Children of the Gods

by inwardtransience

When the message came, there was little left of Cassiopeia Black in her — soon she would move on, shed her face and her name for another. But, at the last possible moment, she found a reason to carry on, the smouldering embers of her identity sparking to new life. Unfortunately, adopting the Boy Who Lived came with complications. (metamorphs, fairies, AU and very weird)

18. Family — III

September 1989

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Around the end of August, Violet finally wrote to Lise Delacour — the same woman who used to be Elizabeth Potter, her father's half-sister, and the only other living Potter in the world.

Violet had been putting it off for a while, and she might have put it off even longer if one of her meetings with Lord Arcturus didn't leave her feeling kind of guilty. Their talks kind of did that a lot, actually? Lord Arcturus expected that Violet would end up inheriting all his stuff one day — even if Mum did have other kids later, Violet was still first in line...though she wouldn't be, once everyone knew she was really a Potter, then any proper Black kids Mum had came first (if she did have other kids). And that stuff was really important to him. Not all the money and the things, so much — though there were closely-related families he really didn't want to end up with his money — but the Family, their history going back thousands of years, their legacy, that was important to him. Which made Violet feel kind of bad, because she wasn't part of the Family, not really. Mum said not to feel bad about it, because her grandma was a Black, and she was being raised a Black, which was close enough to count, and really Lord Arcturus would rather their stuff go to Violet than some of those other families he hated, even if he did know everything, but she still kind of did anyway.

Violet Black might be a Black, but she wasn't. If that made sense. She wasn't sure it did.

Lord Arcturus had decided it was almost time for her to start practising with a wand. Kids weren't supposed to get their own wands until they started academy, but a lot of families bent that rule by going through the loophole: kids couldn't get their own wand, but they could practise with someone else's. It was pretty common for the fancy noble kids, at least, to have a couple of years of practice using a wand before starting at Hogwarts — they didn't normally know much magic already, just a handful of basic charms and a little transfiguration. They just didn't want their kids to embarrass themselves by being really really bad in their first lessons, or in case they got in a magic fight for some reason and had to protect themselves. Normally they would start getting some basic lessons at, like, seven or eight, so Violet was actually behind. But they thought it was better for the kid to have done at least some magic things before trying a wand, even if it was just doing a couple potions or something, and there had already been so much going on, so they waited.

Lord Arcturus decided the waiting was over, she was going to get a wand on Samhain. (He didn't call it Samhain, used the Cambrian name, but that was what he meant.) Wands were super super important to mages, like... Like, they weren't a thing you owned, they were part of you. When a person died, their wand wasn't passed down, it was still theirs — almost like it was part of the person's remains. A lot of families actually buried people with their wands — Mum said the Potters did — or, if they burned their dead, the wand sometimes went on the pyre with the body, turned to ash with everything else. Some people kept a few things that were important to them, just a couple small things they used all the time (like jewellery or maybe their favourite pen or something), and preserved them in a special case somewhere — this box (a reliquary) usually included their wand, if they had one (except when it was burned too). That was how the Boneses did it, Susan had held her father's wand and everything...though she didn't like to now, she got a flash of him being killed when she touched it.

(Her father's, but not her mother's — a Death Eater kidnapped and killed her when Susan was a baby, they never got her body or any of her things back.)

The House of Black also used reliquaries, set into the wall right next to their remains in the mausoleum, outside Ancient House. Their wands were kept there but, when a Black was old enough to start borrowing a wand, they were all collected together on Hallowe'en night, and the child went through looking for one that worked with them. (Wands were picky, you couldn't just use any random one lying around, magic could be like that.) They did it on Samhain because of the old stories about the world of the dead being closer to the world of the living that night — the Blacks believed that the owners of the wands were watching, that they decided if a wand would work for someone or not. It could be a big deal, like, depending on whose wand a young Black ended up using, it could say all kinds of things about who they were and what they were going to turn out like, and politics, it was a whole thing. The wand usually went back to where it belonged when they got their own, but sometimes they held onto it for longer, depending on politics.

Mum had been chosen by the wand of Artemis Black, her nine-times-great-grandmother. People thought that was a good omen at the time — Lady Artemis had been a super important person in the family for ages. She was born waaaayyy back in 1633, a granddaughter of the Nymphadora Black, one of the few Blacks who survived the war against the Cromwells. The Blacks were against the Statute of Secrecy, but when the Wizengamot went for it they played along — Lady Artemis even fought in the war they needed to do to force people who didn't want to go into hiding to do it anyway. She also fought in the war magical Britain had with the goblins really early into Secrecy — Violet didn't know anything about that, but Mum mentioned it telling her the story of Lady Artemis — and was even one of the people the mages sent to make peace with the goblins, helping to write the same treaty they were still using now. She was so famous for that that, when Lady Nymphadora moved on, she chose Lady Artemis to take over the family from her.

And she stayed the Lady of the family for over a hundred years, handing the title to Lord Lysander (her great-great-great-grandson) in the 1820s, when she was nearly two hundred years old. She lived for another few decades after that, finally passing away in the 1860s. She was over two hundred and thirty years old when she died — that wasn't the oldest a normal mage ever lived, but it was pretty close to it. And she'd been the head of the family for ages, had led them through the recovery from the civil war and Secrecy and (with Lady Nymphadora) basically made them what they were now. Or, what they had been, before things started falling apart in the 20th Century.

Lady Artemis was super super important, Mum getting her wand was a really big deal at the time. It was part of why Mum kind of turning out a mess when she was a teenager was such a big disappointment to the adults in the family.

And, listening to Lord Arcturus talk about how super important and meaningful this whole thing was, how they honoured their ancestors and carried the spark of their legacy on with each generation (or something like that, he talked about it all poetically), Mum telling the story of Lady Artemis, and how the meaning of her wand picking her had woven in with the big expectations the family had for a metamorph and just made an even bigger mess when she hadn't met them, and how old these wands were, stuff they'd kept going back centuries and centuries and centuries...

Violet just felt...kind of bad. Because they were including her, but they really shouldn't — sure, her grandma was a Black, but she wasn't, not legally. This was supposed to be special House of Black stuff, and... She didn't know, it made her uncomfortable. Like she was doing something wrong, she was somewhere she wasn't supposed to be, and Petunia was going to come along and drag her into the cupboard any minute now.

(Not really, that's just what the feeling kind of reminded her of.)

And, while feeling bad about that, she thought, she was learning all this Black stuff, but she wasn't being taught any Potter stuff at all. Mum couldn't teach her, she didn't know special Potter stuff. She didn't even know Violet's dad that well, honestly — Dorea told her stuff in letters, or when they met for tea, and she showed up to special things like weddings and stuff, and she kind of knew him in the Order, but they weren't close. And she definitely didn't know special Potter traditions and stories and stuff, that just wasn't something she was told. That was in the family stuff, like all the stories Lord Arcturus was telling her. Mum couldn't tell her any of that stuff.

The only person who could was Lise Delacour. So, if only out of hope that it would make Violet feel less guilty, she wrote to her.

They had tea, once — which was kind of awkward, because Aunt Lise didn't know anything about Violet being a metamorph, or not a boy anymore, or the Dursleys, or any of that. She apologised for not helping, not saving Violet before Mum found her...but admitted that she just never thought to look into where Violet was — she was disowned twice, first by her father and then again by her brother, so she kind of decided Potter stuff just wasn't her business anymore? If she did learn Violet was with her mother's muggle relatives, she probably would have assumed Albus knew what he was doing, and not stuck her nose in, so even if she had thought to check nothing would have happened. She sounded really awkward admitting it wouldn't have changed anything, but Violet appreciated the honesty. Besides, she had Mum now, she wasn't really annoyed with Aunt Lise for not coming to find her earlier. Well, okay, it did kind of bother her at first, when she first learned about her, but it didn't anymore. The tea was super awkward at times, but mostly fine, Aunt Lise seemed nice! Kind of a big alchemy nerd, but so was Síomha, so...

A couple weeks later, they met up again, Violet taking the day off from school. Aunt Lise was bringing her to Rock-on-Clyde, the main home of the House of Potter since the beginning. Violet was actually born there, apparently (Mum said), but she obviously didn't remember that. Rock-on-Clyde used to have a floo connection, but her father let it go out on purpose during the war — the place was kind of closed up after some Death Eaters killed Violet's grandparents, her father living other places he was harder to find. Leaving magical places abandoned had them go very bad very quickly, but the place wasn't empty, Aunt Lise was pretty sure the elves should still be there.

Violet was surprised for a second that there were Potter elves, but she guessed that was silly. They were an old super rich noble family, after all, most of those had elves.

The problem was, with the floo out, there was no other way to get there. They could pay someone to connect it again, but that was complicated, for politics reasons. (Harry Potter might have to go into the Ministry building, and they didn't want to do that.) Mum didn't know it well enough to apparate there, even if the wards would let her through, which they probably wouldn't. Aunt Lise did know it well enough to apparate there — she lived there from when she was a little younger than Violet until she ran away to France — but she was cut out of the wards when she was disowned, so she couldn't. But she knew where it was, and Violet was the master of the wards now, so, if they walked to the wardline, Violet could walk in and let Mum and Aunt Lise in behind her. Then, whenever she wanted to visit she could just have Mum apparate her back, and it'd be fine. They just had to get there the first time.

