"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat: "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, or you wouldn't have come here." - Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
***
It was a Tuesday and it was raining. A soft patter of drops hit the outside of the windowpane with not anger but confusion. A young girl of no more than eleven sat reading a book on the windowsill, her favourite spot in the entire house. The wide, round frame perched on the highest peak of the ancient dark house gave her ample room to sit or stretch out her legs. In the evening the sun would set just beyond the outer hills, casting orange and purple rays into the library and giving it an unnatural glow. Unfortunately, this late summer afternoon was overcast and gloomy.
A silky body hit her leg and she looked down at the spectre which inhabited her grandfather's house.
"Oh, hello George," she said as she stroked the cat's cold and shiny fur. She was always careful to keep her hand on the surface of his being, dreading the awkwardly damp sensation of ghostly innards.
George had been a man once, an Animagus at that, who had been unfortunate enough to lose his life while still in beast form. He was something of a great, great half cousin once removed who had fallen into some gambling issues and, unable to pay his debts, had taken refuge in the house with the relatives who owned it at the time. Either that or he was completely unrelated to her and had been adopted at some point hundreds of years ago and simply preferred to live as a feline. A third option, which George seemed to like the least, was that once upon a time he was a great and powerful wizard but dreadfully ugly. He was so ugly that even with all his great and powerful wizarding abilities he was unable to cure himself of his wretched appearance and mistakenly turned himself into a cat. But really the stories depended on who you asked, and the girl could never be sure who was right and who was wrong.
Her gaze trailing upwards, she stared at the rain.
Downstairs, in a much cleaner part of the house, the girl's very old grandfather and even older great aunt were seated in the study, playing a rapping game of chess. The very same rapping game that had been going on the past hour and a half, for the most part in silence.
"What does that girl do all day?" asked her great aunt, wondering if it were to be the right move to place her queen on E5.
"She reads," replied her grandfather.
"Reads? All day? All alone in that stuffy library? No wonder she's as pale as a sheet, she never sees the sunlight!"
"Tower to E5."
Sylvie Corvinus watched the tower pummel her queen and pursed her lips; the game would be over soon.
"It's a good thing her cousins are coming over tonight. Maybe she'll enjoy the company of other children as opposed to sitting alone in this creepy house."
"Yes... Yes, the Greengrasses should be here shortly." Waldrom Corvinus turned pensive, thoughts of his great niece and nephews churning in his mind. "Although, if Claudia wanted to be with other children she would have gone down into the village and made friends."
"Oh, Waldrom, you remember how those Muggle brats treated us when we were growing up here? I'm certain it wouldn't be much different. They all thought we were a bunch of freaks, living in this decrepit haunted house on the top of the hill. Queer folk, they'd say, and their mothers would chastise them for even speaking to us."
"We would have had an easier time of it had you not made that Caldwell boy dance in front of the entire town."
"It wasn't my fault, you know how much he bothered Agatha. I couldn't help it anyway, I was young, without even a wand."
Waldrom pulled out his pocket watch, glancing at the old grandfather clock in the study and winding it to the correct time. It was a large silver thing, clunky and impractical, as the minute hand jumped forwards four minutes at the stroke of every hour.
"Yes, the Greengrasses will be here in due time. Queen to G9."
The woman watched as her King threw down his sword in defeat.
"No matter," she said with a wave of her hand.
Reaching over to the side table beside her she took hold of a small bell and rang it three times. As if aparating from thin air an old house elf with wobbly knees approached the siblings.
"Yes, Madam?"
"Some tea please, Madrina."
The elf bent over very slowly in a low bow, an act ignored by the accompanying party, and left in the direction of the kitchen.
"Madrina's certainly getting on," Sylvie commented. "I hope we don't find her stone dead one of these days."
"That house elf still has many years ahead of her."
"The poor dear, though. She doesn't even have a thing to look forward to after her service is done. Not like those wretched Black household elves. They at least look forward to having their heads severed and put on the wall."
"It's out of the question, Sylvie."
"What is? You don't even know what I was going to propose."
There was a pause, their dark blue eyes meeting momentarily before Sylvie sighed.
"I'm so fond of her, Waldrom, why couldn't we put her head on the wall?"
"As I said before, it's out of the question."
"Oh, why not? At least give the poor dear something to look forward to. We could place it right there, just over the mantle. She'd be so pleased, and we could admire her every day."
"I will not put my deceased house elf's head on any wall."
"You're a stubborn old man, did you know that?"
Waldrom did not respond, once again glancing between his pocket watch and the grandfather clock. Madrina then arrived with the prepared tea, the serving platter swaying precariously with her clumsy footsteps. The house elf set it down on the side table and began pouring the first cup.
A loud hoot suddenly rang beside them, and both heads turned to see a dark brown owl, scratching and pecking at the window.
