Disclaimer: The Harry Potter series and all its characters, places, spells and circumstances etc. do not belong to me. However, I do own the Greelys.
Chapter One: Strength From Purity
The massive cliff jutted out over the ocean like the prow of an enormous ship. Its face was peppered with caves and outcroppings, the iron sea below hurling itself onto the rocks. The thick layer of fog that shrouded the afternoon sun muffled the thunderous crash of the angry ocean. Perched on top of the cliff was a large, sprawling manor. It was clearly old, and gave off a slight air of disorganization, for the manor had clearly once been much smaller, and over the decades successive generations had built onto or torn down parts of it to their liking. There were great stone pillars set next to flying buttresses, walls of marble and stone, and windows of all shapes and sizes dotting the many faces of the house. But in the midst of the jumble and decay, there lay an aura of grandeur and pride. It seemed to live in the very stone of the manor, breathing its long-kept secrets through the grounds so that the great mansion seemed a living thing.
A long road wound down from the manor to the mainland, flagged with crumbling columns and marble statues. At the mouth of the road was a wrought-iron gate, huge and imposing, that was twisted and molded into wicked eyes or snapping jaws that crawled and slithered over each other like snakes.
It was at this gate that stood a solitary hooded figure. Their build was slight and small, betraying the gender of a female. She stood there quietly, staring up the long road to the manor for a long time before drawing a wand from the pocket of her cloak and tapping the gate. A particularly large and sinister-looking iron dragon unwound itself from the rest, speaking in a deep, clanging voice.
"State your name."
"Danica Greely."
"State your business."
"I have come to collect my belongings."
The dragon seemed to incline its head, and a moment later, the gate creaked open. Danica rushed in before it swung shut again, the great iron dragon and its company slithering back into place where they sat, hissing and grinding together.
Danica strode quickly up the long road, wand gripped tightly in her hand. She felt strange, almost as if she were trespassing, which was odd, since she had lived here her entire life. Well, up until a week ago, that is. She passed a stone lion that growled softly when it saw her, and she quickened her step. Her mother must have found out she was here, and was alerting the extra security.
By the time she reached the manor itself, she had an entire entourage of stone creatures stalking her, and she quickly unlocked the door, darting into the grand entryway of Cliffside Manor. It looked exactly as it had a week ago, but something had changed. The crystal chandelier was still as large as ever, suspended on its chain from the towering ceiling. The floor was still covered in cool white granite that echoed her every step. The walls were still adorned with the portraits of deceased relatives, looking haughtily down their noses at her, whispering. And yet, there was a distinctly different feeling riding the air, something strange and hostile that made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Danica knew she didn't have much time.
She passed through the entry hall and strode quietly up the great winding staircase. First floor, second floor, third floor all passed beneath her leather-clad feet until she reached, at last, the familiar corridor that had once been hers and her brother's. It looked the same as it always had, with its ebony floors gleaming with polish and its vaulted ceiling, but the same current of hostility had wound its way up here, too. Danica walked past the familiar doors and alcoves until she came to a stop at the end of the corridor. Her door hung ajar, and a watery ray of sunlight caught the tarnished silver of the knob, setting it slightly aglow.
A thick layer of dust had settled over her room, giving it an eerie deserted look, as though the owner of the room had mysteriously died. Danica wasted little time, however, pondering over the hygienic status of her room and went quickly to work, pulling a large leather bag out from under her cloak. She went to her wardrobe, yanking robes and cloaks off hangers unceremoniously and stuffing them into the bag, doing the same with her underwear and socks.
Her hand lingered over a set of spectacular diamond earrings and a matching necklace that she had received last Christmas, but she remembered where she was headed, and thought it best to take only what she needed. At the last minute, she slipped a small silver ring onto her finger. She had been told it was her father's.
After retrieving a large sack of gold from behind a loose wall panel and stowing it away in her bag, she gave the room one last look. She soaked in every detail, from the old sage-colored drapes to the soft and downy whiteness of her bed, resting safely in its black iron canopy, to the ancient musty chest of drawers that sat against the wall. This was it: the end. There would be no return journey to Cliffside Manor.
