Keeper: Write a magical creature you've never written before.

Magical creature: banshee

Word count: 2,230

It all started with an overheard comment by a second year.

"My dad says my magical inheritance will make me ten times more powerful, can you believe it!?"

He didn't really think much of it at the time, worrying more about not dying in the next task than anything else, but that comment stuck with him. It weasled into his brain and firmly planted itself there to make a reappearance whenever he had a spare moment to just think. Like now, the morning of his fifteenth birthday, staring at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. There wasn't much to look at, really, he wasn't anything special. He was almost unhealthily thin, shorter than most people his age as well. He had more than a few scars, though most were only a few years old. His face wasn't ugly, but he sure wasn't a pretty face. He had his mother's eyes and that was something.

But his hair... It had always been unruly and black as sin. But now, it was red. Just red. A dark red, yes, but when light hit it, as it was now, you could really see it was red.

At that moment, and in his ignorance, all he could think of was that one comment he'd heard last year.

"I've come into my inheritance, haven't I? Do magical inheritances change your hair colour, though?"

Sheryl O'Keen watched her family talk and laugh with each other. They were all there, well, all but one. She felt a bittersweet smile creep onto her face as she remembered her lost daughter. She wondered where her oldest was. Did she have a family of her own? She'd be nearing forty about now, right? Surely she'd have a number of children running around. Maybe even a child or two attending one of the magic schools.

A shriek of laughter brought her out of her inner turmoil. Her youngest grandchildren were chasing an owl around the garden while the older two were chasing after them, telling them to leave the poor bird alone. Bradan - the oldest - had just turned eleven that January, and was expecting his Hogwarts owl any time now. His sister, Caiomhe, wouldn't be turning eleven until that December, but she, too, would be going to Hogwarts once she got her letter.

Sheryl chuckled as Bradan and Caiomhe finally distracted their cousins long enough for the owl to get away. Hugh and Malachi were both five, and little Saoirse was three and a half, and the three of them caused trouble wherever they went. A bit like their uncles and father at their ages, actually.

The poor owl warily flew to her, keeping an eye on her youngest grandchildren as it did. It held a letter in its beak, her name clearly written on the front.

"Thank you, now go on up to the owlery," she told the owl after relieving it of the letter.

"Who's it from, mam?" Niall, her eldest son, asked her, walking closer to get a better look of the letter. Shea, Niall's twin brother, wasn't far behind him, as usual.

Sheryl flipped the letter over to open it and gasped in shock. The goblins of Gringotts sent her a letter? She shakily opened it, fearing what it might contain. Was the ministry attempting to confiscate the Community's vaults based on faulty accusations again?

Sheryl O'Keen,

Gringotts is writing you on behalf of a well respected customer of ours. Be sure to read the attached letter to the end.

Sincerely,

Ragnok,

Branch Director

Dear Mrs O'Keen,

Um, hello. My name is Harry. I recently took a heritage test at Gringotts at my godfather's insistence and apparently we're related.

I never knew my parents, they died when I was young, but I guess my mother was your daughter? Her - adopted, I'm assuming - name was Lily Evans, she had red hair and green eyes, and looked nothing like her "family". Until recently, the only thing I really had in common with her was my eye color and some red streaks in my hair. Now, my usually black hair is a dark red, and I get these… Visions of sorts whenever I look at people.

The goblins told me I'm a banshee and that it comes from your side of the family.

Ma'am, I'm not looking for much, just the chance to get to know the family I never knew. If you want nothing to do with me, I'll understand, just please reply at least once.

Wishing you well,

Harry J. Potter

Harry was extremely nervous. He was going to meet his grandparents for the first time.

He and Sirius, as Padfoot, were portkeying to the community his grandparents lived in. It was entirely populated with banshee and their families, and was only one of hundreds around the world.

Banshees were classified as dark creatures because of their connection with death, but the wizarding governments of the world more or less left them alone as long as they stayed within their communities. They were allowed to shop at the wizarding markets, bank with Gringotts, and even go to school with wizards and witches so long as they were sufficiently magical and had the training necessary to contain their talents. All in all, they were treated significantly better than werewolves, vampires, and harpies.

Banshees were also mostly redheads, as Harry found out. The banshee genetic traits, according to Hermione, were dominate, and were likely magically connected to the redhead genes, making it so most banshee expressed red hair instead of the genetically dominate hair colours like brown and black. Or something like that. It almost explained his sudden change in hair color, but not really.

Magical inheritances don't, apparently, cause shifts in hair colour. Usually. Unless one was a metamorphmagus locked in a single transformation. Like Harry had been.

James Potter was related to the Black family in such a way that one of their family traits - that had all but died out - had been passed to Harry. Thanks to his mother introducing new blood into the mix, he was born a metamorphmagus, albeit with limited capabilities. His form had been locked as one closely resembling his father just with his mother's eyes as a child. This was presumably done by the headmaster to keep his heritage a secret while growing up in the muggle world. After his magical inheritance, the lock had broken and he could now change his hair and eyes at will - with practice, of course.

