A/N: To new readers, welcome to chapter one. To old readers, I have changed the chapter a bit… not tremendously but a few tweaks here and there to improve it. The story stays the same

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1

LEGACY

MUSICAL MOOD FOR THIS CHAPTER: BLEACHERS - THE WHOLE OF THE MOON (COVER)

"No wonder the girl was sorted into the wrong house."

A cool breeze swept across my face and I drew the thick cashmere blanket a little tighter around my torso. The sea was boisterous and the waves whipped against the cliffs with such force that now and then tiny drops of salty water would drizzle onto my face, even though I was up high at the edge of the bluff. My eyes were closed as I listened to the ocean, imagining – like so often – how it would feel to just jump off this cliff and dive into the unruly water. The thought intrigued me as much as it scared me.

I loved the ocean most when it was blustery like today; with fierce dark grey waves that didn't stop until they crashed against the coast with such an impact that over the years the water had carved deep holes into the hard stonewalls. Since I was little, I had been fascinated by the fact that something so smooth like water could be strong enough to mould the rigid cliffs of Cornwall like they were made of clay.

"Seth!" I heard a high-pitched voice calling out for me from further away.

"Seth! What are you doing?" Ella sounded terribly stressed, her breathing ragged from climbing the slight upward slope to where I was lounging in a sunbed, snuggled nose-deep into a warm blanket.

"Reading," I said calmly, my eyes still closed. I had actually been reading before until my eyelids had gotten so heavy that it had been hard for me to keep them open any longer.

"You shouldn't be out here in this weather! There's quite a storm coming!"

I only shrugged my shoulders. "I like storms."

"For heaven's sake, girl; you cannot avoid them forever," Ella sighed and I finally opened my eyes to look at her. She was dressed like always in a blue and white uniform; the wind had whipped strands of her ginger hair that had escaped her neat hairdo into her friendly, round face and her warm brown eyes looked back at me with a mixture of concern and despair. She always seemed to know exactly what I was thinking.

"I'm not avoiding anyone. I'm just getting started on some school work."

Despite my fine display of contrived coolness, Ella looked unimpressed. "School doesn't start before next week. It will be okay if you don't know every book by heart. The other kids might think you are a nerd, you know?"

"Oh my, that would be terrible!" I exclaimed theatrically and touched the back of my hand to my forehead like I imagined Victorian women had done when they had been about to faint, which made Ella laugh.

"Come on Seth," she said as she snatched away my cosy blanket and exposed me to the cold wind that had become quite strong by now. "Time to go."

"Alright," I sighed and, realising that I could not procrastinate any longer, pushed myself up from my comfortable lounging place. It was only now that I noticed how bleak the sky had become while I had been lying there; thick, black clouds loomed above the ocean and the horizon was nothing but a hazy blur. A storm that was about to reach the coast promised to be fierce, yet I would have preferred getting soaked to what was awaiting me inside.

Classical music filled the spacious room and mingled with the torrential rain that was lashing against the large round-top windows. The view was completely blurred by the thick drops that traced wet paths down the glass, yet I continued to stare. It was mesmerizing.

"Child, why are you staring out the window? There is nothing to see," my grandmother's voice sliced through the music and the rain like a knife and I winced despite myself, "Viola, why is the girl acting so peculiar?"

I glanced at my mother, who sighed, resignation written all over her face. "She is only fifteen, Cecilia. Girls that age act curiously."

It wasn't really an answer but, knowing my family, it could have been worse. I had been reprimanded for much more trivial things than staring out the window before.

The elder, severe-looking lady puckered her thin, blood-red lips, obviously not finding my mother's answer satisfactory. "Cassandra and Vala have never behaved in such an odd fashion. Have they, Edward?"

"Not that I know of," the grey-haired man at the other end of the table supplied in a tone that suggested he hadn't even been listening, but I could feel my grandfather's cold, grey eyes resting on my face, which turned pinker with anger every second. I had to take a few sips of my tea only to keep myself from talking back; after all, experience had taught me that any sort of resistance to my family only made things much worse than just sitting through it.

"Of course, they also didn't get themselves stuck into the wrong house." The way Grandmother said 'wrong house' was probably similar to the way others would say 'eternal damnation'. And she meant every meanly pronounced syllable of it.

I could see my parents exchange quick glances over the untouched plate of biscuits and couldn't but notice the default embarrassment that was always clearly discernible on their faces whenever the delicate topic of my house came up.

I expected it to be the theme of my funeral speech, really.

"Well," Grandmother continued with a sigh when no one at the table seemed to be willing to discuss my failure as a Woodley for once, "at least she doesn't look like a sickly little boy anymore." She gave me a scrutinizing look from across the table as she spoke and, though it wasn't exactly a compliment, I was so surprised that the tea in my mouth accidentally ran down the wrong pipe.

