Most people that met Torby thought he was a dwarf, if not all of them. He definitely had the right height, and he did have a well-tended beard that he cultivated religiously, even though it itched like hell most of the time. It was a small price to pay to keep his wife happy, and she loved his beard. Entirely expected, of course, she was a dwarf after all, and they did like their beards. He was just glad he didn't need to grow it out as long as most dwarves to keep her satisfied. Though he did wish he could grow a decent mustache, however, that was not in the cards for him. His wife said his upper lip was too weak. What did that even mean?
He very much looked like a dwarf, but anyone that took the time to take a closer look would notice some discrepancies. They were not big things, just a few small issues that added up. He was not as stocky, for one, despite exercising regularly to add some bulk he had never managed to get the width of a real dwarf. His ears were somewhat too big and a bowl shape that tapered off into a blunt tip, his eyes were just a tad too large and his nose a bit too fine and a tad too small. All of it added up to make him seem just a bit out of place in a gathering of dwarves. Torby tried to downplay those features as much as he could. His hair hid his ears, and a pair of enchanted glasses made his eyes seem somewhat smaller, things like that.
But truth be told he didn't have a drop of dwarvish blood in his whole body. His father, you see, had been a house-elf, and his mother a witch. Or so he had been told. He had known neither of them, having grown up in a orphanage. His mother had supposedly died giving birth to him, though he had his suspicions about the veracity of that claim. His father had died at the hands of his mother's family once it had become clear what had happened. An entirely expected outcome knowing what he did about his mothers family.
He didn't know much about his mother and father, his father in particular. He didn't even know what his father's name had been. Who would take any note of a house-elf after all? He did know some small things about his mother, nothing good or flattering, unfortunately. She had apparently been born with some kind of disability that stunted her mind, making her slow and childish. She was also described as particularly ugly, more resembling a pig than a human, with a round face, sloping forehead and squinting eyes. Torby rather doubted the accounts of that as well, it stunk of prejudice to him.
For an upstanding wizarding family that had not been at all acceptable. Something that unsightly could not be allowed to tarnish the reputation of their fine house. So his mothers kind family had isolated her, locking her away in her rooms so that none would see her. Couldn't show their shame after all.
His father, a house-elf had been her only friend and "human" contact. He had been the one to take care of her, feed her, dress her and entertain her. It wasn't too hard for him to fill in the blanks, to imagine what had most likely happened.
Torby was quite frankly surprised that they hadn't killed him when he was born, choosing instead to give him up to an orphanage as they did. He supposed that even as putrid as they were, even they couldn't stoop so low as to kill a newborn.
In a way he suspected that they had inadvertently, and unintentionally, done him a favor, living with that family would likely not have been good for him. The Matron of the Orphanage was a kindly old lady who took a shine to him. It was from her he had gained most of what he knew of his birth family. That was not to say that his time at the orphanage had been a fun one, it hadn't. He was different after, and children can, and will be, cruel if given an opportunity and not enough supervision. The Matrons' kindness worked against them there, unfortunately. No one liked the teachers pet.
Fights were commonplace, usually ending with painful bruises. Had he not been part house-elf it might well have been worse. But he was, and with that came certain advantages. But not enough for him to want to stay around. So when he had been nine he'd gone on the lam. A bit of a mistake on his part, he had realized years later. Had he stayed he would likely have had a place at Hogwarts... But then again, if he had he would never have met his wife. And that was more than a fair trade in his mind. More than fair indeed. She had given him so much, love, a home, and finally a family.
Life on the road had been suprisingly easy for him. Again his strange heritage had saved him a lot of trouble. He had inherited the full scope of the magic inherent to his fathers side of the family. He could move unseen and unheard, he could pop into places he shouldn't be able to, and he could move things with his mind. All those things made him a very effective thief. He lived and ate well, particularly after he moved on to the muggle world. There were even fewer things that could stop his grubby little fingers from getting ahold of anything he might desire. It wasn't long before he felt like even Brittan was too small for someone like him. So he did what any young boy in his situation would do, he left, traveled the world, and robbed people blind as he went. He was nineteen when he'd decided that it might be time for a little visit to his old stomping grounds. They had been bereft of his grand self for far too long, after all.
That's when he'd met her.
Dis.
She was the most beautiful thing he had ever laid eyes on.
Hair as red as his own, done up in a multitude of different sized braids, a heart-shaped face that could melt any man's heart, eyes like molten gold that seemed to shine when she was angry, which she certainly was when he first saw her.
She'd been trying to break the faces off a pair of wizards at the bar she'd been at. Exactly why she had been trying to maim the two he had never bothered finding out. It was likely that they deserved it. They were wizards after all. Most of them weren't worth the air they wasted for the rest of the people in this fair country. She likely would have come out the worst for it in that confrontation; a wizard's magic was far too potent to be overcome by sheer brute strength after all. So naturally, he had helped her. Thinking that it would give him a good opportunity to dazzle the lady and make a good first impression. Together they had made short work of the two wizards, he just had to trip them up long enough for Dis to get her hands on them, and that was that.
