Genre(s): Spiritual/Drama

Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter


Hufflepuff's Addition

The castle was almost complete. After ten years' hard work, of cleaning and mending and fixing and repairing, the once derelict and collapsing castle hidden away in the mountains of Scotland was ready to become Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

The castle had been wonderful once, owned by a rich and powerful Muggle many centuries ago. When he had died, he had had no one to give it to, and so the castle fell into disrepair. Those all around it had only ever known it as a ruin, crumbling away before their very eyes until it would disappear altogether.

In short, the perfect place to make a wizarding school where Muggles wouldn't venture.

The four founders had been working on the castle for a decade now, expelling all manner of horrible creatures and repairing the damage that had been settling in over the castle's centuries of neglect. It had been long and hard, but now, finally, it was ready.

The four founders stood on the top of the Astronomy Tower, the tallest tower in the castle, and looked out over the impressive grounds. They considered themselves incredibly lucky that they had access to so much green space; there were no Muggles living anywhere near, as they all feared that to live too close to the crumbling and supposedly 'haunted' castle would only result in misfortune. Muggles would still see the castle as that familiar ruin, of course, but to the witches and wizards who would be studying there, they would see the fruits of the founders' labour come the first of September.

Once she had downed one glass of sherry – the other three were already on their second by this time – Helga Hufflepuff excused herself, placing her empty glass on the top of the wall surrounding the tower, and holding up the hem of her dress so that she didn't trip over as she descended down to the dungeons.

She had had the idea to add in her own little touch to the castle since they had begun work on it; she hadn't wanted it to be a secret, but she feared that it was something that her three best friends wouldn't particularly agree with.

She went down staircase after staircase until the stairs ran out, and she was stood facing a blank wall in the dungeons, just a little down the corridor from the Slytherin common room.

Helga retrieved her wand from the pocket of her bright yellow robes and dragged it along five horizontal bricks, then down seven vertical bricks, so that the two lines intersected. It was the spell that she had created herself, that would reveal the room that she had hidden during the founders' work on the castle.

There was a low rumbling, nothing special – nothing that would cause any heads to turn when the castle was teeming with students – and the brickwork began to part, revealing a tall staircase behind it. When the wall stopped moving, Helga ascended the staircase and entered the room that sat on the ground floor of the castle, not connected to any other part of the building other than the staircase hidden behind the wall in the dungeons.

The room had already been fitted with furniture: two rows of pews, all facing the stained glass window that let in the light from the grounds. There was a red rug on the floor, and lots of space to move around in. But there was one thing missing, the final touch that Helga had to make before it would be complete.

Helga waved her wand in a graceful arc all over the room, and books appeared on each of the benches in the pews, the very last part of her addition to the castle.

She smiled at her handiwork, nodded once, and then returned to her best friends on the top of the Astronomy Tower, carefully closing the brick wall behind her.