Warning: All historical research for this story is slipshod and haphazard. Historical context is not meant to be accurate. There is also a bit of violence in this story. The Harry Potter characters and universe are not mine, but are the property of J K Rowling.
The Spring
There was no reason the old man should show me favor above the boy. I should have accepted it. After all, what was I but an ill-favored servant of mixed stock? Unwanted, with no prospects, while the boy was bright and well-favored, sought out and chosen by the Old Man.
It had been a long time since I was much wanted by anyone. I had worked for as long as I could remember for the landholder Penda at anything he wanted. He told me that my mother had given me up into service, unable to care for me, and Penda had taken me in. I could not remember it myself.
Penda had me work at anything that needed doing in the house or on the land, but it always seemed that I was mostly cutting: firewood, thatch, barley, turnips for the soup or the throats of pigs at the slaughter. He called me Cutter, for that was what I did.
After some years, though, I was doing less and less for my measure of meat as Penda's first children grew into their strength and desire to prove themselves for their father. Their share at the table soon outstripped mine. I could see the end easily enough. Penda was not a cruel man, but soon I would be of no use to him, soon I would be past my days of youth and strength. And what then? No one else in the village had the means to support a servant. I could be turned out to beg, or try to enter the service of some traveler. There was little to recommend the choices. A traveler might welcome a servant, or might kill me at the first crossroads for whatever I carried. I tried not to think on it.
I was cutting onions for stew when four landed men of the village came to visit Penda. I leaned away from my work to ease my stinging eyes. There was a riddle in that, surely. Whoever cuts me, I cut… a head with no body, and nine skins like a snake… It needed something, still. I would have to think on it.
The men were passing the beer quickly; it must be business.
"The Old Man fell last week," said Yrre. Small wonder, I thought, as he was quite blind. The Old Man lived apart from the rest of the village, for some hidden purpose, past the lake and halfway up the broad hill near the edge of the forest. One of the old women would bring him down to the village at times for cloth or shoes. The few times I had seen him, his cloudy blue eyes made me shudder. How they looked through you!
"Since old Hildy died, there is no one to look after him," Yrre went on.
"Our women may step in from time to time, but no one can be spared for long from our households," added Beova. Well, no wonder, his wife had just given birth to their seventh, and the child gave every sign of surviving.
"Penda, at the weir last month you said yourself that your house has too many hands and mouths."
He had? I tried to keep chopping.
"If you spare your servant, we will pay you three good ewes for the cost of his service."
I put down my knife and went back to the end of the house and my bed. I sat there with my knees drawn up. I did not much want to listen to them bargaining over my service. I had known something of the sort would be coming, and it was better than being turned out to beg. And what did I mind working for an old man? There would be a roof and food, even if it was poorer. If I truly could not stand it, how could an old man keep me from going off to attach myself to some traveler, as I had thought before?
The beer was being passed again at the other end of the house; an agreement had been reached.
Penda came and stood over me as I gathered my bag with my comb and knife and winter shirt. I was given beer to drink on it as well, and taken out into the yard. Three white ewes were tied to the doorpost.
The men led me out of the village, past the lake and up to the crossing at the weir. Beova put a wrapped loaf into my hands, "for the Old Man," and gave my shoulder a little push. Penda had turned quickly and was already headed back to the house without a word. The others watched to make sure I would go. Best that could be hoped for, since Penda doesn't want you. I crossed the weir and left the village behind.
I had never been so far from the village myself. I had no business in the forest as I was no hunter. But the path was well kept and just how the old women used to tell it. By the time the sun was low I was before the Old Man's house, set in a clearing with the grass growing high.
The half-door was open and I could see the Old Man's back as I walked up. He was sitting at the table, tapping his fingers one after another in some pattern. The soft sound of the tapping chilled me. What did it mean? I steeled myself and lifted the latch, but he didn't turn at the sound, not even when I set the loaf on the table. His clouded blue eyes didn't find me, fixed on some distant thing. I forced myself to sit across from him. I would have to face those eyes sometime.
Finally his fingers ran down and stopped. He said a word I didn't know and blinked. "Have you brought me food?" His creaking speech made me start as much as if a barnyard cat had suddenly addressed me in human tongue.
