Chapter Twelve

Worth It

Chapter Twelve

Disclaimer and notes can be found in the prologue.

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That evening Willow decided to practice some of the meditations that the coven in England had taught to her during her stay with them. The aim for Willow was to achieve a balance in her magick; she had to learn to control both the dark and light magick, to find the sweet spot between the two from which she could safely use magick without being overwhelmed by the power flowing through her.

The clouds from the afternoon had dissipated in the evening, leaving a clear, starry sky. Willow gathered a few candles and other items before setting out in search of a secluded spot outdoors where she could feel connected with nature.

She left the castle and followed a rough path around to the leeward side of the massive structure, away from Hagrid’s hut. She chose a spot near the lake, and as she set out the items in preparation for her meditation she watched the giant squid lazily swimming laps, occasionally saluting her with one of its giant tentacles.

Being around wizarding magic had not shaken Willow’s faith in Wicca, nor changed the way she practiced her rituals at all. She arranged four candles at each of the quarter points, and set two on a flat stone nearby as a makeshift altar. She lit the candles, then drew two small bowls from her bag, and set them on the stone as well. Into the first, she poured water, and then added some salt. In the second she placed incense, and she lit it after putting the bowl on her temporary altar.

Willow sat cross-legged in front of her altar, and looked at the quarter candles, visualizing a circle connecting them, and extending up over her head, and down into the earth beneath her.

“I cast this circle as a sacred space,” she said, in a clear voice. “May it protect me whilst I am meditating.”

She got to her feet again, and took the incense from the altar. She walked clockwise around the edge of the circle that she had visualized. She had done this several times before, and could see the walls of the circle as clearly with her eyes open as with them shut. It looked like she was encased in a frosted glass bubble, with different flecks of colour in the glass at each of the quarter points.

After walking the circle with the incense she took the bowl of salt water instead, and repeated the process, concentrating on creating an area for her to meditate in where she would not be harmed, or disturbed. Finally she returned the salt water to the altar. Her eyes fell on the handle of her wand, which was poking out of the top of her bag.

Dumbledore had arranged a private consultation with Ollivander for her, so that she would have a wand in time for her first lesson, and yet she hadn’t done more with it than use it as a bookmark. She’d only added it to her bag of circle supplies after thinking that quite a few Wiccans used wands to help them focus the energy they raised.

Willow debated for a few seconds before shaking her head, and deciding not to use it. She could certainly experiment with using it to cast a circle in the future, but for now it was probably best to keep things simple.

She walked around the circle one last time, tracing the outline with her index finger. As she walked she imagined energy flowing up from the ground, through her body and out through her finger, into the wall of the circle.

"Be thou cast, circle,” she intoned as she walked. “As I designed thy boundaries, so do you become my protector. Set me apart from the world of man. Make me apart from the world of spirit. Hold me safe between the worlds as I work my magicks."

By the time Willow returned to her starting point, the bubble surrounding her had become completely opaque. She relaxed, and smiled in satisfaction, already feeling calmer than she had in days. She walked to the centre of the circle and sat down facing north, the direction associated with earth, and stability.

She crossed her legs, rested her hands lightly on top of her knees and closed her eyes. The meditation taught to her by the witches in Devon involved visualization of the conflicting forces inside her, and an attempt to manipulate the energy in order to control it and balance her magick. Before she could begin to do this however, she needed to clear her mind, and focus on her intention; to master the magick instead of letting it master her.

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Minerva McGonagall sat down in her favorite armchair, looking thoughtful. Her private chambers overlooked the area of Hogwarts that Willow had chosen for her meditation, and just as she’d been thinking about going to bed, a strange sensation had washed over her.

She stumbled slightly, and raised a hand to her head, feeling disoriented. The feeling faded quickly though, leaving her frowning as she glanced around the room she was in. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, and she crossed to her window to look out. Her frown turned into a look of surprise as she looked down and to her left, noticing Willow, illuminated by stars and candlelight.

Minerva patted down her pockets for her glasses, frowning again. Admittedly her chambers were quite high up in the building, but even so Willow appeared rather blurry, and she could make out nothing apart from the young witch and six pinpricks of light.

