Founders (984 AD)

I would like to thank my beta, AvidReader2425, for his help in this chapter.

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984 AD, somewhere in Britain

Salazar, Godric and Rowena had looked at me oddly when I said I had an idea for our school. I guess they didn't expect me to have a residence that's bigger than their family homes. Their gaping faces will be imprinted in my mind forever.

Anyway, I didn't fully tell them exactly what that place was, only that it was big enough and had strong wards. I wish we could just teleport there; Salazar even knew how to apparate but he didn't think that side along apparition was possible for some reason. I guess Myrddin didn't write that it was possible and I didn't want to arise suspicion by pointing out that it was. And so, since I'm the only one who knows the location, we had to go with the slow route, walking and riding, again.

On the bright side, we got to know Salazar a little better during our journey. He truly was a brilliant young man. He definitely deserved to be called a prodigy. He could fundamentally understand spells but he truly shined with rituals, more specifically the ones involving blood magic. This particular field revolved around sacrificing something for a boon. But you sacrifice them to magic. But magic doesn't care for material things, it cares for connections, belief. So, the more of what you're sacrificing means to you, the higher the gift you can ask for. It's a field of magic that's rarely used, one tends to sacrifice too much and get depressed before becoming a master in the field.

This field of magic can be incredibly risky, especially if what your sacrificing isn't enough for what you ask for. If magic finds you wanting, it will exact its own price. You could lose your sanity, even your magic, and you won't even get what performed the ritual for in the first place. It's a dangerous field of magic, but one Salazar excelled at. He had an intuition with what sacrifice would be needed for the ritual to be successful.

Funnily enough, the Gryffindor/Slytherin rivalry started a few days after we left Salazar's village. It started with Salazar showing off with an illusion spell Godric couldn't do, to Godric showing off with his sword skills. Slowly, they tried to one up each other, for no reason. Well, to satisfy their egos but that doesn't count as a reason. We all spent our time during our journey learning and practicing our magic. I subtly directed their attention into the tomes that would help them the most. By the time we arrived at our destination, Rowena was one of the best enchanters in Britain, Godric one of the best fighters, and Salazar one of the best users of esoteric magic (rituals and curses). Well, except for me, they were still very impressive though. I did try to improve my healing magic, which was what this vacation was for in the first place. My healing was still a few steps under the best healer in Atlantis, and considering how long I had to get to this level, a man barely two centuries old still beating me after all this time shows how little affinity I have for the field.

I'm still the best healer alive in the world though.

And now, we arrived at our destination, what will become the best school of magic that ever existed. The school that will teach some of the greatest and most terrible wizard and witches in the world.

"I don't see anything, it's just an empty field. Did you seriously bring us all the way here for an empty field?" Exclaimed Godric

"Have a little faith, would you? This is just the wards hiding it. If I just do this." I point my wand at the field in front of me and fire a white spell. It hits a dome of energy, a ward to be precise, and slowly, the plains started to fade away and a magnificent castle appeared with a lake next to it, surrounded by a forest.

As I see them gaping, I say "Welcome, lady and gentlemen, to Camelot."

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After confirming that they were, in fact, in Camelot, we each go our separate way in exploring and taking claim to parts of the castle. Salazar chose the dungeons, Rowena and Godric each chose a tower and I picked somewhere underground next to Salazar's spot. We decided that's where our apprentices would live.

Each one of us decorated and furnished their common rooms and I have to say, we have different styles. I picked comfort and simplicity, it was just a sitting room with a fireplace and some comfy seats, and some plants to liven up the place. Rowena chose studious, she even put a library in her room. Talk about priorities. Anyway, other than that, she colored the walls blue and the room looked luxurious but not too pretentious. I have to say, Rowena has got style.

Salazar, gloomy as ever, made the room as dark as possible, considering students would live there, the walls were dark green and the furniture, mostly black. He did, however, impressive work with the enchanted invisible wall that made us able to look at the depth of the lake. We could even see the merpeople colony that lived there.

What Godric did, on the other hand, was an abomination. He made the walls red and gold. Everything was red and gold, even the floor and the furniture. It was like he was color blind or something. I actually got a migraine when he showed it to us. It was like I gave a five year old some paint or something. We couldn't forbid him from choosing these decorations and Godric even refused when Rowena advised him to at least change the colors.

As we were dining, we were immersed in a conversation about our plans for the school and what we would teach.

"So how could we maintain the castle? I know we can enchant brooms to clean and everything, but we will need servants to at least keep this place running." Rowena asked.

"You seriously didn't notice? We already have servants. Not one of us has cleaned so far yet everything is always clean. The place was in perfect condition when we got here. How do you think that's possible?" I answered.

