A/N: Thank you all for your loverly reviews! I hope you enjoy this next chapter, it took me like 30 minutes to write. I'm so proud of that! Please leave another review thanks!
Harry set his foot through the water, It felt cool on his skin. Slowly the rest of his body followed until he was all the way on the other side. As soon and he had crossed, the water turned back to glass. He swung his head around and saw the hall behind him, through the mirror. In front of him was the same hall, but instead of a mirror at the end, the walls expanded into a circular room. The entire room was made of the same sandstone as the solid wall, but it was covered with vines, and roots. Harry could tell that no one had set foot in this room for longer than the hall outside. The vines crept all over the walls and out the four windows of the small room. Each window had a name shaped in black steel placed at the top of the opening and each name was different.
Harry looked at the first window, it had the name "ROWENA" on it. When he looked closer he could see that the tile surrounding the thin frame was of a dark blue. The window looked toward the East, it faced what Harry assumed was a very distant Quidditch pitch.
He went to the opposite window facing west, the name on it was "HELGA" and the tiles were yellow. Looking out the window was difficult because there were so many vines in the way. Harry brushed them aside and saw that the window faced the greenhouses.
If he guessed correctly the window to the south would have red tiles and the name "GODRIC" in it. And the one to the north, green tiles and the name, "SALAZAR". Looking down, Harry saw that each window had two lines in the middle that spread out on 45-degree angles from the base. Each one an identical shade of gold against the dark mahogany floor. Forming a pentagram on the floor, and the fifth point lead to a life sized portrait of a lady, with black hair and a white dress. The lady in the mirror, who haunts the hall outside.
"You come to my chamber often, why is this the first time you came in?" the portrait asked with a soft voice that echoed all over the room, like her voice was the wind itself. It was not a hard scolding voice like the one Professor McGonigal uses, it was an honest question filled with curiosity.
"I had no idea there was a room here." Was all Harry could say. He was so amazed and astounded that he could not think properly which, unfortunately, happens when one is stunned beyond comprehension. It was a good thing the Lady didn't ask any further questions because at that moment, Harry would have told her anything she wanted to know.
They stood in silence, the lady watching Harry, Harry watching absolutely everything, his eyes were as wide as can be, as if he was trying to take in the entire room at once. Every little detail of it, every little sound he heard. After what must have been only minutes, Harry looked back up to the lady and spoke softly as if she were a delicate child who should be treated with absolute care. "Who are you?"... Okay, so much for being delicate and graceful. The lady laughed softly, and made a sweeping motion with her hand. Then she looked back up at Harry.
"Have a seat, please, you look tired." Harry looked behind him to find that the roots at the edge of the walls had moved to form a sort of throne in the middle of the pentagram. He walked up to it and laid his hand on the soft bark, he smoothed the knotted wood with a soft touch and slowly sat down, experiencing it as if it were the first time he had ever sat down. He could feel the roots breathing him in, and he could feel the root's energy, it's magic flowing through him. He followed the trail all around the room with his eyes, he was looking for the source of the root. He followed it all around until he noticed that the roots ended at the painting. In fact, the roots extended right into the painting, and then Harry noticed for the first time, the large willow tree that stood behind the lady.
As if reading his mind, the lady spoke, "This tree here, can be found in the forest just off the school grounds." She said motioning to the tree.
"What is it?" Harry asked in barely a whisper.
"It is the oldest tree in the forest, the first tree in the forest." She paused here. "It may look small for a tree that has been here hundreds of years even before I was born. It stopped growing a long time ago you see. But it still lives. Oh yes, it lives and breaths everything it touches."
"It's beautiful." Harry paused for a moment to examine the tree in the painting and out. He felt the bark once more then corrected himself. "No, it's gorgeous, and astounding, and amazing...You didn't answer my first question." The lady laughed at his ubrupt change of the subject.
