Isolt Sayre

Isolt Sayre (born circa 1603) was an Irish pure-blood witch. She was the daughter of William Sayre and Rionach Sayre and wife of James Steward. She and her husband were the founders of Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Family lineage
Isolt Sayre's mother, Rionach Sayre, was a direct descendant of the English or Irish wizard Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. As his descendant, Rionach came from the House of Gaunt, a pure-blood family who prided themselves knowing their direct ancestry to Slytherin himself. Rionach, however, separated herself from her family and rejected their beliefs, choosing not believing in pure-blood superiority and instead to be helpful to Muggles in any way she could.

Isolt's father, William Sayre, was also a descendant of a notable magical individual, and was directly related to Morrigan, a famous Irish who was an Animagus and could take on the form of a crow at will.

Early Life
Isolt Sayre was born in approximately 1603. Her father nicknamed her "Morrigan" after his ancestor because of her "affinity of all natural things". Isolt had an "idyllic" childhood as well-loved by her parents and the surrounding Muggle community, for whom her parents would secretly produce magical cures for.

Around 1608, when Sayre was five years old, her family's cottage was attacked and set on fire. In the ensuing destruction, both of Sayre's parents were tragically killed, however Sayre herself was apparently rescued from the burning house by her mother's estranged sister, Gormlaith Gaunt. Gaunt took Sayre to the neighboring valley of Coomcallee, where she raised her and used dark magic to make sure she would not escape and cooperate.

Gaunt proved to be an unstable and cruel guardian. A pure-blood supremacist, she believed that her sister's willingness to help Muggles would lead to what she believed to be a "dangerous path" to marrying a Muggle man. As she grew older, Sayre realized that her aunt had kidnapped her and set her house ablaze, therefore her parents' murderer. Gaunt would make Sayre watch as she cursed or jinxed any Muggle or animal that got too close to her cottage. The village learned to keep their distance from the cottage, and the only outside contact Sayre would get with anyone but her aunt was when local village boys threw stones at her when she played in the garden.

In around 1614, Sayre turned eleven and her Hogwarts acceptance letter arrived. However, her aunt refused to allow her to go to Hogwarts, believing that teaching Sayre herself about magic would be better than risking sending her to a "dangerously egalitarian establishment full of Mudbloods." As Gaunt herself had attented Hogwarts, and told Sayre a lot about it, but greatly denigrated it, lamenting that Salazar Slytherin's plans for the purity of wizardkind had been unfulfilled. This, however, led Sayre, who had been isolated and mistreated by her aunt for years, believed Hogwarts to be a sort of paradise and spent a lot of time as a teenager fantasizing about it.

Escape and isolation in the New World
Roughly a year later, Sayre finally worked up the courage, as well as learn enough about magic, to escape. She stole her aunt's wand, and left the cottage and fled the country. The only other object she took with her was a gold brooch in the shape of a Gordian Knot that had belonged to her mother. Fearing her aunt's prodigious tracking abilities and her subsequent punishment, Sayre fled to England, but soon her aunt was on her tail. Determined to hide from her cruel aunt, she cut off all her hair and, for five years, pretended to be a Muggle boy, taking on the name of "Elias Story" (an anagram of "Isolt Sayre"), all the while her aunt was attempting to track her. In 1620, she went aboard the Mayflower and sailed to North America.

Sayre arrived in America as one of the earliest European settlers, most of them Muggles. Soon after arriving, Sayre left and moved to the surrounding mountains, leaving the Muggle settlers to assume that "Elias Story" was killed during the harsh winter among the others. Sayre left partly due to her belief that, despite moving to an entirely new continent, her wicked aunt would still somehow track her down. The other reason was that her voyage aboard the Mayflower led her to the conclusion that the Puritans there would be unlikely to accept her, as Sayre was a witch.