"Madrina, would you please take care of that?" Sylvie asked before bringing her steaming cup of tea to her lips.
The ancient elf hobbled over to the window, stretching on her tiptoes to undo the latch and untie the dripping wet letter attached to the flailing owl's leg. Suddenly Waldrom gained interest. He took the letter from her without a word and swept his wand over it, instantly drying the thick parchment before unrolling it, his expression blank and stern. Just as suspected, his granddaughter's name was printed in emerald ink on the front.
"What is it, Waldrom?"
He turned the letter around to face his older sister, his hand clenching it tightly.
"You look strangely relieved," Sylvie said with a small smile.
Waldrom brought the thick envelope close to him, staring down at it as he held it in both of his hands. With a loud rattle his older sister dropped her tea cup onto its saucer and stared at her brother incredulously.
"You can't be serious," she breathed. "After all this time and you still had your doubts?"
"It's late," he said, turning it over and over in his hands.
"Late? It's barely the end of July for Merlin's sake!"
"Mine came July fifth. Yours on July ninth, and Agatha's on July sixth."
"It's ridiculous how you remember that. And really, Waldrom, after all the ability she's exhibited. After all those incidents... I won't need remind you what she did to my precious Belle."
Waldrom inwardly snickered at the memory of his sister's constantly squawking raven. The stupid thing never shut up, it deserved what it had coming.
"You would think after the three years she's spent in this house that you would have at least a little faith. There was honestly no sliver of a chance she'd be diseased like her mother..."
The glaring look in the old man's eyes was uncharacteristic.
"Althea is not to be discussed in this household, we've been over that," Waldrom hissed through clenched teeth. "Need I remind you again?"
Sylvie shook her head, her shaking hand reaching out to grasp her teacup. As she sipped, she coughed loudly, almost choking on the hot liquid.
"Claudia," she gasped.
The small girl stood in the doorway, her eyes wide as she approached the twosome, who still sat at either end of the chess table.
"You'll never guess who won at chess this afternoon," Sylvie said kindly, motioning the girl closer.
"Are you going to make me guess again?" Claudia asked.
"Yes, go on and guess!"
"Grandfather," she replied without missing a beat.
"Well... Yes, that he did."
Sylvie, never having had any children of her own and being nearly ninety, was quite good at tiring out old games. The pleasant and slightly condescending tone she used with her great niece only annoyed Claudia. Although the eleven year old was much too old for Sylvie's games, she gave in periodically only to see the wide, yellow-toothed smile that was now plastered across her great aunt's face.
"Something came for you."
"For me?" she asked, looking at her grandfather's outstretched hand.
She took the letter, tracing her finger over the emerald green imprints which spelled out her name.
"Is this my Hogwarts letter?" she asked.
"Presumably so."
"Why don't you open it and find out?" Sylvie asked excitedly.
Claudia looked back at the thick envelope, lining her finger under the flap and tearing the top open. She pulled out a few pages of parchment, the top one bearing the Hogwarts crest in bold, black ink. She bent over the folded pages, silently reading the acceptance paragraph over and over in her head. Her family had spoken numerous times of Hogwarts, as nearly all had attended. She had heard many things about the school, an assortment of viewpoints ranging from the 'terrible academia' to the 'wonderful sense of brotherhood,' and other anecdotal biases spoken by the elderly. Her cousins, who Claudia could barely even tolerate at most times, spoke highly of the school and regularly recounted stories involving their friends and whatever they got up to during the year. This worried the young girl. She was vastly different from her cousins, from most of her family in general. If they found Hogwarts so wonderful, then presumably all students could be like them. Claudia swallowed a hard lump that was rising in her throat.
She hadn't even know there could be something as wonderful and as terrible as magic before she was sent to live with her grandfather three years previous. A whole new world had expanded in front of her, strangely richer than what normal life had provided. Recently, as her vocabulary improved, she set her sights on ravaging her grandfather's library in the hopes of better understanding magic. The intricacies of potions, charms, and even the wizarding world's history had engulfed her. Claudia had nestled herself into the library, devouring old, out of date texts and gawking at images of dragons and pixies. It was something out of a fairy tale, complete with a blackened manor house atop a hill. Still, she felt that even with all her studies she wouldn't be prepared.
"Well, aren't you excited?"
Sylvie stared at her expectantly, watching as the girl's eyes slowly rose from the page. She had no words to explain the sudden pit that had formed in the bottom of her stomach.
"Let's see your booklist."
Claudia handed over the correct piece of parchment to her grandfather, who nodded over it as if already suspecting many of the titles to be present.
"Tomorrow we'll make the trip to Diagon Alley and pick up what you need."
She nodded, taking the page and folding it, along with others, back into the envelope. For now her future was tucked away safely in folded paper. All she had left to dread was the arrival of her cousins.