Out in the hallway, it was shadowy and dark, and her footsteps echoed spectacularly through the corridor. A bit too spectacularly, she thought, for it seemed impossible that only one set of feet could cause that many reverberations. Her question was quickly answered, however, as a tall and livid figure came striding down the hall, shrieking.
"YOU!"
Danica smiled wryly. "Hello, Mother."
Illandria Greely had clearly once been very beautiful, but now, she merely looked extremely frazzled. Her eyes bulged angrily as they caught sight of her daughter.
"What are you doing back here? You were banished a week ago!"
"I remember clearly, Mother dearest, but your anger alone cannot keep me out."
"Wh- what!" her mother sputtered.
Danica spoke calmly, as though they were merely discussing the weather, which seemed to only provoke her mother further. "I believe you forgot to reset the gate."
Her mother turned from red to a blotchy shade of purple. "You have no business here! Filthy criminal! GET OUT!"
"I have only come to collect my things," Danica scowled. "Do you honestly think I could live next to the woman who refused to bury her only son?"
She spoke the last part in a dangerous whisper, and she reached into her pocket, fingering the handle of her wand.
Danica's mother let out a harsh, barking laugh. "Son? He is no son of mine! Just as you are no daughter of mine! Now leave! I have had enough of you."
"A public cemetery," Danica was shaking now, but fought to keep her voice steady.
"What?" Her mother seemed confused.
"A damned public cemetery!" Danica's voice was rising quickly. "My brother! My pureblood brother, last son of the Greelys, buried next to Muggles, commoners, all manner of filth! All because you wouldn't grant him the last great honor of being buried next to his ancestors!"
Her mother shook her head slowly. "Where did you learn to think like this? That is not how I raised you!"
"Raised me?" Danica's voice dripped with hatred. "You never raised me! Always cooped up in your rooms, weren't you, the greatest witch of our time! The next Rowena Ravenclaw! Never giving a second thought to your poor children, never proud of their accomplishments, because we weren't like you! I bet you cried yourself to sleep the night Damien wrote home that he had been sorted into Slytherin! And then, when I joined him there, you thought it simply a waste of time to consort with such greedy and self-centered folk such as us!
"I was eleven! Eleven years old, and I had to come to grips with the fact that my own mother didn't want me! So I learned to live alone. Oh, Damien did his best, far better than you, anyway. He found a place, a niche; somewhere he felt he could belong, somewhere that he could become something great! And he did, Mother! And so will I! So don't talk about how you raised me, Mother, because the truth is, you never loved me. I'm going to stay loyal to the one who took the time to tell me how proud of me he was, how I was coming along so well, how he loved me, Mother! LOVED ME! You want me to be like you? You should've taken some time, shouldn't you?"
Danica's mother said nothing for quite some time. Finally, she said, "You and your brother! You're just like your father! Arrogant, cruel, power-hungry!"
"Well, I wouldn't know, would I? Because you never took the time to tell me what Father was like! Secrets, secrets, secrets! I guess we did turn out like you, then, Mother. We both learned how to deceive."
"Your brother deserved what he got!" Her mother shouted. "Deviant, criminal, murderer! I am glad to be rid of him! And you! You're on your way to becoming just like him! A- a -"
"A what?" Danica sneered. "A Death Eater?"
Her mother flinched.
"What?" said Danica. "Are you afraid? Is Illandria Greely, the famous Ravenclaw, the greatest witch of our time, afraid of her little daughter? Afraid of what she'll become?"
Her mother said nothing.
Danica moved toward her, smirking. "I'll let you in on a little secret, Mother. You should be."
"So, so it's true?" Her mother whispered, beginning to shake. "You really killed a man, Danica?"
"I did," Danica said. "I avenged the only person in the world who loved me. Is that such a hideous crime?"
"And you're going to throw away your life for him, Danica?"
"I made my brother a promise, Mother, that when I left school I'd join the Dark Lord. He wanted me to be safe, he wanted to keep an eye on me."
"Safe," her mother whispered.
"I'll hold true to that solemn vow, Mother, until the day I die. Nothing you can do is going to stop me."
