A/N: As mentioned in the summary, this story will be a slight AU, and here's why: For one, the children of the Golden Trio will not be mentioned (mostly because I haven't read the script, but also because a lot of thought has gone into the planning of this series, and the events of the Cursed Child, which I believe would've taken place around our OC's seventh year, would probably just get in the way by that time). The second reason may not apply to this first edition of the series, but will be mentioned in the first AN of all others just in case (as this story is still a work in progress). As you'll surely discover later in either this book or the following of the series, our main character aspires to become a wandmaker; now, I've done plenty of research on the topic, but couldn't find anything that explains how wands are actually made, so I've planned to wing it. There are other things I'll be winging, as well, and there are ideas of my own that will eventually become a large part of the story, so apologies in advance if my creative freedom needles at your love of Rowling's magnificent universe. The third is obvious, as Glaw is the daughter of a character of Rowling's creation that I'm pretty sure doesn't have children, at least none of the info on him that I could find stated otherwise.
A/A/N: Creative criticism, corrections on incorrect information, and questions are entirely welcome. I do not nor have I ever claimed to be an expert on the Wizarding World and I would greatly appreciate being made aware of any mistakes I may make, which will be corrected, unless they go along with one of the above AU aspects that I'm too invested in to change. That being said, ideas on how to better my own will always be appreciated and may very well be used. As far as incorrect info goes, I'd also like to point out that I'm from the US, so there are parts in which the Muggle aspects of England are personally in question, and I completely welcome corrections on that front and will edit accordingly. Also, let it be known that I'm a full time writer, so I'll only be working on this when I have writer's block on my other works or when I just can't resist the urge to pump out a chapter or two, so if anyone ever reads this, please be patient with me. *Reviews and questions will be responded to at the end of every new chapter.
Disclaimer: I do not, nor will I ever, own any of J. K. Rowling's characters and creations.
*I only own Glaw and my other OC characters, so please don't steal them, as I lot of work has gone into their creations.
Chapter 1: April 25th, 2004
"Come in, Mistress! It's going to rain any minute now!" A faint, slightly gravelly voice, which any that overheard would guess belonged to a very old woman, called from the window of a derelict two story home of dark, moss covered brick, the glass its shrill tones passed through possessing nothing for a view but the dead-end alley to the left of the building's face.
The voice did in fact belong to someone very old and very female, but not the sort that could've been referred to as a woman, and was replied to by the light and smooth voice of a young girl from just past the alley's right hand corner. "Coming!"
The girl, small with an air of indifference, appeared at the mouth of the alley a moment later. In her arms was a wooden box about a foot tall, on top of which sat a black kitten, not many weeks away from being fully grown. The kitten sat proudly, its chin slightly lifted, like a queen being carried in a palanquin by her servants, either unaware or entirely indifferent to the struggle that she was causing her master. The girl's thick black hair, mostly bound at the back of her head, stuck to her sweaty forehead in a few places as she made her way to the kitchen door of the house of questionable sturdiness, which let out right into the alley's center. She would've gone in through the front door, had it not been blocked on the inside by a miniature mountain of abandoned clutter.
The door, standing slightly askew on its hinges at the top of three short stone steps with rusty iron rails, opened without the girl's interference and she quickly slipped inside the kitchen. It shut immediately behind her and she set the box down on plain gray tiles after only two steps inside, sighing as she stretched briefly before scowling down at the black kitten, who had hopped daintily off of the box the moment it was out of the girl's hands. The kitchen of the old house was dark and unwelcoming, the rust and grime that the owner of the old voice had worked so hard to scrub away having only revealed metal and wood of shades similar to that which had hidden them after finally being subdued. The oven near the corner, to the left of the door, was so ancient that the girl had doubted that her old friend would be able to use it and there was no running water; since moving in almost half a year before the day, they'd taken to using an old well that the girl had literally stumbled upon in the monstrously overgrown back yard of the house.
