Jane's quill scratched a rhythmic, rasping sound across the parchment, the metal nib digging deep enough to leave tactile grooves in the heavy paper. The morning room remained hushed, the silence broken only by the hearth's soft crackle and the distant, metallic clatter from the kitchen, where Tilly was scouring copper pots with rhythmic vigor. Morwenna was in the library with Seraphina, learning to count painted sunflowers on a static page that didn't move under her small fingers.
Jane finished the list and read it back to herself, her eyes tracing the twelve lines of elegant, sharp script. Three were for the Evans ritual solution: specific ingredients Grand-mère had confirmed they could source locally rather than risking a shipment from France. Two were for the Samhain altar. The rest were designated for the holiday offerings, including salt, crusty bread, red wine, the pungent dried herbs Seraphina used every year, and a length of black silk ribbon, smooth and cool to the touch, for the ancestor candles.
She folded the parchment twice, the paper crisp against her skin, and tucked it into her pocket.
Jack was in the study, hunched over a heavy desk while signing a thick stack of papers that looked like a formal contract with the Greengrass family. The room smelled faintly of cedar and old vellum. He looked up when she knocked, setting his quill down on a silver rest.
"The list." She handed the folded paper over to him. "Tilly said we have most of the basics in the larder, but these specific items need buying. You will need to visit the apothecary on Diagon for the herbs, and—" She leaned over to point at the first two lines, her finger tapping the ink. "These are only available in Knockturn."
Jack read the list, his eyes scanning the ingredients. His expression didn't change, remaining as steady as the stone walls around them. "Borgin and Burkes for the nightshade extract?"
"Grand-mère's recipe specifies their stock. She said the quality hasn't varied in two hundred years, and we can't afford any impurity."
He folded the list and slid it into his own pocket. "I will go now. I will be back before lunch."
The apparition point tucked behind the Leaky Cauldron was slick and dark with the remnants of an October rain. Jack shook the lingering water from his wool sleeves and walked through the brick archway into Diagon Alley.
The street was bustling, though it lacked the frantic energy of the summer crowds. Instead, there was a steady, purposeful push of shoppers dressed in heavy wool cloaks, their heads bowed against the persistent drizzle. A woman with a toddler balanced on her hip argued loudly with a greengrocer about the price of pumpkins, the orange gourds piled high in damp wooden crates.
He bought the dried herbs first. The apothecary smelled of pungent cinnamon and a sharp, medicinal tang he couldn't quite name. The shopkeeper wrapped the brittle bundles in thick brown paper, tied them securely with coarse string, and asked if he wanted valerian as well, because it was going to be a long, cold winter and everyone slept better with valerian.
Jack politely declined. He paid in silver coins and left the shop.
He stood outside on the rain-slicked stones for a moment, watching a steam-venting cart sell roasted chestnuts. The vendor running it had a perpetually red face and kept calling out his prices in a gravelly voice. Children ran between shoppers' legs, their laughter echoing as they chased a stray calico cat that had found a warm spot near the heavy doors of Gringotts. A group of witches his mother's age stood outside Madam Malkin's, their voices a low, rhythmic hum of gossip Jack couldn't make out.
Diagon Alley in October felt like warm wool, roasted nuts, and the clean smell of rain on ancient stone. It was full of children laughing and shopkeepers calling out their morning greetings. It was comfortably ordinary.
He turned toward the mouth of Knockturn Alley.
The entrance appeared as a narrow, shadows-choked gap between a dusty bookshop and a long-shuttered tea house. Jack had walked through it a hundred times over the years, yet the shift in atmosphere always arrived with the same suddenness. The air changed first; it grew colder and damper, carrying a heavy scent like old bone-meal and a cloying, sweet undertone that might have been funerary incense or creeping rot.
