Author's note: just a brief explanation on this story, it is inspired by the fact that I've been drawing the founders of Hogwarts recently, they have had recurring portraits on my d-art profile. They fascinate me quite a bit because J.K. Rowling never really went into detail about their stories and the dynamics they had towards each other. I find them interesting because honestly, we all know that this whole pureblood thing started way back with Godric and Salazar right? The answer would be yes, but do we know how they became friends? Or how they met Rowena and Helga and decided to start a school for witches and wizards? Not really.

To me, these characters were obviously very important in how the entire war started but J.K. Rowling, though I'm sure she has an entire story mapped out for them, never bothered to mention it in detail. Something I completely comprehend since, let's face it, the story of young Harry Potter was central, and though the founders were I'm sure very interesting people, she simply didn't have the time to work them in any more than she already did.

Nevertheless, after reading the books and making my drawings I find myself (Once again...) stuck with an idea that I can't get out of my mind. And so here you have it,... A great deal of this plotline is entirely made-up and I'm sure if J.K. Rowling herself were ever to read it she'd be appalled but I have tried to remain as close as possible to whatever information is provided regarding the great founders of Hogwarts. Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin.

I hope you enjoy, I do plan on continuing this story so please feel free to leave comments and reviews I am curious to see the reactions of fellow HP fans.

"Salazar! Wake up!" Salazar felt himself being shaken in the middle of his sleep, his mother's voice ringing in a panicked way through his head while he heard his stepfather's footsteps coming up the stairs. He had heard this argument before, stood watching as his mother took a beating and was dragged to his father's room, it was nothing new to him. And though he hated his father he had grown up knowing that it was quite normal for a man to hit his wife if she disobeyed him. No matter how powerful his mother truly was she was forced to be submissive to his stepfather, his weak pathetic father who wasn't worthy of t. They were a noble family or at least they had been until his father had died and his mother had so foolishly fallen in love with a muggle. He couldn't comprehend this, he understood their need for secrecy and caution, as it stood, witches and wizards were in a minority and currently being prosecuted by the muggles in masses. But his mother loving one of them was far beyond the understanding of his eleven year old mind. He couldn't comprehend the risk she took at marrying this man, this crude and mostly drunken human who was bound to notice sooner or later that the pots in the kitchen cleaned themselves or she had a solution to every ailment the man had ever had. His mother was a formidable witch and that was why her choice was less than admirable in the eyes of her son.

As it was he allowed her to shake him awake and only gradually opened his eyes to the sound of his mother's voice and the heavy boots that were stomping up the stairs to their small house. The servants would be asleep for a long while still and so the house was mostly silent as Salazar opened his eyes he noticed his mother looking more panicked than usual.

"Salazar hide!" She hissed and dragged him out of his bed, while pulling out her wand, he felt himself shake suddenly the stricken look on his mother's face was enough to send chills up his back as she stuffed him into a wardrobe and turned around to face the man that was coming up the stairs. He couldn't hear properly so he opened the wardrobe door a creak, enough to see his mother's back to him and hear her crying.

"Bloody witch! What were you planning? Corrupt the boy too, sell him to the devil?" The man yelled loudly through the room and Salazar thought for a moment he could feel the floor shaking. Suddenly there were other footsteps bounding up the stairs and Salazar pushed himself back against the wardrobe wall, horrified at the sound of men entering his little bedroom and grabbing hold of his mother while she simply stood there. How could she do nothing? How could she just stand there and let them do what they wanted. She let them take her wand out of her hands while they screamed and beat her, Salazar wasn't sure what happened to him but before he knew it he was bounding out the wardrobe and had jumped on his stepfather. The cruelty of someone beating a woman, even one who wasn't defenseless was criminal in his eyes, especially his mother. And he foolishly thought that stopping the man responsible would protect his mother.

Nothing he did could have saved him or his mother from this moment, nothing could have prepared him for this, they weren't going to burn her, she was of noble blood so they couldn't simply strangle her at the crossroads. His stepfather stood crudely behind him, both large hands on his shoulders, the calloused hands from riding in military formations and hunting all his life bearing down on his small frame. This stupid muggle was a brute, an idiot in the worst way and now Salazar was burning with anger against him, against all of this, the people who had come to watch and stare as his mother was being brought up to the block and the man behind him leaned over to whisper menacingly into his ear.

"Watch carefully boy, this is what happens to witches. Their spawn too if they're not careful." His breath stunk, and Salazar wouldn't look away, he couldn't even if he wanted to, his mother's grey eyes were on him as she smiled. He couldn't understand why she was smiling, if it had been him he would have been crying out for her, but she smiled at him and knelt down without saying anything to the priest. That on it's own was an acknowledgement of her guilt, her smiling the way she was was another. She looked first at Salazar and then to the man standing behind him, smiled once again to her little boy and then placed her head down on the block and spread her arms.

