Chapter Text
Book 1: Sophie Roper and the House of the Serpent
Chapter 1: The Hangman’s Daughter
Not far from the churchyard in a small village in the West Country, located midway between Taunton and Frome, was the public house known as Hangman’s Hall. Originally the shop and residence of a family of rope-makers, the building had been a pub since the late seventeenth century. The only remaining traces of the original function were the highly detailed ropes braided on the gallows sign, and the name of the family who lived across from the pub, the Ropers.
Although the Ropers had been involved in rope-making for the Royal navy when they settled in the village, they were now by long association confused with the noose and gibbet, and the eldest Mr. Roper was always known around the village as The Hangman, and he had certain mostly honorary duties during various festivals common throughout the year in small villages of this type. The current Hangman was a Mr. David Alison Roper, a youngish forty or so years of age, who lived across from Hangman’s Hall in a large but not opulent house which had been in his family for a very long time indeed.
Mr. Roper was married to a somewhat plain-looking, but exceedingly hard-working and warmhearted woman named Karen Selwyn Roper. The Ropers, with the younger of their two sons and their daughter, led a peaceful and largely uneventful life, enjoying the gentle rhythms of life in the village of Godric’s Hollow. Their older son had gone into government service and was employed in trade regulations in Ireland. The younger son, Bryce, worked at the Hangman's Hall and had unsubtle intentions toward the pub's current owner’s daughter, with eyes towards a match that would keep them both in the village for the rest of their lives.
If there was one soul in the family who seemed in any way to chafe at life in the genteel environs of the family estate and local community, it was the Hangman’s daughter, Sophie Roper. For unlike her parents and her brothers, who been away to school and had their adventures in the world, Sophie, soon to turn eleven years old, had never been anywhere, and yearned for the day that she would leave the dust of the village behind, first for boarding school, and then for a life of adventure and purpose.
The adventure and purpose she knew should have to discover for herself, but the boarding school was a certainty. As her birthday approached, Sophie had taken to sitting on the fence rail which separated the Ropers’ back garden from the graveyard, which along with the village common formed the eastern edge of the village. It was from this spot that young Sophie kept her vigil every morning and evening, constantly on the lookout for owls.
For Sophie Roper, truth be told, was a witch like her mother before her, and her mother, and so on, and her brothers and father, too. Wizards, obviously, for the boys, not witches. But for a century or more on both sides, the Ropers and the Selwyns (her mother’s people) had all been magical folk, and she knew in her bones that her letter would soon come, inviting her to attend the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Life in the quiet village, which had rather a large number of magical families, considering its modest population, had not agreed with Sophie. She felt, quite strongly from a very early age, that she was destined for something great, some higher purpose beyond the village into which she had been born. The fact that, should she climb the hill on the far side of the common, she would just about see the entirety of Godric’s Hollow was simply intolerable to her. She was clever, and had quickly outstripped the other students at the village primary school, to which she had been sent to learn her letters, music, arts, and maths, but most importantly where she had learned how to blend in with Muggles.
For it was the Muggles, the non-magical people, who currently ran much of Godric’s Hollow, and the West Country, and Britain, for that matter. She supposed, when she stopped to consider it, that Muggles must more or less run the world, and witches like herself were bound by strict statutes of secrecy to never divulge the existence of magic. Many a time she had wanted to hex or jinx one of the slower students in her school, dullard Muggles that were holding her back, though there were other wizarding children in the village who she felt compelled to outstrip as well. Whatever her final calling, whatever it was that was waiting for her in the great wider world, Sophie was fairly certain that it would not wait for Agnes Dowling to at long last master the finer points of multiplication and division.
Still, having not any formal training in magic other than what she observed at home, Sophie could not have jinxed poor Agnes no matter how sincerely she wished to do so. So today, her birthday, as yesterday, the Hangman’s daughter sat on the fence rail and watched for owls.
“Hullo, there,” her father’s voice came from the house, but she kept to her vigil, watching over the graveyard, keenly looking for the sight of an owl winging its way from across the common. “So, how’s our Sophie today, then?”
Her father was a successful and educated wizard, and she knew that he could have worked in London, in Diagon Alley, in the Ministry of Magic, maybe even with the Goblins at Gringotts bank. Instead, he’d finished school, spent an extra year studying potions after his N.E.W.T. exam with a recommendation from his housemaster, Professor Snape, and then rushed right back to Godric’s Hollow with his new bride in hand, as if he’d never left. Now he brewed rare and unusual potions by special commission and occasionally trafficked in especially hard to find ingredients for his trade.
“Not an owl in sight,” she sighed bitterly. Her father’s arms surrounded her, and he lifted her up and off the rail with ease. Her father was a big man, a bit softer in the middle now than in the pictures from his school days, but easily capable of hefting Sophie over one shoulder and twirling her about, a habit she had recently pretended to find annoying but that she secretly feared she would miss terribly when she went away to school.