"Yes," I managed.
"Hmm. The servant… Cutter, is it? You have never been sent to me before."
He recognized my voice? I could not remember ever speaking to him before. "I am to work for you now."
"Then I must teach you the work."
I wondered at that. What work could he have that I did not know already? That night the work was clear enough. The hearth needed mending and there was wood to be chopped and stacked. I cut myself a bed from the grass around the house. I would have to dry it properly on the morrow. I threw myself into one task after another with much more spirit than I had at Penda's house. And yet, whenever I might pause I could think of nothing but Penda's wife's cosseting when I took ill, or how the youngest daughter, Gifu, would joke and tell tales by the fire. What did I have now but the Old Man's silence and blue stare that looked to your very bones? But what was I but a fool to pine for a family that was not mine and did not want me?
The Old Man spoke hardly another word to me that night, but in the morning he addressed me in a very familiar manner as soon as I had the fire set. "Cutter, I have done this work alone for many years, but you may be of great help to me, if you will learn it. What do you know of numbers?"
I did not know what to make of this sudden friendly manner. It was almost coaxing. Was he trying to tempt me into something forbidden?
"Numbers, sir?"
"Yes, Cutter, numbers. Can you count?"
"Yes," I answered with pride, "to twelve, and do any work of the land besides."
"It is not the work of the land that we do, but the work of the water."
What did he mean? "I can make a fish trap, sir."
He laughed. "Oh no, our work is much greater than that. We keep the water and it is most important that we keep it well. Come I will show you."
I expected to have to lead him about, but it was he who led me know, along a well-worn track into the trees.
"The water here is pure and it must be kept so. This is our first rule. One may not touch the water or foul the ground near it. Nor may the water be touched by any cloth or vessel. It must not be disturbed at all. Is that clear, Cutter?"
"Yes, sir."
"Water may only be taken from the stream and not the source. Here is the place to draw our household water."
At that moment we had come to a small clear stream that stepped down the hillside from root to rock with a pleasant murmur. The Old Man crossed it on stones laid for the purpose with perfect precision.
"We attend the water and keep it from harm. Now, the second part of our work is to attend to what it may tell us."
"Tell us?"
"That is my work, Cutter."
I could not make much sense of that. Our track followed the stream uphill through the ash trees, then all at once we came to a shallow bowl depression in the side of the hill, all ringed with trees and a great rock at one side. At the foot of the rock was the spring, round and green and welling.
I knew beauty, though I had none of my own. There was the proud beauty of the lord's best horses, brushed and gleaming with health, or the sweet lively beauty of Clenna the weaver's daughter, who was as bright and merry as a bird. The spring had a greater beauty; not alive, but with twice the life of horses or girls or dawn, coming up from nowhere, forever perfect and untouchable.
The Old Man's warning seemed almost ridiculous now; I could no more think of touching that water than I could touch and stain the white moon.
I stopped a body's length away. The water of the shallows was so clear that the green plants growing below looked as if they grew in air, in another world. My eyes followed the slope of the pool into the depths; down and down, I could not see how deep as it faded into the cool green.
"Cutter, remember my words."
"I would never touch it, never," I managed to say. The Old Man patted my shoulder, the first time he had touched me.
"Yes. You see how important it is."
"Yes."
"And now, our work."
He led me to the rock that stood over the spring. The spot was marked by an old thorn tree whose branches were decked with scraps of white cloth that had been tied carefully to the ends of the twigs. The Old Man's fingers caught a scrap and gave it a slight tug. "These we must count."
Count them? But hadn't he hung them himself? As soon as I had the thought, I saw that it was impossible; the cloths were far too high in the tree. How could he have climbed up to hang them, and him blind? And more than that, how had he ever counted them before? And yet, that really was our work. Each day I would perform the household tasks, then join the Old Man in counting the scraps of cloth. Strange to say, the numbers seemed different every day, though I was sure that no one of the village ever ventured up to the spring. The Old Man would ponder and calculate over the figures in the evening, tapping them out with his fingers and murmuring to himself.