Never before had I heard anything but disapproval about my person come out of her mouth and it was shocking. So much so that even my perpetually poised mother seemed taken aback for a second, her blue eyes narrowed as her gaze flitted from Grandmother to me and back again.

"Um, thanks, I guess?" I said between coughs, struggling with breathing after failing to swallow my tea. From the corner of my eye, I saw my grandfather's bushy eyebrows raise as he watched my inelegant attempts at pretending that my throat wasn't on fire.

"I mean, that awful haircut and those clothes." Grandmother shook her head as though to rid herself of the physiological terror my lack of stylishness seemed to have caused her. "Sometimes I thought you were just doing it out of spite."

Honestly, I wish I had. Being a rebel would have been so much cooler than just naturally not fitting in with the rest of my family. It had never felt like a choice - that I always felt too awkward, too strange to live behind this mask the Woodleys had carved out for me and that just didn't fit, no matter how hard I tried.

"Elizabeth has become quite a beautiful young lady." Dad said over the rim of his tea cup and I didn't miss the weird look he exchanged with Grandfather as he slowly leaned back in his chair.

"Indeed." Grandfather waved his empty cup at Ella, who had just rushed into the room with a fresh pot of tea and another plate of biscuits. She looked quite stressed out, which was undoubtedly due to the visit of Edward and Cecilia Woodley. My grandparents had that kind of effect on people that reduced anyone in their vicinity to nervous wrecks.

"She is still lacking the grace and the charm one would expect from a Woodley, however." Grandmother frowned as she watched me lean my elbows on the table to fish for one of the darker lemon biscuits and then at the pair of silver tongs that had been placed next to the plate. "Have you considered my suggestion to send her to Madame Esher's, Charles?"

I almost dropped the biscuit, my eyes shooting up to look at my dad. He glanced at me, then at Mum, who was pressing her lips into a thin line, absently folding her napkin in her lap into a perfect square.

"Elizabeth stays at Hogwarts, mother," he finally said, not entirely able to keep the exasperation out of his voice. "We've discussed this."

"For heaven's sake, the girl can't even properly sit through afternoon tea. How do you expect her to -"

"That's quite enough, Cecilia." Grandfather's voice wasn't loud, but his tone was foreboding. If I hadn't been so perplexed by the fact that he had just rescued me from another round of critique, I might have wondered about what exactly he had prevented my Grandmother from saying, but the situation was too bizarre to think about much else.

The silence that followed was strained and I shifted in my seat before stupidly glancing up at my grandfather; he was stirring his tea and then, quite languidly, tapped his spoon against the rim of his cup before taking a long, slow sip. It almost looked as though he was enjoying having made everybody uncomfortable.

"So, um," I said into the silence, suddenly feeling the mad urge to laugh. Having sat through countless gatherings like this, I could predict almost exactly how this was going to go: Mum would call for more biscuits that nobody would eat and then Dad would engage Grandfather in a discussion on recent politics and Hermione Weasley's unacceptable addendum to wizarding law, and we all would just sip our tea and pretend that everything was fine. "I think I'll just go to my room then. Grandma, Grandpa; it was lovely as always."

I didn't wait for permission and simply pushed back my chair, scraping its legs on the wooden floor which made Grandmother's eyelid twitch. Next to me, Ella's eyes bored into my temple as though she was trying to telepathically tell me to stay calm but – and I was surprised to realise this after years of not daring to even move in their presence – I wasn't scared of my family; I was just irritated.

"If you will excuse me!" I hadn't meant to shout my exiting words, but the thrill of defying the Woodleys made it hard to stay cool and so – knowing that it was only seconds before the last bit of my casual façade would crumble – I walked out of the tea room with my head held high and my heart beating in my ears.

"Preposterous. No wonder the girl was sorted into the wrong house, displaying intolerable behaviour like that," Grandmother's voice rang out behind me but it became less distinguishable as I climbed the stairs to my room.

The branches of the tall maple tree that stood in front of my window rapped on the glass, shaken by the rough wind outside. When I was little, I had been terrified by this particular sound, always thinking that something evil was knocking on my window, wanting to come in. I would stare at the tree for so long that the branches would begin to look like knobbly arms that tried to pry open the window.

As I grew older, I had begun to distract myself with books whenever a storm would sweep over Cornwall and just read until I had fallen asleep. And even though I wasn't afraid of thunderstorms anymore, I had kept up the habit.

"Elizabeth?" The door to my room swung open and my mother's head appeared in the small gap. "Are you reading again?" She walked in, carefully closing the door behind her. Her posture seemed unusually tense but she didn't comment on my glorious exit and instead just sat down beside me on my bed.

