One of my greatest blessings was a happy childhood. The memories are my solace in times of loss and sorrow and my strength in times of need.
I ran wild in the hills of Wales with my brother, gathering the plants and herbs that my mother used for her healing potions and salves, herding the sheep and searching for the enchanted cave where, they say, Merlin sleeps. We knew that the greatest magician of all time made his home in our misty hills. The singers would have it that Nimue bewitched him with her beauty and imprisoned him when he let fall his guard, but I never believed it. I think that he rests waiting for the time that Arthur will return to his kingdom from far Avalon. And the sooner the better, I say.
It is a sad and sorry state that our gentle island has fallen into, where magic is shunned and healers are suspect. I never thought I would see the day. Well, well, but there it is.
A happy childhood, yes, but not a privileged one, oh no. Our mother was a great healer, as I have said, brewing her potions of nettles and willow bark to cure the ills of the poor and rich alike. And she was rewarded for her kindness and wisdom, oh aye, that she was. The poor would leave us wood for our fire and bracken to bed our beasts down on, honey for our bread and if naught else, their thanks, which is payment enough, of course. The rich - well, you never knew if it would be cloth, or candles or fine meats. Once it was a lovely golden cup, with a fine badger, the Hufflepuff family emblem, on it. I have it still; there it is, on the mantle over the fire.
We ran wild, we did, until we grew a bit older, and it came time for us to start to make our ways in the world. Oh, Harold would have made a healer, men do. But I think it a more womanly way, the nurturing and soothing. And women are better at accepting when nothing can be done, and you must let go. “Heal the sick and mend the broken, but let the dying spirit go.” That’s a woman’s saying, not a man’s. They want to fix and create and build, and Harold was no exception.
My brother went to apprentice with the goblin smith, learning the ways of the fire and forge. And a high honour it was, to be sure, for the goblins don’t take many human apprentices. But it was lonely for me, for he was my closest friend: my twin and other half. Nights I would lay awake and reach out with my thoughts to touch his, but it got harder as we were longer parted, and one day, I could touch him no longer. Well, well, but we must grow up, so we must, and as we do, we grow apart.
Once Harold was apprenticed away, why, nothing would do but for me to settle down and learn my mother’s wisdom: how to cool the fever and heal the other hurts that mortal man and wizard alike are prey to. ‘Twas not so wild, roaming the hills and gathering herbs on my own, but there was a great contentment in the solitude of it.
The country was quiet in those days, not like today. The sixteen year reign of King Edgar the Peaceful was a good time for wizards. Edgar was a friend of the wizards, or at least Bishop Oswald, his advisor, was and that’s what mattered.
His sons, now that is another story. Edward, poor lad, was murdered at sixteen, and by the supporters of his brother, Ethelred, too. Though they were only half brothers, and Edward had a fiery and unmanageable temper, so they say. Who knows what would have come to the wizards if he had been king? But I don’t think that magic would be so suspected now if King Ethelred were not so ill-advised as to believe it a threat to his kingdom.
But there you have it. If wishes were thestrals, beggars would fly, so they would, so they would.
They were good years, the years my mother and I worked together. I learned all I could from her, and then I continued on learning, finding new uses for old potions. My mother delighted in my discoveries, but as time wore on left me more and more to deal with those who came to us for help, or called us away to help them. I was barely a woman grown when she fell ill for the last time. Naught that I could do helped her, nor did she expect it. She would smile her fragile smile at me and my ministrations until she slid away from me through that misty veil that separates this world from the next. Ah, but I miss her kindness and wisdom still, that I do. But her love - well I hold that in my heart even now, these long years on.
Harold made the trip home to help me do her honour and see her on her way, and it was a delight even in our sorrow for us to be together again. Ah, he was a bonny, handsome man, brawny and strong from the forge. He stayed a few months, and they are some of the happiest in my memory.
After he left though, then I was alone, and lonely with it. Solitude is not so welcome when it comes at the end of the day with none to break it. I resolved to take an apprentice, and so I did, a quiet girl, and apt; a good worker. But it was not enough, I thought, to train one girl and call it a lifetime. Once she could look after the people whom I, and my mother before me, had healed, it was time for me to venture out into the world. And so I did.
For ten years I travelled far and wide. To Aetheopia, even, and to Egypt. To the great city of Constantinople, corrupt and beautiful. I delighted to learn all I could of healing and magic, for there was much I didn’t know. And much I don’t know still, that I can tell you, so I can. Aye, a woman travelling alone…it does sound unwise and unsafe, does it not? But I could disguise myself at need, and bemuse any who thought to do me harm, and for the most part I travelled in good company and at my ease.
Even so, there came a time when I missed my own green island of Britain, and I turned myself homeward. A sad change had come while I had been gone, and many of the wizarding folk kept to themselves and hidden away. But there were many magical households still, like this one of Gerald Gryffindor, in the untamed lands of Cornwall. And it was here that I came, for a healer of my repute is always welcome, and I do not think I am a braggart to say so.
Gerald is a great bear of a man, all golden hair and booming laugh. And his two sons are of a piece with him, Gareth and Godric both. Ah, aye, those boys are trouble, barely two years apart. ‘Tis a good thing that they are being trained to the sword and the horse and the bow, for it keeps them just tired enough to make them teachable.
Master Slytherin started as their tutor in letters and book learning a short while after the Gryffindors welcomed me to their household. A monkish man, he is, tall and narrow, with dark skin and hair and eyes as deep and dark as a well. He reminds me of many I saw on my travels and mayhap that is where he is from.
I can tell that he will have a great deal more to teach them than books, so I can. For he is a powerful wizard himself, but with a bitterness and anger in his eyes that bespeaks some great wrong. But what it was, I do not know. I have never yet asked of his past, and may never do so, for he has not confided much, even to Lord Gerald, and every man deserves to keep his secrets.
I know that I wish to keep mine, so I do.