"Ulric! Ulric!"
Hearing his name being shouted down the corridor, Ulric turned to see Rhys running towards him. The boy looked more like his brother everyday. Now he was coming barreling down heir flying, and grin plastered on his face.
"Ulric! Are we going to do the sword training today?" Rhys asked skidding to a halt in front of him. "You promised and Aunt Rowena has released me from her evil clutches."
Ulric laughed. The kid was certainly more spirited than Robin ever was.
"Don't talk about your aunt that way," Ulric said trying not to smile, or remember that he had probably heard that from Helga. "Just think you'll be so far ahead of your class mates next year."
"Aw, Helga says it all the time," Rhys said. "And you didn't answer my question!"
"All right, I just have to speak to your father. Want to come with me?"
"No, I'll go to the practice room and set up!" Rhys turned and was off and running again.
************** Ulric came to the entrance of the tower Godric and his family had be using as living quarters. A painting of three children about eleven years old, two boys and girl with dark red hair way blocked the passage.
"Can we help you?" one of the boys asked. He had curly blonde hair.
"I'd like to go in please," Ulric said. "I need to speak with Godric."
"I wouldn't if I were you," the other boy said, a knowing look in his young eyes.
Ulric suppressed the urge to say that the painting wasn't him. After all, it was. "Thank you, but I must speak with him."
"Mother and father are not in a fit state to receive guests," the other boy, Robin at age eleven, said.
"Maybe you should just wait until Rowena comes out?" suggest young Helga from the painting.
Ulric shook his head. "I can't be put off."
"Suit yourself," Robin shrugged.
The three companions in the painting looked at one another. A silent communication past between them. As one, they swung open the doorway.
Once inside, Ulric knew why the panting had tried to put him off. Even now he hated seeing Godric and Mairead argue. That's what they were doing now. The painting must have been able to hear through the door.
"Mairead, you're being unreasonable!" Godric said.
"I lost one son because of those people. I will not lose another!" she screamed.
"No Muggles-born child killed Robin!" Godric nearly shouted back. "An eleven year old would not put Rhys in danger. Especially with all of the training he has! He'll be more advanced that most of the students. I wouldn't mind him helping me teach. You have nothing to fear, love."
Godric had put his arms around his wife now. Ulric might have been distinctly uncomfortable if not for the presence of Rowena.
"He is right," Rowena said. "Just calm down and see reason. I'll be living here with my two-year-old daughter. Would I put her at risk?"
"No," Mairead consented.
Ulric cleared his throat loudly. "If I may?" he said uncertainly. "I've been training Rhys in dueling, both by magical means and with common weapons. Any one who attacked that boy would be hard pressed to find a worse target."
Mairead offered him a small smile, a rare occurrence these days. "I know you'll all protect him. I just can't help but worry. My head is killing me. I think I'll go lie down."
"You've been have headaches a lot of late," Godric said concernedly. "Maybe you should see a healer."
"I'll be fine once I get some rest," she said. "I'll be upstairs if anyone needs me."
Godric flung himself into a near by chair. He looked extremely tired. Rowena stood behind him and placed a comforting arm on his shoulder.
"I know my sister," she said. "She'll be alright."
"No," Godric said in a hollow voice, "something is very wrong with her. With you too, for that matter."
Rowena withdrew her hand as though his touch burned. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. It must just be the stress we're all under from this place. You just aren't yourself."
"Stress," Rowena repeated. "Muggles don't even have that concept yet, do they?"
"I don't think so," Godric said.
"Does stress make you hear voices?" Rowena asked absently. "Godric, I feel as though I'm losing my mind!"
"What kind of voices?" Ulric asked. The older pair was startled by his question. They probably forgot he was there.
"Telling me to do things," Rowena said. "Things I would never do. I haven't even told Richard about it. It scares me. If I knew what it was I could fight it. But we have amassed the largest collection of scrolls and writings ever, and I still can't find an explination!"
"That's actually why I'm here," Ulric said. "Helga mentioned something like that some time ago. I would have dismissed it, but lately I..."
He shock his head as his voice trailed off. Godric looked at his two friends. These people, a man he had helped to raise, and his wife's sister, couldn't both be going insane.
