CHAPTER 1
Title: New Beginnings
Chapter Rating: K+
Welp! The 100 fanfic challenge just didn't do it for me. I've been reading the Harry Potter series lately however and it inspired me to write regardless, so I thought I'd start over and write Salamandra's story properly, without too much "Tarantino order." So here we have our standard boring origin story, yadda yadda – it's actually more about Salamandra's parents than she herself, but I don't mind that! They're interesting and quickly get phased out as soon as she goes off to school anyway. A lot has changed since what I'll now consider the "first draft" in the form of "Our Wicked Ways," so I hope these developments are satisfactory for any potential readers! Alas, onto the juicy first chapter; enjoy!
"I'm here ter inform yeh that yer daughter, errr—what wassit…" Sneaking a peak back at the letter, the hairy giant of a man grinned beneath his bushy beard and continued quite naturally. "Salamandra, has been accepted into the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft an' Wizardry!" Barely needing to extend a burly arm to hand the letter over, the large man was either too oblivious to notice the corgi barking up at him or the sound simply didn't reach him at that height.
"Hogwarts School of…Witchcraft and Wizardry?" Mrs. Brooks gasped hard, one hand hovering over her chest as the other clutched the letter with arm extended, as if it would bite her if held close enough. "What does this mean, Connor?"
"You're the one with all that fortune tellin' mumbo jumbo about ya', ain't ya', Mel'? Why don't you tell me?" her husband answered through a scoff, plucking the letter from his wife's fingers to inspect it himself. Brow furrowed, he wasn't about to accept the letter at face value. "S'probably just a prank. 'Er math teacher did call her a witch once, didn' she?"
"Rest assured, sir and ma'am, this is no prank! Yer daughter is a certified witch! Well—not quite certified yet, but by the time she graduates, definitely!" the large man nodded reassuringly, fidgeting awkwardly as he leaned under the door frame to reach eye contact.
"Oh, well that's a relief!" Mr. Brooks guffawed.
"Oh, Connor!" the woman squawked in return, snatching the letter back and adjusting her glasses to read it more closely. "But you're right – I did predict this! I knew there was something more to our daughter, much more than the ordinary—"
"'scuse us, will ya'?" Mr. Brooks smiled politely to the giant who had suddenly showed up at his door, pulling his wife aside to whisper. "Yer sayin' you really believe this letter…sent here by the biggest damn man I've ever seen…claimin' all these stories about witches n' wizards – they're all real?" There was a sharp glint in his eye; whether it was a challenging one or one of excitement, Mrs. Brooks couldn't tell – not yet. She grinned sheepishly behind the letter.
"Yes."
Mr. Brooks broke out in a grin to match his wife's, and he threw his arms around her triumphantly. "Oh, you had me at 'she'll need a broom!'"
Connor Brooks, a hard-working Irishman, had always been looked down upon by his family for his fanatical ideas of not being alone in the world. Connor preached passionately that humans needed to treasure the environment, and treat even the animals that they enslaved with respect.
"That cow yer' milkin' – you don't think she hoped t'feed her children with that? That horse yer' ridin' – y'don't expect he wanted to run free on the fields instead'a workin' fer' a livin'? Equality For Animals!" he would shout, holding up his protest signs until his arms would tire.
Melody Smith, on the other hand, had never been the same since she studied over in America. Raised a proper British young woman, her parents were disgusted by the sight of the peace-loving, free-thinking hippie she had become. Refusing to eat meat, speaking her mind even when incredibly rude, and neglecting to cut her hair for what seemed like years, it was only a matter of time before Melody dropped out of school to go into the field of fortunetelling.
Needless to say, Connor Brooks and Melody Smith were a match made in heaven. Their whirlwind romance had them married within months, whereafter they settled down in a big house in Little Sprite, Ireland – a small town about 50 miles south of Dublin.
During her first pregnancy, Mrs. Brooks would never be able to sit still without gazing into her crystal ball or shuffling through her tarot cards routinely at least thrice a day. Even if her ability to "see" was all a load of nonsense, it gave her the peace of mind to relax. Mr. Brooks obligingly took over the household duties, cooking and cleaning (the former of which Mrs. Brooks was rather lousy at to begin with, her organic recipes causing more stomachaches than her pregnancy was sure to.)
"Oi, Mel'!" Mr. Brooks shouted on one occasion, a box full of old books heavy in his slender arms. "You ever gonna' do anything with these or can I just toss 'em?"
"NO!" Mrs. Brooks shrieked, sitting up urgently. "Those are important! Passed down from my mother's mother's mother's mother, y'know! My mother wanted to throw them away anyway, but I saved them. They're important. Just put 'em by the bed, dear."
