It's been a long time since someone asked about me. A long time since I was considered important, in any form. It was different before, you know. I've been here since the beginning. And in the beginning, they really did care. Or, at least, some of them did. Well, for me, even that was enough. Until... No, let me tell you the whole story. It has been a while since anyone heard it, but you will sit around, won't you?

There were four friends. Four of the most brilliant witches and wizards in Britain—oh! You say you've heard this before? You've heard the legend, I'm sure, passed down through generations, and written into books. Perhaps, you will let me finish as I tell you the truth? All right. Of course, they had a vision. A vision where every young witch and wizard would receive a proper magical education suited to their needs, and hence they built the school. Hogwarts, they named it, partly on a whim. They built it around this lake, my lake, for the castle was an old one, falling into disuse. It belonged to the family of the one of the witches, though no one had lived in it for centuries. I watched silently as it grew. How can an ancient castle grow, you ask? Well it did, from nearly rubble, to the majestic place that would soon become famous. It was imbued with the most powerful of magicks as well.

And slowly but surely, the children started trickling in. And each of the Founders took a select few under their wing. Except one. She made no distinction for her selection. Everyone was equal in her eyes. She was even kind to me, and not many are — not that I blame them, I have been told I am not exactly a pleasant sight to look at. Yet, I digress. Despite her kindness or perhaps because of it, she was often overlooked by the others.

As friends sometimes do, the four had a falling out. There were two, the wizards, the bold and the ambitious, who never got along. However, the group had been held together by the witches, the intelligent and the kind. But now, those bonds were dissolving. They began to hurl accusations at each other. They were both vying for the same woman, you see. It is always a terrible way for friendships to dissolve. I have seen it often and it is always ugly. Love is often crueler than it is kind. Well, the two wizards had both fallen head over heels for one of their fellow Founders, the one commonly known as the most intelligent witch of her time.

But they were not fools, and so they hid their true reasons behind political ones. That is not to say, they agreed on the fact that Muggleborns attended the school, but nonetheless, it only escalated because of the other reasons. Little did one of them know, the witch had already made a choice — if it could be called that. She had always been in love with one of the wizards, the tall ambitious one who often wore forest green robes.

How do I know this? Well, she confided in me, you see. I suppose she didn't know I could understand. But she always spent a lot of time around this lake. It was her safe haven, and few students and teachers came here. Like me, she enjoyed the silence, I think. Well, there wasn't much of it to be found here. Did they tell you that the battle of the Boy-Who-Lived and the Dark Lord was the first time the castle was ruined?

Well, they lied, then. The battle between the two Founders was far worse. The castle was utterly demolished, though the casualties were fewer. The students had gone home for the holidays, and so had the teachers. The only real casualty was the friendship between the two wizards, whatever little of it there was. I saw it all, for they duelled right by the Lake, with the curses and spells they threw at each other as cruel as the words they sparred with. I wished I could have stopped it. Perhaps I could. In fact, the kindest of the four came searching for me and asked me to. But I was a coward, too afraid to risk my own life for theirs. The other witch, she begged and pleaded the two to stop, but they didn't heed her words until she told them there was nothing to fight about. To the one who prided himself on his bravery, she revealed she was with child. The child of the man she had loved and who loved her back, no matter how cruel he may seem to the rest of the world. To the other, who shone for his ambition and glory, she reminded him that the school had been meant for all witches and wizards, irrespective of parentage, and that would never change. She declared she could not love a man so terrible anymore, though she had overlooked those things in favour of his brilliance in the past.

There was no duel after that. How could there be? It was three against one now, and the one remaining left in a fiery rage, never to return. One of the four pillars of the school, gone, though not without hiding his secrets for some future witch or wizard to find, as one did, eventually. The school too, was gone, and all that was left was the rubble and this lake. But that was easy enough to fix, for the three. When the children returned, they found little amiss. Why would they care about the professor they liked least of all leaving? It was of no consequence to them.

I wish I could say it ended there. That, after he left, it all went back to some semblance of normal. But the seeds of discord he had sown, the rumours he had spread, they all remained for centuries. The three who had remained were never the same either. In those old times, the witch who became a mother and brought up her child alone was a pariah, to nearly all except her best friend, who was always there, supporting her. She died of a broken heart, as I believe you heard, when her daughter, too, betrayed her. The other witch, who spent her whole life making others happy, never found happiness herself, and she was left alone for her very last years in this cruel world. The wizard, he grew angry and temperamental, shooing away any that tried to get close to him. His end was not a happy one either.

What's that? You want proof that what I say is truer than the books you read? I can give you none, young one. But you can find your own. Take out those very books that you speak of, and read between the lines of fiction to find the truth. The simple truth is that what had happened, and a lot of what does happen in this strange old world, is irreparable.

Notes: For the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.

Main prompt: Write a story set near water. (I chose the Great Lake)

Optional Prompts: forest green, ancient, proof

Position: Beater 1

Team: Kenmare Kestrels

I wrote from the perspective of the Giant Squid. Also, this is of course slightly AU with respect to the Founder's Era.