A Revised History of Hogwarts

"I don't want to see you lying down on the job, Beck," Jason said late in the evening. "Group One already has their bowtruckle, hinkypunk and they've found some old Roman jewelry with their niffler. They're catching up!"

"I have everything but a fairy and a snidget stunned in my bag with booby trap spells on it," Will replied calmly. "All I have to do is find those and report to the professor and we'll be set."

Jason sneered down at Will, who was sitting casually on a very large rock, whittling a bit of ash bow into a whistle. "If I lose this because of you, Beck," he warned, "life will be a nightmare for you."

"With you around, Jason, it already is."

Jason's face turned bright red and Will regretted what he'd said. Jason lifted his big meaty fist and shook it violently, shouting, "That's it-"

"Silence, if you would, Mr. Croft," Prof. Slytherin said, striding over to the scene. "Now whatever's going on between you, I don't want to see any bloodshed. I don't need the liability."

Staring, furious, at the professor, Jason nodded his head stupidly. He stomped off into the boys' cabin, and Will let out a gasp of relief.

"Do not antagonize him, Mr. Beck," said Slytherin. "I do not need my students to return home with fewer limbs than they arrived with."

The rest of the evening was uneventful, and Salazar was grateful that Evelyn MacMarrow had forcefully taken over the duties of matron, cooking the evening meal for the entire group. She said that it was because she didn't trust anyone else, and Salazar couldn't really blame her.

So the night was his to do absolutely nothing with. He thought for a moment of popping in on Helga-this new advent of "Apparation" was a miracle for the wizarding world, and Salazar was one of the best at it in Europe-but he remembered that she had been greatly looking forward to this trip as an opportunity to get to know the students better.

Outside, the students were slowly going to their cabins to sleep. Only two students remained, Evelyn and William, and Salazar stepped outside to shoo them to bed.

The sky was fairly overcast, the clouds floating by like vast, ethereal galleys on the inky black sky. Salazar claimed a seat beside the dying fire. He heard the muffled sounds of the students whispering to each other, and nearby in the bushes, some voices hissing softly to each other.

"A sábio approaches, best we stay still," one voice said.

Salazar looked to the sky. A small black point in the sky was slowly drawing closer. Idiotic owl post, Salazar thought. Relatives able to drop a letter on you any time of the day or night--

The barn owl descended and Salazar put out his arm, letting the owl land. It dutifully stuck out its little black leg and Salazar untied its parchment, then the owl flew away. Salazar sighed when he saw his family crest pressed into the green wax seal; it was probably another plea for him to return to London.

Salazar sighed. He folded up the note and stuck it in his belt pouch; he would deal with this now. If he waited, Bragge and his nasty little apprentice Mr. Mungo would try their horrid experimental potions and charms on the man.

After scribbling a note on a bit of parchment and leaving it on his door, he thought of his family's mansion in London, on one of the few magically concealed streets, and concentrated. He may have been one of the best wizards in Europe, but such a long distance to Disapparate over was very difficult. He felt something inside him be pulled violently, and with a rush of air he arrived on the freshly-swept streets of Knockturn Alley.

The street was very quiet as Harold Dunkirk made his way home. His inn was on Diagon Alley, and in the little loft there he lived with his wife and family. They had five children, one boy who was attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, one about to begin there and three girls barely old enough to do more than sit in the corner and spin thread. Harold was very proud of his family; in all of Britain, few people would even think of learning to read, but in the wizard world it was necessary. When Harold's son, James, received his letter from Hogwarts he was forced to read it over and over again to his Muggle-born illiterate father.

Harold thought on this and smiled. How proud he was of James--

A dagger unsheathed behind Harold, and he barely had time to turn until he felt the cold metal blade sink into his side. He slowly turned to see his attacker, who twisted his arms around Harold and slit the innkeeper's throat.

Salazar quickly paced across the cobblestone street. His house was on the corner of Knockturn Alley and Malachim Alley, which connected with Diagon Alley. This was the center of wizarding London, and all of the more influential wizard families in Briton kept manors or lofts in this quiet corner of the city.

Salazar made his way down the narrow street and approached his home's front door. He saw a little face poking out from behind a curtain in one of the front windows, and he smiled weakly at his niece as he slid away the hitch and opened the large oak door.

"Salazar! Come in my boy, come in!" Aunt Evadne said, ushering him forcefully into the parlor where they had tea and biscuits waiting. Salazar took one of the uncomfortable, red upholstered seats and waited for his aunt to finish talking, as she'd been chattering at him since he'd set foot in the house.

