Chapter Two –
Life at Hogwarts: Medieval Times
With the four founders dead, a Headmaster was appointed to lead the school, the first being Damocles Philpott (from 1196-1274), who set about many rules that are still in place today. For example, he created the house point system and the House Cup, whereby the house that got the most house points during the school year would be awarded at the end of it. However, more stringent rules had to be enforced in the castle as members of opposing houses tried to stop the other houses from earning house points by cursing them in the corridors or pushing them off the Astronomy Tower. Punishments were handed out to those who did such things, which usually involved being hung from the dungeons by your thumbs.
At one point, the forest at the edge of the castle grounds was allowed to be entered by the students in their free time, but after a student called a centaur a 'filthy half-breed' and was killed by one of their arrows, it became forbidden to all students. Each houses' common room became off-bounds to other houses after they started sneaking into each other's common rooms and rubbing troll faeces around the rooms, and passwords had to come into effect. A few new rooms and passageways were added to Hogwarts in medieval times, but by then, it started to resemble the castle that everyone knows today. The Headmaster's Office was created by Damocles, and later became used by every Headmaster or Headmistress Hogwarts has had since then.
Up until the 1200s, students had reached Hogwarts through Side-Along Apparition or on broomsticks. However, Side-Along Apparition proved to be quite unreliable, and after many parents and their children Apparated into the middle of the lake and nearly drowned, it was banned as a mode of transportation to Hogwarts. Travelling by brooms, though, was very time-consuming, especially for those who lived in the south of the British Isles. Therefore, after 1257, when Floo Powder was invented by Ignatia Wildsmith, travelling to Hogwarts via the Floo Network became the main way of transport. This is how the vast majority of Hogwarts students got to school until the introduction of the Hogwarts Express in the 1800s.
Damocles is also famous for tightening security around the castle. At this time, other wizarding schools were starting to spring up around Europe, and their founders kept Apparating into Hogwarts to learn its secrets and steal them for themselves. Furious, Damocles placed an Anti-Apparition Charm around the entire castle and its grounds to stop it from happening again. Another idea of Damocles was to place Anti-Muggle Charms on the castle to prevent Muggles from seeing Hogwarts for what it really was. This came about when a poor Muggle somehow managed to enter Hogwarts and wandered around before becoming stuck in a vanishing step on one of the staircases, where she remained for several days. Therefore, the Anti-Muggle Charms depicted a castle under siege from enemy ranks, prompting any Muggles who wandered too close to hastily leave. As the centuries past, and the days of castles and knights vanished, the Anti-Muggle Charm changed to depict a decrepit old castle that had fallen to ruin.
The Triwizard Tournament
In the thirteenth century, the Headmaster at the time, Everard Elfric (from 1274-1360) became friends with the Heads of two other magical schools in Europe, Beauxbatons Academy for Magic and Durmstrang Institute. The three heads decided to host a tournament, whereby one student, or champion, from each school would be chosen to represent their school and compete against the other two champions in a series of tasks and challenges. The first tournament was held at Hogwarts (the schools took it in turn to host it), and was an instant success. Though the details of the very first tournament are lost to legend, it is known that by the time Hogwarts was to host it again, students of every age scrambled to place their names inside the Goblet of Fire (created especially by Everard for the tournament) in the hope of becoming school champion.
However, the tasks were not created for first or second year witches or wizards and they often found themselves facing beasts they could not repel. The death toll mounted, especially during a particularly vicious Triwizard Tournament in 1360, where the three champions were to defeat a Hebridean Black dragon in turn. The Hogwarts champion, a second-year by the name of Almerick, tried (very foolishly) to defeat the dragon with a basic Water Charm, as described by one of the audience members:
Bruno from Durmstrang managed to defeat his dragon by using a Reduction Charm and then a Banishing Charm, but then, he's much older than poor Almerick. He was trembling from head to foot as he stepped into the ring. He raised his wand – the audience held their breath – and he shouted, 'Aguamenti!' He tried to direct the stream of water into the dragon's mouth, but he missed and sprayed Derwent in the audience. Well, as you can imagine, the dragon was not defeated; it breathed fire at Almerick and almost set him on fire. Then he panicked firing off curses and hexes everywhere – I had to duck as one came my head and turned Bruno's head into a watermelon.
I looked up to see Everard standing up. He strode out into the ring and cast a powerful Sleeping Spell on the dragon, causing it to collapse and go to sleep. But Almerick was still panicking. I heard him shout, 'Rictusempra!' – the Tickling Charm. The dragon snorted and woke up immediately, roaring and setting fire to the stands. Well, as you can imagine, all hell broke out as everyone tried to escape; Derwent was trodden on by accident as I ran for the exit; Bruno couldn't see where he was going with a watermelon for a head; the dragon took to the sky and set fire to the vegetable patch… It took two hours for Everard and the other judges to finally calm the dragon down and send it back to sleep again, but by that time, there had been over three dozen deaths. Almerick was transfigured into an earthworm as punishment.
