The Founders Four: Their Tale of Greatness

By SamGryffinclaw

AN: Welcome to Chapter 3! I think it might me a little shorter than the first two, but I'm not sure if that is going to be a pattern yet. LOL. We'll wait and see, I guess.

Dedication: For the grand total of 3 people who have reviewed my story at the time of writing this. You guys are awesome, it's for you that I'm writing:D

Disclaimer: I am in no way associated with J. K. Rowling or her books, other than fondly enjoying them. Neither is this story. Anything you recognize belongs to her, and anything you don't know belongs to me.

Chapter 3: Questions

GGGGGGGGGG

Godric sauntered through to streets of Calaway City and up the slope that led to his father's manor-house. As he neared it, another great boom exploded through the streets from the attic above the house. His twin older sisters looked out from the attic window, waiting to apologize cutely if their father was in earshot. They didn't see him, so they left the window and, therefore, Godric's sight. From about 100 yards behind him, Godric heard something that resembled, "Wait so, curls, wait so!"

Not wanting to hear his father's voice more than he had to, Godric pulled out his wand and tapped the door to his foyer. A small gray eye replaced the peephole and seemed to say, "Welcome, Master Godric." Godric smirked, imagining what the extremely magical house would do if Gilbert's eye and the sensors in the door detected that an unknown person was attempting entry. He suspected that it would contain excessive use of oatmeal and other breakfast products in a very frightening way, knowing his butler.

The door swung open, and Godric silently walked inside. The foyer of the house was large and impressive, covering a floor with dimensions of about 20 by 20 feet, and reaching up to touch the stone ceiling two stories above. Hanging from the ceiling on a linked chain was an overwhelming chandelier made with 24 karat gold. More than 200 candles were supported by the fixture, and all were enchanted with everlasting (yet never burning) fire.

Godric passed the doors to the dining room and parlor, hearing a fast-speaking Galinda gossiping with one of the town ladies. An intricate oriental carpet with striking shades of crimson traced his trail up the stairs and to his quarters. He slammed the oak door behind him with a force that rattled the entire stone house. A loud thump could be heard from below. I'll have to apologize to Gilbert later, thought Godric as he walked towards his bed. Not bothering to remove his cloak or his gloves, he jumped upon his canopied bed and rolled over on his back.

Father is a prat,Godric thought, silently applauding himself for his equally silent boldness. I'm only 19, for Merlin's sake! I don't know what I want to do with my life...and I certainly don't need to get married! As his thoughts turned to those of wedding bells and marital status, he couldn't help that a certain curly-haired maiden popped into his head. She does have pretty eyes...he thought as the picture became clearer and clearer in his mind. And that smile! I'm surprised I'm not blinded having seen it...and her hair is a rather pleasing blond shade... Godric's frown from his father's rather blunt encouraging quickly turned to a smile as images of the maiden pranced around in his head. Before long, his fantasies turned to dreams, and he fell into a deep sleep.

HHHHHHHHHH

The afore-fantasized girl was not smiling. Not surprisingly, seeing her parents getting into a heated argument leads to frowning and general discontent for Helga Hufflepuff. And certainly not smiling.

Hoyte, Helga's father, took a step towards his wife. "Helena...honey. I...I don't think..." Mr. Hufflepuff was talking very slowly, obviously choosing his words carefully. "I don't think you're being very reasonable."

For a moment, Helena stayed silent. "Reasonable?" she said quietly. "You don't think I'm being REASONABLE?!?!?!?" Her quiet tone quickly escalated to a scream of surprising strength. "Hoyte Hufflepuff, you are speaking of our SON like is some kind of TOOL! He is only 12 YEARS OLD! He is not prepared to do this sort of thing...Hoyte...you could both be killed." Helena backed down, and wilted back into her oft used spot of her rocking chair.

"I understand, Helena. But I think he is ready." Hoyte paused. "You see, he and I have been training for the day he would be allowed to do such a thing. He's gotten quite strong, and he's been able to climb some of the smaller rocks around here quite easily." Hoyte paused again and took a deep breath. "Helena, I think he's ready for it."

Helena gave him an incomprehensible look, then stood up slowly. "Fine, then. Just...fine," she said quietly, and then she left the living room for her bedroom.

To Helga, it might have been better if she had yelled.

She is walking among a beautiful field of flowers. She sees a small sprig of mint, and picks it up hoping to use it in her next meal. She couldn't help herself from bringing it close to her nose to smell its wonderful scent.