The cobbles underfoot were slick with a greasy film. The light from the street lamps didn't reach far into the gloom, and the windows that glowed did so with the guttering light of candles that burned in unsettling shades of green or purple. A man in tattered grey robes hurried past with his collar turned up, his eyes fixed firmly on the ground to avoid meeting Jack's gaze. A display in a nearby shop window held a row of silver knives arranged in a gleaming fan, their polished blades catching the strange, dim light.
Borgin and Burkes sat at the end of the row like a brooding crow. The heavy door creaked on rusted hinges when Jack pushed it open.
Inside, the air felt unnaturally dry and still, as if the room were holding its breath. Glass cases held curiosities Jack had seen before: a necklace that promised seven years of luck, a withered hand that twitched rhythmically on its velvet cushion, and a collection of small bones arranged in a perfect, unbroken circle. Behind the counter, a man with meticulously oiled hair and a thin mustache looked up from a heavy leather ledger.
"Mr. Keith."
Jack didn't remember giving his name, but he knew he didn't need to. Borgin and Burkes always knew its customers. "I need nightshade extract. Evans family specification."
The man's eyebrows went up a fraction, a brief flicker of interest. He disappeared through a heavy velvet curtain and returned a moment later with a small glass bottle. A dark, viscous liquid swirled inside, and the neck was sealed with thick black wax. "Three galleons."
Jack paid the gold, pocketed the bottle, and left the shop without another word.
Outside again, he walked back through the narrow gap between the two worlds. Diagon Alley was still there, still ordinary, and still smelling of rain and roasted chestnuts. He let the bright sound of children laughing wash over him, felt the lingering tension in his shoulders finally ease, and walked toward the apparition point.
The ancient wards at Keith Manor let him through with the familiar, humming warmth of magic recognizing his blood. The entrance hall smelled of beeswax polish and the comforting woodsmoke from the great hearth. Morwenna's high voice echoed from somewhere down the corridor, asking a question that Seraphina was answering in her low, patient way.
He found Jane in the kitchen. She was at the stone counter, carefully unwrapping the bundles of dried herbs and spreading them out on the cool surface with the same focused attention she gave to her research journals.
"I have it." He set the small bottle on the counter between them.
Jane picked it up, turning it once in her hands to inspect the contents. The black wax seal caught the grey light filtering through the window. "Good. Grand-mère said the extract needs to settle for at least six weeks before we begin the mixing process. That puts the start date at December."
"There's plenty of time."
She opened the cupboard Tilly had cleared specifically for ritual ingredients—the one with the small silver latch, kept separate from the common cooking spices—and set the bottle inside. "Plenty of time," she repeated softly.
An hour later, Jack had returned to the study when Morwenna appeared in the doorway. She had been in the corridor with Cinder, watching Tilly carry various items from room to room, and she had worked herself up to asking about the commotion.
"Dada."
He set his quill down immediately. She was standing in the doorway, one hand resting on Cinder's head. Her white hair was a little tangled, likely from running through the halls.
"What is happening?" she asked, her head tilted.
"What do you mean, little bird?"
She waved a small hand toward the corridor. "Tilly is moving things. Gran-ma was lighting candles. And you went to get things." She stopped, her brow furrowed in thought. "Last year we did Yule. This isn't Yule."
Jack leaned back in his leather chair. She was watching him the way she watched everything: still, patient, and waiting for the answer to fit into her understanding of the world.
"It's a different celebration," he said. "Samhain. It happens at the end of October, and it's older than Yule."
"What is it for?"
He paused, thinking about how to explain the weight of the tradition to a three-year-old. "It's a time when the veil between worlds gets thin. Thinner than it is during Yule. It's the time between the living and the dead."
Morwenna's hand tightened instinctively on Cinder's soft fur. "The dead?"
"People we have lost. Family. The people who came before us." He paused, his voice softening. "At Samhain, we remember them. we light candles so they can find their way back to visit us for just one night."
She was quiet for a moment, processing this. "Like the portraits?"