"There, maybe," Godric tried to think. "Could it be some unknown magic?"
"I, I suppose," Rowena said. "Then there wouldn't be any past writings about it. Ulric, you must tell me everything you know. If I write it all down, I may be able to find a pattern."
"Tomorrow, about an hour past noon?" Ulric suggested. "That should give us most of the afternoon to work."
"Good," Rowena said and nodded. She was already thinking.
"Well, I promise Rhys fencing today. If you'll excuse me." Ulric left with a slight bow.
When the painting closed behind him, the three children looked at him.
"Voices, ah?" his younger image asked.
"You knowm hearing voice no one else can is never a good thing," young Robin warned.
"But he's not the only one," little Helga said, "If Rowena is hearing them too that it must be bad magic." The little girl smacked bother her companions on the arm. "Don't pick on him!"
Ulric walked away smiling. Were they ever really that young?
**************************************************************************** *****
At Midsummer, just months before Hogwarts opened, Helga and Ulric were wed on the school grounds. It was a small cerimony. Only those already at Hogwarts, and Benowyc's family were there.
Helga couldn't believe how nervous she was before the cerimony. Anya, and Rowena were sitting with her.
"You'll be fine, Helga," her friend and cousin said. "The best day of my life was the one I joined your family."
"That's right, my dear," Rowena said. "I never thought I would marry. Now I can't imagine what I would be with Richard. And we were all expecting this, you know?"
"Really?" Helga asked. "How could you know when I didn't?"
"Because he loves you, Helga," Anya said. "As much as, as anyone."
"You can say it, Anya," Helga smiled. "As much as Robin did. He was your brother, I know you wanted me to be your sister."
"But I married your cousin. We're still family," her friend smiled.
"You girls never needed a marriage to form that bond," Rowena told them.
"And I love Ulric as much as I did Rob. Not in the same way, but just as much."
Sadness touched everyone's eyes for a moment.
"How very touching!" Zarena said from the doorway.
Mairead stood with her. "Would you ladies excuse us. I would like to speak with Helga." It wasn't a request.
"Of course, sister dear," Rowena said. But as she past she whispered, "If you taint this day for her, I will never forgive you."
Mairead nodded.
"Mother, what could be so important that can not be said infront of us. We're all family. Well nearly," she said glancing at Zarina.
Mairead smiled. "I just want to talk to her for a moment. My grandchildren are asking for their mother. Go see to them."
Helga saw the eyes of the woman she had known as a child when Mairead spoke of her grandchildren. It faded quickly.
"You too, Zar," Mairead said.
The young woman did not look happy, but left with the others.
What is this about, Mairead," Helga asked.
"A warning, Helga. Ther are forces at work against this union."
"I know," Helga said coldly. "She just left with your daugter and sister."
"Zarena's infatuation with Ulric has nothing to do with it!"
"Like hell it doesn't!" Helga shot. "That girl has been trying to get her claws in Ulric since she got here!"
"She isn't a girl, Helga. Do not underestemat her."
"She is a girl, bearly out the cradle!"
"At her age, you were already planning to marry my son," Mairead reminded.
Helga winced. "I was wondering if you'd bring that up."
"I know you loved him very much, Helga. And I know you love Ulric. Ulric has always loved you. They were right you know. I moment Robin died, I expected you would wed Ulric."
Helga sat in shook her head at this statement. But how do you doubt some thing that stares you right in the face.
"But I have not come about the past," Mairead continued, "or your twised love life. I get a sence of great darkness. I can feel it but I can't see it, and I don't know why! It focuses on you know, but your all in danger. My sister and my husband! Great darkness! You all need to be warned! Hogwarts...attack...darkness...close! So close!"
Helga grew alarmed as the woman became increaingly frantic. Her words became halted like it was a struggle to get them out. Suddenly Zarina bust in.
"I heard sreaming! Mairead, Mairead are you all right?" she asked sitting in front of Mairead.
Zarina stared in her eyes for a long moment and Mairead clamed down.
"Yes, fine," she said flatly. "Helga, many blessings on your union."
With that she rose and Zarina suported her out of the room.
**************
"That was close," Garth said to his sister.
"How did she slip so far from control?" the girl wondered.
