Year One — Chapter 4: The Ritual of Ash and Bone
The snow never melted at Durmstrang. It compacted, year after year, until it was less weather and more architecture. Ivar grew accustomed to the crunch of frost underfoot, the way the air burned his lungs if he didn't tame it first with controlled breath. But beneath the cold stone halls, far below the torchlit corridors, there were places even the most hardened students avoided.
The ritual chambers.
They were older than the school itself. Runes carved into basalt. Floors blackened by centuries of candlewax, blood, and salt. Students whispered that the walls there remembered screams, and that some echoes were not echoes at all.
For Ivar, it was home.
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The Calling
He had read about it in a fragment of Norse text tucked away in Durmstrang's restricted stacks — a ritual meant to "stir the marrow" of a bloodline. Dangerous, half-forgotten, forbidden. Precisely what he needed.
He traced the circle in chalk and ash, careful with each rune: power, binding, sight. At the circle's heart, he set three things: a sliver of basilisk fang inherited with his wand, a raven's feather, and a vial of his own blood.
He spoke in Latin first, clear and commanding. Then in Russian, voice rolling like ice cracking on a river. Then, softer, in Parseltongue — words that weren't words but vibrations, coaxing the serpent magic to attention. Finally, in Old Norse, he invoked the line of Helheim, the blood whispered to descend from Hela herself.
The chamber darkened. Not from lack of light, but as if the shadows had thickened, gained weight. The runes glowed, white to green to black. His blood hissed in the vial as though resisting its own transformation.
Then the floor trembled.
From the chalk and ash rose a shape — not flesh, not spirit, but memory. A skeletal wolf, flames licking from its hollow sockets. It circled him once, twice, testing. The air reeked of smoke and snow and the grave.
Ivar did not flinch. "I am Black," he said. "I am Malfoy. I am Slytherin, I am Peverell, I am Helheim." His voice grew colder. "I do not ask permission. I claim inheritance."
The wolf stopped before him. It opened its jaws, hellfire rolling out in a breath that should have burned him alive. Instead, the flames bent around his body, curling to his skin like silk. His hair whipped in the unseen wind, and for an instant his green eyes glowed so bright they seemed carved from emerald fire.
Then the wolf dissolved, the flames sinking into him. His veins burned. His heart staggered and then thundered back stronger, faster. He collapsed to his knees, gasping, the ritual circle fading into ash.
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Aftermath
When he looked in the mirror later, his reflection seemed sharper, the edges of his face drawn with more certainty. His gaze was heavier, older. The Helheim spark had answered him, deepening the fire that already licked beneath his skin.
Word spread.
Not about the ritual — he told no one — but about the change. His dueling hexes cut faster. His shields lasted longer. And when he spoke in Parseltongue, even snakes seemed to hesitate before answering.
Some students grew wary. Some, like Klara, began to circle closer, as if drawn to the heat of his inevitable rise. Professors eyed him with that Durmstrang mix of suspicion and approval.
And Roskov — humiliated from the duel weeks before — stared daggers at him across the yard, promising retribution.
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The Letter
That spring, an owl from England found him. His mother's elegant script.
The family tapestry has shifted again. Your name glows brighter, the line more secure. You must understand, my son, that you are no longer simply heir in title. The House of Black is bound to you. It feeds you as much as you feed it. Remember what that means.
He folded the letter carefully. His hand lingered on the parchment, and he whispered in French, "Je suis le dernier, mais je suis aussi le premier." — I am the last, but I am also the first.
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That Night
He returned to the ritual chamber. Not to repeat the ritual — once was enough — but to test its aftermath.
This time, when he whispered in Parseltongue, the shadows bent toward him like snakes lifting their heads. When he pressed his wand into the circle, the elderwood thrummed with recognition, the cores inside resonating like three voices agreeing in unison.
Thestral hair whispered of death. Basilisk fang hissed of venom. Phoenix tears burned with renewal.
Together, they sang to him.
Ivar smiled. "Good evening," he told the stone.
The stone seemed to breathe back.
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⚡ End of Chapter 4
Do you want Chapter 5 to focus on Ivar's growing rivalry with Roskov (the first real threat to his dominance at Durmstrang), or shift to his building alliances and reputation among the professors — how they quietly start treating him less as a student and more as a peer?