"That was quite an evening, wasn't it?" she sighed and tucked a strand of wheat blonde hair behind her ear. It was the same colour and wavy texture as mine but so long, she constantly put it up into a tight chignon.

"Sorry for losing it before," I apologised half-heartedly and put away the heavy book that had been resting on my lap. I hadn't even noticed that my legs had gone numb under the weight.

My mother gave me a small smile and shook her head as she ran a hand over the soft, blue blanket that covered my bed. "They don't really mean it like that. Everyone knows that you didn't want to be sorted into-" Her voice faded abruptly and her eyes seemed to wander to the large, sapphire-blue poster that hung above my bed. A bronze eagle was stretching his long wings lazily across the paper as though he had just woken up from a nap, ready to take off.

"Ravenclaw," I supplied unnecessarily, "I'm in Ravenclaw."

I didn't like to think about it; that my parents couldn't even say it, let alone be proud. All they ever contributed to my ending up in Ravenclaw was that 'it wasn't my fault', but I suspected that they, too, chalked this grave error in history up to more than just 'bad luck'. It was said that the Sorting Hat took personal preferences into account, which should make it fairly easy to end up in the house of your choosing. But – and that I was fairly sure of – my head had been uncharacteristically empty at my sorting; in fact, it had been so empty that it had taken me a full five seconds to even realise that the ragged old thing had shouted 'RAVENCLAW' into the Great Hall.

Slytherin should have been my legacy. My destiny.

For more than 500 years, the Woodleys had prided themselves on being so exceptionally pure in blood that, even before the Sorting Hat of Hogwarts had been placed onto their heads, it had declared them to be in the House of Salazar Slytherin. For generations this had been the case without exception. Hence, when it was time for me to go to the school of witchcraft and wizardry, my parents – both of them Slytherin legacies – had me decked out with green and silver school attire before I had even boarded the Hogwarts Express.

I was glad I hadn't been there to see their faces when they had received my owl the next morning.

"Your grandparents are leaving," my mother said quietly, finally prying her eyes from the poster above my bed where the bronze eagle had flown out of view, "you should come say goodbye."

She had gotten up from my bed again, smoothing down her smart trousers, and I suddenly couldn't help thinking that they looked like they were part of a carefully constructed costume.

When I walked into the great foyer, everybody had already gathered in front of the marble fireplace. My grandmother had pulled her long ruby cloak around her, which made her look like a giant bat and I shuddered inwardly; I was fairly certain that – as a toddler – I had firmly believed that she actually could turn into a bat and while it was somewhat funny to think of it now, it still made me slightly uncomfortable.

"Travel safely," My father said in that typical rigid voice that he always used when he was talking to his parents and, in what felt like the most cringe worthy moment of the afternoon, they shook hands, looking awkwardly formal.

"We will. Goodbye." As my grandmother spoke, her thin lips barely moved and her unforgiving eyes rested on me with what could only be described as palpable distaste. It was obvious that she disapproved of me – probably the entire concept of me – but I held my head high as I approached the green flames that were roaring in the fireplace by now. Quick, icy words of farewell echoed in the hall and I watched her walk into the fire, her cloak still wrapped around her like enormous leathery wings. Grandfather appeared to follow her lead after adjusting his hat and putting on his elegant dragon-skin gloves but, just before he would disappear into the fireplace, he turned around once more, looking straight at me.

His eyes were of a strange, dark grey: The colour of storm clouds. It was the 'Woodley eyes', as my father had so often told me; the ocean just before a storm.

I knew them well. They were my eyes too.

Shape-wise they were my mother's, big and round; yet, the unusual colour was a genetic trait that neither my father nor my aunt or my cousins had inherited.

"I expect to see you at Christmas dinner."

It sounded as though Grandfather was addressing all of us, yet his gaze lingered on me so intently that it grew silent for a moment.

"Um, yes. Of course," I finally managed to say, feeling the heat rising to my cheeks.

Grandfather gave me a microscopic nod before vanishing into the green flames and with a great, loud swoosh the fire had died, leaving the fireplace empty.

No one said a word for what felt like eternity, the weirdness of the moment still lingering in the air like an odd perfume, clinging to the objects in the room. I was trying to remember the number of times that my grandfather had addressed me directly but the only image that came to my mind was a stately grey-haired man, sitting in a leather wingback chair in a vast library, reading a book and pretending to not notice me watching him as I crouched behind the large potted plant in a terribly poufy dress.

A/N: Dear reader, hope you've enjoyed this first chapter and forgive me for not plunging right into the action. I would love to hear your thoughts and I'm excited about every little word, phrase, sentence, paragraph(s) you leave me in the review section. Thank you for reading