She was still checking her pockets when Willow completed her third circle, and as Minerva watched, the air around the redhead seemed to shiver and congeal into a grey haze. She was struck by the same feeling of dizziness and disorientation, but more intensely this time. As she held onto the windowsill for support, she realized that if she concentrated hard enough on the grey mass encapsulating Willow, she could vaguely still see the outline of the American witch, sat on the floor. Staring for too long began to hurt her eyes, and she blinked hard a few times before moving to sit in her armchair.

The unpleasant feeling had died down again, and Minerva tried to reason what it could have been. She was fairly sure that Willow was using Wiccan magick, but realized she knew nowhere near enough to hazard a guess at what had just happened. She decided to talk to Willow about it in the morning, and got up to go to bed, passing the window again. The view remained unchanged, and she went to her bedroom, her curiosity beaten by tiredness.

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Once Willow had cleared her mind, and relaxed completely she began going through the steps that the Devon coven had shown her. She opened her eyes, and held her hands out in front of her, palms facing in, about 30cm apart. In between them she visualized a tiny ball of white light. It glowed brightly enough to light up her hands, and she could feel its energy warming them.

Willow slowly brought her hands closer together, and watched the ball of light shrink even smaller. She concentrated on sending the heat from her hands back into the earth. As the ball dwindled, the energy had to be released somehow; energy cannot simply be destroyed. When the ball was the size of a pea, she started to move her hands apart again, feeling energy flow through her and gather in the white light between her hands.

She repeated this process five more times, making the ball go from the size of a match head to the size of a coconut. Finally she brought her hands together, and let the excess energy flow back into the earth.

Then, keeping her fingertips pressed against each other, she drew her palms apart. Steeling herself, she visualized a tiny speck of black appearing between her palms. This energy felt cold against her hands, and gritting her teeth she pressed in on it until it was no bigger than a grain of sand.

Working with light and dark magick like this was getting easier, but Willow was still cautious. If her concentration lapsed she could suddenly find a lot of dark magick in her system, itching to get her into trouble. She stretched and shrank the black ball a few more times before closing her hands, and channeling the energy into the ground.

She got to her feet slowly, and stretched her legs, feeling good about herself. This was the first time she’d practiced that at Hogwarts, and it had gone very well. She had felt completely in control of the energy at all times, and thought that maybe next time she would be able to work with a bit more without having any problems.

She took down the circle, and gathered her possessions again, enjoying the silence and the crisp night air. She felt refreshed from her meditation and found she was even looking forwards to the next week’s lessons. It was a calmer Willow that fell into bed that night, cuddled up to Calliope, and sleep came easily to her.

.o0o.o0o.o0o.o0o.

Willow was in the Great Hall early on Sunday morning, despite having had little sleep the night before. She still felt energized, and walked to her seat with a spring in her step before some of the staff, and many of the students had even woken up. Minerva McGonagall was already eating, and she smiled at Willow politely as she took her seat.

“You’re up early this morning Miss Rosenberg,” she said, “considering the late night you had last night.”

“Oh!” Willow blushed. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think I disturbed anyone.”

“Actually I was hoping I could have a quick talk with you this morning,” McGonagall added. “After breakfast, of course.”

“Of course,” Willow nodded her agreement, and quickly ate her food. They exited the hall together, and Minerva led the way to her chambers near Griffindor tower. Willow looked around while Minerva set the kettle to boil, enjoying the warm colours of the Griffindor room.

“There now,” Minerva said, as she set a delicate china tea set on the table in front of them and poured them each a cup.

“Your chambers look beautiful,” Willow complimented her. “Were they furnished like this, or did you decorate?”

“They were like this, for the most part. I’ve made a few small changes here and there,” Minerva said, and took a small sip of tea.

“I’m sorry for disturbing you last night,” Willow added. “I didn’t think anyone would notice me.”

“I’m not sure anyone else did. I was awake quite late when I felt… something.” McGonagall looked at Willow sharply.

“Felt what?” Willow asked cautiously.

“I’m not sure. I was hoping you could tell me. What exactly were you doing last night, Miss Rosenberg?”

Willow was momentarily flummoxed. “I went outside to meditate. I thought you might have heard me. I don’t know what you would have felt.”

“Let me tell you what I experienced. I was preparing to go to bed, when this strange feeling passed over me. It was as though I were dizzy, but yet… not quite that. I looked out of my window, and saw you near the lake. I noticed you walking in a circle around four candles, although you did appear slightly blurry as I wasn’t wearing my glasses. As I was searching for them, the feeling over took me once more, stronger this time. I looked down again, and the entire area around you was obscured from my vision by some form of cloud, or mist. The feeling slowly lessened, and I found that by concentrating hard, I could see you sat upright on the ground. I assumed it was some form of Wiccan magick, and that you were in no danger, and then retired to bed.”

