Prologue

The Black lake was not beautiful, Nymphaea Greyjoy, better known as Nym, thought. It reminded her of a big, black, ravenous dog. Large, and fat, rolling up on shore with clashing teeth and shaggy jaws. Sometimes it foamed, as if rabid, as the waves lapped and lipped on pebble and sand. Still, on nights like this, the sky cast to sullied gloom with pinpricks of light, the moon swollen and round like the belly of an albino spider, the tide still and cold, it felt like home.

Or as close to home as Nym could get. The water wasn't salty enough. The tide not strong enough. And there were never enough currents. It wasn't the sea, a place Nym loved, but here, next to the towering castle of Hogwarts, standing proud and blackened on the horizon, it was as close as Nym could get. Ever since her first year, bobbing along on those old rowing boats up to the castle, Nym had been entranced, hooked and netted, by the Great Lake. She visited it often, near daily, through the years.

So, on nights such as these, when the memories of the war cut at her like razorfish buried in gritty sand, Nym took to the shore, stripped down to nothing but her camisole and undies, plodded along the rickety, damp pier and dived. She'd swim until all thought left her, washed clean, until her muscles ached and cramped, until all she could taste was brine and salt, and her skin froze blue and prickled.

When Nym made it to the very middle, where land was nothing but a sliver, a squint, a hazy mist hinting at illusion that you had to strain your eyes to see, she treaded water. Lily. James. Sirius. Remus. Tonks. Dobby. Hedwig. Fred. Snape. Like a watery prayer, their names spilled from her lips and that hungry dog of a lake took it into it's deep, dark embrace. Sometimes, she pictured them, their faces, hair flooding around them as they, wrapped in shrouds of seaweed and coral, bejewelled in pearls, were dragged down deep into the rippling water. They didn't scream in her imagination. They didn't cry. They didn't shout. They smiled as they sank. At peace. Silent. Down there. In the deep. Sometimes, Nym wished she could join them, at the bottom, where rock sloped and coves hid, and shadows devoured all.

Nym didn't know why she did it. She didn't know when she began to exactly. She only knew it felt right. Giving their names over to the water, having the waves whisper little funeral hymns, the soft sands calling them home, letting the rhythm of the black water set her soul and grief free. All of it felt right. She told the water all, shed her own saltwater into its body, sometimes she talked, other times she sobbed, sometimes she told a story, and rarely she was simply silent. It didn't matter. It felt right. Out here, alone, just her and the black water. And she always came back with something. A pearl stuck in her top. A pretty iridescent shell knotted in her hair. Starfish clinging to thigh. Small gifts, tokens, given for her stories, her names, her tears.

Sometimes, when Nym was feeling particularly low, particularly lost, particularly particular, the Giant Squid would come. It was a big beast, too big to see, more Kraken than squid, but it came. She knew it did. She could feel it, veiled in the depths, slinking, lurking. It would poke, prod, gentle, comforting, at her back and legs with its huge tentacles, and Nym would sing for it. She would sing until her skin wrinkled and her lips turned blue, voice hoarse and dry, until there was nothing left to sing about, until words blurred to noise, ancient and old, sweeping. The water asked for nothing, demanded nothing, wanted nothing from her, and so, she gave it everything she had. However, Nymphaea was not singing that night. No. She was confessing.

"I never knew who my father was. No one ever speaks of him. Not a word. It's as if his name is cursed. Remus told me once, when the day was close to the full moon and his restraint wasn't all there, that my mother was sent on a mission by the Order, right as she joined after Hogwarts, to gain support. She was meant to go to America, but her ship got wrecked and she went missing. They found her three years later, washed up on some beach… Heavily pregnant. Apparently, it was a miracle either me or my mother survived."

The calming waves lapped at her as she floated on her back, short red hair fanning out around her, turned crimson, like blood, by the water. The moon was nothing but a shaving of fingernail in the inky sky.