But Aunt Lise said this worked fine, actually. There was a tradition in the family, where the Lord of the House would take his son on a boat trip up the river aaalllll the way up to the Rock, telling the story of Hardwin and Violante going off on their own to start the House of Potter. Aunt Lise did it with her father (Violet's grandfather) when she was around Violet's age — before Violet's father was born, Aunt Lise was the heir, so she did all the heir things growing up — and she still remembered all the stories and stuff. She didn't pilot the boat herself when she did it, but there was a landing on the river, they should be able to find it — it was hidden with magic, but Violet could see through it, at least.

That was kind of a silly tradition, but it also sounded fun! Violet had never been on a boat before. This was supposed to be a special Potter thing, but Aunt Lise said it was fine if Mum came along — since she was taking care of the Lady of the House, Potter business was her business now. (Like how Violet counted as a Black, but backwards.) Violet took a day off from school — over the weekend she had a lesson with Master Walter and Aunt Lise was doing a long blood alchemy operation, so it was easier to do it on a weekday — and around ten in the morning Mum apparated them to a town she called Porth y Francwyr — that was Cambrian, the muggles called it Beaumaris, which did sound French — and they met Aunt Lise at the shore. She got them the use of a boat somehow, must have borrowed it from someone — there was a little pier on the magical side of the town, maybe people did fishing? — and they were going to go all the way to Rock-on-Clyde on the water, which was very cool.

Aunt Lise looked a little bit different than the first time Violet saw her. She was over a decade older than Violet's father — she was already a teenager when James was born — so she was in her forties now. But mages lived super long, so she didn't really look that old — Violet knew looking at her she was an adult, but, like, she wouldn't have guessed she was that much older than Síomha, or any older than Lasairín's or Damhnait's mum. She was a little tall for a pureblood (they were mostly short), and pretty thin, without a lot of roundness to her cheeks, narrow and sharp. She was super pale, with pure black hair, cut short and left in a fluttery mess around her head.

Violet saw photos of her father before, and they looked pretty similar — she would guess they were related without being told. And she used to look a lot like that too, before she started changing things...

The first time Violet met her, she was wearing a skirt — not super fancy, just a nice, comfortable, modest dress in blue and green — but when they got down to the port Aunt Lise was standing there in denims and a fuzzy black jumper, a red and white scarf hung around her neck. The change of clothes made a big difference, honestly Violet didn't recognise her at first. It was going to be windy out on the water, Aunt Lise thought trousers were a good idea for that reason — which was a good point, Violet hadn't thought of that. (She'd never been on a boat before.) Oh well, Violet was wearing pants today. Mum was in a dress too, she was sure it would be fine. Aunt Lise checked to make sure they had everything they needed — there was lunch in Mum's bag, they were going to eat on the boat! — and Aunt Lise led them to the boat she borrowed.

It was a sail boat, a little one. There was one mast in the middle — more toward the front than the middle, actually — and...a long post sticking out the front, she forgot what those were called. It was pretty old-fashioned-looking, all made of wood, smelling a little bit of varnish (but thankfully no fishy smell), with ropes and stuff all over the place. There were a couple benches built into the floor, but most of it was left empty (or filled with sailing stuff), with trap-doors opening up into storage space under the floor. The boat wasn't tiny, it could easily fit a few more people without feeling too cramped, but it still bobbed in the water a little as they climbed on.

The boat was magic — she could feel it, a faint tingle crackling all around, ticklish against her fingers when she touched the wood of the mast. Not only was she on a sailboat, but it was a magic sailboat! This was so cool...

Aunt Lise fiddled around a bit, unlatched a big hook holding the boat to the dock with a clunk. There was also a rope tying them down, but that she untied with her wand. She used her wand for all the sailing stuff, actually, the big white and orange sails unrolling with a whoompf, ropes tightened themselves and yanked the big things out into the proper shape. Aunt Lise cheated with magic to carefully slide them away from the dock and pick their way out of the little port, Mum helping with the magic a little bit here and there — and then a couple more flicks of her wand had the sails swinging out, and then the wind caught them, sudden enough the floor jerked under Violet's feet, and they were moving!

It was a somewhat warm day, sixteen or seventeen degrees, and pretty sunny, but it was super windy out over the water, blowing and blowing and blowing without any break at all, Violet's hair and her skirt flapping around her. Even as kind of nice as it was, Mum cast a warming charm on her, she was getting cold with the wind. The sea wasn't flat, rising and falling and rising in little curves, Violet could feel the floor under her tilting, sometimes the boat would catch one at a funny angle and fling up water, spraying into the air with a bfoom-hisss, Violet giggled as it rained on her. The water smelled and tasted kind of funny — not just salty, there was other stuff to it than just salt, she didn't know what, exactly...

Violet had little idea how fast sailboats were supposed to go, but she thought they were maybe going extra fast. It was a magic sailboat, after all — Mum said those were often enchanted to be lighter and catch the wind better, making them go faster than they should. It was hard to get a sense of how fast they were going, because the water was flat and empty, and it was hard to pick out a spot and tell how far away it was. They just kind of seemed to slide along, like skidding across the tile on her socks, it felt almost floaty somehow. There was land to their right, muggle towns sliding by, and land straight ahead, but the land to their left pulled away pretty quick — that was Anglesey (Mum always used the Cambrian yr Ynys Môn), they started on its southeast side and quickly left it behind — once it was out of the way off to the left was only the sea, flicking blue waves stretching on and on and on and on...

If Violet was remembering the map right, straight north should be Strathclyde — Galloway specifically, the bit in the southwest of Scotland. But you couldn't see it from here, the sea was big in person...

The bit of water they were in was only closed on three sides — y Bae Conwy, wasn't Conwy a town in Wales? — and there were also other boats puttering around here, some motorised things and others were sailboats, mostly more modern-looking than theirs, with shiny ceramic sides and glinting metal. There might be other magic boats around, but Mum said most of them would be muggles. They were moving faster than a boat like this should, but there were spells on it that would stop people without magic from thinking it odd — they could still see them, so they wouldn't run into them on accident, but the magic stopped them from thinking it was interesting and paying too much attention. There were mages in little villages dotted all over the place who still did traditional fishing and stuff, and the Ministry had laws that they needed these spells on their boats so muggles didn't notice anything weird, it was a whole thing. Sometimes there were incidents where there as an accident, like a storm or just a sailing mistake, and magic police had to come in to erase everyone's memories and stop anyone else from finding out, like what happened at Violet's old primary school that day, but that didn't happen very often.

The bit of land ahead was a peninsula — y Gogarth — all exposed rock and cliffs and stuff, Aunt Lise turned the boat north to go around it. As they came out of the bay, past the peninsula and Anglesey behind them, the waves got bigger and the wind was even more, the boat rolling up and down and up and down and up...

That greyish-greenish-blueish blob of land way out there ahead was England, Mum said — Merseyside, Liverpool should be right there, but you couldn't really see it from here. That town they were passing, just behind the rocky tip of the peninsula, that was called Llandudno, Rhos Fynach — the muggles called it Rhos-on-Sea — that bigger town after it was Colwyn. The peninsula behind them, they were drifting closer to the shore now, or maybe the shore was curving closer to them (hard to tell) passing by patches of green from plants or grey from rock or sandy beaches. That town ahead just there was Abergele, there were super old hillforts up on the hills around — and also magical villages, hidden from normal people — no, those walls Violet could kind of make out through the trees weren't a hillfort, that was some garish bloody not-castle some nobleman had built like a hundred fifty years ago. Mum didn't know the names of these towns here off the top of her head — they weren't on magical maps, they were only recently built up by muggles as resort towns, used to just be farms — but that town ahead, past the looooong sandy beach, that was y Tyddyn Rhyl, yr Afon Clwyd came out there.

(The more Violet heard it, the more she was sure y and yr in Cambrian were the same as an and na in Gaelic, it just meant "the".)

The beach was really wide and flat and rocky, Violet could feel the boat slow down as they neared the shore. She noticed that there was a finger of beach between them and another bit of water past it — that must be the River Clwyd, Rock-on-Clyde was on a hill overlooking it (where the name came from), they would follow the river all the way up there. Aunt Lise kept going past the end of the finger of beach for a little bit, before turning all the way around, putting the town close by on their left now. Apparently the water was very very shallow there — she could tell, it was a lighter colour — they had to go all the way over here, where the river flowing out pushed the stuff below out of the way. There were more boats over here, mostly muggle motor boats, people playing around for fun. A man on one shouted their way as he passed, Aunt Lise waving back at them — he thought their old-fashioned sailboat was neat, Violet thought? Not sure, hard to make out the words from the distance and over the wind, all the motors running...

The mouth of the river was narrow, maybe only twenty, twenty-five metres wide? But their boat was tiny, shouldn't be a problem — there were boats going back and forth, a few people hanging around taking turns. Someone in a bigger muggle motorboat actually let them go ahead of them — Aunt Lise said sailboats were harder to steer, staying out of the way to be polite — with a little help from Mum Aunt Lise carefully turned inside, charms flicked up at the sails and the ropes, tightening and loosening with clanks and clatters. Violet asked if it was okay they were doing magic right in front of muggles, she thought it was a secret? but apparently the magic that stopped anyone from thinking there was anything funny about the boat would also make them not notice the magic, which was neat! Magic was so cool sometimes.

