Chapter 33: Opening (993 AD)

993 AD, Hogwarts

It’s been a couple of years since the battle of Azkaban and we finally have our school up and running. Our dream was coming to fruition. Our defeat of the dark lord Ezekiel had a lot more impact than I thought. Turns out, the man had secretly terrified the entire British Isle and even had the Wizard’s Council under his thumb. They were even giving him test subjects for his experiments and sometimes he even tortured them just for the fun of it.

I have to admit, while the man was vile, he had a deep understanding of soul magic, well deep considering almost everything that even mentioned the subject was confiscated by me. He was able to create a basic soul manipulation curse with no reference whatsoever. I guess the whole experimenting on thousands of people could have probably given him an edge, but still impressive nonetheless. He also created what would be known in the future as the imperius and cruciatus curses. As soul-based spells, normal magical shields did not affect them.

He probably used the Darkhold, speaking of which, its presence was worrying, especially how it was used. The fact we were this close to an extinction level event; just Chthon escaping could have wiped off half the planet. Anyway, that was in the past now and the Darkhold was locked up deep in a special vault in the castle, with only the four of us able to take it out.

Speaking of my friends, we had a strong reputation as the most powerful wizards and witches in this generation. Once they heard that we planned to create a school for magic, something that was foreign at this time, everyone wanted to put up their children, nobles and commoners alike.

We had pretty much finished every preparation, just a few details needed to be worked out.

“So, Helga, what are you planning for the Runes class?” asked Rowena

“I want them to be able to use Elder Futhark like they were born with the knowledge. I won’t start any type of magical application without them knowing how to talk and write in Elder Futhark as if it was their mother tongue. I think I can partner up with Rowena to combine both runes and Arithmancy somewhere in their schooling. It would be some good experience for them.”

Rowena nodded.

"Maybe when they're twenty or twenty-one," she said. "When we take them in at fifteen that would give us five years to …"

“Wait a minute, we’re taking them at fifteen, why on earth will we start teaching them at fifteen?” I interrupted.

“It’s because their magic isn’t mature or defined enough for them to use a wand. Don’t you know that?” Godric answered.

“What the hell have they been teaching you? The first magical maturation starts between the age of ten and eleven, with a second one between the ages of fifteen and seventeen,” I said, “A child’s magical core will be defined enough to use a wand when they’re eleven. There’s no need to wait until their fifteen to teach.”

“But apprenticeships start at fifteen, Helga, you know that.”

“But I leaned when I was eleven, and everything went fine. Young children have the ability to learn that far supersedes a teenager or an adult. Their minds are more flexible, less rigid. Teaching them at fifteen will just stifle their potential.” I argued.

“I don’t know about this…” Salazar said hesitantly.

“Come on, it will be a lot easier to teach children how to read and write than teenagers. We can hire tutors to teach commoners how to do it. How about we try it out and if it doesn’t work, we just change it back?”

They finally relented.

“Now comes the issue of wands. The school needs to partner up with a wand maker to make sure the commoner students will be able to afford a wand. We can’t afford to buy a wand for every student, it would be too much.” I spoke.

“Our family has a good relationship with the Ollivander clan, they’re the best wandmakers in Britain. The amount of business that we’ll send their way should be enough to get our students a lower price for their first wand.” Godric replied.

“Okay, we’ll leave the wand issue to Rowena and Godric,” I said, “Now, speaking of families, we need to change ours in the school.”

“Why?” they cried at once.

“Because when we started this, we agreed that this place will be free of any political party. We can’t afford someone wanting to influence the school using house Peverell or House Le Fey and trust me, people will want to influence the school. We just can’t afford the Wizard’s council interfering. This way we would be like two different people, a person in the school and a person outside of school.” I explained.

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“Plus, I can’t call my apprentices the Le Fey’s, that’s Rowena’s name as well. Mine will be the Gryffindors, sounds manly and powerful.” Godric chimed.

Seriously, when you think the guy can’t get any childish, he says this.

“I like it, mine would be the Ravenclaws.” We looked at her blankly, “What? I like ravens.”

Fine, might as well go with it.

“I’ll go with Hufflepuff. I like how it sounds.” I say, cringing at my choice.

“Well, I think it’s stupid, I’m not picking an idiotic name.” Salazar said.

“Pick one or we’ll choose one for you.” Salazar still refused and he ended up with the name Slytherin, courtesy of Godric. Salazar may have looked indignant, but I could tell he liked the name, he did always love snakes.