"Remus said she was delirious in beginning. She was ranting and raving about fleets and ships, yellow Krakens on black fields, usurpers and war. She wanted to sail back west, but they wouldn't let her. She even stole a ship but got caught pulling out of the harbour. She was seven months pregnant at the time."

Nym's eyes slid shut as she bobbed along, limbs outstretched, skin cool and chilled and tight. Perhaps, if someone was to look out onto the Black Lake, they would think she was nothing but a corpse, still, mute, frigid.

"Of course, by the time they wrangled her back, she was nearly nine months gone and the prophecy had been given. She was put into hiding soon after. James, her closest friend, accompanying her. Voldemort thought, well, they had gone into hiding together, and he came to the same conclusion everyone else did. They thought Lily naming me Greyjoy was just a ploy to get Tom to back off."

The hushed wind carried her voice, bouncing it off ripples and swells and surges of the biting water.

"She never got to sail west again."

That was the most tragic thing of all, Nym thought. With recalled strength, Nym dipped and began to lazily lap towards the shore. Dawn would soon be breaking.

"But I am. I'm leaving in the morning. I bought a ticket for a ship heading west. I can't-…"

I can't stay here anymore. But the words lodged in her throat, hot like a lit lump of coal, burning. She had given her all. She really had. She had given, and bled, and died, and it had not been enough. It would never be enough. Even now, they were asking more of her. Expecting her to bow, and bend, and break for them, and yet, she never got anything in return. No more. There was nothing left in her to give. She was empty, hollow, vacant. Instead, Nym laughed. Yet, it was a dead noise, all driftwood and brittle seaglass.

"Your lake is yours alone once more, dear friend. Enjoy it for me."

Nym felt an undulation by her feet, a dart of a thick shadow, just as she was getting close enough to shore to stand. She stood, water resting at waist, faced back out to the waters, and watched as it glistened under the pale, dead light of the cracked moon. She couldn't see the kraken, but she knew it was there. Something fast, golden, launched out of the water, hitting her in the stomach. Nym stumbled back, grappling to stay standing, as something slithered and wrapped around her stomach. Glancing down, readying to fight, Nym stalled.

It was only a little thing, this squid. Tiny compared to the beast that lurked in the water. Still, there was something… Off about it. It's tentacles were too strong and long, barbed with tipped razors. It's head was long, but serrated, crowned with barbed thorns and bone white spines, and it's eyes glowed a terrible, terrible sort of red. There was something magical about it, just as there was something magical about the big one out in the depths. Nym tried to wrestle the little thing off her, put him back in the black waters where he belonged, so he could grow as big as his parent, but as soon as she pried one arm off, another latched on. Suddenly, she felt something large, slippery, push at her legs, urging her to shore.

"You… You want me to take him?"

Silence fell, but Nym understood. Her last gift.

"I'll take good care of him."

She swore as she conjured a bucket, dipping down to fill it with the dank waters. Once full, she pressed it just underneath the baby squid, almost laughing as it happily disengaged itself from her and plopped into the bucket, merrily sinking to the bottom with a few popping bubbles, tentacles extended across the corners, a king of his own little lake. For the last time, Nymphaea looked out across the Black Lake and thought of all those before her, those in shrouds and resting in the dusk of these placid waters.

"And take good care of them for me."

By the time dawn broke, the lake was empty. Nym was gone, on a ship, heading west, nothing but her wand, a bag and a little bucket by her side.

A.N: I don't even know what this is, where it came from, or where it's going (If it goes anywhere XD), but... here it is! This idea has been bugging me forever, and wouldn't stop pestering me until I wrote it up.

I do know it will have a solid Greyjoy focus. I'm talking Victarion, Balon, Asha, Theon, Euron, all of 'em lol. The Greyjoys have always been one of my favourite houses, and they never seem to get much love in the fandom, so here I am, waving their banner.

If you enjoyed this, drop a review and let me know, so I know whether to continue this madness or not.