the power of Summer, and while the special herbs would protect her body from the wrath of the Summer magic, her clothes wouldn’t be so lucky. And as much as she cared about her modesty, it was not worth getting scorched from her burning clothes mid-ritual. 

She had too many things to do with her life to consider scarring herself horribly like that.

Harry noticed her hovering at the entrance and beckoned her to step in. 

Daphne did, her purple satin robe clinging to her like mist. It covered, technically. But it was really the idea of modesty, not its execution.

She pulled it tighter around herself, fingers fidgeting at the tie.

He was giving her time. The same boy who had fought wars and held gods at bay… waiting in silence, letting her arrive on her terms.

Daphne stepped forward. The stones were cool against her bare feet. The Summer magic rippled faintly beneath them — familiar. Home. It knew her. It wanted her whole. It always had.

She stopped just short of the outer circle, watching him.

“You alright?” She asked.

Harry opened his mouth to reply, then shut it. Then tried again, with similar results.

It made her smile.

“I am supposed to ask you that,” he said at last.

“Felt like a little rule-breaking,” Daphne said childishly. “Besides, Harry Potter is my fiance. What do you expect?”

“I suppose I’ve been a bad influence on you,” Harry chuckled. 

Daphne could see it. The tension in his muscles. The stiffness, the way his gaze flickered, the way his power surged and wobbled and went dormant. 

She understood why.

After all, this was her life they were attempting to save. Daphne had always known that the curse would take her life in the end, the way it had consumed her mother, and her mother before. The promise of certain death at childbirth was a given for every Greengrass daughter, as was the guarantee of debilitating pain out of the blue.

So yes, Daphne had been prepared for Death. Even in the worst case scenario where Harry failed, she’d just die. And she was okay with it. If not for the curse, she would not have gotten his love. It was barely half a year, but it was definitely worth it.

But for Harry, it was different. He had promised that he would save her. That he would find a cure. And he had. He was the one that had figured out the role the Black Family Magic played in the malediction. He was also the one that had eventually identified the Black Lar as the true caster of the malediction.

And he was the one that had eradicated the Lar out of existence.

And if things went wrong, he would be the reason Daphne would die.

In hindsight, her asking him if he was alright was the right thing to do.

Daphne pulled the robe tighter, knowing how it would only highlight her contours. She smiled shyly, when his gaze locked at her, feeling pleased and frustrated when his gaze didn’t flicker downward. 

Not even when her fingers found the knot at her waist.

This was ridiculous. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. She had imagined this moment a dozen ways — skin to skin, breath to breath, a kiss lingering between ribs and reason. Not a sacred rite. Not stone and blood and black mercury. Not like this.

It felt like a theft.

Not on my bloody watch.

Daphne made up her mind, and the robe slipped from her shoulders and fell to the floor, pooling like spilled moonlight, revealing her skin.

Every inch of her skin.

Daphne felt… known. Vulnerable, and yet, not powerless. Not under his gaze.

Because he wasn’t looking at her. Not at her contours. Not at her supple flesh. If anything, he looked frozen, like he couldn’t do anything but look at her.

It made her smile.

Daphne moved ahead, and gently touched his shoulders with both hands. Before she knew it, he put a hand on the small of her back and pulled her close. He gained a measure of his self-awareness, and lost it immediately, as she hungrily sought his lips.

Warm. Soft. Delicious.

Daphne wanted more of it. It wasn’t enough. It would never be enough.

Their lips opened, and the kiss deepened. Daphne was no stranger to kissing, but much like other forms of foreplay that she was fond of, it was just part of the physical pleasure. At times, a distraction, and at times, part of her charm when she wanted to distract Harry from something else. 

This time? It was about completion.

Her tongue darted out, flicking playfully across his, and Daphne shivered, gasping as their tongues waged war against each other. She pushed herself even more, pressing her breasts against his chest. His response was to drop his hand to her butt and squeeze it tight to the point of hurting. 

Almost. But not quite there.

She’d need to remind him that she could deal with a little pain.

Daphne couldn’t hold the moan that escaped her throat. She didn’t even try. She wanted him to know what he was doing to her. 