He'd been wrong about reciving any gratitude however. Instead she'd given him an earful for his unasked interference in her personal business. He'd found out later that this was a very dwarven thing. You just don't go jumping into someone else's fight without their say so. Honestly, he thought it a bit strange, but he thought that about a lot of things dwarves did. Not that he ever told his wife that. He quite liked his bed, and while the couch was fine in a pinch he didn't relish sleeping on it that much. He didn't let that bad first impression deter him, however. So he spent the next little while observing her, and once he had felt confident enough he'd tried wooing her again. She'd shut him down hard, giving him another earful in the process. It became readily apparent that he was missing some things when it came to dwarven courtship.
Not being a dwarf was apparently on the top of that list.
A lesser man would probably have given up by that point. But while Torby might be short he was not less of anything. He refused to accept that not being a dwarf would hinder him from gaining what he sought. He might not be one, but he could damn well change his appearance enough to look like one, he had reasoned. That would have to be his first step. So he had bulked up as much as he had been able to before starting a campaign of observation, not of Dis, but of dwarves in general. His goal: To find out what the ideal dwarven mate looked like.
It quickly became apparent that she would never accept a scruffy vagabond as her anything. A dwarven husband was expected to be able to provide a good life for his wife. The more he could provide the better was his chances of being seen as a worthy mate. There were also certain expectations to contribute to the community as a whole in some way, if you were able and had the means. That part was slowly being eroded away due to poverty and harsh living. But it still held a certain honored place in dwarven society. He could work with that, he had decided.
The financial situation for most dwarves was rather dire, stemming from their contentious relationship with the goblins, who were in control of the whole magical economy. Not only where they unable to use the services of the bank, but anyone that hired a dwarf for anything beyond humiliating skut work could expect to experience some difficulties when dealing with Gringotts. The result was that dwarves existed mostly on the outskirts of wizarding society. This provided him with a golden opportunity, as ghoulish as that might seem.
He wasn't a dwarf, and as of yet, he didn't have any formal relations with them either. In fact, one could almost think he had some goblin ancestry in him, very far back since he mostly looked human, if short. So they didn't have any more problems allowing him service then they had with the average wizard. Which is to say, they did so grudgingly. Torby had quite a lot of valuables from his escapades throughout the world, and he knew where he could quickly get some more. So he had gathered all his hidden loot, stole some additional things before going to Gringotts and exchanging them for Galleons and some muggle currency, though he already had a lot of both already. But he would need all he could get for his little plan to work.
In one fell swoop, he was a very wealthy man in both worlds. He didn't bother opening an account with the goblins, as he knew even back then that they would not look at him with kind eyes if his plan succeeded. This plan hinged on a couple of facts. The first was that there was a sizable subset of the magical community that was outcasts in one way or another, some willingly, others not so much. Dwarves weren't the only disenfranchised people in the wizarding world, they might have it worse than most, but they weren't alone. There were also squibs and werewolves and even muggleborns and the occasional half-blood wizard. And that was not even counting all the other magical races that were in one way or another discriminated against due to accident of birth.
To anyone with any business sense that meant there was an untapped resource for anyone that was willing to get involved with them. There might not be much money there at the moment, but there was some money, and there was more than one way to make that money grow. Particularly if you brought in goods from the muggle world into the wizarding world. That was already being done of course. A lot of product was sourced from there, most of it through the goblins again, because they were the guys with the money. He didn't know exactly how they did it, but he did know that they didn't use Squibs. He had no idea why, besides prejudice, but it gave him yet another opportunity. They naturally existed between the two worlds and had to move from one to the other by sheer necessity.
It had been easy for him to hire some of them to act for him in the muggle world. Their job was to find good deals on things that the wizarding world wanted, such as high-quality cloth, processed metals, and even certain chemicals that the muggles had in abundance but were hard to come by in the wizarding world. And toilet paper and other bits and bobs. The list was almost endless. Then he turnd around and sold it to the wizards at a lower price than the goblins', thus undercutting them. The goblins were not happy about that, not happy at all. He'd had to dodge some assasins early on before they realized that he wasn't easy meat. He'd shown them the terror of an unbound house-elf.
During that time he started to advertise himself, by word of mouth, as a reasonable moneylender, that offered fair deals provided that you could show that you had a fair chance of paying back any loans you took out. He also hired several helpers, mostly dwarves, to aid him in that endeavor, and to act as muscle should it be needed. He even hired a couple of muggleborn wizards that were on the outs for one reason or another to help him deal with any wizards that might come around to cause trouble on behalf of the goblins. A very wise precaution, as it turns out. You can always trust a goblin to resort to ether violence or theft. Not that they looked at it like that.
It had taken him about a year to set things up, and during that time he'd grown a beard and read up on dwarven culture. He'd invested in a good house and had it moved to a good location he had found out through one of his employees sometime before. It was isolated, a fair distance from other magical settlements, and best of all, muggles couldn't reach it and wizards avoided it due to a magical hazard nearby. It made them nervous. There was also a sizable metal deposit located nearby that he had some vague notion of exploiting at the time. in short, it was a perfect location to start a settlement.
Then he went after Dis again.
