Writers Block: 32.2: Founders Voting
Banner by renrenren3
Challenge: Hogwarts Founders
Points: 1st/2nd/3rd/Participation Only: 50/40/30/10 points & 20/15/10/5 knuts, respectively. 2pts for voting.
Deadline: Voting until Sunday, May 31st 8AM UTC.
Details: "You all know, of course, that Hogwarts was founded over a thousand years ago - the precise date is uncertain - by the four greatest witches and wizards of the age." Professor Binns
We have 12 stories this time! Please vote for your favorite!
Entry #1
Title: Salazar's Little Chamber
Salazar huffed, venting some of the frustration that his frantically tapping fingers couldn't abate. As per usual, his irritation surrounding the Hogwarts project was pathetically dwarfing any excitement. His mahogany desk was littered with half-completed progress reports and invoices. Godric was late in submitting a list of potential installments to fill up the castle grounds. Rowena was griping about some common rooms having more square meters than others instead of starting to work on getting classrooms ready. Helga was off, Merlin knows where, supposedly recruiting students but avoiding all owls. Salazar was so tired of attempting to wrangle the three of them in, he was about ready to walk away from Hogwarts all together. Hogwarts wouldn't be habitable for months yet, and the other founders already were quietly grumbling to each other about trying to replace him.
Yet, if it wasn't for Salazar and his utter refusal to let his idiot friends run an otherwise brilliant project into the ground, the bloody school still wouldn't even have a name. He crossed the t's and dotted the i's, even when Rowena largely ignored his edits. Slytherin was the tasker, although Godric preferred to call him a slave driver. It was Salazar, not Helga, who was really focused on bringing in the right kind of students and rejecting the riffraff. They didn't appreciate him, not a one of them! It would serve them right if Salazar abandoned them to this mad venture. Not that he ever willingly could at this point. He had put in too much time and effort into the project, and far too many galleons to count. Salazar was completely invested in Hogwarts' success, and his pride wouldn't allow him to give up so early in the game. They hadn't even made peace with the merpeople yet! Who would negotiate if not Salazar? Godric? Diplomatic tact of the centaurs, who coincidentally, still refused to meet with any of them. Helga? Too much of a people-pleaser! If he left negotiations up to her, Hogwarts students probably wouldn't be allowed within fifty kilometers of the lake. Rowena? Rowena hadn't even wanted to approach the merpeople, suggesting that if both sides left each other alone there would be no need to interact. Blind and daft, all three of them!
Well, finding a few surprises in Hogwarts would serve the other founders right for taking advantage of Salazar's determined nature and his Slytherin gold. Fingers finally stilling, Salazar chuckled darkly, bringing a quill to Rowena's latest set of floor plans. It would be priceless to watch her face go slack in shock when she stumbled upon the little hidden chamber Salazar had intentionally left off her maps. Even if Salazar was replaceable, he would make his friends rue the day they tried to be rid of him.
Entry #2
Title: Knowledge
Knowledge, that’s what her mother values. Helena sometimes wonders if it isn’t power, rather than knowledge, but she’d never tell her mother this. After all, Helena wasn’t bright. At least not to Rowena. Helena was a disappointment.
“You’re a disgrace to our noble house, Helena,” Rowena would say. “How is it that you still haven’t mastered these arithmantic equations, I myself was improving upon them when I was your age. Your father was just as capable, you really have no excuse.”
So, Helena sought knowledge. She spent hours and hours pouring over every new volume added to the library - after all, the books they had currently was small compared to what the Hogwarts Library would grow to become. She could master them all. She would master them all. Wouldn’t she?
~~~
By the time she was sixteen, Helena knew no matter what she did she couldn’t please her mother. No matter how many facts, how many spells - it was too little too late to truly live up to what Rowena called her “knowledge potential”.
So, Helena hatched a plan. She’d prove herself to Rowena. She’d steal that damnable diadem and be cleverer than anyone.
~~~
It didn’t work out quite like she’d hoped.
