During the course of the hunt, which Hermione led with lists of topics to search and dividing up the library into sections to be done in turn, Staros found a remarkable book off in a completely hidden away alcove. A single massive volume rested alone on a pedestal, opened roughly to its center. Staros walked up to it and glanced across the pages, then started flipping through them. He was amazed at the volume of information he just discovered, despite it not being related to their search.
On a hunch, Staros turned the cover over and closed the book to read the title. The stiffness of the book, despite the lack of any form of dust, likely due to the house elves, spoke of the rarity of anyone finding and reading the tome. Looking over the title, Staros discovered he was correct and that he had found THE Hogwarts: A History. Flipping the book back open, he idly turned some pages and read a few entries. This was definitely a book he would have to become more familiar with!
The first several chapters seemed to have been written entirely by hand by several people. Detailed within were the construction of Hogwarts, families involved, introductory classes, changes, and a wealth of information about the Founders, much of which seemed to have been written BY the Founders if the signatures were real. Not having the time to really start on this treasure, Staros made sure that he knew where it was located and marked the path back to it while finding his way back to the others. He decided for now that he would keep this to himself until he could learn more. He smiled as he thought about how Hermione and Daphne would react to this when he finally told them.
With everyone leaving for Christmas break, Hermione extracted a promise from all and sundry to, very discretely, check into other libraries over the break to see if they could find anything on Nicholas Flammel. Staros asked if he should try writing to the Flammel Brothers, which everyone was agree to be a long shot, but decided it might be worth it. She also made Ron and Harry promise to keep looking through the library at Hogwarts, but Staros managed to avoid making the same promise with the excuse of having some private research he was concentrating on. He refused to tell her what it was, saying it was a special project. He also, very politely, turned down her help stating that he 'wasn't Ron' which caused her to smile, Harry and Tracey to laugh, Ron to cry out indignantly, and the rest to smirk or chuckle a bit. She struggled with it a bit, but let it go.
Once everyone had departed, and while Ron was teaching Harry Wizard's Chess and poor Harry losing horribly, Staros finally got a good chance to look over the Hogwarts' History Grimoire as he started calling it. Being as quiet as it was and with only the OWL and NEWT students using the library on occasion, he had very few interruptions.
The first hundred pages or so detailed the story behind the Founders decision to build the school. Each of them had separately put down their reasons, and while small details differed, the majority reasoning was simple, sound, and quite noble. Hogwarts was hardly the first magical school founded in history, but the others tended to specialize in a specific area of magic, were in horribly remote locations for protection from anti-magical mobs, or had been destroyed by various events through history. Hogwarts was to change that.
It appeared that Salazar Slytherin, being in the courts of King Aethelwulf of England, and Godric Gryffindor, from the courts of Coinneach mac Ailpein, King of the Picts, met first through mutual masters that knew each other and shared the occasional odd spell. At a time when most magic was taught via the master/apprentice system and only the wealthy nobles could afford to keep a sorcerer, this chance meeting would start to alter history in ways that no one could understand. Young and brash, both, they were disgusted with the current methods of trying to find suitable apprentices and the need to teach them in remote locations, i.e. the typical 'wizard's tower' of popular legends, which was often more of a hut than a tower. Over several years, they concocted a plan to build a magnificent fortress dedicated to the ideals of magic. Of course, this would remain a dream of two youths but for one simple occurrence.
During the summer of 853, a minor skirmish, war, feud, whatever broke out between the several families in Scotland and northern England along the Marches. During that time, Britain was broken up into numerous small kingdoms, duchies, etc. and most notably, that there were separate royal lines for Scotland and England. When the small conflict threatened to become a major war, certain houses with loyalties to both sides of the line were commanded to end it. Slytherin and Gryffindor were instrumental in ceasing the hostilities and were granted a special lordship that tied them to the lands of Britannia rather than to specific kingdoms. In a particularly surprising move of unity, the High King of Ireland, Máel Sechnaill mac Máele Ruanaid, sent his emissary for the magical world, Rowenna Ravenclaw, to support the move. From the lands of Wales, King Rhodri Mawr ap Merfyn sent his emissary, Helga Hufflepuff, to join with the others. Both of these kings had been advised of the potential necessity for the future of Britain by the same sources according to Helga and Rowenna's accounts.
