Chapter One: The House of Dragons

Mrs. Astor was a bright middle-aged woman who knew everything about sculpting and nothing about running a business.

She also loved dragons. In fact, she spent so much time making sculptures of them that they overpopulated her two-stories pottery shop in New York City. Every morning, she would wake up, tie her glowing red hair into her "working braids", and spend the rest of the day working on a new sculpture. Occasionally, a customer would come by looking to purchase some of her works, but Mrs. Astor was awfully picky about what she wanted to put on sale. To her, each dragon she created carried a part of her soul.

Nevertheless, it wasn't like people flocked to her store left and right. If she was lucky a transaction would be made once every few weeks. After all, who would really need a clay dragon sculpture for their New York apartment building anyways?

Despite the lack of customers, Mrs. Astor never felt lonely in the drafty, old building. Her son was always there to keep her company in the summer, and her daughter visited around the holidays as well. When they were not there, she had her prize-winning masterpiece, Gideon, by her side. Gideon was a six-foot-tall majesty with armor-like scales and a golden coating encased around its body. He stood by the entrance and echoed a tenor growl when the door opened.

One lazy August morning, Mrs. Astor heard the familiar yet unusual growl from downstairs while she was having breakfast with her son. It was so tremendous that it rattled the entire room, knocking over the syrup bottle and spilling her glass of coffee all over the table.

"Oh dear," the sculptor murmured, surveying the mess on the table. "Daniel, would you mind cleaning this up while I run downstairs for a minute?"

Daniel Astor glanced up from his copy of Wizdom, the standard wizard newspaper in the States. He was sixteen years old with slightly above-average height and dark brown hair that he had learned to cut himself since the age of five. At first glance, one would not have assumed that Daniel was in any ways related to Mrs. Astor, but they shared the same soft, green eyes that ran uniquely from her side of the family.

"Yeah sure," the boy nodded, returning to the paper. "Can I take Abe out for a walk later?"

"As long as you don't make him chase the pigeons again."

Mrs. Astor got up from her chair, careful to avoid the spilled liquid. Her white dress was the last thing she wanted to get stained, even for a second. After she was safely out of the danger zone, she returned to her elegant glide across the room and down the old, creaky stairs.

When she reached the base of the stairs, Mrs. Astor was surprised to find that her so-called "customer" wasn't exactly an everyday New Yorker.

He was a man in his mid-twenties with dark hair and a five o' clock shadow on his extremely handsome face. He was well built, with a loose button up shirt like he had just walked out of a fashion magazine. However, there was something odd about the atmosphere around him. One would almost describe it as...icy.

"Good morning, sir," Mrs. Astor greeted the man with a smile. She went up and shook his hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize how cold it is in here. Your hands are freezing. Would you like to have some hot coffee?"

"No, it's fine" the man replied. "It's my own enchantments. I like the cold."

"So you are not a No-Maj?" the owner asked cautiously even though she knew the answer already.

"I'm the Medical Theology teacher from Ilvermorny," the man said matter-of-factly. "My name is Daryn Bennett. I'm here to talk about your children's enrollment in our school."

"Enrollment?" Mrs. Astor exclaimed. She glanced quickly at the stairs and returned with a frown on her freckled face. "Professor Bennett, we had rejected the letter years ago. The school knows that my kids have some special conditions. We have been homeschooling them since birth."

"It's because of these conditions that we wanted to reach out," Professor Bennett pressed on. "The headmistress believe that this is the year they will reach their full potential. They are twins, after all, and Ilvermorny is our best chance of protecting them."

"And do you believe this as well?" Mrs. Astor asked, crossing her arms.

The question caught the man off guard, and he responded with a double take.

"O-of course I do!" he exclaimed. "Why don't you talk this over with your husband and kids. But just between you and me, I would accept this offer."

"Then I see that I have no other options."

"Unfortunately."

Silence fell upon them. The summer air floated above Mrs. Astor's head in a blanket of warmth only to be shot down when it dared to venture into the frozen atmosphere surrounding her guest. In a way, it seemed as if they were looking at each other through a glass boundary that separated two completely different worlds.

For a split second, Professor Bennett's sharp blue eyes darted down at the direction of his right hand where his watch was. The time it told seemed to unsettle him slightly, for he started scratching his head and fidgeting with a button on his shirt.

"I'm so sorry," the man said. "My enchantment is wearing off, and I really can't stand the summer heat. I like this shop you have here. It's kind of aesthetic. Maybe on better terms, I will return to purchase one of your famous dragon sculptures."

With those final words, Professor Bennett rushed out of the shop, leaving no room for goodbyes. From the window, Mrs. Astor barely caught a glimpse of him before he apparated.

"Hey, mom!" Daniel's voice echoed from the top of the staircase. There was a thunderstorm of footsteps pounding on the wooden boards before the boy appeared right next to his mother. "Is the customer gone already?"

Mrs. Astor, still a bit shocked from her previous conversation, turned to look at her son's face with a stunned expression as if he was another stranger. For a moment, her brain seemed to tie a knot around itself.

"Is there something wrong, mother?" the boy asked, cutting up his words into little chunks to elongate the question as if he didn't really want an answer.

"Go do some shopping today. You'll need some new clothes and textbooks."

Author's Note:

Hi! Thanks for reading the first chapter of my Harry Potter fanfiction. It's been a while since I really got into this series. Even though this story is filled with original characters and settings, I try to keep it as close to the lore as possible, but if there are some inconsistencies, I probably goofed on my research. Ilvermorny is a school that hasn't been explored a lot before, so most of the stuff about it I just made up. Everything might be wrong once the new film comes out but...whatever :)

I like to keep each chapter short so I don't get overwhelmed with other work and never update. Please excuse my typos and grammar issues.

Thank you and hope you enjoyed the first chapter.