*Disclaimer* I do not own the story Harry Potter. All credits for writing the Harry Potter series goes to the amazing J.K Rowling. This story combines the Harry Potter world with references to the Game of Thrones world, which I also do not own. However, the main character Athenys Seraphina and the plot line is my creation. Also, this is my first time writing a fanfiction, so I apologize for any mistakes along the way.
Athenys Seraphina had finally learned to ignore the taunts of her name from her classmates by the time she was nine years old. It didn't make sense to her why she should be offended any more, seeing that she was quite fond of her name. Nevertheless, she had always found ways to get back at them. There would be some days where her classmates would scream, suspiciously finding a dead spider in their bags, or finding cockroaches in their lunches. However, no one knew how it had happened, and Athenys would make sure of that, although there were some things that happened that even Athenys couldn't quite explain. Whenever the taunts had happened and she would return home with a disgruntled expression, her mother Helena had always reminded her what her name truly means, which every single time made her puff out her chest in pride.
"Athena is the Greek Goddess of Wisdom and War," she would whisper as she tucked a strand of Athenys's hair behind her ear, "She was known for her compassion and generosity."
Helena could always see her face light up every time she said that, eagerly waiting for her to continue telling the legends of the heroes and Gods, followed by stories of King Arthur and Merlin and many other legendary tales.
One day Athenys came home, and Helena watched as the young girl's sapphire blue eyes which were filled with curiosity flicker towards the fireplace. Athenys looked very much like her mother, dark olive skin, medium-length black wavy hair and a heart-shaped face with rather sharp features, although her cheeks were a little chubbier. All the same except for her eyes. Helena wonders if Athenys ever knew about slightest shade of violet which flashed in her eyes whenever she was in deep thought. It reminds Helena of Athenys's father every time, and leaves a painful ache in her throat. Helena had assumed she was thinking about a school quiz, after all for an 8-year-old, Athenys was quite dedicated to her schoolwork. The question her daughter asked her next proved otherwise.
"Mum, where's dad?"
She always asked this question whenever the schoolyard bullying went too far. Helena gave her the look she always gives whenever she is asked this question and turned back to the kitchen, and Athenys fell quiet for a few seconds, until…
"What was his name?"
Now there was a question she had never been asked before. Helena straightens her back and faces her daughter, "Why do you ask that, honey?"
"You're the one who told me not to answer a question with another question, Mum."
Huh, Clever girl.
A few minutes of silence overcame them, and Athenys couldn't stay silent for any longer. "Was his last name Seraphina?"
"No, honey, it wasn't. Your last name comes from me."
"What does it mean?"
"Burning fire." The young girl lifts one of her eyebrows with a look of awe and wonder, followed by the slight upward curve on the side of her mouth. Athenys knows her mother well enough to know that this conversation was best left finished there. She then disappears into her room and returns a few moments later as the smell of hot chocolate fills the house. She plops down on the couch, waiting for her mother to continue telling the legends of Merlin.
"Honey! Wake up!" Helena whispers into her daughter's ear, as Athenys pretends to sleep, wrapped in sheets from the chill of late November. "You're 11 today!" That did the trick. Her eyes flicker open as she squeals and gives her mother a squeezing hug. Her eyes shoot up to meet her mother's eyes as Helena smiles and nods her head in the direction of the door. Athenys runs out of the room to find a few small boxes of presents, and on top of them a black pointed hat with a tag saying, 'from Abraxas'. Her eyes widen as she moves closer to the hat and finds a yellowish envelope resting on the brim with a purple wax seal on it. She stares at the coat of arms fixed on the seal with the letter 'H' embedded in the middle.
"Open it, dear," Helena walks toward her and places her hand on the girl's shoulder, "After you read it, there's something I want to tell you."
"So I can do magic?" Athenys continues to watch as Helena reads the instructions on the letter of how to get to Diagon Alley.
"Yes, after you learn from this school."
"But you're not a witch!"
"It comes from your father." There it is again, the awkward silence. So, he must have been a wizard. And he must've told Mum before he left Helena with a baby girl. She moves towards the candles and holds her finger in the flame. Neither Athenys nor Helena flinch.
"Is it because I'm a witch that I can't get burned?" Another short silence follows this question.
"I'm not sure," Helena looks up from the letter at Athenys. Not sure? She promises to herself that that is the first thing she is going to find out when she goes to this school, until Helena speaks up again, "Your father wasn't like that."
