Chapter 1

Serana looks at the dim cave opening ahead of them doubtfully, “Mother, why are we here?”

Valerica walks ahead into the cave entrance, “Because your father is mad with power, and I fear what he will do to you now we have two of the Elder Scrolls.”

Serana hurries after her mother, “Mother, that doesn’t explain anything.”

“My dear Serana, it explains everything. You’re just not willing to see. Now come along, it’s not far now.”

Several minutes later they come to a stone sitting room with barred windows and a portcullis over the door, that is controlled by a large lever. The faint sound of running water beneath them tells Serana how it’s supposed to work.

Passing through the portcullis to the balcony beyond, Serana stops and hisses, “Mother, what is that?”

Laid out below them is a circular amphitheatre with a hexagonal pillar in the centre. The whole thing is lit by a ghostly purple light.

Valerica takes Serana’s hand and pulls her down the stairs to the side, “That is where I’m going to hide you and the Elder Scroll before I deal with the other scroll and confront your father. Not only have I built this place in secret, but only a Daughter of Coldharbour or a mortal untainted by our blood can open it.”

Serana shakes her head, “I don’t want to, what about Devin, Mitchel, or Ruby?”

Valerica turns around and strokes Serana’s cheek, “It will only be for a short while, a year at the most, and then I’ll come and release you.”

Serana opens her mouth to say something when Valerica catches her with a paralysis spell before levitating her into the tomb. “My dear Serana, I’m doing this because I love you. The fragment of prophecy your father found calls for the blood of a Daughter of Coldharbour, and you are not yet strong enough to defy him if he tries to take it by force.”

As the front of the tomb closes up, Serana futilely struggles against the spell that’s holding her in place.

Once the spell holding her wears off, Serana tries everything she can to get out of the tomb, but the walls of the tomb seem to be far stronger than they should be.

Eventually, she calls on the magic she’s been taught, only to find herself cut off from Aetherius leaving her unable to fight off the enchantment woven into the tomb as she succumbs to sleep.

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 Lily looks down at her son, Harry, as he lies in the centre of the ornate and arcane chalk ritual circle that’s drawn where his crib would normally sit.

“My life for your life, my magic for your magic, my family for your family, my safety for your safety. A curse on those who would steal my life, may what they visit on my child be returned fourfold upon them. For a year and a day may this contract last, and with blood will it be sealed.”

Taking a transfigured athame, Lily pricks her finger, and places a single drop of blood on Harry’s lips.

As she does, almost every iota of magic is wrenched from her body, before it starts drawing from the protections and magical items in and around their home.

As the ritual comes to an end, Lily stumbles as a wave of exhaustion passes over her. Tiredly she picks up her son and carries him down to the living room.

“Your father should be out for a few more hours yet, so I think I can have an hour’s rest before I put your crib back. I hope what I just did is useless paranoia, and we can raise you as we should. But there’s a prophecy, and I’m not taking any chances with your life. But at least you’ll have a new daddy if the worst happens.”

A few months later, Lily desperately casts a locking spell on the inside of nursery door before waving her wand at the window. When the window fails to open, she curses and runs over to try and force it open, or smash it if nothing else.

The sound of the latch on the door, has her turning around in a panic as she abandons her attempt to get through whatever enchantment has been placed on the windows.

Swallowing hard, she takes two paces in order to stand between Harry’s crib and the door, just in time as her locking charm is countered and Voldemort walks in, his wand held casually in his hand.

“Stand aside and I will spare your life, I’m only here for the child.”

Lily shakes her head, “Never, I will never willingly let you take the life of my child.”

“I will not offer again, stand aside.”

Lily shakes her head defiantly, “Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead.”

The last thing she sees is Voldemort contemptuously raise his wand, and a green light shoot out of his wand.

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A few days later, a large man, with a rugby player’s build, picks up a toddler and shakes it, “Why won’t you just shut up!”

As he does, the toddler disappears into motes of golden light. The next day, the man is involved in a side on collision, where his car is rolled over, and over the barrier. He survives, but his sporting days are finished as his head and neck were whipped around so severely it damaged the ligaments.

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 As magicka starts to flood her tomb, Serena wakes up from her enchanted slumber to the smell of a soiled nappy, and the piercing cry of a toddler desperate for help.

Lifting her foot to put the mortal baby out of its misery, Serena pauses as her trained senses tell her two things. The first is that the toddler is fair dripping with magicka that seems to be coming from inside it. The second is the artful enchantment surrounding the toddler.

After much careful moving around, and readjustment of the Elder Scroll she’s been entombed with, Serena manages to pull the toddler up to her arms.

Wrinkling her nose, Serena pulls the soiled cloth off of the toddler and uses it to clean off the rest of the mess before freezing it with a blast of ice magic.