They all looked bewildered, suddenly realizing that what I said made sense. To avoid any confusion I explained, "We have house elves in the castles. They're a magical species that bond with a wizard or witch and serve them. They don't have their own magic and need to borrow it from their master. They tend to die if they're not bonded for too long and they love to work. I rescued some of them from magical families that mistreat them and brought them here. I modified the castle wards to act as an anchor for them to feed instead of having a human master, in exchange the wanted to maintain it and serve the masters of the castle. If you need anything just ask for an elf. They clean and cook everything in the castle."

"How could such a species even exist?" Salazar asked.

"I don't know how they came to be; they have been here for centuries." I lied.

I knew exactly where they came from. They descended from a couple of light elves from Alfheim that were banished to Earth and had their magic removed. They're the first to survive the process long enough to have children. They were like a void of magic, trying to absorb the ambient magic but failing to keep it. They automatically gravitated to magically rich places, it was instinct. Elves were inheritably very magical beings and they crave it. Unfortunately, their life times without magic was too short, barely a couple of years from birth to death. They kept multiplying like crazy and years of inbreeding turned them from the smart beautiful creature they were to what they are today. One day, they were discovered by wizards who they bargained with. Magic for servitude. All house elves were now bound but had their magic back. That's why they're so fanatically devoted to their masters, the house elves know they have their masters to thank for their magic.

The conversation shifted from that to how we will divide the curriculum between us. I took potions, herbology, history, runes, alchemy, and healing. Salazar picked astronomy, rituals, blood magic and dueling. Rowena picked arithmancy, charms, enchanting and divination. Godric got battle magic, magical beings, swordsmanship, and transfiguration. We will each have a team of apprentices but they will learn from the four of us. We wouldn't have personal apprentices; it would be unfair for the rest. They would be part of our families, a part of our houses.

And so, the years passed and we slowly turned Camelot into the school we dreamed of, we even added blood wards to the already existing impressive war wards that Myrddin probably set up. There were some silly ideas that we did while drunk. The moving staircases Rowena made were hilarious, especially after she couldn't cancel the spell. We did the enchanted ceiling in what used to be the throne room, we call it the great hall now. Rowena loved it so much that she copied it into her own common room.

Godric and Salazar traveled a lot, mostly because Godric was bored, and Salazar wanted to learn more. He was still obsessed with revenge. So, Rowena and I kept busy by making several projects, the room of requirements being one of the largest. A customizable special enchantment, that is connected to the wards and has access to anything in the castle. It reads the user's projected thoughts and creates an illusionary world with temporary copies of what's in the castle. We had to make sure that stuff the user leaves in the room would remain in a special space reserved for them, aka the room of lost things. Took us a while, especially since I had to do it with the magic currently known to the world. We even catalogued the secret passages in the castle, even made some of our own, that's how bored we were.

The absence of the boys made us decide things a bit randomly. One day, Rowena told me that she had a dream about a warty hog, we ended up calling our school Hogwarts. Godric and Salazar were appalled when they learnt when they got back.

My side project on the other hand, was impressive even for me. I made a soul, a true soul inside the wards themselves. Using soul magic, I created what is essentially the soul of a child. My goal was to make the ultimate defense system because wards don't adapt or think. They are direct and simple enchantments in an area. To truly protect our school, I needed something that can think, something that could tell the difference between a student and an attacker, I needed something alive.

So, I created the soul and named her after our school, she has been learning slowly what her purpose was. I don't know why I keep calling her a 'her'. I guess I instinctively know. She doesn't speak but you can feel her intentions and feelings. She was really powerful as well; every spell, enchantment, rune, everything is powered by the leylines from through the wards. It's what will make everything permanent. Imagine someone in control of those wards, they would control every spell inside. Now, whatever attacks the castle, even if someone creates a spell able to destroy all known wards, Hogwarts will adapt to protect the students.

Now, we were finally ready to open, we had everything set up to change the world.

"How do we convince people to send their children here?" Godric asked.

"We can't just tell them to send their children away from their homes. Even poor villagers wouldn't do it. What we created is too good to be true." Rowena answered.

"What we need is for people to trust us with their children but that's impossible right off the bat. We need to make them trust us with something a bit less important." I commented.

"Like what?" Salazar questioned.

"Like their lives. We are some of the best wizards and witches in Britain, but they don't know that. We need to show them. We need to show them that they should trust us. And to do that we will need to save them."

"From what exactly?" Godric asked.

"Not what, who. Salazar, do you still want revenge on the man that killed your family?"

The legend of the dark man, spread across Britain. Countless villages were destroyed by him, even some Noble houses, magical and muggle weren't spared. He was their bogeyman. Killing him would give us the publicity we needed to open our school. Plus, I still want to know how he violated the natural law by consuming souls without me sensing it.

Salazar responded with a sinister grin.