Explanations! So, a Female Harry Potter fanfic as always because I love them. Lámwyrhta means Potter in Old English, I found fitting. None of the founders will have a real surname, because nobody at the middle ages did. Their surnames came from their birth place and birthday at the Wizarding Calendar. Rowena is a muggleborn, Godric is a pureblood, Salazar is a half-blood and Helga is a pureblood. They don't have the same age, Rowena was born at 970, Godric, at 972, Salazar, at 975 and Helga, at 978. Harry/Aerya won't appear before chapter eight I assure you and probably, even before chapter ten. This is story isn't just about him, but all of them. I still haven't make a decision about the pairing besides Aerya/Salazar, what do you think? Helga/Rowena, Rowena/Godric, Helga/Godric...or they marry with others wizards and witches? I prefer the last idea, to tell the truth, as they are more supposed to be friends and family.
On the top of a hill in the land that once belonged to the Kingdom of Alba, there is a castle. A Castle made of light-coloured stones and with high towers. A school whose motto was Never tickle a sleeping dragon and that was named after its first habitant – a warty pig. But it wasn't always like that. There was a time when nothing but animals could be seen in that good soil and only a lake flowed in the valley. A time where a boy watched his father protect his family, when two children where nothing else than children helping their families, and when a girl swore to serve a god.
But Fate brought them a chance of being great. Some would call a blessing, some would call a curse.
This story starts when leaves fall from the trees, the season of harvest. The year is 979.
Rowena couldn't understand what her problem was. She watched the kids of the servants trying to climb the highest tree in the land, an ancient oak tree. But she wouldn't try to copy them, as she knew she would be able to reach the top, just to receive weird glances. Rowena couldn't imitate her cousins and sword fight, as she was a girl. And her wet nurse had dismissed her from her lessons after she had finished all her tasks in twenty minutes.
She knew she was different, yes, she was sure of it. She had been since the day a breath of cold air had reached her when she had almost burnt herself. After that, Rowena started to notice that the birds always came to her. Sitting next to the place where Helen was killing a rooster, the girl that had watched nine harvests played with the wind, which danced through her fingers and didn't exist anywhere else.
Suddenly, she felt a hand in her shoulder and her head was slammed against the ground. Black curls were the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. Then, the red face and after that, the sword. Her cousin, Hector grinned to her.
However, it wasn't the kind of grin you couldn't help but return. No, it was the kind of grin that disturbed you and humiliated. Her head hurt where it had hit and Rowena scowled, feeling her wrists imprisoned in his hands, and her body restrained by his, that hadn't left the position. The blade under her chin was cold, and the blue eyes of her cousin, vicious. The girl felt a chill down her spine.
"Scared, little freak?" Hector asked and Rowena felt the first drop of blood slid down her throat. The child shivered. Rowena was frightened. She knew that her three years older cousin wouldn't hesitate to do what soldiers did to women in war. And nobody would care enough, even if she was the daughter of Niall, lord of Hraefn.
She tried to call Helen, but the woman had entered in the cottage before Hector's attack. Probably, he had waited for her go away. Rowena heard a laugh beside the oak. The other children weren't there. The girl swore in her mind, she had been heedless.
"Nobody is here for you, Rowie." Hector's brother, Jodfrey, said. Beside him, her other cousin, Bertham, laughed. But Rowena knew, she knew that behind those masks, they feared the freak. She saw it in their eyes. Maybe, if she couldn't understand she would be raped because of it, the girl would snort. Yet, she also knew that and because of it, she also feared.
Rowena wished her difference could save her. Like a raven had once done when she was to fall in a cliff. Like the wind always did in the Summer days. Like the breeze that soothed her pain. And then, she felt the weight on her body lighting. And Rowena heard surprised shouts.
Hector lay unconscious, his head leaned against the oak tree, and her relatives watched her with wary eyes as she got on her feet. Hector opened his eyes and he pointed accusingly to her. "Witch." The words formed in his lips several times before creating a sound.
A witch. She was a witch. A devil worshipper. Anyone knew that the simple accusation was the same as a death sentence. Yet, that wasn't just an accusation. That was the simple truth. Rowena was pure evil, born as a sin, and there was no place in heaven for her.
The guilt sentence, and then, the death punishment. Her future.
Rowena stumbled back into her feet, her hands searching for a support she would never had. When she felt her body reaching the ground, her hands stopped her fall and she got up. Turning her back to her family, the girl ran.
Her fear of being raped was nothing compared with the realization that she would be killed, and her family surely would throw stones at her while cursing her name. Hot tears rolled down her face and her hands whipped them away wildly. Why couldn't she be normal?
-x-
Sìthiche Taigh, it was almost curious that the place once called House of Fairies was her preferred place in the whole Hraefn Castle. The small clearing had its grounds covered by leaves in autumn, and the warm light of the afternoon brightened her sanctuary. Five crows were perched on the nearest branches of fir where her back rested; two pheasants fluttered the clearing of the entrance, and a falcon watching their strange dance.
The young witch wished to be a bird for the thousandth time in her life. A bird to admire the vastness of a world from which she only heard two or three stories in the harbour. A bird to fly the roads that the Romans had once built around the world. A bird to find out if there was any place that even the Romans hadn't known. If witchcraft allowed, she would become one. But Rowena had never heard of a witch that transformed herself in animals.