Back to the reason he was nervous, though.

His grandmother had replied with a rather emotional letter, saying she'd always wondered what had happened to her oldest child and would absolutely love to get to know her grandson. She then told him about herself and the rest of their family, her husband, her other children, and their children, his cousins. She told him of how her and her husband had searched for years for their missing daughter, but had never found her, eventually settling in the main Irish community, where she was from, and started their family anew.

He suddenly had three uncles, three aunts, and five cousins, with a sixth on the way. Going from a small extended family to such a large one with practically a single letter was… unnerving, and would definitely take some getting used to.

After she told him about her other children and grandchildren, she invited him to come meet them in person. "Introductions are much better in person, I find," she'd written.

He'd been so excited she wanted to meet him, he'd instantly replied yes. But now that he'd had time to think it over, he wasn't entirely sure he was ready to meet his family in person. What if his grandmother had only invited him over to see if he really was "The-Boy-Who-Lived"? He had signed his full name, after all. But she seemed to really want to get to know him, not his fame.

What if after he arrived, she took one look at him and decided he wasn't worth her time? What if his family turned out to be worse than the Dursley's? Was it even possible to be worse than the Dursley's? What was he talking about, OF COURSE it was! Was he leaving one bad family for one that'd treat him even worse? "Out of the frying pan, into the fire"?

"Woof!"

Harry took a breath and let it out, forcing himself to relax. "Thanks, Padfoot. I needed that," he murmured.

He checked the time. The portkey was going to activate soon. "Ready?" Harry asked the large black dog sitting next to him.

"Woof!" (Of course!)

Harry smiled. "Hold on, then," he said, holding out one end of a short rope.

Not long after the dog shaped wizard had one end of the portkey in his mouth, it activated, taking them from London to the Irish banshee community.

Bradan wasn't sure what to think of his new older cousin, but then, he hadn't met him yet. Grandmam had only told him his cousin was coming to visit today, that she wanted him to escort him to the house, and that he'd know who it was because of the big black dog he'd have with him. She hadn't even told him his cousin's name!

On his way to the designated portkey point at the edge of the Community to "escort" his unnamed cousin, little Saoirse had apparently decided she wanted a ride and latched onto his leg. She wouldn't let go, no matter what he asked or said, giggling all the way. Finally, he'd given up and just continued on his way, lifting the leg she had attached herself to in an exaggerated way each step.

As he slowly made his way through the Community, his cousin giggling up a storm from her place on his leg, a number of people, both banshee and not, called out greetings. Bradan waved in reply, a small smile on his lips.

His cousin was a banshee and apparently didn't know until just recently. That meant he had to be a powerful wizard for his banshee traits to have been masked for so long. There's no suddenly becoming a banshee, you either are one or you're not. The only way for someone to not know they're a banshee when they are is if they're a powerful witch or wizard and their accidental magic masks the normal signs.

They landed in a forest. Well, Padfoot landed, Harry face planted. The teenaged wizard groaned as he lay face down. "I hate portkeys," he mumbled into the moss covered leafy blanket under him.

A small giggle drew him up short. It sounded young, like a little girl.

His grandmother had said something about having someone show him to the house. He'd assumed perhaps one of his aunts or uncles, maybe even his grandfather, or his grandmother herself, but his cousins had never once come to mind.

Harry slowly rose his head and looked in the direction the giggle came from. Two kids were standing a little bit away from him. The older of the two, a boy who looked to be eleven or twelve, seemed to be enjoying himself, and the little girl standing in front of him - Harry would guess she was about two if asked - had her little hands clasped tightly over her mouth. She had been the one to giggle, apparently.

The boy and the girl shared many similarities, from their freckles to their wavy red hair, and somehow Harry could just tell they were two of his cousins. He liked them better than Dudley already.

Banshee communities were a bit like rural country towns inside a pocket dimension with a diverse population. The majority of the population was magical in some way, whether they be a witch, wizard, or, as the name suggested, a banshee. There were squibs and muggles as well, in fact her husband was a muggle, but most of the inhabitants could do magic to some extent.

Her grandson had been raised in a purely muggle environment, not even knowing magic was real until he was eleven. He had no idea what being a banshee actually meant, only knowing whatever the ministry deemed necessary for students to know. He had no knowledge of a banshee's seer-like abilities when it came to deaths, the different reasons behind a banshee's wail, or even how banshee households are structured and the magic behind it. To make things more difficult, he only had a few weeks to learn as many of these things as he could before he was due back for school. But no matter, they'd do all they could to help dear Harry learn as fast as possible. Family is one of the most important things to a banshee, after all.

Sheryl O'Keen was drawn from her thoughts by the sound of her youngest granddaughter laughing at the top of her lungs. There, coming down the way, was the most heartwarming scene she'd ever seen, so similar to the one she'd dreamed of for years her eyes grew moist. Saoirse was joyfully riding a large black dog, Bradan and an older boy who could only be Harry were talking animatedly as they followed along.

Her family was finally all home.