History of the Saint Schools

A/N - My inspiration for the Saint Schools comes from the schools that were originally created by Radaslab in his stories - 30 Minutes that Changed Everything. The schools locations seem to have been determined by zArkhum and explained in the Authors note at the end of chapter 12 of their story Harry Potter and the Rejected Path. The History of the Saint Schools is MY creation and is all MINE! LOL

A/N 2 - My apologies for the delay, but I was planning to have chapter 5 up last week. Unfortunately, as I was trying to upload, both FFN and my PC went on the fritz and I lost the chapter, Totally. Despite being saved, I still lost it. So I have had to rewrite the whole thing. Fortunately it is now better than it was before. It is also divided into 2 chapters so that the History gets its own chapter.

1876

It began so slowly that Bob Hitchens was not really aware of it. The odd child here and there who was socially inept and unidentified and who acted strange. Bob was hired as a school teacher at a large orphanage in London in 1870, but it was not until 1876 before he finally realised that a trend was not only happening, but was also growing. Every year more and more children of questionable origin were being dropped off at the orphanage.

They all had several things in common. Their clothes were of medieval style, not Victorian. Their names were sometimes quite unusual. They had little to no social skills or cultural knowledge at all. Occasionally if they had money, they had gold coins and not british coins or pound notes. They were not familiar with any of the regular church hymns, nor were they familiar with english literature either. None of them knew who Shakespeare was. They also knew nothing of politics. They did not even recognise any prominent member of the British royal family.

Everytime Bob tried to question these children, they would clam up tight and say nothing. Even if they hadn't known each other before arriving at the orphanage, they certainly came together as a large group of friends, once they were there. How they knew they all had the same things in common so quickly, Bob had no idea.

While most of these children knew how to read and write, they had very little numbers or math skills, and they seemed to know nothing of the late 19th century. They were often unable to use every day objects correctly. Whenever they were given a broom for example, and told to sweep out, the younger ones would place the broom between their legs and then stand there with interesting looks on their faces. Almost as if they expected to fly. They actually had to be shown how to sweep the floors. Bob overheard one specific word being used a lot. That word sounded like "muggle". He had no idea what that meant, but these mysterious children used it a lot. When the kids were becoming frustrated, they never took the Lords name in vain. But they did use the name of Merlin a lot.

Slowly but surely, these strange children learned the skills and knowledge they needed to survive and eventually by the time they were in their mid to late teen years, they could be discharged from the orphanage and allowed to find their own way in the world. But always there were more of these strange children flooding in to replace the ones who had just left.

The orphanage did their best to teach these children a trade. Because most of them could read and write, they usually opted for positions like governesses for the girls and teachers and tutors for the boys. Some of the more ambitious boys tried out for law clerk jobs in the hopes of becoming lawyers.

In the summer of 1878, Bob was taking a walk one sunny day alongside the river Avon in the town of Stratford. He had needed to get away from London for a while, and since he loved reading or watching Shakespeare, he also loved spending time in Stratford. As he was walking this fine day, he was not watching where he was going and he ended up bumping into someone, and worse still, knocking them down. It was a young lady.

"Oh dear." he said. "I am so terribly sorry." Bob held out a hand in order to help the young lady to stand up.

She looked at him with utter loathing and said. "I will not sully myself with the likes of you, you worthless muggle."

Bob was intrigued. There was that word again. He just had to know. "What is a muggle?" he asked.

The lady scoffed. "Why you are of course, and everyone else we can see around here. You who are not - um - I cannot say what you are not, but you are clearly not my kind."

"And what is your kind, as opposed to my kind?" Bob asked with an eyebrow raised. He was intrigued. This was certainly far more than anything the children had ever admitted to.

The woman sighed and continued."Can we just forget about it. Could you also please help me to get up?"

Bob held his hand out again. "Certainly, but only if you tell me the difference between your kind and my kind. As far as I can tell, you and I are both of the homo sapiens race. The human race. We are different from the animals because everyone knows that animals do not speak."

The woman couldn't help herself. "Animals do speak. I've heard humans speaking to snakes." She placed her hand in Bobs hand, and allowed herself to be gently pulled to an upright standing position.