"Oh." Well then, she'll have to cross that off the list of things she was going to ask at school. This is going to be a new life, a new school and finally she might be able to make some friends. The last thing she wants is to bring the fire thing up and freak everyone out. Although she may as well put it to good use. Secretly, of course.
Her mother distracts her thought process with her muttering, "I'll have to ask Abraxas for help when August comes along, or even before that with the number of things we have to buy for-"
"Abraxas is a wizard? You never told me that!" That explains his weird clothing.
"He was your father's best friend at school." Helena smiles at her, then picks up the phone and walks towards the bedroom, probably to call him.
The moment she stepped into Diagon Alley her voice got caught in her throat and she couldn't talk for at least 5 minutes. Abraxas was the one who snapped her out of it, smiling, when he suggested that they go to the Wizard's bank, Gringotts first to exchange their money. They came out with Helena's purse filled with coins, called galleons, sickles and knuts. They kept on walking while Abraxas was teaching her about wizarding currency.
"Why don't we get your wand, now?" Abraxas asks, pointing at a shop far away on the right hand side.
Athenys forgets that it's her mother's first time in Diagon Alley as she looks at Helena, who mouth had fallen open slightly, "Yes, that's a good idea."
"Very well," Abraxas leads them to a small shop called Ollivander's, and they walk out twenty minutes later with Athenys's new wand. Eleven inches, chestnut with a dragon heartstring core. That is all she remembers from the long description the old man had given about the wand. So, dragons are real, as well as unicorns and phoenixes, since wands have cores from these magical animals. She had heard all about them in the stories her mother told them. She strains her memory to remember what Ollivander had said about the wood Chestnut. Ah yes, he had said that the owners are skilled tamers of magical beasts, possess great gifts in Herbology, and are natural fliers, though not all of this is true all the time, Abraxas said. When she had found her perfect wand as the old man handed it to her, she felt a warm energy flooding through her the moment her fingertips touched it, soon after causing the wand to burst a fountain of violet light from the end.
"Should we get her uniform now, Abraxas?" Helena asks as she takes out her purse again.
"Yes, we can go to Madam Malkin's for her robes."
As they reach the robe shop, Helena suggests that she stays outside while Athenys and Abraxas go inside and find a good fit. Abraxas objects, saying that Madam Malkin is a very nice woman and all Athenys has to do is go in and she'll do the rest. Athenys walks into the shop as her mother and Abraxas leave to buy her textbooks to save time. She looks around the shop, yet there seems to be no-one there, until she looks to her far left and finds a boy, around her age, with a pale pointed face and platinum blond hair. He sees her and speaks up almost immediately.
"Do you know him?"
"I'm sorry, who?"
"The boy who walked to the back of the shop with Madam Malkin, just then, didn't you see? He had messy black hair, round glasses?"
"No, I didn't, sorry."
"Oh well, I didn't get to ask what his name was. But I guess I'll see him at Hogwarts. Are you going to Hogwarts?" He spoke with a drawl, and had quite a proud nature about him.
"Yeah, I came to buy my robes."
The boy rolled his eyes and said, "Well, obviously."
Athenys scowled at him, but wishing to avoid conflict with the first wizard of her age she's ever met, she replaced her scowl with a smile and asked, "You came alone?"
"No, mother and father are away looking at other things to buy. I'm just waiting for them. I might go look at racing brooms later. Where are your parents?"
"I only live with Mum, she's gone with Abraxas to buy me textbooks."
"And they went to Hogwarts too?"
"Um…" She didn't exactly like the idea of talking about her parents with a stranger, and was about to change to topic before she saw that the boy had fixed a sneer onto his pale face.
"They're not muggles, are they?" Muggles? She was at absolute loss for words. What on earth are muggles? She felt quite offended, and the boy must have seen her confused expression when he continued, "You know, people with not even a drop of magic in their blood." He made it sound as if he was talking about cockroaches.
"I fail to see why that matters," She replied coldly.
"Oh it matters in every way possible, though I can't waste my time now giving you a lesson on it! Why don't you just answer the question?"