(The way they explained it, it was something that worked on people's heads — they saw everything happen, but they just didn't think it was important, and quickly forgot. But, Violet was pretty sure that meant it wouldn't work on cameras, and maybe there weren't as many around here as in London and other places, but shouldn't there still be some? People did this stuff all the time, though, she was sure it was fine, just kept the thought to herself.)

Up ahead was a bridge. It was a kind of tall bridge, most of the muggle boats around shouldn't have problems getting under it...but Violet was pretty sure their mast was taller? The boat slowly coasting up the river, the bridge getting closer and closer...yeah, Violet was pretty sure they were going to hit it. "Um...A-A-Aunt Lise?"

Aunt Lise was standing at the back, her hand on a little wheel — not a big one like in pictures Violet saw of the big old sailboats, but Violet guessed it did the same thing — now and then turning it a little, wand in her other hand, ready to mess with the sails and stuff at any second. She glanced Violet's way for just a blink, before looking back where they were going, smiling to herself. "Yes, Violet."

"Are, are, aren't we g-g-g-going to hit that?" she asked, pointing at the bridge.

Aunt Lise smiled wider, her teeth showing. "Just watch."

Violet did watch, as they slowly moved closer and closer, she was very sure the mast was taller than the bridge now, tense, her hands tight on the railing and bouncing on her toes with nervousness, they were going go hit it any second now! But then they, just...didn't, the top of the mast going through the metal of the bridge, like it wasn't even there. What...?

Of course, the boat was magic — Violet should have guessed.

...But, if the mast would just go through solid things, if they were protected somehow, then...how did the sails catch the wind? She was very confused.

The river took a corner, they went under another bridge — the top of the mast went right through it again, but how even — they went under another bridge, a railway this time, and they were leaving the town behind them already. The water was shallow and muddy, Aunt Lise did something with the spells on the boat that made it sit higher up on the water — Violet was pretty sure she felt the bottom hit the ground more than once, but they just skid over it and kept going, hardly slowed down. Because it was a magic boat, so cool. (Could this thing sail on land, even?) Patches of farmland to either side — mostly empty, the harvest already done for the year — they coasted up the river for maybe a kilometre or so before coming to another town. The river stopped curling back and forth so much, got narrower and deeper, they passed under another bridge, the town on both sides now. It was hard to see much, the last town the buildings went right up close to the river, but here there was green space on both sides, rows of trees, mostly hiding the buildings. She thought she saw big warehouses or something to the right, maybe lots of rowhouses to the left, it was hard to tell.

The easiest thing to see was an old-looking church, just there not far from the shore — and straight ahead was a huge old castle, looming up over the river and the town, with big walls and round towers, rising up above the whole town. As they got closer, Violet could see it wasn't in as good shape as she thought at first, bits of the walls missing and holes worn around the windows in the towers. It was super super old, Aunt Lise said — that was Rhuddlan Castle, built by King Edward I way back around 1280. So, no wonder it was falling apart, it was over seven hundred years old! That was a long time, for a building to sit there.

When Hardwin and Violante, the first Potters, came here the castle didn't even exist yet. The crumbling walls of Rhuddlan Castle nearly reached the shore of the river, they put the castle behind them, ahead only green, farms to the right and trees to the left. Just a little bit further upriver from the ruined castle was a little hill, could barely see it past the trees — when Hardwin and Violante came here, that was where the town's castle was. It was built way back in the 1070s, by Robert of Rhuddlan, a military commander during the Norman Invasion, because they were talking that long ago now. It passed back and forth between English and Cambrian (Welsh) lords as they fought over this part of the country, until it was finally replaced by the bigger castle behind them.

Leaving the north, this was where Hardwin and Violante first made landfall in Cambria (Wales). And they were going to land here too, it was lunchtime — Violet was a little disappointed they weren't going to be having lunch on the magic boat, but okay.

Aunt Lise carefully guided the boat toward the shore near the hill, close enough Violet couldn't see the hill at all anymore, hidden by trees. But, as they got close, the air kind of rippled — like dropping something in water, going all wavy, the shore and the trees wiggling and bending, the colours smearing, funny little sparkles of light flickering like the sun setting over the sea. And then the rippling stopped, and there was a little village there, popping up out of nowhere! It must be hidden with magic, that was neat. The houses were kind of old-fashioned, like a lot of magic places, there were no power lines or modern plastic-looking stuff, all brick and wood and slate roofs. But they were colourful, the walls painted all kinds of colours, curtains in the windows, banners flickering in the wind...

There was a boardwalk on the shore, no dock sticking out into the water (the river was too narrow for that here anyway), instead just making a nice solid part of the shore, a few posts sticking out here and there for people to tie boats to. There were a couple already there, more old-fashioned looking sailboats like theirs (more magic boats!), but there were a couple open spots too. Aunt Lise loosened the sails with a couple flicks of her wand, letting them just lazily flap free (too loose to actually catch the wind any), she and Mum instead using magic to carefully push the boat bit by bit sideways into place, once they were close enough ropes snapping out to snag on a couple posts. Once the boat was tied down, Aunt Lise and Mum gathered up their bags, Mum gave her a hand up onto the railing, and Violet stepped right out onto the boards.

It felt a little funny to be on solid ground. Like, she felt like she should still be moving, kind of dizzy...

While they were still sorting themselves, someone came up, called hello, and then Aunt Lise was chattering at the bloke in Cambrian. Mum said he was just being friendly, asked who they were and where they were going and if they were looking for something. Aunt Lise told him sort of the truth — that she used to be Elizabeth Potter, and she was friends with Cassiopeia Black now, and she was taking a trip up to her family's lands just because, and also practising so she could give a proper House of Potter education to the Boy Who Lived. (Which was a clever lie, because she was actually doing that right now, but this bloke had no idea who Violet was.) The man seemed pleased to see them, chatted for a little bit before letting them go. They walked around the edge of the little village, turned off to follow a little dirt path up the hill.

The hill wasn't very tall, but it was steep, and there weren't any stairs or anything, it was a little awkward to climb. There wasn't really any sign there used to be a castle here, but Aunt Lise said the hill was the sign: this hill was man-made, part of the old castle. When the Normans wanted a castle somewhere, but there wasn't a useful hill so they could see everywhere around easily, they'd make their own hill, and put a little tower on top of it. That was the most defensible part, where they huddled in during a siege, but there would also be other building around in a big open courtyard, enclosed with a wall looped around the whole thing. The tower and the walls and everything would normally be made out of wood — making things out of stone took a long time, and the Norman Invasion was fast, they plopped down dozens and dozens of these things all over the islands, so they could more easily keep track of and hold all the land they were taking. Violet guessed that made sense, but making your own hill seemed like a lot of work...

They got to the top of the hill, and Mum spread out a blanket, soon they had their lunch unpacked, having a picnic out under the sun, a pleasant wind coming off of the sea to the north. (It wasn't so far away, but Violet couldn't see it at all, hidden by the taller castle.) And Aunt Lise told them the story of Hardwin Longbottom and Violante Peverell, who became the first Potters.

Both of their families had a long, complicated history — they were both in the Seventeen Founders of the Wizengamot, but they went through a couple name and culture changes as history happened at them. The Peverells were around all the way back to Roman times, Celtic tribal chieftains living along the River Severn. Rome leaving Britain was kind of a mess, but they survived okay, sometimes kings of a little Cambrian (Welsh) kingdom on the river, sometimes not. (Back then the king was kind of elected, it didn't pass father to son, so they sometimes had it and sometimes didn't.) The Peverells were a super important magic family in that time, were known for coming up with a lot of neat magic and stuff. They stuck around until the Anglo–Saxons showed up, and there were a lot of wars — the Peverells didn't die out, but their kingdom was eaten up by Mercia, and they became subjects of the Mercian king instead.

And then the Normans came, and the family did die out. After the war in that part of the country, only a couple kids were left — William the Conquerer had one of his people look after them, basically claiming all the Peverells' stuff because they had the heirs now. A Norman ended up marrying a girl, the last heir of the family, and the name was changed to his. (They weren't always called the Peverells, just for the bit right at the end, but it was what everyone called them now anyway.) They did okay for a little bit, but more wars and bad luck meant the family never got very big again, and by the time Violante was around they were pretty much done.

The Longbottoms used to be Gaels, a long time ago. They were sailors, when Rome was around they did a lot of piracy on the Irish Sea, were part of the attacks on Britain that helped chase out the Romans. When the first Wizengamot met, they were one of the big important families in the north, sometimes even as kings of an Dál Riada — that one also switched family to family sometimes, like the Peverells' place. But unlike the Peverells' one, Violet actually heard of an Dál Riada before, it came up in school, one of the big important kingdoms forever ago, in Ulster and the Hebrides. At one point, a Longbottom conquered a lot of the north of Ireland, the islands of the Irish Sea, Strathclyde, and some of the Pictish kingdoms, and even into northern England, ruling like a third of all the Isles, but he only held it for like a decade or so before it fell apart again.

The Longbottoms got in a bunch of wars, with Cambrians and other Gaels and later Anglo–Saxons and vikings. When an Dáil Riada fell to the Norse, all the Longbottoms were killed or captured — like what happened to the Peverells, some vikings adopted the surviving kids and took all their stuff, including their seat on the Wizengamot. ("Longbottom" was actually a translation of a Norse thing, which stuck for whatever reason, names were funny like that.) The new Longbottoms ended up pretty important in the funny mixed Gaelic/Norse people which was a thing for a while, and kept doing a lot of piracy in the Irish Sea, because that was basically their thing. The Longbottoms were still around today, were still pretty important in the north, especially Strathclyde, but they were close to dying out, they only had one kid left. Oh, Neville Longbottom, Violet met him before...