And each night… the spring came to me as I had visited it during the day. I knew not what else to call it, but I knew at once that it was the spring. She was a woman, so pale she was almost transparent, as beautiful as the day, and dancing so lightly. She would turn and rise like the waters welling up, and all I could do was try to catch a look of her green eyes. In perfect generosity, she was always flowing out. No living creature could be so endlessly giving.
When I woke each morning I groaned at the separation. I wanted her as I had never wanted anything in my life. I guarded my dreams jealously and never spoke of them with the Old Man. My only consolation at waking each morning was that I knew I could visit and serve the spring.
As I worked with the Old Man, he taught me my numbers from twelve to twenty, until I learned every name by heart, yet it was no use; there were far more cloths fluttering in the branches of the thorn tree. As much as he would tell me the names of the numbers beyond that, they would not stay with me and run away again as easily as the water from the spring. Finally he hit on the idea of filling my pockets with pebbles. I would climb up into the tree, and for every ten cloths I named I would put a pebble into is hand, reaching up from below. When I came to the last branch, I would only need to name him the number left. Once I led him back to his table he would spread the pebbles out under his fingers and name each one, tens and tens and tens, until he was satisfied. It sounded like foreign tongues or the speech of some spirit; I had never heard such words.
One evening, after he was done and raking the stones together with his long fingers, I found the courage to ask, "what is the highest one?"
"Highest, Cutter?"
"The highest. The greatest of all numbers."
"There isn't one."
That was impossible. "But I give you another stone and the number is greater!" I said impatiently.
"Of course."
"So which is the greatest?"
"There is no greatest one. You may always give me another stone."
"Not forever, not always."
"Yes, always. The numbers go up forever." I sat in silence at that, it couldn't be right.
"But," I tried again, "if I gave you a stone for every leaf and twig on the tree –"
"You could find another tree, and the numbers would go up. The numbers are not things, Cutter, they are a pattern. Once a pattern is started, it does not end."
"And one for every twig in the whole forest?"
"Yes, even that, and you could walk until you found another forest twice as large, and the numbers would not end. The numbers go on forever."
"And all the stars in the sky?" I said in exasperation, forgetting that he could not see them.
"As many as that and more. Even then they do not end."
"And how many is that?"
He smiled and pushed the pile of pebbles back to me. "Well, my Cutter, you must count them for me and I shall tell you. And once you begin to count, you may count forever."
Impossible. Still, I dreamt that night that he held the hay-ladder for me as I climbed up to count them, and I dropped wisps of hay for every ten stars that I plucked from the sky. It grew darker and darker as the hay piled up over his head far below me.
The trouble was not only in my dreams, or in his when I heard him turn and moan in the night. One morning in the fall, after I had served him for two years, a column of smoke was standing tall and lit by the sun. It was not the low smudgy smoke of the field burning or the hog slaughter. The Old Man smelled it as soon as he woke.
"What do you see, Cutter?"
"Smoke, as tall as a giant."
"How are our stores, Cutter?"
"We have bread for a day, yet."
"Then tomorrow you will go to the village and bring bread for us and news for me."
The smoke was gone by the next day, but the trouble had left its marks. When I walked to the village at dawn, I could see that the gallows-tree held two bodies, one his arms still white and cracking with the clay of his trade, and both of them wrapped in white cloth.
When I descended to the village, I saw that there was one house gone, burned timbers fallen in and stinking of smoke.
Purda Weaver had the turn of feeding us, so it should have been no surprise when I entered, yet she looked up with a guilty start from her talk with her neighbor, Brimla.
"Oh, the Cutter! I reckoned the days wrong. There is not a bundle for you yet; I'll make one. Now you sweep while I work."
We were both of us working, weren't we? It was clear that she thought I had it easy now, living with the Old Man. Once I put her mind at ease by doing something to earn the food, she went back to her talk.
"And Aefre had to go and break the handle on my best jug this very morning. I gave her such a clout! She has not a single thought in her head. Won't every pot and jug be dear as salt now?"
"Hmm, there will not be any more to be had until the fair at Aiklin. The lord has his reasons, but he does not see our trials…" They dropped their voices. I swept my pile of dirt out the door.
