They Never Should Have Known
In the darkness of night, among the shadows of castles and tenth century buildings, a dark, hooded figure appeared out of the mist. While carrying a bulky object under his cloak, he desperately searched for the perfect place to leave his burden. In the middle of a maze of cloth, he found the ideal place for it. He muttered something under his breath, and then a pillar sprouted out from the ground. On top of the pillar, he placed an intricately carved statue of a dragon. While looking at it with a bit of fear in his eyes, he said, "I pray that no muggle find this, and that a bright wizard is sent to our aid." And with that, he snapped his fingers and disappeared into the mist from whence he came.
It was a bright, cheerful September first morning. Even at the little house of the McGuires, which is situated just a few miles outside of Boston, Massachusetts, the sound of morning traffic on the freeway can be heard. The McGuires are wizards. Shortly after eight o'clock, the sound of the muggles was replaced by the yells of Mrs. McGuire. "Austin, Conor, get out of bed this instant. Conor, you still have to finish packing your trunk for school, and the Gwythers will be arriving any moment! Now get up," yelled Mrs. McGuire. Mrs. McGuire is a housewife. Her and her husband, Sedric, a retired Auror for the Department of Magic, live in Boston, Massachusetts with their two boys, Austin and Conor.
Conor stumbled down the stairs with his trunk fully packed, as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. "I'm not the one you need to be yelling at mum. I've already finished packing, and Austin hasn't even come out of his covers yet," he said, as he grinned slyly after his mother was out of sight. Conor is second of the McGuire's children and is going to be starting his seventh year at the Salem Witch and Wizard Institute in New Hampshire.
Austin, barely awake, could hear the footsteps of his angry mother running up the stairs. To avoid getting yelled at more, he jumped out of bed and pretended that he had been up for a long time. When Mrs. McGuire came in the bedroom he asked, "why do I have to go? I've already graduated, and you never made Conor go when I was in school and he wasn't old enough yet."
"I got you a job this year as the assistant flying instructor," Mrs. McGuire said sharply, "so get up and get your things packed. I will not have you sitting around home like you did all last year." Austin is the first child of the McGuires. He graduated from Salem two years ago after being the captain of his Quidditch team for four years.
While Mrs. McGuire was walking down the stairs, she heard loud noises coming from the living room. In the living room she found her husband, Sedric, Conor, and the Gwythers. Mali and Dylan Gwyther, and their daughter Cadi, live in Richmond, Virginia, and are a wizard family just like the McGuires. Cadi, who is an only child, is in the same year as Conor at Salem.
"How was the Floo-Network this morning," asked Mr. McGuire, "I hope the traffic wait wasn't too bad."
While dusting the rest of the ash off of her robes, Mrs. Gwyther smiled and said, "the traffic wasn't that bad at all this morning. We must have just beat all of the school traffic. The Department of Magic really needs to come up with a better method of mass transportation. The ash from these fireplaces is really agitating my sinuses." She laughed a little bit as she joined Mrs. McGuire in the kitchen for a quick cup of tea.
No more than five minutes later, Mr. McGuire gathered everyone in the living room to prepare for their departure. They used the Floo-Network and arrived at a hidden platform at the Boston downtown train station where the students took the train to the school grounds.
At breakfast the next morning, Cadi and Conor looked over their schedules for their final year. Cadi, with a bewildered look on his face, said, "I'm scheduled for Muggle Studies. I didn't sign up for that class."
"I'm signed up for that class too," said Conor. "We should ask the professor about this and see if we can change it, because I know I don't want to take this class for a whole year."
"Me either"
They walked to their Muggle Studies class and Professor Swithin came in and welcomed the class. "Welcome to Muggle Studies. If you look around the room you might notice that the majority of you in here are pure bloods. This is a new rule from the Department of Magical Education, which states that any student without immediate muggle family members must take Muggle Studies in order to graduate. This is to broaden your knowledge of muggles so that there will hopefully be better muggle/wizard relationships."
Conor interrupted, "This is a bunch of bull. We know plenty about muggles. Do we honestly have to take this class?"
"Yes Mr. McGuire, you do have to take this class," snapped Professor Swithin, "and if you have another outburst like that again then I will have to give you a demerit. Now--you will have to do a research project for this class. It will be conducted during the Christmas holidays so that you don't miss any school. You will have a variety of topics to choose from and you will be accompanied by a muggle born student just to make sure that you don't get into too much trouble. The topics will be posted in all dorms by tonight and you may work in group up to three."
Later that night, Cadi, Conor, and the other students from their class waited by the posting board in the dorm common room. At eight o'clock sharp, a piece of parchment with the list of topics written on it, appeared out of thin air. The list of topics was: muggle styles of clothing, muggle money and banking system in the U.S., muggle portrayal of the middle ages, muggle education system in the U.S., and the muggle judicial system in the U.S..
"Ok," said Conor. "Which topic do you like? I kind of like the middle ages one or the muggle money one."
"I like the middle ages one too. We should do that one!" said Cadi. "Look here Conor." she said while she pointed at the parchment. "The muggle born witch assigned to us is Lexi Fayard. She is in our dormitory. We should go find her and plan this thing so we can get it done and over with."
