Gwyn Swann and the Chamber of Secrets

by Lady Dawson

Chapter One: Back at Home

"Tabby!"

Gwyn Swann hurried down the streets of her home town as she chased after her small, tabby cat, who was darting across the sidewalk away from his mistress, struggling to keep up with him. Her blonde hair was plastered to her forehead as she panted, running after her cat with blazing blue eyes.

She had been sitting on bench on the porch at the house she lived at with her guardian Madeline Harris with Tabby lying at her feet while she did her summer homework when Tabby suddenly gave a small meow and took off without warning. Gwyn, bewildered and annoyed, had given chase and half an hour later, she was even more annoyed than she'd been before.

Unaware of where it was that she was heading towards, Gwyn saw a young boy about her own age up ahead setting down some boxes in front of the fence. "Hey!" she shouted to him and he looked up, startled. "My cat! Grab my cat!"

He saw the fast-moving Tabby and swooped down to grab him before he could go any further and Gwyn let out a sigh of relief as she hurried up to the boy holding Tabby. "Thank you," she said gratefully as she took Tabby, who clawed his mistress's shirt as she stroked him, shaking her head in bewilderment. "What on earth got into you?" she demanded to Tabby before looking up at the boy. "Thank you very much. I've been chasing him forever."

"No problem, it was a relief to take a break from these boxes," the boy told her with a laugh and she grinned, glancing towards the car that was packed full of boxes. "My mum packs like crazy. It wouldn't have hurt her to get rid of a little bit."

"Are you and your mum moving into town?" she asked, glancing up at the house and with a start, suddenly realised just where she was at. Glancing back at the boy, she cast a quick glance around to see if her father was anywhere in sight. There was no doubt in her mind that he would have something to say about it if he saw her here.

"Yeah, my mum decided that she wanted to live with her new boyfriend," he replied darkly. He looked depressed for a minute. "It wouldn't kill her to try and work things out with my dad, but she decided that she liked William better."

Gwyn nodded slowly, glancing back up at the house. "That would be William Swann, then?" she asked and he nodded bitterly.

"I wish I could've gone to live with Dad, but he's off in France right now and then travelling around to other parts of the world and he and Mum insisted that I stay in one place so I could go to school. It's the one thing that they've agreed on since the divorce." He sighed and shook his head. "I'm Evan. Evan Taylor."

With a smile at him, Gwyn accepted his offered hand. "I'm Gwyn," she answered, deciding for the moment not to give him her surname. It was just going to cause more problems than she wanted to deal with.

"Just Gwyn? No last name that goes with that?" Evan inquired with a smile towards her.

Gwyn chuckled. "Sorry, you've got to earn that right," she told him. "Besides, you wouldn't believe me, anyway." She hoisted Tabby into her arms more tightly and turned away. "Well, I should go. Madeline's going to be home soon and I've got stuff to do. But it was a pleasure to meet you, Evan." For being her future stepbrother, he didn't seem so bad.

"Madeline? Is that your sister?"

"That's my guardian," Gwyn answered with a shrug. Evan nodded as he looked down at the boxes.

"Yeah, I should go get these inside, anyway," he told her. "But I'll see you soon, right? You'll be going to school here. That's supposed to start in about a month, so I'll see you there?"

Gwyn shook her head. "No, you won't," she told him. "I don't go to school here; I'm just here for the holidays. I . . . I go to this private school up in Scotland, it's really far away, so unless I see you before I leave, I'm not going to be here until next summer."

"Oh." Evan looked disappointed just as a few girls walked up behind them and Gwyn turned around to find some of her old classmates before she'd discovered about her new life behind her.

"Well, look who it is, girls," Isabella Cleveland commented, giving Gwyn a sweet, innocent smile. "Guinevere Swann, as bright and cheerful as always. So, tell us, Gwyn, is it true? Did you really get rejected from all the schools around here, so you had to get shipped off to a boarding school?"

Evan stared at her, then towards Gwyn. "Swann?" he echoed in bewilderment.

"Oh, yeah, she's William's daughter, but he disowned her about a year ago," Isabella said indifferently, giving Gwyn a withering look. "What did you do to make your dad so mad at you, anyway? Could it be that he couldn't stand that you look so much like your dead mum that he wanted you out of the way? It must burn you up inside that he's forgotten all about her and moved on to someone else."

"You know what? I have to get home, I actually have better things to do than to sit around here and tolerant your company," Gwyn shot back. She turned on her heel and walked away from them.

"She's such a freak," one of Isabella's friends commented, causing the rest of them to laugh.

Gwyn sighed as she looked down at Tabby in annoyance. "You sure know how to cause trouble, don't you?" she said dryly as she stroked her cat behind the ears, glancing back once towards where Evan was standing, looking at her with some shock in his eyes as she looked up at the house, a house that she had once called her home.

For ten long years, Gwyn had lived with her absentee father, the owner of a pub downtown, with only the housekeeper, Madeline Harris, to confide in. Her mother Aurora Toren-Swann had died when she was just two years old, with circumstances that were unaware to Gwyn at the time. But over a year ago, she received the mysterious invitation to go to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and the true story surrounding her mother's death was revealed.

A dark wizard named Voldemort had risen to power before Gwyn was born and had thrust the wizarding world into darkness, killing wizards who opposed him and those who refused to join him. Her mother had fought alongside those who opposed him until a miraculous thing occurred.