As the intensity of the kiss grew, so did her emotional turmoil. The fears, the insecurities, the impossible frustrations and the potential horror that lay ahead. 

She didn’t know how this ritual would turn out. Maybe she’d be cured, maybe she wouldn’t. Maybe things would go horribly wrong and she’d either perish or worse. This was the last time she’d be in Harry’s arms before her life would be changed forever, and she’d be damned if she didn’t take the full advantage of that. Too bad they were on the clock or else she’d have lost her virginity to him right away — his annoying chivalry be damned.

After what felt like an eternity, she pulled back, only because even the most passionate lovers needed oxygen.

“This feels better,” she said, beaming. 

“Yeah,” Harry trailed. 

“Good, now that we’ve gotten that out of the system. Let’s get started, shall we?”

She had made him explain the process in excruciating detail, enjoying the hell out of seeing him embarrassed as he vocally had to repeat exactly where he would have to paint the runes on her body, their respective orders. He might be the Gatekeeper to some, Wizengamot-Breaker to another, and all-around arse-kicker for every dark and evil thing out there, but for her, he was that easily flustered fifth-year that she loved and kissed and held hands and spent every moment of his free time with.

Harry stepped forward. Slowly. Carefully. Summoning a tiny inkpot from the floor, he dipped his index-finger into it, and pulled it out.

Red. From the blood inside.

Greengrass blood.

Daphne inhaled as he approached her bare breasts. His finger hovered for half a breath, then made contact — a stroke of heat against her breastbone, slow and deliberate. 

Her breath hitched. 

“Harry Potter,” she said slowly. “You better get to it and do it fast. Or else I’m gonna jump your bones. Ritual and malediction be damned.”

Never let it be said that Daphne Greengrass didn’t have her priorities straight.

What? Some girls dreamed of ballrooms and candlelight. Daphne Greengrass was naked in a circle of blood and mercury, being written back into the world by the boy she loved.

She had to make-do.

Her reaction brought out a chuckle from her fiance. Slowly, carefully, his finger traced upward, then with a sharp left, and up again. 

This was Sol. The old Norse rune for the Sun, the source of power, of growth, of Vitality. Of Summer. It was supposed to awaken the dormant core of her Greengrass heritage. Much like her beating heart, it was supposed to pump her bloodline’s power outward, and serve as the invocation point for the entire ritual.

The next rune was Ansuz, right between her shoulder blades. It was shaped like a scythe, and functioned similarly. If Sol was the source of power, then Ansuz in this case was the scythe that would utilize that power to cut that which needed amputation.

Again, this close to her body, she had to hold herself back from grabbing his neck and forcing his lips on her naked breasts, demanding him to suckle her.

The third rune was Algiz, shaped like a flame that branched upward, with two curls at the base like horns, wrapped with a Vanir vine-rune crossing the stem. Harry drew it between her brows, his gaze completely affixed at his craft, not even flickering for the slightest second. 

The fourth rune was Eiwaz, and it came in a set of four. Daphne raised her hands, palms open and facing skyward, allowing him to engrave Eiwaz on each. Eiwaz was Preservation, serving to ground her spirit during the transformation, ensuring that she stayed whole while Ansuz performed the amputation. Once Harry was done with both hands, he crouched, and repeated the action on her feet.

He was just so methodical and meticulous about it that Daphne almost wondered if he had taken a calming potion of some sort to go about doing this task. Then she remembered how most potions didn’t work on him, and somehow, that excited and frustrated her even more.

“Turn,” he said, and Daphne followed suit.

The fifth rune would be at the base of her spine. The tail bone. Hagalaz, the rune signifying storms, or more generally, destruction. This would serve as the herald, the permission to draw the curse out.

It also served to bring her round hips close to his face. Daphne knew that her juices were already starting to flow from the sheer eroticism, and her scent was heavy in the air. She half-expected him to cop a feel, or at least, tap it a little.

Instead the bastard smiled and pulled back up, asking her to turn.

The sixth rune was a combination of Kenaz and Tiwaz, a vertical line drawn from her sternum to her navel, to guide the extracted curse down and outward. Daphne followed the line, and noticed how his own trousers had become painfully tight.

Good. At least she wasn’t the only one suffering.

Just one left. And it was the worst.