"Mistress Glaw, I wish you would allow me to carry that heavy box in and out for you…-"
Glaw glanced over at Snickers, who was a whole inch shorter than the seven year old girl, with large and floppy bat-like ears, in between which was a small, untidy tuft of pale gray hair. She had large, doleful gray eyes and wrinkled skin of a grayish brown hue. She was a house elf that had served the Llywelyn family, which Glaw's late mother had belonged to, since Glaw's grandfather became its patriarch.
"Nonsense, Snickers. If you did that, the Muggles would see you." Glaw replied in a tone which implied that she was disappointed in her house elf for suggesting something so silly. "And how many times must I tell you not to call me 'Mistress' when I'm outside?"
"Apologies, Mistress; old habits die hard, as they say. But, surely, you understand the reason that I keep making the mistake." Snickers started as she shooed away the black kitten, who'd been sniffing at a brown package of ham on the kitchen's small island counter, and then began pushing the wooden box across the floor towards its usual place beside the archway of the downstairs hall; she pushed it with one shoulder, using the hand of her free arm to smack herself repeatedly on the back of the head.
Glaw's dark brows lifted above her keen eyes as she crossed her arms over her chest, leaned against a counter near the kitchen door, and watched the elf. "Stop that, Snickers. And no, I don't know the reason."
Snickers immediately stopped smacking herself and then turned her face briefly towards Glaw, just long enough for the young witch to catch how high one corner of her mouth was turned up, "Why, Mistress, it's clearly because of how regally you dress! It's near impossible to mistake you for anything but the great, noble lady that you are, voluntarily or otherwise."
As Glaw glanced down at her old, moth eaten blue skirt, no longer white blouse, and patched sandals, she heard her house elf utter the very sound that had earned her the name given by Glaw's great grandfather. The elf never laughed outright, but would snicker, only behind her hand before she became solely Glaw's servant, or so she claimed. According to Snickers, most house elves couldn't even get away with a faint chuckle; a noticeable sense of humor in general was discouraged, apparently. It was under the service of Glaw's mother, Meddal, that Snickers began to 'let loose', as she put it. Apparently, Meddal was too kind and selfless a woman to carelessly set down rules or give instructions to Snickers that might've eventually caused her to harm herself. Not long after being given to Meddal, after too many days of hearing nothing but 'no, thank you's' when asking if her mistress needed anything, the house elf felt forced to help Meddal come up with chores for her. Glaw, unable to clearly remember a time that she hadn't looked up to Snickers as her protector and nurturer, only ever gave the elf instructions or ordered her to do something because of their unspoken understanding that Snickers considered serving Glaw her purpose in life.
"Very funny." Glaw scoffed, shaking her head as she stepped away from the counter and started towards the archway, muttering as she passed Snickers, "Vile little elf."
Another snicker, this one more hearty than the last, followed Glaw as she left the kitchen. The girl made her way down the shadowy hallway of the first floor; the boards of the floor, some rotting, creaked under her footsteps as she passed the short entry hall. Whoever had lived in the place before Glaw and Snickers settled in had apparently left at last through the back door and, for reasons that neither the girl or the house elf could fathom, had left most of the possessions that they hadn't cared to take with them in front of the main door. Snickers had gone through only one of the many old boxes nearest the hall, hoping to discover that some of the discarded objects weren't worthless, and gave up halfway to the bottom of it after sneering at several small decorative objects that she'd referred to as 'useless Muggle baubles'.
Glaw passed two closed doorways, one on either side of her, before turning towards the foot of a dark and rickety stairway and starting up. It curved round near the back of the building and let out on one of two short intersecting hallways on the second floor. Only one of the halls was passable, that being the one directly ahead of the top of the stairs, and the girl carefully made her way down it. She stepped as lightly as she could, because a hole had already opened up in the floor not long after the two moved in, through which Snickers almost fell.
