John stumbled through the darkening woods. Why was he doing this? Why had he given in and agreed to help Thomas with this insane plan? "Thomas!" he called out. "Where are you?"
A tall boy erupted from the underbrush. "Shut up, you idiot. Do you want the sorcerer to get us?"
John looked down, abashed. "I don't, but can we hurry? Please? We've got to be back at the village by dawn."
"In a minute. We're just getting to get to the part of the woods where the sorcerer lives."
"How do you know where he is? No one's ever seen him."
"Well this is the part of the woods we've always been told not to go into, isn't it? Seems pretty obvious. Anyway, people on the southern side of the village always have more misfortune."
"Really?" asked John. "I've never noticed that."
Thomas rolled his eyes. "You must be pretty dumb then. Jack Miller's calf died just a week ago, and the Threshers' garden never gives anything but tiny vegetables. Come on, once we find him we can bring everybody into the forest to kill him. We'll be heroes! And I'm sure that Mary Thresher will be very grateful if you save her mother's garden."
John was still unconvinced, but followed the other boy in silence. The woods were completely dark now. If it weren't for the few feeble slips of moonlight that broke through the thick canopy, they would have ran into a great many trees. Eventually, Thomas stopped short in his tracks and held out a hand to stop his friend. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That... that singing."
John cocked his head, and, sure enough, a beautiful female voice was coming from somewhere to their left. "Yeah, I hear it now."
"Well, come on."
Only a moments travel later and a golden light could be seen shining steadily through the trees. The two boys gave each other a knowing look and began to edge toward it. Slowly, they emerged from the woods. Before them was a lush garden overrun with strange plants. At the back of the garden, against the backdrop of huge and ancient trees, was a tall, slender tower. The source of the light was a glowing, golden orb that hung above the head of a softly singing girl.
John stared at the mysterious girl with widened eyes. He had been used to considering Mary Thresher as the ultimate of feminine beauty, but this girl before them made Mary seem plain. She had waving, night-black hair that hung down her back like a shadowed waterfall. Her skin was pale and smooth, her face fine and pointed and possessing a wild, adventurous beauty. Huge, almond shaped eyes of a truly unique violet color were fixed upon the page of a large book. That in itself was strange enough. John and Thomas had gone their entire lives without ever seeing a book.
Suddenly she stopped singing and looked up at them. A small, radiant smile spread across her face. "Why hello," she said, her speaking voice almost as beautiful as her singing, "what are you young Muggles doing here?"
Thomas made a choking sound and shoved at John's shoulder, but otherwise the two boys stayed still and silent.
The girl stood up. Her clothing, beautiful blue silk robes, rustled as she moved. "It' okay, you don't have to tell me," she continued. "I already know. You're here to see Father." She sighed and moved closer until her stunning face was only a few inches away from Thomas's. "Poor, dim-witted Muggles. Every few years someone will come looking for the evil sorcerer so that they can be heroes. I almost feel sorry for you."
She pulled away and reached into her robes. "Oh well," she said, drawing out a long piece of dark wood. "Obliviate" she whispered. Suddenly, vacant smiles appeared on the faces of the two would-be heroes.
"Now it's time to send you home," said the girl. "Don't worry, you'll wake up safe and sound in your beds in the morning."
"That's nice," said Thomas wistfully.
Rowena closed the door behind her and called, "Father!"
There was no answer. She did not expect one. Whenever her father was enveloped in his work he was deaf and blind to the world outside the study. Rowena could still remember the noisy centaur battle that had raged outside the tower a few years ago, while her father remained bent obliviously over his books.
She lifted up the edge of her robe and swept up the winding stairs. "Father," she said again, knocking on the door. Still no answer. Entering, she saw her father, a tall man with a pointed, steel-grey beard, sitting in front of a table and writing. The parchment he was scribbling on was so large, it flowed off the end of the table and puddled on the ground. Around him were bookshelves. The walls of the room were completely covered in books, without a break for windows. The domed ceiling was also coated in curved shelves that held their tomes firmly against gravity's pull. Rowena swung the door shut behind her, revealing that it too had bookshelves on it's back.
The young girl took out her wand and whispered a gentle word, then brought it sharply down to a point in the air directly in front of her waist. There was a very loud, clanging sound as if the wand had hit a gong.
The man looked up. "Rowena, what are you doing here? You know I do not liked to be disturbed."