“You felt this twice, as I was walking around the circle?”

Minerva nodded, and took another sip of her tea as Willow thought about this information.

*It can’t be a coincidence that Minerva was affected when I was drawing in energy to cast my circle. Why would it affect her though, when it’s never done it to anyone in the past?* Willow frowned, and reached out for her tea, nursing it in her hands without taking a sip as she thought about why McGonagall was the only person to experience this.

“I couldn’t tell you why, but I think I know what happened,” Willow said finally. “When I was walking in a circle I was performing Wiccan magick; casting a circle to protect myself while I meditated. To create a magick circle, Wiccans draw upon the energy around them and form it into a barrier of sorts. It’s not a very specific thing, and I think somehow I must have drawn energy from you as well. I’ve never done that before… not unintentionally anyway, and I honestly don’t know why you were affected now, and why it was only you.”

Minerva set her tea cup down on the tray, and leaned back in her chair, looking thoughtful. “You say this has never happened before? Unintentionally that is?”

Willow nodded, and McGonagall continued, “Have you done this here before?”

“No, tonight was the first time I really felt up to it.”

“Tell me about the ‘intentional’ time.”

“I needed to open a portal. Buffy had gone through it, and in exchange for her we received a big scary demon. The portal closed after her, and I was trying to open it again to swap the demon back for Buffy. I just couldn’t summon enough energy to open the darn thing, and I happened to have a potential slayer, and an ex-demon in the room with me. It wasn’t something we’d talked about before hand, but I knew their energy would be enough to open the portal… and so I took it.”

“You had to make a conscious decision to take energy from them?”

Willow looked sheepish and nodded, looking into her teacup.

“So why do Wiccans use external energy in their spells?”

Willow glanced up. “In a lot of magickal workings we don’t, we raise our own energy. Chanting; drumming; dancing; that sort of thing. When doing big spells though, or when we need to do something without raising energy, we can use the energy in the world around us as well.”

“Intriguing. Wizarding magic doesn’t work that way. To perform magic, a witch or wizard simply draws on their own innate power. It’s as much a part of us…” Minerva trailed off, and the two women looked intently at each other.

“That’s it!” Willow cried. “That’s why it affected you; it’s part of you in the same way as it’s part of the earth, or at least close enough for Wiccan purposes.”

Minerva nodded silently, mulling it over in her mind. It certainly made sense. Magic was a part of witches and wizards, not just a learned skill. When a Wiccan tried to draw energy it wouldn’t affect a non-magical creature - muggle or otherwise - but anyone, or anything with an innate magical ability would have so much magical energy it would be an easy source to take from.

“Why then was I the only one affected? No-one else mentioned anything unusual at breakfast.”

“I don’t know. Maybe you weren’t the only one, but no-one else has thought to mention it. Or maybe everyone else was asleep and didn’t notice it. How badly did it affect you?”

“Well,” Minerva cast her mind back, trying to recall the exact feeling, “I think the first time it was as though my balance just deserted me! I was walking to my room, when I stumbled. As soon as I straightened up the feeling started to leave me, and I just felt a little concerned about why I had stumbled. The second time I felt myself swaying, and steadied myself against the wall. I definitely felt dizzy, but it didn’t last for more than a couple of seconds. You could be right either way. I’m sure anyone who was asleep wouldn’t have been woken by it, and no-one else saw you; they may just have thought they were over-tired.”

“I guess I’m going to have to stop practicing magick like that while I’m at Hogwarts,” Willow realized with a sinking feeling.

“Not necessarily,” Minerva replied. “I think if we talk to Albus about the situation, he might be able to suggest something. At the very least, we can determine the reach of the effects.”

Willow smiled at Minerva. Not only had she been wondering how she could safely meditate without a magick circle, but she was upset to think she wouldn’t be able to use more than the simplest magick without harming the children around her.

“Do you suppose he’d be in his office now?”

“More than likely. He enjoys reading The Daily Prophet and The Quibbler up there on a Sunday morning.”

Willow shook her head as they left in search of Dumbledore, wondering how he was going to take this piece of news. She was making things quite complicated for him, yet she had a feeling he didn’t mind.

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