"It's different. The portraits are just memories. This is—" He stopped again, searching for the right words. "It's about the people who don't have portraits. The ones who lived long before we could keep them that way. The ones we still want to remember and honor."
Morwenna looked back toward the corridor where Tilly had been carrying boxes of supplies. "That's why Tilly is moving things?"
"Some of it. We put out food and wine for them. Salt. Bread. Things that say they are welcome here."
She stepped fully into the study, Cinder following closely at her heels. "Can I help?"
"You want to?"
She nodded solemnly.
Tilly gave her a specific job. There were candles to place on the long, dark table in the great hall—one for each ancestor whose name the family still remembered. The house-elves had already positioned the heavy silver holders. Morwenna's job was to carry the white candles to their stations.
She walked from the box to the table and back again, carrying only one candle at a time, her trainers making soft, padded sounds on the cold stone floor. Cinder sat by the hearth and watched her, his ears tracking her movement back and forth, back and forth, as the table filled with white wax.
Jane lit them later, once the autumn light had faded to a bruised grey outside. She moved down the length of the table with a burning taper, her movements steady as she touched flame to wick. One by one, each candle caught and held, casting a flickering gold glow against the dark wood.
Morwenna stood beside her mother, close enough to feel the radiating warmth from the growing line of fire. "That's a lot of names," she whispered.
Jane nodded, her gaze fixed on the flames. "It is."
"Do we remember all of them?"
Jane reached down to touch her daughter's hair, her fingers lingering. "We try, sweetheart."
At the very end of the table, where the candles appeared the newest, Jane lit one more. She didn't say the name aloud, and Morwenna didn't ask. But the girl looked at the steady flame and thought of eyes that were the same vibrant green as her mother's.
After dinner, Morwenna helped Seraphina put the ritual offerings out. A small plate of fresh bread. A silver cup of wine. A ceramic bowl of salt. They set them on a low table near the entrance hall, where anyone coming through the front doors would see them first.
Morwenna placed the salt herself, carrying the bowl with both hands to keep it steady, setting it down with the same intense care she used for her wooden blocks.
Seraphina watched her, a small, sad smile touching her lips. "That's good, Morwenna."
"Will they come tonight?"
"Maybe." Seraphina knelt beside her on the stone floor. "Samhain is the night they can. Some of them will visit, and some won't. We leave the offerings for them anyway."
Morwenna looked at the bread, the wine, and the salt. "What if they are hungry?"
Seraphina's hand was warm and grounding on her shoulder. "Then they will eat."
. . .
The cemetery was dark when they walked out. The path leading from the manor was lined with lanterns, the glass panes glowing with a soft amber light, and the grass underfoot was heavy and wet with evening dew. Morwenna held Jane's hand tightly. Her other hand was buried deep in Cinder's thick fur; the fox stayed close to her side, his ears swiveling constantly at every rustle and snap the dark night made.
The heavy iron gate stood open, its metal cold to the touch. Beyond the threshold, the graves stretched in long, silent rows. The older headstones were worn smooth by centuries of rain, while the newer ones remained sharp and clean against the earth. Someone had placed white candles on the low stone wall that bordered the path. Their flames didn't flicker, burning with an unnatural, steady light that defied the breeze.
Aldric led the procession. He walked with the same unhurried stride he used for every daily task, but his head was lowered tonight, and his shoulders were set with a heavy, solemn weight. Seraphina walked beside him, her grey robes appearing pale and ghost-like in the dark.
Jack carried a bundle wrapped securely in white cloth. Jane held a small wicker basket containing the offerings they had prepared earlier in the day.
The main altar stood at the cemetery's center. It was a massive slab of dark stone, older than the oldest grave in the yard, and it remained bare except for a shallow central hollow where the ritual fire would go.
Aldric lit the wood. The flame caught slowly at first, then spread across the timber with a crackling heat, and the stone altar seemed to drink the orange light as it grew.
"We begin," he said, his voice carrying clearly through the crisp air.