"We must speak to father imdeately," he said.
"What do we do with her?" Zarina asked.
"Bring her for now," Garth said. "She hasn't been one the best of terms with either Helga or Ulric. No one will think twice about her absence."
"Gryffindor will, and her sister, the meddler! Mairead has had too many unexplain absences."
"It can't be helped now. She seems to be fighting the curse. If you hadn't reinforced it, she may have slipped. You'll have to keep a closer eye on her."
The girl nodded and escorted the older woman out of the room. Her brother closing the dorr as they left the now empty room. **************************
On the first day of the last new moon of the summer, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry opened it's doors to the first students. Carriages were sent out nearly a week in advance to insure everyone was able to get there. There were still a few problems to work out. Some students who promised to come never arrived. The carriages sent to fetch them vandlized in someway.
But that didn't stop the Founders. The Hogwarts Four, as the Wizarding community had begun to call them, stood at the front of thier Great Hall to welcome the new comers. Behind them was a long table filled with friends they had gathered to help teach. Helga Hufflepuff, Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin waited to pick thier students.
It was Rowena who desvised the spell. The Founders stood around the student and the spell was cast. The person's true talents, nature, and goals all became clear to the Founders. It took a different amount of time for each student, and things were only shown to the Founders. In all, having started just after breakfast, the sorting of students last until super.
They knew the first class would be the largest. The decided not to take any student over the age of fourteen into that class. The was the age young people want out into the world and it would be hard to tear them from their lives after that. In future years they could consentrait on the younger pupils. Eleven had been the age established, but anyone older wishing to learn could come after that.
There were also classes for older witches and wizards. Those of the community who felt they should know more. But they were not sorted as the young were. The young ones would be staying at Hogwarts for a number of years. They could theorically stay for the rest of their lives, if they decided to teach. Those who were already witches and wizards though, would only come to add to thier magic, not learn everything from scratch.
It wasn't very disiplined. Rowena had insisted that would come with time. Helga liked the free approach to teaching. And she liked her students too. So many of them were just in awe of the magic around them. Yes, Hogwarts had definatly been a good idea.
Hearing his name being shouted down the corridor, Ulric turned to see Rhys running towards him. The boy looked more like his brother everyday. Now he was coming barreling down heir flying, and grin plastered on his face.
"Ulric! Are we going to do the sword training today?" Rhys asked skidding to a halt in front of him. "You promised and Aunt Rowena has released me from her evil clutches."
Ulric laughed. The kid was certainly more spirited than Robin ever was.
"Don't talk about your aunt that way," Ulric said trying not to smile, or remember that he had probably heard that from Helga. "Just think you'll be so far ahead of your class mates next year."
"Aw, Helga says it all the time," Rhys said. "And you didn't answer my question!"
"All right, I just have to speak to your father. Want to come with me?"
"No, I'll go to the practice room and set up!" Rhys turned and was off and running again.
************** Ulric came to the entrance of the tower Godric and his family had be using as living quarters. A painting of three children about eleven years old, two boys and girl with dark red hair way blocked the passage.
"Can we help you?" one of the boys asked. He had curly blonde hair.
"I'd like to go in please," Ulric said. "I need to speak with Godric."
"I wouldn't if I were you," the other boy said, a knowing look in his young eyes.
Ulric suppressed the urge to say that the painting wasn't him. After all, it was. "Thank you, but I must speak with him."
"Mother and father are not in a fit state to receive guests," the other boy, Robin at age eleven, said.
"Maybe you should just wait until Rowena comes out?" suggest young Helga from the painting.
Ulric shook his head. "I can't be put off."
"Suit yourself," Robin shrugged.
The three companions in the painting looked at one another. A silent communication past between them. As one, they swung open the doorway.
Once inside, Ulric knew why the panting had tried to put him off. Even now he hated seeing Godric and Mairead argue. That's what they were doing now. The painting must have been able to hear through the door.
"Mairead, you're being unreasonable!" Godric said.
"I lost one son because of those people. I will not lose another!" she screamed.
"No Muggles-born child killed Robin!" Godric nearly shouted back. "An eleven year old would not put Rhys in danger. Especially with all of the training he has! He'll be more advanced that most of the students. I wouldn't mind him helping me teach. You have nothing to fear, love."