And thus, the founding names were created. We spent the whole night arguing about one issue or another. We did choose a few things as a joke, for example the school motto “Never tickle a sleeping dragon,” was a joke on Godric about exactly that. We found a sleeping dragon during our journeys and Godric, for some reason, wanted to know if it was ticklish. Well, the rest of the story is obvious, he ended up being chased by a dragon, and of course, I had to heal his burns. I think he still has some scars from that encounter. However, one of the things that bothered me is that we weren’t allowed to teach girls. People are very sexist in this day in age but that will change soon. I had a plan. Women would no longer just be wives and support their husbands, they will achieve their dreams, have the same opportunity to learn and grow as men do. But for now, Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry was finally open.

After a year of Hogwarts opening, I can safely say that it was an enormous success. We agreed to divide the students by character after interviewing them. For the first year, we mostly taught magic to nobles not commoners. The few commoners we found were illiterate and we put them in a class just teaching them how to read and write, some history and math. Pretty much everything they needed to know before starting their magical education.

The students were very eager to learn and very hardworking, pretty much the opposite of the future children’s behavior. Anyway, after Godric went to the wizard’s council as Lord Le Fey, he said that the lords were very happy and that our students were learning better than their other children that had an apprenticeship. They even planned to send us more students for the next year.

And so, the castle slowly changed, it used to be empty and silent but now I was accustomed to the sound of children laughing during the day. We even created our own crests, surprise, surprise, they were the same as the ones from my future. Salazar even made a secret chamber that has an escape, in case the castle was attacked or under siege.

The council even allowed us to teach female students, after a lot of pressure from myself and Rowena. Even if we told them that they would learn household charms to help their roles as wives in the future.

Over the years, students filled the halls of Hogwarts and our little sanctuary became a movement. While there was a small issue such as the division between nobles and commoners, it was starting to slowly mend. With a noble asking help from a commoner and so forth. It’s a step in the right direction considering that most children of noble descent rarely interact with commoners their age.

Funnily enough, even outside the castle, people called us by our Hogwarts name, going so far as to give us honorary Lordships and Ladyships. I was the Lady Helga Hufflepuff. Salazar was a bit miffed by the fact people forgot he was the last Peverell but got over it quickly.

Speaking of nobles, Salazar got married to an Italian witch called Esmeralda Deville, now Esmeralda Peverell. She was a pretty woman with black hair and emerald eyes. She was from a family of assassins that lived in Rome and was as blunt as Salazar. No wonder these two got along. They had two children, a boy named Salvatio and a girl named Hyacinth.

Rowena also got married to the Count Lovegood, a relatively smart man but nothing compared to Rowena. I guess most men were intimidated by her. She even had a child with him, an adorable little girl called Helena.

Godric, on the other hand, ended up gallivanting all over the nation, sleeping with women left and right. No wonder no one could trace his lineage in the future, he’s probably the ancestor of half the future of wizarding Britain.

As time went on, the children grew up, Rowena’s husband fell ill from a mysterious magical disease that attacks the magical core of its victim. There was nothing I could do to help him; it was not an injury of the body or soul but of the magic and it was too late to separate the disease from the core without killing him. He barely had a couple of years left to spend with his wife and child.

Rowena wasn’t convinced that it was impossible, she locked herself of in her library, I even had to teach some of her classes, with her trying to find a way to cure her husband. She ignored her family until they weren’t family anymore. She spent two years ignoring them, closed off in her own little world, two years she should have spent with her family. After Lovegood’s funeral, all that was left was an empty shell of a woman that didn’t know how to be a mother.

As an attempt to help Helena, I took over her own education. With her father bedridden and her mother ignoring her, I was the only parental figure she had in her life. I taught her to read, write, and even dance. After her father’s death, I even took her to bond with her wand. The sad thing was that Helena worshipped the ground Rowena walked on. Only a single compliment from her mother would have satisfied her for months but Rowena remained cold and aloof.

I tried to support Helena as much as possible but I wasn’t her mother and she knew it. It really broke my heart seeing her like this. Rowena even once forgot her birthday because she was working on her precious diadem. While an impressive piece of magic that allowed the user to remember everything she ever experienced, it’s still shameful what she did. The problem was the amount of pressure that Helena was under. Daughter of the mighty Lady Ravenclaw, she was expected to excel at everything. Slowly, Helena lost her childish nature and started to behave like her mother.

I tried to show Rowena how much she was hurting her daughter but she wouldn’t hear of it. But that wasn’t the worst of it. From Godric’s reckless adventures and Rowena’s aloofness, it wasn’t them that destroyed the founders. It was Salazar that did it.