Rowena woke up from her slumber with a start. She had been dreaming of a raven, which was not all that unusual, as the raven was her family’s emblem and featured proudly against the deep blue silk of her father’s standard. She also had a pet Raven called Duff, so dreaming about ravens was not that unusual, but she had never before dreamed about a badger. Somehow the appearance of a badger in her dream, seemed important. Despite her young age, Rowena knew that she should pay attention to her dreams. Her grandmother had told her from a very young age that dreams contained important messages. Whether these messages were of the past or the future was not always clear, but it was always best to pay attention.
On the opposite side of the country, another young girl was roused from her sleep with a frown on her face. In her dream she had taken a beautiful golden meat pie out of the large oven in the castle kitchen and when she cut open the pie, a huge black raven flew out. The raven circled around for a while, making a croaking sound as if it was trying to tell her something. Helga was very curious to know what the dream meant, but her instinct told her to trust the raven. The dream left her with a lot of questions and a craving for meat pie, or any pie in fact, so she quickly threw on some garments and made her way to the kitchens to see if the cook would be able to sneak her some treat before the rest of the household would wake up.
~ ~ ~ ~
All around the country, the heads of prominent families were receiving messengers who informed them that a decree had been issued by the new ruler of the realm that all children over the age of eight were required to attend school. Boys were to be educated by monks and girls were to be sent to nunneries.
While this news was welcomed by some of the aristocratic families in the country, there were certain families who had managed to live under the radar for a long time, educating their children in private and protecting them from discovery, as they started to display signs of magic. Not all wizard children grew into their magical gifts at the same time or even at the same rate and some, much to their parents’ disappointment, never displayed any signs of magical prowess.
However, most of these children would display accidental magic at one stage or another, often times at an early age, when least expected and, as any parent knows from experience, never at a convenient time.
The reigning wizarding families knew that showing signs of being different was never a good idea. They had spent centuries perfecting ways to hide their abilities. Some lived quiet lives and hid under the guise of herbalists or crafts people, using ordinary tools when in company and less conventional means when unobserved. Some were not above using their magic to advance their status in society. A few wandless spells to affect some favourable winds, here and there, had helped many a seafaring merchant. A few muttered Petrificus Totalis spells in battle to dislodge riders from their horses, had brought victories and spoils to some of the landed gentry in the realm. As long as these spells were unobserved and did not attract any attention, the wizard was perfectly safe from persecution by those who were uninitiated in the art of magic and unaware that sometimes things were not what they seemed. For the most part the wizarding families had been able to co-exist quite happily with others, but in recent times things had gotten more dangerous for people who were different. With the defeat of the Picts and the advancement of Christianity, there was a clamp down on pagan rituals and anything unusual was deemed the work of the Devil.
These were dark and dangerous times for wizarding families, as non-wizards, or muggles, were invariably very superstitious and distrustful and it would not take much to make them jump to conclusions and blame a failed harvest on some accidental magic displayed by a child.
It was therefore no surprise that Rowena’s and Helga’s parents, while coming from completely different backgrounds and living in opposite parts of the country, were very nervous about this new decree and the girls in turn picked up on this anxiety, which led to their strange dreams.
Both Rowena and Helga had begun to show early signs of magic. Rowena’s hair would move, when she was angry or excited and Helga seemed to be able to move plates of food within her reach by thought alone. Neither of the girls powers had fully established themselves and they had not yet received any training to harness their potential gifts or instructions to hide their magical powers from the rest of the world.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
At first the dreams were the same each night, but then Rowena realised that she could move the dream along. She could make the raven fly nearer to the badger and observe the animal close up.
She also realised that if she touched the raven-shaped broach on her night gown, she could wake herself up from her dream.
At first the badger simply was present in the dream and did not react to the approaching raven, but after a couple of nights the badger also began to move and seemed to be interested in the raven as it circled nearer and nearer.
Helga’s dream no longer started with her carving a pie, but the circling raven had become a key element of the dream which now also contained a badger, her favourite animal in the world. Like Rowena, Helga soon realised that she could manipulate her dream and move the badger with her thoughts. By touching the knot on her embroidered handkerchief in her sleep, she could pull herself out of the dream.
Night after night the girls slowly progressed their dreams. They had realised that the raven and the badger represented themselves and they could move location in the dreams. The next step would be to make contact. Rowena was the first to suspect that possibly the badger in the dream belonged to another wizard child. She was a perceptive child and despite not having undergone any formal instruction, she instinctively knew to be careful and not to flaunt her powers. She therefore let the raven perform a simple cantrip, that would only be picked up by someone with similar abilities. With a simple flick of its wing, it made a leaf fly up and settle again in front of the badger.
The animal stared at the leaf for a while before twitching its nose, which sent the leaf straight back to the raven.
Contact was established. The badger had matched the raven’s cantrip with an equal magical trick.
Both girls were excited, but also slightly apprehensive. Neither of them knew who was controlling the other animal in the dream. Was it another child, or a fully grown wizard, was it a boy or a girl, a man or a woman?
It was several nights later before the badger attempted to talk to the raven.
‘Hello, my name is Helga, what is your name,’ the badger said, nervously.
‘My name is Rowena’, replied the raven, hesitantly, after a short interval.
Having established that they could actually communicate in the dream and that they were both girls of the same age with magical powers, they regularly met in their dreams, perfecting their lucid dreaming over the following months, and became good friends, at least as good as a raven and a badger can become friends in a dream.
They talked about their likes and dislikes and things that normal ten year old girls talk about in the playground. The only difference being that their playground happened to be a common dream.
By now they had been told about the new decree and the possibility that they might be sent to a nunnery for their education. Their families were also putting in place emergency lessons at home to ensure the girls would be able to control their powers and hide their magic, if necessary, should they be forced to attend one of the nunneries.
Eventually neither family could avoid complying with the decree any longer.
By some lucky coincidence, both girls were asked to report to Chester Abbey in Cheshire, which happened to be the closest facility for both families.
When the girls found out and conferred this news in their dream, they could not believe their luck. They would finally be able to meet in person soon as girls, rather than as raven and badger.
They vowed to have each other’s back in Chester Abbey.
Little did they know how important that vow would become over the next few years, while being governed by the nuns. They both were good students and soaked up any knowledge the nuns were able to dispense. They continued their lucid dreaming all through their period of confinement in the nunnery, as a means of coping with the harsh regime.
It would be many years later that they would learn that even their dream world was not safe and that they were vulnerable to attack even when dreaming and would need to protect themselves by obscuring that dream state. They both would become experts in occlumency, but would maintain that special contact through their dreams throughout their lives.
By the time Rowena Ravenclaw and Helga Hufflepuff were old enough to leave formal education, they made a pact to one day set up a school for wizard children, so that no other wizard child would have to live in fear of revealing their true self. They realised that such a school would have to be a secret and remain well hidden from the muggle world, to allow students to develop their full magical powers without the fear of repercussions. And so, once upon a dream, the idea of Hogwarts was born.
THE END