"Another pair of Muggles from the village showed up. I thought you might like to know."
"Oh, did they?" he bent over his parchment again. "You erased their memory, I trust."
"Of course." She waited for a moment. "Father," she asked hesitantly, "why are Muggles so stupid?"
The wizard sighed and set down his quill. "It's not only Muggles that are foolish, daughter. There are plenty of foolish wizards and witches as well. It comes from ignorance. They were taught, if they were taught at all, by stupid and ignorant people, so how can we expect them to rise above the level of their teachers?"
"I wish," she said after a moment, "that I could educate them. All of them, but magical people especially. I'd take the ones that were most intelligent, and I'd teach them, like you taught me."
"Why would you want to do that?" asked her father.
"There's a painful lack of knowledge in this world father. I think the best thing anyone can do is add to the knowledge we do have."
The man shook his head. "Whatever you say, Rowena of mine. Now leave me be, I'm in the middle of a thesis."
"Yes father."
Before she left, though, Rowena walked to a certain section in the corner of the study and took out several books. Then she summoned down two scrolls from their nook on the ceiling.
Later, she sat on her beaded coverlet and examined them. The books were thin volumes on basic spells, the kind that could be taught to children, and the scrolls were maps.
Many months passed, but Rowena could not seem to forget the two Muggles and the thoughts they had aroused in her. Winter came with a flurry of soft flakes that blanketed the garden and the forest beyond in a glittering coat of white. Rowena liked to take walks out in the snow, wrapped warmly in a fur-lined cloak. Often she would take a book, carefully bewitched to protect it from being damaged by the snow, and read beneath a tall, old pine.
One day she sat reading a very interesting book on dragons. Suddenly, she was jerked from her reading by a bird's shriek.
She snapped the book shut and slipped it into a pocket of her robes, even as she climbed to her feet and hurried toward the sound.
She found the bird in a circle of slowly reddening snow. It was an eagle, with an arrow sprouting from it's shoulder. Rowena kneeled down to examine it. There was still life in it, a wavering shred, and it made a feeble sound.
Rowena carefully pulled out the arrow, then performed the only healing spell she knew, the one to slow bleeding. The flow of blood lessened but did not stop. She removed her cloak and immediately shivered as the cold wind reached her shoulders, but she did not replace it. Instead she wrapped the eagle in it's soft, fur-lined folds and cradled the bird in her arms. With painful slowness she got to her feet and made her way toward the tower.
Once inside, Rowena found a basket in which she placed bird and cloak, and left them in the kitchen.
She climbed up to the study and swept open the door. After getting her father's attention with the gong spell, she asked, "Father, where are the healing books?"
The bearded man looked up only long enough to point towards a very low shelf behind him before immersing himself in his reading again. Rowena passed the great, glowing brazier that warmed the study in wintertime and hunkered down next to the shelf he had pointed to. There were eight books there. Two books on magical healing in general, three on healing spells, two on healing potions and herbs, and even one book on ordinary Muggle medicine. Rowena took them all downstairs, praying that the eagle had not died while she was in the study.
Once down in the kitchen, she removed the bird from its basket and cradled it in her lap. The girl quickly looked through the books. Finally she was able to find a spell to make the wound disappear, and after four tries it worked, though it left a bold white scar and the eagle was still very weak and obviously still in pain. She cleaned the sticky, red blood from it's feathers, realizing as she did that it was male.
"Well, my little patient," she crooned, "I suppose that I must give you a name." Rowena thought for a moment. " How about Arrow," she stated at last, "that way we will always remember that you and I conquered the arrow together."
Arrow did not object to his new name, and Rowena opened the healing book again, this time not looking for anything in particular, merely wanting to learn.
Spring came. Arrow had become a healthy and very handsome young bird. His feathers were a lovely mixture of tawny gold and reddish brown, except for his breast, which was creamy.
When Rowena's father saw the eagle perched upon his daughter's shoulder, his eyebrows raised and he said, "Remember that it will not stay with you. Eagles are wild, and it will fly away."
But Arrow did not fly away. He slept in a basket beside Rowena's bed and spent the days either on her shoulder or somewhere near her, though he would occasionally take long flights through the blue spring sky.
"I don't why he stays here," the man told his daughter, "you must have mixed magic into him. It would explain why that bird seems so intelligent sometimes. I can almost swear he understands what I'm saying. An interesting possibility. I shall have to read up on it."