As much as all this seemed silly and like it was not really important, it was kind of interesting sometimes, Violet guessed. And, she had ancestors who were kings on both Hardwin's and Violante's side, which was kind of neat! Tiny kingdoms that didn't exist anymore, but still. Mum reminded her that the Blacks had also been kings of multiple different countries, which, yeah, okay, she knew that, she was just saying...

(Violet knew enough history to wonder whether that should really count — the word that was translated "king" in this stuff used to just mean the leader of a clan, so these 'kingdoms' were often really tiny. Like, maybe only a small county, sometimes. But still, though!)

In the 13th Century, when Hardwin was born, the Longbottoms were still really big and important in the Irish Sea and the Hebrides. They were also still stubbornly pagan, following a funny mix of Gaelic and Norse stuff — Hardwin, though, was raised mostly Christian, by his English mother. As he grew up, he got uncomfortable with the culture and religion of the rest of the family and also how they were basically pirates? still doing a lot of attacking ships and raiding on the coast and stuff, when they could get away with it, sometimes sailing off to the Continent to join in the fighting wherever, big viking warrior types. But Hardwin was a big potions nerd, and he did learn to fight like everyone else, but he didn't really like to. He didn't really like his family, much.

He and Violante got together partly because they were both super Christian and stuff, and didn't like their mad families — the Peverells got into some weird death cult stuff toward the end — got married kind of without permission from anyone. Though, Hardwin's family was cool with this, since it seemed like the Peverells were going to die out soon anyway, so then they could claim all their stuff through Violante...but then Hardwin and Violante just ran away together, took off south in a boat and never came back.

They landed here, right here, which was controlled by England at the time, getting ready to conquer what was left of Cambria (Wales). The plan at first had just been to lean on Violante's Peverell money until Hardwin could get a potion-brewing trade going, support themselves that way — but after hanging out here in Rhuddlan for a little bit, Violante got an idea. She knew Hardwin didn't want to fight, that was the whole reason they left the north. But, if they played their cards right, maybe they only needed to do one little war, and they'd be set forever. England needed allies to finish off the Welsh, especially people who knew the land and the people involved, like Violante did — she was related to people still loyal to the last remaining native king in Wales, she could do spy stuff. And Hardwin had his potions stuff, and he was pretty good in a fight, if it came to it.

And so they made a deal with the King Edward I: we help you defeat the last Welsh king, and you give us lands here in Wales. The war was kind of a mess, and there was a point in the beginning where the English almost lost, but they turned it around and won in the end. (How much help the first Potters really were was debated by history people, but there were a lot of Cambrian mages who still kind of hated Violante for stabbing them in the back, Mum said.) After the war, Hardwin was made an earl, and—

Wait, Violet was an earl? Well, technically Harry Potter was, she guessed... It was "countess" when it was a girl? But, earls and counts were different things! That was stupid, whatever. But, was she really one, though? Yes, Mum said, she really was — the UK didn't, like, publicly admit to the existence of an Earl of Clocaenog anywhere, but the Crown knew the magical world existed, and if she talked to the muggle government as Lord(/Lady) Potter, they'd recognise her as the Earl(/Countess) of Clocaenog. Woah, that was a weird thought...

If Vernon knew she was literally an earl, he would just die.

Anyway, after the war, Hardwin was awarded a chunk of land, south and west of here. It was kind of a middle of nowhere place, tucked in against some mountains to the west — Violet was pretty sure Snowdonia was around here somewhere? — most of it just, like, trees and a few isolated farms here and there. But it wasn't bad land for potion ingredient -growing reasons, and pretty isolated so they weren't likely to get attacked there without warning, and it was also important for keeping-an-eye-on-the-Welsh reasons, so, it was pretty easy to stay friendly with the King, since they were doing that for him. But there was no obvious place for them to move in right away. They hung out in Rhuthun, a town south of here, for a couple years while they explored the new Earldom, got to know the area and the people already living there.

There were a couple Welsh rebellions in that time, none of that was super important. But while he was hanging out, Hardwin did a lot of potions work, inventing stuff and brewing things for the local lord in Rhuthun and other people around. In that time, he got a nickname about how he was tinkering around making potions all the time — that nickname stuck with the family, and eventually turned into the name Potter.

After a couple years in Rhuthun, the House of Peverell died out, and their stuff was split between different relatives. Violante got some of their money, and a bunch of enchanted things, and most importantly almost all of their books — books were rarer and more valuable back then to begin with, but they were extra important for mages, since they wrote down all their special secret magic knowledge and everything, kept it in the family. (They even still had those special old Peverell books, in the library at Rock-on-Clyde, but they were all ancient scrolls and stuff, written in Latin and super super old Cambrian.) Thanks to the money they could actually start getting to work on building up the Earldom, the first stones of what was now Rock-on-Clyde were laid the next year.

And that was all the story Aunt Lise had to give here. They were done with their lunch, so it was time to get going again. It was easier to go down the hill than up, though Violet almost slipped at one point, it was steeper than it looked. They hopped back on the boat, Aunt Lise and Mum carefully magicked them away from the boardwalk, and then they were sailing again.

This sailing trip actually took kind of a long time, and for most of it there wasn't really much to see. The river was narrow, maybe ten to even only five metres wide at points but their boat was magic — sometimes Violet felt the bottom hit something, but they just kept going. It was taking a lot of narrow curls and twists, sometimes splitting around little islands, bending along its slow, lazy way. There were a lot of trees right on the shore, only a couple thick but enough that you couldn't see through them, and when the trees weren't in the way, there were, just, fields. Farms, pastures, whatever. Now and then there would be a house or a barn or something in the distance, or a village, a couple bigger towns she could barely pick out, far away, but then they disappeared behind the trees again.

There were cows! They were going for a while, Violet lost track of time — getting kind of bored, honestly — and she looked out into a nearby pasture, and there were cows! She had seen cows before, visiting friends outside of the refuge, but still, she didn't expect to see cows...

After sailing for, she didn't know, a long time anyway — they were moving slow, no real wind here, and the river just kept going and going — they came to a town. This was Rhuthun, Aunt Lise said, but Violet couldn't really see anything at all. Most of the town was kind of high, the river sunk into a ditch, and there were trees along both sides, the town hidden. It was a kind of important town on the magical side, Violet knew — she remembered from the map of the floo network Éimhear gave her last year that Potter stuff was connected to the public floo here. It wasn't a big town though, it wasn't very long before they were leaving it behind again, the river continuing weaving along.

And then they kept going. And going. And going. And going and going and going, slowly crawling on and on and on. With the trees in the way, there wasn't even much to see, and this was taking hours now, Violet was getting bored. Aunt Lise tried to distract her with, like, stories about Potters she knew and stuff, but...

This was maybe kind of mean, but they weren't that interesting? Hardwin and Violante running away and doing their trick to get the land here was kind of interesting, she guessed, but, the Potters were a lot of bookish, nerdy types, they didn't really do a whole lot. Aunt Lise herself probably had the most interesting life story of any Potter for ages, running away from home because she didn't want to marry a man and then in the end marrying a veela and getting so good at alchemy that she made babies with her veela wife, which wasn't even supposed to be possible, because veela hatched from eggs, she had to invent new magic to do it all by herself, that was very cool! Most of the Potters Aunt Lise mentioned sounded a bit boring, honestly. The Blacks had a lot more crazy fun stories, which was why she was thinking it was maybe kind of mean — she meant, Violet was a Potter, she wasn't even supposed to be learning any of those Black family stuff anyway, and... She didn't know, it just felt bad, somehow.

Violet was kind of wishing she brought a puzzle, or her watercolours...though Aunt Lise probably wouldn't let her do that instead, this was supposed to be a special important thing...

It was kind of hard to tell, she didn't notice right away, since the curls of the river going back and forth and back and forth hid it, but Violet thought they were going west now. The river was very tiny, Aunt Lise carefully steering the boat in the narrow space around each curve, rocks and stuff pattering against the bottom, but didn't seem to slow the boat down any. Maybe it could just sail on land, it didn't feel like it was fetching up on anything, and it looked like the river was really shallow. The trees on both sides of the river were way thicker now, so you really couldn't see anything — now and then in a gap between trees she'd see the curve of a hill a long way away, but not really anything else...

"We should be almost there," Aunt Lise said. "There's a small drop ahead, the rafts of the time weren't able to get supplies past it." Was she saying this boat could get over it now? This thing could go up waterfalls? Probably a small waterfall, but still...

Sitting on the floor leaning against the mast, Mum let out a little scoff. "Good, because I think we're about to run out of river."

"Yeah, it's t-t-tiny."

Aunt Lise hummed. "We're into the woods now, the source is up in the hills here, not far away. Can you keep an eye out for the landing for me, Violet? It should be on the left."

"...Why?"

"You're the only one here who will be able to see it — Cassie and I aren't keyed into the wards."

Oh. Right, she knew that...