The tournaments continued even though more deaths happened every time it was held. However, in light of the incident of the tournament of 1360, Cyprian Oldridge (the next Headmaster) devised a school motto: 'Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus', which translates to 'Never tickle a sleeping dragon'.
Famous Teachers and Students
Damocles Philpott (1162-1274, Headmaster from 1196-1274)
When Godric Gryffindor died in the 1180s (no one when exactly), Hogwarts found that all of its founders had died and had no one to run it. Over the next few years, interviews took place to try and find a Headmaster or Headmistress for the school. Madam Rudford acted as temporary Headmistress until Damocles was found. Damocles was a descendant of the great Merlin himself and ran the school expertly for over seventy-five years. Damocles is famous for introducing many things to the school that still exist today, such as the Anti-Apparition Charm and the Muggle-Repelling Charms. However, despite this, he met a rather unfortunate (and quite amusing, some say) end. In 1274, Damocles attended a Quidditch match in Yorkshire, and featured a Golden Snidget (it had been introduced into the game five years before). However, the game went on into the early hours of the night, and as Damocles yawned, the poor and exhausted Snidget rushed into Damocles' mouth to seek refuge, ultimately choking the wizard.
Everard Elfric (1241-1360, Headmaster from 1274-1360)
Everard Elfric became the Headmaster of Hogwarts after poor Damocles had died. He had previously been a Charms teacher, but was quickly appointed as Headmaster (some say he bribed his way to the position). Everard was remembered for the sole reason that he and the current heads of Beauxbatons and Durmstrang introduced the Triwizard Tournament to the world, which was first hosted in 1345 at Hogwarts. After being hosted by Beauxbatons and then Durmstrang in 1350 and 1355 respectively, the tournament returned to Hogwarts in 1360. It was during the tournament, after the Black Hebridean dragon had began its rampage that Everard was killed; he attempted to use a Conjunctivitis Curse to stop the dragon, but in its blindness, the dragon accidentally ate Everard.
Cyprian Oldridge (1320-1401, Headmaster from 1361-1401)
Cyprian became the third Headmaster of Hogwarts. Though popular by students because he rarely punished students (in 1383, one student only received lines for feeding another to a Venomous Tentacula in Herbology), he had a hidden secret: he was, in fact, a Squib. Due to this, when he tried to use Floo Powder to reach London, he somehow ended up in Tibet and was mauled to death by a yeti.
Gilford Ollerton (1373-1450, Headmaster from 1403-1450)
When Cyprian disappeared and the school realised he had been a Squib all along, the next Headmaster was scrutinised much more closely (hence, there was a two year period during which the school found itself without a Headmaster or Headmistress). Gilford Ollerton was a very laid-back man and tried to appeal to the students by showing his inner child. However, when he went as far as placing his name in the Goblet of Fire during one of the Triwizard and yelling in joy when his name was called out to represent Hogwarts as its champion, he was sacked. He was killed by a Manticore in one of the tasks.
Walter Kettlebridge (1410-1503, Headmaster from 1450-1502)
Walter Kettlebridge was the first Transfiguration teacher at Hogwarts, teaching the subject from 1430-1450. He was an Animagus, able to turn into a swordfish. He was appointed as Headmaster as soon as Gilford was sacked. Walter became concerned about the welfare of the students after some of them foolishly dived down to the bottom of the lake using Bubble-Head Charms and were held prisoner by the merpeople that lived there for several hours – they were only saved when Walter turned himself into a swordfish and swam down to help. Therefore, he levitated a giant squid from the ocean and dropped it into the lake, bewitching it so that it would help anyone who happened to fall in. in 1502, Walter started feeling ill and retired; he died less than a year later.
Alberic Alderton (1473-1556, Headmaster from 1502-1556)
Alberic Alderton is famous for being the only Headmaster with goblin blood in him, as well as enforcing rules upon Hogwarts that goblins would also be allowed to attend the school. At the time, goblins were allowed to use wands and so they happily accepted the invitation. However, some of the students were extremely wary about this decision, and the goblins started calling them rude names in their language of Gobbledegook. Alberic was mistaken for a goblin and killed by the serial goblin-killer, Yardley Platt.
Havelock Hipsworth (1524-1600, Headmaster from 1556-1600)
Havelock was the seventh Headmaster of Hogwarts. Havelock had the unpleasant task of clearing the school of all the goblins his predecessor had allowed to enter. However, after several failed attempts, and angry words from the portrait of Alberic Alderton, Havelock gave in and allowed the goblins to stay. He accidentally drank a poison in his stress after receiving many letters from parents worried about the presence of goblins at Hogwarts.