Suddenly, she is in a grand ballroom, with perhaps fifty formally clad witches and wizards. She herself was as much as five years older, and she was wearing a magnificent gold-colored gown. She was dancing with a man who was undoubtedly the most handsome red-haired man she had ever seen. He ducks down to her ear, and in a cross between a quiet moan and a secretive whisper, says "I love you, Helga Hufflepuff." He pulls back to look into her eyes, and then plunges slowly towards her face, taking her into a deep, passionate–

Helga Hufflepuff woke up suddenly from her dream. She was being shaken lightly by two pairs of small hands.

"Helga, Helga!" one of the pair of hands cried. "Wake up!"

Helga opened her eyes slightly and swatted lazily at the newcomers. "Hugh? Hudson? What is it?"

"Well, you see, there's a really loud thunderstorm going on, and..." Hugh stopped, obviously not wanting to admit any kind of fear.

"...and we wanted to make sure you weren't scared!" Hudson finished for him. Hugh gave his twin brother a look of deep gratitude.

Helga was about to respond, when a particularly loud bit of thunder exploded through the night.

"AAAAHHHH!!!" cried the young Hufflepuffs. Helga chuckled slightly to herself as her younger brothers dove under her covers.

"Do you guys want to stay in here for the rest of the night?" Helga asked. What could only be taken to be nodding came from the two lumps beneath her quilt. "Alright then. Goodnight guys!"

And in the midst of it all, the dream was all but forgotten.

RRRRRRRRR

"Do you think we REALLY need to find him?" Tara complained for what seemed like the thousandth time. "I mean, either way; he saved you, he's cool, so we don't want to bother him, or he's the one that hit your head, he's evil, and we don't want to bother him. Let's just... I dunno... pick some berries or something!"

"Tara," Aaron started, "I think it's really important that we find him. Like you said, 'either way' we want to thank him or ask him why he did something to Rowena." Aaron stopped suddenly, causing Rowena to run into him.

After a moment of recovery, Rowena said, "I don't know, Aaron...I think Tara may have a point. I mean, what if he doesn't WANT to be found?" No sooner than she said this did Rowena see a pair of pale gray eyes in between some trees behind Aaron. The eyes seemed to nod rapidly, so she continued. "Honestly, I think we ought to just head home. You guys go on ahead; I'm going to be here a little longer to look at that tree over there..." Rowena started towards the eyes slowly as her friends shrugged and left.

"Who are you?" she asked the eyes.

The eyes did not respond, but their body began to emerge.

SSSSSSSSSSS

Salazar had watched the entire exchange, breathing as hard and fast as he could while still keeping silent. His breathing slowed when the two previously unknown muggles walked away.

"Who are you?" asked the raven-haired beauty.

Salazar clumsily struggled to remove himself from his niche within the trees, and then approached the girl slowly.

"I'm Salazar. Salazar Slytherin," he replied. "And who are you?"

"I'm... I'm Rowena. Rowena Ravenclaw," said Rowena. "Are you...I mean...you aren't from The Glen, are you?"

Salazar frowned. "Erm...if you muggles call your village a "Glen", or whatever, then no, I'm not."

"Wait, what was that you called me? A "moogle" or whatever? If that's offensive, you're going for a hard punch in the nose!" A barely noticeable red tint began to seep into Rowena's fair pallor.

"A moogle, you say?" Salazar chuckled a little to himself. "Nah, I said 'muggle'. It means you're not magic. I mean, you're not magic, are you?"

"Magic??!?!" cried Rowena. "Why, there's no such thing! You mean with 'abra kadabra' and stuff?"

"Well, I can show you, if you want..." Salazar suggested. Rowena nodded fervently, so the boy removed his pocketed wand. "Diffindo!" he cried as he made a slashing motion towards a nearby sapling.

Rowena squeaked slightly as the jet of orange light flew through the otherwise darkening evening. "Did you really do that... with that stick?" Rowena was VERY curious.

"Yes, I did!" Salazar said proudly. "But that's just basic stuff."

"Are you that boy? From the other night?" Rowena asked slowly.

So she DOES remember! thought Salazar. "If you mean the person who saved you, then yes, I guess..." Salazar said awkwardly. Rowena stayed silent, so he continued. "You see, you were running toward me, and I didn't know what to do. I didn't have to decide, however, because you happened to run into an unfortunately located branch. I just levitated you back to what I thought was your village and I left."

"Oh. Well, thanks, I guess," said Rowena. "I mean, if it wasn't for you, one of the animals could have gotten me!" Rowena paused. "Is there any way to...like... 'get' magic?"

Salazar frowned. He knew her answer was no, but that didn't mean that she couldn't be a witch...

"Well, not really. You kind of have to be born with it." Rowena's bright smile faded, so Salazar quickly continued. "But it's possible for a muggle to be born with it! You might have; you never know! There's an easy way to tell if you're magic, too, if what my mother says is right."

"What?!?!" cried Rowena in her sudden excitement. "Tell me, tell me! Oh please, do tell me!"

