Once upon a time, as all good stories begin, there were two friends who, after many years of dreaming of setting up a school for gifted children, finally decided to put their Galleons where their mouths were and put their plan into action.
While these two extremely capable and educated ladies had every confidence that they could run a school for children with magical abilities, they also were painfully aware that in the patriarchal society they lived in, a male colleague or two would go a long way towards persuading the prevailing wizarding families to send their children to such a school and to help with the patronage of their endeavour.
In their quest for identifying suitable male candidates to help bring their vision to fruition, they identified a young man from the noble house of Slytherin and a more flamboyant member of the Gryffindor family.
It was Rowena’s motto to always grab the bull by the horns, so to speak, and never postpone difficult tasks in favour of easier duties. Anyone who would encounter the two friends, however, would argue that Helga was more likely to successfully grab a bull by the horns and bring it to its knees, being built a lot more sturdy that her tall slender friend.
Having assessed that Godric Gryffindor would be much easier to be persuaded, as he had a reputation to do things on a whim or for a lark, they decided to put all their efforts in bringing Salazar Slytherin on board first. The first hurdle was that he actually was not in the country, when they started on their quest, and was rumoured to be travelling in Romania and Transylvania.
From correspondence received by his mother, they were able to ascertain that on his way back to England, Salazar would be staying in Castle Schwerin, the seat of a mutual acquaintance of the Ravenclaw family.
Through her grandmother, Rowena managed to get an invitation for herself and Helga the following month, when Salazar was expected to be staying in this fabulous home overlooking lake Schwerin.
‘Give my love to Lady Gisela and be careful of little Peter,’ Rowena’s grandmother warned her, when she gave her granddaughter the news that the girls were very welcome to visit the Brunswick family in their German abode.
‘It is rumoured that Castle Schwerin hosts an annoying little poltergeist, who has a habit of playing tricks on some of the guests, when they are staying there. I have never encountered him myself, but best to be forewarned.’
‘Thanks, Gran,’ Rowena said, as she kissed the elderly woman goodbye.
Ever since she was a small child, her grandmother had always been a rock of sense and she had learned a long time ago to take any advice from the elderly woman seriously.
~ ~ ~ ~
A few weeks later, Rowena and Helga travelled by boat to the most northern part of Germany, where a coach would be waiting to transport them to Castle Schwerin.
The friends enjoyed the sea journey immensely and were looking forward to visiting this infamous castle, they had heard so much about.
‘Who knows,’ Helga mused, 'maybe we can get some ideas about what our school should look like.'
She had always fancied the idea that their vision of the school would not only be a wonderful educational facility, but also a magical place to live and work. She believed that the key to learning was happiness, which in her book started with being content and well-fed and feeling safe.
‘Sure,’ Rowena giggled, ‘Poltergeist and all.’
~ ~ ~ ~
Castle Schwerin was the most beautiful castle the girls had ever seen. Its many turrets and towers were a sight to behold. Helga and Rowena nearly forgot the purpose of their trip when they saw the impressive building, as it sat on a hill overlooking the lake, until someone behind them scraped his throat.
‘Hem, ahem, can I help you ladies?’
Startled, Helga and Rowena turned as one, only to come face to face with the object of their quest, Salazar Slytherin.
Never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, or a gift Thestral or Unicorn for that matter, Rowena took advantage of the opportunity to speak to the young gentleman directly.
‘As a matter of fact, I think you can,’ she said.
‘Salazar Slytherin, I presume, Wizard extraordinaire and lifelong friend of Godric Gryffindor, I believe?’ she said, pulling herself up to her full height, maybe a bit haughtier than she had intended.
‘Indeed, and who, may I ask, are you?
Rowena introduced herself and Helga and proposed they would take a walk later, after they had paid their respects to their hostess, Lady Gisela.
‘We would like to make you and your friend Godric a proposal, which is why we have travelled all the way over here to meet you and of course also to bring our greetings from my grandmother to Lady Gisela and to see this magnificent castle,’ she said with a general sweeping motion of her arm to include the entire surrounding area.
~ ~ ~ ~
Over the next few days, Helga and Rowena met with Salazar on several occasions.
It took a while for the two witches to establish a rapport with the young man, who clearly was not used to being challenged by women and appeared to have a very low opinion of anyone but himself.
At first he was extremely doubtful of their magical abilities, but after a full body binding curse and some other demonstrations of what they were capable of doing to him, including some impressive bat-bogey hexes he had never seen before in his life, he reluctantly had to admit that their magical skills might be on par with Godric’s perhaps. As to their abilities with regards to teaching and running a school, he still had his doubts, but was careful not to make this too obvious. He had to concede that the idea of a school for young wizards was having some merit. He was just sorry that he had not come up with the idea himself, though he would never admit such a thing to anyone, of course.
The witches' direct approach and their correct anticipation that by approaching him, they would also have Godric on board, was quite impressive and as the days went on, he started to enjoy their company. Once he got to know them, he discovered that they were in fact quite bright and ahead of their time in many ways. Their friendship seemed as unlikely as that of Godric and himself and the two pairs would balance each other perfectly.
~ ~ ~ ~
The girls divided their time between performing the appropriate duties of young ladies visiting a honoured member of Society and trying to persuade Salazar to join them in founding a school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. When they were not spending time with Salazar, they walked with Lady Gisela in the beautiful castle gardens or read to her in her comfortable lounge in one of the castle turrets.
~ ~ ~ ~
The day before they were due to leave, Helga noticed that her small golden cup with badger engravings was missing from her room.
She always brought the cup with her, in case she was hungry or thirsty. The cup was designed to fill up with the desired beverage or food item on request by muttering a spell and stopped producing the food item upon instructing a counter spell.
‘Have you mislaid your little porridge pot?’ a voice hovering above her sneered.
‘Cook, little pot, cook. Stop cooking, little pot,’ the voice continued, mockingly.
‘It is not a little pot,’ Helga said, ‘it is a golden cup I designed myself, and I want it back.’
‘Say, please…’, the Poltergeist said, still mocking her.
‘Please,’ Helga said.
‘Don’t have it!’ Peter the Poltergeist shouted laughing his little head of.
With a lot of coaxing, Helga eventually established that one of the village kids that had delivered firewood for the kitchens, had overheard Helga talking to the cup and seen some delicious porridge bubbling to the surface.
Unable to resist her curiosity, the little girl had grabbed the cup and borrowed it.
When Helga eventually tracked down the girl’s home, she discovered that the girl had managed to make the cup do her bidding, but clearly had not managed to produce a counter spell, as a river of porridge was flowing out of the little cottage towards her. She found the girl sobbing behind a tree near the house. Helga told the cup to stop producing porridge and with a quick wave of her wand she cleaned up the mess. Helga was impressed that the girl had managed to make the cup work for her and tried to establish whether the girl possessed any magical powers. Much to Helga’s disappointment, the girl did not appear to have any magical ability. Maybe this had been a fluke or maybe the girl would exhibit powers when she was older. Helga debated for a while, whether she should erase the girl’s memory or not. Given her young age, she was sure that nobody would believe the girl, should she decide to tell the story to anyone. Furthermore, there was the small issue of having taken the cup from the castle without asking, which Helga was sure, the girl would never admit to willingly. She therefore left the girl with just a stern warning not to take things without asking ever again and returned to the castle with her precious cup.
~ ~ ~ ~
Having concluded their business, Helga and Rowena sailed back to England the next day with the promise to meet with Salazar and Godric later in the year to start work on putting in place the plans for a school for children with magical abilities.
THE END