"And now they're doing something dreadful to your Uncle Edmund! Poor Edmund, he never did anything to any of them, all he did was once knock a vial of fennel serum-"

"Aunt Evadne, please calm down," Salazar said, putting up his hands. "I will take care of this." He motioned for his aunt to sit before continuing, "Has he had another fit?"

"Just a little one, thought he was a goose is all. Nothing harmful, like that Bicorn incident, oh that was awful-"

"Aunt, I'll go out and settle this with Mr. Bragge." Salazar stood and handed his distressed aunt a handkerchief, then made for the door.

He was used to the walk from his own home to Mr. Bragge's estate. His elderly uncle had many run-ins with the alchemist and his assistant and the gentlemen had taken it upon themselves to "cure" Uncle Edmund of his fits of madness on several occasions. Unfortunately, they had succeeded in nothing but making Edmund not only delusional but paranoid.

The Bragge home was one street over, on Diagon Alley. It was smaller than the Slytherin home and made of wood rather than hewn stone, but it was further off the street and near the apothecary where Salazar supposed they got their supplies. Salazar paced up to the front door and pulled the doorbell string sharply three times. He heard some commotion inside and the large door creaked open slowly, revealing a slight blonde man in flickering candlelight.

"Oh, hello Mr. Slytherin," Mr. Mungo said, wringing his hands anxiously. "I am sorry that you had to come all this way," he continued, "but my master has become impatient with your uncle."

Salazar frowned. "Just show me to my uncle, you fool."

Leary Mungo shook his head and turned, leading Salazar up a staircase to the right of the front door. "I've tried to keep him comfortable," he said, "but it can be difficult."

Salazar followed the man in silence. He was growing tired of these visits to this wretched house, and of dealing with these men… sometimes, he thought bitterly, he should just wall them both up inside this miserable home.

Mungo lead Salazar through the same narrow door on the landing he always lead him through, and seated very comfortably on the edge of a purple chaise was Uncle Edmund. "Good morning, my boy!" Edmund said, throwing his arms out expecting Salazar to hug him, which he never did. Edmund wrapped his spindly arms around nothing, closing his eyes. Under his thick moustache, he was smiling. "Well, Salazar, I guess we'd better get home."

"We put him on some pleasantry potion," Mungo explained. "In an hour or so he should be back to his panicky self."

Salazar frowned again. He hated that they took the liberty of trying out their potions and the like on his uncle, and he hated more that they could be so open about it.

Salazar led his giddy uncle out of the house and onto the street. It was very dark out; all the lights in the nearby houses were out, but fortunately Salazar knew this street very well.

There was a sharp rapping at Bernhard's window. It's still dark out, can't be Prof. Slytherin-- Bernhard fell out of his little bunk on the bottom and dragged himself to the window. There was what appeared to be a rather large owl outside. Curious, Bernhard moved to the door to let the creature inside.

The owl floated inside, its white feathers making it look like a specter of some sort. It landed on the end of Bernhard's bed and stuck out its little feathery leg, to which a little parchment was tied with plain brown twine. Bernhard removed the twine and read a name on the front of the package, scrawled on with big loopy letters:

Bernhard sighed. He had a feeling that Prof. Slytherin didn't particularly care for being woken up in the middle of the night. The boy trudged out of his hut and made for the professor's little place, seated directly in-between the boys' and girls' cabins. He knocked sharply on the door twice and waited.

After a few second of no response, Bernhard knocked again. He repeated this a few times until he heard an irritated voice say from the girls' cabin, "Be quiet, would you?"

Bernhard, feeling very sheepish, lowered his head and pulled on the latch to open the professor's door. "Professor, are you in here?" he whispered, moving slowly through the door. "I have a message here for you, and it looks urgent. Professor?" The bed was unoccupied, and Bernhard noticed a note on the door which read:

Bernhard sighed and left the note inside on a table. Prof. Slytherin can have it when he gets back, he thought, returning to his cabin.

"Oi, Baddock," Oliver Spalding whispered from his bunk above Bernhard's. "Who's that owl for?"

"Slytherin, but he wasn't there," replied Bernhard as he crawled back into his bed.

Near sunrise, Salazar Slytherin found himself again in his musty bed on an uncomfortable straw-filled pad with only a shabby gray blanket for warmth. The little hut was slowly filling with reddish light, and he heard with some revulsion voices outside.

