Surprise! I'm finally updating this too! Please enjoy and let me know what you thought!

The Phoenix Maiden

Once upon a time, long before the dark ages, there was a young wizard Steinar who lived in Norway. His family were Vikings, raiding the north seas, and they were powerful witches and wizards as well. Now, there was a rival wizarding clan that were also Vikings, and when the wizard was no longer a boy, but not quite a man, his family raided a muggle stronghold that was under the protection of the rival clan.

Now the mother of the rival clan was a very powerful witch who had traveled far and wide to gain her magical knowledge. Using an unknown dark magic that has never been heard of since and still remains a mystery lost to the dark ages, she transformed the wizard Steinar into a white dragon.

Now the curse was unique in that Steinar could still perform magic, and had his human wits about him while in the form of a dragon, but no amount of magic could undo the curse. Steinar was human only on the longest day of the year and the longest night of the year at midwinter. He would take his human form only for those hours, and in those hours only would he age as a normal human and not as a dragon.

After years of keeping him with them, and Steinar eating more sheep than their family could spare, they were forced to send him on his way. His mother and father had grown old and died and his siblings were aging as well, but Steinar remained as young as ever. Even the witch who had cast the spell was long dead, but the curse remained.

Using magic, he began stealing sheep and created a herd of them in a northern valley so that he could eventually raise his own food source.

He also began collecting treasure, and he soon had a wondrous cave looking down on his green valley where he raised his sheep. Now, legends began to circulate of the dragon wizard with a great treasure hoard hidden in a northern valley, but although wizards and muggles alike searched for the dragon and his treasure, none could find it.

One day, after more than a hundred years had passed, a young witch named Svanhild, stumbled upon the valley as she was picking herbs for a potion. The valley was so green and beautiful, she could not resist exploring, and she soon stumbled upon the cave, where a startled Steinar was busy making a potion he hoped would grow his sheep larger and more nutritious. He spent quite a lot of his time doing magical research which was made difficult by unwieldy claws and the need to do everything magically.

The girl was frightened, but recognized the potion, so she asked the wizard what he was doing.

Shocked that she would try and communicate with him, Steinar explained the experimental potion in a booming voice that rang through the room magically but did not come from his mouth.

When the girl heard his voice, she immediately knew he was a wizard, and decided to befriend him. Soon, she was traveling to the valley daily to work on potions with Steinar and collaborate on magical theories, or even just share an evening. For the first time in a hundred years, Steinar had a friend.

When the midsummer arrived, Steinar took his human form, and Svanhild instantly fell in love with the handsome golden haired man who was her dragon. Determined to break the curse, she spent a full year with Steinar, trying to find a solution. By the second midwinter the couple spent together, Svanhild was worried that there would never be a reversal to the curse. Her parents were encouraging her to marry as she was a grown woman, and quite beautiful. They hoped to make a strong alliance with another family.

Svanhild had began researching for an alternative to changing Steinar, because if he could not be a human with her, she would find a way to be with him. On her twenty second birthday, Svanhild became an animagus, taking on the rare and dangerously difficult form of a phoenix. As a phoenix, she too could remain nearly as ageless as Steinar due to the fact that phoenixes are constantly in a cycle of resurrection. And so she decided to only take on her human form when absolutely necessary or when Steinar was human, and the two became proficient at speaking to each other telepathically and were never as happy as when they were together in their beautiful warm cave.

The first time that Steinar took on his human form after she became an animagus, they went to a nearby village and were married there. They had already been living together for some time and her family believed she had run off, so it was a small ceremony, just the two of them and every midsummer they would be spending their anniversary together.

It wasn't long after midsummer that Svanhild the phoenix produced a large golden egg. When it hatched nine months later, Svanhild had produced a golden phoenix. Now not long after, it was again midsummer, and the couple produced another child in the same way. And within seven years, the couple had seven daughters.

