Authors Note: Dear Reader, this is the first horrid piece of many. Inspired by a tin can and piece of string. More to come so please leave your seat and follow the signs to the exit.

Disclaimer: All Harry Potter characters are owned by JK Rowling. Some of the plot is also copyright of JK Rowling. Other than that all additional characters etc. are owned by the author.

Feel free to rate and review.

The Author.


Introduction

Stray leaves of gold and green danced on the wind o'er fields of barley and down into the green glade. Water trickled through a maze of slippery stones and met with the babbling brook at the base of the old Willow. His fingertips sailed over the surface of chilly waters, sending little ripples to disturb the peaceful algae. The wind picked up and sped through the woods, whistling cheerily and teasing new buds off tree branches. On its tail ran a young woman, laughing gleefully and coaxing the rays of sunlight out from cloudy skies. Mousy brown hair waving farewell to the valley behind her and bright blue eyes twinkling delightfully, she ran from the glade towards the sea and her salty song. By the sea lay in silence a fishing village not yet woken to the new morning. Bare feet pounded down the dirt path in rhythm to the beating within her breast. She slowed as she reached the small thatched house furthest from the village; it rested precariously on a slope of a cliff and stood alone strong against the southerly wind. Stealing away into the shadows of the house, the young woman was seen no longer by the beady eyes of the seagull and so he left, drifting away, a nomad of the sea.

Soon the first to go to deep waters would rise and begin to prepare the nets and lines. A red sky the night before held promise for the today; if the skies had sung true they would have fish enough to sell the day to come. As the old grainy clock on the kitchen wall struck five and the first rays of light shone through the thinly drawn curtains to the bedroom, her father awoke. Not long after followed her mother who would soon be at her bedside to greet her good morning; as was the daily ritual. Had her mother known she spent her night curled away from the cold within the hollow of the oak in the woods nearby, she might have not come to her bedside at all in fear of anger but fortune smiled upon the young woman and her mother knew not this secret. Breakfast was by tradition a hearty meal of freshly baked bread, smoked fish, egg, baked potato, mushroom and tomatoes. That morning there was the five of them sitting around the wooden table, made the merrier by food and good sleep. The second child of three, she was placed in the middle of her elder and younger sisters. Elsa and Fin were both far darker than she; their hair a deep chestnut and eyes the lustrous colour of chocolate. The odd one out the young woman saw herself in her mother more so than her father. Her mother Lilian had migrated like the Fieldfare from across the ocean to settle here into a life of serene simplicity. It was here her mother had met her father.

Had her father known her mother was a witch he might have never married her; a prodigy of a strict catholic his views on certain subjects had been set in stone before he had even began school. Witchcraft had been one of those subjects and even now though he knew his wife's secret anything out of the ordinary was found awkward in the household. At the time of her mother's arrival, her father had only just left school and looked to begin work at the local docks. A history of family fisherman spanning centuries under his belt, he was to follow in their footsteps and live a life at sea but life is like the water from the mountains and can continuously change course. Dark golden locks and charming blue eyes were the key to his heart and once unlocked nothing and no one could reason with him. Lilian and he got married the following summer. It had been no easy task for her mother to tell him of her misshapenness but she did and his reactions were thus – he left for a fortnight to sea. Had he not felt so ardently towards her he might have left for a lifetime but the nature of emotions are not to be tested and so two weeks later he returned with new resolve. Such a lover as the sea was his wife and he would love her as best as any man could love one as her. It was a cold night when the second youngest of the Westenra family was born. Brown haired and blue eyed she was the very illustration of her mother and so she was given the wings to freedom her two siblings had not. She grew to be as wild as the thistle on Maeve hill and to never know the iron bars of a cage.

Not long after her sixth birthday were the inklings of magic to reveal themselves. It was at first a secret kept hidden to herself but as she bloomed it was no longer easy to conceal such abnormalities. Her siblings Elsa and Fin were the first to lift away the mask and then followed her parents. How her father felt at that point is unsure only to say that he never mentioned a word of her witch blood to anyone. Perhaps he was to treat her secret as he had her mothers. It would do. As she grew the witch within grew also, until both child and fledgling alike could spread their wings and soar. Her highest peak would come in the year of her eleventh birthday on the north wind. Three elements would arrive that morning and never would they have been thought to change one's life so drastically; an owl, a letter and an invitation. The seasons were turning and a new wind was beginning to blow. This is the story of Blys Westenra – the old man's diamond.