There were three rooms on that hall, the last on the right having been chosen by Glaw for sleeping in, despite Snickers' protests that it was dangerous for anyone to sleep on the second floor of the near crumbling home. One of the other two rooms was empty, while the room directly across from Glaw's was home to a broken crib. Snickers had all but insisted, as it was not in a house elf's nature to demand anything of their masters, that their belongings be kept on the first floor; Glaw had agreed on the condition that she keep the small chest that her mother had left to her in her room upstairs. Normally, the girl only came upstairs to either peruse through the contents of the chest or sleep in the small bed that Snickers had somehow attained for her the day they arrived, but at that hour her destination was the attic, the entry to which was in between the last two doors on the hall.
Glaw pulled the grimy string hanging down beneath the hatch and took a step back as the wooden ladder slowly descended, carefully climbing it after. Nearly half of the attic's ceiling was caved in, time having settled the rubble close enough together that not much water leaked in when it rained, though the floor boards nearest the mess were practically sodden. Glaw's goal was very near the attic's entrance; leaning against the wall opposite the wreckage was a short row of paintings in seemingly good shape, besides a thick layer of dust.
She knelt before them and lifted a hand to swipe at the air in front of them, causing a brief gust of wind pass over and in between the paintings, ridding them of most of their dust. She didn't use magic unless she considered it necessary, because of Snickers' warning that spells cast by wandless children could be dangerous, but she had yet to make a mistake.
Glaw inspected the paintings after 'dusting them off', finding that all but one were landscape paintings, while the odd one out was an old portrait of a middle aged man with a crooked bow tie and a toothy, devilish smile. Something about the portrait struck the young witch, perhaps the gleam in the man's brown eyes, and she decided in the second that her gaze took it in that it was the painting she wanted. She was half a moment from reaching out to gingerly lift the silver framed portrait when she heard a sound.
At first, it registered to her ears as nothing more than a hiss, but then she realized that it was in fact a voice that clung adoringly to every S, and that it was saying, "… One of my brothers likes to sleep in between that and the slat behind it… There's a warm layer of filth and dust in between them…"
Glaw's gaze snapped to her left to see the rounded black head of a full grown snake, both sides of its mouth outlined with a single streak of white, peeking out at her past the edge of an old luggage chest. Despite the eternal set of its facial features, Glaw felt its anxiousness, its indecision, its fear of her, all by seeing its face and hearing its tone. She didn't question why she could understand, at first, but set the painting she wanted back into its place and turned to face the snake.
"I need it… There are many others here, so your brother will be fine…" Glaw replied, completely unaware that she wasn't speaking English, though she knew exactly what she was telling the snake.
"I suppose you're right…" The snake replied with a brief nod of its head, before disappearing behind the chest.
Glaw shook her head a few times, blinking repeatedly at the painting she needed before grabbing it and hurrying out of the attic. She decided on her way down the ladder that it was probably best not to mention what had happened to Snickers right away, because Glaw had never experienced anything like it before and it worried her. She could only assume that speaking to snakes must be a skill that some witches were born with, but for some reason felt as if she should keep the incident to herself. She'd just closed the attic hatch and was a step past her bedroom door when she froze, a breath rushing sharply in through her nose.
Someone just… whispered my name, didn't they? Very slowly, she placed the painting down, so that it leaned against the wall beside her bedroom door and then turned to face it. The door was cracked open an inch and it was dark inside. Glaw frowned heavily at the crack in the door, clearly remembering that she'd closed it that morning. It's a very old house, but… that door has always closed just fine. She lifted a hand while nudging the door open with the end of her foot. It creaked as it swung slowly open and Glaw's eyes scanned the room at eye level and above, looking for a person hiding in the shadows.
There were tattered curtains on both of the skinny windows at the back of the room, thick and faded gray stripes and red dots over black, that Snickers had found in a closet downstairs. They weren't heavily moth eaten, so they kept most of the light out, which was how Glaw usually liked it. The room was darker than the thickly clouded, raining world outside, though rays from the hidden sun that struggled to break through her curtains cast a faint glow throughout it. Her bed was centered against the back wall in between the windows, with her mother's chest sitting at its foot. On the floor to the left of the door, in an antique silver candle holder that Snickers had kept from her time with Glaw's mother, was a yellow candle.