"I'm right behind you," Conor told her while he chased her to the girl rooms.
They found a girl about the same age as them sitting at her desk reading a chapter out of her Transfiguration book. She was about five feet three inches tall with long brown hair and a she had a slight Cajun accent. "Are you Lexi Fayard?" Cadi asked her.
"Yeah, I am. I expect that you are the seventh years that I will be looking after to make sure that you don't cause too much trouble in the muggle world. I have made arrangements for y'all to stay with me and my family in New Orleans during the Christmas break. During the break we will attend the Louisiana Renaissance Festival in Hammond, Louisiana so that you can observe how muggles portray the middle ages. Now--if you don't mind--I have to finish reading this for Transfiguration class or Professor Wickliff will have my ass." Conor and Cadi left the room and went to their bedrooms to get ready for bed.
The next few months seemed to fly by even with all of the term papers they had to do and with the preparations for their N.E.W.T.s which they have to take in June.
The white of winter arrived and signaled the end of the first term and the beginning of Christmas break. Conor and Cadi packed up their trunks for the holidays and met Lexi in the Main Hall. From there they boarded the train and headed back to the Boston downtown train station. Once they arrived there, they had to find the portkey station that would bring them to Gulfport, Mississippi where Mr. Fayard picked them up and brought them to the Fayard's house.
"How was the trip, guys? I hope it wasn't took long." says Mr. Fayard as he put their trunks in the bed of the truck. "Hello there Conor and Cadi. I'm Lexi father, David, but you can just call me Mr. Fayard. My wife and I are so glad that y'all will be spending Christmas with us. My wife could not join me to pick y'all up. She is still preparing dinner."
During dinner, Cadi and Conor told the Fayards about their families and asked them what they thought when Lexi received the letter from Salem that said she was a witch. "Well," Mr. Fayard said between chews, "you see, we thought that it was a prank at first so we threw the letter away. Lexi cried, of course, because she believed the letter and wanted to go to the…"
"I did NOT cry dad. I got very mad at you and MAGICALY conjured another letter." Lexi said abruptly.
"Anyway, we threw away that letter too and the next day we received a letter saying that the first two ones were not pranks and that we should not have thrown them away. This scared me a bit so I wrote whoever it was back and told them that I needed visual proof before I would send Lexi there, and they sent a Professor Swithin."
"Professor Swithin is our Muggle Studies professor. He's the one who assigned us this research paper." stated Cadi.
Mrs. Fayard looked at her watch and said, "Well I do believe that this has been a very interesting conversation, but you children need to be getting to bed. You have an early and long day ahead of you tomorrow." She started to clean up the table and then turned to them and said, "Cadi you will be sleeping in Lexi's room on the cot that we set up and Conor, you will be sleeping in the guest bedroom just down the hall."
Mrs. McGuire woke everyone up early the next morning so that they could prepare to leave for the renaissance festival. "Wake up girls, its time to get ready for the day. Conor is already dressed and eating breakfast down stairs" Mrs. Fayard said cheerfully as she turned on the light.
Cadi looked out the window and noticed that the sun had not even come out yet. She got dressed and headed down stairs to eat her breakfast.
At seven o'clock they loaded up the car with everything that they would need and headed out. It was a two hour drive to Hammond. Once they got there, they headed into the festival. "Wow! Muggles built all of this?" Conor asked while he gazed around in amazement. "I need to give them more credit than I have been. I don't know many witches or wizards that could have built all of this by hand." He continued to gaze in wonder at the castles and medieval buildings that covered the entire festival grounds.
They walked around for a few hours and looked at all of the shows that were going on. They saw this maze made of tattered cloth that looked interesting and decided to go through it. They paid the man at the entrance and started through the maze. When they got to the center of the maze they found a little statue of a dragon. "Is this it?" asked Cadi. "I thought there was going to be a real dragon" They all went over to the dragon and looked at the interesting pattern carved on it. At the same time all three of them touched the dragon statue. There was a whooshing sound in their ears and they could not feel the ground anymore. When it all stopped, they looked around and saw that they were not at the fair anymore!
"W-w-what happened?" Cadi asked as she rubbed her head from the dizziness. They look around at the weird surroundings. They now found themselves in the middle of the woods, which were covered in white snow.
Conor, who was trying to keep warm despite the freezing cold wind, looked around at the snow and said, "Well I don't think were are in Louisiana anymore. This has got to be the most snow I have ever seen in my life.
"Hey, hush a minute. I think I hear someone coming. Maybe they can help us find our way to the nearest city," said Lexi as she anxiously looked for the owner of the quickly paced steps.
"Oh my god, it worked," said this old man while he was trying to keep his long white beard from hitting himself in the face from the wind. He appeared out of the woods wearing long blue robe with silver stars on them. "Merlin is the name, I hope that you are not muggles. I have had to do more memory charms this past month than any other time in my life. You are wizards, aren't you?"
"Did you say that you were Merlin?" Cadi asked with a confused look on his face.
