C072 - Ghosts of the Past

[POV 3rd person in The Forge]

"He's gone. You can drop your act," Helga's image chided after they sent out Talion.

The boy was supposed to come back after he achieved his animagus form, and since he was certain it would be a bird form, they instructed him to bring something called a 'heart feather' to them for the creation of the item he requested.

Rowena Ravenclaw, who had been an eagle animagus in her life - hence the heraldic animal despite the Ravenclaw name, explained to Talion that he would know what that meant when he transformed for the first time.

"He's a good kid," Rowena praised with an absent smile as she stared blankly at a wall, though not really since she was just a hologram.

"He is. You contacted Helena's ghost through the wards?"

Rowena's holographic form nodded in reply. She had the moment Talion mentioned her. With a small frown, she uttered under her breath, "That foolish girl. What could have happened for her to linger so long in the mortal realm?"

Helga scoffed immediately and pointed out, "You know full well what it was. You were an absent mother in the hopes she would not grow dependent on you. Instead, you created a deep shadow in her heart. When she lost your diadem, she scoured the lands far and wide to retrieve it back for you. You 'dying' before she did it, nothing else could have made her unable to move on for a millenia."

Their minds had been in a sort of hibernation state for the millenia since they decided to shed their mortal coils - instructing the chamber to only fully wake them when the time had come. The time for someone who was fated with The Forge to find them. It had not been an easy choice for the two sages - reincarnated Isu 'gods' - but they deemed it appropriate. Their knowledge of what was to come and, more importantly, what happened before made it difficult to accept that they would die and relive another life full of hardship. At least, it had been in this lifetime as the founders of a haven for magickind.

With Hogwarts, they created something they hoped would last until the next Great Catastrophe, ideally even stand against the test of time should they be unable to prevent it. Binding themselves here, stopping themselves from reincarnating until they released their forms from The Forge, had been something Rowena calculated was necessary. Something that would prevent them from missing the perfect time to influence a turning point in this era.

"A ghost and a hologram," Helga said with a small shake of her head. Her technically nonexistent heart broke for her little niece as they waited.

"We are more alive than a ghost," Rowena countered with a complicated expression. "The Forge... I have never been able to think so clearly."

Turning to look at the anvil, Helga slowly nodded in agreement, "It is truly marvelous. The two of us can talk and think at speeds that are absolutely unbelievable. Are you certain we are not meant to use this... processing power... to create more powerful spells and perfect the runic language?"

"No. The two of us already meddled with Myrrdin and our countless inventions. We'll have to ask Helena, but I think even creating the magical portraits after learning about the ability to upload our consciousness into The Forge had been a mistake... Talion will decide if he needs a certain spell. We will create it for him," Rowena's hologram explained with determination.

"But only if he asks?" Helga asked with a little amusement.

"Only if he asks," Rowena confirmed with a sly grin.

Minutes later, a confused ghost appeared in the room as if transported by... well, it was by magic.

"M-mother?" The ghost uttered in disbelief and no small amount of horror.

"My child, what have you done?" Rowena asked in a heavy voice as she showed a truly saddened expression.

But before all the lingering anxiousness of a millenia of regret could bubble up, a gentle voice cut in, "Helena. Don't take your mother's words to heart. She is merely overwhelmed with emotions because she usually shows so little."

"Aunt Helga?" The ghost's disbelief didn't lessen.

"Indeed. Now, tell us about your experiences, then we shall explain to you why we are here and how," Helga gently coaxed.

Hours after hours later, Helena was just about ready to move on - but they only briefly talked about Talion when it concerned the history of the Diadem. Now, Helga and Rowena wanted to know more about the young man who woke them.

"He's a kind young man and very driven. Filius, the current head of our house, trains him almost without pause. Pushing him to be the best he could be," Helena answered with a fond smile. "He makes little mistakes like with the soul shard of the horcrux, but almost everything he does is with a noble purpose in mind."

"He seemed to split himself in too many ways," Rowena commented with a small frown.

"He is very young and eager to learn as much as possible. What he lacks in focus, he makes up for in talent and determination," Helena offered with a small smile. Her opinion on the young wizard, who almost fully cleansed her mother's artifact, was very high.

"The hat could help him," Helga added from where her hologram sat at the foot of the anvil. "It was not just created to decide where the children would go."

"It has restrictions on it for good reason. Has it not already taught him Occlumency and a little Warding? It can't just endlessly pump his head full of knowledge. It would break his mind in no time," Rowena countered.