Now, when the oldest saw her parents transform into humans, she soon learned to throw off her phoenix feather cloak which she had been born and display her human form which was so beautiful and perfect, her parents were amazed. And each time their children learned to shed their phoenix skin, they seemed more beautiful than the last, all so beautiful they nearly made your eyes hurt to look at them with golden hair and hypnotizing blue eyes and skin as fair and glowing as the moon.

Soon each of the daughters had grown to be young maidens, and they enjoyed putting on their phoenix skins and flying about together when their parents became too boring and worked too long on their potions and magical theory. The girls were all witches, each with a wand made of the phoenix feather from one of her sisters that their father had crafted.

It happened that one night a wizard was in the forest gathering herbs that only bloom with a waxing moon. He was near a small pond when he heard the whirring of wings and looking to the skies, saw seven golden phoenixes descending from the heavens. He watched them land on the lake in the moonlight and thought to himself that if he could only have a single feather he would be a rich man.

Just as he thought this, he watched the phoenixes throw off their feather robes and transform into the most beautiful women he had ever seen. He was transfixed as they shed their robes and dove in the water, swimming and laughing, their golden hair reflecting the moonlight.

Coming to his senses while they swam at the far edge of the pond and their laughter a mere echo, he crept to the bank and took one of the phoenix feather robes, stuffing it into the mokeskin pouch he had been using to gather herbs.

After the phoenix maidens had bathed and frolicked to their heart's delight, they came back to the bank, wishing to put on their feather robes again. While the six eldest found theirs, the youngest could not. They searched and searched until at last dawn appeared and the six sisters decided to hurry home to see what their mother and father advised. They donned their robes and flew away, leaving the youngest on a rock sobbing.

When the wizard saw them leave, he approached the youngest, offering his robe. She knew immediately that he had taken hers, and begged to have it back, but he would not take it out of the mokeskin pouch. Even when she sobbed her most prettily and used her most alluring voice, he simply stared transfixed, too numbed by her beauty to obey her command to return her plumage. He knew that the second she had her feathers she would fly away from him, and he vowed to take her home and marry her. He would give her anything in the world but the thing that would take her away from him.

So he took Freydis to his house where she married him, and he hid her feathered robe where she could not find it. They soon had two beautiful daughters, each as beautiful as their mother, and a fine son that looked almost exactly like him. And their mother loved them with all her heart.

Now during this time, Freydis learned that some of her phoenix traits came out when she was angry or sad, her nose becoming like her phoenix beak, her fingernails like claws, fire thrown from her palms, but no matter how she tried, she could not force feathers or wings to sprout.

One day, her little daughter was playing hide and seek with her brother, and she went being the wainscoating to hide herself and found the robe all made of feathers which she showed to her mother. As soon as she saw it, Freydis put it on and said to her daughter, "Tell father that if he wishes to see me again, he must find me in the valley where the dragon wizard raises sheep and keeps his treasure trove." And with that she flew away.

When the wizard came home that night, his little daughter told him what had happened and what her mother had said. So he set out to find his wife, seeking the legendary dragon and his cave of treasures. And he wandered for many days until he came across an old man who had fallen on the ground, and he lifted him up and helped him to a seat and tended him until he felt better.

The old man was a wizard, and asked him what he was doing and where he was going, so he told him all about the phoenix maidens and his wife, and he asked the old man if he had heard of the dragon wizard and his cave of treasure. Unfortunately, many years had passed since the stories of Steinar had provoked men to seek his dragon trove, and the old man knew nothing.

So the wizard went on, until he came upon a centaur, who was wounded from an arrow in his flank. Using his wand to help the centaur, he asked the wise seer if he knew where he could find the valley where the dragon wizard lived. "I have heard of the valley where a dragon raises his own sheep for food and where he keeps a great treasure, but I know not where it is or how to get there save that it is in the far northern mountains," replied the centaur, grateful for the help.

So the wizard thanked the centaur and went to the northern mountains, and as he got near there, he found two wizards quarrelling. When he came upon them, they asked him to settle their dispute.