Godric had put his arms around his wife now. Ulric might have been distinctly uncomfortable if not for the presence of Rowena.
"He is right," Rowena said. "Just calm down and see reason. I'll be living here with my two-year-old daughter. Would I put her at risk?"
"No," Mairead consented.
Ulric cleared his throat loudly. "If I may?" he said uncertainly. "I've been training Rhys in dueling, both by magical means and with common weapons. Any one who attacked that boy would be hard pressed to find a worse target."
Mairead offered him a small smile, a rare occurrence these days. "I know you'll all protect him. I just can't help but worry. My head is killing me. I think I'll go lie down."
"You've been have headaches a lot of late," Godric said concernedly. "Maybe you should see a healer."
"I'll be fine once I get some rest," she said. "I'll be upstairs if anyone needs me."
Godric flung himself into a near by chair. He looked extremely tired. Rowena stood behind him and placed a comforting arm on his shoulder.
"I know my sister," she said. "She'll be alright."
"No," Godric said in a hollow voice, "something is very wrong with her. With you too, for that matter."
Rowena withdrew her hand as though his touch burned. "What do you mean?"
"I don't know. It must just be the stress we're all under from this place. You just aren't yourself."
"Stress," Rowena repeated. "Muggles don't even have that concept yet, do they?"
"I don't think so," Godric said.
"Does stress make you hear voices?" Rowena asked absently. "Godric, I feel as though I'm losing my mind!"
"What kind of voices?" Ulric asked. The older pair was startled by his question. They probably forgot he was there.
"Telling me to do things," Rowena said. "Things I would never do. I haven't even told Richard about it. It scares me. If I knew what it was I could fight it. But we have amassed the largest collection of scrolls and writings ever, and I still can't find an explination!"
"That's actually why I'm here," Ulric said. "Helga mentioned something like that some time ago. I would have dismissed it, but lately I..."
He shock his head as his voice trailed off. Godric looked at his two friends. These people, a man he had helped to raise, and his wife's sister, couldn't both be going insane.
"There, maybe," Godric tried to think. "Could it be some unknown magic?"
"I, I suppose," Rowena said. "Then there wouldn't be any past writings about it. Ulric, you must tell me everything you know. If I write it all down, I may be able to find a pattern."
"Tomorrow, about an hour past noon?" Ulric suggested. "That should give us most of the afternoon to work."
"Good," Rowena said and nodded. She was already thinking.
"Well, I promise Rhys fencing today. If you'll excuse me." Ulric left with a slight bow.
When the painting closed behind him, the three children looked at him.
"Voices, ah?" his younger image asked.
"You knowm hearing voice no one else can is never a good thing," young Robin warned.
"But he's not the only one," little Helga said, "If Rowena is hearing them too that it must be bad magic." The little girl smacked bother her companions on the arm. "Don't pick on him!"
Ulric walked away smiling. Were they ever really that young?
**************************************************************************** *****
At Midsummer, just months before Hogwarts opened, Helga and Ulric were wed on the school grounds. It was a small cerimony. Only those already at Hogwarts, and Benowyc's family were there.
Helga couldn't believe how nervous she was before the cerimony. Anya, and Rowena were sitting with her.
"You'll be fine, Helga," her friend and cousin said. "The best day of my life was the one I joined your family."
"That's right, my dear," Rowena said. "I never thought I would marry. Now I can't imagine what I would be with Richard. And we were all expecting this, you know?"
"Really?" Helga asked. "How could you know when I didn't?"
"Because he loves you, Helga," Anya said. "As much as, as anyone."
"You can say it, Anya," Helga smiled. "As much as Robin did. He was your brother, I know you wanted me to be your sister."
"But I married your cousin. We're still family," her friend smiled.
"You girls never needed a marriage to form that bond," Rowena told them.
"And I love Ulric as much as I did Rob. Not in the same way, but just as much."
Sadness touched everyone's eyes for a moment.
"How very touching!" Zarena said from the doorway.
Mairead stood with her. "Would you ladies excuse us. I would like to speak with Helga." It wasn't a request.