Exploring the books, she read all sorts of stories about witches and wizards and beasts and creatures for weeks. From majestic fairies and unicorns to fearsome dragons and the more obscure grindylows, Mrs. Brooks relived her childhood fantasies all over again. One creature in particular fascinated her the most: the salamander. Recalling how she once tried to put a lizard in a fire as a child and how it only burned to death, she laughed out loud.
It was no wonder that when weeks later, the Brooks' first child was born, Mrs. Brooks blurted out the first name that came to her mind when prompted by the doctor: "Salamandra."
"Salamandra?" the doctor and Mr. Brooks seemed to utter in unison, equally unsure as the other.
"Because I want her to be able to walk into any fire bravely, without harm," Mrs. Brooks explained, eyes set on the wailing infant in her arms in a fond, trancelike stare.
After a moment, Mr. Brooks shrugged. "Sally fer' short?"
While the doctor's face only contorted more, Mrs. Brooks looked all the more pleased.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Brooks' wish behind her daughter's name had come all too true. As she got older, she only became more energetic – and more of a handful. It was only at three weeks old that Salamandra broke one of Mrs. Brooks' oldest and most treasured crystal balls, sending her mother into a fit. At five weeks of age, one of Mr. Brooks' protest posters received handprints and smudges of paint on it that resembled the size of little Salamandra's knees. He found a baby covered in paint, grinning shamelessly within minutes.
They tried everything to expel her energy: increased playtime, the smallest amount of sugar in her diet possible—they even invested in a Welsh Corgi puppy they called Duke to be her playmate, but even Duke's energy was worn out before Salamandra's. Her brother, Murphy, born five years later, was dubbed the normal one.
By the time she was attending school, her energy had only slightly decreased, but Salamandra was dubbed a troublemaker from the start.
"Me mum told me when I was very young that I could be anything I'd like t'be," she once kindly explained to Mrs. Green, an arithmetic teacher, who hardly appeared to be understanding. "I'd quite like t'be somethin' that doesn't have to use math!"
It was written in the stars indeed that Salamandra would be far from ordinary.
"Sorry it's a lil' short notice n' all; with a name like Salamandra, you'll blend right in, despite bein' a muggle-born!" the large man, who had belatedly introduced himself as Rubeus Hagrid, apologized for nearly failing to visit the family. While taking up a majority of the couch on his own, Mrs. Brooks' teacup was dwarfed by Hagrid's hands, so he took care to hold it gently with two fingers as he sipped at the green mixture.
"A…muggle-born? Whassat?" Salamandra sat in the loveseat nearby, legs kicking excitedly as her parents struggled to take notes.
"Oh—thas'right, you'll have ter learn a whole new language now that yer' a witch! 'Muggles', see, are non-magical folk—like yer parents, here."
"Hah! Pops, yer' a muggle!" Salamandra kindly informed her father as if learning a new bad word—an experience they had already gone through in the past.
"Yeah, yeah, laugh it up…" Mrs. Brooks grumbled, but all the while he was just as enthusiastic as his offspring. "But explain one thing t'me, Mr. Hagrid—"
"Just Hagrid will do," the large man quickly interrupted.
"Hagrid it is! How do a couple o'—er, muggles—like me n' Mel' spawn a witch?"
"Of course, I am a rather skilled fortune-teller," Mrs. Brooks smiled to herself, sipping at her green mixture in the tea cup.
"Issat so?" he coughed. "Good question! Yeh see, there's a big difference between an ordinary muggle an' a squib. A squib is a child born from magical parents who gets absolutely no magical powers at all, see, but it's dormant inside of 'em. So a squib'll go off n' have a normal, muggle life, marry n' have children with a normal, muggle partner, but that dormant magical power passes on n' on until it finally springs ter life!" Opening his hands quite animatedly, both parents and child listened intently. "An' that's how Salamandra here became a witch, or rather—she was born one!"
"Ooh!" Mrs. Brooks squealed. "So maybe those books from my mother's mother's mother's mother—are those real?"
"Yeh said yeh got 'er name from one of the creatures in the books?" Hagrid motioned to Sally, whose grin was so wide it threatened to spill off of her face entirely. "Most likely!"
"So I get t'go to witch school n' meet a real salamander—ooh, better yet, a real dragon?" Salamandra gasped. Hagrid let out a hearty laugh.
"I've always wanted to keep a dragon meself! But unfortunately, not on Hogwarts. Not yet, anyway," he said with a wink. The family spent the next hour bombarding Hagrid with more questions concerning the school, mostly the enthusiastic Salamandra, before Hagrid set off.
With the prospect of shopping in Diagon Alley on the weekend in mind, Salamandra was too excited to know what to do with herself. All of the wonders that awaited her were left to her imagination until Saturday finally arrived, and Salamandra was sure it would be the best day of her life.