Helena, remembering one of her last interactions with the boy, added with a small frown of his own, "He plans to devour the soul shards of that dark wizard with a Legilimency attack. The one from the diadem was put into a common rat so that its mind would deteriorate and leave behind only knowledge."

"And you say there are five of them?"

Helena shook her head and answered, "The hat will know more. Not just about that dark lord but also about Talion."

"Even if it's just three, that could already be too much. We must advise him the next time he comes to not take too much from a single source," Helga scolded, though the target of her concern wasn't in the room.

Rowena gently waved her hand, though more out habit than need, and the hat appeared in the room after it was summoned by the center runestone. After all, Rowena even enchanted the hat to appear in her Room of Requirement if needed.

"Ladies Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff!" The hat exclaimed almost instantly when he saw the two holograms.

"Godric Junior," Helga greeted back with a small laugh. She had named the hat that as a joke, but the sentient artifact kept the name despite his actual owner's protest. Not many people knew about that, especially not in this era. More than that, the name was enchanted to be easily forgotten - part of the many spells on the hat.

"Truly, what a delight," the hat mumbled with a surprised expression. It didn't even question how this was possible. The founders, as they were in its mind, were omnipotent. "This hat is at your service, esteemed founders."

"Tell us about Talion. Talion Macnair," Rowena ordered, unaccustomed to being sentimental with an 'object', even as much as the hat was not just a mere object.

As such, it was no longer a secret to these two consciousnesses and the ghost of Helena that Talion had memories not just from 'his life' as Heimdall, but also about this world. They dismissed it as a misguided form of clairvoyance, a consequence of Loki killing Heimdall during the upload, but were still intrigued by how many things turned out to be 'sort of' true. As if he had seen this world but with little details missing or different. Like the absence of the Isu, or all those different other changes from magical maturation ages and the conveniences of magical travel.

As such, they were now more sure about their decision to live on in the Forge for the one destined to come to them - clearly, Talion had a remarkable fate.

"Godric should have hidden his sword in you before his death, no?" Rowena asked as she inwardly decided on something.

"Indeed, milady," the hat confirmed.

"Oh my, a good choice, Rowena. Out with it, Junior. We shall need it to fashion a formidable pair of weapons for little Talion," Helga instructed eagerly when she picked up what Rowena wanted to do.

The hat, who was instructed to only give out the sword in a time of dire need and for a true Gryffindor, didn't hesitate. Two founders, no matter the form they came in, had need of the weapon. That was as dire as it could be to the hat anyway.

After leaving the hat with a clank, the sword floated up from the ground and landed on the anvil to get analyzed. In life, neither of the two managed to find out the secret behind goblin silver, though mostly because they didn't care, not truly. But in this weird form of afterlife, they had time to spare. And Helga, with the memories of Idun, daughter of Isu master craftsman Ivaldi, already had an inkling of what this magical alloy could be.

"Thank you, Junior. Now, tell us a little about our school," Helga ordered, though with a fond smile as it regarded the hat.

With much more interest in gossip and current happenings than the ghost of Helena Ravenclaw, who mostly just walked around the two big libraries in the school, days passed as the hat recounted everything it knew to the two founders.

Even before the hat finished, three new wards were imprinted into the central runestone.

Everyone who dared force themself on another person would now have the words 'RAPIST' carved into their heads. Nothing as brazen had ever happened when they were still at the school. Creating such a ward therefore didn't cross their minds.

Adult animagi who are not recognized as staff members by the wards who lurk in the school for a long time would now be forced out of the school. If they came back and stayed in the school in their animal forms for a long time once more, they would be cursed to live on as their animal form forever.

And, Helga's wards on the greenhouses and food grounds were refreshed and improved upon to increase the productivity of the food creation and potion ingredient cultivation. Helga argued it was necessary to reduce the tuition that needed to be paid and ease the burden on the elves if the number of students would increase soon.

The two founders discussed at light speed whether or not they would punish those who insulted someone else's blood with words like mudblood or discriminate against those with 'creature' blood in their veins, but decided against it. Restricting their speech would not change society for the better. But... they felt the 'obliviousness' wards from the newest headmaster. Students would be discouraged from telling the outside world about what happened in the school. They decided to tinker with it and lessen its effects significantly. Because they disagreed with the entire premise of this ward.

They did, however, weave the concepts of blood bigotry into the significantly lessened effects of this ward.

After all, to two reincarnated Isu 'gods', how much could a mere magicals blood be worth? Blood bigotry made no sense to these two witches. If it did, only Isu blood would reign supreme to them.