"Yes, now are you muggle or wizards?"
"We are wizards, ok," snapped Lexi. "So what was with that dragon? It couldn't have been a portkey because portkeys don't allow people to travel through time."
"You are a very smart young girl," said Merlin. "It is my own little creation that I do not plan on sharing with the rest of the world. Anyway…I need your help. Four of my closest friends are trying to build a school for witches and wizards. The muggles around here are getting very suspicious of what we are doing and some of them have actually seen the castle. I need you to help me keep the muggles away from the castle while it is being built."
"Why don't you just put charms on it so that muggles won't want to go near that area or so that they don't see the castle?" asked Conor.
"Well we would do that, but it would take too long to build the castle because every time we add a piece, we have to charm it. It would be easier to charm the entire castle at once when it is finished."
"So what do we have to do to keep the muggles away," asked Lexi.
"Well it will definitely be something magical because the muggles just want to capture and burn us. If they see something magical, they will completely forget about the castle. We have gathered many witches and wizards, but they do not know many spells. They just know enough spells to get through their daily routines. This is why we are building the school. We need to train witches and wizards so that they can defend themselves in this world. Can you please he us teach them some spells so that they can distract the muggles away from the castle?"
"Of course we will," Cadi said.
"Thank you very much. I promise that I will send you back to your proper time once the task is finished. Now lets get back the quarters before we all freeze to death." They walked back to the quarters of the witches and wizards. There they saw that the entrance was a door in a tree that had to be unlocked using Alohamora. Merlin introduced them to everyone in the quarters.
"Oi…Godric," shouted Merlin, "come here. There are some people here who I want you to meet. This is Cadi, Conor, and Lexi. They came through my time travel device."
"Nice to meet you. I am Godric Gryffindor."
"We know. You are one of the four founders of Hogwarts. We have to read about the history of the major wizarding schools from around the world and Hogwarts was one of them," explained Lexi.
"Hogwarts, huh. I have been having the hardest time trying to figure out what I was going to name this school once it was built. Hogwarts it is I guess," laughed Godric with everyone joining in.
When Conor, Cadi, and Lexi got ready for bed they started talking about their encounter with Godric. "Do you think if we had not told Godric what the name of the school was, if it would still be the same when we got back to the future?" asked Lexi.
"I'm not sure, but at least we know now that what we do here can affect the future so we need to be careful," said Conor.
"That might not be a bad thing though. I remember reading about the Baskalisk attacks at Hogwarts two years ago and the death that occurred when the Chamber of Secrets was first opened back in the forties. Maybe if we tell Merlin about the Chamber and the Baskalisk that Salazar Slytherin hides in the school, the attacks would have never happened and that girl who died would still be alive." proposed Cadi.
"That sounds like a great idea," said Conor excitedly.
"I agree," said Lexi, joining in.
The next morning they approached Merlin. They told him everything they knew about the Chamber of Secrets and asked him to inform the other founders of Hogwarts in hopes that they can stop it from happening in the future. Merlin looked at them suspiciously and then told them to finish getting ready.
Merlin entered Salazar's room and told him about what the young wizards had said about the Chamber that they were secretly planning to build. "What should I do about this Salazar? I can't send them back to their own time because they know too much. Once they have realized that I didn't stop you from building the Chamber, they will tell the wizards in charge about everything they saw here and the wizards will find a way to come back in time and stop us," Merlin said worriedly.
"It will be fine old friend. No one will find out about our little plan. All you have to do is make sure that the little wizards don't go telling anyone, if you know what I mean," said Salazar while the grin on his face grew.
"I know what you mean old friend."
After everyone ate a good breakfast, they left to go do their duties. Conor, Cadi, and Lexi had a great time. They got to show the other witches and wizards how to cast levitation spells. With this spell, everyone made objects like rocks, rabbits, and anything else they could find float across the fields where the peasants were working. The freighted peasants then ran back to their masters who came after the wizards with gardening tools. During the day, one muggle got so close to the castle grounds, that all of the witches and wizards got on brooms and flew around him and chased him all the way back to his fields.
At the end of the day, the trio was tired but excited because it was time to go home. They fulfilled their promise to Merlin and now it was time for them to go home. "Merlin, we did what you asked of us and now it is your turn to hold up your end of the bargain," said Conor.
"That's right young master McGuire," said Merlin with and evil smile on his face. "You three did a fine job today. If it weren't for you, we wouldn't have been able to keep the muggles away from the castle long enough to complete it."
They situated themselves and got ready for the short trip home. "You didn't forget about what we told you this morning did you?' asked Lexi.
"No, I didn't forget." said Merlin as he raised his wand and muttered a spell.
This green light came out of the wand and hit the three of them. The trip made them feel tingly and dizzy. Once everything stopped spinning, they saw that there were people staring at them. "Are we home?" asked Cadi.
"Yes, we are back in the maze at the renaissance festival," said Lexi.
When they turned around to say goodbye to Merlin, they saw that he was pointing his wand at them. The last thing that they heard was Merlin reciting the incantation for the killing curse, Avada Kedavra.