The young man laughed. "Alright. Have you ever made anything...odd happen? Something you couldn't explain?" Salazar's once bright eyes now dimmed as the comedic talk was over.

"Well," said Rowena thoughtfully with her index finger tapping upon her chin. "There was this one time...quite recently, actually. You see, my mother told me to mend this wonderful blue dress that I had torn a hole in the previous day. And it was a rather big hole, and it would have taken hours to mend! So I sort of...told it to mend itself. I was just staring at it, and I was so angry! And then, the threads started extending, and melding together with those from the other side, and, before I knew it, it was as if there had never been any hole at all! Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?"

Salazar was smiling ear to ear. "That's exactly what I mean. I think you're a witch, Rowena!"

"Does that mean I'll be able to magic, like what you did?" asked Rowena.

"I guess," said Salazar. "But you need to learn how first. And even before that, you'll need a wand!"

Rowena shrugged. "That shouldn't be too hard, should it? I mean, I'm very smart; I learn the quickest in all the Glen. You could teach me, couldn't you? And could you make me a wand?" Rowena batted her eyes in a most un-Rowena way.

Salazar blushed. "Well, I guess I could teach you... and I did make my mother's most recent wand, so making you one shouldn't be too hard...alright. I'll do it. I'll meet you back here in a weeks time just before dusk, alright?"

Rowena nodded with fervor. "Alright. Thank you so much, Salazar!" She gave him a light hug, and then dashed away towards the small light that was certainly her village.

For a moment, Salazar seemed to be in almost a daze at her touch. He shook his head violently and then trudged off towards the lakeside shack he called his home.

Another pair of gray eyes, much sharper and angry than the soft ones that Salazar bore, followed him silently through the forest.

HHHHHHHHHH

"But Momma, please!" whined Helga in a surprisingly childish tone. "It's not fair! I mean, Hoyte got to go with Daddy on his trip, and he's 5 years younger than me! I can't even go into the city, when my 12 year old little brother gets to go into a cave system in the mountains?"

"I don't care how unfair it is Helga, it just wouldn't work! It would make my work much slower, and besides, who would watch the twins?" Helena Hufflepuff responded.

Such whining and refuting had been going on for the majority of the morning since Hoyte Hufflepuff Jr. and Sr. had left the cottage in the valley, and it did not seem like it was near stopping.

Helga did not necessarily want to go to the city because she was jealous of her younger brother's escapades. Nor did she want to go to see the supposedly beautiful city that had so long eluded her visiting. No, Helga Hufflepuff wanted to go with her mother to Calaway City for no reason other than to see the red-headed young man named Godric Gryffindor, and to find if he had been thinking as much of her as she had of him.

Daring to ask one more time, Helga prodded her mother lightly on the shoulder. The resulting spin of the elder woman threw the perfectly cooked eggs onto the ceiling above them, then fell to the floor below. "Evanesco!" cried Helena as she pointed her wand at the depressing yellow slop beneath her feet. It vanished, and she turned on her daughter. "Oh, what is it now Helga?"

"Well... you see..." mumbled Helga. "There wouldn't need to be anyone to watch the twins if they came with us, would there?" The 16 year old girl looked up at her mother hopefully.

Before Helena could respond, the aforementioned twin boys started calling out from the table. "Oh, Momma, I want to go!" "Yeah Mum, can we please?" Following their sudden explosion of begging, a loud growl could be heard throughout the Hufflepuff kitchen. "Sorry," said an embarrassed Hugh said. "That was my egg you ruined, Helga..."

All of them laughed heartily, and as it died down, one could hear Helena say, "Fine, I guess we'll all go. It seems I'm overruled anyway!" Helga pumped her fist in excitement and hugged her mother tightly. "Thank you Mum, oh, thank you!" She then ran back to her room and out of sight.

A/N: Well, there's chapter three! It's just over 6 pages in OpenOffice Writer, so its a little longer than I expected. I didn't originally plan for the thunderstorm scene, but it popped into my head as I was writing Helga's dream and I thought it was cute, so... I couldn't help but writing it in. I've also planned a little more into the story, and I've decided I'm going to split this story into two parts: TFF and one other whose title I'm not going to reveal yet, detailing the depressing, yet ever-necessary decline of our favorite four. I've also decided I'm going to canonize this as much as I can, so if you haven't read DH or refuse to read interviews, this might confuse you a little bit later on.

Chapter Four can be expected within the next two weeks, and will include (among other things):

#More allusions to future story, including (gasp) the ships!

#Godric forced to carry boxes upon boxes of jewelry for his step-mother!

#The first appearance of Rowena's father!

#Rowena learns her first spell!

And much, much more!

See you next time!

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SamGryffinclaw