He spoke names. They came one after another in a steady rhythm; some were short and punchy, while others were long, flowing titles in languages Morwenna didn't recognize. Each name seemed to pull something tangible forward from the surrounding dark.
Seraphina laid offerings at the altar's base—crusty bread, coarse salt, and a silver cup of red wine that steamed in the cold night air. Jack added his bundle to the pile, unwrapping the white cloth to reveal dried herbs bound tightly with silver thread.
Morwenna watched the fire. It moved differently from the ordinary fire in the nursery hearth. The flames were slower and heavier. When Aldric spoke a name that went back to the time before the manor was built, the flames leaned toward him as if they were listening to his call.
When the names finally stopped, the silence stretched out long and deep. The fire crackled softly. The candles on the graves burned steady and bright.
Aldric stepped back from the stone. "For our blood. For our dead. We remember."
The words settled into the dark like falling leaves. The ritual fire settled with them, the heat pulsing rhythmically.
Jane's hand found Morwenna's shoulder, her touch grounding. "Come. There's something else we must do."
They walked to the left, moving away from the main altar and past graves Morwenna didn't recognize. The grass was longer in this section, and the headstones were smaller and more modest. At the cemetery's far edge, where the iron fence met a gnarled old yew tree, a low stone table sat. There were no candles around it and no formal offerings. It's just a simple piece of grey stone, worn smooth by years of wind and weather.
"This is for guests," Jane said softly. She knelt on the damp grass, and Jack knelt beside her. "It's for people who aren't Keiths. People we want to remember anyway."
She set a small ceramic plate on the stone. It held a slice of bread, a cup of wine, and a pinch of salt.
Jack added a small object Morwenna couldn't see clearly in the shadows.
Jane looked at the stone for a long, quiet moment. Then she whispered, "Lily."
Jack followed her, his voice low. "James."
Morwenna stood between them, Cinder pressed firmly against her legs for warmth. She watched her mother's face; Jane's eyes stayed fixed on the stone, and her hands remained flat and motionless on her knees.
"Who is Lily?" Morwenna asked, her voice a tiny sound in the great dark.
Jane's breath came slow and visible. "She was my cousin. From long lost Evans branch in Britain. She was Lily Evans. Then she married and became Lily Potter."
Morwenna knew that name. It was in the stories her father read to her, the ones about the hidden world and the war that had ended so recently. "She died."
"She died." Jane's voice was steady, though it lacked its usual warmth. "In the war. When Harry was just a baby."
Morwenna looked at the stone table. The bread sat there, alongside the wine and the salt. These were three small things for someone she would never meet.
"Harry's mother," she said.
"Yes."
Morwenna thought about the boy with her mother's vibrant green eyes. The one who didn't know about the magic that lived in his own blood. "He is alone."
"He has family," Jack said. "It isn't the family he should have. But he isn't alone."
Morwenna looked at the stone again. She saw the bread, the wine, and the salt.
She reached into her pocket. Her fingers found the smooth grey stone Elara had given her; it was the one that held feelings rather than images. She had put something in it weeks ago, after her mother first told her about Harry, the cousin who alone.
She didn't know if the stone worked for the dead.
She set it on the table anyway, placing it carefully between the bread and the wine.
Jane looked at the small addition. Her breath caught—just a fraction, just enough for Morwenna to hear the hitch in her chest. She didn't say anything.
Jack put his arm around Jane's shoulders, and she leaned into his strength.
The fire on the main altar flickered in the distance. The candles along the path stayed steady. The dark held its breath around them.
Morwenna kept her hand on the stone table for a moment longer, feeling the coldness of the rock. Then she pulled back.
They walked back to the manor in total silence. The lanterns along the path had burned low, their light softer now and appearing more gold than amber. The grass was wetter than before; it was either dew or the first signs of frost starting to settle.
In the great hall, the candles were still burning with their unwavering light. The table was still laid with the offerings for those who might visit. Tilly had added fresh, steaming bread while they were out, and the wine cups had been refilled to the brim.