Entry #3
Title: In the Making
Rowena glanced down at the blueprints once again and wondered at the practicality of adding moving staircases. She could manage the magic and it would give a bit of character to the designs, but she couldn't help but think that Godric had been making fun when he suggested it.
Not that Godric should be teasing anyone, considering he was spending all of his time talking to his hat. A Sorting Hat! How utterly ridiculous, but she wouldn't deny that the children would love it.
Picking up her quill, she decided that if Salazar could create a gigantic stone chamber for his secret a cappella addiction and Helga got control of the forest then she could have moving staircases.
Perhaps she'd even make the ones leading to Godric's chambers deliberately uncooperative. They'd all have a laugh when Mr Punctuality started arriving everywhere fifteen minutes late looking ever so silly with that ridiculous talking hat on his head.
Entry #4
Title: Deadly Force
"You want to show them what?"
Salazar enunciated the words with cool precision. "The Killing Curse."
Godric shook his head. "Look, Sal, I'm with you on the obligatory Battle Magic class. But the Killing Curse? Seems...risky."
Salazar raised a sardonic eyebrow. "This from the man who's wholeheartedly helping me tame our resident Attack Basilisk?"
Godric's lips twitched briefly. "Well...that's different. We're not showing all the students how to summon the thing."
"Besides," added Rowena, "you just know some fool teenager will use the Killing Curse on another when adolescent emotions are running high, and then where will we be?"
Salazar shrugged. "That can be mitigated with proper training. We make it very clear that it's deadly force and only to be used in life-threatening situations. But they should know how to use it properly." His eyes sparked with brutal memory. "Better to know it and not need it, than need it and not know it."
"And how will we make it clear that it's not just any old curse?" asked Helga, her voice a warm throb. "How do we make sure they know, Sal? This isn't the Stinging Jinx. This brings unstoppable death."
"The same way we teach them everything else. We show them how it works, what it does, and what the consequences are for misusing it."
Rowena arched an eyebrow. "And what are the consequences for misusing it? What exactly are we going to do them if they use it improperly?"
"Depending on the level of misuse...suspension, expulsion, excommunication."
"Excommunication?!" Helga was horrified. "What does that even mean?"
Salazar reached to take Helga's hand in his. "You remember why we founded this school? You remember what the Muggles do to magic-users? Especially our little ones, too young to defend themselves? Do you remember the burnt bodies?"
It was Godric who spoke finally, his voice low and grating. "We remember."
Salazar inhaled slowly. "Those who abuse their power to willfully harm other magic-users...they don't deserve our community's protection."
Helga’s eyes widened. "But they're just children..."
Rowena tilted her head, considering. "Deadly force requires deadly consequences if abused. Alright -- I support teaching the Killing Curse if it's properly done. It's a powerful weapon, and our students should know how to use it appropriately."
Salazar smiled, his eyes meeting hers. "Thank you, Ro." He turned to Godric and Helga. "And you? What say you both?"
Godric glanced at Helga. "They'll need very strict guidelines on when it's right to use."
Salazar's lips flicked up in a half-smile. "I was hoping you'd help me with that."
Godric nodded. "Then I'm for it."
Helga looked pained. "Sal, Ro, Ric...it's just so devastating a curse. To both victim and user."
Rowena nodded. "But when you need it, nothing else will do," her eyes caught Helga's, "as each of us knows from experience. Is it fair to deny our students that knowledge when it might save their lives one day?"
Silence curled for a few moments. "No," said Helga softly, "I suppose it's not."
Entry #5
Title: Hogwarts Is Home
Harry lay in the field staring up at the Hogwarts Castle. He often wondered how this place come to be so amazing. That four founders could build this place so big. He wondered if the Hogwarts founders had ever thought this place would be so special to so many young witches and wizards of today. Harry was grateful for them, they had built his home. The founders hadn't ever known harry, but harry appreciated them none the less. Harry hoped that someday his life would impact so many like the founders had with Hogwarts. That he would be remembered in history as someone just as great.
