Leah Ravenscar | Shadowhunter Fanfiction

Who is Leah Ravenscar?

By her name or by her physical description, nobody would presume her to suspicious of any kind. She was born in the same year as Clary Fairchild, and so both were of obviously the same age. Leah was tall, had dark hair and grey eyes, and liked to dress up glamorously (much to Isabelle Lightwood's delight).

Her family the Ravenscars had not been a part of The Circle, and after they had died during the uprising, an orphan Leah was delivered to the New York institute under the care of the Lightwoods and Hodge Starkweather, by the warlock Tessa Gray.

There, she had lived happily amongst her three 'siblings' - Alec, Jace and Isabelle, until Clary had appeared and Valentine had returned.

The point is that from a distance her life was quite ordinary; the girl was a pretty one, and therefore had a lot of masculine attraction. Her family was well-reputed for not being a part of The Circle, and so she was pitied on and treated nicely by the Clave. And Leah showed herself to be quite a feisty fighter.

But actually, the story was quite different from it all. Leah's name itself wasn't correct; she should've been Leah Carstairs, not Leah Ravenscar.

And that was because she wasn't the daughter of the Ravenscars in the first place. Her mother was the shadowhuntress-warlock Theresa Gray and her father was James Carstairs - or rather, Brother Zachariah.

Now, here comes the question. Silent Brothers cannot have children. But Brother Zachariah was not a full Silent Brother; his illness prevented him from being so. He didn't have all the runes required to be a Silent Brother, and his lips weren't literally sewn shut.

This also meant that since Brother Zachariah wasn't fully a Silent Brother, he could theoretically have a baby with Tessa, and could also keep secrets from the Clave and from his fellow Silent Brothers.

Therefore to keep their sexual secrets intact, Tessa and Zachariah unanimously decided to name their child after a dead and respected family and leave them in the New York Institute under Robert, Maryse and Hodge.

Tessa was part-Eidolon and Jem had some Yanlou demon drugs and poisons in his veins. Perhaps after James Herondale, none of the Herondales were so obviously part demonic in nature.

But down in Edom, when Greater Eidolon demons and Yanlou demons mated, the offspring was some demon almost as powerful - if not as high-rated - as Lucifer himself. This offspring demon was smarter than most demons, and specialised in the talent of future-insights, and just . . .having knowledge on things of all kinds.

Some manuscripts and ancient scriptures even claimed that this offspring demon - Oskino, it's name was - was more Angelic in nature than infernal.

So when Tessa and Jem had their first child - and an illegitimate one too - the girl was born with some features of all the demons: Yanlou, Eidolon and Oskino.

Leah had glimpses from the past and the future too - just occasionally, and pretty vague most of the time, but her insights were always true. This was why she knew so much more than anyone else in the world - even in the Shadowhunter world.

Somewhat similar to Sebastian Morgenstern, Leah Ravenscar also wielded strength, aim, speed, agility and grace of a demonic origin. She always inflicted damage and pain worse than any of her playmates did; her aim was always 100% accurate; nobody ever managed to catch her off guard; and Leah won every single fight.

A surprise, as it may come to all readers, Leah was even better than His Gorgeousness Jace Wayland himself.

However, with the excess strength also came the weakness. Leah Ravenscar experienced infrequent epileptic fits and migraines, that were presumably to be caused by her powerful ancestors down there in hell.

If there was any clink in her armour of perfection, it were her demonic parents. Only her 'parents' could harm to her. Whenever Leah Ravenscar was near shrines or cults of her demon parents (which had only happened once), she burst out into cries of pain and excruciation, and practically lost herself in the extreme agony.

It was a result of Oskino's curse. The demon had been extremely angered to see an offspring of his on Earth - especially a Shadowhunter. And therefore, when Leah had been a little baby girl, she had been cursed by her own ancestral demon - a curse that promised to drive Leah insane whenever she was close to Oskino, his blood, his cult or his demonic dimension. 

Not everyone knew about her weakness; she never knew about it when she was a little girl. But as Leah grew older, she consecutively became more prone to the fits and migraines. Alec was the first one who saw her this way, helped her come back to normal and then learnt to keep her secret (even though he had only been told that Leah experienced this because of a minor chronic disease, without been given much details).

Isabelle and Jace learnt it next, and now all three shared the common fatal secret about their indestructible sibling.

As for all the things that Leah Ravenscar knew, of the past, the present and the future . . . .the list was unending.

She knew that in some very queer way Jace Wayland and Clary Fray were not meant to together, but also that they were not siblings. Leah knew that Jace was her half-brother instead (in another complicated way), because apparently his great-great-great-great grandmother was her mom. How weird.

Leah knew that Jace was not part-demon and that he wasn't Valentine's son either. Leah knew who her true parents were, and what secrets they were hiding within. Leah knew where Sebastian Morgenstern had planned on building his demonic city.

She knew about the stories of Will Herondale, Nathaniel Gray, Camille Belcourt, Jessamine Lovelace and Adele Fairchild. She knew about the lives of James and Lucie Herondale, Grace Blackthorn and Matthew Fairchild. She knew the true story behind Jack The Ripper.

She just . . . .knew things. And hand in hand with that ability, Leah Ravenscar was also obliged to keep a huge lot of secrets from everybody - right from the Clave to her friends to even her own parents. Sometimes it was purely a necessity.

Leah also maintained contacts with Emma Carstairs(who was technically her half-sister too) in Los Angeles, and Mark and Helen Blackthorn. She had more Downworlder, allies, contacts and acquaintances than any other shadowhunter (partly because her mother was a Downworlder too, and because one thing that Leah had learnt was that like herself, Downworlders too breathed in secrets.

Leah knew all the vampire and werewolf gossips, the faerie and warlock secrets, about the Shadow Market, all the ifrit dens and even maintained contacts with some special mundanes who had the Sight or knew too much about the Shadow world. 

Johnny Rook of LA was her most dangerous 'friend', because he was the fourth person in the world who knew about Leah's true parents, her identity and her talents.

However, there was much more to Leah Ravenscar Carstairs than that. Afterall, she too was one of six heroes who saved the world - and in that process sacrificed a lot more things than a normal hero does.