The seventh and last rune. 

Ingwaz, and it would be drawn on the source of impact of the curse. 

Her womb.

Daphne had to fight to keep herself perfectly still, as the slightest movement on her part could cause a miss stroke and could prove disastrous for her. But his proximity and his warm breath on her womanhood was making it impossible to hold on to her sanity. She had the overwhelming desire to grab his head and force them between her legs and see what his wonderful lips could do to her nether lips.

An agonizing ten seconds later, Harry was finished with all seven runes, and exhaled, observing her like an artisan observing his masterpiece. Daphne almost expected him to make a comment, but was disappointed when he just stepped back.

“You should go and lie in the center of the inner circle,” he said. 

Daphne followed suit, and lay at the center of the blood-red circle, the stones cradling her spine. The world outside didn’t exist anymore — no manor walls, no corridor, no father waiting outside the door chewing the edge of his sleeve. Just her, the runes etched across her skin, and the strange, living silence of ancient magic waiting to wake.

She could feel the runes. Burning. Glowing. Like tiny suns humming in harmony, like notes in a chord held just before crescendo. Her chest rose with each breath, and with each rise came a pull. She felt something coil at her core, following the beat from the Sol, all the way down the line dragging to her navel, and finally, her womanhood. Was the Sol setting the beat? 

She couldn't tell.

Her thighs ached faintly from being held just-so. Her lips were still tingling from Harry’s drawing the Ingwaz on her womb. Like it knew the curse was being hunted. That its centuries-old prison walls were growing thin.

She thought of her mother.

What had it felt like for her? Trembling in her bed, holding the tiny baby Daphne in her arms and knowing that her own end was near? What would the healer’s face been like? Helpless? Tired? Resigned? How must her father have felt?

And then when Lily Potter gave birth to Harry… What sort of emotions must have run through her father, knowing that Harry’s mother had survived, while his wife had perished at the table?

The hope. The anger. The frustration.

The knowledge that he would be tying his daughter’s life with the young boy that probably didn’t even know of her existence. 

So many plans he must have made. And then, Fate made Harry the Boy-Who-Lived, and separated him for eleven years. And when he returned to the magical world, he was different.

A gryffindor.

With no knowledge of his Greengrass roots. Of the legacy in his blood.

And now, fifteen years later, he was healing her. Truly, myriad were the ways of Fate.

....

....

Harry checked the watch. The second hand quivered, trembling toward the minute.

6:46 AM.

One minute left.

Exhaling, he untied the fastenings of his robe, and let it fall. Just like Summer flame would scorch every fabric, so would Death disintegrate everything within its reach. 

While he was no stranger to being naked in front of a woman — Fleur had beaten whatever shyness he had out of him — it was still his first time being with Daphne like that. As it was, the way she was looking at him, the tenderness in that gaze as if she wanted to memorize every contour of his body, made him want to drop everything and make sweet love to him.

But time was of the essence.

He took one final glance at the outer circle of quicksilver, designed using seven sets of a triad of runes — Gebo, for boundary; Nauthiz, the trifold denial, and finally, Othala, the bloodline claim — exactly in that order. Together, the symbols would form a net, a seal and a law — a magical mesh that would capture and isolate the curse.

It was time for the final step.

Standing precisely halfway between the two circles, Harry raised his hands.

And the world changed.

There was no incantation. No flourish. No dramatic invocation.

Death needed none of that.

Instead, runes began to materialize in a circle around the inner blood circle. Not Norse, not phoenixian, not even the younger futhark. These were sigils — ideograms crafted by reverse-engineering Death energy at the Workshop. Babbling had suggested that they employ a mix of Akkadian cuneiform and Egyptian hieroglyphs to derive these ideograms since much of the magic involved was derived from Ereshkigal and Anubis. 

The symbols flickered like frozen shadowlight, the script of the silent spaces between Life and After.

As they formed, Harry rotated them — clockwise, widdershins, some inverted, aligning them with principles that had no names in any human language. 

The newest circle slowly fixed its place between blood and mercury, shaping itself into the second band, completing the Triad.

Summer. Death. Binding. 

Identity. Cleansing. Rot.

Soul. Purgatory. Curse.