Morwenna stopped at the table. She looked at the candles, row after row of them, each representing a name she didn't know. Each one was someone who had once lived in this house, walked these stone halls, and watched the same moon rise over the lake.
"Do they see us?" she asked.
Jack stood behind her, his shadow long on the floor. "Some of them. I think."
"How do you know?"
He was quiet for a moment. "I don't. But we leave the offerings anyway. We light the candles and we say their names. That's what remembering is. You do it whether you know for certain or not."
Morwenna touched the closest candle holder. The flame didn't waver under her gaze. "Lily," she said softly. "James."
The words were small and fragile. They sat in the hall for a moment, lingering between the candles and the dark.
The flame flickered. It was just once, and just enough for her to see.
She pulled her hand back, her eyes wide.
Jack put his hand on her head, his touch light and comforting. "Come. It's time for bed."
She went with him.
In the nursery, Cinder curled into a ball at her feet. The fire was low, the embers glowing a deep orange behind the iron grate. Morwenna held her locket and watched the shadows move rhythmically on the ceiling.
She thought about the stone she had left on the altar. She thought about the feeling she had put in it—the memory of a sunny afternoon in the conservatory, her mother playing the piano, and the sound of the notes filling the glass room like light. It was the best feeling she had. She had wanted Lily to have it.
She didn't know if the dead could take offerings from the guest altar. She didn't know if they could take feelings, or if feelings counted as food for a soul.
She hoped they could.
Cinder's ear twitched in his sleep. His tail thumped once against the blankets.
Morwenna closed her eyes.
In the morning, Tilly cleared the table. The candles were cold. The bread was gone. The wine cups were empty.
Jane found the grey stone on the altar. She picked it up, held it in her palm. It was warm — warmer than stone should be, warmer than the morning air.
She tucked it into her pocket and went to wake her daughter.
===
Hey, happy Eid to everyone celebrating! ◝(ᵔᗜᵔ)◜
✶⋆.˚ Minal aidin wal faizin, mohon maaf lahir dan batin ✶⋆.˚
So Islam is the majority religion here, and my family celebrates Eid too—but nope, I'm not Muslim. Honestly, if I think about it too hard, I feel a little rebellious, lol.
Anyway, during Eid, we usually go back to our grandparents' home, the hometown. We wear new, fancy clothes, and there are so many snacks at every house. We also visit the neighbors to saling bermaaf-maafan—basically asking for forgiveness from each other, whether we have done something wrong on purpose or by accident. So Eid is also kind of like a "reset" button.
The kids get envelopes with money, which is kinda similar to the Chinese red pocket tradition.
As for me? I still counted as a kid, obviously. Lol. How could I possibly be in the "adult" category? Hahaha. >𐃷<⭑.ᐟ
So… big brothers, big sisters, uncles, aunties… will you give me a red pocket? ( - ᴗ •́ )
You can send them via Ko-fi or Patreon—both are under "rikhi":
https://patreon.com/rikhi
https://ko-fi.com/rikhi
Oh right, if you're reading this on AO3, the links won't show fully, so you can head to my carrd and find them there: rikhi.carrd.co
Also, in case you didn't know, I have a Discord server: 75sprU6DdD
It's basically a ghost town, lol. I mostly just use it for updates and announcements—it makes things easier since my projects are spread across 3 or 4 platforms now.
Anyway, thanks so much for the red envelopes! Hope your year brings you good luck, happiness, and health
₍₍⚞(˶>ᗜ<˶)⚟⁾⁾
If you're not able to send one, maybe drop a kudos or bookmark on AO3, or leave a review on my Webnovel side. I have posted 50 chapters already but the story still doesn't have a rating… huff I'm so sad ಥ﹏ಥ
So, happy Eid and see you later~
Buh-bye!
— Reiya (ฅ'ω'ฅ)