Glaw quickly knelt down beside it, keeping her eyes on the room before her as she snapped the fingers of her left hand, sudden heat warming the tip of her middle finger after as it moved by memory alone to the candle's wick. Flickering orange light filled the room and Glaw lifted the holder, releasing an almost immediate sigh of relief and standing up straight again when she saw that no one was with her inside.
"Glaw…" The strange voice whispered again, silvery slick and haunting; it was inhuman, like the voice of an angel… or a demon.
She let out a yelp and dropped the candle holder. The candle didn't go out after rolling a foot away from Glaw as she clutched at her fragile child's chest, her breath going in and out rapidly as her eyes whipped to the foot of her bed. It didn't take her long to steady herself enough to realize that the voice came from inside her mother's chest. With hands that trembled slightly, Glaw replaced the candle in its holder and then slowly approached the chest with it.
After a few moments of just staring down at the dark gray wood and iron frame of it, she set the candle down beside it and dropped to her knees in front of the chest. From beneath the front of her blouse, she removed a long silver chain, from which hung an old copper key. She leaned down and unlocked the chest, then eased its lid back to rest against her bed board.
Inside was a small, oval framed picture of her mother on top of a thin album book that Snickers gave her, an enchanted music box, an ornate glass pipe that had apparently belonged to Glaw's great-grandmother, a few other magical knickknacks, and a long black box. The box was made of wood with a silver clasp holding its lid closed. The lid was engraved in its center with the Llywelyn crest. At the center of the crest was a greatsword with its tip sunk in the earth, the rest of its blade encircled in ivy. Laying around the greatsword, so that the blade cut the view of it in half, was a lion. Trailing up the lion's back with the end of its long tail caressing the blade and its head resting on top of the lion's, so that they both gazed ahead from the left side of sword, was a snake with a rounded head.
Glaw blinked in an absently awestruck way at the crest, having never paid much attention to it before, but now finding herself intrigued. The lion and the snake were settled into their positions as if comfortable with each other's presence, which Glaw found both vaguely wrong and oddly peaceful. Out of the two, though, it was the engraved snake that interested her most, and she ran her thumb briefly over it, recalling how she'd felt the black snake's emotions despite its lack of facial expression, before frowning at the silver latch. She'd never been able to open it and, though Snickers refused out of duty to answer most of her questions about the box, Glaw could sense that it was a spell that kept her from undoing the latch.
She tried the latch again, thinking that something might've changed, but it still wouldn't budge. Shaking her head at the thing, she reached back to replace the chest's lid. She heard the voice again, much closer and more insistent than the last; it didn't say her name this time, but something that she didn't catch in her surprise. Glaw yelped again and dropped the lid, causing it to fall closed with a loud bang. A second later, she heard a loud crack behind her, but it didn't worsen her startled nerves, because she heard it almost every day.
"Why are you squealing, Mistress? Making so much noise up here… tsk. Is there a rat?" Snickers asked from behind her in the doorway and Glaw slowly turned to look at the house elf, who was giving her a lopsided, curious look while holding a duster in one hand, its unfeathered end resting on her shoulder like a bat.
"No…, no rat. Snickers…, tell me what's in the box." Glaw attempted for what seemed like the hundredth time, as careful as ever to say it as an instruction and not a request.
"You know I can't do that, Mistress." Snickers snickered while shaking her head at the girl, completely indifferent to refusing her, having no need to worry in that case about what happened when house elves disobeyed their masters. "Mistress Meddal forbade me from telling you until the time is right."
"And did she tell you when the time would be right?" Glaw asked, turning fully on her knees to face the house elf.
"Indeed, Mistress, she did."
"When will I know, then?!" Glaw started, clenching her knees with her hands as she believed for a moment that she'd found a loophole in her mother's instructions, which would at least allow her to mark a calendar with the day that she would discover the box's secret.