***
Claudia stood by her bedroom mirror, brushing out her long, blonde hair as she readied herself for dinner. On her dresser table a silver gleam caught her eye and she narrowed her eyes on the photo frame. It was a normal Muggle photo, still as the moment in which it was taken. In it was her mother, holding a very young Claudia in her arms as the two faced the camera. Her mother was a beautiful woman. She had long, tousled blonde hair and bright sky blue eyes. Although Claudia shared her blonde hair and blue eyes, the tones differed greatly. Her eyes were a deep blue, the same colour as her grandfather's. There was a certain radiance Claudia lacked. The same radiance held by her mother in the way her head tilted as she smiled, as if constantly beaming with laughter. They shared the same high cheekbones and straight, long, pointed nose, but this was the only resemblance Claudia could point out. She remembered sitting on her mother's bed when she was little, watching her brush out her long, golden locks every night. Claudia tried vainly to recapture the image. She tilted her head, smiling unnaturally wide as she brushed out her limp hair. It was useless.
"Claudia!" her aunt called, knocking on her door. "The guests have arrived!"
Balthazar gave Claudia's leg a swift kick from underneath the table and the young girl winced slightly in pain. He snickered until reaching his great aunt Sylvie's disapproving gaze and forfeited to continue eating his dinner in silence. Harold echoed his older brother's laughter, going so far as to stick out his tongue. Pinpricks along her other side told her that these two cousins were not the only ones shooting snobbish stares in her direction. Claudia turned her head, her eyes meeting the casual gaze of Desdemona Greengrass. She had acquired the trademark Corvinus reservation from her grandmother, and it suited her calm features well. Though there was an unmistakeable hatred in her eyes that quietly overpowered her seeming unenthused opinion of the young girl.
Desdemona looked away, focusing on tipping her glass between her parted lips and not paying Claudia the least bit of attention. This cool sense of detachment was lost on Lucretia Greengrass, their mother. All three of the children shared their mother's black locks and dark brown eyes, differing from their father's deep blues. What they did not share was her neurotic composure. Her features were constantly tense, as if she longed for the same noble mannerisms as the rest of the family seated around the table. Cronus Greengrass had married a waif of a woman with no significant heritage, but with a pile of gold and heiress to a small portion of Gringotts. Cronus was the son of Agatha, the third elder Corvinus, though she had passed many years ago due to a dreadful case of dragon pox.
The intricacies of Claudia's family had been all very confusing the first few times it had been explained. It was only when she happened upon an old family lineage album in the library that she found some reason to the disorganized pieces of the Corvinus family. As far as she knew, most pureblood families were all related somehow, whether that be by marriage, ancestry, or in some cases both.
Balthazar was staring at her again and it was making her feel quite uncomfortable. Idle chat filled the room as she refused to look back at him. She poked at her dinner, having lost her appetite in present company.
"The Hogwarts acceptance letter came earlier this afternoon," her great aunt announced.
"That's wonderful," Cronus acknowledged proudly. "With your talent you'll make a fine Slytherin, just like Desdemona and Balthazar."
"Or she'll make her grandfather quite proud and be sorted into Ravenclaw," said Sylvie. "The Corvinuses are known for their quick wit, and the majority of the family was placed there."
"Ravenclaw would be perfect for a bookworm like you," Balthazar said under his breath.
"Her ability would prosper best in Slytherin," commented Lucretia. "With her power, the most noble house would gladly take her."
Claudia looked down, biting her lip. Yes, all that power she had displayed in the form of impulse would do well with people like her cousins, but not with her. The things she had done were quite unsettling, to be frank.
"Wandless magic is a logical base for determining power, that's true," said Waldrom. "But only if the Witch or Wizard asserts to contain and guide said power."
"Repairing broken items and growing back hair is one thing," said Cronus. "An impulse to kill is another."
Claudia felt the small amount of colour in her face drain as she grew more and more uncomfortable with the conversation. This is what always happened at family get-togethers, talk of power and marriage. She was sure that her imminent spousal choice would be brought up soon enough.
"Her power is great, and this is why it must be cherished and saved," continued Cronus. "Keeping the bloodline pure in her marriage to Balthazar will be one step to insuring the sanctity of the wizarding race."
And there it was, her arranged marriage to her cousin. Cronus had found her most fascinating since she had arrived on her grandfather's doorstep, especially with the story she carried, and wasted no time in ensuring her genes would flow through the blood of his grandchildren. The thought disgusted Claudia. She couldn't imagine holding hands with Balthazar, let alone marrying him.
"Yes, well, those matters will be dealt with when the time comes," said her grandfather.
This time Claudia was unable to turn her head to meet her cousin's burning eyes.
***
A/N - Brand new story and my first post! It is rated M for future sex and violence. Please let me know what you think.