"You never miss anything. You live slowly like this tree, experiencing everything as you go along." She paused again to inspect Harry, as if to see if he was worthy of an answer or not. Apparently he was because he got the answer he sought. "My name is Morgana Moria. I was the fifth founder of Hogwarts."
"But there were only-"
"-Don't interrupt child. This is the story you have been looking for, for so long. Listen, and I will tell you your life." Harry didn't know how to respond to such a statement. What did she mean, his life? so he just sat back and waited for Morgana Moria to tell him the story.
When the five friends first built the castle, they all decided that the best thing to do with it was to create a school. To teach children magic, and guide them through their young lives for seven years. Then they would be sent out into the world to become working members of a wizarding society. It was in this way that the wizarding world would survive.
Helga Hufflepuff loved plants. She made the green houses to teach students about valuable and sometimes dangerous plants. How to take care of them, and how to harvest them for use in everyday things.
Salazar Slytherin practiced the art of potions. He liked the dark and so created the dungeons of the castle. Filled with potion labs and ready to shape the minds of young witches and wizards who sought out the knowledge.
Rowena Ravenclaw was interested in overall learning, but specialized in charms. She created the second, third, and forth floors of Hohwarts, which housed her students, the library, and the charms classrooms.
Godric Gryffendor, who specialized in defense against the dark arts, created the fifth, sixth, and seventh floor. The seventh housed his students, the sixth, his defense classrooms, and the fifth, many secret rooms.
Morgana Moria was the oldest however, years older than the others, though she was still young. She created the astronomy tower, the divination lab, and most of the secret passages in the castle. She also had her own hidden part of the school, a hall that ended with a mirror. Or that is what the others thought at least. It did not in fact end at the mirror but continued to another identical hall that ended with a small circular room. In this room was where Morgana kept watch of the entire school, to make sure that all of her friends were getting along. This room was also where Morgana did her most powerful magic, the stuff the others thought only a myth and didn't really exist. A magic that was made of the earth, and drawn up through the ground.
In the hall before it, lay shadows. Each shadow at one point of the day became a door. Each door lead to the same place, another hall filled with more doors. The hall was wide enough to fit 6 people standing side by side, and the walls were made of brick and the doors were the same medieval style as the rest of the castle. On each door was a different collaboration of words. "First-Year Boys" "Second-Year Boys", and so on. On the other side of the hall, were all the girls' dormitories. At the end of the hall, the last door said, "Common Room", and beyond that, a private library, and a study room. The common room was like all the other houses, only the color scheme was primarily copper, but also had many shades of brown. Not ugly brown, but the brown of many different types of wood. Looking out the many windows, you had a direct view of the forest floor, almost as if you were actually in the forest.
One day, Salazar and Godric were having an argument concerning the type of students that would be allowed in the school. They each came up individually to ask her who's side she was on. To each one she replied, "I see your point, but I am not on any ones side." And both men took that as being on the others side. They became enraged by this and went off to tell the other two girls.
All night they spoke of the treachery and shame of it all. They spoke of Morgana like she was bad, evil even. They said, "if she is not on my side, and not on yours, than she is on neither!" "Why should we trust her if she doesn't trust us enough to pick any side!" "She is a threat to all of us, she is no friend of ours!"
In the end, before the school even opened, the four friends banished Morgana Moria. She was to leave and never return to Hogwarts.
Hurt by the end result, Morgana paid a muggle artist to paint her a portrait that she would hang in her room and forever keep watch of her old friends. For even though they hurt her, she still loved them, and she would always love them. She walked down the hall for the last time and stopped at the mirror. Staring back at her was a young boy, with jet-black hair, and green eyes. She smiled momentarily for she new this would be the one to save her. And then she disappeared into the mirror.
When Morgana eventually died in the room, the magic that left her went into the painting. The roots of the tree began to grow out of the painting and spread across the entire room, and out the windows, hugging the names on the four friends, making sure that everything was well at Hogwarts. And so the world stayed for a very long time, until the boy in the mirror found his way through.