When the blow came it came slowly and Salazar felt himself tear as he tried desperately to get away from this man, he needed to do something, he didn't understand how up until now he had been so blatantly ignorant of what was happening but now he was watching the blade come down on his mother and she was doing nothing to stop it, he had to move, or try something but nothing would come. And the hands at his shoulders were large and strong enough to even lift him up in the air while the man with the foul breath laughed and forced him to watch as it came down agonizingly slow upon his mother's neck.

He did nothing, nothing happened while his mother was killed, no disappearance or shocking fires, nothing, no magic. Salazar was enveloped in fury and terror at the sight of his mother's body and he could do nothing but shake and scream and be carried away by the man who had done all this to him.

"Godric! Wake up! Wake up!" Godric was more than used to waking up to the excitement of Helga Hufflepuff, he'd known her most of his life, and if he could call anyone sister it would probably be her. It was because he was so used to her sweet little voice and the excitement and happiness that usually followed her that he didn't consider it very important to get up, or even open his eyes. Instead he most determinedly shut them tighter and rolled over so his back was towards her. He knew it was foolish and if he though that would stop Helga Hufflepuff from trying again he was seriously mistaken. For a small foolish moment he thought she would leave him alone, it had gone very quiet in his little room anyway but then he was very crudely disrupted from his sleepy thoughts when he felt something pounce him. "Godric! I mean it get up, it's important!" her weight however light it might be knocked the wind out of him and he was instantly awake but instead of being angry he simply reached out from under the covers and grabbed her by the waist before tickling her into submission. Helga was a delightful friend to have, she could run, ride, wrestle and play as well as any boy and she could be tickled beyond belief. To an eleven year old boy who had very little friends, she was the perfect companion.

Her shrieking laughter and pleas for him to stop provoked laughter in him and finally he stopped, leaning back in the bed and watching as she sat up and tried to straighten herself out a bit. He ran his hand through his own flaming red hair and eyed his best friend carefully.

"Well what is it?" As much as he liked her, he was never very kind to anyone in the morning.

"I'm to be married." She was excited but Godric felt his stomach tie up in knots and couldn't quite comprehend what had just happened, she was only eleven after all. She couldn't possibly be married.

"What?"

"My father told me. I am betrothed to be married."

"To whom? And why?" Godric was slightly outraged, he felt his nose turn up at the thought of his little friend being married. It didn't seem quite right to him, she still climbed trees and rode on a little pony. How could she possibly be married like some grand lady when she still liked jumping in the mud?

"Because I'm a girl!"

"I know you're a girl. But you can't get married!" Godric wasn't entirely sure why he was so appalled at the idea of her being married.

"Why not?"

"Because you're too young!" he shook his head and then looked at her, forcing tears back, boys didn't cry. He couldn't cry. "They'll send you away."

"I know, my mother says they're sending me to a nunnery until I'm old enough, so I can learn everything I need to know about being a good wife." Again she sounded excited and Godric felt shocked at that.

"You're my oldest friend Helga."

"Godric, I'm your only friend." She rolled her eyes and then moved to sit next to him, she was so much smaller than him that she leaned her head on his shoulder easily and Godric sniffled, forcing away the thought of her leaving. "I won't be gone forever you know. And we'll always be friends. We can write to each other by owl."

"You don't know how to write Helga." It was true she hadn't been educated the way he was and it only grieved him more to know that she was being taken away from him. He couldn't imagine her and her family not living here with him and his mother. Their parents had been close friends for as long as he could remember.

"I'm going to live with nuns Godric, I imagine they'll teach me." Godric wiped his nose with the sleeve of his nightshirt and leaned his head onto Helga's. She sighed and took hold of his hand. "Don't worry Godric, you're my best friend."

"I'm your only friend, Helga." They always replied this way to each other, they were only eleven but both very much aware of the fact that they were different. Godric had shown 'potential' as his father said from a very young age, when he'd simply disappeared from the bathtub and reappeared in the stables. He didn't remember these things but his parents took pride in them and repeated them often, they were witches and wizards, in a world were being different meant being prosecuted. The importance of their secrecy and anonymity had been drilled into him since he was old enough to understand, Helga and her family had come to live with them after several of their friends had been taken away back in Wales, they thought it safer to come stay with friends. Helga and Godric had been inseparable ever since, and he couldn't imagine being without her. His best friend, his little sister.