Now that he could see her face closeup, Bob was stunned to see just how beautiful this strange lady was. Her jet black hair was piled up high above a heart shaped face, with clear porcelain skin, deep blue eyes and lips that he wanted to kiss.

Bob had to force himself to stand upright, before he shamed them both by leaning down to kiss her. But he made sure to continue holding her hand.

"So, the difference between your kind and my kind?" he asked.

She hung her head. "I can't tell you, Sir. Not yet anyway."

"Well, how about your name? My name is Robert Hitchens, but I prefer to be called Bob."

"Isla Black." She replied quietly.

"Would you care to take a walk with me? I have a horse and buggy back at the town square. Besides, I have some more questions to ask you."

Isla agreed, and after placing her hand in the crook of his arm, the two slowly headed back to the centre of town.

Bob began talking. "I am a teacher at a somewhat large orphanage in London,. Over the past several years, I have noticed an increasing trend of children who show up around London with sketchy education, names they refuse to reveal and no social or cultural knowledge. You are acting and sounding just like these childern are. I'm wondering if perhaps these children are of your kind, as opposed to my kind? I have heard them use that same word you used. Muggle."

Isla nodded. "If they refer to you as muggles, then yes they are of my kind, And yes I know why they are showing up in London, but I'm afraid I cannot tell you anything more. Not yet anyway."

Bob had a plan. "What I would like to do is to build them a school, just for them. Where they can learn all the things that they should have learned as youngsters growing up. Things like social skills, cultural knowledge, reading, writing and 'rithmetic, and some other subjects such as literature, science, history and geography. Some of these kids have no idea about any other countries outside of the British Isles. But like any other project, I need money to build this school, and to pay the teachers. Is there a reason why your kind are throwing these children away? Why can't they take them back? Why throw them away at all? I think it is a very cruel thing your kind are doing. To be throwing away perfectly good children for some reason I cannot fathom."

Isla sighed. She did agree that a school was a very good idea. She had never liked the idea of the squibs being disowned and ejected, but this had been the practice for centuries and one cannot undo centuries of tradition just because one does not like it. She was also willing to help. "I can get you some money to build your school and perhaps find some teachers, but you will have to find an out of the way place to build this school. I would prefer that the less people who know about this, the better."

"And how long will you continue to not tell me about your society?" Bob frowned.

"There are rules and laws on my side. I am not supposed to be telling you anything. For you to have even guessed this much, is astounding."

Bob stopped to gape at her. "You act as if we "muggles" are dumb and stupid? Is that how we are seen or portrayed?"

Isla could only nod her head.

"So you and your children are raised to think they are superior to us?" Bob huffed. "Well that explains the very snooty attitude you had when we first met. Those kids do not seem to have any attitude like that at all. Instead they are bewildered because they are being laughed at for not fitting in."

"That's because they know they cannot go back. They are not allowed to. And since they don't know how to fit in to your world, they are bewildered."

Bob was smug. "So you are NOT superior to us. You just deliberately choose to act superior, treat us like trained animals, and then pass that attitude down to your children and grandchildren. Well then, please do NOT introduce me to anyone from your world. I don't think I want to be like you at all. I'll just stay out here and continue to rescue and retrain those whom you choose to throw away. I guarantee you, at some point, the descendents of those whom you throw away will return and wreak havoc on your world. An eye for an eye, we call it. And they will probably be willing to wait for as long as they need to, to get their revenge."

They continued walking in silence for a few minutes. Bob liked the silence. It was comfortable and not at all awkward, despite his obvious lack of knowledge of her origins. He suddenly thought of a question.

"Can you go back?" Bob asked.

Isla nodded. "For now I can. But if I do anything that exposes my world, I will be cast out like the children are."

"But are you not exposing your world to me as we speak?"

"I guess I should amend that to, if I do anything that exposes my world en masse..."

Bob nodded.

"Besides, you have guessed a good amount of it, just going on what you learn about the children. And you learn more everytime I open my mouth. But you still don't know WHY we are separate and it has to stay that way. And besides, you are just one person. How are you going to tell anyone or more than one person at a time?"