Entry #6
Title: From a Lofty Perch
The statue in their common room was tall and forbidding, or so Marietta had always thought. Ravenclaw's marble skin and rippling robes were cold to the touch, and the stoic woman stared down her high, aquiline nose with lofty indifference.
Marietta often wondered what a woman like that would have thought of her. Marietta's little nose was blunt and rounded and covered with a warm spray of freckles. Her rust-colored hair was coarse and erratic, and her tiny brown eyes were quick and uncertain. If the same group of students had been paraded before the Founders of Hogwarts, instead of led to the ever-flattering Sorting Hat, how long would it have taken for Rowena Ravenclaw to consider Marietta?
Intelligence is amplified by confidence and elegance, wrote Marietta, pushing back her mass of curls as she closed her loopy letters. For this reason, Rowena Ravenclaw is remembered as beautiful, although the oldest remaining likeness of her was produced almost a century after her death.
"I hope Binns returns our essays this time," she muttered to no one in particular.
Behind her, the statue of Ravenclaw loomed high and cold, far above the quotidian affairs of students.
Entry #7
Title: The Letters
"To Rowena,
I apologize that the Chamber of Secrets will not be used the way that we had intended. There is too much here that is preventing me from seeing things through. We could've helped many, I believe. For now, I will say, do not venture down there. Or if you do, remember what I have taught you. Do not let Godric and Helga get into those children's heads. Not everybody is equal. You know this. Of course you know this.
Don't let the school perish without me.
Salazar
To Helga,
You always were the sweetest, weren't you? You saw the good that wasn't actually there inside of me. I'm sure that Godric has already worked to turn you against me. There's no use arguing. I have gone and will not return. Enjoy your school, your students, your classes and your equality. You've worked hard for it. Enjoy it.
Salazar
To Godric"
Minerva looked up from the pieces of parchment that were nearly falling apart in her hands, remnants of the four founders who had died so long ago. It had been a historical find inside the walls and Minerva had gathered with the teachers to read the words. Now, she cleared her throat delicately and handed the parchment over to Filius next. "Perhaps I shouldn't read that letter out loud."
Entry #8
Title: Untitled
Even after all these years English feels foreign on her lips, on her tongue. It's too smooth, too rounded - it makes her sound more soft and gullible than she really is. There is a reason why the badger is the symbol for her House: they seem softer on the outside than they really are. Just like her. If angered, both she and the animal representing her are a force of nature.
Sometimes she misses her birth land, but then she remembers why she had to leave in the first place - they would have burned her right in the front of her family if given a chance. She ran, ran, as fast as she could, until she found a haven in the form of her three closest friends: Rowena, Godric and Salazar. They are her family now.
But sometimes, when she thinks no one is listening, she speaks to herself in German just to feel the sharpness in her lips.
Entry #9
Title: The Horrors or Wonders of Excessive Drinking
Rowena Ravenclaw couldn't believe what she was reading. She flicked a wand over her person, just to check that there weren't any charms or jinxes on her - Merlin knows that the Gryffindor in front of her was prone to pranks.
"What, in the name of all that is good, is this?" She asked to the excitable Gryffindor, who was bouncing from one foot to another.
"It's our new school song! That is, if you and the lovely Helga agree to it," he said, causing Helga Hufflepuff to laugh softly into her hand.
"I'm all for it, I think that the children would love it," she said, causing Godric to laugh with glee.
"How inebriated were you in order to come up with this?" Rowena asked curiously.
"Well, both Salazar and myself had partaken in a few cups last night," Godric said, trailing off a bit.
"I see," Rowena said, "Pray, do you not allow Salazar to have a say in this matter?"
"Why should I, it was he who wrote the song in the first place!" Godric said, causing the two witches to burst into laughter.
"Well that settles it, a unanimous vote for 'Hoggy Warty Hogwarts' as our new school song," Rowena said slyly. Salazar would never be able to live this down.
Entry #10
Title: Called to Do
The children needed to be fed.