Danica began to walk towards the staircase, but her mother called out. She stopped. "Yes?"
"Are you going to kill me, Danica?"
Danica laughed. "Mother, I knew how to kill you when I was fourteen. After three years of restraining myself, I think I can manage a few more."
The loud thud that echoed behind Danica alerted her that her mother had fainted. She sighed, starting down the stairs. The portraits in the entryway were whispering loudly amongst themselves. A few, relatives on her mother's side by the looks of them, called her names or made rude hand gestures. An old Greely, though, smiled at her and said,
"Greelys keep their word! Honor your brother!"
The walk down the hill was even stranger than the journey up. There were no growling lions or menacing statues, but an air of sorrow and finality that tore at her heart. This was it. Goodbye. She had nowhere to go, no one to take her in. No purposes save the promise that she had made her brother.
Initiation. She shivered a little, despite herself. What horrors lay in store for her when she entered the service of the Dark Lord? What dangers would be thrown at her? Would she be deemed useless, only to hang in the background? Or would she be rejected all together, sent out onto the streets to scratch a living on her own. She barely noticed when the gate swung open for her one last time.
"Goodbye, Danica Greely," said the iron dragon.
"Goodbye," she replied. She heard the gate seal shut, hissing and creaking, and looked up at the manor one last time. With a whispered sigh, she pulled up her hood and, gripping her bag, turned on the spot.
The Cliffside blurred before her eyes, and she was squeezed through space and time until she appeared outside the gate of a deserted cemetery. She unlocked the gate with a flick of her wand, smiling slightly to herself as she did so. Her Trace had been lifted just days before, on her seventeenth birthday. Now she could do as she pleased.
A dirt path wound through the middle of the enormous graveyard, little paths branching off to different parts of the cemetery. Danica wound her way to the farthest outskirts, a place where the graves were ancient and cracked. Her brother's grave was easy to find. The white marble tombstone shone like a candle in the darkness. Engraved on its face were the words:
Damien Alexander Greely
1978 - 1997
"Vigueur de pureté"
Strength from purity.
She sat there for a long time, thinking.
"Damien," she whispered. "What do I do?"
The wind stirred the leaves on a nearby willow, making them sigh. She tried to remember what he had told her, but they had never planned on his death.
"I will be with you," he had told her on that terrible night. It was hard to believe that it had happened only a week ago. Her life seemed to have split into two halves, one where Damien had been alive, and one where he was gone.
"If I get captured, don't go home," he had said.
"Then where do I go?"
"Seek out Narcissa Malfoy, she has agreed to help you."
Malfoy. She knew the son, Draco. He had been in her year. She always thought of him as rather unpleasant; they had never become friends. Last year, countless rumors were flying around about him. His father was in Azkaban, convicted of being a Death Eater. Many insisted that he had replaced his father in the Dark Lord's circle. The truth became apparent when he let a band of Death Eaters into Hogwarts, including her brother.
While the others ran off to wreak havoc in the castle, Damien had come and found her. She had made the promise, agreed to follow him back to "headquarters", wherever that was, and start a new life.
She remembered the horrible realization that it was her brother who had tumbled backwards off the second floor balcony, his neck snapping instantly as he landed in a crumpled heap on the ground.
She had found the Auror who had killed Damien, and recalled the chilling feeling of satisfaction as she had tortured him for minutes before finally ending his life. Chaos had broken out on the grounds, and she had run towards the front gates of Hogwarts, Damien's limp form floating before her.
"Don't go home,"
His words were lost to her as she clutched his body and Disapparated, reappearing at the front gate of Cliffside Manor. Her mother had turned them away, leaving Danica to plead with the aging Muggle mortician to give her a place to bury her brother. The shame of it still brought the blood rushing to her cheeks. Her brother deserved so much better.
Now, with a destination in mind, she conjured a single white rose out of the air, laying it at her brother's grave.
"I'm keeping my promise, Damien," she said.
The willow sighed again, the breeze playing in her long dark hair.
"I will be with you," it whispered to her.
Danica gave a small smile before turning sharply on the spot, every fiber of her being stretching out towards Malfoy Manor. If her future was anywhere, it was there.