"Of course, sister dear," Rowena said. But as she past she whispered, "If you taint this day for her, I will never forgive you."
Mairead nodded.
"Mother, what could be so important that can not be said infront of us. We're all family. Well nearly," she said glancing at Zarina.
Mairead smiled. "I just want to talk to her for a moment. My grandchildren are asking for their mother. Go see to them."
Helga saw the eyes of the woman she had known as a child when Mairead spoke of her grandchildren. It faded quickly.
"You too, Zar," Mairead said.
The young woman did not look happy, but left with the others.
What is this about, Mairead," Helga asked.
"A warning, Helga. Ther are forces at work against this union."
"I know," Helga said coldly. "She just left with your daugter and sister."
"Zarena's infatuation with Ulric has nothing to do with it!"
"Like hell it doesn't!" Helga shot. "That girl has been trying to get her claws in Ulric since she got here!"
"She isn't a girl, Helga. Do not underestemat her."
"She is a girl, bearly out the cradle!"
"At her age, you were already planning to marry my son," Mairead reminded.
Helga winced. "I was wondering if you'd bring that up."
"I know you loved him very much, Helga. And I know you love Ulric. Ulric has always loved you. They were right you know. I moment Robin died, I expected you would wed Ulric."
Helga sat in shook her head at this statement. But how do you doubt some thing that stares you right in the face.
"But I have not come about the past," Mairead continued, "or your twised love life. I get a sence of great darkness. I can feel it but I can't see it, and I don't know why! It focuses on you know, but your all in danger. My sister and my husband! Great darkness! You all need to be warned! Hogwarts...attack...darkness...close! So close!"
Helga grew alarmed as the woman became increaingly frantic. Her words became halted like it was a struggle to get them out. Suddenly Zarina bust in.
"I heard sreaming! Mairead, Mairead are you all right?" she asked sitting in front of Mairead.
Zarina stared in her eyes for a long moment and Mairead clamed down.
"Yes, fine," she said flatly. "Helga, many blessings on your union."
With that she rose and Zarina suported her out of the room.
**************
"That was close," Garth said to his sister.
"How did she slip so far from control?" the girl wondered.
"We must speak to father imdeately," he said.
"What do we do with her?" Zarina asked.
"Bring her for now," Garth said. "She hasn't been one the best of terms with either Helga or Ulric. No one will think twice about her absence."
"Gryffindor will, and her sister, the meddler! Mairead has had too many unexplain absences."
"It can't be helped now. She seems to be fighting the curse. If you hadn't reinforced it, she may have slipped. You'll have to keep a closer eye on her."
The girl nodded and escorted the older woman out of the room. Her brother closing the dorr as they left the now empty room. **************************
On the first day of the last new moon of the summer, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry opened it's doors to the first students. Carriages were sent out nearly a week in advance to insure everyone was able to get there. There were still a few problems to work out. Some students who promised to come never arrived. The carriages sent to fetch them vandlized in someway.
But that didn't stop the Founders. The Hogwarts Four, as the Wizarding community had begun to call them, stood at the front of thier Great Hall to welcome the new comers. Behind them was a long table filled with friends they had gathered to help teach. Helga Hufflepuff, Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin waited to pick thier students.
It was Rowena who desvised the spell. The Founders stood around the student and the spell was cast. The person's true talents, nature, and goals all became clear to the Founders. It took a different amount of time for each student, and things were only shown to the Founders. In all, having started just after breakfast, the sorting of students last until super.
They knew the first class would be the largest. The decided not to take any student over the age of fourteen into that class. The was the age young people want out into the world and it would be hard to tear them from their lives after that. In future years they could consentrait on the younger pupils. Eleven had been the age established, but anyone older wishing to learn could come after that.
There were also classes for older witches and wizards. Those of the community who felt they should know more. But they were not sorted as the young were. The young ones would be staying at Hogwarts for a number of years. They could theorically stay for the rest of their lives, if they decided to teach. Those who were already witches and wizards though, would only come to add to thier magic, not learn everything from scratch.
It wasn't very disiplined. Rowena had insisted that would come with time. Helga liked the free approach to teaching. And she liked her students too. So many of them were just in awe of the magic around them. Yes, Hogwarts had definatly been a good idea.