Helga had no idea how she was supposed to catch up with the other girls, they were all so far ahead of her, even those that were younger than her could read latin and speak French. She had only just got here, and as her mother and the abyss showed her around the nunnery and the school, she felt a terrifying urge to run away. To leave and go running through the fields the way she did with Godric. She missed him already, her brother for all sense and purpose, she had been so excited to come here, to prepare herself, and learn new things, but now she realized that she was so terribly far behind all the other girls and she had no idea how she would possibly catch up to them. She couldn't read English let alone Latin or French. And she most certainly didn't know the names of all the plants and herbs in their gardens. She had always assumed that nuns were pious old women who prayed all day but in fact they were intelligent and wise, and the prospect of them frightened Helga slightly. They were so grand and intimidating and she was entirely unsure of her place here, even among the other girls. Especially among the other girls.

"This will be your room." The abyss was saying as she opened the wooden door to a small room, as she stepped in a girl stood up and looked at the three people who had just entered her room. Helga eyed the room carefully and was excited to see that it was larger than her room back home, there were two large beds, and desks and each girl had a wardrobe it seemed. The abyss stepped into the room as the other girl inside never took her eyes off the older woman. If Helga didn't know any better she would have thought she was challenging the woman to come closer but she couldn't imagine an eleven year old girl being so formidable that she demanded respect from a grown up. The abyss seemed angry at this confrontation as she turned to look at Helga, she was a severe looking woman with grey eyes and the habit drawn low over her forehead.

"I'm sure you received our notice of the gowns and shoes she's to have with her, I trust she's a good rider as well." She spoke across Helga to her mother as if she wasn't really there and Helga's nose crinkled before it disappeared into one of her usual smiles. She was a very good rider, she liked being outside, around animals and creatures. Like elves or pixies, when she'd lived in Wales she'd been surrounded by all sorts of magical creatures, even sought them out against her parent's wishes. "This is Rowena Roderick. She will be your roommate for the duration of your stay with us." The abyss finally turned to look at Helga and did so with judging eyes, Helga wasn't sure why but she was certain that the abyss didn't like her. She cast her eyes downward suddenly to the floor, she did this when she felt she was being reprimanded and kept her eyes cast down while the abyss spoke to her mother. She wasn't so shocked at how easy it was to say goodbye to her mother, she'd hardly been involved in her care since she was born. She'd been raised by nurses and maids for as long as she could remember so being apart from her parents wasn't what was painful. It was being left behind in this place, with this woman who didn't like her and these girls who would probably think she was stupid, or too childlike. She wished she could be back at the castle with Godric playing a game or something.

When her mother and the abyss finally left the room Helga stood at the centre of the room, watching the other girl go back to her desk and finally threw herself onto the bed she assumed was hers and cried for a while. She didn't stop crying until she felt a hand on her shoulder and she turned around, pulling herself from her pillow and turning to look at the girl Rowena Roderick who smiled at her. It was a very interesting smile, she was very pretty, she had full pink lips, her hair and eyes were both a very very dark black, and her skin wasn't like Helga's. It was darker, olive, as if she came from Spain or Italy.

"What's your name?" The girl asked and smiled again, a dark smile that seemed full of mischief, something she was used to seeing in Godric.

"H-Helga H-Hufflepuff." Helga sniffled feeling slightly embarrassed, people always thought she had a very common name, and that was true she supposed, most noble children were named something more grand than Helga.

"Well Helga, I'm Rowena. And I've been here since I was five, so I can honestly tell you there is nothing to be afraid of here. The food is good and fresh, and the nuns are all very sweet, most of them are quite young. Except the abyss and she's always grumpy, I believe it's because she hasn't aged very well. What do you think?"

"I don't think she likes me." Helga answered the girl and sat up in the bed, wiping her tears away and watching the dark haired girl as she smiled at that.

"She doesn't like us because we're pretty." Rowena said and now Helga smiled in response, she was being called pretty by a very pretty girl. "Don't worry about your school work either. I'll help and you'll be caught up in no time. I promise." Helga suddenly felt as if all her cares had drifted away from her, she still missed Godric but not nearly as terrible as she had only moments ago, and with Rowena promising to be her friend she suddenly felt much safer.

To see the artwork that inspired this, remove the spaces and go to... http: /kvanhee ./ #/d3i655b

please review, and I hope you enjoy, I know this chapter is short, but it was just to get an idea of what you all thought of it, next chapter the kiddies shall be all growed up, since I don't want to spend too much time on their life as children I'm more interested on how they decided to found Hogwarts.

It IS rated M... for future smut, between who? You shall just have to guess... ;)

TO BE CONTINUED...