"Welcome back, just in time for dinner. Edgar's cooking is still hot, sit down quickly!" Rowena chided. The three founders, having just arrived, quickly took their seats and eating, shovelling food into their mouths. Harry admitted surprise at Helga's eating speed, which could have easily rivalled that of Ron Weasley on most days. "The students arrive tomorrow, and all of you see fit to arrive back only tonight, have any of you worked on your lesson plans?"

To her credit, Helga looked slightly ashamed. Godric had a look of indignation while Salazar still had his air of superiority. When none answered and silence lingered, Harry stepped in, asking, "So Godric, how was the duel you and Salazar decided to enter? Was the competition any good?"

He could tell Rowena's disappointment in the other founders and decided to talk to her later, reaching with his hand under the table and giving hers a gentle, comforting squeeze. She shot him a grateful smile before eating with some spirit regained, listening attentively. "Anyways, so Salazar and I faced each other for the fifth round-"

"-and this buffoon saw fit to beat me before losing to a joke of a duellist in the finals-"

"-he was highly talented and extremely unpredictable-"

"-he was a fool whose moves made no sense and you underestimated him, giving him a free shot to knock you out while you were there strutting about like a ballerina-"

"-yes, yes, but I still beat you didn't I?" Godric said cheerfully. Salazar had a sneer as Harry and Rowena's eyes met before both rolled their eyes at the same time. They paused for a moment, merely staring at each other in surprise before smiles tugged at both their lips, their eyes twinkling in mirth as they continued to steal glances at each other for the rest of the meal while Godric continued recounting the tale of how he was beaten by luck, Salazar interjecting every so often with a scrutinizing quip, and Helga talking about her adventure in the countryside and collecting different plants.

Harry quickly finished his meal and excused himself, shooting an exasperated glance. She picked up her goblet hurriedly and Harry knew that she was hiding a smirk as he walked up to Ravenclaw tower, as he decided to name it. Of course Rowena wasn't arrogant enough to have named the part of the castle after herself yet, but Harry couldn't shake the force of habit, and she was the only resident until very recently, so he thought he should be forgiven.

"Harry, you should have waited for me!" He stopped and turned around with a cocky grin on his face to see Rowena rushing to catch up while clutching her dress with her hands.

"Should I have now, I feared that if I stayed you would be too kind hearted to leave them to their bickering. I merely thought that our evening would be more enjoyable if it were between us, don't you agree, my lady?"

"Of course...well I suppose we should go over our charms lessons together after all," she said with a flirtatious wink. He offered her his hand and she quickly interlaced hers with his, setting off at a leisurely pace for their quarters.

"In seriousness, how do you want to work on the charms lesson? I would think that a genius as yourself would have some way to dazzle the students," Harry mused. Rowena hummed softly as she leaned in closer to Harry.

"I'm honestly not sure, tell me, what will you cover in your defence classes?" she asked.

"Wand safety and maintenance." She scoffed in disbelief, but Harry did not budge. "Of course, otherwise who else will teach them the importance of polishing their wand regularly. It is their tool, their weapon, surely they can't just expect it to last without any upkeep for their entire life."

"Ollivander would be proud," she quipped, and both chuckled in mirth.

"Indeed he would. I think he will also be happy that we're encouraging children to learn more about magic. It's been years of stagnation of magicals in Britain, I really think that Hogwarts has the potential to turn this around." And he knew with near certainty that it would. The generation after Hogwarts had boomed, and though the founders did not live to see their work the student population had increased several times over in the matter of years. The founding of Hogwarts had signalled a Renaissance for magic that lasted well into the fourteen hundreds, four hundred years past the initial founding of Hogwarts. A part of Harry was bristling with nervousness and excitement at prospect of becoming part of this history. And then there was his relationship with Rowena, which had progressed beyond his wildest dreams. He had initially come hoping to befriend her only as a fellow intellectual, focusing on Salazar. Instead, he now found himself hopelessly in love with her, and if his senses did not betray him her with him.

"You digress Harry. You shall learn that such verbal plays do not work with me. Regardless, I have drawn up lesson plans, starting off with lumos, then nox, then the levitating charm. We'll work a bit on etymology and common wand movements as well. What are you teaching for defence?" she asked, opening the door to her quarters and ushering him into a seat.

"Once we're done with wand maintenance and safety I'll move on to dealing with some dark creatures as well as common enemies. Hags, imps, and the-watch out!"

Harry began firing off stunners with his fingers as a swarm of pixies emerged from behind her wardrobe. Rowena was shocked into standing still as he was slowly pushed back by the sheer number of pixies.

He fired off stunners rapidly, yet they seemed to keep on coming ignoring the twelve, fourteen pixies already immobilized on the floor.

"Aw, aren't you a sweet little-"

Harry's eyes widened as he turned to check back on Rowena, who was leaning down and looking at a pixie dancing mischievously. He ignored the few scratches they landed on his cheek and sent a blasting spell at them as he yelled, "Row no!"

But it was too late, the pixie had jumped up and bit her on the nose. "Argh!" she yelped before trying to yank it off. She began stumbling blindly and knocking into furniture as the pixie stubbornly continued to hold its bite.

Cursing under his breath, he sent two successive blasting spells at the pixies, sufficiently cowing them before he rushed over to Rowena, and wrapping his hands around her waist apparated with a pop back to his towers, after spending much of his energy punching through the wards of Hogwarts.