"Our father has just died, and he has left but two things. This cap, which whenever you wear it, nobody can see you; and these shoes, which will carry you through the air to whatever place you will. Now, I being the elder claim the right of choice as to which of these two I shall have, but he declares that as the younger, he has the right to the shoes. Which do you think is right?"

So the wizard, being quite cunning, thought for a moment, and at last he said, "It is difficult to decide, but the best thing I can think of is for you to race from here to that stream and whoever gets back to me first with a cup of water, I will hand him either the shoes or the cap, whichever he wishes." And the wizard produced two little cups to the brothers.

Then he took the shoes in one hand and the cap in the other and waited until they had started off running toward the stream, and as soon as they had run a ways, he put on the shoes of swiftness and placed the invisible cap on his head, and willed himself into the valley of the dragon wizard. And he flew, and flew until at least he came to the valley which was full of sheep, and at the head of the valley was the cave entrance which was fashioned almost like a castle, and housed the dragon and his treasure.

Now it happened that the day he arrived was midsummer, and the family had been together in the fields. But when Steinar sensed another presence in his valley, he appeared before the wizard. Even though he was invisible, Steinar could sense exactly where he stood and addressed the man.

"Who are you and why have you come to this valley."

"I have come to seek my wife," answered the wizard.

"And who is she?" asked Steinar.

"She is the youngest daughter of the dragon wizard who lives here," answered the husband, and explained how he had won his wife.

Then Steinar said, "I am the dragon wizard, and you have come to us on the day that is not only my wedding anniversary, but the only day I am my most true form. Come, if you can tell her from her sisters, then I know that what you say is true." And he summoned his seven daughters and his wife to him, and each daughter came just as beautiful as the last, nearly completely identical.

So the wizard said, "If I may take each of them by the hand, I will surely know my wife." Because when she had lived with him, she had burned her hand on a hot cauldron, and the skin had healed roughly on the side of her palm.

And when he had taken the hand of each of the phoenix maidens, he soon found which was his wife, and claimed her for his own. Steinar gave them great gifts and sent them home to their children, and they promised to return for midwinter so they could meet their grandfather.

The family lived for many years, and Freydis learned to shed her phoenix feather robes inside, rather than out where it could be stolen so she could transform at will, so when her daughters came to pull their own robes from within themselves, she was not surprised that they too possessed the ability to take on a golden phoenix form.

Eventually each of the phoenix maidens would marry and go on to have children. Those that remained mostly in their phoenix forms laid eggs, that produced full blooded daughters like their mothers, more phoenix than human at times. Those that stayed in their human forms and gave birth to their children produced both sons and daughters, but the daughters were inhumanly beautiful, and possessed special magical abilities and traits. The daughters that came from eggs were soon called Veelas, while those that came from human births were considered part-veelas or half-blooded.

In 1437, veelas were classified as a magical creature, while half-blooded veelas were considered to have the rights of a witch in society. This nuance led to many a family rift, and a prejudice toward veelas as inhuman and innately animalistic creatures while they are merely the result of a cursed pureblood wizard and an animagus pureblood witch. Thus veelas are considered to be pure-blooded wizarding lines.

It is also important to note that Steinar and Svenhild Veelar still reside in the northern mountains of Scandinavia today, and many of their relatives still join them for their midwinter ball, and or their annual summer picnic. While they are hundreds and hundreds of years old, they appear in their late thirties. Their contributions to magical knowledge continue today, most of their work consisting of magical theory and spell weaving algorithms used by the department of transportation for the floo networks.

"I can't believe we didn't learn this in history of magic or care of magical creatures class at Hogwarts!" exclaimed Rose. "This is completely fascinating! I wonder if Victoire and Dom know this?"

"Many veela families pass down this lore, but who knows. You are always welcome to share the book with your family. Are you able to stay awake for another? The next page revealed one of my favorites."

"Of course," laughed Rose, her tears seemingly forgotten.

I know it's been forever since I posted to this fic. I've been focusing on some other things. I will try and update again soon, but no promises. Please review and let me know what you think! Would love for more ideas, I know I need to write more for this fic! What tale should I do next? E.A.