Felix Fernsby and the Circles of Malice - A Harry Potter Story

The Mill Astride Breezy-Tops

 Ormerod Windmill sat tall upon the distant hill, and looked over the Devonshire village of Breezy-Tops. It was a most unwelcome thing upon the skyline and when the constabulary had denied them the rights to destroy it, the villagers of Breezy-Tops had often schemed to have it demolished in a freak accident, or at the very least populate the surrounding area to make the sight more homely and less ominous.

 But none of these conspiracies ever got very far, because there was no one prepared to approach the uncanny tower. The four sails struck a stark silhouette against the Dartmoor skies, and eerie by day, menacing by night, it only fuelled stories and old folktales of the moorlands that surrounded the village.

It was not just the strange or austere appearance of the mill, standing alone against the desolate tops, but the goings-on that might be seen upon the tor, goings-on that, if they didn't know better, the locals might have called magic. The village was not an urbanised metropolis, or even suburban township, so caught up in the hustle of modern life that it'd forgotten its history, because the residents of Breezy-Tops remembered very what happened there centuries prior.

Exeter, not a day's walk at the time and not a half-hour drive nowadays, was widely documented as the first and last site of the witch hangings in England, and the local residents knew very well what sorts of unnatural arts used to be practised. It was scary to conceive that one might be living amongst someone with the power to glimpse the future through mere observation of the night sky, or turn the family dog into a bloodthirsty hound. Or furthermore lay crippling illness upon one's neighbour by offering them a pot of herbalised tea.

 Still, standing in Breezy-Tops was the old three-legged mare, the hanging post of those convicted of medieval witchcraft who, contrary to popular modern belief, were never in fact burned at the stake. Not in England, at least. And the residents of Breezy-Tops still bowed their head to or tapped three times the structure in gratitude for keeping their hamlet free from sorcery. If the local residents, protected and mostly ignorant of the wisdom of big-city life and modern-day happenings, it was the unpleasant things that magic could do.

No one quite knew what happened to the mill or its ownership during the infamous witch-trials. There were no records of convictions from the homestead, or incidences of any real significance apart from one strange fact. In the midst of the witch-trials, which just so happened to coincide with the golden age of windmills in England, the mill upon the hill ceased operation. Trade deals were cancelled, surviving tariffs and tax ledgers no longer tallied the commerce, and ever since, as far as those in the village were aware, no sack of flour was ever produced. And the villagers would've been happy if that had been the end of it, if they'd never had had to turn their attentions to the windmill again. The sight of such a thing upon a distant hill, still, silent and uninhabited, was something they could've learned to live with. But still, silent and uninhabited were three things they suspected it never was.

There were several things that began to stir the villager's mistrust of the place, some dating all the way back the seventeens century. For one, when storms or gales come down upon the Devonshire township- so frequent this happened that it was this which had given the village of Breezy-Tops its name in the first place- the sails on the tower stood stiff as stone. Of course, there was the suggestion this was simply a matter of brakes or locks upon the sails, but it had been observed, on more than one occasion, that when a still settled upon the pavements of Breezy-Tops, a calm too lazy to lift even a feather, the sails upon the mill would whirl and turn. And that was only the beginning it.

It was rare, but over the years, over the generations other peculiar things would happen atop the distant hill. There were, of course, the sails which turned on the stillest of nights, but this was only that start of what people's grannies, or people's granny's grannies had heard or seen.

There was the smoke, smoke which rose pink and luminescent into the evening. Some said this was a sign the villagers had in some way angered the mill, whilst others insisted it signified that someone had been murdered. And then there were the howls, and again this split the opinion of the residency. Some believed it to be prisoners locked in the milltower, or ghosts of the witches to be hanged in the city.

 Several turned to the shrieks of the demon dog that was said to walk the moors of Dartmoor and make prey of those on the heath after dark. Some even claimed to have seen the silhouettes of broomsticks circling the spire, though these were largely rubbished by most who, in spite of their basic upbringing, held enough common sense to decipher clairvoyance from absurdity.

Such were these stories of the lonely mill on the tor that even policemen or members of the constabulary would find excuses to keep clear of the place, and no one had ever, as far as living memory was concerned, been seen entering or leaving the premises. But then was bred a generation of children in Breezy-Tops that were a grain braver than those who came before.

So small was the village, that as a child it was quite impossible to stay away from 'The Mob', an affectionate title given to the group of roaming youths who were generally well-natured, if not on occasion reckless and chaotic in their games. The children of The Mob would speak of Ormerod Windmill in hushed voices, and often played games to see who was brave enough to wander closest to the mill. One child swore he once saw a ghost drifting through the rooms beyond the front window, and another claimed with unyielding ferocity that he would've reached the driveway if it wasn't for the suit of armour that appeared and chased him away. 

 Stories grew in all shapes and sizes of who- or what- lived there. For sure, someone did live there, for a plume of smoke could often be seen rising from the chimney, but no person or being upon the hill had ever been seen. Such were the strange phenomenon that to the children, and many of the grown-ups of Breezy-Tops once they'd coaxed the tales out of their mortified children, the mysterious mill was full of witches, skeletons, and all things malevolent and Halloween. Ghost stories were told of the place, and on the banks of Dartmoor another folktale was born. What the children and villagers didn't know, however, was just how close some of their tall tales were to the truth.

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THANK YOU FOR READING!

This chapter serves as an intro into Felix's home environment and upbringing, but the story is sure to kick off in the next one. I really hope you enjoyed it!

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