If there was a magic powerful enough to alter the past would I perform the spell?
Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry has become a reality, protected from the non-magical world, hidden by its location in the northernmost regions of the Kingdom of Alba and Lady Ravenclaw’s Ambiguation spell. It was as natural as serpents seeking warmth that we would want a place for our children to learn in safety, but it had remained a topic worthy only of idle conversation for the seven years the raids that plagued the western coasts were in abeyance. By that time I had been with old Lord Gryffindor for ten years, first as a tutor for his sons, and then as a sort of village teacher of magic to any that had the talent and could bear the discipline of learning. It had been a weary office, to teach the mildly interested and weakly magical, but the few with real ability made up for the rest.
Almost.
The Gryffindor boys, boisterous and undisciplined, had been a trial to tame, but had been apt at their lessons. Godric, especially, had been attentive. I suppose since his older brother outshone him in the manly arts, and his sister-in-law’s wit and learning overcame us all, that he had to find his own strength. As he did “ no one, not even Gareth, could overcome him in a wizarding duel, so well did he apply himself. And yet it was something he would not turn on the non-magical, arguing that it was unprincipled and unworthy of his honour.
He had never seen a mob stone a young witch to death, or perhaps he would have reconsidered.
Nevertheless, when the longboats resumed their raids, my advice was taken to the extent of allowing the village wizards to supply protective spells to the fighting men. This at least did not offend Gryffindor principals.
It seemed obvious to us all, when it came to proposing a site for a school, that while Godric’s Hollow was protected by the mighty arm of Gryffindor and his sons, it was both too well known and too desirable a location to be overlooked forever by the non-magical nobility of the realm. For a time the Ravenclaw castle in Strathclyde seemed a clear choice, but my uneasiness at being in a place so well known for the magical abilities of its lord convinced the others that we must seek farther afield.
For months I saw the castle in my dreams. Dreams, Mistress Hufflepuff assured me, that were not mere phantasmagorias, but prophetic. Dreams where the castle rose, remote and safe, approached by a mechanical, smoking dragon that discharged children in strange garb. In truth it is smaller, with a Great Hall that Godric enchanted to reflect the outside sky, staircases that Lady Ravenclaw bespelled to move and confuse, a kitchen staffed by Mistress Hufflepuff’s beloved house-elves and common rooms for the four founders and our apprentices.
Though all had a hand in it, Hogwarts is most truly my legacy, for it was I who proposed the school, subtly, so that each thought it was their own cherished idea and would have fought tooth and nail for it. As its stone walls rose, built more by magic than by the crafts of the mason, the I thought of the young witch who had died alone. I knew that because of this school witches and wizards will be able to learn what they need to survive the stones thrown by un-magical louts like Wuffa and his cretinous kin. If I am ever remembered in kindness, it will be for that.
I do not think I will be remembered in kindness.
The rest of my legacy “ my children “ I would change much if I could. For though they carry on my line they followed paths I would not have chosen for them. Rhiamon to marry a man unworthy of her talents and abide in a hovel in the Highlands; Arvel to pursue a dark path my wrong choices opened for him.
It is hard even for me to understand my actions, for there is a hole in my memory; my mind will not take me to the months after Lind was torn from me. I must have run mad, and my deeds speak to that. For what could I have been thinking to breed a Basilisk and suppose I could control it? The adder and the asp, yes, these serpents would talk to me and tell me their secrets, would acknowledge my mastery of them. But the Basilisk is the King of Serpents and knows no master. In my right mind I would have known that.
But my right mind had left me when my wife died.
My madness and pride led to the wounding of my son. The venomous gaze of the eggling, young as it was, did not kill him, but it changed him, imbuing him with some of the madness of the beast, a darkness that is not human. I could see “ something “ different in his thoughts after Mistress Hufflepuff healed his body, but I did not understand, not then. And even now, knowing the end of the tale, I do not think I could have betrayed him, not him, not my heir.
I swore I would hide the monster away for even then I feared that destroying it would ruin Arvel.
If I were to live to a thousand years, I could never tell all the tale of my pursuit, for it wound through dream and nightmare. The Basilisk’s magic is powerful, and like all such it is drawn to Faerie like a moth to flame. I had long wandered on the edges of that land, seeking entrance, looking for the secrets it contained, but alone, I had never found my way in.