Voldemort was taken down, by a year-old baby named Harry Potter. Stripped of his powers, Voldemort fled and the wizarding world was able to breathe again, free to go out into the streets without fear of their lives. Only his followers refused to give up. One of them had attacked a crowd and when Gwyn's mother had tried to save them, he'd killed her.

Filled with anguish and grief over the loss of his wife, William Swann had sworn that his daughter would never know that world. But when Gwyn discovered the truth of her heritage, she had disobeyed her father and left the world she'd known behind—only to discover the enchanting and magical world that her mother had left to her.

For the first time in her life, Gwyn had felt like she belonged—but more than that, she had friends. Three of the best, most wonderful friends that anyone could ask for. Ron Weasley, the only one of the quartet that had been raised in the wizarding world. Hermione Granger, a bright and clever witch who was the top of their year. And then there was Harry Potter, the same boy that had stopped Voldemort years ago and had stopped him from rising again two months ago.

Gwyn had been there, in the chamber just outside where he'd fought Voldemort and his follower Quirrell, and had blasted through to get to her friend. And then they had parted for the holidays, each going to their own homes, but Gwyn was forever barred from her childhood home for disobeying her father and now lived with her former housekeeper and guardian Madeline.

She hadn't seen her father since she had come back for summer holidays and she was sure that he was trying determinedly to hide from her, not wanting to see or talk to her.

During Christmas holidays last year, he had written to her to tell her that he had met a woman and now it appeared that she was going to be living with him, along with her son. But Gwyn wasn't worried about her father's new family at the moment. No, she was more worried about Harry.

Since they'd said goodbye at the train station at the end of term, she hadn't heard a word from him, though she had written to him twice a week and she knew that Ron and Hermione hadn't heard from him either. She'd wrote to them and asked and they both confirmed her suspicions that he wasn't writing back to any of them.

Something was wrong, she knew as she opened the gate to her house and climbed up the steps, opening the door to the house. "You be good," she ordered Tabby as she collected her books from the porch, shoving them into her back as she headed inside.

It wasn't like Harry to not write to them. Besides, from what she knew about his aunt and uncle, they were just as bad as her father, if not worse. He wouldn't just not write; he needed them more than ever. Living with the Dursleys sounded frightful.

With a small sigh, Gwyn carried her books up to her bedroom and ushered Tabby into the room, who climbed up onto the bed and curled up onto the pillow. "What possessed you to take off like that?" she grumbled as she set her bag onto her desk. She had finished most of her schoolwork, along with doing some extra studying in her spare time, which was a whole lot of the time, coincidentally. In a small town where everyone thought she was abnormal, she didn't have any friends to hang out with. Isabella had been her only friend before she'd gone to Hogwarts and now they were worse than enemies.

And now with Ron and Hermione back at their own houses and Harry not answering her letters, Gwyn was longing for to be back at school, in the castle with surprises at every corner and the interesting classes—except maybe History of Magic, the only class taught by a ghost. Gwyn couldn't help it; she missed everything about the castle.

"Got your homework all done?" Madeline inquired as she poked her head into the room. Gwyn nodded, still deep in thought on her worries about Harry's silence. "That's good. How was your day?" she asked as she walked over to sit down on the bed next to Gwyn.

"It wasn't too bad, did homework mostly, then Tabby took off and I had to track him down," Gwyn said dryly, then glanced up at him. "You know that my dad's moving in with that girlfriend of his and her son?"

Madeline sighed. "Yes, I know." She looked towards her ward anxiously and placed a gentle hand on her blonde hair. "Are you all right? You seem a bit . . . preoccupied."

"With Dad? Of course I'm not okay with it, but he's made his decision and I've made mine. And while I would like to have my dad back in my life, I don't regret the choices that I made."

"Then what is about?"

"It's Harry," Gwyn admitted, looking up at her guardian anxiously. "I'm really worried about him."

"He still hasn't written you back?" Madeline asked, frowning slightly. Gwyn shook her head. "And Ron and Hermione have told you that he hasn't written to them either?"

"Not a word."

Madeline shook her head, frowning slightly. "Well, it sounds to me that somebody might be blocking his mail and preventing him from receiving any letters. And I daresay that those relatives of his aren't going to be letting him send any letters with his owl."

"Hedwig," Gwyn said affectionately, thinking of Harry's snowy white owl that was his faithful companion. "Listen, do you think that it would be okay if I rode out to Surrey tomorrow and see if everything was okay?" She hoped that Madeline would say yes, because she was going crazy with worry.

"I don't see any problem to that," Madeline said with a smile. "Straight there, though, all right? Don't take any detours. And keep an eye on those relatives of his. I've never met them, but Aurora did and she used the most . . . colourful language when describing them."

Gwyn grinned. Apart from being her former housekeeper, Madeline was also an old friend of her mother's and told her stories about Aurora Toren to her heart's content.

"Well, I'm going to start dinner," Madeline said with a sigh as she headed out of the room. "Don't worry about Harry. I'm sure that he's fine."

"He's got a knack for finding trouble, Madeline," Gwyn said with a sigh, thinking of the previous year.

"Yes, I would imagine so," Madeline mused. "Like father, like son. But if he's anything like James, then I would say that he's got a way of getting himself out of it. Especially since he has three very loyal, very stubborn friends."