"Where can I find your professor?" a deep woman's voice said quietly.

"In that little lean-to right there, although I am afraid he might not yet be up," came the chirping voice of Helena Potter.

There was a pause before the woman who Salazar believed to be Olivia Fudge continued, "Well, when he shows up please let him know that the headmaster needs to see him right away."

"Oh, he already knows, ma'am," Helena replied curtly. "He received the owl last night."

Salazar thought for a moment. The owl he'd received wasn't from Godric… he looked around. There, on the washstand by the door, was a little piece of parchment stamped with a blue wax seal Salazar didn't recognize. He stood, grabbed the paper and tore it open, but nothing was written inside.

"No owl was sent here from Hogwarts, miss. Now if you please, I have some very important business to take care of."

Troubled, Salazar threw on a stark white linen shirt, black trousers and a black, green-lined vest with silver buttons, one of his old favorites which was now growing a bit shabby. He ran his fingers through his short dark hair and rinsed his hands in the basin on his washstand, then stepped outside into the cool morning air.

"Miss Potter," he said, beckoning her to him. "I heard you speaking to Professor Fudge. Why did she call on us?"

"Sir," Helena said, striding over to him from the fire pit where she had a few younger students laboring to feed a fire. "Professor Fudge said only that Professor Gryffindor needed to council with you immediately, she didn't give me any specifics."

"Thank you, Miss Potter," he replied, "I'll place you in charge until my return." Salazar looked around to be sure that no one was looking but the Potter girl and Disapparated.

He was thrust onto a grassy hill next to a small cabin. The habitants were used to seeing adult wizards foolishly stumbling about after Apparating, but Salazar still felt absurd. He brushed dust off of himself and began the uphill trudge to the castle.

Olivia Fudge was there to meet him at the door. The tiny, dark-hared woman looked frightened. Salazar tried to put on a pleasant face and said without sounding surly, "Good morning, Olivia."

"Salazar, please," the woman chided, "do not belittle me. I am aware of what happened last night, we all are."

Making his way up the large stone steps, Slytherin narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't know what you're talking about, Olivia," he avowed, a frown tugging at his mouth, "and I assure you that whatever it is will be taken care of in due course."

"Slytherin!" Salazar heard his name bellowed through the large doorframe. Godric in all his burning, flowing, ostentatious glory strutted out into the courtyard. "I have had enough of this! The fact that I allowed you on my faculty for so long was unbearable. But now you have taken Muggle affairs into your own hands-"

"Be quiet and listen for once, Godric," Salazar interrupted the fuming man. "I do not know what has happened, and I do not appreciate your assumption that I had to do with anything."

"Harold Dunkirk was murdered last night," Godric continued as if Slytherin hadn't spoken. "And the murderer left a ring bearing your family crest behind."

"Ladies and gent-ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement for you all!" Helga said loudly to her students. Some of the second-year students were sitting patiently waiting for her to speak, but most were chattering amongst themselves. Undaunted, Helga continued, "Our field trip has been shortened."

The crowd let out a sigh of relief and chatted more loudly, but Helga ignored this because she knew that they'd hear her anyway. "This is because of a tragic event in London last night; an innkeeper was murdered, and some at Hogwarts including myself believe all Muggle-born students to be in danger. We will pack up and leave this morning and return to the castle by noon."

The crowd dispersed and Helga looked around for a young Gryffindor boy. She saw him standing about with some other Gryffindor students-they had the biggest gang mentality she'd ever seen-and she hesitated. She had never had to do this before, had never imagined this before. Helga took a deep breath and approached the boy.

"Mr. Dunkirk," she began loudly to draw his attention away from the group.

James Dunkirk looked to her and noted her serious appearance. His face fell and a dark feeling filled the space between them. "Yes, P-Professor?" he said. He was usually quite sure of himself, but this morning he was very uneasy.

"Might I speak to you for a moment?"

The boy nodded numbly. He followed her a few feet away from anyone else and she motioned for him to take a seat on a log. "Usually-no, wait, this has never happened before-under ordinary circumstances, your Head of House would be speaking to you now, but I'm afraid that Professor Gryffindor is indisposed. You already know what I'm going to tell you."

James nodded again, staring at a speck of dirt on the ground. Helga's throat became stifled as she spoke, "Your father died last night."

