Title: Hogwarts – A History
Author: Niharana
Summary: Long in the past, though still not as long ago as the Founders, debts are being collected, and the Wizarding World's lost children are coming home.
Chapter 1: Neona
They had come to collect their debt, and, as a result, she was hiding under the floorboards. They really were all fascinating to her, her family's debt collectors. They were dressed in cloaks, which was not unusual for the area. What was fascinating about them was the way that they smelled. She had been raised by an earth witch and a falconer, both powerful in their own respects, but these people, though she wasn't sure that they were people, they smelled of power of a kind that she had never smelt before.
It was one of her gifts, her mother said. She had the ability to gauge the type and level of a person's power through their smell. Not their social power, but rather the potential power that they held in their bodies, their minds, their spirits.
These people, these debt collectors, they smelled of power of all three of the criteria; it was a smell that not even her mother had, and her mother's smell was practically dwarfed by their combined smells. It was intoxicating, and it made her fascinated and curious.
She knew better than to come out, however. Her father had several sons, but they were all married, leaving her and their possessions as the only things that could be used to pay a debt. She didn't fancy being given to several strange men for them to do what they wished with her.
She could barely hear the voices above her, but, from the inclinations of their voices, which she did hear, all she got was that her parents were arguing with them. There was a thickening of the air, and then a flash of light, and her parents fell to the floor, screaming and writhing in pain. She gasped before she could stop herself, and the screaming suddenly stopped. She looked up to her mother's face, which she could see between the floorboards, and saw her mother mouth one thing: run.
She set her mouth in a line and practically flew down the ladder to the mew, where the falcons and hawks were kept. She reached her own falcon, Starfyre, and set her loose, wincing slightly as her talons dug into her forearm before carefully exiting the building, Starfyre immediately taking flight.
There was unnerving silence in the house above her, and she paused in her exodus, carefully sniffing, nearly crying out when she realized that there were now only three power-smells. And then the fire started. Eyes widening, she raced back into the mews, and, taking her dagger, began slicing the jesses that held the birds to their perches, at the same time removing the hoods that prevented the younger ones from seeing.
She exited the mews again, only to have her arm grabbed by one of the cloaked figures. She could practically feel his smirk bearing down on her, and determination chased away her fear at being caught. She pursed her lips and whistled, which resulted in every single bird that was in the mews flying out and trying to land on the arm which the stranger held. They seemed to realize that he wasn't a friendly presence when he pulled out a thin sliver of wood and more flashes of light occurred, this time the birds began falling down, not dead, simply stunned. The response was immediate. They flew in unison at his face, their talons striking one after one on his eyes.
He fell down screaming and cursing and trying to bat them away. She took the opportunity to slip into the forest that surrounded her house, which was still burning, and whistled again, causing the birds to follow her, though they circled above the clouds while she was on the ground. It was a new moon, and the sky was practically black, with only the stars to illuminate it. It didn't matter to her. She had played with her brothers many times in this forest, both during the day and during the night, and therefore knew her way around it and many of its hidden secrets, including hiding spots.
She smelt them growing closer to her, and mentally grinned, knowing that they lacked her sense of smell and her sure footedness. She heard Starfyre cry and she darted right into a new clump of trees, forcing herself to slow down and make almost no noise. One advantage that she had always held over her brothers was that the trees seemed to move for her, and never for them. She hoped that that continued to hold true. She didn't want to consider the consequences if it didn't.
Coming to some vines on a cliff, she began ascending them at the fastest rate that she could muster while not moving them. Starfyre landed on the cliff that she was currently climbing, watching her carefully before crying out and sweeping at some of the cloaked figures who were approaching the bottom of the cliff.
Her eyes widened and she climbed a little faster, nearly crying in relief when her arm sunk into the cliff face, and she pushed her way through the vines into one of the many hidden entrances to the catacombs that laced the cave. She was tempted to stop and rest, but instead she kept moving, always heading down until she reached the cavernous room that held a rather large waterfall. She immediately waded into the small lake that it formed, gasping at the coldness of the water and mentally cursing the thick winter skirt and wrap that she wore which were dragging her down. She was reluctant to lose them, however, as that would leave her in her chemise, and she would most likely freeze to death even after she dried it off.
Eventually, she managed to force her way to the area behind the waterfall, and brushing her hair and the water off her face, she froze. Before her stood several of the cloaked figures and Starfyre, whose eyes were looking unnaturally dim. They began to close in on her, and one of them was pulling out a tapered stick, similar to the one that the cloaked figure who had held her earlier had used.
Making a quick decision, she edged slightly towards the waterfall, and, when it drew closer, rushed the cloaked figure, wrestling with it for control of the stick, only to hear a strange word right before everything went black.