Now clean, the toddler giggles lightly, and stops emitting magicka. As they do, the enchantments on the tomb take over once more, and Serena falls into a slumber once more.

An hour or so later, she’s woken up by a squalling toddler as it starts crying again. Once more the toddler is dripping with magicka.

With the toddler already in her arms, Serena puts her years of teaching in the magical arts to good use and starts to investigate the enchantment surrounding the toddler.

Once she comes across the curse, Serena startles and holds the toddler far more gently, even gingerly.

“Well, aren’t you a little bundle of surprises. Good thing I didn’t kill you, as I dread to think how that would have come back to me. At least the curse is slowly weakening, so I can put you out of your misery soon. But how to keep you alive until then? Well, let’s try thralldom first, if that doesn’t work then we’ll look at turning you.”

Biting her finger with a fang, Serena puts it in the crying toddler’s mouth, and smiles as the crying stops almost immediately as they start to suckle on the finger.

Now able to think clearly, Serena takes the time to inspect the small mortal that could be of Nord, Imperial, or Breton stock. Without the nappy or dirt in the way, it’s easy to tell the toddler is male.

Her investigations are interrupted when the enchantment surrounding the toddler reacts and begins to do something. As she watches, frozen in place from fear of the curse, the toddler’s skin lightens, and their eyes start to glow a vibrant green colour. At the same time sharp fangs grow in their mouth, and the genitals recede into the body, leaving only the slit of a girl.

As the transformation finishes, the new girl giggles and the magicka she’s producing falls away once more.

Serena manages to say “No, don’t…” before her mother’s enchantments take hold once more.

 Over the next millennia, the two of them wake sporadically as the toddler’s needs slow down along with her aging.

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A young girl of around 4 years old looks up at her mother, “Mama, who am I?”

Serena looks down at her with a smile, “You are my daughter, Stefana.”

“Why are we here?”

“My mother shut me in here to keep me safe. You were a gift from the gods, though I wish I could have raised you outside.”

Stefana frowns, “What’s outside?”

Serena uses some of the magicka she’s been building up to cast an illusion spell she was forced to invent in order to give Stefana as normal a childhood as she can in a space they can’t sit down in. This spell creates a small illusion of the view from her room in the castle, “This is what outside looks like.”

“Why can’t we go outside?”

“Because I don’t know how to get past your grandmothers enchantments, and she’s stopped me from being able to examine them from inside.”

Stefana just accepts the explanation before asking, “How did you make the picture?”

“Illusion magic, would you like me to teach you?”

Stefana nods before she yawns, and the enchantments on the tomb take them both again.

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In a tomb that now looks like a glass prison in the middle of a plain, a young girl of around 5 years old pokes her mother, “Mother, why isn’t your skin like my skin?”

Serena looks down at her daughter and produces an illusion of some people standing nearby, “It’s because I’m wearing clothes like those people are. I don’t have any clothes that you could wear, but I know some magic that can conjure weapons and armour. Would you like to try learning that now?”

Stefana nods, “Yes mama.”

Serena creates an illusion of the spell bound dagger, “This is the spell bound dagger, can you show me how good you’ve got at reading while mummy practices storing magicka?”

Stefana nods and mutters the incantation to an illusion spell that creates an illusionary hand to hold the book, and turn its pages.

A few hours later, Serena is able to hold onto her magicka for a couple of minutes after Stefana falls asleep.

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 Serena wakes up to the odd sensation of lying down on a stone floor. Blinking, she pushes herself to her elbows and looks around to see the landscape is a forest with purple trees, dancing amongst the trees are pink mammoths. Off to one side, an 8 year old Stefana trying to get to her feet, and only succeeding at dragging herself along with her arms.

“Stefana, what happened?”

Stefana looks back with a guilty expression, “I don’t know mama.”

“Stefana…”

Stefana shrinks back slightly, “I don’t know mama, I just wished there was more space so I could run around like the children you show me.”

Serena sighs, “So, some sort of alteration effect then. Did everything get bigger, or further away?”

Stefana pushes herself onto her back and points at a tree, “Further away.”

“Right… another thing for us to work out.” Standing up, she walks over to Stefana and picks her up under her arms, “But first, I need to teach you how to walk.”

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Albus Dumbledore leans forward to look Minister Fudge in the eye, “Minister Fudge, I implore you to allow me to use the Goblet of Fire. It is the only way to retrieve the Boy-Who-Lived.”

The portly man in his bottle green suit looks at the elderly wizard in disgust, “Headmaster, I appreciate that you want him to be returned, but my hands are tied. The cup is kept by the Department of Mysteries, and they have categorically refused to allow it out of their possession for ‘frivolous reasons’. If you approach them with an actual plan, I’m sure they’ll be happy to allow you access.”

