It's a dark and cloudy night over Cornwall. Off the coasts, there's a North Atlantic storm brewing...and that spells ill for most Muggles unlucky enough to be caught outside in times like this.
Alas, a veil forms a dome around a piece of the Cornish countryside. Pass through it (you're not likely to, if you're a Muggle), and what's over there is very phenomenal.
In here, the sun shines. The grass glitters like emeralds. Small groups of unicorns run and graze. There's always a rainbow in the sky, and it hovers abroad, like the Gateway Arch.
Here and there, a blue and hideous Cornish pixie flies. A brown raptor swoops, bares its talons, catches each pixie, and flies back to its roost. Every other raptor tries to eat their catch, while still flying...usually crashing into the top of a tree, as a result...
In the gardens, there are flowers. Most are blue, lavender, pink, yellow, or white.
Welcome to the Chateau Brockelhurst. It's a magical place. Hasn't always been, but... Most Brockelhursts get sorted into Hufflepuff at Hogwarts.
The castle's stonework is brown. France has influenced much of its design...Gothic France has, in some spots.
Atop its towers, there are many wind vanes. There are also anemometers.
In the water features, there are lotus blossoms. Beneath, blue and brown cichlids swim.
The sculptures here are enchanted. There's a bronze sculpture of a raptor, at the front archway, that comes to life and attacks intruders, whenever the need arises. And as many stalkers as this reincarnation of the Brockelhurst family has, those stalkers are mostly male, and mostly frequent.
It isn't just the sculptures. Some of the vines are enchanted. In fact, there are mass graves of gnomes all over the gardens...courtesy of the vines fashioning themselves like hangman's nooses, creeping up on gnomes and hanging them, each time they fall too much in love with their chances...
The roosters on the wind vanes are enchanted, too. They're made of bronze...but each morning, as they're bewitched too, they crow...just as a Muggle rooster would anywhere else in Britain.
Upstairs, in a tower, these chambers have some stunning interior décor. They took many a mind to fashion...even if it is just boho chic.
There are pinks, and lavenders. Tapestries, rugs, pillows, throws, brown furs, and bronze and sapphire jewelry are cast about, here and there. They rise, levitate, and float around, whenever they're needed. Many things here scream tribal Gaul. Whoever decorated this room had ZERO sense of law and order. And hence, the Ministry of Magic has visited this chateau many times...if not these chambers.
Although, there was this Auror, once, who... Never mind.
Nearer a corner, there are three four-poster beds. Boho chic throws and brown furs are piled all over them. They're not alone...
Aloft, a bronze weather vane crows. It is time...
From one of the piles, a bare leg protrudes. Some of them fall off the bed. The leg extends and flexes itself, several times, showing off. In the other beds, a matching leg surfaces from their respective piles, and does the same...
Each leg's owner is white. Each leg's owner is a mostly-pureblood witch...
All around them, the throws and furs rise. They circle their owners, like tornados of levitation. They're certainly slower than actual tornadoes.
They settle down, all over the place. Now, their owners are more visible. They're triplets, and they're all blonde, with varying hair lengths and styles. Unlike Fred and George Weasley, they just HATE being mistaken for each other. They call themselves the Brockelhurst Cuckoos.
Right on cue, a cuckoo clock in the hall "coo-coos" the time. Ah, how the Cuckoos would sometimes love to shut that awful noise off...
They all wear white lingerie. One at a time, they cast spells, and summon their unicorn hair-cored wands. With another spell, they dress themselves more decently...not that they don't like the feel of being lingerie-clad in the morning. They each dress commonly, and boho chic-like.
One of their dresses is throw-like. Another's is white, and tribal. The third's is sky-blue, and streaming.
One bats a dream-catcher, hanging from the ceiling. It spins. When it stops, a scarf levitates, and "swims" through it, like an airborne eel.
The Cuckoos wander around their chambers, in bare feet, elaborating on their dawn chant. Their dawn chant is always their favorite...if not their most refined. But then, if chants were refined, then it'd be cool to be a nun, wouldn't it?
O, we are three, the Brockelhurst Cuckoos,
We are wild, but we are good
Once, we were five
But our late sisters, Martha and Julia, died in childbirth
We live to do our matriline proud
Or rather, what's only recently become of it
Before, we were just another Dark Ages witch family
No one would've known us from a Weasley
We've been reborn as Ravenclaws
From a witch who we owe our origins to
The lady of this chateau
One day, we will succeed her
We'd rather not anticipate that,
We love boys more
Little good that ever does us,
But hey! What would Rowena do?