"My man says if he left any pots raw they will be baked now," said Brimla. They laughed at that, relaxed again.
I brought back bread, eggs, and cheese. I was unwrapping the white eggs when the Old Man looked up from his tapping at the table.
"How many were in the tree, Cutter?" After two years I no longer wondered at him knowing things.
"Two."
He cocked his head to the side. "Not three?"
"No, two."
The Old Man was thoughtful for many days after that, tapping out his patterns late into the night.
The following spring was the most glorious I had yet with the Old Man. The white blossoms on the thorn tree were so crowded that I could hardly see the white cloths. Petals fell about the stone in drifts and floated across the spring like stars in the sky.
The Old Man was up before me one morning, clearly eager to be off to the spring. However, when we left the house, he took my arm to be led; he never needed to be led to the spring. He had me bring him down to the weir and across, but then away from the village on a steep sheep track. The fields were beginning to glow green, but the rough edge of the great forest was still grey and wild. The dark tangled branches almost obscured the old shepherds' cottage on the forest's edge.
I was surprised to see a thin blue wisp of smoke rising from the cottage; there was no herd here now. The Old Man felt my hesitation in my leading arm.
"We must go on; the third is here."
The third? The third what? It was hard to imagine anything of consequence here. The shepherds' cottage was even smaller than the Old Man's house, and the thatch was rotting out badly. Some broken thatch had also blown over and half-blocked the smoke hole, so when we ducked into the stinging, choking darkness of the interior, I was not on much better footing than the Old Man. I saw two white faces in the darkness as my eyes adjusted.
Thin and drawn from winter hunger, an old woman blinked at us dully through the smoke. The Old Man took no note of her, but was drawn to the other face, a young boy, about seven. His face was also marked by hunger, but he had a bright active look and was watching us with open curiosity. He did not pull back when the Old man held his shoulder and ran his hand over the boy's face and forehead.
"Yes, he is the third."
I only supposed that he meant the third of us once he informed the old woman that the boy would come and live with him. The old woman let him go with plain relief.
If I made myself think on it, I knew why a young boy might have to be hidden away from the village, though I could not guess how the Old Man had known where to find him, unless he had been calculating it since the burning day last fall. With her charge gone, the old woman would be able to rejoin the company of the village. The boy seized the Old Man's hand and came along with us eagerly.
I felt no relief or eagerness, only a growing dread as the Old Man began to instruct the boy in our work. The first day, he merely climbed into the branches of the thorn tree and played as I counted and dropped stones into the Old Man's hand. But it was not many days before he was counting himself. He reached ten, then twenty, then he was outstripping me into greater and greater numbers.
Soon, the Old Man did not need me by the spring at all and I could concentrate on the household work. There was more work now, cutting and drying grass for the boy's bed, mending our door that hung loose after the winter's gale, rethatching. I could go into the village more often for food for us, now that there were three to feed, and get turnip and cabbage starts for our own garden. Meat was already scarce between us, and now the boy took the greatest share as the Old Man insisted, "a growing boy needs meat more than our old bones, Cutter."
Yet it tore at me most to be parted from the spring. She came to me in my dreams less and less now that I no longer served her. She went to the boy instead. I knew she must, for he woke one morning weeping quietly and speaking of the "white mama." An easy mistake to make; the last time he had seen his own mother she had been wrapped in white and swaying in the trees. The whiteness and swaying dance of the spring must have reminded him of her.
I could not bring myself to have much sympathy for the boy, because I knew that he meant my end. I could see it clearly enough, just as I had with Penda. I had not been reprieved from my begging days after all; they had merely been delayed for a time. The boy was learning the Old Man's work by leaps and bounds and soon he would have the strength to take on all the household tasks as well. Who would come now to buy my service from the Old Man? It was impossible.
I was cutting bread for dinner one evening when the Old Man and the boy were returning from the spring.
"Five-hundred and nineteen! Five-hundred and twenty!" The boy cried out triumphantly.
"Yes, yes," the Old Man laughed, you have it now, my boy."
My boy? How long since I had been 'my Cutter'? A sharp pain lanced through my finger and I started back with a hiss. I had let my mind wander and cut myself, leaving a spatter of blood across the white eggs.
