In 1286, Atwater Weasley, the patriarch of a powerful wizarding family became quite ambitious in his political aims. Deciding he must earn a place on the Wizarding Council, he spent much of his time currying favor with the old political families. He was in the running for a seat, and when one opened up he was approached by the matriarch of an old family, Letha Le Faye who invited him for tea.

Now any witch or wizard worth their salt knows that the Le Fayes were always up to no good, and not a trustworthy bunch, but he said to her. "Can you not get me a seat on the Wizarding Council?"

"Oh certainly, I can quite well do that, but on one condition, which if you do not fulfill, you will never get a seat on the Wizegamot and will be demoted to a lowly secretary."

"What is the condition?" asked the man, practical but ever power hungry.

"I have a daughter," said the old witch, "who is so beautiful, powerful, and pure that she has not her equal in the world and is well suited to be your wife. If you will marry her, I will ensure you gain not only a seat on the Wizegamot, but are chief of it within ten years.

Weasley, in his ambition, consented, and the woman led him to a separate parlor where her daughter Lorica was sitting by the fire. She received the wizard as if she were expecting him. He saw that she was certainly very beautiful, but she did not please him. He could not even look at her without a secret feeling of horror for although she was fair of face, her eyes were cold and deadly.

No sooner than the wedding had been celebrated than Atwater was asked to take his place on the Council, and he was of course quite pleased with himself at the advantageous match.

Atwater had once been married before, and had by his first wife seven children, six boys and one girl, whom he loved more than anything in the world. And now, because he feared that their stepmother might not treat them well or do them harm, he put them in a lonely castle in the middle of one of his estates hidden by enchantments. It lay so well concealed in the forest and it was so hard to find, that he himself could not have found it without an enchanted reel of thread. When he threw it before him, it unwound itself and showed him the way. However, Atwater went so often to his dear children, that Lorica was offended at his absence and grew curious, wanting to know what he had to do quite alone in the woods.

Eventually, she drew it out of the house elves who accidentally betrayed the secret to her and informed her of the little reel which alone could point the way. While her husband was away attending to members of the Wizard's Council, she came to find where the spool of thread was hidden. She then made some little white shirts and sewed a dark enchantment in each of them.

The very next time that Atwater apparated off to the Council, she took the little white shirts and went into the wood where the reel showed her the way to the children. The children, who were home from Hogwarts for the summer, saw someone coming in the distance and thought it was their dear father coming to them. The six boys, who had been playing quidditch sped off on their brooms to meet him.

As they approached, she threw over each one a little shirt, which when it had touched their bodies, changed them into swans. The boys' brooms clattered to the forest floor and the swans flew away over the trees. Lorica went home quite satisfied and thought she had gotten rid of her step-children; but the girl had not flown to meet her with her brothers, so Loricia knew nothing of her.

A short time later, Atwater came to visit his children, but he found no one but his daughter, Garnet.

"Where are your brothers?" asked her father.

"Alas, dear father!" she answered. "They have gone away and left me all alone." And she told him that looking out of her little window, she had seen her brothers flying down the path on their brooms, but then flying over the wood in the shape of swans. She showed him the feathers which they had let fall in the yard and which she had collected. The wizard mourned, but he did not think that his wife had done the wicked deed, but rather a political enemy. In his fear that his dear Garnet would also be taken from him, he wanted to take her with him. But she was afraid of her stepmother, and begged him to let her stay just one more night in the castle in the wood so that she could pack up her things. He enchanted a spacious traveling bag for her with special charms to allow her to fit and organize all of her things and carry them easily on her back.

Garnet was a clever witch, bright for her age. She knew only dark magic could have turned her brothers to swans, and rather than accept their fate and mourn as her father did, she decided she would do something about it. Now at the time, Hogwarts was the preferred mode of education, but many witches and wizards remained self taught due to the isolation of wizarding society. Women in particular, often educated at home due to the patriarchal views that still echo through wizarding society today.

Previously, Garnet had studied as a Gryffindor at Hogwarts, the same house as all of her brothers. Although Allard, Beval, and Cadby had recently graduated Hogwarts and were studying at home and considering creating a family potions business, the younger four siblings had all been at Hogwarts with her. Durriken and Egbert were seventh and sixth years while she and her twin Filbert had been set to start their fifth year in the fall.