That was something the others had honestly forgotten about in their excitable haste to begin this ambitious idea, this school of magic. They thought out myriad other things related to the education of a child, but when you're so excited about something, details sometimes get left by the wayside. That's exactly what happened with the business of feeding these pupils, as few of them as there were--a scant seven to start, but seven was a magically-significant number, so it felt right. They'd all finished their trips to the castle, but then one, a quiet little girl, noted that she was hungry.
The four adults exchanged a somewhat horrified look that they'd forgotten this important fact, but then Helga sprung right into action. Her mother had taught her hundreds of recipes, she explained, and she was going to put them to good use now. She asked the children what they liked to eat, listened carefully to the answers and went immediately to work, making miracles out of the rudimentary kitchen in the rudimentary castle. Each child's culinary wants were fully satisfied, including those of the quiet little girl. They even thanked Helga personally for the food.
All this kindness and caring being shared through food truly warmed Helga's heart and brought her joy. She decided that, until the school's enrollment grew to such a point that she could no longer handle cooking all the food by herself, she would do just that in addition to her teaching duties. After all, teaching and caring for these children is was what she was called to do.
Entry #11
Title: A Parting of the Ways
"They aren't to be trusted!" screamed Salazar, pounding his fist down on the table. He looked around at his fellow founders.
"We are not limiting the education in this school to pure bloods!" shot back Godric. "We would be elitist fools not to take on the talented Muggle born students! Many of them have outperformed those in your own house Salazar!'
"They don't know our ways!" shouted Salazar standing from his chair. "They will never be loyal to the Wizarding World!"
"Salazar," said Helga, "you need to calm down. It just isn't fair to deny them a proper education. They have just as much right to learn as any other witch or wizard. Nobody is forcing you to accept them into your house."
"But I'm being forced to accept them into my school! To work alongside MY STUDENTS!"
"It doesn't make sense to only accept pure bloods Salazar," said Rowena with exasperation. "That is a very limited pool of magic and as Godric has said, many of the Muggleborns have outperformed the pure blood students."
"Well then I'm done!" shouted Salazar. "This is not the vision I had when we all agreed to form this school."
"Then leave!" screamed Godric.
"Oh I'm leaving," said Salazar. "And you will all be sorry that I did!" He turned and walked from the room slamming the door behind him.
Entry #12
Title: Building a Home
Sometimes she didn’t know if they were doing the right thing.
She loved her friends, she did. She knew that they were all good people - she knew they were all brave people, smart people, loyal people - but sometimes she wasn’t sure if they were good enough. If they were compassionate enough, responsible enough, caring enough … To be entrusted with Britain’s children, with their minds, with their lives. To help teach them, help raise them …
Sometimes she didn’t know if they were doing the right thing.
“And that’s how you know that we are.”
Helga started, looked around to see Salazar behind her, his hands stuffed in his pockets, a smile on his face - his real smile, not the cocky one he gave everyone but the one that reached his eyes that he didn’t let many people see.
“How do you know what I’m thinking?” Helga answered, avoiding his eyes and looking back over the wide expanse of bare land.
“Because you, my dear, always wear your heart on your sleeve.”
He stepped closer to her, gestured to the same empty grounds she was already looking at, spoke quietly. “You can see it, can’t you? Hogwarts? It is meant to be.”
“We want to start a school when we can’t even stop arguing long enough to decide how we’re going to do it.”
Salazar laughed. “And what good would it do to build a school where every detail was so unimportant we didn’t feel the need to argue?”
“You sound like Rowena.”
“She is the smart one.”
Helga sighed. She could picture the school. She could. In her mind, she saw a castle and hordes of children and smiling faces. She saw a place for them to learn. She saw a place for them live.
She saw a place for her to live. For all four of them to live. A place to belong. A place that was theirs. A place that would always be theirs.
“Hogwarts,” she said. “It really does have a nice ring to it.”
“Yes,” Salazar said, “I think it could be home.”
His voice was softer than normal, gentler than normal and full of a ferocious belief she seldom heard from him. It made Helga want to believe.
“Yes,” she said. “I think it could be too.”
~~~~~
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Results from 32.1 coming next!