"Fair Ravenclaw, from Glen..."

Amongst the pure snow-laiden glens of the Scottish highlands, a tragic display was unfolding. It was February, yet winter showed no signs of decline. Dunes of pure white snow surrounded the scene, a trail of blood forming a path to the two figures embedded in the icy ground. The unyielding wind whipped and stung their thin faces, their long ebony hair dancing like black flames towards the night sky. The bare trees swayed in sorrow as the young girl bent down, her blossoming tears dripping down onto the face of a pale, graying woman.

Rowena Ravenclaw wept, as her mother lay down on the soft cold snow and coughed out blood. Her mother was not afraid of death. She had known it would come, and that it would come soon. She had asked to be lain here, in her last fleeting moments, to be able to gaze into the deep blue of the Scottish sky. She trembled in the cold, but her eyes were poised and calm, thinking back to her happiest of memories. Her twelve year old daughter knelt before her, her large dark eyes wet and pained. A sense of urgency crept in the dying woman's veins; her daughter had to be safe.

"Rowena... my dear... my treasure... take this. It'll keep you out of danger... It will carry you wherever you need to flee to."
She handed her daughter something with shaking hands. Rowena clasped her mother's white hands above her heart, tracing her mother's high cheekbones with her palm.

"Oh ma'... Ma'!"

"Rowena, I'm sorry. I wish... I wish I had been able to stay longer... in..." she let out a raucous cough. A bubble of blood formed at the corner of her mouth, earning a soft whimper from her daughter.

"Mother... Why won't you stay inside. Please... Please! I'd do anything..." wailed the young girl.

"My sweet, sweet girl. I love you more than anything on this earth but... I... You know I cannot live any longer..."
Rowena threw back her head and let out a high scream of pain, as her mother's eyes seemed to loose focus.

"But... Mother, please..." she wailed softly, her words scrambling together until they were barely legible, "Please Mother, I beg you, anything..."

And then, her voice hiccuping with hesitation and shame, she said: "Use magic... mo-mother... please..."

Her mother's eyes widened a little, as if her daughter had uttered a blasphemous proposition, and as Rowena made contact with them, she recoiled, scared of the intensity lying in their depths.

"No. I have vowed to use magic nevermore... So should you." she managed to utter as she looked away, tears welling in her dark sapphire eyes.

"Mother...." Rowena wept again.

"Use my gift well... Rowena. I love you."

These last three words hung in the air, weighing on the young girl's bony shoulders.
'Love... love was no enough to keep my mother from dying' she thought bitterly.
Yet, at that moment, it was all she had left.

For a few minutes, where death hovered, waiting, there was no sound except the shuddering gasps and rasping breaths of mother and daughter. Then, as the sun started to spill its contents on the sloping hills, the mother's eyes became glassy and still.
Rowena shivered, and stood up unsteadily, swaying on her emaciated legs. It was only then that she realised she was grasping the object her mother had given her - when was it? minutes, hours, days ago?
A crystal of a pale lilac quality, lay large and heavy in her hand. Rowena felt like throwing it; she felt like uprooting the trees from their earthy sockets. But she found she couldn't move even if she wanted to. The cold had stuck her to the icy floor she had been kneeling on.

'I'm going to die' the young girl thought as she subconsciously slipped the crystal in her thin cotton pocket, 'I'm going to die next to my mother and I'm going to see her again after I do.'
She felt a sudden calm wash over her. She did not need to weep for her mother if she was going to join her. She crouched next to the fallen figure of her mother, breathing out cold wisps of air.

Out of the corner of her half-closed eyes, she saw something peeking out of the freezing ground. Roses, roses of a shiny almost iridescent coal black hue, were growing around her mother, their stems twisting and dancing together, intertwining to cover the frozen body of the deceased. They formed a sort of thorny casket around her mother, without covering her white face, which was still gazing up into the sky. Slowly, with what felt like unmeasurable strength, Rowena's long pale fingers reached towards her mother and softly closed her eyes. The roses sprung into action again, smothering her mother's face, covering her body completely. Rowena's fingers did not back away in time: they were cut by the thorny stems of the black roses. From the pricks, drops of blood formed, and fell onto the frozen blanket of snow at her feet.

Rowena was certain that she had created the black flowers, albeit subconsciously: since her early days as a child she had been accidentally performing magic. Her mother used to encourage these signs of power; that is, until Rowena's father died.
Indeed, Rowena's father had not died naturally, as her mother had, of sickness or malnourishment. They had been merchants, almost comfortable, living happily. One day, Rowena had fallen from a tall tree, and had been badly wounded. Her father had immediately pulled out his wand and healed her, making her feel like brand new in no time. He had not seen however, the neighbouring farmers spy on this occurrence. The next day, they had drowned him. It had been without warning, and just like that, without the remotest farewell, Rowena's father was gone. Every night, she still heard his desperate pleas and shouts echoing around her. After this incident, Rowena's mother never used magic again. Rowena did not know if her mother's abstinence was in fear that she too would be drowned, but somehow, she didn't think that was so. Her mother showed a disgust for any magic she performed, and Rowena had never been gifted a wand or any magical item.

Their family had become shamed, and they had had to sell most of their belongings. They lived on hard pieces of bread, so skinny their ribs jutted out from under their thin cotton dresses. Their house had been burned down; they had tried to rebuild it, but it was a pitiful excuse for a home, with cracks decorating the walls and mud coating the ground. At first, Rowena had hated the muggles, who knew nothing, nothing of the wizarding world; who had punished her father for healing her; who had gazed at her with a hungry longing that made her taste bile in her mouth; who had muttered about her and her mother, about their beauty and their magic; who had taken everything from her and her family. Now, however, she couldn't help but pity them. They were desperate, too hungry and eager for someone to blame. It was not wise to resent them for their ignorant ways. They had, after all, been denied the knowledge that they lived amongst witches and wizards.