The Old Man came sniffing up at once. "What's this, Cutter? Blood?"
"A little cut, nothing more. Some blood fell on the eggs; I will clean it."
"No," said the Old Man, very sharp. "Such a thing can never be wiped away. The eggs are soiled now. You will have to get more from the village."
He could not be in earnest, yet his blue gaze pinned me until I said, "yes, sir. I will go now."
The light was already getting long in those shortening days, so I hurried down the path to the weir. The village was strangely hushed, I saw, as I came in through the first fields. No one working by the lake or splashing in the shallows, all the cattle and sheep already closed in their sheds.
I saw the reason as soon as I came over the gallows-tree hill. Down at the base were the lord's fine horses and a few of his men minding them, their breaths clouding in the air. I did not want to pass by them. They might be bored, and I would make easy entertainment.
I stood close to the trunk to look for another way. There – I could go back around the far side of the hill and through Yrre's fields to the village.
I turned to go and found that I was standing before the lord. I fell to my knees at once. He must have been on the other side of the tree, watching me as I came up the hill. He was very close now, the edge of his fur-lined cloak swinging before my eyes. I could hear one of his horses blowing and stamping below.
"Ah, the servant. Cutter, is it?"
He knew my name? I had only seen him at a distance until now.
"Yes, my lord."
"It is good fortune that I meet you here, Cutter. Word has come to me that you are a fine servant, who knows both the work of the house and the land. Is that so?"
Who would have spoken of me, and to the lord, no less? Still, I would be a fool to deny it. "Yes, my lord."
"It so happens that I am looking for a servant for my household. A good servant who could prove himself to me would live in my house itself, wear the colors of my house, and eat the meat of my table."
When was the last time I had tasted good meat?
"And then, so very strange, I hear that a good house servant has been sent off to the wilderness to wait on a doddering old man. Who could believe such a thing?"
I did not think that he required an answer, so I kept silent.
"I wonder if you would make a good servant to me, Cutter, if you could prove yourself."
I did not know how to answer that either, but he was waiting. I risked a glance up. His dark gaze was boring into me.
"I would try, my lord, with all my strength."
He smiled on me, a wonderful thing. "What more could I ask? Since you wish it, I will find a way for you to prove yourself to me. You must meet me here again, in three days' time, after the moon has risen."
"Yes, my lord."
The lord gave me one nod, then strode down the hill, whistling to his horses. I dared to get up only after he was gone, and I leaned against the tree to stop my heart racing. Could I really be so charmed to be lifted out of fate of begging once again? A servant of the lord's house! Such a servant would eat well, would wear fine cloth, might even save enough to marry some day. It was beyond anything I could have dreamt, even at Penda's. But first I would have to prove myself. I determined I would do anything I could for such a chance.
It was not until I was almost back at the Old Man's house that I realized I had no eggs for us. The thought had gone entirely out of my head after speaking to the lord. Well, there was no help for it now; it was almost full dark.
I came back into the house with my empty basket.
"Ah, Cutter! You have eggs for us?"
I knew, somehow, that I must not speak of my conversation with the lord. "No, sir, Nelda Tanner had no more for us."
His blind gaze rested on me until I was sure he knew that I lied, but he only said mildly, "well, my Cutter, sometimes we must make do with the materials we have at hand."
We ate poorly that night, the last of our bread and the last of our midday stew thinned to stretch it. Perhaps that was why I had such troubled dreams that night. The white woman of the spring was caught in the branches of the gallows-tree. I had to cut her down, but the tree grew and stretched higher and higher, pinning her into the dark sky.
When the appointed night came, I could not have slept if I wanted to. I lay as still as I could and watched through the chink I had carved in the wall so I could see the moonrise. When the first silver blade of moonlight cut through the trees, I rose silently and set out for the gallows-tree.
There were no horses or men here now; the lord waited for me alone. I dropped to my knees when I saw him.
"My lord."
"Ah, Cutter." He stepped out of the tree's shadow. "I wonder if you can answer me a riddle."
Was this how I was to prove myself?