Within hours the entire school knew what had happened, or thought they knew. Tales of a horrible masked man stalking Muggle-borns in Britain coming across the brave Harold Dunkirk who gave his life to save another were exchanged as all the teams traveled back to the castle. Other versions included a mad alchemist experimenting on the poor innkeeper's freshly-removed eyes and heart, and there was one which insisted that the innkeeper had committed suicide to prove a point about Diagon Alley's horrid crime rate.

There was one thing which most every student agreed upon, though; that Salazar Slytherin had committed the murder. By the time they all arrived at the castle, the Slytherin students had been made outcasts in their own groups; even the Hufflepuffs were cold to them. The students Slytherins made their way back to their house common room, in one solid block, with Will trailing the pack a little. Somehow, Malcolm Malfoy seemed to have made Lucina Snape speak to him again, and Will didn't really need to see that. So he strayed from the group, scanning the mobs of other students who were slowly leaving for their own common rooms, when a heavy hand fell on his shoulder.

"Professor!" he said, turning around, "You scared the crap out of me."

Professor Slytherin looked down at the boy humorlessly and mumbled, "Return to your classmates, Mr. Beck."

Will frowned as he walked back to his friends. Usually Prof. Slytherin could be irritable but was always good to chat with, so this was strange.

The Slytherin common room was louder than usual, as everyone was still obsessively chattering about the events of the previous night. Jason Croft, who claimed to be an eyewitness, was regaling one little group with a tale of how Professor Slytherin turned into a bat and flew away in the dead of the night. Some kids were trying to get Will to tell them what happened, and he just shrugged and said, "I slept through the whole thing," which was true.

Will returned to his little dorm room, silently thanking the pack of house elves for the fire in his fireplace. He took off his boots and set them on the fire, then slid off his cloak and hung it on a peg in the wall by the hearth. As he started to unbutton his vest, he heard the door to his little dorm open and Lawrence poked his blonde head inside. "Prof. Slytherin's out there, and he wants to talk to everyone."

Will re-buttoned his vest and stepped outside, forgetting his boots. In his native Prussia, it was common to walk around without a vest and boots-of course, most people didn't own boots or know what a vest was-and he'd always been more comfortable that way anyway. He walked down the corridor and back into the common room. This room was much larger than it needed to be, as there were only eighteen students in all of the Slytherin house, and this room seemed to be built for easily a hundred students.

"Come along, boys," the professor said to them, "I have a few things to say to all of you."

Will was troubled by how solemn their professor was. Dragging a bench over for himself and Lawrence, Will nodded to Slytherin and stayed quiet. Although the other students were chattering on mindlessly, Will could tell that something had changed in their teacher, and in the school.

He took his seat and Professor Slytherin visibly became weaker. "As you all know," he began, "this morning, the Muggle-born father of a Gryffindor student was murdered.

"It is because of this and several other issues facing the school that it has become necessary for me to go to London for the duration of at least two weeks."

Silence enveloped the little group of students. "But professor," Lucina Snape asked, "why, if you had nothing to do with this crime, are you going to London?"

Slytherin paused. "Because to some the truth does not matter, but what they perceive to be truth. I am leaving to prove the truth."

Prof. Hufflepuff took it upon herself the next morning to explain to the students how a tribunal worked in Britain; all Bernhard could remember was something about a counsel of twelve, representing the twelve countries in the island: Hebrides and Alba in the north where the Scots and Picts dwelled and where Hogwarts was, Strathclyde and Northumberland to the south of those, followed by the Kingdom of York, Gwynedd, Seisyllwg and Dyfed, the Kingdom of Wessex, Five Boroughs and East Anglina where the Angles lived. There were also some Norwegians living in this area, but as they were foreign they did not attend counsel with them.

During this, Prof. Slytherin was nowhere to be seen. There was a new woman at the Head Table, and during breakfast on Sunday, Prof. Gryffindor introduced her as Professor Cobb, the temporary Potions master. She was the older sister of the castle's caretaker Olaf Cobb, and she had a striking resemblance to him. She had a long, crooked nose and grayish skin, and her white hair was tied back into a long braid with a black ribbon. She wore dark purple robes and was rather fat, and some of the Hufflepuff second-years made fun of her at the breakfast table, calling her "Madame Plum."

Bernhard had Herbology as his first lesson Monday morning. He crossed the castle grounds cheerfully, thankful that he would not have to deal with acquainting himself with a new teacher quite yet. And the lessons with his own Head of House were always pleasant; she treated students with an even hand, which Bernhard found refreshing. That was another difference between this place and Durmstrang; the students there were judged on their evident talent as much as they were their accomplishments, so students who worked very hard and did better than others were often treated with disdain because the others were better suited mentally or physically to their tasks.