Outside of our estate's border enchantments,
The Muggle Cornish race is dying
The Cornish language becomes a relic
Some of our spells have roots in Cornish,
But many have been replaced
They probably all will, in do time
Ah, how the Celts have suffered...
In France, our Breton neighbors forget the Breton language
In favor of the French one
Ordinarily, anyone else would care,
But look us in the eye
And tell us you don't prefer French over Breton...
Muggles' problems are not our concern
If they ever were, they'd enslave us
Merlin knows how they'd pull that off,
Then again, who would've expected humanity to dominate mutants
In the X-Men comics of the Muggle world?
Best we stay secret
Ah, but how we Ravenclaws stumble with that
We'd rather talk our airheads off
A bit of a misnomer,
Considering that most Ravenclaws are brilliant
We don't all turn out good
In fact, half of us probably go bad
Our record is only beat by Slytherin,
Who mostly goes bad
Only one of us was in Slytherin;
April, here
The green-eyed one
Brilliant, we are, here in Ravenclaw
But the thing that really helps us stand out
As a house and as an institution
Is our beauty
We're virtually the nobility of child British wizardry
All wizards want a wife like us
Few ever win one
Crying shame; we always want them
Unless they're hideous, or badly behaved, or treacherous
Not that we can argue; treachery IS Ravenclaw
Dark wizards only recruit our men
But only to bully them
For once, we Ravenclaw women
Wish our beauty could help us, and them, there
Most of our own men are more charming
Than the men of other houses
But as the egalitarian sort,
We often feel we must give ALL sorts a chance...
We can't be blamed for settling for just one
Even in wizardry
We must maintain monogamy
Muggles see us as dark
Doesn't mean we have to be...
Or, DO we?
Our mother created us
Not just to make us gorgeous
But to help British wizardry evolve
Mum's into eugenics
Like you wouldn't believe
And we're the products of said eugenics
Proud? We're not sure yet...
She's worried if we get so much as scratched,
We'll become the next LeStrange
We think she's being paranoid
But then, most Ravenclaws just are
Ah, how Slytherin would profit from us
If Mum made more like us
We'd rather she didn't
We don't really want more siblings
It's an exciting prospect,
But it does have its disadvantages
We're not old, but we've lived enough
We've suffered, because of those disadvantages
If Mum thinks she's reproducing again,
She's crazier than we are
Her uterus can't possibly stand the strain
She'd be better off creating more of us in cauldrons
I'm sure Slytherin wouldn't mind donating a few to her cause
We think it might be our cause too,
But it's hard to make up our minds
We have no idea how Mum did it;
Making up one's mind isn't exactly easy-peasy
And it isn't lemon-squeezy, we know that;
We can do that WITHOUT a strong will
Hell, we can enchant the lemon to squeeze itself
We do that all the time
While fixing our own tea
Alas, we shouldn't have to
Because that's what house-elves are for...
At this moment, the family house-elf teleports into view. She serves the Cuckoos their morning lemon tea, and vanishes.
Simultaneously, they drink their tea. They lower their cups, and sigh happily, in three-part harmony... And, they return to chanting.
Little good, this indecision does us
There are Slytherin boys lining up for us
We think they're pathetic,
But not in an all-out rejecting kind of way
Alas, some of them have gone to Azkaban since last we talked
But hopefully, they didn't get a life sentence
And if they did
We're still a stronghold of hope for them
When it comes to eugenics
They pride themselves in their purity
Genes; not heart
Heart does have to do with it,
But not as much as they can prove
So they turn it around
And try to focus on genetics
Little good that did Salazar Slytherin
When he tried to reduce Hogwarts's enrollment
It's whitefolk like us
That the rest of the world envies
Being witches can only make them love us more
If only they didn't all see witches
As degenerate abominations
They probably don't anymore
Thanks to Charmed and Sabrina the Teenage Witch
Just to name two
O, must we breed the best of us?
Are we even premium?
The world would say so
The heart would say itself...
But damn, don't women need men?
Our men are charming,
But Slytherin's are burly
And secretive
And mysterious
And look good in black...although not all are fat...