It wasn't just the one channel of the river, there were narrower bits of water branching off on both sides now and then. Some of them were just streams coming in to join the river, but some of them looked too straight, man-made canals. Aunt Lise said some of those were being used by muggles around here — there were some muggle farms around the edges of the Potter stuff — but some of them led to farms and villages and stuff on Potter land. There would be people living there, and growing stuff, a part of what they made actually belonging to the House — she learned about that kind of deal from Lord Arcturus, very old-fashioned feudalism stuff, but she was told the Potters owned a lot of farmland, so. The contract people had with the House for their work was one of those things Violet could look at when she was older, which was good, because that stuff sounded very very complicated, Violet didn't know if she could handle that yet.

She was wondering about the people who lived over there, and what their lives were like, when she jumped, straightening up from where she'd been slouching against the railing. Ahead on the left was a narrow little canal, but there was actually stuff at it. On one side there was a boardwalk, like back in the village, and there were some benches and boxes and stuff sitting around, and there was a big awning over the canal, covering the whole thing, dyed red. Partway up the posts at the front, close to the edge of the river, a pole was sticking out at an angle, flags hanging from each one — split in fourths, coloured alternating red and white, a tasselled edge in yellow. Red and white and gold were Potter colours, right? That had to be it.

"There!" Violet said, pointing. "I think that's it."

"Come back here, Violet, give me your hand."

Because magic could be funny sometimes, Aunt Lise couldn't see the landing herself, but she could if Violet held her hand. Aunt Lise used her wand with her other hand to bundle the sails back up (getting a little help from Mum). And then, with a bunch of little clunking noises, the mast, just, folded up into the floor somehow — not all the way, there was still a post there, the sails bent around into a U-shape, but it was only, like, as tall as Mum — the post sticking out of the front pulled in too, making the boat much smaller. Woah, Violet didn't know the boat could do that! That was so cool, how did that work? (Expanded space, Mum said, like how bags or boxes or buildings could be bigger on the inside, same idea.) Holding Violet's hand the whole time, Aunt Lise carefully turned the boat into the little canal, giving Mum instructions to pull here or push there, or lift that, or hold the water off here, inching in bit by bit by bit...

It took a few minutes, but eventually they were all the way in the canal, a flick of Aunt Lise's wand and ropes lashed out to snag onto posts on the platform. "There we are." Aunt Lise let go of her hand, then shook her head, one hand coming up to her forehead — Violet guessed the platform and the canal and the awning had just disappeared, made her dizzy. "Go ahead and pack up your things. You two can just apparate home, but I need to bring this back tomorrow."

That wasn't difficult to do — they didn't bring much, and the only thing that wasn't already in Mum's bag was Violet's shoes. (She took them off a while ago, since they were just on the boat anyway.) Once she had them back on, it was time to get off again. This was a little awkward, because Mum and Aunt Lise couldn't even see the platform, and Violet would have to hold their hands as they went over, or the wards wouldn't let them through. She carefully climbed up the step and hopped over the little gap to the platform — she felt a tingle as she crossed, a little itch at the back of her neck — then turned around to help Aunt Lise across, and then Mum.

Once she was across, Mum glanced around the little landing platform. Not that there was much to see, it was very basic, and there wasn't really anything here. "No elves?" she asked Aunt Lise. "I thought they'd come running as soon as they felt Violet on the wards."

Aunt Lise shook her head. "The dock is associated with the main wards at Rock-on-Clyde, but not properly integrated with them — I expect Cediny will come once Violet steps over the wardline proper. Or, I think it's Cediny, could have a new chief elf for all I know..."

"Elves live a long time," Mum said, voice lighter and softer than normal for some reason. "Let's get going, then. Lead the way, Violet darling."

She was confused for a second, before she saw there was a brick path leading into the trees just there. Right, they were going that way, okay then. Mum hadn't let go of Violet's hand from stepping off the boat, walked next to her on the path, Aunt Lise coming up just behind them. The bricks were just plain greyish stone, nothing special-looking, but Violet noticed that there weren't any weeds growing between them at all, clean and in good shape — someone must be keeping it up. Probably the elves, they did say there would be elves here. The path started straight, but then got curly, turning around this way and that, weaving between trees and slowly climbing uphill. Violet couldn't see very far off the path, there was brush along both sides, she was too short to see over it very well, all she could see was the bushes and the trees further up, their branches stretching over the path, and the bricks going on ahead, weaving side to side and up and down...

It wasn't going to be that long of a walk, was it? This was how you were supposed to get here on foot, before they had the floo network, they would have to carry building stuff and food or whatever this whole way, it couldn't be too far.

Violet was just wondering if they maybe got off at the wrong landing — which was a silly thought, Aunt Lise would know — when they came around another curve, and she hitched to a stop, blinking up at the view ahead. Not very far from here, the trees thinned out, making space for more open gardens and stuff. The path continued through the gardens toward a wide, low hill — maybe somewhat taller than the other gently rolling hills that were just around here, but it wasn't super steep or anything.

Most of the top of the hill was covered with buildings. One, the closest to their side of the hill, was made out of bright white marble, polished and shiny, gleaming in the sunlight. Violet saw halls and windows, a big open balcony facing the river, one big building had a tall arched roof — she guessed that was the great hall, where they'd hold parties and stuff. There was a two level wing to the left of that, evenly-spaced windows. There was other stuff behind the white marble stuff, but it was in the way, so she couldn't really see. A hint of wood here, an edge of bright red-painted ceramic there. The only thing she could easily see was a big round tower, short and squat, made of much older-looking plain grey stone. She could just make out a flagpole sticking up out of the top of the tower, but there wasn't anything flying on it, just the post left bare.

For a moment, Violet could only stand there, still holding on to Mum's hand, staring. They were still pretty far away, but it looked...big.

Violet did know it would be big, yeah — the point of the special family manor thing was to be able to house the whole family in an emergency, and there used to be a lot of Potters, a long time ago. And at least it wasn't so crazy big as Ancient House, that place went on forever. But it was still a lot.

"Something wrong, darling?"

"I think we're at the Rock," Aunt Lise said. "I can't see the manor, but the bend in the river just there looks familiar."

Violet had to take a breath, looking for her voice. "Yeah, we're here, it's r-r-right there."

"Good. What are we waiting for, then? Go ahead and hold on to Lise with your other hand..."

It was a kind of weird thought. That Violet owned this, she meant. She knew that she had lots of stuff, that she was a silly magical lady (lord) or whatever, Mum explained that ages ago. That Rock-on-Clyde was here, and that she owned other places too — Aunt Lise actually grew up in a house at the Refuge, in a super-fancy neighbourhood to the right side of the hill, Violet still owned that too, and who knew how many more — and she had a lot of money, and...stuff, somewhere. Not that she ever saw any of it, it was just something Mum told her about, didn't really feel real? Like, she didn't think Mum was lying to her, but, it was nothing that Violet ever saw herself, and didn't really matter to anything, so it might as well not exist.

But that was real, right there, a big huge sprawling manor on a hill out in the country, had been in Violet's family for seven hundred years. She was born here. And she didn't know how she felt about that.

...

Maybe a little annoyed with Albus, honestly. She didn't know why he'd sent her to live with the Dursleys, if there were all these other places he could have put her...

There was a lot of garden, walled-off beds set in big rows, banks of trees, though almost everything was already harvested, dirt overturned or only showing stripped stalks, hard to tell what a lot of it was. Some of the trees were definitely fruit though, those were apples over there! Violet didn't like apples a whole lot — the flavour was fine, but she didn't like how the skins got stuck in her teeth — but growing them was cool, the flowers were pretty. The gardens were filling most of the hill, starting not far away from the edge of the trees and going almost all the way up to the walls of the buildings. Besides the brick path leading up, stepping stones had been set down between and through the beds, criss-crossing around all over the place...

A few steps past the end of the trees, there was a low wall — made out of flat stones, looking super old, it didn't actually cross the path, stopping on one side and appearing again on the other. It looked like it was looping all the way around the hill, she felt a crackle as she stepped past it, sharper and thicker than last time, but then it quickly softened out, turning warm and smooth and nice before fading away again. Mum and Aunt Lise's hands twitched in hers, tugging, as though they'd started turning away, but then they stepped across after her. The wall must mark the edge of the wards, they were inside now.

They only made a few steps past that when there was a pop! of a house-elf appearing, sudden and sharp enough Violet jumped. This one was tall for an elf — so, about Violet's shoulder-height (after she'd grown a bit taking her ageing potions) — standing straight and calm, her hands folded behind her back, without so much of the bouncy energy elves tended to have. Though, being calmer could just be because she was old — by the wrinkles stitched across her face, Violet guessed she was older than Nola, but younger than Menae. (Not that she had any idea how old that was, exactly, elves looked too different from humans...and she didn't know how long they lived anyway.) Her big shiny elfy eyes were a soft greenish-yellow, fixed right on Violet's, she had to glance away after a second.

Oh, her clothes were neat! The elf woman (Violet thought) was wearing a dress that looked like it'd been pieced together from a bunch of bits of spare cloth, uneven and random, fringe sticking out at the seams, the threads plaited together, in some places with beads stuck through. It was maybe a little weird looking, but Violet thought it was super pretty! It was probably made by hand too, it was neat...

Looking over the colourful little dress, she noticed the elf's head tilt. "The wards say you are Jamie's Harry, but you are and are not. You are changed."

"The Dark Lord's curse that night left behind a nasty bit of magic, rooted into Violet's soul," Mum said, before Violet could figure out what to say to any of that. "A visitor from Avalon took care of that, but he had to replace the damaged parts of her essence."