So when Bernhard stepped into the greenhouse and Prof. Hufflepuff wasn't there and didn't seem to have set anything up, he was instantly anxious. There were a few students shuffling about and chatting quietly, including Helena Potter and her friends, the other Gryffindor fourth-years. Bernhard looked away, a little dazed. He caught her eye and she looked away quickly, and his insides sank.

"Don't worry about her too much, Bernhard," Isabella Romaro said to him from his right. He turned and saw her big brown eyes looking at him intently.

Bernhard glanced around him and made a startling discovery; that he was the only boy in his Herbology class. There were only two other Hufflepuffs his age, Isabella and Elizabeth, and all the Gryffindors were girls, and all of them were magnificent. Bernhard flushed and looked away from Isabella, who was lightly twirling brown ringlets on her finger. She'd tied her dark hair back into a knot with a silver comb, and little wisps were falling into her face delicately framing her Roman features-- no, no, he mustn't think of that. He revered Helena, the dark-hared girl who... never spoke to him.

He didn't want to think of that. Bernhard heard a noise from behind him and turned away from Isabella, who looked rather put-out, and Prof. Hufflepuff came stumbling through the greenhouse door. "We're having lessons out in the woods today," she said hastily, "So sorry I forgot to post a notice."

The class spoke words of reassurance to Prof. Hufflepuff; ever since the groups' strange return from the "Field Day" and that weekend's other events, the woman had seemed more weary than Bernhard would have thought possible for her. Outside there was a box of gloves and some other things and Bernhard gladly carried it for the group.

During that lesson they studied the lifecycle of the Mandragora plant. The local Mandragora colony was to the point where they could be harvested for the making of several potions, and Prof. Hufflepuff gave each students a pair of earmuffs (and used one herself) as she demonstrated how to extract a full-grown Mandragora from the ground and stuff it into a box. Eventually the Mandragora would fall asleep, rendering it perfectly harmless for Prof. Hufflepuff to cut into little bits. This wouldn't have been so gruesome if not for the fact that Mandragora looked very much like little gray-brown human adults. Bernhard had visions of cutting up a little dwarf-like brown Mandragora and it being like an onion inside with rings, so that if you chopped off the head... oh, it wasn't a very nice thought.

After Herbology came Potions. Before class, he lurked with the Ravenclaw students. Bernhard was grateful for the Ravenclaws; he'd been feeling a little strange being with all those girls, but since Ravenclaw was made up of all boys in his level, he could lurk abut with them without feeling stupid. He learned that Wesley Finch, one of the Ravenclaw boys, was from Denmark and had also attended Durmstrang for two years, although the school was so large it wasn't surprising that they had never known each other.

The students all sat placidly in their Potions classroom, waiting with a dose of dread their first lesson with Professor Cobb. People weren't talking as much as usual.

The door slowly creaked open and Prof. Cobb walked in, her purple robes trailing on the floor behind her. Her plaited hair had been twisted into a tight little bun, and she carried with her a large leather handbag. "Good morning, class," she said as she set the bag on Prof. Slytherin's desk. "For those of you who may not know, I am Wilhelmina Cobb, and I will be your potions master from now. Tell me, what age might all of you be?"

No one spoke for a moment. Prof. Cobb looked a little annoyed to she rapped sharply on Bernhard's front-row desk and said, "Tell me, what age might all of you be?"

"F-fourteen and f-fifteen, ma'am," he responded, petrified.

Prof. Cobb smiled, her thin grayish lips revealing crooked yellow teeth. "Such an age," she said, trying to seem endearing. "And what, pray tell, might we have been studying?"

Lucina Snape raised her hand pompously. Prof. Cobb nodded to the girl, and Lucina explained with a touch of malice in her voice, "We have been studying the properties and preparation of Bellisari's growing solution."

The older woman looked satisfied. "Well, then," she replied, "I see we are all up-to-date. Tell me, have we begun making these potions?"

"Our class," Lucina began hotly, "made the potions on Thursday. Prof. Slytherin said that we would have a new project today."

Prof. Cobb looked down at the girl. "Well, as you seem to be in command of everything having to do with this class, pray tell what might your old potions teacher have been planning to lead you in this morning?"