The elf shook her head, snickering with such energy this time that her small body shook a little, "Mistress Meddal forbade me from telling you that, too." Glaw groaned in frustration and flashed the elf a quick glower before leaning over to lock the chest again. "Why don't you just give up on it, Mistress? That's better than driving yourself mad with wondering…"
"Well, I've just heard it calling my name, I think… So, I felt I should ask again."
"Calling your name…?!" Snickers hissed suddenly, causing Glaw's gaze to snap over to her as she replaced her key beneath her shirt. The elf had taken a step into the bedroom, the duster now at her side and her hand clenched tightly around its handle, though her expression showed only confusion.
Glaw nodded slowly, "I'm not… sure, but- No, I'm sure. It came from the box."
"Did it, now…?" Snickers mused, trailing off as her free hand lifted to her chin before shaking her head and stepping back out into the hallway, only pausing to say over her shoulder, "Fact remains, I'm forbidden to tell you until the time is right."
Glaw huffed, pouting for a second before standing, replacing the candle by the door and blowing it out, and then leaving her room. She picked up the painting and headed straight downstairs and into the kitchen, knowing that Snickers would be in there making dinner, as it was a little over half an hour before they usually ate.
She'd never asked Snickers how she managed to procure packaged meats and vegetables throughout the years that she'd been Glaw's provider, but she showed up with them twice a week and never failed to have all of the three important meals ready every day. The affectionately loyal house elf even went out of her way to make sure she had the right ingredients to season meats and create the soup stocks the way that Glaw liked them.
As expected, when Glaw entered the kitchen with her painting in tow under one arm and both hands holding its weight steady, Snickers was standing up on her worn wooden stepstool, which was actually an heirloom from an ancestor of hers that had also served the Llywelyn family, in front of the kitchen's ancient stove.
"Is it still raining outside, Snickers?" Glaw asked, ending in a huff as she set the end of the painting on the floor and took a rest near the kitchen's island counter.
Snickers glanced over her shoulder at Glaw, turned her large gaze back to the stove, then flashed her eyes quickly back to the girl, eyeing the heavy painting with high lifted thin eyebrows. "Did you carry that all the way downstairs by yourself, Mistress Glaw?"
"I did, Snickers. Now, as I said, I'd like to know whether or not it's still raining outside." Glaw replied in a calm and dismissive tone, glancing briefly at the kitchen's two windows, which had been spray painted black from the inside by Muggle hoodlums.
"It's slowed to a mist, Mistress." Snickers replied almost mechanically, blinking as she glanced towards one of the kitchen's three outer walls, before turning her attention swiftly back to Glaw and narrowing her wrinkled eyelids. "Where did you find that painting, Mistress Glaw?"
The young witch hesitated to answer, because the first thing that came to mind was the conversation that she'd had with the black snake in the attic, but replied as swiftly as she could, before she'd even decided whether or not lying was a bad idea. "The attic."
Glaw was watching as Snickers first relaxed for a split second and then tightened up disapprovingly again, "Mistress, that's a long way to carry such a heavy thing. You should've asked me to do it."
The girl flashed the house elf a slightly pettish look, leaning the top of the painting's frame against her hip and crossing her arms over her chest as she said, "Snick, if I let you coddle me as much as you'd like to, I'd never get to lift a finger."
"Hmph…!" The house elf exclaimed before turning to face the stove again and letting out a light snicker, which was followed a moment later by her muttering, "Still… it's a heavy thing for such a little witch to carry so far…"
Glaw ignored her, settling the painting against the side of the island and leaning back against another side. She stood silent for a moment, listening to the very faint sounds of the now vague rain hitting the painted windows, before she finally murmured, "Tell me when the mist dies, Snickers."
The girl let her head fall back as she closed her eyes, her elbows holding her up against the counter, not expecting an answer. One came almost immediately after, along with the faint sounds of food frying softly in a pan, but Glaw didn't move or open her eyes. Instead, she inhaled the scent of seared lemons and pork, which always brought up a vague memory of her early childhood, when her mother cooked breakfast and dinner every day, a joy of hers that had bothered Snickers intensely.