She woke as though coming out of a moor fog, slowly and with difficulty, as though the realm of sleep didn't want to give her up yet. Then she remembered what had happened and drew in a deep breath of air, trying to sit up, only to find that she was bound from head to foot in what appeared to be thick black ribbons. A strange man that she had never seen before, but who smelled much like the cloaked figures had leered at her, causing her to realize that she was wearing only her chemise, which was sticking to her in the most inappropriate of places. 'I will not cry, I will not cry,' she repeated to herself over and over in her head, all the while she felt her cheeks heat up. She turned her head in shame, only to have the man chuckle at her before he pulled out his very own tapered stick and, muttering something that she could not understand, made a swooshing motion in her direction, which resulted in the ribbons disappearing, and her swaying unsteadily before falling back into a seat. She looked around, only to discover that she was in some sort carriage with more of the formerly cloaked figures, or at least she thought it was a carriage. She had never actually been in a carriage, but her father had, and he had always described them to her. The thought of her father made her bite her lip to prevent from tearing up. The lack of power smell earlier meant only one thing…they were dead. And with the house and mews burnt, everyone would assume that she was as well.
Even through all her efforts, a tear leaked from her eye, earning her a chuckle from one of the men. Her eyes shot to him, and she therefore missed the disapproving look that the man who was sitting next to her shot the chuckler. He gave her a slow lingering look that had her blushing again and had him laughing even louder. This time, when she turned her head, she saw the glare of the man sitting next to her. The other man caught it also.
"What's wrong, Mentry? She's quite an amusing thing, and I think that we deserve a bit of fun at her expense after she got those birds to peck out Malfoy's eyes and then led us on that wild chase. It's a bloody good thing that we managed to charm that bird of hers, otherwise we never would have been able to find her." She mentally filed that information away for later use.
Mentry, the man next to her, sneered openly at the other. "If I remember correctly, Goyle, he said that he wanted her unharmed, untouched."
Goyle chuckled again. "I ain't touching no thing. I'm just eying a fine piece of meat. He didn't say anything against eyeing."
The no touching comment gave her an idea, and doubling over in the carriage, she forced herself to toss her lunch on the one nearest to the door. He moved and she took her opportunity to throw herself out the door, instinctively ducking her head and rolling to a crouch before she took off running again, this time into an unfamiliar moor. She heard the men cursing and then a whooshing noise, as their smells rose into the air. She knew she shouldn't, but she turned and looked, only to see that they were riding on brooms.
Awe struck, she paused for a moment to long, and they spotted her, right before the fog overtook her, hiding her form. She raced through the moor, determined to find shelter before the fog left. She couldn't smell them, as the fog itself smelled of power, which made her wary, but she continued into it until she collided with a solid form, which knocked her backwards and knocked the wind out of her.
She felt strong arms wrap around her waist, pulling her flush against a very male chest. She tried to push back from him, as he was also wearing a cloak, but he ignored her struggles and guided her firmly to a beast of some sort and, pulling a blanket off of it, wrapped it around her, resulting in her looking up at him in a confused manner. His mouth was set in a grim line, and his silver hair was hanging around his face and merging with his beard, which hung to mid chest.
He heaved himself onto the beast, and then held his hand out for her, urgency apparent in the features that she could see. She took his proffered hand and he pulled her onto the beast, one hand around her waist to stabilize her, and the other holding the reins, he kicked the beast into moving, sending it racing across the moor as the fog dissipated around them.
She began to struggle when she realized that this man had the same sort of scent as the others. This only resulted in him growling a bit deep in his throat, which made her cease her struggles.
They eventually reached a town, the edge of which the man and his beast stopped with a jolt, as if some force was preventing them from going any nearer. She felt a heavy cloak drop around her shoulders before she was lifted from the beast and placed none too gently on the ground. And then the pair was gone.
Determination set into her features, and, adjusting the cloak and pulling the hood over her head, she set into the town, searching for a familiar face or sign. Everything looked so odd though, and the whole place carried the power-scent of those who had taken her captive in the cave behind the waterfall. There were so many people around her, even though there was almost no light, and she was beginning to feel as though she was suffocating, so she ducked into a nearby alley, pressing her back against the wall of the shop next to her as she slid down it until she was sitting on the damp ground, huddled between some trash bins, her breath coming in puffs of white air that was getting slower and slower as she forced her breathing to calm down.
She wrapped the cloak tighter around her, ducking her head further inside of it, trying desperately to stay warm, only to have tears leak down her cheeks as she began to lose feeling in her toes. Then there was a commotion at the end of the alley, and an unknown person slammed into her, banging her head painfully against the bricks and causing the hood of her borrowed cloak to fall back, exposing her face.
"Well, well. What have we here?" Her eyes flew open in horror as the man's hand began searching under the cloak before roughly squeezing her breast, his legs forcing themselves between hers, his scraggly face close enough that she could smell the alcohol that tainted his every breath.
She tried to fight back, but he was to strong, and she was so tired and cold. At least he was slightly warm, she thought as everything began to be covered in black spots before exploding in to the white hot light of pain of a kind that she had never felt before. She renewed her struggles again, trying desperately to make enough noise for someone to notice her, but nothing was making any sound. She felt her tears well up again, and, when the man shoved his tongue in her mouth, she bit down hard on it, not letting go until he reached back and struck her harshly and all the while there was that horrid pain.
She turned her head to the side, where she wouldn't have to look at him. That was it. Don't look, don't feel. And then the black dots claimed her.