A smaller circle appeared around him, just a containment to hold him in place on the middle circle. A ring of sovereignty. A fixed point on the axis of endings.

Like a planet, tethered to its orbit.

After all, if he even stepped back for a point, if the middle circle broke, there was no saying what would happen. 

And then he spoke.

“By the Circle of Blood, I name the wound.

By the Circle of Binding, I contain the wound.

By the Circle of Death, I summon the will to unmake the wound.”

The air pulsed once.

The mercury flared. The blood boiled faintly. And between them — the Death circle shimmered into visibility, a band of violet-glass and glimmering shadow, hungry and silent.

The runes ignited.

One by one — red, black, silver — the circles began to glow. The temperature dropped and rose all at once. Daphne, lying in the center, could feel the circles awakening around her. Her skin hummed — the runes painted on her body had begun to respond.

His eyes met Daphne’s, and found quiet resolution in them.

One way or another, the blood curse would end this day.

Harry raised his right hand, and summoned power into his voice.

“Treader Of The Golden Field, O’ Horned Flame,

Bearer Of Root And Roar, By Blood And Name —”

It was a small aria, almost lyrical, dedicated to the deity, the primal force that the original clan worshipped and followed back in the old days. A song that acknowledged and worshipped the different aspects of the power that flowed through their bloodline as Family Magic.

Every Greengrass knew of it, and knew better than to invoke it. After all, the problem with invocation wasn’t about being unable to summon the primal force, it was about what happened after the summoning was done.

If Freyja showed up and wanted to kill him, he’d probably just burn to ashes or something. Freyja was Summer — the power of fire, of heat, of light. Harry would be blinded and scorched to ashes before he could even utter a word or move a muscle. 

“By Hoof, Earth, And Sun Bright —”

But like he had come to realise, for better or worse, he was Harry fucking Potter, and Luck was always on his side.

Even if it was the most byzantine and destructive sort of luck possible.

Freyja, Summer, Vitalis, Brishingamen, LET THERE BE LIGHT!”

The world split open.

The circle of blood beneath Daphne ignited, as if a tiny sun was being born. 

Not a flame. Not a metaphor. Not the element nor the season — this was the true Summer.

A goddess, born in light.

The runes flared to life across Daphne’s skin, glowing like molten script. Sol, at her sternum, blazed first — pulsing like a second heart — and the others followed in sequence: Eiwaz on her hands and feet thrummed with rhythm, Ansuz at her spine snapped taut like a drawn bow, and Algiz at her brow burned bright enough to rival sunrise.

And then — Ingwaz, over her womb.

It screamed.

Daphne kept flailing inside the circle, her eyes wide open like her palms, with liquid light erupting out of them like lava out of a volcano. The floor shook, the tremors causing the ornamental decor to crash down to the floor. Luckily, Harry had the foresight to draw a perimeter ward to keep any foreign contaminants out of the ritual circle, or it would have been a problem.

And then he heard it.

The scream.

It came from Daphne’s lips, but the sound didn’t belong to her. Wild, grating, like a rusted iron rod drawn across asphalt. The sounds it made was something no human should ever hear. Gritting his teeth, Harry kept his right hand up, and proceeded to the next part.

“You, Rot of Jaguar’s Shadow, are of trespass. 

Born of hate, marrow of Sin, a shadow sewn into a mother’s scream,”

He saw it. The rot. Like dark ichor, a shadow that remained tangled into Daphne, even amidst the dazzling Summer flame, its dark threads knotting around Daphne, refusing to let go.

“The bleed that gnaws in silence, carved into womb by a coward’s vengeance,”

There was a flash of light, a toll of thunder that sounded weirdly musical, like the aftertone of some vast gong, a shower of rain and petals and grass, as the fire became hotter and hotter. 

“Come.”

The curse — the twisted abomination, instantly leapt out from the furnace that was the Blood Circle, jumping straight to Harry — the stand-in for the middle circle — wanting to escape. Instantly, the mercury circle activated — Gebo, Nauthiz and Othala creating a boundary of no escape, and establishing that concept upon the restraining circle Harry was in.

Locking the curse into Harry and Harry alone. The rot coiled around him, blind, furious, trying to twist backward into Daphne. 