“Come in and get your supper, child,” her father said, spinning her about, “Your mother’s made it special, your stargazy pie.”
She squealed, totally without dignity, and fairly flew into the house, where she apparently spent insufficient time washing up to satisfy her mum and was forced to walk slowly back to do it again. By the time she reached the table, her brother was on his way out the door for his shift at the pub.
“Bye now, Sophie,” Bryce called over his shoulder. You enjoy ‘un. And happy birthday!”
He scooped a pasty wrapped in a tea towel under his arm on the way out the door. The Hangman’s House had a fair kitchen, but Karen Roper made the best meat or fish pies in the county and had won the ribbons to prove it. What’s more, she could make them completely without magic, Muggle fashion, when called upon so as to not claim an unfair advantage in a contest. Sophie thought that giving up any advantage in a contest was a foolish way to lose rather than a great sign of nobility, but this was forgotten when her mother set the warm stargazy pie in front of her.
Her favorite food in the whole world, the stargazy pie was so named because, from inside the golden, flaky crust filled with hard-boiled eggs, potatoes, bacon, and mustard-flavored custard, whole sardines poked their heads through the top crust, appearing to gaze at the stars. The sardines were not placed this way just for whimsy, but so their oil was distributed down and kept the piecrust tender and delicious.
Her eyes opened wide as saucers, and she took a moment to consider the special effort that her mother made, making the complex dish just for her birthday celebration. Sophie Roper was very much loved, and despite her desire to seem mature and aloof, she could not contain her smiles as she dished up servings of the stargazy pie, first to her mother, then her father, and finally to herself. She may have taken a rather large portion for herself, but neither parent said a thing as they indulged their only daughter on her eleventh birthday.
“Mother, can we go shopping for my school things soon?” Sophie said around a mouthful of hard-boiled egg and custard. She swallowed mightily, and said more clearly, “We haven’t been to the city together in ages, just ages .”
“Well, I don’t know,” her mother said, eyeing her husband slyly, “We might want to wait until you get your owl, you know.”
Her father added seriously, “That’s true, Mother. Wouldn’t want to have to make another trip to return a bunch of unneeded school things, if’n her letter doesn’t come.”
Sophie dropped her fork with a clatter, the last bites of pie forgotten. She looked with huge, frightened eyes, from her father to her mother and back again. Her voice was quivering, and she was white as a sheet, her pixie-cut brown hair suddenly dark against her pale face. “Doesn’t... doesn't come?”
“Well, it happens, they say. Even pureblood families, every so often, will get a squib,” her father went on sagely, referring to the rare non-magical child that sometimes showed up even in established wizarding families. Neither the Ropers nor the Selwyns had produced a squib in more generations than they had records, but Sophie could not have known this as it was not the sort of thing politely discussed in wizarding families of a certain heritage.
Sophie suddenly jumped to her feet and ran crying from the room.
“Oh, David, now look! You always take it too far, trying to tease her like you do the boys.” They could hear muffled sobbing coming from Sophie’s room upstairs.
Her father threw his napkin down and sighed. “You're right, as usual, Mother. Let me go see if’n I can mend the poor girl’s heart.”
Mr. Roper knocked softly, then opened the door before Sophie could tell him to go away. She was buried face down on her bed, her small body wracked with sobs. He sat beside her, and slowly stroked her hair, letting the tears come before he tried to console her.
“Now, pet, you know your mother was just having a go, don’t you? Why I bet you’re going to be the best witch this family has seen in a century. More, even.”
She sniffled, a long wet sound, and regarded him through her bangs and her tears. She looked as if she didn’t dare hope, and he realized that his teasing must have accidentally touched on the girl’s deepest, private fears.
“Honestly?” Her voice was heartbreaking.
“Honest,” he said solemnly. “I never should have teased you, pet. You’ve just been so grown up and serious this week, and tonight it hit home that you’ll be going off to Hogwarts soon. I know you want more than the village can offer you, and I’m just not ready to say goodbye just yet.”
Now it was his turn to brush unaccustomed tears from his eyes. “Bryce will probably marry Clara, just a matter of time. Might never move farther away than across the lane, that one. But you, you have your eye on something a great deal farther away than the Hangman’s House, that’s for sure. I’m going to miss you, pet.”
She hugged him, suddenly and savagely. “I may move away, but I’ll always be the Hangman’s daughter, papa.” They sat together, until she began to nod, eyes heavy. He helped her get ready for the night and tucked her into her bed with her stuffed niffler, Goldie.
He was careful to head back down to his wife quietly, but Sophie was asleep before he even closed her door.
You Have Been Warned: https://www.tasteatlas.com/stargazy-pie