The elf's big eyes blinked, glancing up at Mum for a second before turning back to stare at Violet some more. "She is blessed by the great ones."

"That'd be one way to put it."

The elf hummed, low and slow. "Welcome home, Lord Harry. I am Cediny, chief elf in the House of Potter. It is good to be seeing you again."

"Um, hi..." Violet hesitated for a second, swallowed. "Um, it, it, it's Violet now? Be, because I'm a g-g-g-g—" She broke off to take a breath. Gs, she hated G-sounds so much, ugh. "You know. D-different name."

"Very well. Lady Violet, then."

For a second, Violet waited for any more reaction to her being a girl now, but there didn't seem to be one coming? "...Very well? That's it?"

Ceciny shrugged. "A metamorph is change," she said, with a funny almost musical lilt to her voice. Violet knew from talking to Nola that that was a not-quite-laughing sound, which, she didn't know what was so funny, but fine. Before Violet could think what to say now, Cediny glanced over her shoulder toward Aunt Lise. "Elizabeth. You are not meant to be being here anymore."

"Yeah, but there's nobody else left who can teach Violet what she's supposed to know. I don't plan on staying, if that helps — I have my own family to go back home to."

"...I know. Lady Dorea spoke to me of them." Cediny paused for a second. "If Lady Violet is wanting you here, so be it."

Violet was still holding on to Aunt Lise's hand, she felt her relax a little — was she worried Cediny would be angry at her or something? She had run away and been disowned and everything, Violet guessed, but, she didn't know, that was all a long time ago. Before Violet was born, even... "You d-don't have to do that. The lady thing."

Cediny smiled, her head bobbed in a funny, bird-like nod. "Yes, Violet. Are you coming in? I can send off for supplies for dinner."

"We were hoping to stay the night, yes, but if you're preparing food I'd like to come with you. Violet can be a bit picky, you see."

Her eyes narrowing, Cediny tilted her head, thinking. "You are Cassie Black? Lady Dorea's sister? Why do you know what Violet is to eat?"

"That there's a long story. How about I tell you about it while these two get on with the Potter family stuff?"

Cediny decided that sounded like a good idea, so they were going to do that. Violet had the feeling that the elves were going to make them too much for dinner, but, that was fine, she guessed — Mum did say that the elves would think Violet coming back 'home' was a big deal, so. Not a big surprise, just, it was kind of making Violet feel weird, though she couldn't really say why. Mum asked Cediny to add them to the wards — Cediny didn't seem super happy to be letting Aunt Lise back in, but she did it anyway — and then Cediny was popping them away, leaving Violet alone with Aunt Lise.

The main path they were on kept going up the hill toward the big white granite part of the building, Violet could see there were a set of tall double doors there. But they didn't go that way, Aunt Lise instead turning off to the right, walking through the gardens, leading her by the hand. Insisting on holding her hand kind of made Violet feel like a little kid, but she was a little kid, so that was fine...and also walking across the stepping stones was kind of awkward, she didn't mind having something to hold on to. They were high enough on the hill that Violet could see over the trees — they mostly blocked the river from this angle, she could only tell where it was by the treetops kind of dipping in a curly line, she could see cleared spots that she thought were farms, the tops of little houses peeking out, way out there she could see bigger, more modern muggle buildings, the long straight line of a road cutting through the forest, the posts and wires of power lines...

There was muggle stuff closer than Violet thought there would be — magic was supposed to be a secret — but she guessed this was all hidden by wards, so that was probably fine.

They looped around the big marble building, passing under the balcony she noticed before, a little bit later the tall arched ceiling of the great hall, the windows were stained glass! Trees and curling vines, and in the middle a big shield, red and white in quarters and the rim in yellow, on both sides rearing gryphons, around it all kinds of pretty flowers and stuff, and— Oh! No, those were hippogriffs — funny half-horse half-eagle things, they lived all over Europe, and there were even a bunch in Britain. So Violet was told, anyway, never seen any herself before...

Potters had a whole thing about hippogriffs, Aunt Lise said, they were on lots of Potter things ever since the 16th Century or so. They were descended from Godric Gryffindor, one of the Hogwarts Founders, and hippogriffs were a symbol used with him a lot — Gryffindor meant "golden hippogriff" in French, a nickname he got because he would ride a hippogriff into battle, there were famous poems and drawings and stuff about it. (Violet asked if that shouldn't be golden gryphon actually, but apparently a lot of languages didn't used to separate the two, and you just knew which one someone meant by where you lived, because gryphons and hippogriffs didn't live in the same places...which she guessed made sense.) Lots of people were descended from Gryffindor, actually — he lived a long time ago, his kids had kids with people and then their kids had more kids and so on and so on, that added up to a lot of people — but the Potters started making a point about it back then because, um...

Well, it was politics, Violet understood that much.

Violet could see some wooden buildings ahead, that were hidden behind the big marble stuff before, but they didn't keep going, Aunt Lise instead turning left, toward the tower in the middle. It was hidden before, but there were a bunch of trees in here, tucked between the marble stuff and the older grey stone stuff — it didn't look like they should quite be able to fit in here, Violet thought they were maybe hidden with magic. The stepping stones stopped, instead there was a little dirt track leading into the trees, on both sides of it a bunch of plants that Violet knew would be wildflowers, but they weren't in blooming season at the moment. This was probably really pretty in the spring, or the proper time in summer...

The trees were sparkly. She didn't notice it at first, but as they got closer — stone walls on both sides, seeming to stretch higher and higher, the sun even ended up behind the walls, but it didn't seem to get any darker — there were little rainbow flickers in the air around and through and under the trees. Like the pretty light fixtures in some of the hallways at Ancient House, dense with colour, maybe more like sunlight catching on oil in a puddle, but sharper and clearer than that, like stained glass or Violet's ink set. Just little chinks of light, blinking in and out, seemingly at random, one of those funny things she'd learned by now that other people just couldn't see for whatever reason. Mum thought it was a fairy magic thing — Violet could see a magic glimmer around glamours, first noticed it on Draco's hair, could tell they were fake, supposedly fairies could see through illusion to the truth of a thing (but Violet only got part- fairy magic, so got it less)...but also just saw it on magic stuff, in general...only sometimes, though, it wasn't on everything that had magic in it. They didn't really know what that was, other people could see magic too, but it was different for everyone, and often really hard to figure out. Magic was just like that sometimes.

And there was definitely magic here. For one thing, the sun was already behind the building from where Violet and Aunt Lise were, and the trees were even deeper in there, so it should be dark there — but the trees still looked like they were in the sun, the magic catching the light through its little rainbow chinks of colour. And, as they got closer, the air started to feel warm and smooth and tingly, like before a thunderstorm in summer, she could taste the energy on the air, feel it thrum under her feet with each step, almost ticklish, echoing up her legs and into her stomach, fwoom fwoom fwoom...

It felt big. It was pretty, with the tall, super green, healthy-looking trees — she saw some of them even had flowers and fruits on them, even though they probably shouldn't be in season — and the chinks of rainbow light, and still and quiet and the air was ticklish, but also warm and nice, and the magic just felt big. Like the trees around her, much taller than Violet, the magic was like that too, making her feel small. But not really in a bad way, if that made sense? More like when she was snuggled up with Síomha, sleepy after whatever they were doing while Mum was busy with pre-tournament stuff, or when Mum just picked her up like it was no problem, carried her through the floo or whatever. Not a bad feeling, no, just, she didn't know what was causing it. Were the trees super magic or something?

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Aunt Lise said — it was so still and quiet and deep in here, Violet didn't expect the talking, she jumped a little. "But I believe the Blacks burn their dead. What bone and ash remain are gathered and preserved in the mausolea on the grounds of Ancient House. Certain personal effects, including wands, are stored alongside."

"Um. Yeah, that's it. The, the, there are also p-paintings and mosaics and st-st-st-statues, it's k-kind of pretty." A little creepy, since behind the names and stuff on the walls were people's bones, which was weird, but it was all quiet and cool and thoughtful, and the artwork was neat.

"Ah, then I did remember it right. Your grandmother told me about it, but I've never been." Violet wasn't surprised, only Blacks were supposed to be allowed in. They made exceptions, sometimes — like, if relatives of someone who married in or out wanted to pay their respects — but Lord Arcturus said it was super rare for anyone who wasn't family somehow to see them. "Burial practices vary quite a bit in magical Britain. Christians tend to bury their dead — traditionally, they believe the Resurrection at the end of the world is meant to be in body, so the remains of the faithful must be kept more or less intact. Burning is common among pagan types, like the Blacks, though some prefer to leave bodies up on a mountain, to be dried by the sun and picked apart by scavengers."

Violet made a face — that sounded kind of gross. Animals sometimes ran off with things they were eating, weren't they worried about body parts getting...well, all over the place?

Aunt Lise turned a crooked little smile on her. "Yeah, it's not my favourite. Some religions prefer it, though. The point is, with all the different cultural backgrounds and religions that people on these islands have, there are a lot of different traditions floating around. You'll find that a lot of families have their own way of doing things, which is sometimes particular to them — maybe related or neighbouring families will do a similar thing, but families, especially ones which have been around for a long time, will put their own spin on it." She drifted to a stop, only a few steps away from the first row of trees. With a slow, wide wave of her hand at the trees, "This is our graveyard."

"What?" Violet looked over the pretty, magical trees, glanced back up at Aunt Lise. "R-rr-really? People are b-b-b-buried in there?"