Garnet sent a letter to her professors, letting them know that she and her brothers would be continuing their education at home under the supervision of their oldest brothers. After this, she packed her things in an enchanted traveling bag and the fourteen year old witch took off on one of her brother's brooms, a library of magical textbooks stashed in her enchanted traveling bag along with nearly every possession she had.

She flew north, the direction she had seen her brothers go, and eventually as it grew dark, she spotted a little hut in the distance. Upon arrival, she determined it was empty and entered cautiously, finding a room with six beds. She was afraid to lie down on them, so she curled up under them for a short rest, knowing she needed an enclosed place to spend the night for it was to be a full moon.

No sooner had the sun set, than there was a rustling noise as six white swans flew through the window. They landed together and suddenly their feathers fell off of the and before her stood her six red headed brothers, as tall and strong as they day they left her.

"Allard, Bevel, Cadby, Durriken, Egbert, and Filmore!" she cried leaping out from under the beds. "What are you doing here?"

"Garnet!" they cried, and the family reunited joyously.

The brothers quickly explained that she was in grave danger. "You cannot stay here!" they said to her. "This is a den of werewolves, and if they were to come here and find you, they would kill you. They are only gone due to the full moon tonight since they will be out hunting."

"You would protect me!" she asserted, pulling her own wand as well.

"We cannot always protect you though. For we are only human from the time the sun sets to when the last light fades from the sky each day, sometimes no more than a quarter of an hour!" replied Durriken.

"After this, our swan skins engulf us once more, and we must fly away for fear of becoming some werewolf's dinner," added Beval.

Garnet sobbed to hear of her brother's curse, "Is there no way to break the curse?"

"Funny you should ask," laughed Cadby without humor. "The only way for us to be free would be for someone who loves us dearly to reverse the enchantment using an old magic. The conditions are too hard."

Old magics were still studied then at Hogwarts, and Garnet had began taking courses in the ancient magics for the past two years. Although they are now obscure, the ancient magics involved wandless magic, often taking more time and effort than a simple spell, but often more effective.

"Tell me what I must do!" insisted their sister. She was determined.

"The witch father married embroidered shirts for us that lock us into the enchantment. To reverse the curse, someone who loves us would have to knit six shirts out of spun dittany, and not speak or laugh the entire time or all their work would be undone. If a single word passes your lips, all the work would burst into flame. It would take years!" explained Egbert.

"I will do it," averred a determined Garnet.

"No," ordered her twin. "Go back to Hogwarts, find another way. Live your life free and happy for us who cannot!"

"I cannot abandon you, for I love you too dearly," she declared, staring each of her brothers deeply in the eye as the light faded from the sky. Without warning the six brothers transformed instantly into swans and flew out the window. Glancing around the room, the witch selected the smallest bed and opening her little bag put the corner post in the bag. Maneuvering the heavy wooden frame, the determined Garnet finally wiggled it into her bag successfully. Slinging it onto her back, she took her best broom and left the home of the werewolves, deciding that an area where dittany was known to be in abundance was the best place to travel.

Garnet soon found herself in the northeast corner of Wales where dittany is commonly found in the marshes and moorlands. The fourteen year old soon taught herself to use non-verbal magic to start fires, and to do simple spells. She spent her days gathering dittany, stuffing it into bags and spinning the fibers into thread in the evenings while she read or studied. She found a little spring with a few lonely trees around it and very much isolated from society where she chose to live. She set her bag against the tree under a spell that allowed only her to notice it, and every night, she would step into the bag and pull it up around her hips until she landed in the bottom of the bag.

Inside her traveling bag she had made a cozy little space with an area for working on the dittany, an area for studying magic, and a last area for sleeping where she kept her wooden bed and her clothes. In the mornings, she would apparate out of her bag and collect all day.

It took nearly three months for her to collect as much dittany as she could before the frost killed the plant. After that, she rarely ventured out, choosing to remain in her little traveling bag spinning and spinning through the winter. She soon used the branches from a Spruce Tree to carve out a set of magical knitting needles. It took her many tries, and quite a bit of tangled thread, but soon she managed a spell that allowed her to knit magically while she spun.