"I could write an article for the newspaper." But even Bob was shaking his head as he spoke.

Isla nodded. "Yes you could. But you clearly don't like that idea. Why not?"

"Because if the editors don't believe me then the readers are not likely to believe either. Especially without any proof. And you refuse to give me any proof, which is of course your right and clearly your decision."

Upon arriving back at the Stratford town square, Bob unhitched his horse and buggy, and said good evening to Isla as he prepared to return to his hotel.

"Will I see you again?" he asked.

"Maybe" she replied. "Maybe not. I don't really know. Where are you staying?"

Bob gave her the name of his hotel.

"Could I invite you to come and meet the children that I have been talking about and helping?" Bob asked out of desperation.

"I'll let you know. Goodnight." Isla replied as she turned and headed back towards the river.

Isla did not show up the next day. Bob went back to London feeling quite down and depressed. He really wanted to see the young lady again, and he had a huge puzzle to solve. WHAT was so different about those children and why were they being kicked out?

It was not until two months later that Bob finally uncovered the secret. He was in a literature class, and some of the older teenage girls were reading Act four of Macbeth out loud. As they read, their voices got slower and slower until eventually they stopped.

"How do you know this? You are not supposed to know about this!" one teenage girl gasped.

"How long have you known this?" demanded a second girl.

Bob shrugged his shoulders. "Everyone knows. We teach this to all our children around your age. There are thousands of acting troupes that perform these plays. William Shakespeare wrote this particular play, way back in the late 1500s or early 1600s. I think it was first performed in public in the year 1606. So we're looking at close to 300 years now. What do we know that we shouldn't know?"

"How to make the seers potion!

"The seers potion?" Bob asked.

"Yes, it describes all the ingredients and how to make it exactly. And then says exactly how it works. If you want to know what will happen in the near future, this potion will tell you. Oh, this is bad. How many copies of this play are there? We have to get rid of them all."

Bob shook his head. "You won't be able to do that. Far too late for that. There are thousands of copies, probably even millions of copies over the last 300 years. They will be spread all around the world and probably in many other languages too. Was there some rule or law that says you can't tell us muggles about this?"

The girls gasped. "How do you know that word?"

"From you girls. You do whisper quite loudly sometimes." Bob smirked.

"The International Statute of Secrecy was not formally instituted until 1689 and then finally ratified by all countries in 1692. That is when it became the law. If this play was written before 1689, then the author was not breaking the law at that time, because the statute was not yet in place." One of the older teenage girls solemnly intoned the lessons she had been taught as a child.

"Why was this law passed?" Bob asked.

"The Witch hunts and trials of Salem, Massachusetts in 1692. The Hysteria got so bad that the law had to be enforced. It was already on the books, but had not yet been ratified. It was ratified by the end of that year and then enforced in order to stop the hysteria."

Bob looked down at his copy of Macbeth and finally it sank in. The missing link. The word was staring at him in black and white.

1st Witch, 2nd Witch, 3rd Witch

"You are witches?" He gasped. "You do magic? And you fly around on brooms? And you wear pointy hats?"

The girls nodded after each statement.

"Can you show me" he asked. "Or is that not allowed?"

"Even if we could show you, we cannot. This is why we were forced to leave. We were all born without magic." The same girl who had mentioned the law, spoke up again.

"Born without Spell magic anyway. Some of us are elementals, and some of us have other types of magic that our society does not recognise or accept." Another girl was quite bitter as she spoke.

"That is the big secret that keeps your society hidden away? They can do magic?" Bob's eyes were wide.

The teenagers all nodded.

"Let me get this straight. Your families still insist on disowning all you children who are born with no magic for some as yet unknown reason?" Bob asked, just to clarify things. The girls nodded.

Bob sighed. "I think that is just so cruel. I could never imagine being forced to disown a child of mine just because they don't have something that society demands that they should have."

"You believe us?"

Bob nodded. "Yes I do. and Yes, I promise to keep your secret. But there is one witch I have to find. I met her in Stratford several weeks ago, and she too called me a muggle in a very upper class and posh accent. I told her all about you children. She said she knew why you had been disowned and ejected, but refused to say that one little word - magic - to me."