"What is the work of the Old Man? He is no healer, such as old Hildy or Aethel. He does no work of his hands, and yet the whole village provides him food from their own tables, food from the mouths of their children. Can you explain it?"
"He keeps the spring, my lord." I felt a sinking as soon as the words were out. Though the Old Man had never forbidden me to speak of it, the people of the village never mentioned the spring.
The lord seemed to read my discomfort. "The spring. I do know of the spring, Cutter, that is no mystery to me. But what does it mean to keep the spring? Did he say that he protects it?"
If he had already heard of the spring, surely I could speak of it. "Yes, he said we must keep it from harm and keep the waters pure."
"I wonder. What does he keep it from? You have worked for him for three years. Have you seen any threat to the spring?"
"No, my lord."
"Could it be not that he keeps it from harm but that he keeps its power to himself?"
Could that be so? I had never thought of it, but had I not felt that way myself when I dreamt of the spring? I wanted nothing more than to keep her for myself, if I could.
"Do you believe that he has power?"
I thought of his eyes, looking far, far away as the patterns ran out from his tapping fingers.
"Yes, my lord."
"My Cutter, I take a great interest in all the land in my care. I have studied the spring for many years. That spring has a great power. Do you believe me?"
"Oh yes, my lord."
"And this Old Man, its keeper, how does he use its power? Does he heal, does he help the village?"
"No, my lord."
"No. He does nothing more than to keep and use all that power for himself. He is old and blind now. Who would want to be that way? The spring has the power to change that."
He paused, looking up at the moon just clearing the tree branches.
"And now, something very curious has happened. This old man, who already has a most capable servant, has taken on a young boy. Oh yes, I know of that, Cutter. I watch very carefully. Can you make sense of it? Why take on another mouth to feed?"
"I, I do not know, my lord."
"No, it makes no sense on the face of it. Not unless you have studied the spring as I have, as the Old Man has. A day is coming, very soon, when the Old Man may secure the power of the spring for himself. It is not difficult: all he needs is a life to offer it. Do you understand me now?"
At that moment, I saw the Old Man, sitting by the fire one evening a few weeks ago. The boy had been leaning against him and the Old Man stroked and smoothed down his hair, like a father with his child.
"Yes, my lord."
"We must keep that innocent boy from harm. And even more than that, we must keep the spring from that ultimate desecration. We must stop him at all costs. Are you ready to prove yourself and serve the spring?"
The lord was holding out a white cloth bundle. He pulled down the top of the cloth to show the handle of a knife. Would I do even that to protect the spring? I took the bundle.
"There must be no delay. The Old Man will act soon. You must stop him tonight. When it is done, bring the boy and meet me at the spring. I will take you both into safety."
"Yes, my lord."
The way back to the Old Man's house was easier now, lit by bright moonlight. I eased the door open and left it so to let in the light to work by.
I could just see the Old Man's white head above his blanket. Would he really harm the boy he had been so gentle with and who he had taught so carefully? Only a few short months and he regarded him as a son. As a son. My grip on the knife tightened. I carefully moved his beard aside. He stirred and stilled again, but then his eyes opened. I almost started back before I remembered that he was blind.
"My boy? My boy, please…" he said quietly.
His boy. I pressed my hand over his mouth. A little cut, nothing more. Just like a hog in the fall, his blood came out in a gout, soaking the bed, the blanket, my hands. He bucked once and was still. Quiet now. I stood up.
The boy was sitting up in his bed across the room, hands pressed against his lower face, dark holes of his eyes staring at me. Why did he have to look at me? I tried wiping the knife on the straw of the bed.
"Do not look, do not look at me."
He kept looking, frozen. I had to bring him to the lord, then he would understand. I started towards him. At once he was frozen no more; he started up and out the open door in a sprint.
I ran after him, knife in one hand, cloth in the other. There was a flash of movement disappearing into the trees.
"My boy, my boy," I cried, but he did not come. I plunged into the trees after him.
I had lost him. I knew I had lost something important. Had the lord not told me that the point of it was to stop the Old Man and get the boy away from him, to keep him free from harm? The boy was free now, yet I knew I had made a grievous error by not completing that last task, to bring him to the lord.