We look good in black, too
But we prefer boho chic
And to unleash our inner Gaul
O, eugenics...
Must we doom ourselves to replicate ourselves?
Will we, as the wizard species
Not become more like that Muggle they call Pamela Anderson,
Or that other Muggle they call Britney Spears,
Or that other Muggle they once called Marilyn Monroe?
Must we doom our duplicates to the bimbo type?
Yes, they're pretty,
But must they be the future?
We know they'll be magic,
But that's no guarantor
Hell, some of them might be Squibs
O, eugenics...
Must we commit?
We suck at commitment
We don't exactly get passing marks at Hogwarts
Our only O was in Charms
April's only O was in Potions
Plus, we're more likely to get married
Than become professionals...
Then again, if our mother made us without a father,
Apparently there IS hope for being single...
O, how we hate to imagine,
But damn if life never turns out perfectly
O, eugenics...
Is this our life?
Is this our legacy?
Is joining Slytherin's pureblood-supremacy cause best for us?
In single file, they descend downstairs, still in bare feet. There's a full Cornish breakfast on the table, waiting for each of them. They surround the table, sit, and eat like noblewomen...as tempted as they are to eat like sows.
From the shadows, their mother, Palomino Brockelhurst, appears. She's virtually an exact clone of her daughters. Or rather, her daughters are clones of her...
She's a gorgeous witch, with blue eyes. Nobody believes she's still single.
O daughters, dear daughters, she chants,
How dare you doubt your destiny?
If not for us, British wizardry would erode to nothing
Cornwall already has
With her wand, Lady Brockelhurst petrifies a passing Cornish pixie, as she's chanting. It falls on the floor, motionless.
You are great queens of wizardry
You will out-evolve all other flunkies
You will shame Mudbloods
You will be an improvement on half-bloods
Even the Dark Lord had to fatigue
You'll beat Squibs
Although I can't promise that none of your duplicates
Or successors won't be Squibs...
But you will be pure
And you will be whole
Slytherin won't need no mail-order brides
Neither will other wizards
One way or another
We will replace all of wizardry
We will be angels on Earth
Happiness and fortune will, once again,
Become the dominant forces of nature
We will help it there
We will make many sacrifices
We will make many foes
We will burn many bridges
But with these assets
And these faces
And these ethics
And this purity
We WILL replace degenerate wizardry
One day, the Muggles will see us
As most people do Sabrina Spellman
As tiny and quirky though she was
You are too, now, my fine Cuckoos
But you've got your whole life to out-evolve your imperfections
And with luck, you won't shrink yourselves,
As Sabrina Spellman often did
The Cuckoos trade disgusted looks. Some still have food in their mouths.
"But you need not regard that, my Cuckoos. Please, eat..."
The Cuckoos shrug, and keep eating. Their mother smiles, scurries back into the shadows, and giggles, once she's out of earshot.
In her secret space, a white sparrowhawk lies dead, on a boho chic pillow. Once, it was Lady Brockelhurst's familiar. Alas, the cats and Kneazles from the chateau next door really like to hunt. Her fallen familiar has become one of their more recent victims...
In a darker chamber, shaded by dark blue tapestries, Lady Brockelhurst sits. She waves her hands before a crystal ball, before her. Inside, an opal-colored cloud generates light. As she clears her memory, her future, within the glass ball, becomes more apparent...
She sees the Himalayas. They're so majestic, from up here...
In an azalea forest within them, a blood pheasant forages. It's inspirational...and yet, not complete.
"No, no," she laments, waving her hands. "SURELY I can summon something better than that..."
She sees a flock of demoiselle cranes, ascending the height of Mt. Everest. There are too many; plus, she's never found the crane an attractive bird...
"Too many, and too dorky," she says. "I know you're there for a reason. What is it?"
She sees Dormammu, a devil from another world. He sits in a stairwell, glowing orange, pondering the great mysteries of his past failures...
"Better," she comments, "but not perfect. Is there no one smaller? Is there no one...easier to manipulate?"
She's looking at the top of a cliff, overlooking a set of huts, in a vale below. On a rock, a red falconet sits, perched...
"Getting better," she admits. "I think there's someone closer, though..."
That red falconet seems sure of himself. Alas, the same can't entirely be said for his falconer...