After several weeks of living alone in the mountains in complete isolation, Sayre came across a Hidebehind about to disembowel a Pukwudgie. She cast a curse, making the Hidebehind flee. Unaware that Pukwidgies were rather dangerous to humans, Sayre carried him to her makeshift shelter and nursed him back to health. The Pukwudgie declared himself bound to her until he had the opportunity to repay his debt, but was greatly humiliated to be indebted to a young, vulnerable girl. Sayre handled the Pukwudgie's ingratitude and found him amusing and was glad of the company. Over time, however, a friendship formed between the two. Faithful to the beliefs of his race, the Pukwugie refused to tell Sayre his real name, so she named him "William" after her deceased father.

Adventures with William
After becoming friends, William began introducing Isolt to various magical creatures he was familiar with. Various adventures and encounters they had together included a fight with a Snallygaster observing Hodags hunting, and watching newborn Wampus kittens playing in the morning. A great-horned river serpent lived in a nearby creek. Isolt was fascinated by it, and in turn the serpent was fond of her, to William's astonishment. Isolt also claimed to understand what the Horned Serpent was saying to her. Because this was alarming to William, she did not talk about her sense of kinship with the serpent, and that it seemed to tell her things. She visited the creek and never told William of it, and the beast always said the same thing: Until I am part of your family, your family is doomed. Isolt was unable to understand what the serpent was saying, or if was saying anything at all.

One day, while foraging in the woods, the two heard a grisly noise nearby. William shouted at Isolt to stay put and, poisoned arrow at the ready, charged through the trees towards the noise. Isolt ignored the directions and followed William to find that the Hidebehind who had attempted to kill William years ago had killed two naïve humans and was preparing to disembowel them, and two boys lay seriously injured nearby. Isolt and William worked together and "made short work of" the Hidebehind. William continued to collect blackberries, ignoring the injured children. Isolt angrily instructed him to help her carry the boys back to their shelter, he threw a tantrum. Isolt, outraged by his callousness and stubbornness, stated that she would accept assisting her in carrying the boys back as payment for being rescued. She insisted on carrying them home, as she was afraid that they were too ill to Apparate. William grudgingly agreed to carry the older boy, while Isolt carried the younger one, who were named Chadwick and Webster Boot respectively. As soon as they got back to the shelter, a furious Isolt told William that she no longer needed him, and William glared at her and vanished.

New Friends
The boys that Isolt and William rescued survived the attack and, much to her delight and astonishment, were wizards. However, Chadwick and Webster were so ill for the next couple of weeks that Isolt hardly left them alone. She was troubled by the fact that, in her haste to rescue the boys, she had been unable to give their parents a burial, so when the boys were well enough to be left alone for a few hours, she returned to the forest with the intention of marking graves for their parents. To her surprise, she found someone there. As she watched, the man, James Steward, finished marking the graves she had intended to maker herself, and picked up the two broken wands laid beside the corpses. She watched as he examined the dragon heartstring that protruded from the wand that belonged to the boys' father and waved it. The wand knocked James backwards and he hit a tree and was knocked unconscious.

Isolt carried the unconscious man back to her shelter, where he eventually awoke. Isolt was unable to conceal her magic from James, especially in the confined space of her shelter and brewing potions to help the boys recover. She intended to Obliviate James once he recovered from his concussion, but until then she considered it nice to be able to talk to an adult, let alone one familiar with the Boot boys and he helped to entertain them while they healed. James also helped Isolt construct a stone house on the top of Mount Greylock by providing a workable design, and Isolt magically constructed it within an afternoon. Isolt named the new house "Ilvermorny" after her parents' house, which her aunt destroyed. Every day, Isolt vowed to Obliviate James, meanwhile James's fear of magic subsided, and they eventually admitted that they were in love with each other, and married.

Founding Ilvermorny
Isolt and James and considered the Boot boys to be their adopted sons. Isolt told them revised stories of Hogwarts, where the boys yearned to go, and frequently asked if they could return to Europe, where they could receive their letters. Isolt, not wanting to frighten them, did not tell them of Gormlaith Gaunt, and instead promised to give them wands and open a magical school at their stone house. The family discussed what they should name the four houses after, and instead of Hogwarts founders, they named it after nearby magical animals: for Chadwick, the thunderbird; for Webster, the wampus; for James, (after some debate) the Pudwudgie; and for Isolt, the Horned Serpent she still visited.