He would not let it.

“Unwanted you are, Uninvited you were, begone, the chain ends here,”

It shot outward — into him.

For a moment, everything shattered. The curse surged up, not just a shapeless ichor anymore, but a half-born, writhing, breaking and reforming entity, refusing to die.

It shrieked, and a bladed pressure pressed into Harry, like blades being driven into flesh from every direction. The air turned sick. The circle shivered. Mercury bubbled like boiling pitch. And in that agony and madness, Harry heard it speak —

I AM MADNESS THAT SERVES THE BLOOD!

I AM SWORN!

I AM THE WILL OF TOUJOURS PUR!

It was like being flayed alive from the inside. He heard himself scream, though it came out silent. His knees buckled, and every pain he had ever known now came to him all at once. 

Not just physical pain, but magical. Emotional.

Grief.

Violation.

Emptiness.

Remorse.

Harry wanted to die.

Instead, his hand stayed, and his lips worked —

“Look upon me and See your End. I am the Hand that will close this book—”

The curse howled, throwing itself again. The outer binding groaned, mercury splitting, straining. The madness split open, like a flower made of knives.

And out spilled faces.

Women.

Mothers.

Greengrass women, screaming in agony. Pain at birth. Bloodied wombs. Infants crying and the slow, gurgling silence of dying mothers.

Ophelia. Andrea. Camilla. Euphemia. Anastasia. Lily—

“Harry!” screamed Lily’s face. “Stop it! STOP IT! You’re killing me! You’re killing ME! YOUR MOTHER!”

“My daughter needs me!” Screamed Anastasia. “She deserves her mother. Don’t do this!”

Harry hesitated, just for a moment —

“Grandson,” said Euphemia. “Blood of my blood. Halt. Set me free!”

All of them. Their essence carved into the curse, fed to it like sacrament.

I AM THEIR ECHO! Screamed the curse. I AM THE DEBT UNPAID! I AM THE SIN REMEMBERED! I AM ALL THAT REMAINS OF YOUR BURIED LEGACY! SET ME FREE!

The Binding circle shook.

Harry gritted his teeth, forcing his voice past the burn in his throat.

“Not anymore,” he said. “You do not speak for the dead. You only feed off the memory of their pain.”

He clenched his fist. 

The central ring inverted. The runes of Death twisted inside out, collapsing into a single, perfect point. A sigil of finality — a grave marker carved in light.

“I am the silence at the End of Stories —”

The curse tried to flee.

The curse tried to beg.

But there was no direction left. No voice left. No future.

There was only the End.

“With me, your echoes shall fade. In me, you shall be remembered.”

The curse erupted into one final wail, and then—

Gone.

Silence fell.

And in that silence, Harry laughed.

At first, it was barely a breath — a dry chuckle, shaken loose from somewhere deep in his chest. But then it grew, rising like a tide, hoarse and wild and utterly involuntary.

Laughter.

Not joy. Not triumph. Just… release.

He dropped to his knees, the circle of Death still faintly pulsing beneath him, the ash of the curse swirling like mist between the runes. His body was tingling from the effects of the ritual, inside and out. His magic was near-drained. His throat tasted of blood and salt.

But he laughed anyway.

Because for the first time in his life, he had been able to save someone.

He had honoured his parents’ sacrifice by aiding in Voldemort’s defeat.

He had destroyed the Black Lar that twisted Sirius into sacrificing himself.

Azkaban Gate was protected behind the power of the Fidelius.

He had finally saved Daphne from the malediction that threatened her life and bloodline.

Come to think of it, he had achieved all of that in a very short time, likely from the point he had finally stopped giving a shit about the Ministry and followed his heart. 

Malfoy. Dawlish. Azkaban, Ekrizdis. Voldemort. The Wizengamot. The Black Lar, and now, the blood curse… Everything he had achieved so far wasn’t because he obeyed, or followed the established rules, but by breaking them.

By becoming the feared nightmare everyone accused him of being.

It was so absurd that it wasn’t even funny.

So he laughed.

He laughed until his ribs hurt. Until his vision blurred. Until he tasted tears on his lips and didn’t know if they were grief or joy.

If anything, it made him laugh even harder.