The young witch sat and spun through the entire winter, and by the end of the winter the first shirt was done, the largest, that for her oldest brother. However, as spring came, the food supply she had taken with her dwindled, and she was forced to find a new source of food.

As she had spun the dittany, a goo, that we now know as the essence of dittany leaked out, and she had begun collecting it after recognizing it had some healing properties. After an accidental splinching, she realized just how potent those properties were, and she was provided with the means to trade for food and make money.

Garnet was soon a recognizable figure in a dark cloak at the corner of Knockturn Alley the four nights before a full moon when she sold small bottles of her healing jelly for a sickle each. Women sent their husbands for it, and men their house elves. The price was never negotiable and the Silent Witch simply took your money and left when the last bottle sold. The silent witch would then appear at the market the next day and buy enough bread, cheese, vegetables, and dried meat to last at least a few weeks and would not be seen until after the next full moon.

Although the Silent Witch was remarked upon for a few days around her appearance, everyone seemed to forget about her shortly after she left. This was convenient for Garnet, and she simply began working on gathering more Dittany.

By her seventeenth birthday, Garnet had grown into a lovely young witch. She was nearly as educated as most witches to graduate Hogwarts, and could certainly have passed NEWTs in most subjects. Additionally, she had finished a second shirt for Beval, and was nearly half done with a shirt for Cadby after only a second winter. Her magical knitting needles flashed and gleamed in the candle light all winter and the results were carefully stowed in a mokeskin pouch.

Now this entire time, Garnet had spoke to no one and had no wish to laugh, for her one true goal was to free her brothers. She focused solely on her work, and so it was unusual when one day, a young wizard was hunting grindylowes in the marshes and came upon her collecting her dittany.

"Who are you?" he called to her, curious as he could clearly tell from her clothes and wand that she was a witch.

But she gave no answer.

He asked in every language he knew, but she remained as silent as a stone. Because she was so beautiful, the wizard's heart was touched, and he was seized with a great love for her. He wrapped her in his cloak, set her on his hippogriff, and brought her to his manor.

There he provided her with beautiful clothes and plentiful food, bringing out her beauty. However, not a single word could be drawn from her lips. He provided a room for her, and invited her to dine with him, and her polite manners and modest behavior pleased him so well, he decided that he would marry her rather than the many pure blooded witches that had been vying for his hand.

Lord Percival Prewitt married Garnet Weasley in the spring of 1289. He called her Amicia, for she had no other name and she was his beloved.

However, Percival had a cold mother, Isolda, who was displeased with the marriage and had desired a more advantageous match with a well known family. The poor mute Amicia was a lousy excuse for a daughter-in-law in her eyes. She spread wicked rumors about the young bride, speculating she was a muggleborn, and unworthy of a pureblooded Lord.

After a year, Garnet, or Amicia as she was called, had her first child, a boy. Isolda took the child and exchanged it with a muggle child, giving the boy to be raised by an old family friend who had recently lost his wife and all of his children. The evil mother-in-law then began moaning that Amicia had produced a squib and Percival should leave her for a pureblooded bride.

Lord Prewitt would not have it, and would not let any harm come to his wife or the child although it did not seem to possess any obvious magical abilities. Now Garnet suspected what had happened, for she could see that the child did not possess the trademark Weasley hair that passes to Weasley children almost invariably and she remembered her babe having red hair at birth. However, she had other things to worry about and knew Isolda would not have hurt Percival's child, so she continued to knit her shirts and say nothing.

By this time she had managed to knit four shirts and was starting on the shirt for her brother Egbert. She soon became with child again, for Weasley women have always been fertile. The second child she had was once again born with a full head of red hair, which shockingly turned blonde the next morning. Once again, Garnet suspected the wicked mother had done the same thing but could not say anything nor shed a tear over her lost child. When his mother soon began bemoaning that his wife had once again produced a squib and was stealing his children's magic for herself, Percival could not make up his mind to believe her. He said, "She is too sweet and good to do such a thing as that. If she were not dumb and could defend herself, her innocence would be proven."