"I saw that, you littl' wretch" snarled a deep rough voice. Rowena felt herself being grabbed by the waist under the grip of large calloused hands.

"Careful Henry" giggled a wheezy male voice, "Witches can burn people when they feelin' threatened ya know! Mind ya', she looks too weak to muster any kind of fight.." He giggled again.
"I knew it" hissed the hoarse voice of a woman, "That girl's father was the devil's child as well. Filthy witch will be burned no doubt."
Rowena's struggled half-heartedly, too feeble to do anything against the steel-like grip of the man she could still not see. The woman with the hoarse voice walked into field of view.
"Are all the Ravenclaws Devil lovers? Was your mother a vermin worshipper too?" she smirked, "Some good tha'as done. Look't her now. Dead."

Rowena trembled, disgust and fear roiling in her gut like snakes. She calculated her chances at escaping, keeping her face impassive. None whatsoever. Even if she did break away from her captor, she was too weak to run very far before being caught. These farmers were skinny too, but nothing compared to her stick-like legs. She resigned herself to wait, wait for ideas to come to her, as they often did.

"Come on' Willam, gimme a hand will ya." her captor grunted as he tried to drag her.
"What d'ya mean, she's as light as a feather she's so skinny" the wheezy man answered.
"Well its not feelin' that way. Gimme a hand!"

She could feel him getting impatient, hot with embarrassment. But Willam was right. She was all skin and bones; he should be able to pick her up with one hand. She felt a second pair of hands grabbing her, a little too close to her chest for comfort. She hissed, and felt him jump back, terrified. She smirked at his stupidity, his ignorance, his immature fear. She could do nothing to hurt them, but they did not know. The wheezy man's hands grabbed her again and pulled.

"By all my goose's feathers you're right!" he panted, "She's as immovable as a rock!"
The woman scowled. Rowena suppressed a grin. Oh sweet, sweet magic. Of course, she could not control the darn thing, she was too young and did not possess a wand; but it was there, rushing through her veins, keeping her stuck to the ground. The knowledge that no matter how hard they tried, they would not be able to carry her comforted her enormously. She was not to be pushed around like a rag doll.

"We'll have to burn her here then won't we", the woman growled, "Willam go warn the priest."
"Why's'it always me to go do the damn dirty work" he wined, relinquishing Rowena hurriedly.
"Because you're a useless piece of filth." snapped the woman, "Now go!"
Rowena heard him scurry into the darkness, a feeling of hope seizing her. More time to think of a way out.

A thick silence fell across the plain, while Rowena's brain whirled. Hours seemed to pass by as she kneeled there, eyes closed in concentration. An idea had sprung into her head, desperate but present.
She did not know what the crystal did, but... what had been her mother's words? "It will carry you wherever you need to flee to."
She had to try it. Her captors were watching her carefully, she could feel it; their gazes branded her back. She would have to wait for the perfect moment to pull out the stone and find out how to use it.

After a longer pause, distant footsteps could be heard. Too many of them. Rowena winced. Too many people to run away from. Too many gazes to act under. Soon the man holding her would look up, get distracted... then she could pull out the crystal...

Her calculations were correct. The man holding her perked up, looking behind him, and in that same second, Rowena plunged her hand in her pocket and pulled out the rock. Both man and woman did not see, so impatient were they to see her downfall.

Of course, nothing happened, just as nothing had happened when her mother had handed it to her. No, the crystal must need some kind of password, a message to show she needed its powers. A signal that she needed its help.

"Help?" she muttered unconvinced. Something so simple couldn't be it. Her mother liked things to be complex.
"What?" the man and woman said, turning to her. Rowena quickly hid the crystal into the palm of her hand.
"Help!" she cried half-heartedly.
The man and woman sneered and looked away. Rowena suppressed a sigh of relief.
"Calling for help won't help you now little witch", laughed the sneering woman. "Nobody is on your side!"
Rowena forced her mouth to stay shut, grinding her teeth. "A witch I am indeed" she muttered.
Then a thought came to her. She had seen her father disapparate multiple times when he was at home. Perhaps an object could have those kinds of properties too? She thought about it, then decided that this was the most plausible option.
"A stone with magical properties, that can transport me through time and space? I must picture the place in my mind, like apparition;" remembering the book she had read about that particular branch of magic. She would have to create some distance between the large man holding her, to make sure he did not travel with her. 'Then again, I might be wrong' she thought. She didn't much care. This was not a time to doubt her instincts.
Men, women and children were coming. She could here the babble of noise coming from them. She closed her eyes. Soon. She felt the man's grip relinquish slightly. He thought she was cornered, that she couldn't run away. She whimpered to convince him of how weak and tired she felt (which was not hard to act out given that she was both), and fell to her knees.
He took a step back, disgusted. His hands fell away, replaced by cold biting winter air.
NOW!

She thought of a place, any place. Her first thoughts went to the south, where it was a little warmer; the lake that she and her parents had travelled from when she was only 4 year old. The gleaming reflection of the water, the cool breeze, blowing the willows around... she pictured it all perfectly.

"HENRY NO, DON'T LET GO OF HERrrr....."
The woman's shouts became echoey and dim, and Rowena felt herself being whooshed through time and space, a space she could not open her eyes in. Her ears however, worked. The last words of the woman's screams pierced her brain like a knife:
"CURSE YOU, Ravenclaw, curse you! I vow to destroy you if its the last thing I do!"

When Rowena opened her eyes, it was next to a lake of gleaming reflective water, on a cool breeze that was blowing the willows around and around. The blooming sunlight was too strong for Rowena. She fainted on the spot. She would only remember later that it had been her thirteenth birthday.