Lion Eyes
A Lily and James Fanfiction
Prologue: We Are Founders First and Foremost
"Absurd. Pract'ly ungodly, man. What ye's sayin' is... is..."
"It is our only hope to save the school, Salazar. What else do ye expect? When we are dead, who will look after things and protect the new generations of witches and wizards for many years to come? Will ye?" Godric Gryffindor asked, leaning forward in his high chair to look Salazar square in the eye across the wooden table all four founders were sitting around.
"The Slytherins can look after themselves if'n ye askin' me," Salazar retorted smugly, crossing his arms over his chest.
"None asked ye, Salazar," Rowena Ravenclaw pronounced slowly, locking his sharp silver eyes with her own piercing honey brown ones. Salazar flicked his fingernails boredly like an adolescent with nothing to do after his family chores were accomplished.
Godric pulled at the string of his maroon cape, which he'd forgotten to remove in his fluster to hurriedly hold the meeting.
"We need to move on; stop being so childish! All of ye!" he commanded, pounding his fist on the table. "If something is not done, then something else, some terrible other thing, will happen after we have long since returned to ash. Ye know as well as I that it is fate's way of dealing life. Ye cannot deny what ye heart is telling ye. Even our students sense it." He sighed, leaning back in his chair and stroking his beard with his thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.
"But Godric, why something so drastic? Why can we not merely put up barriers?" Helga questioned meekly, folding her hands in her lap daintily. Salazar sniffed disdainfully.
"Helga, barriers will be stoppin' none from gettin' in, ye know that. However, I would rather risk that than do what this one is suggestin'," he clarified, raising a bushy eyebrow and hitching his thumb towards Godric. Rowena swiped her arms across the table.
"Not this again. Ye two are worse than a bickering cat and pup. Listen, what Godric says makes sense, and what Helga says makes sense. Why not a combination of both?" she asked, offering her suggestion in a questioning manner, the bell sleeves of her royal blue, silken dress swishing dramatically.
"Changing the magic of Merlin? Rowena, are ye mad?" Godric asked, cocking his head in wonder. Rowena shook her head fiercely, her blonde, spiraling curls spilling over her shoulders eloquently.
"Nay, I am not mad, Godric, but if ye wish to do this, and if we are to put a portion of our magic into it, we might as well make it of our own, shan't we?" Rowena compromised, her shoulders slumping. Everyone felt the onslaught of an oppressing Evil to happen in the next years, though no one knew when, and they all knew they had to try to prevent it from coming upon the beloved school they'd built brick-by-brick.
Salazar ran his tongue over his front teeth threateningly. "What ye all are asking is impossible to accomplish. Merlin himself wrote of his hard time in performin' such a task," he countered. Godric nodded in agreement.
"That may be true, Salazar, but Merlin was but one man. We are four separate souls, and those souls could be the very harness of protection this school needs to survive whatever is to come."
"'Whatever is to come,' Godric, that's crockery; ye know tha'. Ye three are just lookin' for somethin' to happen after we're gone," Salazar retorted. Rowena shot her head up, her eyes narrowing.
"Ye certainly are the only one here who does not want to protect thine school, Salazar. Mayhap ye wish to make it easy for one of ye'r breed to clear the path for this darkness pressing in on us," she hissed vehemently. Helga and Godric gaped at her.
"Rowena! Why would ye say that?" Godric questioned, leaning forward once more and propping his elbows on the table, staring at Rowena fixedly. Rowena pursed her lips.
"Well, he seems to be the only one not wanting to protect our school, and it is looking suspicious to be saying the least, even ye two must admit that," she answered narrowly. Salazar grumbled.
"Be glad ye are a lady, Rowena, or --"
"Or what will ye do, Salazar? Put a spell on me? Go ahead. Ye are the least of my worries," she promised, growling low in her throat. Godric once more pounded his fist upon the table to gather everyone's attention.
"Cease this foolishness, both of ye!" he bellowed, his full face puffing up like the lion that symbolized his house. Helga frowned, her blue eyes snapping between the three others.
"Fools, we must perform this ceremony. We must build the pedestals, and we must leave our souls here to protect our school. Why can ye not all accept it and listen to what Godric has to say so that we all are knowing what we are doing? Stop ye bickering, now, or else you both wish to say you honestly do not care about the future of thine own wizarding world," she threatened, shocking everyone else at the table for normally she was very meek, quiet, and accepting.
A stooped silence descended over the room until Godric cleared his throat, all eyes upon him once more.
"Can ye all will recall when I took the hat from mine head and we all poured our magic into it so that it can sort our students even after we leave this plain of existence?" he paused, all heads nodding in answer. He sighed.
"This is very similar to that. The ritual is simply more complicated," he clarified.
"Complicated enough that even Merlin barely managed it," Salazar muttered quietly, no one heeding him any attention.
"Now, seeing as how there are four of us, we shall put one pedestal at the North, one at the South, and likewise at the East and West, forming a cross of protection over the entire school, linking our magic for all eternity. The spells must be cast on the first full moon, and --"
"But, Godric," Rowena interjected. Godric paused.
"Yes, Rowena?"
"The first full moon of the month is tonight. We cannot be prepared. We have but two hours before midnight, and then we will have to wait another month if we do not do this tonight," she explained. Godric nodded slowly.
"Then we must move quickly," Godric answered softly, the corners of his mouth drooping sadly as if he could see in his mind's eye what would happen if they didn't. He continued. "Our souls can be encased on this plain forever more, even after we've long since passed, and the protection will be forever and all eternity," Godric emphasized, resting his back against the cushioned back of his plush chair tiredly.
"Godric, is there not a way for the enemy to break even so powerful a spell?" Helga questioned. Godric sighed forlornly.
"I am afraid there is. If the enemy shows himself before our deaths, he can use us to get the souls from the pedestals with great ease, but he shall have a harder time accomplishing this after we pass. For, once we pass, only our heirs can release our souls, and even then they must know the words or have the charms to do so. Finding them, much less finding them with the heirlooms would be a difficult challenge in itself."
"What charms? Ye have not dared explain about them yet, Godric," Salazar said in a stony voice. Godric magicked a piece of yellowed parchment and a quill from thin air and wrote a hurried, scrawled spell on it.
"I want ye all to do the same, and then only these spells will release our souls. What I pondered was we take a normal item, a hollowed bracelet or some little trinket, and we slip the spells inside. The trinkets can become family heirlooms passed down from one heir to another, and no one need be any wiser to what the charms incase," he explained thoroughly, folding the scrap of parchment by hand and, taking a bracelet from inside one of his many pockets, stuffed the parchment in the slender golden tube, hooking the chained clasp together.
Rowena placed hers inside a thick cross that hung from a silver chain around her neck. Removing the necklace, she placed it in the center of the table along with Godric's bracelet. Helga slid her late husband's wedding band, with the spell tucked very tightly inside, to join the other jewelry, while Salazar plucked a brooch resembling a serpent from his collar and mimicked the others.
Helga turned curiously to Godric. "Godric, ye said our heirs could release our souls, but our heirs may not be magical, and if they are, they will not be fully of our own blood. It will not be easy for them to release our souls from the pedestals, will it?" she questioned.
Godric shook his head. "No, dear Helga, it shan't be easy for them at all. A sacrifice of the blood of the heir must be spilled onto the pedestal along with the proper ritual to release our souls at all, and only then will the soul fly into the strongest vessel that is near, which inevitably will not be the heir."
"So the heir has to die in order for the darkness to obtain our souls?" Rowena asked bluntly. Godric nodded sadly.
"Yes, Rowena. The heir must die."