"Do you know her name?"

"Isla Black."

The children all gasped.

"What? Did I say something wrong?" Bob frowned.

The comments came pouring out, tumbling over one another in order to be heard properly. "The Black family are one of the richest and most powerful families in our society. They would never be caught visiting in the muggle world. Unless she was rebelling against her father. Perhaps she has been offered a betrothal contract that she does not want... That could be the reason. You have to find her again. We would love to meet her."

Now that the secret was out, the children relaxed around Bob and began treating him like an older brother. They played pranks on him, but they also took all his lessons to heart and worked hard on trying to blend in with their new society. And every month, two or three new children were found who had been disowned and ejected from the wizarding world. They were all added to the family.

Since the Christmas Holidays were coming up, Bob vowed to return to Stratford in the hopes of seeing Miss Black again. He arrived there on the afternoon of Christmas eve and checked into the same hotel he had used previously.

"Mr Hitchens. There is a message for you. It was left here some weeks ago, but the young lady insisted that we hold it for you no matter how long it took for you to return." Bob took the note, written on thick paper which he thought may have been called parchment, and retired to his bedroom to read it.

My Dear Bob Hitchens,

I bet myself that you would not stop looking for the answers.

So I placed a recording charm on you so that I could hear you and anyone close to you discussing your kind and my kind. I hope you don't mind. Imagine my shock and surprise when you found the answer in a shakespeare play. I had no idea who shakespeare was, so I promptly came back into the muggle world to buy a shakespeare play. I had to ask the shop keeper, which play had witches in in it.

"Oh, that's easy." he said. "That's Macbeth."

I read through Macbeth and to my shock and horror I found the seers potion exactly as your girls described it. But as your girls explained to you, there is nothing we can do since this play was written and performed several decades before the international statute of secrecy came into effect.

Now we just need to find out if Shakespeare himself was a wizard, or if he was a squib, or if he had a witch or wizard amongst his family and friends. That is your next mission if you should choose to accept.

In the meantime, I am hoping that you will come back to this hotel for Christmas, or Yule as we call it. Now that you know my secret, I no longer need to keep it a secret from you. I will come by the hotel every day from Christmas day to New Years eve. And yes I would love to come back to London to meet your children.

Yours

Isla Black.

Bob wrote everything down in his journal. He now added Isla's letter and then locked the journal away for safety.

When Isla came to the hotel on Christmas day, Bob was ready and waiting. He escorted her upstairs to his room, which, while was not exactly the correct behaviour, she agreed to, in order that they could talk privately.

As soon as they were in his room and the door closed, , Isla pulled a stick out from her sleeve and waved it around. "Privacy charms" she said, as Bob raised an eyebrow again.

He was looking at the stick she was waving around. "My wand? Oh yes, This is my wand. This is what allows me to do magic."

The silence between them became somewhat uncomfortable, so unlike the last time they were together.

"Can you please remove that recording charm you placed on me, I dont think you need to be listening in to any more of my discussions." Bob hated having to ask, but this was necessary.

Isla blushed and waved her wand again. "Done. And I am so sorry, but I had no other way of knowing just how far you would go in your search to find out. Even I learnt a lesson. You muggles can and do write about our world. Your imaginations are incredible. Sometimes they are pretty accurate and other times they are quite incorrect.

"In the meantime, after listening to you and your children's discussions I have to agree with you. They need their own school. I will provide the money for you to build it, and I will find the teachers. Most of them will be Squibs - those that don't have magic like your children - but who are trained as teachers. We need all the staff to be those who already know about magic before they join the school. Thus you will not be able to advertise openly. Eventually you will build up a list of contacts amongst the squibs and the muggleborn."

Bob smiled and said "Thank you. Muggleborn?"

"We don't know how or why it is happening, but some children are being born in your world who show signs of accidental magic. They need to be brought into our world in order to be educated and trained to control their magic. Some of our society claim that these children are 'stealing magic' from us. But as I said. I have no idea why muggleborn witches and wizards are being born." Isla frowned.