Albus shakes his head, “I’ve already explained why I can’t do that. The goblet is only a small part of the magic I need to use, and without being able to study the goblet, I can’t design the rest of the enchantment that will bring the boy back from wherever he was taken.”

Fudge shakes his head, “I have been told to ask, do you even know if the boy is still alive?”

Albus nods grudgingly, unwilling to let out even this small amount of information, “I was able to decipher Mrs. Potter’s notes and develop a spell to follow the lingering link from her protections to the boy. Until he comes of age, we will still have that link, which is why it’s imperative you let me use the Goblet of Fire…”

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 As a 14 year old Stefana, now dressed in summoned light armour identical to Serena’s, engages in a lethal game of tag with a scamp, Serena sits sightlessly as she tries to find the place that magicka is stored inside her. Something she’s been trying to do since she realised that Stefana was actually generating magicka, and has been generating more and more as she’s grown up. Her own techniques for gathering and storing magicka are leaps and bounds ahead of where they were when her mother trapped her in this accursed place, but still she relies on external sources of magicka.

With a wince, she forces herself to remain focused as she finds her Animus. Muttering a prayer to Molag Bal, Serena sharpens her will before shoving it through the barrier between her body and her Animus. The sharp taste of blood fills her mouth as her fangs run through her lips while she stops herself from screaming. This isn’t the first time she’s tried this, but it is the first time she hasn’t passed out from the pain.

Carefully, she uses one of her magicka gathering techniques on the hole in her Animus to pull out the smallest strand of magicka she possibly can. Even that is excruciatingly painful. Grimly, she brings her awareness back to her body, and watches Stefana play until she exhausts herself. That means that next time they wake, it will be an intellectual day.

While her daughter’s ability with magic is still only at the high end for an apprentice, her nearly inexhaustible supply of magicka makes up for that.

Once Stefana falls asleep, the magicka level in the tomb quickly starts to drop. Far faster than it did when Serena was first imprisoned here.

Before the enchantments start to drain her own reserves, Serena pushes herself to her feet and staggers over to Stefana. With a pained grunt, she picks up her daughter and walks over to the centre of the tomb.

While she’s waiting, first the illusion vanishes as the magicka is sucked out of it. Then the walls close in around the two of them, until they are pressed tightly together. Finally, Serena’s reserves are wrenched from her body.

As the enchantment finds the small trickle of magicka being teased out of her Animus, Serena lifts her dagger to her mouth and bites down on the hilt.

A moment later, it’s everything she can do not to scream and wake up Stefana as the trickle is forced into a stream. A few moments later, the enchantment mercifully takes her consciousness.

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 Stefana looks up sharply as Serena’s eyes flicker open moments after her own did. The sigh of relief that follows fills her face with concern.

“Mama, are you ok?”

Serena looks down at her daughter, “I am my little star, my experiment worked.”

“What experiment… Mama! You promised me you weren’t going to do that again.”

Serena smiles and casts the alteration spell they invented to expand the tomb, “I promised that I wouldn’t hurt myself unnecessarily.” As the expansion of the room starts to slow as her magicka reserves run low, it doesn’t actually stop for another 10 seconds, “I happen to think that being able to keep up with my daughter is a perfectly necessary reason for causing myself pain. I’m also going to do it at least once more, because I love you, and I’m not going to leave you in a situation where mages will be hunting only you in order to find out how you regenerate magicka so fast. Now, do you remember the spell to see other people’s Animus?”

Stefana nods, “Detect Life. I don’t know why it’s called that though, as it also works on undead and Daedra.”

Serena smiles, “As I’ve told you before, it’s because it was invented by the living, and they don’t tend to come into contact with the undead or Daedra, while they are around lots of life.”

Stefana scrunches her nose, “What about us? Are we undead?”

Serena gives her daughter a hug, “Honestly, I don’t know. Your grandmother would be the one to ask, before we bend her over a barrel and tan her hide for leaving us here like this. Now, I’m going to teach you a variant of the detect life spell that I invented. It will allow you to project an illusion of a target’s Animus…”

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 Albus stands up at the end of the welcome feast ready to make the announcements. The most important of which has taken him three years of politicking and suggestions to arrange without letting the government know it was his idea.

“…it is my great pleasure to announce that this year Hogwarts will be hosting the Tri-Wizard Tournament…”

As the door slams open, Albus hides a grimace as the compromise makes himself known. Under normal circumstances, he’d be happy to have retired auror Moody teaching defence. But this year he’s also here to keep an eye on the goblet.

“…a round of applause for our new Defence of the Dark arts teacher. As I was saying, the other schools will be arriving in October, with the choosing ceremony happening on Halloween.”

A 4^th year Ravenclaw girl groans, “We’re doomed.”

Albus ignores that comment as he continues with an outline of the tournament.