Hydra Lestrange Finch-Fletchley

Hi, Harry,

I found a way to ask Daddy about the ritual. I told him that I was looking through my new Dark Arts textbooks for information about something I'd read in a storybook.

He asked "what storybook?"

I said that it was one of the Bramblewick Orphan books, and in it, when Elinor and Petra are kidnapped by the hedgewitch, she locks them in the cellar, then makes them part of a ritual, during which Petra holds their dead Mother's locket while the hedgewitch tries to make Elinor murder the hedgewitch's enemy, the glass knight. But the ritual is interrupted when Elinor and Petra's brother, Cid, bursts into the cellar and saves his sisters.

It's all true up to the part with the glass knight (I don't even know what a glass night is, I just made it up, but it sounds like something from a storybook, doesn't it?).

Well, Daddy said there were lots of rituals involving objects that require "blood sacrifice," but it's the sort of thing that can kill you, if you don't know what you're doing. And it's usually for making an object that causes a lot of harm and destruction, often death, but that that's definitely not always the case - some dark objects are for protection, too, or make a person more powerful. He talked about how the glass knight being the hedgewitch's enemy is significant, because the blood of one who wronged you is different from the blood of the innocent. He said that the most important thing to ask was why the hedgewitch would want a powerful and deadly object, and that I should wonder if the object was meant to go to Petra, since she was the one holding the locket.

Then he laughed and pointed out that it was just a storybook, and probably not based on any "true depth of knowledge for dark artefacts."

So, whatever you had to do, it wasn't something that Daddy immediately recognised. But it sounds like it wasn't anything good.

I'm sorry I couldn't find out more. Maybe this gives you some ideas to go on?

From,
Hydra

Some people have asked me where Tully is so I suppose I should just tell.
He's been sick, but I don't know with what, I just knew that he wasn't feeling very good.
I noticed it a few week ago, right after Draco's mudblood was killed.
I took him to Professor Brutka who said he didn't seem that sick and then he reminded me that animals can't get the epidemic.
But then he said he could keep Tully for observation for a little while if it would make me feel better, so I said yes please, Sir, and that's what he did.
Only today Tully was back in his hutch by my bed and Professor Brutka left a note saying that Tully was doing well and to just make sure he gets plenty of water.
So I think that means Tully is all better now.
That's good, right?
I have to say, though, that Tina was a lot less work and worry.
The older students are talking about electives today.
I wish I could take electives next year, I'm certain I'd be very good at Care of Magical Creatures by now.
And very good at Dark Arts too, of course.
I don't know if I'd be allowed to take Divination, though.
There seems to be a lot of birthdays this time of year, haven't you noticed?

Something dreadful happened on Monday.
Tully's leg was hurt.
I found him huddling behind my trunk, and his left back leg was bloody and twisted.
I took him to Professor Brutka before dinner and he fixed it, thankfully (and without removing any of the bones on accident, too).
He said that maybe the charm that protected Tully from the cats in Slytherin had wore off, so he put it on Tully again.
Tully was just so frightened when I found him and that frightened me, too.
But now he seems alright, almost as if nothing happened at all.
Maybe rabbits don't remember for very long, which could be useful sometimes and not at all at other times.
A girl from Ravenclaw wrote in her journal about how her Mummy died doing a charms experiment.
It made me afraid of doing my charms homework for a little while but then I realised I was being silly.
Still, it scares me a little to think of how Daddy works with dark, cursed objects all the time.
He's never had one of them hurt him, but what if one did?
Dark, cursed objects can do worse things to you than killing you.
I told Draco about it and he said I worry too much, and that I should play more games like imploding snap and gobstones.
So does anyone want to play gobstones in the common room tonight?
Let me know if you do.
Mummy's owl this morning wrote about how we're going to have a special guest staying with us over the holidays.
I wonder who the special guest will be?