-----

[POV First Person Talion Macnair]

Meeting two founders was absolutely bonkers. Somehow, it felt more surreal than seeing Heimdall of the Norse Pantheon in my dreams.

It was, however, also not as world-shattering as I first thought the more time passed since the meeting. I'd get a way to deal with security wards and possibly some instruction from the two founders, but they didn't seem too eager to provide that to me. I answered more questions than I was allowed to ask...

With thoughts like that, I sat in our 'potion room' with the wand pointed at my heart.

Chanting the animagus chant in my mind, I once more connected to my inner animal. Two weeks into the start of our journey to become animagi, I was making good headway into my connection with my 'bird form'.

In my trance, everything was still black - but I knew by now that was on purpose. And not because my animal was blind. Instead, it was cleverly hiding because of the colors of its own feathers.

A raven. My inner animal was a raven.

Whenever I meditated now, it would caw at me, trying to convey various meanings that, for the most part, still eluded me. But my understanding improved with every meditation session.

Done with my trance eventually, I snapped out of it and looked around. Penelope sat in front of the couch, leaning against my knees. She was here for the same purpose as me. To connect to her inner animal.

The two of us had yet another thing in common once she was able to fully enter the trance despite her prefect duties. She was a bird, too. Or rather, she could become one.

"This next step, true understanding of our animal form... it's so hard," the witch muttered in consternation. She made quick progress, like me, but it stalled at roughly the same spot I was at.

Lara was ahead of us in that aspect, and quite a lot, too. It seemed this type of magic was perfectly suitable to the muggleborn witch. After the initial scare, she quickly came to the 'embodiment' stage and started to feel a deep connection to her form. Had the potion been ready and had there been a thunderstorm raging outside for her, Lara could already become an animagus.

But both of us, Penelope and I, greatly benefitted from Lara's progress, so we didn't begrudge her talent in this path of magic.

"You'll get it, Miss Falcon," I consoled and gently patted her head since she was sitting in front of me.

"Made any progress, Raven boy?"

"Hey, I resent that you speak so informally to one such as I. It is Lord Raven to you," I mockingly argued and started pressing on her shoulders a little forcefully as they slipped down from her head, though still with the intent to massage them a little.

"Ahh, that's the spot," Penelope countered as she pretended the pressure was just right. Eventually, she asked, "So, no progress?"

"I mean, a little. It just keeps cawing at me, and in that total darkness, I always see I have to find out what it means just by that alone. Sure, I see the eyes, but they aren't really that expressive when it doesn't narrow them in my direction," I whined, though I knew I'd get it in time.

"The falcon just flies up to what feels like close to cloud level and stays there while I see a small point in the sky," Penelope described her own encounter with her bird in distress.

"Maybe it's that freedom to be up there that it tries to convey," I argued after giving it a little thought.

Penelope merely nodded and answered, "Yeah, makes sense... but how does it help me? I can't communicate with it so high up. Not like you or Lara..."

"We still have two weeks before the potion is done, and then there's still the lightning storm we need," I consoled and stood up from the couch to stretch.

"Excited for tomorrow? Or nervous?" The blonde prefect asked as she watched me with a smile full of understanding.

"Excited and quite a bit apprehensive. There's many ways this could go wrong," I said with a deep sigh.

"Well... just take it as a chance to paint your mum as a hero if it looks like you don't get what you want," Penelope advised since she knew what truly mattered to me.

Tomorrow would be the Wizengamot hearing where I would be sworn in as Lord Gamp. Limm and I jumped through every necessary hurdle to get it done. Lord Ogden even tried to pass off his own seat to me and switch up who was the proxy of whom... but in the letters between us where my tutor Louis Limm played mediator, I urged the man to reconsider since I was still 'just' a student. I could always take it up later, like after I had my O.W.L.s.

Additionally, Rabastan and Bellatrix Lestrange would get taken out of Azkaban for another trial. The crime of conspiring to murder my mother. It was Limm's answer to the question of how I'd get the item I wanted... the Hufflepuff Cup horcrux.

Voldemort would know that I'd be the one to take it since I was doing so quite openly... but the dark lord was still just a specter as far as I knew. And I was getting stronger quite rapidly.

"She was... it's sad that nobody knew," I muttered under my breath and kept that it was Dumbledore's fault out of my mouth.

They all already looked at me weird when I spoke with little to no respect for our headmaster. And his image in their minds was still too illustrious. I'd only complicate my relationships.

I should ask Rita Skeeter when she would be done with her slam piece already. She had a year to work on it already...