The breeze caressed her ankles and the girl transformed it in tiny tornados absently-minded. Rowena had always done it, however that was the first time she actually noticed it wasn't common. It was really stupid of her, never thinking about that.
Her hawk, Cathasach, watched her with its hazel eyes, its claws piercing her skin. His painful grip helped Rowena to distract herself from her despair. She smiled, petting his head and freeing the bird to hunt. Cathasach send another worried glance at her before opening his wings and flying away. He would return, he always returned, Rowena could only hope that she would be still there to greet him. Probably not, what would make the hunters to kill the bird to eat.
Her first and last friend would be killed because of her. "Don't return." She instructed, hoping that the bird could actually understand her and that all those times she had spoken to him he had, in a certain way, understood. The crows glared at her and Rowena nodded, sending them away too.
Shoving the clay board where she had drawn her hawk into her pockets, the witch walked to the middle of the clearing, enlarging the typhoons near her boots. The whirlwinds of strawberries' size swept the refuge, making the dry leaves fly, reaching the heavens. The place that didn't save any spot for her. It was a beautiful view.
Rowena knew she should run away. The chances of her surviving in the forest were minimum, but the chances of her surviving there were none. The birds could help her, maybe, and she had some knowledge in hunting. As a child, it was easy to blend in any village, as an orphan peasant. The nearest village was two days' walk away and the road was far from safe, however, it wasn't deadly.
She could leave. See the world. Save herself. Yet, she only managed to stare at the sky as the last leaves floated from the ground and disappeared in the air.
"Rowie." A sweet voice called her and Rowena turned to see her one year older sister, Caoimhe. "Our father awaits you."
The younger girl stared at her sister. They weren't close as Caoimhe was with Nandag, their baby sister. But Rowena wasn't close to any of her relatives – because deep inside herself, the girl had always knew she didn't belong her family. But she had loved all of them.
The nickname and Caoimhe's tone had given the witch hope, but that was a hope lost the next second, when the girl saw nothing else but disgust in her sister's eyes. That was it. Rowena wasn't welcome in her home. She offered her sister a sad smile. "I am not your Rowie any longer, am I?"
Her dark-haired sister's only response was agree with her head. "Yes, maybe I never was." The child continued before leaving the other behind, walking towards the castle.
The terrified looks Rowena received while walking to the Hall, confirmed everything the girl already knew. The whole village had already discovered everybody loathed her; everybody blamed and hated her person. And a devil worshipper couldn't stay alive in the harvest, or the plague would bring death to all of them.
Abi and Ethne, two laundresses, shoved their hairs to their backs and spat on her. Fiona, her ancient wet nurse that had once told stories to her gestured a cross in her direction. Màirí, the baker's wife, pushed Mysie and Calum behind her skirt, hiding her children from the evil. Lenna, a weaver that had taught her all about textures, threw a stone. Others followed the first and soon insults and stones reached her at the same speed.
Her father waited at the end of her journey, but Rowena knew what waited for her. She could almost see the priests reaching the castle. "My father."
"You are no daughter of mine." Eoghan, Lord from Hraefn, declared while closing the door of the Hall. Her father.
Rowena was born from a beautiful man, with dark locks and grey eyes that showed strength. Eoghan had won several battles, but was better than a soldier, than a general, Lord Eoghan Hraefn was a noble. And as a noble, he held wisdom. People said she looked like him, except the olive skin she had received from her dead mother.
If Rowena had to pick one member of her family to be her preferred, it would be her father. Now, looking at those stern eyes, the girl reconsidered that answer. His posture didn't waver once before saying: "And because of this, you must go."
The witch blinked while he grasped her shoulder and directed her face up, making their eyes meet. "Go?"
"Go." Agreed her father. "Forever. This isn't your home anymore, yet Cecil made me promise that I'd take care of our children. You are no child of mine, so I cannot care for you." He released her shoulder and went away without a second glance.
Rowena turned around the Hall, saddened by the irony of letting a chance of living go and then having it returned. Saddened by the need to say goodbye. The Hall, the place of the only memory of her mother, sewing and smiling, was located. The place where some years before she would enter running and laughing with Cathasach. Where she had already played sometimes with her brothers, and had drawn her sisters two years ago. Where she knew a childish "R" was craved in the wood, from the time she had brought a dagger to the place. The Hall, where the only tapestry she had created in her life, was hung;
Her family. She would never see her family again. Her sisters would marry, her brothers, inherit her father's position; her father, she would never know when he would die. Or she would die that night in forest. And there was no time to say goodbye. No time to ask for food, no time to see her possessions. No time to her family. Not that they would want to see her again.
She was disgusting.
And as the sun settled behind the mountains, the villagers claimed for her death. The Church wanted to judge the child blessed with the gift of magic. That child was Rowena, born in the Hraefn Castle, that discovered magic at the Clawu day.
Rowena Ravenclaw, the future would call the child who was stoned and scolded while fleeing from her place of birth, the non-magical world.
Another story, hope you like it! It's my new darling so I'll be spoiling this one a bit before updating the other two. But I'll write. Okay, now I must say I am very pleased of having you to read this until the end and if you liked, I also appreciate people following, favoriting and REVIEWS!