The girl spent much of her time reading and rereading the eight healing books. She was fascinated by what they contained, and whenever she stumbled upon a wounded animal she was able to heal it immediately. Once she even found a Muggle child with her leg caught beneath a tree. Rowena spelled away the break, erased the child's memory, and sent her on her way.
Though occupied with the healer's art, she did not forget her first interest, that of uneducated young witches and wizards. In fact she began to think of them more and more. There were hundreds of them, she knew, in the country. Some would be incapable of casting a single spell or brewing a single potion. Many were born of Muggle parents, and had no idea what they were or why odd things happened around them.
One balmy day in mid-spring, she came to a decision.
"Accio Book," she yelled, and the book her father had been bowed over zoomed from beneath his nose into her waiting hands.
"Rowena!" he said sharply, looking up, "What is the meaning of this?"
"I've come to a decision Father, a very important one that you should know about."
"Tell me later, daughter, at the moment I am very close to finding..."
"No Father," she said, moving away as he reached for the book in her hands. "I need to tell you this now."
He dropped his hands. "What is this very important decision, daughter?"
"I'm leaving," Rowena said. "It's time. I'm older now, I need to do things. I need to meet people. Magical people. Young magical people. And I want to seek out children who don't know how to use their power and teach them. I'm sure there are some very intelligent young wizards and witches out there who need guidance and education. I'm not sure how I'll do it yet. Maybe someday I'll start a school. I don't know. I just know I need to leave."
Her father drew nearer to her and looked her straight in the eye. "Are you sure about this?"
"Very sure."
"In that case, good luck my daughter. Always remember that logic and knowledge can solve anything. Remember also that you are a Ravenclaw, daughter of Ronan Ravenclaw, and be proud in that."
"Is that all?" asked Rowena. "Do I just... leave now?"
Ronan nodded. "You are smart Rowena, and powerful, and you have Arrow to protect you." He gestured toward the eagle, who at the moment was perched on the back of a tall chair. "You will make your way well in the world, I am sure of it."
Rowena's eyes were shining, and a single tear escaped to run down her cheek. "Thank you, Father. Thank you for everything."
With that she turned, and left.
A tall boy erupted from the underbrush. "Shut up, you idiot. Do you want the sorcerer to get us?"
John looked down, abashed. "I don't, but can we hurry? Please? We've got to be back at the village by dawn."
"In a minute. We're just getting to get to the part of the woods where the sorcerer lives."
"How do you know where he is? No one's ever seen him."
"Well this is the part of the woods we've always been told not to go into, isn't it? Seems pretty obvious. Anyway, people on the southern side of the village always have more misfortune."
"Really?" asked John. "I've never noticed that."
Thomas rolled his eyes. "You must be pretty dumb then. Jack Miller's calf died just a week ago, and the Threshers' garden never gives anything but tiny vegetables. Come on, once we find him we can bring everybody into the forest to kill him. We'll be heroes! And I'm sure that Mary Thresher will be very grateful if you save her mother's garden."
John was still unconvinced, but followed the other boy in silence. The woods were completely dark now. If it weren't for the few feeble slips of moonlight that broke through the thick canopy, they would have ran into a great many trees. Eventually, Thomas stopped short in his tracks and held out a hand to stop his friend. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"That... that singing."
John cocked his head, and, sure enough, a beautiful female voice was coming from somewhere to their left. "Yeah, I hear it now."
"Well, come on."
Only a moments travel later and a golden light could be seen shining steadily through the trees. The two boys gave each other a knowing look and began to edge toward it. Slowly, they emerged from the woods. Before them was a lush garden overrun with strange plants. At the back of the garden, against the backdrop of huge and ancient trees, was a tall, slender tower. The source of the light was a glowing, golden orb that hung above the head of a softly singing girl.
John stared at the mysterious girl with widened eyes. He had been used to considering Mary Thresher as the ultimate of feminine beauty, but this girl before them made Mary seem plain. She had waving, night-black hair that hung down her back like a shadowed waterfall. Her skin was pale and smooth, her face fine and pointed and possessing a wild, adventurous beauty. Huge, almond shaped eyes of a truly unique violet color were fixed upon the page of a large book. That in itself was strange enough. John and Thomas had gone their entire lives without ever seeing a book.