"Yes. There is a wake, lasting for a few days — family and friends gather, there's a lot of food and drink, telling stories of the person they lost. During this time, their wand is soaked in a special potion. The deceased is dressed in plain white linen, and is buried here, with their wand. As part of the funeral, the hole is filled by hand — preferably by the eldest son, with a plain iron shovel supposedly used by Violante to bury Hardwin long ago. The mourners linger over the grave, going through plenty of mead, until sunset. By the next spring, the tree sprouts on the spot, grown from the wand. A seed or a cutting can be used instead of a wand, if the deceased didn't own one for whatever reason, but most of these are wands."

Violet looked over the grove of trees, sunny and bright, some smaller and some bigger, leaves in all kinds of shapes, some flowering... "All of those are p-people?"

"All of them. Rock-on-Clyde was never taken by an enemy, and the magic of the wands and the wards keep the trees alive longer than they might live naturally — save for a few who went missing or whose remains were lost in battle, every Potter in the history of the family was buried here, and every tree still stands."

...

She didn't know how she felt about that. There were a lot of trees.

After a moment of Violet silently standing there staring at the grove of trees, which was also probably the prettiest graveyard she'd ever seen, Aunt Lise started walking again. Slowly, moving toward a few of the trees toward the left. She stepped off the path, ducked under a branch, walking close to a few younger trees there — one was a pear tree, she could tell from the oval shaped leaves and the little white flowers...also, there was fruit on it. Just nearby was an...ash! that was an ash tree, you could tell from the seeds and the tiny little purple flowers. There was a third tree nearby, a pine tree of some kind, tall, like, twice as tall as the closer two. Maybe it was older? Now that Violet was looking, these three were closer together, a little open path between the next groups of trees...and they were in groups, of two or three, sometimes in larger groups but never very big, with narrow paths of dirt and grass and some kind of crawler, to make it easier to get around, maybe?

"Come here, Violet." She hesitated for a second — it was very pretty, but it was also just kind of weird that there were bodies under all those trees, and the magic was very big — but she followed anyway, stepping off the path after Aunt Lise. Moving closer to the pear tree, actually leaning forward to touch it with one hand, Aunt Lise pointed down at something on the ground with the other. There was a ceramic plate set into the ground, just next to the tree, close enough the roots stretched on past it — white, the edge and the words painted in red.

Charlus Bartimaeus
3 March 1917 — 19 Decembre 1976
* Decembre 1942 — Decembre 1976 *

...Wasn't that her grandfather's name?

Aunt Lise just watched her for a long moment — maybe waiting for Violet to say something? But she didn't know what to say, or even if she could talk right now, her chest feeling too thick and stiff. But after a bit she leaned away from the pear tree, sidled over a few steps, ducking under a branch, to point at another ceramic plate.

Dorea Aquila (Black)
27 Decembre 1920 — 19 Decembre 1976
* Septembre 1956 — Decembre 1976 *

And that would be her grandmother, then, Mum's baby sister.

Violet never really thought about having grandparents before. She knew she did, obviously, but, before Mum found her... And even then it was mostly stories, more about Dorea than Charlus, things that happened a long long time ago, like, it didn't really feel like a person she knew, just stories.

That her grandparents' dead bodies were under the ground right here was...weird. Just weird. She didn't know what to do with that thought, her breath all thick and hard, the magic on the air tingling at her skin, she didn't know...

Aunt Lise was quiet again, maybe waiting for something. When she didn't get it, she eventually said, pointing at the spruce tree, "That one's my mother, Ceinwen — she and Charlus married shortly out of Hogwarts. She died not long after my second birthday, I don't really remember her at all."

Violet knew Aunt Lise's mum died when she was little, but not really any details at all. So, she was older than Violet when her parents died, but not really by very much, just a few months. Violet didn't remember anything from that young either, so that made sense. She kind of wanted to say something, like...she didn't know. But it didn't feel like her voice was working right now, so she pointed at Lise's mum's tree, and lifted her hand way over her head, even tipping up on her toes to get an extra couple inches.

Letting out a little surprised laugh, Aunt Lise said, "Yes, it was already maybe six to eight metres tall when I was your age. Spruce grow quickly. But I don't see... They should be right there." Aunt Lise frowned, then turned and walked over to the other side of the path, checking the first row of trees there. "No, that... I suppose that makes sense — there was hardly anyone left who would have known better."

What...?

Before Violet could find her voice to ask, Aunt Lise drew her wand, muttered, "Praebeo patronum." Oh, Violet knew this spell! Pretty soft silvery light came out of her wand, magic flying out in a wave, brushing over Violet like a nice cool breeze, smooth and gentle and nice. The light twisted up into itself, turning into a housecat. "Cassie. I don't see Jamie and his wife here. Where are they?" A flick of her wand, and the silvery cat smeared in a streak of light, and disappeared.

Violet actually knew the answer to that question — she never went to her parents' graves before, but Mum mentioned it, said they could go if she wanted — but even after the pleasant Patronus spell Violet still felt all thick and hot and blech, she wasn't sure her voice would work right now. But that was fine, Aunt Lise already sent the message, Violet saying anything just meant she'd get the same answer twice.

They only had to wait a moment before there was another streak of pretty-cool-soft light, the little bird the spell made when Mum did it flying in to float in front of Aunt Lise's face. "They're at the public graveyard, in Godric's Hollow."

"Praebeo patronum." The cat appeared again, Aunt Lise opened her mouth to speak again — but she froze, no words actually came out. She stared at the silvery cat for a moment, glancing away toward the trees. After a few seconds, the cat disappeared with a little swish of her wand.

Then Mum's bird appeared again. "You're right, Jamie should be here — I can start the process of having them disinterred as soon as I can meet with Albus. I recall from Dorea's burial that we'll need their wands, I know they were recovered, they should be in the vault. Is there anything else you need to do it properly?"

Aunt Lise thought for a moment. "Praebeo patronum, Cassie. Were they embalmed?"

A short minute after Aunt Lise's cat left, Mum's bird was back. "Honestly, I don't know. I was rather well out of the loop at the time. I know Albus was aware Lily was Catholic, so I imagine he would have arranged a Christian burial. In the sense of the more old-fashioned mages, I mean — preservation spells only, no muggle chemicals."

"Praebeo patronum, Cassie. Good. The formula for the potion to treat their wands will be in the library, I can find it. Thank you." Again the bird flew away, taking the good-feeling magic with it, only the magic of the grave-trees left — not that that was a bad-feeling magic, it was just...big. And a lot, there were so many of them... Aunt Lise's head tipped back, looking up at the sky, she let out a long heavy sigh. And she, just, stood there, for a long moment.

Violet fidgeted, her fingers playing with the fabric of her skirt, occasionally glancing back at the ash and pear trees (her grandparents). She didn't know if she should be doing something right now.

She kind of wanted to ask if Aunt Lise was really going to be re-burying her parents, and if it was okay if Violet wasn't there for that. Talking about how the tree-funeral-thing worked, Violet noticed that Aunt Lise hadn't mentioned anything about a casket at any point — Violet's parents died a long time ago, and, they were probably pretty gross by now? Like, she got that Aunt Lise thought they should be here, with the rest of the family, that made sense, just, Violet didn't think she wanted to see that. But that was maybe a...disrespectful thing to say? Violet would ask Mum about it later, she was less likely to take it personally, she thought.

Also, Violet still felt funny, and didn't think her voice would come out right, so that was another reason to just keep her mouth shut. But it looked like Aunt Lise was taking Violet's parents not being here kind of seriously, and she didn't know if she should be, she didn't know, doing something...

"All right." Violet twitched at the words, glanced up at Aunt Lise — she was looking at Violet now, she met her eyes for like a second before glancing up at a nearby rowan tree instead, the leaves speckled with bunches of red berries. (Had to be another Potter, must be related to that one somehow too.) "Sorry about that, Violet. Come on, this way." Aunt Lise stepped back onto the dirt path, and started walking further into the pretty sparkly flowery graveyard. Violet started following after a second — though she slowed down as she passed the rowan tree, checking the ground nearby for another ceramic plate.

Esmund Kendrick
13 Mai 1872 — 23 Decembre 1942
* Julie 1903 — Decembre 1942 *

Woah, 1872. That must be her, like...great-great-grandfather or something...

Violet followed Aunt Lise deeper and deeper into the trees, the path gently curling this way and that. The magic seemed to get even bigger as they went in further, heavy and warm and big, the air so thick it absorbed the sound, almost creepy silent. It was a little hard to breathe, honestly — the magic didn't feel bad, there was just a lot, Violet could feel it pressing in around her, tight and firm and tingly...

There were so many of them. Violet knew the Potters had been around for a while, they were special magical nobility and everything, she was told that, just... Well, she guessed it didn't really seem real until just now. She didn't know what she felt about that, just, big.

Soon, they came to the end. They passed the edge of the great hall, and there was a lower, wooden building ahead, that seemed to connect the big marble part and the older grey stone part — low and long, she couldn't see much, but she thought it might really just be a hallway connecting the two, like the ones stitching together all the different bits at Ancient House. Tucked close in a little hollow between the marble, stone, and wooden buildings was a small hill. An arc of trees, all different kinds, stood shortly away from the bottom of the hill, but the hill itself was left open, wildflowers blooming across it all bright and pretty and colourful even though they were way out of season. Sitting at the top of the hill was a big full apple tree, the leaves speckled with both white flowers and reddish fruits, next to it a gnarled old yew, with little bright red berries all over the place up there.