The monstrous beast led me to the edge of a clearing, where a dark river flowed across the trail, shallow enough to ford. Three paths led into the dark wood beyond it. I looked across the river, considering; to the right the path was narrow and twisted, thick with thorns, uninviting. That on the left was wide and paved and somehow ominous. The one in the middle gleamed with magic, beckoning me onward.
A faint sound warned me that I was not alone.
“Well met, brother.” The words came from a tall figure, lounging against a rock by the path. He looked strange and familiar, like the image in a looking glass, not quite real. His hair was as red as a fox’s brush and I could see long canines at the corners of his mouth as his smile transformed his narrow face into a mask of mischief. My hand tightened on my wand.
He laughed and with a casual wave my wand was wrested from my grip and flew to his hand. He examined it curiously. I groped for his thoughts, but Legimancy failed me.
“Tut,” he said, as he wagged his finger at me, “none of that. The beast you pursued has crossed over the river. The path is open for you to follow, if you will.”
His wild face was unfathomable, as he tossed my wand back to me.
“And of course,” he smiled, “once you have walked in the Twilight Land once, it is never so hard to find your way back.”
My eyes narrowed. It seemed to me that I had yearned to see this place, this magical land of Faerie, all my life. As I forded the river, the blood-warm water lapping at my legs, and stepped on the dim path, I felt a sense of homecoming that almost unmanned me.
When at long last I had captured the monster I had created, it was almost more than I could do to return to Hogwarts. It would have been so easy to stay, to shirk my obligations to my son, my apprentices, and my fellow founders..
But I have never been one to turn my back on my responsibilities.
I confined the beast deep under the school, hidden within the hill, in a chamber I created and bound with every protective spell I had learned. I had meant for it to be a secret known to myself alone, but Arvel had learned his lessons all too well, and was a Legilimens greater even than his father. The magic in the stones of the school alone would have been enough to confine it, but I could not trust them, for I had seen more of my son’s plans than he realized. My spells were intended to keep others out, as much as they were to keep the monster in.
For a hand-span of years longer I remained at Hogwarts; fighting the temptation to return to that far land, teaching those who were deserving and loyal, and watching as my son became more and more secret and sly, practicing magic that gained in power and darkness. When he left, an apprentice no longer, to travel as a journey-man wizard, I knew with the certainty of foresight that I would not see him again.
For weeks after he left I brooded. Control of the school had slipped from my grasp, and into that of Godric’s. I knew that my former pupil, my one time friend, would guide and nurture as he saw fit, but his way was not mine. His faith was understandable in one who had never been betrayed; who had only to put out his hand to be accepted and liked, but I could never share it.
The other founders, too, were gullible; trusting their strength, their wit and their goodness to protect the school and their own lives. More and more I stood alone against the other three. Our arguments were petty, tedious and interminable. And I could not win. I could never win.
There was nothing left for me, and the realization was as bitter as lye. I made my preparations, leaving the locket that was Harold Smith’s bridal gift for Lind hidden for my son and his heirs, strengthening the spells on the Basilisk’s chamber, and secretly seeking out my daughter and her son to give them my blessing. Sentimental, it is true, and unlike me, but I could not leave without seeing, just once, the little boy who was so like his grandmother.
As I walked out of the Great Hall for the last time I thought of what lay behind me. The school that’s legacy would live on for a thousand years; my wayward children who had followed such different paths; the peaceful grave of the woman who had bourn them and still had my heart in her keeping. The memory of a red-haired witch, no more than a girl, laid to rest at last.
If there was a magic powerful enough to alter the past, what would I change? For all these things had set my foot on the path I took; the road to the land that exists between the sunset and the moonrise; the land where, at long last, I found my home.
Epilogue:
She sits by my side, fingers to the harp, her milk-pale skin and raven hair so like my lost love. Perhaps it was wrong of me to steal her out of the living lands into Faerie, leaving not even a changeling in her place. But I could not help but keep watch over my foolish daughter’s family, and in watching could not fail to act when the small girl-child was in harm’s way.
I have the child safe, bright as a little bird, close by my side. An indulgence, a weakness, it is true. But now, with Oberon’s kingdom in the palm of my hand, it is one that I can afford.
It will soon be time, while this twilight land is at peace, to think of her schooling.