Suddenly she stopped singing and looked up at them. A small, radiant smile spread across her face. "Why hello," she said, her speaking voice almost as beautiful as her singing, "what are you young Muggles doing here?"
Thomas made a choking sound and shoved at John's shoulder, but otherwise the two boys stayed still and silent.
The girl stood up. Her clothing, beautiful blue silk robes, rustled as she moved. "It' okay, you don't have to tell me," she continued. "I already know. You're here to see Father." She sighed and moved closer until her stunning face was only a few inches away from Thomas's. "Poor, dim-witted Muggles. Every few years someone will come looking for the evil sorcerer so that they can be heroes. I almost feel sorry for you."
She pulled away and reached into her robes. "Oh well," she said, drawing out a long piece of dark wood. "Obliviate" she whispered. Suddenly, vacant smiles appeared on the faces of the two would-be heroes.
"Now it's time to send you home," said the girl. "Don't worry, you'll wake up safe and sound in your beds in the morning."
"That's nice," said Thomas wistfully.
Rowena closed the door behind her and called, "Father!"
There was no answer. She did not expect one. Whenever her father was enveloped in his work he was deaf and blind to the world outside the study. Rowena could still remember the noisy centaur battle that had raged outside the tower a few years ago, while her father remained bent obliviously over his books.
She lifted up the edge of her robe and swept up the winding stairs. "Father," she said again, knocking on the door. Still no answer. Entering, she saw her father, a tall man with a pointed, steel-grey beard, sitting in front of a table and writing. The parchment he was scribbling on was so large, it flowed off the end of the table and puddled on the ground. Around him were bookshelves. The walls of the room were completely covered in books, without a break for windows. The domed ceiling was also coated in curved shelves that held their tomes firmly against gravity's pull. Rowena swung the door shut behind her, revealing that it too had bookshelves on it's back.
The young girl took out her wand and whispered a gentle word, then brought it sharply down to a point in the air directly in front of her waist. There was a very loud, clanging sound as if the wand had hit a gong.
The man looked up. "Rowena, what are you doing here? You know I do not liked to be disturbed."
"Another pair of Muggles from the village showed up. I thought you might like to know."
"Oh, did they?" he bent over his parchment again. "You erased their memory, I trust."
"Of course." She waited for a moment. "Father," she asked hesitantly, "why are Muggles so stupid?"
The wizard sighed and set down his quill. "It's not only Muggles that are foolish, daughter. There are plenty of foolish wizards and witches as well. It comes from ignorance. They were taught, if they were taught at all, by stupid and ignorant people, so how can we expect them to rise above the level of their teachers?"
"I wish," she said after a moment, "that I could educate them. All of them, but magical people especially. I'd take the ones that were most intelligent, and I'd teach them, like you taught me."
"Why would you want to do that?" asked her father.
"There's a painful lack of knowledge in this world father. I think the best thing anyone can do is add to the knowledge we do have."
The man shook his head. "Whatever you say, Rowena of mine. Now leave me be, I'm in the middle of a thesis."
"Yes father."
Before she left, though, Rowena walked to a certain section in the corner of the study and took out several books. Then she summoned down two scrolls from their nook on the ceiling.
Later, she sat on her beaded coverlet and examined them. The books were thin volumes on basic spells, the kind that could be taught to children, and the scrolls were maps.
Many months passed, but Rowena could not seem to forget the two Muggles and the thoughts they had aroused in her. Winter came with a flurry of soft flakes that blanketed the garden and the forest beyond in a glittering coat of white. Rowena liked to take walks out in the snow, wrapped warmly in a fur-lined cloak. Often she would take a book, carefully bewitched to protect it from being damaged by the snow, and read beneath a tall, old pine.
One day she sat reading a very interesting book on dragons. Suddenly, she was jerked from her reading by a bird's shriek.
She snapped the book shut and slipped it into a pocket of her robes, even as she climbed to her feet and hurried toward the sound.
She found the bird in a circle of slowly reddening snow. It was an eagle, with an arrow sprouting from it's shoulder. Rowena kneeled down to examine it. There was still life in it, a wavering shred, and it made a feeble sound.