"My dad is a wizard, though I never really knew him. Mum's not a witch, but she was the one who took care of m-"
She was rudely interrupted by the boy, as he exclaimed, "You're a half-blood! You know, you should be rather grateful that at least one of your parents is a wizard, even though it's not the same as being a pureblood…" He rolled his eyes at her again as her confusion kept her silent, then continued, "If you look at our family tree you won't find any muggles. My ancestors only married people who were entirely witches or wizards, which includes no half-bloods either, by the way." He wiped away a speck of dust on his shoulder as he said this, then looked back at her with a smirk. "I'm Draco Malfoy, and my father's Lucius Malfoy. If your father was around he would know who I am, being a Malfoy and all that. Well, see you at Hogwarts, then." He walked out of the door with a swagger, leaving Athenys inside, feeling like she just got hit in the face with a rollercoaster of information.
Making sure he was out of earshot, she said "I hope you get hit by a bus before I see you at Hogwarts." She said the last bit with a poor attempt of an imitation of him. Draco Malfoy. Never heard of that name before. Gosh, the nerve of that kid! There was your regular schoolyard bully, who she had grown used to and had become quite immune to, seeing that they kept on saying the same things again and again and weren't smart enough to come up with something new. Then there's this git, who made her feel as if he drilled his insults into her brain with a jackhammer. She had never experienced anything like it before. Her pride was hurt, and she was not looking forward to meeting him again at school, however she won't let this slip away that easily. That's definitely not something Athenys Seraphina would do.
She's distracted from her train of thoughts by a skinny boy with jet black messy hair and round glasses who walks to the middle of the shop where she is. Hoping that this isn't another Draco Malfoy, she smiles.
"Hi, you're going to Hogwarts?"
"Oh, um, yes." Shy and reserved, he smiles at her. The complete opposite of Malfoy. Thank god.
"Cool, I'm Athenys Seraphina."
He raises an eyebrow, then says, "I'm Harry Potter. Nice name, by the way." He doesn't seem to be sarcastic, so she responds with a warm smile.
"Thanks, I'll see you at Hogwarts, then!"
"See you." He waves and walks out.
A woman then walks out from the back of the shop, "Here for your robes? Come, darling, I'll get you all fitted in no time!"
She finds Abraxas and her mother waiting outside the shop and Abraxas opens his mouth, but Athenys is quicker.
"Do you know some people called the Malfoys?"
Abraxas looks taken aback with her sudden question, then responds, "Yes, I do. Did you meet Lucius?"
"No, I met a boy called Draco Malfoy. He told me about muggles, half-bloods and purebloods. He spoke as if purebloods are the most precious things on earth!"
"Well, there was a time I thought the same way."
Both Athenys and Helena look dumbfounded, and all Athenys can say is, "WHAT?"
"Hey, that was a long time ago. Plus, being in Slytherin house and being from a pureblood family, it's hard to steer away from those beliefs."
"Being in what house?"
"Slytherin," he says, matter-of-factly, "It's one of the four houses in Hogwarts." And they continue walking through Diagon Alley talking about Hogwarts. This is going to be an interesting year.
"Come on Athenys, pull yourself together!" she tells herself. It brings a boost of confidence to her but does nothing to the butterflies in her stomach that are apparently having a party down there. She grunts in annoyance and stretches her arms and legs. It's September first, and they arrived at King's Cross Station an hour early 'just in case', as Helena insisted while Abraxas ensured it will all be alright.
Helena is going through the list of things she needs to make sure she's ready, while Abraxas is guiding them to Platform 9 ¾. Finally, they arrive at a wall where Abraxas makes the absurd suggestion.
"So you just run through it."
"Excuse me?" Both Helena and Athenys ask at the same time.
"You can walk but running will ease the nerves." He turns to Helena, "I'll take her from here, Helena."
"Thank you so much, Abraxas!" And she knows that now it's time for the hundredth lecture for the day, as Helena turns to Athenys.
"Did you pack all of your textbooks?"
Athenys sighs, then says, "Yes, Mum, I've packed everything!"
"You'll write to me every week?"
"Of course, Mum."
"And you have your-"
Abraxas shuffles, "Really, Helena we've already checked everything through. There's no need to worry!" He smiles with a shake of his head.
"Oh, alright then! Stay safe, Athenys, and tell me everything that happens, I'll see you for Christmas!" and she gives a final peck on her cheek.
"Bye, Mum." She wraps her arms around her Mum into a tight embrace. Gosh she's going to miss her.
Author's note: Hi! I just wanted to remind you that this story follows the story line of the Harry Potter books, and contains references to the HBO series Game of Thrones. You'll have to be a little patient with how the story shows reference to GOT, but I promise there'll be small signs throughout the story, which will eventually become a big part of it. Hope you enjoy!