Things went better the third time around. Not that Dis was an easy woo, but with generous applications of charm, money, and magic he was able to talk her around to his way of seeing things. It just took a while for her to see him as something but a scrawny short person that might look somewhat like a dwarf. But she had been impressed by his efforts. Enough to give him a chance. And that was all he needed. Their daughter Lys was born a year later. Her brother and sister were a bit slower in coming though, Dis had been reluctant to bring more children into the world before she was certain that they would be provided for. She'd still been geting used to her new affluent lifestyle so Torby had not taken offence at her doubting him. She had learn, in time. Patience always won out in the end.
Torby had been proud when Lys had gotten her acceptance letter from Hogwarts, and suprised. But his wife had been less so. Dis didn't like wizards, and with good reason. But he and Lys had been able to convince her to allow it. Lys wanted to go to Hogwarts because she knew they offered classes in blacksmithing, a craft that was once widely practiced by his wife's people, but one that had mostly fallen out of use since the loss of their home, mostly because of the predation of the damn goblins. The years and two children, as well as her interaction with his wizard staff, had softened her alot, at least when it came to muggleborns. She still didn't like the purebloods however, and he could not blame her for that. That was just good sense.
Lys also told him that she wanted to learn how to enchant, and by doing so revive her people's lost art. It was a dream born out of naiveté and he fully expected her to have grown out of it by the time she left school. He had planned to take her under his wing and teach her his business, learn the trade, and then take it over once he decided to retire sometime in the future. That prediction had been well on its way to coming true, he had been able to see his daughters' enthusiasm slowly fade as she grew older, but then, fourth year, something changed. Something fanned the fading flames of her spirit, or as he found out, someone. Andreas Ahlgren, someone that appeared to know an awful lot about things that should by all logic have been lost centuries ago, and had decided to share it with his daughter, for no apparent reason.
He then started hearing about him through the grapevine, stories of the reclusive genius of Hogwarts. The one that could do the impossible as easy as breathing. He could fly. Vanish without a trace. Apparate inside Hogwarts. Wield magic that no one had ever seen before. Some said he was another Albus Dumbledore in the making. His contacts within the Ministry had told him that there were some noises being made about the young man, but nothing concrete as of yet. Most there seemed to be waiting for him to get out of Hogwarts before they approached him, mostly because the Ministry was presently too busy dealing with the growing unrest within certain factions of the higher-ups, and the lower-downs, to deal with a student, however exeptional he might be.
He hadn't pressed his daughter for more information, at least not until she came home during the summer and managed to teach his wife how to pull out some kind of hidden power that was innate in all dwarves, another thing that had been lost since the fall of Nidavellir. Another discovery his daughter had laid at the feet of this Drew. He was a mystery. Torby quite liked mysteries, particularly ones that made his daughter happy. It gave life a bit of extra spice.
Torby was jolted out of his musings by a string of loud expletives. He'd been hearing a lot of those these last few months. Ever since his daughter had started to teach her mother how to smith. Dis took to it with a fervor and was apparently quite the natural, but that didn't mean there wasn't the occasional accident. Being the dutiful husband that he was he, of course, had to see what had happened, and possibly tease his dear temperamental wife about her latest mishap.
As was becoming customary these days she could be found inside the forge that their daughter had constructed by their home some years back, with a bit of help from himself of course. He might not actually be a dwarf, but that didn't mean he didn't know his way around a construction project. He was forced to take a steadying breath and pop a few buttons on his shirt when he walked into the forge to adjust himself a bit to the burning heat present within. He would have to see if he could convince his wife to get some better ventilation installed.
Dis was currently busy sucking on her thumb like a one-year-old, looking frustrated. It wasn't hard to deduce what had happened and it made Torby smile.
"Tried to see how flat you can hammer your thumb again?" He asked her lightly. "And here I thought it was the ingot that was supposed to receive that treatment."
Dis shot him a baleful glare, her amber eyes seemingly smoldering like hot coals, before removing her thumb from her mouth. "I'm not in the mood for your wisecracks, dear."
Torby laughed softly and moved over to his wife and took her damaged hand into his own. "Noted. Let's see if we can't fix this up some." He told her before calling on his magic and casting a rudimentary healing charm. Nothing too powerful, but it would fix a bruised thumb. I smiled in satisfaction when the swollen finger returned to its original size and color. "There we go. All better."
Dus took her hand back and flexed it experimentally before giving him a fond smile. "Thank you. Sorry about snapping at you before."
"Fine, but you'll have to give me a kiss as punishment." He told her mock seriously.
That got him another fond smile and a scorching, toe-curling, kiss. She also took the opportunity to pinch his butt, causing him to yelp in surprise.
"There, now get out. I still have to practice." She told him resolutely and pushed him towards the door. "And don't forget to give Grond and Fae their supper like yesterday."
"I'm going, I'm going. No need to push." Torby complained as he was shoved out the door.
"If I didn't you'd just stay and distract me." She told him matter-of-factly before giving him another kiss. "Love ya!" And then she slammed the door in his face.
He chucked fondly before he had to adjust his pants a bit. He winced. Perhaps asking for that kiss had been a mistake…
Nah!