Rowena carefully pulled out the arrow, then performed the only healing spell she knew, the one to slow bleeding. The flow of blood lessened but did not stop. She removed her cloak and immediately shivered as the cold wind reached her shoulders, but she did not replace it. Instead she wrapped the eagle in it's soft, fur-lined folds and cradled the bird in her arms. With painful slowness she got to her feet and made her way toward the tower.
Once inside, Rowena found a basket in which she placed bird and cloak, and left them in the kitchen.
She climbed up to the study and swept open the door. After getting her father's attention with the gong spell, she asked, "Father, where are the healing books?"
The bearded man looked up only long enough to point towards a very low shelf behind him before immersing himself in his reading again. Rowena passed the great, glowing brazier that warmed the study in wintertime and hunkered down next to the shelf he had pointed to. There were eight books there. Two books on magical healing in general, three on healing spells, two on healing potions and herbs, and even one book on ordinary Muggle medicine. Rowena took them all downstairs, praying that the eagle had not died while she was in the study.
Once down in the kitchen, she removed the bird from its basket and cradled it in her lap. The girl quickly looked through the books. Finally she was able to find a spell to make the wound disappear, and after four tries it worked, though it left a bold white scar and the eagle was still very weak and obviously still in pain. She cleaned the sticky, red blood from it's feathers, realizing as she did that it was male.
"Well, my little patient," she crooned, "I suppose that I must give you a name." Rowena thought for a moment. " How about Arrow," she stated at last, "that way we will always remember that you and I conquered the arrow together."
Arrow did not object to his new name, and Rowena opened the healing book again, this time not looking for anything in particular, merely wanting to learn.
Spring came. Arrow had become a healthy and very handsome young bird. His feathers were a lovely mixture of tawny gold and reddish brown, except for his breast, which was creamy.
When Rowena's father saw the eagle perched upon his daughter's shoulder, his eyebrows raised and he said, "Remember that it will not stay with you. Eagles are wild, and it will fly away."
But Arrow did not fly away. He slept in a basket beside Rowena's bed and spent the days either on her shoulder or somewhere near her, though he would occasionally take long flights through the blue spring sky.
"I don't why he stays here," the man told his daughter, "you must have mixed magic into him. It would explain why that bird seems so intelligent sometimes. I can almost swear he understands what I'm saying. An interesting possibility. I shall have to read up on it."
The girl spent much of her time reading and rereading the eight healing books. She was fascinated by what they contained, and whenever she stumbled upon a wounded animal she was able to heal it immediately. Once she even found a Muggle child with her leg caught beneath a tree. Rowena spelled away the break, erased the child's memory, and sent her on her way.
Though occupied with the healer's art, she did not forget her first interest, that of uneducated young witches and wizards. In fact she began to think of them more and more. There were hundreds of them, she knew, in the country. Some would be incapable of casting a single spell or brewing a single potion. Many were born of Muggle parents, and had no idea what they were or why odd things happened around them.
One balmy day in mid-spring, she came to a decision.
"Accio Book," she yelled, and the book her father had been bowed over zoomed from beneath his nose into her waiting hands.
"Rowena!" he said sharply, looking up, "What is the meaning of this?"
"I've come to a decision Father, a very important one that you should know about."
"Tell me later, daughter, at the moment I am very close to finding..."
"No Father," she said, moving away as he reached for the book in her hands. "I need to tell you this now."
He dropped his hands. "What is this very important decision, daughter?"
"I'm leaving," Rowena said. "It's time. I'm older now, I need to do things. I need to meet people. Magical people. Young magical people. And I want to seek out children who don't know how to use their power and teach them. I'm sure there are some very intelligent young wizards and witches out there who need guidance and education. I'm not sure how I'll do it yet. Maybe someday I'll start a school. I don't know. I just know I need to leave."
Her father drew nearer to her and looked her straight in the eye. "Are you sure about this?"
"Very sure."
"In that case, good luck my daughter. Always remember that logic and knowledge can solve anything. Remember also that you are a Ravenclaw, daughter of Ronan Ravenclaw, and be proud in that."
"Is that all?" asked Rowena. "Do I just... leave now?"
Ronan nodded. "You are smart Rowena, and powerful, and you have Arrow to protect you." He gestured toward the eagle, who at the moment was perched on the back of a tall chair. "You will make your way well in the world, I am sure of it."
Rowena's eyes were shining, and a single tear escaped to run down her cheek. "Thank you, Father. Thank you for everything."
With that she turned, and left.