Chadwick's eleventh birthday
At the time, Chadwick's eleventh birthday was near and Isolt had no idea how to provide him the wand she promised him, as she thought that her aunt's wand she stole was the only one in America. On the eve of his birthday, Isolt had a dream in which she went to the Horned Serpent's creek, who rose up from it and bowed it head, and Isolt shaved a long shard from its horn. She woke up and walked down to the creek. The serpent was waiting for her, and raised its head like it did in her dream, and Isolt shaved off part of its horn, thanked it, and returned to her cottage. She woke James, who had skill in crafting and stone. They eventually finished crafting a wand of "exceptional" power.

Growing fame
By the time Webster turned eleven, reputation of the Stewards' magical home school had spread. Two boys from the Wampanoag tribe and a mother and her two daughters from the Narragansett tribe arrived one day, and received wands from James and Isolt, of their making. Isolt had a protective instinct to save the Horned Serpent wand cores only for her two adoptive sons and she and James learned to use a variety of other cores, including Wampus hair, Snallygaster heartstring and Jackalope antlers.

By 1634, the school had grown a considerable amount. Each house expanded each year. Eventually, Isolt and James had children, two daughters they named Rionach and ,Martha named after their respective late mothers.

Gormlaith's revenge
The Steward family had no idea that word of Ilvermorny had reached Gormlaith Gaunt, Isolt's aunt she had escaped year prior. When she learned of this, she made her way to America, vowing to kill Isolt and James, destroy the school building, and kidnap their daughters. As soon as she saw the house, she cast a sleeping curse on the couple, placing them into an enchanted slumber. Chadwick, having spotted Gormlaith outside, sent Webster to awaken James and Isolt, but was unsuccessful due to the curse, so he went outside to help Chadwick duel Gormlaith. Due to the commotion, Martha and Rionach were woken up, and, due to the power of love, their cries broke through the enchantment laid upon them. Isolt woke up to the noise around her and screamed at Jason to go get their daughters, while she ran outside to assist her sons in dueling Gormlaith. Once she raised the stolen wand to attack, it did not, as Gormlaith had activated a hidden spell that would disabled it. A gloating Gormlaith chased drove the three back up the stairs, to the room where she could hear crying.

Isolt followed Gormlaith up to the room where James and the daughters were. Certain that "all was lost", Isolt, hardly thinking, cried out her father's name. There was a clatter as Isolt witnessed William the Pukwudgie appeared and a poison-tipped arrow pierced Gormlaith in the heart, killing her. The family expressed their extreme gratitude, however William was offended that, for ten years, Isolt never called his name. Isolt chose not to mention that she was calling for her father. However, he softened up later, possibly due to learning that an Ilvermorny house was named after him.

Later life and death
Isolt was unable to speak Parseltongue to undo the spell on the wand to reactivate it, so she and James buried it in the school grounds. She did not wish to keep the wand, anyway, as it was the last reminder of her unhappy childhood. Within a year, a snakewood tree grew from the ground where it was buried. Any attempts to kill or prune it was unsuccessful, and it was kept after it was discovered that the tree contained powerful medicinal properties.

As Ilvermorny’s reputation grew steadily throughout the following years, Isolt and James remained joint Headmaster and Headmistress. The school's student population steadily grew with each passing year, and in turn, more teachers were hired, and the granite house expanded into a castle Isolt and James made the robes of Ilvermorny blue and cranberry. Isolt chose the colour blue as it was her favourite colourand she had wished to be in Ravenclaw as a child. She also made the students’ robes fastened by a gold Gordian Knot, in memory of the brooch she found in the ruins of the original Ilvermorny cottage.

Isolt and James both lived to be over the age of one hundred before they died.