Uric the Oddball (Dates unknown)
Uric the Oddball (last name unknown) was one of the more peculiar students to walk through the doors of Hogwarts. He became extremely interested in magical creatures and was constantly laughed at for his tendency to walk around with a jellyfish on his head. Some of his later works involving magical creatures involved seeing if the cry of the Augurey really did foretell death (after days of hearing the cry, Uric assumed he had died and tried to walk through a wall, giving himself a concussion) and seeing if the song of the Fwooper (which drives its listener to insanity) was beneficial to one's health by listening to its non-stop for three months. Unfortunately, the Wizards' Council, to which he reported his findings, were unconvinced that the song was indeed beneficial, as he had arrived at the meeting wearing nothing but a toupee that on closer inspection turned out to be a dead badger. Some people blame the Fwooper's song to have been the cause of Uric's odd behaviour, but most claim he was like that before. Uric was thought to have been killed when he tried to make friends with a Ukrainian Ironbelly.
Ignatia Wildsmith (1227-1320)
Ignatia was a Ravenclaw when she attended Hogwarts, and when she left, invented Floo Powder in 1257, which enabled wizards and witches to get to places much faster than by broomstick. She died an old woman when she did not put out her magical fire (that is, fire with Floo Powder in it), allowing an Ashwinder to be born from the ashes. The Ashwinder then proceeded to lay eggs, whose intense heat burned down her house whilst she was sleeping, killing her.
Royden Gryffindor (1354-1405)
Royden was a descendant of Godric Gryffindor but surprised everyone by becoming a Ravenclaw. He inherited the family sword after his father died, but feeling he was unworthy of keeping it, he tried to sell it to some goblins. However, after he accidentally sliced off one of their heads whilst demonstrating how powerful the sword was, the goblins chased him away. Royden returned to Hogwarts and gave the sword to the Headmaster at the time, Cyprian Oldridge.
Gifford Ollerton (1390-1441)
Gifford Ollerton was the son of Gilford Ollerton, fourth Headmaster of Hogwarts. In an attempt to bond with his son, Gilford often tried to hang around with him and impress him by jinxing other students. However, Gifford was only ashamed of his father and left Hogwarts early. He became a renowned giant-slayer, killing the famous giant, Hengist of Upper Barnton. However, he was killed when he tried to kill Bran the Bloodthirsty – he 'tried to kill one giant too many,' his father, Gilford, sadly announced to Hogwarts the day after Gifford had died.
Sachara Slytherin (1399-1456)
Sachara Slytherin was the great great granddaughter of Salazar Slytherin, but like the rest of her family, she did not discover the Chamber of Secrets and unleash the basilisk. When Sachara's parents died when a Blasting Charm backfired, Sachara became the last descendant of Salazar. Eager to continue the bloodline, she married a pure blood wizard named Henry Gaunt and had several children.
Yardley Platt (1446-1557)
Yardley Platt was a Slytherin at Hogwarts and developed a hatred towards goblins after a small goblin rebellion led to his father's death. Platt started killing goblins up and down the country and became known as a famous goblin serial killer. He killed Headmaster of Hogwarts, Alberic Alderton in 1556, thinking him to be a pure goblin. Realising to his horror was he had done, Platt went into hiding for the rest of his life, which didn't last much longer; he was killed by hit wizards from the Wizards' Council a year later.
Felix Summerbee (1447-1508)
Felix was well known for not only being the best students at Charms Hogwarts had known up until that point, but also for becoming a Charms teacher in his later life. When he wasn't teaching, he was inventing new charms, his most famous being the Cheering Charm. He came to a rather early demise when he accidentally cheered himself to death when his spell backfired one day – he started laughing so much that he wasn't able to breathe properly.
Bowman Wright (1492-1560)
Bowman, who was a Gryffindor during his time at Hogwarts, later combined his love for Quidditch and his metal charming abilities to create a ball that replicated the movements of the Golden Snidget. The ball, the Golden Snitch, quickly replaced the Golden Snidget in the game, and Bowman became famous. However, he killed himself when he accidentally hit himself on the head with a Beaters' bat.
Gunhilda of Gorsemoor (1556-1639)
Gunhilda was a one-eyed, hump-backed witch who was thought to be at least half-hag. However, she proved herself to be an excellent witch and later became a Healer at the newly formed St Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries. She is famous for creating a cure for Dragon Pox, although, ironically, later caught it herself and died. Because of her good-nature and her contributions to magic, a statue of Gunhilda stands on the third floor of Hogwarts.