Title: Hidden Covenants
Series: Binding Covenant Universe
Author: Shona Katt
Disclaimer: I own nothing of Harry Potter creation that all belongs to those who own the rights to HP this is fan-fiction only no profit is made or intended to be made.

My site Shazbot's Den is here:

Grangledort, Head Goblin for Gringott's Inheritance Law section, gazed at the complicated web of inheritance before him and instinctively knew he was missing a vital piece of this puzzle. And where humans and non-humans interact, that could be deadly, not only for Gringott's, but also for a multitude of inter-species covenants and treaties.

Ravengrove was an innocuous land designation that hid the Goblin race's greatest secret: in the mountains of this old Dryad estate was the oldest Goblin crèche in the world – the one crèche that had never been raided or destroyed in the untold number of Goblin-Human wars. Grangledort himself had grown to power in those old warrens, happily learning the ways of the rock-weave, and money, and Human politics.

"How were the Dryad destroyed?" he demanded coldly, remembering the long, dark spider-silk hair, and milk-white arms that had held him so lovingly as it explained the world above with a honey-sweet voice on moon-lit nights; holding him safe from the terror of a world without walls. The Dryad-Goblin covenant was old, and based on love, not power or wealth.

"They went into hibernation, as usual, leaving a new seedpod planted as guardian," said the Veela calmly.

Grangledort nodded. The Dryads of Ravengrove were over three millennia old; their power cycle was longer because of it – waking sixty years, sleeping ten. Usually, they appointed a halfing to guard their sleep. The grove would seek a covenant with a powerful Wizard, and the resulting seedpod would create a guardian halfing. The danger to the Grove was that the pod would not mature until the Grove hibernated, due to the power drain of an active Grove. Once the hibernation began, the pod would have enough power to mature: within six months, the child would be mature enough to take up her guardianship.

Mentally, Grangledort did some calculations. The last Ravengrove Guardian was barely two centuries old. She had another cycle before she would shed her human side and have to hibernate as a full Dryad, requiring a replacement Guardian.

"Why did they plant a new seed pod? The present Guardian had one more cycle ahead of her."

"The Guardian tree was destroyed be lightening just days before the Grove hibernated. They panicked, because they hadn't time enough to form a covenant, let alone ripen a Guardian pod before they slept. Finally, they remembered that a young Dryad had grown a Guardian pod centuries before, when a lightening storm had destroyed her. It was still viable, so they used that one."

"Something happened, rendering the Grove vulnerable: either the ancient pod failed to mature, or the grove was attacked before it reached maturity," Grangledort stated, not asked.

"A Dark Wizard. Seeing a chance to obtain the Ravengrove lands, tore her from her tree in her fifth month, then set fire to the Grove by calling down lightening from the sky, destroying the Dryad as they slept. Kept from her tree, her body ripened while her mind slept, making her an obedient plaything for the Dark Wizard. He wed her in the human fashion, and claimed Ravengrove as her dowry. As the Grove was destroyed by lightening, none could prove his guilt, for Human Elementals are rare."

"I see," said Grangledort with a frown, gazing at the marriage certificate of one Tatalia Ravengrove and one Talbert Draconus Snape, "Continue. How did the Veela clans of Talmore become involved?"

"As he kept her from her tree, her body became more human. Eventually, she came to be with child. Disliking such a complication to his plan, he again called down the lightening, with her tree as the target. He was very surprised that she still lived afterwards; her human half had to fully sustain her, and the pain woke her from her sleep," explained the young Veela, soothing the sleeping child in her arms as he stirred until he returned to sleep.

"She hid her wakening by instinct and learnt of her situation in the weeks that followed," she said simply, "By guile and cunning she salvage the dead Grove of the their heartseeds, and planned the Wizard's destruction and the Grove's replanting."

"Guile and cunning are not in a Dryad's nature: they are forthright and direct, savage, yet nurturing of the young, but in their own way oblivious to anything but their lands and Groves."

"It wasn't just her Dryad heritage that woke, Goblin," the Veela smiled a hunter's smile, "and her sire was of a much more dangerous nature, and his survival instincts were in full play. For she not only had her unborn child to protect, but also the heartseeds of her Grove. Not to mentions a Goblin crèche also under her protection."

"I see a dangerous situation for all concerned."

The Veela nodded, "Her problems were as follows: she had to birth her child first, because to activate the heartseeds, she would need to expend all her power to bring them to planting stage. She would die of this expenditure. Unfortunately, that would leave her newborn child and an unplanted and unprotected Grove in the blood-stained hands of a Dark Wizard."

"So she sought a solution," stated Grangledort.