After some arguments, the lands in far northern Scotland were decided to be granted for the foundation of the castle. Agreements were also made that the school would not answer to any of the singular kingdoms of Britain, but to all Britannia. This later led to the formation of the Wizengamot as an advisory council and liaisons to the kings for magical Britain. Special treaties were hammered out, mainly by the magicals, that covered the holding of titles, succession, laws, and all the things needed to cover dealing with common born magical children and their place in the newly formed magical Britain as well as the rights of the peoples, the authority of the Lords and Ladies, etc. Staros knew that since several of the royal lines had ties in the magical world, their authority remained in force and with the amalgamation of British rulers into the current royal line, the Queen held singular authority over magical Britain.
Very few today really knew how all of this managed to happen, but here it was, all detailed out in this tome. Staros looked down at the agreements signed by the four kings, the Founders, and noted a singular signature as binding witness to the magical oaths that still protect the school to current day. Alexis Tiburon Marcus, his several times great grandfather. Staring down at the page, history lessons he barely paid any attention to came flooding back, the history of the Marcus line. Here, right in front of him, was the proof of Keeper's lessons. He smiled as he thought he should really send an apology to the bizarre old man.
What followed the agreements was an accounting of the construction of Hogwarts. Included were all of the families that contributed material or labor to the cause. It seemed that just because the Founders were great wizards and witches, they still couldn't build a castle solely by magic. It took over twenty years for the core of Hogwarts to be built, the grounds tamed and creatures for the Forest imported to the preserves set aside for them. According to Rowenna's account, nothing of the size and magnitude had been attempted since Camelot or Hadrian's Wall.
Staros realized that studying this tome would take an enormous amount of time. He also needed to check some of the statements in it, but he was pretty sure that some of the things he had already read about were the kinds of things that started legends and became myth. And that would rock a society's foundations and drop its citizens to their knees.
Another project that Staros was finally able to get around to was studying his magical laptop. While he had gone over the basics during the weeks after it arrived, he hadn't gotten a good chance to look into what it could do and come up with ways to make it better. Draco had made a few suggestions already, surprising several people, especially since his first suggestion was about runic arrays, a topic far advanced from their current studies.
Draco had said that if the computer could do math the way Staros said it could, then it should be able to process complex Arithmancy calculations. Showing that it could do pictures and allow a person to change pictures easily led to the suggestion of using it to design rune sets since runes were basically pictures. That way a complex rune or spell structure could be easily studied and altered before finalizing it, without the messy stacks of crumpled parchment that usually accompanied such work. Staros was highly impressed with the ideas and wrote them down to send back to his father.
Since Staros now had the time to look it over, he got onto the laptop and started using it. He had played with a few features, but never got in depth with them. Noting that he was too far away from any form of Internet service, he couldn't do as much as he wished. Half the use of his computer at home was Internet based and he wasn't able to use that here. Still, he was looking at ideas.
His first idea was to eliminate the keyboard. With his auto-dictation quill next to him, he figured a similar idea could be used for the laptops, eliminating the need to type. For those times when a keyboard was absolutely essential, a shrunken, fold-away version could be kept tucked into a slide out.
Using magic, he started seeing ideas for various attachments like the printer, scanners, and such, all using magical instruments that simulated functions or magically enhanced versions of 'normal' items. Note after note on what he thought would be useful started to fill in as his ideas started with simple and rapidly moved into the complicated or downright bizarre. Before he got too engrossed and spent all night on it, Carcerous reminded him that he needed to get some sleep and the computer could wait. Reluctantly agreeing, Staros went to bed, still thinking of ways to improve the computer magically.