"Immobulus," he cast, and the pixie stopped struggling and gnawing on her nose, slumping. Harry quickly pulled off its body and locked it in an empty box, before rushing to his trunk and pulling out a salve.

"Crushed actinolite, it'll stop the toxins from spreading, I hope," Harry commented before she could ask the question. He began gently rubbing the powder onto her nose, and the swelling began to slow before stopping and shrinking.

"Pixies, quite the nasty creatures. A bite won't hurt too bad but three or four and there'll be enough poison to kill." Seeing her pale, he comforted, "You'll be fine. You might suffer a bit of a headache from the toxins being removed, but a good night's rest is all you need.

He lifted her body bridal style and lay her on the bed as she gave him a weak smile, rubbing her nose gently and squeezing it. "It tickles."

"That's good, it means the toxin has only barely gotten through into your blood. This'll be much easier for you," Harry assured.

"But this is your bed," she muttered half heartedly, her eyes already fluttering as the actinolite begun its effects. Harry merely chuckled as he ran a finger along her cheek, enjoying watching her try to lean her head in to his finger.

"Sleep well, my raven," he soothed, gently pulling the duvet over her before heading unto his study and grabbing a salve to rub on his cuts. He looked himself in the mirror, seeing several gashes across his cheek where he had been clawed. He counted himself lucky that he had not been bitten yet.

Seeing the effects of the salve begin to show, he shrunk the tin down and put it in his pocket, wandering back into the bedroom and glancing over at the sleeping form of Rowena, her chest rising up and down softly as she slept on peacefully. She was muttering something but Harry couldn't find it in him to listen in, instead getting the box he had locked the pixie in and apparating back to Ravenclaw tower.

Inside, around twenty or so pixies were trashing the room. The chairs had their legs ripped off, the bed had been sliced in half, the pillow's feathers had been pulled out and thrown about in the air like confetti and the wardrobe's doors were hanging broken.

"Immobulus," Harry cast, using his druid training to turn the spell into an area effect. It was extremely taxing for him to perform such a feat wandlessly and silently, but he managed, knocking out all the pixies in an instant. He opened his box and levitated all of the pixies into the box, deciding that the first defence against dark creatures lesson would be on pixies, and shut the lid before sealing it magically.

He wandered around the room, casting repairing charms as he went about. Scratches and claw marks were removed as legs were reattached and items returned to their places. He could do little about the spilt potions other than to cast vanishing charm on them and return their flasks to their original place. He thanked the deities that the bookcase in the adjacent room had remained unharmed, he was certain Rowena would have a heart attack if any of her prized manuscripts were damaged.

He saw the Egyptian tome he gifted her lying open on her desk, and couldn't help but wander over an have a look. There were several pieces of paper surrounding the tome where neat scribbles of notes pointed to the various writings of the tome. Apparently the tome was on the spells of an Egyptian pharaoh trying to figure a way to make crops grow better, and he briefly wondered whether the gift was more suited to Helga.

What caught his eye however were the doodles of hearts that dotted the pages, as well as his name written elegantly in cursive over and over again. He flipped through several stacks of her notes arranged into neat piles at the top of her desk, and found that the hearts were prominently features through her notes.

He cast several scourgifys on her desk to remove some of the accumulated dust before returning back to the main room. Deciding not to take any chances, he cast several detection spells around, finding nothing except a few spiders which he promptly removed from the room.

The room had been restored into its neat and tidy form, and Harry daresay Rowena might well have forgotten that the pixies had attacked were it not for the slight bruise that would remain on her nose for the coming week.

He closed the door to her room and cast a locking charm before heading to his own quarters, carefully casting detection spells to see if there were any unwelcome elements. Apart from a lone toad that croaked sadly at him which he levitated gently down to the great lake, there were no other offenders present.

"Ravenclaw's quarters," he said while tossing a handful of floo powder into the fire. It burst an emerald green and he stepped through it, landing gracefully in her quarters as he stepped out of the fireplace.

He cast several detection charms on the floo and checked if it was similar to his own time. Back in the future the ministry's department of floo travel was dedicated to setting up and maintaining the complicated floo network of several thousand points, and he had studied it meticulously, using it to send many unsuspecting death eater conspirators to their deaths and trapping them who knows where and allowing to dehydrate or starve to death. He had laughed when Voldemort lost one of his inner circle to his floo sabotage, and had watched from the distance as he had his underlings work relentlessly, trying to find a problem that did mot exist.

Rowena's floo was slightly different from the modern one in that the modern one used a hub and spoke model, as the muggles called it. Without knowing it, all floo travel went past the ministry in between theur destinations, which made him surprised that floo tracking was still rare during the war. Ravenclaw's model connected individual floos to each other, and while it was fine for a small number of floo points, as the number of connected fireplace linking each to every other would take increasing magical power and be exponentially more time consuming, not to mention harder to maintain.

He wondered if Rowena had thought of this problem yet, but seeing as there was no ministry of magic to coordinate such things, he could hardly fault her if she had not. He would ask her about connecting the floo to his tower.

Giving her room one last look, he apparated straight back to his tower, careful not to wake Rowena as he went to one of the guest bedrooms and tucked himself in, closing his eyes and dreaming about a certain lady sleeping in his bed.