"She sought to form a covenant, as is the way of the Dryad," explained the Veela with a smile, "To the north was the Goblin crèche in her care, ruling out that direction because of the danger to her charges who were, as yet, hidden.

"To the south were the Wizard-kind, who she trusted not, with good cause," the Veela stated the situation plain.

"To the west was the water, the domain of the Mer. That covenant was as old as time and inviolate," the Veela laughed.

Grangledort's lips twitched in shared amusement; the Mer-Dryad covenant was legendary among the non-human races that knew of it. Simple and to the point of bluntness, it could be summed up as 'Don't bother us, and we won't bother you.' It wasn't really funny when you considered that the last Mer-Dryad interaction sank Atlantis. The amusement factor for the other races came from the way the two races ignored each other with a passion rarely seen in either race. Put a Dryad and a Mer in the same small space and they ignored each other to the point of idiocy. It was hard to believe that Mer and Dryad had once been the same species before they split between land and water.

"Which left the east. To which lay the border shared with the Talmore Veela caverns. While her tree was gone, her tie to the land was not and, bound to Ravengrove's borders by her Dryad nature, she could not seek covenant. So she haunted the valley where the two lands joined. In her eighth month of carrying the child, the Fates in their mercy supplied the means to make covenant. She found a young Veela Matriarch crying over the bleak future before her. What faced the Dryad, you know; the Veela Matriarch faced a future as a servant to a current Matriarch. Talmore was old and the caverns were full; a new Matriarch would not be matured until a replacement was needed. So the young Veela's fate was to remain immature and powerless, a servant to those who ruled. She could not even help the children as her nature craved, for, barren herself as all Matriarchs, to bond with a child would bring on maturity. If that happened, she would be exiled from all Veela, as the caverns had no room for a Matriarch without a cavern of her own to rule."

The Veela smirked and continued, "In the way of all young females, Dryad Guardian and Veela Matriarch exchanged the tales of their woes, and, in the telling, each found the solution to said woes. The Dryad needed a strong Guardian for Ravengrove and all the children it contained; the Veela needed children to mother and land to rule. So the covenant was made and carved into the walls of the valley in which it was made, sealed in the Dryad way."

"A royal dowry by Veela standards. According to this copy of the covenant, along with Guardianship of the Grove, crèche and all the lands within Ravengrove, you become the child's mother and have clear title to the disused caverns in the mountains above Ravengrove crèche as they have been disused for centuries. We find no fault with this transaction. The connecting tunnels will be sealed before you move in, as stated in the covenant. Have you completed the rest of your covenant with the Guardian?"

"I returned with the Guardian to the human nest where the Wizard lived, playing the innocent Veela attracted by the unborn child, as Breeding Veela sometimes are," she smirked in amusement: the human had been easy to fool. Her beautiful Guardian had been right; a human couldn't tell a Breeder from a Matriarch if their life depended on it. Which it had, she acknowledged in savage exultation of a job well done.

"The birth of the child and my bonding as its mother brought me to maturity and into my full powers as a Matriarch. My Guardian pretended illness due to the birth, when, in reality, she was ripening the heartseeds with her life essence. She died three days later, seemingly of birth complications. The Wizard left to inform the human authorities of her death. While he was gone, I planted the new Grove in the place my Guardian had chosen, shielding it from sight with Veela glamour. On the Wizard's return, the humans found only a Veela nursemaid sad for the loss of a friend. The other humans left, sealing the Wizard to his fate. Over the next six months, I maddened him with lust and the desire to possess, mimicking a Breeder just ripening into heat. As my Guardian had suggested, I held out for marriage, strengthening my claim to both Ravengrove and my son by Human Law."

Grangledort nodded; a wise precaution on both their parts.

"The wedding night sealed his fate. Whenever he satisfied his lust, I siphoned his life energy to nourish the Grove. He died a year later, but by then the roots of my lovely Dryad babies were deep and strong.

"A better fate than he deserved," commented Grangledort, "Everything seems to be in order, Matriarch Ravengrove. The wedding covenant between yourself and Tatalia Ravengrove, daughter of Dryad mother Serna, by covenant with the Wizard Salazar Slytherin, had been completed to the satisfaction of both parties. We will seal the passages tonight, and you will be able to take possession of you dowry tomorrow," he said formally.

The Matriarch's eyes sparkled with delight, "Thank you. Talmore is very excited; this is the first new cavern in a thousand years. I have already picked out my Breeders and junior Matriarchs. I am going to have so many children to love."

She sounded so young to Grangledort, but obviously well capable of defending her territory. Ravengrove was in good hands. Salazar Slytherin's Dryad daughter had chosen her mate well.

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