Aunt Lise climbed up the hill, toward the apple tree. For a moment Violet hesitated, wavering back and forth on her toes — she knew who those trees would be — but then she followed, crossing a prickle of wards at the bottom of the hill, thick and staticy. By the time she caught up Aunt Lise had pulled a pocket knife out from somewhere, tipped up onto her toes...and cut an apple off of a branch. Um.

And then she moved to sit down under the yew, leaning her back against the trunk...and started cutting into the apple. Um...

"Come sit down, Violet."

...No, her chest and throat still felt too thick and hot and stiff to talk. Instead she just pointed up at the yew tree over Aunt Lise's head, the needles and bright berries all over.

Confused, Aunt Lise glanced up, and then back at her. "What are you... Oh, are you worried about— Yes, that's good thinking, yew are poisonous. But," the knife stuck in the apple, she reached behind herself, resting a palm against the trunk, "this is Violante, and you're a Potter. None of the yew trees in this grove will hurt you, least of all this one. Come on, sit down."

Oh, well. She knew eating under a yew tree was a bad idea, in case you got stuff on your food, but she kind of forgot magic was a thing. Slowly, she slipped up to the tree, and gently sank down to the ground next to Aunt Lise. Well, on the roots, really, the way they bent here kind of almost made a little bench against the trunk.

Violet could feel magic in the wood against her back, thick and warm and cool and sizzling with energy — almost like Violet felt when she had too much tea. It was a little distracting, loud. Except it wasn't sound, but she didn't know what else to call that.

It took her a moment to realise Aunt Lise was holding out a segment of apple to her. Um...wasn't that kind of weird? Like, this apple tree was from Hardwin's wand, right, their many-times-great-grandfather, and he was buried under it, so long ago there were probably just a few bones left tangled in with the roots. Maybe this was just Violet, but that seemed weird. It took a few seconds to convince herself to reach out and take the piece of apple.

And Aunt Lise did expect her to eat it, obviously — she was crunching on her own segment cut out of it, which, um... Okay, Violet still thought this was weird, but even then, she really didn't like the skins. She tried to peel the end off with her thumbnail, maybe she could...

"Oh, here, give me that." Aunt Lise took the apple slice back, and carefully cut a narrow strip off the outside, a tiny sliver of just the skin, turned the slice around so she could get the other half. She handed the skinless apple slice back to Violet — which was better, yes, but she still thought this was a weird thing they were doing right now. A little reluctantly, Violet took a bite of the apple, and—

It was the best apple she ever tasted.

Like, by a lot — Violet didn't even like apples that much, normally. It hit hard, like, when you're hungry and eat something really good, and you get those tingles filling your mouth and down your throat, aaaahhhh, woah. Like, all crunchy and juicy and super apple-flavour-y, but also more sweet than she expected, with an almost honey tang to it, and it was really really good, she thought she might even have tears in her eyes, super intense, holy crap...

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Aunt Lise was watching her, smirking. Violet had clapped her free hand over her lips, didn't really mean to, just, it was good, and she was surprised, okay!

Aunt Lise handed her a second piece of apple (peeling off the skin first this time) before saying anything. "This is where our journey today ends. There's a long talk the head of the family has with their heir, about the values of the family and the legacy of Hardwin and Violante and their hopes for the future, and the like — when I did it with your grandfather, it felt like we were sitting here talking for hours. I suspect you're getting enough talk about honour and duty and so forth from Lord Black, so I'll give you the short version.

"We live by the works of those who came before us. What they put on the earth shelters us," she said, pointing up at the branches over their heads with the knife. "What they put in it nourishes us," she said, handing Violet another piece of apple. "And when they were done building and growing, they came to rest here, and have watched over us ever since. When you come of age, you will build and you will grow, so that those who come after us may be sheltered and nourished in turn.

"Hardwin and Violante walked upon this soil, once, and in time they joined it. Just as..." Aunt Lise trailed off for a second, focussed on getting a stubborn bit of skin off the apple, handed the clean piece over to Violet. "Just as you sit upon the earth now, and one day you will join it too. And so, hundreds of years from now, those who come after us will walk this same grove, as we just did; and they will feel your presence on the air, just as you feel all theirs," she said, nodding out to all the trees. "Because we faithful stand together always, so long as the sun lends us strength."

...Oh.

Well, that was really beautiful, honestly. Violet couldn't really express how, just, not really something she thought, but something she felt — thrumming through her like the magic on the air, the trees were magic trees because they were grown from wands, she guessed. And, she was just thinking of it as magic before, just a warm bigness hanging over her, but the wands belonged to people, and she knew how mages could feel about their wands by now, like they were a part of them, who knew how many Potters going back seven hundred years all the way to the tangled old yew tree against her back, sunlight splintering in flickers of rainbow colour and the smell of wood and green and so many different kinds of flowers and...

Violet wouldn't be put here, not really. Because she was going to live forever and stuff. Well, she might, metamorphs could still be killed, or have accidents, but she was never going to get old. But, that part didn't really matter, she could feel it, them, magic thick and warm and soft and big, all around. And she...

The stuff with the Blacks never quite dug in in the same way — because she wasn't a Black, not really, just pretending. (Partly, because her grandma was a Black, but not really.) But she wasn't just some random freak of nature, something that just happened, she was from somewhere. She was born here, her family was here, going back seven hundred years. She could feel it, in the magic on the air, big and warm and soft and hugging all around her and safe.

(None of the yew trees in this grove will hurt you, least of all this one.)

(I'll never send you away, not ever. I said I was going to take care of you, and I meant it.)

(We live by the works of those who came before us. What they put on the earth shelters us. What they put in it nourishes us.)

She belonged here, this was for her.

And she was didn't know how she felt about that. It was, just, too much, hot and thick, and, bleh. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to be saying something, but she was pretty sure she couldn't, so she just munched on another slice of apple, squirming a little at the pleasant tingles, blinking against the tears of something prickling in her eyes. Honestly, she had no idea if they were sad or happy tears, feelings were hard sometimes...

They sat there silently for a long, soft moment, but eventually Aunt Lise said, "Violet? Are you all right in there?"

Still staring down at her piece of apple, Violet nodded. Her voice definitely wouldn't work right now, her throat feeling far too tight and hot and bleh, so she just took another bite of apple instead.

"Did you break your voice? I know enough anatomy to transfigure it back if you need me to."

Violet was confused for a second, frowning down at her lap, before she realised Aunt Lise thought she'd done an accidental change and hurt herself. Had she changed something? She didn't notice, but sometimes she didn't...

She was pretty sure she hadn't broken anything, everything still felt right — if something was wrong, she could usually tell, even if it was hard to say how it was wrong (though she could always tell when she fixed it) — but she couldn't exactly explain that right now. Popping the last bit of her apple slice into her mouth, she mimed writing on her palm. Thankfully, Aunt Lise got the message, conjured a piece of paper and a pen, and a little slab of wood for her to write on. Propping the wood against her thighs, she wrote, Sometimes I can't talk. It just happens, Shannon says it's an autism thing. I'm okay, promise. That didn't feel like it quite came out right, but it was fine enough. She leaned over a little, turning so Aunt Lise could easily see the paper.

"Ah... I don't know much about that, but I'll take your word for it. Do you need me to call for Cassie?"

No, I'm okay. She wrote it so it was right under the other time she wrote that, drawing a big circle around both I'm okays a couple times. It's not a bad thing, it's just a

Violet paused before writing the next letter, and then just hung there — she had absolutely no idea what she was writing. She didn't know how to put what she was feeling into words. Normally, writing something took more time, so she could slow down and think about it — and she didn't have to worry about stammering, that also helped — but she wasn't coming up with anything, just a great big fuzzy blank.

So she started drawing instead. Not something super super detailed or anything, just really basic, flat shapes, like she might have done when she was a little kid (or still did now, sometimes, when she was just playing around). She started with the petals of a little flower — a violet, specifically. Then she drew a tree to both sides, just the super basic shape, the arcs of the trunks and then an almost cloud-like poof for the leaves and everything on top. And then little wavy lines coming up out of the tops, some of them curling down, wrapping around the violet in a spiral, little curls put on the ends of the lines, doubling back to make tiny hearts...

Looking over her sketch, it wasn't super obvious that the flower was supposed to be a violet, so she wrote me and a little arrow pointing to it. There. That maybe wasn't as good as properly explaining, but maybe that helped get the basic idea across?

It must have at least a little bit, because Aunt Lise just let out a little ah. She handed Violet another slice of the apple, and then her arm went over Violet's head, trying to worm in around her shoulders. Violet leaned forward a little, so her arm didn't pinch her hair, turned to lean against her, her head on Aunt Lise's shoulder. It did feel slightly uncomfortable, at first — Aunt Lise was still a new person, this was only the second time they met. But the magic was so big and warm and soft around them, Violet could feel it thrumming through her, and Aunt Lise was warm and comfortable, and she even smelled nice, like some kind of flower and cloves and a hint of smoke from something, she quickly settled in without really thinking about it, relaxing against her brand new aunt.

Violet had no idea how long they sat there together, munching wordlessly on apple slices — snug in the magic given off by the grave-trees, the sunlight flickering with rainbow colour, warm and soft and safe.