"Do you plan on going out there again, Mistress?"
"I do." Glaw murmured, her focus now almost entirely directed to the faint pattering that her ears could hear and the searing food that her nose could smell.
"But, dinner will be done in less than an hour and-"
"And, if the rain stops before then, I'll be out on the sidewalk testing out a new spe- … trick and earning us some well needed pounds."
"Mm hmm, and what trick is that…, Mistress?" She added the last almost as an afterthought and said the rest in an amused, but entirely loving tone.
"Well…, I think I can change the painting…" Her eyes suddenly opened to look at the boarded ceiling above, gleaming with humor as she smirked. "Right before the Muggles' eyes, Snickers. They'll probably piss their…- Well, they'll be shocked, but the point is: there'll be a fine little pile in my hat by the time I get back. Whether it be in twenty minutes or more, if I'm lucky and the sidewalk is busy…"
"Changing the paint, Mistress Glaw? Your great uncle Berwyn used to do that when he was young. It drove Old Eira mad seeing his paintings changed, as well as their inhabitants, who'd wake one morning to see their favorite tree gone or the stars in their sky rearranged to form silly pictures, or so my father told me. Master Arian was never on good terms with Berwyn, so I didn't see much of him. Differences in views…, as Mistress Meddal would've said…" Snickers said, ending in a sad sigh, before continuing after a moment in a scolding manner without looking away from the food she was cooking again. "It's fairly toughmagic, Mistress. Berwyn was naturally gifted with magic of that sort; he was a portrait painter most of his life, after all. I wish you wouldn't try it, you being without a wand and all…"
"But, I can't get a wand until I'm older; you've said so yourself…" Glaw blinked with suddenly furrowed brows for a moment as she considered all of the vague things that Snickers had told her about the wizarding world, before she shook her head and closed her eyes again, saying breathily, "Besides, I've already tested it, more than once. Successfully. So, no need to worry."
"Hmph, just be sure you listen out for my call. It won't do for you to eat a cold dinner just to earn us a few extra pounds… It won't…- Mistress Meddal wouldn't like it, she wouldn't like it at all…"
"Snickers, you know I always come as quick as I can when you call and I'll do no different tonight." Glaw started, pushing away from the counter and turning to face the house elf, so she could send a loving look her way before stepping around the island to pick up the portrait again.
"Right now?" Snickers asked, turning to look at Glaw after dumping a mix of vegetables and cheese into the pan on top of the frying meat and lemons and then placing a glass lid over top of it.
"Well, the rain's just stopped; so, yes, right now." The girl flashed the elf a quick half smile before hefting the painting and heading for the kitchen door.
Glaw held it open when she saw the kitten hurrying down the hall to catch up with her and stepped out after her. She hurried down the alley to the sidewalk, wanting to set up her spot swiftly, so that she could at least get a few pounds for her new trick before either rain or dinner interrupted her.
There was a deli directly to the right of the house that Glaw and Snickers were living in, which was flanked by both their alley and another on its right side. Upon first moving in there, Glaw had chosen the alley opening to the right of the deli for performing, because of its closeness to where Snickers would most often be. When the deli owner first saw her, sitting on her wooden box with a black top hat set upside down on the sidewalk in front of her, he gave her a sharp look while she stared wide eyed at him and then shook his head before stepping back into his shop without a word. He hadn't said a word to her since then and she was never bothered by bobbies, so she'd chosen it as her permanent 'stage' less than a week after their arrival.
She hurriedly set up her box on the same corner as usual, leaning the painting up against the right corner of the deli, faced only partially towards herself and mostly towards the sidewalk. She studied the portrait for a moment before glancing up and down the sidewalk until she spotted a group of four teenagers making their way towards her from the right. She waited until they were about ten steps from passing her before lifting her right hand and moving it to her left, so that it hovered just above the top of the painting. She took a quick, steadying breath and then brought her hand down over the painted man's face.