I picked my way up to the spring carefully, the path made strange by night. I saw the spring first, the innumerable stars reflected in its still water. The Old Man said you could count them forever, but now I knew he was wrong. His counting had ended. My mind shied away from the thought. I saw the lord next, his fur cloak a hole of blackness against the stars.
"Cutter? Stand before me."
I might have knelt, but that he had ordered me to stand. I might have lied, but that the lack of the boy already told him the truth.
"What of the task I have given you?"
"The Old Man is no more." I held out the knife to him, handle first. The wrapping fell away as he took it. A clumsy job of wrapping, and a clumsy job of cleaning. I saw in my haste of wiping the knife on the straw that I had left a clot of blood staining the bright blade. The lord took the knife.
"The boy woke too soon and ran. My lord, I was not able to catch him."
A coil of anger passed across his face.
"My lord, let me go and find him for you."
He sighed, his face calm again. He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close.
"Ah no, Cutter. To do a job perfectly one must have the proper tool and the right hour. But if the hour is right and the tool does not present itself, we must make do with the materials at hand."
His arm slid up and he gripped the back of my neck. Just a little cut, nothing more. I fell and lay shuddering on the ground. His boot on my back shoved me forward until my head hung half in the spring. The water was so sweet after the salt of my blood. I could see it blooming out from my neck, a flower of blood across the water.
We must keep the spring pure. I tried to push myself back out of the water, but my hands felt cold and distant; they only twitched. The white lady was dancing, wavering in the starlight, and I couldn't breathe. My blood, red filth, ran from her head down, sullying her. She was bright rotting red, a raging ravening beast. My mouth was full of blood and water. Never, I would never harm her, but once you started counting, you could count forever.
It was indeed a fair prospect. And it had been a fair day for the ascent. A stiff breeze blew and the shadows of the swift-moving clouds roved across the land and lake below. Godric turned back to his companions.
"A defensible spot."
"It is to be a school, Godric, not a fortress," said Rowena.
"Well, now, there is no harm in having protections in place," countered Salazar.
"And what say you?" Godric called up the hillside. Helga was pacing off the land with her diviner's rod, pausing and checking soft spots now and again.
"There is good bedrock here, for the most part. We will not sink into the mire, unlike the sites that Salazar favors."
Salazar chuckled at the jibe. Rowena turned her attention to the feature that had drawn them all to the spot in the first place. The surface of the pool trembled now and again in the breeze, mirroring the fluttering movement of the white cloth strips that hung from the thorn tree, above.
"It is clear that this spot has been recognized and kept sacred for a long time," said Rowena. "It is a place of power. That speaks in its favor if we are to use it as a Source. If it is powerful enough, it will keep out spells active and our work alive long after our time is past."
The thorn tree was long dead, but the roots, Rowena confirmed, still held fast to the rock and the bleached branches had not rotted. Someone kept the branches filled with scraps of cloth. It was hard to tell who that could be: it was two days' ride to the nearest town.
"Well, there is but one test remaining," said Salazar. "Helga, my dear…"
She gave a huff at the familiarity, but obliged by descending to the pool and carefully unwrapping her cup. Salazar stood at the lip of the pool and gazed into the shifting green depths. "The color is good."
He dipped a measure of water from the shallows and drank. Godric thought he saw a shadow pass across his friend's face for an instant – sorrow, or anger – but it was gone again like the shadows of the clouds slipping across the hillside and his face was sweet once more.
"It is pure," he said, and smiled.
A/N: If all spells die with the caster, why is Hogwarts still standing? The question has been posed before, and this is my explanation. Do you have any theories? Let me know!
This story will be loosely tied into the last story of my trilogy, The Good Friend, which I will be posting around the end of the year, so stay tuned.
This story is a bit of an experiment for me, an attempt to bring some of the archetypes of the HP books (the Dark Lord, the Wise Old Man, The Treacherous Servant, the Mother, and the Sacrificial Boy, ie Voldemort, Dumbledore, Snape, Lily and Harry) into a new setting. I also wanted to set up an explanation for the divisiveness that has plagued Hogwarts since it's founding.
As always, thank you very much for reading and I welcome your comments. I will respond to every review that I can.