Even when the third child came, and the wicked mother's replacement proved to be non-magical, Percival refused to divorce his wife, infuriating his mother.

Now, they lived in a quaint village made up of wizards and muggles, and the muggles were always highly suspicious of any unusual activity. The blamed all strange occurrences on witches and wizards, and rightly so. Now there was one family, who was quite bothered because the young wife had been pregnant now three times, only to find herself with empty arms and fuzzy head after nine months. She and her husband would happily anticipate a birth, only to find that her belly had deflated and there was no sign or memory of a child when the time came. Now, the wicked witch Isolda had been taking their children as substitutes for her daughter-in-law's magical children to pass them off as squibs. However, a few too many memory charms made the family and friends highly suspicious.

Isolda decided to use this suspicion against her daughter-in-law and began planting seeds of doubt in the minds of the muggles that Amicia had ever been pregnant, for she continued to go out every day gathering her dittany and spinning her twine regardless of rain, shine, or pregnancy. The muggles saw this and suspected that no true lady of the manor would ever toll as Amicia did, especially when heavily pregnant, and decided that her pregnancies had been a ruse. They decided that she was an evil witch who had stolen the children of the young couple and passed them off as her own.

On a day that Lord Percival was away from the manor, a muggle mob rushed the manor and dragged the poor Garnet out of the house, deciding to burn her at the stake.

Now by this time, she had finished five of the shirts for her brothers and was furiously knitting the last sleeve of the final shirt for her brother Filmore even as she was dragged to the stake. She always had the shirts with her in a little moleskin bag, and as the muggles piled wood around her to burn her, she laid them on her arm looking to the skies.

As she stood on the pile and the fire was about to be lighted, six swans flew through the air, and she knew that her release wa at hand and her heart danced for joy. The swans fluttered round her and hovered low so that she could throw the shirts over them, and when they had touched them, the swan-skins fell off, and her six brothers stood before her, living well and handsome. Only the youngest, her twin, had a swan's wing instead of his left arm.

The muggles fell back in terror, as the sister and brother's embraced and kissed each other as Isolda stood by in terror as her son arrived. Percival was greatly astonished as his wife turned to him and began speaking, "Dearest husband, now I can speak and tell you openly that I am innocent and have been falsely accused!" She told him of her heritage and his evil mother's deceit, and how she had taken the three true children away and hidden them.

So the three children were fetched, ironically from Garnet's own father who had been fostering them for his old friend Isolda. And much to the joy of the (once again obliviated) muggles, the three muggle children had been returned to their true parents as if not a day had passed without their presence.

The tale of the Weasley brothers who had been swans was spread far and wide, although the wicked stepmother had long since come to a no good end due to her dabblings in dark magic. And the father was reunited with his sons.

And Garnet lived happily with her husband for many years, patenting the use of dittany in healing and making them very wealthy, much to the displeasure of the sulky and estranged mother-in-law who lived out her remaining years banished from her son's home on the Isle of Man.

And each year, Garnet would knit sweaters for each of her children, passing her magical knitting needles to the woman who married her oldest son, who continued to pass them along as a sign of good will between daughter and mother-in-law through the generations.

Prewitt children are famous for having the warmest wool sweaters at Hogwarts, knitted by their mothers from the wool of the sheep the family raises. It is also rumored that these sweaters have healing powers imbued by the needles from which they are knit; the same needles that once knit together twine made of dittany which left residue on the wood, giving the needles further magical properties.

"Oh my Merlin," gasped Rose. "This story has to be true! My grand-mother posses those knitting needles. She even lets Auntie Fleur use them on occasion, but never anyone else. She always says they are to be Auntie Fleur's who can pass them on to Louis's wife!"

"Well, Molly Weasley was a Prewitt… ironic that she, one of the last of the Prewitt's would marry a Weasley and have seven children, six boys and a girl, just like the tale. It's funny how history tends to repeat itself, even hundreds of years later," laughed Narcissa. "Speaking of your Aunt Fleur, here's a story you might not know."

Hope you enjoyed this version of the six swans! Let me know what you thought! Thanks for reading and reviewing! E.A.