Bob brightened up. "What science do you learn at your schools?"

Isla cocked her head in that cute way that Bob was fast coming to like very much. "I have never heard of science."

"Science is the study of the world around us. There are lots of different branches, and one of the branches is human anatomy, or the study of the human body. Trying to find out how it was put together, and how it works. Several years ago, a fellow named Mendelev, discovered that that our physical characteristics were carried on something called genes which can be found in every cell of our body. These genes are what gives us our hair color, eye colour, skin colour, how tall or short we are, whether or not we will have certain diseases, and and all other such physical characteristics. It would not surprise me at all if Magic was also expressed by a gene as well. If you have the gene then you have magic. If you don't have the gene, then you dont have magic. That seems to be the way our bodies are made to work.

Isla thought for a short time. "Our healers study human anatomy. Our potions masters must know how and why the potions ingredients react with one another, in order to make potions. And we have herbologists who grow, and study our magical and muggle plants."

Bob translated those into science. "So you study Anatomy, Botany which is the study of plants, and Chemistry, which refers to the reactions between potion ingredients." he paused. "Does anyone do Astronomy?

Isla nodded.

"Well that too is a branch of science as well."

Shortly after, Bob escorted Isla to dinner at a nearby restaurant, where they continued talking. After the Christmas Holidays, Bob returned to London and Isla came to visit him on the weekends.

On the day she came to visit the orphanage, she caused a mini-crisis because most of the older childern recognised her as being a Black and thus they were either curtseying or bowing to her.

"Alright children, enough of that. Gather round please, quietly now." Bob gathered his children around him. "I take it you know who our guest is?"

"Yes, but how did you find her?" a cheeky voice replied. "You ain't supposed to go to their world. You're a muggle."

"Actually I prefer to call myself a mundane. It means the same as a muggle but it's nicer. So from now on, me and my kind will be called mundanes. Capische?"

The kids all nodded.

"As for how we met, she came to this world, and I met her up in Stratford. Shakespeare's home town."

"Did that give you the idea of what you were looking for?"

"No actually, It's totally coincidental that I happened to choose the one play that has witches in it for your lessons. But I'm very glad I did."

The rest of the visit was spent with Isla and the children telling Bob all about their world, both the good things and the bad.

After Isla apparated back to her home, her older brother Phineas began demanding to know where she had been. "You should be spending time with your betrothed, you know." he commented with a sneer. "That is the only way you will be useful to us. Making a new alliance."

"He is not my betrothed. Yes there is a contract, but it is not signed yet and if I have any say, it won't be signed, ever. I hate him, and I will never marry him." Isla replied.

Phineas grabbed her by one arm, gripping her hard enough to leave bruises. "You are Father's property to do with as he pleases. You have no rights as a female and you WILL do as you are told."

He shook her a few times before letting her go. Isla collapsed to the floor. That harsh shaking had left her dizzy and confused. She called for a house elf who popped her to her bedroom, where she slept.

The next morning on waking up, Isla knew she could wait no longer. She had to get the money for the school and she had to leave the wizarding world if she was ever going to keep her freedom.

She knew that she would probably be disowned, but that was far more preferable to being married to someone she hated. Isla packed her bags, visited Gringotts bank and requested that all of the money in her trust vault was to be transferred to a mundane bank account immediately. Her trust vault was then to be closed, permanently. Before leaving the bank, Isla also grabbed some books from the family vault, mostly beginner books that taught the magical subjects, as well as those that taught wizarding etiquette, history, culture and laws.

Once this was done, Isla apparated directly to an alley close to Bob's orphanage in London and told him that she had been forced to leave her home. Isla explained how there was a betrothal contract that would be signed soon. Once it was signed then she would be forced to marry a man she hated, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. If she did marry, she wanted to choose her own spouse. Noone in the wizarding world was good enough for her, so she thought that perhaps she could try the mundane world. Her eyes twinkled as she spoke these last words. Bob was sure she was flirting with him. Not that he minded, He was rapidly falling in love with her as well.

"Oh and I have also got the money to start building your school. I also managed to grab some books so that we can teach some magical subjects to the children." Bob was thrilled with this announcement.

It took Bob and Isla some twelve months to find a large enough building being sold that could be used for a school. They eventually decided not to build from scratch. It was actually cheaper to purchase an existing building and renovate. This former mansion was in Epping forest, some miles north of London, and in a quiet out of the way place. 5 storeys tall, it was shaped like a large capital E, which meant the renovations would actually be much easier to manage. The 3 wings would become the dormitories and living areas and the long part of the E would be all the classrooms and offices.

The school would be accepting children from ages 8 to 18. Squibs as well as muggle, er, mundane borns and any halfbloods who wished to attend. Purebloods would also be welcome, as long as they did not spout their superiority rubbish or try and spread that bigotry. This school was going to place magical children on an even keel so that they would be just as good as those who attended Hogwarts. Isla had attended that fine establishment. Like all those of her family, she had been placed in Slytherin house and been thoroughly miserable. Isla felt that she should have been in Ravenclaw since she loved learning.

Speaking of which, in those same twelve months since she had left the wizarding world, Isla had learnt that yes she was disowned from her family, and could not return, and that her father would kill her for breaking the marriage contract if he ever got his hands on her. Isla was not worried. She and Bob had become even closer in that time, and Bob was on the verge of proposing. He just wanted to get the school into some kind of decent shape ready for opening first.

Already there were whispers going around the muggle borns and the squibs that a new school was being started up. Children of Squibs were more than welcome, no matter if they had magic or not - just so long as they already knew about magic. This school would not have any houses. The school was divided into 3 divisions so that the kids had time to make friends with everyone above and below them in age before they were moved up to a new division. The younger children, ages 8 to 10, who were not yet permitted to have a wand would become the Juniors. The Intermediate years would house the Middle school, those aged 11 to 13 who were just learning how to use their wands. And the senior school would house the older students, who aged 14 to 17 (and 18) who were sitting OWLs, NEWTs as well as any mundane qualifications.

That was another idea Bob was insistant on,. That their school teach both magical and mundane subjects. After all, the squibs could never return to the magical world, but they had the right to learn about their own heritage. Therefore it was decided that the magical subjects would teach them their heritage and the mundane subjects would allow them to choose a career in their new world.

And finally all that was needed was a name for their new school. Isla came up with that one.

'These kids are having to fight against the dragon that is the magical world and they are unable to do so on their own. But as a school, we can be St George, and help these children to slay that dragon, stop the rampant bullying and misinformation of the Magical world, and teach them the truth and teach them to be proud of who they are.' Bob thought that was a wonderful idea so St George's Academy of Magic was registered with the ICW, and not with the Ministry, because they wanted to stay out of Ministry control.

In September of 1885, the first 2 classes were admitted to St Georges Academy. The first class in each of the Junior and Middle Divisions. They would not have anyone doing OWLS and NEWTS just yet, because those children had far too much to catch up on first.

By this time, Bob and Isla were married. Bob was the headmaster of the school. He dealt with the hiring and firing of teachers, of purchasing everything needed for boarding students as well as for teaching them. He also dealt with all the other paperwork that was needed to run a school. Isla taught various magical subjects as they were needed, until the school eventually acquired sufficient teachers for her to be able to stay home with her children. Bob and Isla had 3 children. David Andrew, Robert James and Elizabeth Catherine Hitchens. All were magical and all were halfbloods under the old class system.

This first School, the one named St George, was so successful that the Hitchens eventually decided to open more schools around the United Kingdom that followed their style of education. After 15 years of providing an excellent magical education, they were having to turn away students and felt really bad about that. The demand was huge and more schools were desperately needed. Not just for Squibs who were disowned and ejected from the wizarding world, but for their descendants as well.

So it was decided. Each school was named after the local saint of the area. St Michaels Academy was opened on Dartmoor near Exeter in Devon in 1900, St Davids Academy in the Brecon Beacon Mountains of Wales in 1910, St Edmunds Academy on the Yorkshire Moors in 1920, St Patricks Academy near Cork in southern Ireland in 1930 and the last one, St Andrews Academy near Perth in Scotland in 1940. Together they were all called the Saint Schools.